{"id":1213,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:19","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1213"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:33:19","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:19","slug":"33-the-supramental-instruments-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\/33-the-supramental-instruments-vol-21-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-21","title":{"rendered":"-33_The Supramental Instruments.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n


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

 <\/font> <\/font>The
\nSupramental Instruments \u2013 Thought-Process<\/span><\/font><\/b> <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

T<\/font><\/b>HE<\/font> supermind, the divine gnosis, is not something entirely alien to our present
\nconsciousness: it is a superior instrumentation of the spirit and all the
\noperations of our normal consciousness are limited and inferior derivations
\nfrom the supramental, because these are tentatives<\/span>
\nand constructions, that the true and perfect, the spontaneous and harmonious
\nnature and action of the spirit. Accordingly when we rise from mind to
\nsupermind, the new power of consciousness does not reject, but uplifts, enlarges
\nand transfigures the operations of our soul and mind and life. It exalts and
\ngives to them an ever greater reality of their power and performance. It does
\nnot limit itself either to the transformation of the superficial powers and
\naction of the mind and psychic parts and the life, but it manifests and
\ntransforms also those rarer powers and that larger force and knowledge proper
\nto our subliminal self that appear now to us as things occult, curiously
\npsychic, abnormal. These things become in the supramental nature not at all
\nabnormal but perfectly natural and normal, not separately psychic but
\nspiritual, not occult and strange, but a direct, simple, inherent and
\nspontaneous action. The spirit is not limited like the waking material consciousness,
\nand the supermind when it takes possession of the waking consciousness, dematerialises<\/span> it, delivers it from its limits, converts
\nthe material and the psychic into the nature of the spiritual being. <\/p>\n

The mental
\nactivity that can be most readily organised is, as has been already indicated,
\nthat of pure ideative knowledge. This is transformed on the higher level to the
\ntrue j\u00f1āna<\/i><\/span>,
\nsupramental thought, supramental vision, the supramental knowledge by identity.
\nThe essential action of this supramental knowledge has been described in the
\npreceding chapter. It is necessary how- <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 810<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

ever to see also how this
\nknowledge works in outward application and how it deals with the data of
\nexistence. It differs from the action of the mind first in this respect that it
\nworks naturally with those operations that are to the mind the highest and the
\nmost difficult, acting in them or on them from above downward and not with the
\nhampered straining upward of the mind or with its restriction to its own and
\nthe inferior levels. The higher operations are not dependent on the lower
\nassistance, but rather the lower operations depend on the higher not only for
\ntheir guidance but for their existence. The lower mental operations are
\ntherefore not only changed in character by the transformation, but are made
\nentirely subordinate. And the higher mental operations too change their
\ncharacter, because, supramentalised, they begin to derive their light directly
\nfrom the highest, the self-knowledge or infinite knowledge. <\/p>\n

The normal
\nthought-action of the mind may for this purpose be viewed as constituted of a
\ntriple motion. First and lowest and most necessary to the mental being in the
\nbody is the habitual thought mind that founds its ideas upon the data given by the
\nsenses and by the surface experiences of the nervous and emotional being and on
\nthe customary notions formed by the education and the outward life and
\nenvironment. This habitual mind has two movements, one a kind of constant undercurrent
\nof mechanically recurrent thought always repeating itself in the same round of
\nphysical, vital, emotional, practical and summarily intellectual notion and
\nexperience, the other more actively working upon all new experience that the mind
\nis obliged to admit and reducing it to formulas of habitual thinking. The
\nmentality of the average man is limited by this habitual mind and moves very
\nimperfectly outside its circle. <\/p>\n

A second grade
\nof the thinking activity is the pragmatic idea mind that lifts itself above
\nlife and acts creatively as a mediator between the idea and the life-power,
\nbetween truth of life and truth of the idea not yet manifested in life. It
\ndraws material from life and builds out of it and upon it creative ideas that
\nbecome dynamic for farther life development: on the other side it receives new
\nthought and mental experience from the mental plane or more fundamentally from
\nthe idea power of the Infinite
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 811<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

and immediately turns it into
\nmental idea force and a power for actual being and living. The whole turn of
\nthis pragmatic idea mind is towards action and experience, inward as well as
\noutward, the inward casting itself outward for the sake of a completer
\nsatisfaction of reality, the outward taken into the inward and returning upon
\nit assimilated and changed for fresh formations. The thought is only or mainly
\ninteresting to the soul on this mental level as a means for a large range of
\naction and experience. <\/p>\n

A third
\ngradation of thinking opens in us the pure ideative mind which lives
\ndisinterestedly in truth of the idea apart from any necessary dependence on its
\nvalue for action and experience. It views the data of the senses and the
\nsuperficial inner experience, but only to find the idea, the truth to which
\nthey bear witness and to reduce them into terms of knowledge. It observes the
\ncreative action of mind in life in the same way and for the same purpose. Its
\npreoccupation is with knowledge, its whole object is to have the delight of
\nideation, the search for truth, the effort to know itself and the world and all
\nthat may lie behind its own action and the world action. This ideative mind is
\nthe highest reach of the intellect acting for itself, characteristically, in
\nits own power and for its own purpose. <\/p>\n

