Study Notes
All this is the Brahman; this Self is the Brahman and the Self is fourfold.
Mandukya Upansihad (verse 2)
EXPLANATION:
As our awareness grows, we awake to the existence of an all pervading (spread throughout) consciousness. The forms may appear or disappear. There is a Reality that is constant. This is Brahman. The universes are this Reality in manifestation. There is nothing that is non-existent. All is real, all is Brahman.
This Brahman is the Self of all existences. The Self and Brahman are the same. The Self is everywhere and is the bedrock of everything. It is ever present and omnipresent.
Self in its extension is present as the Self of all that is awake(Visva or waking state); the Self of all that dreams(Taijasa or dream state); the Self of all that is asleep(Prajna or Susupti or the state of dreamless sleep); and above as the Self that transcends all(Turiya) these states of itself.
These are not four different Selves. The waking, the dream and the sleep are states of the One Self that is the Transcendent. Three are poises of one Self. Thus, the Self (that is Brahman) pervades all states of consciousness.
Beyond relation, featureless, unthinkable, in which all is still.
Mandukya Upanishad (verse 7)
The Self in the first three states are accessible to us in our consciousness. The Transcendent is not. We cannot relate ourselves to it in our present consciousness. Our mind fails when it touches the borders of the Fourth Self. Our speech fails to describe. Our vision fails to capture It because It is featureless (Nirguna Brahman). Our thoughts cannot grasp. All movements stop at the gates of the Transcendent Self. All is still. In its presence everything else fades away.
It is this experience of Transcendent Self that has created its mighty impression on human mind to deny reality to all that is not this Featureless and Incommunicable Self.
This is the refusal of the Ascetic.
(Courtesy: Shri M.P.Pandit : Legends in the Life Divine – p. 13-15)
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AND STILL there is a beyond.
For on the other side of the cosmic consciousness there is, attainable to us, a consciousness yet more transcendent, —transcendent not only of the ego, but of the Cosmos itself, —against which the universe seems to stand out like a petty picture against an immeasurable background. That supports the universal activity, —or perhaps only tolerates it; It embraces Life with Its vastness, —or else rejects it from Its infinitude.
EXPLANATION:
Sri Aurobindo in the previous chapter indicated that man in his journey beyond the domains of physical and subtle physical shall reach the plane of Cosmic Consciousness. Yet there is a higher plane of consciousness beyond which is attainable to man.
It is beyond our ego and beyond the Cosmos itself. From this transcendent consciousness how does the universe look like? The universe seems to look like a petty (insignificant) picture against an infinite background.
Now, two views one can take: The Transcendent consciousness supports the universal activity and embraces Life with Its vastness; or It only tolerates the universal activity and rejects Life from Its infinitude.
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If the materialist is justified from his point of view in insisting on Matter as reality, the relative world as the sole thing of which we can in some sort be sure and the Beyond as wholly unknowable, if not indeed non-existent, a dream of the mind, an abstraction of Thought divorcing itself from reality, so also is the Sannyasin, enamoured of that Beyond, justified from his point of view in insisting on pure Spirit as the reality, the one thing free from change, birth, death, and the relative as a creation of the mind and the senses, a dream, an abstraction in the contrary sense of Mentality withdrawing from the pure and eternal Knowledge.
EXPLANATION:
Both the materialist and the Sannyasin are justified in their own stands.
Materialist insists that the Matter is the sole reality. All that he can be sure of is the world he lives in. He admits the existence of worlds beyond but treat them as something wholly unknowable. For him they are dreams of the mind, existing in thought only without any physical reality.
The Sannyasin who rises to the Beyond is so much attracted by It. For him pure Spirit which is changeless and free from birth and death is the sole reality; the relative world we live in is the creation of our mind and senses. The Spirit is the domain of pure and eternal Knowledge. As against it, he views the material world as a dream having no reality in terms of pure Knowledge.
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What justification, of logic or of experience, can be asserted in support of the one extreme which cannot be met by an equally cogent logic and an equally valid experience at the other end? The world of Matter is affirmed by the experience of the physical senses which, because they are themselves unable to perceive anything immaterial or not organised as gross Matter, would persuade us that the suprasensible is the unreal. This vulgar or rustic error of our corporeal organs does not gain in validity by being promoted into the domain of philosophical reasoning.
EXPLANATION:
Here Sri Aurobindo speaks about our bodily sense organs which are always prone to errors. They are not able to perceive anything beyond the material world. Only the gross matter is perceptible to our senses. Anything that escapes our senses is termed as unreal. When it comes to the field of philosophical reasoning our sense organs lose their validity as their functioning lacks refinement.
To support an argument or a logic in favour of an extreme conclusion it should be met by an equally valid experience at the other end. In the case of materialist argument, it is not validated by an equal experience. Because the argument is based on the perception of senses whose conclusions are subject to errors.
Obviously, their pretension is unfounded. Even in the world of Matter there are existences of which the physical senses are incapable of taking cognisance. Yet the denial of the suprasensible as necessarily an illusion or a hallucination depends on this constant sensuous association of the real with the materially perceptible, which is itself a hallucination. Assuming throughout what it seeks to establish, it has the vice of the argument in a circle and can have no validity for an impartial reasoning.
