Posted by: Tusar N. Mohapatra on: April 27, 2009
In Aurobindo’s view, yoga is threaded through the warp and weft of our very existence, and in effect it chooses us. We practice yoga because we really don’t have any other choice. Of course, we do decide what form our practice takes—we can go off and live alone in a cave and meditate, or we can stay at home, raise a family, and root for the Yankees. Performed with the proper attitude, each of our everyday actions can be an asana, each breath a pranayama, each thought (or space between two successive thoughts) a seed for meditation.
Richard Rosen, who teaches in Oakland and Berkeley, California, has been writing for Yoga Journal since the 1970s.
Posted by: Tusar N. Mohapatra on: April 17, 2009
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Hard is it to Persuade Earth-Nature’s Change
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Posted by: Tusar N. Mohapatra on: April 11, 2009
The Linguistic Approach to Knowledge – Vladimir (22/9)
In the beginning was the word, and the word was with god and the word was god. If you read further you will find what happened to that word. That word began to travel and came down and became flesh. Sri Aurobindo starts his observations from the vibrations of the spoken word, “…Let us suppose a conscious use of vibrations of sound that will produce corresponding forms or changes of form… a vibration of sound on the material plane presupposes a corresponding vibration on the vital…
“As a matter of fact, even ordinarily, even daily and hourly we do produce by the word within us thought-vibrations, thought-forms which result in corresponding vital and physical vibrations, act upon ourselves, act upon others, and end in the indirect creation of actions and of forms in the physical world. …Thus we see that the theory of creation by the Word which is the absolute expression of Truth, and the theory of the material creation by sound-vibration in the ether correspond and are two logical poles of the same idea. They both belong to the same ancient Vedic system (KU p.126).”
Sri Aurobindo defined four planes: supramental, mental, vital, and physical. If the word is tavelling from the highest down, we have these four levels – transcendental speech, mental speech, mediating speech, material speech. In the study of signs and trace, Saussure came to the discovery at the beginning of the 20th century, to the same one made long ago by Bharatrihari, of the correspondence of signified and signifier. Whatever we say about the object is the signifier, but what is signified is the concept of the object. These two build one sign – Derrida describes it as a trace structure. The signified is never there. Signifier is never that. The never there and never that makes the sign by which we suppose we know. …He never takes it for pure gold.…When you speak about anything or write anything you mean really the signified behind.
If we presume the signifier is the signified we fall into the trap of logocentrism. We think what we speak is true, but there is nothing of the kind. There is a parallel reality to which we have very little relation. ..If we look at the illustration, we have on one side the reality, form, meaning, object; on the other side we have the signifier, and this is what is called vach, nama, speech, name. I propose here a solution: …the form of seeing, the face or form is of a direct nature, of the evidence of the truth; we hear the indirect evidence, vach – seeing is superior to speech. How they correspond – the form of the thing and of the name of the thing are not the same, but they are the same on the level of semantics, of meaning. Both the pen and its name mean the tool for writing. On the higher plane this power of consciousness is one, where the sound and meaning are one, beyond the mind. It is being realized below as word and as form. …They mirror each other. There is nothing that is not a mirroring. …So that was my solution, which I found many years back and I am happy with it.
