SRI AUROBINDO AND ABSOLUTISM

accept the fact of individuation as the standing miracle of the
"universe, a comprehension of which would require the tran-
scending of our very conditions of individuality. Individuation
is not only real but is also highly significant. The typical busi-
ness of the universe lies in shaping, moulding, and developing
perfect individuals, so that the world may be characterised as a
"vale of soul-making" in the deepest sense oŁ the expression.
(Pringle Patdson's Idea of God, p. 260).

Sri Aurobindo agrees that individuality is not a mere
appearance or a vanishing quantity, or an illusory product o[
Ignorance,—it rather belongs to the fundamental structure oŁ
ultimate reality. The true individuality of the self persists even
after one secures spiritual liberation from entanglement in the
lower nature or apara prakrti. What disappears or is dissipated
after such liberation is the false individuality of the ego which
is a product of Ignorance or a formation of lower Nature. While
the ego is entrenched in a sense of separation from the rest of
the universe, the true individual participates in the life oŁ the
cosmic Self and is also aware of itself as inseparable from. the
supra-cosmic transcendent Divine. Sri Aurobindo is thus in
agreement with Visistadvaitavada in holding that true indivi-
duality is an eternal portion of God or a standing differentiation
of ultimate reality. But still in his view with regard to the
essence of the individual self, he is more at one with A dvaitavada
than with Visistadvaitavada. The individual self is in being
and essence identical with God and God is indivisibly present
in every individual. It is therefore eternally perfect and free
from all limitations; it is not subject to birth, growth and
decay but is rather placed above the flux of becoming. The
Individual Self is God himself in a certain poise of His being,
and may be said to differ from God as one among His many
poises or modes of being. Being identical with God in being
and essence, it diflers only in respect of form and function.
Every individual self is a centre of action of the Divine, and
functions as the medium of His self-manifestation.

The highest goal of the individual Self lies not simply in
attaining liberation or perfection, because it is eternally free and
perfect and one with the Divine. It is a mistake to suppose that
the Individual grows and develops with the process of evolution,^
because the true Individual is above the process of evolution.
Royce and Pringle Pattison consider true individuality to be
the product of evolution, because in their view the essence of
individuality lies in a unique organisation of growing ex-

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