{"id":1244,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:31","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1244"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:33:31","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:31","slug":"14-the-ascent-towards-supermind-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\/14-the-ascent-towards-supermind-vol-19-the-life-divine-volume-19","title":{"rendered":"-14_The Ascent towards Supermind.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
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\n

\n
\nC<\/font>HAPTER<\/font>
\nXXVI<\/font><\/span> <\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/font><\/span>The Ascent towards
\n<\/font> Supermind<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nMasters of the
\nTruth-Light who make the Truth grow by the <\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

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

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

\n <\/font>Three powers of Speech
\nthat carry the Light in their front … a <\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

\ntriple house of peace, a triple way
\nof the Light.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nRig Veda<\/font><\/i>.<\/font>2<\/font><\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/font>Four other worlds of
\nbeauty he creates as his form when he has <\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

\ngrown by the Truths.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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

\nHe is born a seer with
\nthe mind of discernment; an offspring of the <\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nTruth, a birth set within in the
\nsecrecy, half arisen into manifestation.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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

\nPossessed of a vast
\ninspired wisdom, creators of the Light, con-<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nscious all-knowers<\/span>,
\ngrowing in the Truth.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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

\nBeholding the higher
\nLight beyond the darkness we came to the<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n divine Sun in the Godhead, to the
\nhighest Light of all.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nRig Veda.<\/font><\/i>6<\/font><\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nT<\/span><\/font>he psychic transformation and the first stages of
\nthe spiritual transformation are well within our conception; their perfection
\nwould be the perfection, wholeness, consummated unity of a knowledge and
\nexperience which is already part of things realised<\/span>,
\nthough only by a small number of human beings. But the supramental<\/span>
\nchange in its process carries us into less explored regions; it initiates a
\nvision of heights of consciousness which have indeed been glimpsed and visited,
\nbut have yet to be discovered and mapped in their completeness. The highest of
\nthese peaks or elevated plateaus of consciousness, the supramental<\/span>,
\nlies far beyond the possibility of any satisfying mental scheme or map of it or
\nany grasp of mental seeing and description. It would be difficult for the
\nnormal unillumined<\/span> or untransformed mental conception
\nto express or enter into something<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n         1<\/font><\/span><\/sup> I. 23. 5.        
\n2<\/sup> VII. 101. 1, 2. 3<\/sup> IX. 70. 1.        
\n<\/font><\/span>4 <\/font> <\/span><\/sup>
\nIX. 68. 5.        
\n5<\/sup> X. 66. 1.         6<\/sup>
\nI. 50. 10.<\/font><\/span> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n919<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\n <\/span>that is based on so different a consciousness
\nwith a radically different awareness of things; even if they were seen or conceived
\nby some enlightenment or opening of vision, another language than the poor
\nabstract counters used by our mind would be needed to translate them into terms
\nby which their reality could become at all seizable<\/span>
\nby us. As the summits of human mind are beyond animal perception, so the
\nmovements of Supermind<\/span> are beyond the ordinary human
\nmental conception: it is only when we have already had experience of a higher
\nintermediate consciousness that any terms attempting to describe supramental<\/span>
\nbeing could convey a true meaning to our intelligence; for then, having
\nexperienced something akin to what is described, we could translate an
\ninadequate language into a figure of what we knew. If the mind cannot enter
\ninto the nature of Supermind<\/span>, it can look towards it
\nthrough these high and luminous approaches and catch some reflected impression
\nof the Truth, the Right, the Vast which is the native kingdom of the free
\nSpirit. <\/span><\/p>\n

But even what can be
\nsaid about the intermediate consciousness must perforce be inadequate; only
\ncertain abstract generalisations<\/span> can be hazarded
\nwhich may serve for an initial light of guidance. The one enabling circumstance
\nhere is that, however different in constitution and principle, the higher
\nconsciousness is still, in its evolutionary form, in what we can first achieve
\nof it here, a supreme development of elements which are already present in ours
\nin however rudimentary and diminished a figure and power of themselves. It is
\nalso a helpful fact that the logic of the process of evolutionary Nature continues,
\ngreatly modified in some of the rules of its working but essentially the same,
\nin the ascension of the highest heights as in the lower beginnings; thus we can
\ndiscover and follow to a certain extent the lines of her supreme procedure. For
\nwe have seen something of the nature and law of the transition from
\nintellectual to spiritual mind; from that achieved starting-point we can begin
\nto trace the passage to a higher dynamic degree of the new consciousness and
\nthe farther transition from spiritual mind towards Supermind<\/span>.
\nThe indications must necessarily be very imperfect, for it is only some initial
\nrepresentations of an abstract and general character that can be arrived at by
\nthe
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n920<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

method of metaphysical inquiry: the true
\nknowledge and description must be left to the language of the mystic and the figures,
\nat once more vivid and more recondite, of a direct and concrete experience. <\/span><\/p>\n

The transition to Supermind<\/span> through Overmind<\/span> is a
\npassage from Nature as we know it into Supernature<\/span>.
\nIt is by that very fact impossible for any effort of the mere Mind to achieve;
\nour unaided personal aspiration and endeavour<\/span> cannot reach
\nit: our effort belongs to the inferior power of Nature; a power of the
\nIgnorance cannot achieve by its own strength or characteristic or available
\nmethods what is beyond its own domain of Nature. All the previous ascensions
\nhave been effectuated by a secret Consciousness-Force operating first in Inconscience<\/span> and then in the Ignorance: it has worked by an
\nemergence of its involved powers to the surface, powers concealed behind the
\nveil and superior to the past formulations of Nature, but even so there is
\nneeded a pressure of the same superior powers already formulated in their full
\nnatural force on their own planes; these superior planes create their own
\nfoundation in our subliminal parts and from there are able to influence the
\nevolutionary process on the surface. Overmind<\/span> and Supermind<\/span> are also involved and occult in earth-Nature, but
\nthey have no formations on the accessible levels of our subliminal inner
\nconsciousness; there is as yet no overmind<\/span> being or organised<\/span> overmind<\/span> nature, no supramental<\/span> being or organised<\/span> supermind<\/span> nature acting either on our surface or in our normal
\nsubliminal parts: for these greater powers of consciousness are superconscient<\/span> to the level of our ignorance. In order that
\nthe involved principles of Overmind<\/span> and Supermind<\/span> should emerge from their veiled secrecy, the
\nbeing and powers of the Superconscience<\/span> must descend
\ninto us and uplift us and formulate themselves in our being and powers; this
\ndescent is a sine qua non of the transition and transformation.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is conceivable indeed
\nthat, without the descent, by a secret pressure from above, by a long
\nevolution, our terrestrial Nature might succeed in entering into a close
\ncontact with the higher now superconscient<\/span> planes and
\na formation of subliminal Overmind<\/span> might take place
\nbehind the veil; as a result a slow <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n921<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\n <\/span>emergence of the consciousness proper to these
\nhigher planes might awake on our surface. It is conceivable that in this way there
\nmight appear a race of mental beings thinking and acting not by the intellect
\nor reasoning and reflecting intelligence, or not mainly by it, but by an
\nintuitive mentality which would be the first step of an ascending change; this
\nmight be followed by an overmentalisation<\/span> which would
\ncarry us to the borders beyond which lies the Supermind<\/span>
\nor divine Gnosis. But this  process would inevitably be a long and toilsome endeavour<\/span> of Nature. There is a possibility too that what
\nwould be achieved might only be an imperfect superior mentalisation<\/span>;
\nthe new higher elements might strongly dominate the consciousness, but they
\nwould be still subjected to a modification of their action by the principle of
\nan inferior mentality: there would be a greater expanded and illuminating
\nknowledge, a cognition of a higher order; but it would still undergo a mixture
\nsubjecting it  to the law of the Ignorance, as Mind undergoes
\nlimitation by the law of Life and Matter. For a real transformation there must
\nbe a direct and unveiled intervention from above; there would be necessary too
\na total submission and surrender of the lower consciousness, a cessation of its
\ninsistence, a will in it for its separate law of action to be completely
\nannulled by transformation and lose all rights over our being. If these two
\nconditions can be achieved even now by a conscious call and will in the spirit
\nand a participation of our whole manifested and inner being in its change and
\nelevation, the evolution, the transformation can take place by a comparatively
\nswift conscious change; the supramental<\/span>
\nConsciousness-Force from above and the evolving Consciousness-Force from behind
\nthe veil acting on the awakened awareness and will of the mental human being
\nwould accomplish by their united power the momentous transition. There would be
\nno farther need of a slow evolution counting many millenniums for each step,
\nthe halting and difficult evolution operated by Nature in the past in the unconscious
\ncreatures of the Ignorance. <\/span><\/p>\n

It is a first condition
\nof this change that the mental Man we now are should become inwardly aware and
\nin possession of his own deeper law of being and its processes; he must become
\nthe psychic and inner mental being master of his energies, no longer <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n922<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\n <\/span>a slave of the movements of the lower Prakriti<\/span>, in control of it, seated securely in a free
\nharmony with a higher law of Nature. An increasing control of the individual
\nover his own action of nature, a more and more conscious participation in the action
\nof universal Nature, is a marked character, it is indeed a logical consequence,
\nof the evolutionary principle and process. All action, all mental, vital,
\nphysical activities in the world are the operation of a universal Energy, a Consciousness-Force
\nwhich is the power of the Cosmic Spirit working out the cosmic and individual
\ntruth of things. But since this creative Consciousness assumes in Matter a mask
\nof inconscience<\/span> and puts on the surface appearance of
\na blind universal Force executing a plan or organisation<\/span>
\nof things without seeming to know what it is doing, the first result is kin to this
\nappearance; it is the phenomenon of an inconscient<\/span>
\nphysical individualisation<\/span>, a creation not of beings
\nbut of objects. These are formed existences with their own qualities,
\nproperties, power of being, character of being; but Nature’s plan in them and organisation<\/span> of them have to be worked out mechanically
\nwithout any beginning of participation, initiation or conscious awareness in
\nthe individual object which emerges as the first dumb result and inanimate
\nfield of her action and creation. In animal life the Force begins to become
\nslowly conscious on the surface and puts forth the form, no longer of an object,
\nbut of an individual being; but this imperfectly conscious individual, although
\nit participates, senses, feels, yet only works out what the Force does in it
\nwithout any clear intelligence or observation of what is being done; it seems
\nto have no other choice or will than that which is imposed on it by its formed
\nnature. In human mind there is the first appearance of an observing
\nintelligence that regards what is being done and of a will and choice that have
\nbecome conscious; but the consciousness is still limited and superficial: the
\nknowledge also is limited and imperfect, it is a partial intelligence, a half understanding,
\ngroping and empirical in great part or, if rational, then rational by
\nconstructions, theories, formulas. There is not as yet a luminous seeing which
\nknows things by a direct grasp and arranges them with a spontaneous precision according
\nto the seeing, according to the scheme of their inherent truth; although
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n923<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\n <\/span>there is a certain element of instinct and
\nintuition and insight which has some beginning of this power, the normal
\ncharacter of human intelligence is an inquiring reason or reflective thought
\nwhich observes, supposes, infers, concludes, arrives by labour<\/span>
\nat a constructed truth, a constructed scheme of knowledge, a deliberately
\narranged action of its own making. Or rather this is what it strives to be and
\npartly is; for its knowledge and will are constantly invaded, darkened or
\nfrustrated by forces of the being which are half-blind instruments of the
\nmechanism of Nature.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

This is evidently not
\nthe utmost of which consciousness is capable, not its last evolution and
\nhighest summit. A greater and more intimate intuition must be possible which
\nwould enter into the heart of things, be in luminous identity with the movements
\nof Nature, assure to the being a clear control of his life or at least a
\nharmony with his universe. It is only a free and entire intuitive consciousness
\nwhich would be able to see and to grasp things by direct contact and
\npenetrating vision or a spontaneous truth-sense born of an underlying unity or
\nidentity and arrange an action of Nature according to the truth of Nature. This
\nwould be a real participation by the individual in the working of the universal
\nConsciousness-Force; the individual Purusha<\/span> would
\nbecome the master of his own executive energy and at the same time a conscious
\npartner, agent, instrument of the Cosmic Spirit in the working of the universal
\nEnergy: the universal Energy would work through him, but he also would work
\nthrough her and the harmony of the intuitive truth would make this double
\nworking a single action. A growing conscious participation of this higher and
\nmore intimate kind must be one accompaniment of the transition from our present
\nstate of being to a state of Supernature.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

