EWS #66 Planes of Consciousness (3) - beyond the mind

Feb 19, 2020

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Narad (0:00:42):
you Namaste and welcome to our continuing series, Evenings with Sraddhalu. Today we are going to take up the higher levels above the mind and go into detail about them and how they are important in our sadhana today. So we will begin with higher mind.

Sraddhalu (0:01:10):

But first, whether at all there is such a thing. One of the problems we face when interacting with people coming from other traditions, including Vedantic traditions. There is one idea of a self and then there is a huge gap, at least for them. Because the world, including the mind, is actually seen as a big illusion. Or if you look at the Buddhist ideal, there is the nirvana and the emergence in the absolute, and then there is the relativity, and our mind is the only vehicle of this knowledge or awareness of the relativity. And in this relativity everything is interdependent. There is no underlying oneness. There is no underlying substratum. There is no self. There is no soul. Or if you look at many of the religious traditions, in the Abrahamic traditions, the word consciousness or mind are almost equivalent. If you are conscious, then you are thinking. If you are thinking, then you're conscious. And consciousness is just that, that thing which takes place inside your head. And we speak in the context of the integral yoga of planes of consciousness, entire worlds, and each having different gradations, different degrees. And is this like a gigantic hallucination? Why are you constructing all this big, complex cosmic picture? Why not just keep it simple with what we experience?

Narad (0:02:52):
But it's not quite as simple as the Abrahamic traditions and Heaven and Hell. Only two choices.

[Sraddhalu] And then you are in between somewhere.

[Narad] Yeah, you are in between somewhere, purgatory, they would call it. And the Muslim traditions also. So the Integral Yoga opens up so many levels of the mind and that will take us some time to cover.

Sraddhalu (0:03:22):
But also first to understand is this just another fantasy? Are you just building a whole new thing? Even among those who are followers of Sri Aurobindo's writing in the original or go into depth in his writing and so they read a few summaries or compilations and then there is this catch word, supermind. And that's what distinguishes Sri Aurobindo's teaching from others. They don't have supermind, he has supermind. So everything is somehow connected to supermind and as long as you throw in that word, ok, you have made a separation of teaching. But is this another fantasy of something he has made up? Or is there some reality to it? Does it have any basis to deeper experience, validated by earlier traditions or other traditions? So first you need to address this question. And Sri Aurobindo himself takes great pains to show not only that what he is speaking about is not a fundamentally new concept. It already exists in the Vedic experience. And the Vedic experience, at least in India, is considered to be one of the most authoritative, or perhaps even the most authoritative, because the Rishis entered into some of the highest and the deepest and most profound and most complete states of consciousness, and documented that in the Vedic text.

So Sri Aurobindo relates the term supermind with the Vedic word which is Vijnanam. Vijnanam today of course is a very degenerated use of the word. Vidyanam is used today to mean merely science. So I am studying Vijnanam that means I am studying physical science. So it's a complete loss of that term. And yet if you go back into traditions, the Vijnanam is reduced to the intellect. So if you go to any of the current Vedantic schools of thought, philosophy or even yoga practice, when they refer to Vijnanam, they mean power of intellect. Vi and Jnanam. Jnanam is knowledge, but not knowledge which is intellectualized knowledge, which is lived and known in deep experience. Vi is highlighting or making special, a special access or a special quality. So intellect is your power of vijnanam. But in the Veda the meaning is totally different. The Veda uses three terms Satyam, Ritam and Brihat to describe the nature of vijnanam. Satyam is pure essential truth and that truth is one underlying all reality. It is the underlying reality and the underlying truth of existence. That is Vijnanam. So obviously this is not intellect. It is not conventional superficial physical science. Ritam as a term does not have an immediate English translation but it represents the force of that underlying truth moving to express itself. It is closer to the nature of the Tao in the Chinese tradition. And again there it is truth moving into action, taking up forms and it has nothing to do with the intellect. And Brihat meaning vast, infinite or even enormously infinite, not a casual infinity but infinity of infinities. And so again it does not match intellect. Just that is enough reference to show that what the Vedas speaks of is totally different.

