EWS #67 Planes of Consciousness (4) - - towards the Supermind
Feb 19, 2020
Topics:
Narad (0:00:00):
Namaste and welcome to our continuing series, Evenings with Sraddhalu. And welcome Sraddhalu. We'll continue the ranges of mind up to the Supermind because we only touched upon some of them lightly.
Sraddhalu (0:01:20):
In the previous discussion we had a broad sense of recognition that there is a greater mind of which our current intellect, memory and faculties are like reduced superficial working. Without that greater Super Mind, this could not work, this could not exist. And we saw that with real examples, a very practical understanding. Then we explored the first few steps of change, of continuity from the intellect towards this greater and higher power of mind. First, we recognize there is a working of mind which is larger, more inclusive, which has a character of what Sri Aurobindo calls a mass ideation. An idea is given and all associated links and ideas simply arise in your awareness and simultaneously with complex connections. And this Sri Aurobindo calls the higher mind. It sees things in large thoughts, inclusive, complex, multifaceted. And then we saw how from here bit by bit, naturally our power of perception, seeing tends to dominate and we see these connections and the process of thinking out fades while the process of seeing replaces it more and more. And this brings us to what Sri Aurobindo calls the Illumined mind. And it's illumined because it is lit up with the awareness which is self-revealing, with the light of the self. So it's a different way of looking at the same idea. We described more in functions, the steps. But if you look at it in terms of the Self, the higher mind, all the thoughts have this largeness in which the sense of the Self is pervading behind. There is an underlying sense of infinity or oneness behind a finite thought or a large thought. Whereas in the illumined mind, the thought itself gives way to the light of the self and the light spontaneously reveals. And as you turn to know, you see in the light of the Self which can grow brighter and brighter. In a third step of growth we saw how you can picture an object from all possible directions from outside simultaneously and at the same time from inside out and when you do that you experience yourself one with the whole object and this sense of oneness is the characteristic of the next step of what Sri Aurobindo calls the intuitive mind.
Sraddhalu (0:04:11):
So we'll explore this a little bit more and then continue the further steps of the ascent. In the intuitive mind the big difference is that you are one with what you know. With all the earlier steps before, I know something. So there is I, there is the thing and then the knowing. The problem is if your knowing is defective, whatever the thing may be, your knowing will be partial, limited. Or you may think you know something, but the thing itself not being you, you can never be sure if you actually know it. In fact, whatever you know of it is at best a superficial knowing and you will find if you turn the object around, it is completely different, for example. And this is the reason why in the nature of the intellect, every knowledge is accompanied by a doubt. Every statement, however true, can be put in a context in which it becomes completely false. Or every false statement, however false, can be put in a context where it becomes true. And so in the domain of your intellect, normal mind, there is no truth. All is relative. At best you can say it is relatively true. But as you move to the higher mind, already something has changed. You have as if a backdrop of the self. So there is a sense of this is true inherently, not because I am arguing it out logically. You can feel this is a more inclusive truth, more multifaceted, more rich and complete in the illumined mind. You see what is true but still in the seeing, you are seeing something and there's still a gap and although the seeing is not a construction of your mind process, it's more true but still not it. In the Intuitive Mind, you are one with the object and therefore you know what you know and you know what you don't know and what you know is correct. It may be incomplete, but you know that it is incomplete and what you know is still correct. So in the Intuitive Mind for the first time, you have the experience of Truth, real self-existent Truth. Till then everything was degrees or relative.
At this point we have the first entry into real knowledge and subsequently all further steps will grow in the character of innate truth. Now, I want to dwell on this a little bit, the way it works, because there's a lot of documentation in the Vedic descriptions of the working of the Intuitive Mind, and they often use symbols, but these are very pregnant symbols. Here they use the symbolism of lightning, because the way it happens in the intuition is that suddenly there's a touch, there's a joining and there's an experience and you say, oh what was that? You have an insight. The moment of contact is sudden and brief, but in that contact because you are one with it, you have a revelation. When you're dwelling on a problem, you try this, you try that, you try that and sometimes when you let go and just wait, suddenly you have a flash. But what you catch in the flash has an inherent quality of certainty and that's a touch of the Intuitive Mind. The Intuitive Mind which is on a higher level than your current thinking process as if leans down and throws a flash of its light into your thinking mind. So it's like a lightning from above which reveals. Plop! And in the flash you saw. And then the flash went away. But during the flash, what you saw, you were one with. But it's gone. So now your mind works around what was revealed in the flash and builds the whole thing. Which is partly true, but that's the nature of the mental process. But when you enter the intuitive mind, at that point the flash is your way of knowing. So at that point there is no construction around. You look at an object and want to know and there's a flash and you know what you want to know. But you also know that you know only this patch, there is beyond it all this which you don't know. And so your mind turns and says, but what about this and flash? What about that and flash and flash and flash and through a series of flashes you have an experience in identity of whatever you need to know. Now again this is, sounds dramatic when you think of it this way but if you go back to experiences we have all had. You are sitting with somebody and he may be narrating a story and as he is narrating a part of you tends automatically to identify and follow the narration. So in the identification you are as if him, as he goes and then suddenly he says something and you feel odd. No, this doesn't feel right. This is an exaggeration or you feel this is false and then he himself says, oh no no it's not this it was something else. I'm confusing with another event. You may validate easily if you want to. But in the field of the contact you can recognize if something is true or not and this is a character of the intuitive working. But from a lower level you are as if tapping through the layers something of the intuitional working. When increasingly your mind, your awareness rises into intuition, then this becomes spontaneous, effortless in everything.
