Reason that can take us to Transcendence

  • Sri Aurobindo explains on page 56 of The Life Divine that Reason asserts its Transcendence.
  • The common conception is that Reason is a bar to reach the Transcendence.
  • Reason, He says, does not seek the lesser error, but the Truth that is error free.
  • On the face of it, the apparent contradiction we have so far conceded seems to be resolved.
  • It will be really resolved when we see the truth of it in our daily life. Better still, if His dealing with us through Nature and Life explains this to us.
  • The principle here is that the wrong will take shelter under the right usage of procedure which can give life to death forever.

- Shiva desired the child to be cooked.
- Mother wanted India to take over Bangladesh.
- Organisation foolishly strengthened with offerings will resort to murder.
- Farook Abdullah wants India to cross the POK.
- The USSR was unilaterally dissolved.
- India should march into Pakistan.
- Vacillation over Kashmir is half a century old.
- Mother lauded Israel's attack on Egypt.
- If the right party does not take the initiative to attack, the wrong side dismisses, does black magic, and sends a court notice. When abused they shrink back into their shells.
- It is right that freedom is given. It is equally right to withdraw it.
- The debtor's logic in undue freedom is absence of surplus for repayment. Debtors are logical enough to plead emotional hostility to repayment.
- The manager who was offered a share in the profits feels disappointed in not getting the whole factory as a gift. There is a sore disappointment for hard labour.
- People become rich or famous in spite of their fraudulent behaviour or because of their behaviour.
- A devotee giving an offering to the office clerk feels strongly in his nerves and sees the fact of giving a gift - a personal gift - to the clerk.
- The ego cannot be reasonable. It has to be destroyed.
- If, when duty arises, you refuse to destroy another's ego that offends, his ego will destroy the work.
- The Reason that will take us to transcendence appears in life as a compulsory evil which men of social consciousness or conscience cannot resort to.
- On the other side of evolution where selfishness organises itself as counter-revolution, these occasions rise as a stark reality. We have two variations:

  1. When we want to be good, selfishness in others will take advantage of it to destroy us.
  2. When we are selfish or foolish we will behave in this fashion aggrandising our ego.
  • The first is overdoing manners, the second is the personality of the robber. One is out of timid milksop goodness and the other is being an intelligent animal.
  • Reason in Life here will lead us to divine life.

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