{"id":1242,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:30","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1242"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:33:30","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:30","slug":"06-the-evolutionary-process-ascent-and-integration-vol-19-the-life-divine-volume-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/19-the-life-divine-volume-19\/06-the-evolutionary-process-ascent-and-integration-vol-19-the-life-divine-volume-19","title":{"rendered":"-06_The Evolutionary Process\u00e2\u20ac\u201d Ascent and Integration.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\nC<\/font>HAPTER<\/font>
\nXVIII<\/p>\n

<\/font>
\n<\/b>\n<\/p>\n


\nThe Evolutionary Process— Ascent and Integration<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As
\nhe mounts from peak to peak… Indra makes him conscious<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t of that goal of his movement.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRig Veda.<\/font><\/i>\u00b9<\/font><\/i>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

A son of the two Mothers, he attains to kingship in his discoveries<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\tof knowledge, he moves on the summit, he dwells in
\nhis high <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\tfoundation.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\tRig Veda.<\/font><\/i>\u00b2 <\/i><\/font>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

I have arisen from earth to the mid-world, I have arisen from <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\tthe mid-world to heaven, from the level of the firmament
\nof <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\theaven I have gone to the Sun-world, the Light.<\/font>\u00b3<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\tYajur Veda.<\/font>4
\n<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\t <\/p>\n

            <\/font>I<\/font><\/b>T IS<\/font> <\/font>now
\npossible and necessary, since we have formed a sufficiently clear idea
\nof the significance of the evolutionary
\nmanifestation in earth-nature and the final turn it is taking or
\ndestined to take, to direct a more understanding regard on the
\nprinciples of the process by which it has arrived at its present level
\nand by which, presumably, with whatever modifications,
\nits final development, its passage from our still dominant mental
\nignorance to a supramental consciousness and an integral
\nknowledge, will be governed and made effective. For we find that cosmic
\nNature is constant in its general law of action,
\nsince that depends on a Truth of things which is invariable in
\nprinciple although in detail of application abundantly variable.
\nAt the outset, we can easily see that, since this is an evolution out
\nof a material Inconscience into spiritual consciousness, an evolutionary
\nself-building of Spirit on a base of Matter, there must be in the process a
\ndevelopment of a triple character. An evolution of forms of Matter more and more
\nsubtly and intricately organised so as to admit the action of a growing, a more
\nand more complex and subtle and capable organisation of consciousness is\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

           \u00b9<\/font>
\nI. 10. 2.  <\/font>\u00b2<\/font>
\nIII. 55. 7.  <\/font> \u00b3<\/font><\/font>
\nThe four planes of Matter, Life, pure Mind and Supermind.    
\n<\/font>4 <\/font>17. 67.<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-702<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

the indispensable physical foundation. An upward evolutionary progress of the consciousness itself from grade to higher
\ngrade, an ascent, is the evident spiral line or emerging curve that, on this foundation, the evolution must describe. A taking
\nup of what has already been evolved into each higher grade as it is reached and a transformation more or less complete so
\nas to admit of a total changed working of the whole being and nature, an integration, must be also part of the process, if the
\nevolution is to be effective.\n<\/p>\n

     The end of this triple
\nprocess must be a radical change of the action of the Ignorance into an
\naction of Knowledge, of
\nour basis of inconscience into a basis of complete consciousness,—a
\ncompleteness which exists at present only in what is to
\nus the superconscience. Each ascent will bring with it a partial change
\nand modification of the old nature taken up and
\nsubjected to a new fundamental principle; the inconscience will be
\nturned into a partial consciousness, an ignorance seeking
\nfor more and more knowledge and mastery: but at some point there must
\nbe an ascent which substitutes the principle of
\nknowledge, of a fundamental true consciousness, the consciousness of
\nthe Spirit, for the inconscience and ignorance. An
\nevolution in the Inconscience is the beginning, an evolution in the
\nIgnorance is the middle, but the end is the liberation of the
\nspirit into its true consciousness and an evolution in the Knowledge.
\nThis is actually what we find to be the law and method
\nof the process which has hitherto been followed and by all signs is
\nlikely to be followed in her future working by evolutionary
\nNature. A first involutionary foundation in which originates all that
\nhas to evolve, an emergence and action of the involved
\npowers in or upon that foundation in an ascending series, and a
\nculminating emergence of the highest power of all as the
\nagent of a supreme manifestation are the necessary stages of the
\njourney of evolutionary Nature.\n<\/p>\n

     An evolutionary process
\nmust be by the very terms of the problem to be solved a development, in
\nsome first established
\nbasic principle of being or substance, of something that that basic
\nprinciple holds involved in itself or else admits from outside
\nitself and modifies by the admission; for it must necessarily\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-703<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

modify by its own law of nature all that enters into
\nit and is not already part of its own nature. This must be so even if
\nit is a
\ncreative evolution in the sense of manifesting always new powers of
\nexistence that are not native to the first foundation but
\nintroduced into it, accepted into an original substance. If, on the
\ncontrary, there is already there in involution,—present in the
\nfirst foundation, but not yet manifested or not yet organised,—the new
\nprinciple or power of existence that has to be
\nevolved, then, when it appears, it will still have to accept
\nmodification by the nature and law of the basic substance: but also
\nit will modify that substance by its own power, its own law of nature.
\nIf, further, it is aided by a descent of its own principle
\nalready established in its own full force above the field of evolution
\nand pressing down into that field to possess it, then the
\nnew power may even establish itself as a dominant element and
\nconsiderably or radically change the consciousness and
\naction of the world in which it emerges or into which it enters. But
\nits force to modify or change or to revolutionise the law
\nand working of the original substance chosen as the evolutionary matrix
\nwill depend upon its own essential potency. It is not
\nlikely that it will be able to bring about an entire transformation if
\nit is not itself the original Principle of Existence, if it is only
\nderivative, an instrumental power and not the first puissance.<\/p>\n

