{"id":1209,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:17","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1209"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:33:17","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:17","slug":"14-the-perfection-of-the-mental-being-vol-21-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/21-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-21\/14-the-perfection-of-the-mental-being-vol-21-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-21","title":{"rendered":"-14_The Perfection of the Mental Being.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n<td>\n<div class=\"Section1\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin: 0\"><b><br \/>\n<font size=\"3\"><br \/>\n<span>Chapter IV<\/span><\/font><\/b><font size=\"3\">&nbsp;<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'><font size=\"4\">&nbsp;<\/font><b><font size=\"4\"><span>The<br \/>\nPerfection of the Mental Being<\/span><\/font><\/b>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:1in;line-height:150%'><b><font size=\"4\">T<\/font><\/b><font size=\"2\">HE<\/font><br \/>\nfundamental idea of a Yoga of self-perfection must be, under these conditions,<br \/>\na reversal of the present relations of the soul of man to his mental, vital and<br \/>\nphysical nature. Man is at present a partly self-conscious soul subject to and<br \/>\nlimited by mind, life and body, who has to become an entirely self-conscious<br \/>\nsoul master of his mind, life and body. Not limited by their claims and<br \/>\ndemands, a perfect self-conscious soul would be superior to and a free possessor<br \/>\nof its instruments. This effort of man to be master of his own being has been<br \/>\nthe sense of a large part of his past spiritual, intellectual and moral<br \/>\nstrivings. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%'>In order to be<br \/>\npossessor of his being with any complete reality of freedom and mastery, man<br \/>\nmust find out his highest self, the real man or highest Purusha in him, which<br \/>\nis free and master in its own inalienable power. He must cease to be the mental,<br \/>\nvital, physical ego; for that is always the creation, instrument and subject of<br \/>\nmental, vital, physical Nature. This ego is not his real self, but an<br \/>\ninstrumentation of Nature by which it has developed a sense of limited and<br \/>\nseparate individual being in mind, life and body. By this instrumentation he<br \/>\nacts as if he were a separate existence in the material universe. Nature has<br \/>\nevolved certain habitual limiting conditions under which that action takes<br \/>\nplace; self-identification of the soul with the ego is the means by which she<br \/>\ninduces the soul to consent to this action and accept these habitual limiting<br \/>\nconditions. While the identification lasts, there is a self-imprisonment in<br \/>\nthis habitual round and narrow action, and, until it is transcended, there can<br \/>\nbe no free use by the soul of its individual living, much less a real<br \/>\nself-exceeding. For this reason an essential movement of the Yoga is to draw<br \/>\nback from the outward ego sense by which we are identified with the action of mind,<br \/>\nlife and body and live in-&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 606<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'><span class=\"SpellE\">wardly<\/span><br \/>\nin the soul. The liberation from an <span class=\"SpellE\">externalised<\/span> ego<br \/>\nsense is the first step towards the soul&#8217;s freedom and mastery. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%'>When we thus<br \/>\ndraw back into the soul, we find ourselves to be not the mind, but a mental<br \/>\nbeing who stands behind the action of the embodied mind, not a mental and vital<br \/>\npersonality, \u2013 personality is a composition of Nature, \u2013 but a mental Person, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>manomaya<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">puru&#351;a<\/span><\/i>.<br \/>\nWe become aware of a being within who takes his stand upon mind for<br \/>\nself-knowledge and world-knowledge and thinks of himself as an individual for<br \/>\nself-experience and world-experience, for an inward action and an outward-going<br \/>\naction, but is yet different from mind, life and body. This sense of difference<br \/>\nfrom the vital actions and the physical being is very marked; for although the<br \/>\nPurusha feels his mind to be involved in life and body, yet he is aware that even<br \/>\nif the physical life and body were to cease or be dissolved, he would still go<br \/>\non existing in his mental being. But the sense of difference from the mind is<br \/>\nmore difficult and less firmly distinct. But still it is there; it is <span class=\"SpellE\">characterised<\/span> by any or all of three intuitions in which<br \/>\nthis mental Purusha lives and becomes by them aware of his own greater<br \/>\nexistence. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%'>First, he has<br \/>\nthe intuition of himself as someone observing the action of the mind; it is<br \/>\nsomething which is going on in him and yet before him as an object of his<br \/>\nregarding knowledge. This self-awareness is the intuitive sense of the witness Purusha,<br \/>\n<span class=\"SpellE\"><i>s&#257;k&#351;&#299;<\/i><\/span>.