Study Notes
PARAGRAPH 10 Contd..
Our mind sees that all things are born from Matter or material Energy, exist by it, go back into it; it concludes that Matter is the eternal factor, the primary and ultimate reality, Brahman. Or it sees all as born of Life-Force or Mind, existing by Life or by Mind, going back into the universal Life or Mind, and it concludes that this world is a creation of the cosmic Life-Force or of a cosmic Mind or Logos. Or again it sees the world and all things as born of, existing by and going back to the Real- Idea or Knowledge-Will of the Spirit or to the Spirit itself and it concludes on an idealistic or spiritual view of the universe. It can fix on any of these ways of seeing, but to its normal separative vision each way excludes the others.
EXPLANATION
Sri Aurobindo mentions here the way our mind functions. It takes up one idea exclusively and centres all its conclusions around that one idea. It lacks wholistic view of things. It fixes itself on one Truth and excludes all others.
For example, our mind concludes that Matter is all that counts in the Universe; all exist by matter and go back to it; it is the eternal factor, the primary and ultimate reality, Brahman.
Or it sees all born of Life-Force or Mind, existing by them and going back into universal Life or Mind. It concludes that this world is the creation of the cosmic Life-Force or cosmic Mind or Logos (this term refers to: regarding reason as constituting the controlling principle of the universe in classic Greek philosophy).
Or it sees the world existing by and going back to the Real-Idea or Knowledge-Will of the Spirit or to the Spirit itself. Thereby it takes an idealistic and spiritual view of the universe.
Our mind can fix on any of these ways of seeing. Each way excludes the others to its normal separative vision.
Overmind consciousness perceives that each view is true of the action of the principle it erects; it can see that there is a material world-formula, a vital world-formula, a mental world-formula, a spiritual world-formula, and each can predominate in a world of its own and at the same time all can combine in one world as its constituent powers.
EXPLANATION
Contrary to our mental consciousness, Overmind consciousness perceives that each view is true of the action of the principle on which it is based. It admits that there is a material world-formula (All is Matter), a vital world-formula (All is Life), a mental world-formula (All is Mind) and a spiritual world-formula (All is Spirit). Each can assume a greater importance in a world of its own. At the same time all can combine in one world as its constituent powers.
The self-formulation of Conscious Force on which our world is based as an apparent Inconscience that conceals in itself a supreme Conscious-Existence and holds all the powers of Being together in its inconscient secrecy, a world of universal Matter realising in itself Life, Mind, Overmind, Supermind, Spirit, each of them in its turn taking up the others as means of its self-expression, Matter proving in the spiritual vision to have been always itself a manifestation of the Spirit, is to the Overmind view a normal and easily realisable creation.
EXPLANATION
The self-formulation of Conscious Force on which our world is based is an apparent Inconscience. This apparent Inconscience conceals in itself a supreme Conscious-Existence. It holds all the powers of Being together in its inconscient secrecy.
There is a world of universal Matter realising in itself Life, Mind, Overmind, Supermind, Spirit. Each of them in turn is taking up the others as means of its self-expression – Matter taking up Life, Life taking up Mind, Mind taking up Overmind, Overmind taking up Supermind and Supermind taking up Spirit. Thus, Matter proving in the spiritual vision to have been always itself a manifestation of Spirit, is to the Overmind view a normal and easily realisable creation.
In its power of origination and in the process of its executive dynamis Overmind is an organiser of many potentialities of Existence, each affirming its separate reality but all capable of linking themselves together in many different but simultaneous ways, a magician craftsman empowered to weave the multicoloured warp and woof of manifestation of a single entity in a complex universe.
EXPLANATION
In its power of origination and in the process of its executive power Overmind is an organiser of many potentialities of Existence. Each such potentiality affirms its separate reality. Yet all are capable of linking themselves together in many different but simultaneous ways.
Sri Aurobindo compares Overmind to a magician craftsman empowered to weave the multicoloured warp and woof of manifestation of a single entity (Existence) in a complex universe.