A harmonious other-world
\nin which an intuitive mental intelligence of this kind and its control would be
\nthe rule, is conceivable; but in our plane of being, owing to the original
\nintention and past history of the evolutionary plan, such a rule and control
\ncould with difficulty be stabilised<\/span> and it is not
\nlikely that it could be complete, final and definitive. For an intuitive mentality
\nintervening in a mixed mental, vital, physical consciousness would normally be
\nforced to undergo a mixture with the inferior <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n924<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

stuff of consciousness already evolved; in order
\nto act on it, it would have to enter into it and, entering in it, would get entangled
\nin it, penetrated by it, affected by the separative<\/span>
\nand partial character of our mind’s action and the limitation and restricted
\nforce of the Ignorance. The action of intuitive intelligence is keen and
\nluminous enough to penetrate and modify, but not large and whole enough to
\nswallow up into itself and abolish the mass of the Ignorance and Inconscience<\/span>; it could not effect an entire transformation
\nof the whole consciousness into its own stuff and power. Still, even in our
\npresent state, a participation of a kind is there and our normal intelligence
\nis sufficiently awake for the universal Conscious-Force to work through it and
\nallow the intelligence and will to exercise a certain amount of direction of
\ninner and outer circumstance, fumbling enough and at every moment dogged by
\nerror, capable only of a limited effect and power, not commensurate with the
\nlarger totality of her vast operations. In the evolution towards Supernature<\/span>, this initial power of conscious participation
\nin the universal working would enlarge in the individual into a more and more
\nintimate and extended vision of her workings in himself, a sensitive perception
\nof the course she was taking, a growing understanding or intuitive idea of the
\nmethods that had to be followed for a more rapid and more conscious
\nself-evolution. As his inner psychic or occult inner mental being came more to
\nthe front, there would be a strengthened power of choice, of sanction, a beginning
\nof authentic free will which would grow more and more effective. But this free
\nwill would be mostly in relation to his own workings of Nature; it would mean
\nonly a freer, fuller and more immediately perceptive control of the motions of
\nhis own being: even there it could not be at first completely free, so long as
\nit was imprisoned in the limits created by its own formations or combated by
\nimperfection due to a mixture of the old and the new consciousness. Still there
\nwould be an increasing mastery and knowledge and an opening to a higher being
\nand a higher nature.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

Our notion of free will
\nis apt to be tainted with the excessive individualism of the human ego and to
\nassume the figure of an independent will acting on its own isolated account, in
\na complete liberty without any determination other than its own choice and <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n925<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

single unrelated movement. This idea ignores the
\nfact that our natural being is a part of cosmic Nature and our spiritual being
\nexists only by the supreme Transcendence. Our total being can rise out of
\nsubjection to fact of present Nature only by an identification with a greater
\nTruth and a greater Nature. The will of the individual, even when completely
\nfree, could not act in an isolated independence, because the individual being
\nand nature are included in the universal Being and Nature and dependent on the
\nall-overruling Transcendence. There could indeed be in the ascent a dual line.
\nOn one line the being could feel and behave as an independent self-existence
\nuniting itself with its own impersonal Reality; it could, so self-conceived, act
\nwith a great force, but either this action would be still within an enlarged
\nframe of its past and present self-formation of power of Nature or else it
\nwould be the cosmic or supreme Force that acted in it and there would be no
\npersonal initiation of action, no sense therefore of individual free will but
\nonly of an impersonal cosmic or supreme Will or Energy at its work. On the
\nother line the being would feel itself a spiritual instrument and so act as a
\npower of the Supreme Being, limited in its workings only by the potencies of
\nthe Supernature<\/span>, which are without bounds or any
\nrestriction except its own Truth and self-law, and by the Will in her. But in
\neither case there would be, as the condition of a freedom from the control of a
\nmechanical action of Nature-forces, a submission to a greater conscious Power
\nor an acquiescent unity of the individual being with its intention and movement
\nin his own and in the world’s existence. <\/span><\/p>\n

For the action of a new
\npower of being in a higher range of consciousness might, even in its control on
\nouter Nature, be extraordinarily effective, but only because of its light of
\nvision and a consequent harmony or identification with the cosmic and transcendent
\nWill; for it is when it becomes an instrumentation of a higher instead of a
\nlower Power that the will of the being becomes free from a mechanical
\ndeterminism by action and process of cosmic Mind-Energy, Life-Energy,<\/span><\/p>\n

Matter-Energy and an ignorant subjection to the
\ndrive of this inferior Nature. A power of initiation, even of an individual overseeing
\nof world-forces could be there; but it would be an instrumental initiation, a
\ndelegated <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n926<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\n <\/span>overseeing: the choice of the individual would
\nreceive the sanction of the Infinite because it was itself an expression of
\nsome truth of the Infinite. Thus the individuality would become more and more
\npowerful and effective in proportion as it realized itself as a centre and
\nformation of the universal and transcendent Being and Nature. For as the
\nprogression of the change proceeded, the energy of the liberated individual
\nwould be no longer the limited energy of mind, life and body, with which it started;
\nthe being would emerge into and put on,\u2014even as there would emerge in him and
\ndescend into him, assuming him into it,\u2014a greater light of Consciousness and a
\ngreater action of Force: his natural existence would be the instrumentation of a
\nsuperior Power, an overmental<\/span> and supramental<\/span>
\nConsciousness-Force, the power of the original Divine Shakti<\/span>.
\nAll the processes of the evolution would be felt as the action of a supreme and
\nuniversal Consciousness, a supreme and universal Force working in whatever way
\nit chose, on whatever level, within whatever self-determined limits, a
\nconscious working of the transcendent and cosmic Being, the action of the
\nomnipotent and omniscient World-Mother raising the being into herself, into her
\nSupernature<\/span>. In place of the Nature of Ignorance with
\nthe individual as its closed field and unconscious or half-conscious
\ninstrument, there would be a Supernature<\/span> of the
\ndivine Gnosis and the individual soul would be its conscious, open and free
\nfield and instrument, a participant in its action, aware of its purpose and
\nprocess, aware too of its own greater Self, the universal, the transcendent
\nReality, and of its own Person as illimitably one with that and yet an
\nindividual being of Its being, an instrument and a spiritual centre. <\/span><\/p>\n

A first opening towards
\nthis participation in an action of Supernature<\/span> is a
\ncondition of the turn towards the last, the supramental<\/span>
\ntransformation: for this transformation is the completion of a passage from the
\nobscure harmony of a blind automatism with which Nature sets out to the
\nluminous authentic spontaneity, the infallible motion of the self-existent
\ntruth of the Spirit. The evolution begins with the automatism of Matter and of
\na lower life in which all obeys implicitly the drive of Nature, fulfils
\nmechanically its law of being and therefore succeeds in
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n927<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

maintaining a harmony of its limited type of
\nexistence and action; it proceeds through the pregnant confusion of the mind
\nand life of a humanity driven by this inferior Nature but struggling to escape
\nfrom her limitations, to master and drive and use her; it emerges into a
\ngreater spontaneous harmony and automatic self-fulfilling action founded on the
\nspiritual Truth of things. In this higher state the consciousness will see that
\nTruth and follow the line of its energies with a full knowledge, with a strong
\nparticipation and instrumental mastery, a complete delight in action and
\nexistence. There will be a luminous and enjoyed perfection of unity with all
\ninstead of a blind and suffered subjection of the individual to the universal,
\nand at every moment the action of the universal in the individual and the
\nindividual in the universal will be enlightened and governed by the rule of the
\ntranscendent Supernature.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

But this highest
\ncondition is difficult and must evidently take long to bring about; for the
\nparticipation and consent of the Purusha<\/span> to the
\ntransition is not sufficient, there must be also the consent and participation
\nof the Prakriti<\/span>. It is not only the central thought
\nand will that have to acquiesce, but all the parts of our being must assent and
\nsurrender to the law of the spiritual Truth; all has to learn to obey the
\ngovernment of the conscious Divine Power in the members. There are obstinate difficulties
\nin our being, born of its evolutionary constitution, which militate against
\nthis assent. For some of these parts are still subject to the inconscience<\/span> and subconscience<\/span>
\nand to the lower automatism of habit or so-called law of the nature,\u2014mechanical
\nhabit of mind, habit of life, habit of instinct, habit of personality, habit of
\ncharacter, the ingrained mental, vital, physical needs, impulses, desires of
\nthe natural man, the old functionings<\/span> of all kinds
\nthat are rooted there so deep that it would seem as if we had to dig to abysmal
\nfoundations in order to get them out: these parts refuse to give up their response
\nto the lower law founded in the Inconscient<\/span>; they
\ncontinually send up to the conscious mind and life the old reactions and seek
\nto reaffirm them there as the eternal rule of Nature. Other parts of the being
\nare less obscure and mechanical and rooted in inconscience<\/span>,
\nbut all are imperfect and attached to their imperfection and have their own
\nobstinate reactions; the vital part is wedded to the law of self-affirmation
\nand
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n928<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\ndesire, the mind is attached to its own formed
\nmovements, and both are willingly obedient to the inferior law of the Ignorance.
\nAnd yet the law of participation and the law of surrender are imperative; at
\neach step of the transition the assent of the Purusha<\/span>
\nis needed and there must be too the consent of each part of the nature to the
\naction of the higher power for its change. There must be then a conscious
\nself-direction of the mental being in us towards this change, this substitution
\nof Supernature<\/span> for the old nature, this
\ntranscendence. The rule of conscious obedience to the higher truth of the
\nspirit, the surrender of the whole being to the light and power that come from
\nthe Supernature<\/span>, is a second condition which has to
\nbe accomplished slowly and with difficulty by the being itself before the supramental<\/span> transformation can become at all possible. <\/span><\/p>\n

            <\/span>It
\nfollows that the psychic and the spiritual transformation must be far advanced,
\neven as complete as may be, before there can be any beginning of the third and
\nconsummating supramental<\/span> change; for it is only by
\nthis double transmutation that the self-will of the Ignorance can be totally
\naltered into a spiritual obedience to the remoulding<\/span>
\ntruth and will of the greater Consciousness of the Infinite. A long, difficult stage
\nof constant effort, energism<\/span>, austerity of the
\npersonal will, tapasyā<\/i><\/span>,
\nhas ordinarily to be traversed before a more decisive stage can be reached in
\nwhich a state of self-giving of all the being to the Supreme Being and the
\nSupreme Nature can become total and absolute. There has to be a preliminary
\nstage of seeking and effort with a central offering or self-giving of the heart
\nand soul and mind to the Highest and a later mediate stage of total conscious
\nreliance on its greater Power aiding the personal endeavour<\/span>;
\nthat integral reliance again must grow into a final complete abandonment of
\noneself in every part and every movement to the working of the higher Truth in
\nthe nature. The totality of this abandonment can only come if the psychic
\nchange has been complete or the spiritual transformation has reached a very
\nhigh state of achievement. For it implies a giving up by the mind of all its
\nmoulds, ideas, mental formations, of all opinion, of all its habits of
\nintellectual observation and judgment to be replaced first by an intuitive and
\nthen by an overmind<\/span> or supramental<\/span>
\nfunctioning
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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which inaugurates the action of a direct
\nTruth-Consciousness, Truth-sight, Truth-discernment, a new consciousness which
\nis in all its ways quite foreign to our mind’s present nature. There is
\ndemanded too a similar giving up by the vital of its cherished desires,
\nemotions, feelings, impulses, grooves of sensation, forceful mechanism of
\naction and reaction to be replaced by a luminous, desireless<\/span>,
\nfree and yet automatically self-determining force, the force of a centralised<\/span> universal and impersonal knowledge, power,
\ndelight of which the life must become an instrument and an epiphany, but of
\nwhich it has at present no inkling and no sense of its greater joy and strength
\nfor fulfilment<\/span>. Our physical part has to give up its
\ninstincts, needs, blind conservative attachments, settled grooves of nature,
\nits doubt and disbelief in all that is beyond itself, its faith in the
\ninevitability of the fixed functionings<\/span> of the
\nphysical mind, the physical life and the body, that they may be replaced by a new
\npower which establishes its own greater law and functioning in form and force
\nof Matter. Even the inconscient<\/span> and subconscient<\/span> have to become conscient<\/span>
\nin us, susceptible to the higher light, no longer obstructive to the fulfilling
\naction of the Consciousness-Force, but more and more a mould and lower basis of
\nthe Spirit. These things cannot be done so long as either mind, life or
\nphysical consciousness are the leading powers of being or have any dominance.
\nThe admission of such a<\/span><\/p>\n

change can only be brought about by a full
\nemergence of the soul and inner being, the dominance of the psychic and
\nspiritual will and a long working of their light and power on the parts of the
\nbeing, a psychic and spiritual remoulding<\/span> of the
\nwhole nature. <\/span><\/p>\n

