Part Three. Writings from the Arya (1914 – 1921
Arguments to The Life Divine
Chapter XXXI. The
Boundaries of the Ignorance[[Chapter XXXI of The Life Divine as
published in the Arya was extensively revised in 1939 – 40, becoming the
present Book Two, Part I, Chapter XI.]]
ARGUMENT
We know only a part even of our superficial life and
conscious becoming, fastening only on a little of our experience of self and
things, memorising less, using still less for knowledge and action. What we
reject, Nature stores and uses in our development, for the most part by her
subconscious action. Our waking self is only a superimposition, a visible
summit; the great body of our being is submerged or subliminal. – The subliminal
self perceives, remembers, understands, uses all that we fail to perceive,
remember or use. It provides all the material of our surface being which is only
a selection from its wider existence and activity. It is only the physical and
vital part of our existence which is, properly speaking, subconscient; the
subliminal self is the true mental being and in relation to our waking mind it
is rather secretly circumconscient; for it envelops as well as supports. Of all
this larger part of our being we are ignorant. – We are ignorant also of the
superconscient, that which we ordinarily call spirit or oversoul; yet this we
find to be our highest and widest self, Sachchidananda creating and governing
all that we are and become by His divine Maya. We are ignorant of the subliminal
sea of our being which casts up the wave of our superficial existence; we are
ignorant also of the superconscient ether of our being which constitutes,
contains, overroofs and governs both the subliminal sea and the superficial
wave. – We are ignorant of ourselves in Time, for we know only a part of the
present life we are living; yet that exists only by all our past of which we are
ignorant and its trend is determined by all our future of which we are still
more ignorant. For our superconscient Self is eternal
in its being and Time is only one of its modes, our subliminal is eternal in its
becoming and Time is its infinite field of experience. – We are equally ignorant
of the world, holding it to be not-self, ignorant of ourselves in Space; for the
world is one Self developing the movement of its conscious force in its
self-conceptive extension as Space. We confine ourselves in our consciousness to
a single knot of the one indivisible Matter, a single eddy of the one
indivisible Life, a single station of the one indivisible Mind, a single
soul-manifestation of the one indivisible Spirit. Yet it is only by knowing the
One that this individual mind, life, body, soul can know itself or its action. –
Thus ignorance of self is the nature of our mind, but an ignorance full of the
impulse towards self-possession and self-knowledge. A many-sided Ignorance
striving to become an all-embracing Knowledge is the definition of man the
mental being.
in its being and Time is only one of its modes, our subliminal is eternal in its
becoming and Time is its infinite field of experience. – We are equally ignorant
of the world, holding it to be not-self, ignorant of ourselves in Space; for the
world is one Self developing the movement of its conscious force in its
self-conceptive extension as Space. We confine ourselves in our consciousness to
a single knot of the one indivisible Matter, a single eddy of the one
indivisible Life, a single station of the one indivisible Mind, a single
soul-manifestation of the one indivisible Spirit. Yet it is only by knowing the
One that this individual mind, life, body, soul can know itself or its action. –
Thus ignorance of self is the nature of our mind, but an ignorance full of the
impulse towards self-possession and self-knowledge. A many-sided Ignorance
striving to become an all-embracing Knowledge is the definition of man the
mental being.