EXPLANATION:
The claim of the materialist has no basis. In the material world itself there are many things that exist which are beyond the grasp of our senses. Yet whatever that is beyond our senses we call it an illusion or a hallucination. This is because, we call something as real only when it is materially perceptible by our senses. Again, this is hallucination says Sri Aurobindo. As we have already seen in the earlier chapter essential matter is not perceptible to senses and it is only in our thought, we perceive the form of an object. By the power of the argument Materialist denial can gain acceptance in a small circle. But it will not be valid before an impartial reasoning.
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Not only are there physical realities which are supra sensible, but, if evidence and experience are at all a test of truth, there are also senses which are supraphysical and can not only take cognisance of the realities of the material world without the aid of the corporeal sense-organs, but can bring us into contact with other realities, supraphysical and belonging to another world— included, that is to say, in an organisation of conscious experiences that are dependent on some other principle than the gross Matter of which our suns and earths seem to be made.
EXPLANATION:
In our physical world itself there are realities which cannot be perceived by our senses. There are enough evidences available from the experiences of Yogis that we do have supraphysical senses. They are called Suksma indriyas, subtle organs in the subtle body (suksma deha). Many have experienced subtle vision and experience (suksma drsti).
These subtle organs can bring to us direct knowledge of the physical world without the aid of our bodily sense organs. Not only that they can bring us into contact with realities of supraphysical and other worlds.
Our suns and earths are made up of gross matter. There are worlds which are made up of some other principle than this gross matter. Our subtle organs will bring about conscious experiences of this subtle worlds. The principle applicable in this gross physical world will not be applicable in the subtle worlds.
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Constantly asserted by human experience and belief since the origins of thought, this truth, now that the necessity of an exclusive preoccupation with the secrets of the material world no longer exists, begins to be justified by new-born forms of scientific research. The increasing evidences, of which only the most obvious and outward are established under the name of telepathy with its cognate phenomena, cannot long be resisted except by minds shut up in the brilliant shell of the past, by intellects limited in spite of their acuteness through the limitation of their field of experience and inquiry, or by those who confuse enlightenment and reason with the faithful repetition of the formulas left to us from a bygone century and the jealous conservation of dead or dying intellectual dogmas.
EXPLANATION:
Humans do possess subtle organs and capacities by which they can gain access to the knowledge of the worlds beyond this material world. This fact has been proved by the human experience since the time man began to think. Now the time has reached we are no longer preoccupied with the secrets of this physical world.
Scientific research evinces a lot of interest on many supra-physical phenomena. One such area is telepathy- meaning communication of thoughts by means other than the known senses.
(Recently in 2014 an experiment was conducted jointly by Starlab(Spain),Axilium Robotics(France) and Harvard Medical School, which was published in the journal ‘PLUS one’. A person in India said “hola” and “ciao” to three other people in France. The greetings were not spoken, typed or texted. The communication happened between the brains which was interpreted by EEG sensors attached to the scalp by means of binary codes.)
Such extra-sensory phenomena cannot be ignored by intellectual minds. Sri Aurobindo states that refusal to acknowledge such faculties would indicate that our minds are imprisoned by the past; our intellect is limited by its lack of experience and its refusal to advance its inquiry. He says the reason behind non-acceptance of such para-normal phenomena is that the human mind confuses enlightenment and reason with faithful repetition of old formulas. They belong to bygone era; yet we cling to those dead intellectual dogmas with stubbornness.
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It is true that the glimpse of supraphysical realities acquired by methodical research has been imperfect and is yet ill-affirmed; for the methods used are still crude and defective. But these rediscovered subtle senses have at least been found to be true witnesses to physical facts beyond the range of the corporeal organs. There is no justification, then, for scouting them as false witnesses when they testify to supraphysical facts beyond the domain of the material organisation of consciousness. Like all evidence, like the evidence of the physical senses themselves, their testimony has to be controlled, scrutinised and arranged by the reason, rightly translated and rightly related, and their field, laws and processes determined.
EXPLANATION:
To arrive at a conclusion, we scrutinise the information gathered through our senses, analyse them with our reason. We interpret them rightly and we accept only such information as evidence that are relevant to the particular field. This is our scientific way of testing the knowledge before admitting them as truth.
In a similar way the evidence obtained through the subtle senses should be subjected to careful scrutiny and their laws and processes are to be determined scientifically. Methodical study of the supra-physical phenomena is not well developed. Conclusive proofs are not documented. The methods by which we gain access to supraphysical knowledge are crude and defective. Sri Aurobindo had not accepted his spiritual experiences blindly until they were properly validated by verifiable facts.
Now that we have turned our attention to the supraphysical domain. We have started to rediscover the subtle faculties lying within us. Through the subtle organs we will be able to perceive phenomena in our physical world itself which are beyond the scope of our regular sense organs. If they can bear witness to facts in the physical domain then, we will not be justified in terming the experiences they bring to us in the supraphysical domain as false.
For example, all of us have experienced telepathy. We will be thinking of someone, the next moment we will get a call from that person. If we can accept such a phenomenon as true, why do we dismiss a spiritual vision we get as a mere dream or hallucination?
But the truth of great ranges of experience whose objects exist in a more subtle substance and are perceived by more subtle instruments than those of gross physical Matter, claims in the end the same validity as the truth of the material universe. The worlds beyond exist: they have their universal rhythm, their grand lines and formations, their self-existent laws and mighty energies, their just and luminous means of knowledge. And here on our physical existence and in our physical body they exercise their influences; here also they organise their means of manifestation and commission their messengers and their witnesses.