Listen to the full audio presentation at:
http://www.universityofhumanunity.org/audio_linguistics_talk_vladimir
| Université Intégrale: An Exploration into an Integral Approach to … By Université Intégrale From 15 September 2007 to 15 December 2007 a varied group of people (from Auroville and Pondicherry) came together to create a series of workshops for the purpose of clarifying the vision of the University of Human Unity (UHU) and to … |
Posted by: Tusar N. Mohapatra on: April 11, 2009
Posted by: Tusar N. Mohapatra on: March 21, 2009
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“Science, Culture and Integral Yoga“ – 1 new article
Human Unity and the Illusion of Human Progress: 100 Years of Sri Aurobindo on Evolution (Introduction)
As the celebrations of the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origins of Species take place this year, it is easy to overlook the fact that 2009 also marks the 100th anniversary of Sri Aurobindo’s first major text on evolution and consciousness. In Process and Evolution and Yoga and Human Evolution (1909) Sri Aurobindo begins to comprehensively articulate his vision of human evolution. Just as Darwin’s book became the foundation for a science of evolution, what has been called evolutionary spirituality can be traced back to Sri Aurobindo’s work. Many are acknowleding this bi-centennial year of Darwin’s birth with a reassessment of his work in light of what we now know about evolution it therefore, also seems to be a good time to reassess Sri Aurobindo’s vision of human evolution in terms of our contemporary understanding of the phenomena…… Even though his view of history is essentially cyclic he starts his consideration of evolution by writing in Yoga and Human Evolution (1909) the following: “Whether we take the modern scientific or the ancient Hindu standpoint the progress of humanity is a fact” (Aurobindo) However, by the early1940s when he is revising the last chapters of The Life Divine he writes: “the idea of human progress itself is very probably an illusion, for there is no sign that man, once emerged from the animal stage, has radically progressed during his race-history; at most he has advanced in knowledge of the physical world, in Science, in the handling of his surroundings, in his purely external and utilitarian use of the secret laws of Nature “ (Aurobindo 1949 p832)….
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Posted by: Tusar N. Mohapatra on: March 20, 2009
Narad’s Arrival at Madra by RY Deshpande is a book based on the opening passage of 81 lines of the Book of Fate of Savitri. It has, inter alia, aspects of this evolutionary creation of ours advancing towards what Sri Aurobindo envisaged as the supramental manifestation in plenitudes of the transcendental reality…
Chakras is a great beginning but in the veritable Yoga of Transformation what is necessary is that the two Chakras below the body and the three above have to materialise and become operative. This is what the Mother was told long ago by her occultist teacher Théon, and it was her experience also. For these Chakras to come into operation it is necessary to do another type of occult-spiritual yoga-tapasya. It is only then that the physical can respond to the working of the higher consciousness-force. A new body is necessary for this, a body that must emerge out of the Yajna of the Shakti. In it must be kindled the golden flame invoking the rush of the divine existence-substance as the basis of life in truth-conscient delight of the manifesting Spirit.
But how exactly the new body will be made, that cannot be said or disclosed in the beginning. This however became the main thrust of the Mother’s yoga-tapasya during the last fifteen years or so of her work. The Mantra-japa she discovered was one possible method to achieve this. That was an unexplored technique. The Mother was concerned with the almighty powers that are shut in the body’s cells. She awoke them. Not only that. The cells started joyously vibrating and opening out more and more in the aspiration for the Divine. This was something new.
Posted by: Tusar N. Mohapatra on: March 11, 2009
Pg. 28 – The Yoga of the Gita
“. . .It is not a fact that the Gita gives the whole base of Sri Aurobindo’s message; for the Gita seems to admit the cessation of birth in the world as the ultimate aim or at least the ultimate culmination of yoga; it does not bring forward the idea of spiritual evolution or the idea of the higher planes and the supramental Truth-Consciousness and the bringing down of that consciousness as the means of the complete transformation of earthly life.
The idea of the supermind, the Truth-Consciousness is there in the Rig Veda according to Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation and in one or two passages of the Upanishads, but in the Upanishads it is there only in seed in the conception of the being of knowledge, vijnanamaja purusa, exceeding the mental, vital and physical being; in the Rig Veda the idea is there but in principle only, it is not developed and even the principle of it has disappeared from the Hindu tradition.
It is these things among others that constitute the novelty of Sri Aurobindo’s message as compared with the Hindu tradition – the idea that the world is not either a creation of Maya or only a play, lila, of the Divine, or a cycle of births in the ignorance from which we have to escape, but a field of manifestation in which there is a progressive evolution of the soul and the nature in Matter and from Matter through Life and Mind to what is beyond Mind till it reaches the complete revelation of Sachchidananda in life. It is this that is the basis of the yoga and gives a new sense to life.