Narad (0:10:05):
I would like to ask you two things. One is about Sri Arvind's comment on paraphrasing. Only those things are true, the opposite of which are also true in their own time and application. And the second part is, isn't there still duality up to the intuitive mind?
Sraddhalu (0:10:29):
Yes, for sure. As long as you are in a consciousness of finiteness, you will always have something which is bigger, something which is smaller, and something which is contradictory. So, any statement is valid, but equally its opposite will have its own validity in its particular time and space. And one of the ways by which we can train our mind to become more flexible, more wide and even make steps in its ascension is by taking a theme and then considering its opposite, antithesis and then making a larger synthesis. And this is how you train your mind to become wider and broader. Then whatever synthesis you have made, you make an antithesis to this and then make a larger synthesis and an antithesis to this and make a larger synthesis and this is how your narrow thinking mind power becomes wider and more flexible and more rich. And it prepares you for ascending to the higher mind. And if you have trained this through a series of such steps, you'll find automatically you begin to think in terms of larger and more inclusive perspectives. And so yes, Higher Mind, Illumined Mind and then we come to the Intuitive Mind. But the knowing of Intuitive Mind is in identity and therefore there is no possibility of loss or distortion. But there can be incompleteness. And the problem there of course is, in incompleteness, you know it's incomplete but you don't know what is incomplete. But what you know is still true. And so from here begins the true journey of our reliability of knowledge.
All human experience where someone expresses a truth, whether in speech, in writing, in poetry, in music, in painting, architecture, in action, where you feel this is something ah, extraordinary. It's because something of this truth has been expressed in the form. And there is always in such cases an origination in the intuitive consciousness. All the great poets, all the great artists, when they created works which were of lasting value, there was at least an origination in the intuitive consciousness. Otherwise it would not have that kind of a lasting value. Of course it could be something greater than the intuition, but still it has to have something gives to it real truths and not merely relative constructed mental idea. Now, distinguishing between mental idea and truth of intuition, Sri Aurobindo gives you two characteristics of the mind, the intellectual mind. Whenever an idea is given, the mind has to represent it internally. So you speak of freedom. If I speak of freedom, what does it mean? What does it evoke in your mind? Certain experiences. But the word freedom is just a word. You can play with the word all you want, but you may not be actually experiencing freedom. You can say freedom, freedom, freedom. Will you be free? No. The word is a representation. And in different languages you use different words, right? So the word has no value in itself except as an association to the thing which is the experience of freedom. So I can say dog and if you know what is dog then the word evokes in you like a pointer to the thing which you know. But is not itself the thing. I can scroll on a piece of paper the word dog, it's just a scroll of powder of graphite on paper, right? It's not a dog. I can draw a picture, it's not a dog. It's just a picture, colours on paper. But it points to dog.
Sraddhalu (0:14:41):
In the intuitive mind, when you say dog, well, you don't need the word, but when you experience dog, you are one with dog. So, you are the thing which you know, whereas in the thinking mind you represent it with pictures, symbols, ideas, words. So symbolic representation is one characteristic of the thinking mind and second characteristic, it cannot handle complexity, it cannot take things which are too large, it needs to represent them in a summary. So let's say you say car. What do you have? Simple picture or idea of car. But car is the windshield, seat, driving wheel, gas pedal, gas tank, engine, crankshaft, gearbox, wheels, electricals, all the rest. So when you say car, are you aware of all this? No. You have to generalise it into car. And then you take car and decompose it to bring these pieces, and then recompose the pieces to get car. So there is analytic process and a synthetic process, which is all the time happening. So you look at the car and in your mind you are aware of these things, and let's say, okay, now we need to think about the electricals in the car, and your mind goes, breaks it up and then rejoins. So all the time your intellect cuts up, rejoins, cuts up, rejoins to different degrees and it's working actively. In the act of cutting it breaks the integrity. Now when I say dog, you cannot in your mind say two eyes, one mouth, two ears, fur, tail, legs and then put it back together and get back a dog. If you reduce it to that, you get back together, you can get equally a horse, isn't it? Or a dead idea.
So that's the problem of artificial intelligence. You are representing with symbols but you never really know the thing which you represent and the machine only throws up symbols, it's only processing symbols. So all the way up to the illumined mind, you find this tendency but it fades. Because in the illumined mind you are seeing but at a distance. You are separate in seeing but you are still seeing what is true or at least in the light of truth. It is still separate and therefore in the registration it's a symbol. And the other factor is generalisation, a kind of an abstraction but in the abstraction details are lost. The moment things become too complex we abstract and we lose complexity. But as you enter the intuitive mind what happens? I say dog, you feel yourself dog. What happens when you feel yourself dog? you feel the four legs, you feel the bark, you feel the impulse for the bark, you feel the everything. You are one with it simultaneously. Where is the complexity? You don't have to handle it in so many different pieces. You are one with it effortlessly, right? So you bark, you go whoof. Did you think of whether I have to push air from stomach, tighten this muscle, push air from lungs, tighten my face, vocal cords, no you didn’t think of the steps in between. You just went, whoof! So, in the intuitive consciousness, great complexity is held effortlessly because you are one with the whole thing. But it's finite. And yet, because it is the thing itself, when you speak from an intuitive consciousness, in your speech or in the power of expression is the power of the experience. And that's what carries, that's what gives you the punch, that's what evokes in the other a direct experience.
