{"id":1217,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:20","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1217"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:33:20","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:20","slug":"26-the-divine-shakti-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\/26-the-divine-shakti-vol-21-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-21","title":{"rendered":"-26_The Divine Shakti.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


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

The
\nDivine Shakti<\/font><\/span><\/b> <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

T<\/font><\/b>HE<\/font>
\nrelation between the Purusha and Prakriti which emerges as one advances in the
\nYoga of self-perfection is the next thing that we have to understand carefully
\nin this part of the Yoga. In the spiritual truth of our being the power which
\nwe call Nature is the power of being, consciousness and will and therefore the
\npower of self-expression and self-creation of the self, soul or Purusha. But to
\nour ordinary mind in the ignorance and to its experience of things the force of
\nPrakriti has a different appearance. When we look at it in its universal action
\noutside ourselves, we see it first as a mechanical energy in the cosmos which
\nacts upon matter or in its own created forms of matter. In matter it evolves
\npowers and processes of life and in living matter powers and processes of mind.
\nThroughout its operations it acts by fixed laws and in each kind of created
\nthing displays varying properties of energy and laws of process which give its
\ncharacter to the genus or species and again in the individual develops without
\ninfringing the law of the kind minor characteristics and variations of a
\nconsiderable consequence. It is this mechanical appearance of Prakriti which
\nhas preoccupied the modern scientific mind and made for it its whole view of
\nNature, and so much so that science still hopes and labours<\/span>
\nwith a very small amount of success to explain all phenomena of life by laws of
\nmatter and all phenomena of mind by laws of living matter. Here soul or spirit
\nhas no place and nature cannot be regarded as power of spirit. Since the whole
\nof our existence is mechanical, physical and bounded by the biological
\nphenomenon of a brief living consciousness and man is a creature and instrument
\nof material energy, the spiritual self-evolution of Yoga can be only a
\ndelusion, hallucination, abnormal state of mind or self-hypnosis. In any case
\nit cannot be what it represents itself to be, a discovery of the eternal truth of
\nour
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 724<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

being and a passing above the
\nlimited truth of the mental, vital and physical to the full truth of our
\nspiritual nature. <\/p>\n

But when we
\nlook, not at external mechanical Nature to the exclusion of our personality,
\nbut at the inner subjective experience of man the mental being, our nature
\ntakes to us a quite different appearance. We may believe intellectually in a purely
\nmechanical view even of our subjective existence, but we cannot act upon it or
\nmake it quite real to our self-experience. For we are conscious of an I which
\ndoes not seem identical with our nature, but capable of a standing back from
\nit, of a detached observation and criticism and creative use of it, and of a
\nwill which we naturally think of as a free will; and even if this be a
\ndelusion, we are still obliged in practice to act as if we were responsible
\nmental beings capable of a free choice of our actions, able to use or misuse
\nand to turn to higher or lower ends our nature. And even we seem to be struggling
\nboth with our environmental and with our own present nature and striving to get
\nmastery over a world which imposes itself on and masters us and at the same
\ntime to become something more than we now are. But the difficulty is that we
\nare only in command, if at all, over a small part of ourselves, the rest is
\nsubconscient or subliminal and beyond our control, our will acts only in a
\nsmall selection of our activities; the most is a process of mechanism and habit
\nand we must strive constantly with ourselves and surrounding circumstances to
\nmake the least advance or self-amelioration. There seems to be a dual being in
\nus; Soul and Nature, Purusha and Prakriti, seem to be half in agreement, half
\nat odds, Nature laying its mechanical control on the soul, the soul attempting
\nto change and master nature. And the question is what is the fundamental
\ncharacter of this duality and what the issue. <\/p>\n

