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towards self-revelation, the change of becoming is marked by this kind of progress. That is its other property. Thus the cosmos or world, jagat, can be seen as a mobile reality, a becoming which is not only always in transit, transitory, but also transiting towards a self-realization, transitional. Here, the sense of Isha as "lord," master of will, becomes evident. Thus, in this universe of movement where nothing is still, in each individual instance which knows itself to be separate, dispersed and discrete in space and time, the one infinite Being that alone is, resides as Lord, conscious agent and Master of Will, impelling towards development and identification of consciousness. That is the drift of the first verse of the Isha Upanishad as interpreted by Sri Aurobindo.
A poem by Sri Aurobindo brings out this idea at the most basic level of material existence. This is a poem titled "Electron":
The electron on which forms and worlds are built,
Leaped into being, a particle of God. A spark from the eternal Energy spilt, It is the Infinite's blind minute abode.
In that small flaming chariot Shiva rides. The one devised innumerably to be; His oneness in invisible forms he hides, Time's tiny temples to eternity.
Atom and molecule in their unseen plan Buttress an edifice of strange onenesses, Crystal and plant, insect and beast and man, - Man on whom the World-Unity shall seize,
Widening his soul-spark to an epiphany Of the timeless vastness of Infinity.
This poem exemplifies very well the first stanza of the Isha Upanishad. Each electron is its own universe of becoming within the universal becoming. In each of these, it is the Lord (isha), Master of conscious Will, who inhabits or resides. We see clearly the mobile properties of the electron-it is always in movement and undergoing reconfigurations of aggregation and disaggregation. In this sense, it is a transitoery becoming in a transitory cosmos. But, this transitoriness is also secretly upheld and impelled by the Conscious Will which resides at its center, motiving an evolution towards a critical juncture of conscious self-emergence. The Lord resides in every form of cosmic becoming, down conceptually to its particulate building blocks because it is the Lord who, as Master of Will, impels each of these becomings independently towards His self-manifestation in the cosmos. This residence and willful control, acting through the motions of cosmic becomings, translates to an evolution of consciousness. This is the meaning of cosmos, the
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| SR No. | 007005 |
| Book Title | World of Philosophy |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave |
| Publisher | Shanti Prakashan |
| Publication Year | 2011 |
| Total Pages | 1002 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 30 MB |