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Insights into Sri Aurobindo’s Early Yogic Life—by Sandeep

by RY Deshpande on Sun 01 Mar 2009 03:51 AM IST | Permanent Link | Cosmos

This article is an attempt to demonstrate how Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual realizations could be presented through a non-devotional approach by developing a proper metaphysical background. For the sake of brevity, this article will not repeat the definitions of concepts which are already well-known within the Integral Yoga community. It will only cover the Sri Aurobindo’s yogic life until the departure to Pondicherry. Lastly, it should be viewed as a skeleton or template to be expanded rather than a complete description of that period of his life.

General outline of the various sections is as follows:

· Structure of the Universe

· Structure of Man

· Change of consciousness: How it occurs due to Yoga.

· Milestones towards realization: Signs in the life of a Yogi.

· Specific Realizations

· Sri Aurobindo’s realizations

· Comparison with other Yogas

I: Structure of the Universe

The Divine has three aspects:

1. Transcendent Divine which is above Prakriti: Also called as Absolute, Transcendent,the Para Purusha of Upanishads, the Purushottama of the Gita, Paratpara Purusha, Avyaktat param Avyaktam, Adya Shakti.

2. Cosmic Divine within Prakriti: It is the Cosmic Self and Spirit that is in and behind all things and beings, from which and in which all is manifested in the universe—although it is now a manifestation in the Ignorance. This again has two parts:

a. Immutable Purusha in Prakriti: Also called as Nirguna Brahmana, Akshara Purusha, Static Brahman.

b. Mutable Purusha in Prakriti: Also called as Saguna Brahmana, Kshara Purusha, Dynamic Brahman. [1.1] [1.2]

3. Psychic being: It is the Spirit and Master of our own being within us whom we have to serve and learn to express his will in all our movements so that we may grow out of the Ignorance into the Light.

The correspondence with the Trinity in the Christian doctrine is: [1.3]

a) Transcendental—Father.

b) Cosmic—Son.

c) Individual—Holy Ghost.

The Seven Planes of Prakriti are as follows:

1. Sat or Existence

2. Chit-Tapas or Consciousness

3. Ananda or Bliss

4. Mahat or Supermind or Truth Consciousness

5. Mind (from Overmind down)

6. Life or Prana

7. Matter.

The first four are Para (higher) and the last three are Apara (lower).

It is the Overmind which creates the division of Sachchidananda into three, as well as the division between Saguna and Nirguna Brahmana. It is this division that has led past seers to perceive the Divine in different ways. This division can only disappear after the mind has ascended to the Supramental consciousness. [1.4]

II: Structure of Man

Man is said to be microcosm of the world and has within him all the latent faculties which are present in the Universe. That is why the Vedas say that the Gods are born twice—once in the world, and then within man with the awakening of these latent faculties.

Man has two projections of the Divine within him: the Jivatman and the Psychic Being.

The Jivatman is the silent Self which impartially supports all action in the being. It is also called the Central being, the amśah sanātanah of the Gita. The Jivatman puts out a representative of himself on all the three lower planes, which are called the mental, vital and physical Purushas.

The psychic being is the aspect of the Divine which evolves through reincarnation and holds together the various sheaths which form the personality. It is also known as the Chaitya Purusha.

Man in Prakriti has three bodies which combine the five sheaths:

1. Physical Body or Sthula Sharira.

2. Subtle Body or Suksma Sharira.

3. Causal Body or Karana Sharira.

III: Change of Consciousness

The key question which may be asked is “Can human nature change?” and the answer from the Yogic standpoint is “Yes”. In Integral Yoga, this is called change of consciousness.

The process of meditation brings immobility of consciousness which generates Chit-Tapas or Agni. This heat of Tapasya produces a change in consciousness due to a more concentrated manifestation of the higher Sachchidananda principles on the lower planes. [3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4] Sri Aurobindo explains:

It all depends upon where the consciousness places itself and concentrates itself. If the consciousness places or concentrates itself within the ego, you are identified with the ego—if in the mind, it is identified with the mind and its activities and so on. If the consciousness puts its stress outside, it is said to live in the external being and becomes oblivious of its inner mind and vital and inmost psychic; if it goes inside, puts its centralising stress there, then it knows itself as the inner being or, still deeper, as the psychic being; if it ascends out of the body to the planes where self is naturally conscious of its wideness and freedom it knows itself as the Self and not the mind, life or body. It is this stress of consciousness that makes all the difference. That is why one has to concentrate the consciousness in heart or mind in order to go within or go above. It is the disposition of the consciousness that determines everything, makes one predominantly mental, vital, physical or psychic, bound or free, separate in the Purusha or involved in the Prakriti. [3.5]

IV: Milestones towards Realization

Man is a mental being, whose mind-dominated outer being is alone active while the inner sheaths are asleep and unknown. Through the process of Yoga, the inner sheaths become distinct and active. As the Vedic Rishis said, Yoga is about “making four bowls out of one”. [4.1]

Although there are a wide variety of spiritual experiences, the following milestones can be distinguished, even though their order may vary or repeat:

1. Inner being awakens with a withdrawal from the outer consciousness. This brings a feeling of rigidity, stiffness or numbness. [4.2]

2. A feeling of void or emptiness when the inner being becomes calm and peaceful, where Tamas is being replaced by Sama, which Sri Aurobindo refers to as emptying the cup. [4.3]

3. Inner being becomes detached from outer being creating a state of double consciousness or Udasinata (indifference). [4.4]

4. Inner being opens inward to the psychic being.

5. Inner being opens upward to the Jivatman possibly leading to the realization of Brahman or Atman. (Nirvana, Cosmic consciousness).

6. Inner being gains mastery over outer being and starts to mould it into a plastic instrument. This is referred to as a reversal of consciousness because it contrasts with the initial state where the outer being was controlling or suppressing the inner being. [4.5]

V: Specific Realizations

Divine Union is of three types, corresponding to the Trinity mentioned above:

· Psychic transformation which corresponds to the personal Divine.

· Nirvana and Cosmic Consciousness which fall under the Immanent type.

· Transcendental Consciousness which is of the Transcendent type.

V:1 Psychic Transformation

When the veil is broken, the psychic being behind the inner being comes to the front and takes charge of the further spiritual development. It turns all other parts of the being upward towards the Divine. The opening of the psychic being is often accompanied by the dream of a new-born child, and its further influence is beheld in the inner worlds as a burning fire. [5.B]

V:2 Nirvana

In the state of Nirvana, the soul experiences union with the Nirguna Brahmana and the Sat principle manifests within the spiritualized Mind. As the principle of Sachchidananda is reflected on all the lower planes, it is possible to have a realization of the Atman on any of the higher mental planes without reaching the overmind or the supermind. Since only the Sat (Existence) principle has manifested, one correspondingly feels as if the world exists but all forms within it are illusions. The cognition of the world returns when Chit-Tapas also starts to manifest within the spiritualized mind. [5.C]

V:3 Cosmic Consciousness

The state of cosmic consciousness can be experienced on any of the planes below the Overmind. If one opens to the cosmic vital or mind without any opening above at the Sahasradala Chakra, then one enters what is known as the Intermediate Zone where one must guard against influences from the beings of those planes. [5.D]

The true state of cosmic consciousness is experienced after the opening to the higher mental planes and in this state, the soul merges with the Saguna Brahmana. This brings about an expansion of the mind, life and matter into the cosmic mind, life and matter accompanied by the disappearance of the circumconscient. [5.E] This experience can differ based on how much individuality is retained. If the personality is completely dissolved in the Universal Being, then it is called laya (dissolution) or moksha (liberation). [5.F]

As regards to Cosmic Consciousness, the ascent process in older Yogas is different from the one experienced under Integral Yoga. In older Yogas, the state of Samadhi was defined as one where the Kundalini ascended to the top of the head, and after which no further exploration of the higher mental planes was attempted.

The ordinary yoga does not go beyond the spiritual mind—people feel at the top of the head the joining with the Brahman, but they are not aware of a consciousness above the head. In the same way in the ordinary yoga one feels the ascent of the awakened lower consciousness (Kundalini) to the Brahmarandhra where the Prakriti joins the Brahman-consciousness, but they do not feel the descent…. The reason is that the old yogins when they went above the spiritual mind passed into Samadhi, which means that they made no attempt to be conscious in these higher planes—heir aim being to pass away into the Superconscient and not to bring the Superconscient into the waking consciousness, which is that of my yoga. [5.G]

In Integral Yoga, by contrast, the subtle body which has been hitherto been confined to the physical body rises and takes a stand above the head. From there, it directs the flow of higher consciousness to the body below.

It is like the rising above the head and taking the station there—which I and others have experienced in this yoga. When I spoke of it first, people stared and thought I was talking nonsense. [5.H]

This experience of the breaking through into the Superconscient, the passage from a past that binds us hand and foot to a seeing future, is the starting point of Sri Aurobindo's yoga. Instead of being underneath, forever weighed down, we are above, breathing in the open: The consciousness is no longer in the body or limited by it; it feels itself not only above it but extended in space; the body is below its high station and enveloped in its extended consciousness… it becomes only a circumstance in the largeness of the being, an instrumental part of it… in the definitive realization of a higher station above there is really no more coming down except with a part of the consciousness which may descend to work in the body or on the lower-levels while the permanently high-stationed being above presides over all that is experienced and done. [5.I]

The conscious centre of our being, our thought, our will and action, even the original force of our sensations and emotions rise out of the body and mind and take a free station above them. No longer have we the sensation of living in the body, but are above it as its lord, possessor or Ishwara and at the same time encompass it with a wider consciousness than that of the imprisoned physical sense. Now we come to realise with a very living force of reality, normal and continuous, what the sages meant when they spoke of the soul carrying the body or when they said that the soul is not in the body, but the body in the soul. It is from above the body and not from the brain that we shall ideate and will; the brain-action will become only a response and movement of the physical machinery to the shock of the thought-force and will-force from above. [5.J]

V:4 Transcendental Consciousness

In this state, the soul experiences union with the Absolute or Transcendental Divine, whose two aspects are the Saguna and Nirguna Brahmana. This realization is necessary because it is only then that the soul truly possesses the unity of Sachchidananda, and is able to reconcile the dual realizations of Nirvana and Cosmic Consciousness. It is from this state of integral knowledge that the soul can commence the Supramental transformation.