A unification of the
\nentire being by a breaking down of the wall between the inner and outer
\nnature,\u2014a shifting of the position and centration<\/span> of
\nthe consciousness from the outer to the inner self, a firm foundation on this
\nnew basis, a habitual action from this inner self and its will and vision and
\nan opening up of the individual into the cosmic consciousness,\u2014is another
\nnecessary condition for the supramental<\/span> change. It
\nwould be chimerical to hope that the supreme Truth-Consciousness can establish
\nitself in the narrow formulation of our surface mind and heart and life,
\nhowever turned towards spirituality. All the inner <\/span><\/p>\n

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centres<\/span><\/span> must have burst open
\nand released into action their capacities; the psychic entity must be unveiled
\nand in control. If this first change establishing the being in the inner and
\nlarger, a Yogic in place of an ordinary consciousness has not been done, the
\ngreater transmutation is impossible. Moreover the individual must have
\nsufficiently universalised<\/span> himself, he must have
\nrecast his individual mind in the boundlessness of a cosmic mentality, enlarged
\nand vivified his individual life into the immediate sense and direct experience
\nof the dynamic motion of the universal life, opened up the communications of
\nhis body with the forces of universal Nature, before he can be capable of a
\nchange which transcends the present cosmic formulation and lifts him beyond the
\nlower hemisphere of universality into a consciousness belonging to its
\nspiritual upper hemisphere. Besides he must have already become aware of what
\nis now to him superconscient<\/span>; he must be already a being
\nconscious of the higher spiritual Light, Power, Knowledge, Ananda<\/span>,
\npenetrated by its descending influences, new-made by a spiritual change. It is
\npossible for the spiritual opening to take place and its action to proceed
\nbefore the psychic is far advanced or complete; for the spiritual influence
\nfrom above can awaken, assist and complete the psychic transmutation: all that
\nis necessary is that there should be a sufficient stress of the psychic entity
\nfor the spiritual higher overture to take place. But the third, the supramental<\/span> change does not admit of any premature descent
\nof the highest Light; for it can only commence when the supramental<\/span>
\nForce begins to act directly, and this it does not do if the nature is not ready.
\nFor there is too great a disparity between the power of the supreme Force and
\nthe capacity of the ordinary nature; the inferior nature would either be unable
\nto bear or, bearing, unable to respond and receive or, receiving, unable to assimilate.
\nTill Nature is ready, the supramental<\/span> Force has to
\nact indirectly; it puts the intermediary powers of Overmind<\/span>
\nor Intuition in front, or it works through a modification of itself to which
\nthe already half-transformed being can be wholly or partially responsive. <\/span><\/p>\n

The spiritual evolution
\nobeys the logic of a successive unfolding; it can take a new decisive main step
\nonly when the previous main step has been sufficiently conquered: even if <\/span><\/p>\n

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certain minor stages can be swallowed up or
\nleaped over by a rapid and brusque ascension, the consciousness has to turn back
\nto assure itself that the ground passed over is securely annexed to the new
\ncondition. It is true that the conquest of the Spirit supposes the execution in
\none life or a few lives of a process that in the ordinary course of Nature
\nwould involve a slow and uncertain procedure of centuries or even of
\nmillenniums: but this is a question of the speed with which the steps are
\ntraversed; a greater or concentrated speed does not eliminate the steps
\nthemselves or the necessity of their successive surmounting. The increased
\nrapidity is possible only because the conscious participation of the inner
\nbeing is there and the power of the Supernature<\/span> is
\nalready at work in the half-transformed lower nature, so that the steps which
\nwould otherwise have had to be taken tentatively in the night of Inconscience<\/span> or Ignorance can now be taken in an increasing
\nlight and power of Knowledge. The first obscure material movement of the
\nevolutionary Force is marked by an aeonic<\/span> graduality<\/span>; the movement of life-progress proceeds slowly
\nbut still with a quicker step, it is concentrated into the figure of
\nmillenniums; mind can still further compress the tardy leisureliness of Time
\nand make long paces of the centuries; but when the conscious Spirit intervenes,
\na supremely concentrated pace of evolutionary swiftness becomes possible.
\nStill, an involved rapidity of the evolutionary course swallowing up the stages
\ncan only come in when the power of the conscious Spirit has prepared the field
\nand the supramental<\/span> Force has begun to use its direct
\ninfluence. All Nature’s transformations do indeed wear the appearance of a
\nmiracle, but it is a miracle with a method: her largest strides are taken over
\nan assured ground, her swiftest leaps are from a base that gives security and
\ncertainty to the evolutionary saltus<\/span>; a secret
\nall-wisdom governs everything in her, even the steps and processes that seem to
\nbe most unaccountable. <\/span><\/p>\n

This law of Nature’s
\nprocedure brings in the necessity of a gradation in the last transitional
\nprocess, a climbing of degrees, an unfolding of higher and higher states that
\nlead us from the spiritualised<\/span> mind to Supermind<\/span>,\u2014a steep passage that could not be accomplished
\notherwise. There are above us, we have
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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seen, successive states, levels or graded powers
\nof being overtopping our normal mind, hidden in our own superconscient<\/span>
\nparts, higher ranges of Mind, degrees of spiritual consciousness and
\nexperience; without them there would be no links, no helpful intervening spaces
\nto make the immense ascension possible. It is indeed from these higher sources
\nthat the secret spiritual Power acts upon the being and by its pressure brings
\nabout the psychic transformation or the spiritual change; but  <\/span>in the early stages of our growth this action
\nis not apparent, it remains occult and unseizable<\/span>. At
\nfirst what is necessary is that the pure touch of the spiritual force must
\nintervene in mental nature: that awakening pressure must stamp itself upon mind
\nand heart and life and give them their upward orientation; a subtle light or a
\ngreat transmuting power must purify, refine and uplift their motions and
\nsuffuse them with a higher consciousness that does not belong to their own
\nnormal capacity and character. This can be done from within by an invisible
\naction through the psychic entity and the psychic personality; a consciously
\nfelt descent from above is not indispensable. The presence of the Spirit is
\nthere in every living being, on every level, in all things, and because it is
\nthere, the experience of Sachchidananda<\/span>, of the pure
\nspiritual existence and consciousness, of the delight of a divine presence,
\ncloseness, contact can be acquired through the mind or the heart or the life-sense
\nor even through the physical consciousness; if the inner doors are flung
\nsufficiently open, the light from the sanctuary can suffuse the nearest and the
\nfarthest chambers of the outer being. The necessary turn or change can also be brought
\nabout by an occult descent of the spiritual force from above, in which the
\ninflux, the influence, the spiritual consequence is felt, but the higher source
\nis unknown and the actual feeling of a descent is not there. A consciousness so
\ntouched may be so much uplifted that the being turns to an immediate union with
\nthe Self or with the Divine by departure from the evolution and, if that is sanctioned,
\nno question of graduality<\/span> or steps or method
\nintervenes, the rupture with Nature can be decisive: for the law of departure,
\nonce it is made possible, is not or need not be the same as the law of the evolutionary
\ntransformation and perfection; it is or can be a leap, a breaking <\/span><\/p>\n

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out of bonds rapid or immediate,\u2014the spiritual
\nevasion is secured and its only remaining sanction is the destined fall of the body.
\nBut if the transformation of earth life is intended, the first touch of spiritualisation<\/span> must be followed by an awakening to the
\nhigher sources and energies, a seeking for them and an enlargement and
\nheightening of the being into their characteristic status and a conversion of
\nthe consciousness to their greater law and dynamic nature. This change must go step
\nby step, till the stair of the ascension is transcended and there is an
\nemergence to those greatest wide-open spaces of which the Veda speaks, the
\nnative spaces of a consciousness which is supremely luminous and infinite.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

For here there is the
\nsame process of evolution as in the rest of the movement of Nature; there is a
\nheightening and widening of the consciousness, an ascent to a new level and a
\ntaking up of the lower levels, an assumption and new integration of the existence
\nby a superior power of Being which imposes its own way of action and its
\ncharacter and force of substance-energy on as much as it can reach of the
\npreviously evolved parts of nature. The demand for integration becomes at this
\nhighest stage of Nature’s workings a point of cardinal importance. In the lower
\ngrades of the ascension the new assumption, the integration into a higher
\nprinciple of consciousness, remains incomplete: the mind cannot wholly mentalise<\/span> life and matter; there are considerable parts of
\nthe life-being and the body which remain in the realm of the submental<\/span> and the subconscient<\/span> or
\ninconscient<\/span>. This is one serious obstacle to the
\nmind’s endeavour<\/span> towards the perfection of the
\nnature; for the continued share of the submental<\/span>, the
\nsubconscient<\/span> and inconscient<\/span>
\nin the government of the activities, by bringing in another law than that of
\nthe mental being, enables the conscious vital and the physical consciousness
\nalso to reject the law laid upon them by the mind and to follow their own
\nimpulses and instincts in defiance of the mental reason and the rational will
\nof the developed intelligence. This makes it difficult for the mind to go
\nbeyond itself, to exceed its own level and spiritualise<\/span>
\nthe nature; for what it cannot even make fully conscious, cannot securely mentalise<\/span> and rationalise<\/span>, it
\ncannot spiritualise<\/span>, since
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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spiritualisation<\/span><\/span> is a greater and more
\ndifficult integration. No doubt, by calling in the spiritual force, it can
\nestablish an influence and a preliminary change in some parts of the nature,
\nespecially in the thinking mind itself and in the heart which is nearest to its
\nown province: but this change is not often a total perfection even within
\nlimits and what it does achieve is rare and difficult. The spiritual
\nconsciousness using the mind is employing an inferior means and, even though it
\nbrings in a divine light into the mind, a divine purity, passion, ardour<\/span> into the heart or imposes a spiritual law upon the
\nlife, this new consciousness has to work within restrictions; for the most part
\nit can only regulate or check the lower action of the life and rigorously
\ncontrol the body, but these members, even if refined or mastered, do not
\nreceive their spiritual fulfilment<\/span> or undergo a
\nperfection and transformation. For that it is necessary to bring in a higher
\ndynamic principle which is native to the spiritual consciousness and by which,
\ntherefore, it can act in its own law and completer natural light and power and
\nimpose them upon the members. <\/span><\/p>\n