EXPLANATION:
We come across many phenomena in our gross physical world. They are conveyed to us by our sense organs. They are accepted by us as true. In the same way we come across a wide-ranging experience in the subtle physical domain. They are brought to us by our subtle organs (sukshma indriyas). Sri Aurobindo says the experience in the subtle physical world is as much a valid truth as our experience in the gross physical world.
Sri Aurobindo further states that subtle worlds do exist beyond our physical world. They have their own universe like our physical universe in which they function in a rhythm. They are arranged in grand lines and formations. They have their own laws like our physical laws and possess powerful energies.
These subtle worlds exercise their influence on our physical bodies and existence. They are also populated with beings and Godheads. They manifest in the physical world by organising their own means. They do engage some entities here as their messengers and witnesses. They appear in subtle bodies and communicate with earthly beings. We have many incidents of yogis and saints appearing in their subtle bodies after they leave their physical bodies.
(In a mist of secrecy wrapping the world-scene
The little deities of Time’s nether act
Who work remote from Heaven’s controlling eye,
Plotted, unknown to the creatures whom they move,
The small conspiracies of this petty reign
Amused with the small contrivings, the brief hopes
And little eager steps and little ways
And reptile wallowings in the dark and dust,
And the crouch and ignominy of creeping life.
Savitri: Book II: Canto V: The Godheads of little life: p.151-152
This earth is not alone our teacher and nurse;
The powers of all the worlds have entrance here.
Ibid: p. 153)
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But the worlds are only frames for our experience, the senses only instruments of experience and conveniences. Consciousness is the great underlying fact, the universal witness for whom the world is a field, the senses instruments. To that witness the worlds and their objects appeal for their reality and for the one world or the many, for the physical equally with the supraphysical we have no other evidence that they exist.
EXPLANATION:
What supports the worlds both physical and supraphysical? It is Consciousness. Before its vastness the worlds are only frames for our experience (Imagine a vast ocean on which many ships are afloat with people; the ocean is Consciousness and the ships are the many worlds). The senses are only instruments of experience. It is the Consciousness that bears witness to the facts that the worlds and their objects exist. We have no other evidence.
At the lower levels sense instruments are used. As we rise higher different sets of instruments like subtle physical, intuition, identity of consciousness are used.
It has been argued that this is no relation peculiar to the constitution of humanity and its outlook upon an objective world, but the very nature of existence itself; all phenomenal existence consists of an observing consciousness and an active objectivity, and the Action cannot proceed without the Witness because the universe exists only in or for the consciousness that observes and has no independent reality.
EXPLANATION:
As an extension of the above fact one may argue that there is no such thing as a universe. We may say the universe has no independent reality. Because the relationship with the consciousness is not peculiar to humanity alone; it is general to the very nature of existence itself.
There is a Consciousness that observes all activities. The Action (caused by the Divine Will) cannot happen without this witness consciousness. It is the Consciousness that observes something called this Universe. (We witness our dreams. Outside us they do not have independent reality)
The crux of this argument is only Consciousness exists and nothing else (Buddhists) exists outside it.
It has been argued in reply that the material universe enjoys an eternal self-existence: it was here before life and mind made their appearance; it will survive after they have disappeared and no longer trouble with their transient strivings and limited thoughts the eternal and inconscient rhythm of the suns. The difference, so metaphysical in appearance, is yet of the utmost practical import, for it determines the whole outlook of man upon life, the goal that he shall assign for his efforts and the field in which he shall circumscribe his energies. For it raises the question of the reality of cosmic existence and, more important still, the question of the value of human life.
EXPLANATION:
There is the other side of the argument. The material universe has independent reality. Life and mind may appear and disappear in it. But the activities of the universe with its earth and suns will go on in an inconscient rhythm. The struggle and thought of human mind are of least concern to this material Universe. This is the materialist perception.
If Life and Mind do not matter for the Universe, what is the purpose of cosmic existence and more so of human life on earth? This is the natural question arising out of the above argument.
Though it looks like a question of existence, it has a great importance on man’s outlook on life. It raises the fundamental questions. What is man’s goal in life? What field he must focus his energies on? To what purpose he must direct his efforts?
The above questions deal with the reality of our cosmic existence and more so with the value of human life.
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If we push the materialist conclusion far enough, we arrive at an insignificance and unreality in the life of the individual and the race which leaves us, logically, the option between either a feverish effort of the individual to snatch what he may from a transient existence, to “live his life”, as it is said, or a dispassionate and objectless service of the race and the individual, knowing well that the latter is a transient fiction of the nervous mentality and the former only a little more long-lived collective form of the same regular nervous spasm of Matter.
EXPLANATION:
The materialist concludes that the universe has an existence independent of the life and mind which are supported by it. Then, the life of an individual loses all its significance. The human race upon earth has no reality. Knowing that his life is temporary the individual tries by all means to enjoy his life.
Or he finds that his life is nothing but a temporary fiction of a nervous mentality. The human race is a long-lived collective form of same nervous spasm of matter(body). Life becomes an objectless and dispassionate service of the race and the individual. In short life seems to be a purposeless existence on earth.