Our yoga is not identical with the yoga of the Gita although it contains all that is essential in the Gita’s yoga. In our yoga we begin with the idea, the will, the aspiration of the complete surrender; but at the same time we have to reject the lower nature, deliver our consciousness from it, deliver the self involved in the lower nature by the self rising to freedom in the higher nature. If we do not do this double movement, we are in danger of making a tamasic and therefore unreal surrender, making no effort, no tapas and therefore no progress; or else we may make a rajasic surrender not to the Divine but to some self-made false idea or image of the Divine which masks our rajasic ego or something still worse.
The Gita does not speak expressly of the Divine Mother; it speaks always of surrender to the Purushottama – it mentions her only as the Para Prakriti who become the Jiva, that is, who manifests the Divine in the multiplicity and through whom all these worlds are created by the Supreme and he himself descends as the Avatar. The Gita follows the Vedantic tradition which leans entirely on the Ishwara aspect of the Divine and speaks little of the Divine Mother because its object is to draw back from wrold-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation beyond it; the Tantric tradition leans on the Shakti or Ishwari aspect and makes all depend on the Divine Mother because its object is to possess and dominate the world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation through it. This yoga insists on both the aspects; the surrender to the Divine Mother is essential, for without it there is no fulfillment of the object of the yoga.”
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Posted by: Tusar N. Mohapatra on: March 11, 2009
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Edited by Sachidananda Mohanty
List Price: $115.00
This book compiles some of the finest writings of Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) — the nationalist, visionary, poet-philosopher. It reflects the range, depth and outreach of the moral, intellectual and spiritual vision of this versatile and multifaceted genius. It aims at providing, at one place, access to the key concepts, tenets, and the spirit of the extraordinary range of texts authored by him.
Although concretely grounded in contemporary times — with its location in a specific socio-cultural matrix — this work projects a body of writings that is certain to have lasting value. In particular, the compilation brings forth Sri Aurobindo’s social vision and his role as a cultural critic: his views on ethnicity, his exposition of the key role language plays in the formation of communitarian identities, his crucial understanding of self-determination which has incidentally become an important aspect of human rights discourse today.
Situating the writings in a specific intellectual, spiritual and historical context, this collection will enable readers to appreciate the overall vision of Sri Aurobindo, in what can be conceived as a caravan of history of ideas in terms of a common heritage of humankind, and recent developments in theory and disciplinary practice, especially those pertaining to consciousness and future studies.
Posted by: Tusar N. Mohapatra on: March 5, 2009
Other States – Orissa Correspondent
Centre, State to ban biography on Aurobindo
CUTTACK: The State Government and Central government on Wednesday told the High Court that they would take immediate steps to ban the publication and circulation of the controversial book titled ‘The Lives of Sri Aurobindo’ written by US writer Peter Heehs.
In their respective counter affidavits filed in HC, the State and the Union governments admitted that the biography contains defamatory and perverse comments on Sri Aurobindo’s character, life, writings and thoughts, which are bound to affect the sentiments of lakhs of the spiritual leader’s followers.
The affidavits came in the wake of a PIL filed in HC by a Balasore-based woman Gitanjali Bhattacharya seeking ban on the publication and circulation of the book in India. The HC after admitting the petition had asked the governments to file counters.
The Orissa Government in its affidavit has mentioned that a crime branch enquiry was ordered to go through the contents of the book and find whether the book had defamatory comments about the popular spiritual leader.
“The police found the book blasphemous”, the State Government affidavit said. The book however, has not been published in India although; the Penguin Books had decided to publish the same in November 2008.