Sraddhalu (0:18:40):
Speaking with words on an intellectual plane can also do that, but with far greater difficulty. You have a professor who is teaching you something which he doesn't understand. So he may be repeating from a book and you kind of take the pieces and in your mind you assemble it until you get a breakthrough and you say, ah I got it. But if you have got it when that fellow hasn't got it, you'll find you will teach better to another because you're transmitting the experience of your living identity. So now again we see something very interesting. While we are talking of the intuitive mind, all these intermediate steps of mind are also there present as vehicles and whether we are living in the lower grade or a higher grade, all of these are simultaneous. So I may talk words of an experience I don't have, but because there is this intuitive consciousness somewhere behind, my words are pointing to that, and even if I don't have it somebody who catches the pointer can look and maybe catch it. And this is what happens in textbooks generally textbooks are very poor transmitters unless the person who has written them has been able to convey something of the experience. But if the person has it, then with very few words or even with wrong words you can convey an experience easily. So there is a complex dynamics taking place through these levels. If you have something of the intuitive experience, you can use these vehicles of the lower terms and fill them with the power of the word and you send a strong influence. You can say one word that says “good” and the force behind the intuitive consciousness can carry the full necessary content of how to unfold and actualize that good which is put.
Narad (0:20:40):
In our lives perhaps we've had one or two teachers who could open it out to us, not many more. And they were drawing from the higher and putting it into the word. But the experience was so valid that we got it.
Sraddhalu (0:21:01):
And the Mother often when she gave instructions it was like this. She would say yes or she would say good, she would say go ahead or a single word and then into it would be the full power of how to execute that. When she gave you the blessing packet, it was something similar. You asked for help for a situation, she gives you that and with it, it's like a bundle containing everything necessary to unfold. This is the beauty of the intuitive consciousness because it is the experience. The form of its expression can vary. So again, I have to go back to the example of the dog. When you are one with the dog, it does not matter whether you are sitting, sleeping, you are running around, you are barking or wagging your tail, all that is contained in that one word dog. So if I say build this and into it in the intuition I am holding the full experience of what is to be built, the person receiving can actually catch and build with all rich detail. In Sri Aurobindo's writings, you will find this power of the intuitive experience behind every single thing he writes. Not just intuitive, but something even higher from the over mental and even the supramental experience of which we will shortly look up to. But something of that actually comes through the words. But at the very least you will feel this intuitive connect so that as he describes something you tend to be pulled into the experience. This is also the power of the intuitive poetry where the poem can lead you into an experience or open a gate, open an insight, it articulates something which belongs not to this domain.
And so the intuitive consciousness is of immense value. It's your first contact with something which is true in itself. Now again we will play with this word truth. What do we mean by this is truth? So you can say well this is true right? The chair exists, it's true. The air exists, yes it's true, but is it good, is it bad? It's all relative. For me this is good, for someone else this is bad. Everything enters a domain of relativity. But ‘true’ has this character that what it is exists independent of everything else. It does not depend on, is not part of some relativity. And so in the intuitive consciousness every perception has this inherent truth. You can still articulate it in relative terms, but it's there, a thing in itself. But it's finite, it's incomplete because your perception is still limited. I draw again on the example of the torch, where earlier you were lighting a torch, pointing to different parts of the dark room, and you see only pieces at a time. But if at that moment suddenly there's a flash of lightning, phew, you see the whole thing lit up in a moment, that's the sense of the intuitive where it sees, feels one with the whole thing, but it passes, and then the mind runs after formulating. Most of the great writings have had this intuition behind and then the rest of it was constructed by the mind.
Sraddhalu (0:24:26):
In the working of intuition, we'll find four forms or four functions which are described in the Veda. Actually three and the fourth is common to the other three but still there are four functions. The first is the working of intuition as it is felt, you are one with it, you feel it, and you say I feel intuitively that this is true, that is not true or this is how it is. This is the second form in which the intuition flows through you and forms into words. And so this is what we call inspiration. I feel inspired and as the inspiration flows, it articulates its own words, its own music, its own forms in sound. And sometimes if you are writing poetry like this or if you are playing music which is inspired, you don't know what's going to come until it actually comes. And so the experience is I am a vehicle, I am like a channel and there is something which is greater than me which flows through. If you have trained yourself to be able to rise into an intuitive consciousness, you can deliberately tap or initiate a movement from the intuition and it flows through. Otherwise you remain in a quiet receptive state with a call, with an aspiration to know and it calls a response and whoop, the intuition catches and begins to form or flow. So that's the second type of intuition and it's often associated with word or sound, so we call it inspiration. And the third is perception or seeing and we call it a revelation. And it's as if you see the thing as it is. These are the three broad channels corresponding to our physical senses, but in a different grade of consciousness. There's a fourth power which is the discrimination, which is inherent in all these. This and not that. It's able to separate the truth from the falsehood or the mixture or the error. It's able to make that separation immediately. This is the power which is characteristic also of the psychic being within us, that anything that comes, it is able to distinguish the part of it that's true and the part of it that's mixed, separating it. But in the intuition this takes place in a much freer, wider working.
