{"id":1225,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:23","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1225"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:33:23","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:23","slug":"29-the-nature-of-the-supermind-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\/29-the-nature-of-the-supermind-vol-21-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-21","title":{"rendered":"-29_The Nature of the Supermind.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


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


\n <\/font>The Nature of
\nthe Supermind<\/span><\/font><\/b> <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

T<\/font><\/b>HE<\/font>
\nobject of Yoga is to raise the human being from the consciousness of the
\nordinary mind subject to the control of vital and material Nature and limited
\nwholly by birth and death and Time and the needs and desires of the mind, life
\nand body to the consciousness of the spirit free in its self and using the
\ncircumstances of mind, life and body as admitted or self-chosen and
\nself-figuring determinations of the spirit, using them in a free self-knowledge,
\na free will and power of being, a free delight of being. This is the essential
\ndifference between the ordinary mortal mind in which we live and the spiritual
\nconsciousness of our divine and immortal being which is the highest result of
\nYoga. It is a radical conversion as great as and greater than the change which
\nwe suppose evolutionary Nature to have made in its transition from the vital
\nanimal to the fully mentalised<\/span> human consciousness.
\nThe animal has the conscious vital mind, but whatever beginnings there are in it
\nof anything higher are only a primary glimpse, a crude hint of the intelligence
\nwhich in man becomes the splendour of the mental understanding, will, emotion,
\naesthesis and reason. Man elevated in the heights and deepened by the
\nintensities of the mind becomes aware of something great and divine in himself
\ntowards which all this tends, something he is in possibility but which he has
\nnot yet become, and he turns the powers of his mind, his power of knowledge, his
\npower of will, his power of emotion and aesthesis to seek out this, to seize and
\ncomprehend all that it may be, to become it and to exist wholly in its greater
\nconsciousness, delight, being and power of highest becoming. But what he gets of
\nthis higher state in his normal mind is only an intimation, a primary glimpse, a
\ncrude hint of the splendour, the light, the glory and divinity of the spirit
\nwithin him. A complete conversion of all the parts of his being into moulds and
\ninstruments of the spiritual
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 754<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

\nconsciousness is demanded of him before he can make quite real, constant,
\npresent to himself this greater thing that he can be and entirely live in what
\nis now to him at the best a luminous aspiration. He must seek to develop and
\ngrow altogether into a greater divine consciousness by an integral Yoga. <\/p>\n

\nThe Yoga of perfection necessary to this change has, so far as we have been
\nconsidering it, consisted in a preparatory purification of the mental, vital and
\nphysical nature, a liberation from the knots of the lower Prakriti, a consequent
\nreplacement of the egoistic state always subject to the ignorant and troubled
\naction of the desire soul by a large and luminous static equality which quiets
\nthe reason, the emotional mind, the life mind and the physical nature and brings
\ninto us the peace and freedom of the spirit, and a dynamical substitution of the
\naction of the supreme and universal divine Shakti under the control of the
\nIshwara for that of the lower Prakriti, \u2013 an action whose complete operation
\nmust be preceded by the perfection of the natural instruments. And all these
\nthings together, though not as yet the whole Yoga, constitute already a much
\ngreater than the present normal consciousness, spiritual in its basis and moved
\nby a greater light, power and bliss, and it might be easy to rest satisfied with
\nso much accomplished and think that all has been done that was needed for the
\ndivine conversion. <\/p>\n

\nA momentous question however arises as light grows, the question through what
\nmedium is the divine Shakti to act in the human being? Is it to be always
\nthrough the mind only and on the mind plane or in some greater supramental
\nformulation which is more proper to a divine action and which will take up and
\nreplace the mental functions? If the mind is to be always the instrument, then
\nalthough we shall be conscious of a diviner Power initiating and conducting all
\nour inner and outer human action, yet it will have to formulate its knowledge,
\nwill, Ananda and all things else in the mental figure, and that means to
\ntranslate them into an inferior kind of functioning other than the supreme
\nworkings native to the divine consciousness and its Shakti. The mind
\nspiritualised, purified, liberated, perfected within its own limits may come as
\nnear as possible to a faithful mental translation, but we shall find that this
\nis after all a relative fidelity and an
\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 755<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