     
\nHere the evolution takes place in a material universe; the foundation,
\nthe original substance, the first established
\nall-conditioning status of things is Matter. Mind and Life are evolved
\nin Matter, but they are limited and modified in their
\naction by the obligation to use its substance for their instrumentation
\nand by their subjection to the law of material Nature
\neven while they modify what they undergo and use. For they do transform
\nits substance, first into living substance and then
\ninto conscious substance; they succeed in changing its inertia,
\nimmobility and inconscience into a movement of
\nconsciousness, feeling and life. But they do not succeed in
\ntransforming it altogether; they cannot make it altogether alive or
\naltogether conscious: life-nature evolving is bound to death; mind
\nevolving is materialised as well as vitalised; it finds itself
\nrooted in inconscience, limited by ignorance; it is moved by
\nuncontrolled<\/p>\n

\nPage-704<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

life-forces which drive and use it, it is mechanised
\nby the physical forces on which it has to depend for its own
\nself-expression. This is a sign that neither Mind nor Life is the
\noriginal creative Power; they, like Matter, are intermediaries,
\nsuccessive and seried instruments of the evolutionary process. If a
\nmaterial energy is not that original Power, then we must
\nseek for it in something above Mind or Life; there must be a deeper
\noccult Reality which has yet to disclose itself in Nature.<\/p>\n

     
\nAn original creative or evolutionary Power there must be: but, although Matter is the first substance, the original and
\nultimate Power is not an inconscient material Energy; for then life and consciousness would be absent, since Inconscience
\ncannot evolve consciousness nor an inanimate Force evolve life. There must be, therefore, since Mind and Life also are not
\nthat, a secret Consciousness greater than Life-Consciousness or Mind-Consciousness, an Energy more essential than the
\nmaterial Energy. Since it is greater than Mind, it must be a supramental Consciousness-Force; since it is a power of
\nessential substance other than Matter, it must be the power of that which is the supreme essence and substance of all
\nthings, a power of the Spirit. There is a creative energy of Mind and a creative Life-Force, but they are instrumental and
\npartial, not original and decisive: Mind and Life do indeed modify the material substance they inhabit and its energies and are
\nnot merely determined by them, but the extent and way of this material modification and determination are fixed by the
\ninhabitant and all-containing Spirit through a secret indwelling light and force of Supermind, an occult gnosis,—an invisible
\nself-knowledge and all-knowledge. If there is to be an entire transformation, it can only be by the full emergence of the law
\nof the Spirit; its power of Supermind or gnosis must have entered into Matter and it must evolve in Matter. It must change
\nthe mental into the supramental being, make the inconscient in us conscious, spiritualise our material substance, erect its law
\nof gnostic consciousness in our whole evolutionary being and nature. This must be the culminating emergence or, at least,
\nthat stage in the emergence which first decisively changes the nature of the evolution by transforming its action of
\nIgnorance and its basis of Inconscience.\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-705<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

     This movement of evolution,
\nof a progressive self-manifestation of the Spirit in a material
\nuniverse, has to make its
\naccount at every step with the fact of the involution of consciousness
\nand force in the form and activity of material
\nsubstance. For it proceeds by an awakening of the involved
\nconsciousness and force and its ascent from principle to
\nprinciple, from grade to grade, from power to power of the secret
\nSpirit, but this is not a free transference to a higher status.
\nThe law of action, the force of action of each grade or power in its
\nemergence is determined, not by its own free, full and
\npure law of nature or vim of energy, but partly by the material
\norganisation provided for it and partly by its own status,
\nachieved degree, accomplished fact of consciousness which it has been
\nable to impose upon Matter. Its effectivity is in
\nsome sort made up of a balance between the actual extent of this
\nevolutionary emergence and the countervailing extent to
\nwhich the emergent power is still enveloped, penetrated, diminished by
\nthe domination and continuing grip of the
\nInconscience. Mind as we see it is not mind pure and free, but mind
\nclouded and diminished by an enveloping nescience,
\nmind labouring and struggling to deliver knowledge out of that
\nnescience. All depends upon the more or less involved or
\nmore or less evolved condition of consciousness,—quite involved in
\ninconscient matter, hesitating on the verge between
\ninvolution and conscious evolution in the first or non-animal forms of
\nlife in matter, consciously evolving but greatly limited
\nand hampered in mind housed in a living body, destined to be fully
\nevolved by the awakening of the Supermind in the
\nembodied mental being and nature.\n<\/p>\n

     To each grade in this
\nseries achieved by the evolving Consciousness belongs its appropriate
\nclass of existences,—one
\nby one there appear material forms and forces, vegetable life, animals
\nand half-animal man, developed human beings,
\nimperfectly evolved or more evolved spiritual beings: but because of
\nthe continuity of the evolutionary process there is no
\nrigid separation between them; each new advance or formation takes up
\nwhat was before. The animal takes up into himself
\nliving and inanimate Matter; man takes up both along with the animal
\nexistence. There are furrows left by the transitional
\nprocess or\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-706<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

separating demarcations settled by the fixed habit
\nof Nature: but these distinguish one series from another, serve perhaps
\nto
\nprevent a fall back of what has been evolved, they do not cancel or cut
\nthe continuity of the evolution. The evolving
\nConsciousness passes from one grade to another or from one series of
\nsteps to another either by an imperceptible process
\nor by some bound or crisis or, perhaps, by an intervention from
\nabove,—some descent or ensouling or influence from higher
\nplanes of Nature. But, by whatever means, the Consciousness secretly
\nindwelling in Matter, the occult Inhabitant, is able
\nthus to make its way upward from the lower to the higher gradations,
\ntaking up what it was into what it is and preparing to
\ntake up both into what it will be. Thus, having first laid down a basis
\nof material being, material forms, forces, existences in
\nwhich it seems to be lying inconscient, though in reality, as we know
\nnow, always subconsciently at work, it is able to
\nmanifest life and living beings, to manifest mind and mental beings in
\na material world, and must therefore be able to
\nmanifest there Supermind also and supramental beings. Thus has come
\nabout the present status of the evolution of which
\nman is the now apparent culmination but not the real ultimate summit;
\nfor he is himself a transitional being and stands at the
\nturning-point of the whole movement. Evolution, being thus continuous,
\nmust have at any given moment a past with its
\nfundamental results still in evidence, a present in which the results
\nit is labouring over are in process of becoming, a future in
\nwhich still unevolved powers and forms of being must appear till there
\nis the full and perfect manifestation. The past has
\nbeen the history of a slow and difficult subconscious working with
\neffects on the surface,—it has been an unconscious
\nevolution; the present is a middle stage, an uncertain spiral in which
\nthe human intelligence is used by the secret evolutionary
\nForce of being and participates in its action without being fully taken
\ninto confidence,—it is an evolution slowly becoming
\nconscious of itself; the future must be a more and more conscious
\nevolution of the spiritual being until it is fully delivered into
\na self-aware action by the emergent gnostic principle.\n<\/p>\n

