The Pure Existent: Selections from “The Life Divine” by Sri Aurobindo (vegetarian), Part 2 of 2

“But to settle the account, we have to know what is this All, this infinite and omnipotent energy. And here we come to a fresh complication. For it is asserted to us by the pure reason, and it seems to be asserted to us by Vedanta that as we are subordinate and an aspect of this movement, so the movement is subordinate and an aspect of something other than itself, of a great timeless, spaceless Stability, sthanu, which is immutable, inexhaustible and unexpended, not acting though containing all this action, not energy, but pure existence.”

“It is easy to show that this is true in the movement itself. There is nothing there that is stable. All that appears to be stationary is only a block of movement, a formulation of energy at work that so affects our consciousness that it seems to be still, somewhat as the earth seems to us to be still, somewhat as a train in which we are traveling seems to be still in the midst of a rushing landscape.”

“But this is infinity with regard to Time and Space, an eternal duration, interminable extension. The pure reason goes farther and looking in its own colorless and austere light at Time and Space points out that these two are categories of our consciousness, conditions under which we arrange our perception of phenomenon. When we look at existence in itself, Time and Space disappear.”

“We have only these two alternatives: an indefinable pure existence or indefinable energy in action. If the latter alone is true, without any stable base or cause, then the energy is a result and phenomenon generated by the action, the movement alone. We have then no Existence, or we have the Nihil of the Buddhists with existence as only an attribute of an eternal phenomenon, of action, of Karma, of movement. This asserts the pure reason, leaves my perceptions unsatisfied, contradicts my fundamental seeing, and therefore cannot be. For it brings us to a last abruptly ceasing stair of an ascent which leaves the whole staircase without support, suspended in the Void.”