\nimperfect perfection. The mind by its very nature cannot render with an entirely
\nright rightness or act in the unified completeness of the divine knowledge, will
\nand Ananda because it is an instrument for dealing with the divisions of the
\nfinite on the basis of division, a secondary instrument therefore and a sort of
\ndelegate for the lower movement in which we live. The mind can reflect the
\nInfinite, it can dissolve itself into it, it can live in it by a large
\npassivity, it can take its suggestions and act them out in its own way, a way
\nalways fragmentary, derivative and subject to a greater or less deformation, but
\nit cannot be itself the direct and perfect instrument of the infinite Spirit
\nacting in its own knowledge. The divine Will and Wisdom organising the action of
\nthe infinite consciousness and determining all things according to the truth of
\nthe spirit and the law of its manifestation is not mental but supramental and
\neven in its formulation nearest to mind as much above the mental consciousness
\nin its light and power as the mental consciousness of man above the vital mind
\nof the lower creation. The question is how far the perfected human being can
\nraise himself above mind, enter into some kind of fusing union with the
\nsupramental and build up in himself a level of supermind, a developed gnosis by
\nthe form and power of which the divine Shakti can directly act, not through a
\nmental translation, but organically in her supramental nature.
\n<\/ins><\/span><\/p>\n

It is here necessary in a matter so
\nremote from the ordinary lines of our thought and experience to state first what
\nis the universal gnosis or divine supermind, how it is represented in the actual
\nmovement of the universe and what are its relations to the present psychology of
\nthe human being. It will then be evident that though the supermind is
\nsuprarational to our intelligence and its workings occult to our apprehension,
\nit is nothing irrationally mystic, but rather its existence and emergence is a
\nlogical necessity of the nature of existence, always provided we grant that not
\nmatter or mind alone but spirit is the fundamental reality and everywhere a
\nuniversal presence. All things are a manifestation of the infinite spirit out of
\nits own being, out of its own consciousness and by the self-realising,
\nself-determining, self-fulfilling power of that consciousness. The Infinite, we
\nmay say, organises<\/span> by the power of its self-knowledge
\nthe law of its
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 756<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

own
\nmanifestation of being in the universe, not only the material universe present
\nto our senses, but whatever lies behind it on whatever planes of existence. All
\nis organised by it not under any inconscient compulsion, not according to a
\nmental fantasy or caprice, but in its own infinite spiritual freedom according
\nto the self-truth of its being, its infinite potentialities and its will of
\nself-creation out of those potentialities, and the law of this self-truth is the
\nnecessity that compels created things to act and evolve each according to its
\nown nature. The Intelligence \u2013 to give it an inadequate name \u2013 the Logos that
\nthus organises<\/span>
\nits own manifestation is evidently something infinitely greater, more extended
\nin knowledge, compelling in self-power, large both in the delight of its
\nself-existence and the delight of its active being and works than the mental
\nintelligence which is to us the highest realised degree and expression of
\nconsciousness. It is to this intelligence infinite in itself but freely
\norganising and self-determiningly<\/span> organic in its
\nself-creation and its works that we may give for our present purpose the name of
\nthe divine supermind or gnosis. <\/p>\n