Online edition of India’s National Newspaper Thursday, Mar 05, 2009 ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version | The Hindu : Other States / Orissa News : Centre, State to ban …
Posted by: Tusar N. Mohapatra on: February 18, 2009
From “Mind” to “Supermind”: Kamaladevi R. Kunkolienker
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The various concepts and theories of mind prevalent today have had their origin and development in the West. They can be classified as : Psycho-analytical (cf., Sigmund Freud, Karl Jung, A. Adler), Behavioural (cf., Gilbert Ryle), Gestalt (cf., Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang Kohler), Physiological (cf., J. J. C. Smart, U. T. Place, Feigl), Psycho-physical (cf., Karl Popper), Evolutionary (cf., Henry Bergson, Samuel Alexander, Whitehead), Functional (cf., R. Rorty, Peter Smith, O. R. Jones), and Mental or Homo Sapiens-oriented (cf., Roger Penrose). The outcome of all such discussions is that “mind” is mysterious and beyond all scientific explanation. According to the main contemporary view, in particular, `there is something essential in human understanding that is not possible to simulate by any computational means’. This indicates that the nature of mind continues to remain a source of acute discomfort to the Western thinkers. Even their new empirical findings regarding the highly complex mental acitivity is dubious. The object of this paper is to submit that in this context of the West’s indecisiveness and perplexity, Aurobindo’s approach to mind comes as a breath of fresh air. Aurobindo’s theory of mind is as much “inclusive” of the essence of the Western schools of thinkers cited above, as it is “contrastive”. The pioneers in this area from William James and McDougall through Freud, Jung and Adler etc, established the paradigm of the “iceberg” with reference to the nature of mind. This can be designated as the “infra-structural” theory of the entity. The views of the “evolutionists” (Darwin, Laplace, Bergson, S. Alexander, Whitehead, for instance,) are “different” but not “enriching”. All of them fail to recognise that any infra-structure can, and must have, logically speaking, a “supra-structure” as well, in order to be complete and holistic. That Aurobindo is “inclusive” of all the Western theories of mind does not need much elucidation. But the fact that he is contrastive does. His concept and interpretation of what is “mind” for the West proves a complete contrast because, alone among the scholars exercising their minds over the concept of mind, he makes it an organic part of his mystico-metaphysical theory of the origin, nature and destiny of creation. Thus Aurobindonian theory of mind is ontological. It is an intrinsic part Of his hierarchical view of the universe in terms of his own teaching. In his own words, `Aurobindo’s teaching states that behind the appearences of the universe there is a Reality of Being and Consciousness’, the Sachchidanada. `This One Being and Consciousness is involved in Matter’. This clearly indicates the very source of Aurobindonian ontological argument viz., the “Involution-Evolution” theory of the Absolute. That is why he adds, `Evolution is the method by which the One Being and Consciousness liberates itself; consciousness appears in what seems to be inconscient, and… is self-impelled to grow higher and higher and at the same time to enlarge and develop towards a greater and greater perfection. Life is the first step of this release of consciousness; mind is the second; but the evolution does not finish with mind, it awaits a release into something greater, a consiciousness which is spiritual and supramental. The next step of the evolution must be towards the development of the Supermind and Spirit as the dominant power in the conscious being’ [Homo Sapiens]. For only then will the involved Divinity in things release itself entirely and it become possible for life to manifest perfection’. Aurobindo’s ‘hierarchical view of consciousness or Spirit’ has, at its summit, Sachchidananda (“existence, thought joy”) or the Absolute. Immediately below that figures, the Supermind. It mediates Sachchidananda to the “many”, the multiplicity of the world. Below the Supermind comes Overmind. It is the delegate of the Supermind. Down the hierarchal view successively appear, Intuitive Mind, Ilumined Mind, Higher Mind, Mind, Life, Matter, the Subconsient, the Inconscient and the Nescient. Inconscient and Nescient are, grossly speaking, in-distinguishable except for those who have the requisite “occult-mystical” or “apocalyptic” faculty of perception. This ‘hierarchical view’ is, however, one-sided. It covers Aurobindo’s elucidation of, “devolution” or “fall” or “descent” of the Absolute in its process of involution. But involution alone initiates the further process of