But even this
\nintervention of a new dynamic principle and this powerful imposition may take
\nlong to succeed; for the lower parts of the being have their own rights and, if
\nthey are to be truly transformed, they must be made to consent to their own
\ntransformation. This is difficult to bring about because the natural propensity
\nof each part of us is to prefer its own self-law, its dharma, however inferior,
\nto a superior law or dharma which it feels to be not its own; it clings to its
\nown consciousness or unconsciousness, its own impulsions and reactions, its own
\ndynamisation<\/span> of being, its own way of the delight of
\nexistence. It clings to them all the more obstinately if that way be a
\ncontradiction of delight, a way of darkness and sorrow and pain and suffering; for
\nthat too has acquired its own perverse and opposite taste, rasa<\/span>,
\nits pleasure of darkness and sorrow, its sadistic or masochistic interest in
\npain and suffering. Even if this part of our being seeks better things, it is often
\nobliged to follow the worse because they are its own, natural to its energy,
\nnatural to its substance. A complete and radical change can only be brought
\nabout by bringing in<\/span><\/p>\n

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\npersistently the spiritual light and intimate
\nexperience of the spiritual truth, power, bliss into the recalcitrant elements
\nuntil they too recognise<\/span> that their own way of fulfilment<\/span> lies there, that they are themselves a
\ndiminished power of the Spirit and can recover by this new way of being their
\nown truth and integral nature. This illumination is constantly opposed by the Forces
\nof the lower nature and still more by the adverse Forces that live and reign by
\nthe world’s imperfections and have laid down their formidable foundation on the
\nblack rock of the Inconscience<\/span>.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

An indispensable step towards
\novercoming this difficulty is the opening up of the inner being and its centres<\/span> of action; for there the task that the surface mind
\ncould not achieve begins to be more possible. The inner mind, the inner life-consciousness
\nand life-mind, the subtle-physical consciousness and its subtle-physical
\nmentality, once liberated into action, create a larger, finer, greater
\nmediating awareness able to communicate with the universal and with what is
\nabove them, able also to bring to bear their power on the whole range of the
\nbeing, on the submental<\/span>, on the subconscient<\/span>
\nmind, on the subconscient<\/span> life, even on the subconscience<\/span> of the body: they can, though not wholly
\nenlighten, yet to some extent open, penetrate, work upon the fundamental Inconscience<\/span>. The spiritual Light, Power, Knowledge,
\nDelight from above can then descend beyond the mind and heart, which are always
\nthe easiest to reach and illumine; occupying the whole nature from top to
\nbottom, they can pervade more fully the life and the body and by a still
\nprofounder impact shake the foundations of the Inconscience<\/span>.
\nBut even this larger mentalisation<\/span> and vitalisation<\/span> from within is still an inferior illumination:
\nit can lessen but it does not get rid of the Ignorance; it assails and compels
\nto recede but it does not overcome the powers and forces that maintain the
\nsubtle and secret rule of the Inconscience<\/span>. The
\nspiritual forces acting through this larger mentalisation<\/span>
\nand vitalisation<\/span> can bring in a higher light,
\nstrength and joy; but the full spiritualisation<\/span>, the completest<\/span> new integration of consciousness, is at this
\nstage still impossible. If the inmost being, the psychic, takes charge, then
\nindeed a deeper mutation,
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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not mental, can make the descent of spiritual
\nforce more effective; for the totality of the conscious being will have undergone
\na preliminary soul-change which emancipates mind, life, body from the snare of
\ntheir own imperfections and impurities. At this point, a greater spiritual dynamisation<\/span>, the working of the higher powers of the
\nspiritual Mind and Overmind<\/span>, can fully intervene:
\nthey may indeed have started their work before, though only as influences; but
\nunder the new conditions they can uplift the central being towards their own
\nlevel and commence the last new integration of the nature. These higher powers
\nwork already in the human unspiritualised<\/span> mind, but
\nindirectly and in a fragmentary and diminished action; they are changed into
\nsubstance and power of mind before they can work, and that substance and power
\nare illumined and intensified in their vibrations, exalted and ecstasised<\/span> in some of their movements by this entry, but
\nnot transformed. But when the spiritualisation<\/span> begins
\nand, as its greater results manifest themselves,\u2014silence of the mind, the admission
\nof our being into the cosmic consciousness, the Nirvana of the little ego in
\nthe sense of universal self, the contact with the Divine Reality,\u2014the
\ninterventions of the higher dynamis<\/span> and our openness
\nto them can increase, they can assume a fuller, more direct, more
\ncharacteristic power of their working, and this progression continues until
\nsome complete and mature action of them is possible. It is then that the
\nturning of the spiritual towards the supramental<\/span>
\ntransformation commences; for the heightening of the consciousness to higher
\nand higher planes builds in us the gradation of the ascent to Supermind<\/span>, that difficult and supreme passage. <\/span><\/p>\n

It is not to be supposed
\nthat the circumstances and the lines of the transition would be the same for all,
\nfor here we enter into the domain of the Infinite: but, since there is behind
\nall of them the unity of a fundamental truth, the scrutiny of a given line of
\nascent may be expected to throw light on the principle of all ascending
\npossibilities; such a scrutiny of one line is all that can be attempted. This
\nline is, as all must be, governed by the natural configuration of the stair of
\nascent: there are in it many steps, for it is an incessant gradation and
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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there is no gap anywhere; but, from the point of
\nview of the ascent of consciousness from our mind upwards through a rising
\nseries of dynamic powers by which it can sublimate itself, the gradation can be
\nresolved into a stairway of four main ascents, each with its high level of fulfilment<\/span>. These gradations may be summarily described as
\na series of sublimations of the consciousness through Higher Mind, Illumined
\nMind and Intuition into Overmind<\/span> and beyond it; there
\nis a succession of self-transmutations at the summit of which lies the Supermind<\/span> or Divine Gnosis. All these degrees are gnostic<\/span> in their principle and power; for even at the first
\nwe begin to pass from a consciousness based on an original Inconscience<\/span>
\nand acting in a general Ignorance or in a mixed Knowledge-Ignorance to a consciousness
\nbased on a secret self-existent Knowledge and first acted upon and inspired by
\nthat light and power and then itself changed into that substance and using entirely
\nthis new instrumentation. In themselves these grades are grades of energy-substance
\nof the Spirit: for it must not be supposed, because we distinguish them
\naccording to their leading character, means and potency of knowledge, that they
\nare merely a method or way of knowing or a faculty or power of cognition; they
\nare domains of being, grades of the substance and energy of the spiritual
\nbeing, fields of existence which are each a level of the universal
\nConsciousness-Force constituting and organising<\/span>
\nitself into a higher status. When the powers of any grade descend completely
\ninto us, it is not only our thought and knowledge that are affected,\u2014the
\nsubstance and very grain of our being and consciousness, all its states and
\nactivities are touched and penetrated and can be remoulded<\/span>
\nand wholly transmuted. Each stage of this ascent is therefore a general, if not
\na total, conversion of the being into a new light and power of a greater
\nexistence. <\/span><\/p>\n

The gradation itself
\ndepends fundamentally upon a higher or lower substance, potency, intensity of
\nvibrations of the being, of its self-awareness, of its delight of existence, of
\nits force of existence. Consciousness, as we descend the scale, becomes more
\nand more diminished and diluted,\u2014dense indeed by its coarser crudity, but while
\nthat crudity of consistence
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\ncompacts the stuff of Ignorance, it admits less
\nand less the substance of light; it becomes thin in pure substance of consciousness
\nand reduced in power of consciousness, thin in light, thin and weak in capacity
\nof delight; it has to resort to a grosser thickness of its diminished stuff and
\nto a strenuous output of its obscurer force to arrive at anything, but this strenuousness
\nof effort and labour<\/span> is a sign not of strength but of
\nweakness. As we ascend, on the contrary, a finer but far stronger and more
\ntruly and spiritually concrete substance emerges, a greater luminosity and
\npotent stuff of consciousness, a subtler, sweeter, purer and more powerfully
\necstatic energy of delight. In the descent of these higher grades upon us it is
\nthis greater light, force, essence of being and consciousness, energy of
\ndelight that enter into mind, life, body, change and repair their diminished
\nand diluted and incapable substance, convert it into its own higher and
\nstronger dynamis<\/span> of Spirit and intrinsic form and
\nforce of reality. This can happen because all is fundamentally the same
\nsubstance, the same consciousness, the same force, but in different forms and
\npowers and degrees of itself: a taking up of the lower by the higher is
\ntherefore a possible and, but for our second nature of inconscience<\/span>,
\na spiritually natural movement; what was put forth from the superior status is
\nenveloped and taken up into its own greater being and essence. <\/span><\/p>\n

Our first decisive step
\nout of our human intelligence, our normal mentality, is an ascent into a higher
\nMind, a mind no onger<\/span> of mingled light and obscurity
\nor half-light, but a large clarity of the Spirit. Its basic substance is a unitarian<\/span> sense of being with a powerful multiple dynamisation<\/span> capable of the formation of a multitude of
\naspects of knowledge, ways of action, forms and significances of becoming, of
\nall of which there is a spontaneous inherent knowledge. It is therefore a power
\nthat has proceeded from the Overmind<\/span>,\u2014but with the Supermind<\/span> as its ulterior origin,\u2014as all these greater
\npowers have proceeded: but its special character, its activity of consciousness
\nare dominated by Thought; it is a luminous thought-mind, a mind of Spirit-born
\nconceptual knowledge. An all-awareness emerging from the original identity,
\ncarrying the <\/span><\/p>\n

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truths the identity held in itself, conceiving
\nswiftly, victoriously, multitudinously, formulating and by self-power of the
\nIdea effectually realising<\/span> its conceptions, is the
\ncharacter of this greater mind of knowledge. This kind of cognition is the last
\nthat emerges from the original spiritual identity before the initiation of a separative<\/span> knowledge, base of the Ignorance; it is therefore
\nthe first that meets us when we rise from conceptive and ratiocinative mind,
\nour best-organised<\/span> knowledge-power of the Ignorance,
\ninto the realms of the Spirit; it is, indeed, the spiritual parent of our
\nconceptive mental ideation, and it is natural that this leading power of our
\nmentality should, when it goes beyond itself, pass into its immediate source. <\/span><\/p>\n

But here in this greater
\nThought there is no need of a seeking and self-critical ratiocination, no
\nlogical motion step by step towards a conclusion, no mechanism of express or
\nimplied deductions and inferences, no building or deliberate concatenation of idea
\nwith idea in order to arrive at an ordered sum or outcome of knowledge; for
\nthis limping action of our reason is a movement of Ignorance searching for
\nknowledge, obliged to safeguard its steps against error, to erect a selective mental
\nstructure for its temporary shelter and to base it on foundations already laid
\nand carefully laid but never firm, because it is not supported on a soil of
\nnative awareness but imposed on an original soil of nescience. There is not
\nhere, either, that other way of our mind at its keenest and swiftest, a rapid
\nhazardous divination and insight, a play of the searchlight of intelligence
\nprobing into the little known or the unknown. This higher consciousness is a
\nKnowledge formulating itself on a basis of self-existent all-awareness and
\nmanifesting some part of its integrality, a harmony of its significances put
\ninto thought-form. It can freely express itself in single ideas, but its most
\ncharacteristic movement is a mass ideation, a system or totality of
\ntruth-seeing at a single view; the relations of idea with idea, of truth with
\ntruth are not established by logic but pre-exist and emerge already self-seen
\nin the integral whole. There is an initiation into forms of an ever-present but
\ntill now inactive knowledge, not a system of conclusions from premisses<\/span> or data; this thought is a self-revelation of
\neternal Wisdom, not an acquired knowledge. Large aspects of truth <\/span><\/p>\n

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come into view in which the ascending Mind, if
\nit chooses, can dwell with satisfaction and, after its former manner, live in them
\nas in a structure; but if progress is to be made, these structures can
\nconstantly expand into a larger structure or several of them combine themselves
\ninto a provisional greater whole on the way to a yet unachieved integrality. In
\nthe end there is a great totality of truth known and experienced but still a
\ntotality capable of infinite enlargement because there is no end to the aspects
\nof knowledge, nāstyanto<\/i><\/span> vistarasya<\/span> <\/i>me. <\/span><\/p>\n