The Sankhya
\nexplanation is that our present existence is governed by a dual principle.
\nPrakriti is inert without the contact of Purusha, acts only by a junction with
\nit and then too by the fixed mechanism of her instruments and qualities; Purusha,
\npassive and free apart from Prakriti, becomes by contact with her and sanction
\nto her works subject to this mechanism, lives in her limitation of ego-sense
\nand must get free by withdrawing the sanction and returning to its own proper
\nprinciple. Another
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 725<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

explanation that tallies with a
\ncertain part of our experience is that there is a dual being in us, the animal
\nand material, or more widely the lower nature-bound, and the soul or spiritual
\nbeing entangled by mind in the material existence or in world-nature, and
\nfreedom comes by escape from the entanglement, the soul returning to its native
\nplanes or the self or spirit to its pure existence. The perfection of the soul
\nthen is to be found not at all in, but beyond Nature. <\/p>\n

But in a higher
\nthan our present mental consciousness we find that this duality is only a
\nphenomenal appearance. The highest and real truth of existence is the one
\nSpirit, the supreme Soul, Purushottama, and it is the power of being of this Spirit
\nwhich manifests itself in all that we experience as universe. This universal
\nNature is not a lifeless, inert or unconscious mechanism, but informed in all
\nits movements by the universal Spirit. The mechanism of its process is only an
\noutward appearance and the reality is the Spirit creating or manifesting its
\nown being by its own power of being in all that is in Nature. Soul and Nature
\nin us too are only a dual appearance of the one existence. The universal energy
\nacts in us, but the soul limits itself by the ego-sense, lives in a partial and
\nseparate experience of her workings, uses only a modicum and a fixed action of
\nher energy for its self-expression. It seems rather to be mastered and used by
\nthis energy than to use it, because it identifies itself with the ego-sense
\nwhich is part of the natural instrumentation and lives in the ego experience. The
\nego is in fact driven by the mechanism of Nature of which it is a part and the
\nego-will is not and cannot be a free will. To arrive at freedom, mastery and
\nperfection we have to get back to the real self and soul within and arrive too
\nthereby at our true relations with our own and with universal nature. <\/p>\n

In our active
\nbeing this translates itself into a replacement of our egoistic, our personal,
\nour separatively<\/span> individual will and energy by a
\nuniversal and a divine will and energy which determines our action in harmony
\nwith the universal action and reveals itself as the direct will and the
\nall-guiding power of the Purushottama. We replace the inferior action of the
\nlimited, ignorant and imperfect personal will and energy in us by the action of
\nthe divine Shakti. To open ourselves to the universal
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 726<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

energy is always possible to us,
\nbecause that is all around us and always flowing into us, it is that which
\nsupports and supplies all our inner and outer action and in fact we have no
\npower of our own in any separately individual sense, but only a personal
\nformulation of the one Shakti. And on the other hand this universal Shakti is
\nwithin ourselves, concentrated in us, for the whole power of it is present in
\neach individual as in the universe, and there are means and processes by which
\nwe can awaken its greater and potentially infinite force and liberate it to its
\nlarger workings. <\/p>\n

We can become
\naware of the existence and presence of the universal Shakti in the various
\nforms of her power. At present we are conscious only of the power as formulated
\nin our physical mind, nervous being and corporeal case sustaining our various
\nactivities. But if we can once get beyond this first formation by some
\nliberation of the hidden, recondite, subliminal parts of our existence by Yoga,
\nwe become aware of a greater life force, a pranic Shakti, which supports and
\nfills the body and supplies all the physical and vital activities, \u2013 for the
\nphysical energy is only a modified form of this force, \u2013 and supplies and
\nsustains too from below all our mental action. This force we feel in ourselves
\nalso, but we can feel it too around us and above, one with the same energy in
\nus, and can draw it in and down to aggrandise<\/span> our
\nnormal action or call upon and get it to pour into us. It is an illimitable
\nocean
\n of Shakti and will pour as much of
\nitself as we can hold into our being. This pranic force we can use for any of
\nthe activities of life, body or mind with a far greater and effective power
\nthan any that we command in our present operations, limited as they are by the
\nphysical formula. The use of this pranic power liberates us from that
\nlimitation to the extent of our ability to use it in place of the body-bound
\nenergy. It can be used so to direct the prana as to manage more powerfully or
\nto rectify any bodily state or action, as to heal illness or to get rid of
\nfatigue, and to liberate an enormous amount of mental exertion and play of will
\nor knowledge. The exercises of Pranayama are the familiar mechanical means of
\nfreeing and getting control of the pranic energy. They heighten too and set
\nfree the psychic, mental and spiritual energies which ordinarily depend for
\ntheir
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 727<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

