{"id":1243,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:31","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1243"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:33:31","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:31","slug":"16-the-divine-life-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\/16-the-divine-life-vol-19-the-life-divine-volume-19","title":{"rendered":"-16_The Divine Life.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\nC<\/font>HAPTER
\n<\/font>XXVIII<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/font><\/span> <\/font><\/span>The Divine Life<\/span><\/font> <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nO seeing Flame,
\nthou carriest<\/span> man of the crooked ways into the
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nabiding truth and the knowledge.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nRig Veda<\/font><\/i>.1<\/sup><\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nI purify earth
\nand heaven by the Truth.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tRig
\nVeda.<\/font><\/i>2<\/font><\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n


\nHis ecstasy, in
\none who holds it, sets into motion the two births, <\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nthe human self-expression
\nand the divine, and moves between <\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nthem.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tRig Veda<\/font><\/i>.<\/font>3<\/font><\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n


\nMay the
\ninvincible rays of his intuition be there seeking immor-<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\ntality, pervading both
\nthe births; for by them he sets flowing in <\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

\none movement human strengths and
\nthings divine.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nRig Veda<\/font><\/i>.4<\/sup><\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nLet all accept
\nthy will when thou art born a living god from the dry <\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

\ntree, that they may
\nattain to divinity and reach by the speed of <\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nthy movements to possession of the
\nTruth and the Immortality.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tRig Veda<\/font><\/i>.<\/font>5<\/font><\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n


\nO<\/span><\/font>ur endeavour<\/span> has been
\nto discover what is the reality and significance of our existence as conscious beings
\nin the material universe and in what direction and how far that significance
\nonce discovered leads us, to what human or divine future. Our existence here
\nmay indeed be an inconsequential freak of Matter itself or of some Energy
\nbuilding up Matter, or it may be an inexplicable freak of the Spirit. Or,
\nagain, our existence here may be an arbitrary fantasy of a supracosmic<\/span>
\nCreator. In that case it has no essential significance,\u2014no significance at all
\nif Matter or an inconscient<\/span> Energy is the fantasy-builder,
\nfor then it is at best the stray description of a wandering spiral of Chance or
\nthe hard curve of a blind Necessity; it can have  <\/span>only an illusory significance which vanishes
\ninto nothingness if it is an error of the Spirit. A conscious Creator may indeed
\nhave put a meaning into our existence, but it must be discovered by a
\nrevelation of his will and is not self-implied in the self-nature of<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n         1<\/font><\/span><\/sup> <\/span>I.<\/span> 31. 6. 2<\/sup>
\n<\/span>I.<\/span> 133. 1. 3<\/sup>
\nIX. 86. 42. 4<\/sup> IX. 70. 3. 5<\/sup> <\/span>I.<\/span><\/font> 68. 2.<\/font><\/span> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n1015<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

things and discoverable there. But if there is a
\nself-existent Reality of which our existence here is a result, then there must
\nbe a truth of that Reality which is manifesting, working itself out, evolving
\nhere, and that will be the significance of our own being and life. Whatever
\nthat Reality may be, it is something that has taken upon itself the aspect of a
\nbecoming in Time,\u2014an indivisible becoming, for our present and our future carry
\nin themselves, transformed, made other, the past that created them, and the
\npast and present already contained and now contain in themselves, invisible to
\nus because still unmanifested<\/span>, unevolved<\/span>,
\ntheir own transformation into the still uncreated future. The significance of
\nour existence here determines our destiny: that destiny is something that
\nalready exists in us as a necessity and a potentiality, the necessity of our
\nbeing’s secret and emergent reality, a truth of its potentialities that is
\nbeing worked out; both, though not yet realised<\/span>, are
\neven now implied in what has been already manifested. If there is a Being that
\nis becoming, a Reality of existence that is unrolling itself in Time, what that
\nbeing, that reality secretly is is<\/span> what we have to
\nbecome, and so to become is our life’s significance. <\/span><\/p>\n

It is consciousness and
\nlife that must be the keywords to what is being thus worked out in Time; for
\nwithout them Matter and the world of Matter would be a meaningless phenomenon,
\na thing that has just happened by Chance or by an<\/span><\/p>\n

unconscious Necessity. But consciousness as it
\nis, life as it is cannot be the whole secret; for both are very clearly
\nsomething unfinished and still in process. In us consciousness is Mind, and our
\nmind is ignorant and imperfect, an intermediate power that has grown and is
\nstill growing towards something beyond itself: there were lower levels of
\nconsciousness that came before it and out of which it arose, there must very
\nevidently be higher levels to which it is itself arising. Before our thinking,
\nreasoning, reflecting mind there was a consciousness unthinking but living and
\nsentient, and before that there was the subconscious and the unconscious; after
\nus or in our yet unevolved<\/span> selves there is likely to
\nbe waiting a greater consciousness, self-luminous, not dependent on
\nconstructive thought: our imperfect and ignorant thought-mind is certainly not
\nthe last word of consciousness, its ultimate
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n1016<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

possibility. For the essence of consciousness is
\nthe power to be aware of itself and its objects, and in its true nature this
\npower must be direct, self-fulfilled and complete: if it is in us indirect,
\nincomplete, unfulfilled in its workings, dependent on constructed instruments,
\nit is because consciousness here is emerging from an original veiling Inconscience<\/span> and is yet burdened and enveloped with the
\nfirst Nescience proper to the Inconscient<\/span>; but it
\nmust have the power to emerge completely, its destiny must be to evolve into
\nits own perfection which is its true nature. Its true nature is to be wholly
\naware of its objects, and of these objects the first is self, the being which
\nis evolving its consciousness here, and the rest is what we see as not-self,\u2014but
\nif existence is indivisible, that too must in reality be self: the destiny of
\nevolving consciousness must be, then, to become perfect in its awareness,
\nentirely aware of self and all-aware. This perfect and natural condition of
\nconsciousness is to us a superconscience<\/span>, a state
\nwhich is beyond us and in which our mind, if suddenly transferred to it, could
\nnot at first function; but it is towards that superconscience<\/span>
\nthat our conscious being must be evolving. But this evolution of our
\nconsciousness to a superconscience<\/span> or supreme of
\nitself is possible only if the Inconscience<\/span> which is
\nour basis here is really itself an involved Superconscience<\/span>;
\nfor what is to be in the becoming of the Reality in us must be already there
\ninvolved or secret in its beginning. Such an involved Being or Power we can
\nwell conceive the Inconscient<\/span> to be when we closely
\nregard this material creation of an unconscious Energy and see it labouring<\/span> out with curious construction and infinite device
\nthe work of a vast involved Intelligence and see, too, that we ourselves are
\nsomething of that Intelligence evolving out of its involution, an emerging
\nconsciousness whose emergence cannot stop short on the way until the Involved
\nhas evolved and revealed itself as a supreme totally self-aware and all-aware
\nIntelligence. It is this to which we have given the name of Supermind<\/span>
\nor Gnosis. For that evidently must be the consciousness of the Reality, the
\nBeing, the Spirit that is secret in us and slowly manifesting here; of that
\nBeing we are the becomings<\/span> and must grow into its
\nnature.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

If consciousness is the
\ncentral secret, life is the outward <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n1017<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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indication, the effective power of being in
\nMatter; for it is that which liberates consciousness and gives it its form or
\nembodiment of force and its effectuation in material act. If some revelation or
\neffectuation of itself in Matter is the ultimate aim of the evolving Being in
\nits birth, life is the exterior and dynamic sign and index of that revelation
\nand effectuation. But life also, as it is now, is imperfect and evolving; it
\nevolves through growth of consciousness even as consciousness evolves through
\ngreater organisation<\/span> and perfection of life: a
\ngreater consciousness means a greater life. Man, the mental being, has  <\/span>an imperfect life because mind is not the
\nfirst and highest power of consciousness of the Being; even if mind were
\nperfected, there would be still something yet to be realised<\/span>,
\nnot yet manifested. For what is involved and emergent is not a Mind, but a
\nSpirit, and mind is not the native dynamism of consciousness of the Spirit; Supermind<\/span>, the light of gnosis, is its native dynamism. If
\nthen life has to become a manifestation of the Spirit, it is the manifestation
\nof a spiritual being in us and the divine life of a perfected consciousness in
\na supramental<\/span> or gnostic<\/span>
\npower of spiritual being that must be the secret burden and intention of
\nevolutionary Nature. <\/span><\/p>\n

All spiritual life is in
\nits principle a growth into divine living. It is difficult to fix the frontier where
\nthe mental ceases and the divine life begins, for the two project into each
\nother and there is a long space of their intermingled existence. A great part
\nof this interspace<\/span>,\u2014when the spiritual urge does not
\nturn away from earth or world altogether,\u2014can be seen as the process of a
\nhigher life in the making. As the mind and life become illumined with the light
\nof the Spirit, they put on or reflect something of the divinity, the secret
\ngreater Reality, and this must increase until the interspace<\/span>
\nhas been crossed and the whole existence is unified in the full light and power
\nof the spiritual principle. But, for the full and perfect fulfilment<\/span>
\nof the evolutionary urge, this illumination and change must take up and
\nre-create the whole being, mind, life and body: it must be not only an inner
\nexperience of the Divinity but a remoulding<\/span> of both
\nthe inner and outer existence by its power; it must take form not only in the
\nlife of the individual but as a collective life of gnostic<\/span>
\nbeings established as a highest power and form of the becoming of the
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n1018<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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\nSpirit in the earth-nature. For this to be
\npossible the spiritual entity in us must have developed its own integralised<\/span> perfection not only of the inner state of the
\nbeing but of the outgoing power of the being and, with that perfection and as a
\nnecessity of its complete action, it must have evolved its own dynamis<\/span> and instrumentation of the outer existence.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

    There can undoubtedly be
\na spiritual life within, a kingdom of heaven within us which is not dependent
\non any outer manifestation or instrumentation or formula of external being. The
\ninner life has a supreme spiritual importance and the outer has a value only in
\nso far as it is expressive of the inner status. However the man of spiritual realisation<\/span> lives and acts and behaves, in all ways of his
\nbeing and acting, it is said in the Gita<\/span>, \u201che lives
\nand moves in Me\u201d; he dwells in the Divine, he  has realised<\/span> the
\nspiritual existence. The spiritual man living in the sense of the spiritual
\nself, in the realisation<\/span> of the Divine within him and
\neverywhere, would be living inwardly a divine life and its reflection would
\nfall on his outer acts of existence, even if they did not pass,\u2014or did not seem
\nto pass,\u2014beyond the ordinary instrumentation of human thought and action in
\nthis world of earth-nature. This is the first truth and the essence of the
\nmatter; but still, from the point of view of a spiritual evolution, this would
\nbe only an individual liberation and perfection in an unchanged environmental
\nexistence: for a greater dynamic change in earth-nature itself, a spiritual
\nchange of the whole principle and instrumentation of life and action, the
\nappearance of a new order of beings and a new earth-life must be envisaged in
\nour idea of the total consummation, the divine issue. Here the gnostic<\/span> change assumes a primary importance; all that
\nprecedes can be considered as an upbuilding  <\/span>and a preparation for this transmuting reversal
\nof the whole nature. For it is a gnostic<\/span> way of
\ndynamic living that must be the fulfilled divine life on earth, a way of living
\nthat develops higher instruments of world-knowledge and world-action for the dynamisation<\/span> of consciousness in the physical existence and
\ntakes up and transforms the values of a world of material Nature.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

But always the whole
\nfoundation of the gnostic<\/span> life must be by its very
\nnature inward and not outward. In the life of the<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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Spirit it is the Spirit, the inner Reality, that
\nhas built up and uses the mind, vital being and body as its instrumentation;
\nthought, feeling and action do not exist for themselves, they are not an
\nobject, but the means; they serve to express the manifested divine Reality
\nwithin us: otherwise, without this inwardness, this spiritual origination, in a
\ntoo externalised<\/span> consciousness or by only external
\nmeans, no greater or divine life is possible. In our present life of Nature, in
\nour externalised<\/span> 
\n<\/span>urface<\/span> existence, it is the world that seems
\nto create us; but in the turn to the spiritual life it is we who must create
\nourselves and our world. In this new formula of creation, the inner life
\nbecomes of the first importance and the rest can be only its expression and
\noutcome. It is this, indeed, that is indicated by our own strivings towards
\nperfection, the perfection of our own soul and mind and life and the perfection
\nof the life of the race. For we are given a world which is obscure, ignorant,
\nmaterial, imperfect, and our external conscious being is itself created by the
\nenergies, the pressure, the moulding<\/span> operations of
\nthis vast mute obscurity, by physical birth, by environment, by a training
\nthrough the impacts and shocks of life; and yet we are vaguely aware of
\nsomething that is there in us or seeking to be, something other than what has
\nbeen thus made, a Spirit self-existent, self-determining, pushing the nature
\ntowards the creation of an image of its own occult perfection or Idea of
\nperfection. There is something that grows in us in answer to this demand, that
\nstrives to become the image of a divine Somewhat, and is impelled also to labour<\/span> at the world outside that has been given to it and
\nto remake that too in a greater image, in the image of its own spiritual and
\nmental and vital growth, to make our world too something created according to
\nour own mind and self-conceiving spirit, something new, harmonious, perfect.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

But our mind is obscure,
\npartial in its notions, misled by opposite surface appearances, divided between
\nvarious possibilities; it is led in three different directions to any of which
\nit may give an exclusive preference. Our mind, in its search for what must be,
\nturns towards a concentration on our own inner spiritual growth and perfection,
\non our own individual being and inner living; or it turns towards a
\nconcentration on an individual
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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development of our surface nature, on the
\nperfection of our thought and outer dynamic or practical action on the world,
\non some idealism of our personal relation with the world around us; or it turns
\nrather towards a concentration on the outer world itself, on making it better, more
\nsuited to our ideas and temperament or to our conception of what should be. On
\none side there is the call of our spiritual being which is our true self, a
\ntranscendent reality, a being of the Divine Being, not created by the world,
\nable to live in itself, to rise out of world to transcendence; on the other
\nside there is the demand of the world around us which is a cosmic form, a
\nformulation of the Divine Being, a power of the Reality in disguise. There is
\ntoo the divided or double demand of our being of Nature which is poised between
\nthese two terms, depends on them and connects them; for it is apparently made
\nby the world and yet, because its true creator is in ourselves and the
\nworld-instrumentation that seems to make it is only the means first used, it is
\nreally a form, a disguised manifestation of a greater spiritual being within
\nus. It is this demand that mediates between our preoccupation with an inward
\nperfection or spiritual liberation and our preoccupation with the outer world
\nand its formation, insists on a happier relation between the two terms and
\ncreates the ideal of a better individual in a better world. But it is within us
\nthat the Reality must be found and the source and foundation of a perfected
\nlife; no outward formation can replace it: there must be the true self realised<\/span> within if there is to be the true life realised<\/span> in world and Nature.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