This is the Higher Mind
\nin its aspect of cognition; but there is also the aspect of will, of dynamic
\neffectuation of the Truth: here we find that this greater more brilliant Mind
\nworks always on the rest of the being, the mental will, the heart and its
\nfeelings, the life, the body, through the power of thought, through the
\nidea-force. It seeks to purify through knowledge, to deliver through knowledge,
\nto create by the innate power of knowledge. The idea is put into the heart or
\nthe life as a force to be accepted and worked out; the heart and life become
\nconscious of the idea and respond to its dynamisms and their substance begins
\nto modify itself in that sense, so that the feelings and actions become the
\nvibrations of this higher wisdom, are informed with it, filled with the emotion
\nand the sense of it: the will and the life impulses are similarly charged with
\nits power and its urge of self-effectuation; even in the body the idea works so
\nthat, for example, the potent thought and will of health replaces its faith in
\nillness and its consent to illness, or the idea1<\/sup> of strength calls
\nin the substance, power, motion, vibration of strength; the idea generates the
\nforce and form proper to the idea and imposes it on our substance of Mind, Life
\nor Matter. It is in this way that the first working proceeds; it charges the whole
\nbeing with a new and superior consciousness, lays a foundation of change,
\nprepares it for a superior truth of existence. <\/span><\/p>\n

It has here to be emphasised<\/span>, in order to obviate a natural misconception
\nwhich can easily arise when the superior power of the higher forces is first
\nperceived or experienced, that these higher forces are not in their descent
\nimmediately all-powerful as they <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n


\n1<\/sup>The word expressin<\/span>
\n <\/span>the idea has the same power if it is
\nsurcharged with the spiritual force; that is the rationale of the Indian use of
\nthe mantra<\/i>. <\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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would naturally be in their own plane of action
\nand in their own medium. In the evolution in Matter they have to enter into a foreign
\nand inferior medium and work upon it; they encounter there the incapacities of
\nour mind and life and body, meet with the unreceptiveness<\/span>
\nor blind refusal of the Ignorance, experience the negation and obstruction of
\nthe Inconscience<\/span>. On their own level they work upon a
\nbasis of luminous consciousness and luminous substance of being and are
\nautomatically effective; but here they have to encounter an already and
\nstrongly formed foundation of Nescience,\u2014not only the complete nescience of
\nMatter, but the modified nescience of mind and heart and life. Thus the higher
\nIdea descending into the developed mental intelligence has even there to
\novercome the barrage of a mass or system of formed ideas which belong to the
\nKnowledge-Ignorance and the will to persistence and self-realisation<\/span>
\nof these ideas; for all ideas are forces and have a formative or self-effective
\nfaculty greater or less according to the conditions,\u2014even reducible to nil in
\npractice when they have to deal with inconscient<\/span>
\nMatter, but still potential. There is thus ready-formed a power of resistance
\nwhich opposes or minimises<\/span> the effects of the
\ndescending Light, a resistance which may amount to a refusal, a rejection of
\nthe Light, or take the shape of an attempt to impair, subdue, ingeniously
\nmodify or adapt or perversely deform the light in order to suit it to the preconceived
\nideas of the Ignorance. If the preconceived or already formed ideas are
\ndismissed and deprived of their right to persistence, they have still the right
\nof recurrence, from outside, from their prevalence in universal Mind, or they
\nmay retire downwards into the vital, physical or subconscient<\/span>
\nparts and from thence resurge at the least opportunity to repossess their lost
\ndomain: for evolutionary Nature has to give this right of persistence to things
\nonce established by her in order to bring a sufficient steadiness and solidity
\nto her steps. It is, moreover, the nature and claim of any Force in the
\nmanifestation to be, to survive, to effectuate itself wherever possible and as
\nlong as possible, and it is therefore that in a world of Ignorance all is
\nachieved not only through a complexus<\/span> but through a
\ncollision and struggle and intermixture of Forces. But for this highest
\nevolution it is essential that all mixture of
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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Ignorance with Knowledge should be abolished;
\nand action and evolution through strife of forces must be replaced by an action
\nand evolution through a harmony of forces: but this stage can only be reached
\nby a last strife and an overcoming of the powers of Ignorance by the powers of
\nLight and Knowledge. In the lower levels of the being, in the heart and life
\nand body, the same phenomenon recurs and on a more intense scale; for here it
\nis not ideas that have to be met but emotions, desires, impulses, sensations,
\nvital needs and habits of the lower Nature; these, since they are less
\nconscious than ideas, are blinder in their response and are more obstinately
\nself-assertive: all have the same or a greater power of resistance and recurrence,
\nor take refuge in the circumconscient<\/span> universal
\nNature or in our own lower levels or in a seed-state in the subconscient<\/span>
\nand from there have the power of new invasion or resurgence. This power of
\npersistence, recurrence, resistance of established things in Nature is always
\nthe great obstacle which the evolutionary Force has to meet, which it has
\nindeed itself created in order to prevent a too rapid transmutation even when
\nthat transmutation is its own eventual intention in things. <\/span><\/p>\n

This obstacle will be
\nthere,\u2014even though it may progressively diminish,\u2014at each stage of this greater
\nascent. In order to allow at all to the higher Light an adequate entry and
\nforce of working, it is necessary to acquire a power for quietude of the
\nnature, to compose, tranquillise<\/span>, impress a
\ncontrolled passivity or even an entire silence on mind and heart, life and
\nbody: but even so a continued opposition, overt and felt in the Force of the
\nuniversal Ignorance or subliminal and obscure in the substance-energy of the
\nindividual’s make of mind, his form of Life, his body of Matter, an occult
\nresistance or a revolt or reaffirmation of the controlled or suppressed
\nenergies of the ignorant nature, is always possible and, if anything in the
\nbeing consents to them, they can resume dominance. A previously established
\npsychic control is very desirable as that creates a general responsiveness and
\ninhibits the revolt of the lower parts against the Light or their consent to
\nthe claims of the Ignorance. A preliminary spiritual transformation will also
\nreduce the hold of the Ignorance; but neither of these influences altogether
\neliminates its obstruction and limita<\/span>– <\/span><\/p>\n

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tion<\/span><\/span>: for these preliminary
\nchanges do not bring the integral consciousness and knowledge; the original
\nbasis of Nescience proper to the Inconscient<\/span> will
\nstill be there needing at every turn to be changed, enlightened, diminished in
\nits extent and in its force of reaction. The power of the spiritual Higher Mind
\nand its idea-force, modified and diminished as it must be by its entrance into
\nour mentality, is not sufficient to sweep out all these obstacles and create
\nthe gnostic<\/span> being, but it can make a first change, a
\nmodification that will capacitate a higher ascent and a more powerful descent
\nand further prepare an integration of the being in a greater Force of
\nconsciousness and knowledge. <\/span><\/p>\n

This greater Force is
\nthat of the Illumined Mind, a Mind no longer of higher Thought, but of
\nspiritual light. Here the clarity of the spiritual intelligence, its tranquil
\ndaylight, gives place or subordinates itself to an intense lustre<\/span>,
\na splendour<\/span> and illumination of the Spirit: a play of
\nlightnings<\/span> of spiritual truth and power breaks from
\nabove into the consciousness and adds to the calm and wide enlightenment and
\nthe vast descent of peace which characterise<\/span> or accompany
\nthe action of the larger conceptual-spiritual principle, a fiery ardour<\/span> of realisation<\/span> and a
\nrapturous ecstasy of knowledge. A downpour of inwardly visible Light very
\nusually envelops this action; for it must be noted that, contrary to our ordinary
\nconceptions, light is not primarily a material creation and the sense or vision
\nof light accompanying the inner illumination is not merely a subjective visual
\nimage or a symbolic phenomenon: light is primarily a spiritual manifestation of
\nthe Divine Reality illuminative and creative; material light is a subsequent
\nrepresentation or conversion of it into Matter for the purposes of the material
\nEnergy. There is also in this descent the arrival of a greater dynamic, a
\ngolden drive, a luminous \u201centhousiasmos<\/span>\u201d of inner
\nforce and power which replaces the comparatively slow and deliberate process of
\nthe Higher Mind by a swift, sometimes a vehement, almost a violent impetus of
\nrapid transformation. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Illumined Mind does
\nnot work primarily by thought, but by vision; thought is here only a
\nsubordinate movement expressive of sight. The human mind, which relies mainly
\non thought, conceives that to be the highest or the main process of
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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knowledge, but in the spiritual order thought is
\na secondary and a not indispensable process. In its form of verbal thought, it can
\nalmost be described as a concession made by Knowledge to the Ignorance, because
\nthat Ignorance is incapable of making truth wholly lucid and intelligible to
\nitself in all its extent and manifold implications except through the
\nclarifying precision of significant sounds; it cannot do without this device to
\ngive to ideas an exact outline and an expressive body. But it is evident that
\nthis is a device, a machinery; thought in itself, in its origin on the higher
\nlevels of consciousness, is a perception, a cognitive seizing of the object or
\nof some truth of things which is a powerful but still a minor and secondary result
\nof spiritual vision, a comparatively external and superficial regard of the
\nself upon the self, the subject upon itself or something of itself as object:
\nfor all there is a diversity and multiplicity of the self. In mind there is a
\nsurface response of  perception to the contact of an observed or
\ndiscovered object, fact or truth and a consequent conceptual formulation of it;
\nbut in the spiritual light there is a deeper perceptive response from the very
\nsubstance of consciousness and a comprehending formulation in that substance,
\nan exact figure or revelatory ideograph in the stuff of the being,\u2014nothing more,
\nno verbal representation is needed for the precision and completeness of this
\nthought-knowledge. Thought creates a representative image of Truth; it offers
\nthat to the mind as a means of holding Truth and making it an object of
\nknowledge; but the body itself of Truth is caught and exactly held in the
\nsunlight of a deeper spiritual sight to which the representative figure created
\nby thought is secondary and derivative, powerful for communication of
\nknowledge, but not indispensable for reception or possession of knowledge. <\/span><\/p>\n

A consciousness that
\nproceeds by sight, the consciousness of the seer, is a greater power for
\nknowledge than the consciousness of the thinker. The perceptual power of the
\ninner sight is greater and more direct than the perceptual power of thought: it
\nis a spiritual sense that seizes something of the substance of Truth and not
\nonly her figure; but it outlines the figure also and at the same time catches
\nthe significance of the figure, and it can embody her with a finer and bolder revealing
\noutline and a larger <\/span><\/p>\n

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comprehension and power of totality than
\nthought-conception can manage. As the Higher Mind brings a greater consciousness
\ninto the being through the spiritual idea and its power of truth, so the
\nIllumined Mind brings in a still greater consciousness through a Truth-sight
\nand Truth-light and its seeing and seizing power. It can effect a more powerful
\nand dynamic integration; it illumines the thought-mind with a direct inner vision
\nand inspiration, brings a spiritual sight into the heart and a spiritual light
\nand energy into its feeling and emotion, imparts to the life-force a spiritual
\nurge, a truth inspiration that dynamises<\/span> the action
\nand exalts the life-movements; it infuses into the sense a direct and total
\npower of spiritual sensation so that our vital and physical being can contact
\nand meet concretely, quite as intensely as the mind and emotion can conceive
\nand perceive and feel, the Divine in all things; it throws on the physical mind
\na transforming light that breaks its limitations, its conservative inertia,
\nreplaces its narrow thought-power and its doubts by sight and pours luminosity
\nand consciousness into the very cells of the body. In the transformation by the
\nHigher Mind the spiritual sage and thinker would find his total and dynamic fulfilment<\/span>; in the transformation by the Illumined Mind
\nthere would be a similar fulfilment<\/span> for the seer, the
\nillumined mystic, those in whom the soul lives in vision and in a direct sense
\nand experience: for it is from these higher sources that they receive their
\nlight and to rise into that light and live there would be their ascension to
\ntheir native empire.<\/span><\/p>\n

But these two stages of
\nthe ascent enjoy their authority and can get their own united completeness only
\nby a reference to a third level; for it is from the higher summits where dwells
\nthe intuitional being that they derive the knowledge which they turn into
\nthought or sight and bring down to us for the mind’s transmutation. Intuition
\nis a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge
\nby identity; for it is always something that leaps out direct from a concealed
\nidentity. It is when the consciousness of the subject meets with the
\nconsciousness in the object, penetrates it and sees, feels or vibrates with the
\ntruth of what it contacts, that the intuition leaps out like a spark or
\nlightning-flash from the shock of the meeting; or when the <\/span><\/p>\n

