The Divine Shakti Carries Out All Actions in the Universe - Sri Aurobindo

07/01/2018

The ego-conception has its value in terms of a specific type of organization and action in the mental-vital-physical world. For those who are immersed in the ego-personality, there is a sense of complete individuality and separation from other forms and beings, and a consequent sense of opposition and competition. In an ultimate sense, however, there is no separate reality of each ego-personality–we are all constituted by and our actions carried out by the universal divine Power of the Supreme, the Divine Shakti.

Sri Aurobindo observes: “This is the nature of the divine Shakti that it is the timeless power of the Divine which manifests itself in time as a universal force creating, constituting, maintaining and directing all the movements and workings of the universe. This universal Power is apparent to us first on the lower levels of existence as a mental, vital and material cosmic energy of which all our mental, vital and physical activities are the operations.”

This is an essential recognition for the seeker to establish within his awareness in order to loosen the grip of the ego and allow the process of universalizing the awareness to take hold. “To see that we are not the originators of action but that it is rather this Power that acts in ourselves and in all others, not I and others the doers, but the one Prakriti, which is the rule of the Karmayoga, is also the right rule here.” Eventually the ego-sense has to be eliminated and replaced by this new standpoint from the universal view. “To see our actions as not our own but those of the divine Shakti working in the form of the lower Prakriti on the inferior levels of the conscious being, helps powerfully towards this change. And if we can do this, then the separation of our mental, vital and physical consciousness from that of other beings thins and lessens; the limitations of its workings remain indeed, but they are broadened and taken up into a large sense and vision of the universal working; the specialising and individualising differentiations of Nature abide for their own proper purpose, but are no longer a prison. The individual feels his mind, life and physical existence to be one with that of others amid all differences and one wit the total power of the spirit in Nature.”

At a certain level, this Oneness of all existence can be relatively easily seen and grasped. For instance if we reflect on the life of a tree, we can quickly recognize that it is not separate from and cannot exist absent sunlight, water, earth, nutrition and air. Take away any part of the universal creation and we do not have a tree! The unique form assumed by the tree is brought about as part of a larger manifestation and thus, it is also tied into the life cycle of insects, birds, fungi, and eventually animals and human beings. Similarly we can see in the animal kingdom the symbiotic relationships that develop between various animals who cannot exist or thrive without one another and all of them cannot exist without the framework of the biosphere, ecosphere, noosphere, that universal Nature has created for this manifestation.

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