In the growth into a
\ndivine life the Spirit must be our first preoccupation; until we have revealed
\nand evolved it in our self out of its mental, vital, physical wrappings and
\ndisguises, extracted it with patience from our own body, as the Upanishad puts
\nit, until we have built up in ourselves an inner life of the Spirit, it is
\nobvious that no outer divine living can become possible. Unless, indeed, it is
\na mental or vital godhead that we perceive and would be,\u2014but even then the
\nindividual mental being or the being of power and vital force and desire in us
\nmust grow into a form of that godhead before our life can be divine in that
\ninferior sense, the life of the infraspiritual<\/span>
\nsuperman, mental
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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demi<\/span><\/span>-god or vital Titan, Deva<\/span> or Asura<\/span>. This inner life
\nonce created, to convert our whole surface being, our thought, feeling, action in
\nthe world, into a perfect power of that inner life, must be our other
\npreoccupation. Only if we live in that deeper and greater way in our dynamic
\nparts, can there be a force for creating a greater life or the world be remade
\nwhether in some power or perfection of Mind and Life or the power and
\nperfection of the Spirit. A perfected human world cannot be created by men or
\ncomposed of men who are themselves imperfect. Even if all our actions are
\nscrupulously regulated by education or law or social or political machinery,
\nwhat will be achieved is a regulated pattern of minds, a fabricated pattern of
\nlives, a cultivated pattern of conduct; but a conformity of this kind cannot
\nchange, cannot re-create the man within, it cannot carve or cut out a perfect
\nsoul or a perfect thinking man or a perfect or growing living being. For soul
\nand mind and life are powers of being and can grow but cannot be cut out or
\nmade; an outer process or formation can assist or can express soul and mind and
\nlife but cannot create or develop it. One can indeed help the being to grow,
\nnot by an attempt at manufacture, but by throwing on it stimulating influences
\nor by lending to it one’s forces of soul or mind or life; but even so the
\ngrowth must still come from within it, determining from there what shall be
\nmade of these influences and forces, and not from outside. This is the first
\ntruth that our creative zeal and aspiration have to learn, otherwise all our
\nhuman endeavour<\/span> is foredoomed to turn in a futile
\ncircle and can end only in a success that is a specious failure. <\/span><\/p>\n

To be or become
\nsomething, to bring something into being is the whole labour<\/span>
\nof the force of Nature; to know, feel, do are subordinate energies that have a
\nvalue because they help the being in its partial self-realisation<\/span>
\nto express what it is and help it too in its urge to express the still more not
\nyet realised<\/span> that it has to be. But knowledge,
\nthought, action,\u2014whether religious, ethical, political, social, economic,
\nutilitarian or hedonistic, whether a mental, vital or physical form or
\nconstruction of existence,\u2014cannot be the essence or object of life; they are
\nonly activities of the powers of being or the powers of its becoming, dynamic
\nsymbols of itself, creations of the
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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embodied Spirit, its means of discovering or
\nformulating what it seeks to be. The tendency of man’s physical mind is to see
\notherwise and to turn the true method of things upside down, because it takes
\nas essential or fundamental the surface forces or appearances of Nature; it
\naccepts her creation by a visible or exterior process as the essence of her
\naction and does not see that it is only a secondary appearance and covers a
\ngreater secret process: for Nature’s occult process is to reveal the being
\nthrough the bringing out of its powers and forms, her external pressure is only
\na means of awakening the involved being to the need of this evolution, of this
\nself-formation. When the spiritual stage of her evolution is reached, this
\noccult process must become the whole process; to get through the veil of forces
\nand get at their secret mainspring, which is the Spirit itself, is of cardinal
\nimportance. To become ourselves is the one thing to be done; but the true
\nourselves is that which is within us, and to exceed our outer self of body,
\nlife and mind is the condition for this highest being, which is our true and
\ndivine being, to become self-revealed and active. It is only by growing within
\nand living within that we can find it; once that is done, to create from there
\nthe spiritual or divine mind, life, body and through this instrumentation to
\narrive at the creation of a world which shall be the true environment of a
\ndivine living,\u2014this is the final object that Force of Nature has set before us.
\nThis then is the first necessity, that the individual, each individual, shall
\ndiscover the Spirit, the divine reality within him and express that in all his
\nbeing and living. A divine life must be first and foremost an inner life; for
\nsince the outward must be the expression of what is within, there can be no
\ndivinity in the outer existence if there is not the divinisation<\/span>
\nof the inner being. The Divinity in man dwells veiled in his spiritual centre;
\nthere can be no such thing as self-exceeding for man or a higher issue for his
\nexistence if there is not in him the reality of an eternal Self and Spirit. <\/span><\/p>\n

To be and to be fully is
\nNature’s aim in us; but to be fully is to be wholly conscious of one’s being:
\nunconsciousness, half consciousness or deficient consciousness is a state of
\nbeing not in possession of itself; it is existence, but not fullness of
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
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being. To be aware wholly and integrally of
\noneself and of all the truth of one’s being is the necessary condition of true
\npossession of existence. This self-awareness is what is meant by spiritual knowledge:
\nthe essence of spiritual knowledge is an intrinsic self-existent consciousness;
\nall its action of knowledge, indeed all its action of any kind, must be that
\nconsciousness formulating itself. All other knowledge is consciousness
\noblivious of itself and striving to return to its own awareness of itself and
\nits contents; it is self-ignorance labouring<\/span> to
\ntransform itself back into self-knowledge. <\/span><\/p>\n

But also, since
\nconsciousness carries in itself the force of existence, to be fully is to have
\nthe intrinsic and integral force of one’s being; it is to come into possession
\nof all one’s force of self and of all its use. To be merely, without possessing
\nthe force of one’s being or with a half-force or deficient force of it, is a
\nmutilated or diminished existence; it is to exist, but it is not fullness of
\nbeing. It is possible, indeed, to exist only in status, with the force of being
\nself-gathered and immobile in the self; but, even so, to be in dynamis<\/span> as well as in status is the integrality of
\nexistence: power of self is the sign of the divinity of self,\u2014a powerless
\nSpirit is no Spirit. But, as the spiritual consciousness is intrinsic and
\nself-existent, so too this force of our spiritual being must be intrinsic,
\nautomatic in action, self-existent and self-fulfilling. What instrumentality it
\nuses, must be part of itself; even any external instrumentality it uses must be
\nmade part of itself and expressive of its being. Force of being in conscious
\naction is will; and whatever is the conscious will of the Spirit, its will of
\nbeing and becoming, that all the existence must be able harmonically to fulfil<\/span>. Whatever action or energy of action has not this
\nsovereignty or is not master of the machinery of action, carries in it by that
\ndefect the sign of an imperfection of the force of being, of a division or
\ndisabling segmentation of the consciousness, of an incompleteness in the
\nmanifestation of the being.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

Lastly, to be fully is
\nto have the full delight of being. Being without delight of being, without an
\nentire delight of itself and all things is something neutral or diminished; it
\nis existence, but it is not fullness of being. This delight too must be
\nintrinsic,
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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self-existent, automatic; it cannot be dependent
\non things outside itself: whatever it delights in, it makes part of itself, has
\nthe joy of it as part of its universality. All undelight<\/span>,
\nall pain and suffering are a sign of imperfection, of incompleteness; they
\narise from a division of being, an incompleteness of consciousness of being, an
\nincompleteness of the force of being. To become complete in being, in
\nconsciousness of being, in force of being, in delight of being and to live in
\nthis integrated completeness is the divine living.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

But, again, to be fully
\nis to be universally. To be in the limitations of a small restricted ego is to
\nexist, but it is an imperfect existence: in its very nature it is to live in an
\nincomplete consciousness, an incomplete force and delight of existence. It is
\nto be less than oneself and it brings an inevitable subjection to ignorance,
\nweakness and suffering: or even if by some divine composition of the nature it
\ncould exclude these things, it would be to live in a limited scope of
\nexistence, a limited consciousness and power and joy of existence. All being is
\none and to be fully is to be all that is. To be in the being of all and to
\ninclude all in one’s being, to be conscious of the consciousness of all, to be
\nintegrated in force with the universal force, to carry all action and
\nexperience in oneself and feel it as one’s own action and experience, to feel
\nall selves as one’s own self, to feel all delight of being as one’s own delight
\nof being is a necessary condition of the integral divine living.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

But thus to be
\nuniversally in the fullness and freedom of one’s universality, one must be also
\ntranscendentally. The spiritual fullness of the being is eternity; if one has
\nnot the consciousness of timeless eternal being, if one is dependent on body or
\nembodied mind or embodied life, or dependent on this world or that world or on
\nthis condition of being or that condition of being, that is not the reality of
\nself, not the fullness of our spiritual existence. To live only as a self of
\nbody or be only by the body is to be an ephemeral creature, subject to death
\nand desire and pain and suffering and decay and decadence. To transcend, to
\nexceed consciousness of body, not to be held in the body or by the body, to
\nhold the body only as an instrument, a minor outward formation of self, is a first
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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condition of divine living. Not to be a mind
\nsubject to ignorance and restriction of consciousness, to transcend mind and
\nhandle it as an instrument, to control it as a surface formation of self, is a
\nsecond condition. To be by the self and Spirit, not to depend upon life, not to
\nbe identified with it, to transcend it and control and use it as an expression
\nand instrumentation of the self, is a third condition. Even the bodily life
\ndoes not possess its own full being in its own kind if the consciousness does
\nnot exceed the body and feel its physical oneness with all material existence;
\nthe vital life does not possess its own full living in its own kind if the
\nconsciousness does not exceed the restricted play of an individual vitality and
\nfeel the universal life as its own and its oneness with all life. The mentality
\nis not a full conscious existence or activity in its own kind if one does not
\nexceed the individual mental limits and feel a oneness with universal Mind and
\nwith all minds and enjoy one’s integrality of consciousness fulfilled in their
\nwealth of difference. But one must transcend not only the individual formula
\nbut the formula of the universe, for only so can either the individual or the
\nuniversal existence find its own true being and a perfect harmonisation<\/span>;
\nboth are in their outer formulation incomplete terms of the Transcendence, but
\nthey are that in their essence, and it is only by becoming conscious of that
\nessence, that individual consciousness or universal consciousness can come to
\nits own fullness and freedom of reality. Otherwise the individual may remain
\nsubject to the cosmic movement and its reactions and limitations and miss his
\nentire spiritual freedom. He must enter into the supreme divine Reality, feel
\nhis oneness with it, live in it, be its self-creation: all his mind, life,
\nphysicality must be converted into terms of its Supernature<\/span>;
\nall his thoughts, feelings, actions must be determined by it and be it, its
\nself-formation. All this can become complete in him only when he has evolved
\nout of the Ignorance into the Knowledge and through the Knowledge into the
\nsupreme Consciousness and its dynamis<\/span> and supreme
\ndelight of existence; but some essentiality of these things and their
\nsufficient instrumentation can come with the first spiritual change and
\nculminate in the life of the gnostic<\/span> Supernature<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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         These things are impossible without an inward
\nliving; they cannot be reached by remaining in an external consciousness turned
\nalways outwards, active only or mainly on and from the surface. The individual
\nbeing has to find himself, his true existence; he can only do this by going
\ninward, by living within and from within: for the external or outer
\nconsciousness or life separated from the inner Spirit is the field of the
\nIgnorance; it can only exceed itself and exceed the Ignorance by opening into
\nthe largeness of an inner self and life. If there is a being of the
\ntranscendence in us, it must be there in our secret self; on the surface there
\nis only an ephemeral being of nature, made by limit and circumstance. If there
\nis a self in us capable of largeness and universality, able to enter into a
\ncosmic consciousness, that too must be within our inner being; the outer
\nconsciousness is a physical consciousness bound to its individual limits by the
\ntriple cord of mind, life and body: any external attempt at universality can
\nonly result either in an aggrandisement<\/span> of the ego or
\nan effacement of the personality by its extinction in the mass or subjugation
\nto the mass. It is only by an inner growth, movement, action that the
\nindividual can freely and effectively universalise<\/span>
\nand transcendentalise<\/span> his being. There must be for
\nthe divine living a transference of the centre and immediate source of dynamic
\neffectuation of the being from out inward; for there the soul is seated, but it
\nis veiled or half veiled and our immediate being and source of action is for
\nthe present on the surface. In men, says the Upanishad, the Self-Existent has
\ncut the doors of consciousness outward, but a few turn the eye inward and it is
\nthese who see and know the Spirit and develop the spiritual being. Thus to look
\ninto ourselves and see and enter into ourselves and live within is the first
\nnecessity for transformation of nature and for the divine life. <\/span><\/p>\n