<br \/>\nWitness Purusha is a pure consciousness who watches Nature and sees it as an<br \/>\naction reflected upon the consciousness and enlightened by that consciousness,<br \/>\nbut in itself other than it. To mental Purusha Nature is only an action, a<br \/>\ncomplex action of discriminating and combining thought, of will, of sense, of<br \/>\nemotion, of temperament and character, of ego feeling, which works upon a<br \/>\nfoundation of vital impulses, needs and cravings in the conditions imposed by<br \/>\nthe physical body. But it is not limited by them, since it can not only give<br \/>\nthem new directions and much variation, refining and extension, but is able to<br \/>\nact in thought and imagination and a mental world of much more subtle and<br \/>\nflexible creations. But also there is an intuition in the mental Purusha of<br \/>\nsomething larger and greater than this present action in which he lives, a<br \/>\nrange of experience of which it is only a frontal scheme or a narrow<br \/>\nsuperficial selection. By<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 607<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>this intuition he stands upon the<br \/>\nthreshold of a subliminal self with a more extended possibility than this<br \/>\nsuperficial mentality opens to his self-knowledge. A last and greatest<br \/>\nintuition is an inner awareness of something which he more essentially is, something<br \/>\nas high above mind as mind is above the physical life and body. This inner<br \/>\nawareness is his intuition of his supramental and spiritual being. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%'>The mental<br \/>\nPurusha can at any time involve himself again in the superficial action from<br \/>\nwhich he has drawn back, live for a while entirely identified with the<br \/>\nmechanism of mind, life and body and absorbedly repeat its recurrent normal<br \/>\naction. But once that separative movement has been made and lived in for some<br \/>\ntime, he can never be to himself quite what he was before. The involution in<br \/>\nthe outward action becomes now only a recurrent self-oblivion from which there<br \/>\nis a tendency in him to draw back again to himself and to pure self-experience.<br \/>\nIt may be noted too that the Purusha by drawing back from the normal action of<br \/>\nthis outward consciousness which has created for him his present natural form<br \/>\nof self-experience, is able to take two other poises. He can have an intuition<br \/>\nof himself as a soul in body, which puts forth life as its activity and mind as<br \/>\nthe light of that activity. This soul in body is the physical conscious being, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>annamaya<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">puru&#351;a<\/span><\/i>,<br \/>\nwhich uses life and mind characteristically for physical experience, \u2013 all else<br \/>\nbeing regarded as a consequence of physical experience, \u2013 does not look beyond<br \/>\nthe life of the body and, so far as it feels anything beyond its physical<br \/>\nindividuality, is aware only of the physical universe and at most its oneness<br \/>\nwith the soul of physical Nature. But he can have too an intuition of himself<br \/>\nas a soul of life, self-identified with a great movement of becoming in Time,<br \/>\nwhich puts forth body as a form or basic sense-image and mind as a conscious<br \/>\nactivity of life-experience. This soul in life is the vital conscious being, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>pr&#257;&#326;amaya<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">puru&#351;a<\/span><\/i>,<br \/>\nwhich is capable of looking beyond the duration and limits of the physical<br \/>\nbody, of feeling an eternity of life behind and in front, an identity with a<br \/>\nuniversal Life-being, but does not look beyond a constant vital becoming in<br \/>\nTime. These three <span class=\"SpellE\">Purushas<\/span> are soul-forms of the<br \/>\nSpirit by which it identifies its conscious existence with and founds its<br \/>\naction upon any of <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 608<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>these three planes or principles<br \/>\nof its universal being. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%'>But man is<br \/>\ncharacteristically a mental being. Moreover, mentality is his highest present<br \/>\nstatus in which he is nearest to his real self, most easily and largely aware<br \/>\nof spirit. His way to perfection is not to involve himself in the outward or superficial<br \/>\nexistence, nor is it to place himself in the soul of life or the soul of body,<br \/>\nbut to insist on the three mental intuitions by which he can lift himself<br \/>\neventually above the physical, vital and mental levels. This insistence may<br \/>\ntake two quite different forms, each with its own object and way of proceeding.