It is difficult
\nfor the human mind to combine rightly and harmonise these three movements of
\nthe intelligence. The ordinary man lives mainly in the habitual, has a
\ncomparatively feeble action of the creative and pragmatic and experiences a great
\ndifficulty in using at all or entering into the movement of the pure ideative
\nmentality. The creative pragmatic mind is commonly too much occupied with its
\nown motion to move freely and disinterestedly in the atmosphere of pure
\nideative order and on the other hand has often an insufficient grasp on the
\nactualities imposed by the habitual mentality and the obstacles it imposes as
\nalso on other movements of pragmatic thought and action than that which it is
\nitself interested in building. The pure ideative mentality tends to construct
\nabstract and arbitrary systems of truth, intellectual sections and ideative
\nedifices, and either misses the pragmatic movement necessary to life and lives
\nonly or mainly in ideas, or cannot act with sufficient power and directness in
\nthe
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 812<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

life field, and is in danger of
\nbeing divorced from or weak in the world of the practical and habitual mentality.
\nAn accommodation of some kind is made, but the tyranny of the predominant
\ntendency interferes with the wholeness and unity of the thinking being. Mind
\nfails to be assured master even of its own totality, because the secret of that
\ntotality lies beyond it in the free unity of the self, free and therefore
\ncapable of an infinite multiplicity and diversity, and in the supramental power
\nthat can alone bring out in a natural perfection the organic multiple movement
\nof the self’s unity. <\/p>\n

The supermind
\nin its completeness reverses the whole order of the mind’s thinking. It lives
\nnot in the phenomenal, but in the essential, in the self, and sees all as being
\nof the self and its power and form and movement, and all the thought and the process
\nof the thought in the supermind must also be of that character. All its
\nfundamental ideation is a rendering of the spiritual knowledge that acts by
\nidentity with all being and of the supramental vision. It moves therefore
\nprimarily among the eternal, the essential and the universal truths of self and
\nbeing and consciousness and infinite power and delight of being (not excluding
\nall that seems to our present consciousness non-being), and all its particular
\nthinking originates from and depends upon the power of these eternal verities;
\nbut in the second place it is at home too with infinite aspects and
\napplications, sequences and harmonies of the truths of being of the Eternal. It
\nlives therefore at its heights in all that which the action of the pure
\nideative mind is an effort to reach and discover, and even on its lower ranges
\nthese things are to its luminous receptivity present, near or easily grasped
\nand available. <\/p>\n

But while the
\nhighest truths or the pure ideas are to the ideative mind abstractions, because
\nmind lives partly in the phenomenal and partly in intellectual constructions
\nand has to use the method of abstraction to arrive at the higher realities, the
\nsupermind lives in the spirit and therefore in the very substance of what these
\nideas and truths represent or rather fundamentally are and truly realises them,
\nnot only thinks but in the act of thinking feels and identifies itself with
\ntheir substance, and to it they are among the most substantial things that can
\nbe. Truths of consciousness and of essential being are to the supermind the
\nvery stuff of real- <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 813<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

ity<\/span>,
\nmore intimately and, as one might almost say, densely real than outward
\nmovement and form of being, although these too are to it movement and form of
\nthe reality and not, as they are to a certain action of the spiritualised mind,
\nan illusion. The idea too is to it real-idea, stuff of the reality of conscious
\nbeing, full of power for the substantial rendering of the truth and therefore
\nfor creation. <\/p>\n

And again,
\nwhile the pure ideative mind tends to build up arbitrary systems which are
\nmental and partial constructions of the truth, the supermind is not bound by
\nany representation or system, though it is perfectly able to represent and to arrange
\nand construct in the living substance of the truth for the pragmatic purposes
\nof the Infinite. The mind when it gets free from its exclusivenesses, systematising<\/span>, attachment to its own constructions, is at a
\nloss in the infiniteness of the infinite, feels it as a chaos, even if a
\nluminous chaos, is unable any longer to formulate and therefore to think and
\nact decisively because all, even the most diverse or contradictory things,
\npoint at some truth in this infinity and yet nothing it can think is entirely
\ntrue and all its formulations break down under the test of new suggestions from
\nthe infinite. It begins to look on the world as a phantasmagory<\/span>
\nand thought as a chaos of scintillations out of the luminous indefinite. The
\nmind assailed by the vastness and freedom of the supramental loses itself and
\nfinds no firm footing in the vastness. The supermind on the contrary can in its
\nfreedom construct harmonies of its thought and expression of being on the firm
\nground of reality while still holding its infinite liberty and rejoicing in its
\nself of infinite vastness. All that it thinks, as all that it is and does and
\nlives, belongs to the truth, the right, the vast, satyam, ŗtam<\/span>, bŗhat<\/span><\/i>.\n<\/p>\n

The result of
\nthis wholeness is that there is no division or incompatibility between the free
\nessential ideation of the supermind corresponding to the mind’s pure ideation,
\nfree, disinterested, illimitable, and its creative, pragmatic ideation
\npurposeful and determinative. The infinity of being results naturally in a
\nfreedom of the harmonies of becoming. The supermind perceives always action as
\na manifestation and expression of the Self and creation as a revelation of the
\nInfinite. All its creative
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 814<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

and pragmatic thought is an
\ninstrument of the self’s becoming, a power of illumination for that purpose, an
\nintermediary between the eternal identity and infinite novelty and variety of
\nillimitable Being and its self-expression in the worlds and life. It is this
\nthat the supermind constantly sees and embodies and while its ideative vision
\nand thought interpret to it the illimitable unity and variety of the Infinite,
\nwhich it is by a perpetual identity and in which it lives in all its power of
\nbeing and becoming, there is constantly too a special creative thought,
\nassociated with an action of the infinite will, Tapas, power of being, which
\ndetermines what it shall present, manifest or create out of the infinite in the
\ncourse of Time, what it shall make \u2013 here and now or in any range of Time or world
\n\u2013 of the perpetual becoming of the self in the universe. <\/p>\n

