Page 10 - NAMAH-Oct-2019

Namah Vol. 27, Issue 3, 15th October 2019

that there is none either between the elements Science is necessarily incomplete in the range
and atoms that constitute the earth or metal of its enquiry and has no clue to the occult
and the metal or earth that they constitute. movements of the Force (4).” .
Each step of this graded existence prepares the
next, holds in itself what appears in that which Life-Energy and death
follows it. Life is everywhere, secret or manifest,
organised or elemental, involved or evolved, Life is an energy that is not only present
but universal, all-pervading, imperishable; only in what we call the living systems but also
its forms and organisings differ (3).” in non-living systems though in different
denouements. In living systems, we can discern
This would validate Sri Aurobindo’s own the presence of life through its myriad processes
experiential concept of a consciousness that like breathing, locomotion and eating. In the
is essentially the same throughout, though non-living systems, life-energy is incipient in
variable in status, nature and poise and the atomic matrix, in the electronic orbits, in
that these different denouements are due the molecular variety. Sceptics might scoff
to the different planes that manifest along at the idea of life-energy in metals but the
the trajectory of an evolving consciousness. world would come to terms with this idea if
Each new plane that evolves is more complex electrons suddenly decide to stop rotating
and organised than the prior planes, yet is in their orbits!
not disconnected from them but holds them
in essence. The creation that is apparently Life-energy becomes explicit in the inter-
variegated in appearance is integral in essence. relations between living and non-living systems
that balance existence. “The fact would seem
While discovering similarities between his to be, then, that as there is a constant dynamic
own contentions and the findings of Jagadish energy in movement in the universe which
Chandra Bose, Sri Aurobindo is cautious takes various material forms more or less
not to forcefully equate the conclusions subtle or gross, so in each physical body or
of science and metaphysics as they arise object, plant or animal or metal, there is stored
from distinctly separate knowledge-bases; and active the same constant dynamic force;
however one cannot deny that certain a certain interchange of these two gives us
conclusions of science corroborate certain the phenomena which we associate with the
conclusions of metaphysics. “Science cannot idea of life. It is this action that we recognise
dictate its conclusions to metaphysics any more as the action of Life-Energy and that which so
than metaphysics can impose its conclusions on energises itself is the Life-Force. Mind-Energy,
science. Still if we accept the reasonable belief Life-Energy, material Energy are different
that Being and Nature in all their states have dynamisms of one World-Force (5).”
a system of correspondences expressive of a
common Truth underlying them, it is permissible The very fact that today a subject who had
to suppose that truths of the physical universe been technically dead for a few moments can
can throw some light on the nature as well as be revived with life-support systems shows
the process of the Force that is active in the that life-energy was potentially present
universe — not a complete light, for physical though not decipherable. ”Within certain limits

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