{"id":132,"date":"2013-07-13T01:26:07","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=132"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:26:07","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:26:07","slug":"06-supermind-and-the-life-divine-vol-16-the-supramental-manifestation-volume-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/16-the-supramental-manifestation-volume-16\/06-supermind-and-the-life-divine-vol-16-the-supramental-manifestation-volume-16","title":{"rendered":"-06_Supermind and The Life Divine.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nSupermind
\nand the Life Divine<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n                A<\/span> <\/b>
\nDIVINE life upon earth, the ideal we
\nhave placed before us, can only come about by a spiritual change of our being
\nand a radical and fundamental change, an evolution or revolution of our nature.
\nThe embodied being upon earth would have to rise out of the domination over it
\nof its veils of mind, life and body into the full consciousness and possession
\nof its spiritual reality and its nature also would have to be lifted out of the
\nconsciousness and power of consciousness proper to a mental, vital and physical
\nbeing into the greater consciousness and greater power of being and the larger
\nand freer life of the spirit. It would not lose these former veils but they
\nwould no longer be veils or imperfect expressions but true manifestations; they
\nwould be changed into states of light, powers of spiritual life, vehicles of a
\nspiritual existence. But this again could not be if mind, life and body were not
\ntaken up and transformed by a state of being and a force of being superior to
\nthem, a power of Supermind as much above our incomplete mental nature as that is
\nabove the nature of animal life and animated Matter, as it is immeasurably above
\nthe mere material nature.<\/p>\n

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

 
\n The
\nSupermind is in its very essence a truth-consciousness, a consciousness always
\nfree from the Ignorance which is the foundation of our present natural or
\nevolutionary existence and from which nature in us is trying to arrive at
\nself-knowledge and world-knowledge and a right consciousness and the right use
\nof our existence in the universe. The Supermind, because it is a
\ntruth-consciousness, has this knowledge inherent in it and this power of true
\nexistence; its course is straight and can go direct to its aim, its field is
\nwide and can even be made illimitable. This is because its very nature is
\nknowledge: it has not to acquire knowledge but possesses it in its own right;
\nits steps are not from nescience or ignorance into some imperfect light, but
\nfrom truth to greater truth, from right perception to deeper perception, from
\nintuition to intuition, from illumination to utter and bound \u2013<\/p>\n

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

\nPage
\n\u2013 41<\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

 less
\nluminousness, from growing widenesses to the utter vasts and to very infinitude.
\nOn its summits it possesses the divine omniscience and omnipotence, but even in
\nan evolutionary movement of its own graded self-manifestation by which it would
\neventually reveal its own highest heights it must be in its very nature
\nessentially free from ignorance and error: it starts from truth and light and
\nmoves always in truth and light. As its knowledge is always true, so too its
\nwill is always true; it does not fumble in its handling of things or stumble in
\nits paces. In the Supermind feeling and emotion do not depart from their truth,
\nmake no slips or mistakes, do not swerve from the right and the real, cannot
\nmisuse beauty and delight or twist away from a divine rectitude. In the
\nSupermind sense cannot mislead or deviate into the grossnesses which are here
\nits natural imperfections and the cause of reproach, distrust and misuse by our
\nignorance. Even an incomplete statement made by the Supermind is a truth leading
\nto a further truth, its incomplete action a step towards completeness. All the
\nlife and action and leading of the Supermind is guarded in its very nature from
\nthe falsehoods and uncertainties that are our lot; it moves in safety towards
\nits perfection. Once the truth-consciousness was established here on its own
\nsure foundation, the evolution of divine life would be a progress in felicity, a
\nmarch through light to Ananda.<\/p>\n

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


\n <\/span>          
\n<\/span>Supermind is an eternal reality of the divine Being and the divine
\nNature. In its own plane it already and always exists and possesses its own
\nessential law of being; it has not to be created or to emerge or evolve into
\nexistence out of involution in Matter or out of non-existence, as it might seem
\nto the view of mind which itself seems to its own view to have so emerged from
\nlife and Matter or to have evolved out of an involution. in life and Matter. The
\nnature of Supermind is always the same, a being of knowledge, proceeding from
\ntruth to truth, creating. or rather manifesting what has to be manifested by the
\npower of a pre-existent knowledge, not by hazard but by a self-existent destiny
\nin the being itself, a necessity of the thing in itself and therefore
\ninevitable. Its manifestation of the divine life will also be inevitable; its
\nown life on its own plane is divine<\/span> and,
\nif<\/p>\n

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

\nPage
\n\u2013 42<\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

 Supermind
\ndescends upon the earth, it will bring necessarily the divine life with it and
\nestablish it here.<\/p>\n

