A life arose as a result of the dolorous meeting
of the higher Vital and the Inconscience which was so full of unappeased unrest
that it could not allow contentment on this inert, solid, globe of the earth.
This plane of the little life has given the law of craving to man. It is
because of these formless yearning passions in his heart that man is unable to
rest content with his life like the beast, or live happy like the flowers and
trees. Man's life has added care, reflection and discontent to itself, and he
has become an insatiate seeker. All the original fire and might of pure life is
brought down here into the littleness of the material being; and life is
feeling here a push, an urge towards unattained conditions. For
She brought into Matter's dull tenacity
Her anguished claim to her lost sovereign right,
Her tireless search, her vexed uneasy heart,
Her wandering unsure steps, her cry for change.
In her labour to reach the status from which she had
fallen, she makes restless moves and runs after transient joys,
Like a child-soul left near the gates of Hell
Fumbling through fog in search of
This fumbling life-force must follow a slow course of
evolution in order to arrive at the salvation of the earth-consciousness. This
life-force was very near the night of the Inconscience and accepted death as a
condition for its temporary living. It was mainly subconscious in its
operations. It was graceless and full of animal desire. It seemed to have
forgotten its original glory and felicity. Unable to realise fully its
spiritual consciousness; it began to live in a pigmy world of its own which
seemed to be a dumb confine of life and matter. It was subject to dull
sensations and animal instincts. To Aswapati this lower aspect of life did not
appear as its chief characteristic. He saw in it rather the mighty beginnings
of "some tremendous dawn of God"—
The first writhings of cosmic serpent Force
Uncoiled from the mystic ring of Matter's trance.
The whole purpose of this movement seemed to him to be
To release the glory of God in Nature's mud
and behind all this lower play of life-force he felt a
mystic Presence that was the
Creator of this game of ray and shade
who
...by the swift vibration of a nerve
Links its mechanic throbs to light and love.
This divine Presence behind the working of the lower
vital force drives the course of evolution towards, first, the finite loves and
lusts and, then,
The will to conquer and have, to seize and keep,
To enlarge life's room and scope and pleasure's range, ...
A yearning to possess and be possessed,
To enjoy and be enjoyed, to feel, to live.
Even this was only the first cry of the awakening of
the soul when it began to look at the light. If the original Infinite Divine
had not sacrificed its state of knowledge, power and bliss, then, the dark
night of the Nescience could never have ended into the glory of the dawn of
spiritual awakening on earth. For,
A contradiction founds the base of life:
The eternal, the divine Reality
Has faced itself with its own contraries.
It has created the opposition of the Nescience and the
Being, ecstasy and pain and all the play of opposites in life in order to
create, at some distant future, the great harmony which would resolve them all.
The next level of vital creation which Aswapati saw was
the vast animal world, a world of primitive pythons "great puissant
creatures with a dwarfish brain". They had no complex system of sensations
and perceptions. In fact, it was a very primitive organisation of nerves which
only fulfilled the very primary functions of life. Even the human beings that
lived in that stage
...worked for the body's wants, they craved no more,
Content to breathe, to feel, to sense, to act.
The human being living in that primitive stage was not
troubled by thought or reflection. He lived on the verge of sensation, hunting
and enjoying the elements of the earth. He could not probe behind into the
purpose of Nature around him, nor into the purpose of his own existence. These
human beings grouped themselves into friendly or hostile primitive societies,
fighting against one another, almost behaving like herds of animals. They did
not think of evolving a culture or improving human life spiritually. They were
only busy with "movement and speed and strength" and these "were
joy enough". All their knowledge was only sensational. The mind that was
developed in this state was only a vital mind incapable of pure mental working.
Aswapati then saw a third creation which contained the
capacity for pure thinking. There arose gradually a seeing power within the
evolving nature which tried to arrange everything round that inner point of
light. The world became more ordered, organised, even under the action of
"a restricted clamped intelligence". Its thinking was confined to the
visible
A thought was there that planned, a will that strove,
But for small aims within a narrow scope.
It was the existence of a
...creature passionate only to survive,
Fettered to puny thoughts with no wide range.
Thus, even though Life had awakened to some of its
potentialities,
It knew not the Immortal in its house.
This life of man did not awaken to the vast
possibilities of the Spirit it could not know its own origin or its purpose.