We work or enjoy under the impulsion of a material energy which deceives us with the brief delusion of life or with the nobler delusion of an ethical aim and a mental consummation. Materialism like spiritual Monism arrives at a Maya that is and yet is not, —is, for it is present and compelling, is not, for it is phenomenal and transitory in its works.
EXPLANATION:
The material energy drives all our activities in our life. This energy only gives a false impression that we are ‘living’ our lives. We live to achieve certain ethical objectives and mental accomplishments. This is again a false notion of a nobler kind.
Sri Aurobindo states that Materialism gives us the impression of reality of life with all its material, emotional and intellectual accomplishments. Yet all these are only sensory perceptions existing for a short time. Hence, he says that Materialism also arrives at a Maya like an Adwaitin; it is and yet it is not. Life is very much present; yet it is not, very transitory.
At the other end, if we stress too much the unreality of the objective world, we arrive by a different road at similar but still more trenchant conclusions,—the fictitious character of the individual ego, the unreality and purposelessness of human existence, the return into the Non-Being or the relationless Absolute as the sole rational escape from the meaningless tangle of phenomenal life.
EXPLANATION:
We can take the opposite stance that the world is maya having no objective reality. Here we travel by a different road but to arrive at the same conclusion. A conclusion which is vigorous and sharp in its approach. The unreality of human ego and purposelessness of life are sounded loud. What is the solution? Returning to the Non-Being or the relationless Absolute is the sole means of escape from life’s problems.
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And yet the question cannot be solved by logic arguing on the data of our ordinary physical existence; for in those data there is always a hiatus of experience which renders all argument inconclusive. We have, normally, neither any definitive experience of a cosmic mind or supermind not bound up with the life of the individual body, nor, on the other hand, any firm limit of experience which would justify us in supposing that our subjective self really depends upon the physical frame and can neither survive it nor enlarge itself beyond the individual body. Only by an extension of the field of our consciousness or an unhoped-for increase in our instruments of knowledge can the ancient quarrel be decided.
EXPLANATION:
We gain some inputs and experience living in our ordinary physical existence. But there is always a gap in the flow of our experience obtained through our senses. This makes all arguments based on them inconclusive. Hence, we are unable to decide on the reality or unreality of this world with the limited knowledge we have.
We do not have the experience of the cosmic mind. Nor do we have an organised Supermind which is not limited by our body. We have not attained the ultimate level of experience at our present level of existence to justify:
- Our subjective self really depends on our physical body
- It cannot exist beyond our physical body
- It cannot enlarge itself beyond the individual body.
It means the contrary is the truth. Our subjective self (anything that is beyond our physical self) exists independent of our body. The only way to get knowledge that can settle the dispute between the Reality or unreality of the material world is by extension of our consciousness. It is also possible by increase in instruments of knowledge for which there is little hope.
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The extension of our consciousness, to be satisfying, must necessarily be an inner enlargement from the individual into the cosmic existence. For the Witness, if he exists, is not the individual embodied mind born in the world, but that cosmic Consciousness embracing the universe and appearing as an immanent Intelligence in all its works to which either world subsists eternally and really as Its own active existence or else from which it is born and into which it disappears by an act of knowledge or by an act of conscious power. Not organised mind, but that which, calm and eternal, broods equally in the living earth and the living human body and to which mind and senses are dispensable instruments, is the Witness of cosmic existence and its Lord.
EXPLANATION:
How one can extend his consciousness? It is by inner enlargement from individual to cosmic existence. We no longer limit our consciousness within our body. We include everything within us. What is outside becomes inside.
Sri Aurobindo describes here the Witness Consciousness:
It is not the mind(created) of an individual born in the world. It is the Cosmic Consciousness embracing the universe. It appears as an immanent (permanent indwelling presence) Intelligence in all its works. For the cosmic consciousness the world exists eternally as a part of Its own active existence. Or from which it is born and into which it disappears by an act of conscious power or by knowledge (as an Ascetic does).
There is a Cosmic Mind which is the Witness or at a higher level becomes the Lord of Cosmic existence. It is calm and eternal. It is present in the living earth and the living human body. In a state of Cosmic consciousness, what we call as mind and senses are not required.
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The possibility of a cosmic consciousness in humanity is coming slowly to be admitted in modern Psychology, like the possibility of more elastic instruments of knowledge, although still classified, even when its value and power are admitted, as a hallucination. In the psychology of the East it has always been recognised as a reality and the aim of our subjective progress. The essence of the passage over to this goal is the exceeding of the limits imposed on us by the ego-sense and at least a partaking, at most an identification with the self-knowledge which broods secret in all life and in all that seems to us inanimate.
EXPLANATION:
Sri Aurobindo wrote this in 1914 in the wake of two classic publications – R.H.Bucke’s Cosmic Consciousness (1901) and William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) and the works of Sigmund Freud. One of the chief reasons for the meagre attention given in modern psychology to mystical experiences such as that of cosmic consciousness lies in the fact that modern psychology has been for the most part a study of the ordinary consciousness and experience. Consequently, mystical states, which are experienced only by rare individuals, have tended to be disregarded or even dismissed (Courtesy: Sri Aurobindo and the Future Psychology – A.S.Dalal-p.69- SAICE- Sri Aurobindo Ashram).
Here Sri Aurobindo refers to hidden faculties of human being like intuition, perception by subtle senses as elastic instruments of knowledge.