So Sri Aurobindo has a very interesting observation. He said true knowledge will not come from your studying and reading and intellectualising. True knowledge will grow in you by the opening of the psychic influence and the intuition. Now you see the similarity between these two but the difference is this. The psychic has an inherent feel this is right that's not right. But why? I don't know I just feel it and it stops there. And I follow what I know to be right but where is it leading to? I'm not too sure I just feel it's something good but when the intuition begins to fill, it sees, it knows and it has a larger picture, it can articulate and explain in right relation with everything else and as this grows there are series of flashes. Two things happen the scope of the flashes becomes larger so instead of revealing little spots you have larger flashes similar to the rise from the mind to higher mind where there was a widening similar process except it's happening in identity small chunks of identity give way to larger chunks of identity. And second, the flashes become less brief or they last longer or as in the way that they will say series of flashes becomes almost like a continuity of light so you've seen in lightning sometimes when there's a very strong lightning storm, it's not one flash suddenly you flash flash flash flash flash flash flash flash flash flash something like that, a series. Thats why these are symbols but very powerful symbols. There is a great correspondence between physical phenomena of lighting and psychological phenomena of intuition. So a sustained thing and then poof it goes. And again sustained and poof it goes. And at some point as you rise more and more into the intuitive consciousness it is lit up. Sustained intuitive light. And so you know, you know, wherever you choose to know, literally as you move to know whatever you need to know, nothing is hidden from you.
Narad (0:29:11):
In the Western mind, where is revelation in accordance with?
Sraddhalu (0:29:20):
So in the intuitive consciousness itself, these three forms of intuition, revelation is one of the forms, more visionary and depending on one's temperament, one of these three is our starting point. We feel as if in touch, the intuition, some feel as if in the flow of form of word, some feel more in the perception as if seen but eventually all three merge into each other.
Narad (0:29:42):
In the illumined mind you mentioned seeing and in the intuitive mind you mentioned seeing..
Sraddhalu (0:29:45)
Yes, the difference is in the illumined mind you are seeing something else, in the intuitive mind the seeing is what you are, there is the oneness of the object and the seer. It is as if you become the dog and the dog awareness is lit up fully. You're aware of dog in all its complexity or whatever degree of complexity but more and more as you turn to feel the series of light things becoming more and more sustained but also widening in what is revealed this is the second movement. Now how far will this go? When the intuitive consciousness now begins to come into its own, more and more complete, more and more wide, more and more sustained, let's say now it is continuous intuitive light becoming wider and wider, where does it stop? All the way out to infinity. I look at flower, my intuitive consciousness knows flower because I am flower, but now in a single flash I know the stem and its connection to the plant, and another flash, I know what quality of plant it comes from. In another flash, I know where it grew in what soil. So I look at flower, flash, flash, flash, or whatever I needed about it, who held it, why it has come to me, what is meant to be done with it, flash, flash, flash, but finite pieces. When this widens sufficiently, flower comes and it opens out. How far? Eventually, the whole universe. And so the experience is, remember it's not seeing as I see that, I am one with it, I am one with flower, that is an expression of the whole universe. And the experience is as if the whole universe now leans to put forward a front, ‘I am flower’ and behind that the whole infinity of the universe.
Every object you see is like this. The whole representing in a front, in a face, an aspect of the entirety. And at this point from the intuitive consciousness you have risen to what Sri Aurobindo calls the Overmental. The character of the overmental is first of all like intuition it is what it knows, but unlike intuition which was finite it always knows infinity, but an aspect of the infinite, a special exaggeration of front and something limited front of the infinite. [There] is a problem though, because flower is whole universe putting up front, bee is whole universe putting up front, but they are different. Or the flower is there and the gardener who is going to cut the flower is also there as the whole universe and they can be in collision, right? So in the Overmental consciousness, although everything is known and felt in totality of the whole universe as an aspect of the whole, still two aspects can collide. Now here's a problem. We are replicating what was happening in the mind. Remember two ideas can collide? And here you have a collision of what? Infinity. It is as if the whole universe is in collision with the whole universe, it's a bigger conflict. So Sri Aurobindo makes this very interesting observation. He says that in fact when you enter the Overmental consciousness or when you open to the infinite, an ignorance there acquires the character of a cosmic scale. It's far more harmful than an ignorance of the little limited intellectual mind. Because you feel the totality of the universe backing you in an erroneous action. <laughs>
Sraddhalu (0:33:44):
You are entirely wrong while still having the full power of what is true from a certain perspective, but not in the way it is being articulated. So this is why in the Overmental consciousness, which is the domain of the gods, you can have the gods quarrelling or fighting or colliding against each other. And then you have to ask a separate aspect of the infinite to represent itself, the aspect of harmony. Please come and fix these relations. But then that has to come and work against. You see, the problem is you still haven't got true harmony. It's still fixing things. And so you find the analogy of the working of the Overmental consciousness very similar to the Higher Mind. The Higher Mind is in fact Overmind, representing itself inside mind, but with separation of subject and object. It has this richness of multifacetedness opening out, but it is still thought form and idea form. It is not truth. Here it is truth opening out. The multiplicity there and the multiplicity here correspond. So there's a very interesting thing in our whole discussion so far. We have seen repeatedly these resonances across these levels. Here is infinity representing itself in the finite. Here is the intuitive identity representing itself in a lower working. Here is the seeing representing itself in a different kind of seeing. You see this very interesting resonance and it's a suggestion. Whatever powers you have here have their roots up there. Whatever powers you have here of your consciousness, if you open them to their origin and to their source, you kind of rise up to the higher range. So, you see in our transitions between these different gradations, we made the transition seamlessly. There was nothing that you let go. By completing this, you came into the next. By completing that, you came into the next. And so you see continuity of ascent of consciousness. And powers resonating from above all the way down across these levels. That means everything we are today is potentially capable of, so to say, releasing its limits and ascending up all the way, because it is a representation of that in limitation.