The supermind
\nis not limited by this pragmatic movement and does not take the partial motion
\nor the entire stream of what it so becomes and creates in its thought and life
\nfor the whole truth of its self or of the Infinite. It does not live only in what
\nit is and thinks and does selectively in the present or on one plane only of
\nbeing; it does not feed its existence only on the present or the continual
\nsuccession of moments to whose beats we give that name. It does not see itself
\nonly as a movement of Time or of the consciousness in time or as a creature of
\nthe perpetual becoming. It is aware of a timeless being beyond manifestation
\nand of which all is a manifestation, it is aware of what is eternal even in
\nTime, it is aware of many planes of existence; it is aware of past truth of
\nmanifestation and of much truth of being yet to be manifested in the future,
\nbut already existing in the self-view of the Eternal. It does not mistake the
\npragmatic reality which is the truth of action and mutation for the sole truth,
\nbut sees it as a constant realisation of that which is eternally real. It knows
\nthat creation whether on the plane of matter or of life or of mind or of
\nsupermind is and can be only a self-determined presentation of eternal truth, a
\nrevelation of the Eternal, and it is intimately aware of the pre-existence of
\nthe truth of all things in the Eternal. This seeing conditions all its
\npragmatic thought and its resultant action. The maker in it is a selective
\npower of the seer and thinker, the self-builder a power of the self-seer, the
\nself- <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 815<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

expressing soul a power of the
\ninfinite spirit. It creates freely, and all the more surely and decisively for that
\nfreedom, out of the infinite self and spirit. <\/p>\n

It is therefore
\nnot prisoned<\/span> in its special becoming or shut up in
\nits round or its course of action. It is open, in a way and a degree to which
\nthe mind cannot attain, to the truth of other harmonies of creative becoming
\neven while in its own it puts forth a decisive will and thought and action.
\nWhen it is engaged in action that is of the nature of a struggle, the replacing
\nof past or other thought and form and becoming by that which it is appointed to
\nmanifest, it knows the truth of what it displaces and fulfils even in
\ndisplacing as well as the truth of what it substitutes. It is not bound by its
\nmanifesting, selecting, pragmatic conscious action, but it has at the same time
\nall the joy of a specially creative thought and selective precision of action,
\nthe Ananda of the truth of the forms and movements equally of its own and of
\nothers’ becoming. All its thought and will of life and action and creation,
\nrich, manifold, focussing<\/span> the truth of many planes,
\nis liberated and illumined with the illimitable truth of the Eternal. <\/p>\n

This creative
\nor pragmatic movement of the supramental thought and consciousness brings with
\nit an action which corresponds to that of the habitual or mechanical mentality
\nbut is yet of a very different character. The thing that is created is the
\nself-determination of a harmony and all harmony proceeds upon seen or given
\nlines and carries with it a constant pulsation and rhythmic recurrence. The
\nsupramental thought, organising the harmony of manifested existence of the supramental
\nbeing, founds it on eternal principles, casts it upon the right lines of the
\ntruth that is to be manifested, keeps sounding as characteristic notes the
\nrecurrence of the constant elements in the experience and the action which are
\nnecessary to constitute the harmony. There is an order of the thought, a cycle
\nof the will, a stability in the motion. At the same time its freedom prevents
\nit from being shut up by the recurrence into a groove of habitual action turning
\nalways mechanically round a limited stock of thinking. It does not like the
\nhabitual mind refer and assimilate all new thought and experience to a fixed
\ncustomary mould of
\n <\/p>\n

Page \u2013 816<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

thinking, taking that for its basis.
\nIts basis, that to which all is referred, is above, upari<\/i><\/span> budhne<\/span><\/i>, in the largeness of the self, in
\nthe supreme foundation of the supramental truth, budhne<\/i><\/span> ŗtasya<\/span><\/i>. Its order of thought, its
\ncycle of will, its stable movement of action does not crystallise<\/span>
\ninto a mechanism or convention, but is always alive with the spirit, does not
\nlive by exclusiveness or hostility to other coexistent or possible order and
\ncycle, but absorbs sustenance from all that it contacts and assimilates it to
\nits own principle. The spiritual assimilation is practicable because all is
\nreferred to the largeness of the self and its free vision above. The order of
\nthe supramental thought and will is constantly receiving new light and power
\nfrom above and has no difficulty in accepting it into its movement; it is, as
\nis proper to an order of the Infinite, even in its stability of motion
\nindescribably supple and plastic, capable of perceiving and rendering the
\nrelation of all things to each other in the One, capable of expressing always more
\nand more of the Infinite, at its fullest of expressing in its own way all that
\nis actually expressible of the Infinite. <\/p>\n