However, Sri Aurobindo says, in the East, Cosmic Consciousness has been recognised as a reality and a goal in spiritual progress. While reaching towards cosmic consciousness we exceed our limited egoistic consciousness. There is a self-knowledge (Divine Presence, the Brahman) secretly present both in animate beings and inanimate objects. We identify ourselves and become a part of this self-knowledge with all when we attain the state of cosmic consciousness.
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Entering into that Consciousness, we may continue to dwell, like It, upon universal existence. Then we become aware, — for all our terms of consciousness and even our sensational experience begin to change, —of Matter as one existence and of bodies as its formations in which the one existence separates itself physically in the single body from itself in all others and again by physical means establishes communication between these multitudinous points of its being. Mind we experience similarly, and Life also, as the same existence one in its multiplicity, separating and reuniting itself in each domain by means appropriate to that movement.
EXPLANATION:
In our ordinary consciousness we appear to exist as separate individuals. We see objects existing outside us. We live in separate bodies. We feel our minds are different from others. Each one’s life is distinct from the others.
Living in cosmic consciousness our terms of consciousness and all our sensations begin to change. We do not react to pain and pleasure. We feel Matter as one existence; the bodies are its formations. There is only one existence separated by different bodies. The bodies appear as multiple points connected with each other. Similarly, a single Mind appearing as many minds linked to each other. Likewise, a single life existing as many lives separating and reuniting themselves. We feel like a single being linked by body, life and mind.
Sri Aurobindo had in the earlier paragraph stated that cosmic consciousness is unity embracing the many; not multiplicity struggling to reach unity. Looking from space everything appears united below while we live as separate entities on earth. As we rise in our consciousness Unity is the common experience.
And, if we choose, we can proceed farther and, after passing through many linking stages, become aware of a supermind whose universal operation is the key to all lesser activities. Nor do we become merely conscious of this cosmic existence, but likewise conscious in it, receiving it in sensation, but also entering into it in awareness. In it we live as we lived before in the ego-sense, active, more and more in contact, even unified more and more with other minds, other lives, other bodies than the organism we call ourselves, producing effects not only on our own moral and mental being and on the subjective being of others, but even on the physical world and its events by means nearer to the divine than those possible to our egoistic capacity.
EXPLANATION:
There is a higher status of Supermind beyond the cosmic consciousness. Sri Aurobindo says it is possible to reach this state after ascending many stages. It is the Supermind which creates the lower worlds and holds the key for all activities in the lower planes. (Sri Aurobindo calls it the Supermind or the Truth-consciousness, because it is a principle superior to mentality and exists, acts and proceeds in the fundamental truth and unity of things and not like the mind in their appearances and phenomenal divisions. Supermind is the vast self-extension of Brahman– SABCL Vol 18 – P.143 & 128)
Sri Aurobindo states that once we attain cosmic consciousness, we begin to live in it and absorb it in our sensations. We become a part and parcel of it. We live unified with other bodies, minds and lives. We begin to live in it as we lived in our egoistic consciousness.
As we become interconnected at all levels with other beings, we can bring about changes in the subjective self (inner mind, inner vital and inner physical) of others besides on our own self. Not only that we can influence the physical world and its events by ways nearer to the Divine. This is something impossible for us to do as long as we live in our egoistic individual capacity. (Let us recall how Sri Aurobindo and the Mother by their spiritual force intervened during World War II and changed its course. Sri Aurobindo worked for India’s freedom from higher plane. The Mother by her intervention saved Paris from destruction during World War I).
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Real then to the man who has had contact with it or lives in it, is this cosmic consciousness, with a greater than the physical reality; real in itself, real in its effects and works. And as it is thus real to the world which is its own total expression, so is the world real to it; but not as an independent existence.
EXPLANATION:
The cosmic consciousness is as much a reality for those who attained it, rather a greater reality than the physical reality. It carries a reality in itself, in its effects and works. The world is nothing but the expression of cosmic consciousness. It is thus real to the world and the world is real to it. Hence there is no question of their independent existence.
For in that higher and less hampered experience we perceive that consciousness and being are not different from each other, but all being is a supreme consciousness, all consciousness is self-existence, eternal in itself, real in its works and neither a dream nor an evolution.
EXPLANATION:
There is a consciousness force that is behind all actions in the world. As we live in the consciousness of lower triple worlds of body, life and mind we are not aware of it. As we rise higher to the cosmic consciousness, we become one with the consciousness. Being and consciousness no longer appear different.
The consciousness is self-existence, eternal in itself. It is neither a dream nor an evolution. It is real in its works.
The world is real precisely because it exists only in consciousness; for it is a Conscious Energy one with Being that creates it. It is the existence of material form in its own right apart from the self-illumined energy which assumes the form, that would be a contradiction of the truth of things, a phantasmagoria, a nightmare, an impossible falsehood.
EXPLANATION:
We have seen in the earlier paragraph that it is the consciousness that bears witness to the existence of the Universe. Hence Sri Aurobindo says the world is real because it exists only in consciousness which is real. It is the Conscious Energy of the Divine that has created it (As opposed to the Buddhist and Adwaitic views)
The opposite view is also not true. That is, the world is a material form that exists on its own right. It has nothing to do with the self- illumined (meaning- on its own light) energy (consciousness) that created its forms (Materialist point of view).
Sri Aurobindo terms that materialist point of view as a contradiction to the truth of things, an illusory image, something that seems horrible and an impossible falsehood.
