Book Two: The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds

All the high qualities towards which man aspires dwelt there harmoniously in that world immune from sorrow and error and grief.

We can see how Sri Aurobindo is taking us step by step towards higher divine worlds and describing the life there. The union of Knowledge and Power is the characteristic of Supramental life. Beyond it are the worlds of Ananda. It is the original Delight that has gone into creation.

In those high worlds, Aswapati witnesses the union of the two sides of One Existence, Idea and Force, Knowledge and Power, Vision and Will. It is a realm of divine Unity, a realm of where Wisdom and Will meet and become one.

Not only love and beauty and rapture but also power and grandeur are found in these Life-Heavens. Such was the glorious kingdom that Aswapati had entered, a space where love and joy bound all to all and made the ruler one with the ruled.

The Life-Heavens are essentially worlds of Joy and beauty and love as also of power and glory. In this world strife was replaced by a harmonious embrace of opposites.

The higher worlds of Life are peopled with deathless beings whom we know as gods. Sri Aurobindo gives us a glimpse of these worlds and what they represent in the grand scheme of things.

Our human life could be lifted far above its present pitch and bring in some fresh air from diviner heights if matter could open to the Spirit’s influx. Matter must be prepared for the Divine Life to be established upon earth. Until then these greater possibilities of life will remain mere dreams.

Aswapati takes a close look at the kingdoms of life. A mutual contradiction seems to be the way of life here due to the mingling of opposites. But in her highest worlds there is perfect harmony and freedom in her rhythms.

Life is a power of the Divine, born of His Consciousness-Force who is filled with the breath of His infinity. But here she labours in Ignorance forfeiting her divinity. This is her curse and her ordeal.

Life has descended from its high peaks so as to create and build here the Beauty and Truth and Power and Delight of the Spirit. This is her labour and also the cause of her suffering.

The vision of Life in its totality comes closer to Aswapati as he ascends through the hierarchy of the ladder of Consciousness. At first we have distant glimpses, few and far in-between. Later they are more frequent and the truth that is glimpsed from afar comes closer and nearer.

Describing the atmosphere of the life heavens, Sri Aurobindo now gives us a glimpse of the high heavens of Beatitude and Bliss that border on the Empire of the Sun.

What has been described so far is of course not the whole picture. Life, in its origin, is Divine and is born from the Bliss that built the worlds for housing God’s joy. We see here an overview from afar of these Life-Heavens.

Behind the restless urge of life there is indeed a seeking, a seeking which cannot be satisfied until the very Highest, the Absolute, the Perfect, the Ultimate is reached and realized. This is the real cause of its misery and unhappiness.

Behind these ever changing appearances, behind this incessant search without a final end, there is a subtle and secret truth that is being revealed to us now.

Aswapati now enters the vital worlds. Now he must fully explore this doubtful, uncertain world without which nothing else could live and breath.

In this Canto Sri Aurobindo gives us a comprehensive picture of life, not merely life as we ordinarily experience it, but life in all its ranges and possibilities.