opportunity of action on the
\npranic force. But the same thing can be done by mental will and practice or by
\nan increasing opening of ourselves to a higher spiritual power of the Shakti.
\nThe pranic Shakti can be directed not only upon ourselves, but effectively
\ntowards others or on things or happenings for whatever purposes the will
\ndictates. Its effectivity is immense, in itself illimitable, and limited only
\nby defect of the power, purity and universality of the spiritual or other will
\nwhich is brought to bear upon it; but still, however great and powerful, it is
\na lower formulation, a link between the mind and body, an instrumental force.
\nThere is a consciousness in it, a presence of the spirit, of which we are
\naware, but it is encased, involved in and preoccupied with the urge to action.
\nIt is not to this action of the Shakti that we can leave the whole burden of
\nour activities; we have either to use its lendings<\/span> by
\nour own enlightened personal will or else call in a higher guidance; for of itself
\nit will act with greater force, but still according to our imperfect nature and
\nmainly by the drive and direction of the life-power in us and not according to
\nthe law of the highest spiritual existence. <\/p>\n

The ordinary
\npower by which we govern the pranic energy is that of the embodied mind. But
\nwhen we get clear above the physical mind, we can get too above the pranic
\nforce to the consciousness of a pure mental energy which is a higher formulation
\nof the Shakti. There we are aware of a universal mind consciousness closely
\nassociated with this energy in, around and above us, \u2013 above, that is to say,
\nthe level of our ordinary mind status, \u2013 giving all the substance and shaping
\nall the forms of our will and knowledge and of the psychic element in our
\nimpulses and emotions. This mind force can be made to act upon the pranic
\nenergy and can impose upon it the influence, colour<\/span>,
\nshape, character, direction of our ideas, our knowledge, our more enlightened
\nvolition and thus more effectively bring our life and vital being into harmony
\nwith our higher powers of being, ideals and spiritual aspirations. In our
\nordinary state these two, the mental and the pranic being and energies, are
\nvery much mixed up and run into each other, and we are not able clearly to
\ndistinguish them or get a full hold of the one on the other and so control
\neffectively the lower by the higher and more understanding principle. But
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 728<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

when we take our station above
\nthe physical mind, we are able then to separate clearly the two forms of
\nenergy, the two levels of our being, disentangle their action and act with a
\nclearer and more potent self-knowledge and an enlightened and a purer
\nwill-power. Nevertheless the control is not complete, spontaneous, sovereign so
\nlong as we work with the mind as our chief guiding and controlling force. The
\nmental energy we find to be itself derivative, a lower and limiting power of
\nthe conscious spirit which acts only by isolated and combined seeings<\/span>, imperfect and incomplete half-lights which we take
\nfor full and adequate light, and with a disparity between the idea and
\nknowledge and the effective will-power. And we are aware soon of a far higher power
\nof the Spirit and its Shakti concealed or above, superconscient to mind or
\npartially acting through the mind, of which all this is an inferior derivation.\n<\/p>\n