     The first foundation in
\nthis emergence, the creation of forms of Matter, first of inconscient
\nand inanimate, then of living
\nand\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-707 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

thinking Matter, the appearance of more and more
\norganised bodies adapted to express a greater power of consciousness,
\nhas been studied from the physical side, the side of form-building, by
\nScience; but very little light has been shed on the inner
\nside, the side of consciousness, and what little has been observed is
\nrather of its physical basis and instrumentation than of
\nthe progressive operations of Consciousness in its own nature. In the
\nevolution, as it has been observed so far, although a
\ncontinuity is there,—for Life takes up Matter and Mind takes up
\nsubmental Life, the Mind of intelligence takes up the mind
\nof life and sensation,—the leap from one grade of consciousness in the
\nseries to another grade seems to our eyes immense,
\nthe crossing of the gulf whether by bridge or by leap impossible; we
\nfail to discover any concrete and satisfactory evidence
\nof its accomplishment in the past or of the manner in which it was
\naccomplished. Even in the outward evolution, even in the
\ndevelopment of physical forms where the data are clearly in evidence,
\nthere are missing links that remain always missing;
\nbut in the evolution of consciousness the passage is still more
\ndifficult to account for, for it seems more like a transformation
\nthan a passage. It may be, however, that, by our incapacity to
\npenetrate the subconscious, to sound the submental or to understand
\nsufficiently a lower mentality different from ours, we are unable to
\nobserve the minute gradations, not only in each degree of the series,
\nbut on the borders between grade and grade: the scientist who does
\nobserve minutely the physical data, has been driven to believe in the
\ncontinuity of evolution in spite of the gaps and missing links; if we
\ncould observe similarly the inner evolution, we could, no doubt,
\ndiscover the possibility and the mode of these formidable transitions.
\nBut still there is a real, a radical difference between grade and
\ngrade, so much so that the passage from one to another seems a new
\ncreation, a miracle of metamorphosis rather than a natural predictable
\ndevelopment or quiet passing from one state of being to another with
\nits well-marked steps arranged in an easy sequence.<\/p>\n

      These gulfs appear deeper, but
\nless wide, as we rise higher in the scale of Nature. If there are rudiments of
\nlife-reaction in the metal, as has been recently contended, it may be identical <\/p>\n

\nPage-708 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

with life-reaction in the plant in its essence, but
\nwhat might be called the vital-physical difference is so considerable
\nthat one
\nseems to us inanimate, the other, though not apparently conscious,
\nmight be called a living creature. Between the highest
\nplant life and lowest animal the gulf is visibly deeper, for it is the
\ndifference between mind and the entire absence of any
\napparent or even rudimentary movement of mind: in the one this stuff of
\nmental consciousness is unawakened though there
\nis a life of vital reactions, a suppressed or subconscious or perhaps
\nonly submental sense-vibration which seems to be
\nintensely active; in the other, though the life is at first less
\nautomatic and secure in the subconscious way of living and in its
\nown new way of overt consciousness imperfectly determined, still mind
\nis awakened,—there is a conscious life, a profound
\ntransition has been made. But the community of the phenomenon of life
\nbetween plant and animal, however different their
\norganisation, narrows the gulf, even though it does not fill in its
\nprofundity. Between the highest animal and the lowest man
\nthere is a still deeper though narrower gulf to be crossed, the gulf
\nbetween sense-mind and the intellect: for however we
\nmay insist on the primitive nature of the savage, we cannot alter the
\nfact that the most primitive human being has above and
\nbeyond the sense-mind, emotional vitality and primary practical
\nintelligence which we share with the animals, a human
\nintellect and is capable,—in whatever limits,—of reflection, ideas,
\nconscious invention, religious and ethical thought and
\nfeeling, everything fundamental of which man as a race is capable; he
\nhas the same kind of intelligence, it differs only in its
\npast instruction and formative training and the degree of its developed
\ncapacity, intensity and activity. Still, in spite of these
\ndividing furrows, we can no longer suppose that God or some Demiurge
\nhas manufactured each genus and species
\nready-made in body and in consciousness and left the matter there,
\nhaving looked upon his work and seen that it was good.
\nIt has become evident that a secretly conscious or an inconscient
\nEnergy of creation has effected the transition by swift or
\nslow degrees, by whatever means, devices, biological, physical or
\npsychological machinery,—perhaps, having made it, did
\nnot care to preserve as distinct forms what were only\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-709<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

stepping-stones and had no longer any function nor served any purpose in evolutionary Nature. But this explanation of the
\ngaps is little more than a hypothesis which as yet we cannot sufficiently substantiate. It is probable at any rate that the
\nreason for these radical differences is to be found in the working of the inner Force and not in the outer process of the
\nevolutionary transition; if we look at it more deeply from that inner side, the difficulty of understanding ceases and these
\ntransitions become intelligible and indeed inevitable by the very nature of the evolutionary process and its principle.<\/p>\n

     For if we look, not at the
\nscientific or physical aspects, but at the psychological side of the
\nquestion and inquire in what
\nprecisely the difference lies, we shall see that it consists in the
\nrise of consciousness to another principle of being. The metal
\nis fixed in the inconscient and inanimate principle of matter; even if
\nwe can suppose that it has some reactions suggestive of
\nlife in it or at least of rudimentary vibrations that in the plant
\ndeveloped into life, still it is not at all characteristically a form
\nof
\nlife; it is characteristically a form of matter. The plant is fixed in
\na subconscient action of the principle of life,—not that it is
\nnot subject to matter or devoid of reactions that find their full
\nmeaning only in mind, for it seems to have submental reactions
\nthat in us are the foundation of pleasure and pain or of attraction and
\nrepulsion; but still it is a form of life, not of mere
\nmatter, nor is it, so far as we know, at all a mind-conscious being.
\nMan and the animal are both mentally conscious beings:
\nbut the animal is fixed in vital mind and mind-sense and cannot exceed
\nits limitations, while man has received into his
\nsense-mind the light of another principle, the intellect, which is
\nreally at once a reflection and a degradation of the
\nSupermind, a ray of gnosis seized by the sense-mentality and
\ntransformed by it into something other than its source: for it is
\nagnostic like the sense-mind in which and for which it works, not
\ngnostic; it seeks to lay hold on knowledge, because it does
\nnot possess it, it does not like Supermind hold knowledge in itself as
\nits natural prerogative. In other words, in each of these
\nforms of existence the universal being has fixed its action of
\nconsciousness in a different principle or, as between man and
\nanimal, in the modification of a lower by\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-710<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

a higher though still not a highest-grade principle.
\nIt is this stride from one principle of being to another quite
\ndifferent
\nprinciple of being that creates the transitions, the furrows, the sharp
\nlines of distance, and makes, not all the difference, but
\nstill a radical characteristic difference between being and being in
\ntheir nature. <\/p>\n

