Many religious and philosophical systems view life as something illusory, misleading or even something evil to be avoided, controlled, and eventually dropped in order to achieve some kind of other-worldly salvation. It is clear that the energy of life has been an obstacle for seekers throughout the ages, which has led to the attempt to “cut the knot” rather than untie it. We are told that by avoiding desire, and gaining strict control over the life energy, we can eventually achieve salvation, overcome the illusion that created the manifestations of life, and become one with the motionless, all-peaceful, all blissful reality of which life is only a distorted image.
Sri Aurobindo pointedly asks “Why has the Eternal wantonly inflicted this evil, brought this delirium or insanity upon Himself or else upon the creatures brought into being by His terrible all-deluding Maya?”
When we move our attention from the obstacles, issues, and problems that life presents to us, we begin to see the real intent and meaning of life from a positive perspective, that “essentially it is a form of the one cosmic Energy, a dynamic movement or current of it positive and negative, a constant act or play of the Force which builds up forms, energises them by a continual stream of stimulation and maintains them by an unceasing process of disintegration and renewal of their substance.”
Life and death are then not irreconcilable opposites, but actually death is simply one process of life and life continues, in a new form, renewing itself in the process of breakdown and reconstitution that is the one constant of life.
“All existence here is a universal Life that takes form of Matter.” Ultimately it is the reflection of the Chit-Shakti of the Ultimate reality–Consciousness-Force manifested into the individualized, apparently separated forms created by Supermind through the action of Mind within Life and Matter.
reference: Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Chapter 19, Life