Narad (0:36:18):
When Sri Aurobindo says truth so many times in Savitri, and Mother says truth, but mentally we cannot, right?
Sraddhalu (0:36:32):
Yes, very often in the poetry there are things which you feel and if you say please explain to me, in trying to explain you lose it, it breaks up something. And yet before you try to explain you felt it and that's an intuitive perception. The problem though is we have not yet developed the continuity from intuition to our thinking and articulating mind. There are some people who have developed that. They can take an insight and turn it into a very clear articulated structured form without losing the continuity. But for most people the first opening to intuition is I feel it, I know it, it's so enjoyable, but I can't explain and I lose it in trying to explain. Which is fine you have to just develop that more and more and then bit by bit you try to make the thread the link. So in people for example in whom this is already ready enough that the link can be made, I would even suggest the exercise that, first feel the intuitive thing let it unfold that is so to say unfold its layers, feel it and then try now to articulate, turn it into words and structure of thought. And even if you feel you are losing, your pause, make the link slowly, bit by bit and then you will find you can articulate it this way or another way or another way, depending on which you take a starting point, the same truth can be expressed in so many different ways. But in doing that you will be actually forming a link. When you make an action, you pause, wait wait for the truth of what is to be expressed and let it initiate the action, not you doing. And so there are exercises which we will look at later in developing the intuitive consciousness. Ao we have come to this point now, where you have an infinity of the intuitive consciousness and that's Overmental consciousness. And of course into this it gets more and more settled, until you experience the whole as an aspect in everything. And the aspect itself is not in appearance finite, but is not finite, it is infinite. This flower is not finite, it is infinity in appearance of flower. In the flower itself I can see the infinity although the form is finite. I can take the petal, within the petal the finer thread, within the colour, within the smell, everything is infinite, an aspect of infinity.
And so in the Overmental consciousness, you live in infinity. There is nothing which is finite. Although people may say, oh this is finite, no, you see the infinity of it, you live the infinity of it and you are one with the infinity of it. And yet you can make error. But the error is exaggeration of aspect versus aspect. And that's why it is not yet the domain of true harmony or the true Divine Oneness. This is the domain also of religions. You see, every religion has a glimpse of the Divine, but that glimpse may be infinite, some more, some less, doesn't matter, but that glimpse may be infinite and because it is infinite, the religion can say, this is all there is, because in the infinity I am including everything. And yet each has its own articulation of its infinite aspect, and so even they end up being contrary to each other, conflicting with each other. One will say the Divine is all love. Another will say no, the Divine is all power. Another will say all Knowledge, all Justice. But in that you see only Knowledge in the whole universe. You see only Power and so the two can collide. Or you see this and then the other things are secondary aspects. It's like embellishments or secondary powers of the... but you never see the whole.
Sraddhalu (0:40:27):
What is the whole? Because in the whole, every viewpoint possible will be equally justified. Can you conceive of that even? Try to imagine. What's it like to look at the... to be the whole universe from the perspective of flower, to be the whole universe from the perspective of each of the petals, from the bee, from the gardener, from each grain of soil, from every single thing in the universe, to be the whole universe from that. Now at that point it's as if your infinities multiply into infinities and all this as this is if has to be held. The only way you can hold it is there is one underlying of which all these are aspects. We come back to the analogy of the diamond. I am the diamond of which every single thing in the universe is a facet. So the bee is a facet, the flower is a facet, a petal of the flower is another facet, but all is facets. But the thing of which they are facets is one indivisible whole and yet infinite. You can't picture it. You can sense it almost intuitively, but that's about it. It's already breaking the boundaries of your power of conception. But if you make your mind very quiet, you get a sense of it, and you hold that. That's your beginning of the true Supramental consciousness. And even to enter into the Overmental consciousness on the brink of the supramental, it's something so overwhelming with all the infinities, that often at first, it is difficult to remain in that state and still be grounded in the physical. You are so overwhelmed by the infinity of the whole thing that you lose sense of the body or if you come back into the body consciousness, you lose the sense of that.