   
\n But it must be observed that this ascent, this successive fixing
\nin higher and higher principles, does not carry with it the
\nabandonment of the lower grades, any more than a status of existence in
\nthe lower grades means the entire absence of the
\nhigher principles. This heals the objection against the evolutionary
\ntheory created by these sharp lines of difference; for if
\nthe rudiments of the higher are present in the lower creation and the
\nlower characters are taken up into the higher evolved
\nbeing, that of itself constitutes an indubitable evolutionary process.
\nWhat is necessary is a working that brings the lower
\ngradation of being to a point at which the higher can manifest in it;
\nat that point a pressure from some superior plane where
\nthe new power is dominant may assist towards a more or less rapid and
\ndecisive transition by a bound or a series of
\nbounds,—a slow, creeping, imperceptible or even occult action is
\nfollowed by a run and an evolutionary saltus across the
\nborder. It is in some such way that the transition from the lower to
\nhigher grades of consciousness seems to have been
\nmade in Nature.\n<\/p>\n

     In fact, life, mind,
\nSupermind are present in the atom, are at work there, but invisible,
\noccult, latent in a subconscious or
\napparently unconscious action of the Energy; there is an informing
\nSpirit, but the outer force and figure of being, what we
\nmight call the formal or form existence as distinguished from the
\nimmanent or secretly governing consciousness, is lost in the
\nphysical action, is so absorbed into it as to be fixed in a stereotyped
\nself-oblivion unaware of what it is and what it is doing.
\nThe electron and atom are in this view eternal somnambulists; each
\nmaterial object contains an outer or form consciousness
\ninvolved, absorbed in the form, asleep, seeming to be an
\nunconsciousness driven by an unknown and unfelt inner
\nExistence,—he who is awake in the sleeper, the universal Inhabitant of
\nthe Upanishads,—an outer absorbed
\nform-consciousness which, unlike that of the human somnambulist, has
\nnever been awake\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-711<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

and is not always or ever on the point of waking. In
\nthe plant this outer form-consciousness is still in the state of sleep,
\nbut a
\nsleep full of nervous dreams, always on the point of waking, but never
\nwaking. Life has appeared; in other words, force of
\nconcealed conscious being has been so much intensified, has raised
\nitself to such a height of power as to develop or become
\ncapable of a new principle of action, that which we see as vitality,
\nlife-force. It has become vitally responsive to existence,
\nthough not mentally aware, and has put forth a new grade of activities
\nof a higher and subtler value than any purely physical
\naction. At the same time, it is capable of receiving and turning into
\nthese new life-values, into motions and phenomena of a
\nvibration of vitality, life-contacts and physical contacts from other
\nforms than its own and from universal Nature. This is a
\nthing which forms of mere matter cannot do; they cannot turn contacts
\ninto life-values or any kind of value, partly because
\ntheir power of reception,—although it exists, if occult evidence is to
\nbe trusted,—is not sufficiently awake to do anything but
\ndumbly receive and imperceptibly react, partly because the energies
\ntransmitted by the contacts are too subtle to be utilised by the crude
\ninorganic density of formed Matter. Life in the tree is determined by
\nits physical body, but it takes up the physical existence and gives it
\na new value or system of values,—the life-value. <\/p>\n

     The transition to the mind and sense
\nthat appear in the animal being, that which we call conscious life, is operated
\nin the same manner. The force of being is so much intensified, rises to such a
\nheight as to admit or develop a new principle of existence,—apparently new at
\nleast in the world of Matter,—mentality. Animal being is mentally aware of
\nexistence, its own and others, puts forth a higher and subtler grade of
\nactivities, receives a wider range of contacts, mental, vital, physical, from
\nforms other than its own, takes up the physical and vital existence and turns
\nall it can get from them into sense values and vital-mind values. It senses
\nbody, it senses life, but it senses also mind; for it has not only blind nervous
\nreactions, but conscious sensations, memories, impulses, volitions, emotions,
\nmental associations, the stuff of feeling and thought and <\/p>\n

\nPage-712<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

will. It has even a practical intelligence, founded on memory, association, stimulating need, observation, a power of device; it
\nis capable of cunning, strategy, planning; it can invent, adapt to some extent its inventions, meet in this or that detail the
\ndemand of new circumstance. All is not in it a half-conscious instinct; the animal prepares human intelligence.<\/p>\n

     But when we come to man, we
\nsee the whole thing becoming conscious; the world, which he epitomises,
\nbegins in him
\nto reveal to itself its own nature. The higher animal is not the
\nsomnambulist,—as the very lowest animal forms still mainly or
\nalmost are,—but it has only a limited waking mind, capable of just what
\nis necessary for its vital existence: in man the
\nconscious mentality enlarges its wakefulness and, though not at first
\nfully self-conscious, though still conscious only on the
\nsurface, can open more and more to his inner and integral being. As in
\nthe two lower ascents, there is a heightening of the
\nforce of conscious existence to a new power and a new range of subtle
\nactivities; there is a transition from vital mind to
\nreflecting and thinking mind, there is developed a higher power of
\nobservation and invention, taking up and connecting data,
\nconscious of process and result, a force of imagination and aesthetic
\ncreation, a higher more plastic sensibility, the
\nco-ordinating and interpreting reason, the values no longer of a reflex
\nor reactive but of a mastering, understanding,
\nself-detaching intelligence. As in the lower ascents, so here there is
\nalso a widening of the range of consciousness; man is
\nable to take in more of the world and of himself as well as to give to
\nthis knowledge higher and completer figures of
\nconscious experience. So, too, there is here also the third constant
\nelement of the ascension; mind takes up the lower grades
\nand gives to their action and reaction intelligent values. Man has not
\nonly like the animal the sense of his body and life, but
\nan intelligent sense and idea of life and a conscious and observant
\nperception of body. He takes up too the mental life of the
\nanimal, as well as the material and bodily; although he loses something
\nin the process, he gives to what he retains a higher
\nvalue; he has the intelligent sense and the idea of his sensations,
\nemotions, volitions, impulses, mental associations; what was
\ncrude stuff of\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-713<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