evolution. Hence the other side of Aurobindonian ontology the other pole of his bi-polar theory of the origin and pupose of creation. Accordingly, after the Absolute’s involution in the Nescience is complete, its `adventure’ in the form of “ascent” commences in the form of evolution. This evolution-oriented return of the Absolute back to its transcendental plenitude retraces the steps of the “descent”: its course is from Inconscient to Subconscient, to Matter, to Life, to Mind, to Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuitive Mind, Overmind and Supermind. This ontological view of Aurobindo is thus Involution-Evolution oriented. And the entity “mind” assumes the stature of an organic part and parcel of the transcendental Divine, the Absolute. Undoubtedly, this ontological explanation of Aurobindo’s concept of mind is rather jarring to most of us since we are, and have been trained to be materialistic or “realistic”, in any discussion of empirical entities. We are Seldom Spiritualistic. So let us now assume an acceptable empirical approach to Aurobindo’s ideas. Whatever his attitude to it, he posits and recognises mind as an entity. He is, therefore in line with the other scholars expressing themselves on mind. Like them he gives a conceptual framework of the entity in his own way. `The “Mind” in the ordinary use of the world’, he says `covers indescriminately the whole consciousness’. And, “Consciousness” for Aurobindo is a “loaded” term. It carries the quintessence of the triune qualities of the Absolute, — “existence, thought, joy”. Hence his explanation, with reference to his “Integral Yoga”). The words “mind” and “mental” are used to connote especially that part of (man) which has to do with congnition and intelligence, with ideas, with mental or thought perception, the reactions of thought to things, with the truly mental movement and formations, mental vision and will etc., that are part of his intelligence.’`Mind is an instrument of analysis and synthesis’. Its function is to cut out something vaguely from the unknown, Thing in itself and call this measurement or de-limitation of it the whole, and again to analyse the whole into its parts which it regards as separate mental objects.’ Yet, mind `is in its origin a principle of light, an instrument put forth from the supermind’, `a sub-ordinate power of supermind which takes its stand in the stand point of division actually forgetful here of the oneness behind, though able to return to it by reillumination from the supramental.’ `Everything in the mind derives from and is a limited inferior groping, partial or perverse to translation into mentality of something in the supermind. `Since Mind, too, is created out of [Supermind], mind must be a development by limitation out of this primal faculty and with mediatory act of the supreme consciousness and must therefore be capable of resolving itself back into it through a reverse development by expansion’. Hence the next hierarchical conversion of “Mind” into “Higher Mind”. Aurobindo says that the Higher Mind is a first plane of spiritual consciousness where one becomes constantly and closely aware of the one everywhere and knows and sees things habituaally with that awareness. He adds, however, that ‘it is still very much on the Mind level although highly spiritual in its essential substance… its instrumentation is through an elevated thought power and comprehensive mental sight’. It is ‘not illumined by any of the intenser upper lights’. ‘It acts as an intermediate state between the Truth-light above and the human mind’. It communicates the higher knowledge in a form that the mind after it is intensified, broadened, made spiritually supple, can receive’. It is, according to Aurobindo, ‘a mind no longer of mingled light and obscurity or half-light, but a large clarity of the spirit. Its basic substance is a unitarian sense of being with a powerful multiple dynamisation capable of the formation of a multitude of aspects of knowledge, ways of action, forms and significances of becoming’. ‘It is therefore a power that has proceeded from the overmind, — but with the supermind as its ulterior origin,… but its special character, its activity of consciousness are dominated by Thought; it is a luminous Thought-mind, a mind or spirit-born conceptual knowledge’. Illumined Mind is a greater Force (than the Higher Mind). It is a mind no longer of higher thought, but of spiritual light. It is ‘a play of lightenings of spiritual truth and power’. It ‘breaks from above into the consciousness and adds to the calm and wide enlightenment and vast descent of peace which characterise or accompany the action of the large conceptual spiritual principle, a fiery ordour of realisation and a rapturous ecstasy of knowledge’. In Illumined Mind ‘there is also … the arrival of a greater