...but the impersonal Self has no power to change or divinise the nature. For that one has to go beyond the impersonal Self and seek after the Divine who is both personal and impersonal and beyond these two aspects.[5.K]

VI: Sri Aurobindo’s Realizations

Based on what is known, we can identify the following stages:

VI:1 Intimations of Infinity

Although Sri Aurobindo has said he had no spiritual inclinations within him, he did seem to have intimations of infinity at various times before he took up Yoga.

a) On arrival at Apollo Bunder in Bombay, a vast peace and calm descended upon him.

b) During the first year at Baroda, the possibility of a major accident when he suddenly felt a Being of Light emerge from within him.

c) While visiting the Shankaracharya temple in Srinagar, he had a second realization of Infinite.

He had a melodious, girlish voice which indicates a developed throat chakra. He was also said to have the eyes of a mystic. All these are outward indications of a well-developed subtle body.

VI:2 Psychic Transformation was Absent

Sri Aurobindo did not seem to have undergone a psychic transformation. Presumably, this was because he was an Avatar and hence already outside the evolutionary cycle. This may also account for the statement he made after Nirvana that he heard a voice from above (Jivatman) and not from the heart (psychic being).

When I was leaving Bombay for Calcutta, I asked Lele what I should do about my sadhana. He kept silent for a while, probably waiting to hear a voice from within, and then replied, "Meditate at a fixed time and hear the voice in the heart." I didn't hear any voice from the heart but a quite different one from above, and dropped meditation at a fixed hour because meditation was going on all the time. [6.A]

VI:3 Experience of Nirvana

Sri Aurobindo describes how Nirvana occurred before any ascent to the overhead planes:

I myself had my experience of Nirvana and silence in the Brahman, etc. long before there was any knowledge of the overhead spiritual planes; it came first simply by an absolute stillness and blotting out as it were of all mental, emotional and other inner activities—the body continued indeed to see, walk, speak and do its other business, but as an empty automatic machine and nothing more. [6.B]

VI:4 Nirvana led to a Guided Life

After Nirvana, Sri Aurobindo began living a guided life in which he received instructions from his inner guide on a variety of topics.

After my separation from Lele, I had to rely on my inner guide. The inner guide led me through many mistakes. For days and days together I would follow wrong lines and come to know only at the end that it was all a mistake. At that time, I was making all sorts of experiments in order to see what truth there was in various methods. [6.C]

This guidance turned out to be accurate in several other situations:

1. He was told in prison that India would be free of British rule. He repeated these words in the Uttarpara speech, in the letter to his countrymen before withdrawal to Chandernagore, and also while persuading A.B. Purani in 1917 to give up the freedom struggle and join him in Pondicherry. For him, it was a known truth long before actual independence was won in 1947.

2. He was told that Chittaranjan Das would work for his release and that he would be freed from prison. The truth of these words is evident in his carefree demeanour within prison.

3. He received the Adesh (Divine Command) to leave British-controlled India and settle first in Chandernagore and then Pondicherry.

VI:5 Outer Nature is unchanged after Nirvana

The state of Nirvana had brought calm to his inner being but his outer nature was still untransformed. This is indicated in his memoir of prison life.

Before imprisonment I was in the habit of sitting down for meditation for an hour in the morning and evening. In this solitary prison, not having anything else to do, I tried to meditate for a longer period. But for those unaccustomed it is not easy to control and steady the mind pulled in a thousand directions. Somehow I was able to concentrate for an hour and half or two, later the mind rebelled while the body too was fatigued. At first the mind was full of thoughts of many kinds. Afterwards devoid of human conversation and an insufferable listlessness due to absence of any subject of thought the mind gradually grew devoid of the capacity to think. There was a condition when it seemed a thousand indistinct ideas were hovering round the doors of the mind but with gates closed; one or two that were able to get through were frightened by the silence of these mental states and quietly running away. In this uncertain dull state I suffered intense mental agony. [6.D]

Amal Kiran was surprised as to how Sri Aurobindo could face such distress when he had already achieved Nirvana. Here is the explanation he received:

While reading Sri Aurobindo's Bengali book of jail-reminiscences Karakahini (Tales of Prison-Life), many readers have been puzzled by certain passages depicting the distressed state of mind in which Sri Aurobindo found himself.

Knowing that already before going to jail he had the experience of Nirvana shortly after his meeting with the Maharashtrian Yogi Lele in Baroda, one is apt to wonder how the distressed state could ever occur.

"My experience of peace and calm after my first contact with Lele never left me, but in my outer nature there were many agitations and every time I had to make an effort to establish peace and calm there. Ever since that early experience the whole object of my Yoga has been to change this nature into the mould of the inner realisation." [6.E]

Sri Aurobindo also describes the reasons why his inner guide put him through such suffering in Alipore jail: [6.D]

1) First, He showed me the state of mind in which prisoners condemned to solitary cells move towards insanity…

2) His second purpose: it was to reveal and expose before my mind its own weakness so that I might get rid of it for ever…

3) The third purpose was to give me this lesson that my yoga practices would not be done by my personal effort, but that a spirit of reverence (Sraddha) and complete self-surrender (ātma-samarpaņa) were the road to attain perfection in yoga…

VI:6 How Cosmic Consciousness was Experienced

Sri Aurobindo was quite unconscious of his body for many years, as we read in this exchange of letters with Nagin Doshi.

Nagin: During the state of self-realisation very little sense remains of my body. I do not know what it does or where it lies.

Sri Aurobindo: That is usual. I was in that way unconscious of the body for many years.

Nagin: It also happens that when the experience is of a voidness I feel the whole body to be as light as cotton-wool.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. it becomes like that. In the end you feel as if you had no body but were spread out in the vastness of space as an infinite consciousness and existence - or as if the body were only a dot in that consciousness. [6.F]

His general conduct after the stay in Alipore jail, including smoking and wine-drinking, must be viewed in the light of the fact that he was not totally conscious of his physical body.

VI:7 Transcendental Consciousness

He had also attained the state of transcendental consciousness which was necessary in order to make further progress towards the Supramental ascent.

…To the other two realisations, that of the supreme Reality with the static and dynamic Brahman as its two aspects and that of the higher planes of consciousness leading to the Supermind he was already on his way in his meditations in the Alipore jail. [6.G]

VI:8 Supramental Ascent

After harmonizing the various realizations (static, dynamic and transcendental), Sri Aurobindo began work on the supramental transformation. This part will not be covered in this article.

… to realise and also to manifest the Divine in the world, bringing down for the purpose a yet unmanifested Power,—such as the supermind,—a harmonisation of all three (psychic transformation, cosmic realization, transcendental realization) becomes imperative. [6.H]

VII: Comparison with other Yogas

VII:1 Liberation vs Perfection

The goal of Vedanta, Buddhism or other Yoga practices was the dissolution of ego into the universal Atman and the ending of the cycle of rebirth, leading to the states of Jivanmukta and Paramahansa. The mind was spiritualized, perhaps with an expansion into the cosmic mind and vital, and then the Yogi departed into a Oneness leaving Prakriti unchanged.

Sri Aurobindo made a clear distinction between liberation and perfection. Instead of being content with liberation, he choose to go further to attain the goal of perfection by realizing Sachchidananda through the supermind, first by ascent to the supermind and then descent to transform lower nature. [7.1]

VII:2 Change of Nature

In the older Yogas, the vital remained unchanged:

…Then about the vital of the Paramhansas. It is said that their vital behaves either like a child (Ramakrishna) or like a madman or like a demon or like something inert (cf. Jadabharata). [7.2]

VII:3 Occult Powers

In old Yogas, one acquired powers known as Ashta-siddhi which were mental or vital in nature. Sri Aurobindo received a program known as Sapta-Chatusthaya which included the perfection of all parts of the being.

The astasiddhis [eight perfections] as obtained in the ordinary yoga are vital powers or, as in the Rajayoga, mental siddhis. Usually they are uncertain in their application and precarious depending on the maintenance of the process by which they were attained. [7.3]

VII:4 Ascent-Descent

As already described in the section on Cosmic Consciousness, the emphasis of older Yogas was on a limited ascent of the Kundalini through the Chakras rather than a corresponding ascent of the various sheaths as well.

The ascent of the Kundalini—not its descent, so far as I know—is a recognised phenomenon, there is one that corresponds in our Yoga, the feeling of the consciousness ascending from the vital or physical to meet the higher consciousness. This is not necessarily through the cakras but is often felt in the whole body. Similarly the descent of the higher consciousness is not felt necessarily or usually through the chakras but as occupying the whole head, neck, chest, abdomen, body. [7.4]

Bibliography:

[1.1] Sri Aurobindo, Essays on Gita, Beyond the Modes of Nature, p. 209

[1.2] Sri Aurobindo, The Mother, pp. 64-66

[1.3] Letters on Yoga, p. 510

[1.4] Letters on Yoga, p. 259

[3.1] Letters on Yoga, p. 239-240

[3.2] Letters on Yoga, p. 252

[3.3] Letters on Yoga, p. 1161

[3.4] Letters on Yoga, p. 1080

[3.5] Letters on Yoga, p. 235-236

[4.1] Rig Veda, 1.20.6

[4.2] Letters on Yoga, pp. 992 and 1029

[4.3] Letters on Yoga, pp. 917-922.

