Sri Aurobindo's - 'The Life Divine' - The Human Aspiration - Chapter I - The Human Aspiration - Track 803

Wherever you find an impulse of will-to-be, which manifests strongly it is the higher of the ascending series. Sri Aurobindo used a very nice word in the very second paragraph: "To know, possess and be the divine being..." These words are very important. To the extent to which we want to know, to possess, to be, these are three stages. First you want to know, then you want to possess and then you want to be. Very often people want to know small things, little things: What happened in my house, what happened to my friend? But if you want to know what happens in the universe, it is a tremendous subject - to know the Universe.

One day we should have some special classes in astronomy, because we have to know the whole vast universe and then you must ask: "How do we possess the Universe? It is possible to possess the Universe?" The moment you know you want to possess. As soon as you bring something in the presence of the child and the child sees it he wants to catch it, to possess it. So the secret of possession is knowledge. First you know and then you want to possess and then you want to be. As you move forward, you go higher and higher. There is a will-to-be. What distinguishes all distinguished people in the world? If you study the biographies of the greatest people in the world, they all want to be. They want to embody. One of the students wrote to me: "I want to have a great noble Character" You know this sentence pleased my heart so deeply. It is a tremendous proposition. The more you have this kind of will, the more is the potential that you possess. You want to be and you will be.

Only yesterday General was telling me of his brother-in-law who was one of the greatest soldiers that India produced. One day we will ask him the story. But he told me that when he was a young boy he used to say two things. Either, he said, I will get the Paramvir Chakra, the highest honor of the Army of India or I will be Commander-in-Chief. This was his will from his childhood. He gave his body in battle. His body was torn to pieces, he gave his life, but he received the highest honor. So he did rise to that position in India. If anybody writes the history of contemporary India, his name will shine out very brightly. Because he had a will-to-be.

Sri Aurobindo says, that if you examine the whole of nature, there is an ascending series. And the higher you go, the greater is the impulse, the greater is the will-to-be. The greater the impulse to know, the greater the impulse to possess, and the greater the will-to-be. When you say will-to-be, it is the will to know, the will to possess and the culmination of which is the will-to-be.

Sri Aurobindo says, in Matter, Life and Mind, you put all the vessels in an ascending series and you will find that as you rise higher and higher there is a greater and greater will-to-be. Among human beings you see, there is series. You can divide human beings on the basis of will-to-be. As there is in Nature an ascending series of will-to-be, so here also from Mind to Supermind there is an ascending series of will-to-be. This is all is said here.

"As there, so here, the impulse exists more or less obscurely in her different vessels with an ever ascending series in the power of its will-to-be…" Therefore the analogy seems to be very correct. "As there, so here" Now, further "As there, so here, it is gradually evolving and bound fully to evolve the necessary organs and faculties." As in the first column of the ascending series, new faculties have grown - I told you yesterday how the eye develops - there must have been a tremendous urge in the form of the worm. Gradually there was a push, as a result of which this marvel of the eye developed .A new faculty developed in a worm in which there was no eye at all in the beginning.

At one time one of the students here had asked me how to develop the will-power. And I was very pleased with that question. How to develop will-power? It showed that there was first a will-to-be. There was a question how to develop the will-power. And my answer was, you just will it. Continue to will. When you continue to will the necessary organ will develop, the necessary faculty will develop. It is said that our brain is undeveloped basically. Not even one-hundredth part of the brain, has been developed so far, even in the highest genius. Once Mother said that whenever understanding increases, a convolution takes place in the brain. This is a physical phenomenon. You understand psychologically, but there is a physical result out of it. The more you understand, the more will there be convolutions in the brain. And there are so many cells in the brain, if all of them are activated, you cannot imagine what the power will be. More than sunlight!

Mother had also said in one of her prior conversations, "Examine my skull. You will find mountains and valleys." Physiologically, there is a whole science in India of telling the character of a person by reading his face, seeing the outer convolutions of his face, of his head, of his eyes, of his eyebrows, the sharpness of his look and so on. You can just look at the face and say whether this person is sincere or insincere. You can immediately say that this is a sincere face. When I see her there is so much of sincerity manifesting in her face. I can immediately say that: Oh! Here is sincerity. This is a characteristic I find so common here among all of you. The very faces can indicate their inner vibrations. Whether we know it or not, our outer physical translates more and more what we are inwardly.

Sri Aurobindo says that just as there is an inner impulse to grow there that is manifested in the development of organs and faculties; even so here between Mind and Supermind as we move forward, the more the impulse to will-to-be, the greater are the faculties developed.