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Biblioteca Esoterica Esonet.ORG
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stability and unvarying fixity "there could be [no] certainty in existence" begs the question:
why should there be "certainty in existence"? The answer is obvious: man needs certainty
in order to feel secure.
Sri Aurobindo, however, apparently did not envision such a psychological answer, nor
did his predecessors in the Vedanta. Indian metaphysics and philosophy relied instead on
the testimonies and discoveries of a long series of great yogis who claimed to have found a
method for experiencing this absolute unity, stability, and changelessness as the ground
of all existence, Brahman, "the One and Absolute... which alone is." Sri Aurobindo goes on
to state that "if there is no reality but Brahman, the phenomenal Universe, which is
obviously a manifestation of something permanent and eternal, must be a manifestation
of Brahman and of nothing else." 11 Brahman manifests in different ways at each of three
fundamental levels of being (or Universes). For man, Brahman manifests as the Supreme
Self who is identical with the transcendent Self in all human beings, atman.
The Upanishads tell us that Brahman is not a blind universal Force working by its very
nature mechanically, nor even an unconscious Cause of Force; He is conscious or rather is
Himself Consciousness, cit, as well as sat [Being)...the wider knowledge of the Universe
attainable to Yoga actually does reveal such a Universal Intelligence everywhere at work.
Brahman, then, is Consciousness, and this once conceded, it follows that He must be in His
transcendent reality Absolute Consciousness. His Consciousness is from itself and of itself
like His existence, because there is nothing separate and other than Him; not only so but it
does not consist in the knowledge of one part of Himself by another, or of His parts by His
whole, since His transcendental existence is one and simple, without parts. His
consciousness therefore does not proceed by the same laws as our consciousness, does not
proceed by differentiating subject from object, knower from known, but simply is, by its
own right of pure and unqualified existence, eternally and illimitably, in a way impure
and qualified existences cannot conceive. 12
Such metaphysical conceptions, which Aurobindo develops eloquently and logically, are
based, I repeat, on premises believed to be incontrovertible: "reason demands" them;
without them there would be no "certainty in existence"; and experiences of the great
Yogis (and of Aurobindo himself) prove them absolutely true. But my question is: Can one
speak of truth if one does not ask, for whom? The Hindu philosopher realizes that there
are basic levels of existence and consciousness, that what seems separate at one level may
be seen united at another. The Vedanta states that "identity is a fact in the reality of things,
the world of phenomena." 13 Human consciousness, however, is said to be able to evolve
from the realm of appearances to that of reality. The problem is: Why should one give to
this kind of reality an absolutely positive meaning? Must we give to any experience a
character of absolute validity or accuracy? Moreover, what actually is meant by
Consciousness and especially Absolute Consciousness?
11 op. cit., p. 10.
12 op. cit., pp. 18f.
13 op. cit., p. 11.
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