\nThe fundamental nature of this supermind is that all its knowledge is originally
\na knowledge by identity and oneness and even when it makes numberless apparent
\ndivisions and discriminating modifications in itself, still all the knowledge
\nthat operates in its workings, even in these divisions, is founded upon and
\nsustained and lit and guided by this perfect knowledge by identity and oneness.
\nThe Spirit is one everywhere and it knows all things as itself and in itself, so
\nsees them always and therefore knows them intimately, completely, in their
\nreality as well as their appearance, in their truth, their law, the entire
\nspirit and sense and figure of their nature and their workings. When it sees
\nanything as an object of knowledge, it yet sees it as itself and in itself, and
\nnot as a thing other than or divided from it about which therefore it would at
\nfirst be ignorant of the nature, constitution and workings and have to learn
\nabout them, as the mind is at first ignorant of its object and has to learn
\nabout it because the mind is separated from its object and regards and senses
\nand meets it as something other than itself and external to its own being. The
\nmental awareness we have of our own subjective existence
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 757<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

and
\nits movements, though it may point to, is not the same thing as this identity
\nand self-knowledge, because what it sees are mental figures of our being and not
\nthe inmost or the whole and it is only a partial, derivative and superficial
\naction of our self that appears to us while the largest and most secretly
\ndetermining parts of our own existence are occult to our mentality. The
\nsupramental Spirit has, unlike the mental being, the real because the inmost and
\ntotal knowledge of itself and of all its universe and of all things that are its
\ncreations and self-figurings<\/span> in the universe. <\/p>\n

\nThis is the second character of the supreme Supermind that its knowledge is a
\nreal because a total knowledge. It has in the first place a transcendental
\nvision and sees the universe not only in the universal terms, but in its right
\nrelation to the supreme and eternal reality from which it proceeds and of which
\nit is an expression. It knows the spirit and truth and whole sense of the
\nuniversal expression because it knows all the essentiality and all the infinite
\nreality and all the consequent constant potentiality of that which in part it
\nexpresses. It knows rightly the relative because it knows the Absolute and all
\nits absolutes to which the relatives refer back and of which they are the
\npartial or modified or suppressed figures. It is in the second place universal
\nand sees all that is individual in the terms of the universal as well as in its
\nown individual terms and holds all these individual figures in their right and
\ncomplete relation to the universe. It is in the third place, separately with
\nregard to individual things, total in its view because it knows each in its
\ninmost essence of which all else is the resultant, in its totality which is its
\ncomplete figure and in its parts and their connections and dependences, \u2013 as
\nwell as in its connections with and its dependences upon other things and its
\nnexus with the total implications and the explicits<\/span> of
\nthe universe.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe mind on the contrary is limited and incapable in all these directions. Mind
\ncannot arrive at identity with the Absolute even when by a stretch of the
\nintellect it conceives the idea, but can only disappear into it in a swoon or
\nextinction: it can only have a kind of sense or an intimation of certain
\nabsolutes which it puts by the mental idea into a relative figure. It cannot
\ngrasp
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 758<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

the
\nuniversal, but only arrives at some idea of it through an extension of the
\nindividual or a combination of apparently separate things and so sees it either
\nas a vague infinite or indeterminate or a half-determined largeness or else only
\nin an external scheme or constructed figure. The indivisible being and action of
\nthe universal, which is its real truth, escapes the apprehension of the mind,
\nbecause the mind thinks it out analytically by taking its own divisions for
\nunits and synthetically by combinations of these units, but cannot seize on and
\nthink entirely in the terms, though it may get at the idea and certain secondary
\nresults, of the essential oneness. It cannot, either, know truly and thoroughly
\neven the individual and apparently separate thing, because it proceeds in the
\nsame way, by an analysis of parts and constituents and properties and a
\ncombination by which it erects a scheme of it which is only its external figure.
\nIt can get an intimation of the essential inmost truth of its object, but cannot
\nlive constantly and luminously in that essential knowledge and work out on the
\nrest from within outward so that the outward circumstances appear in their
\nintimate reality and meaning as inevitable result and expression and form and
\naction of the spiritual something which is the reality of the object. And all
\nthis which is impossible for the mind to do, but possible only to strive towards
\nand figure, is inherent and natural to the supramental knowledge. <\/p>\n