dynamic, a golden drive, a luminous “enthousiasmos” of inner force and power which replaces the comparatively slow and deliberate process of the Higher Mind by a swift, sometimes a vehement, almost a violent impetus of rapid transformation’. Intuitive Mind, Aurobindo says, is a higher form of the reason or intellect. Therefore the intuitive mind is also intuitive reason. ‘By its Intuitions, its Inspirations, its swift reveletory vision, its luminious insight and descrimination’ the Intuitive mind can do the work of the Reason with a higher power, a swifter action, a greater and spontaneous certitude. It acts in a self-light of the truth which does not depend upon the torch-flares of the Sense-Mind and its limited uncertain percepts; it proceeds not by intelligent but by visional concepts: it is a kind of truth-vision, truth-hearing, truth-memory, direct truth discernment. This true and authentic intuition must be distinguished from a power of the ordinary mental reason. The Intuitive mind … stretches from the Intuition proper down to the intuitivised Inner Mind — it is therefore at once an overhead power and a mental intelligence Power’. ‘The Intuition is the first plane in which there is a real opening to the full possibility of realisation; it is through it that one goes futher — first to the over mind and then to the supermind’. The over mind is the highest of the planes below the supramental. It is a sort of a delegation from the supermind. ‘If Supermind were to start here from the beginning as the direct creative Power, a world of the kind we see now would be impossible’. ‘There would be no evolution in the inconscience of matter, consequently no gradual striving evolution of consciousness in matter. A line is therefore drawn between the higher half of the universe of consciousness,… and the lower half’. The higher half is constituted of Sat, Chit, Ananda, Mahas (the supramental) — the lower half of Mind, Life, Matter. This line is the intermediary overmind which, though luminous self, keeps from us the full indivisible supramental light’. The overmind ‘receives the super light and divides, distributes and breaks it up into separated aspects, powers and multiplicities of all kinds’. ‘It sees everything ‘calmly, steadily’ and in great masses and large extensions of space and time and relation, globaly; it creates and acts in the same way — it is the world of the great gods, the Divine Creators’. ‘We recognise… in the overmind the original cosmic … power which has made the Ignorance possible, even inevitable’. Beyond mind, psychological experience finds ‘another power of energy another note in the scale of Being’. Aurobindo says, ‘this we will call supermind. This supermind’, he elucidates, ‘lives and acts natively in a domain of experience of which the mind becomes aware by reflective experience and calls vaguely Spirit or Spiritual Being’. According to him, ‘Supermind is between the sachchidananda and the lower creation. It alone contains the self-determining Truths of the Divine Consciousness and is necessary for a truth-creation’. ‘This supermind then is the Truth or Real-Idea inherent in all cosmic force and existence, which is necessary, itself remaining infinite, to determine and combine and uphold relation and order and the great lines of the manifestation. ‘… beyond the supramental plane of consiciousness which is an intermediate step from overmind and mind to the complete experience of Sachchidananda, are the great heights of the Manifested Spirit: here surely existence would not at all be based on the determination of the one in multiplicity, it would manifest solely and simply a pure identity in oneness. But the supremanetal Truth-consciousness would not be absent from these planes, for it is an inherent power of Sachchidananda. Significantly, Aurobindo admits that the word Supermind ‘is ambiguous since it may be taken in the sense of mind itself supereminent and lifted above ordinary mentality but not radically changed,… it may bear the sense of all that is beyond mind’. Therefore, he maintains, ‘a subsidiary description’ viz., ‘”Truth-consciousness” is required to delimit the connotation of the more elastic phrase, Supermind’. By the term “truth-consciousness” Aurobindo means `a consciousness always free from the Ignorance which is the foundation of our present natural or evolutionary existence and from which nature in us is trying to arrive at self-knowledge and world-knowledge and the right consciousness and the right use of our existence in the universe’. Hence Aurobindo’s statement that `because it is a truth-conciousness,’ the supermind `has this knowledge inherent in it and this Power of true existence’ . `This is because its very nature is knowledge : it has not to acquire knowledge but possesses it in its own right; its steps are not from nescience