The Purusha and
\nPrakriti are on the mental level as in the rest of our being closely joined and
\nmuch involved in each other and we are not able to distinguish clearly soul and
\nnature. But in the purer substance of mind we can more easily discern the dual
\nstrain. The mental Purusha is naturally able in its own native principle of
\nmind to detach itself, as we have seen, from the workings of its Prakriti and
\nthere is then a division of our being between a consciousness that observes and
\ncan reserve its will-power and an energy full of the substance of consciousness
\nthat takes the forms of knowledge, will and feeling. This detachment gives at
\nits highest a certain freedom from the compulsion of the soul by its mental
\nnature. For ordinarily we are driven and carried along in the stream of our own
\nand the universal active energy partly floundering in its waves, partly
\nmaintaining and seeming to guide or at least propel ourselves by a collected thought
\nand an effort of the mental will muscle; but now there is a part of ourselves,
\nnearest to the pure essence of self, which is free from the stream, can quietly
\nobserve and to a certain extent decide its immediate movement and course and to
\na greater extent its ultimate direction. The Purusha can at last act upon the
\nPrakriti from half apart, from behind or from above her as a presiding person
\nor presence, adhyakşa<\/i><\/span>,
\nby the power of sanction and control inherent in the spirit.
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 729<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

What we shall
\ndo with this relative freedom depends on our aspiration, our idea of the
\nrelation we must have with our highest self, with God and Nature. It is
\npossible for the Purusha to use it on the mental plane itself for a constant self-observation,
\nself-development, self-modification, to sanction, reject, alter, bring out new
\nformulations of the nature and establish a calm and disinterested action, a
\nhigh and pure sattwic balance and rhythm of its energy, a personality perfected
\nin the sattwic principle. This may amount only to a highly mentalised<\/span>
\nperfection of our present intelligence and the ethical and the psychic being or
\nelse, aware of the greater self in us, it may impersonalise<\/span>,
\nuniversalise, spiritualise<\/span> its self-conscious existence
\nand the action of its nature and arrive either at a large quietude or a large
\nperfection of the spiritualised mental energy of its being. It is possible
\nagain for the Purusha to stand back entirely and by a refusal of sanction allow
\nthe whole normal action of the mind to exhaust itself, run down, spend its
\nremaining impetus of habitual action and fall into silence. Or else this
\nsilence may be imposed on the mental energy by rejection of its action and a
\nconstant command to quietude. The soul may through the confirmation of this
\nquietude and mental silence pass into some ineffable tranquillity<\/span>
\nof the spirit and vast cessation of the activities of Nature. But it is also
\npossible to make this silence of the mind and ability to suspend the habits of
\nthe lower nature a first step towards the discovery of a superior formulation,
\na higher grade of the status and energy of our being and pass by an ascent and
\ntransformation into the supramental power of the spirit. And this may even, though
\nwith more difficulty, be done without resorting to the complete state of
\nquietude of the normal mind by a persistent and progressive transformation of
\nall the mental into their greater corresponding supramental powers and activities.
\nFor everything in the mind derives from and is a limited, inferior, groping,
\npartial or perverse translation into mentality of something in the supermind<\/span>. But neither of these movements can be
\nsuccessfully executed by the sole individual unaided power of the mental
\nPurusha in us, but needs the help, intervention and guidance of the divine
\nSelf, the Ishwara, the Purushottama. For the supermind<\/span>
\nis the divine mind and it is on the supramental plane that the individual
\narrives
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 730<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

at his right, integral, luminous
\nand perfect relation with the supreme and universal Purusha and the supreme and
\nuniversal Para Prakriti. <\/p>\n

