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<p class="paracenter"><b>XVIII
</b>
</p>
<p class="paracenter"></p>
<p class="paracenter"><b>SHORT NOTES </b>
</p>
<p class="paracenter"></p>
<p class="paracenter"><b>
<a name="(i)_The_sense_of_Earthly_Evolution__">(i) The sense of Earthly 
Evolution </a> </b>
</p>
<p class="paracenter"></p>
<p class="para"> Ignorance is usually equated with 
innocence. A child is; ignorant, therefore he is innocent. Although it is said 
that ignorance of law is no excuse. Spiritually however, ignorance does not mean 
innocence. Ignorance or unconsciousness or inconscience—different degrees of the 
same thing —that is to say lack of consciousness, mean, at bottom, falsehood. It 
is through the ignorance that Maya, the great illusion, was born. Ignorance is 
false apprehension, it begins with the sense of separation, &quot;I am other than the 
Divine.&quot; That is how Jiva is born in or through the ignorance. The world is 
separate from the Divine. That is how Matter is born as or in inconscience. And 
the creation appears as evil. This sense of separation is a falsehood for in 
reality nothing is separate from the supreme Consciousness, all is That.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> To regain the Truth-sense, to 
move upward in the cycle of ignorance and falsehood towards this Truth-sense is 
the world-labour and also human labour.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> Even in the state of separation 
under conditions of the inconscience and falsehood, in spite of all appearances 
the Unity, the Truth-consciousness remains intact behind It is never effaced or 
obliterated. 
<br>
</p><p class="pageno">Page-67</p>
<hr>
<br>
<p class="para"> The sense of earthly evolution is 
the gradual unfolding of the Divine, the Supreme Consciousness in and through 
the gradations of consciousness from the inconscience through unconsciousness 
and consciousness to supra-consciousness—Matter wholly transmuted into Light.
</p>
<br>
<p class="paracenter"><b>
<a name="(2)_God_above_and_God_within__">(2) God above and God within </a> </b>
</p>
<p class="paracenter"></p>
<p class="para"> God is not only above or beyond 
the creation. He is also here within the creation. He is not only over our head 
looking down upon us. He is within our heart inspiring us, enlightening us, 
loving us. This is the dynamic Divine, the Supreme Consciousness concealed 
within the apparent inconscience of the material existence. It is that which 
pushes creation upward in its evolutionary course. It is that which lies behind 
man's ignorance purifying his obscurity leading him to a more and more luminous 
revelation.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> In the Vedic image above shines 
Surya, here below burns Agni. Both are aspects of the same Truth.
</p>
<br>
<p class="paracenter"><b>
<a name="(3)_Emptying_and_Replenishment__">(3) Emptying and Replenishment </a> </b>
</p>
<p class="paracenter"></p>
<p class="para"> The body is composed of cells, 
living cells. These cells from the standpoint of consciousness are desire-cells, 
that is to say particles of desire, concrete and consolidated packets of hunger 
and thirst. A string of such innumerable packets of hunger and thirst is 
life—the Buddha said. The cells are to be emptied completely. Emptiness
<br>
</p><p class="pageno">Page-68</p>
<hr>
<br>
<p class="para">of cells is Nirvana.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> Not necessarily. For one may 
empty the cells of their obscure contents but replenish them with something of a 
purer order. This is a possibility we envisage and which we are working for. The 
Divine life empties the cells of desire hut fills it with the energy of solar 
Light.
</p>
<p class="paracenter"></p>
<p class="paracenter"><b><a name="(4)_Ego">(4) Ego</a> </b>
</p>
<p class="paracenter"></p>
<p class="para"> To renounce is a greater delight 
than to enjoy.
</p>
<p class="para"> To give is a greater joy than to 
take.
</p>
<p class="para"> To love is a greater ravishment 
than to be loved.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> In one it is the ego, man's 
self-centredness that limits, dilutes, and even perverts his happiness. In the 
other, it is precisely the egolessness that brings the pure felicity. For ego is 
hunger, hunger that is death, says the Upa-nishad.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> It is the ego, the personal shift 
that cuts the Infinite, obscures the consciousness which otherwise in its 
natural condition is always the supreme bliss and beatitude.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> It is the ego that turns reality 
into unreality, light into darkness, immortality into death.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> And whatever the interim 
necessity and utility of the ego, originally and also ultimately it has no space 
or standing. For originally and ultimately and absolutely, it is the Divine that 
exists in and through the Divine, moves in and through the Divine to the Divine.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> It is the Divine that knows the 
Divine through the Divine. 
<br>
</p><p class="pageno">Page-69</p>
<hr>
<br>
<p class="para"> It is the Divine that dynamises 
the Divine through the Divine.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> It is the Divine that enjoys, 
loves the Divine through the Divine.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> The Vedic Rishis declared the 
same truth, in their own language and imagery when they said &quot;The sacrifice is 
made a sacrifice through the sacrifice&quot;.
</p>
<p class="paracenter"></p>
<p class="paracenter"><b>
<a name="(5)_Consciousness_and_Dimensions_of_View_">(5) Consciousness and Dimensions 
of View </a> </b>
</p>
<p class="paracenter"></p>
<p class="para"> The material world is, as we all 
know, three-dimensional; it has a length, a breadth and a depth. In fact every 
material object is material because it has these three dimensions. That is what 
we knew till now. But Einstein has added another dimension to complete the 
picture of material reality. He says, time is the fourth dimension. For along 
with space, time also is to be taken into consideration for fixing or situating 
a physical object. Not space alone with its three dimensions determines the 
physical character of an object but time also has its share. A material object 
exists in space; it exists also in time. It occupies a portion of space and it 
occupies a portion of time. Indeed time, sometimes, becomes a more important 
factor; for it brings about a change in the spatial dimension.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> But dimension, in reality, that 
is to say, the configuration it gives to an object is a function of 
consciousness. The four-dimensional aspect of material reality is given or 
projected by what we call the physical consciousness..
</p>
<p class="pageno">Page-70</p>
<hr>
<br>
<p class="para"> Material time and material space 
are the two norms through which the physical consciousness deploys itself.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> But physical consciousness, the 
consciousness that plays through the senses is only one form of it—the lowest, 
the most material formation. For there is a ladder of consciousness and in it we 
rise rung by rung to other—what are known as higher formulations.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> As we rise we find that the 
dimensions increase in number. Our consciousness, our being becomes more and 
more multiple. In the physical and material, our perception is limited to the 
four dimensions because of two factors—one, things are spaced out that is to 
say, they are separate and discrete from one another. We know the law of 
material space that two things cannot occupy the same space. Secondly, things or 
events are separated in time, that is to say, there is the law of succession. 
But in the higher regions, higher or subtler regions, this separation due to 
time and space loses much of its exclusive force. Things tend to coalesce, even 
to get identified with each other. The obstructions that time and space offer to 
intercommunication are minimised more and more as our consciousness or being 
soars up or dives down into deeper and deeper and higher and higher regions. The 
dimensions increase in number; that means we begin to apprehend things from many 
angles and sides at the same time, we have more and more a simultaneous view of 
the total or global reality of an object. So instead of a fourfold view of 
things we may have a fivefold, sixfold, tenfold, hundredfold view of things 
depending on our status of
</p>
<p class="pageno">Page-71</p>
<hr>
<br>
<p class="para">consciousness. In the highest 
status,—we call it Sachchid-ananda, the infinite and eternal 
consciousness—things attain infinite dimensions, all merged in the Ultimate's 
unitary consciousness.
</p>
<p class="pageno">Page-72</p>
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