Study Notes
PARAGRAPH 13 (Contd..)
Or if there is an ordered dynamism in the outward nature, it may be a continuation of superficial ego-action witnessed but not accepted by the inner being, or a mental dynamism that cannot be perfectly expressive of the inner spiritual realisation; for there is no equipollence between action of mind and status of spirit. Even at the best where there is an intuitive guidance of Light from within, the nature of its expression in dynamism of action must be marked with the imperfections of mind, life and body, a King with incapable ministers, a Knowledge expressed in the values of the Ignorance. Only the descent of the Supermind with its perfect unity of Truth-Knowledge and Truth-Will can establish in the outer as in the inner existence the harmony of the Spirit; for it alone can turn the values of the Ignorance entirely into the values of the Knowledge.
EXPLANATION
On the contrary there may be an ordered dynamism in the outward nature. Sri Aurobindo says it may be a continuation of superficial ego-action. Such an action may be witnessed but not accepted by the inner being. Or one may be mentally active but his mental actions may not truly express his spiritual realisation. Because the action of mind may not be equal in force with the status of spirit.
Or, at the best, sometimes one gets an intuitive guidance of Light from within. Still, the nature of its expression while carrying out the action is marked with the imperfections of mind, life and body. It is like a King with incapable ministers; a Knowledge expressed in the values of Ignorance.
Sri Aurobindo says only the Supermind has the perfect unity of Truth-Knowledge and Truth-Will. Only by its descent can we establish the harmony of the Spirit in the outer as well as in the inner existence. Supermind alone can turn the values of the Ignorance entirely into the values of the Knowledge.
PARAGRAPH 14
In the fulfilment of our psychic being as in the consummation of our parts of mind and life, it is the relating of it to its divine source, to its correspondent truth in the Supreme Reality, that is the indispensable movement; and, here too as there, it is by the power of the Supermind that it can be done with an integral completeness, an intimacy that becomes an authentic identity; for it is the Supermind which links the higher and the lower hemispheres of the One Existence. In Supermind is the integrating Light, the consummating Force, the wide entry into the supreme Ananda: the psychic being uplifted by that Light and Force can unite itself with the original Delight of existence from which it came: overcoming the dualities of pain and pleasure, delivering from all fear and shrinking the mind, life and body, it can recast the contacts of existence in the world into terms of the Divine Ananda.
EXPLANATION
We have seen, our mind and life which are separated from their source, the Supermind, can become perfect and fulfilled only by uniting with their divine source, the Supermind. In the same way, it is the indispensable movement for our psychic being to relate itself to its divine source, its correspondent truth in the Supreme Reality.
It is by the power of the Supermind that it can be done with an integral completeness. Our psychic being can establish an intimacy with the Divine Source that becomes an authentic identity. Because it is the Supermind which links the higher and the lower hemispheres of the One Existence.
In Supermind is present the integrating Light, the consummating Force, the wide entry into the supreme Ananda. The psychic being can unite itself with its source, the original Delight of Existence by being uplifted by that Light and Force.
Then, psychic being can deliver our mind, life and body from all fear and shrinking by overcoming the dualities of pain and pleasure. It can change the nature of our contacts we come across in our existence into terms of the Divine Ananda.
SYNOPSIS
- The whole motive and fundamental impulse of life is to find and possess and fulfil the delight of existence. There is fourfold principle of divine Being in creation of the universe. Existence, conscious-Force, Bliss (Sat-chit-ananda) and Supermind. Supermind is veiled by its subordinate term, Mind, the divine Conscious-Force is veiled and it expresses itself through its subordinate term, Life, the divine All-existence is veiled and it manifests itself initially through its subordinate term Matter. Then, equally, the principle of divine Bliss, must be omnipresent in the cosmos but veiled and manifests in us in the soul. It is the psychic principle which is not the body, mind and life. Every cosmic principle in us is double. Likewise, there is a double soul or psychic term in us.
