Chapter XXVIII: Supermind, Mind and the Overmind Maya – Synopsis – I

Reason for fall into Ignorance

• What causes the process of lapse of the Individual consciousness into Ignorance? An exclusive concentration on one movement and status is in the essential character of Conscious Being which puts all the rest of consciousness and being behind. This veils the rest of the consciousness from the partial knowledge of that one movement causing lapse into Ignorance.

Gulf between Mind and Supermind

• There is a gulf created between Mind as we know it and the supramental Truth-Consciousness. This makes the transition either from Spirit into Matter or from Matter into Spirit seem improbable. If it is to become possible there have to be gradations between the levels of Mind and the supramental Truth-Consciousness.
• There must be somewhere in the descending and ascending scale of Being an intermediary power and plane of consciousness, through which the involutionary transition from Mind in the Knowledge to Mind in the Ignorance was effected. Through the same again, the evolutionary reverse transition becomes intelligible and possible.
• In the evolutionary process there are indeed radical transitions. from indeterminate Energy to organised Matter, from Matter to Life,; from a subconscious or submental forms (Plants and animals) to a perceptive and feeling and acting Life; from primitive man with animal mentality to a Man with conceptive reasoning Mind.
• These leaps, though great, are to some extent prepared by slow gradations which make them conceivable and feasible. Compared to these transitions there can be no such immense gap as seems to exist between supramental Truth-Consciousness and the Mind in the Ignorance.
• If such intervening gradations exist they must exist superconscient to the human mind. Therefore, at first sight, it would appear that he has no means of contact with the higher gradations of consciousness and there exist no links or bridges between the ordinary state of mind and the Supermind.

Our Mind is already open to higher regions

• The mental consciousness of man seems to be limited in his normal state. But our mind does not always operate within this normal state. There are channels by which the human mind exceeds itself which are precisely the necessary lines of contact with the higher ranges of consciousness serving as the veiled or half-veiled passages.

Intuition

• Firstly, intuition occupies an important place as a means of human knowledge. But pure intuition is a rare occurrence in our mental activity, largely hidden by the interventions of our normal intelligence. In its entry, it is intercepted by mind and coated over with our mental stuff. All the same, it is a fact that there is intervention from above, a veiled, a half-veiled or a swift unveiled intuitive element behind all our original thinking or authentic perception of things.
• When the passage of communication to superior spirit ranges is opened there is tendency of widening of mind and there is the movement of the mind towards the superconscient cosmic Mind. There is penetration of knowledge into our mental limits from the higher planes.
  Two movements of consciousness: Inner Movement
• We can have access to the superior gradations of our conscious existence by two successive movements of consciousness. First, by an inward movement, instead of living in our surface mind we break the wall between our external and our now subliminal self.
• By inner movement we discover our inner and subliminal self with much larger in its potentialities, more plastic, more powerful, more capable of a manifold knowledge and dynamism than our surface mind, life and body. It is capable of a direct communication with the universal forces, movements, objects of the cosmos.

Upward movement
Opening to Silent Self

• Once this inward entry is accomplished, the inner Self is found to be capable of an opening, an ascent upwards into things beyond our mental level. This is the second spiritual possibility in us. By our opening and ascent upwards we discover a vast static and silent Self. In that state our active being and the sense of self would no longer exist and disappear into an indefinable and inexpressible Reality ( a state of Nirvana).

Opening to Spiritual-Mind range

• But there is also a possibility of a less negative line of spiritual experience. There is a large dynamic descent of light, knowledge, power, bliss or other supernormal energies into our self of silence. Or it may reveal a spiritual mind-range where the mind is no longer ignorant of the Reality.
• In the latter alternative we find the means of the transition, the needed step towards a supramental transformation. Because we perceive a graduality of ascent, a communication with a more and more deep and immense light and power from above.

Descent of Knowledge

• There is a descent of knowledge from above like a sealike downpour of masses of spontaneous knowledge assuming the nature of Thought. This is the nature Higher Mind. Beyond this there is a greater illumined Mind with an increased power and intensity and driving force. Here the luminosity (Light) is of the nature of Truth-Sight. Above the illumined Mind is the Intuitive Mind which is the realm of a greater power of the Truth-Force, an intimate and exact Truth-vision, Truth-thought, Truth-sense, Truth-feeling, Truth-action.

Overmind as an occult link

• There is a superconscient cosmic Mind (Overmind) at the source of this Intuition which is in direct contact with the Supramental Truth-Consciousness. It covers this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance and links this lower hemisphere (of Mind, Life, Matter) with that greater Truth-Consciousness. Yet, at the same, it veils the face of the greater Truth with its brilliant golden Lid from our sight. This is the occult link we were looking for. This is the Power that at once connects and divides the supreme Knowledge and the cosmic Ignorance.

Supermind Vs Overmind

• In the Supermind the movement of the One becoming the Many is always dominated by the consciousness of Oneness. In Overmind though the same movement continues, division and separation become dominant and Oneness recedes more and more into the background. Overmind is the delegate of Supermind to this Ignorance and division. Overmind on one side is united with the Truth of Supermind and on the other side is the originator of Ignorance.
• Supermind can act indirectly on an Ignorance only through Overmind. If the Light of Supermind were to act directly on the darkness of Ignorance it could not bear or receive the direct impact of a supreme Light. On one side it is fully illumined by Supramental Light and on the other side it lets the Light pass through it in a diffused form through its screen.
• Supermind transmits to Overmind all its realities. Yet, it allows Overmind to formulate their movements on its own. All movements are initiated by Overmind according to an awareness of things which is still a vision of Truth. Yet, it is a first parent of Ignorance. A line dividing the Supermind and the Overmind permits a free transmission allowing the lower Power to derive from the higher Power all it holds or sees. It automatically compels a transitional change in the passage.
• Overmind knows the oneness behind multiplicity and can realise it in a spiritual cognition . Yet, its dynamic movement is not directly determined by oneness.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 (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.
• In the Supramental harmony Purusha and Prakriti – Conscious Soul and executive Force of Nature are a two-aspected truth, 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.
• In Overmind similar divisions and distinctions are made with the other aspects or powers of the Divine Reality; between One and Many, Divine Personality and Divine Impersonality and the like.
• 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). The power of the Divine Reality which is one and indivisible in the Supramental plane, is manifested as many Godheads in Overmental plane.
• In Supermind various Godheads are held together as a harmonised play of the one Existence. 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.
• The Real-Idea 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. Similarly the Delight of Existence is loosed out into all manner of delights instead of being one and indivisible.
• Overmind gives to the One Existence-Consciousness-Bliss the character of a teeming of infinite possibilities which can be developed into a multitude of worlds. In other words, the infinite play of possibilities of Sat-chit-ananda in a world produces the endlessly variable outcome.