Page 18 - All India Magazine Sep-2024
P. 18

Life — A Journey and an Ascent


        The life of the human creature, as it is ordinarily lived, is com-
        posed of a half-fixed, half-fluid mass of very imperfectly ruled
        thoughts,  perceptions,  sensations,  emotions,  desires,  enjoy-
        ments, acts, mostly customary and self-repeating, in part only
        dynamic and self-developing, but all centred around a superficial
        ego. The sum of movement of these activities eventuates in an
        internal growth which is partly visible and operative in this life,
        partly a seed of progress in lives hereafter. This growth of the
        conscious being, an expansion, an increasing self-expression,
        a more and more harmonised development of his constituent
        members is the whole meaning and all the pith of human exis-
        tence. It is for this meaningful development of consciousness
        by thought, will, emotion, desire, action and experience, lead-
        ing in the end to a supreme divine self-discovery, that Man, the
        mental being, has entered into the material body. All the rest is
        either auxiliary and subordinate or accidental and otiose; that
        only matters which sustains and helps the evolution of his na-
        ture and the growth or rather the progressive unfolding and
        discovery of his self and spirit. ...
                                                      CWSA 23: 89-90

        There are  three stages of the ascent, —  at the bottom the
        bodily life enslaved to the pressure of necessity and desire, in
        the middle the mental, higher emotional and psychic rule that
        feels after greater interests, aspirations, experiences, at the
        summits first a deeper psychic and spiritual state and then a
        supramental eternal consciousness in which all our aspirations
        and seekings discover their own intimate significance. In the
        bodily  life  first  desire  and  need  and  then  the  practical  good
        of the individual and the society are the governing consider-
        ation, the dominant force. In the mental life ideas and ideals



        18                          All India Magazine, September 2024
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