Equality and Oneness Are the Foundations Of a Divine Consciousness :

It may be useful to try to place ourselves, for the moment, in something akin to the divine standpoint rather than our own individual ego-personality, and try to understand what this means as to the perspective and understanding about our own role in the world and the unity of the entire creation.

Obviously it is not easily possible to make this leap without preparation, but we can at least work with different perspectives that will provide analogies to the situation. The first one is to imagine that the cells of our body are akin to separate individuals in the world. We know, from our standpoint experiencing the entire body, that each cell is part of a larger whole, a unified “oneness” if you will and what impacts one, impacts all, and thus, we need to treat each cell with respect and provide it what it needs to grow, thrive and contribute to the health and well-being of the whole.

The next one is the perspective of the impressionist artist. One can view a painting of Van Gogh, for instance, close up, and see all the individual single brush strokes. Close up they look somewhat “chaotic” and disorganized, but as one moves back from the painting, one reaches a perspective point where suddenly one sees the harmony and cohesiveness of the whole scene being communicated, and one can, for the moment, forget the individual brush strokes.

A third exercise is to take the position of the sun, and see the earth as a single unified whole, a planet with an eco-sphere and bio-sphere, all of it nourished and supported equally by the energy that the sun provides to the earth.

The central thread is that from the Divine standpoint, all creation is ONE and the Divine treats and supports the entire creation with equality.

Sri Aurobindo provides the relevance to the practice of the Yoga: “As long as we live in the ignorant seeming, we are the ego and are subject to the modes of Nature. Enslaved to appearances, bound to the dualities, tossed between good and evil, sin and virtue, grief and joy, pain and pleasure, good fortune and ill fortune, success and failure, we follow helplessly the iron or gilt and iron round of the wheel of Maya.”

“If, on the contrary, we live in the unifying reality of the Brahman, then we go beyond the ego and overstep Nature. For then we get back to our true self and become the spirit; in the spirit we are above the impulsion of Nature, superior to her modes and forces. Attaining to a perfect equality in the soul, mind and heart, we realise our true self of oneness–one with all beings, one too with that which expresses itself in them and in all that we see and experience. This equality and this oneness are the indispensable twin foundation we must lay down for a divine being, a divine consciousness, a divine action.”

“The Supreme Power, the one Eternal and Infinite is equal to all things and to all beings, and because it is equal, it can act with an absolute wisdom according to the truth of its works and its force and according to the truth of each thing and of every creature.”

Sri Aurobindo