<br \/>\nIt is quite possible for him to accentuate it in a direction away from<br \/>\nexistence in Nature, a detachment, a withdrawal from mind, life and body. He<br \/>\nmay try to live more and more as the witness Purusha, regarding the action of<br \/>\nNature, without interest in it, without sanction to it, detached, rejecting the<br \/>\nwhole action, withdrawing into pure conscious existence. This is the Sankhya<br \/>\nliberation. He may go inward into that larger existence of which he has the<br \/>\nintuition and away from the superficial mentality into a dream-state or<br \/>\nsleep-state which admits him into wider or higher ranges of consciousness. By<br \/>\npassing away into these ranges he may put away from him the terrestrial being.<br \/>\nThere is even, it was supposed in ancient times, a transition to supramental worlds<br \/>\nfrom which a return to earthly consciousness was either not possible or not<br \/>\nobligatory. But the definite and sure finality of this kind of liberation depends<br \/>\non the elevation of the mental being into that spiritual self of which he<br \/>\nbecomes aware when he looks away and upward from all mentality. That is given<br \/>\nas the key to entire cessation from terrestrial existence whether by immergence<br \/>\nin pure being or a participation in <span class=\"SpellE\">supracosmic<\/span><br \/>\nbeing. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%'>But if our aim<br \/>\nis to be not only free by self-detachment from Nature, but perfected in<br \/>\nmastery, this type of insistence can no longer suffice. We have to regard our<br \/>\nmental, vital and physical action of Nature, find out the knots of its bondage and<br \/>\nthe loosing-points of liberation, discover the keys of its imperfection and lay<br \/>\nour finger on the key of perfection. When the regarding soul, the witness<br \/>\nPurusha stands back from his action of nature and observes it, he sees that it<br \/>\nproceeds of its own impulsion by the power of its mechanism, by force of continuity<br \/>\nof movement,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 609<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>continuity of mentality,<br \/>\ncontinuity of life impulse, continuity of an involuntary physical mechanism. At<br \/>\nfirst the whole thing seems to be the recurrent action of an automatic<br \/>\nmachinery, although the sum of that action mounts constantly into a creation,<br \/>\ndevelopment, evolution. He was as if seized in this wheel, attached to it by<br \/>\nthe ego sense, whirled round and onward in the circling of the machinery. A<br \/>\ncomplete mechanical determinism or a stream of determinations of Nature to<br \/>\nwhich he lent the light of his consciousness, is the natural aspect of his<br \/>\nmental, vital and physical personality once it is regarded from this stable<br \/>\ndetached standpoint and no longer by a soul caught up in the movement and<br \/>\nimagining itself to be a part of the action. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%'>But on a<br \/>\nfarther view we find that this determinism is not so complete as it seemed;<br \/>\naction of Nature continues and is what it is because of the sanction of the<br \/>\nPurusha. The regarding Purusha sees that he supports and in some way fills and pervades<br \/>\nthe action with his conscious being. He discovers that without him it could not<br \/>\ncontinue and that where he persistently withdraws this sanction, the habitual<br \/>\naction becomes gradually enfeebled, flags and ceases. His whole active mentality<br \/>\ncan be thus brought to a complete stillness. There is yet a passive mentality<br \/>\nwhich mechanically continues, but this too can be stilled by his withdrawal<br \/>\ninto himself out of the action. Even then the life action in its most<br \/>\nmechanical parts continues; but that too can be stilled into cessation. It<br \/>\nwould appear then that he is not only the upholding (<span class=\"SpellE\"><i>bhart&#343;<\/i><\/span>) Purusha, but in some<br \/>\nway the master of his nature, Ishwara. It was the consciousness of this<br \/>\nsanctioning control, this necessity of his consent, which made him in the ego-sense<br \/>\nconceive of himself as a soul or mental being with a free will determining all<br \/>\nhis own becomings. Yet the free-will seems to be imperfect, almost illusory,<br \/>\nsince the actual will itself is a machinery of Nature and each separate willing<br \/>\ndetermined by the stream of past action and the sum of conditions it created, \u2013<br \/>\nalthough, because the result of the stream, the sum, is at each moment a new<br \/>\ndevelopment, a new determination, it may seem to be a self-born willing,<br \/>\nvirginally creative at each moment. What he contributed all the while was a consent<br \/>\nbehind, a sanction to what Nature was doing. He does not seem able to rule <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 610<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>her entirely, but only choose<br \/>\nbetween certain well-defined possibilities: there is in her a power of<br \/>\nresistance born of her past impetus and a still greater power of resistance<br \/>\nborn of the sum of fixed conditions she has created, which she presents to him<br \/>\nas a set of permanent laws to be obeyed. He cannot radically alter her way of<br \/>\nproceeding, cannot freely effect his will from within her present movement, nor,<br \/>\nwhile standing in the mentality, get outside or above her in such a way as to<br \/>\nexercise a really free control. There is a duality of dependence, her<br \/>\ndependence on his consent, his dependence on her law and way and limits of<br \/>\naction, determination denied by a sense of free-will, free-will nullified by<br \/>\nthe actuality of natural determination. He is sure that she is his power, but<br \/>\nyet he seems to be subject to her. He is the sanctioning (<span class=\"SpellE\"><i>anumant&#343;<\/i><\/span>) Purusha, but does<br \/>\nnot seem to be the absolute lord, Ishwara. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%'>Nevertheless,<br \/>\nthere is somewhere an absolute control, a real Ishwara. He is aware of it and<br \/>\nknows that if he can find it, he will enter into control, become not only the<br \/>\npassive sanctioning witness and upholding soul of her will, but the free powerful<br \/>\nuser and determiner of her movements. But this control seems to belong to<br \/>\nanother poise than the mentality. Sometimes he finds himself using it, but as a<br \/>\nchannel or instrument; it comes to him from above. It is clear then that it is supramental,<br \/>\na power of the Spirit greater than mental being which he already knows himself<br \/>\nto be at the summit and in the secret core of his conscious being. To enter<br \/>\ninto identity with that Spirit must then be his way to control and lordship. He<br \/>\ncan do it passively by a sort of reflection and receiving in his mental<br \/>\nconsciousness, but then he is only a mould, channel or instrument, not a<br \/>\npossessor or participant in the power. He can arrive at identity by an absorption<br \/>\nof his mentality in inner spiritual being, but then the conscious action ceases<br \/>\nin a trance of identity. To be active master of the nature he must evidently<br \/>\nrise to some higher supramental poise where there is possible not only a<br \/>\npassive, but an active identity with the controlling spirit. To find the way of<br \/>\nrising to this greater poise and be self-ruler, <span class=\"SpellE\">Swarat<\/span>,<br \/>\nis a condition of his perfection. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%'>The difficulty<br \/>\nof the ascent is due to a natural ignorance. He is the Purusha, witness of<br \/>\nmental and physical Nature, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>s&#257;k&#351;&#299;<\/i><\/span><i>,<\/i>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 611<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>but not a complete knower of self<br \/>\nand Nature, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>j\u00f1&#257;t&#343;<\/i><\/span>.<br \/>\nKnowledge in the mentality is enlightened by his consciousness; he is the<br \/>\nmental knower; but he finds that this is not a real knowledge, but only a<br \/>\npartial seeking and partial finding, a derivative uncertain reflection and<br \/>\nnarrow utilisation for action from a greater light beyond which is the real<br \/>\nknowledge. This light is the self-awareness and all-awareness of Spirit. The<br \/>\nessential self-awareness he can arrive at even on the mental plane of being, by<br \/>\nreflection in the soul of mind or by its absorption in spirit, as indeed it can<br \/>\nbe arrived at by another kind of reflection or absorption in soul of life and<br \/>\nsoul of body. But for participation in an effective all-awareness with this essential<br \/>\nself-awareness as the soul of its action he must rise to <span class=\"SpellE\">supermind<\/span>.<br \/>\nTo be lord of his being, he must be knower of self and Nature, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>j\u00f1&#257;t&#257;<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">&#299;&#347;varah<\/span><\/i>.<br \/>\nPartially this may be done on a higher level of mind where it responds directly<br \/>\nto <span class=\"SpellE\">supermind<\/span>, but really and completely this<br \/>\nperfection belongs not to the mental being, but to the ideal or knowledge Soul,<br \/>\n<span class=\"SpellE\"><i>vij\u00f1&#257;namaya<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">puru&#351;a<\/span><\/i>.<br \/>\nTo draw up the mental into the greater knowledge being and that into the<br \/>\nBliss-Self of the spirit, <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>&#257;nandamaya<\/i><\/span><i> <span class=\"SpellE\">puru&#351;a<\/span><\/i>, is the uttermost way of this perfection. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%'>But no<br \/>\nperfection, much less this perfection can be attained without a very radical<br \/>\ndealing with the present nature and the abrogation of much that seems to be the<br \/>\nfixed law of its complex nexus of mental, vital and physical being. The law of this<br \/>\nnexus has been created for a definite and limited end, the temporary<br \/>\nmaintenance, preservation, possession, <span class=\"SpellE\">aggrandisement<\/span>,<br \/>\nenjoyment, experience, need, action of the mental ego in the living body. Other<br \/>\nresultant uses are served, but this is the immediate and fundamentally<br \/>\ndetermining object and utility. To arrive at a higher utility and freer<br \/>\ninstrumentation this nexus must be partly broken up, exceeded, transformed into<br \/>\na larger harmony of action. The Purusha sees that the law created is that of a<br \/>\npartly stable, partly unstable selective determination of habitual, yet<br \/>\ndeveloping experiences out of a first confused consciousness of self and<br \/>\nnot-self, subjective being and external universe. This determination is managed<br \/>\nby mind, life and body acting upon each other, in harmony and correspondence,<br \/>\nbut also in discord and divergence, mutual interference and limitation. There<br \/>\nis a <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 612<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>similar mixed harmony and discord<br \/>\nbetween various activities of the mind in itself, as also between activities of<br \/>\nthe life in itself and of the physical being. The whole is a sort of disorderly<br \/>\norder, an order evolved and contrived out of a constantly surrounding and<br \/>\ninvading confusion. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%'>This is the<br \/>\nfirst difficulty the Purusha has to deal with, a mixed and confused action of<br \/>\nNature, \u2013 an action without clear self-knowledge, distinct motive, firm<br \/>\ninstrumentation, only an attempt at these things and a general relative success<br \/>\nof effectuality, \u2013 a surprising effect of adaptation in some directions, but also<br \/>\nmuch distress of inadequacy. That mixed and confused action has to be mended;<br \/>\npurification is an essential means towards self-perfection. All these<br \/>\nimpurities and inadequacies result in various kinds of limitation and bondage:<br \/>\nbut there are two or three primary knots of the bondage, \u2013 ego is the principal<br \/>\nknot, \u2013 from which the others derive. These bonds must be got rid of;<br \/>\npurification is not complete till it brings about liberation. Besides, after a<br \/>\ncertain purification and liberation has been effected, there is still the<br \/>\nconversion of the purified instruments to the law of a higher object and<br \/>\nutility, a large, real and perfect order of action. By the conversion man can<br \/>\narrive at a certain perfection of fullness of being, calm, power and knowledge,<br \/>\neven a greater vital action and more perfect physical existence. One result of<br \/>\nthis perfection is a large and perfected delight of being, Ananda. Thus<br \/>\npurification, liberation, perfection, delight of being are four constituent<br \/>\nelements of the Yoga, \u2013 <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>&#347;uddhi<\/i><\/span><i>, mukti, siddhi, <span class=\"SpellE\">bhukti<\/span><\/i>.\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%'>But this<br \/>\nperfection cannot be attained or cannot be secure and entire in its largeness<br \/>\nif the Purusha lays stress on individuality. To abandon identification with the<br \/>\nphysical, vital and mental ego, is not enough; he must arrive in soul also at a<br \/>\ntrue, <span class=\"SpellE\">universalised<\/span>, not separative individuality. In<br \/>\nthe lower nature man is an ego making a clean cut in conception between himself<br \/>\nand all other existence; the ego is to him self, but all the rest not self,<br \/>\nexternal to his being. His whole action starts from and is founded upon this<br \/>\nself-conception and world-conception. But the conception is in fact an error.<br \/>\nHowever sharply he <span class=\"SpellE\">individualises<\/span> himself in mental<br \/>\nidea and mental or other action, he is inseparable from the universal being,<br \/>\nhis body from universal force and<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 613<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>matter, his life from the universal<br \/>\nlife, his mind from universal mind, his soul and spirit from universal soul and<br \/>\nspirit. The universal acts on him, invades him, overcomes him, shapes itself in<br \/>\nhim at every moment; he in his reaction acts on the universal, invades, tries<br \/>\nto impose himself on it, shape it, overcome its attack, rule and use its<br \/>\ninstrumentation. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%'>This conflict<br \/>\nis a rendering of the underlying unity, which assumes the aspect of struggle by<br \/>\na necessity of the original separation; the two pieces into which mind has cut<br \/>\nthe oneness, rush upon each other to restore the oneness and each tries to<br \/>\nseize on and take into itself the separated portion. Universe seems to be<br \/>\nalways trying to swallow up man, the infinite to resume this finite which<br \/>\nstands on its self-<span class=\"SpellE\">defence<\/span> and even replies by<br \/>\naggression. But in real fact the universal being through this apparent struggle<br \/>\nis working out its purpose in man, though the key and truth of the purpose and<br \/>\nworking is lost to his superficial conscious mind, only held obscurely in an<br \/>\nunderlying <span class=\"SpellE\">subconscient<\/span> and only known luminously in<br \/>\nan overruling superconscient unity. Man also is impelled towards unity by a<br \/>\nconstant impulse of extension of his ego, which identifies itself as best it<br \/>\ncan with other egos and with such portions of the universe as he can<br \/>\nphysically, vitally, mentally get into his use and possession. As man aims at<br \/>\nknowledge and mastery of his own being, so also he aims at knowledge and mastery<br \/>\nof the environmental world of nature, its objects, its instrumentation, its<br \/>\nbeings. First he tries to effect this aim by egoistic possession, but, as he<br \/>\ndevelops, the element of sympathy born of the secret oneness grows in him and<br \/>\nhe arrives at the idea of a widening cooperation and oneness with other beings,<br \/>\na harmony with universal Nature and universal being. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%'>The witness<br \/>\nPurusha in the mind observes that the inadequacy of his effort, all the<br \/>\ninadequacy in fact of man&#8217;s life and nature arises from the separation and the<br \/>\nconsequent struggle, want of knowledge, want of harmony, want of oneness. It is<br \/>\nessential for him to grow out of separative individuality, to universalise<br \/>\nhimself, to make himself one with the universe. This unification can be done<br \/>\nonly through the soul by making our soul of mind one with the universal Mind,<br \/>\nour soul of life one with the universal Life-soul, our soul of body one with<br \/>\nthe universal soul of<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 614<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='text-align:center'>\n<hr size=\"2\" width=\"100%\" align=\"center\">\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%'>physical Nature. When this can be<br \/>\ndone, in proportion to the power, intensity, depth, completeness, permanence<br \/>\nwith which it can be done, great effects are produced upon the natural action.<br \/>\nEspecially there grows an immediate and profound sympathy and immixture of mind<br \/>\nwith mind, life with life, a lessening of the body&#8217;s insistence on<br \/>\nseparateness, a power of direct mental and other intercommunication and effective<br \/>\nmutual action which helps out now the inadequate indirect communication and<br \/>\naction that was till now the greater part of the conscious means used by<br \/>\nembodied mind. But still the Purusha sees that in mental, vital, physical<br \/>\nnature, taken by itself, there is always a defect, inadequacy, confused action,<br \/>\ndue to the mechanically unequal interplay of the three modes or gunas of<br \/>\nNature. To transcend it he has in the universality too to rise to the<br \/>\nsupramental and spiritual, to be one with the supramental soul of cosmos, the<br \/>\nuniversal spirit. He arrives at the larger light and order of a higher<br \/>\nprinciple in himself and the universe which is the characteristic action of the<br \/>\ndivine Sachchidananda. Even, he is able to impose the influence of that light<br \/>\nand order, not only on his own natural being, but, within the radius and to the<br \/>\nextent of the Spirit&#8217;s action in him, on the world he lives in, on that which<br \/>\nis around him. He is <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>svar&#257;&#355;<\/i><\/span>,<br \/>\nself-knower, self-ruler, but he begins to be also through this spiritual oneness<br \/>\nand transcendence <span class=\"SpellE\"><i>samr&#257;&#355;<\/i><\/span>,<br \/>\na knower and master of his environing world of being. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style='margin:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:150%'>In this<br \/>\nself-development the soul finds that it has accomplished on this line the<br \/>\nobject of the whole integral Yoga, union with the Supreme in its self and in<br \/>\nits <span class=\"SpellE\">universalised<\/span> individuality. So long as he<br \/>\nremains in the world-existence, this perfection<span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<\/span>must radiate out from him, \u2013 for that is the necessity of his oneness with<br \/>\nthe universe and its beings, \u2013 in an influence and action which help all around<br \/>\nwho are capable of it to rise to or advance towards the same perfection, and<br \/>\nfor the rest in an influence and action which help, as only the self-ruler and<br \/>\nmaster man can help, in leading the human race forward spiritually towards this<br \/>\nconsummation and towards some image of a greater divine truth in their personal<br \/>\nand communal existence. He becomes a light and power of the Truth to which he<br \/>\nhas climbed and a means for others&#8217; ascension.<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style='margin:0;text-align:center;line-height:150%'>\n<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Page \u2013 615<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chapter IV&nbsp; &nbsp;The Perfection of the Mental Being&nbsp; &nbsp; THE fundamental idea of a Yoga of self-perfection must be, under these conditions, a reversal of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-21-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-21","wpcat-26-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}