Sraddhalu (0:07:00):

So when Sri Aurobindo uses this term, he is as if reawakening humanity to a profound idea which seems to have been lost in between. The word itself having become degenerate and its concept becoming degenerate.. But why is this necessary? Why is this important? If there is not that vijnanam or the supermind, then the world and the origin of the world are left without a link. When there is no link, then either in relation to the origin which is real, the world becomes illusory, or in relation to the origin which is all blissful and free, the world becomes a trap and a binding cause of suffering which is unchangeable or as it is in the Abrahamic traditions, the origin and the world are separated and there is no point being in the world or the world is just a place of suffering that you suffer in order to enjoy after life beyond the world, but nothing possible in the world. One single birth, all the rest of the chains which may or may not follow but the main difficulty is this loss of link, loss of continuity. So when Sri Aurobindo reintroduces this concept, it's not merely as an idea we need something to make this link. He also shows you in great detail what this thing is in terms of our experience. Now, you'll say, I don't have such an experience, and I don't think I can find anybody around me who can say, oh, I have the experience of something like that. But what he shows you is, in your experience is implied the reality of this. And I'll give you a few examples. Not only that, he also shows you how between that and where you are in your current awareness, there is a whole gradation and a continuity of gradations of consciousness. So from here to there is not one giant leap as the Vedantic tradition or the Buddhist tradition will present it, where you struggle, struggle, struggle and suddenly you have it or suddenly you fall out of it. And so there's a whole lot of people who are busy with this sudden enlightenment, sudden awakening and until then of course you keep doing your practice and one day it will happen.

Narad (0:09:15):

You are always leaving the earth behind.

Sraddhalu (0:09:22):

Always leaving the earth behind. The earth remains unchanged. But the fact that there is a gradation of continuity means from where you are and it doesn't matter where you are, you can take one small step and everything changes. And then you take one more small step and everything changes and another small step and through a series of small steps and it doesn't matter how many small steps you can eventually get to that, without needing to fall back, without needing to jump, without losing continuity and the best part is as you approach that, let's say you have not even reached that, but as you approach that all the higher possibilities of consciousness, the underlying sense of of oneness and delight and freedom and the knowledge and power which come with the liberated divine consciousness. All of these as you begin to enjoy them, you are still living in your daily life. You still have the power of your intellect, of your emotions, of your body and all these things in which you live are given a chance to flow and fill your mind and your emotions and your actions. And so there is a continuum not only in rising but there is a continuum of that influence also filling your life, which therefore makes your life able to express things which belong to the higher realms. Where earlier you had to leave life to get into that, you have now the possibility not only of experiencing in life, but filling your life with it. And one of the inevitable results is life need not be therefore a realm of suffering, need not remain a realm of ignorance, need not remain bound in darkness, limitation, chains of karma and the prison of matter. You may still live in matter with a body and a mind, but that consciousness which is free can fill this and enjoy its freedom in a free action in your mind life and body so this understanding of these planes and the continuity of these planes and eventually what the supramental represents is not only essential to the integral yoga but is essential to humanity and the future of humanity, if we are to fulfill the evolutionary purpose of the universe.

So this is the backdrop of why this topic is so important. And so first we take up a few examples of is there such a thing? You say there is some greater consciousness. I have no idea. And I have spoken to many great saints and sages and read all their books and all the great religions and nobody talks about it. They may talk of self, they may talk of nirvana or some heaven, but nobody talks of this satyam, ritam, brihat, super mind etc. Is there such a thing? And why don't you call it heaven then, or nirvana or satyam, ritam, whatever, why do you call it supermind? So if you see Sri Aurobindo, very logically taking real examples of life, shows you there is such a thing. We take one example, we will take a few several examples, but one of them, start with what happens when your mind is thinking, observe your thought process. Let's say you're given a problem. You are told here is something which I observe, here is something else I observe and I don't understand how these two meet, they are contradictory somehow. Your mind dwells on this, dwells on tha,t dwells on this and then suddenly it jumps and says, ah, I got the answer. Suddenly something very simple, this A leads to B and B leads to C and so it's obvious A should lead to C right? It's obvious. You didn't have to think about it. It's obvious A leads to B, B leads to C, A leads to C. Very simple. Can you prove it? There are actually mathematicians over many centuries who have tried to prove this and it goes through a 20 page proof and at the end of that you can still not be sure that you have actually proved it, because one could still think of an alternate possibility that is not covered in the proof.

Sraddhalu (0:13:49):

