{"id":1211,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:18","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1211"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:33:18","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:18","slug":"32-the-supramental-thought-and-knowledge-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\/32-the-supramental-thought-and-knowledge-vol-21-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-21","title":{"rendered":"-32_The Supramental Thought and Knowledge.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\n
\nChapter XXII<\/span><\/font><\/b> <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/font>The
\nSupramental Thought and Knowledge<\/span><\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n <\/font>                    T<\/font><\/b>HE<\/font>
\ntransition from mind to supermind is not only the substitution of a greater
\ninstrument of thought and knowledge, but a change and conversion of the whole
\nconsciousness. There is evolved not only a supramental thought, but a
\nsupramental will, sense, feeling, a supramental substitute for all the
\nactivities that are now accomplished by the mind. All these higher activities
\nare first manifested in the mind itself as descents, irruptions, messages or
\nrevelations of a superior power. Mostly they are mixed up with the more
\nordinary action of the mind and not easily distinguishable from them in our
\nfirst inexperience except by their superior light and force and joy, the more
\nso as the mind greatened or excited by their frequent coming quickens its own
\naction and imitates the external characteristics of the supramental activity:
\nits own operation is made more swift, luminous, strong and positive and it
\narrives even at a kind of imitative and often false intuition that strives to
\nbe but is not really the luminous, direct and self-existent truth. The next
\nstep is the formation of a luminous mind of intuitive experience, thought,
\nwill, feeling, sense from which the intermixture of the lesser mind and the
\nimitative intuition are progressively eliminated: this is a process of
\npurification, śuddhi<\/i><\/span>,
\nnecessary to the new formation and perfection, siddhi<\/i>. At the same time there is the disclosure above the mind of
\nthe source of the intuitive action and a more and more organized functioning of
\na true supramental consciousness acting not in the mind but on its own higher
\nplane. This draws up into itself in the end the intuitive mentality it has
\ncreated as its representative and assumes the charge of the whole activity of
\nthe consciousness. The process is progressive and for a long time chequered by admixture
\nand the necessity of a return upon the lower movements in order to correct and
\ntransform them.
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 795<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

The higher and the lower power
\nact sometimes alternately, \u2013 the consciousness descending back from the heights
\nit had attained to its former level but always with some change, \u2013 but
\nsometimes together and with a sort of mutual reference. The mind eventually
\nbecomes wholly intuitivised<\/span> and exists only as a
\npassive channel for the supramental action; but this condition too is not ideal
\nand presents, besides, still a certain obstacle, because the higher action has
\nstill to pass through a retarding and diminishing conscious substance, \u2013 that
\nof the physical consciousness. The final stage of the change will come when the
\nsupermind occupies and supramentalises<\/span> the whole
\nbeing and turns even the vital and physical sheaths into moulds of itself,
\nresponsive, subtle and instinct with its powers. Man then becomes wholly the
\nsuperman. This is at least the natural and integral process. <\/p>\n

It would be to
\ngo altogether outside present limits to attempt anything like an adequate
\npresentation of the whole character of the supermind; and it would not be
\npossible to give a complete presentation, since the supermind carries in it the
\nunity, but also the largeness and multiplicities of the infinite. All that need
\nnow be done is to present some salient characters from the point of view of the
\nactual process of the conversion in the Yoga, the relation to the action of
\nmind and the principle of some of the phenomena of the change. This is the
\nfundamental relation that all the action of the mind is a derivation from the
\nsecret supermind, although we do not know this until we come to know our higher
\nself, and draws from that source all it has of truth and value. All our thoughts,
\nwillings<\/span>, feelings, sense representations have in
\nthem or at their roots an element of truth, which originates and sustains their
\nexistence, however in the actuality they may be perverted or false, and behind
\nthem a greater ungrasped<\/span> truth, which if they could
\ngrasp it, would make them soon unified, harmonious and at least relatively
\ncomplete. Actually, however, such truth as they have is diminished in scope,
\ndegraded into a lower movement, divided and falsified by fragmentation,
\nafflicted with incompleteness, marred by perversion. Mental knowledge is not an
\nintegral but always a partial knowledge. It adds constantly detail to detail,
\nbut has a difficulty in relating
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 796<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

