In our mental view of the world, we see everything separated and fragmented, and we identify separate objects, beings and forces as interacting with one another. We can intellectually conceive of the concept that all these separate entities and forces are part of a coordinated and combined universe that contains and supports them all. Yet in our day to day view, we see and act upon the differences and not the oneness that is implied. We also fail to see the larger motive springs of the universal manifestation, and tend to fixate on the limited objectives placed before our own separate identity. As we begin to understand the larger reality as something to be sought after, in order to attain true knowledge and achieve oneness with that larger reality, we tend to create in our minds and hearts the sense of a duality, the ‘illusion’ of the life in the world and its focus on the multiplicity and the fragmentation versus the reality of the undifferentiated oneness that stands behind it all. Then the seeking generally turns towards abandonment of the life in the world to focus on achieving the experience and realization of that unity and oneness. The oneness is represented as the highest plane of consciousness, the core level that includes pure existence, total consciousness and absolute bliss, Sat-Chit-Ananda.
In The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo describes an ‘omnipresent reality”. Sri Aurobindo makes it clear that the attempt to divide existence into “real” and “illusion” itself creates an artificial division and that the universal manifestation of Sachchidananda encompasses both the continent and the contained, the infinite and the finite, the transitory and the permanent, and thus, it is both possible and necessary, eventually, to be able to realize the ultimate truth of Sat-Chit-Ananda in all existence, in all actions, in all experience.
Sri Aurobindo observes: “It [Sachchidananda] is one eternal Existence that we then are, one eternal Consciousness which sees its own works in us and others, one eternal Will or Force of that Consciousness which displays itself in infinite workings, one eternal Delight which has the joy of itself and all its workings, — itself stable, immutable, timeless, spaceless, supreme and itself still in the infinity of its workings, not changed by their variations, not broken up by their multiplicity, not increased or diminished by their ebbings and flowings in the seas of Time and Space, not confused by their apparent contrarieties or limited by their divinely-willed limitations. Sachchidananda is the unity of the many-sidedness of manifested things, the eternal harmony of all their variations and oppositions, the infinite perfection which justifies their limitations and is the goal of their imperfections.”
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Introduction, Sri Aurobindo on Our Many Selves, Planes and Parts of the Being, pg. xxxii
Santosh has been studying Sri Aurobindo's writings since 1971 and has a daily blog at http://sriaurobindostudies.wordpress.com and podcast at https://anchor.fm/santosh-krinsky He is author of 17 books and is editor-in-chief at Lotus Press. He is president of Institute for Wholistic Education, a non-profit focused on integrating spirituality into daily life.