It is something so simple, so obvious. But when you say it is obvious, what do you mean? In some part of my awareness I see this, I see this and I can see that there is a continuity. But logically you could question and show that it need not be so. So let's say you take a very simple problem of life and I place a problem before you and say solve this. A simple mathematical problem, the kinds that you might have done in school, in your young age. A simple Maths equation and I say solve this and you start doing your work. As you initiate the work of study, you say, I tell you, okay, you have half a minute in which to finish. How far are you? And you'll say, wait, I've almost got it. Or you can say, no, I'm not getting it at all. How do you know you're almost there even though you have not reached the answe? It means something inside you already knows the answer. Close to it you can feel it, when you're far from it you can feel it. Not only that, if I give you a problem that you have never faced, you see mostly in school exams they give you problems that you have already been trained for and then the exam comes so you just think of what are the things we did and apply one of those. But now I give you a problem you have never been trained for, but I know you are capable of solving with the existing training that you have. You don't know where to start because you have no existing training for this. What do you do? You look at the problem, you dwell on it and then suddenly you get an idea, okay I will try this. And you start a particular way. And one could ask, what in you knows that this way is easier? I could throw you a different starting point and say, why don't you try that? And you say, no, no, that doesn't feel like it will work. This will work better. Now, you don't know the answer. How do you know this is a better starting point? How do you know you're far from it? How do you know you're close to it? Or even more important, when you reach the answer, how do you know it is *the* answer? How do you know there is not another answer or maybe you are mistaken and actually the answer is hidden behind? You *know* you have reached the answer.

So in all this very simple phenomena of our daily working of mind, you notice there is as if a part within us which already knew the answer because it knew, it knew, something of it reflected in your thinking and you knew this is a better starting point. As you approached it in your surface part you knew that you're close because something inside you knew what it is. When you reached it you knew you have reached it because something inside you was already there. Now this is a very simple example to prove to you just by simple observation of your mind's process that there exists as a part of your mind, let's say, something that already has the answer to all your questions. Let's take another example, another faculty of your mind, your memory. Every time you try to remember, do you remember when we met last? Do you remember whom you met on New Year's Day? Do you remember where you were on New Year's Day? Let's say, what happens? Your mind instantly turns and the memory comes. Okay, so do you remember your favorite holiday on a beach? Your mind turns and maybe one or two images or memories come and you pick one out of them which is your favorite. But how did that happen? What happened inside you to draw out that memory? If you did the same thing on a Google search of your timeline or a Facebook timeline search, favorite holiday, the computer has to go one by one backward all the way through all the memories and all the photos and all the text and if it finds several it has to keep accumulating them and then bring all these several to the front and then do an analysis to see which is the more likely favorite or not. Nothing of that type took place in your head you turned to remember and the memory came forward and you caught it, right?

Narad (0:18:31):
what happens when you don't have the answer and then you become silent for a while and suddenly it pops up and you know exactly.

Sraddhalu (0:18:41):
Exactly. So in any case even when you don't remember, you wait until it pops up. In any case you never make a search through all the memories of your past. You intend to remember and something throws up the memory. Who is that something? Because that something has as if access to all your memories including things that you forgot, isn't it? Because when you meet someone and suddenly the face looks familiar and as you stare at the face, pop, the memory comes. I met you maybe 20 years ago, you were much younger, but something of your face reminds me of you. Right? So something inside that whole mass of 20 years of memory detected similarity to one person met 20 years ago and the face has changed because the fellow has grown, he was at that time in his teenage, now he is an adult, he has got a long beard, but you still recognize the face. So what in you in the very moment when you looked at a person what in you was able to go through the entire mass of all experiences of faces of 20 years and recognize a completely changed appearance just because of a similarity, right? And you did not make an effort, you did not search, you did not try, it did, it popped up.

[Narad] There was no struggle of the mind.

[Sraddhalu] Absolutely. And that thing which found also had no struggle. It's not like every time you meet a face is going through all his 20 years memory struggling check check check. It's there already. So now what we discover is that power is responding to your call. You say where did I meet you? wait wait wait and you turn to remember, that power throws up the memory at you from its own mass. It made no struggle, you made no struggle the memory came. So your intellect and its power of memory is practically nothing. All it does is, it turns to want to know. Who actually knows the thing inside of which you are not aware, which has the totality of your 20 years memory and of your lifetimes and perhaps more, all the time, and on-demand can pull out anything without needing to search. Now how can you pull out anything without needing to search? The only explanation is you are simultaneously aware of all the memories. If you're not, if you're only aware of a few, you have to keep going through, shuffling around until you find that which matches. The only way I can instantly give you without needing to search is if I am simultaneously aware of everything; you say, what do you want, here it is, because I am already that. No searching required. Now here is a description of that deeper power within you, without which your surface memory cannot function, okay. That deeper power is simultaneously aware of all your memories, simultaneously is aware of all the solutions to all the problems which may be given to you and it is aware of what you are looking for. So when you say I want to remember my beach holiday and I turn to remember, it knows what you want and throws it up instantly. It is aware of you, but it is far greater than you. Unlike your mind which has to operate through a serial sequence, is it this, is it that, is it that, is it that, that is parallel, simultaneous, indivisible whole.

[Narad] But is it not a part of you?