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But this conscious Being which is the truth of the infinite supermind, is more than the universe and lives independently in Its own inexpressible infinity as well as in the cosmic harmonies. World lives by That; That does not live by the world.
EXPLANATION:
We have seen in the previous paragraph that the Conscious Energy is one with the Being that creates it. Sri Aurobindo says this conscious Being (Brahman) is the truth of the infinite Supermind. It is more than the Universe. It lives independently in Its own inexpressible infinity. At the same time, It lives in the cosmic harmonies (meaning It is present as the underlying Divine Principle behind the harmony of cosmic beings). World lives by That (Brahman); That does not live by the world.
And as we can enter into the cosmic consciousness and be one with all cosmic existence, so we can enter into the world-transcending consciousness and become superior to all cosmic existence. And then arises the question which first occurred to us, whether this transcendence is necessarily also a rejection. What relation has this universe to the Beyond?
EXPLANATION:
We have seen in the earlier paragraph that there is a consciousness which transcends (go beyond) the cosmos. One can enter into this transcendent consciousness just as one can enter into the cosmic consciousness. In the state of cosmic consciousness, we are one with all the cosmic existence. In the state of world transcending consciousness, we become superior to all cosmic existence. Now three questions arise:
1. Which occurred first to us, the cosmic or transcendent consciousness?
2. While transcending the world, are we rejecting the world?
3. What is the relation that exists between the universe and the transcendent?
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For at the gates of the Transcendent stands that mere and perfect Spirit described in the Upanishads, luminous, pure, sustaining the world but inactive in it, without sinews of energy, without flaw of duality, without scar of division, unique, identical, free from all appearance of relation and of multiplicity, — the pure Self of the Adwaitins, the inactive Brahman, the transcendent Silence.
EXPLANATION:
Going beyond the Cosmic consciousness one enters the Transcendent consciousness. As one enters this state, one experiences the perfect Spirit described in the Upanishads. It is luminous (full of light), pure, supporting the world but not participating in it. Not supported by energy it is self-sustaining. It is One without a second unlike the lower planes which suffer from duality. The problem of division does not exist here. As It is unique there is no question of Its relation with multiplicity. It is what is described by the Adwaitins as the pure Self, the inactive Brahman, the transcendent Silence.
And the mind when it passes those gates suddenly, without intermediate transitions, receives a sense of the unreality of the world and the sole reality of the Silence which is one of the most powerful and convincing experiences of which the human mind is capable.
EXPLANATION:
What does one experience when one directly enters this state? It is possible for a yogi to enter this state without passing through the intermediary stages (Higher mind, Illumined mind, Intuitive mind, Overmind, Supermind & Cosmic Consciousness).
In a sudden transition, he is driven to the sense of unreality of the world. He experiences the Silence as the sole reality. Sri Aurobindo says it is one of the most powerful and convincing experiences of which the human mind is capable.
Here, in the perception of this pure Self or of the Non-Being behind it, we have the starting point for a second negation, — parallel at the other pole to the materialistic, but more complete, more final, more perilous in its effects on the individuals or collectivities that hear its potent call to the wilderness, — the refusal of the ascetic.
EXPLANATION:
In this state the yogi perceives the pure Self. Or he perceives the Non-Being (Asat – it denotes the Unknowable’s freedom from all cosmic existence). This is the starting point of a second negation, a parallel view of the Materialist but at the other pole.
This is the refusal of the ascetic. It is more complete, more final. Sri Aurobindo describes it as more perilous (dangerous) because it causes such a negative impact on the individuals and collectivities. He says the call of the ascetic is like leading someone into wilderness (meaning finding oneself directionless in a barren land).
PARAGRAPH 16
It is this revolt of Spirit against Matter that for two thousand years, since Buddhism disturbed the balance of the old Aryan world, has dominated increasingly the Indian mind. Not that the sense of the cosmic illusion is the whole of Indian thought; there are other philosophical statements, other religious aspirations. Nor has some attempt at an adjustment between the two terms been wanting even from the most extreme philosophies. But all have lived in the shadow of the great Refusal and the final end of life for all is the garb of the ascetic.
EXPLANATION:
In our ancient Indian life spirituality and material life were equally balanced. There was no division between spiritual life and ordinary life. During Vedic period there were well defined Shastras covering all walks of life (64 Shastras). This balance was disturbed by Buddhism which overemphasized the unreality of the world and life. There were of course other spiritual and religious thoughts which did not accept the theory that the world was an illusion. There were some philosophical schools and teachings (e.g. The Gita) which attempted to bring reconciliation between the two extreme philosophies. But all were overshadowed by the theory of world negation by the ascetic. Sannyasa was considered to be the ultimate end of life (Brahmacharya – student life, Grihashta – household life, Vanaprastha – retired life, Sannyasa – renounced life).
The general conception of existence has been permeated with the Buddhistic theory of the chain of Karma with the consequent antinomy of bondage and liberation, bondage by birth, liberation by cessation from birth. Therefore all voices are joined in one great consensus that not in this world of the dualities can there be our kingdom of heaven, but beyond, whether in the joys of the eternal Vrindavan or the high beatitude of Brahmaloka, beyond all manifestations in some ineffable Nirvana or where all separate experience is lost in the featureless unity of the indefinable Existence.
