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"The Divine and the Undivine"
(Book 2 Chapter IV)

 

Introduction
In this chapter, Sri Aurobindo explains the necessity and utility of the Undivine -- the Nescience, the Inconscience, the Ignorance -- to allow the greatest possibilities, varying intentions, which allows the greatest diversity and multiplicity of Delight (which comes by discovering our higher nature).

 
Here are the main points in greater detail:

The Divine Sanction of the Imperfection of Life
The imperfection of life comes from a division or rupture in the Unity of Existence. And yet imperfection's manifestation -- as ego, division, seperative functioning -- is not a sign of the undivine of things, but in fact is sanctioned by the Divine; it is actually a power of the Divine.

The supreme Knowledge limits itself to multitudes of ignorance, to work out all of its intentions; to construct universal harmonies through these ignorances. This is the intent of the Divine, indicating a Divine Omniscience.

The Imperfections - Even Evil -- Don't Exist as Seen from Higher Consciousness
Still we know that from a status of the higher consciousness these imperfections do not really exist; that these imperfections are rather a process of an unfolding in oneness and unity that we fail to see from our lower consciousness. Even evil does not exist from this highest consciousness. However, as perceived in our lower consciousness, from our ignorant status, these imperfections serve a great purpose. They are actually "creations of the Divine consciousness projecting mind away from its all-knowledge so as to realise these opposite or contrary values of its all power, all knowledge, all delight, all being and unity." This integral movement to embrace all opposites and contradictions as a process of movement from imperfection to perfection is the Divine intent.

Partial Movements of Progress as Path to Perfection (and Need for Imperfection)
Through ever-higher gradations, we are lifted out of these imperfections in the evolution. However, these being gradations necessitate a partial  -- not a complete - unfolding. This partiality brings in the necessity of imperfection. And the Divine sanctions this imperfection of ever-higher gradations, of partial movements as the path to Perfection.

This process from partiality to partiality, from imperfection to perfection entails the Joy of Discovery, our joy of discovery; which is a dimension of our experience of the Delight of Existence, the very purpose for which the Divine enabled this universe from out of Itself. He did so by hiding Himself in the involution, so we can discover Him through processes in life, such as the gradual, partial movement from imperfection to perfection that entails division, duality, suffering, and Ignorance.

Beyond Positive and Negative
Creation unfolds itself as dualities one of which is positive and negative. There is nothing negative. To know the negative as positive is to know the Absolute.
 

[DETAILS]

• The undivine, the fall, the imperfection all proceeds from the phenomenon of division or rupture in the Unity of Existence. In our mentality unconsciousness, wrong consciousness intervenes, contradictions form, incapacity, inertia, falsehood, error, pain and grief, wrong-doing, discord, evil.

• And yet the discordant externality is a falsehood or illusion created by a mysterious principle of Ignorance.

• "The fundamental world fact of ego and apparent division and their seperative workings in the world existence is no denial of the Divine Nature of unity and indivisible beings; they are the surface results of an infinite multiplicity which is a power of infinite Oneness."

• "There is then no real division or limitation of being, no fundamental contradiction of the Omnipresent reality; but there does seem to be a real limitation of consciousness; there is an ignorance of self, a veiling of the inner Divinity, and all imperfection is its consequence."

• "Ignorance must be considered one of the greatest powers of the Divine consciousness. It is only a supreme self-possessing Knowledge which can thus be powerful to limit itself in the act and yet work out perfectly all its intentions through that apparent ignorance. In the universe we see this supreme self-possessing Knowledge work through a multitude of ignorance, each striving to act according  to its own blindness, yet through them all it constructs and executes universal harmonies."

• What we have done in the Ignorance has been guided by the Omniscience.

• "It is through the sum of the many limited workings that the indivisible Omnipotence executes infallibly and sovereignly its purposes. The power to limit its force and to work through that self-limitation, by what we call labour, struggle, difficulty, by what seems to us as a series of failures or half-baulked successes and through them to achieve its secret intention, is not therefore a sign, proof, or reality of weakness, but a sign, proof, reality, -- the greatest possible, -- of an absolute omnipotence."

• "All this imperfection is to us evil, but all evil is in travail an eternal good; for all is an imperfection which is the first condition, -- in the law of life evolving out of Inconscience, -- of a greater perfection in the manifesting of the hidden divinity."

• Though these imperfections come from mind's view, we see that a deeper truth is that they are "creations of the Divine consciousness projecting mind away from its all-knowledge so as to realise these opposite or contrary values of its all power, all knowledge, all delight, all being and unity."

• "Imperfection becomes a necessary term of the manifestation: for, since all the divine nature is concealed but present in the Inconscient, it must be gradually delivered out of it; this graduation necessitates a partial unfolding, and this partial character or completeness of the unfolding necessitates imperfection."

• "There is an attraction in ignorance itself because it provides us with the joy of discovery, the surprise of new and unforeseen creation, a great adventure of the soul; there is a joy of the journey and the search and the finding, a joy of the battle and the crows, the labour and the reward of labour. If delight of existence be the secret of creation, this too is one delight of existence ..."

• In the necessity and utility of self-limitation to work out all of the varying intentions do we see why the Ignorance is Divinely sanctioned. [New, not yet incorporated into Summary]

• Behind the Limitations of Power is the All-Power. [New, not yet incorporated into Summary]

• It is through the sum of many limited workings that the indivisible Omnipotence executes infallibly and sovereignly its purpose. [This is a power to limit its force and to work through that limitation.] [New, not yet incorporated into Summary]

• The Divine Reality is behind that we call the Divine. [New, not yet incorporated into Summary]

• [If we say that the greatest hiding enables the greatest Delight in its discovery, then the small, false, ignorant, et al movements out of the inconscience, is divinely sanctioned. Then all negatives as listed on p.405 are Divinely Sanctioned as necessary stages between the inconscience and the release of the hidden Divinity that gives greatest delight.] [New, not yet incorporated into Summary]

• [Even though this Ignorance, division, duality, pain, etc. do not exist at higher levels of consciousness (where instead there is oneness and unity), at the lower levels, where it is perceived from and does "exist", it is Divinely sanctioned.] [New, not yet incorporated into Summary]

• Necessity of Imperfection -- The gradual unfolding out from Imperfection is a necessity, and this incompleteness of the unfolding necessitates imperfection -- a victory in knowledge, power, possibility, over impossibility, etc.  [New, not yet incorporated into Summary]

• Ignorance provides us with the joy of discovery. [New, not yet incorporated into Summary]