thought and feeling and will, capable only of gross
\ndeterminations, he turns into the finished work and artistry of these
\nthings.
\nFor the animal too thinks, but in an automatic way based mainly on a
\nmechanical series of memories and mental
\nassociations, accepting quickly or slowly the suggestions of Nature and
\nonly awakened to a more conscious personal action
\nwhen there is need of close observation and device; it has some first
\ncrude stuff of practical reason, but not the formed ideative and
\nreflective faculty. The awaking consciousness in the animal is the
\nunskilled primitive artisan of mind, in man it is
\nthe skilled craftsman and can become,—but this he does not attempt
\nsufficiently,—not only the artist, but master and adept.\n<\/p>\n

     But here we have to observe
\ntwo particularities of this human and at present highest development,
\nwhich bring us to the
\nheart of the matter. First, this taking up of the lower parts of life
\nreveals itself as a turning downward of the master eye of
\nthe secret evolving spirit or of the universal Being in the individual
\nfrom the height to which he has reached on all that now
\nlies below him, a gazing down with the double or twin power of the
\nbeing’s consciousness-force,—the power of will, the
\npower of knowledge,—so as to understand from this new, different and
\nwider range of consciousness and perception and
\nnature the lower life and its possibilities and to raise it up, it
\nalso, to a higher level, to give it higher values, to bring out of it
\nhigher potentialities. And this he does because evidently he does not
\nintend to kill or destroy it, but, delight of existence being
\nhis eternal business and a harmony of various strains, not a sweet but
\nmonotonous melody the method of his music, he
\nwishes to include the lower notes also and, by surcharging them with a
\ndeeper and finer significance, get more delight out of
\nthem than was possible in the cruder formulation. Still in the end he
\nlays on them as a condition for his continued acceptance
\ntheir consent to admit the higher values and, until they do consent, he
\ncan deal harshly enough with them even to trampling
\nthem under foot when he is bent on perfection and they are rebellious.
\nAnd that indeed is the true inmost aim and meaning
\nof ethics, discipline and askesis, to lesson and tame, purify and
\nprepare to be fit instruments the vital and physical and lower\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-714<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

mental life so that they may be transformed into notes of the higher mental and eventually the supramental harmony, but not
\nto mutilate and destroy them. Ascent is the first necessity, but an integration is an accompanying intention of the spirit in
\nNature.<\/p>\n

     This downward eye of
\nknowledge and will with a view to an all-round heightening, deepening
\nand subtler, finer and
\nricher intensification is the secret Spirit’s way from the beginning.
\nThe plant-soul takes, as we may say, a nervous-material
\nview of its whole physical existence so as to get out of it all the
\nvital-physical intensity possible; for it seems to have some
\nintense excitations of a mute life-vibration in it,—perhaps, though
\nthat is difficult for us to imagine, more intense relatively to
\nits lower rudimentary scale than the animal mind and body in its higher
\nand more powerful scale could tolerate. The animal
\nbeing takes a mentalised sense-view of its vital and physical existence
\nso as to get out of it all the sense-value possible,
\nmuch acuter in many respects than man’s as mere sensation or
\nsense-emotion or satisfaction of vital desire and pleasure.
\nMan, looking downward from the plane of will and intelligence, abandons
\nthese lower intensities, but in order to get out of
\nmind and life and sense a higher intensity in other values,
\nintellectual, aesthetic, moral, spiritual, mentally dynamic or
\npractical,—as he terms it; by these higher elements he enlarges,
\nsubtilises and elevates his use of life-values. He does not
\nabandon the animal reactions and enjoyments, but more lucidly, finely
\nand sensitively mentalises them. This he does even on his normal and
\nhis lower levels, but, as he develops, he puts his lower being to a
\nseverer test, begins to demand from it on pain of rejection something
\nlike a transformation: that is the mind’s way of preparing for a
\nspiritual life still beyond it. <\/p>\n

     But man not only turns his gaze
\ndownward and around him, when he has reached his higher level, but upward
\ntowards what is above him and inward towards what is occult within him. In him
\nnot only the downward gaze of the universal Being in the evolution has become
\nconscious, but its conscious upward and inward gaze also develops. The animal
\nlives as if satisfied with what Nature has done for it; if there is any upward
\ngaze <\/p>\n

\nPage-715<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

of the secret spirit within its animal being, it has
\nnothing consciously to do with it, that is still Nature’s business: it
\nis man who
\nfirst makes this upward gaze consciously his own business. For already
\nby his possession of intelligent will, deformed ray of
\nthe gnosis though it be, he begins to put on the double nature of
\nSachchidananda; he is no longer, like the animal, an
\nundeveloped conscious being entirely driven by Prakriti, a slave of the
\nexecutive Force, played with by the mechanical
\nenergies of Nature, but has begun to be a developing conscious soul or
\nPurusha interfering with what was her sole affair,
\nwishing to have a say in it and eventually to be the master. He cannot
\ndo it yet, he is too much in her meshes, too much
\ninvolved in her established mechanism: but he feels,—though as yet too
\nvaguely and uncertainly,—that the spirit within him
\nwishes to rise to yet higher heights, to widen its bounds; something
\nwithin, something occult, knows that it is not the intention
\nof the deeper conscious Soul-Nature, the Purusha-Prakriti, to be
\nsatisfied with his present lowness and limitations. To climb
\nto higher altitudes, to get a greater scope, to transform his lower
\nnature, this is always a natural impulse of man as soon as
\nhe has made his place for himself in the physical and vital world of
\nearth and has a little leisure to consider his farther
\npossibilities. It must be so not because of any false and pitiful
\nimaginative illusion in him, but, first, because he is the
\nimperfect, still developing mental being and must strive for more
\ndevelopment, for perfection, and still more because he is
\ncapable, unlike other terrestrial creatures, of becoming aware of what
\nis deeper than mind, of the soul within him, and of
\nwhat is above the mind, of Supermind, of spirit, capable of opening to
\nit, admitting it, rising towards it, taking hold of it. It is in
\nhis human nature, in all human nature, to exceed itself by conscious
\nevolution, to climb beyond what he is. Not individuals
\nonly, but in time the race also, in a general rule of being and living
\nif not in all its members, can have the hope, if it develops
\na sufficient will, to rise beyond the imperfections of our present very
\nundivine nature and to ascend at least to a superior
\nhumanity, to rise nearer, even if it cannot absolutely reach, to a
\ndivine manhood or supermanhood. At any rate, it is the
\ncompulsion of evolutionary Nature in him to strive to\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-716<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

