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"Life"
(Book 1 Chapter XIX)
[SUMMARY]In this chapter Sri Aurobindo describes how Life/Energy emerges from Conscious Force; the forms that the life/energy creates in the universe; how the forms of energy/life express at various planes; the play of life amongst those forms; the nature of will and desire in the Conscious Force and in the form; and the nature of death of those forms as a process of life.
Here are the main points:
Life as Current/Energy of Conscious Force that is Source of Forms in Creation
Life is a form of, a dynamic of, a current of, an energy of a universal operation of the cosmic Conscious Force. Life creates, maintains, destroys, and recreates forms or bodies. Life builds up forms, energizes the forms through stimulation, and maintains the forces through disintegration and renewal of substance.[Life is a universal field of energy whose origins is Conscious-Force from which all forms take shape.]
[When Knowledge and Will were split by Mind, as agent of Supermind, energy was released, which was the plane of Life. Life is the plane of energy; is the sea of energy of the universe out of which all forms have emerged, are emerging, and will emerge.]
The Energy that Creates Forms also Expresses in those Forms
There is a constant dynamic energy in movement in the universe that takes forms subtle or gross, so in each physical body or object, plant or animal or metal, there is stored and active the same constant dynamic force.
The Life Play of the Force Expressing through the Forms
-The life play of the Force, manifests as an interchange and stimulation between the forms. Thorough this interchange Life seeks to awaken conscious sensation in those bodies.-Forms feed upon the breath and energy of the Cosmic Force through an interchange with other forms or by absorbing it from the outside.
-"The life-play of this Force manifests itself as an interchange of stimulation and response to stimulation between the different forms it has built up and in which it keeps up its constant dynamic pulsation; each form is constantly taking into itself and giving out again the breath and energy of the common Force; each form feeds upon that and nourishes itself with it by various means, whether directly by taking in other forms in which the energy is stored or directly by absorbing the dynamic discharges it receives from outside. All this is the play of Life: ..."Matter is substance form of force.
Will and Desire in Conscious-Force and in Nature
-There is a Will and Desire in Conscious Force. Thus there is the same in the atom, which comes from Conscious Force. And there is the same in Nature.-The will and desire of the atom, Nature, and Conscious Force appear as nervous energy, sensation in the plant; as desire and will in primary animals, and mental will in man. [Man also has the other two, as primary animal has the other one.]
-In the very atom there is something that becomes in us a will and a desire.
Process of Life and Death
-The processes of life are disintegration and renewal of substance, and maintenance and change of form.-The natural opposition we make between death and life is an error of our mentality. Death has no reality except as a process of life. Disintegration of substance and renewal of substance, maintenance of form and change of form are the constant process of life. Even in death of the body there is no cessation of Life, only the material of one form of life is broken up to serve as material for other forms of life. This occurs through some process of metapsychosis or new ensouling of body.
[In the next chapter 'Death, Desire, and Capacity,' Sri Aurobindo further describes the nature of Life, the problems of life, the cause of death, etc.]
[Additional Points]
Life as Energy that Creates Forms
"... Life .... is a form of, a dynamic current of the one cosmic energy, a dynamic movement or current of it positive and negative, a constant act or play of the Force which builds up forms, energizes them by a continual stream of stimulation and maintains them by an unceasing process of disintegration and renewal of their substance."
There is a constant dynamic energy in the universe, which takes various material forms. This is life in action. The dynamic energy in the universe is Life.
Even if the universe, as form and with all its forms, were abolished, Life [i.e. the sea of energy] would still exist. Life is energy, which is prior to forms of matter.
"Life then is the dynamic play of a universal Force, a Force in which mental consciousness and nervous vitality are in some form or at least in their principle always inherent [i.e. involved] and therefore they appear and organize themselves in our world in the forms of Matter."
How Life Expresses through Forms/Us, The Life Play
"Life then reveals itself as essentially the same everywhere from the atom to man, the atom containing the subconscious stuff and movement of being which are released into consciousness in the animal, with plant life as a midway stage in the evolution.
Life is [also] a force evolving out of Matter, culminating in Mind.
Life is involved in Matter; Mind is involved in Life; and Supermind in Mind. (Actually Mind is involved in Matter and Life, and Supermind in all three.)
Life liberates into sensitive action and reaction Conscious-force of Existence, which was working subconsciously or unconsciously absorbed in substance.
Life involved in matter has emerged in the form of thinking and mentally conscious life.
Life's full deliverance is enabled [though not completed] by Mind.
Will and Desire
In the very atom there is something that becomes in us a will and a desire.
In the atom there is an attraction and a repulsion that mirrors our liking and disliking.
The essence of will and desire are evident everywhere in Nature.
They are present in the atom because it is there in the Conscious Force that enabled and constitutes the atom.
The will, desire of the atom and the Force, Conscious Will shows up as nervous energy, sensation in the plant, desire sense and will in primary animals, and mental will in man.
Supermind as Creator
Not a subconscious Mind or Intelligence, but an involved Supermind -- which puts Mind in front of it as the immediately active special form of its knowledge-will subconscious in Force, and uses material Force or Will subconscious in substance of being as its executive Nature or Prakriti -- has created this material universe. [This is a powerful statement to ponder!]
Supermind is the creative agency of the universal Existence.
Mind is no independent or original entity but only a final operation of Truth Consciousness
Other
"The truths of the physical universe can throw some light on the nature as well as the process of the Force that is active in the universe -- not a complete light, for physical Science is necessarily incomplete in the range of inquiry and has no clue to the occult movements of the Force."