Page 10 - NAMAH-Jul-2022

Editorial

Pain-Pleasure-Indifference

also man’s initial response in creation. It is
only through developing a technology of
consciousness that one can go behind this
initial and superficial response. We shall first
attempt to understand this external response
in terms familiar to the ordinary mentality.
Why does Sri Aurobindo select ‘Pain-
Pleasure-Indifference’ as the triple vibration
(1) to which we are subjected on exposure to
the shocks of existence? Sri Aurobindo does
not select these responses in a casual manner.
In fact, he selects them specifically because
they represent three distinct responses that
arise at the three levels of manifestation
which appear successively in the evolution
of consciousness.
In the Indian tradition, Reality has been
experientially perceived as a triune of Existence- Level 1
Consciousness-Bliss or Sachchidaananda. Bliss
A
or Ananda is the value aspect of Reality This is the level that manifests when the
but in its pure poise it is inaccessible to the physical consciousness is permeated by the
ordinary human being. In fact, any premature Life-Energy (the vital) to form the basis of
attempt to access this aspect of Reality might our bodily life. It is only here that pain makes
be counter-productive unless one has the its first appearance. Sri Aurobindo explains
experience of identifying with the inmost that pain, “… does not come into being in the
essence of one’s consciousness — the ego- purely physical world so long as life does not

surpassing fourth-dimensional principle enter into it; for till then mechanical methods
named by Sri Aurobindo as the psychic are sufficient. Its office begins when life with
being. its frailty and imperfect possession of Matter
enters on the scene… (2).”
The ordinary human being reacts to the
stimuli of life with the triple response of pain, Pain is not only a physical suffering; it is
pleasure and indifference. This is not only a accompanied by emotional and/or mental
superficial response to the shocks of life but distress. Psycho-physiology explains how

10