The theme of evolution was central
to Sri Aurobindo’s thought almost throughout his life. We have a set of essays
written by him in 1909 which first came out in the weekly review Karmayogin edited by him when he was in Calcutta;
this was after his acquittal in the Alipore Bomb Case filed against the
revolutionaries, including himself, in
1908. It is quite appropriate that we should read these over again to celebrate
the centenary year of their appearance. Along with these three selected pieces,
from Harmony of Virtue, must also go
the absolutely last set of articles Sri Aurobindo dictated in 1950; this was at
the request of the Mother who wished him to contribute to the newly started
periodical, the Bulletin of Physical Education. These last writings were later
published, in January 1952, in the book entitled The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth. The most important thing
we become aware of in these revelations is the arrival of what Sri Aurobindo
called the Mind of Light, the mind of the physical receiving the Supramental.
It is this Mind of Light which governs the race of beings who provide a link between
the Mental and the Gnostic beings,—the Intermediate Race. If we do see a change
in the writings of these two periods, separated by forty years, then it is not
a change or shift of any kind in his central concepts related to the principles
and methods of evolution, evolution which is more a collective change of
consciousness, a change pertaining to spiritual evolution than to the evolution
of form. The difference is due to the great yogic work that had gone towards
the realization of the life divine upon earth, the difficult and untiring
yoga-tapasya of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. To view it in any other manner,
other than an occult-yogic work, howsoever appealing it might be to the
rational mind, is to miss the entire purport of the evolutionary objective
itself. One might please oneself with theories and concepts, but that would
avail hardly anything if the day’s job is to make the evolutionary possibility
a realised certainty. Precisely in it lies the convincing uniqueness of Sri
Aurobindo’s vision and work, and it is that we must celebrate during the
centenary year, celebrate the first appearance of the theme in 1909. Belonging
to the writings of this early period, we include here a relevant record Sri
Aurobindo made in his jottings of yogic experiences, dated March 1914. These
jottings or records were more for his personal use than for publication. But
these have now been published in book form under the title Record of Yoga. We do not know if Sri Aurobindo meant these to be
made public at all, as we understand that the heap of papers containing these details
had on top of it a note, marking it as ‘confidential’. Perhaps the best thing
would have been to just keep them as proper archival documents for studies by
the interested individual researchers of his works. Which means that, while
reading these, we must be extremely careful about the parameters that were
associated with them at the time—we should not apply the demanding inflexible criteria
of academic or professional scholarship to them, for they do not belong to the
mental domain at all; we must only try to enter into the spirit of the occult
knowledge they contain. And what a treasure-mine it is, shining with luminous
details, containing many a gem of the divine preciousness! When Sri Aurobindo
says, for instance, that the Sun is only a subordinate star of the great Agni,
Mahavishnu, in whom is centred the Bhu, the Earth, he is actually talking of
knowledge of another world altogether. It will be a sheer travesty of this
knowledge, as much as of the knowledge obtained by our present-day science, if
we mix them up. One should be extremely careful in reading such details,
actually meant for advanced yogi-occultists, and that could well be the reason
why Sri Aurobindo might not have approved the publication of his records. It is
rather unfortunate that this important perspective is missed in the present
publicity given to the Record of Yoga.
All that we can now say is that the Record
is meant for the seekers of the occult truth-details and they must qualify
themselves before picking them up for study which should be more in the
direction of extending the investigation of the occult working of nature, that
functioning in this vast domain of space and time, time comprising of its three
operative divisions. Let us hope that this will well borne in mind before
reference is made to the secrets of Record
of Yoga. ~ RYD
We
shall see how the thought of God works itself out in Life. The material world
is first formed with the Sun as centre, the Sun being itself only a subordinate
star of the great Agni, Mahavishnu, in whom is centred the Bhu. Mahavishnu is
the Virat Purusha who as Agni pours Himself out into the forms of sun and star.