[4.4] Letters on Yoga, pp. 1003, 1004, 1055.

[4.5] Letters on Yoga, pp. 1025-1026, 912.

[5.A] Letters on Yoga, p. 1165-1166

[5.B] Letters of Yoga, p. 981, 987

[5.C] Letters on Yoga, p. 901, 916, 54, 105

[5.D] Letters on Yoga, p. 1052

[5.E] The Life Divine, p. 541-542

[5.F] The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 395

[5.G] Letters on Yoga, p. 110

[5.H] Letters on Yoga, p. 109

[5.I] Satprem, Adventures of Consciousness, p. 192

[5.J] The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 470

[5.K] Letters on Yoga, p. 1009

[6.A] Nirodbaran, Talks with Sri Aurobindo, 10th December 1938

[6.B] On Himself, p. 116

[6.C] Nirodbaran, Talks with Sri Aurobindo, 5 January 1939

[6.D] Sri Aurobindo, Tales of Prison Life

[6.E] Sethna, Aspects of Sri Aurobindo, p. 150

[6.F] Nagin Doshi: Guidance from Sri Aurobindo, p. 64

[6.G] Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, p. 64

[6.H] Letters on Yoga, p. 511

[7.1] Letters on Yoga, p. 95

[7.2] On Himself, p. 118

[7.3] Letters on Yoga, p. 78

[7.4] On Himself, p. 111

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Re: Insights into Sri Aurobindo’s Early Yogic Life—by Auroman

by RY Deshpande on Sun 01 Mar 2009 12:10 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Apropos of some of the early experiences of Sri Aurobindo let me reproduce here two pieces of conversation recorded by AB Purani, Evening Talks, 28 June 1926. This was just a few months before Sri Aurobindo’s ‘retirement’ on 24 November 1926.

~ RYD

Disciple: Moti Babu has related that when you were five years old you got a vision of a great light at Darjeeling and you became unconscious.

Sri Aurobindo: And then, what happened further? (After some time) All that is a legend. I told him something because he was constantly asking me about my childhood. I had no such experience of light when I was a child. My uncle told me that I was very bright, but I have no recollection of those days and if you want the truth it was not light but darkness that I saw at Darjeeling. I was lying down one day when I saw suddenly a great darkness rushing into me and enveloping me and the whole of the universe. What I told Moti Babu was that after that I had a great Tamas—darkness—always hanging on to me all along my stay in England. I believe that darkness had something to do with the Tamas that came upon me. It left me only when I was coming back to India.

If people were to know all the truth about my life they would never believe that such a man could come to anything.

Disciple: Moti Babu related to me about your conversion to Christianity—how one day when you did no attend Church the priest asked you about it next day and then you did not make any reply but simply wept.

Sri Aurobindo: What is all this legend? I never became a Christian and never used to go to Church. Who has built up this fantastic story?

Disciple: Moti Babu was telling us.

Sri Aurobindo: I told him something quite different and the manuscript which he sent here did not contain any account of the light I saw when I was five!

The only thing that happened was there was once a meeting of non-Conformist priests at Camberland when we were staying in England. The old lady in whose house we were living took me there. In such meeting after the prayers are over all disperse and devout people generally remain a little longer afterwards and it is at that time that conversions are made.

I was feeling completely bored. Then a priest approached me and put me some questions. I did not give any reply. Then they all shouted out, "He is saved, he is saved," and began to pray for me and offer thanks to God! I did not know anything. Then the priest came to me and asked me to pray. I was never in the habit of praying but somehow I did it in the manner in which children recite their prayers before sleep, in order to keep up an appearance. That was the only thing. But I did not use to attend Church. I was then about ten years. The old lady's son, Mr. Drewett never used to meddle in these affairs because he was a man of common sense. But he went away to Australia and we came to India.

When we were staying in London this old lady used to have daily family prayers and reading of some passage from the Bible. One day Mano Mohan said something about Moses which made her wild. She said she did not want to live under the same roof with unbelievers, and went to live somewhere else. I felt infinitely relieved and grateful to Mano Mohan. We were then entering upon the agnostic stage in our development.

I was a great coward virtually and I was weak physically and could not do anything. Only my will was bright. Nobody could have imagined that I could face the gallows or carry on a revolutionary movement. In my case it was all human imperfection with which I had to start and feel all the difficulties before embodying the divine Consciousness.

Disciple: Moti Babu told us that you caught the revolutionary spirit from Shelley's Revolt of Islam.

Sri Aurobindo: That is not quite true. The Revolt of Islam was a great favourite with me even when I was quite young and I used to read it again and again—of course, without understanding everything. Evidently it appealed to some part of the being. There was no other effect of reading it except this that I had a thought that I would dedicate my life to a similar World-change and take part in it.

(After a pause)

No, I had no extraordinary spiritual experience in my early life.

I remember only three experiences. One was the Darjeeling experience. And the second came upon me at the age of twelve or thirteen. I was extremely selfish and then something came upon me and I felt I ought to give up selfishness and I tried in my own way—of course, imperfectly—to put it into practice. But that was a sort of turning-point in my inner life. The last came just before I left England. It was the mental rather than the spiritual experience of the Atman. I felt the One only as true; it was an experience absolutely Shankarite in its sense. It lasted only for a short time.

Disciple: Is it a fact that you came away straight to Chandernagore from the Dharma office? And that the C.I.D. by God's grace were not there?

Sri Aurobindo: I was at the Karmayogin office and we came to know about the search that was going to be made evidently with the object of arresting me. There were some people there and Ramchandra Majumdar was there—preparing to give fight to the police—and so many ideas were flying about when suddenly I heard a voice from above saying, "No, go to Chandernagore."

After coming out from Jail I used to hear voices and in those days I used to obey them without questioning. So I told my friends that I would go to French India and then the arrangement was made. The C.I.D., I don't know whether by God's grace or the prostitutes' grace, were not there.

Disciple: Then about coming to Pondicherry also you heard a voice?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes. It is quite true.

But let me rush to ask a question here. The spiritual-metaphysical foundation you are providing at the beginning of your essay is understandable, and is a piece of work well done. But I wish to know its direct relevance to the biographical aspects you are actually concerned with perhaps, if I should infer so, in the context of the motivated and highly misleading The Lives of Sri Aurobindo. In any case, the metaphysics should also take note of, and in a significant way, the necessity in fact essentiality and the purpose of Avatarhood. Maybe you would like to expatiate on it either in the nature of a comment or a linked article. There is also the aspect of "mortal birth" connected with it. And thanks.

Re: Re: Insights into Sri Aurobindo’s Early Yogic Life—by Auroman

by auroman on Sun 01 Mar 2009 09:48 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

It is my contention that various Yogic experiences can be explained in simple words without resorting to psychiatry or skepticism as was done in the latest biography. This was an attempt to show that the flesh of the Sri Aurobindo's outer life could be built around the framework of a well-developed theory of mystic phenomena.

Sri Aurobindo was more than an author of many books and a freedom-fighter; he was a Mahayogi and that aspect cannot be shoved under the rug with shoddy explanations.

Those who want the work of Sri Aurobindo & The Mother to continue, those who want new Sadhaks to join Integral Yoga will do whatever it takes to make sure that their work is presented correctly. That mission is more important than individual freedom of speech.

If we put out trash, we will attract pigs ! :-)

Re: Re: Insights into Sri Aurobindo’s Early Yogic Life—by Auroman

by auroman on Sun 01 Mar 2009 09:56 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

> I remember only three experiences. One was the Darjeeling
> experience. And the second came upon me at the age of twelve
> or thirteen. I was extremely selfish and then something came
> upon me and I felt I ought to give up selfishness and I tried in
> my own way—of course, imperfectly—to put it into practice.

I think it is the Theosophists who say that the astral (subtle) body does not develop completely until the age of eighteen, so it is not wise to read too much into a person's early life. The teenage years are invariably clouded with habits and impulses acquired from parents and friends. There has to come a Divine moment, an Hour of God where the psychic unveils itself momentarily and only after that does one really begin the search for the true being hidden within.

Re: Re: Re: Insights into Sri Aurobindo’s Early Yogic Life—by Auroman

by RY Deshpande on Tue 03 Mar 2009 07:37 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Relating Yogic experiences to psychiatry or skepticism is an absurdity when they belong to different domains—which otherwise would mean understanding neither.

“Those who want the work of Sri Aurobindo & The Mother to continue…” —it is actually not the question of their work being continued; it is we who have to grow and, if we find help in it, accept it in full confidence. I mean, there cannot be an invitation to anybody to join the Integral Yoga or be a member of the IY Community. These are proselytizing formulations and must be eschewed forthwith.

Regarding the “Theosophists who say that the astral (subtle) body does not develop completely until the age of eighteen…” we have to be cautious that those considerations are not applicable to the Avatar whose body is prepared much before the physical birth. The Mother herself said many times to that effect; also that she was conscious of her mission right from an early stage of her life. It looks as though the “Divine Moment” was always there for her.

~ RYD

Re: Re: Re: Re: Insights into Sri Aurobindo’s Early Yogic Life—by Auroman

by auroman on Wed 04 Mar 2009 06:55 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Your point about Avatar is accepted.

RYD: “Those who want the work of Sri Aurobindo & The Mother to continue…” —it is actually not the question of their work being continued; it is we who have to grow and, if we find help in it, accept it in full confidence. I mean, there cannot be an invitation to anybody to join the Integral Yoga or be a member of the IY Community. These are proselytizing formulations and must be eschewed forthwith.

