Now we see another interesting aspect of the subtle physical matter. It is a resting ground before the divine energies and thought forms enter into our material sheath. The subtle matter is plastic and responsive to the Spirit’s intimations.
At the Feet of The Mother
Book Two: The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds
It is a world where beauty of form predominates everything else. All other aspects of the Spirit are subordinated to Beauty in figure and form.
The subtle physical world is a junction between the involutionary and the evolutionary world. It wraps around the physical and surrounds it, letting only few things pass through it. In this sense it serves as a protective envelop around the body.
Immediately behind this world of ours, we can discover the world of subtle forms, beautiful and charming. Sometimes it can show up in dreams or trance or even in thought and feelings. But our human organs are not yet trained to catch its murmur and subtle indications.
Behind the veil of our solid outer world and its forms that we see and touch there exists a Kingdom of subtle matter. It is this world that is just behind this material world as we know it, its beings and forces and action, function and influences, that is being described here in this Canto.
Thus we see the broad foundation being laid for us to receive what is revealed to Aswapati, the seer and yogi. From the next Canto until the end of this Book we shall see and share Aswapati’s discoveries regarding these hidden worlds as they climb from Matter through worlds of life and mind towards the Supermind.
In an amazing passage that combines the intuitions of spiritual consciousness and the discoveries of modern Science, Sri Aurobindo reveals to us the process of creation, the weaving of five elements and the soul’s purpose of birth into this enigmatic world.
Sri Aurobindo reveals to us the secret of evolution, the Power that works within it, the direction and the divine intent behind it.
Evolution is neither a freak nor a chance accident that has somehow occurred within the boundaries of Space and Time. In truth, from the deepest spiritual standpoint, as revealed by Sri Aurobindo, it is a progressive manifestation of the One Infinite. Out of nothing only nothing could emerge.