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

         
\nSupermind
\nis the grade of existence beyond mind, life and Matter and, as mind, life and
\nMatter have manifested on the earth, so too must Supermind in the inevitable
\ncourse of things manifest in this world of Matter. In fact, a supermind is
\nalready here but it is involved, concealed behind this manifest mind, life and
\nMatter and not yet acting overtly or in its own power: if it acts, it is through
\nthese inferior powers and modified by their characters and so not yet
\nrecognisable. It is only by the approach and arrival of the descending Supermind
\nthat it can be liberated upon earth and reveal itself in the action of our
\nmaterial, vital and mental parts so that these lower powers can become portions
\nof a total divinised activity of our whole being: it is that that will bring to
\nus a completely realised divinity or the divine life. It is indeed so that life
\nand mind involved in Matter have realised themselves here; for only what is
\ninvolved can evolve, otherwise there could be no emergence. The manifestation of
\na supramental truth-consciousness is therefore the capital reality that will
\nmake the divine life possible. It is when all the movements of thought, impulse
\nand action are governed and directed by a self-existent and luminously automatic
\ntruth-consciousness and our whole nature comes to be constituted by it and made
\nof its stuff that the life divine will be complete and absolute. Even as it is,
\nin reality though not in the appearance of things, it is a secret self-existent
\nknowledge and truth that is working to manifest itself in the creation here. The
\nDivine is already there immanent within us, ourselves are that in our inmost
\nreality and it is this reality that we have to manifest; it is that which
\nconstitutes the urge towards the divine living and makes necessary the creation
\nof the life divine even in this material existence.<\/p>\n

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


\n <\/span>          
\n<\/span>A manifestation of the Supermind and its truth-consciousness is then
\ninevitable; it must happen in this world sooner or later. But it has two
\naspects, a descent from above, an ascent from below, a self-revelation of the
\nSpirit, an evolution in Nature. The ascent is necessarily an effort, a working
\nof Nature, an urge or nisus on her side to raise her lower parts<\/span> by
\nan<\/p>\n

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

\nPage
\n\u2013 43<\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

evolutionary or revolutionary
\nchange, conversion or transformation into the divine reality and it may happen
\nby a process and progress or by a rapid miracle. The descent or self- revelation
\nof the Spirit is an act of the supreme Reality from above which makes the
\nrealisation possible and it can appear either as the divine aid which brings
\nabout the fulfilment of the progress and process or as the sanction of the
\nmiracle. Evolution, as we see it hi this world, is a slow and difficult process
\nand, indeed, needs usually ages to reach abiding results; but this is because it
\nis in its nature an emergence from inconscient beginnings, a start from
\nnescience and a working in the ignorance of natural beings by what seems to be
\nan unconscious force. There can be, on the contrary, an evolution in the light
\nand no longer in the darkness, in which the evolving being is a conscious
\nparticipant and cooperator, and this is precisely what must take place here.
\nEven in the effort and progress from the Ignorance to Knowledge this must be in
\npart if not wholly the endeavour to be made on the heights of the nature and it
\nmust be wholly that in the final movement towards the spiritual change,
\nrealisation, transformation. It must be still more so when there is a transition
\nacross the dividing line between the Ignorance and the Knowledge and the
\nevolution is from knowledge to greater knowledge, from consciousness to greater
\nconsciousness, from being to greater being. There is then no longer any
\nnecessity for the slow pace of the ordinary evolution; there can be rapid
\nconversion, quick transformation after transformation, what would seem to our
\nnormal present mind, a succession of miracles. An evolution on the supramental
\nlevels could well be of that nature; it could be equally, if the being so chose,
\na more leisurely passage of one supramental state or condition of things to
\nsomething beyond but still supramental, from level to divine level, a building
\nup of divine gradations, a free growth to the supreme Supermind or beyond it to
\nyet undreamed levels of being, consciousness and Ananda.<\/p>\n

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

         
\nThe
\nsupramental knowledge, the truth-consciousness of the Supermind is in itself one
\nand total: even when there is a voluntary limitation of the knowledge or what
\nmight seem to<\/p>\n