He is Agni Twashta, Visvakarman, he is also Prajapati and Matariswan. These are
the three primal Purushas of the earth life, Agni Twashta, Prajapati &
Matariswan, all of them soul bodies of Mahavishnu. Agni Twashta having made the Sun out of the
Apas or waters of being, Prajapati as Surya Savitri enters into the Sun and
takes possession of it. He multiplies himself in the Suris or Solar Gods who
are the souls of the flames of Surya, the Purushas of the female solar
energies. Then he creates out of this solar body of Vishnu the planets each of
which successively becomes the Bhumi or place of manifestation for Manu, the
mental being, who is the nodus of manifest life-existence and the link between
the life and the spirit. The present
earth in its turn appears as the scene of life, Mars being its last theatre. In
the Bhumi, Agni Twashta is again the first principle, Matariswan the second,
finally, Prajapati appears in the form of the four Manus, chatvaro manavah. Not
in the physical world at first, but in the mental world which stands behind the
earth-life; for earth has seven planes of being, the material of which the
scenes and events are alone normally visible to the material senses, the vital
of which man’s pranakosha is built and to which it is responsive, the mental to
which his manahkosha is attached, the ideal governing his vijnanakosha, the
beatific which supports his anandakosha, & the dynamic and essential to
which he has not yet developed corresponding koshas, but only unformed nimbuses
of concrete being. All the gods throw out their linga-rupas into these worlds
of earth and through them carry on her affairs; for these lingas repeat there
in the proper terms of life upon earth the conscious movements of the gods in
their higher existences in the worlds above Bhu. The Manus manifested in the
Manoloka of Bhu bring pressure to bear upon the earth for the manifestation of
life and mind. Prajapati as Rudra then begins to form life upon earth, first in
vegetable, then in animal forms. Man already exists but as a god or demigod in
Bhuvarloka of Bhu, not as a man upon earth. There he is Deva, Asura, Rakshasa,
Pramatha, Pisacha, Pashu or as Deva he is either Gandharva, Yaksha,
Vidyadhara or any of the Karmadevas. For Man is a son of the Manu and is
assigned his place in Div & Pradiv, in Heaven & in the Swargabhumis.
Thence he descends to earth and thither from earth he returns. All that will be
explained afterwards. When the human body is ready, then he descends upon earth
and occupies it. He is not a native of earth, nor does he evolve out of the
animal. His manifestation in animal form is always a partial incarnation, as
will be seen hereafter.
The
animal proper is a lower type. Certain devas of the manasic plane in the
Bhuvarloka descend in the higher type of animal. They are not mental beings
proper, but only half-mental vital beings.
They live in packs, tribes etc with a communal existence. They are
individual souls, but the individuality is less vigorous than the type soul. If
they were not individual, they would not be able to incarnate in individual
forms. The body is only the physical type of the soul. The soul, if it were only a communal soul,
would manifest in some complex body of which the conglomeration of the
different parts would be the sole unity; say, a life like that of the human
brain. The animal develops the tribe
life, the pack or clan life, the family life. He develops chitta, manas, the
rudiments of reason. Then only man appears.
How
does he appear? Prajapati manifests as Vishnu Upendra incarnate in the animal
or Pashu in whom the four Manus have already manifested themselves, and the
first human creature who appears is, in this Kalpa, the Vanara, not the animal
Ape, but man with the Ape nature. His satya yuga is the first
These
are man’s beginnings. He rises by the descent of ever higher types of Manu from
the Bhuvarloka, first he is Pashu, then Pishacha, then Pramatha, then Rakshasa,
then Asura, then Deva, then Siddha. So he ascends the ladder of his own being
towards the Sat Purusha.
Manu,
the first Prajapati, is a part of Mahavishnu Himself descended into the mental
plane in order to conduct the destinies of the human race. He is different from
the four Manus who are more than Prajapatis, they being the four Type-Souls
from whom all human Purushas are born; they are Manus only for the purpose of
humanity & in themselves are beyond this manifest universe & dwell
forever in the being of the Para Purushas. They are not true Manomaya Purushas.
But Manu Prajapati is a true manomaya Purusha. He by mental generation begets
on his female Energies men in the mental & vital planes above earth, whence
they descend into the material or rather the terrestrial body. On earth Manu
incarnates fourteen times in each Kalpa & each of these fourteen
incarnations is called a Manu. These fourteen Manus govern human destinies
during the hundred chaturyugas of the Prati-Kalpa, each in turn taking charge
of a particular stage of the human advance.
While that stage lasts he directs it both from the mental world and by
repeated incarnations upon earth. When Manu Prajapati wishes to incarnate in a
fresh form, he has a mental body prepared for him by evolution of births by a
human vibhuti, Suratha or another & takes possession of it at the beginning
of his manvantara.