them aright; its wholes too are
\nnot real but incomplete wholes which it tends to substitute for the more real
\nand integral knowledge. And even if it arrived at a kind of integral knowledge,
\nit would still be by a sort of putting together, a mental and intellectual
\narrangement, an artificial unity and not an essential and real oneness. If that
\nwere all, the mind might conceivably arrive at some kind of half reflection
\nhalf translation of an integral knowledge, but the radical malady would still
\nbe that it would not be the real thing, but only at best an intellectual representation.
\nThat the mental truth must always be, an intellectual, emotional and
\nsensational representation, not the direct truth, not truth itself in its body
\nand essence. <\/p>\n

The supermind
\ncan do all that the mind does, present and combine details and what might be
\ncalled aspects or subordinate wholes, but it does it in a different way and on
\nanother basis. It does not like the mind bring in the element of deviation,
\nfalse extension and imposed error, but even when it gives a partial knowledge,
\ngives it in a firm and exact light, and always there is behind implied or
\nopened to the consciousness the essential truth on which the details and
\nsubordinate wholes or aspects depend. The supermind has also a power of
\nrepresentation, but its representations are not of the intellectual kind, they
\nare filled with the body and substance of light of the truth in its essence,
\nthey are its vehicles and not substituted figures. There is such an infinite
\npower of representation of the supermind and that is the divine power of which the
\nmental action is a sort of fallen representative. This representative supermind
\nhas a lower action in what I have called the supramental reason, nearest to the
\nmental and into which the mental can most easily be taken up, and a higher
\naction in the integral supermind that sees all things in the unity and infinity
\nof the divine consciousness and self-existence. But on whatever level, it is a
\ndifferent thing from the corresponding mental action, direct, luminous, secure.
\nThe whole inferiority of the mind comes from its being the action of the soul
\nafter it has fallen into the nescience and the ignorance and is trying to get
\nback to self-knowledge but doing it still on the basis of the nescience and the
\nignorance. The mind is the ignorance attempting to know
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 797<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

or it is the ignorance receiving
\na derivative knowledge: it is the action of Avidya<\/span>.
\nThe supermind is always the disclosure of an inherent and self-existent
\nknowledge; it is the action of Vidya<\/span>. <\/p>\n

A second
\ndifference that we experience is a greater and a spontaneous harmony and unity.
\nAll consciousness is one, but in action it takes on many movements and each of
\nthese fundamental movements has many forms and processes. The forms and
\nprocesses of the mind consciousness are marked by a disturbing and perplexing
\ndivision and separateness of the mental energies and movements in which the
\noriginal unity of the conscious mind does not at all or only distractedly
\nappears. Constantly we find in our mentality a conflict or else a confusion and
\nwant of combination between different thoughts or a patched up combination and
\nthe same phenomenon applies to the various movements of our will and desire and
\nto our emotions and feelings. Again our thought and our will and our feeling
\nare not in a state of natural harmony and unison with each other, but act in
\ntheir separate power even when they have to act together and are frequently in
\nconflict or to some degree at variance. There is too an unequal development of
\none at the expense of another. The mind is a thing of discords in which some
\nkind of practical arrangement rather than a satisfying concord is established
\nfor the purposes of life. The reason tries to arrive at a better arrangement,
\naims at a better control, a rational or an ideal harmony, and in this attempt
\nit is a delegate or substitute of the supermind and is trying to do what only
\nthe supermind can do in its own right: but actually it is not able wholly to
\ncontrol the rest of the being and there is usually a considerable difference
\nbetween the rational or ideal harmony we create in our thoughts and the
\nmovement of the life. Even at the best the arrangement made by the reason has always
\nin it something of artificiality and imposition, for in the end there are only
\ntwo spontaneous harmonic movements, that of the life, inconscient or largely subconscient<\/span>, the harmony that we find in the animal
\ncreation and in lower Nature, and that of the spirit. The human condition is a
\nstage of transition, effort and imperfection between the one and the other, between
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 798<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