            <\/span>This
\nmovement of going inward and living inward is a difficult task to lay upon the
\nnormal consciousness of the human being; yet there is no other way of
\nself-finding. The materialistic thinker, erecting an opposition between the
\nextrovert and the introvert, holds up the extrovert attitude for acceptance as
\nthe only safety: to go inward is to enter into darkness or
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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emptiness or to lose the balance of the
\nconsciousness and become morbid; it is from outside that such inner life as one
\ncan construct is created, and its health is assured only by a strict reliance
\non its wholesome and nourishing outer sources,\u2014the balance of the personal mind
\nand life can only be secured by a firm support on external reality, for the
\nmaterial world is the sole fundamental reality. This may be true for the
\nphysical man, the born extrovert, who feels himself to be a creature of outward
\nNature; made by her and dependent on her, he would lose himself if he went
\ninward: for him there is no inner being, no inner living. But the introvert of
\nthis distinction also has not the inner life; he is not a seer of the true
\ninner self and of inner things, but the small mental man who looks
\nsuperficially inside himself and sees there not his spiritual self but his
\nlife-ego, his mind-ego and becomes unhealthily preoccupied with the movements
\nof this little pitiful dwarf creature. The idea or experience of an inner
\ndarkness when looking inwards is the first reaction of a mentality which has
\nlived always on the surface and has no realised<\/span> inner
\nexistence; it has only a constructed internal experience which depends on the
\noutside world for the materials of its being. But to those into whose
\ncomposition there has entered  <\/span>the power
\nof a more inner living, the movement of going within and living within brings
\nnot a darkness or dull emptiness but an enlargement, a rush of new experience,
\na greater vision, a larger capacity, an extended life infinitely more real and
\nvarious than the first pettiness of the life constructed for itself by our normal
\nphysical humanity, a joy of being which is larger and richer than any delight
\nin existence that the outer vital man or the surface mental man can gain by
\ntheir dynamic vital force and activity or subtlety and expansion of the mental
\nexistence. A silence, an entry into a wide or even immense or infinite
\nemptiness is part of the inner spiritual experience; of this silence and void
\nthe physical mind has a certain fear, the small superficially active thinking
\nor vital mind a shrinking from it or dislike,\u2014for it confuses the silence with
\nmental and vital incapacity and the void with cessation or non-existence: but
\nthis silence is the silence of the Spirit which is the condition of a greater
\nknowledge, power and bliss, and
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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this emptiness is the emptying of the cup of our
\nnatural being, a liberation of it from its turbid contents so that it may be
\nfilled with the wine of God; it is the passage not into non-existence but to a
\ngreater existence. Even when the being turns towards cessation, it is a
\ncessation not in non-existence but into some vast ineffable of spiritual being
\nor the plunge into the incommunicable superconscience<\/span>
\nof the Absolute.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, this inward
\nturning and movement is not an imprisonment in personal self, it is the first
\nstep towards a true universality; it brings to us the truth of our external as
\nwell as the truth of our internal existence. For this inner living can extend
\nitself and embrace the universal life, it can contact, penetrate, englobe<\/span> the life of all with a much greater reality and
\ndynamic force than is in our surface consciousness at all possible. Our utmost universalisation<\/span> on the surface is a poor and limping endeavour<\/span>,\u2014it is a construction, a make-believe and not the
\nreal thing: for in our surface consciousness we are bound to separation of
\nconsciousness from others and wear the fetters of the ego. There our very
\nselflessness becomes more often than not a subtle form of selfishness or turns
\ninto a larger affirmation of our ego; content with our pose of altruism, we do
\nnot see that it is a veil for the imposition of our individual self, our ideas,
\nour mental and vital personality, our need of ego-enlargement upon the others
\nwhom we take up into our expanded orbit. So far as we really succeed in living
\nfor others, it is done by an inner spiritual force of love and sympathy; but
\nthe power and field of effectuality of this force in us are small, the psychic
\nmovement that prompts it is incomplete, its action often ignorant because there
\nis contact of mind and heart but our being does not embrace the being of others
\nas ourselves. An external unity with others must always be an outward joining
\nand association of external lives with a minor inner result; the mind and heart
\nattach their movements to this common life and the beings whom we meet there;
\nbut the common external life remains the foundation,\u2014the inward constructed
\nunity, or so much of it as can persist in spite of mutual ignorance and
\ndiscordant egoisms, conflict of minds, conflict of hearts, conflict of vital
\ntemperaments, conflict of interests, is a partial and
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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insecure superstructure. The spiritual
\nconsciousness, the spiritual life reverses this principle of building; it bases
\nits action in the collective life upon an inner experience and inclusion of
\nothers in our own being, an inner sense and reality of oneness. The spiritual
\nindividual acts out of that sense of oneness which gives him immediate and
\ndirect perception of the demand of self on other self, the need of the life, the
\ngood, the work of love and sympathy that can truly be done. A realisation<\/span> of spiritual unity, a dynamisation<\/span>
\nof the intimate consciousness of one-being, of one self in all beings, can
\nalone found and govern by its truth the action of the divine life. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the gnostic<\/span> or divine being, in the gnostic<\/span>
\nlife, there will be a close and complete consciousness of the self of others, a
\nconsciousness of their mind, life, physical being which are felt as if they
\nwere one’s own. The gnostic<\/span> being will act, not out
\nof a surface sentiment of love and sympathy or any similar feeling, but out of
\nthis close mutual consciousness, this intimate oneness. All his action in the
\nworld will be enlightened by a truth of vision of what has to be done, a sense
\nof the will of the Divine Reality in him which is also the Divine Reality in
\nothers, and it will be done for the Divine in others and the Divine in all, for
\nthe effectuation of the truth of purpose of the All as seen in the light of the
\nhighest Consciousness and in the way and by the steps through which it must be
\neffectuated in the power of the Supernature<\/span>. The gnostic<\/span> being finds himself not only in his own fulfilment<\/span>, which is the fulfilment<\/span>
\nof the Divine Being and Will in him, but in the fulfilment<\/span>
\nof others; his universal individuality effectuates itself in the movement of
\nthe All in all beings towards its greater becoming. He sees a divine working
\neverywhere; what goes out from him into the sum of that divine working, from
\nthe inner Light, Will, Force that works in him, is his action. There is no separative<\/span> ego in him to initiate anything; it is the
\nTranscendent and Universal that moves out through his universalised<\/span>
\nindividuality into the action of the universe. As he does not live for a
\nseparate ego, so too he does not live for the purpose of any collective ego; he
\nlives in and for the Divine in himself, in and for the Divine in the
\ncollectivity, in and for the Divine in all beings. This universality
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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in action, organised<\/span>
\nby the all-seeing Will in the sense of the realised<\/span>
\noneness of all, is the law of his divine living.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

It is, then, this
\nspiritual fulfilment<\/span> of the urge to individual
\nperfection and an inner completeness of being that we mean first when we speak
\nof a divine life. It is the first essential condition of a perfected life on
\nearth, and we are therefore right in making the utmost possible individual
\nperfection our first supreme business. The perfection of the spiritual and
\npragmatic relation of the individual with all around him is our second preoccupation;
\nthe solution of this second desideratum lies in a complete universality and
\noneness with all life upon earth which is the other concomitant result of an
\nevolution into the gnostic<\/span> consciousness and nature.
\nBut there still remains the third desideratum, a new world, a change in the
\ntotal life of humanity or, at the least, a new perfected collective life in the
\nearth-nature. This calls for the appearance not only of isolated evolved
\nindividuals acting in the unevolved<\/span> mass, but of many
\ngnostic<\/span> individuals forming a new kind of beings and
\na new common life superior to the present individual and common existence. A
\ncollective life of this kind must obviously constitute itself on the same
\nprinciple as the life of the gnostic<\/span> individual. In
\nour present human existence there is a physical collectivity held together by
\nthe common physical life-fact and all that arises from it, community of
\ninterests, a common civilisation<\/span> and culture, a
\ncommon social law, an aggregate mentality, an economic association, the ideals,
\nemotions, endeavours<\/span> of the collective ego with the
\nstrand of individual ties and connections running through the whole and helping
\nto keep it together. Or, where there is a difference in these things,
\nopposition, conflict, a practical accommodation or an organised<\/span>
\ncompromise is enforced by the necessity of living together; there is erected a
\nnatural or a constructed order. This would not be the gnostic<\/span>
\ndivine way of collective living; for there what would bind and hold all
\ntogether would be, not the fact of life creating a sufficiently united social
\nconsciousness, but a common consciousness consolidating a common life. All will
\nbe united by the evolution of the Truth-Consciousness in them; in the changed
\nway of being which this consciousness would bring about in them, they will feel
\nthemselves to be
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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embodiments of a single self, souls of a single
\nReality; illumined and motived<\/span> by a fundamental unity
\nof knowledge, actuated by a fundamental unified will and feeling, a life
\nexpressing the spiritual Truth would find through them its own natural forms of
\nbecoming. An order there would be, for truth of oneness creates its own order:
\na law or laws of living there might be, but these would be self-determined;
\nthey would be an expression of the truth of a spiritually united being and the
\ntruth of a spiritually united life. The whole formation of the common existence
\nwould be a self-building of the spiritual forces that must work themselves out
\nspontaneously in such a life: these forces would be received inwardly by the
\ninner being and expressed or self-expressed in a native harmony of idea and
\naction and purpose. <\/span><\/p>\n

An increasing mechanisation<\/span>, a standardisation<\/span>,
\na fixing of all into a common mould in order to ensure harmony is the mental
\nmethod, but that would not be the law of this living. There would be a
\nconsiderable free diversity between different gnostic<\/span>
\ncommunities; each would create its own body of the life of the spirit: there
\nwould be, too, a considerable free diversity in the self-expression of the
\nindividuals of a single community. But this free diversity would not be a chaos
\nor create any discord; for a diversity of one Truth of knowledge and one Truth
\nof life would be a correlation and not an opposition. In a gnostic<\/span>
\nconsciousness there would be no ego-insistence on personal idea and no push or clamour<\/span> of personal will and interest: there would be
\ninstead the unifying sense of a common Truth in many forms, a common self in
\nmany consciousnesses and bodies; there would be a universality and plasticity
\nwhich saw and expressed the One in many figures of itself and worked out
\noneness in all diversities as the inherent law of the Truth-Consciousness and
\nits truth of nature. A single Consciousness-Force, of which all would be aware
\nand see themselves as its instruments, would act through all and harmonise<\/span> their action together. The gnostic<\/span>
\nbeing would feel a single consonant Force of Supernature<\/span>
\nacting in all: he would accept its formation in himself and obey or use the
\nknowledge and power it gave him for the divine work, but he would be under no
\nurge or compulsion to set the power and knowledge in him against the power and
\nknowledge of others or affirm
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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himself as an ego striving against other egos. For
\nthe spiritual self has its own inalienable joy and plenitude inviolable in all
\nconditions, its own infinity of truth of being: that it feels always in
\nfullness whatever may be the outward formulation. The truth of the Spirit
\nwithin would not depend on a particular formation; it would have no need,
\ntherefore, to struggle for any particular outward formulation and
\nself-affirmation: forms would arise of themselves plastically, in suitable
\nrelation to other formulations and each in its own place in the whole
\nformulation. Truth of gnostic<\/span> consciousness and being
\nestablishing itself can find its harmony with all other truth of being around
\nit. A spiritual or gnostic<\/span> being would feel his
\nharmony with the whole gnostic<\/span> life around him,
\nwhatever his position in the whole. According to his place in it he would know
\nhow to lead or to rule, but also how to subordinate himself; both would be to
\nhim an equal delight: for the Spirit’s freedom, because it is eternal,
\nself-existent and inalienable, can be felt as much in service and willing
\nsubordination and adjustment with other selves as in power and rule. An inner
\nspiritual freedom can accept its place in the truth of an inner spiritual
\nhierarchy as well as in the truth, not incompatible with it, of a fundamental
\nspiritual equality. It is this self-arrangement of Truth, a natural order of
\nthe Spirit, that would exist in a common life of different degrees and stages
\nof the evolving gnostic<\/span> being. Unity is the basis of
\nthe gnostic<\/span> consciousness, mutuality the natural
\nresult of its direct awareness of oneness in diversity, harmony the inevitable
\npower of the working of its force. Unity, mutuality and harmony must therefore
\nbe the inescapable law of a common or collective gnostic<\/span>
\nlife. What forms it might take would depend upon the will of evolutionary
\nmanifestation of the Supernature<\/span>, but this would be
\nits general character and principle. <\/span><\/p>\n

This is the whole sense
\nand the inherent law and necessity of the passage from the purely mental and
\nmaterial being and life to the spiritual and supramental<\/span>
\nbeing and life, that the liberation, perfection, self-fulfilment<\/span>
\nfor which the being in the Ignorance is seeking can only be reached by passing
\nout of his present nature of Ignorance into a nature of spiritual
\nself-knowledge and world-knowledge. This greater nature we speak of as
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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\n
\nSupernature<\/span><\/span> because it is beyond
\nhis actual level of consciousness and capacity; but in fact it is his own true
\nnature, the height and completeness of it, to which he must arrive if he is to
\nfind his real self and whole possibility of being. Whatever happens in Nature
\nmust be the result of Nature, the effectuation of what is implied or inherent
\nin it, its inevitable fruit and consequence. If our nature is a fundamental Inconscience<\/span> and Ignorance arriving with difficulty at an
\nimperfect knowledge, an imperfect formulation of consciousness and being, the
\nresults in our being, life and action and creation must be, as they now are, a
\nconstant imperfection and insecure half result, an imperfect mentality, an
\nimperfect life, an imperfect physical existence. We seek to construct systems
\nof knowledge and systems of life by which we can arrive at some perfection of
\nour existence, some order of right relations, right use of mind, right use and
\nhappiness and beauty of life, right use of the body. But what we achieve is a
\nconstructed half-rightness mixed with much that is wrong and unlovely and
\nunhappy; our successive constructions, because of the vice in them and because
\nmind and life cannot rest permanently anywhere in their seeking, are exposed to
\ndestruction, decadence, disruption of their order, and we pass from them to
\nothers which are not more finally successful or enduring, even if on one side
\nor another they may be richer and fuller or more rationally plausible. It
\ncannot be otherwise, because we can construct nothing which goes beyond our
\nnature; imperfect, we cannot construct perfection, however wonderful may seem
\nto us the machinery our mental ingenuity invents, however externally effective.
\nIgnorant, we cannot construct a system of entirely true and fruitful
\nself-knowledge or world-knowledge: our science itself is a construction, a
\nmass, of formulas and devices; masterful in knowledge of processes and in the
\ncreation of apt machinery, but ignorant of the foundations of our being and of
\nworld-being, it cannot perfect our nature and therefore cannot perfect our
\nlife. <\/span><\/p>\n

Our nature, our
\nconsciousness is that of beings ignorant of each other, separated from each
\nother, rooted in a divided ego, who must strive to establish some kind of
\nrelation between their embodied ignorances<\/span>; for the
\nurge to union and forces making
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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for union are there in Nature. Individual and
\ngroup harmonies of a comparative and qualified completeness are created, a
\nsocial cohesion is accomplished; but in the mass the relations formed are
\nconstantly marred by imperfect sympathy, imperfect understanding, gross
\nmisunderstandings, strife, discord, unhappiness. It cannot be otherwise so long
\nas there is no true union of consciousness founded upon a nature of
\nself-knowledge, inner mutual knowledge, inner realisation<\/span>
\nof unity, concord of our inner forces of being and inner forces of life. In our
\nsocial building we labour<\/span> to establish some approach
\nto unity, mutuality, harmony, because without these things there can be no
\nperfect social living; but what we build is a constructed unity, an association
\nof interests and egos enforced by law and custom and imposing an artificial
\nconstructed order in which the interests of some prevail over the interests of
\nothers and only a half accepted half enforced, half natural half artificial
\naccommodation keeps the social whole in being. Between community and community
\nthere is a still worse accommodation with a constant recurrence of the strife
\nof collective ego with collective ego. This is the best that we can do and all
\nour persistent readjustments of the social order can bring us nothing better
\nthan an imperfect structure of life. <\/span><\/p>\n