or ignorance into some imperfect light, but from truth to greater truth, from right perception to deeper perception, from intuition to intuition, from illumination to utter and boundless luminousness, from growing widenesses to the utter vasts and to very infinitude. On its summits it possesses the divine Omniscience and omnipotence, but even in an evolutionary movement of its own graded self-manifestation by which it would eventually reveal its own highest heights it must be in its very nature essentially free from ignorance and error : it starts from truth and light and moves always in truth and light. As its knowledge is always true, so too its will is always true, it does not fumble in its handling of things or stumble in its paces. In the supermind feelings and emotion do not depart from their truth, make no slips or mistakes, do not swerve from the right and the real, cannot misuse beauty and delight or twist away from a divine rectitude. In the supermind sense cannot mislead or deviate into the grossnesses which are here its natural imperfectious and the cause of reproach, distrust and misuse by our ignorance. Even an incomplete statement made by the supermind is a truth leading to a further truth, its incomplete action a step towards completeness.’ As ‘the truth-consciousness, it is a principle superior to mentality’. Besides it ‘exists, acts and proceeds in the fundamental truth and unity of things’. It is ‘at its source dynamic consciousness’ and is ‘in its nature at once and inseparably infinite WISDOM and infinite World of the Divine Knower-and Creator’. This is why Aurobindo equates the supermind at its highest reach with ‘the Divine gnosis, the wisdom — the Power — the light — the Bliss of god by which the Divine knows and upholds and governs and enjoys the universe’. As such it ‘is the support of the creation and is leading all towards itself’. All ‘our direct truth-perception … comes from that supermind,’ since it is ‘a will that Knows and Acknowledges that effects’ and ‘creates Universal order our of infinity.’ The Divine Reality, says Aurobindo, is fully manifested in the supermind. Therefore it no longer works with the instrumentation of the ignorance. Aurobindo is again aware of the difficulty in distinguishing the two highest levels of consciousness, Overmind and Supermind. Therefore he clarifies by saying, ‘the supermind is the total truth-consciousness : the overmind draws down the truths separately and gives them the separate activity’. ‘Between the supermind and the human mind are the number of ranges, Planes or layers of consciousness … The Overmind is the highest of these ranges : it is full of lights and powers : but form the point of view of what is above it, it is the line of the soul’s turning away from the complete and indivisible knowledge and its descent towards the Ignorance’. Therefore, in the overmind ‘there is no longer the essential, total, perfectly harmonising and unifying knowledge, or rather knowledge forever harmonious’. Of course, in the overmind ‘there is not yet the actual fall into Ignorance, but the first step is taken which will make the fall inevitable’. Overmind is a plane of consciousness beyond even Universal Mind in ignorance; it carries in itself a first,direct, masterful cognition of cosmic truth’. ‘It is a creator of truth, not of illusions or falsehood. It is a principle of cosmic truth … a vast and endless catholicity is its very spirit. It takes each aspect of power and gives to it an independent action’. The overmind is the Protective Double, a delegate of the supermind consciousness. However, it does not possess the ‘integrality of the supramental truth’ though ‘it is well aware of the essential truth of things’. All this ontology-based perception of the various grades of mind which (Aurobindo calls “planes”) is based not on mere theory, reflection or mere intuition. It stems from the concrete personal experiences (mostly occult and mystical) Aurobindo underwent for nearly half a century from about 1902 to 1950. Just as the world’s initial reaction to the various psychoanalytical observations made by the members of the ‘infra-structural’ school of mind-analysts, was unfavourable, Aurobindonian theory of mind to supermind is also valnerable, at its present infant stage of dissemination, to the same kind of treatment. Just as Freud had a kind of laboratory-oriented explanation for his psycho-analytical theory, Aurobindo too has gone on record saying that his experiments regarding the various Planes of Being (of which “Mind” is one) were undertaken at the Pondicherry Ashram, rightly defined by him as “a veritable laboratory”. That issue, however, is outside the scope of this paper which seeks to make only a statement of Aurobindonian approach to mind. |
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