Exactly. That is not separate from you. In fact, if that was not existing, this could not function. Your surface memory would be gone, your power of intellect, thinking, logic, everything would utterly fail. They can function because that is there. And they are intimately connected with that, or rather that is intimately woven into this, and yet separate in some fundamental way. Now comes a very important insight. This mind which we call I, your intellect of which you are so proud is at best a degraded reduced functioning of that. All the faculties memory, reason, logic, whatever are all degraded reflections of this free total faculty of a consciousness which is potentially, at least so it seems, infinite. Because all your memories to all the details are available.

Narad (0:23:28):
And Mother even says past lives.

Sraddhalu (0:23:30):
Yes. It happens to all of us in adult life that you walk in a certain place, a smell hits you and with the smell is a memory of something which took place in when you were three years old or four years old, which was associated with that smell. Instantly, pop, the memory comes. You didn't search where is the smell, what is it? The memory came, it literally invaded you. So, and tiny details, sometimes with it, images come with precision that you totally forgotten, and you had forgotten that you had forgotten. You see, so that is actually infinite because it has all these images, all these smells, all these tastes, all these colors and sometimes rich detail which you did not consciously ever look, that pop up. So it is actually an infinite memory, infinite consciousness therefore. What is that and what is this and what is the relation and there you have your first glimpse of the super mind.

Narad (0:24:29):
And I think that many of us have had these experiences.

Sraddhalu (0:24:33):
All of us, all of us without exception, and that's the point. There is such a thing as something greater than this mind but which is somehow not separate and that is what Sri Aurobindo starts with that shows you there is a super mind. But what you know of it now through this observation, through this introspection, is only a first entry. And then already there you see some of these characteristics. It is never wrong. All the memories it throws up are precise. It's only when you try to construct a memory or recall and fill in gaps that you create distortions. What it throws up is always precise. When it comes spontaneously as the memory when you smell something, the vividness and the detail just there, you have not constructed. But if I ask you, was it like this or like that? And your mind starts trying to fill in and feel, that's when we introduce distortions. So, it's true in its and precise, flawless, perfect in its working, it is vast and it knows you and your need and even the need of that situation. It just comes up.

Narad (0:25:46):
Can that even bring the vision back?

Sraddhalu (0:25:49):
It can.

Narad (0:25:50):
70, 80 years ago?

Sraddhalu (0:25:51):
Absolutely, absolutely. In fact under hypnosis we find we are able to access the storehouse of knowledge, memories etc. to a precision which is impossible to explain if all this was merely a function of your brain or intelligence, physical intelligence. So under hypnosis, you can even recall tiniest details of things which took place years ago and which you had never consciously noticed. You met a friend at his house, came back, let's say 20 years ago. You have at best a recall of some conversation you had or your emotional recall, it was interesting, that's about it. But under hypnosis, you can be made to describe in tiniest detail the food you ate, the color of the walls and the photos which were hung and any tiny detail which you would not have consciously seen. That means it was always there. In fact this memory is so complete, if you consciously begin to enter it, you find that it includes the memory of all the universe. And your memory is only a particular part of the total memory. So all of this is showing you, you have a mind and then behind that, or as if superior to that is this gigantic, greater, flawless, perfectly working, we'll call it super mind. At least here we have a recognition that there is such a thing. We're still thinking of it in terms of our mind. That means it must be thinking like me, but you saw that our thinking is serial, sequential, that does not have a serial. It is already the whole. What does it feel like? And we don't have a very clear experience of it or at best you have an intuitive sense, oh it could feel like that, that's about it. So you see there's a gap, that is now currently subliminal, behind the limb, behind the lit up part of your surface awareness or it is super conscious, its grade of awareness is so wide that if you try to become aware of it, your mind will just get blurred out into infinity, whereas you are used to operating in pieces and limits.

Narad (0:28:17):

So everything is kept in the subliminal, but not available.

Sraddhalu (0:28:22):

Not available, normally. There is a gap and that's what happens often. You remember something but it just slips your mind. It's there. What's the name of that fellow? One minute, one minute. It's just coming. It's coming. What happens? What does it mean it's coming but it's somehow slipping? You try, you feel it coming, you reach out to grasp and the very act of reaching breaks something and prevents it from coming. You've all had this experience. What does that mean? Your surface part is only a receiver. The thing is coming from inside. Your agitation in wanting to know is what is creating the block. You become quiet and then it slips through. Or there's a kind of a mist, a gap, which is preventing you from perceiving or receiving. And so at that point, you say, oh, it'll come later. And you go on. And as you're in conversation, suddenly that thing pops up. Oh, yes, this is what it was. What happened? You were busy in your conversation. That thing then leaked through or slipped through the curtain of cloud, mist that was blocking. And so any problem of memory, of intelligence, of any of the faculties of your intellect is really a problem of this gap between that working and this surface working. If somehow you could clear that gap, bridge it, all that potential could simply flow through and be utilized. So what we, in a very short example, what we have seen is there is something greater. It's not yet the supramental that Sri Aurobindo speaks of, but it is a superpower of your own mind. And there is a gap.