Thus there is
\nno discord, disparity or difficulty of adjustment in the complex motion of the
\nsupramental j\u00f1āna<\/i><\/span>,
\nbut a simplicity in the complexity, an assured ease in a many-sided abundance
\nthat comes from the spontaneous sureness and totality of the self-knowledge of
\nthe spirit. Obstacle, inner struggle, disparity, difficulty, discord of parts
\nand movements continues in the transformation of mind to supermind only so long
\nas the action, influence or pressure of the mind insisting on its own methods
\nof construction continues or its process of building knowledge or thought and
\nwill of action on the foundation of a primal ignorance resists the opposite
\nprocess of supermind organising all as a luminous manifestation out of the self
\nand its inherent and eternal self-knowledge. It is thus that the supermind
\nacting as a representative, interpretative, revealingly imperative power of the
\nspirit’s knowledge by identity, turning the light of the infinite consciousness
\nfreely and illimitably into substance and form of real-idea, creating out of
\npower of conscious being and power of real-idea, stabilising<\/span>
\na movement which obeys its own law but is still a supple and plastic movement
\nof the infinite, uses its thought and knowledge and a will identical in substance
\nand light
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 817<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

with the knowledge to organise<\/span> in each supramental being his own right
\nmanifestation of the one self and spirit. <\/p>\n

The action of
\nthe supramental j\u00f1āna<\/i><\/span>
\nso constituted evidently surpasses the action of the mental reason and we have
\nto see what replaces the reason in the supramental transformation. The thinking
\nmind of man finds its most clear and characteristic satisfaction and its most
\nprecise and effective principle of organisation in the reasoning and logical intelligence.
\nIt is true that man is not and cannot be wholly governed either in his thought
\nor his action by the reason alone. His mentality is inextricably subjected to a
\njoint, mixed and intricate action of the reasoning intelligence with two other powers,
\nan intuition, actually only half luminous in the human mentality, operating
\nbehind the more visible action of the reason or veiled and altered in the
\naction of the normal intelligence, and the life-mind of sensation, instinct,
\nimpulse, which is in its own nature a sort of obscure involved intuition and
\nwhich supplies the intelligence from below with its first materials and data.
\nAnd each of these other powers is in its own kind an intimate action of the
\nspirit operating in mind and life and has a more direct and spontaneous
\ncharacter and immediate power for perception and action than the reasoning
\nintelligence. But yet neither of these powers is capable of organising for man
\nhis mental existence. <\/p>\n

His life-mind \u2013
\nits instincts, its impulses, \u2013 is not and cannot be self-sufficient and
\npredominant as it is in the lower creation. It has been seized upon by the
\nintelligence and profoundly altered by it even where the development of the intelligence
\nis imperfect and itself most insistent in its prominence. It has lost most of
\nits intuitive character, is indeed now infinitely richer as a supplier of
\nmaterials and data, but no longer quite itself or at ease in its action because
\nhalf rationalised<\/span>, dependent at least on some infused
\nelement however vague of reasoning or intelligent activity and incapable of
\nacting to good purpose without the aid of the intelligence. Its roots and place
\nof perfection are in the subconscient<\/span> from which it
\nemerges and man’s business is to increase in the sense of a more and more conscient<\/span> knowledge and action. Man reverting to a
\ngovernance of his being by the life mind would become either irrational and
\nerratic or dull and
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 818<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

imbecile and would lose the
\nessential character of manhood. <\/p>\n

The intuition
\non the other hand has its roots and its place of perfection in the supramental
\nwhich is now to us the superconscient, and in mind it has no pure and no organised
\naction, but is immediately mixed with the action of the reasoning intelligence,
\nis not quite itself, but limited, fragmentary, diluted and impure, and depends
\nfor the ordered use and organization of its suggestions on the aid of the
\nlogical reason. The human mind is never quite sure of its intuitions until they
\nhave been viewed and confirmed by the judgment of the rational intelligence: it
\nis there that it feels most well founded and secure. Man surmounting reason to organise<\/span> his thought and life by the intuitive mind would
\nbe already surpassing his characteristic humanity and on the way to the
\ndevelopment of supermanhood<\/span>. This can only be done
\nabove: for to attempt it below is only to achieve another kind of imperfection:
\nthere the mental reason is a necessary factor. <\/p>\n

The reasoning
\nintelligence is an intermediate agent between the life mind and the yet
\nundeveloped supramental intuition. Its business is that of an intermediary, on
\nthe one side to enlighten the life mind, to make it conscient<\/span>
\nand govern and regulate as much as may be its action until Nature is ready to
\nevolve the supramental energy which will take hold of life and illumine and
\nperfect all its movements by converting its obscurely intuitive motions of
\ndesire, emotion, sensation and action into a spiritually and luminously
\nspontaneous life manifestation of the self and spirit. On the other higher side
\nits mission is to take the rays of light which come from above and translate
\nthem into terms of intelligent mentality and to accept, examine, develop, intellectually
\nutilise the intuitions that escape the barrier and descend into mind from the superconscience<\/span>. It does this until man, becoming more and
\nmore intelligently conscient<\/span> of himself and his
\nenvironment and his being, becomes also aware that he cannot really know these
\nthings by his reason, but can only make a mental representation of them to his
\nintelligence. <\/p>\n

The reason,
\nhowever, tends in the intellectual man to ignore the limitations of its power
\nand function and attempts to be not an instrument and agent but a substitute
\nfor the self and spirit.
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 819<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