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

\nPage
\n\u2013 44<\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

be
\na partial manifestation, it is so voluntarily; the limitation does not proceed
\nfrom or result in any kind of ignorance, it is not a denial or withholding of
\nknowledge, for all the rest of the truth that is not brought into expression, is
\nimplicit there: Above all, there are no contradictions: whatever would seem to
\nbe opposites to the mind, here carry in themselves their own right relation and
\nreconciling agreement,\u2013 if indeed any reconciliation were needed, for the
\nharmony of these apparent opposites is complete. The mind tends to put the
\npersonal and the impersonal in face of each other as if they were two
\ncontraries, but the Supermind sees and realises them as, at the lowest,
\ncomplements and mutually fulfilling powers of the single Reality and, more
\ncharacteristically, as interfused and inseparable and themselves that single
\nReality. The Person has his aspect of impersonality inseparable from himself
\nwithout which he could not be what he is or could not be his whole self: the
\nImpersonal is in its truth not a state of existence, a state of consciousness
\nand a state of bliss, but a Being self-existent, conscious of self, full of his
\nown self-existent bliss, bliss the very substance of his being,\u2013 so, the one
\nsingle and illimitable Person, Purusha. In the Supermind the finite does not cut
\nup or limit the infinite, does not feel itself contrary to the infinite; but
\nrather it feels its own infinity: the relative and temporal is not a
\ncontradiction of eternity but a right relation of its aspects, a native working
\nor an imperishable feature of the eternal. Time there is only the eternal in
\nextension and the eternal can be felt in the momentary. Thus the integral Divine
\nis there in the Supermind and no theory of illusion or self-contradictory Maya
\nneed be thrust in to justify its way of
\nexistence. It will be obvious that an escape from life is not necessary for the
\nDivine to find itself or its reality; it possesses that always whether in cosmic
\nlife or in its transcendent existence. The divine life cannot be a contradiction
\nof the Divine or of the supreme reality; it is part of that reality, an aspect
\nor expression of it and it can be nothing else. In life on the supramental plane
\nall the Divine is possessed, and when the Supermind descends on earth, it must
\nbring the Divine with it and make that full possession possible here.<\/p>\n

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

\nPage
\n\u2013 45<\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

The
\ndivine life will give to those who enter into it and possess it an increasing
\nand finally a complete possession of the truth-consciousness and all that it
\ncarries in it; it will bring with it the realisation of the Divine in self and
\nthe Divine in Nature. All that is sought by the God-seeker will be fulfilled in
\nhis spirit and in his life as he moves towards spiritual perfection. He will
\nbecome aware of the transcendent reality, possess in the self-experience the
\nsupreme existence, consciousness, bliss, be one with Sachchidananda. He will
\nbecome one with cosmic being and universal Nature: he will contain the world in
\nhimself, in his own cosmic consciousness and feel himself one with all beings;
\nhe will see himself in all and all in himself, become united and identified with
\nthe Self which has become all existences. He will perceive the beauty of the
\nAll-Beautiful and the miracle of the All-Wonderful; he will enter in the end
\ninto the bliss of the Brahman and live abidingly in it and for all this he will
\nnot need to shun existence or plunge into the annihilation of the spiritual
\nPerson in some self-extinguishing Nirvana. As in the Self, so in Nature, he can
\nrealise the Divine. The nature of the Divine is Light and Power and Bliss; he
\ncan feel the divine Light and Power and Bliss above him and descending into him,
\nfilling every strand of his nature, every cell and atom of his being, flooding
\nhis soul and mind and life and body, surrounding him like an illimitable sea and
\nfilling the world, suffusing all his feeling and sense and experience, making
\nall his life truly and utterly divine. This and all ‘else that the spiritual
\nconsciousness can bring to him the divine life will give him when it reaches its
\nutmost completeness and perfection and the supramental truth-consciousness is
\nfulfilled in all himself; but even before that he can attain to something of it
\nall, grow in it, live in it, once the Supermind has descended upon him and has
\nthe direction of his existence. All relations with the Divine will be his: the
\ntrinity of God-knowledge, divine works and devotion to God will open within him
\nand move towards an utter self-giving and surrender of his whole being and
\nnature. He will live in God and with God, possess God, as it is said, even
\nplunge in him forgetting all separate personality, but not losing it in
\nself-extinction. The love of God and<\/p>\n

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

\nPage
\n\u2013 46<\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

all
\nthe sweetness of love will remain his, the bliss of contact as well as the bliss
\nof oneness and the bliss of difference in oneness. All the infinite ranges of
\nexperience of the Infinite will be his and all the joy of the finite in the
\nembrace of the Infinite.<\/p>\n

