Opening Remarks
What is described now is the involution of the Divine Consciousness that becomes a ground for evolution.
Plunge into the Night
Thus taken was God’s plunge into the Night.
The last step of involution is when the Spirit descending through degrees leaves the subtle physical and plunges into the dark Inconscient.
Concealed divinity
This fallen world became a nurse of souls
Inhabited by concealed divinity.
This last step created the ground for the evolutionary emergence of the soul. And yet Sri Aurobindo assures us that even in this utter Darkness there is the Presence of the Divine hidden within the folds of Darkness.
A Being woke
A Being woke and lived in the meaningless void,
A world-wide Nescience strove towards life and thought,
A Consciousness plucked out from mindless sleep.
As a result of this plunge there awakened within this darkness, the possibility of a divine ascension. Consciousness recovered Itself and began to climb upwards and in the process giving birth to seeking and aspiration within the insensible Void.
Insentient will
All here is driven by an insentient will.
That is how it seems but in fact even in the depths of darkness and unconsciousness there is the Divine Will working to uplift it. Though surrounded and obstructed by the ddarkness it assumes the form of an insentient will mechanically driving the creation.
A subconscient yearning memory
Thus fallen, inconscient, frustrate, dense, inert,
Sunk into inanimate and torpid drowse
Earth lay, a drudge of sleep, forced to create
By a subconscient yearning memory
Left from a happiness dead before she was born,
This involution is the secret cause of evolution. Earth carries the burden of this tremendous fall upon its breast and even in its sleep and torpor a yearning is felt towards a lost or hidden beauty and peace and bliss.
An alien wonder
An alien wonder on her senseless breast.
The truths arriving from beyond are now plunged into the dark folds of creation. This hidden Consciousness within the heart of earth seems like an alien wonder and yet it is the earth’s secret Reality.
A beauty that belongs to happier spheres
This mire must harbour the orchid and the rose,
From her blind unwilling substance must emerge
A beauty that belongs to happier spheres.
It is this hidden impulse towards Beauty and Light and Love that is the occult cause of the wonderful creations we see upon earth’s soil. Though seemingly unconscious, yet it gives birth to marvellous creations such as flower.
Destiny of the Earth
This is the destiny bequeathed to her,
As if a slain god left a golden trust
To a blind force and an imprisoned soul.
What is thus hidden within it (as a result of the fall) must emerge. Even though the godheads that plunged into the depths are no more visible, yet they are at work within its depths and, along with the soul, labouring to bring out this divine future for earth. Even though nature seems to be working blindly, yet behind her steps a mute Wisdom works and will one day transform her blindness into an all-seeing Force.
An immortal godhead’s perishable parts
An immortal godhead’s perishable parts
She must reconstitute from fragments lost,
Reword from a document complete elsewhere
Her doubtful title to her divine Name.
The immortal godhead who has plunged into the depths of the Inconscience is none other but the Divine Mother. Though One and Infinite, She seems finite and fragmented due to the action of the Inconscience. It is given to earth to recover this lost oneness and complete her evolutionary journey towards perfection by invoking and awakening the powers of the Higher Consciousness that remain hidden and chained within her.
All things in her shapeless dust
A residue her sole inheritance,
All things she carries in her shapeless dust.
Though very little of the original truth is left, yet she carries all possibilities within her matter.
A labour to the gods impossible
Her giant energy tied to petty forms
In the slow tentative motion of her power
With only frail blunt instruments for use,
She has accepted as her nature’s need
And given to man as his stupendous work
A labour to the gods impossible.
This is the labour that is going on within the consciousness of earth. On the one hand it is to free herself from the darkness that clings to her and surrounds her being. On the other hand to bring out the different ruungs of consciousness created by the plunge of the One Consciousness into matter. The catalyst and instrument of this change has been chosen to be man. This evolutionary impulsion is inbuilt within earth-nature.
A spirit bound stand up as Nature’s king.
A life living hardly in a field of death
Its portion claims of immortality;
A brute half-conscious body serves as means
A mind that must recover a knowledge lost
Held in stone grip by the world’s inconscience,
And wearing still these countless knots of Law
A spirit bound stand up as Nature’s king.
Yet her evolution is far from finished. Only some crude beginnings have been accomplished so far. The rest await their hour, most of all the crowning of the spirit as king of nature and man becoming conscious of his immortality. This must happen regardless of the stone grip of the inconscience that resists her advance.
Closing Remarks
Evolution has an antecedent which is described as involution. It is the plunge of the One Infinite Consciousness along with all Its Powers and degrees into the darkness of Inconscience. Then starts the reversal which we call as evolution. All the possibilities hidden in matter begin to emerge step by step in a graded manner.