\nThe third characteristic of the supermind arising from this difference, which
\nbrings us to the practical distinction between the two kinds of knowledge, is
\nthat it is directly truth-conscious, a divine power of immediate, inherent and
\nspontaneous knowledge, an Idea holding luminously all realities and not
\ndepending on indications and logical or other steps from the known to the
\nunknown like the mind which is a power of the Ignorance. The supermind contains
\nall its knowledge in itself, is in its highest divine wisdom in eternal
\npossession of all truth and even in its lower, limited or
\nindividualised<\/span>
\nforms has only to bring the latent truth out of itself, \u2013 the perception which
\nthe old thinkers tried to express when they said that all knowing was in its
\nreal origin and nature only a memory of inwardly existing knowledge. The
\nsupermind is eternally and on all levels truth-conscious and exists secretly
\neven in mental and material being, surveys and knows
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 759<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

the
\nthings, even obscurest, of the mental ignorance and understands and is behind
\nand governs its processes, because everything in the mind derives from the
\nsupermind \u2013 and must do so because everything derives from the spirit. All that
\nis mental is but a partial, a modified, a suppressed or half-suppressed figure
\nof the supramental truth, a deformation or a derived and imperfect figure of its
\ngreater knowledge. The mind begins with ignorance and proceeds towards
\nknowledge. As an actual fact, in the material universe, it appears out of an
\ninitial and universal inconscience which is really an involution of the all-conscient<\/span> spirit in its own absorbed self-oblivious force of
\naction; and it appears therefore as part of an evolutionary process, first a
\nvital feeling towards overt sensation, then an emergence of a vital mind capable
\nof sensation and, evolving out of it, a mind of emotion and desire, a conscious
\nwill, a growing intelligence. And each stage is an emergence of a greater
\nsuppressed power of the secret supermind and spirit. <\/p>\n

\nThe mind of man, capable of reflection and a coordinated investigation and
\nunderstanding of itself and its basis and surroundings, arrives at truth but
\nagainst a background of original ignorance, a truth distressed by a constant
\nsurrounding mist of incertitude and error. Its certitudes are relative and for
\nthe most part precarious certainties or else are the assured fragmentary
\ncertitudes only of an imperfect, incomplete and not an essential experience. It
\nmakes discovery after discovery, gets idea after idea, adds experience to
\nexperience and experiment to experiment, \u2013 but losing and rejecting and
\nforgetting and having to recover much as it proceeds, \u2013 and it tries to
\nestablish a relation between all that it knows by setting up logical and other
\nsequences, a series of principles and their dependences, generalisations and
\ntheir application, and makes out of its devices a structure in which mentally it
\ncan live, move and act and enjoy and labour. This mental knowledge is always
\nlimited in extent: not only so, but in addition the mind even sets up other
\nwilled barriers, admitting by the mental device of opinion certain parts and
\nsides of truth and excluding all the rest, because if it gave free admission and
\nplay to all ideas, if it suffered truth’s infinities, it would lose itself in an
\nunreconciled<\/span>
\nvariety, an undetermined
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 760<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

\nimmensity and would be unable to act and proceed to practical consequences and
\nan effective creation. And even when it is widest and most complete, mental
\nknowing is still an indirect knowledge, a knowledge not of the thing in itself
\nbut of its figures, a system of representations, a scheme of indices, \u2013 except
\nindeed when in certain movements it goes beyond itself, beyond the mental idea
\nto spiritual identity, but it finds it extremely difficult to go here beyond a
\nfew isolated and intense spiritual realisations or to draw or work out or
\norganise<\/span>
\nthe right practical consequences of these rare identities of knowledge. A
\ngreater power than the reason is needed for the spiritual comprehension and
\neffectuation of this deepest knowledge. <\/p>\n

