Book Two: The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds

The spirit’s truth is hidden behind appearances. It needs an inward turn and an intuitive eye to discover it.

This Divine Presence hidden in the depths of creation, working even in the depths of the Inconscience is the hope for all things. The seed-idea has already been sown in the soil of nature and with passage of time it must bear fruits and flowers and disclose the divinity that is latent within it.

With his characteristic humour Sri Aurobindo reveals to us how we may be misled into the illusion of absolute Knowledge as we climb up the stairways of the Spirit. A last step remains even at the highest reaches of the Mind.

Sri Aurobindo in his own characteristic way shows to us the greatness of these gods and the beings I contact with them and yet he also reveals their limitations. Each has its own place and station and working in this vast and complex creation. But the ultimate secret, the last secret is not found here.

The Divine is Infinite but in the spiritual Mind His Freedom is fixed into formulas and rules through which He acts. Layer by layer Sri Aurobindo is revealing to us the Divine Working in this lower triplicity of creation where truth is being worked out through ignorance, error and Chance.

Above the higher Mind are regions of the Illumined Mind with its beings. If the higher Mind is like a steady sunshine, the illumined mind is a space where the beings themselves carry the light in their eyes.

The gods of these realms arrange the cosmic and individual events based on the Idea from Above that impels them to move and act. This is a vivid description of the Higher Mind which is the birthplace of ideologies and religions.

Sri Aurobindo reveals to us about the play of higher forces that fix the grooves of destiny for the individual and the collective march of mankind.