EXPLANATION:
By the turn of the fifth century Buddhism began to dominate India. It says Man is born because of his Samskaras (past mental dispositions). He undergoes birth and death to exhaust his karmic consequences. The liberation for him is to cease from birth and death and to attain Nirvana. He is bonded by birth and is liberated by cessation from birth.
As a result of this state of mind everyone was of the view that heaven cannot be attained as long as we live in this world of duality. It lies elsewhere, in the eternal Vrindavan (Goloka, the Vaishnava heaven of eternal Beauty and Bliss) or in Brahmaloka (The highest state of pure existence, consciousness and beatitude attainable by the soul without complete extinction in the Indefinable). Or in a state of Nirvana(Extinction, not necessarily of all being, but of being as we know it, extinction of ego, desire and egoistic action and mentality) beyond all manifestations. In that state separate experience is lost. One lives in a featureless unity of the indefinable Existence.
And through many centuries a great army of shining witnesses, saints and teachers, names sacred to Indian memory and dominant in Indian imagination, have borne always the same witness and swelled always the same lofty and distant appeal, — renunciation the sole path of knowledge, acceptation of physical life the act of the ignorant, cessation from birth the right use of human birth, the call of the Spirit, the recoil from Matter.
EXPLANATION:
For many centuries thereafter many spiritual personalities, saints and sacred men in India held the same ascetic view on life. They did not attach any positive value to life. Those who were engaged in the worldly life were considered to be ignorant. They believed that the only way to make the right use of this birth is not to be born again. They withdrew from material life in response to the call of the Spirit. Renunciation (Sannyasa) was thought to be the only path of knowledge.
PARAGRAPH 17
For an age out of sympathy with the ascetic spirit — and throughout all the rest of the world the hour of the Anchorite may seem to have passed or to be passing — it is easy to attribute this great trend to the failing of vital energy in an ancient race tired out by its burden, its once vast share in the common advance, exhausted by its many-sided contribution to the sum of human effort and human knowledge.
EXPLANATION:
By the early part of the 20th century the ascetic way of life was gradually fading especially in the rest of the world. Ancient India’s contribution to the human effort and knowledge was many sided and profound. Many critics think or are inclined to think that after a large outburst of vitality and surges of creative power the people of the East are on the downward curve; the choice of the Spirit exclusively is an expression of their tiredness of the world.
But we have seen that it corresponds to a truth of existence, a state of conscious realisation which stands at the very summit of our possibility. In practice also the ascetic spirit is an indispensable element in human perfection and even its separate affirmation cannot be avoided so long as the race has not at the other end liberated its intellect and its vital habits from subjection to an always insistent animalism.
EXPLANATION:
But Sri Aurobindo points out that the choice corresponds to a truth of an existence and a great spiritual experience. This leads man to think that the spirit alone is real and Matter is transitory and to be rejected.
Sri Aurobindo highlights the positive side of the ascetic spirit here. No doubt it gives one the experience of Sachchidananda state. It is a state one can attain at the summit of his conscious realisation.
Yet the ascetic principle practically helps the human being in perfecting the character. The human being as a race, at the present stage, has not freed its intellectual and emotional parts from the influence of the animal instinct. Sri Aurobindo says as long as the human being is in the grip of animality, the ascetic stand on rejecting the worldly life in favour of the transcendent Reality cannot be avoided.
PARAGRAPH 18
We seek indeed a larger and completer affirmation. We perceive that in the Indian ascetic ideal the great Vedantic formula, “One without a second”, has not been read sufficiently in the light of that other formula equally imperative, “All this is the Brahman”. The passionate aspiration of man upward to the Divine has not been sufficiently related to the descending movement of the Divine leaning downward to embrace eternally Its manifestation. Its meaning in Matter has not been so well understood as Its truth in the Spirit. The Reality which the Sannyasin seeks has been grasped in its full height, but not, as by the ancient Vedantins, in its full extent and comprehensiveness.
EXPLANATION:
The true solution open to the integral seeker is a completer and a larger affirmation of both Matter and Spirit. We must see the real basis of the materialist denial and the refusal of the ascetic.The ascetic view of the world is very narrow. We need an all-encompassing affirmation.
The ascetic realises only a part of the Vedantic Truth, (ekamevadvitiyam – Chandogya Upanishad -6.2.1) “One without a second”. He does not take into view the whole of the Truth, (Sarvam khalvidam brahma – Chandogya Upanishad – 3.14.1) “All this is the Brahman”. The former should be read in the light of the latter.
The aspiration of man towards the Divine is an ascending movement. In response to his aspiration there is a descending movement by the Divine. The descent embraces all Its manifestation eternally- both in Cosmic and Individual aspects. (Sri Aurobindo’s symbol) The ascetic does not sufficiently relate the descending movement with the ascending movement. The Divine’s truth in the Spirit is well understood. But Its meaning in Matter is not properly understood.
The Divine Reality is grasped by the ascetic in one way only, i.e.in world exceeding transcendence (in its full height). But not in world embracing comprehensiveness as grasped by the ancient Vedantins.
But in our completer affirmation we must not minimise the part of the pure spiritual impulse. As we have seen how greatly Materialism has served the ends of the Divine, so we must acknowledge the still greater service rendered by Asceticism to Life. We shall preserve the truths of material Science and its real utilities in the final harmony, even if many or even if all of its existing forms have to be broken or left aside. An even greater scruple of right preservation must guide us in our dealing with the legacy, however actually diminished or depreciated, of the Aryan past.