I don't see writing a biography as part of Yogic Sadhana but part of public relations - just like the work of SABDA. The historian also admits in his Auroville interview that this book had nothing to do with Sadhana.

I don't think it would have been proselytization if the book had been written to further the work of the Master rather than to boost one's own credentials as a historian.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Insights into Sri Aurobindo’s Early Yogic Life—by Auroman

by rakesh on Sun 08 Mar 2009 12:24 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

The Mother said somewhere in the Agenda that Sri Aurobindo was not a Avatar by birth but became one by personal sadhana in later life and ofcourse Divine grace.

In the Essays on the Gita, Sri Aurobindo says that an Avatar can be a descent from above or also an ascent from below. There is equal possibility of both. It all depends on the will of the aspiring soul to do avataric work in conjunction with the divines'.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Insights into Sri Aurobindo’s Early Yogic Life—by Auroman

by auroman on Sun 08 Mar 2009 07:51 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Chapter & verse please
I tried but couldn't find it :-)

Re: Insights into Sri Aurobindo’s Early Yogic Life—by Auroman

by Tusar N. Mohapatra on Sun 01 Mar 2009 12:29 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Between a rock and a hard place. [TNM]

Re: Re: Insights into Sri Aurobindo’s Early Yogic Life—by Auroman

by RY Deshpande on Sun 01 Mar 2009 07:02 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

“Between a rock and a hard place”

Between a rock and a hard place
You can yet see a smiling face
As though in some dreadful creepy race
Legs of surer fire move apace
Not on glowering east-west ways
But in motionless calm of days
That has won silver cups of grace
Giving to blind thought hope of rays
To faith’s certitude light that says
“Here’s my sweetness all to embrace.”
Yet the bumpkins in holy craze
Drove their cows through narrow byways.

~ RYD

Re: Insights into Sri Aurobindo’s Early Yogic Life—by Auroman

by RY Deshpande on Tue 03 Mar 2009 07:01 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Let me redo the third line in the preceding comment as follows

As though in some weird creepy race

to somewhat take away the dread of the thing.

Let me also add the comment Sri Aurobindo made in his evening talk dated 28 June 1926:

If people were to know all the truth about my life they would never believe that such a man could come to anything.

Does The Lives of Sri Aurobindo give us all the truth about his life? If it does, then we can never believe that such a man did come to anything; if it doesn’t, then it’s an incomplete work which must be viewed with enormous caution, particularly when it loudly purports to be academic and rational dismissing the yogic-spiritual aspects.

~ RYD

Re: Insights into Sri Aurobindo’s Early Yogic Life—by Auroman

by RY Deshpande on Tue 03 Mar 2009 08:05 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Regarding the body of the Avatar, we have revealing lines in Savitri: (p. 398)

Rare is the cup fit for love’s nectar wine,
As rare the vessel that can hold God’s birth;
A soul made ready through a thousand years
Is the living mould of a supreme Descent.

I don’t think the Mother and Sri Aurobindo had much of an opinion about the Theosophist’s occultism. On the other hand they had great consideration for Théon, the Mother’s teacher for occultism. If he was the incarnation of Death, then she learned about Life whatever had to be learnt from him. That’s great indeed.

~ RYD

Re: Insights into Sri Aurobindo’s Early Yogic Life—by Auroman

by RY Deshpande on Wed 04 Mar 2009 12:12 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

In the Essays on the Gita Sri Aurobindo explains the process of the birth of the Avatar, it describing the action of the Divine in bringing about the ordinary birth of creatures and he being born by his self-Maya, prakŗtim svām, by his Yogamaya.

The Gita… speaks clearly of the Lord himself being born; Krishna speaks of his many births that are past and makes it clear by his language that it is not merely the receptive human being but the Divine of whom he makes this affirmation, because he uses the very language of the Creator, the same language which he will employ when he has to describe his creation of the world. “Although I am the unborn Lord of creatures, I create (loose forth) my self by my Maya,” presiding over the actions of my Prakriti. Here there is no question of the Lord and the human Jiva or of the Father and the Son, the divine Man, but only of the Lord and his Prakriti. The Divine descends by his own Prakriti into birth in its human form and type and brings into it the divine Consciousness and the divine Power, though consenting, though willing to act in the form, type, mould of humanity, and he governs its actions in the body as the indwelling and over-dwelling Soul, adhişţhāya. From above he governs always, indeed, for so he governs all nature, the human included; from within also he governs all nature, always, but hidden; the difference here is that he is manifest, that the nature is conscious of the divine Presence as the Lord, the Inhabitant, and it is not by his secret will from above, “the will of the Father which is in heaven,” but by his quite direct and apparent will that he moves the nature. And here there seems to be no room for the human intermediary; for it is by resort to his own nature, pŗakrtim svām, and not the special nature of the Jiva that the Lord of all existence thus takes upon himself the human birth.

This doctrine is a hard saying, a difficult thing for the human reason to accept; and for an obvious reason, because of the evident humanity of the Avatar. The Avatar is always a dual phenomenon of divinity and humanity; the Divine takes upon himself the human nature with all its outward limitations and makes them the circumstances, means, instruments of the divine consciousness and the divine power, a vessel of the divine birth and the divine works. But so surely it must be, since otherwise the object of the Avatar's descent is not fulfilled; for that object is precisely to show that the human birth with all its limitations can be made such a means and instrument of the divine birth and divine works, precisely to show that the human type of consciousness can be compatible with the divine essence of consciousness made manifest, can be converted into its vessel, drawn into nearer conformity with it by a change of its mould and a heightening of its powers of light and love and strength and purity; and to show also how it can be done. If the Avatar were to act in an entirely supernormal fashion, this object would not be fulfilled. A merely supernormal or miraculous Avatar would be a meaningless absurdity; not that there need be an entire absence of the use of supernormal powers such as Christ's so-called miracles of healing, for the use of supernormal powers is quite a possibility of human nature; but there need not be that at all, nor in any case is it the root of the matter, nor would it at all do if the life were nothing else but a display of supernormal fireworks. The Avatar does not come as a thaumaturgic magician, but as the divine leader of humanity and the exemplar of a divine humanity. Even human sorrow and physical suffering he must assume and use so as to show, first, how that suffering may be a means of redemption,—as did Christ,—secondly, to show how, having been assumed by the divine soul in the human nature, it can also be overcome in the same nature,—as did Buddha. The rationalist who would have cried to Christ, “If thou art the Son of God, come down from the cross,” or points out sagely that the Avatar was not divine because he died and died too by disease,—as a dog dieth,—knows not what he is saying: for he has missed the root of the whole matter. Even, the Avatar of sorrow and suffering must come before there can be the Avatar of divine joy; the human limitation must be assumed in order to show how it can be overcome; and the way and the extent of the overcoming, whether internal only or external also, depends upon the stage of the human advance; it must not be done by a non-human miracle.

The question then arises, and it is the sole real difficulty, for here the intellect falters and stumbles over its own limits, how is this human mind and body assumed? For they were not created suddenly and all of a piece, but by some kind of evolution, physical or spiritual or both. No doubt, the descent of the Avatar, like the divine birth from the other side, is essentially a spiritual phenomenon, as is shown by the Gita's ātmānam srjāmi, it is a soul-birth; but still there is here an attendant physical birth. How then were this human mind and body of the Avatar created? If we suppose that the body is always created by the hereditary evolution, by inconscient Nature and its immanent Life-spirit without the intervention of the individual soul, the matter becomes simple. A physical and mental body is prepared fit for the divine incarnation by a pure or great heredity and the descending Godhead takes possession of it. But the Gita in this very passage applies the doctrine of reincarnation, boldly enough, to the Avatar himself, and in the usual theory of reincarnation the reincarnating soul by its past spiritual and psychological evolution itself determines and in a way prepares its own mental and physical body. The soul prepares its own body, the body is not prepared for it without any reference to the soul. Are we then to suppose an eternal or continual Avatar himself evolving, we might say, his own fit mental and physical body according to the needs and pace of the human evolution and so appearing from age to age, yuge yuge? In some such spirit some would interpret the ten incarnations of Vishnu, first in animal forms, then in the animal man, then in the dwarf man-soul, Vamana, the violent Asuric man, Rama of the axe, the divinely-natured man, a greater Rama, the awakened spiritual man, Buddha, and, preceding him in time, but final in place, the complete divine manhood, Krishna,—for the last Avatar, Kalki, only accomplishes the work Krishna began,—he fulfils in power the great struggle which the previous Avatars prepared in all its potentialities. It is a difficult assumption to our modern mentality, but the language of the Gita seems to demand it. Or, since the Gita does not expressly solve the problem, we may solve it in some other way of our own, as that the body is prepared by the Jiva but assumed from birth by the Godhead or that it is prepared by one of the four Manus, catvāro manavah, of the Gita, the spiritual Fathers of every human mind and body. This is going far into the mystic field from which the modern reason is still averse; but once we admit Avatarhood, we have already entered into it and, once entered, may as well tread in it with firm footsteps.

Mark in the context of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo the following: “The rationalist who would have cried to Christ, 'If thou art the Son of God, come down from the cross,' or points out sagely that the Avatar was not divine because he died and died too by disease,—as a dog dieth,—knows not what he is saying: for he has missed the root of the whole matter.”

~ RYD

Re: Insights into Sri Aurobindo’s Early Yogic Life—Savitri's Protagonist

by RY Deshpande on Thu 05 Mar 2009 06:06 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Apropos of the early spiritual experiences of Sri Aurobindo we have a definite autobiographical account in his epic Savitri, he being represented as Aswapati, the “Protagonist of the mysterious play.” He is also “A thinker and toiler in the ideal’s air” who has come here to bring down “to earth’s dumb need the radiant power” as Savitri.