the natural and the ideal or
\nspiritual life and it is full of uncertain seeking and disorder. It is not that
\nthe mental being cannot find or rather construct some kind of relative harmony
\nof its own, but that it cannot render it stable because it is under the urge of
\nthe spirit. Man is obliged by a Power within him to be the labourer<\/span>
\nof a more or less conscious self-evolution that shall lead him to self-mastery
\nand self-knowledge. <\/p>\n

The supermind
\nin its action is on the contrary a thing of unity and harmony and inherent
\norder. At first when the pressure from above falls on the mentality, this is
\nnot realised and even a contrary phenomenon may for a time appear. That is due
\nto several causes. First, there may be a disturbance, even a derangement
\ncreated by impact of the greater hardly measurable power on an inferior
\nconsciousness which is not capable of responding to it organically or even
\nperhaps of bearing the pressure. The very fact of the simultaneous and yet
\nuncoordinated activity of two quite different forces, especially if the mind
\ninsists on its own way, if it tries obstinately or violently to profit by the
\nsupermind instead of giving itself up to it and its purpose, if it is not
\nsufficiently passive and obedient to the higher guidance, may lead to a great excitation
\nof power but also an increased disorder. It is for this reason that a previous
\npreparation and long purification, the more complete the better, and a tranquillising<\/span> and ordinarily a passivity of the mind
\ncalmly and strongly open to the spirit are necessities of the Yoga. <\/p>\n

Again the mind,
\naccustomed to act in limits, may try to supramentalise<\/span>
\nitself on the line of any one of its energies. It may develop a considerable
\npower of intuitive half-supramentalised thought and knowledge, but the will may
\nremain untransformed and out of harmony with this partial half-supramental
\ndevelopment of the thinking mind, and the rest of the being too, emotional and
\nnervous, may continue to be equally or more unregenerate. Or there may be a very
\ngreat development of intuitive or strongly inspired will, but no corresponding
\nuplifting of the thought mind or the emotional and psychic being, or only at
\nmost so much as is specially needed in order not wholly to obstruct the will
\naction. The emotional or
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 799<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

psychic mind may try to intuitivise<\/span> and supramentalise<\/span>
\nitself and to a great extent succeed, and yet the thinking mind remain
\nordinary, poor in stuff and obscure in its light. There may be a development of
\nintuitivity<\/span> in the ethical or aesthetic being, but
\nthe rest may remain very much as it was. This is the reason of the frequent
\ndisorder or one-sidedness which we mark in the man of genius, poet, artist,
\nthinker, saint or mystic. A partially intuitivised<\/span>
\nmentality may present an appearance of much less harmony and order outside its
\nspecial activity than the largely developed intellectual mind. An integral
\ndevelopment is needed, a wholesale conversion of the mind; otherwise the action
\nis that of the mind using the supramental influx for its own profit and in its
\nown mould, and that is allowed for the immediate purpose of the Divine in the
\nbeing and may even be considered as a stage sufficient for the individual in
\nthis one life: but it is a state of imperfection and not the complete and successful
\nevolution of the being. If however there is an integral development of the
\nintuitive mind, it will be found that a great harmony has begun to lay its own
\nfoundations. This harmony will be other than that created by the intellectual
\nmind and indeed may not be easily perceptible or, if it is felt, yet not
\nintelligible to the logical man, because not arrived at or analysable<\/span>
\nby his mental process. It will be a harmony of the spontaneous expression of
\nthe spirit. <\/p>\n