It is only if our nature
\ndevelops beyond itself, if it becomes a nature of self-knowledge, mutual
\nunderstanding, unity, a nature of true being and true life that the result can
\nbe a perfection of ourselves and our existence, a life of true being, a life of
\nunity, mutuality, harmony, a life of true happiness, a harmonious and beautiful
\nlife. If our nature is fixed in what it is, what it has already become, then no
\nperfection, no real and enduring happiness is possible in earthly life; we must
\nseek it not at all and do the best we can with our imperfections, or we must
\nseek it elsewhere, in a supraterrestrial<\/span> hereafter,
\nor we must go beyond all such seeking and transcend life by an extinction of
\nnature and ego in some Absolute from which this strange and unsatisfactory
\nbeing of ours has come into existence. But if in us there is a spiritual being
\nwhich is emerging and our present state is only an imperfection or
\nhalf-emergence, if the Inconscient<\/span> is a
\nstarting-point containing in itself the potency of a Superconscience<\/span>
\nand
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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\n
\nSupernature<\/span><\/span> which has to evolve, a
\nveil of apparent Nature in which that greater consciousness is concealed and
\nfrom which it has to unfold itself, if an evolution of being is the law, then
\nwhat we are seeking for is not only possible but part of the eventual necessity
\nof things. It is our spiritual destiny to manifest and become that Supernature<\/span>,\u2014for it is the nature of our true self, our
\nstill occult, because unevolved<\/span>, whole being. A
\nnature of unity will then bring inevitably its life-result of unity, mutuality,
\nharmony. An inner life awakened to a full consciousness and to a full power of
\nconsciousness will bear its inevitable fruit in all who have it,
\nself-knowledge, a perfected existence, the joy of a satisfied being, the
\nhappiness of a fulfilled nature. <\/span><\/p>\n

An innate character of
\nthe gnostic<\/span> consciousness and the instrumentation of Supernature<\/span> is a wholeness of sight and action, a unity of
\nknowledge with knowledge, a reconciliation of all that seems contrary in our
\nmental seeing and knowing, an identity of Knowledge and Will acting as a single
\npower in perfect unison with the truth of things; this inborn character of Supernature<\/span> is the foundation of the perfect unity,
\nmutuality, harmony of its action. In the mental being there is a discord of its
\nconstructed knowledge with the real or the whole truth of things, so that even
\nwhat is true in it is often or is eventually ineffective or only partially
\neffective. Our discoveries of truth are overthrown, our passionate
\neffectuations of truth are frustrated; often the result of our action becomes
\npart of a scheme we did not intend for a purpose whose legitimacy we would not
\nacknowledge, or the truth of the idea is deceived by the actual outcome of its
\npragmatic success. Even if there is a successful realisation<\/span>
\nof the idea, yet because the idea is incomplete, an isolated construction of
\nthe mind separate from the one and whole truth of things, its success must
\nsooner or later end in disillusionment and a new endeavour<\/span>.
\nThe discordance of our seeing and our notions with the true truth and the whole
\ntruth of things, the partiality and superficiality of our mind’s deceptive
\nconstructions, is the cause of our frustration. But there is also not only a
\ndiscord of knowledge with knowledge but of will with will and of knowledge with
\nwill in the same being, a division and disharmony between them, so that where
\nthe knowledge is ripe or sufficient <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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some will in the being opposes it or the will
\nfails it; where the will is powerful, vehement or firmly or forcefully
\neffective, knowledge guiding it to its right use is lacking. All kinds of
\ndisparity and maladjustment and incompleteness of our knowledge, will,
\ncapacity, executive force and dealing intervene constantly in our action, our
\nworking out of life, and are an abundant source of imperfection or ineffectivity<\/span>. These disorders, defects and disharmonies
\nare normal to a status and energy of Ignorance and can only be dissolved by a
\ngreater light than that of mind-nature or life-nature. An identity and
\nauthenticity and a harmony of truth with truth are the native character of all gnostic<\/span> seeing and action; as the mind grows into the
\ngnosis, our mental seeing and action lifted into the gnostic<\/span>
\nlight or visited and ruled by it would begin to partake of this character and,
\neven if still restricted and within limits, must become much more perfect and
\nwithin these limits effective: the causes of our incapacity and frustration
\nwould begin to diminish and disappear. But also the larger existence will
\ninvade the mind with the potencies of a greater consciousness and a greater
\nforce, a bringing out of new powers of the being. Knowledge is power and act of
\nconsciousness, Will is conscious power and conscious act of force of being;
\nboth in the gnostic<\/span> being will reach greater
\nmagnitudes than any we now know, a higher degree of themselves, a richer
\ninstrumentation: for wherever there is an increase of consciousness, there is
\nan increase of the potential force and the actual power of the existence. <\/span><\/p>\n

            <\/span>In
\nthe terrestrial formulation of Knowledge and Power, this correlation is not
\naltogether apparent because there consciousness itself is concealed in an
\noriginal Inconscience<\/span> and the natural strength and
\nrhythm of its powers in their emergence are diminished and disturbed by the
\ndiscordances and the veils of the Ignorance. The Inconscient<\/span>
\nthere is the original, potent and automatically effective Force, the conscious
\nmind is only a small labouring<\/span> agent; but that is
\nbecause the conscious mind in us has a limited individual action and the Inconscient<\/span> is an immense action of a universal concealed
\nConsciousness: the cosmic Force, masked as a material Energy, hides from our
\nview by its insistent materiality of process the occult fact that the
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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working of the Inconscient<\/span>
\nis really the expression of a vast universal Life, a veiled universal Mind, a
\nhooded Gnosis, and without these origins of itself it could have no power of
\naction, no organising<\/span> coherence. Life-Force also in
\nthe material world seems to be more dynamic and effective than Mind; our Mind
\nis free and fully powerful in idea and cognition only: its force of action, its
\npower of effectuation outside this mental field is obliged to work with Life
\nand Matter as instruments and, under the conditions imposed on it by Life and
\nMatter, our Mind is hampered and half-effective. But even so we see that
\nNature-force in the mental being is much more powerful to deal with himself and
\nwith Life and Matter than Nature-force in the animal; it is the greater force
\nof consciousness and knowledge, the greater emerged force of being and will
\nthat constitute this superiority. In human life itself the vital man seems to
\nhave a stronger dynamis<\/span> of action than the mental man
\nbecause of his superiority in kinetic life-force: the intellectual tends to be
\neffective in thought but ineffective in power over the world, while the kinetic
\nvital man of action dominates life. But it is his use of Mind that enables him
\nto arrive at a full exploitation of this superiority, and in the end the mental
\nman by his power of knowledge, his science, is able to extend the mastery of
\nexistence far beyond what Life in Matter could accomplish by its own agencies
\nor what the vital man could accomplish with his life-force and life-instinct
\nwithout that increase of effective knowledge. An immensely greater power over
\nexistence and over Nature must come when a still greater consciousness emerges
\nand replaces the hampered operations of the mental Energy in our too individualised<\/span> and restricted force of existence. <\/span><\/p>\n

A certain fundamental
\nsubjection of Mind to Life and Matter and an acceptance of this subjection, an
\ninability to make the law of Mind directly dominant and modify by its powers
\nthe blinder law and operations of these inferior forces of being, remains even
\nin the midst of our greatest mental mastery over self and things; but this
\nlimitation is not insuperable. It is the interest of occult knowledge that it
\nshows us,\u2014and a dynamic force of spiritual knowledge brings us the same
\nevidence,\u2014that this subjection of Mind to Matter, of the Spirit to a lesser law
\nof Life is not what
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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it at first appears to be, a fundamental
\ncondition of things, an inviolable and unalterable rule of Nature. The
\ngreatest, most momentous natural discovery that man can make is this that Mind,
\nand still more the force of the Spirit, can in many tried and yet untried ways
\nand in all directions,\u2014by its own nature and direct power and not only by
\ndevices and contrivances such as the superior material instrumentation
\ndiscovered by physical Science,\u2014overcome and control Life and Matter. In the
\nevolution of the gnostic<\/span> supernature<\/span>
\nthis direct power of consciousness, this direct action of the force of the
\nbeing, its free mastery and control of Life and Matter, would be consummated
\nand reach their acme. For the greater knowledge of the gnostic<\/span>
\nbeing would not be in the main an outwardly acquired or learned knowledge, but
\nthe result of an evolution of consciousness and of the force of consciousness,
\na new dynamisation<\/span> of the being. As a consequence, he
\nwould awake to and possess many things, a clear and complete knowledge of self,
\na direct knowledge of others, a direct knowledge of hidden forces, a direct
\nknowledge of the occult mechanism of Mind and Life and Matter, which are beyond
\nour present attainment. This new knowledge and action of knowledge would be
\nbased on an immediate intuitive consciousness of things and an immediate
\nintuitive control of things; an operative insight, now supernormal to us, would
\nbe the normal functioning of this consciousness, and an integral assured effectivity<\/span> both in the mass of action and in its detail
\nwould be the outcome of the change. For the gnostic<\/span>
\nbeing would be in unison and communion with the Consciousness-Force that is at
\nthe root of everything: his vision and his will would be the channel of the supramental<\/span> Real-Idea, the self-effective Truth-Force; his
\naction would be a free manifestation of the power and workings of the root
\nForce of existence, the force of an all-determining conscious Spirit whose
\nformulations of consciousness work out inevitably in Mind, Life and Matter.
\nActing in the light and power of the supramental<\/span>
\nknowledge, the evolving gnostic<\/span> being would be more
\nand more master of himself, master of the forces of consciousness, master of
\nthe energies of Nature, master of his instrumentation of Life and Matter. In
\nthe lesser status, the intermediate stages or formations of the evolving gnostic<\/span> nature, this power
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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would not be present in its fullness: but in
\nsome degree of its activities it would be there; incipient and increasing with
\nthe ascent of the scale, it would be a natural concomitant of the growth of
\nconsciousness and knowledge.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

A new power and powers
\nof consciousness would be, then, an inevitable consequence of an evolution of
\nConsciousness-Force passing beyond Mind to a superior cognitive and dynamic
\nprinciple. In their essential nature these new powers must have the character
\nof a control of Mind over Life and Matter, of the conscious Life-will and
\nLife-force over Matter, of the spirit over mind, life and matter; they would
\nhave the character also of a breaking down of the barriers between soul and
\nsoul, mind and mind, life and life: such a change would be indispensable for
\nthe instrumentation of the gnostic<\/span> life. For a total gnostic<\/span> or divine living would include not only the
\nindividual life of the being but the life of others made one with the
\nindividual in a common uniting consciousness. Such a life must have for its
\nmain constituting power a spontaneous and innate, not a constructed, unity and harmony;
\nthis can only come by a greater identity of being and consciousness between
\nindividual and individual unified in their spiritual substance, feeling
\nthemselves to be self and self of one self-existence, acting in a greater unitarian<\/span> force of knowledge, a greater power of the being.
\nThere must be an inner and direct mutual knowledge based upon a consciousness
\nof oneness and identity, a consciousness of each other’s being, thought,
\nfeeling, inner and outer movements, a conscious communication of mind with
\nmind, of heart with heart, a conscious impact of life upon life, a conscious
\ninterchange of forces of being with forces of being; in any absence or
\ndeficiency of these powers and their intimate light there could not be a real
\nor complete unity or a real and complete natural fitting of each individual’s
\nbeing, thought, feeling, inner and outer movements with those of the
\nindividuals around him. A growing basis and structure of conscious unanimism<\/span>, we might say, would be the character of this
\nmore evolved life. <\/span><\/p>\n

Harmony is the natural rule of the Spirit, it is the
\ninherent law and spontaneous consequence of unity in multiplicity, of unity in
\ndiversity, of a various manifestation of oneness. In a
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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pure and blank unity there could be indeed no place
\nfor harmony, for there is nothing to harmonise<\/span>; in a
\ncomplete or a governing diversity there must be either discord or a fitting
\ntogether of differences, a constructed harmony. But in a gnostic<\/span>
\nunity in multiplicity the harmony would be there as a spontaneous expression of
\nthe unity, and this spontaneous expression presupposes a mutuality of
\nconsciousness aware of other consciousness by a direct inner contact and
\ninterchange. In infrarational<\/span> life harmony is secured
\nby an instinctive oneness of nature and oneness of the action of the nature, an
\ninstinctive communication, an instinctive or direct vital-intuitional
\nsense-understanding by which the individuals of an animal or insect community
\nare able to co-operate. In human life this is replaced by understanding through
\nsense-knowledge and mental perception and communication of ideas by speech, but
\nthe means that have to be used are imperfect and the harmony and cooperation
\nincomplete. In a gnostic<\/span> life, a life of superreason<\/span> and supernature<\/span>, a
\nself-aware spiritual unity of being and a spiritual conscious community and
\ninterchange of nature would be the deep and ample root of understanding: this
\ngreater life would have evolved new and superior means and powers of uniting
\nconsciousness inwardly with consciousness; intimacy of consciousness
\ncommunicating inwardly and directly with consciousness, thought with thought,
\nvision with vision, sense with sense, life with life, body-awareness with
\nbody-awareness, would be its natural basic instrumentation. All these new
\npowers taking up the old outward instruments and using them as a subordinate
\nmeans with a far greater power and to more purpose would be put to the service
\nof the self-expression of the Spirit in a profound oneness of being and life.<\/span><\/p>\n

An evolution of innate
\nand latent but as yet unevolved<\/span> powers of
\nconsciousness is not considered admissible by the modern mind, because these
\nexceed our present formulation of Nature and, to our ignorant preconceptions
\nfounded on a limited experience, they seem to belong to the supernatural, to
\nthe miraculous and occult; for they surpass the known action of material Energy
\nwhich is now ordinarily accepted as the sole cause and mode of things and the
\nsole instrumentation of the World-
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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Force. A human working of marvels, by the
\nconscious being discovering and developing an instrumentation of material
\nforces overpassing<\/span> anything that Nature has herself organised<\/span>, is accepted as a natural fact and an almost
\nunlimited prospect of our existence; an awakening, a discovery, an
\ninstrumentation of powers of consciousness and of spiritual, mental and life
\nforces overpassing<\/span> anything that Nature or man has
\nyet organised<\/span> is not admitted as possible. But there
\nwould be nothing supernatural or miraculous in such an evolution, except in so
\nfar as it would be a supernature<\/span> or superior nature
\nto ours just as human nature is a supernature<\/span> or
\nsuperior nature to that of animal or plant or material objects. Our mind and
\nits powers, our use of reason, our mental intuition and insight, speech,
\npossibilities of philosophical, scientific, aesthetic discovery of the truths
\nand potencies of being and a control of its forces are an evolution that has
\ntaken place: yet it would seem impossible if we took our stand on the limited
\nanimal consciousness and its capacities; for there is nothing there tow warrant
\nso prodigious a progression. But still there are vague initial manifestations,
\nrudimentary elements or arrested possibilities in the animal to which our
\nreason and intelligence with their extraordinary developments stand as an
\nunimaginable journey from a poor and unpromising point of departure. The
\nrudiments of spiritual powers belonging to the gnostic<\/span>
\nSupernature<\/span> are similarly there even in our ordinary
\ncomposition, but only occasionally and sparsely active. It is not irrational to
\nsuppose that at this much higher stage of the evolution a similar but greater
\nprogression starting from these rudimentary beginnings might lead to another
\nimmense development and departure.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