And Sri Aurobindo makes this very interesting observation. He says, it's one of the most difficult things to be able to remain in the Overmental consciousness while still being embodied. And after that is this completion of all the Overmental aspects into the one Supramental. And in the Supramental consciousness, all is One, only one, the same One everywhere in all things and all are aspects of the one but they are not even aspects, they are the One wholly appearing as aspects. So the flower is not an aspect of the whole universe, it is the whole universe, it is not just the whole universe, it is all that is beyond the universe and beyond space and time included in flower. And you experience it like this and the flower as I am flower, I am equally all other things which are within me. So again it's so blurry now to your conception that things get blurred. So he describes three stages of this ascent. The lowest is where each of these is an aspect of the same one and so this our mind can conceive of or intuitively sense. In the second stage, each of these aspects knows the whole oneness and all other aspects and in the third stage: they are all actually one indivisible total infinite oneness and at that point your mind blanks out, because that's it, it's like the finger pointing but you can't get there.
Sraddhalu (0:44:03):
There is a very interesting image used and you can of course apply it on many levels including at the intellect but it's closer here. In the Indian tradition, Indra has this web, Indrajal, a web of gems so arranged that every single gem reflects all others. So you can look at a gem and in that reflection you can see all others. And within the reflection of all others you can see all others. Because they are all reflecting each other totally. And what is Indra by the way? The Divine Mind. He is the Lord of the Divine Mind. So it's this borderline of the Overmental turning to the Supramental, that is his highest station, and in which all these, everything is within everything else, in the Oneness, and then beyond that, no more Indra, no more any of the gods, it is only the one Divine. In this supramental consciousness, all is without separation, all is infinite and while we may still speak of aspects because we need to use that for our vocabulary, when you live in that consciousness, there is nothing which is not in totality the one Divine.
[Narad] Putting that into person to person.
[Sraddhalu] So a person who lives in this, his values are totally different. And the kind of knowledge he has, again because the sense of infinity is not just in space, not just in time, but beyond even space and time. You see, your intelligence just blanks out. But to be able to live in that and act from that is the way the Divine lives and acts. It's the originating power from which the whole universe was born, of which the whole universe is built, and it is the true omniscience and omnipotence of the Divine creative power. So even we may say the Supramental is the Divine as knowledge and power before he launches himself to become the whole universe. It is the original creative power. It is therefore the one power against which there can be no resistance or no opposition, because all in the universe is itself. And so when this power begins to act, you can throw at it the most intense opposition of the most, whatever Asuric or other stupidities it is included in the Divine action. So it is wonderful and I include you and it becomes more powerful because it uses the other's power equally, so there is no opposition. All action is smooth, effortless, perfect, without resistance or opposition. And infinite in scope, infinite in knowledge of action also. So a little ripple here and the whole universe is affected. Nothing is left out because it holds the whole.
And this power of action Sri Aurobindo brought as an active force in evolution. Where earlier the best that was there was something of the Overmental consciousness and therefore even with the divine action there was collision, conflict and even chaos as a consequence. With the Supramental it's as if everything becomes smooth and perfect and effortless in the action where it acts. But if you bring it too soon into a vehicle which is too small, like you saw with your mind you become numbed. You cannot conceive anymore. But a vehicle which is too small, a power which is of a Supramental will overwhelm it, shatter it. Mother puts it in a different way. If you were to see the Supramental sun, you would see it black because it's like neutralising all your ability to see. It goes beyond the ability. You don't see it anymore. So there is a preparation to be made. Something in you should be ready, plastic to its influence and then it can act. When it acts though, it acts in two degrees of self-limitation. Its infinity, it narrows to something as an aspect, it still holds the infinity but puts forward an aspect which is seemingly finite and the second thing it does is it further limits itself to, from the aspect it can further limit itself to, finiteness and be finite thing.
So in the way that this whole movement of limiting is described as the ray of the Sun. Living in the supramental consciousness is becoming one with the body of the sun, with the substance of the sun. But in the Intuitive consciousness, it is as if a ray of the sun, a finite ray, but still light of the sun and therefore true. So, when our mind turns towards the Supermind, of course that is not immediately accessible, but the part of it accessible is the point of the ray of the Sun coming which is the intuitive. And so that's your first step where you touch truth, however limited, however finite but you touch truth. And so for us and for our mind to habituate itself to an intuitive consciousness is the next necessary evolutionary step. Immediate next of course towards the Supramental. Once you recognize that all is eventually a limitation or expression of the supramental, in a way you can say yes, whatever we do is part of that Supramental yoga. It doesn't mean we are working in the Supramental consciousness, but that's our goal. So in that sense the integral yoga is a Supramental yoga, but you are not in the phase of the Supramental consciousness.
