The Life
Divine
A retired I.A.S. officer in Andhra was
struck by paralysis. He was an ardent devotee of Sri Aurobindo and he knew the
mantric power of His writings.
He asked his son to read out from The
Life Divine for an hour every day. On the 20th day, he was cured of his ailment.
This book is Sri Aurobindo's magnum opus, though the other four books He wrote
simultaneously are of great significance. A French writer said that no writer
had ever attempted to write five serious books simultaneously.
In this
book, He explains that MAN need not suffer from Karma if he chooses.
God,
He says, has not created pain in the universe. It is man's ego that feels the
pain and the moment one emerges out of ego, there is no pain or suffering for
him in life.
Our belief is Brahma created the world. Sri Aurobindo says
Brahma is a god of the Overmind. He cannot create the universe. He explains that
the universe was created by Supermind which is above the Overmind. The Overmind
and the Supermind are separated by a golden lid.
This book is divided
into two books of three parts with 56 chapters.
Each chapter here is a
unit by itself and can be considered a book by itself, especially the last
chapter `The Divine Life’.
The gist of each chapter is usually given in
the first paragraph.
Most of the paragraphs will be given as a summary of
one sentence in the last sentence.
One of the main ideas here is Jivatma
is Paramatma, which is different from our traditional belief that Jivatma has no
eternity.
We know of two sides of life – positive and negative. Sri
Aurobindo says there is nothing that is negative. We take a whole and divide it
into two and call them positive and negative.
In this book, Sri Aurobindo
offers a Theory of creation and offers logical and rational arguments in support
of it. The general assumption is God has made man as the potter shapes his pot
and breathed life into it. Sri Aurobindo says that it may pass as theology but
cannot be offered as a rational argument.