As soon as we
\narise above mind to the supermind, this initial harmony will be replaced by a
\ngreater and a more integral unity. The thoughts of the supramental reason meet
\ntogether and understand each other and fall into a natural arrangement even
\nwhen they have started from quite opposite quarters. The movements of will that
\nare in conflict in the mind, come in the supermind to their right place and
\nrelation to each other. The supramental feelings also discover their own
\naffinities and fall into a natural agreement and harmony. At a higher stage
\nthis harmony intensifies towards unity. The knowledge, will, feeling and all
\nelse become a single movement. This unity reaches its greatest completeness in
\nthe highest supermind. The harmony, the unity are inevitable because the base
\nin the supermind is knowledge and characteristically self-knowledge, the
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 800<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

knowledge of the self in all its
\naspects. The supramental will is the dynamic expression of this self-knowledge,
\nthe supramental feeling the expression of the luminous joy of the self and all
\nelse in supermind a part of this one movement. At its highest range it becomes
\nsomething greater than what we call knowledge; there it is the essential and
\nintegral self-awareness of the Divine in us, his being, consciousness, Tapas,
\nAnanda, and all is the harmonious, unified, luminous movement of that one
\nexistence. <\/p>\n

This
\nsupramental knowledge is not primarily or essentially a thought knowledge. The
\nintellect does not consider that it knows a thing until it has reduced its
\nawareness of it to the terms of thought, not, that is to say, until it has put
\nit into a system of representative mental concepts, and this kind of knowledge
\ngets its most decisive completeness when it can be put into clear, precise and
\ndefining speech. It is true that the mind gets its knowledge primarily by
\nvarious kinds of impression beginning from the vital and the sense impressions
\nand rising to the intuitive, but these are taken by the developed intelligence
\nonly as data and seem to it uncertain and vague in themselves until they have
\nbeen forced to yield up all their content to the thought and have taken their
\nplace in some intellectual relation or in an ordered thought sequence. It is
\ntrue again that there is a thought and a speech which are rather suggestive
\nthan definitive and have in their own way a greater potency and richness of
\ncontent, and this kind already verges on the intuitive: but still there is a
\ndemand in the intellect to bring out in clear sequence and relation the exact
\nintellectual content of these suggestions and until that is done it does not feel
\nsatisfied that its knowledge is complete. The thought labouring<\/span>
\nin the logical intellect is that which normally seems best to organise<\/span> the mental action and gives to the mind a sense of
\nsure definiteness, security and completeness in its knowledge and its use of
\nknowledge. Nothing of this is at all true of the supramental knowledge. <\/p>\n

The supermind
\nknows most completely and securely not by thought but by identity, by a pure
\nawareness of the self-truth of things in the self and by the self, ātmani<\/i><\/span> ātmānam<\/span>
\n<\/i>
\n <\/i><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 801<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

ātmanā<\/i><\/span>. I get the
\nsupramental knowledge best by becoming one with the truth, one with the object
\nof knowledge; the supramental satisfaction and integral light is most there
\nwhen there is no further division between the knower, knowledge and the known, j\u00f1ātā<\/i><\/span>, j\u00f1ānam<\/span>, j\u00f1eyam<\/span><\/i>. I see the thing known not as an object outside
\nmyself, but as myself or a part of my universal self contained in my most
\ndirect consciousness. This leads to the highest and completest knowledge;
\nthought and speech being representations and not this direct possession in the consciousness
\nare to the supermind a lesser form and, if not filled with the spiritual
\nawareness, thought becomes in fact a diminution of knowledge. For it would be, supposing
\nit to be a supramental thought, only a partial manifestation of a greater knowledge
\nexisting in the self but not at the time present to the immediately active
\nconsciousness. In the highest ranges of the infinite there need be no thought
\nat all because all would be experienced spiritually, in continuity, in eternal
\npossession and with an absolute directness and completeness. Thought is only
\none means of partially manifesting and presenting what is hidden in this
\ngreater self-existent knowledge. This supreme kind of knowing will not indeed
\nbe possible to us in its full extent and degree until we can rise through many
\ngrades of the supermind to that infinite. But still as the supramental power emerges
\nand enlarges its action, something of this highest way of knowledge appears and
\ngrows and even the members of the mental being, as they are intuitivised<\/span>
\nand supramentalised, develop more and more a corresponding action upon their own
\nlevel. There is an increasing power of a luminous vital, psychic, emotional,
\ndynamic and other identification with all the things and beings that are the
\nobjects of our consciousness and these transcendings<\/span>
\nof the separative consciousness bring with them many forms and means of a
\ndirect knowledge. <\/p>\n

