Study Notes
PARAGRAPH 8 Contd….
The integrality of the Supermind keeps always the essential truth of things, the total truth and the truth of its individual self-determinations clearly knit together; it maintains in them an inseparable unity and between them a close interpenetration and a free and full consciousness of each other: but in Overmind this integrality is no longer there. And yet the Overmind is well aware of the essential Truth of things; it embraces the totality; it uses the individual self-determinations without being limited by them: but although it knows their oneness, can realise it in a spiritual cognition, yet its dynamic movement, even while relying on that for its security, is not directly determined by it.
EXPLANATION
The essential Truth of things is Oneness. Supermind is the possessor of Total Truth (not a partial truth like our mind). It creates individual self-determinations (individual finite units in the Universe from the Infinite, in the process of creation) each carrying its own Truth.
Yet, the integral nature of Supermind ensures that all the three, i.e. the essential truth, the total truth and the truth of its individual self determinations are clearly knit-together maintaining in them an inseparable unity. There is nothing in them which contradicts the Oneness of things. It also maintains between them a close interpenetration and a free and full consciousness of each other. But in Overmind this integrality is no longer there; here division is the characteristic feature.
Yet the Overmind (being a delegate of Supermind) is well aware of the essential Truth of things.It embraces the totality. It uses the individual self-determinations (individual units in Multiplicity) without being limited by them (Unlike our ordinary mind which is limited by body, life and mind).
Overmind knows the oneness behind multiplicity and can realise it in a spiritual cognition (spiritual perception). Yet, its dynamic movement (its action in the lower triple world of mind, life and matter) is not directly determined by oneness though behind all its dynamic movement oneness is relied upon as a basis of its security. The sense of oneness is pushed more and more into the background.
Overmind Energy proceeds through an illimitable capacity of separation and combination of the powers and aspects of the integral and indivisible all-comprehending Unity. It takes each Aspect or Power and gives to it an independent action in which it acquires a full separate importance and is able to work out, we might say, its own world of creation. Purusha and Prakriti, Conscious Soul and executive Force of Nature, are in the supramental harmony a two-aspected single truth, being and dynamis of the Reality; there can be no disequilibrium or predominance of one over the other. In Overmind we have the origin of the cleavage, the trenchant distinction made by the philosophy of the Sankhyas in which they appear as two independent entities, Prakriti able to dominate Purusha and cloud its freedom and power, reducing it to a witness and recipient of her forms and actions, Purusha able to return to its separate existence and abide in a free self-sovereignty by rejection of her original overclouding material principle.
EXPLANATION
Supermind is a plane of integral and indivisible all comprehending Unity. Overmind is the delegate and projection of Supermind in the lower triple world. Overmind Energy proceeds through an illimitable capacity of separation and combination of the powers and aspects of the integral and indivisible all-comprehending Unity (of Supremind).
It takes each Aspect or Power (of the Divine Reality) and gives to it an independent action. Here each Aspect or Power acquires a full separate importance and is able to work out its own world of creation.
(The speciality of the Overmind is this: each possibility that is released, each form, each truth that is released pursues its career independent of others to its utmost result. No doubt there is a sense of oneness behind all, but each unit is not actively conscious of that supportive unity. When it wants to, when it concentrates, it can always get back to that basis oneness on which it functions; otherwise each one is lost in itself – Shri M.P.Pandit: Talks on The Life Divine, p. 180).
In the Supramental harmony Purusha and Prakriti – Conscious Soul and executive Force of Nature are a two-aspected truth. They are the being and dynamis (power) of the Divine Reality. There can be no disequilibrium between the two nor predominance of one over the other.
Whereas, we find the origin of the Division between the Purusha and Prakriti in Overmind. The philosophy of the Sankhyas in which they appear as two independent entities, makes the sharp distinction between the two.
Here Prakriti is able to dominate Purusha and cloud its freedom and power; Purusha is reduced to a witness and recipient of her (Prakriti’s) forms and actions. Purusha returns to its separate existence; it lives in its full and free authority thereby rejecting the original overclouding material principle of Prakriti.
(Sri Aurobindo had clarified in earlier chapters that in reality it is not so; Consciousness and Consciousness-Force are inseparable and one).
So with the other aspects or powers of the Divine Reality, One and Many, Divine Personality and Divine Impersonality, and the rest; each is still an aspect and power of the one Reality, but each is empowered to act as an independent entity in the whole, arrive at the fullness of the possibilities of its separate expression and develop the dynamic consequences of that separateness. At the same time in Overmind this separateness is still founded on the basis of an implicit underlying unity; all possibilities of combination and relation between the separated Powers and Aspects, all interchanges and mutualities of their energies are freely organised and their actuality always possible.
EXPLANATION
In Overmind similar divisions and distinctions are made with the other aspects or powers of the Divine Reality. Distinctions between One and Many, Divine Personality and Divine Impersonality and the like are made. Each is still an aspect and power of the one Reality. Here each acts as an independent entity in the whole. Each is capable of arriving at the expression of the fullness of its possibilities. Each can develop the dynamic consequences (results in their action) of that separateness.