In mystic
\nexperience,\u2014when there is an opening of the inner centres<\/span>,
\nor in other ways, spontaneously or by will or endeavour<\/span>
\nor in the very course of the spiritual growth,\u2014new powers of consciousness have
\nbeen known to develop; they present themselves as if an automatic consequence
\nof some inner opening or in answer to a call in the being, so much so that it
\nhas been found necessary to recommend to the seeker not to hunt after these
\npowers, not to accept or use them.   <\/span>This
\nrejection is logical for those who seek to withdraw from life; for all <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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acceptance of greater power would bind to life
\nor be a burden on the bare and pure urge towards liberation. An indifference to
\nall other aims and issues is natural for the God-lover who seeks God for His
\nown sake and not for power or any other inferior attraction; the pursuit of
\nthese alluring but often dangerous forces would be a deviation from his
\npurpose. A similar rejection is a necessary self-restraint and a spiritual
\ndiscipline for the immature seeker, since such powers may be a great, even a
\ndeadly peril; for their supernormality<\/span> may easily
\nfeed in him an abnormal exaggeration of the ego. Power in itself may be dreaded
\nas a temptation by the aspirant to perfection, because power can abase as well
\nas elevate; nothing is more liable to misuse. But when new capacities come as
\nan inevitable result of the growth into a greater consciousness and a greater
\nlife and that growth is part of the very aim of the spiritual being within us,
\nthis bar does not operate; for a growth of 
\n<\/span>the being into Supernature<\/span> and its life in Supernature<\/span> cannot take place or cannot be complete without
\nbringing with it a greater power of consciousness and a greater power of life
\nand the spontaneous development of an instrumentation of knowledge and force
\nnormal to that Supernature<\/span>. There is nothing in this
\nfuture evolution of the being which could be regarded as irrational or
\nincredible; there is nothing in it abnormal or miraculous: it would be the
\nnecessary course of the evolution of consciousness and its forces in the
\npassage from the mental to the gnostic<\/span> or supramental<\/span> formulation of our existence. This action of
\nthe forces of Supernature<\/span> would be a natural, normal
\nand spontaneously simple working of the new higher or greater consciousness
\ninto which the being enters in the course of 
\n<\/span>his self-evolution; the gnostic<\/span> being
\naccepting the gnostic<\/span> life would develop and use the
\npowers of this greater consciousness, even as man develops and uses the powers
\nof his mental nature. <\/span><\/p>\n

It is evident that such
\nan increase of the power or powers of consciousness would be not only normal
\nbut indispensable to a greater and more perfect life. Human life with its
\npartial harmony, in so far as that is not maintained by the imposition of a
\nsettled law and order on the constituent individuals through a partly willing,
\npartly induced, partly forced or unavoidable
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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acceptance, reposes on the agreement of the
\nenlightened or interested elements in their mind, heart, life-sense, an assent to
\na composite body of common ideas, desires, vital satisfactions, aims of
\nexistence. But there is in the mass of constituting individuals an imperfect
\nunderstanding and knowledge of the ideas, life-aims, life-motives which they
\nhave accepted, an imperfect power in their execution, an imperfect will to
\nmaintain them always unimpaired, to carry them out fully or to bring the life
\nto a greater perfection; there is an element of struggle and discord, a mass of
\nrepressed or unfulfilled desires and frustrated wills, a simmering suppressed unsatisfaction<\/span> or an awakened or eruptive discontent or
\nunequally satisfied interests; there are new ideas, life-motives that break in
\nand cannot be correlated without upheaval and disturbance; there are
\nlife-forces at work in human beings and their environment that are at variance
\nwith the harmony that has been constructed, and there is not the full power to
\novercome the discords and dislocations created by a clashing diversity of mind
\nand life and by the attack of disrupting forces in universal Nature. What is
\nlacking is a spiritual knowledge and spiritual power, a power over self, a
\npower born of inner unification with others, a power over the surrounding or
\ninvading world-forces, a full-visioned<\/span> and fully
\nequipped power of effectuation of knowledge; it is these capacities missing or
\ndefective in us that belong to the very substance of gnostic<\/span>
\nbeing, for they are inherent in the light and dynamis<\/span>
\nof the gnostic<\/span> nature. <\/span><\/p>\n

But, in addition to the
\nimperfect accommodation of the minds, hearts, lives of the constituting
\nindividuals in a human society, the mind and the life of the individual himself
\nare actuated by forces that are not in accord with each other; our attempts to
\naccord them are imperfect, and still more imperfect is our force to put any one
\nof them into integral or satisfying execution in life. Thus the law of love and
\nsympathy is natural to our consciousness; as we grow in Spirit, its demand   <\/span>on us increases: but there is also the demand
\nof the intellect, the push of the vital force and its impulses in us, the claim
\nand pressure of many other elements that do not coincide with the law of love
\nand sympathy, nor do we know how to fit them all into the <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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whole law of existence or to render any or all
\nof them either justly and entirely effective or imperative. In order to make
\nthem concordant and actively fruitful in the whole being and whole life, we
\nhave to grow into a more complete spiritual nature; we have, by that growth, to
\nlive in the light and force of a higher and larger and more integral
\nconsciousness of which knowledge and power, love and sympathy and play of
\nlife-will are all natural and ever-present accorded elements; we have to move
\nand act in a light of Truth which sees intuitively and spontaneously the thing
\nto be done and the way to do it and intuitively and spontaneously fulfils
\nitself in the act, and the force,\u2014taking up into that intuitive spontaneity of
\ntheir truth, into its simple spiritual and supreme normality, the complexity of
\nour forces of being and suffusing with their harmonized realities all the steps
\nof Nature. <\/span><\/p>\n

It should be evident
\nthat no rationalised<\/span> piecing together or ingenuity of
\nmental construction can accord or harmonise<\/span> this
\ncomplexity; it is only the intuition and self-knowledge of an awakened Spirit
\nthat can do it. That would be the nature of the evolved supramental<\/span>
\nbeing and his existence; his spiritual sight and sense would take up all the
\nforces of the being in a unifying consciousness and bring them into a normality
\nof accorded action: for this accord and concord are the true normality of the
\nSpirit; the discord, the disharmony of our life and nature is abnormal to it
\nalthough it is normal to the life of the Ignorance. It is indeed because it is
\nnot normal to the Spirit that a knowledge within us is dissatisfied and strives
\ntowards a greater harmony in our existence. This accord and concord of the
\nwhole being, which is natural to the gnostic<\/span>
\nindividual, would be equally natural to a community of gnostic<\/span>
\nbeings; for it would rest on a union of self with self in the light of a common
\nand mutual self-awareness. It is true that in the total terrestrial existence
\nof which the gnostic<\/span> life would be a part, there
\nwould be still continuing within it a life belonging to a less evolved order;
\nthe intuitive and gnostic<\/span> life would have to fit into
\nthis total existence and carry into it as much of its own law of unity and
\nharmony as may be possible. Here the law of spontaneous harmony might seem to
\nbe inapplicable, <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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since the relation of the gnostic<\/span>
\nlife with the ignorant life around it would not be founded on a mutuality of
\nself-knowledge and a sense of one being and common consciousness; it would be a
\nrelation of action of knowledge to action of ignorance. But this difficulty need
\nnot be so great as it seems now to us; for the gnostic<\/span>
\nknowledge would carry in it a perfect understanding of the consciousness of the
\nIgnorance, and it would not be impossible, therefore, for an assured gnostic<\/span> life to harmonise<\/span> its
\nexistence with that of all the less developed life co-existent with it in the
\nearth-nature.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

If this is our
\nevolutionary destiny, it remains for us to see where we stand at this juncture
\nin the evolutionary progression,\u2014a progression which has been cyclic or spiral
\nrather than in a straight line or has at least journeyed in a very zigzag
\nswinging curve of advance,\u2014and what prospect there is of any turn towards a
\ndecisive step in the near or measurable future. In our human aspiration towards
\na personal perfection and the perfection of the life of the race the elements
\nof the future evolution are foreshadowed and striven after, but in a confusion
\nof half-enlightened knowledge; there is a discord between the necessary
\nelements, an opposing emphasis, a profusion of rudimentary unsatisfying and
\nill-accorded solutions. These sway between the three principal preoccupations
\nof our idealism,\u2014the complete single development of the human being in himself,
\nthe perfectibility of the individual, a full development of the collective
\nbeing, the perfectibility of society, and, more pragmatically restricted, the
\nperfect or best possible relations of individual with individual and society
\nand of community with community. An exclusive or dominant emphasis is laid
\nsometimes on the individual, sometimes on the collectivity or society,
\nsometimes on a right and balanced relation between the individual and the
\ncollective human whole. One idea holds up the growing life, freedom or
\nperfection of the human individual as the true object of our existence,\u2014whether
\nthe ideal be merely a free self-expression of the personal being or a
\nself-governed whole of complete mind, fine and ample life and perfect body, or
\na spiritual perfection and liberation. In this view society is there only as a
\nfield of activity and growth for <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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the individual man and serves best its function
\nwhen it gives as far as possible a wide room, ample means, a sufficient freedom
\nor guidance of development to his thought, his action, his growth, his
\npossibility of fullness of being. An opposite idea gives the collective life
\nthe first or the sole importance; the existence, the growth of the race is all:
\nthe individual has to live for the society or for mankind, or, even, he is only
\na cell of the society, he has no other use or purpose of birth, no other meaning
\nof his presence in Nature, no other function. Or it is held that the nation,
\nthe society, the community is a collective being, revealing its soul in its
\nculture, power of life, ideals, institutions, all its ways of self-expression;
\nthe individual life has to cast itself in that mould of culture, serve that
\npower of life, consent only to exist as an instrument for the maintenance and efficiency
\nof the collective existence. In another idea the perfection of man lies in his
\nethical and social relations with other men; he is a social being and has to
\nlive for society, for others, for his utility to the race: the society also is
\nthere for the service of all, to give them their right relation, education,
\ntraining, economic opportunity, right frame of life. In the ancient cultures
\nthe greatest emphasis was laid on the community and the fitting of the
\nindividual into the community, but also there grew up an idea of the perfected
\nindividual; in ancient India it was the idea of the spiritual individual that
\nwas dominant, but the society was of extreme importance because in it and under
\nits moulding<\/span> influence the individual had to pass
\nfirst through the social status of the physical, vital, mental being with his
\nsatisfaction of interest, desire, pursuit of knowledge and right living before
\nhe could reach fitness for a truer self-realisation<\/span>
\nand a free spiritual existence. In recent times the whole stress has passed to
\nthe life of the race, to a search for the perfect society, and latterly to a
\nconcentration on the right organization and scientific mechanisation<\/span>
\nof the life of mankind as a whole; the individual now tends more to be regarded
\nonly as a member of the collectivity, a unit of the race whose existence must
\nbe subordinated to the common aims and total interest of the organised<\/span> society, and much less or not at all as a mental
\nor spiritual being with his own right and power of
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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\nexistence. This tendency has not yet reached its
\nacme everywhere, but everywhere it is rapidly increasing and heading towards
\ndominance. <\/span><\/p>\n

Thus, in the
\nvicissitudes of human thought, on one side the individual is moved or invited
\nto discover and pursue his own self-affirmation, his own development of mind
\nand life and body, his own spiritual perfection; on the other he is called on
\nto efface and subordinate himself and to accept the ideas, ideals, wills,
\ninstincts, interests of the community as his own. He is moved by Nature to live
\nfor himself and by something deep within him to affirm his individuality; he is
\ncalled upon by society and by a certain mental idealism to live for humanity or
\nfor the greater good of the community. The principle of self and its interest
\nis met and opposed by the principle of altruism. The State erects its godhead
\nand demands his obedience, submission, subordination, self-immolation; the
\nindividual has to affirm against this exorbitant claim the rights of his
\nideals, his ideas, his personality, his conscience. It is evident that all this
\nconflict of standards is a groping of the mental Ignorance of man seeking to
\nfind its way and grasping different sides of the truth but unable by its want
\nof integrality in knowledge to harmonise<\/span> them
\ntogether. A unifying and harmonising<\/span> knowledge can
\nalone find the way, but that knowledge belongs to a deeper principle of our
\nbeing to which oneness and integrality are native. It is only by finding that
\nin ourselves that we can solve the problem of our existence and with it the
\nproblem of the true way of individual and communal living.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

There is a Reality, a
\ntruth of all existence which is greater and more abiding than all its
\nformations and manifestations; to find that truth and Reality and live in it, achieve
\nthe most perfect manifestation and formation possible of it, must be the secret
\nof perfection whether of individual or communal being. This Reality is there
\nwithin each thing and gives to each of its formations its power of being and
\nvalue of being. The universe is a manifestation of the Reality, and there is a
\ntruth of the universal existence, a Power of cosmic being, an all-self or
\nworld-spirit. Humanity is a formation or manifestation of the Reality in the
\nuniverse, and there is a truth and self of
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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humanity, a human spirit, a destiny of human
\nlife. The community is a formation of the Reality, a manifestation of the
\nspirit of man, and there is a truth, a self, a power of the collective being.
\nThe individual is a formation of the Reality, and there is a truth of the
\nindividual, an individual self, soul or spirit that expresses itself through
\nthe individual mind, life and body and can express itself too in something that
\ngoes beyond mind, life and body, something even that goes beyond humanity. For
\nour  humanity is not the whole of the Reality or its
\nbest possible self-formation or self-expression,\u2014the Reality has assumed before
\nman existed an infrahuman formation and self-creation and can assume after him
\nor in him a suprahuman<\/span> formation and self-creation.
\nThe individual as spirit or being is not confined within his humanity; he has
\nbeen less than human, he can become more than human. The universe finds itself
\nthrough him even as he finds himself in the universe, but he is capable of
\nbecoming more than the universe, since he can surpass it and enter into
\nsomething in himself and in it and beyond it that is absolute. He is not
\nconfined within the community; although his mind and life are, in a way, part
\nof the communal mind and life, there is something in him that can go beyond
\nthem. The community exists by   <\/span>the individual, for its mind and life and body
\nare constituted by the mind and life and body of its composing individuals; if
\nthat were abolished or disaggregated, its own existence would be abolished or
\ndisaggregated, though some spirit or power of it might form again in other
\nindividuals:  <\/span>but the individual is not a
\nmere cell of the collective existence; he would not cease to exist if separated
\nor expelled from the collective mass. For the collectivity, the community is
\nnot even the whole of humanity and it is not the world: the individual can
\nexist and find himself elsewhere in humanity or by himself in the world. If the
\ncommunity has a life dominating that of the individuals which constitute it,
\nstill it does not constitute their whole life. If it has its being which it
\nseeks to affirm by the life of the individuals, the individual also has a being
\nof his own which he seeks to affirm in the life of the community. But he is not
\ntied to that, he can affirm himself in another communal life, or, if he is
\nstrong enough, in <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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a nomad existence or in an eremite solitude
\nwhere, if he cannot pursue or achieve a complete material living, he can spiritually
\nexist and find his own reality and indwelling self of being. <\/span><\/p>\n