The supramental
\nknowledge or experience by identity carries in it as a result or as a secondary
\npart of itself a supramental vision that needs the support of no image, can concretise<\/span> what is to the mind abstract and has the
\ncharacter of sight though its object may be the invisible truth of that which
\nhas form or the truth of the formless. This vision can come before <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 802<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

there is any identity, as a sort
\nof previous emanation of light from it, or may act detached from it as a
\nseparate power. The truth or the thing known is then not altogether or not yet
\none with myself, but an object of my knowledge: but still it is an object subjectively
\nseen in the self or at least, even if it is still farther separated and
\nobjectivised to the knower, by the self, not through any intermediate process,
\nbut by a direct inner seizing or a penetrating and enveloping luminous contact
\nof the spiritual consciousness with its object. It is this luminous seizing and
\ncontact that is the spiritual vision, dŗşţi<\/i><\/span>, \u2013 \u201cpaśyati<\/i><\/span>\u201d, says the Upanishad
\ncontinually of the spiritual knowledge, \u201che sees\u201d; and of the Self conceiving
\nthe idea of creation, where we should expect \u201che thought\u201d, it says instead \u201che
\nsaw\u201d. It is to the spirit what the eyes are to the physical mind and one has
\nthe sense of having passed through a subtly analogous process. As the physical
\nsight can present to us the actual body of things of which the thought had only
\npossessed an indication or mental description and they become to us at once
\nreal and evident, pratyakşa<\/i><\/span>,
\nso the spiritual sight surpasses the indications or representations of thought
\nand can make the self and truth of all things present to us and directly
\nevident, pratyakşa<\/i><\/span>.\n<\/p>\n

The sense can
\nonly give us the superficial image of things and it needs the aid of thought to
\nfill and inform the image; but the spiritual sight is capable of presenting to
\nus the thing in itself and all truth about it. The seer does not need the aid
\nof thought in its process as a means of knowledge, but only as a means of representation
\nand expression, \u2013 thought is to him a lesser power and used for a secondary
\npurpose. If a further extension of knowledge is required, he can come at it by
\nnew seeing without the slower thought processes that are the staff of support
\nof the mental search and its feeling out for truth, \u2013 even as we scrutinise<\/span> with the eye to find what escaped our first
\nobservation. This experience and knowledge by spiritual vision is the second in
\ndirectness and greatness of the supramental powers. It is something much more
\nnear, profound and comprehensive than mental vision, because it derives direct
\nfrom the knowledge by identity, and it has this virtue that we can proceed at once
\nfrom the vision to the identity, as from the iden<\/span>– <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 803<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

tity<\/span> to
\nthe vision. Thus when the spiritual vision has seen God, Self or Brahman, the
\nsoul can next enter into and become one with the Self, God or Brahman. <\/p>\n

This can only
\nbe done integrally on or above the supramental level, but at the same time the
\nspiritual vision can take on mental forms of itself that can help towards this
\nidentification each in its own way. A mental intuitive vision or a
\nspiritualised mental sight, a psychic vision, an emotional vision of the heart,
\na vision in the sense mind are parts of the Yogic experience. If these seeings<\/span> are purely mental, then they may but need not be
\ntrue, for the mind is capable of both truth and error, both of a true and of a
\nfalse representation. But as the mind becomes intuitivised<\/span>
\nand supramentalised, these powers are purified and corrected by the more
\nluminous action of the supermind and become themselves forms of a supramental
\nand a true seeing. The supramental vision, it may be noted, brings with it a
\nsupplementary and completing experience that might be called a spiritual hearing
\nand touch of the truth, \u2013 of its essence and through that of its significance,
\n\u2013 that is to say, there is a seizing of its movement, vibration, rhythm and a
\nseizing of its close presence and contact and substance. All these powers prepare
\nus to become one with that which has thus grown near to us through knowledge. <\/p>\n

