Sri Aurobindo's - 'The Life Divine' - The Human Aspiration - Chapter I - The Human Aspiration - Track 805

Sri Aurobindo says that as you move from metal to plant the sensitivity to reactions begin to become greater and greater. The metal reacts mildly. Almost very mechanically, but in the plant, the reactions are much more bright. We are told by the scientists that plants feel shyness, plants feel happy, feel sorrowful, plants feel tired, plants feel great energy. There was a great scientist called Jagdish Chandra Bose, an Indian scientist. He proved in a very big conference of scientists, that plants react in the form of joy, sorrow, energy, sleep. He invented a machine by which he could measure the sorrow or the pleasure of plants. Even now for example, experiments are going on - if you play good music around plants, they are very happy and they bloom very quickly, flower very quickly, give fruits also very quickly. I am sure this tree, because of your presence here is feeling very happy. And it gives its shade and it will grow and continue to grow because of all your good-will and vibrations of your being here.

So there is a kind of reactivity and the degree to which the reactivity manifests, your distinction becomes greater and greater. Just as there is an ascending series of reactions, even so between human beings and the higher ranges, this reactivity increases as we go higher and higher.

"As the impulse towards Mind ranges from the more sensitive reactions of Life in the metal and the plants up to its full organization in man, so in man himself there is the same ascending series, the preparation, if nothing more, of a higher and divine life."

What comes now is one of the most famous sentences of The Life Divine. "The animal is the living laboratory in which Nature has, it is said, worked out man."

This is a beautiful analogy. The animal itself is a living laboratory. Just as if you go to the laboratory of Physics and Chemistry, you can make experiments and produce results. Similarly, Nature produced an animal and that animal itself was a living laboratory. That body itself was used by Nature as a laboratory in which man was worked out. Gradually animal was so developed little by little, little by little, that out of various forms or various vessels of animals, ultimately, this human vessel has been framed and fashioned.

If so, Sri Aurobindo now says, "Man himself may well be a thinking and living laboratory in whom and with whose conscious co-operation she wills to work out the superman, the god." We shall now look upon each of our bodies as a living and thinking laboratory. Not just living. Animal was only a living laboratory in which man was worked out. But now man is both a living and thinking laboratory. So we can look upon our self, our body itself, as a laboratory, in which and with our conscious cooperation, Nature can work out miracles of the superman. Superman will not come out here suddenly, one day. It is in this body, in this laboratory. Each one of us has a possibility of this development. We are all growing towards that. And if you cooperate with it, that's what Sri Aurobindo says: "in whom and with whose conscious co-operation" If you cooperate with this, it will come very fast; the body will become very conscious that it is a laboratory. That is why Mother says one must take care of one's body. This body is a very precious instrument. We normally try to belittle the importance of the body. But that is a mistake. As I told you, even the formation of the eye takes so many millions of years, how much labour it involves. Now what to talk about all the organs of the body! To form every organ of the body, every cell of the body, every tissues of the body, it has taken millions and millions of years to make this body. Therefore this body is a living laboratory. How much Nature must have striven to make this body a thinking laboratory. It is a huge labour. So man may well be a living laboratory "in whom and with whose conscious co-operation she wills to work out the superman, the god. Or shall we not say, rather, to manifest God?" Each one of us has a capacity to manifest divine consciousness - God.

Now you see that the analogical argument has become perfect. As there, so here: the will-to-be. As there: the ascending series, so here the ascending series. As there the development of faculties and organs, so here the development of faculties and organs. The analogy is perfect.

Sri Aurobindo simply concludes this whole argument: "For if evolution is the progressive manifestation by Nature of that which slept or worked in her involved, it is also the overt realization of that which she secretly is." You remember the two words which we have found earlier, we have said that Matter is a veiled Life and Life is a veiled Mind. Veiled means sleeping. Not overt. Overt means that which is expressed outwardly. You may be inwardly a seer, a visionary, a painter. But in childhood it is only so inwardly. You may not be able to paint a beautiful picture outwardly. But inwardly that capacity to paint is sleeping. Therefore many good parents and good teachers allow the sleeping capacities to mature. They don't disturb, the latent faculties are nourished, in many different ways. A good parent or a good teacher does not force. Because by forcing, nurturing becomes difficult. A child should be gradually nurtured. If you find that your child has great visions parents should not disturb the capacity of visions. Don't force the child to have more and more visions now. Gradually let them mature and develop. They are sleeping at present and gradually they are developing.

Then what happens is, that which was involved, which was already there sleeping, gradually manifests outwardly. After ten years, fifteen years you suddenly find a beautiful artist. Like Lila. She can paint beautiful things. In fact all of you are good painters. Very nice paintings you have done. That is because in your being you had very good capacities and your teachers have been very wise in nourishing them. They are flowered. It is a beautiful crop you might say. From a human point of view if you regard every human being as a plant, and then we see the capacities you have developed, you can say there has been a very beautiful crop. A very rich crop of your faculties.