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consciousness, even without any such meeting,
\nlooks into itself and feels directly and intimately the truth or the truths
\nthat are there or so contacts the hidden forces behind appearances, then also
\nthere is the outbreak of an intuitive light; or, again, when the consciousness
\nmeets the Supreme Reality or the spiritual reality of things and beings and has
\na contactual<\/span> union with it, then the spark, the flash
\nor the blaze of intimate truth-perception is lit in its depths. This close
\nperception is more than  sight, more than conception: it is the result of
\na penetrating and revealing touch which carries in it sight and conception as part
\nof itself or as its natural consequence. A concealed or slumbering identity,
\nnot yet recovering itself, still remembers or conveys by the intuition its own
\ncontents and the intimacy of its self-feeling and self-vision of things, its
\nlight of truth, its overwhelming and automatic certitude. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the human mind the
\nintuition is even such a truth-remembrance or truth-conveyance, or such a
\nrevealing flash or blaze breaking into a great mass of ignorance or through a
\nveil of nescience: but we have seen that it is subject there to an invading
\nmixture or a mental coating or an interception and substitution; there is too a
\nmanifold possibility of misinterpretation which comes in the way of the purity
\nand fullness of its action. Moreover, there are seeming intuitions on all
\nlevels of the being which are communications rather than intuitions, and these
\nhave a very various provenance, value and character. The infrarational<\/span>
\n\u201cmystic\u201d, so-styled,\u2014for to be a true mystic it is not sufficient to reject
\nreason and rely on sources of thought or action of which one has no
\nunderstanding,\u2014is often inspired by such communications on the vital level from
\na dark and dangerous source. In these circumstances we are driven to rely
\nmainly on the reason and are disposed even to control the suggestions of the
\nintuition,\u2014or the pseudo-intuition, which is the more frequent phenomenon,\u2014by
\nthe observing and discriminating intelligence; for we feel in our intellectual
\npart that we cannot be sure otherwise what is the true thing and what the mixed
\nor adulterated article or false substitute. But this largely discounts for us
\nthe utility of the intuition: for the reason is not in this field a reliable
\narbiter, since its methods are different,
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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tentative, uncertain, an intellectual seeking;
\neven though it itself really relies on a camouflaged intuition for its conclusions,\u2014for
\nwithout that help it could not choose its course or arrive at any assured
\nfinding,\u2014it hides this dependence from itself under the process of a reasoned
\nconclusion or a verified conjecture. An intuition passed in judicial review by
\nthe reason ceases to be an intuition and can only have the authority of the
\nreason for which there is no inner source of direct certitude. But even if the
\nmind became predominantly an intuitive mind reliant upon its portion of the
\nhigher faculty, the co-ordination of its cognitions and its separated
\nactivities,\u2014for in mind these would always be apt to appear as a series of imperfectly
\nconnected flashes,\u2014would remain difficult so long as this new mentality has not
\na conscious liaison with its suprarational<\/span> source or
\na self-uplifting access to a higher plane of consciousness in which an
\nintuitive action is pure and native. <\/span><\/p>\n

Intuition is always an
\nedge or ray or outleap<\/span> of a superior light; it is in
\nus a projecting blade, edge or point of a far-off supermind<\/span>
\nlight entering into and modified by some intermediate truth-mind substance above
\nus and, so modified, again entering into and very much blinded by our ordinary
\nor ignorant mind-substance; but on that higher level to which it is native its
\nlight is unmixed and therefore entirely and purely veridical, and its rays are
\nnot separated but connected or massed together in a play of waves of what might
\nalmost be called in the Sanskrit poetic figure a sea or mass of \u201cstable lightnings<\/span>\u201d. When this original or native Intuition begins
\nto descend into us in answer to an ascension of our consciousness to its level
\nor as a result of our finding of a clear way of communication with it, it may
\ncontinue to come as a play of lightning-flashes, isolated or in constant
\naction; but at this stage the judgment of reason becomes quite inapplicable, it
\ncan only act as an observer or registrar understanding or recording the more
\nluminous intimations, judgments and discriminations of the higher power. To
\ncomplete or verify an isolated intuition or discriminate its nature, its
\napplication, its limitations, the receiving consciousness must rely on another
\ncompleting intuition or be able to call down a massed intuition capable of
\nputting all in place. For once the process <\/span><\/p>\n

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of the change has begun, a complete
\ntransmutation of the stuff and activities of the mind into the substance, form
\nand power of Intuition is imperative; until then, so long as the process of
\nconsciousness depends upon the lower intelligence serving or helping out or
\nusing the intuition, the result can only be a survival of the mixed
\nKnowledge-Ignorance uplifted or relieved by a higher light and force acting in
\nits parts of Knowledge. <\/span><\/p>\n

            <\/span>Intuition
\nhas a fourfold power. A power of revelatory truth-seeing, a power of
\ninspiration or truth-hearing, a power of truth-touch or immediate seizing of
\nsignificance, which is akin to the ordinary nature of its intervention in our
\nmental intelligence, a power of true and automatic discrimination of the
\norderly and exact relation of truth to truth,\u2014these are the fourfold potencies
\nof Intuition. Intuition can therefore perform all the action of
\nreason,\u2014including the function of logical intelligence, which is to work out
\nthe right relation of things and the right relation of idea with idea,\u2014but by
\nits own superior process and with steps that do not fail or falter. It takes up
\nalso and transforms into its own substance not only the mind of thought, but
\nthe heart and life and the sense and physical consciousness: already all these
\nhave their own peculiar powers of intuition derivative from the hidden Light;
\nthe pure power descending from above can assume them all into itself and impart
\nto these deeper heart-perceptions and life-perceptions and the divinations of
\nthe body a greater integrality and perfection. It can thus change the whole consciousness
\ninto the stuff of Intuition; for it brings its own greater radiant movement
\ninto the will, into the feelings and emotions, the life-impulses, the action of
\nsense and sensation, the very workings of the body-consciousness; it recasts
\nthem in the light and power of truth and illumines their knowledge and their
\nignorance. A certain integration can thus take place, but whether it is a total
\nintegration must depend on the extent to which the new light is able to take up
\nthe subconscient<\/span> and penetrate the fundamental Inconscience<\/span>. Here the intuitive light and power may be hampered
\nin its task because it is the edge of a delegated and modified Supermind<\/span>, but does not bring in the whole mass or body of
\nthe identity-knowledge. The basis of Inconscience<\/span> in
\nour nature is too vast, deep and <\/span><\/p>\n

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solid to be altogether penetrated, turned into
\nlight, transformed by an inferior power of the Truth-nature. <\/span><\/p>\n

The next step of the
\nascent brings us to the Overmind<\/span>; the intuitional
\nchange can only be an introduction to this higher spiritual overture. But we
\nhave seen that the Overmind<\/span>, even when it is
\nselective and not total in its action, is still a power of cosmic
\nconsciousness, a principle of global knowledge which carries in it a delegated
\nlight from the supramental<\/span> Gnosis. It is, therefore,
\nonly by an opening into the cosmic consciousness that the overmind<\/span>
\nascent and descent can be made wholly possible: a high and intense individual
\nopening upwards is not sufficient,\u2014to that vertical ascent towards summit Light
\nthere must be added a vast horizontal expansion of the consciousness into some
\ntotality of the Spirit. At the least, the inner being must already have
\nreplaced by its deeper and wider awareness the surface mind and its limited
\noutlook and learned to live in a large universality; for otherwise the overmind<\/span> view of things and the overmind<\/span>
\ndynamism will have no room to move in and effectuate its dynamic operations.
\nWhen the Overmind<\/span> descends, the predominance of the centralising<\/span> ego-sense is entirely subordinated, lost in
\nlargeness of being and finally abolished; a wide cosmic perception and feeling
\nof a boundless universal self and movement replaces it: many motions that were
\nformerly egocentric may still continue, but they occur as currents or ripples
\nin the cosmic wideness. Thought, for the most part, no longer seems to
\noriginate individually in the body or the person but manifests from above or
\ncomes in upon the cosmic mind-waves: all inner individual sight or intelligence
\nof things is now a revelation or illumination of what is seen or comprehended,
\nbut the source of the revelation is not in one’s separate self but in the
\nuniversal knowledge; the feelings, emotions, sensations are similarly felt as
\nwaves from the same cosmic immensity breaking upon the subtle and the gross
\nbody and responded to in kind by the individual centre of the universality; for
\nthe body is only a small support or even less, a point of relation, for the
\naction of a vast cosmic instrumentation. In this boundless largeness, not only
\nthe separate ego but all sense of individuality, even of a subordinated or instrumental
\nindividuality, may entirely disappear; <\/span><\/p>\n

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the cosmic existence, the cosmic consciousness,
\nthe cosmic delight, the play of cosmic forces are alone left: if the delight or
\nthe centre of Force is felt in what was the personal mind, life or body, it is
\nnot with a sense of personality but as a field of manifestation, and this sense
\nof the delight or of the action of Force is not confined to the person or the
\nbody but can be felt at all points in an unlimited consciousness of unity which
\npervades everywhere. <\/span><\/p>\n

But there can be many
\nformulations of overmind<\/span> consciousness and
\nexperience; for the Overmind<\/span> has a great plasticity and
\nis a field of multiple possibilities. In place of an uncentred<\/span>
\nand unplaced diffusion there may be the sense of the universe in oneself or as
\noneself: but there too this self is not the ego; it is an extension of a free
\nand pure essential self-consciousness or it is an identification with the
\nAll,\u2014the extension or the identification constituting a cosmic being, a universal
\nindividual. In one state of the cosmic consciousness there is an individual
\nincluded in the cosmos but identifying himself with all in it, with the things
\nand beings, with the thought and sense, the joy and grief of others; in another
\nstate there is an inclusion of beings in oneself and a reality of their life as
\npart of one’s own being. Often there is no rule or governance of the immense
\nmovement, but a free play of universal Nature to which what was the personal
\nbeing responds with a passive acceptance or a dynamic identity, while yet the
\nspirit remains free and undisturbed by any bondage to the reactions of this
\npassivity or this universal and impersonal identification and sympathy. But
\nwith a strong influence or full action of the Overmind<\/span>
\na very integral sense of governance, a complete supporting or overruling
\npresence and direction of the cosmic Self or the Ishwara<\/span>
\ncan come in and become normal; or a special centre may be revealed or created
\novertopping and dominating the physical instrument, individual in fact of
\nexistence, but impersonal in feeling and recognised<\/span>
\nby a free cognition as something instrumental to the action of a Transcendent
\nand Universal Being. In the transition towards the Supermind<\/span>
\nthis centralising<\/span> action tends towards the discovery
\nof a true individual replacing the dead ego, a being who is in his essence one
\nwith the supreme Self, one with the universe in
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\nextension and yet a cosmic centre and
\ncircumference of the specialised<\/span> action of the
\nInfinite.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

These are the general
\nfirst results and create the normal foundation of the overmind<\/span>
\nconsciousness in the evolved spiritual being, but its varieties and developments
\nare innumerable. The consciousness that thus acts is experienced as a consciousness
\nof Light and Truth, a power, force, action full of Light and Truth, an
\naesthesis and sensation of beauty and delight universal and multitudinous in
\ndetail, an illumination in the whole and in all things, in the one movement and
\nall movements, with a constant extension and play of possibilities which is
\ninfinite, even in its multitude of determinations endless and indeterminable.
\nIf the power of an ordering overmind<\/span> Gnosis
\nintervenes, then there is a cosmic structure of the consciousness and action,
\nbut this is not like the rigid mental structures; it is plastic, organic,
\nsomething that can grow and develop and stretch into the infinite. All
\nspiritual experiences are taken up and become habitual and normal to the new nature;
\nall essential experiences belonging to the mind, life, body are taken up and spiritualised<\/span>, transmuted and felt as forms of the
\nconsciousness, delight, power of the infinite existence. Intuition, illumined
\nsight and thought enlarge themselves; their substance assumes a greater
\nsubstantiality, mass, energy, their movement is more comprehensive, global,
\nmany-faceted, more wide and potent in its truth-force: the whole nature,
\nknowledge, aesthesis, sympathy, feeling, dynamism become more catholic,
\nall-understanding, all-embracing, cosmic, infinite.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