So let's explore the vocabulary Sri Aurobindo uses and clarify now the concepts. We have demonstrated that there is something greater. There is something which has the characteristic of the Vedic Vijnanam and the supermind Sri Aurobindo speaks of. But what else is there and what more, what are the steps in between? First we notice, Sri Aurobindo makes a big distinction between different kinds of consciousness. In the Western psychology, there is the conscious and the subconscious, the unconscious and maybe a few categories there. And anything which is not conscious belongs to the subconscious or unconscious. So they will say the memory is coming from your subconscious or your unconscious. Anything you experience goes and settles into your subconscious. And from your subconscious it comes. So your subconscious is very powerful, your subconscious is all intelligent, it knows everything, but it is subconscious. So Sri Aurobindo says that doesn't quite work. Because subconscious by the very definition is below the grade of our awareness and has a characteristic of being dark. Loss of awareness is what we would call subconscious. Separate from the subconscious is a superconscious, a higher grade of awareness, which is inaccessible to us. And behind this conscious, which is a very tiny superficial part, there is a subliminal, behind the limb, behind the narrow surface, let's say physical embodied mind, there is a wider, freer working of mind, which is opening out to the whole universal mind. It is conscious, it is not subconscious nor superconscious. It is of the same grade but it has a wider universality. So three very different directions of experience.

Sraddhalu (0:32:15):

Why is this important? Because we had a brief discussion about this several weeks ago, because the superconscious is far more powerful than the conscious or even the subconscious. Because the super conscious is of a fundamentally different order and has powers which are of a completely different order of functioning. In fact compared to that, let's say super conscious domain, our conscious domain is literally the opposite in its functioning. Here in the conscious domain is finiteness, pieces, always operating with little words, little ideas, and so a statement and another statement are contradictory, one viewpoint conflicts with another viewpoint. There you are no more handling pieces, you are one with the whole. And not just whole in terms of ideas, but whole in terms of every possible perspective is in one continuum. You are literally identified with everything and from every perspective. And in such a state, two different ideas are seen not as conflicting but as merely two specialized ways of looking at the same thing. And you have no collision, you have no conflict. So in the superconscious, once you go high enough, there are no divisions, there are no conflicts, there are no limitations, there is nothing which is not known, there is nothing which is hidden, there is nothing which is in disharmony.

Whereas here in the mind, however wonderful you create a harmony of ideas or interests or forces or objects, there is always something other against which this harmony exists or which collides with this harmony and does not include it. There is always some other against which this will fail. That has no other because it includes all. It can never fail. It is therefore omnipotent, all-powerful. It is omniscient, all-knowing because nothing is not part of it and here limited power, limited knowledge, conflict, division and always disharmony and chaos. Duality coming with this. So duality is a consequence of being limited. Because you are a piece, there is always something which is greater and something which is lesser. And so your experience of reality is split into better or worse, pleasure or unpleasant and all the contraries. And there there is no duality, all is part of a continuum. And so pleasure, pain which belong to our duality have no correspondence here. Rather we can say pleasure and pain are degradations of this. Happiness and suffering are degradations of this. That is neither happiness nor suffering. It is and we have to give a different word, we will call it beatitude or bliss, ananda in Sanskrit. Ananda can only exist in a consciousness which is infinite and undivided. The moment that Ananda comes into a limited vehicle of your current consciousness, it is reduced and therefore it becomes either intensely pleasurable, pleasant, happy or whatever. But overwhelming to such a degree that it becomes almost painful and unable to contain and so you say too much, that's enough, I need to slow down, rest, recuperate from too much joy. But that joy you have has an opposite, the moment you come out of it, you have lost it and then you suffer, but that has none of these.

Sraddhalu (036:02):

So the two are actually completely opposed to each other. And so it may seem as if because they are opposed to each other, there is nothing linking them. And Sri Aurobindo shows you, in fact, there is a continuity linking them. And this is the part which we will now explore to understand how this change could take place in our evolution. We saw how the operation of our intelligence or memory actually rests on this deeper power. But the way that works and the way this works are different. So we recognize the way intelligence works will itself undergo a change through a series of steps. Sri Aurobindo gives these steps names. Now between these terms which he gives you could create sub-terms, sub-gradations. But he gives names because there is a distinct shift in the working at each of these levels. So what we are at in our normal state of consciousness of thought, he calls the, well let's say simple mind (with lowercase m) where the intellect is the highest power, a step above calls, Higher Mind and of course he starts using capital letters because it's not just higher in relative terms but it is a fundamentally different thing. So I am right now in a higher state or I am in a lower state but these variations are still within my normal range of mind. So you use lower case letters. But you go a step above where something is fundamentally different, he uses capital Higher and capital Mind. There the perception changes and we will describe each of these shortly. Above that is what he calls the Illumined Mind, again using capital letters and he describes characteristics there. From there comes what he calls the Intuitive Mind, above that the Overmind and then the Supermind. Within the Overmind he describes finer gradations, within the Supermind finer gradations, he describes the bridging of these two.

