The First Movement of Aspiration for the Divine

“Seek thou to know that from which these creatures are born, whereby being born they live and to which they go hence and enter again; for that is the Ete
al.” Thus goes the teaching of Varuna to his son Bhrigu in the Taittiriya Upanishad (translation by Sri Aurobindo in The Upanishads, pg. 275). We rarely stop and wonder about how it is we exist, and for what reason. When we do have such thoughts, they are frequently, in fact mainly, limited to the physical processes of birth, life and death, and do not focus on the larger picture of the universal creation and our role within that larger creation.

When an individual begins to consider the idea that there must be a rationale behind existence, that somehow this vast creation is not purposeless, and that it has not arisen out of nothing and somehow developed the entire complex world and, indeed, the entire creation, his entire perspective on life begins to change. Ordinarily we live in a world of illusion, cut off from this larger reality of existence, and fixated solely on our little lives in the pre-defined and limited life that we are told is the sole important thing for us to focus on. Family, school, career, survival and enjoyment occupy most people. A few, those who have speculated on the meaning of all of this, begin to seek for more, for answers, for understanding, and for unifying our lives with the greater purpose we somehow feel is out there.

The Mother writes: “The first movement of aspiration is this: you have a kind of vague sensation that behind the universe there is something which is worth knowing, which is probably (for you do not yet know it) the only thing worth living for, which can connect you with the Truth; something on which the universe depends but which does not depend upon the universe, something which still escapes your comprehension but which seems to you to be behind all things…. I have said here much more than the majority of people feel about the thing, but this is the beginning of the first aspiration — to know that, not to live in this perpetual falsehood where things are so perverted and artificial, this would be something pleasant; to find something that is worth living for.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Growing Within: The Psychology of Inner Development, Chapter III Growth of Consciousness Basic Requisites, pp. 34-35