Aurobindo: Božanski život II

Aurobindo: The Divine Life Volume II

Knowledge and Ignorance - Spiritual Evolution

THE FORCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS, present everywhere in Existence, works even when hidden, is the creator of worlds, the occult secret of Nature. But, in our material world and in our own being, consciousness has a twofold expression; there is the power of Knowledge, and there is also the power of Ignorance.
In the infinite consciousness of self-aware infinite Existence, knowledge everywhere must be unconditionally contained or active in the very nature of its action; but here we notice at the beginning of things - apparently as the basis or nature of the creative energy of the world - Unconsciousness, complete Unconsciousness.
It is the basis, the raw material with which the material universe begins: consciousness and knowledge appear at first in vague and infinitesimal activities, in details, in small quanta that connect and unite; there is a slow and laborious evolution, a slowly growing organization and an improved mechanism of the functioning of consciousness, so that more and more gains are written on the blank slate of Ignorance.
However, all this still has the appearance of the collected achievements and circuits of the searching Ignorance which seeks to find out, understand, discover, slowly and painstakingly transform it into knowledge.
While Life here with difficulty establishes and maintains its activity on the basis of general Death and in its environment - first in the small details of life, in quanta of life form and life energy, in larger and larger aggregates that create ever more complex organisms, the intricate machinery of life - Consciousness also establishes and maintains a growing but unreliable light in the darkness of primordial Unconsciousness and universal Ignorance.

Furthermore, acquired knowledge relates to phenomena, not to the reality of things or the foundations of existence. Wherever our consciousness encounters something that looks like a foundation, that foundation has the appearance of a pure, empty - though not void - primordial state that is without properties, and a multitude of consequences that are not present in the starting point and that seem to justify nothing in it. Visibly demanding; there is a pile of superstructure that has no clear innate connection to the original and fundamental existence.

The first aspect of cosmic existence is Infinity, which is indefinite, if not undefinable, to our perception. In that Infinity, the universe itself, whether in its aspect of Energy or in its aspect of structure, appears as an indeterminate determination, "boundless limitation"—paradoxical but necessary expressions which seem to indicate that we are faced with a supernatural mystery as the basis of things; in that universe it appears - from where? - the enormous number and variety of general and particular determinations which cannot be said to be justified by anything visible in the nature of the Infinite, but seem to have been imposed on it - or perhaps self-imposed. To the energy which produces them we give the name of Nature, but that word conveys no meaning, except that the nature of things is what it is by the Power which disposes them according to the essential Truth in them; but the nature of that Truth itself, the reason why these determinations are what they are, is nowhere visible. It is true that it has been possible for human science to discover a process or many processes of material events, but this knowledge throws no light on the main question; we do not even know the basic principle and reason of the original cosmic processes, because the results are not shown as their necessary, but only pragmatic and factual consequences. After all, we do not know how these determinations enter or leave the original Indeterminate or Indefinable, on which they stand as on an empty and uniform foundation in the riddle of their prescribed origin. At the source of things we are confronted with the Infinite, the Infinite containing a multitude of inexplicable finities, the Indivisible full of innumerable divisions, the Immutable teeming with change and variety. The cosmic paradox is the beginning of all things and events, a paradox without a key to its meaning.