During 1949-1950 Sri Aurobindo dictated a series of articles, his last prose writings touching upon the latest achievement in the field of his Yoga. The picture of the process leading to supramental evolution was becoming clearer and definite; the details had been so sufficiently worked out that they could be stated with a confident finality; the yoga-tapasya has progressed to the subtle physical where once it is established the fuller possibility could be realised in the material world: the evolutionary march had arrived at the point where the appearance of a new humanity had become a good plausibility, an event that was in fact about to take place. This new humanity is going to be an intermediate state between the mental man and the supramental being who will ultimately be the leader of the transformed world-order. Several aspects of the modus operandi were crystallised at this stage; the unknown vast tracts between Overmind and Supermind extensively explored, and traversed, to get an occult hold on the new process. Even a last sacrifice, if needed, was to be made. In this process, Sri Aurobindo saw an important place for the Mind of Light occupying in the scheme of things. It will create an order of beings who will form an intermediate race, a race with the physical mind prepared to receive the supramental. That is to say, the presently covert supermind in the material world will open out to directly receive in evolution the supermind proper for its full dynamic play here: It is the involved supermind in the physical that is going to receive the superconscient supermind leading to the assured glory of a fully transformed divine life.

In this connection an important issue is raised at times whether the Mind of Light was something new, something that had been formulated by Sri Aurobindo in his later days. The question acquires legitimacy because nowhere in his earlier writings, in his extensive expositions of planes and parts of the being has he mentioned the existence of an instrument or a faculty or a power of being presiding over the new humanity that is to arise prior to the advent of the superman race on the earth. The only one place where we have a mention of it is in his Savitri, the lines written perhaps just a few years before his withdrawal in 1950. The girl Savitri, the divine child, is growing into full maidenhood and a new epiphany is appearing in her. It is as though A mind of light, a life of rhythmic force, A body instinct with hidden divinity prepared an image of the coming god. The passage is as follows: (pp. 356-58)

Aware of forms to which our eyes are closed,

Conscious of nearnesses we cannot feel,

The Power within her shaped her moulding sense

In deeper figures than our surface types.

An invisible sunlight ran within her veins

And flooded her brain with heavenly brilliancies

That woke a wider sight than earth could know.

Outlined in the sincerity of that ray

Her springing childlike thoughts were richly turned

Into luminous patterns of her soul's deep truth,

And from her eyes she cast another look

On all around her than man's ignorant view.

All objects were to her shapes of living selves

And she perceived a message from her kin

In each awakening touch of outward things.

Each was a symbol power, a vivid flash

In the circuit of infinities half-known;

Nothing was alien or inanimate,

Nothing without its meaning or its call.

For with a greater Nature she was one.

As from the soil sprang glory of branch and flower,

As from the animal's life rose thinking man,

A new epiphany appeared in her.

A mind of light, a life of rhythmic force,

A body instinct with hidden divinity

Prepared an image of the coming god;

And when the slow rhyme of the expanding years

And the rich murmurous swarm-work of the days

Had honey-packed her sense and filled her limbs,

Accomplishing the moon-orb of her grace,

Self-guarded in the silence of her strength

Her solitary greatness was not less.

Nearer the godhead to the surface pressed,

A sun replacing childhood's nebula

Sovereign in a blue and lonely sky.

Upward it rose to grasp the human scene:

The strong Inhabitant turned to watch her field,

A lovelier light assumed her spirit brow

And sweet and solemn grew her musing gaze;

Celestial-human deep warm slumbrous fires

Woke in the long fringed glory of her eyes

Like altar-burnings in a mysteried shrine.

Out of those crystal windows gleamed a will

That brought a large significance to life.

Holding her forehead's candid stainless space

Behind the student arch a noble power

Of wisdom looked from light on transient things.

Here we have just a body instinct with hidden divinity, not one open to the supramental Light and Force, a condition to assure the presence of the Mind of Light.

In this passage whether Sri Aurobindo attaches the same full connotation of the phrase Mind of Light as used by him in his last prose writings is doubtful, is arguable. The poet tells us that young Savitri was one with greater Nature and parts of that greater Nature, Para Prakriti, prepared the image of god she was about to enshrine in her growing person; indeed, her greatness was none too less for this to happen. Yet it may be difficult to construe this as the Mind of Light that is the leader, nétā, of the New Humanity. Was then the concept of the Mind of Light a new one, a new discovery made by Sri Aurobindo? Here is one of the views on the subject: "To a careful student of Sri Aurobindo's works the Mind of Light would not be altogether a new concept, though the term was, of course, quite new, and the related concept of a new humanity also would not be totally unfamiliar, though the formulation of it in these last writings was more definite and adequate than in his other works. It was not that a new star had arisen in the Aurobindonian sky but that a star which was not till then distinctly visible had now begun to shine with an intense radiance promising a not too distant new life to the long waiting humanity." This could, however, be a matter of interpretation. But one thing is certain: as soon as Sri Aurobindo withdrew from his physical envelope the Mind of Light got fixed in the Mother's body; that was his parting gift to her. It is that which made the promised victory certain, paving the way for the supramental descent in the subtle-physical just within six years of his passing away. The Mother receiving this gift in 1950 indicates that young Savitri could hardly be in possession of it—she being biographically presented as the Mother.

The more important or deeper fundamental issue, however, is the ontologidal aspect of the Mind of Light. Is the Mind of Light a typal plane as is, say, the Overmind? And, if it is so, where exactly can it be located in the hierarchy of the planes of consciousness? It is said that this "descending order created by the Supermind by an increasing self-limitation of its powers begins with Overmind and proceeds downwards to the planes which have been named by Sri Aurobindo as Intuition, Illumined Mind and Higher Mind. The Mind of Light is the culminating plane in this order which still retains in a subsidiary form the essential gnostic character of the Supermind." This should at once imply that the four overhead planes, Overmind, Intuition, Illumined Mind and Higher Mind, well-defined by Sri Aurobindo in a number of places, should have a much richer gnostic character and content than the Mind of Light, Higher Mind closer to Supermind than the Mind of Light. Is it so? Sri Aurobindo's parting gift to the Mother would then perhaps not amount to much.

RY Deshpande