Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c7.s9.t9.8

v1.c7.s9.t9.8

In the process of analysing the universe evolution, Aurobindo regarded Bráhman as a “cosmic spirit” (briefly referred to as “Spirit”), this “spirit” is divided into five levels or grades, from the senior to the lower level the sequence is Bráhman, super mind, mind, life and matter. Matter, life and mind belong to the natural world (the phenomenal world), while the super mind and Bráhman belong to super nature (noumenon level). Matter refers to various inorganic matters, ie all inanimate phenomena, which belongs to the lowest form of the “spirit”. Life means all living phenomena, such as plants, animals and so on. Mind refers to the psychological and mental activity of human being; it represents human beings with thinking ability. In Aurobindo’s view, the natural evolution seems that, life is evolved from matter and human beings are evolved from life. As the highest level of “spirit”, Bráhman belongs to the supernatural; it is not only the origin of everything, but also the end of the evolution, the highest and the most satisfactory state of everything. Super mind, refers to a special spirit or consciousness transcending human being’s thinking ability (actually, it refers to some kind of mystical states of consciousness reached by those who had a long yoga practice). The super mind can connect with people’s mind on one hand; it also can be interlinked with Bráhman of the highest spiritual level, so it becomes a bridge connecting the nature and the supernatural world. How to connect the natural world to the super nature through evolution? Aurobindo believes there are two processes of the universe evolution: first through the media of supermind, Bráhman descends or appears as all things in the world, then through the super mind, all things of the world evolve up to be Bráhman. The descending of Bráhman is from higher level to lower level one by one, first Bráhman descends to mind from super mind, then from mind down to life, finally from life down to matter. The descending process is a self-deny for Bráhman, as it’s a process from the pure spirit state differentiated to all things in the world. In the nature, Bráhman is covered with a variety of substances appearing and become the “potential consciousness” or “potential spirit” with wrapping shell. This “potential spirit” is hidden among all things and has a strong demand for restoring of its true existing, thus promote everything to evolve to the pure spirit state. The rising or evolution of all things is opposite to the descending of Bráhman, but it’s also from one level to the higher level one by one. The evolution starts from the matter, life is evolved from the matter, mind is evolved from life, and then super mind is evolved from mind, finally through the media of super mind evolved to Bráhman, which is reaching the highest spiritual level.