The overmind<\/span>
\nchange is the final consummating movement of the dynamic spiritual
\ntransformation; it is the highest possible status-dynamis<\/span>
\nof the Spirit in the spiritual-mind plane. It takes up all that is in the three
\nsteps below it and raises their characteristic workings to their highest and
\nlargest power, adding to them a universal wideness of consciousness and force,
\na harmonious concert of knowledge, a more manifold delight of being. But there
\nare certain reasons arising from its own characteristic status and power that
\nprevent it from being the final possibility of the spiritual evolution. It is a
\npower, though the highest power, of the lower hemisphere; although its basis is
\na cosmic <\/span><\/p>\n

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unity, its action is an action of division and
\ninteraction, an action taking its stand on the play of the multiplicity. Its
\nplay is, like that of all Mind, a play of possibilities; although it acts not
\nin the Ignorance but with the knowledge of the truth of these possibilities,
\nyet it works them out through their own independent evolution of their powers.
\nIt acts in each cosmic formula according to the fundamental meaning of that
\nformula and is not a power for a dynamic transcendence. Here in earth-life it has
\nto work upon a cosmic formula whose basis is the entire nescience which results
\nfrom the separation of Mind, Life and Matter from their own source and supreme
\norigin. Overmind<\/span> can bridge that division up to the
\npoint at which separative<\/span> Mind enters into Overmind<\/span> and becomes a part of its action; it can unite
\nindividual mind with cosmic mind on its highest plane, equate individual self
\nwith cosmic self and give to the nature an action of universality; but it
\ncannot lead Mind beyond itself, and in this world of original Inconscience<\/span> it cannot dynamise<\/span>
\nthe Transcendence: for it is the Supermind<\/span> alone that
\nis the supreme self-determining truth-action and the direct power of
\nmanifestation of that Transcendence. If then the action of evolutionary Nature
\nended here, the Overmind<\/span>, having carried the
\nconsciousness to the point of a vast illumined universality and an organised<\/span> play of this wide and potent spiritual awareness
\nof utter existence, force-consciousness and delight, could only go farther by
\nan opening of the gates of the Spirit into the upper hemisphere and a will to
\nenable the soul to depart out of its cosmic formation into Transcendence. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the terrestrial
\nevolution itself the overmind<\/span> descent would not be
\nable to transform wholly the Inconscience<\/span>; all that
\nit could do would be to transform in each man it touched the whole conscious
\nbeing, inner and outer, personal and universally impersonal, into its own stuff
\nand impose that upon the Ignorance illumining it into cosmic truth and
\nknowledge. But a basis of Nescience would remain; it would be as if a sun and
\nits system were to shine out in an original darkness of Space and illumine
\neverything as far as its rays could reach so that all that dwelt in the light
\nwould feel as if no darkness were there at all in their experience of
\nexistence. But outside that sphere or expanse
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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of experience the original darkness would still
\nbe there and, since all things are possible in an overmind<\/span>
\nstructure, could reinvade the island of light created within its empire.
\nMoreover, since Overmind<\/span> deals with different
\npossibilities, its natural action would be to develop the separate possibility
\nof one or more or numerous dynamic spiritual formulations to their utmost or
\ncombine or harmonise<\/span> several possibilities together;
\nbut this would be a creation or a number of creations in the original terrestrial
\ncreation, each complete in its separate existence. The evolved spiritual
\nindividual would be there, there might evolve also a spiritual community or
\ncommunities in the same world as mental man and the vital being of the animal,
\nbut each working out its independent existence in a loose relation within the
\nterrestrial formula. The supreme power of the principle of unity taking all
\ndiversities into itself and controlling them as parts of the unity, which must
\nbe the law of the new evolutionary consciousness, would not as yet be there.
\nAlso by this much evolution there could be no security against the downward
\npull or gravitation of the Inconscience<\/span> which
\ndissolves all the formations that life and mind build in it, swallows all things
\nthat arise out of it or are imposed upon it and disintegrates them into their
\noriginal matter. The liberation from this pull of the Inconscience<\/span>
\nand a secured basis for a continuous divine or gnostic<\/span>
\nevolution would only be achieved by a descent of the Supermind<\/span>
\ninto the terrestrial formula, bringing into it the supreme law and light and dynamis<\/span> of the Spirit and penetrating with it and
\ntransforming the inconscience<\/span> of the material basis.
\nA last transition from Overmind<\/span> to Supermind<\/span> and a descent of Supermind<\/span>
\nmust therefore intervene at this stage of evolutionary Nature. <\/span><\/p>\n

Overmind<\/span><\/span> and its delegated
\npowers, taking up and penetrating mind and the life and body dependent upon
\nmind, would subject all to a greatening process; at each step of this process a
\ngreater power and a higher intensity of gnosis less and less mixed with the
\nloose, diffused, diminishing and diluting stuff of mind could establish itself:
\nbut all gnosis is in its origin power of Supermind<\/span>,
\nso that this would mean a greater and greater influx of a half-veiled and
\nindirect supramental<\/span> light and power into the nature.
\nThis would continue until the point was reached
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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at which Overmind<\/span>
\nwould begin itself to be transformed into Supermind<\/span>;
\nthe supramental<\/span> consciousness and force would take up
\nthe transformation directly into its own hands, reveal to the terrestrial mind,
\nlife, bodily being their own spiritual truth and divinity and, finally, pour
\ninto the whole nature the perfect knowledge, power, significance of the supramental<\/span> existence. The soul would pass beyond the
\nborders of the Ignorance and cross its original line of departure from the
\nsupreme Knowledge: it would enter into the integrality of the supramental<\/span> gnosis; the descent of the gnostic<\/span>
\nLight would effectuate a complete transformation of the Ignorance. <\/span><\/p>\n

This or something more
\nlargely planned on these lines might be regarded as the schematic, logical or
\nideal account of the spiritual transformation, a structural map of the ascent
\nto the supramental<\/span> summit, looked at as a succession
\nof separate steps, each accomplished before the passage to the next commences.
\nIt would be as if the soul, putting forth an organized natural individuality,
\nwere a traveller<\/span> mounting the degrees of
\nconsciousness cut out in universal Nature, each ascent carrying it totally as a
\ndefinite integer, as a separate body of conscious being, from one state of its
\nexistence to the next in order. This is so far correct that a sufficient
\nintegration of one status has to be complete before an ascent to the next
\nhigher station can be entirely secure: this clear succession might also be the
\ncourse followed by a few even in the early stages of this evolution, and it
\nmight become too a normal process after the whole stair-flight of the evolution
\nhad been built and made safe. But evolutionary Nature is not a logical series
\nof separate segments; it is a totality of ascending powers of being which interpenetrate
\nand dovetail and exercise in their action on each other a power of mutual
\nmodification. When the higher descends into the lower consciousness, it alters
\nthe lower but is also modified and diminished by it; when the lower ascends, it
\nis sublimated but at the same time qualifies the sublimating substance and
\npower. This interaction creates an abundant number of different intermediate
\nand interlocked degrees of the force and consciousness of being, but it also
\nmakes it difficult to bring about a complete integration of all the powers
\nunder the full control of any one power. For this reason there is
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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not actually a series of simple clear-cut and
\nsuccessive stages in the individual’s evolution; there is instead a complexity
\nand a partly determinate, partly confused comprehensiveness of the movement.
\nThe soul may still be described as a traveler and climber who presses towards
\nhis high goal by step on step, each of which he has to build up as an integer
\nbut most frequently redescend<\/span> in order to rebuild and
\nmake sure of the supporting stair so that it may not crumble beneath him: but the
\nevolution of the whole consciousness has rather the movement of an ascending
\nocean of Nature; it can be compared to a tide or a mounting flux, the leading
\nfringe of which touches the higher degrees of a cliff or hill while the rest is
\nstill below. At each stage the higher parts of the nature may be provisionally
\nbut incompletely organised<\/span> in the new consciousness
\nwhile the lower are in a state of flux or formation, partly moving in the old
\nway though influenced and beginning to change, partly<\/span><\/p>\n

belonging to the new kind but still imperfectly
\nachieved and not yet firm in the change. Another image might be that of an army
\nadvancing in columns which annexes new ground, while the main body is still
\nbehind in a territory overrun but too large to be effectively occupied, so that
\nthere has to be a frequent halt and partial return to the traversed areas for
\nconsolidation and assurance of the hold on the occupied country and
\nassimilation of its people. A rapid conquest might be possible, but it would be
\nof the nature of an encampment or a domination established in a foreign
\ncountry; it would not be the assumption, total assimilation, integration needed
\nfor the entire supramental<\/span> change. <\/span><\/p>\n

This entails certain
\nconsequences which modify the clear successions of the evolution and prevent it
\nfrom following the cleanly determined and firmly arranged course which our logical
\nintelligence demands from Nature but seldom gets from her. As Life and Mind
\nbegin to appear when the organisation<\/span> of Matter is
\nsufficient to admit them but the more complex and perfect organisation<\/span>
\nof Matter comes with the evolution of Life and Mind, as Mind appears when Life
\nis sufficiently organised<\/span> to admit of a developed
\nvibration of consciousness but Life receives its full organisation<\/span>
\nand development only after Mind can act upon it, as the spiritual evolution
\nbegins when man as Mind is
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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capable of the movements of spirituality but
\nMind also rises to its own highest perfection by the growth of the intensities
\nand luminosities of the Spirit, so it is with this higher evolution of the
\nascending powers of the Spirit. As soon as there is a sufficient spiritual
\ndevelopment, something of intuition, illumination of the being, the movements
\nof the higher spiritual grades of Consciousness begins to manifest,\u2014sometimes
\none, sometimes the other or all together, and they do not wait for each power
\nin the series to complete itself before a higher power comes into action. An overmind<\/span> light and power may descend in some sort, create a
\npartial form of itself in the being and take a leading part or supervise or
\nintervene while the intuitive and illumining Mind and higher Mind are still
\nincomplete; these would then remain in the whole, acting along with the greater
\nPower, often penetrated or sublimated by it or rising into it to form a greater
\nor overmind<\/span> Intuition, a greater or overmind<\/span> Illumination, a greater or overmind<\/span>
\nspiritual Thinking. This intricate action takes place because each descending
\npower by its intensity of pressure on the nature and uplifting effect makes the
\nbeing already capable of a still higher invasion before that earlier power
\nitself is complete in its self-formation; but also it happens because the work
\nof assumption and transformation of the lower nature can with difficulty be
\ndone if a higher and higher intervention does not take place. The Illumination
\nand the higher Thought need the help of the Intuition, the Intuition needs the
\nhelp of the Overmind<\/span> to combat the darkness or ignorance
\nin which they labour<\/span> and to give them their own
\nfullness. Still, it is not possible in the end for the overmind<\/span>
\nstatus and integration to be complete until the Higher Mind and the Illumined
\nMind have been integrated and taken up into the Intuition and the Intuition
\nitself subsequently integrated and taken up into the all-enlarging and
\nall-sublimating overmind<\/span> energy. The law of the
\ngradation has to be satisfied even in the complexity of the process of
\nevolutionary Nature. <\/span><\/p>\n

A further cause of
\ncomplexity arises from the need of integration itself; for the process is not
\nonly an ascent of the soul to a higher status, but a descent of the higher
\nconsciousness so gained to take up and transform the inferior nature. But this nature
\nhas a density of previous formation which resists and obstructs the <\/span><\/p>\n