His was a spirit that stooped from larger spheres
Into our province of ephemeral sight,
A colonist from immortality.
A pointing beam on earth's uncertain roads,
His birth held up a symbol and a sign;
His human self like a translucent cloak
Covered the All-Wise who leads the unseeing world.

Affiliated to cosmic Space and Time
And paying here God's debt to earth and man
A greater sonship was his divine right.

Although consenting to mortal ignorance,
His knowledge shared the Light ineffable.
A strength of the original Permanence
Entangled in the moment and its flow,
He kept the vision of the Vasts behind:
A power was in him from the Unknowable.

An archivist of the symbols of the Beyond,
A treasurer of superhuman dreams,
He bore the stamp of mighty memories
And shed their grandiose ray on human life.

His days were a long growth to the Supreme…

His soul lived as eternity's delegate,
His mind was like a fire assailing heaven,
His will a hunter in the trails of light…

At last the traveller in the paths of Time
Arrives on the frontiers of eternity.
In the transient symbol of humanity draped,
He feels his substance of undying self
And loses his kinship to mortality.
A beam of the Eternal smites his heart,
His thought stretches into infinitude;
All in him turns to spirit vastnesses.

His soul breaks out to join the Oversoul,
His life is oceaned by that superlife.

He has drunk from the breasts of the Mother of the worlds;
A topless Supernature fills his frame:
She adopts his spirit's everlasting ground
As the security of her changing world
And shapes the figure of her unborn mights.

Immortally she conceives herself in him,
In the creature the unveiled Creatrix works:
Her face is seen through his face, her eyes through his eyes;
Her being is his through a vast identity.
Then is revealed in man the overt Divine.
A static Oneness and dynamic Power
Descend in him, the integral Godhead's seals;
His soul and body take that splendid stamp…

A long dim preparation is man's life,
A circle of toil and hope and war and peace
Tracked out by Life on Matter's obscure ground.

In his climb to a peak no feet have ever trod,
He seeks through a penumbra shot with flame
A veiled reality half-known, ever missed,
A search for something or someone never found,
Cult of an ideal never made real here,
An endless spiral of ascent and fall
Until at last is reached the giant point
Through which his Glory shines for whom we were made
And we break into the infinity of God.

Across our nature's border line we escape
Into Supernature's arc of living light.

This now was witnessed in that son of Force;
In him that high transition laid its base…

Then came the abrupt transcendent miracle:
The masked immaculate Grandeur could outline,
At travail in the occult womb of life,
His dreamed magnificence of things to be.

A crown of the architecture of the worlds,
A mystery of married Earth and Heaven
Annexed divinity to the mortal scheme.

A Seer was born, a shining Guest of Time.

For him mind's limiting firmament ceased above.

In the griffin forefront of the Night and Day
A gap was rent in the all-concealing vault;
The conscious ends of being went rolling back:
The landmarks of the little person fell,
The island ego joined its continent.

Overpassed was this world of rigid limiting forms:
Life's barriers opened into the Unknown.

Abolished were conception's covenants
And, striking off subjection's rigorous clause,
Annulled the soul's treaty with Nature's nescience.

All the grey inhibitions were torn off
And broken the intellect's hard and lustrous lid;
Truth unpartitioned found immense sky-room;
An empyrean vision saw and knew;
The bounded mind became a boundless light,
The finite self mated with infinity.

His march now soared into an eagle's flight.

As so he grew into his larger self,
Humanity framed his movements less and less;
A greater being saw a greater world.
(Savitri, pp. 22-26)

In Aswapati’s experience of “Static oneness and dynamic Power” we have the two mighty realisations Sri Aurobindo had in 1908: of Silent Brahman and All-pervasive Presence of Vasudeva. This is at the very commencement of the yoga-tapasya of both of them, the remarkable beginning of their spiritual life. These realisations become for them the foundation for the release of the soul from the bondage of Nature, the hold of lower Prakriti on mind and life and body. The soul is now free and ready to receive the secret or higher knowledge and launch on the journey breaking into another Space and Time, a vastness in its cosmic dimensions. This is already there with Sri Aurobindo prior to his coming to Pondicherry on 4 April 1910.

~ RYD

Re: Insights into Sri Aurobindo’s Early Yogic Life—Jivatman 1

by RY Deshpande on Fri 06 Mar 2009 07:22 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

About Jivatman or Central Being here are some letters from Sri Aurobindo which should make clear its play and role in the process of manifestation. (Letters on Yoga, pp. 264-82) ~ RYD

The phrase “central being” in our yoga is usually applied to the portion of the Divine in us which supports all the rest and survives through death and birth. This central being has two forms—above, it is Jivatman, our true being, of which we become aware when the higher self-knowledge comes,—below, it is the psychic being which stands behind mind, body and life. The Jivatman is above the manifestation in life and presides over it; the psychic being stands behind the manifestation in life and supports it.

The natural attitude of the psychic being is to feel itself as the Child, the Son of God, the Bhakta; it is a portion of the Divine, one in essence, but in the dynamics of the manifestation there is always even in identity a difference. The Jivatman, on the contrary, lives in the essence and can merge itself in identity with the Divine; but it too, the moment it presides over the dynamics of the manifestation, knows itself as one centre of the multiple Divine, not as the Parameshwara. It is important to remember the distinction; for, otherwise, if there is the least vital egoism, one may begin to think of oneself as an Avatar or lose balance like Hridaya with Ramakrishna.

The word Jiva has two meanings in the Sanskritic tongues—“living creatures” [In Bengal when one is about to kill a small animal, people often protest saying, “Don't kill—it is Krishna's Jiva (his living creature).”] and the spirit individualised and upholding the living being in its evolution from birth to birth. In the latter sense the full term is Jivatma—the Atman, spirit or eternal self of the living being. It is spoken of figuratively by the Gita as “an eternal portion of the Divine”—but the word fragmentation (used by you) is too strong, it could be applicable to the forms, but not to the spirit in them. Moreover the multiple Divine is an eternal reality antecedent to the creation here. An elaborate description of the Jivatma would be: “the multiple Divine manifested here as the individualised self or spirit of the created being.” The Jivatma in its essence does not change or evolve, its essence stands above the personal evolution; within the evolution itself it is represented by the evolving psychic being which supports all the rest of the nature.

The Adwaita Vedanta (Monism) declares that the Jiva has no real existence, as the Divine is indivisible. Another school attributes a real but not an independent existence to the Jiva—it is, they say, one in essence, different in manifestation, and as the manifestation is real, eternal and not an illusion, it cannot be called unreal. The dualistic schools affirm the Jiva as an independent category or stand on the triplicity of God, soul and Nature.

Jīvātmā is not the psychic being—we have fixed on caitya purusa as the equivalent in Sanskrit of the psychic being. Jivatma is the individual Self—the central being.

The central being is that which is not born, does not evolve, but presides over all the individual manifestation. The psychic is its projection here—for the psychic being is in the evolution and from within supports our whole evolution; it receives the essence of all experience and by that develops the personality Godward.

The Self is at once one in all and many—one in its essence, it manifests also as the individual self which may be described as in Nature an eternal portion of the Divine; in spirit a centre of the manifestation, individual but extending its universality and rising into transcendence.

By Jivatma we mean the individual self. Essentially it is one self with all others, but in the multiplicity of the Divine it is the individual self, an individual centre of the universe—and it sees everything in itself or itself in everything or both together according to its state of consciousness and point of view.

The self, Atman is in its nature either transcendent or universal (Paramatma, Atma). When it individualises and becomes a central being, it is then the Jivatman. The Jivatman feels his oneness with the universal but at the same time his central separateness as a portion of the Divine.

The soul, representative of the central being, is a spark of the Divine supporting all individual existence in Nature; the psychic being is a conscious form of that soul growing in the evolution—in the persistent process that develops first life in Matter, mind in life, until finally mind can develop into overmind and overmind into the supramental Truth. The soul supports the nature in its evolution through these grades, but is itself not any of these things.

The lower Nature, aparā prakrti, is this external objective and superficial subjective apparent Nature which manifests all these minds, lives and bodies. The supreme Nature, parā prakrti, concealed behind it is the very nature of the Divine—a supreme Consciousness-Force which manifests the multiple Divine as the Many. These Many are in themselves eternal selves of the Supreme in his supreme Nature, parā prakrti. Here in relation to this world they appear as the Jivatmas supporting the evolution of the natural existences, sarva-bhūtāni, in the mutable Becoming which is the life of the Kshara (mobile or mutable) Purusha. The Jiva (or Jivatma) and the creatures, sarva-bhūtāni, are not the same thing. The Jivatmas really stand above the creation even though concerned in it; the natural existences, sarva-bhūtāni, are the creatures of Nature. Man, bird, beast, reptile are natural existences, but the individual Self in them is not even for a moment characteristically man, bird, beast or reptile; in its evolution it is the same through all these changes, a spiritual being that consents to the play of Nature.

What is original and eternal for ever in the Divine is the Being, what is developed in consciousness, conditions, forces, forms, etc., by the Divine Power is the Becoming. The eternal Divine is the Being; the universe in Time and all that is apparent in it is a Becoming. The eternal Being in its superior nature, Para Prakriti, is at once One and Many; but the eternal Multiplicity of the Divine when it stands behind the created existences, sarva-bhūtāni, appears as (or as we say, becomes) the Jiva, parā prakrtir jīvabhūtā. In the psychic, on the other hand, there are two aspects, the psychic existence or soul behind and in front the form of individuality it takes in its evolution in Nature.