It's a whole fascinating discussion. We may not go fully into those details, but simply to explain that, in the experience, the distinctions are so radical that you can actually enter the experience and describe it and then read his description and say, oh that's what he was describing. But if you have first thrown a name, okay I need to grow into a higher mind or illumined mind, what is that? It's just a word. So we'll see how experientially what it feels like when we make those steps through a few examples. So in the normal thinking mind we've seen enough how it works in pieces. So let's say, you are given an idea and another idea and another idea, piece of information. You're looking at a court case, you've all seen mystery movies. So here's a clue, another clue, another clue but how do they fit, it doesn't make sense. What do you do, your mind tries to fit. What if this? No, it doesn't work. What if that? What if this? What if this person did it? The butler did it? You're basically trying to fit pieces and see whether it somehow fits. And maybe when these two fit, the third doesn't fit. Or if the first and the third fit, the second doesn't fit. There are internal contradictions. It's like a jigsaw puzzle. You're trying to fit them. But at any step that you take, your mind has to think, rearrange, place and make it fit. Sometimes you force fit. That fellow is so bad that we can just believe that he did it, because he was in a bad mood. No, maybe not true. But the nature of reality is a continuum and the pieces you have don't really give you a sense of continuity. You have always a doubt. After you have built a theory, after you have explained everything, something can come up which can completely contradict. But you are still handling pieces. Whole of modern science is built on this functioning.

Sraddhalu (0:40:20):

But there is something else which happens. And like we saw the earlier example, you will see this faculty is already inherent within you. When you make two pieces fit, immediately you can feel that the third will not fit. Why? Because you are missing as if a continuity of the picture. So as an analogy, if you take a puzzle where there is no picture, you just have the pieces and you see the shapes and you try to fit them. That's how your intellect works. But now if you have a picture on top of the pieces, this is blue, that is blue, both must be sky. Maybe they come closer. This is green, that is green, there must be part of the tree leaves. Maybe I put them together. So as you bring the pieces together, there's a power which sees pieces or which sees the whole. So you've got the sky here, you've got the plants here, you have got people here and you're seeing big pictures. Now this big picture scene where all different streams, all kinds of knowledge tend to flow in, your mind is normally not capable of handling without blurring out, without generalizing.

So let's take an example. I'm going to take the example which is currently a big issue all over the world, the theme of immigration. And think of what are the angles involved in this topic of immigration? You will say immigration has to do with national boundaries, identities, visa, passport. Immigration has to do with language, conflict, or alignments, culture, economic aspects, religious aspects, political interests, and evolutionary objectives. Now, each of these you could take up and elaborate into three or four different sub topics and extend it further and further. So the way your intellect works it takes up one piece, develops the economic aspects of immigration. Okay we get cheap labor, we have a problem of training people because of cultural differences. Now we switch to culture. Where did the cultural differences come from and you go into whole analysis and then you see but there's the aspect of religion which makes for the cultural difference you shift to a different topic but you do not see the connection between this and that and that and that in the same vision. So your mind is as if you take a, let's say you take a torch light you point it and it sees a piece in a dark room you see the piece now you move the torch light you see another piece, then another piece, then another piece, but you never see the whole room. As your mind widens in perspective, it's as if you see these in a continuity or you're aware of these in a continuity and you are taking in larger and larger chunks with all the detailing.

Now this is where Sri Aurobindo calls it Higher Mind. It has a larger vision, greater inclusiveness and even at some point when it becomes really large, all the details are seen not only as separate threads, but all the interconnections across these threads. That makes for a huge complexity. So the word immigration comes. We're earlier in the intellectual mind to throw a few associations. Now it awakes in your mind straightaway a stream of, let's say, 8 different aspects. Across these 8 aspects, each has sub-streams of specific things and across these sub-streams, all the connections. So it's as if you pull out this term or idea of immigration and with it come all the threads and all the interwoven tapestry of threads everything comes up in your consciousness. I am comparing this to our earlier discussion. Remember all the memories were there when I told you, think of the memory of your time on the beach. How many beach experiences have you had? May be a few hundred? Associated with each of these beach experiences, there are specific climates or events or pictures or smells or food which are branching out, associated with each of those you have other issues branching out. Now the moment you say beach, it's as if all the beach experiences, all their associated food events, all their associated social events, everything just comes up with this word beach. You see how that works? That's the sense of working of the Higher Mind. Sri Aurobindo actually uses a special term to describe this. He calls it mass ideation. Where normally you have an idea, here with this word coming you have many ideas simultaneously like a mass arising together and it's simultaneous and the interconnections between them, simultaneous.