Made confident by success and
\npredominance, by the comparative greatness of its own light, it regards itself
\nas a thing primary and absolute, assures itself of its own entire truth and
\nsufficiency and endeavours<\/span> to become the absolute
\nruler of mind and life. This it cannot do successfully, because it depends on
\nthe lower life intuition and on the covert supermind and its intuitive messages
\nfor its own real substance and existence. It can only appear to itself to
\nsucceed because it reduces all its experience to rational formulas and blinds
\nitself to half the real nature of the thought and action that is behind it and
\nto the infinite deal that breaks out of its formulas. The excess of the reason
\nonly makes life artificial and rationally mechanical, deprives it of its
\nspontaneity and vitality and prevents the freedom and expansion of the spirit.
\nThe limited and limiting mental reason must make itself plastic and flexible, open
\nitself to its source, receive the light from above, exceed itself and pass by
\nan euthanasia of transformation into the body of the supramental reason.
\nMeanwhile it is given power and leading for an organisation of thought and
\naction on the characteristically human scale intermediate between the subconscient<\/span> power of the spirit organising the life of the
\nanimal and the superconscient power of the spirit which becoming conscient<\/span> can organise<\/span> the
\nexistence and life of a spiritual supermanhood<\/span>. <\/p>\n

The
\ncharacteristic power of the reason in its fullness is a logical movement
\nassuring itself first of all available materials and data by observation and
\narrangement, then acting upon them for a resultant knowledge gained, assured
\nand enlarged by a first use of the reflective powers, and lastly assuring
\nitself of the correctness of its results by a more careful and formal action,
\nmore vigilant, deliberate, severely logical which tests, rejects or confirms
\nthem according to certain secure standards and processes developed by reflection
\nand experience. The first business of the logical reason is therefore a right,
\ncareful and complete observation of its available material and data. The first
\nand easiest field of data open to our knowledge is the world of Nature, of the
\nphysical objects made external to it by the separative action of mind, things
\nnot ourself<\/span> and therefore only indirectly knowable by
\nan interpreting of our sense perceptions, by obser<\/span>– <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 820<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

vation<\/span>,
\naccumulated experience, inference and reflective thinking. Another field is our
\nown internal being and its movements which one knows naturally by an internally
\nacting mental sense, by intuitive perception and constant experience and by
\nreflective thought on the evidences of our nature. The reason with regard even
\nto these inner movements acts best and knows them most correctly by detaching
\nitself and regarding them quite impersonally and objectively, a movement which
\nin the Yoga of knowledge ends in viewing our own active being too as not self,
\na mechanism of Nature like the rest of the world-existence. The knowledge of
\nother thinking and conscious beings stands between these two fields, but is
\ngained, too, indirectly by observation, by experience, by various means of
\ncommunication and, acting on these, by reflection and inference largely founded
\non analogy from our knowledge of our own nature. Another field of data which
\nthe reason has to observe is its own action and the action of the whole human
\nintelligence, for without that study it cannot be assured of the correctness of
\nits knowledge or of right method and process. Finally, there are other fields
\nof knowledge for which the data are not so easily available and which need the
\ndevelopment of abnormal faculties, \u2013 the discovery of things and ranges of
\nexistence behind the appearances of the physical world and the discovery of the
\nsecret self or principle of being of man and of Nature. The first the logical
\nreason can attempt to deal with, accepting subject to its scrutiny whatever
\ndata become available, in the same way as it deals with the physical world, but
\nordinarily it is little disposed to deal with them, finding it more easy to
\nquestion and deny, and its action here is seldom assured or effective. The
\nsecond it usually attempts to discover by a constructive metaphysical logic
\nfounded on its analytic and synthetic observation of the phenomena of life, mind
\nand matter. <\/p>\n

The operation
\nof the logical reason is the same in all these fields of its data. At first the
\nintelligence amasses a store of observations, associations, percepts, recepts<\/span>, concepts, makes a more or less obvious arrangement
\nand classification of relations and of things according to their likenesses and
\ndifferences, and works upon them by an accumulating store and a constant
\naddition of <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 821<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

ideas, memories, imaginations,
\njudgments; these make up primarily the nature of activity of our knowledge.
\nThere is a kind of natural enlargement of this intelligent activity of the mind
\nprogressing by its own momentum, an evolution aided more and more by a
\ndeliberate culture, the increase of faculties gained by the culture becoming in
\nits turn a part of the nature as they settle into a more spontaneous action, \u2013 the
\nresult a progression not of the character and essential power of the
\nintelligence, but of its degree of power, flexibility, variety of capacity,
\nfineness. There is a correction of errors, an accumulating of assured ideas and
\njudgments, a reception or formation of fresh knowledge. At the same time a necessity
\narises for a more precise and assured action of the intelligence which will get
\nrid of the superficiality of this ordinary method of the intelligence, test
\nevery step, scrutinise<\/span> severely every conclusion and
\nreduce the mind’s action to a well-founded system and order. <\/p>\n

This movement
\ndevelops the complete logical mind and raises to its acme the acuteness and
\npower of the intelligence. The rougher and more superficial observation is
\nreplaced or supplemented by a scrutinising<\/span> analysis
\nof all the process, properties, constituents, energies making up or related to
\nthe object and a synthetic construction of it as a whole which is added to or
\nin great part substituted for the mind’s natural conception of it. The object
\nis more precisely distinguished from all others and at the same time there is a
\ncompleter discovery of its relations with others. There is a fixing of sameness
\nor likeness and kinship and also of divergences and differences resulting on
\none side in the perception of the fundamental unity of being and Nature and the
\nsimilarity and continuity of their processes, on the other in a clear precision
\nand classification of different energies and kinds of beings and objects. The
\namassing and ordering of the materials and data of knowledge are carried to
\nperfection as far as is possible to the logical intelligence. <\/p>\n

