Page 10 - NAMAH-Jan-2017
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Namah Vol. 24, Issue 4, 15th January 2017
body does not permit it to be inhabited by the salvation. The individual is considered to be too
Divine effulgence. (In a workshop when a small and insignificant when compared with
coordinator was pointing at her own heart to the vastness of the universe and the grandeur
indicate that God was ‘inside’, the individual — of the transcendence. For Sri Aurobindo, the
an adolescent from a particular Semitic religion ‘extinction’ of the ‘ego’, which is a prime
shouted and raised her fingers to show that requisite for God-realisation is not equated
God’s seat was above (The Transcendence) — with the ‘extinction’ of the ‘individual’; the
the ensuing debate resulted in the respondent ego-transcending ‘illumined individual’ is as
getting exasperated.) However, Sri Aurobindo important as the Transcendent Reality.
appreciates this standpoint too, for in his
scheme, the manifestation of the Transcendence Vertical, vis-à-vis horizontal expansion
in the individual (who is ‘impure’) cannot
succeed unless a ‘transformation’ of conscious- In fact, the ‘illumined individual’ does not
ness is initiated at the individual level. Thus selfishly move towards salvation in a vertical
the ‘manifestation’ of Transcendence in earthly manner. Rather one’s consciousness influences
terms necessitates a preparation through the gestalt too and gets replicated in susceptible
a ‘transformation’ of consciousness at the individuals scattered in time and space in the
individual level and both these movements are matrix of the universal consciousness. “The
necessary and complementary to each other. liberation of the individual soul is… the keynote
Of course, the individual has to initiate this of the definite divine action… It is the point
process by transcending the ego. Even then, of Light at which the intended complete self-
Sri Aurobindo considers that an individual manifestation in the Many begins to emerge. But
salvation (which starts by ego-surpassing) the liberated soul extends its perception of unity
might bring heavenly laurels but has no merit horizontally as well as vertically. Its unity with
for earthly life unless the Transcendence the transcendent One is incomplete without its
manifests in the individual. unity with the cosmic Many. And that lateral unity
translates itself by a multiplication… The divine
However the individual does not exist in soul reproduces itself in similar liberated souls…
a vacuum but in the matrix of universal whenever even a single soul is liberated, there is
consciousness. Hence the conscious manifest- a tendency to an extension… Where shall we fix
ation of the Transcendent in the individual the limit of that extension? Is it altogether a legend
automatically implies that the ‘Universal’ which says of the Buddha that as he stood on the
(Cosmic) too gets permeated with the threshold of Nirvana, of the Non-Being, his soul
transcendental consciousness. Once a single turned back and took the vow never to make the
individual is illumined, other receptive irrevocable crossing so long as there was a single
individuals also get stimulated across the being upon earth undelivered from the knot of
matrix of universal consciousness. This the suffering, from the bondage of the ego (1)?”
means that the ‘illumined individual’ (who
has transcended his ‘ego’) is necessary and The individual destiny is not to get obliterated
imperative for the world-play. It has been in the vastness of the cosmos, not to get
traditionally held that the ‘extinction’ of extinguished in the glow of the transcendence.
the individual is an epitome of individual If the ‘Transcendent’ is eternal while the
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