As the mind
\nprogresses in purity, capacity of stillness or freedom from absorption in its
\nown limited action, it becomes aware of and is able to reflect, bring into
\nitself or enter into the conscious presence of the Self, the supreme and
\nuniversal Spirit, and it becomes aware too of grades and powers of the spirit
\nhigher than its own highest ranges. It becomes aware of an infinite of the
\nconsciousness of being, an infinite ocean of all the power and energy of
\nillimitable consciousness, an infinite ocean
\n of Ananda, of the self-moved
\ndelight of existence. It may be aware of one or other only of these things, for
\nthe mind can separate and feel exclusively as distinct original principles what
\nin a higher experience are inseparable powers of the One, or it may feel them
\nin a trinity or fusion which reveals or arrives at their oneness. It may become
\naware of it on the side of Purusha or on the side of Prakriti. On the side of
\nPurusha it reveals itself as Self or Spirit, as Being or as the one sole existent
\nBeing, the divine Purushottama, and the individual Jiva soul can enter into
\nentire oneness with it in its timeless self or in its universality, or enjoy
\nnearness, immanence, difference without any gulf of separation and enjoy too
\ninseparably and at one and the same time oneness of being and delight-giving
\ndifference of relation in active experiencing nature. On the side of Prakriti
\nthe power and Ananda of the Spirit come into the front to manifest this
\nInfinite in the beings and personalities and ideas and forms and forces of the
\nuniverse and there is then present to us the divine Mahashakti<\/span>,
\noriginal Power, supreme Nature, holding in herself infinite existence and
\ncreating the wonders of the cosmos. The mind grows conscious of this
\nillimitable ocean of Shakti or else of her presence high above the mind and
\npouring something of herself into us to constitute all that we are and think
\nand will and do and feel and experience, or it is conscious of her all around
\nus and our personality a wave of the ocean of power of spirit, or of her
\npresence in us and of her action there based on our present form of natural
\nexistence but originated from above and raising us towards the higher spiritual
\nstatus. The mind too can rise towards and touch <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 731<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

her infinity or merge itself in
\nit in trance of Samadhi or can lose itself in her universality, and then our
\nindividuality disappears, our centre of action is then no longer in us, but
\neither outside our bodied selves or nowhere; our mental activities are then no
\nlonger our own, but come into this frame of mind, life and body from the universal,
\nwork themselves out and pass leaving no impression on us, and this frame of
\nourselves too is only an insignificant circumstance in her cosmic vastness. But
\nthe perfection sought in the integral Yoga is not only to be one with her in
\nher highest spiritual power and one with her in her universal action, but to
\nrealise and possess the fullness of this Shakti in our individual being and
\nnature. For the supreme Spirit is one as Purusha or as Prakriti, conscious
\nbeing or power of conscious being, and as the Jiva in essence of self and
\nspirit is one with the supreme Purusha, so on the side of Nature, in power of self
\nand spirit it is one with Shakti, parā<\/i><\/span> prakŗtir<\/span> jīvabhūtā<\/span><\/i>.
\nTo realise this double oneness is the condition of the integral self-perfection.
\nThe Jiva is then the meeting-place of the play of oneness of the supreme Soul
\nand Nature. <\/p>\n

To reach this
\nperfection we have to become aware of the divine Shakti, draw her to us and call
\nher in to fill the whole system and take up the charge of all our activities.
\nThere will then be no separate personal will or individual energy trying to conduct
\nour actions, no sense of a little personal self as the doer, nor will it be the
\nlower energy of the three gunas, the mental, vital and physical nature. The
\ndivine Shakti will fill us and preside over and take up all our inner
\nactivities, our outer life, our Yoga. She will take up the mental energy, her
\nown lower formation, and raise it to its highest and purest and fullest powers
\nof intelligence and will and psychic action. She will change the mechanical
\nenergies of the mind, life and body which now govern us into delight-filled
\nmanifestations of her own living and conscious power and presence. She will
\nmanifest in us and relate to each other all the various spiritual experiences
\nof which the mind is capable. And as the crown of this process she will bring
\ndown the supramental light into the mental levels, change the stuff of mind
\ninto the stuff of supermind<\/span>, transform all the lower
\nenergies into energies of her supramental nature and raise us
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 732<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

into our being of gnosis. The
\nShakti will reveal herself as the power of the Purushottama, and it is the
\nIshwara who will manifest himself in his force of supermind<\/span>
\nand spirit and be the master of our being, action, life and Yoga. <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 733<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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