At the same time, in Overmind this separateness is founded on an implicit underlying unity. Oneness is pushed to the background and yet it is not lost. Though separated, there is possibility of combination and relation between the Powers and Aspects. The interchange and sharing of their energies are freely organised and are always made possible.
PARAGRAPH 9
If we regard the Powers of the Reality as so many Godheads, we can say that the Overmind releases a million Godheads into action, each empowered to create its own world, each world capable of relation, communication and interplay with the others. There are in the Veda different formulations of the nature of the Gods: it is said they are all one Existence to which the sages give different names; yet each God is worshipped as if he by himself is that Existence, one who is all the other Gods together or contains them in his being; and yet again each is a separate Deity acting sometimes in unison with companion deities, sometimes separately, sometimes even in apparent opposition to other Godheads of the same Existence.
EXPLANATION
We have seen that Overmind deals with various aspects or powers of the Divine Realty. Though each is still an aspect and power of one Reality, yet each is empowered to act as an independent entity in the whole.
If we regard the Power of the Reality as so many Godheads, we can say that Overmind releases a million Godheads into action in the Overmental plane. Each such Godhead is empowered to create its own world. Each world (of the Godhead) is capable of relation, communication and interplay with other worlds (of Godheads).
In Vedas we find different formulations of the nature of the Gods; Gods are all one Existence to which the sages give different names; each God is worshipped as if he is by himself all that Existence; each God is viewed as the one who is all the other Gods together or contains in them in his being. Again each deity is a separate Deity acting sometimes in unison with companion deities, sometimes separately; sometimes each Deity acts even in apparent opposition to other Godheads of the same Existence.
The power of the Divine Reality which is one and indivisible in the Supramental plane, is manifested as many Godheads in Overmental plane.
In the Supermind all this would be held together as a harmonised play of the one Existence; in the Overmind each of these three conditions could be a separate action or basis of action and have its own principle of development and consequences and yet each keep the power to combine with the others in a more composite harmony. As with the One Existence, so with its Consciousness and Force. The One Consciousness is separated into many independent forms of consciousness and knowledge; each follows out its own line of truth which it has to realise.
EXPLANATION
The fact that the various Godheads are all one Existence is well founded in the Supermind. In Supermind they are held together as a harmonised play of the one Existence.
(Please refer Ch XIV – The Supermind as Creator – Para 13- p.137: “Supermind is the vast self-extension of the Brahman that contains and develops. By the Idea it develops the triune principle of existence, consciousness and bliss out of their indivisible unity. It differentiates them, but it does not divide. It establishes a Trinity, not arriving like the Mind from the three to the One, but manifesting the three out of the One—for it manifests and develops— and yet maintaining them in the unity—for it knows and contains. By the differentiation it is able to bring forward one or other of them as the effective Deity which contains the others involved or explicit in itself and this process it makes the foundation of all other differentiations “.)
Whereas in the Overmind – Existence, Consciousness and Bliss (Sat-chit-ananda) – each of these three conditions could be a separate action or basis of action. Each of these could have its own principle of development and consequences; yet each could keep the power to combine with the others in a more composite harmony.
As separate action is based on Existence so also a separate action is based on its Consciousness and Force. The Consciousness which is One is separated into many independent forms of consciousness and knowledge. Each follows out its own line of truth to be realised.
The one total and many-sided Real-Idea is split up into its many sides; each becomes an independent Idea-Force with the power to realise itself. The one Consciousness-Force is liberated into its million forces, and each of these forces has the right to fulfil itself or to assume, if needed, a hegemony and take up for its own utility the other forces. So too the Delight of Existence is loosed out into all manner of delights and each can carry in itself its independent fullness or sovereign extreme.
EXPLANATION
We know that Real-Idea is Supermind. It is the one and many-sided totality. It is split up into its many sides in Overmind. Here each becomes an independent Idea-Force with the power to realise itself.
The one Consciousness-Force is liberated into its million forces. Each of these forces has the right to fulfil itself. If needed each has the right to assume dominance over other forces and take up the other forces for its own utility.
Similarly the Delight of Existence is loosed out into all manner of delights instead of being one and indivisible. Each can carry in itself its independent fullness or sovereign extreme.
Overmind thus gives to the One Existence-Consciousness-Bliss the character of a teeming of infinite possibilities which can be developed into a multitude of worlds or thrown together into one world in which the endlessly variable outcome of their play is the determinant of the creation, of its process, its course and its consequence.
EXPLANATION
Overmind gives to the One Existence-Consciousness-Bliss the character of a teeming of (full of) infinite possibilities. The possibilities can be developed into a multitude of worlds. Or they are thrown together into one world. In such a world the endlessly variable outcome of the play of possibilities is the determinant of the creation, of its process, its course and its consequence.
In other words, the infinite play of possibilities of Sat-chit-ananda in a world produces the endlessly variable outcome – be in its creation, its process, its course and its consequence.