\nThis is what the supermind, intimate with the Infinite, alone can do. The
\nsupermind sees directly the spirit and essence, the face and body, the result
\nand action, the principles and dependences of the truth as one indivisible whole
\nand therefore can work out the circumstantial results in the power of the
\nessential knowledge, the variations of the spirit in the light of its
\nidentities, its apparent divisions in the truth of its oneness. The supermind is
\na knower and creator of its own truth, the mind of man only a knower and creator
\nin the half light and half darkness of a mingled truth and error, and creator
\ntoo of a thing which it derives altered, translated, lessened from something
\ngreater than and beyond it. Man lives in a mental consciousness between a vast
\nsubconscient<\/span>
\nwhich is to his seeing a dark inconscience and a vaster superconscient which he
\nis apt to take for another but a luminous inconscience, because his idea of
\nconsciousness is confined to his own middle term of mental sensation and
\nintelligence. It is in that luminous superconscience<\/span>
\nthat there lie the ranges of the supermind and the spirit. <\/p>\n

\nThe supermind is again, because it acts and creates as well as knows, not only a
\ndirect truth-consciousness, but an illumined, direct and spontaneous truth-will.
\nThere is not and cannot be in the will of the self-knowing spirit any
\ncontradiction, division or difference between its will and its knowledge. The
\nspiritual will is the Tapas or enlightened force of the conscious being of the
\nspirit effecting infallibly what is there within it, and it is this infallible
\noperation of things acting according to their own
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 761<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

\nnature, of energy producing result and event according to the force within it,
\nof action bearing the fruit and event involved in its own character and
\nintention which we call variously in its different aspects law of Nature, Karma,
\nNecessity and Fate. These things are to mind the workings of a power outside or
\nabove it in which it is involved and intervenes only with a contributory
\npersonal effort which partly arrives and succeeds, partly fails and stumbles and
\nwhich even in succeeding is largely overruled for issues different from or at
\nany rate greater and more far-reaching than its own intention. The will of man
\nworks in the ignorance by a partial light or more often
\nflickerings<\/span> of light which mislead as much as they illuminate. His mind
\nis an ignorance striving to erect standards of knowledge, his will an ignorance
\nstriving to erect standards of right, and his whole mentality as a result very
\nmuch a house divided against itself, idea in conflict with idea, the will often
\nin conflict with the ideal of right or the intellectual knowledge. The will
\nitself takes different shapes, the will of the intelligence, the wishes of the
\nemotional mind, the desires and the passion of the vital being, the impulsions
\nand blind or half-blind compulsions of the nervous and the
\nsubconscient<\/span> nature, and all these make by no means a harmony, but at
\nbest a precarious concord among discords. The will of the mind and life is a
\nstumbling about in search of right force, right Tapas which can wholly be
\nattained in its true and complete light and direction only by oneness with the
\nspiritual and supramental being. <\/p>\n

\nThe supramental nature on the contrary is just, harmonious and one, will and
\nknowledge there only light of the spirit and power of the spirit, the power
\neffecting the light, the light illumining the power. In the highest
\nsupramentality<\/span>
\nthey are intimately fused together and do not even wait upon each other but are
\none movement, will illumining itself, knowledge fulfilling itself, both together
\na single jet of the being. The mind knows only the present and lives in an
\nisolated movement of it though it tries to remember and retain the past and
\nforecast and compel the future. The supermind has the vision of the three times,
\ntrikāladŗşţi<\/i><\/span>; it sees them as an indivisible movement and sees too
\neach containing the others. It is aware of all tendencies,
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 762<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

\nenergies and forces as the diverse play of unity and knows their relation to
\neach other in the single movement of the one spirit. The supramental will and
\naction are therefore a will and action of the spontaneous self-fulfilling truth
\nof the spirit, the right and at the highest the infallible movement of a direct
\nand total knowledge. <\/p>\n

