INVOLUTION AND EVOLUTION: Some Conceptual Issues in the Contexts of Indian Discourses

Abstract

This short essay attempts to examine the concept of evolution and involution as envisioned by Aurobindo Ghosh (1872-1950) in the line of Indian thinking that is pre-modern and Vedic thereby pre-dating what is usually held to be Indic and Hindu. The emphasis is on the interrelationship of the human consciousness and the energy founts of non-human nature. The Indian view of life-- heterogeneous and non-hegemonic-- insists on the acquisition of the higher spiritual state for all living and non-living being, and visualizes the entire cosmos as an aesthetic experience.