Memory is the
\nindispensable aid of the mind to preserve its past observations, the memory of
\nthe individual but also of the race, whether in the artificial form of
\naccumulated records or the general race memory preserving its gains with a sort
\nof constant repetition and renewal and, an element not sufficiently appre<\/span>– <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 822<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

ciated<\/span>,
\na latent memory that can under the pressure of various kinds of stimulation
\nrepeat under new conditions past movements of knowledge for judgment by the
\nincreased information and intelligence. The developed logical mind puts into
\norder the action and resources of the human memory and trains it to make the
\nutmost use of its materials. The human judgment naturally works on these
\nmaterials in two ways, by a more or less rapid and summary combination of
\nobservation, inference, creative or critical conclusion, insight, immediate idea
\n\u2013 this is largely an attempt of the mind to work in a spontaneous manner with
\nthe directness that can only be securely achieved by the higher faculty of the
\nintuition, for in the mind it produces much false confidence and unreliable certitude,
\n\u2013 and a slower but in the end intellectually surer seeking, considering and
\ntesting judgment that develops into the careful logical action. <\/p>\n

The memory and
\njudgment are both aided by the imagination which, as a function of knowledge,
\nsuggests possibilities not actually presented or justified by the other powers
\nand opens the doors to fresh vistas. The developed logical intelligence uses
\nthe imagination for suggesting new discovery and hypothesis, but is careful to
\ntest its suggestions fully by observation and a sceptical<\/span>
\nor scrupulous judgment. It insists too on testing, as far as may be, all the
\naction of the judgment itself, rejects hasty inference in favour of an ordered
\nsystem of deduction and induction and makes sure of all its steps and of the
\njustice, continuity, compatibility, cohesion of its conclusions. A too formalised<\/span> logical mind discourages, but a free use of the
\nwhole action of the logical intelligence may rather heighten a certain action
\nof immediate insight, the mind’s nearest approach to the higher intuition, but
\nit does not place on it an unqualified reliance. The endeavour of the logical
\nreason is always by a detached, disinterested and carefully founded method to
\nget rid of error, of prejudgment, of the mind’s false confidence and arrive at
\nreliable certitudes.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>And if this elaborated method of the mind were
\nreally sufficient for truth, there would be no need of any higher step in the
\nevolution of knowledge. In fact, it increases the mind’s hold on itself and on
\nthe world around it and serves great and undeniable
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 823<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

utilities: but it can never be
\nsure whether its data supply it with the frame of a real knowledge or only a
\nframe useful and necessary for the human mind and will in its own present form
\nof action. It is more and more perceived that the knowledge of phenomena
\nincreases, but the knowledge of reality escapes this laborious process. A time
\nmust come, is already coming when the mind perceives the necessity of calling
\nto its aid and developing fully the intuition and all the great range of powers
\nthat lie concealed behind our vague use of the word and uncertain perception of
\nits significance. In the end it must discover that these powers can not only
\naid and complete but even replace its own proper action. That will be the beginning
\nof the discovery of the supramental energy of the spirit. <\/p>\n

The supermind,
\nas we have seen, lifts up the action of the mental consciousness towards and
\ninto the intuition, creates an intermediate intuitive mentality insufficient in
\nitself but greater in power than the logical intelligence, and then lifts up
\nand transforms that too into the true supramental action. The first well-organised
\naction of the supermind in the ascending order is the supramental reason, not a
\nhigher logical intellect, but a directly luminous organisation of intimately
\nsubjective and intimately objective knowledge, the higher buddhi<\/i>, the logical or rather the logos Vijnana. The supramental
\nreason does all the work of the reasoning intelligence and does much more, but
\nwith a greater power and in a different fashion. It is then itself taken up
\ninto a higher range of the power of knowledge and in that too nothing is lost,
\nbut all farther heightened, enlarged in scope, transformed in power of action. <\/p>\n

The ordinary
\nlanguage of the intellect is not sufficient to describe this action, for the
\nsame words have to be used, indicating a certain correspondence, but actually
\nto connote inadequately a different thing. Thus the supermind uses a certain
\nsense action, employing but not limited by the physical organs, a thing which
\nis in its nature a form consciousness and a contact consciousness, but the
\nmental idea and experience of sense can give no conception of the essential and
\ncharacteristic action of this supramentalised sense consciousness. Thought too
\nin the supramental action is a different thing from the thought of the
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 824<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

mental intelligence. The
\nsupramental thinking is felt at its basis as a conscious contact or union or identity
\nof the substance of being of the knower with the substance of being of the
\nthing known and its figure of thought as the power of awareness of the self
\nrevealing through the meeting or the oneness, because carrying in itself, a
\ncertain knowledge form of the object’s content, action, significance. Therefore
\nobservation, memory, judgment too mean each a different thing in the supermind
\nfrom what it is in the process of the mental intelligence. <\/p>\n