\nThe supreme and universal Supermind is the active Light and Tapas of the supreme
\nand universal Self as the Lord and Creator, that which we come to know in Yoga
\nas the divine Wisdom and Power, the eternal knowledge and will of the Ishwara.
\nOn the highest planes of Being where all is known and all manifests as
\nexistences of the one existence, consciousnesses of the one consciousness,
\ndelight’s self-creations of the one Ananda, many truths and powers of the one
\nTruth, there is the intact and integral display of its spiritual and supramental
\nknowledge. And in the corresponding planes of our own being the Jiva shares in
\nthe spiritual and supramental nature and lives in its light and power and bliss.
\nAs we descend nearer to what we are in this world, the presence and action of
\nthis self-knowledge narrows but retains always the essence and character when
\nnot the fullness of the supramental nature and its way of knowing and willing
\nand acting, because it still lives in the essence and body of the spirit. The
\nmind, when we trace the descent of the self towards matter, we see as a
\nderivation which travels away from the fullness of self, the fullness of its
\nlight and being and which lives in a division and diversion, not in the body of
\nthe sun, but first in its nearer and then in its far-off rays. There is a
\nhighest intuitive mind which receives more nearly the supramental truth, but
\neven this is a formation which conceals the direct and greater real knowledge.
\nThere is an intellectual mind which is a luminous half-opaque lid which
\nintercepts and reflects in a radiantly distorting and
\nsuppressively<\/span>
\nmodifying atmosphere the truth known to the supermind. There is a still lower
\nmind built on the foundation of the senses between which and the sun of
\nknowledge there is a thick cloud, an emotional and a sensational mist and vapour<\/span> with here and there lightnings<\/span>
\nand illuminations. There is a vital mind which is shut away even from the light
\nof intellectual truth, and lower still in submental<\/span>
\nlife and matter the spirit involves
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 763<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

itself
\nentirely as if in a sleep and a night, a sleep plunged in a dim and yet poignant
\nnervous dream, the night of a mechanical somnambulist energy. It is a
\nre-evolution of the spirit out of this lowest state in which we find ourselves
\nat a height above the lower creation having taken it up all in us and reaching
\nso far in our ascent only the light of the well-developed mental reason. The
\nfull powers of self-knowledge and the illumined will of the spirit are still
\nbeyond us above the mind and reason in supramental Nature. <\/p>\n

\nIf the spirit is everywhere, even in matter \u2013 in fact matter itself is only an
\nobscure form of the spirit \u2013 and if the supermind is the universal power of the
\nspirit’s omnipresent self-knowledge organising all the manifestation of the
\nbeing, then in matter and everywhere there must be present a supramental action
\nand, however concealed it may be by another, lower and obscurer kind of
\noperation, yet when we look close we shall find that it is really the supermind
\nwhich organizes matter, life, mind and reason. And this actually is the
\nknowledge towards which we are now moving. There is even a quite visible
\nintimate action of the consciousness, persistent in life, matter and mind, which
\nis clearly a supramental action subdued to the character and need of the lower
\nmedium and to which we now give the name of intuition from its most evident
\ncharacteristics of direct vision and self-acting knowledge, really a vision born
\nof some secret identity with the object of the knowledge. What we call the
\nintuition is however only a partial indication of the presence of the supermind,
\nand if we take this presence and power in its widest character, we shall see
\nthat it is a concealed supramental force with a self-conscient<\/span>
\nknowledge in it which informs the whole action of material energy. It is that
\nwhich determines what we call law of nature, maintains the action of each thing
\naccording to its own nature and harmonises<\/span> and evolves
\nthe whole, which would otherwise be a fortuitous creation apt at any moment to
\ncollapse into chaos. All the law of nature is a thing precise in its necessities
\nof process, but is yet in the cause of that necessity and of its constancy of
\nrule, measure, combination, adaptation, result a thing inexplicable, meeting us
\nat every step with a mystery and a miracle, and this must be either because it
\nis irrational
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 764<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

and
\naccidental even in its regularities or because it is suprarational, because the
\ntruth of it belongs to a principle greater than that of our intelligence. That
\nprinciple is the supramental; that is to say, the hidden secret of Nature is the
\norganisation of something out of the infinite potentialities of the
\nself-existent truth of the spirit the nature of which is wholly evident only to
\nan original knowledge born of and proceeding by a fundamental identity, the
\nspirit’s constant self-perception. All the action of life too is of this
\ncharacter and all the action of mind and reason, \u2013 reason which is the first to
\nperceive everywhere the action of a greater reason and law of being and try to
\nrender it by its own conceptional<\/span>
\nstructures, though it does not always perceive that it is something other than a
\nmental Intelligence which is at work, other than an intellectual Logos. All
\nthese processes are actually spiritual and supramental in their secret
\ngovernment, but mental, vital and physical in their overt process. <\/p>\n