Sraddhalu (0:45:43):

Now it's very difficult to represent this in physical terms because the moment you represent physically there's a reduction. So let's say so I pick a point, let's say a thread here from my shirt and as I pull up the thread you can see the entire shirt gets pulled up right? That's the sense of the working of the higher mind; you pick a single idea and the whole thing rises with all the threads. But in your picture, this is different from that. In the reality of the higher mind, however narrow or large it is that begins to broaden, it begins to widen, it begins to develop richness and depth of interconnections and connections of interconnections and as that grows you are as if ascending into higher mind. When you are living in the higher mind, any topic given, any subject raised, the whole thing opens out to this complex interplay of all related facets. But it is still mind. There is still a process of thinking. There is still a thought held, but the thought is giant, all inclusive with many, many facets. Where earlier it was a simple thought and you could take a simple contrary thought and play with it, here's a big multifaceted, many-dimension thought that comes up. So if you take the analogy of the puzzle we had earlier, instead of taking one piece at a time, you have clustered pieces, and then you see the connection with the clusters of pieces, and it's as if you join, join, join chunks, and this is higher mind. As you could see already getting there, the power of the mind, even of the intellect would be so greatly amplified. One of the things which would happen automatically, without any effort on your part, your mind would become interdisciplinary. Because anything you know in this discipline, you will instantly be aware of its similarities or connections with all other disciplines. And even if you have not studied those disciplines, what little knowledge you have of it, you will feel the connection. Yes, this feels like that, right?

Narad (0:48:11):
As a brief aside, as we get into these different levels of mind, Sri Aurobindo used to critique his poets. And he could tell them exactly at what level of the mind they had written a poem or a line. He could say this comes from the intuitive mind, the illumined mind, higher mind. And I read those things and it's so real, it's so true.

Sraddhalu (0:48:42):
Yes, and when we describe it in this way, you will feel the characteristics of each of these layers and then you look at the line that Sri Aurobindo says, this is from the higher mind, that is from the illumined mind, you will see this characteristic. You will see, you will recognize the characteristic and even though you may not have a direct experience of that level, you will be able to say, yes, this is similar to this. Now keep in mind this whole thing about the higher mind, because later you will see its connection with the Overmental consciousness. There is a very interesting connection there. Higher mind and Over mind have a deep connection in that what higher mind does with finite ideas, Overmind does with infinity. All different facets are as if glimpsed or a whole infinite perspective of facets just like that but with limitations. It's a large thought but still a thought, there is still a process in the mind, that's why it's called higher mind. From here now you notice as this process begins and already in the examples we have been discussing. In the way you are picturing or feeling in the vocabulary you will find images forming. You see this, you see that and you see the relationship, you see the resonance, you feel this is close, that is, and this is as if an image forming. And so I take the earlier example of the puzzle, where you are trying to fit pieces, it fits, it doesn't fit, try another. If you have colours now, you have a picture on it, this picture is similar to that, you are beginning to see what the final picture will be and so the pieces fall into place more easily. But the act of putting together does not concern itself with whether this piece fits that as you would normally do, but whether the picture fits that. Is this blue and blue? I am not even going to bother to see whether the piece cut has a similar shape. If these two, this is blue and this is green, they don't fit. I don't even try.

So there is a shift increasingly from the thought which is thought out to a thought which is as if seen and as this widening of the higher mind takes place, the seeing factor becomes more and more dominant already, until, the thinking out process from here to there to there, he is seen as one continuous flow but without needing to actually take steps. So the sense of it will be of stepping back and seeing all the connections and already you have had this in the description of the higher mind. You have the whole big picture of things from different aspects and the seeing increases grows until at some point the thought process fades out, there is only seeing to seeing to seeing to seeing, narrower, wider, deeper and already you have got to feel that it is multi-dimensional. It's not really 2D or 3D, it's a experience of many interconnections. So the seeing also has that quality, you see this and you see connections with all these different things. Now in the example we have taken earlier as an analogy, your torch light of the intellectual mind has become broader. So it is broad enough, which is what we would do as a human being. You take a floodlight, you enter a dark room. I point to the East wall, then I point to the West wall, it's filling my sight zone, but I still have the darkness behind me, right? So in the higher mind you have these large chunks, but they can still be thoughts, they still have a construction, and they're still the unknown. And you still don't know whether your thought is it, because you are seeing something, and the something is not you. So all that will get fixed as we go higher up step by step.