Sraddhalu(0:50:00):
Sri Aurobindo describes the requirements before you can actually experience the supramental consciousness and enter the supramental ascent. And he says for that your psychic being must have already been, must have come forward and taken charge of your whole nature, your surface layer should have been bridged with your subliminal so that you are living in a so to say infinite consciousness here in the mental, vital and to some extent the physical. And then your mind itself must have opened to the infinity and to open to the cosmic consciousness which is approaching the Overmental consciousness and then only you can speak of a Supramental ascent and Supramental experience of yoga. So yes of course we go through all these phases first, but at least conceptually to hold this as the goal. And it is this which you will bring into the mind, into the vital and eventually into the physical. And when such a creative power of the universe, of the Divine, now works in the physical consciousness what it can do with the body substance? When that substance feels it, there is no darkness, there is no inertia there is no inconscience, there is only free Divine substantiality which is material. And so such a body, such a substance would have plasticity, would know infinity, would be able to express Divinity in its action. We can't conceive of it but what we can conceive is our mind becoming like a vessel that is so vast as to be flooded with infinity of light of Sun and filled with substance of Sun and being of the nature of Sun. And that is something immediately that you can aspire for and eventually your life force and vitality and then eventually your body. But for this, the first initial step will be making a small link from the intellect and it's working to the intuitive consciousness. For which small exercises to widen to the higher mind and open to the illumined mind would be of help. But even otherwise if a link is made with the intuition, it can work out these two intermediate steps.
Sraddhalu (0:52:10):
So this is the broad background I wanted to place for us to appreciate what is this super mind, supra mental consciousness Sri Aurobindo talks about, why it is so essential and important in what ways different from all other traditions, closest to the Veda of course, but all other traditions do not see this continuity from mind to the Divine consciousness. Do not recognize the Supramental consciousness as the creative power of the Divine. It is actually in continuum all the way down to the most material. The whole universe is formed of its action. And therefore everything in the universe can enter in relation with it and become a vehicle for expressing it. We are the ideal vehicle.
Narad (0:52:58):
Rather they say it's impossible.
Sraddhalu (0:53:00):
Yes. That's the basic difference between Sri Aurobindo's yoga and the other systems. It means in the body, in matter, whatever it may seem like now, the full light of the Divine consciousness can reside and express itself with whatever limitation of expression it may choose, but it can act without diluting without distorting. So the physical transformation may be far away in a sense but the general Divinization of our consciousness is what we have to work towards, of which the small intermediate steps are of our first focus. Why are these important? Because that's where you begin, you begin from where you are to make these small steps. The opening to the infinite of the Overmental for example can take place once the character of the Overmental is developed in you in what we call the higher mind, which is this mass ideation, the movement of multiplicity in a large thought. If you have that, from there it's a question of widening, intuitivising and making infinite that will become your Overmental. So all the things of Higher mind, Illumined mind, with intuition, if you get these three, the rest is only making infinite. So when you think in such terms, you realise it's not difficult. It may take time. It may take more time or less time, doesn't matter.
But in the very process of making this ascent, you are growing from joy to greater joy and light to greater light. And that's the nature of this yoga. It is unlike the ascetic paths where you suffer and suffer and suffer and one day suddenly you get something or not. Here every step is a step of joy and growth in light. And it is the Supramental, which is because it is the only complete consciousness, is also the true immortality. It is the sat-chit-ananda and the true immortality. And something of it is there in the intuitive, because it is the ray of the sun. And something of the intuitive light reflects in the Illumined mind and as if it is the seed of the higher mind thought idea. So when you think of it like that, every time you make a higher ascent, you are as if approaching the Satchitananda. But in some reduced aspect. And so you grow in delight, you grow in light, you grow in consciousness and so on. So I think this is like a big picture of the whole ascent of consciousness. In our own ideal, in our own concept and aspiration, we should fix ourselves firmly in this as the goal. All the rest is means towards this. All the things you do in life are a means towards this, but this is our goal, to live in this divine beatitude and to express this in everything we do. As a first small step, the base on which you can open to these higher ranges is the ability to silence your mind or to make your heart silent and in the silence of the mind and the heart and of course the body, in the silence you can receive its influence or feel its influence, invite absorb that influence. And so the full process from there how we can grow to become more conscious of the intuitive and open to it and even even consciously activate it in our daily life. That will be our discussion in the next session.
Narad (0:56:58):
Namaste.
[Audience]
Is Ishwar the vedic deity and Supermind the same?
[Sraddhalu]
What is called the Vijnana, that is Supermind. Ishwar is the Divine as the Lord. That's a different idea, but supermind is his power of creation, you can say.
[Audience] Where does the scientist come into this? What grades of consciousness?
Audience (0:57:28):
Where does the scientist come into this procreation of this consciousness?
Sraddhalu (0:57:37): The bulk of what you see in science or in arts is largely the intellect turning to matter and form of matter. It doesn't go beyond that, bulk of it. Some of it has a strong vital component. Very few will open to something higher than mind and those who do that, those are the artists who create works of immortality. And depending on their own development or their receptivity they may hit and miss, by hit and miss access higher ranges something of the intuitive mind or illumined mind, occasionally something of the overmental can touch like a ray and you will see the character of those lines of poetry or those works of art, it will always be as if a window to something infinite. In Wordsworth's, is this line, 10,000 saw I at a glance. This, the daffodils, flowers, 10,000 saw I at a glance. In one glance you have this 10,000. You see the character of the line is, one glance opening out to infinity and that approaches the overmental character. In Savitri you will find certain lines, one after another, a series of Overmental, each of it is a glimpse of the infinite, this way, this way, this way, this way. In that whole passage of the adoration of the Divine Mother, you will have a series of lines which goes something like, you remember, ‘she is the magnet of our difficult ascent’. Do you remember a few lines?