\nThe outward matter, life, mind do not possess this occult action of the
\nsupermind, even while possessed and compelled by the necessity it imposes on
\ntheir workings. There is what we are sometimes moved to call an intelligence and
\nwill operating in the material force and the atom (although the words ring false
\nbecause it is not actually the same thing as our own will and intelligence), \u2013
\nlet us say, a covert intuition of self-existence at work, \u2013 but the atom and
\nforce are not aware of it and are only the obscure body of matter and of power
\ncreated by its first effort of self-manifestation. The presence of such an
\nintuition becomes more evident to us in all the action of life because that is
\nnearer to our own scale. And as life develops overt sense and mind, as in the
\nanimal creation, we can speak more confidently of a vital intuition which is
\nbehind its operations and which emerges in the animal mind in the clear form of
\ninstinct, \u2013 instinct, an automatic knowledge implanted in the animal, sure,
\ndirect, self-existent, self-guided, which implies somewhere in its being an
\naccurate knowing of purpose, relation and the thing or object. It acts in the
\nlife force and mind, but yet the surface life and mind do not possess it and
\ncannot give an account of what it does or control or extend the power at its
\nwill and pleasure. Here we observe two things, first, that the overt intuition
\nacts only for
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 765<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

a
\nlimited necessity and purpose, and that in the rest of the operations of the
\nnature there is a double action, one uncertain and ignorant of the surface
\nconsciousness and the other subliminal implying a secret
\nsubconscient<\/span> direction. The surface consciousness is full of a groping
\nand seeking which increases rather than diminishes as life rises in its scale
\nand widens in the scope of its conscious powers; but the secret self within
\nassures in spite of the groping of the vital mind the action of the nature and
\nthe result needed for the necessity, the purpose and the destiny of the being.
\nThis continues on a higher and higher scale up to the human reason and
\nintelligence. <\/p>\n

\nThe being of man also is full of physical, vital, emotional, psychical and
\ndynamic instincts and intuitions, but he does not rely on them as the animal
\ndoes, \u2013 though they are capable in him of a far larger scope and greater action
\nthan in the animal and lower creation by reason of his greater actual
\nevolutionary development and his yet greater potentiality of development of the
\nbeing. He has suppressed them, discontinued their full and overt action by
\natrophy, \u2013 not that these capacities are destroyed but rather held back or cast
\nback into the subliminal consciousness, \u2013 and consequently this lower part of
\nhis being is much less sure of itself, much less confident of the directions of
\nhis nature, much more groping, errant and fallible in its larger scope than that
\nof the animal in his lesser limits. This happens because man’s real dharma and
\nlaw of being is to seek for a greater self-aware existence, a self-manifestation
\nno longer obscure and governed by an ununderstood<\/span>
\nnecessity, but illumined, conscious of that which is expressing itself and able
\nto give it a fuller and more perfect expression. And finally his culmination
\nmust be to identify himself with his greatest and real self and act or rather
\nlet it act (his natural existence being an instrumental form of the expression
\nof the spirit) in its spontaneous perfect will and knowledge. His first
\ninstrument for this transition is the reason and the will of the rational
\nintelligence and he is moved to depend upon that to the extent of its
\ndevelopment for his knowledge and guidance and give it the control of the rest
\nof his being. And if the reason were the highest thing and the greatest
\nall-sufficient means of the self and spirit, he could by it know perfectly and
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 766<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

