SOURCE: "The Central Argument of Aurobindo's The Life Divine," in Philosophy East and West, Vol. XXXV, No. 3, July, 1985, pp. 271-84.

In the following essay, Phillips contests Aurobindo's theory that the incompatibility between evil and the Brahman in the present state of evolution proves that a higher level of evolution—divine life—is inevitable.

… because the Non-Existence is a concealed Existence, the Inconscience a concealed Consciousness, the insensibility a masked and dormant Ananda, these secret realities must emerge; the hidden Overmind and Supermind too must in the end fulfill themselves in this apparently opposite organization from a dark Infinite.

Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine

Sri Aurobindo (Ghose), 1872-1950, a mystic in the Indian tradition of yoga, is the formulator of a world view of great originality and breadth, which has now received scholarly attention both in India and the West. Many of the commentators point out that Aurobindo's mysticism...