develop upward, to erect the ideal, to make the endeavour.<\/p>\n

     But where is the limit of
\neffectuation in the evolutionary being’s self-becoming by
\nself-exceeding? In mind itself there
\nare grades of the series and each grade again is a series in itself;
\nthere are successive elevations which we may
\nconveniently call planes and sub-planes of the mental consciousness and
\nthe mental being. The development of our mental
\nself is largely an ascent of this stair; we can take our stand on any
\none of them, while yet maintaining a dependence on the
\nlower stages and a power of occasional ascension to higher levels or of
\na response to influences from our being’s superior
\nstrata. At present we still normally take our first secure stand on the
\nlowest sub-plane of the intelligence, which we may call
\nthe physical-mental, because it depends for its evidence of fact and
\nsense of reality on the physical brain, the physical
\nsense-mind, the physical sense-organs; there we are the physical man
\nwho attaches most importance to objective things and
\nto his outer life, has little intensity of the subjective or inner
\nexistence and subordinates whatever he has of it to the greater
\nclaims of exterior reality. The physical man has a vital part, but it
\nis mainly made up of the smaller instinctive and impulsive
\nformations of life-consciousness emerging from the subconscient, along
\nwith a customary crowd or round of sensations,
\ndesires, hopes, feelings, satisfactions which are dependent on external
\nthings and external contacts and concerned with the
\npractical, the immediately realisable and possible, the habitual, the
\ncommon and average. He has a mental part, but this too is
\ncustomary, traditional, practical, objective, and respects what belongs
\nto the domain of mind mostly for its utility for the
\nsupport, comfort, use, satisfaction and entertainment of his physical
\nand sensational existence. For the physical mind takes
\nits stand on matter and the material world, on the body and the bodily
\nlife, on sense-experience and on a normal practical
\nmentality and its experience. All that is not of this order, the
\nphysical mind builds up as a restricted superstructure dependent
\nupon the external sense-mentality. Even so, it regards these higher
\ncontents of life as either helpful adjuncts or a superfluous
\nbut pleasant luxury of imaginations, feelings and thought-abstractions,
\nnot as inner realities; or, even if it receives them as
\nrealities, it does not feel\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-717<\/font> <\/p>\n

\n

them concretely and substantially in their own
\nproper substance, subtler than the physical substance and its grosser
\nconcreteness,—it treats them as a subjective, less substantial
\nextension from physical realities. It is inevitable that the human
\nbeing should thus take his first stand on Matter and give the external
\nfact and external existence its due importance; for this
\nis Nature’s first provision for our existence, on which she insists
\ngreatly: the physical man is emphasised in us and is
\nmultiplied abundantly in the world by her as her force for conservation
\nof the secure, if somewhat inert, material basis on
\nwhich she can maintain herself while she attempts her higher human
\ndevelopments; but in this mental formation there is no
\npower for progress or only for a material progress. It is our first
\nmental status, but the mental being cannot remain always at
\nthis lowest rung of the human evolutionary ladder.\n<\/p>\n

     Above physical mind and
\ndeeper within than physical sensation, there is what we may call an
\nintelligence of the
\nlife-mind, dynamic, vital, nervous, more open, though still obscurely,
\nto the psychic, capable of a first soul-formation, though
\nonly of an obscurer life-soul,—not the psychic being, but a frontal
\nformation of the vital Purusha. This life-soul concretely
\nsenses and contacts the things of the life-world, and tries to realise
\nthem here; it attaches immense importance to the
\nsatisfaction and fulfilment of the life-being, the life-force, the
\nvital nature: it looks on physical existence as a field for the
\nlife-impulses’ self-fulfilment, for the play of ambition, power, strong
\ncharacter, love, passion, adventure, for the individual, the
\ncollective, the general human seeking and hazard and venture, for all
\nkinds of life-experiment and new life-experience, and
\nbut for this saving element, this greater power, interest,
\nsignificance, the physical existence would have for it no value. This
\nlife-mentality is supported by our secret subliminal vital being and is
\nin veiled contact with a life-world to which it can easily
\nopen and so feel the unseen dynamic forces and realities behind the
\nmaterial universe. There is an inner life-mind which
\ndoes not need for its perceptions the evidence of the physical senses,
\nis not limited by them; for on this level our inner life
\nand the inner life of the world become real to us independent of the
\nbody and of the symbols of the physical world which
\nalone\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-718<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

we call natural phenomena, as if Nature had no
\ngreater phenomena and no greater realities than those of gross Matter.
\nThe
\nvital man, moulded consciously or unconsciously by these influences, is
\nthe man of desire and sensation, the man of force
\nand action, the man of passion and emotion, the kinetic individual: he
\nmay and does lay great stress on the material
\nexistence, but he gives it, even when most preoccupied with its present
\nactualities, a push for life-experience, for force of
\nrealisation, for life-extension, for life-power, for life-affirmation
\nand life-expansion which is Nature’s first impetus towards
\nenlargement of the being; at a highest intensity of this life-impetus,
\nhe becomes the breaker of bonds, the seeker of new
\nhorizons, the disturber of the past and present in the interest of the
\nfuture. He has a mental life which is often enslaved to
\nthe vital force and its desires and passions, and it is these he seeks
\nto satisfy through the mind: but when he interests himself
\nstrongly in mental things, he can become the mental adventurer, the
\nopener of the way to new mind-formations or the
\nfighter for an idea, the sensitive type of artist, the dynamic poet of
\nlife or the prophet or champion of a cause. The vital mind
\nis kinetic and therefore a great force in the working of evolutionary
\nNature.\n<\/p>\n