            <\/span>The
\nindividual is indeed the key of the evolutionary movement; for it is the
\nindividual who finds himself, who becomes conscious of the Reality. The
\nmovement of the collectivity is a largely subconscious mass-movement; it has to
\nformulate and express itself through the individuals to become conscious: its
\ngeneral mass-consciousness is always less evolved than the consciousness of its
\nmost developed individuals, and it progresses in so far as it accepts their
\nimpress or develops what they develop. The individual does not owe his ultimate
\nallegiance either to the State which is a machine or to the community which is
\na part of life and not the whole of life: his allegiance must be to the Truth,
\nthe Self, the Spirit, the Divine which is in him and in all; not to subordinate
\nor lose himself in the mass, but to find and express that truth of being in
\nhimself and help the community and humanity in its seeking for its own truth
\nand fullness of being must be his real object of existence. But the extent to
\nwhich the power of the individual life or the spiritual Reality within it
\nbecomes operative, depends on his own development: so long as he is
\nundeveloped, he has to subordinate in many ways his undeveloped self to
\nwhatever is greater than it. As he develops, he moves towards a spiritual
\nfreedom, but this freedom is not something entirely separate from all-existence;
\nit has a solidarity with it because that too is the Self, the same Spirit. As
\nhe moves towards spiritual freedom, he moves also towards spiritual oneness.
\nThe spiritually realised<\/span>, the liberated man is
\npreoccupied, says the Gita<\/span>, with the good of all
\nbeings; Buddha discovering the way of Nirvana must turn back to open that way
\nto those who are still under the delusion of their constructive instead of
\ntheir real being,\u2014or non-being; Vivekananda, drawn by the Absolute, feels also
\nthe call of the disguised Godhead in humanity and most the call of the fallen
\nand the suffering, the call of the self to the self in the obscure body of the
\nuniverse. For the awakened individual the realisation<\/span>
\nof his truth of being and his inner liberation and perfection must be his
\nprimary seeking,\u2014first, because that
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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is the call of the Spirit within him, but also
\nbecause it is only by liberation and perfection and realisation<\/span>
\nof the truth of being that man can arrive at truth of living. A perfected
\ncommunity also can exist only by the perfection of its individuals, and perfection
\ncan come only by the discovery and affirmation in life by each of his own
\nspiritual being and the discovery by all of their spiritual unity and a
\nresultant life-unity. There can be no real perfection for us except by our
\ninner self and truth of spiritual existence taking up all truth of the
\ninstrumental existence into itself and giving to it oneness, integration,
\nharmony. As our only real freedom is the discovery and disengagement of the
\nspiritual Reality within us, so our only means of true perfection is the
\nsovereignty and self-effectuation of the spiritual Reality in all the elements
\nof our nature. <\/span><\/p>\n

Our nature is complex
\nand we have to find a key to some perfect unity and fullness of its complexity.
\nIts first evolutionary basis is the material life: Nature began with that and
\nman also has to begin with it; he has first to affirm his material and vital
\nexistence. But if he stops there, there can be for him no evolution; his next
\nand greater preoccupation must be to find himself as a mental being in a
\nmaterial life,\u2014both individual and social,\u2014as perfected as possible. This was the
\ndirection which the Hellenic idea gave to European civilisation<\/span>,
\nand the Roman reinforced,\u2014or weakened,\u2014it with the ideal of organised<\/span>
\npower: the cult of reason, the interpretation of life by an intellectual
\nthought critical, utilitarian, organizing and constructive, the government of
\nlife by Science are the last outcome of this inspiration. But in ancient times
\nthe higher creative and dynamic element was the pursuit of an ideal truth, good
\nand beauty and the moulding<\/span> of mind, life and body
\ninto perfection and harmony by this ideal. Beyond and above this preoccupation,
\nas soon as mind is sufficiently developed, there awakes in man the spiritual
\npreoccupation, the discovery of a self and inmost truth of being and the
\nrelease of man’s mind and life into the truth of the Spirit, its perfection by
\nthe power of the Spirit, the solidarity, unity, mutuality of all beings in the Spirit.
\nThis was the Eastern ideal carried by Buddhism and other ancient disciplines to
\nthe coasts of <\/span>Asia<\/span> and <\/span>Egypt<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

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and from there poured by Christianity into <\/span>Europe<\/span>. But these motives,
\nburning for a time like dim torchlights<\/span> in the
\nconfusion and darkness created by the barbaric flood that had submerged the old
\ncivilisations<\/span>, have been abandoned by the modern spirit
\nwhich has found another light, the light of Science. What the modern spirit has
\nsought for is the economic social ultimate,\u2014an ideal material organisation<\/span> of civilisation<\/span> and
\ncomfort, the use of reason and science and education for the generalisation<\/span> of a utilitarian rationality which will make
\nthe individual a perfected social being in a perfected economic society. What
\nremained from the spiritual ideal was,\u2014for a time,\u2014a mentalised<\/span>
\nand moralised<\/span> humanitarianism relieved of all
\nreligious colouring<\/span> and a social ethicism<\/span>
\nwhich was deemed all-sufficient to take the place of a religious and individual
\nethic. It was so far that the race had reached when it found itself hurried
\nforward by its own momentum into a subjective chaos and a chaos of its life in which
\nall received values were overthrown and all firm ground seemed to disappear
\nfrom its social organisation<\/span>, its conduct and its
\nculture. <\/span><\/p>\n

For this ideal, this
\nconscious stress on the material and economic life was in fact a civilised<\/span> reversion to the first state of man, his early
\nbarbaric state and its preoccupation with life and matter, a spiritual
\nretrogression with the resources of the mind of a developed humanity and a
\nfully evolved Science at its disposal. As an element in the total complexity of
\nhuman life this stress on a perfected economic and material existence has its
\nplace in the whole: as a sole or predominant stress it is for humanity itself,
\nfor the evolution itself full of danger. The first danger is a resurgence of
\nthe old vital and material primitive barbarian in a civilised<\/span>
\nform; the means Science has put at our disposal eliminates the peril of the
\nsubversion and destruction of an effete civilisation<\/span>
\nby stronger primitive peoples, but it is the resurgence of the barbarian in
\nourselves, in civilised<\/span> man, that is the peril, and
\nthis we see all around us. For that is bound to come if there is no high and
\nstrenuous mental and moral ideal controlling and uplifting the vital and
\nphysical man in us and no spiritual ideal liberating him from himself into his
\ninner being. Even if this relapse is escaped, there is another
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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danger,\u2014for a cessation of the evolutionary
\nurge, a crystallisation<\/span> into a stable comfortable mechanised<\/span> social living without ideal or outlook is
\nanother possible outcome. Reason by itself cannot long maintain the race in its
\nprogress; it can do so only if it is a mediator between the life and body and
\nsomething higher and greater within him; for it is the inner spiritual necessity,
\nthe push from what is there yet unrealised<\/span> within him
\nthat maintains in him, once he has attained to mind, the evolutionary stress,
\nthe spiritual nisus. That renounced, he must either relapse and begin all over
\nagain or disappear like other forms of life before him as an evolutionary
\nfailure, through incapacity to maintain or to serve the evolutionary urge. At the
\nbest he will remain arrested in some kind of mediary<\/span> typal<\/span> perfection, like other animal kinds, while Nature
\npursues her way beyond him to a greater creation.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

At present mankind is
\nundergoing an evolutionary crisis in which is concealed a choice of its
\ndestiny; for a stage has been reached in which the human mind has achieved in
\ncertain directions an enormous development while in others it stands arrested
\nand bewildered and can no longer find its way. A structure of the external life
\nhas been raised up by man’s ever-active mind and life-will, a structure of an
\nunmanageable hugeness and complexity, for the service of his mental, vital, physical
\nclaims and urges, a complex political, social, administrative, economic,
\ncultural machinery, an organised<\/span> collective means for
\nhis intellectual, sensational, aesthetic and material satisfaction. Man has
\ncreated a system of civilisation<\/span> which has become too
\nbig for his limited mental capacity and understanding and his still more
\nlimited spiritual and moral capacity to utilise<\/span> and
\nmanage, a too dangerous servant of his blundering ego and its appetites. For no
\ngreater seeing mind, no intuitive soul of knowledge has yet come to his surface
\nof consciousness which could make this basic fullness of life a condition for the
\nfree growth of something that exceeded it. This new fullness of the means of
\nlife might be, by its power for a release from the incessant unsatisfied stress
\nof his economic and physical needs, an opportunity for the full pursuit of
\nother and greater aims surpassing the material existence, for the discovery of
\na
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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higher truth and good and beauty, for the
\ndiscovery of a greater and diviner spirit which would intervene and use life
\nfor a higher perfection of the being: but it is being used instead for the
\nmultiplication of new wants and an aggressive expansion of the collective ego.
\nAt the same time Science has put at his disposal many potencies of the universal
\nForce and has made the life of humanity materially one; but what uses this
\nuniversal Force is a little human individual or communal ego with nothing universal
\nin its light of knowledge or its movements, no inner sense or power which would
\ncreate in this physical drawing together of the human world a true life-unity,
\na mental unity or a spiritual oneness. All that is there is a chaos of clashing
\nmental ideas, urges of individual and collective physical want and need, vital
\nclaims and desires, impulses of an ignorant life-push, hungers and calls for
\nlife satisfaction of individuals, classes, nations, a rich fungus of political
\nand social and economic nostrums and notions, a hustling medley of slogans and
\npanaceas for which men are ready to oppress and be oppressed, to kill and be
\nkilled, to impose them somehow or other by the immense and too formidable means
\nplaced at his disposal, in the belief that this is his way out to something
\nideal. The evolution of human mind and life must necessarily lead towards an
\nincreasing universality; but on a basis of ego and segmenting and dividing mind
\nthis opening to the universal can only create a vast pullulation<\/span>
\nof unaccorded<\/span> ideas and impulses, a surge of enormous
\npowers and desires, a chaotic mass of unassimilated and intermixed mental,
\nvital and physical material of a larger existence which, because it is not
\ntaken up by a creative harmonising<\/span> light of the
\nSpirit, must welter in a universalised<\/span> confusion and
\ndiscord out of which it is impossible to build a greater harmonic life. Man has
\nharmonised<\/span> life in the past by organised<\/span>
\nideation and limitation; he has created societies based on fixed ideas or fixed
\ncustoms, a fixed cultural system or an organic life-system, each with its own
\norder; the throwing of all these into the melting-pot of a more and more
\nintermingling life and a pouring in of ever new ideas and motives and facts and
\npossibilities call for a new, a greater consciousness to meet and master the
\nincreasing potentialities of existence
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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and harmonise<\/span> them.
\nReason and Science can only help by standardising<\/span>, by
\nfixing everything into an artificially arranged and mechanised<\/span>
\nunity of material life. A greater whole-being, whole-knowledge, whole-power is
\nneeded to weld all into a greater unity of whole-life. <\/span><\/p>\n

A life of unity,
\nmutuality and harmony born of a deeper and wider truth of our being is the only
\ntruth of life that can successfully replace the imperfect mental constructions
\nof the past which were a combination of association and regulated conflict, an
\naccommodation of egos and interests grouped or dovetailed into each other to
\nform a society, a consolidation by common general life-motives, a unification
\nby need and the pressure of struggle with outside forces. It is such a change
\nand such a reshaping of life for which humanity is blindly beginning to seek,
\nnow more and more with a sense that its very existence depends upon finding the
\nway. The evolution of Mind working upon Life has developed an organisation<\/span> of the activity of Mind and use of Matter
\nwhich can no longer be supported by human capacity without an inner change. An accommodation
\nof the egocentric human individuality, separative<\/span>
\neven in association, to a system of living which demands unity, perfect
\nmutuality, harmony, is imperative. But because the burden which is being laid
\non mankind is too great for the present littleness of the human personality and
\nits petty mind and small life-instincts, because it cannot operate the needed change,
\nbecause it is using this new apparatus and organisation<\/span>
\nto serve the old infraspiritual<\/span> and infrarational<\/span> life-self of humanity, the destiny of the
\nrace seems to be heading dangerously, as if impatiently and in spite of itself,
\nunder the drive of the vital ego seized by colossal forces which are on the
\nsame scale as the huge mechanical organisation<\/span> of
\nlife and scientific knowledge which it has evolved, a scale too large for its
\nreason and will to handle, into a prolonged confusion and perilous crisis and
\ndarkness of violent shifting incertitude. Even if this turns out to be a
\npassing phase or appearance and a tolerable structural accommodation is found
\nwhich will enable mankind to proceed less catastrophically on its uncertain
\njourney, this can only be a respite. For the problem is fundamental and in
\nputting it evolutionary Nature in man is
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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confronting herself with a critical choice which
\nmust one day be solved in the true sense if the race is to arrive or even to survive.
\nThe evolutionary nisus is pushing towards a development of the cosmic Force in
\nterrestrial life which needs a larger mental and vital being to support it, a
\nwider Mind, a greater wider more conscious unanimised<\/span>
\nLife-Soul, Anima, and that again needs an unveiling of the supporting Soul and
\nspiritual Self within to maintain it.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

A rational and
\nscientific formula of the vitalistic<\/span> and
\nmaterialistic human being and his life, a search for a perfected economic
\nsociety and the democratic cultus<\/span> of the average man
\nare all that the modern mind presents us in this crisis as a light for its
\nsolution. Whatever the truth supporting these ideas, this is clearly not enough
\nto meet the need of a humanity which is missioned<\/span> to
\nevolve beyond itself or, at any rate, if it is to live, must evolve far beyond
\nanything that it at present is. A life-instinct in the race and in the average
\nman himself has felt the inadequacy and has been driving towards a reversal of values
\nor a discovery of new values and a transfer of life to a new foundation. This
\nhas taken the form of an attempt to find a simple and ready-made basis of
\nunity, mutuality, harmony for the common life, to enforce it by a suppression
\nof the competitive clash of egos and so to arrive at a life of identity for the
\ncommunity in place of a life of difference. But to realise<\/span>
\nthese desirable ends the means adopted have been the forcible and successful materialisation<\/span> of a few restricted ideas or slogans
\nenthroned to the exclusion of all other thought, the suppression of the mind of
\nthe individual, a mechanized compression of the elements of life, a mechanised<\/span> unity and drive of the life-force, a coercion of
\nman by the State, the substitution of the communal for the individual ego. The
\ncommunal ego is idealised<\/span> as the soul of the nation,
\nthe race, the community; but this is a colossal and may turn out to be a fatal
\nerror. A forced and imposed unanimity of mind, life, action raised to their
\nhighest tension under the drive of something which is thought to be greater,
\nthe collective soul, the collective life, is the formula found. But this
\nobscure collective being is not the soul or self of the community; it is a
\nlife-force that rises from the subconscient<\/span> and, if
\ndenied the light of guidance by the
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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reason, can be driven only by dark massive
\nforces which are powerful but dangerous for the race because they are alien to the
\nconscious evolution of which man is the trustee and bearer. It is not in this
\ndirection that evolutionary Nature has pointed mankind; this is a reversion
\ntowards something that she had left behind her. <\/span><\/p>\n