The supramental
\nthought is a form of the knowledge by identity and a development, in the idea,
\nof the truth presented to the supramental vision. The identity and the vision
\ngive the truth in its essence, its body and its parts in a single view: the thought
\ntranslates this direct consciousness and immediate power of the truth into
\nidea-knowledge and will. It adds or need add otherwise nothing new, but
\nreproduces, articulates, moves round the body of the knowledge. Where, however,
\nthe identity and the vision are still incomplete, the supramental thought has a
\nlarger office and reveals, interprets or recalls as it were to the soul’s
\nmemory what they are not yet ready to give. And where these greater states and
\npowers are still veiled, the thought comes in front and prepares and to a
\ncertain extent effects a partial rending or helps actively in the removal of
\nthe veil. Therefore in the development out of the mental ignorance into the supramental
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 804<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

knowledge this illumined thought
\ncomes to us often though not always first, to open the way to the vision or
\nelse to give first supports to the growing consciousness of identity and its
\ngreater knowledge. This thought is also an effective means of communication and
\nexpression and helps to an impression or fixation of the truth whether on one’s
\nown lower mind and being or on that of others. The supramental thought differs
\nfrom the intellectual not only because it is the direct truth idea and not a
\nrepresentation of truth to the ignorance, \u2013 it is the truth consciousness of
\nthe spirit always presenting to itself its own right forms, the satyam and ŗtam<\/i><\/span> of the
\nVeda, \u2013 but because of its strong reality, body of light and substance. <\/p>\n

The
\nintellectual thought refines and sublimates to a rarefied abstractness; the
\nsupramental thought as it rises in its height increases to a greater spiritual
\nconcreteness. The thought of the intellect presents itself to us as an
\nabstraction from something seized by the mind sense and is as if supported in a
\nvoid and subtle air of mind by an intangible force of the intelligence. It has
\nto resort to a use of the mind’s power of image if it wishes to make itself
\nmore concretely felt and seen by the soul sense and soul vision. The
\nsupramental thought on the contrary presents always the idea as a luminous substance
\nof being, luminous stuff of consciousness taking significative<\/span>
\nthought form and it therefore creates no such sense of a gulf between the idea
\nand the real as we are liable to feel in the mind, but is itself a reality, it
\nis real-idea and the body of a reality. It has as a result, associated with it
\nwhen it acts according to its own nature, a phenomenon of spiritual light other
\nthan the intellectual clarity, a great realising force and a luminous ecstasy.
\nIt is an intensely sensible vibration of being, consciousness and Ananda. <\/p>\n

The supramental
\nthought, as has already been indicated, has three elevations of its intensity,
\none of direct thought vision, another of interpretative vision pointing to and
\npreparing the greater revelatory idea-sight, a third of representative vision
\nrecalling as it were to the spirit’s knowledge the truth that is called out
\nmore directly by the higher powers. In the mind these things take the form of
\nthe three ordinary powers of the intuitive mentality, \u2013 the suggestive and
\ndiscriminating intuition, the inspiration
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 805<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

and the thought that is of the
\nnature of revelation. Above they correspond to three elevations of the
\nsupramental being and consciousness and, as we ascend, the lower first calls
\ndown into itself and is then taken up into the higher, so that on each level
\nall the three elevations are reproduced, but always there predominates in the
\nthought essence the character that belongs to that level’s proper form of consciousness
\nand spiritual substance. It is necessary to bear this in mind; for otherwise
\nthe mentality, looking up to the ranges of the supermind as they reveal
\nthemselves, may think it has got the vision of the highest heights when it is
\nonly the highest range of the lower ascent that is being presented to its experience.
\nAt each height, sānoh<\/i><\/span> sānum<\/span> āruhat<\/span><\/i>, the powers of the supermind increase in
\nintensity, range and completeness. <\/p>\n