The soul or psyche is immutable only in the sense that it contains all the possibilities of the Divine within it, but it has to evolve them and in its evolution it assumes the form of a developing psychic individual evolving in the manifestation the individual Prakriti and taking part in the evolution. It is the spark of the Divine Fire that grows behind the mind, vital and physical by means of the psychic being until it is able to transform the Prakriti of Ignorance into a Prakriti of Knowledge. This evolving psychic being is not therefore at any time all that the soul or essential psychic existence bears within it; it temporalises and individualises what is eternal in potentiality, transcendent in essence, in this projection of the spirit.

The central being is the being which presides over the different births one after the other, but is itself unborn, for it does not descend into the being but is above it—it holds together the mental, vital and physical being and all the various parts of the personality and it controls the life either through the mental being and the mental thought and will or through the psychic, whichever may happen to be most in front or most powerful in nature. If it does not exercise its control, then the consciousness is in great disorder and every part of the personality acts for itself so that there is no coherence in the thought, feeling or action.

The psychic is not above but behind—its seat is behind the heart, its power is not knowledge but an essential or spiritual feeling—it has the clearest sense of the Truth and a sort of inherent perception of it which is of the nature of soul-perception and soul-feeling. It is our inmost being and supports all the others, mental, vital, physical, but it is also much veiled by them and has to act upon them as an influence rather than by its sovereign right of direct action; its direct action becomes normal and preponderant only at a high stage of development or by yoga. It is not the psychic being which, you feel, gives you the intuitions of things to be or warns you against the results of certain actions; that is some part of the inner being, sometimes the inner mental, sometimes the inner vital, sometimes, it may be, the inner or subtle physical Purusha. The inner being—inner mind, inner vital, inner or subtle physical – knows much that is unknown to the outer mind, the outer vital, the outer physical, for it is in a more direct contact with the secret forces of Nature. The psychic is the inmost being of all; a perception of truth which is inherent in the deepest substance of the consciousness, a sense of the good, true, beautiful, the Divine, is its privilege.

The central being—the Jivatman which is not born nor evolves but presides over the individual birth and evolution—puts forward a representative of himself on each plane of the consciousness. On the mental plane it is the true mental being, manomaya purusa, on the vital plane the true vital being, prānamaya purusa, on the physical plane the true physical being, annamaya purusa. Each being, therefore is, so long as the Ignorance lasts, centred round his mental, vital or physical Purusha, according to the plane on which he predominantly lives, and that is to him his central being. But the true representative all the time is concealed behind the mind, vital and physical—it is the psychic, our inmost being.

When the inmost knowledge begins to come, we become aware of the psychic being within us and it comes forward and leads the sadhana. We become aware also of the Jivatman, the undivided Self or Spirit above the manifestation of which the psychic is the representative here.

The true inner being—the true mental, the true vital, the true physical represent each on its plane and answer to the central being, but the whole of the nature and especially the outer nature does not, nor the ordinary mental, vital or physical personality. The psychic being is the central being for the purposes of the evolution—it grows and develops; but there is a central being above of which the mind is not aware, which presides unseen over the existence and of which the psychic being is the representative in the manifested nature. It is what is called the Jivatman.

The psychic is a spark of the Divine—but I do not know that it can be called a portion of the Jivatma—it is the same put forward in a different way.

Well, it is a little difficult to explain. Perhaps the best thing is to break up my answer into a number of separate statements, for the whole thing has got too complicated to do otherwise.

1. It is impossible to equate my conception or experience of the Jivatman with the pure “I” of the Adwaita, by which you mean, I suppose, something which says, “I am He” and by that perception merges itself into the Brahman. According to the Adwaita of the Mayavadins this Jivatman, like the Ishwara himself, is simply an appearance of the Brahman in illusory Maya. There is no Ishwara, Lord of the world, because there is no world—except in Maya; so too there is no Jivatman, only the Paramatman illusorily perceived as an individual self by the lower (illusory) consciousness in Maya. Those, on the other hand, who wish to unite with the Ishwara, regard or experience the Jiva either as a separate being dependent on the Ishwara or as something one in essence with him, yet different, but this difference like the essential oneness is eternal—and there are also other ideas of the Jivatman and its relation to the Divine or Supreme. So this pure “I”, if that is how it is to be described, presents itself differently, in different aspects, one may say, to different people. If you ask why, I refer you to my answer to X. The overmind presents the truth of things in all sorts of aspects and mind, even the spiritual mind, fastens on one or the other as the very truth, the one real truth of the matter. It is the mind that makes these differences, but that does not matter, because, through its own way of seeing and experiencing the soul or individualised consciousness or whatever you may like to call it, the mental being goes where it has to go. I hope this much is clear as the first step in the matter.

2. I do not dispute at all the fact that one can realise the Self, the Brahman or the Ishwara without going into the overhead regions, the dynamic spiritual planes, or stationing oneself permanently above the body as happens in this yoga. Even if it is done through the Sahasrara, well, the Sahasrara extends to the spiritualised mind and can be felt in the top of the head, so any ascent above is not indispensable. But, apart from that, one can very well, as you say, realise the Atman if one stands back from the mind and heart, detaches oneself from the parts of Prakriti, ceases to identify oneself with mind, life and body, falls into an inner silence. One need not even explore the kingdoms of the inner mind or inner vital, still less is it compulsory to spread one's wings in ranges above. The Self is everywhere and by entering into full detachment and silence, or even by either detachment or silence, one can get anywhere some glimpse, some reflection, perhaps even a full reflection, or a sense of the Self's presence or of one's own immergence in that which is free, wide, silent, eternal, infinite. Obviously if it is a pure “I”, of whatever nature, which gets the experience, it must be looked on by the consciousness that has the realisation as the individual self of the Being, Jivatman.

3. One can also have the experience of oneself as not the mind but the thinker, not the heart but the self or “I” which supports the feelings, not the life but that which supports life, not the body but that which assumes a body. This self can be obviously dynamic as well as silent; or else you may say that, even though still and immobile, from its silence it originates the dynamism of Nature. One can also feel this to be the Spirit one in all as well as the true “I” in oneself. All depends on the experience. Very usually, it is the experience of the Purusha, often felt first as the Witness silent, upholding all the nature; but the Purusha can also be experienced as the Knower and the Ishwara. Sometimes it is as or through the mental Purusha in one centre or another, sometimes as or through the vital Purusha that one can become aware of one's self or spirit. It is also possible to become aware of the secret psychic being within by itself as the true individual; or one can be aware of the psychic being as the pure “I” with these others standing in mind or vital as representatives in these domains or on these levels. According to one's experience one may speak of any of these as the Jiva or pure “I” (this last is a very dubious phrase) or the true Person or true Individual who knows himself as one with or a portion of or wholly dependent on the universal or transcendent Being and seeks to merge himself in that or ascend to that and be it or live in oneness with it. All these things are quite possible without any need of the overhead experience or of the stable overhead Permanence.

4. One may ask, first, why not then say that the Jivatman which can be realised in this way is the pure “I” of which the lower self has the experience and through which it gets its salvation; and, secondly, what need is there of going into the overhead planes at all? Well, in the first place, this pure “I” does not seem to be absolutely necessary as an intermediary of the liberation whether into the impersonal Self or Brahman or into whatever is eternal. The Buddhists do not admit any soul or self or any experience of the pure “I”; they proceed by dissolving the consciousness into a bundle of Sanskaras, get rid of the Sanskaras and so are liberated into some Permanent which they refuse to describe or some Shunya. So the experience of a pure “I” or Jivatman is not binding on everyone who wants liberation into the Eternal but is content to get it without rising beyond the spiritualised mind into a higher Light above. I myself had my experience of Nirvana and silence in the Brahman, etc. long before there was any knowledge of the overhead spiritual planes; it came first simply by an absolute stillness and blotting out as it were of all mental, emotional and other inner activities – the body continued indeed to see, walk, speak and do its other business, but as an empty automatic machine and nothing more. I did not become aware of any pure “I” nor even of any self, impersonal or other,—there was only an awareness of That as the sole Reality, all else being quite unsubstantial, void, non-real. As to what realised that Reality, it was a nameless consciousness which was not other than That;1 one could perhaps say this, though hardly even so much as this, since there was no mental concept of it, but not more. Neither was I aware of any lower soul or outer self called by such and such a personal name that was performing this feat of arriving at the consciousness of Nirvana. Well, then what becomes of your pure “I” and lower “I” in all that? Consciousness (not this or that part of consciousness or an “I” of any kind) suddenly emptied itself of all inner contents and remained aware only of unreal surroundings and of Something real but ineffable. You may say that there must have been a consciousness aware of some perceiving existence,

1 Mark that I did not think these things, there were no thoughts or concepts nor did they present themselves like that to any Me; it simply just was so or was self-apparently so.
if not of a pure “I”, but, if so, it was something for which these names seem inadequate.

5. I have said the overhead ascension is not indispensable for the usual spiritual purposes,—but it is indispensable for the purposes of this yoga. For its aim is to become aware of and liberate and transform and unite all the being in the light of a Truth-consciousness which is above and cannot be reached if there is no entirely inward-going and no transcending and upward-going movement. Hence all the complexity of my psychological statements as a whole, not new in essence – for much of it occurs in the Upanishads and elsewhere, but new in its fullness of collective statement and its developments directed towards an integral yoga. It is not necessary for anyone to accept it unless he concurs in the aim; for other aims it is unnecessary and may very well be excessive.

