Technical Talks by Baba

Microvita

Calcutta, 1989. During the usual workers’ meeting philosophy session, Baba asked me a new question:

BABA: Birth, death and reproduction are the signs of animation. What is the status of microvita in the case of animation and inanimation? (The General Secretary waves at me. I step forward.)

ME: Positive microvita are most important in the evolution of animate entities—as they tend toward consciousness. Negative microvita play the leading role for inanimate entities.

BABA: Positive and negative microvita influence living beings, and life is dormant in inanimate entities. Positive microvita and negative microvita can only function on the periphery of inanimate entities. Otherwise, positive and negative microvita have no direct relation with inanimate entities.

ME: Now I understand. Neutral microvita have the dominant position in inanimate entities.

BABA: Can inanimate be transmuted into animate?

ME: Yes.

BABA: What is the covert role of microvita in the process? How does Cosmic Mind guide the process?

ME: The Cosmic Mind does not act directly, but through the medium of microvita.

BABA: Does Cosmic Mind take the help of microvita?

ME: Yes.

BABA: Microvita are created in the introversial phase only…. You made a very good effort. (He points at His forehead, saying,) You should go on thinking deeply to get the final answer…. Now come forward. (I do so. He places His hand on my head. An indescribable blissful feeling fills my head, and then runs down and up my spine.) He’s a good boy. Yesss.

The reporting finished after a few minutes. I then immediately sat for meditation. Though the feeling He gave me continued during meditation, my wandering thoughts related only to our conversation. It occurred to me that inanimate entities consist of neutral or dormant microvita. The inanimate entities are gradually converted into animate entities by the effect of a smattering of positive microvita naturally emanating from Cosmic Mind.

Two weeks later. Hsinchu, Taiwan. It was 3:00 in the morning. The Margis had gone home only thirty minutes before, full of my stories and Tantric talk. Only brother Yatindra and I were left in the yoga house. I desperately needed to sleep, but since Yatindra (a scientist) was eager to discuss more about microvita, I thought it would be rude to disappoint him. Though my eyes were closed and I was reclining on the floor, I went on trying to answer his questions, my mind constantly slipping in and out of waking consciousness.

Suddenly my body uncontrollably bolted upright. I was blasted awake.

“What happened, Dada?” hesaid.

“I don’t know. As I drifted in and out of sleep, my mind shifted into super-drive without warning and I understood something I never un¬ derstood before. Something perhaps no one except Baba understood before.”

“W hat is it!” Yatindra was even more excited than I was.

“Animate and inanimate are not interchangeable with sainchara and prati-sainchara (the extroversial and introversial phases of creation). I can see this great misunderstanding existing among our Margii philosophers. We always thought that sainchara (extroversial phase) was the creation and evolution of inanimate objects like ether, air, light, liquids and solids; and that prati-sainchara (introversial phase) was the evolution of animate entities like plants, animals and humans. But I’ve just seen that sainchara is the evolution of physical matter, and that prati-sainchara is the evol ution of psychic entities—I mean unit minds.

“Now, here’s the crux of this topic: The association of a unit mind with a group of physical cells is what wecall an animate entity. But the matter of those so-called animate cells is actually still in the sainchara phase. It istheunitmind alonewhich isin the prati-sainchara phase.”

“But that’s completely different than what we’ve always imagined!” Yatindra said.

“Wait,” I said, looking more carefully at the revelation still erupt¬ ing in my mind. I talked at locomotive speed, while Yatindra took notes. “There’s more. When a human being practices meditation, she or he may convert the most subtle physical cells of the body into mind stuff— this is one of the turning points from sainchara into prati- sainchara, from matter to mind. Of course, this is possible because everything is ultimately the expression of Cosmic Mind, even inanimate matter, though its unit mind is dormant.

“Now, microvita also have minds and bodies. Their minds are in the prati-sainchara phase; their bodies in sainchara. Of course, the bodies of bigger microvita are made of smaller microvita, but ultimately when we get down to the smallest constituent microvita, we find those having no solid or liquid body, only mind with a luminous body. Even those luminous microvita bodies are in the sain char a phase, while their minds are in prati-sainchara.

“In the case of inanimate entities, the minds of the microvita con¬ stituents are inactive/unexpressed/dormant/neutral. In the case of ani¬ mate entities, the microvita minds are predominantly active, and those active microvita minds are either positive or negative.

“To speak of a microvita as being positive or negative means that the mind of that microvita is positive or negative—not the body. To speak of a human being or a goat does not mean their respective bodies, but rather the human mind or the goat mind. The associated bodies of microvita, human beings and goats are all physical entities moving in the sanitary phase.

“Listen to this: Sainchara and prati-sainchara are functioning within each and every animate entity on varying levels. In a single human being there may be billions of separate entities independently evolving within both sainchara and prati-sainchara. Positive and negative microvita affect unit minds, and unit minds affect their associated physical bodies. In that way, the body of an animate entity can become diseased or cured of disease by microvita. Microvita do not directly affect those bodies, but rather, the minds associated with those bodies. The individual atoms and molecules which serve as the building blocks of a living cell remain unaffected by positive and negative microvita.

“Just as a ball circling on the end of a string has both centripetal and centrifugal force (depending on one’s perspective), so sainchara and prati-sainchara come into existence simultaneously. They cannot be separated from each other. For that reason there is no conflict that microvita (whose minds are created in prati-sainchara) serve as the components or building blocks of saincharic matter. But those microvita serving to make up inanimate objects must be predominantly neutral.”

Yatindra threw down his notes, yelled, “Baba!,” jumped up and started dancing around the room.

Perhaps this is the beginning of what Baba meant when He said to me, “You should go on thinking deeply to get the final answer.”

One more small but interesting thought also occurred to me: Baba directed many of His books to be compiled into different series. For example, all His books and articles on Prout come together to make about 1400 pages of Prout in a Nutshell having over twenty volumes. Similarly we’ve got Nutshell series on Microvita, Neo-Humanism, Ananda Marga general philosophy, and so on. Margis often comment, “Only Baba could call this number of volumes nutshells.” Now I un¬ derstand: He titles them nutshells because He wants us to think deeply, research and thoroughly expand His ideas.