There is also a
\nspeech, a supramental word, in which the higher knowledge, vision or thought
\ncan clothe itself within us for expression. At first this may come down as a
\nword, a message or an inspiration that descends to us from above or it may even
\nseem a voice of the Self or of the Ishwara, vāņī<\/i><\/span>, ādeśa<\/span><\/i>.
\nAfterwards it loses that separate character and becomes the normal form of the
\nthought when it expresses itself in the form of an inward speech. The thought
\nmay express itself without the aid of any suggestive or developing word and
\nonly \u2013 but still quite completely, explicitly and with its full contents \u2013 in a
\nluminous substance of supramental perception. It may aid itself when it is not
\nso explicit by a suggestive inward speech that attends it to bring out its
\nwhole significance. Or the thought may come not as silent perception but as speech
\nself-born out of the truth and complete in its own right and carrying in itself
\nits own vision and knowledge. Then it is the word revelatory, inspired or
\nintuitive or of a yet greater kind capable of bearing the infinite intention or
\nsuggestion of the higher supermind and spirit. It may frame itself in the
\nlanguage now employed to express the ideas and perceptions and impulses of the
\nintellect and the sense mind, but it uses it in a different way and with an
\nintense bringing out of the intuitive or revelatory significances of which
\nspeech is capable. The supramental word manifests inwardly with a light, a
\npower, a rhythm of thought and a rhythm of inner sound
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 806<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

that make it the natural and
\nliving body of the supramental thought and vision and it pours into the
\nlanguage, even though the same as that of mental speech, another than the
\nlimited intellectual, emotional or sensational significance. It is formed and heard
\nin the intuitive mind or supermind and need not at first except in certain
\nhighly gifted souls come out easily into speech and writing, but that too can
\nbe freely done when the physical consciousness and its organs have been made
\nready, and this is a part of the needed fullness and power of the integral
\nperfection. <\/p>\n

The range of
\nknowledge covered by the supramental thought, experience and vision will be
\ncommensurate with all that is open to the human consciousness, not only on the
\nearthly but on all planes. It will however act increasingly in an inverse sense
\nto that of the mental thinking and experience. The centre of mental thinking is
\nthe ego, the person of the individual thinker. The supramental man on the
\ncontrary will think more with the universal mind or even may rise above it, and
\nhis individuality will rather be a vessel of radiation and communication to
\nwhich the universal thought and knowledge of the Spirit will converge than a
\ncentre. The mental man thinks and acts in a radius determined by the smallness
\nor largeness of his mentality and of its experience. The range of the
\nsupramental man will be all the earth and all that lies behind it on other planes
\nof existence. And finally the mental man thinks and sees on the level of the
\npresent life, though it may be with an upward aspiration, and his view is
\nobstructed on every side. His main basis of knowledge and action is the present
\nwith a glimpse into the past and ill-grasped influence from its pressure and a
\nblind look towards the future. He bases himself on the actualities of the
\nearthly existence, first on the facts of the outward world, \u2013 to which he is
\nordinarily in the habit of relating nine tenths if not the whole of his inner
\nthinking and experience, \u2013 then on the changing actualities of the more
\nsuperficial part of his inner being. As he increases in mind, he goes more
\nfreely beyond these to potentialities which arise out of them and pass beyond
\nthem; his mind deals with a larger field of possibilities: but these for the
\nmost part get to him a full reality only in proportion as they are related to
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 807<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

the actual and can be made actual
\nhere, now or hereafter. The essence of things he tends to see, if at all, only
\nas a result of his actualities, in a relation to and dependence on them, and
\ntherefore he sees them constantly in a false light or in a limited measure. In
\nall these respects the supramental man must proceed from the opposite principle
\nof truth vision. <\/p>\n