Another solution that is
\nattempted reposes still on the materialistic reason and a unified organisation<\/span> of the economic life of the race; but the
\nmethod that is being employed is the same, a forced compression and imposed
\nunanimity of mind and life and a mechanical organisation<\/span>
\nof the communal existence. A unanimity of this kind can only be maintained by a
\ncompression of all freedom of thought and life, and that must bring about
\neither the efficient stability of a termite civilization or a drying up of the
\nsprings of life and a swift or slow decadence. It is through the growth of
\nconsciousness that the collective soul and its life can become aware of itself
\nand develop; the free play of mind and life is essential for the growth of
\nconsciousness: for mind and life are the soul’s only instrumentation until a
\nhigher instrumentation develops; they must not be inhibited in their action or
\nrendered rigid, unplastic<\/span> and unprogressive. The
\ndifficulties or disorders engendered by the growth of the individual mind and
\nlife cannot be healthily removed by the suppression of the individual; the true
\ncure can only be achieved by his progression to a greater consciousness in
\nwhich he is fulfilled and perfected. <\/span><\/p>\n

An alternative solution
\nis the development of an enlightened reason and will of the normal man
\nconsenting to a new socialised<\/span> life in which he will
\nsubordinate his ego for the sake of the right arrangement of the life of the
\ncommunity. If we inquire how this radical change is to be brought about, two
\nagencies seem to be suggested, the agency of a greater and better mental
\nknowledge, right ideas, right information, right training of the social and
\ncivic individual and the agency of a new social machinery which will solve
\neverything by the magic of the social machine cutting humanity into a better
\npattern. But it has not been found in experience, whatever might have once been
\nhoped, that education and intellectual training by itself can change man; it
\nonly provides the human individual and collective ego with better <\/span><\/p>\n

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information and a more efficient machinery for
\nits self-affirmation, but leaves it the same unchanged human ego. Nor can human
\nmind and life be cut into perfection,\u2014even into what is thought to be
\nperfection, a constructed substitute,\u2014by any kind of social machinery; matter
\ncan be so cut, thought can be so cut, but in our human existence matter and
\nthought are only instruments for the soul and the life-force. Machinery cannot
\nform the soul and life-force into standardised<\/span>
\nshapes; it can at best coerce them, make soul and mind inert and stationary and
\nregulate the life’s outward action; but if this is to be effectively done,
\ncoercion and compression of the mind and life are indispensable and that again
\nspells either unprogressive stability or decadence. The reasoning mind with its
\nlogical practicality has no other way of getting the better of Nature’s ambiguous
\nand complex movements than a regulation and mechanisation<\/span>
\nof mind and life. If that is done, the soul of humanity will either have to recover
\nits freedom and growth by a revolt and a destruction of the machine into whose
\ngrip it has been cast or escape by a withdrawal into itself and a rejection of
\nlife. Man’s true way out is to discover his soul and its self-force and
\ninstrumentation and replace by it both the mechanisation<\/span>
\nof mind and the ignorance and disorder of life-nature. But there would be
\nlittle room and freedom for such a movement of self-discovery and
\nself-effectuation in a closely regulated and mechanised<\/span>
\nsocial existence. <\/span><\/p>\n

There is the possibility
\nthat in the swing back from a mechanistic idea of life and society the human
\nmind may seek refuge in a return to the religious idea and a society governed
\nor sanctioned by religion. But organised<\/span> religion,
\nthough it can provide a means of inner uplift for the individual and preserve
\nin it or behind it a way for his opening to spiritual experience, has not
\nchanged human life and society; it could not do so because, in governing
\nsociety, it had to compromise with the lower parts of life and could not insist
\non the inner change of the whole being; it could insist only on a credal<\/span> adherence, a formal acceptance of its ethical
\nstandards and a conformity to institution, ceremony and ritual. Religion so
\nconceived can give a religio<\/span>-ethical colour<\/span> or surface tinge,\u2014sometimes, if it maintains a
\nstrong kernel of inner experience, it can generalise<\/span>
\nto some extent an incomplete <\/span><\/p>\n

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spiritual tendency; but it does not transform
\nthe race, it cannot create a new principle of the human existence. A total spiritual
\ndirection given to the whole life and the whole nature can alone lift humanity
\nbeyond itself. Another possible conception akin to the religious solution is
\nthe guidance of society by men of spiritual attainment, the brotherhood or unity
\nof all in the faith or in the discipline, the spiritualisation<\/span>
\nof life and society by the taking up of the old machinery of life into such a
\nunification or inventing a new machinery. This too has been attempted before
\nwithout success; it was the original founding idea of more than one religion:
\nbut the human ego and vital nature were too strong for a religious idea working
\non the mind and by the mind to overcome its resistance. It is only the full
\nemergence of the soul, the full descent of the native light and power of the
\nSpirit and the consequent replacement or transformation and uplifting of our
\ninsufficient mental and vital nature by a spiritual and supramental<\/span>
\nSupernature<\/span> that can effect this evolutionary
\nmiracle.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

At first sight this
\ninsistence on a radical change of nature might seem to put off all the hope of
\nhumanity to a distant evolutionary future; for the transcendence of our normal
\nhuman nature, a transcendence of our mental, vital and physical being, has the
\nappearance of an endeavour<\/span> too high and difficult and
\nat present, for man as he is, impossible. Even if it were so, it would still
\nremain the sole possibility for the transmutation of life; for to hope for a
\ntrue change of human life without a change of human nature is an irrational and
\nunspiritual proposition; it is to ask for something unnatural and unreal, an impossible
\nmiracle. But what is demanded by this change is not something altogether
\ndistant, alien to our existence and radically impossible; for what has to be
\ndeveloped is there in our being and not something outside it: what evolutionary
\nNature presses for, is an awakening to the knowledge of self, the discovery of
\nself, the manifestation of the self and spirit within us and the release of its
\nself-knowledge, its self-power, its native self-instrumentation. It is,
\nbesides, a step for which the whole of evolution has been a preparation and
\nwhich is brought closer at each crisis of human destiny when the mental and
\nvital evolution of the being touches a point where intellect and vital force
\nreach some acme of tension and there is a <\/span><\/p>\n

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need either for them to collapse, to sink back
\ninto a torpor of defeat or a repose of unprogressive quiescence or to rend
\ntheir way through the veil against which they are straining. What is necessary
\nis that there should be a turn in humanity felt by some or many towards the
\nvision of this change, a feeling of its imperative need, the sense of its
\npossibility, the will to make it possible in themselves and to find the way.
\nThat trend is not absent and it must increase with the tension of the crisis in
\nhuman world-destiny; the need of an escape or a solution, the feeling that
\nthere is no other solution than the spiritual cannot but grow and become more
\nimperative under the urgency of critical circumstance. To that call in the
\nbeing there must always be some answer in the Divine Reality and in Nature. <\/span><\/p>\n

The answer might,
\nindeed, be only individual; it might result in a multiplication of spiritualised<\/span> individuals or even, conceivably though not
\nprobably, a gnostic<\/span> individual or individuals
\nisolated in the unspiritualised<\/span> mass of humanity.
\nSuch isolated realised<\/span> beings must either withdraw
\ninto their secret divine kingdom and guard themselves in a spiritual solitude
\nor act from their inner light on mankind for what little can be prepared in
\nsuch conditions for a happier future. The inner change can begin to take shape
\nin a collective form only if the gnostic<\/span> individual
\nfinds others who have the same kind of  <\/span>inner
\nlife as himself and can form with them a group with its own autonomous
\nexistence or else a separate community or order of being with its own inner law
\nof life. It is this need of a separate life with its own rule of living adapted
\nto the inner power or motive force of the spiritual existence and creating for
\nit its native atmosphere that has expressed itself in the past in the formation
\nof the monastic life or in attempts of various kinds at a new separate
\ncollective living self-governed and other in its spiritual principle than the
\nordinary human life. The monastic life is in its nature an association of
\nother-worldly seekers, men whose whole attempt is to find and realise<\/span> in themselves the spiritual reality and who form
\ntheir common existence by rules of living which help them in that endeavour<\/span>. It is not usually an effort to create a new
\nlife-formation which will exceed the ordinary human society and create a new
\nworld-order. A religion may hold that eventual
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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prospect before it or attempt some first
\napproach to it, or a mental idealism may make the same endeavour<\/span>.
\nBut these attempts have always been overcome by the persistent inconscience<\/span> and ignorance of our human vital nature; for
\nthat nature is an obstacle which no mere idealism or incomplete spiritual
\naspiration can change in its recalcitrant mass or permanently dominate. Either
\nthe endeavour<\/span> fails by its own imperfection or it is
\ninvaded by the imperfection of the outside world and sinks from the shining
\nheight of its aspiration to something mixed and inferior on the ordinary human
\nlevel. A common spiritual life meant to express the spiritual and not the
\nmental, vital and physical being must found and maintain itself on greater
\nvalues than the mental, vital, physical values of the ordinary human society;
\nif it is not so founded, it will be merely the normal human society with a
\ndifference. An entirely new consciousness in many individuals transforming
\ntheir whole being, transforming their mental, vital and physical nature-self,
\nis needed for the new life to appear; only such a transformation of the general
\nmind, life, body nature can bring into being a new worthwhile collective
\nexistence. The evolutionary nisus must tend not merely to create a new type of
\nmental beings but another order of beings who have raised their whole existence
\nfrom our present mentalised<\/span> animality<\/span>
\nto a greater spiritual level of the earth-nature. <\/span><\/p>\n

Any such complete
\ntransformation of the earth-life in a number of human beings could not
\nestablish itself altogether at once; even when the turning-point has been
\nreached, the decisive line crossed, the new life in its beginnings would have
\nto pass through a period of ordeal and arduous development. A general change
\nfrom the old consciousness taking up the whole life into the spiritual
\nprinciple would be the necessary first step; the preparation for this might be
\nlong and the transformation itself once begun proceed by stages. In the
\nindividual it might after a certain point be rapid and even effect itself by a
\nbound, an evolutionary saltus<\/span>; but an individual
\ntransformation would not be the creation of a new type of beings or a new
\ncollective life. One might conceive of a number of individuals thus evolving
\nseparately in the midst of the old life and then joining together to establish
\nthe <\/span><\/p>\n

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nucleus of the new existence. But it is not
\nlikely that Nature would operate in this fashion, and it would be difficult for
\nthe individual to arrive at a complete change while still enclosed in the life
\nof the lower nature. At a certain stage it might be necessary to follow the
\nage-long device of the separate community, but with a double purpose, first to
\nprovide a secure atmosphere, a place and life apart, in which the consciousness
\nof the individual might concentrate on its evolution in surroundings where all
\nwas turned and centred<\/span> towards the one endeavour<\/span> and, next, when things were ready, to formulate and
\ndevelop the new life in those surroundings and in this prepared spiritual
\natmosphere. It might be that, in such a concentration of effort, all the
\ndifficulties of the change would present themselves with a concentrated force;
\nfor each seeker, carrying in himself the possibilities but also the
\nimperfections of a world that has to be transformed, would bring in not only
\nhis capacities but his difficulties and the oppositions of the old nature and,
\nmixed together in the restricted circle of a small and close common life, these
\nmight assume a considerably enhanced force of obstruction which would tend to counterbalance
\nthe enhanced power and concentration of the forces making for the evolution.
\nThis is a difficulty that has broken in the past all the efforts of mental man
\nto evolve something better and more true and harmonious than the ordinary mental
\nand vital life. But if Nature is ready and has taken her evolutionary decision
\nor if the power of the Spirit descending from the higher planes is sufficiently
\nstrong, the difficulty would be overcome and a first evolutionary formation or formations
\nwould be possible. <\/span><\/p>\n

But if an entire
\nreliance upon the guiding Light and Will and a luminous expression of the truth
\nof the Spirit in life are to be the law, that would seem to presuppose a gnostic<\/span> world, a world in which the consciousness of all
\nits beings was founded on this basis; there it can be understood that the
\nlife-interchange of gnostic<\/span> individuals in a gnostic<\/span> community or communities would be by its very
\nnature an understanding and harmonious process. But here, actually, there would
\nbe   <\/span>life of gnostic<\/span> beings
\nproceeding within or side by side with a life of beings in the Ignorance,
\nattempting to emerge in it or out of it, and yet the law of the two <\/span><\/p>\n

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lives would seem to be contrary and to offend
\nagainst each other. A complete seclusion or separation of the life of a spiritual
\ncommunity from the life of the Ignorance would then seem to impose itself: for
\notherwise a compromise between the two lives would be necessary and with the
\ncompromise a danger of contamination or incompleteness of the greater existence;
\ntwo different and incompatible principles of existence would be in contact and,
\neven though the greater would influence the lesser, the smaller life would also
\nhave its effect on the greater, since such mutual impact is the law of all contiguity
\nand interchange. It might even be questioned whether conflict and collision
\nwould not be the first rule of their relation, since in the life of the
\nIgnorance there is present and active the formidable influence of those forces
\nof Darkness, supporters of evil and violence, whose interest it is to
\ncontaminate or destroy all higher Light that enters into the human existence.
\nAn opposition and intolerance or even a persecution of all that is new or tries
\nto rise above or break away from the established order of the human Ignorance,
\nor if it is victorious, an intrusion of the lower forces into it, an acceptance
\nby the world more dangerous than its opposition, and in the end an extinction,
\na lowering or a contamination of the new principle of life, have been a frequent
\nphenomenon of the past; that opposition might be still more violent and a
\nfrustration might be still more likely if a radically new light or new power
\nwere to claim the earth for its heritage. But it is to be supposed that the new
\nand completer light would bring also a new and completer power. It might not be
\nnecessary for it to be entirely separate; it might establish itself in so many
\nislets and from there spread through the old life, throwing out upon it its own
\ninfluences and filtrations, gaining upon it, bringing to it a help and
\nillumination which a new aspiration in mankind might after a time begin to
\nunderstand and welcome. <\/span><\/p>\n