6. But when one has made the inner exploration and the ascension, when one's consciousness is located above, one cannot be expected to see things precisely as they are seen from below. The Jivatman is for me the Unborn who presides over the individual being and its developments, associated with it but above it and them and who by the very nature of his existence knows himself as universal and transcendent no less than individual and feels the Divine to be his origin, the truth of his being, the master of his nature, the very stuff of his existence. He is plunged in the Divine and one with the Eternal for ever, aware of his own expression and instrumental dynamism which is the Divine's, dependent in love and delight, with adoration on That with which yet through that love and delight he is one, capable of relation in oneness, harmonic in this many-sidedness without contradiction, because this is another consciousness and existence than that of the mind, even of the spiritualised mind; it is an intrinsic consciousness of the Infinite, infinite not only in essence but in capacity, which can be to its own self-awareness all things and yet for ever the same and one. The triune realisation, therefore, full of difficulties for the mind, is quite natural, easy, indisputable to the supramental consciousness or, generally, to the consciousness of the upper hemisphere. It can be seen and felt as knowledge in all the spiritual planes, but the completely indivisible knowledge, the full dynamics of it can only be realised through the supramental consciousness itself on its own plane or by its descent here.

7. The description of a pure “I” is quite insufficient to describe the realisation of the Jivatman—it is rather describable as the true Person or Divine Individual, though that too is not adequate. The word “I” always comes with an under-suggestion of ego, of separativeness; but there is no separativeness in this self-vision, for the individual here is a spiritual living centre of action for the One and feels no separation from all that is the One.

8. The Jivatman has its representative power in the individual nature here; this power is the Purusha upholding the Prakriti—centrally in the psychic, more instrumentally in the mind, vital and physical being and nature. It is therefore possible to regard these or any of them as if they were the Jiva here. All the same I am obliged to make a distinction not only for clear thinking but because of the necessity of experience and integral dynamic self-knowledge without which it is difficult to carry through this yoga. It is not indispensable to formulate mentally to oneself all this, one can have the experience and, if one sees clearly with an inner perception, it is sufficient for progress towards the goal. Nevertheless if the mind is clarified without falling into mental rigidity and error, things are easier for the sadhak of the yoga. But plasticity must be preserved, for loss of plasticity is the danger of a systematic intellectual formulation; one must look into the thing itself and not get tied up in the idea. Nothing of all this can be really grasped except by the actual spiritual experience.

I have used the words Jiva and Jivatman in these and all passages in exactly the same sense – it never occurred to me that there could be a difference. If I had so intended it, I would have drawn the distinction—the two words being similar—very clearly and not left it to be gathered by inference.

In the passage from the chapter on the triple status of the supermind I was describing how the supermind working as a force of the highest self-determination of the Divine manifested it in three poises and what was the consciousness of the Jivatman in a supramental creation. There is no statement that the place of the Jivatman is in the supramental plane alone; if that were so, man could have no knowledge of his individual Self or Spirit before he rose to the supramental plane; he could not have any experience of the Self, though he may have the sense of the dissolution of his ego in something Universal. But he can become aware of his unborn non-evolving Self, a centre of the Divine Consciousness, long before that; the Self cosmic or individual is experienced long before rising to supermind. If it were not so, spiritual experience of that high kind would be impossible to mental man, liberation would be impossible; he would first have to become a supramental being. As for the Purusha it is there on all planes; there is a mental Purusha, manomaya, leader of the life and body, as the Upanishad puts it, a vital, a physical Purusha; there is the psychic being or Chaitya Purusha which supports and carries all these as it were. One may say that these are projections of the Jivatman put there to uphold Prakriti on the various levels of the being. The Upanishad speaks also of a supramental and a Bliss Purusha, and if the supramental and the Bliss Nature were organised in the evolution on earth we could become aware of them upholding the movements here.

As for the psychic being, it enters into the evolution, enters into the body at birth and goes out of it at death; but the Jivatman, as I know it, is unborn and eternal although upholding the manifested personality from above. The psychic being can be described as the Jivatman entering into birth, if you like, but if the distinction is not made, then the nature of the Atman is blurred and a confusion arises. This is a necessary distinction for metaphysical knowledge and for something that is very important in spiritual experience. The word `Atman' like `spirit' in English is popularly used in all kinds of senses, but both for spiritual and philosophical knowledge it is necessary to be clear and precise in one's use of terms so as to avoid confusion of thought and vision by confusion in the words we use to express them.

The Jiva is realised as the individual Self, Atman, the central being above the Nature, calm, untouched by the movements of Nature, but supporting their evolution though not involved in it. Through this realisation silence, freedom, wideness, mastery, purity, a sense of universality in the individual as one centre of this divine universality become the normal experience. The psychic is realised as the Purusha behind the heart. It is not universalised like the Jivatman, but is the individual soul supporting from its place behind the heart-centre the mental, vital, physical, psychic evolution of the being in Nature. Its realisation brings bhakti, self-giving, surrender, turning of all the movements Godward, discrimination and choice of all that belongs to the Divine Truth, Good, Beauty, rejection of all that is false, evil, ugly, discordant, union through love and sympathy with all existence, openness to the Truth of the Self and the Divine.

Re: Insights into Sri Aurobindo’s Early Yogic Life—Jivatman 2

by RY Deshpande on Sat 07 Mar 2009 04:48 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

About Jivatman or Central Being here are some letters from Sri Aurobindo which should make clear its play and role in the process of manifestation. (Letters on Yoga, pp. 264-82) ~ RYD

To live in the consciousness of the Atman is to live in the calm unity and peace that is above things and separate from the world even when pervading it. But for the psychic consciousness there are two things, the world and itself acting in the world. The Jivatman has not come down into the world, it stands above, always the same supporting the different beings, mental, etc., which act here. The psychic is what has come down here—its function is to offer all things to the Divine for transformation.

The true being may be realised in one or both of two aspects—the Self or Atman and the soul or Antaratman, psychic being, Chaitya Purusha. The difference is that one is felt as universal, the other as individual supporting the mind, life and body. When one first realises the Atman one feels it separate from all things, existing in itself and detached, and it is to this realisation that the image of the dry coconut fruit may apply. When one realises the psychic being, it is not like that; for this brings the sense of union with the Divine and dependence upon It and sole consecration to the Divine alone and the power to change the nature and discover the true mental, the true vital, the true physical being in oneself. Both realisations are necessary for this yoga.

The “I” or the little ego is constituted by Nature and is at once a mental, vital and physical formation meant to aid in centralising and individualising the outer consciousness and action. When the true being is discovered, the utility of the ego is over and this formation has to disappear—the true being is felt in its place.

The Spirit is the consciousness above mind, the Atman or Self, which is always in oneness with the Divine—a spiritual consciousness is one which is always in unity or at least in contact with the Divine.

The psychic is a spark come from the Divine which is there in all things and as the individual evolves it grows in him and manifests as the psychic being, the soul, seeking always for the Divine and the Truth and answering to the Divine and the Truth whenever and wherever it meets it.

The Spirit is the Atman, Brahman, Essential Divine.

When the One Divine manifests its ever inherent multiplicity, this essential Self or Atman becomes for that manifestation the central being who presides from above over the evolution of its personalities and terrestrial lives here, but is itself an eternal portion of the Divine and prior to the terrestrial manifestation—parā prakrtir jīvabhūtā.

In this lower manifestation, aparā prakrti, this eternal portion of the Divine appears as the soul, a spark of the Divine Fire, supporting the individual evolution, supporting the mental, vital and physical being. The psychic being is the spark growing into a Fire, evolving with the growth of the consciousness. The psychic being is therefore evolutionary, not like the Jivatman prior to the evolution.

But man is not aware of the self or Jivatman, he is aware only of his ego, or he is aware of the mental being which controls the life and the body. But more deeply he becomes aware of his soul or psychic being as his true centre, the Purusha in the heart; the psychic is the central being in the evolution, it proceeds from and represents the Jivatman, the eternal portion of the Divine. When there is the full consciousness, the Jivatman and the psychic being join together.

The ego is a formation of Nature; but it is not a formation of physical nature alone, therefore it does not cease with the body. There is a mental and vital ego also.

The base of the material consciousness here is not only the Ignorance, but the Inconscience—that is, the consciousness is involved in form of Matter and energy of Matter. It is not only the material consciousness but the vital and the mental too that are separated from the Truth by the Ignorance.

For the most part the Supreme acts through the Jiva and its nature and the Jiva and the nature act through the ego and the ego acts through the outer instruments—that is the play of the Ignorance.

There is no difference between Jiva and Jivatma in this language—so this distinction cannot be made. The Apara Prakriti is Nature which manifests all these minds, lives and bodies. The Para Prakriti is the very nature of the Divine—a supreme Consciousness-Force which manifests the multiple Divine as the Many.

The body is not the individual self—it is the basis of the external personality or of the physical self, if you like so to express it; but that is not the individual self. The individual self is the central being (Jivatma) manifesting in the lower nature as the psychic being – it is directly a portion of the Divine.

The Jīvātmā is above all planes. It has no fixed form or colour; though it may represent itself in a form.

(a) It [each Jivatman] is one, yet different [from other Jivatmans]. The Gita puts it that the Jiva is an amśah sanātanah, of the One. It can also be spoken of as one among many centres of the Universal Being and Consciousness.
(b) Essentially one Jiva has the same nature as all—but in manifestation each puts forth its own line of Swabhava.
(c) No. Kutastha is the aksara purusa—it is not the Jivatman.
(d) It [the station of the Jivatman] is on the spiritual plane always that is above the mind, but there it is not fixed to any level.
(e) No [one psychic being cannot unite with another]. Affinity, harmony, sympathy, but not union. Union is with the Divine.

The Jivatma, spark-soul and psychic being are three different forms of the same reality and they must not be mixed up together, as that confuses the clearness of the inner experience.

