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Namah Vol. 31, Issue 4, 15th January 2024

self-conscious existence, pure and infinite. The the original infinite Power that has created
relation of the two exists between the poles of finite worlds and beings through Her Divine
rest and action. When the Energy is absorbed Maya, the power that builds forms for the
in the bliss of conscious self-existence, there is Issvara to inhabit. Having built the forms,
rest; when the Purusha pours itself out in the She energises them, setting them into fixed
action of its Energy, there is action, creation grooves of motion to keep each form and
and the enjoyment or Ananda of becoming. each creature in its allotted place. This
But if Ananda is the creator and begetter of most outward action of the Divine Power
all becoming, its method is Tapas or force of that binds and fixes all things and their
the Purusha’s consciousness dwelling upon movements in fixed grooves of habitual
its own infinite potentiality in existence and cause and effect is what we call as Prakrrti or
r
producing from it truths of conception or Nature. But Prakrti too in its depths receives
real Ideas, vijñaana, which, proceeding from the impulsion from the One Divine Power,
an omniscient and omnipotent Self-existence, SSakti, the Divine Mother, whose Wisdom
have the surety of their own fulfilment and and Will provides the needed energy and
contain in themselves the nature and law of knowledge for her limited operations albeit
their own becoming in the terms of mind, in her vast empire of the lower triple worlds
life and matter. The eventual omnipotence of of mind, life and body. Therefore, to change
Tapas and the infallible fulfilment of the Idea anything radically in nature is impossible
are the very foundation of all Yoga. In man without the sanction of the original Divine
we render these terms by Will and Faith, — a Will of which the Divine Mother is the
will that is eventually self-effective because it human embodiment. Tantra, which came
is of the substance of Knowledge and a faith close to this secret, turned to the Divine
that is the reflex in the lower consciousness SSakti for everything, including freedom from
of a Truth or real Idea yet unrealised in the the chords of Prakrrti and going beyond the
manifestation. It is this self-certainty of the Idea names and forms built by Maya towards the
which is meant by the Gita when it says, yo yac- utter liberation in the Issvara.
h
chraddhah sa eva sahh., ‘whatever is a man’s faith
or the sure Idea in him, that he becomes (7)’”

It is here that Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga steps
in. It admits the Witness Purussa, the Silent
Brahman and the Omniscient, omnipresent
Issvara but does not leave the world-play in
the hands of a mechanical Prakrrti and the
impulsion of past karmas. Instead, it seeks
to bring a change in the world-play itself,
alter the balance of world forces in favour
of a divine manifestation. For this, there is
the insistence upon handing over the reins of
the play to the hands of the Divine Mother,
surrendering to Her who is the Divine SSakti,

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