EXPLANATION:
After highlighting the limitations of the ascetic tendency Sri Aurobindo ends this chapter with a note of caution that the positive contribution made by it must not be ignored. Its pure spiritual impulse (like silent mind etc) must be given its due credit. We have seen the great service rendered by Materialism. Likewise, we must not ignore the still greater service rendered by ascetism.
Sri Aurobindo reconciles both material Science and the Spirituality. The Scientific truths and its utilities must be carefully preserved even if they are not carried in its full form. This must result in a final harmony with the Spiritual truths.
Sri Aurobindo refers to our ancient era as the Aryan past of the Vedic period. The term refers to all that is good and noble. It refers to the qualities of a fighter who strives and overcomes all outside him and within him that opposes the human advance; who does the work of sacrifice, finds the sacred word of illumination; who is the warrior of the light and traveller to the Truth.
Such was the rich legacy of our ancient India. It might have been diminished in quality and diluted in its value. Yet with greater scruple (conscience) we should act while trying to preserve our ancient past.
In essence Sri Aurobindo says we must accept the positive aspects of both Materialism and Asceticism and reject their negative aspects. Both have led to a certain exaggeration. We have to eliminate the exaggeration and harmonise the truths of both.
REFERENCE:
THE MOTHER ON COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS: (CWM: VOL 6:419)
The cosmic consciousness means that, instead of feeling that one is an altogether separate, isolated being, different from all others, one feels that he is only a part of an immense whole and in relation with the whole totality, receiving the movements and vibrations of all others and transmitting to all others its own vibrations, that the movements of consciousness, the psychological vibrations do not stop inside a small individual enclosed in himself, who is as in a shell, without any contact with the rest; the forces pass across, going from one to another, touching one here, another there, and these forces are so complex and multiple that we can no longer tell where one begins and another ends.
One has exactly the impression of an immense whole moving within itself. It is something like that—the cosmic consciousness. So, first of all, you must think of this; you must first become aware that you are a point in the universal immensity, and not isolated but altogether joined with it. And then you must study yourself, observe yourself. You will immediately have the opportunity of seeing the vibrations which come from outside and pass through you but are not generated in you, which you receive and express. So gradually, by studying, looking, observing, you become aware of that which is not limited. This is how you begin to acquire the universal or cosmic consciousness. Cosmic and universal mean the same thing.
THE MOTHER ON ILLUSION OF THE WORLD (CWM: Vol 7: p.288)
It began with the teaching of the Buddha who said that existence was the fruit of desire, and that there was only one way of coming out of misery and suffering and desire; it was to come out of existence. And then this continued with Shankara who added that not only is it the fruit of desire but it is a total illusion, and as long as you live in this illusion you cannot realise the Divine.
………..This indeed is a state in which one can truly make very great progress externally, because one can be detached from everything and act without attachment, without preference, with that inner freedom which is expressed outwardly. Yet this is the real necessity: once this inner freedom has been attained and the conscious contact with what is eternal and infinite, then, without losing this consciousness one must return to action and let that influence the whole consciousness turned towards action. This is what Sri Aurobindo calls bringing down the Force from above. In this way there is a chance of being able to change the world, because one has brought in a new Force, a new region, a new consciousness and put it into contact with the outer world. So its presence and action will produce inevitable changes and, let us hope, a total transformation in what this outer world is.
So we could say that the Buddha quite certainly had the first part of the experience, but that he never dreamt of the second, because it was contrary to his own theory. His theory was that one had to run away; but it is obvious that there is only one way of escape, to die, and yet, as he himself has said so well, you may be dead and be completely attached to life and still be in the cycle of births and not have liberation. And in fact he has admitted the idea that it is by successive passing lives on the earth that one can manage to develop oneself to reach this liberation. But for him the ideal was that the world would not exist any longer.
……..It is Shankara who took over and made the thing altogether complete in his teaching. If we go back to the teaching of the Rishis, for example, there was no idea of flight out of the world; for them the realisation had to be terrestrial. They conceived a Golden Age very well, in which the realisation would be terrestrial. But starting from a certain decline of vitality in the spiritual life of the country, perhaps, from a different orientation which came in, you see… it is certainly starting from the teaching of the Buddha that this idea of flight came, which has undermined the vitality of the country, because one had to make an effort to cut oneself off from life. The outer reality became an illusory falsehood, and one had no longer to have anything to do with it. So naturally one was cut off from the universal energy, and the vitality went on diminishing, and with this vitality all the possibilities of realisation also diminished. But it is very remarkable…
I have met many people who were trying this method of detachment and separation from life, and living exclusively in the inner reality. These people, almost all of them, had in the outer life absolutely gross defects. When they returned to the ordinary consciousness, they were very much lower than one of the elite, for instance, a man of great culture ´ and great intellectual and moral development. These people in their ordinary conduct, when they came out of their meditation, their exclusive concentration, lived very grossly. They had very, very ordinary defects, you see. I knew many of this kind. Or perhaps they had come to a stage where their outer life was a sort of dream in which they were, so to say, not existing. But one had altogether the impression of beings who were completely incomplete, totally incomplete, that is, outwardly there was nothing at all.
Doesn’t ascetic discipline help us to overcome attachment?
No, it inflates and strengthens your pride (CWM-VOL 6-P.301)