The supramental
\nbeing sees things from above in large spaces and at the highest from the spaces
\nof the infinite. His view is not limited to the standpoint of the present but
\ncan see in the continuities of time or from above time in the indivisibilities
\nof the Spirit. He sees truth in its proper order first in the essence, secondly
\nin the potentialities that derive from it and only last in the actualities. The
\nessential truths are to his sight self-existent, self-seen, not dependent for
\ntheir proof on this or that actuality; the potential truths are truths of the
\npower of being in itself and in things, truths of the infinity of force and
\nreal apart from their past or present realisation in this or that actuality or
\nthe habitual surface forms that we take for the whole of Nature; the
\nactualities are only a selection from the potential truths he sees, dependent
\non them, limited and mutable. The tyranny of the present, of the actual, of the
\nimmediate range of facts, of the immediate urge and demand of action has no
\npower over his thought and his will and he is therefore able to have a larger
\nwill-power founded on a larger knowledge. He sees things not as one on the
\nlevels surrounded by the jungle of present facts and phenomena but from above,
\nnot from outside and judged by their surfaces, but from within and viewed from
\nthe truth of their centre; therefore he is nearer the divine omniscience. He
\nwills and acts from a dominating height and with a longer movement in time and
\na larger range of potencies, therefore he is nearer to the divine omnipotence.
\nHis being is not shut into the succession of the moments, but has the full
\npower of the past and ranges seeingly<\/span> through the
\nfuture: not shut in the limiting ego and personal mind, but lives in the
\nfreedom of the universal, in God and in all beings and all things; not in the
\ndull density of the physical mind, but in the light of the self and the infinity
\nof the spirit. He sees soul and mind only as a power and a movement and matter
\nonly as a resultant form of the spirit. All his thought
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 808<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

will be of a kind that proceeds
\nfrom knowledge. He perceives and enacts the things of the phenomenal life in
\nthe light of the reality of the spiritual being and the power of the dynamic
\nspiritual essence. <\/p>\n

At first, at
\nthe beginning of the conversion into this greater status, the thought will
\ncontinue to move for a shorter or a longer time to a greater or a less extent
\non the lines of the mind but with a greater light and increasing flights and
\nspaces and movements of freedom and transcendence. Afterwards the freedom and
\ntranscendence will begin to predominate; the inversion of the thought view and
\nthe conversion of the thought method will take place in different movements of
\nthe thought mind one after the other, subject to whatever difficulties and
\nrelapses, until it has gained on the whole and effected a complete
\ntransformation. Ordinarily the supramental knowledge will be organised first
\nand with the most ease in the processes of pure thought and knowledge, j\u00f1āna<\/span>, because here the human mind has already the
\nupward tendency and is the most free. Next and with less ease it will be
\norganised in the processes of applied thought and knowledge because there the mind
\nof man is at once most active and most bound and wedded to its inferior
\nmethods. The last and most difficult conquest, because this is now to his mind
\na field of conjecture or a blank, will be the knowledge of the three times, trikāladŗşţi<\/i><\/span>.
\nIn all these there will be the same character of a spirit seeing and willing
\ndirectly above and around and not only in the body it possesses and there will
\nbe the same action of the supramental knowledge by identity, the supramental
\nvision, the supramental thought and supramental word, separately or in a united
\nmovement. <\/p>\n

This then will
\nbe the general character of the supramental thought and knowledge and these its
\nmain powers and action. It remains to consider its particular instrumentation, the
\nchange that the supermind will make in the different elements of the present
\nhuman mentality and the special activities that give to the thought its
\nconstituents, motives and data. <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 809<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter XXII   The Supramental Thought and Knowledge                        THE transition from mind to supermind is not only the substitution of a greater instrument of…<\/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-1211","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\/1211","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=1211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}