The supramental
\nreason observes all that the intelligence observes \u2013 and much more; it makes,
\nthat is to say, the thing to be known the field of a perceptual action, in a
\ncertain way objective, that causes to emerge its nature, character, quality, action.
\nBut this is not that artificial objectivity by which the reason in its
\nobservation tries to extrude the element of personal or subjective error. The
\nsupermind sees everything in the self and its observation must therefore be
\nsubjectively objective and much nearer to, though not the same as the
\nobservation of our own internal movements regarded as an object of knowledge.
\nIt is not in the separatively<\/span> personal self or by its
\npower that it sees and therefore it has not to be on guard against the element
\nof personal error: that interferes only while a mental substratum or environing
\natmosphere yet remains and can still throw in its influence or while the
\nsupermind is still acting by descent into the mind to change it. And the supramental
\nmethod with error is to eliminate it, not by any other device, but by an
\nincreasing spontaneity of the supramental discrimination and a constant heightening
\nof its own energy. The consciousness of supermind is a cosmic consciousness and
\nit is in this self of universal consciousness, in which the individual knower
\nlives and with which he is more or less closely united, that it holds before
\nhim the object of knowledge. <\/p>\n

The knower is
\nin his observation a witness and this relation would seem to imply an otherness
\nand difference, but the point is that it is not an entirely separative
\ndifference and does not bring an excluding idea of the thing observed as completely
\nnot self, as in the mental seeing of an external object. There is always a
\nbasic feeling of oneness with the thing known, for without this <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 825<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

oneness there can be no
\nsupramental knowledge. The knower carrying the object in his universalized self
\nof consciousness as a thing held before his station of witness vision includes
\nit in his own wider being. The supramental observation is of things with which
\nwe are one in the being and consciousness and are capable of knowing them even
\nas we know ourselves by the force of that oneness: the act of observation is a
\nmovement towards bringing out the latent knowledge. <\/p>\n

There is, then,
\nfirst a fundamental unity of consciousness that is greater or less in its
\npower, more or less completely and immediately revelatory of its contents of
\nknowledge according to our progress and elevation and intensity of living, feeling
\nand seeing in the supramental ranges. There is set up between the knower and
\nthe object of knowledge, as a result of this fundamental unity, a stream or
\nbridge of conscious connection \u2013 one is obliged to use images, however inadequate
\n\u2013 and as a consequence a contact or active union enabling one to see, feel,
\nsense supramentally<\/span> what is to be known in the object
\nor about it. Sometimes this stream or bridge of connection is not sensibly felt
\nat the moment, only the results of the contact are noted, but it is always
\nreally there and an after memory can always make us aware that it was really
\nall the time present: as we grow in supramentality<\/span>,
\nit becomes an abiding factor. The necessity of this stream or this bridge of
\nconnection ceases when the fundamental oneness becomes a complete active
\noneness. This process is the basis of what Patanjali calls samyama<\/i><\/span>, a concentration,
\ndirecting or dwelling of the consciousness, by which, he says, one can become
\naware of all that is in the object. But the necessity of concentration becomes
\nslight or nil when the active oneness grows; the luminous consciousness of the
\nobject and its contents becomes more spontaneous, normal, facile. <\/p>\n

There are three
\npossible movements of this kind of supramental observation. First, the knower
\nmay project himself in consciousness on the object, feel his cognition in
\ncontact or enveloping or penetrating it and there, as it were in the object itself,
\nbecome aware of what he has to know. Or he may by the contact become aware of
\nthat which is in it or belongs to it, as for example the thought or feeling of
\nanother, coming from it and <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 826<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

entering into himself where he
\nstands in his station of the witness. Or he may simply know in himself by a
\nsort of supramental cognition in his own witness station without any such
\nprojection or entrance. The starting-point and apparent basis of the
\nobservation may be the presence of the object to the physical or other senses,
\nbut to the supermind this is not indispensable. It may be instead an inner
\nimage or simply the idea of the object. The simple will to know may bring to
\nthe supramental consciousness the needed knowledge \u2013 or, it may be, the will to
\nbe known or communicate itself of the object of knowledge. <\/p>\n

The elaborate
\nprocess of analytical observation and synthetical construction adopted by the
\nlogical intelligence is not the method of the supermind and yet there is a
\ncorresponding action. The supermind distinguishes by a direct seeing and
\nwithout any mental process of taking to pieces the particularities of the
\nthing, form, energy, action, quality, mind, soul that it has in view, and it
\nsees too with an equal directness and without any process of construction the
\nsignificant totality of which these particularities are the incidents. It sees
\nalso the essentiality, the Swabhava, of the thing in itself of which the
\ntotality and the particularities are the manifestation. And again it sees,
\nwhether apart from or through the essentiality or Swabhava, the one self, the
\none existence, consciousness, power, force of which it is the basic expression.
\nIt may be observing at the time only the particularities, but the whole is
\nimplied, and vice versa, \u2013 as for an example, the total state of mind out of
\nwhich a thought or a feeling arises, \u2013 and the cognition may start from one or
\nthe other and proceed at once by immediate suggestion to the implied knowledge.
\nThe essentiality is similarly implied in the whole and in each or all of the
\nparticulars and there may be the same rapid or immediate alternative or
\nalternate process. The logic of the supermind is different from that of the
\nmind: it sees always the self as what is, the essentiality of the thing as a
\nfundamental expression of the being and power of the self, and the whole and
\nparticulars as a consequent manifestation of this power and its active
\nexpression. In the fullness of the supramental consciousness and cognition this
\nis the constant order. All perception of unity, similarity, difference, kind,
\nuniqueness arrived at
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 827<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

