Book Two: The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds

The Divine Presence dwells in all things. It is His touch that makes all things alive and conscious. It is His secret Breath that drives creation unknowingly towards its great goal. It is His bliss that supports all things from behind. It is His Love that leans down to save this universe.

There is a mystery that acts behind this small life that has emerged upon our globe. Even when all seems dark and ugly and small, there is always this Divine Presence supporting us from behind, His joy sustaining us from within, His Peace and Light.

There is however a greater view of self and world, a view that neither Science nor Religion offers. Sri Aurobindo gives the direction towards the broader and deeper vision of the Spirit that is yet to emerge in man.

When we look at humanity in the light of a scientific understanding while we still labour in Ignorance, we are bound to get disillusioned. It is a life without purpose, a meaningless existence that has somehow evolved out of the worm while playing with the mud of earth.

Creation, viewed strictly from a material standpoint, appears in the last analysis as itself a strange illusion conjured by the senses and mind. Thus Sri Aurobindo reveals to us the limitations of the present purely materialistic point of view of the self and world.

Life at this stage of evolution moves around a small circle. It cannot embrace the adventure of the Vast and the Unknown.

Life, even in this littleness, sometimes dreams of love and beauty, but her means are poor and her instruments inadequate to realise them upon earth. Thus man’s life moves on a low pitch and remains tied to smallness and pettiness, with their attendant sorrow and misery.

This is the occult truth behind our deviations from the straight and sunlit path through which we may move towards Light and Truth and Vastness and Bliss. It is the influence of these dark and adverse vital entities that hold us back from advance.

Life should be beautiful, it could be beautiful but for these adverse and hostile entities that pervert the original plan of life. Thus are we caught up in a devious game of life when we are moving through the mazes of ignorance. It is indeed a nightmare from which there seems to be no escape until we wake up.