- We have two minds. One is the surface mind and the other is our subliminal mind. Our subliminal mind is large, powerful and luminous. It enters into the universal mind and open to more infinite knowledge. It is the true mental being (manomaya purusha). Similarly, we have two lives. One is outer, involved in the physical body and the other is the subliminal life-force which is one with the universal life-force. It is the true vital being (pranamaya purusha). Behind our body we have a subtler material existence – true subtle physical body. It extends itself into the universal material extension. Likewise, we have a double psychic entity in us. We have the surface desire-soul which works in our vital cravings (desires), our emotions, aesthetic faculty and mental seeking for power, knowledge and happiness. We have a subliminal psychic entity. It is a pure power of light, love, joy and refined essence of being. It is our true soul behind the outer form of psychic existence.
- Our surface body, mind and life are separated from their universal aspects by thick walls. Our subliminal soul in us is open to the universal delight. But our surface soul is shut off from this cosmic delight by egoistic walls of great thickness. These walls do have gates of penetration through which the touches of cosmic delight enter. But in their entry, they become dwarfed, distorted and have to come as their opposites. The malady affecting the individual is that he cannot find his real soul.
- Man does not meet his contacts in the world by a courageous and whole-hearted embrace. But he meets them with caution and often returns discontented with panic or angry recoils in accordance with the touch that pleases or displeases, comforts or alarms or satisfies or dissatisfies him. What causes this wrong reception of life is his desire-soul. It is the cause of a triple misinterpretation of the rasa, the delight in things into the three terms of pleasure, pain and indifference.
- Our nature has formed certain habits by which we respond to a particular contact with pleasure, to some other with pain and to some other without any reaction. It is quite within our capacity to return an opposite response of pain where there used to be pleasure and pleasure where there used to be pain. Our surface desire-soul rejects by dislike or refusal or ignores by neutral indifference, the rasa or essence in experience which it comes across in its dealings in life. But our subliminal soul takes an equal delight in all contacts and is inwardly conscious of the rasa of things. Our real soul within takes joy of all its experiences and gathers from them strength, pleasure and knowledge. By accumulation of such experiences our real soul grows.
- It is the real soul in us which gives the strength to the shrinking desire-mind to bear the pains and even to seek pleasure in it. It makes our desire-mind to reject what is pleasant to it and to modify or even reverse the values. It equalises both pain and pleasure into a neutral state of indifference. .
- The old Indian philosophies take the view that the dualities of the world like pleasure and pain are inseparable and advocated total indifference or blank response to both pleasant or unpleasant world contacts as the only way of escape. This view is based on the surface facts of existence only. Sri Aurobindo says we can bring the real soul to the surface and replace the egoistic standards of pleasure and pain by an equal, an all-embracing delight. The lover of Nature, the artist and poet, the God-lover the spiritual man, the intellectual, the sensuous, the aesthetic all find the equal rasa of things in their own fashion.
- We are not able to apply this divine principle in all our contacts with the world because we have in us parts where our little ego is too strong for us. The desire-soul in us is very weak and cowardly before our emotional or physical joy and suffering, our pleasure and pain of life. In all such cases, taking the rasa or equal delight in all things becomes supremely difficult.
- Our true soul burns in the temple of the inmost heart. It is present behind the thick screen of our ignorant body, mind and life. It is not subliminal but behind the veil of our instrumental Nature. This veiled psychic entity is the flame of the Godhead, the mystic flame of the Veda. It is always burning within us. It cannot be extinguished even by that dense unconsciousness which obscures our outer nature.
- It is our concealed Witness (Purusha) and Control – a Divine sanctioner to all our actions. It is a Guide that leads all our actions from behind. It is the inner light or inner voice of the mystic. It is that which gives us endurance to face hardships. It is that which does not die in us from birth to birth. It is not affected by death, decay or corruption. It is the indestructible spark of the Divine. The psychic being watches over the actions and profits by the development and experience of the body, mind and life.
- Our inner mental, inner vital and inner physical are also veiled in their true entity and put forward temporary personalities which constitute our outer individuality (outer mind, outer vital and outer physical). We call their combined superficial action and appearance of status as ourselves.
