Perfection
of the Body
Page 5
If
the emergence and growth of consciousness is the central
motive of the evolution and the key to its secret purpose,
then by the very nature of that evolution this growth must
involve not only a wider and wider extent of its capacities,
but also an ascent to a higher and higher level till it
reaches the highest possible. For it starts from a nethermost
level of involution in the Inconscience which we see at
work in Matter creating the material universe; it proceeds
by an Ignorance which is yet ever developing knowledge and
reaching out to an ever greater light and ever greater organisation
and efficacy of the will and harmonisation of all its own
inherent and emerging powers; it must at last reach a point
where it develops or acquires the complete fullness of its
capacity, and that must be a state or action in which there
is no longer an ignorance seeking for knowledge but Knowledge
self-possessed, inherent in the being, master of its own
truths and working them out with a natural vision and force
that is not afflicted by limitation or error. Or if there
is a limitation, it must be a self-imposed veil behind which
it would keep truth back from manifestation in Time but
draw it out at will and without any need of search or acquisition
in the order of a right perception of things or in the just
succession of that which has to be manifested in obedience
to the call of Time. This would mean an entry or approach
into what might be called a truth-consciousness self-existent
in which the being would be aware of its own realities and
would have the inherent power to manifest them in a Time-creation
in which all would be Truth following out its own unerring
steps and combining its own harmonies; every thought and
will and feeling and act would be spontaneously right, inspired
or intuitive, moving by the light of Truth and therefore
perfect. All would express inherent realities of the spirit;
some fullness of the power of the spirit would be there.
One would have overpassed the present limitations of mind:
mind would become a seeing of the light of Truth, will a
force and power of the Truth, Life a progressive fulfilment
of the Truth, the body itself a conscious vessel of the
Truth and part of the means of its self-effectuation and
a form of its self-aware existence. It would be at least
some initiation of this Truth consciousness, some first
figure and action of it that must be reached and enter into
a first operation if there is to be a divine life or any
full manifestation of a spiritualised consciousness in the
world of Matter. Or, at the very least, such a Truth-consciousness
must be in communication with our own mind and life and
body, descend into touch with it, control its seeing and
action, impel its motives, take hold of its forces and shape
their direction and purpose. All touched by it might not
be able to embody it fully, but each would give some form
to it according to his spiritual temperament, inner capacity,
the line of his evolution in Nature: he would reach securely
the perfection of which he was immediately capable and he
would be on the road to the full possession of the truth
of the Spirit and of the truth of Nature.
In
the workings of such a Truth-consciousness there would be
a certain conscious seeing and willing automatism of the
steps of its truth which would replace the infallible automatism
of the inconscient or seemingly inconscient Force that has
brought out of an apparent Void the miracle of an ordered
universe, and this could create a new order of the manifestation
of the Being in which a perfect perfection would become
possible; even a supreme and total perfection would appear
in the vistas of an ultimate possibility. If we could draw
down this power into the material world, our agelong dreams
of human perfectibility, individual perfection, the perfectibility
of the race, of society, inner mastery over self and a complete
mastery, governance and utilisation of the forces of Nature
could see at long last a prospect of total achievement.
This complete human self-fulfilment might well pass beyond
limitations and be transformed into the character of a divine
life. Matter after taking into itself and manifesting the
power of life and the light of mind would draw down into
it the superior or supreme power and light of the spirit
and in an earthly body shed its parts of inconscience and
become a perfectly conscious frame of the spirit. A secure
completeness and stability of the health and strength of
its physical tenement could be maintained by the will and
force of this inhabitant; all the natural capacities of
the physical frame, all powers of the physical consciousness
would reach their utmost extension and be there at command
and sure of their flawless action. As an instrument the
body would acquire a fullness of capacity, a totality of
fitness for all uses which the inhabitant would demand of
it far beyond anything now possible. Even it could become
a revealing vessel of a supreme beauty and bliss,—casting
the beauty of the light of the spirit suffusing and radiating
from it as a lamp reflects and diffuses the luminosity of
its indwelling flame, carrying in itself the beatitude of
the spirit, its joy of the seeing mind, its joy of life
and spiritual happiness, the joy of Matter released into
a spiritual consciousness and thrilled with a constant ecstasy.
This would be the total perfection of the spiritualised
body.
All
this might not come all at once, though such a sudden illumination
might be possible if a divine Power and Light and Ananda
could take their stand on the summit of our being and send
down their force into the mind and life and body illumining
and remoulding the cells, awaking consciousness in all the
frame. But the way would be open and the consummation of
all that is possible in the individual could progressively
take place. The physical also would have its share in that
consummation of the whole.
There
would always remain vistas beyond as the infinite Spirit
took up towards higher heights and larger breadths the evolving
Nature, in the movement of the liberated being towards the
possession of the supreme Reality, the supreme existence,
consciousness, beatitude. But of this it would be premature
to speak: what has been written is perhaps as much as the
human mind as it is now constituted can venture to look
forward to and the enlightened thought understand in some
measure. These consequences of the Truth-consciousness descending
and laying its hold upon Matter would be a sufficient justification
of the evolutionary labour. In this upward all-uplifting
sweep of the Spirit there could be a simultaneous or consecutive
downward sweep of the triumph of a spiritualised Nature
all-including, all-transmuting and in it there could occur
a glorifying change of Matter and the physical consciousness
and physical form and functioning of which we could speak
as not only the total but the supreme perfection of the
body.
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Sri Aurobindo