     Above this level of vital
\nmentality and yet more inly extended, is a mind-plane of pure thought
\nand intelligence to which
\nthe things of the mental world are the most important realities; those
\nwho are under its influence, the philosopher, thinker,
\nscientist, intellectual creator, the man of the idea, the man of the
\nwritten or spoken word, the idealist and dreamer are the
\npresent mental being at his highest attained summit. This mental man
\nhas his life-part, his life of passions and desires and
\nambitions and life-hopes of all kinds and his lower sensational and
\nphysical existence, and this lower part can often
\nequibalance or weigh down his nobler mental element so that, although
\nit is the highest portion of him, it does not become
\ndominant and formative in his whole nature: but this is not typical of
\nhim in his greatest development, for there the vital and
\nphysical are controlled and subjected by the thinking will and
\nintelligence. The mental man cannot transform his nature, but
\nhe can control and harmonise it and lay on it the law of a mental
\nideal, impose a\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-719<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

balance or a sublimating and refining influence, and give a high consistency to the multipersonal confusion and conflict or the
\nsummary patchwork of our divided and half-constructed being. He can be the observer and governor of his own mind and
\nlife, can consciously develop them and become to that extent a self-creator.<\/p>\n

     This mind of pure
\nintelligence has behind it our inner or subliminal mind which senses
\ndirectly all the things of the
\nmind-plane, is open to the action of a world of mental forces, and can
\nfeel the ideative and other imponderable influences
\nwhich act upon the material world and the life-plane but which at
\npresent we can only infer and cannot directly experience:
\nthese intangibles and imponderables are to the mental man real and
\npatent and he regards them as truths demanding to be
\nrealised in our or the earth’s nature. On the inner plane mind and
\nmind-soul independent of the body can become to us an
\nentire reality, and we can consciously live in them as much as in the
\nbody. Thus to live in mind and the things of the mind, to
\nbe an intelligence rather than a life and a body, is our highest
\nposition, short of spirituality, in the degrees of Nature. The
\nmental man, the man of a self-dominating and self-formative mind and
\nwill conscious of an ideal and turned towards its
\nrealisation, the high intellect, the thinker, the sage, less kinetic
\nand immediately effective than the vital man, who is the man
\nof action and outer swift life-fulfilment, but as powerful and
\neventually even more powerful to open new vistas to the race, is the
\nnormal summit of Nature’s evolutionary formation on the human plane.
\nThese three degrees of mentality, clear in themselves, but most often
\nmixed in our composition, are to our ordinary intelligence only
\npsychological types that happen to have developed, and we do not
\ndiscover any other significance in them; but in fact they are full of
\nsignificance, for they are the steps of Nature’s evolution of mental
\nbeing towards its self-exceeding, and, as thinking mind is the highest
\nstep she can now attain, the perfected mental man is the rarest and
\nhighest of her normal human creatures. To go farther she has to bring
\ninto the mind and make active in mind, life and body the spiritual
\nprinciple. <\/p>\n

     For these are her evolutionary
\nfigures built out of the <\/p>\n

\nPage-720<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

surface mentality; to do more she has to use more
\namply the unseen material hidden below our surface, to dive inwards and
\nbring out the secret soul, the psyche, or to ascend above our normal
\nmental level into planes of intuitive consciousness dense
\nwith light derived from the spiritual gnosis, ascending planes of pure
\nspiritual mind in which we are in direct contact with the
\ninfinite, in touch with the self and highest reality of things,
\nSachchidananda. In ourselves, behind our surface natural being,
\nthere is a soul, an inner mind, an inner life-part which can open to
\nthese heights as well as to the occult spirit within us, and
\nthis double opening is the secret of a new evolution; by that breaking
\nof lids and walls and boundaries the consciousness
\nrises to a greater ascent and a larger integration which, as the
\nevolution of mind has mentalised, so will by this new evolution
\nspiritualise all the powers of our nature. For the mental man has not
\nbeen Nature’s last effort or highest reach,—though he
\nhas been, in general, more fully evolved in his own nature than those
\nwho have achieved themselves below or aspired above
\nhim; she has pointed man to a yet higher and more difficult level,
\ninspired him with the ideal of a spiritual living, begun the
\nevolution in him of a spiritual being. The spiritual man is her supreme
\nsupernormal effort of human creation; for, having
\nevolved the mental creator, thinker, sage, prophet of an ideal, the
\nself-controlled, self-disciplined, harmonised mental being,
\nshe has tried to go higher and deeper within and call out into the
\nfront the soul and inner mind and heart, call down from
\nabove the forces of the spiritual mind and higher mind and overmind and
\ncreate under their light and by their influence the
\nspiritual sage, seer, prophet, God-lover, Yogin, gnostic, Sufi, mystic.<\/p>\n

      This is man’s only way of true
\nself-exceeding: for so long as we live in the surface being or found ourselves
\nwholly on Matter, it is impossible to go higher and vain to expect that there
\ncan be any new transition of a radical character in our evolutionary being. The
\nvital man, the mental man have had an immense effect upon the earth-life, they
\nhave carried humanity forward from the mere human animal to what it is now. But
\nit is only within the bounds of the already established evolutionary formula of
\nthe human being that they can act; they can <\/p>\n

\nPage-721<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

enlarge the human circle but not change or transform
\nthe principle of consciousness or its characteristic operation. Any
\nattempt to heighten inordinately the mental or exaggerate inordinately
\nthe vital man,—a Nietzschean supermanhood, for
\nexample,—can only colossalise the human creature, it cannot transform
\nor divinise him. A different possibility opens if we
\ncan live within in the inner being and make it the direct ruler of life
\nor station ourselves on the spiritual and intuitive planes of
\nbeing and from there and by their power transmute our nature. <\/p>\n