The Jivatma or spirit is self-existent above the manifested or instrumental being—it is superior to birth and death, always the same, it is the individual Self or Atman; the eternal true being of the individual.

The soul is a spark of the Divine in the heart of the living creatures of Nature. It is not seated above the manifested being; it enters into the manifestation of the self, consents to be a part of its natural phenomenal becoming, supports its evolution in the world of material Nature. It carries with it at first an undifferentiated power of the divine consciousness containing all possibilities which have not yet taken form but to which it is the function of evolution to give form. This spark of Divinity is there in all terrestrial living beings from the earth's highest to its lowest creatures.

The psychic being is a spiritual personality put forward by the soul in its evolution; its growth marks the stage which the spiritual evolution of the individual has reached and its immediate possibilities for the future. It stands behind the mental, the vital, the physical nature, grows by their experiences, carries the consciousness from life to life. It is the psychic Person, caitya purusa. At first it is veiled by the mental, vital and physical parts, limited in its self-expression by their limitations, bound to the reactions of Nature, but, as it grows, it becomes capable of coming forward and dominating the mind, life and body. In the ordinary man it still depends on them for expression and is not able to take them up and freely use them. The life of the being is animal and human, not divine. When the psychic being can by sadhana become dominant and freely use its instruments, then the impulse towards the Divine becomes complete and the transformation of mind, vital and body, not merely their liberation becomes possible.

As the Self or Atman is free and superior to birth and death, the experience of the Jivatman and its unity with the supreme or universal Self is sufficient to bring the sense of liberation; but for the transformation of the life and nature the full awareness and awakening of our psychic being also is indispensable.

The psychic being realises at this stage its oneness with the true being, the Self, but it does not disappear or change into it; it remains as its instrument for psychic and spiritual self-expression, a divine manifestation in Nature.

The bindu seen by you above may be a symbolic way of seeing the Jivatman, the individual self as a drop of the Sea, an individual portion of the universal Divine; the aspiration on that level would naturally be for the opening of the higher consciousness so that the being may dwell there and not in the ignorance. The Jivatman is already one with the Divine in reality, but its spiritual demand may be for the rest of the consciousness also to realise it.

The aspiration of the psychic being would then translate this demand entirely for the opening of the whole lower nature, mind, vital, body to the Divine, for the love and union with the Divine, for its presence and power within the heart, for the transformation of the mind, life and body by the descent of the higher consciousness into this instrumental being and nature.

Both aspirations are necessary for the fullness of this yoga, the demand of the self on the nature from above, the psychic aspiration of the nature from below. When the psychic imposes its aspiration on the mind, vital and body, then they too aspire and this is what was felt by you as the aspiration from the level of the lower being. The aspiration felt above is that of the Jivatman for the higher consciousness with its realisation of the One to manifest in all the being. Both aspirations help and are necessary to each other. But the seeking of the lower being is at first intermittent and oppressed by the obscurity and limitations of the ordinary consciousness. It has, by sadhana, to become clear, constant, strong and enduring; it then compels realisation, makes it inevitable.

The sense of peace, purity and calm felt by you is brought about by a union or a strong contact of the lower with the higher consciousness; it cannot be permanent at first, but it can become so by an increased frequency and durability of the calm and peace and finally by the full descent of the eternal peace and calm and silence of the higher consciousness into the lower nature.

Re: Insights into Sri Aurobindo’s Early Yogic Life—Jivatman from Savitri

by RY Deshpande on Sun 08 Mar 2009 10:05 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Re: Insights into Sri Aurobindo’s Early Yogic Life—Jivatman from Savitri

About Jivatman or Central Being here is a passage from Savitri which should make clear its play and role in the process of manifestation.
~ RYD

Once in the immortal boundlessness of Self,
In a vast of Truth and Consciousness and Light
The soul looked out from its felicity.
It felt the Spirit's interminable bliss,
It knew itself deathless, timeless, spaceless, one,
It saw the Eternal, lived in the Infinite.

Then, curious of a shadow thrown by Truth,
It strained towards some otherness of self,
It was drawn to an unknown Face peering through night.

It sensed a negative infinity,
A void supernal whose immense excess
Imitating God and everlasting Time
Offered a ground for Nature's adverse birth
And Matter's rigid hard unconsciousness
Harbouring the brilliance of a transient soul
That lights up birth and death and ignorant life.

A Mind arose that stared at Nothingness
Till figures formed of what could never be;
It housed the contrary of all that is.

A Nought appeared as Being's huge sealed cause,
Its dumb support in a blank infinite,
In whose abysm spirit must disappear:
A darkened Nature lived and held the seed
Of Spirit hidden and feigning not to be.
The eternal Consciousness became the home
Of some unsouled almighty Inconscient;
One breathed no more the spirit's native air.

A stranger in the insentient universe,
Bliss was the incident of a mortal hour.

As one drawn by the grandeur of the Void
The soul attracted leaned to the Abyss:
It longed for the adventure of Ignorance
And the marvel and surprise of the Unknown
And the endless possibility that lurked
In the womb of Chaos and in Nothing's gulf
Or looked from the unfathomed eyes of Chance.

It tired of its unchanging happiness,
It turned away from immortality:
It was drawn to hazard's call and danger's charm,
It yearned to the pathos of grief, the drama of pain,
Perdition's peril, the wounded bare escape,
The music of ruin and its glamour and crash,
The savour of pity and the gamble of love
And passion and the ambiguous face of Fate.

A world of hard endeavour and difficult toil
And battle on extinction's perilous verge,
A clash of forces, a vast incertitude,
The joy of creation out of Nothingness,
Strange meetings on the roads of Ignorance
And the companionship of half-known souls
Or the solitary greatness and lonely force
Of a separate being conquering its world,
Called it from its too safe eternity.
A huge descent began, a giant fall:
For what the spirit sees, creates a truth
And what the soul imagines is made a world.

A Thought that leaped from the Timeless can become,
Indicator of cosmic consequence
And the itinerary of the gods,
A cyclic movement in eternal Time.

Thus came, born from a blind tremendous choice,
This great perplexed and discontented world,
This haunt of Ignorance, this home of Pain:
There are pitched desire's tents, grief's headquarters.

A vast disguise conceals the Eternal's bliss.
(Savitri, pp. 454-56)

Re: Insights into Sri Aurobindo’s Early Yogic Life—The Divine Plan

by RY Deshpande on Mon 09 Mar 2009 09:59 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

The Divine Plan

A: The Supreme Self-Contained Absolute

FIRST ABSOLUTE — TAT

The Absolute Transcendent, the Supreme, parātpara (containing all, limited by nothing).

SECOND ABSOLUTE— SAT

The supreme self-contained absolute Existence, Sachchidananda, (Ananda uniting Sat and Chit), holding in its absolute unity the dual Principle (He and She, sah and sā) and the four-fold Principle, OM with its four statuses as one.

THIRD ABSOLUTE — ADITI

Aditi is the indivisible conscious-force and Ananda of the Supreme; the Mother, its living dynamis, the supreme Love, Wisdom, Power. ādyā śakti = parabrahman of the Tantra.

FOURTH ABSOLUTE —parameshwara (of the Gita)= Parameshwari (of the Tantra)

B: The Manifestation

I

FIRST ABSOLUTE

The concealed — avyakta — Supreme, self-involved Sachchidananda, Parabrahman (Parameshwara-ishwari).

SECOND ABSOLUTE

Aditi. The Mother, containing in herself the Supreme. The Divine Consciousness, Force, Ananda upholding all the universes. Para Shakti, Para Prakriti Mahamaya (yayedam dhāryate jagat)

THIRD ABSOLUTE

The Eternal Manifestation (The Supreme Satyaloka, Chaitanyaloka, Tapoloka, Anandaloka — not those of the mental series).

GRADATIONS OF MANIFESTATION

THE SUPREME

|
Sachchidananda — Unmanifest, making possible every kind of manifestation

|

SACHCHIDANANDA IN MANIFESTATION

The Supreme Planes of Infinite Consciousnes

1. Sat (implying Chit-Tapas and Ananda)

2. Chit (implying Sat and Ananda)

3. Ananda (implying Sat and Chit-Tapas)

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SUPERMIND OR DIVINE GNOSIS

(The Self-Determining Infinite Consciousness)

From the point of view of our ascent upwards this is the Truth-Consciousness as distinguished from all below that belongs to the separative Ignorance.

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OVERMIND OR MAYA

Overmind takes all Truth that comes down to it from the Supermind, but sets up each Truth as a separate force and idea capable of conficting with the others as well as cooperating with them. Each overmental being has his own world, each force has its own play and throws itself out to realise its own fulfilment in the cosmic play. All is possible; and from this separative seat of conflicting and even mutually negating possibilities comes too, as soon as mind, life and matter are thrown out into play the possibility of ignorance, unconsciousness, falsehood, death and suffering.

OVERMIND GRADATION TO MIND

OVERMIND GNOSIS

(Supermind subdued to the Overmind play, limited and serving for true but limited creations)

OVERMIND PROPER

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Formative Maya (Essential)

Overmind Logos (Determinative of relations)

Intuitive Overmind (Perceptive of all things created by the two other powers)

HIGHEST MIND (Intuitive Consciousness)

HIGHER MIND

I11umined Mind

Liberated Intelligence

MIND PROPER (HUMAN)

Thinking Reason

Dynamic Intelligence

Externa1ising Intelligence

(Will, Vision etc.)

Centre between the eyes (Forehead)

Throat Centre

Vital Mind

Physical Mind

LOWER CREATION

MIND

VITAL

(Vital Mind, Vital Proper, Physical Vital)

PHYSICAL

(The Hour of God, SABCL, Vol. 17)

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