            <\/span>But
\nthese are evidently problems of the transition, of the evolution before the
\nfull and victorious reversal of the manifesting Force has taken place and the
\nlife of the gnostic<\/span> being becomes as much as that of
\nthe mental being an established part of the terrestrial world-order. If we
\nsuppose the gnostic<\/span> consciousness to be established
\nin the earth-life, the power and <\/span><\/p>\n

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knowledge at its disposal would be much greater
\nthan the power and knowledge of mental man, and the life of a community of gnostic<\/span> beings, supposing it to be separate, would be as
\nsafe against attack as the organised<\/span> life of man
\nagainst any attack by a lower species. But as this knowledge and the very
\nprinciple of the gnostic<\/span> nature would ensure a
\nluminous unity in the common life of gnostic<\/span> beings,
\nso also it would be sufficient to ensure a dominating harmony and
\nreconciliation between the two types of life. The influence of the supramental<\/span> principle on earth would fall upon the life of
\nthe Ignorance and impose harmony on it within its limits. It is conceivable
\nthat the gnostic<\/span> life would be separate, but it would
\nsurely admit within its borders as much of human life as was turned towards
\nspirituality and in progress towards the heights; the rest might organise<\/span> itself mainly on the mental principle and on the
\nold foundations, but, helped and influenced by a recognisable<\/span>
\n  <\/span>greater
\nknowledge, it would be likely to do so on lines of a completer harmonisation<\/span> of which the human collectivity is not yet capable.
\nHere also, however, the mind can only forecast probabilities and possibilities;
\nthe supramental<\/span> principle in Supernature<\/span>
\nwould itself determine according to the truth of things the balance of a new
\nworld-order. <\/span><\/p>\n

A gnostic<\/span>
\nSupernature<\/span> transcends all the values of our normal
\nignorant Nature; our standards and values are created by ignorance and
\ntherefore cannot determine the life of Supernature<\/span>.
\nAt the same time our present nature is a derivation from Supernature<\/span>
\nand is not a pure ignorance but a half-knowledge; it is therefore reasonable to
\nsuppose that whatever spiritual truth there is in or behind its standards and
\nvalues will reappear in the higher life, not as standards, but as elements transformed,
\nuplifted out of the ignorance and raised into the true harmony of a more
\nluminous existence. As the universalised<\/span> spiritual
\nindividual sheds the limited personality, the ego, as he rises beyond mind to a
\ncompleter knowledge in Supernature<\/span>, the conflicting
\nideals of the mind must fall away from him, but what is true behind them will
\nremain in the life of Supernature<\/span>. The gnostic<\/span> consciousness is a consciousness in which all
\ncontradictions are cancelled or fused into each other in a higher light of
\nseeing and being, in a unified self-knowledge and world-
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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knowledge. The gnostic<\/span>
\nbeing will not accept the mind’s ideals and standards; he will not be moved to
\nlive for himself, for his ego, or for humanity or for others or for the
\ncommunity or for the State; for he will be aware of something greater than these
\nhalf-truths, of the Divine Reality, and it is for that he will live, for its
\nwill in himself and in all, in a spirit of large universality, in the light of
\nthe will of the Transcendence. For the same reason there can be no conflict
\nbetween self-affirmation and altruism in the gnostic<\/span>
\nlife, for the self of the gnostic<\/span> being is one with
\nthe self of all,\u2014no conflict between the ideal of individualism and the
\ncollective ideal, for both are terms of a greater Reality and only in so far as
\neither expresses the Reality or their fulfilment<\/span>
\nserves the will of the Reality, can they have a value for his spirit. But at
\nthe same time what is true in the mental ideals and dimly figured in them will
\nbe fulfilled in his existence; for while his consciousness exceeds the human
\nvalues so that he cannot substitute mankind or the community or the State or
\nothers or himself for God, the affirmation of the Divine in himself and a sense
\nof the Divine in others and the sense of oneness with humanity, with all other
\nbeings, with all the world because of the Divine in them and a lead towards a
\ngreater and better affirmation of the growing Reality in them will be part of
\nhis life-action. But what he shall do will be decided by the Truth of the
\nKnowledge and Will in him, a total and infinite Truth that is not bound by any
\nsingle mental law or standard but acts with freedom in the whole reality, with
\nrespect for each truth in its place and with a clear knowledge of the forces at
\nwork and the intention in the manifesting Divine Nisus at each step of cosmic
\nevolution and in each event and circumstance. <\/span><\/p>\n

All life for the
\nachieved spiritual or gnostic<\/span> consciousness must be
\nthe manifestation of the realised<\/span> truth of Spirit;
\nonly what can transform itself and find its own spiritual self in that greater
\nTruth and fuse itself into its harmony can be accorded a life-acceptance. What
\nwill so survive the mind cannot determine, for the supramental<\/span>
\ngnosis will itself bring down its own truth and that truth will take up
\nwhatever of itself has been put forth in our ideals and realisations<\/span>
\nof mind and life and body.  <\/span>The forms it
\nhas taken there may not survive, for they are not <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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likely to be suitable without change or
\nreplacement in the new existence; but what is real and abiding in them or even
\nin their forms will undergo the transformation necessary for survival. Much
\nthat is normal to human life would disappear. In the light of gnosis the many
\nmental idols, constructed principles and systems, conflicting ideals which man
\nhas created in all domains of his mind and life, could command no acceptance or
\nreverence; only the truth, if any, which these specious images conceal, could
\nhave a chance of entry as elements of a harmony founded on a much wider basis.
\nIt is evident that in a life governed by the gnostic<\/span>
\nconsciousness war with its spirit of antagonism and enmity, its brutality,
\ndestruction and ignorant violence, political strife with its perpetual
\nconflict, frequent oppression, dishonesties, turpitudes, selfish interests, its
\nignorance, ineptitude and muddle could have no ground for existence. The arts
\nand the crafts would exist, not for any inferior mental or vital amusement,
\nentertainment of leisure and relieving excitement or pleasure, but as
\nexpressions and means of the truth of the Spirit and the beauty and delight of
\nexistence. Life and the body would be no longer tyrannous masters demanding
\nnine-tenths of existence for their satisfaction, but means and powers for the
\nexpression of the Spirit. At the same time, since the matter and the body are
\naccepted, the control and the right use of physical things would be a part of
\nthe realised<\/span> life of the Spirit in the manifestation
\nin earth-nature.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

It is almost universally
\nsupposed that spiritual life must necessarily be a life of ascetic spareness<\/span>, a pushing away of all that is not absolutely
\nneeded for the bare maintenance of the body; and this is valid for a spiritual
\nlife which is in its nature and intention a life of withdrawal from life. Even
\napart from that ideal, it might be thought that the spiritual turn must always make
\nfor an extreme simplicity, because all else would be a life of vital desire and
\nphysical self-indulgence. But from a wider standpoint this is a mental standard
\nbased on the law of the Ignorance of which desire is the motive; to overcome
\nthe Ignorance, to delete the ego, a total rejection not only of desire but of
\nall the things that can satisfy desire may intervene as a valid principle. But
\nthis standard or any mental standard cannot be <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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absolute nor can it be binding as a law on the
\nconsciousness that has arisen above desire; a complete purity and self-mastery
\nwould be in the very grain of its nature and that would remain the same in
\npoverty or in riches: for if it could be shaken or sullied by either, it would
\nnot be real or would not be complete. The one rule of the gnostic<\/span>
\nlife would be the self-expression of the Spirit, the will of the Divine Being;
\nthat will, that self-expression could manifest through extreme simplicity or
\nthrough extreme complexity and opulence or in their natural balance,\u2014for beauty
\nand plenitude, a hidden sweetness and laughter in things, a sunshine and
\ngladness of life are also powers and expressions of the Spirit. In all directions
\nthe Spirit within determining the law of the nature would determine the frame
\nof the life and its detail and circumstance. In all there would be the same
\nplastic principle; a rigid standardisation<\/span>, however
\nnecessary for the mind’s arrangement of things, could not be the law of the
\nspiritual life. A great diversity and liberty of self-expression based on an underlying
\nunity might well become manifest; but everywhere there would be harmony and
\ntruth of order.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

A life of gnostic<\/span> beings carrying the evolution to a higher supramental<\/span> status might fitly be characterised<\/span>
\nas a divine life; for it would be a life in the Divine, a life of the
\nbeginnings of a spiritual divine light and power and joy manifested in material
\nNature. That might be described, since it surpasses the mental human level, as
\na life of spiritual and supramental<\/span> supermanhood<\/span>. But this must not be confused with past and
\npresent ideas of supermanhood<\/span>; for supermanhood<\/span> in the mental idea consists of an overtopping
\nof the normal human level, not in kind but in degree of the same kind, by an
\nenlarged personality, a magnified and exaggerated ego, an increased power of
\nmind, an increased power of vital force, a refined or dense and massive
\nexaggeration of the forces of the human Ignorance; it carries also, commonly
\nimplied in it, the idea of a forceful domination over humanity by the superman.
\nThat would mean a supermanhood<\/span> of the Nietzschean<\/span> type; it might be at its worst the reign of the
\n\u201cblonde beast\u201d or the dark beast or of any and every beast, a return to
\nbarbaric strength and ruthlessness and force: but this would be no evolution,
\nit would be a reversion to an old strenuous
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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barbarism. Or it might signify the emergence of
\nthe Rakshasa<\/span> or Asura<\/span> out
\nof a tense effort of humanity to surpass and transcend itself, but in the wrong
\ndirection. A violent and turbulent exaggerated vital ego satisfying itself with
\na supreme tyrannous or anarchic strength of self-fulfilment<\/span>
\nwould be the type of a Rakshasic<\/span> supermanhood<\/span>:
\nbut the giant, the ogre or devourer of the world, the Rakshasa<\/span>,
\nthough he still survives, belongs in spirit to the past; a larger emergence of
\nthat type would be also a retrograde evolution. A mighty exhibition of an
\noverpowering force, a self-possessed, self-held, even, it may be, an
\nascetically self-restrained mind-capacity and life-power, strong, calm or cold
\nor formidable in collected vehemence, subtle, dominating, a sublimation at once
\nof the mental and vital ego, is the type of the Asura<\/span>.
\nBut earth has had enough of this kind in her past and its repetition can only
\nprolong the old lines; she can get no true profit for her future, no power of self-exceeding,
\nfrom the Titan, the Asura<\/span>: even a great or
\nsupernormal power in it could only carry her on larger circles of her old
\norbit. But what has to emerge is something much more difficult and much more
\nsimple; it is a self-realised<\/span> being, a building of
\nthe spiritual self, an intensity and urge of the soul and the deliverance and
\nsovereignty of its light and power and beauty,\u2014not an egoistic supermanhood<\/span> seizing on a mental and vital domination over
\nhumanity, but the sovereignty of the Spirit over its own instruments, its
\npossession of itself and its possession of life in the power of the spirit, a
\nnew consciousness in which humanity itself shall find its own self-exceeding
\nand self-fulfilment<\/span> by the revelation of the divinity
\nthat is striving for birth within it. This is the sole true supermanhood<\/span>
\nand the one real possibility of a step forward in evolutionary Nature. <\/span><\/p>\n

This new status would
\nindeed be a reversal of the present law of human consciousness and life, for it
\nwould reverse the whole principle of the life of the Ignorance. It is for the
\ntaste of the Ignorance, its surprise and adventure, one might say, that the
\nsoul has descended into the Inconscience<\/span> and assumed
\nthe disguise of Matter, for the adventure and the joy of creation and discovery,
\nan adventure of the Spirit, an adventure of the Mind and Life and the hazardous
\nsurprises of their<\/span><\/p>\n

working in <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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Matter, for the discovery and conquest of the
\nnew and the unknown; all this constitutes the enterprise of life and all this,
\nit might seem, would cease with the cessation of the Ignorance. Man’s life is
\nmade up of the light and the darkness, the gains and losses, the difficulties
\nand dangers, the pleasures and pains of the Ignorance, a play of colours<\/span> moving on a soil of the general neutrality of
\nMatter which has as its basis the nescience and insensibility of the Inconscient<\/span>. To the normal life-being an existence without
\nthe reactions of success and frustration, vital joy and grief, peril and
\npassion, pleasure and pain, the vicissitudes and uncertainties of fate and
\nstruggle and battle and endeavour<\/span>, a joy of novelty
\nand surprise and creation projecting itself into the unknown, might seem to be
\nvoid of variety and therefore void of vital savour<\/span>.
\nAny life surpassing these things tends to appear to it as something featureless
\nand empty or cast in the figure of an immutable sameness; the human mind’s
\npicture of heaven is the incessant repetition of an eternal monotone. But this
\nis a misconception; for an entry into the gnostic<\/span>
\nconsciousness would be an entry into the Infinite. It would be a self-creation
\nbringing out the Infinite infinitely into form of being, and the interest of
\nthe Infinite is much greater and multitudinous as well as more imperishably delightful
\nthan the interest of the finite. The evolution in the Knowledge would be a more
\nbeautiful and glorious manifestation with more vistas ever unfolding themselves
\nand more intensive in all ways than any evolution could be in the Ignorance.
\nThe delight of the Spirit is ever new, the forms of beauty it takes
\ninnumerable, its godhead ever young and the taste of delight, rasa<\/span>, of the Infinite eternal and inexhaustible. The gnostic<\/span> manifestation of life would be more full and fruitful
\nand its interest more vivid than the creative interest of the Ignorance; it
\nwould be a greater and happier constant miracle. <\/span><\/p>\n

If there is an evolution
\nin material Nature and if it is an evolution of being with consciousness and
\nlife as its two key-terms and powers, this fullness of being, fullness of
\nconsciousness, fullness of life must be the goal of development towards which
\nwe are tending and which will manifest at an early or later stage of our
\ndestiny. The Self, the Spirit, the Reality that is disclosing <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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itself out of the first inconscience<\/span>
\nof life and matter, would evolve its complete truth of being and consciousness
\nin that life and matter. It would return to itself,\u2014or, if its end as an
\nindividual is to return into its Absolute, it could make that return also,\u2014not
\nthrough a frustration of life but through a spiritual completeness of itself in
\nlife. Our evolution in the Ignorance with its chequered<\/span>
\njoy and pain of self-discovery and world-discovery, its half-fulfilments<\/span>, its constant finding and missing, is only our
\nfirst state. It must lead inevitably towards an evolution in the Knowledge, a
\nself-finding and self-unfolding of the Spirit, a self-revelation of the
\nDivinity in things in that true power of itself in Nature which is to us still
\na Supernature<\/span>.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n   <\/span>
\n
\n    The End<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n          Page
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CHAPTER XXVIII   The Divine Life    O seeing Flame, thou carriest man of the crooked ways into the abiding truth and the knowledge. Rig Veda.1 …<\/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-1243","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\/1243","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=1243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}