Sri Aurobindo once again brings us back to the central truth that this world is a progressive manifestation of the Spirit. It is the Divine who is expressing Himself through the symbol forms of the universe.
At the Feet of The Mother
Weekly Readings in Savitri
Climbing further from this dream land Aswapati enters a realm where day and night meet. The sun has not yet arisen but there is some kind of hope and guidance from the high heavens beyond. Out of the fantasy land we move into a realm that seeks to realise what it dreams of.
This dream world is where some half-baked aspirants get trapped, especially those who are secretly ambition and desire. Unable to put the required effort for purification or face the battle within and without, they create a fantasy land of ‘half-truths, half lies’ and live like one deluded who knows not his own deceit.
This world is like a stair between the harsh physical realities of today and the idealism that inspires us towards a better and higher future. But it is not build on real power nor has the true knowledge, and is caught in its own wonderland of dreams and fantasies.
As we can see this is a world where fantasy and reality, dreams and imaginations mix with truth. This too is a passage through which the evolutionary Energy must pass.
Life starts its journey upon earth in a small insignificant way. It lives surrounded by darkness and shuts itself to Light and all that is greater and high. This is a first infant step that life takes in its stupendous journey, a step whose far end is the Life Divine.
The first requirement for this inevitable transformation is the ascension of consciousness from its mind bound state to the higher spiritual realms. It means the emergence of an intuitive mind and heart in place of the labouring reason and the vital-animal emotions.
This is the secret plan and it shall be fulfilled when greater and greater powers of life descend upon earth, eventually the very Highest comes down in response to the call and cry of life. This is not just a prophesy but an promise of the Lord.
Though life, on the surface is full of ignorance, error and suffering, deep within us there is a luminous, happy core. Slowly the Light of the soul works to bring its radiance to the surface and fill our outer life with the joy and luminous Force of the Divine.
The Divine Presence dwells in all things. It is His touch that makes all things alive and conscious. It is His secret Breath that drives creation unknowingly towards its great goal. It is His bliss that supports all things from behind. It is His Love that leans down to save this universe.
There is a mystery that acts behind this small life that has emerged upon our globe. Even when all seems dark and ugly and small, there is always this Divine Presence supporting us from behind, His joy sustaining us from within, His Peace and Light.
There is however a greater view of self and world, a view that neither Science nor Religion offers. Sri Aurobindo gives the direction towards the broader and deeper vision of the Spirit that is yet to emerge in man.
When we look at humanity in the light of a scientific understanding while we still labour in Ignorance, we are bound to get disillusioned. It is a life without purpose, a meaningless existence that has somehow evolved out of the worm while playing with the mud of earth.
Creation, viewed strictly from a material standpoint, appears in the last analysis as itself a strange illusion conjured by the senses and mind. Thus Sri Aurobindo reveals to us the limitations of the present purely materialistic point of view of the self and world.
Life at this stage of evolution moves around a small circle. It cannot embrace the adventure of the Vast and the Unknown.
Life, even in this littleness, sometimes dreams of love and beauty, but her means are poor and her instruments inadequate to realise them upon earth. Thus man’s life moves on a low pitch and remains tied to smallness and pettiness, with their attendant sorrow and misery.
This is the occult truth behind our deviations from the straight and sunlit path through which we may move towards Light and Truth and Vastness and Bliss. It is the influence of these dark and adverse vital entities that hold us back from advance.
Life should be beautiful, it could be beautiful but for these adverse and hostile entities that pervert the original plan of life. Thus are we caught up in a devious game of life when we are moving through the mazes of ignorance. It is indeed a nightmare from which there seems to be no escape until we wake up.