by the supramental reason is
\nconsonant with and depends on this order. <\/p>\n

This observing
\naction of supermind applies to all things. Its view of physical objects is not
\nand cannot be only a surface or outward view, even when concentrated on the
\nexternals. It sees the form, action, properties, but it is aware at the same time
\nof the qualities or energies, guņa<\/i><\/span>, śakti<\/span><\/i>, of which the form is a translation, and it
\nsees them not as an inference or deduction from the form or action, but feels
\nand sees them directly in the being of the object and quite as vividly, \u2013 one
\nmight say, with a subtle concreteness and fine substantiality, \u2013 as the form or
\nsensible action. It is aware too of the consciousness that manifests itself in
\nquality, energy, form. It can feel, know, observe, see forces, tendencies,
\nimpulsions, things abstract to us quite as directly and vividly as the things
\nwe now call visible and sensible. It observes in just the same way persons and beings.
\nIt can take as its starting-point or first indication the speech, action,
\noutward signs, but it is not limited by or dependent on them. It can know and
\nfeel and observe the very self and consciousness of another, can either proceed
\nto that directly through the sign or can in its more powerful action begin with
\nit and at once, instead of seeking to know the inner being through the evidence
\nof the outer expression, understand rather all the outer expression in the
\nlight of the inner being. Even so, completely, the supramental being knows his
\nown inner being and nature. The supermind can too act with equal power and
\nobserve with direct experience what is hidden behind the physical order; it can
\nmove in other planes than the material universe. It knows the self and reality
\nof things by identity, by experience of oneness or contact of oneness and a
\nvision, a seeing and realising ideation and knowledge dependent on or derived
\nfrom these things, and its thought presentation of the truths of the spirit is
\nan expression of this kind of sight and experience. <\/p>\n

The supramental
\nmemory is different from the mental, not a storing up of past knowledge and
\nexperience, but an abiding presence of knowledge that can be brought forward
\nor, more characteristically, offers itself, when it is needed: it is not
\ndependent on attention or on conscious reception, for the things of the past <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 828<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

not known actually or not
\nobserved can be called up from latency by an action which is yet essentially a
\nremembrance. Especially on a certain level all knowledge presents itself as a
\nremembering, because all is latent or inherent in the self of supermind. The
\nfuture like the past presents itself to knowledge in the supermind as a memory
\nof the preknown<\/span>. The imagination transformed in the
\nsupermind acts on one side as a power of true image and symbol, always an image
\nor index of some value or significance or other truth of being, on the other as
\nan inspiration or interpretative seeing of possibilities and potentialities not
\nless true than actual or realised things. These are put in their place either
\nby an attendant intuitive or interpretative judgment or by one inherent in the
\nvision of the image, symbol or potentiality, or by a supereminent<\/span>
\nrevelation of that which is behind the image or symbol or which determines the
\npotential and the actual and their relations and, it may be, overrides and
\noverpasses them, imposing ultimate truths and supreme certitudes. <\/p>\n

The supramental
\njudgment acts inseparably from the supramental observation or memory, inherent
\nin it as a direct seeing or cognition of values, significances, antecedents,
\nconsequences, relations, etc.; or it supervenes on the observation as a
\nluminous disclosing idea or suggestion; or it may go before, independent of any
\nobservation, and then the object called up and observed confirms visibly the
\ntruth of the idea. But in each case it is sufficient in itself for its own
\npurpose, is its own evidence and does not really depend for its truth on any
\naid or confirmation. There is a logic of the supramental reason, but its
\nfunction is not to test or scrutinise<\/span>, to support and
\nprove or to detect and eliminate error. Its function is simply to link knowledge
\nwith knowledge, to discover and utilise harmonies and arrangement and
\nrelations, to organise<\/span> the movement of the
\nsupramental knowledge. This it does not by any formal rule or construction of inferences
\nbut by a direct, living and immediate seeing and placing of connection and
\nrelation. All thought in the supermind is in the nature of intuition,
\ninspiration or revelation and all deficiency of knowledge is to be supplied by
\na farther action of these powers; error is prevented by the action of a
\nspontaneous and luminous discrimination; the movement is always from knowledge
\nto know- <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 829<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

ledge. It is not rational in our
\nsense but suprarational, \u2013 it does sovereignly what is sought to be done stumblingly
\nand imperfectly by the mental reason. <\/p>\n

The ranges of
\nknowledge above the supramental reason, taking it up and exceeding it, cannot
\nwell be described, nor is it necessary here to make the endeavour. It is
\nsufficient to say that the process here is more sufficient, intense and large
\nin light, imperative, instantaneous, the scope of the active knowledge larger,
\nthe way nearer to the knowledge by identity, the thought more packed with the
\nluminous substance of self-awareness and all-vision and more evidently
\nindependent of any other inferior support or assistance. <\/p>\n

These
\ncharacteristics, it must be remembered, do not fully apply even to the
\nstrongest action of the intuitive mentality, but are there seen only in their
\nfirst glimpses. Nor can they be entirely or unmixedly<\/span>
\nevident so long as supramentality<\/span> is only forming
\nwith an undercurrent, a mixture or an environment of mental action. It is only
\nwhen mentality is overpassed<\/span> and drops away into a
\npassive silence that there can be the full disclosure and the sovereign and
\nintegral action of the supramental gnosis. <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 830<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter XXIII   The Supramental Instruments \u2013 Thought-Process    THE supermind, the divine gnosis, is not something entirely alien to our present consciousness: it is a…<\/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-1213","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\/1213","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=1213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}