To my previous comment let me add the following two passages from The Life Divine:
If we consider what it is that most represents to us the materiality of Matter, we shall see that it is its aspects of solidity, tangibility, increasing resistance, firm response to the touch of Sense. Substance seems more truly material and real in proportion as it presents to us a solid resistance and by virtue of that resistance a durability of sensible form on which our consciousness can dwell; in proportion as it is more subtle, less densely resistant and enduringly seizable by the sense, it appears to us less material. This attitude of our ordinary consciousness towards Matter is a symbol of the essential object for which Matter has been created. Substance passes into the material status in order that it may present to the consciousness which has to deal with it durable, firmly seizable images on which the mind can rest and base its operations and which the Life can handle with at least a relative surety of permanence in the form upon which it works. Therefore in the ancient Vedic formula Earth, type of the more solid states of substance, was accepted as the symbolic name of the material principle. Therefore, too, touch or contact is for us the essential basis of Sense; all other physical senses, taste, smell, hearing, sight are based upon a series of more and more subtle and indirect contacts between the percipient and the perceived. Equally, in the Sankhya classification of the five elemental states of Substance from ether to earth, we see that their characteristic is a constant progression from the more subtle to the less subtle so that at the summit we have the subtle vibrations of the ethereal and at the base the grosser density of the earthly or solid elemental condition. Matter therefore is the last stage known to us in the progress of pure substance towards a basis of cosmic relation in which the first word shall be not spirit but form, and form in its utmost possible development of concentration, resistance, durably gross image, mutual impenetrability,—the culminating point of distinction, separation and division. This is the intention and character of the material universe; it is the formula of accomplished divisibility. (pp. 252-53)
Here we have a complete description of the proto-atoms constituting our material world. The beginning of the objective universe starts from the Akash-element viewed as the etheric sea and goes down below to the dense form of the Prithvi-element. In the ether is the first stir, a vibration set into motion, Spandan with an urge towards the physical creation. Akash is the high substratum needed for the objects to come into existence, the subtlest, the finest support, the spiritual ādhāra for matter to exist. Sri Aurobindo writes, “…the nature of the action of cosmic Mind is the cause of atomic existence. Matter is a creation, and for its creation the infinitesimal, an extreme fragmentation of the infinite, was needed as the starting-point or basis. Ether may and does exist as an intangible, almost spiritual support of Matter, but as a phenomenon it does not seem, to our present knowledge at least, to be materially detectable. Subdivide the visible aggregate or the formal atom into essential atoms, break it up into the most infinitesimal dust of being, we shall still, because of the nature of the Mind and Life that formed them, arrive at some utmost atomic existence, unstable perhaps but always reconstituting itself in the eternal flux of force, phenomenally, and not at a mere unatomic extension incapable of contents … realities of pure existence, pure substance… are the reality underlying Matter, and not the phenomenon which we call Matter.” (p. 238)
A body made from this pure existence, this pure substance accompanied with the truth-conscient dynamism has yet to be created. But presently Narad is passing from Mind into material things and therefore he picks up first the Akash-atom.
The etheric sea is not just a static extension, a tenuous featureless expanse, a colourless blue, a blank substance, so to say. Already a degree of fluid density has occurred, a certain thin form appeared, a body of the creative energy, a word with its power of expression has taken a shape. This movement is the appearance of the objective or we might say of physical Time itself. It is an early sensation of the dynamic unfolding that Narad is now experiencing while he has started coming down. The pressure of the sea’s ripples is now being felt by him, its impingement becoming perceptible. The spiritual is getting impinged by the gross physical’s density, though as yet insubstantial in the sense that protean Matter has yet to undergo several modifications.