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descent; even when the higher power has broken
\nthe barrier and descended and is at work, we have seen that the nature of the
\nIgnorance resists and obstructs the working, that it either strives to refuse
\ntransformation altogether or tries to modify the new power into some conformity
\nwith its own workings, or even throws itself upon it to seize and degrade and
\nenslave it to its own way of action and lower purpose. Ordinarily, in their
\ntask of assumption and assimilation of this difficult stuff of  Nature, the higher powers descend first into the
\nmind and occupy the mind-centres<\/span> because these are
\nnearest to themselves in intelligence and knowledge-power; if they descend
\nfirst into the heart or into the vital being of force and sensation, as they sometimes
\ndo because these happen to be in some individuals more open and call them first,
\nthe results are more mixed and dubious, imperfect and insecure than if things
\nhappen in the logical order. But, even in its normal working when it takes up the
\nbeing part by part in the natural order of descent, the descending power is not
\nable to bring about a total occupation and transformation of each before it
\ngoes farther. It can only effect a general and incomplete occupation, so that
\nthe workings of each remain still partly of the new higher, partly of a mixed,
\npartly of the old unchanged lower order. All the mind in its whole range cannot
\nbe transmuted at once, for the mind-centres<\/span> are not a
\nregion isolated from the rest of the being; the mind-action is penetrated by
\nthe action of the vital and physical parts, and in those parts themselves are
\nlower formations of mind, a vital mind, a physical mind, and these have to be
\nchanged before there can be an entire transformation of the mental being. The
\nhigher transforming power has, therefore, to descend, as soon as may be and
\nwithout waiting for an integral mental change, into the heart so as to occupy
\nand change the emotional nature, and afterwards into the inferior vital centres<\/span> to occupy and change the whole vital and kinetic
\nand sensational nature, and, finally, into the physical centres<\/span>
\nso as to occupy and change the whole physical nature. But even this finality is
\nnot final, for there are still left the subconscient<\/span>
\nparts and the inconscient<\/span> foundation. The intricacy,
\nthe interwoven action of these powers and parts of the being is so great that
\nit may almost be said that in this change nothing is accomplished
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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until all is accomplished. There is a tide and
\nebb, the forces of the old nature receding and again partially occupying their
\nold dominions, effectuating a slow retreat with rear-line actions and return
\nattacks and aggressions, the higher influx occupying each time more conquered
\nterritory but imperfectly sure of sovereignty so long as anything is left that
\nhas not become part of its luminous regime. <\/span><\/p>\n

        A third complexity is
\nbrought in by the power of the consciousness to live in more than one status at
\na time; especially, a difficulty is created by the division of our being into
\nan inner and an outer or surface nature and the farther intricacy of a secret circumconscient<\/span> or environmental consciousness in which are
\ndetermined our unseen connections with the world outside us. In the spiritual
\nopening, it is the awakened inner being that readily receives and assimilates
\nthe higher influences and puts on the higher nature; the external surface self,
\nmore entirely moulded<\/span> by the forces of the Ignorance
\nand Inconscience<\/span>, is slower to awake, slower to
\nreceive, slower to assimilate. There is therefore a long stage in which the
\ninner being is sufficiently transformed but the outer is still involved in a
\nmixed and difficult movement of imperfect change. This disparity repeats itself
\nat each step of the ascent; for in each change the inner being follows more
\nreadily, the outer limps  after, reluctant or else incompetent in spite of
\nits aspiration and desire: this necessitates a constantly repeated labour<\/span> of assumption, adaptation, orientation, a labour<\/span> reproduced in new terms always but always the same
\nin principle. But even when the outer and the inner nature of the individual
\nare unified in a harmonised<\/span> spiritual consciousness,
\nthat still more external but occult part of him in which his being mixes with
\nthe being of the outside world and through which the outside world invades his
\nconsciousness remains a field of imperfection. There is necessarily a commerce
\nhere between disparate influences: the inner spiritual influence is met by
\nquite opposite influences strong in their control of the present world-order; the
\nnew spiritual consciousness has to bear the shock of the dominant and
\nestablished unspiritualised<\/span> powers of the Ignorance.
\nThis creates a difficulty which is of capital importance in all stages of the
\nspiritual evolution and its urge towards a change of the nature. <\/span><\/p>\n

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         A subjective spirituality can be established
\nwhich refuses or minimises<\/span> commerce with the world or
\nis content to witness its action and throw back or throw out its invading
\ninfluences without allowing any reaction to them or admitting their intrusion:
\nbut if the inner spirituality is to be objectivised<\/span>
\nin a free world-action, if the individual has to project himself into the world
\nand in a sense take the world into himself, this cannot be dynamically done
\nwithout receiving the world-influences through one’s own circumconscient<\/span>
\nor environmental being. The spiritual inner consciousness has then to deal with
\nthese influences in such a way that, as soon as they approach or enter, they
\nbecome either obliterated and without result or transformed by their very entry
\ninto its own mode and substance. Or it may force them to receive the spiritual influence
\nand return with a transforming power on the world they come from, for such a
\ncompulsion on the lower universal Nature is part of a perfect spiritual action.
\nBut for that the circumconscient<\/span> or environmental
\nbeing must be so steeped in the spiritual light and spiritual substance that
\nnothing can enter into it without undergoing this transformation: the invading external
\ninfluences have not to bring in at all their lower awareness, their lower
\nsight, their lower dynamism. But this is a difficult perfection, because
\nordinarily the circumconscient<\/span> is not wholly our own
\nformed and realised<\/span> self but ourself<\/span>
\nplus the external world-nature. It is, for this reason, always easier to spiritualise<\/span> the inner self-sufficient parts than to
\ntransform the outer action; a perfection of introspective, indwelling or
\nsubjective spirituality aloof from the world or self-protected against it is
\neasier than a perfection of the whole nature in a dynamic, kinetic spirituality
\nobjectivised<\/span> in the life, embracing the world, master
\nof its environment, sovereign in its commerce with world-nature. But since the
\nintegral transformation must embrace fully the dynamic being and take up into
\nit the life of action and the world-self outside us, this completer change is
\ndemanded of the evolving nature. <\/span><\/p>\n

The essential difficulty
\ncomes from the fact that the substance of our normal being is moulded<\/span> out of the Inconscience<\/span>. Our
\nignorance is a growth of knowledge in a substance of being which is nescient;
\nthe consciousness it develops, the knowledge it <\/span><\/p>\n

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establishes are always dogged, penetrated,
\nenveloped by this nescience. It is this substance of nescience that has to be transformed
\ninto a substance of superconscience<\/span>, a substance in
\nwhich consciousness and a spiritual awareness are always there even when they
\nare not active, not expressed, not put into form of knowledge. Till that is
\ndone, the nescience invades or encompasses or even swallows up and absorbs into
\nits oblivious darkness all that enters into it; it compels the descending light
\nto compromise with the lesser light it enters: there is a mixture, a diminution
\nand dilution of itself, a diminution, a modification, an incomplete
\nauthenticity of its truth and power. Or, at the least, the nescience limits its
\ntruth and circumscribes its force, segments its applicability and its range;
\nits truth of principle is barred from a full truth of individual realisation<\/span> or from an achieved truth of cosmic practice.
\nThus love as a law of life can affirm itself practically as an inner active
\nprinciple; but unless it occupies the whole substance of being, the entire
\nindividual feeling and action cannot be moulded<\/span> by
\nthe law of love: even if perfected in the individual, it can be rendered
\nunilateral and ineffective by the general nescience which is blind to it and
\nhostile, or it is forced to circumscribe its range of cosmic application. A
\nfull action in harmony with a new law of the being is always difficult in human
\nnature; for in the substance of the Inconscience<\/span>
\nthere is a self-protective law of blind imperative Necessity which limits the
\nplay of the possibilities that emerge from it or enter into it and prevents
\nthem from establishing their free action and result or realising<\/span>
\nthe intensity of their own absolute. A mixed, relative, curbed and diminished
\nplay is all that is conceded to them: otherwise they would cancel the frame of Inconscience<\/span> and violently perturb without effectively
\nchanging the basis of the world-order; for none of them have in their mental or
\nvital play the divine power to replace this dark original principle and organise<\/span> a totally new world-order.<\/span><\/p>\n

A transformation of
\nhuman nature can only be achieved when the substance of the being is so steeped
\nin the spiritual principle that all its movements are a spontaneous dynamism
\nand a harmonised<\/span> process of the Spirit. But even when
\nthe higher powers and their intensities enter into the substance of the
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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Inconscience<\/span><\/span>, they are met by this
\nblind opposing Necessity and are subjected to this circumscribing and
\ndiminishing law of the nescient substance. It opposes them with its strong
\ntitles of an established and inexorable Law, meets always the claim of life
\nwith the law of death, the demand of Light with the need of a relief of shadow
\nand a background of darkness, the sovereignty and freedom and dynamism of the
\nSpirit with its own force of adjustment by limitation, demarcation by incapacity,
\nfoundation of energy on the repose of an original Inertia. There is an occult
\ntruth behind its negations which only the Supermind<\/span>
\nwith its reconciliation of contraries in the original Reality can take up and
\nso discover the pragmatic solution of the enigma. Only the supramental<\/span>
\nForce can entirely overcome this difficulty of the fundamental Nescience; for
\nwith it enters an opposite and luminous imperative Necessity which underlies
\nall things and is the original and final self-determining truth-force of the
\nself-existent Infinite. This greater luminous spiritual Necessity and its
\nsovereign imperative alone can displace or entirely penetrate, transform into
\nitself and so replace the blind Ananke<\/span> of the Inconscience.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

A supramental<\/span>
\nchange of the whole substance of the being and therefore necessarily of all its
\ncharacters, powers, movements takes place when the involved Supermind<\/span>
\nin Nature emerges to meet and join with the supramental<\/span>
\nlight and power descending from Supernature<\/span>. The
\nindividual must be the instrument and first field of the transformation; but an
\nisolated individual transformation is not enough and may not be wholly
\nfeasible. Even when achieved, the individual change will have a permanent and
\ncosmic significance only if the individual becomes a centre and a sign for the
\nestablishment of the supramental<\/span> Consciousness-Force
\nas an overtly operative power in the terrestrial workings of Nature,\u2014in the
\nsame way in which thinking Mind has been established through the human
\nevolution as an overtly operative power in Life and Matter. This would mean the
\nappearance in the evolution of a gnostic<\/span> being or Purusha<\/span> and a gnostic<\/span> Prakriti<\/span>, a gnostic<\/span> Nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

There must be an emergent supramental<\/span>
\nConsciousness-Force liberated and active within the terrestrial whole and an organised<\/span> supramental<\/span> instrumentation
\nof the Spirit in the
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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life and the body,\u2014for the body-consciousness
\nalso must become sufficiently awake to be a fit instrument of the workings of
\nthe new supramental<\/span> Force and its new order. Till
\nthen any intermediate change could be only partial or insecure; an overmind<\/span> or intuitive instrumentation of Nature could be
\ndeveloped, but it would be a luminous formation imposed on a fundamental and
\nenvironmental Inconscience<\/span>. A supramental<\/span>
\nprinciple and its cosmic operation once established permanently on its own
\nbasis, the intervening powers of Overmind<\/span> and
\nspiritual Mind could found themselves securely upon it and reach their own
\nperfection; they would become in the earth-existence a hierarchy of states of
\nconsciousness rising out of Mind and physical life to the supreme spiritual
\nlevel. Mind and mental humanity would remain as one step in the spiritual evolution;
\nbut other degrees above it would be there formed and accessible by which the
\nembodied mental being, as it became ready, could climb into the gnosis and
\nchange into an embodied supramental<\/span> and spiritual
\nbeing. On this basis the principle of a divine life in terrestrial Nature would
\nbe manifested; even the world of ignorance and inconscience<\/span>
\nmight discover its own submerged secret and begin to realise<\/span>
\nin each lower degree its divine significance.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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CHAPTER XXVI   The Ascent towards Supermind   Masters of the Truth-Light who make the Truth grow by the Truth. Rig Veda.1  Three powers of Speech…<\/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-1244","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\/1244","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=1244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}