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The Material Universe Is the Result of Consciousness, Not Its Cause · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  It is a human tendency rooted in our foundation and our physical
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  being to try to understand everything is being created
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  first and foremost from a basis in matter.
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  In the Taitarya Upanishad, a similar situation occurs when a
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  young seeker approaches his father to understand the nature
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  of existence. He is asked to focus on that
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  from which these creatures are born, whereby being born they
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  live, and to which they go hence and enter again, for that is the
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  eternal. His first insight was that
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  matter was the answer. He was then sent back to
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  continue his concentration and came to successively deeper
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  insights as to the source of existence.
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  Western scientists have followed a similar path.
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  They start from matter and look at the evolution of forms.
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  At some point they discover that this is insufficient and does
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  not truly answer the question as to the origin, nature and
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  mechanism of the universal creation.
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  Eventually they discovered that there is a strict encoding of
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  data in what is called DNA, and it is this encoded data which
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  determines the form. And the capabilities?
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  Of the form to be created, just as the physical box we call a
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  computer did not create purely from its physical substance the
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  software the computer code needed to carry out its.
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  Functions. So the physical bodies do not
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  create. The code that directs them in
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  their existence and action. The scientists continued to
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  follow. This thread and eventually.
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  Conclude that the. Physical form.
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  Is the result. Not the cause of conscious.
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  Existence they. Plot the vital energy and move
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  on, as did the. Student in the Tytteria
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  Upanishad to understand. That the plane of mind is.
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  More basic. Than the vital or physical
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  planes. And that.
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  There is yet behind that a causal plane and a plane of pure
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  existence, consciousness and bliss, from whence this entire
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  creation proceeds. Sri Aurobindo.
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  Observes quote we find. These higher worlds in our
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  vision and experience of them to be in no way based upon the
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  material universe, in no way it's results, but rather greater
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  terms of being larger and freer ranges of consciousness.
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  And all the action of the material plane looks more like
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  the result and not the origin of these greater terms derivatory
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  from them, even partly dependent on them in its evolutionary
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  endeavor. Immense ranges of powers,
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  influences, phenomena descend covertly upon us from the over
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  mind and the higher mental and vital ranges.
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  But of these only a part, a selection, as it were, or
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  restricted number, can stage and realize themselves in the order
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  of the physical world. The rest await their time and
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  proper circumstance for revelation in physical term and
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  form, for their part in the terrestrial evolution, which is
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  at the same time and evolution of all the powers of the Spirit.
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  Necessarily by terrestrial we do not mean this one Earth and it's
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  period of duration, but use Earth in the wider root sense of
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  the Vedantic pretty V the Earth principle creating habitations
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  of physical form for the soul. End Quote.
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  Reference Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of
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  Life, Chapter 6, Hidden Worlds and Evolutionary Forces, pages
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  1:44 to 1:45.