Savitri: Book X: The Book of the Double Twilight: CANTO IV: The Dream Twilight of the Earthly Real- p.660- 661: 699-715:
Then stretches the boundless finite’s last expanse,
The cosmic empire of the Overmind,
Time’s buffer state bordering Eternity,
Too vast for the experience of man’s soul:
All here gathers beneath one golden sky:
The Powers that build the cosmos station take
In its house of infinite possibility;
Each god from there builds his own nature’s world;
Ideas are phalanxed like a group of suns,
Each marshalling his company of rays.
Thought crowds in masses seized by one regard;
All Time is one body, Space a single look:
There is the Godhead’s universal gaze
And there the boundaries of immortal Mind:
The line that parts and joins the hemispheres
Closes in on the labour of the Gods
Fencing eternity from the toil of Time.
In the preceding lines of 699 Sri Aurobindo describes the Illumined mental plane and in subsequent lines from 716 he describes the Supramental plane)
PARAGRAPH 11
In this simultaneous development of multitudinous independent or combined Powers or Potentials there is yet—or there is as yet—no chaos, no conflict, no fall from Truth or Knowledge. The Overmind is a creator of truths, not of illusions or falsehoods: what is worked out in any given overmental energism or movement is the truth of the Aspect, Power, Idea, Force, Delight which is liberated into independent action, the truth of the consequences of its reality in that independence.
EXPLANATION
We have seen that in the Overmental plane there are multitudinous independent or combined Powers or Potentialities of the Divine Reality and there is simultaneous development of each of them. Each of them is left to develop its full potential. In this plane there is no chaos and conflict; there is no deviation from Truth or Knowledge.
Whatever Overmind creates are truths, not illusions or falsehoods. In the Overmental plane each Aspect, Power, Idea, Force, Delight of the Divine Reality is liberated into their independent action. Overmental energisms works out the truth of the above facets of the Divine Reality. It works out the truth of the consequences of that Reality in their independence.
There is no exclusiveness asserting each as the sole truth of being or the others as inferior truths: each God knows all the Gods and their place in existence; each Idea admits all other ideas and their right to be; each Force concedes a place to all other forces and their truth and consequences; no delight of separate fulfilled existence or separate experience denies or condemns the delight of other existence or other experience.
EXPLANATION
Here there is no exclusiveness of each truth; there is no asserting of each truth being the sole truth of being and considering the others inferior truths. Here each God knows the other Gods and recognises their due place in existence. Each idea admits other ideas and their right of existence. Each force concedes a place to other forces and their truths and consequences. No delight of separate existence or experience denies the delight of other existence or experience.
The Overmind is a principle of cosmic Truth and a vast and endless catholicity is its very spirit; its energy is an all-dynamism as well as a principle of separate dynamisms: it is a sort of inferior Supermind,—although it is concerned predominantly not with absolutes, but with what might be called the dynamic potentials or pragmatic truths of Reality, or with absolutes mainly for their power of generating pragmatic or creative values, although, too, its comprehension of things is more global than integral, since its totality is built up of global wholes or constituted by separate independent realities uniting or coalescing together, and although the essential unity is grasped by it and felt to be basic of things and pervasive in their manifestation, but no longer as in the Supermind their intimate and ever-present secret, their dominating continent, the overt constant builder of the harmonic whole of their activity and nature.
EXPLANATION
The Overmind is a principle of cosmic Truth. In its spirit it has a vast and endless comprehensiveness. Its energy is an all-dynamism, meaning, the action of its energy operates on a cosmic scale. Yet it operates on a principle of separate dynamism of its independent aspects and powers.
Unlike the Supermind, Overmind is predominantly not concerned with the absolutes. It is concerned with the dynamic potentials or pragmatic truths of Reality. That is, it is concerned with the manifest aspects of the Divine rather than the unmanifest aspects. Or it is concerned with absolutes mainly for their power of generating pragmatic or creative values.
The comprehension of things by Overmind is more global than integral unlike the Supermind. The totality of Overmind is built up of global wholes; or it is constituted by separate independent realities uniting and coming together.
The essential unity is grasped by Overmind and felt to be the basic of things and pervasive in their manifestation. But unlike in Supermind, this essential unity is no longer their intimate and ever-present secret; it is not their dominating continent (something that contains); it is not the overt (apparent) constant builder of the harmonic whole of their activity and Nature.
Sri Aurobindo says, yet we can call the Overmind as a sort of inferior Supermind although it differs from Supermind on various aspects mentioned above.