guide
\nperfectly all the movements of his nature. This he cannot do entirely because
\nhis self is a larger thing than his reason and if he limits himself by the
\nrational will and intelligence, he imposes an arbitrary restriction both in
\nextent and in kind on his self-development, self-expression, knowledge, action,
\nAnanda. The other parts of his being demand too a complete expression in the
\nlargeness and perfection of the self and cannot have it if their expression is
\nchanged in kind and carved, cut down and arbitrarily shaped and
\nmechanised<\/span> in action by the inflexible machinery of the rational
\nintelligence. The godhead of the reason, the intellectual Logos, is only a
\npartial representative and substitute for the greater supramental Logos, and its
\nfunction is to impose a preliminary partial knowledge and order upon the life of
\nthe creature, but the real, final and integral order can only be founded by the
\nspiritual supermind in its emergence.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe supermind in the lower nature is present most strongly as intuition and it
\nis therefore by a development of an intuitive mind that we can make the first
\nstep towards the self-existent spontaneous and direct supramental knowledge. All
\nthe physical, vital, emotional, psychic, dynamic nature of man is a surface
\nseizing of suggestions which rise out of a subliminal intuitive self-being of
\nthese parts, and an attempt usually groping and often circuitous to work them
\nout in the action of a superficial embodiment and power of the nature which is
\nnot overtly enlightened by the inner power and knowledge. An increasingly
\nintuitive mind has the best chance of discovering what they are seeking for and
\nleading them to the desired perfection of their self-expression. The reason
\nitself is only a special kind of application, made by a surface regulating
\nintelligence, of suggestions which actually come from a concealed, but sometimes
\npartially overt and active power of the intuitive spirit. In all its action
\nthere is at the covered or half-covered point of origination something which is
\nnot the creation of the reason, but given to it either directly by the intuition
\nor indirectly through some other part of the mind for it to shape into
\nintellectual form and process. The rational judgment in its decisions and the
\nmechanical process of the logical intelligence, whether in its more summary or
\nin its more developed operations, conceals while it develops the true
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 767<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

origin
\nand native substance of our will and thinking. The greatest minds are those in
\nwhich this veil wears thin and there is the largest part of intuitive thinking,
\nwhich often no doubt but not always brings with it a great accompanying display
\nof intellectual action. The intuitive intelligence is however never quite pure
\nand complete in the present mind of man, because it works in the medium of mind
\nand is at once seized on and coated over with a mixed stuff of mentality. It is
\nas yet not brought out, not developed and perfected so as to be sufficient for
\nall the operations now performed by the other mental instruments, not trained to
\ntake them up and change them into or replace them by its own fullest, most
\ndirect, assured and sufficient workings. This can indeed only be done if we make
\nthe intuitive mind a transitional means for bringing out the secret supermind
\nitself of which it is a mental figure and forming in our frontal consciousness a
\nbody and instrument of supermind which will make it possible for the self and
\nspirit to display itself in its own largeness and splendour. <\/p>\n

\nIt must be remembered that there is always a difference between the supreme
\nSupermind of the omniscient and omnipotent Ishwara and that which can be
\nattained by the Jiva. The human being is climbing out of the ignorance and when
\nhe ascends into the supramental nature, he will find in it grades of its
\nascension, and he must first form the lower grades and limited steps before he
\nrises to higher summits. He will enjoy there the full essential light, power,
\nAnanda of the infinite self by oneness with the Spirit, but in the dynamical
\nexpression it must determine and individualise<\/span> itself
\naccording to the nature of the self-expression which the transcendent and
\nuniversal Spirit seeks in the Jiva. It is God-realisation and God-expression
\nwhich is the object of our Yoga and more especially of its dynamic side, it is a
\ndivine self-expression in us of the Ishwara, but under the conditions of
\nhumanity and through the divinised<\/span> human nature. <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 768<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter XIX   The Nature of the Supermind    THE object of Yoga is to raise the human being from the consciousness of the ordinary mind…<\/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-1225","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\/1225","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=1225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1225\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}