- The inmost entity in us takes from as the psychic Person (the true being). It puts forward the psychic personality (outer nature) which changes, grows, develops from life to life. The psychic personality is that which is evolving. Because this is the traveller between birth and death and between death and birth. The parts of our nature (our body, mind and life) are only its various and changing dress. The mission of the psychic being is to lead man I n the Ignorance towards the light of the Divine Consciousness. Therefore, it takes the essence of all experience in the Ignorance (of body, mind and life) to form a nucleus of soul-growth in nature.
- It is this secret psychic entity which is the true original Conscience in us. It is deeper than the constructed (artificial) and conventional conscience as it is called by the moralist. It is the psychic element in man which always points towards Truth and Right and Beauty and Love and Harmony and all that is divine possibility in us. It is the psychic personality in man that flowers as saint, the sage, the seer. When the psychic being fully develops it turns the being towards the Knowledge, of Self and the Divine, the supreme Truth, the supreme Good, the supreme Beauty, Love and Bliss.
- Even though the mind, the vital and the physical may be well developed the psychic personality in man may be weak, crude or ill-developed. The finer parts and movements in man may be lacking or poor in character and power. It means that we are governed by our outer desire-soul or false-psychic entity.
- The desire- soul misinterprets the psychic suggestion and aspiration; it has its own ideas and ideals, its desires and yearnings. We mistake the wrong promptings of our desire soul for the true soul-stuff. The secret psychic Person must come forward into the front instead of governing the outer nature of body, mind and life partially and from behind the veil. It should replace the desire soul. Only then our surface perceptions can be turned into soul images of what is true, right and beautiful.
- The psychic being acts only as a mirror of the universal existence, consciousness, power and delight. But it is not their full participant or possessor. Though it is more nearly and blissfully united to the cosmic consciousness it becomes purely recipient and passive. It has no mastery and action in the world. It is not able to use its knowledge and power in the physical world. Or it may be one with the static self behind the cosmos and may remain separate inwardly from the world-movement. Sri Aurobindo says psychic realisation is not necessarily the last end and entire consummation. The psychic transformation is one necessary condition in the total transformation of our being. Still more is possible.
- The achievements arising out of psychic realisations are really achievements of the spiritual mind in man. They are movements of that mind on its own plane (Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuitive Mind, Over Mind) passing beyond itself into the splendours of the Spirit. Yet, in its nature, it acts by division. It takes the aspects of the Eternal Being in parts and treats each part as a whole. It creates opposites among the parts: Silent vs. Dynamic, Immobile Brahman Vs active Brahman with qualities, Being Vs. Becoming; Personal Divine- Vs. Impersonal Divine.
- The spiritual Mind in its passage towards the Divine realisations will follow these dividing lines. But beyond this movement there is the higher experience of the supermind Truth-Consciousness. In this higher consciousness all the opposites disappear. The psychic transformation after rising into spiritual mind has to be integralised, exceeded and uplifted by a supramental transformation. Only a supramental consciousness-energy could alone establish a perfect harmony between spirit status and world dynamism in our physical life.
- In a spiritual change the ego dissolves into vast impersonality and in this state, there is no clue as to how one can actively participate in his outward life in an orderly manner. Therefore, a very usual result is that the person becomes divided into two parts of being. There is an inner spiritual self and an outer nature self. There is an inner divine realisation seated in a perfect inner freedom. At the same time, the natural part (outer life) goes on with the old action of Nature. We find inert (jadavat), childlike (balavat), incomprehensible (unmatavat) and wild (pisacavat) outer nature though within there is Divine realisation.
- Even if there is an ordered dynamism in the outward nature, it may be a continuation of superficial ego-action which is witnessed but not accepted by the inner being. Or one may be mentally active but his mental actions may not truly express his spiritual realisation. Or, at the best, sometimes one gets an intuitive guidance of Light from within. Still, the nature of its expression while carrying out the action is marked with the imperfections of mind, life and body.
- It is by the power of the Supermind that our psychic being can establish an intimacy with the Divine Source that becomes an authentic identity. Because it is the Supermind which links the higher and the lower hemispheres of the One Existence. The psychic being can unite itself with its source, the original Delight of Existence by being uplifted by the Light and Force of the Supermind. Then, psychic being can deliver our mind, life and body from all fear and shrinking by overcoming the dualities of pain and pleasure in its contacts and change them into terms of the Divine Ananda.