[Narad]
“At the head she stands of birth and toil and fate.
In their slow rounds the cycles turn to her call”
[Sraddhalu] In this picture already, head of what? Birth and toil and fate. You see these words, they hit across space, across time, they are all visions of infinite birth, everything born, not just the human being born, all objects born, all objects struggling, driven by some kind of compelling fate, but she's at the head of it, the oneness opening out to the infinite. ‘In this slow round, the cycles turn to her call’, he doesn't say which cycles, all cycles, all rhythms of the cosmos are relating to her. And you see this gigantic vision.
‘Alone her hand can change time's dragon base’.
And then,
[Narad]
“Hers is the mystery the night conceals.
The spirit's alchemist energies is hers.
She is the force, the inevitable word,
The magnet of our difficult descent,
The sun from which we kindle all our suns,
The light that leans from the unrealized vasts”.
[Sraddhalu] So you can see how all these, each is a glimpse of infinity but from a different perspective and all these as he piles them one after another it just opens your consciousness like that You could of course access these lines with your mind It's like you are trying to chop something which is infinite and fit it into a little box. But it breaks the box all the time. So if you read it in this way, you'll find he lifts you as if to a first glimpse. Such lines, such poetry, such art, such music, whatever it is, will have always this vast grandeur and a touch of the infinite behind the form that it comes. So from the quality of the work, you can often capture the source, even though it is working through physical forms, the thing it contains of consciousness is connecting to a higher source. And these are the masterpieces which, so to say, survive time. The other things, these mental vital creations, they excite for a while, you sell and then they pass, nobody really cares.
Audience (1:02:00):
You see, sometimes you experience a sense of oneness and permanence. Is that your psychic?
Sraddhalu (1:02:11):
No, not necessarily. A sense of oneness and permanence can be felt on all planes. From the physical through the vital through the mental and through all the higher planes of mind. Wherever you are you can lean back to the infinity behind, the sense of the universe behind. This on that plane you will feel a sense of oneness and permanence and so the character of the oneness and permanence, the quality of consciousness will tell you which level it is. But on each of these you can have it. So the sense of oneness and permanence in the mind and your mind feels this, oh I am, I will never die, you feel you are permanent, right? and you can feel as if all mind in your mind awareness you can feel the sense of ‘oh, I am everything, the whole universe is this big flow of energy and awareness’. But when you experience in the emotions, the sense of oneness it's a completely different feeling. I feel so close to you that I feel as if you are my own part but the emotional oneness is totally different from the mind's oneness. Sometimes physically you feel oneness. a Mother feels to her child you are me, you are my body, physical oneness. But they're totally different onenesses and similarly in the higher mind you'll have a different sense of oneness and the intuitive much more true oneness because you are actually one in but in limited. In the Overmental, that's when you will have the oneness which is cosmic in scale. Although here you feel, it is wide, you do not feel its infinity, you sense something but it's not the full infinity. In the Overmental you have the infinity but it's here that you can experience all these oneness of all planes as aspects of the same one and so this is the true cosmic consciousness. Sri Aurobindo makes this distinction. You can feel universality on all levels but the one consciousness which holds the totality of all these aspects of itself is the true cosmicity. That's the cosmic consciousness and that's on the brink of the Supramental. You still know all these different planes and they are all aspects of the same one Divinity in special densities or concentrations.
Audience (1:04:34):
When do you experience psychic being?
Sraddhalu (1:04:36):
Psychic being experience does not have the sense of infinity, not in the beginning at least. It has the deep sense of intimacy and closeness to the Divine and in it the sense of permanence of your in relation to the Divine. These are the characteristics of the psychic experience. You may not have reached the psychic being but even a reflection of it in your consciousness will give you this. But when you go deep enough you can experience yourself one with It, and at that point to experience the psychic being in substance. Its substance is truth and permanence and of an incredible beauty. It's as if like a piece of Satchitananda cut out and given form in the world. And it doesn't feel like it belongs to the world, it belongs only to the higher realms. So that's a very different experience, but it's a very intimate, personal and closeness with the Divine which is its characteristic. But the psychic presence being sufficiently there in your life, it begins to lead and guide all these different parts more and more and turns them all towards these higher possibilities. So as your consciousness rises in a way it is the journey of the psychic being rising from plane to plane. We have in our evolution come to the mental consciousness. We are mental beings and the psychic has developed that as its instrument to some extent. But it is the true doer of the yoga in the ascent. And so in the highest experience, the psychic being knows itself as an individualization of the totality of the Supramental Divine, child of the Divine mother, but the Supramental Divine Mother is his source and this is the focus of her action. So the next time the theme will be the discussion on how to prepare ourselves to become conscious of the intuitive mind and develop the intuitive powers.
[Narad] Namaste.
[Sraddhalu] Namaste.