Sraddhalu (0:52:50):

Now what happens? As you see, you can see from different directions. Let's just take another example. Picture in your mind, let's say, the ashram main building. You've all been there, you've all seen from outside, pretty much from all directions you've seen. Can you see it from the northern wall in your mind's eye? Yes, not difficult. See it from the eastern wall, not difficult. Can you see it from the southern wall, the main entrance is there, yes, and then the western wall. Can you see it simultaneously from the eastern wall and the southern wall? Now immediately your mind goes to the corner and you see both walls like this. Can you now include the northern wall? It's not difficult. Try it out. See, these are exercises which we should have been made to do as children. But, so we do it now as adults. Try to include the other wall, the western wall. Can you see all four in one go? Not difficult.

[Audience] from the top.

[Sraddhalu] Yes. Okay, so you shifted perspective naturally from the top, but are you seeing face wise the wall? you see when you see from the top you still shifted a physical position you are not seeing the surface of the walls but you can do that it's not too difficult but you tend to take a position which is centric so that you can see from all, but you can equally take a position which is embracing as if your eyes were all around. But you see at this point you are disengaging from physical sight. Your physical sight is like this. You can look here, or you can look there, but you can't look like that. But in the mind's vision you've already broken out from physical sight when you see all around. You will tend to close your physical eyes. Did that happen to you? Interesting.

Because you're transcending in fact your mind's eye is actually capable of seeing far more freely than your physical sight but all your life from childhood your mind has been programmed to match physical sight what a huge loss of a poor education. We should have been taught to separate and see in mind's eye freely, okay well. We'll design one day a training program for ascending the steps of consciousness. But you see this is possible, right? So in the illumined mind, increasingly it is sight. And the freedom of sight is that it sees in one shot. It does not have to go through steps. And so you can actually see all around in one shot, without having to see here, here, here, here, here and assemble pieces. Now if you take a diamond, you see the diamond from one face, you turn it, see from another face, you see all the faces. Now make one more effort, from one face look inside the diamond. Okay. Switch faces, look inside the diamond. Switch faces, look inside the diamond. And once you have done that with all faces, look through all faces into the diamond. Just get a feel of it, it's not difficult. And then reverse the process, from inside the diamond look out towards all faces. And when you have done this, something very interesting has happened. You've become as if one with the diamond. Isn't it? Where earlier you were seeing the diamond from outside or even from inside and from different faces. You are now seeing from all faces and from inside out and you are one with it. And you have just made the shift to the character of the intuitive mind. Where you as the observer and the object which is observed have merged. And what you know is what is.

Now this is very important and this is where we are going to pause for today. But what is showing you is smoothly with small steps of change we rose from our normal fragmented mental working, into a higher broader working to a seeing action of mind and awareness and from the seeing which became more and more inclusive we became one with the experience of the thing seen. And this is your intuitive function. Now what we have just touched is a first entry into the intuition. From here we will develop a deeper, more complete sense of intuition which we will discuss next time and then take two further steps or other intermediate steps. So we step back to review what we have been discussing. Essential to the integral yoga, the framework of the integral yoga and the practice of the integral yoga is this idea of a continuity of levels of consciousness from our current mental awareness to the highest supramental awareness which is not a new concept. In fact, in our current working, we can recognize that there has to be something greater, without which our current working of mind is not possible. And then we have taken three steps. From this narrow, piecewise working of our intellect, we opened to a larger working of the higher mind with its, what Sri Aurobindo calls the mass ideation, from there to a seeing mind which is the Illumined mind and from there we took one more step to the experience of identity which is the Intuitive mind. And this is our next immediate evolutionary step necessary. Intuition is the next stable step passing through those intermediate levels. And on another occasion, we will have a more detailed discussion of how to make this transition into the intuitive mind.

Audience (0:59:00):
Would you call a dream plane as conscious then?

Sraddhalu (0:59:07):
So the dream is taking place in the subliminal inner parts, but not subconscious. Subliminal,  in the inner layers. Some of them may have elements which are from the subconscious. It all depends where you go but mostly they are in this wider and freer part of your consciousness and that's why memories from the past can just pop up like that. But they are of the same grade in which you live in your daily life. They rarely happen in a higher plane. They may happen in a lower grade but not higher. Generally yes. a different grade.

[Sraddhalu] Namaste.

[Narad] Namaste.