The ultimate constitution of Matter is a question of profound interest. The traditional Sankhya based on the lower Nature or Prakriti attributes to it three irreducible Reals: Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas. An object presents itself to the sense of our cognition by its essence, that which manifests itself in the phenomenon, Sattwa; all work comes from kinesis, Rajas; matter-stuff showing gravitational property is made of inertia, Tamas. In the objective series subtle material potencies become determinates and assume coherent and integrated forms. In the Sankhya description Ether or Akash corresponds to both the containing space and the proto-atom. It is at once all pervasive, we may say vibhu in a restricted sense, and is charged with the sound potential. In this philosophy it is from the universal Energy that the material creation begins. Narad’s stepping out of the soul-space into Mind and then into material things is by the process of the higher Sankhya. The first step towards material transition has been taken. Here Narad is not carried by the ripples of the sea but it is he who is carrying them forward. He feels the contact, even the load of these waves; the immortal’s transition into the corporeal has this weight now on him. He bears the ponderous earthly Time; things have started becoming thick and heavy. Formation, gathering-in, densification by the process of movement in a static extension have set in to give him a kind of solidity. It is also the beginning of material inconscience. The Ether or Akash is not a plane of existence, of Matter, but is a state of the physical universe; ditto for the other four: Vayu, Agni, Apas, and Prithvi. Akash is just a fine element constituting this Matter.
~ RYD
Here we have a complete description of the proto-atoms constituting our material world. The beginning of the objective universe starts from the Akash-element viewed as the etheric sea and goes down below to the dense form of the Prithvi-element. In the ether is the first stir, a vibration set into motion, Spandan with an urge towards the physical creation. Akash is the high substratum needed for the objects to come into existence, the subtlest, the finest support, the spiritual ādhāra for matter to exist. Sri Aurobindo writes, “…the nature of the action of cosmic Mind is the cause of atomic existence. Matter is a creation, and for its creation the infinitesimal, an extreme fragmentation of the infinite, was needed as the starting-point or basis. Ether may and does exist as an intangible, almost spiritual support of Matter, but as a phenomenon it does not seem, to our present knowledge at least, to be materially detectable. Subdivide the visible aggregate or the formal atom into essential atoms, break it up into the most infinitesimal dust of being, we shall still, because of the nature of the Mind and Life that formed them, arrive at some utmost atomic existence, unstable perhaps but always reconstituting itself in the eternal flux of force, phenomenally, and not at a mere unatomic extension incapable of contents … realities of pure existence, pure substance… are the reality underlying Matter, and not the phenomenon which we call Matter.” (p. 238)
A body made from this pure existence, this pure substance accompanied with the truth-conscient dynamism has yet to be created. But presently Narad is passing from Mind into material things and therefore he picks up first the Akash-atom. The etheric sea is not just a static extension, a tenuous featureless expanse, a colourless blue, a blank substance, so to say. Already a degree of fluid density has occurred, a certain thin form appeared, a body of the creative energy, a word with its power of expression has taken a shape. This movement is the appearance of the objective or we might say of physical Time itself. It is an early sensation of the dynamic unfolding that Narad is now experiencing while he has started coming down. The pressure of the sea’s ripples is now being felt by him, its impingement becoming perceptible. The spiritual is getting impinged by the gross physical’s density, though as yet insubstantial in the sense that protean Matter has yet to undergo several modifications. The ultimate constitution of Matter is a question of profound interest. The traditional Sankhya based on the lower Nature or Prakriti attributes to it three irreducible Reals: Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas. An object presents itself to the sense of our cognition by its essence, that which manifests itself in the phenomenon, Sattwa; all work comes from kinesis, Rajas; matter-stuff showing gravitational property is made of inertia, Tamas. In the objective series subtle material potencies become determinates and assume coherent and integrated forms. In the Sankhya description Ether or Akash corresponds to both the containing space and the proto-atom. It is at once all pervasive, we may say vibhu in a restricted sense, and is charged with the sound potential. In this philosophy it is from the universal Energy that the material creation begins. Narad’s stepping out of the soul-space into Mind and then into material things is by the process of the higher Sankhya. The first step towards material transition has been taken. Here Narad is not carried by the ripples of the sea but it is he who is carrying them forward. He feels the contact, even the load of these waves; the immortal’s transition into the corporeal has this weight now on him. He bears the ponderous earthly Time; things have started becoming thick and heavy. Formation, gathering-in, densification by the process of movement in a static extension have set in to give him a kind of solidity. It is also the beginning of material inconscience. The Ether or Akash is not a plane of existence, of Matter, but is a state of the physical universe; ditto for the other four: Vayu, Agni, Apas, and Prithvi. Akash is just a fine element constituting this Matter. ~ RYD