   
\nThe spiritual man is the sign of this new evolution, this new and
\nhigher endeavour of Nature. But this evolution differs
\nfrom the past process of the evolutionary Energy in two respects: it is
\nconducted by a conscious effort of the human mind,
\nand it is not confined to a conscious progression of the surface
\nnature, but is accompanied by an attempt to break the walls
\nof the Ignorance and extend ourselves inward into the secret principle
\nof our present being and outward into cosmic being
\nas well as upward towards a higher principle. Up till now what Nature
\nhad achieved was an enlarging of the bounds of our
\nsurface Knowledge-Ignorance; what it attempted in the spiritual
\nendeavour is to abolish the Ignorance, to go inwards and discover the
\nsoul and to become united in consciousness with God and with all
\nexistence. This is the final aim of the mental stage of evolutionary
\nNature in man; it is the initial step towards a radical transmutation
\nof the Ignorance into the Knowledge. The spiritual change begins by an
\ninfluence of the inner being and the higher spiritual mind, an action
\nfelt and accepted on the surface; but this by itself can lead only to
\nan illumined mental idealism or to the growth of a religious mind, a
\nreligious temperament and some devotion in the heart and piety in the
\nconduct; it is a first approach of mind to spirit, but it cannot make a
\nradical change: more has to be done, we have to live deeper within, we
\nhave to exceed our present consciousness and surpass our present status
\nof Nature. <\/p>\n

     It is evident that if we can live
\nthus deeper within and put out steadily the inner forces into the outer
\ninstrumentation or raise ourselves to dwell on higher and wider levels and bring
\ntheir powers to bear on physical existence, not merely receive<\/p>\n

\n Page-722<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

influences descending from them, which is all we can now do, there could begin a heightening of our force of conscious
\nbeing so as to create a new principle of consciousness, a new range of activities, new values for all things, a widening of our
\nconsciousness and life, a taking up and transformation of the lower grades of our existence,—in brief, the whole
\nevolutionary process by which the Spirit in Nature creates a higher type of being. Each step could mean a pace, however
\ndistant from the goal, or a close approach leading to a larger and more divine being, a larger and more divine force and
\nconsciousness, knowledge and will, sense of existence and delight in existence; there could be an initial unfolding towards
\nthe divine life. All religion, all occult knowledge, all supernormal (as opposed to abnormal) psychological experience, all
\nYoga, all psychic experience and discipline are signposts and directions pointing us upon that road of progress of the occult
\nself-unfolding spirit.<\/p>\n

     
\nBut the human race is still weighted by a certain gravitation towards
\nthe physical, it obeys still the pull of our yet
\nunconquered earth-matter; it is dominated by the brain-mind, the
\nphysical intelligence: thus held back by many ties, it
\nhesitates before the indication or falls back before the too tense
\ndemand of the spiritual effort. It has, too, still a great
\ncapacity for sceptical folly, an immense indolence, an enormous
\nintellectual and spiritual timidity and conservatism when
\ncalled out of the grooves of habit: even the constant evidence of life
\nitself that where it chooses to conquer it can
\nconquer,—witness the miracles of that quite inferior power, physical
\nScience,—does not prevent it from doubting; it repels
\nthe new call and leaves the response to a few individuals. But that is
\nnot enough if the step forward is to be for humanity;
\nfor it is only if the race advances that, for it, the victories of the
\nSpirit can be secure. For then, even if there is a lapse of
\nNature, a fall in her effort, the Spirit within, employing a secret
\nmemory,—sometimes represented on the lower side, that of
\ndownward gravitation, as an atavistic force in the race, but really the
\nforce of a persistent memory in Nature which can pull
\nus either upward or downward,—will call it upward again and the next
\nascent will be both easier and more lasting, because
\nof the past endeavour; for that endeavour and its impulse and\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-723<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

its result cannot but remain stored in the
\nsubconscious mind of humanity. Who can say what victories of the kind
\nmay have
\nbeen achieved in our past cycles and how near may be the next
\nascension? It is not indeed necessary or possible that the
\nwhole race should transform itself from mental into spiritual beings,
\nbut a general admission of the ideal, a widespread endeavour, a
\nconscious concentration are needed to carry the stream of tendency to
\nits definitive achievement. Otherwise
\nwhat will be ultimately accomplished is an achievement by the few
\ninitiating a new order of beings, while humanity will have
\npassed sentence of unfitness on itself and may fall back into an
\nevolutionary decline or a stationary immobility; for it is the
\nconstant upward effort that has kept humanity alive and maintained for
\nit its place in the front of creation.<\/p>\n

     
\nThe principle of the process of evolution is a foundation, from that foundation an ascent, in that ascent a reversal of
\nconsciousness and, from the greater height and wideness gained, an action of change and new integration of the whole
\nnature. The first foundation is Matter; the ascent is that of Nature; the integration is an at first unconscious or
\nhalf-conscious automatic change of Nature by Nature. But as soon as a more completely conscious participation of the
\nbeing has begun in these workings of Nature, a change in the functioning of the process is inevitable. The physical
\nfoundation of Matter remains, but Matter can no longer be the foundation of the consciousness; consciousness itself will be
\nno longer in its origin a welling up from the Inconscient or a concealed flow from an occult inner subliminal force under the
\npressure of contacts from the universe. The foundation of the developing existence will be the new spiritual status above or
\nthe unveiled soul-status within us; it is a flow of light and knowledge and will from above and a reception from within that
\nwill determine the reactions of the being to cosmic experience. The whole concentration of the being will be shifted from
\nbelow upwards and from without inwards; our higher and inner being now unknown to us will become ourselves, and the
\nouter or surface being which we now take for ourselves will be only an open front or an annexe through which the true
\nbeing meets the universe. The outer world itself will become inward to the spiritual<\/p>\n

\nPage-724<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

awareness, a part of itself, intimately embraced in a knowledge and feeling of unity and identity, penetrated by an intuitive
\nregard of the mind, responded to by the direct contact of consciousness with consciousness, taken into an achieved
\nintegrality. The old inconscient foundation itself will be made conscious in us by the inflow of light and awareness from
\nabove and its depths annexed to the heights of the spirit. An integral consciousness will become the basis of an entire
\nharmonisation of life through the total transformation, unification, integration of the being and the nature.<\/p>\n

\nPage-725<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER XVIII The Evolutionary Process— Ascent and Integration   As he mounts from peak to peak… Indra makes him conscious  of that goal of his…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-19-the-life-divine-volume-19","wpcat-27-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1242","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=1242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}