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

         
\nThe
\ndescent of the Supermind will bring to one who receives it and is fulfilled in
\nthe truth-consciousness all the possibilities of the divine life. It will take
\nup not only the whole characteristic experience which we recognise already as
\nconstituting the spiritual life but also all which we now exclude from that
\ncategory but which is capable of divinisation, not excluding whatever of the
\nearth-nature and the earth-life can be transformed by the touch of the Supermind
\nand taken up into the manifested life of the Spirit. For a divine life on earth
\nneed not be a thing apart and exclusive having nothing to do with the common
\nearthly existence: it will take up human being and human life, transform what
\ncan be transformed, spiritualise whatever can be spiritualised, cast its
\ninfluence on the rest and effectuate either a radical or an uplifting change,
\nbring about a deeper communion between the universal and the individual, invade
\nthe ideal with the spiritual truth of which it is a luminous shadow and help to
\nuplift into or towards a greater and higher existence. Mind it will uplift
\ntowards a diviner light of thought and will, life towards deeper and truer
\nemotion and action, towards a larger power of itself, towards high aims and
\nmotives. Whatever cannot yet be raised into its own full truth of being, it will
\nbring nearer to that fullness; whatever is not ready even for that change, will
\nstill see the possibility open to it whenever its still<\/span>,<\/span>
\nincomplete evolution has made it ready
\nfor self-fulfilment. Even the body, if it can bear the touch of Supermind, will
\nbecome more aware of its own truth,<\/span> \u2013<\/span> for there is a
\nbody-consciousness that has its own instinctive truth and power of right
\ncondition and action, even a kind of unexpressed occult knowledge in the
\nconstitution of its cells and tissues which may one day become conscious and
\ncontribute to the transformation of the physical being. An awakening must come
\nin the earth-nature and in the earth-consciousness which will be, if not the
\nactual beginning, at least the effective preparation and the first steps of its
\nevolution towards a new and diviner world order.<\/p>\n

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

\nPage
\n\u2013 47<\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

This
\nwould be the fulfilment of the divine life which the descent of Supermind and
\nthe working of the truth-consciousness taking hold of the whole nature of the
\nliving being would bring about in all who could open themselves to its power or
\ninfluence. Even its first immediate effect would be on all who are capable the
\npossibility of entering into the truth-consciousness and changing all the
\nmovements of the nature more and more into the movements of the supramental
\ntruth, truth of thought, truth of will, truth in the feelings, truth in the
\nacts, true conditions of the whole being even to the body, eventually
\ntransformation, a divinising change. For those who could so open themselves and
\nremain open, there would be no limitation to this development and even no
\nfundamental difficulty; for all difficulties would be dissolved by the pressure
\nof the supramental light and power from above pouring itself into the mind and
\nthe life-force and the body. But the result of the supramental descent need not
\nbe limited to those who could thus open themselves entirely and it need not be
\nlimited to the supramental change; there could also be a minor or secondary
\ntransformation of the mental being within a freed and perfected scope of the
\nmental nature. In place of the human mind as it now is, a mind limited,
\nimperfect, open at every moment to all kinds of deviation from the truth or
\nmissing of the truth, all kinds of error and openness even to the persuasions of
\na complete falsehood and perversion of the nature, a mind blinded and pulled
\ndown towards inconscience and ignorance, hardly arriving at knowledge, an
\nintellect prone to interpret the higher knowledge in abstractions and indirect
\nfigures seizing and holding even the messages of the higher intuition with an
\nuncertain and disputed grasp, there could emerge a true mind liberated and
\ncapable of the free and utmost perfection of itself and its instruments, a life
\ngoverned by the free and illumined mind, a body responsive to the light and able
\nto carry out all that the free mind and will could demand of it. This change
\nmight happen not only in the few, but extend and generalise itself in the race.
\nThis possibility, if fulfilled, would mean that the human dream of perfection,
\nperfection of itself, of its purified and enlightened nature, of all its ways of
\naction and living, would be no longer a dream but a truth that could<\/p>\n

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

\nPage
\n\u2013 48<\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

be
\nmade real and humanity lifted out of the hold on it of inconscience and
\nignorance. The life of the mental being could be harmonised with the life of the
\nSupermind which will then be the highest order above it and become even an
\nextension and annexe of the truth-consciousness, a part and province of the
\ndivine life. It is obvious that if the Supermind is there and an order of
\nsupramental being is established as the leading principle in earth-nature, as
\nmind is now the leading principle, but with a sureness, a complete government of
\nthe earthly existence, a capacity of transformation of all upon their level and
\nwithin their natural boundaries of which the mind in its imperfection was not
\ncapable, an immense change of human life, even if it did not extend to
\ntransformation would be inevitable.<\/p>\n

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

       
\nIt
\nremains to consider what might be the obstacles in the way of this possibility,
\nespecially those offered by the nature of the earth-order and its function as a
\nfield of a graded evolution in which our humanity is a stage and, it might be
\nargued, its very imperfection an evolutionary necessity. How far could or would
\nSupermind by its presence and government of things overcome this difficulty
\nwhile respecting the principle of gradation and whether it could not rectify the
\nwrong and ignorant order imposed by the Ignorance and Inconscience and
\nsubstitute for it a right gradation in which the perfection and divinisation
\nwould be possible. Certainly, the way for the individual would be open, whatever
\ngroup of human beings aspire as united in an endeavour at a perfect and
\nindividual collective living, or aspire to the divine life, would be assisted
\ntowards the attainment of its aspiration: that at least the Supermind would make
\nits minimum consequence. But the greater possibility is also there and might
\neven be offered to the whole of humanity. This, then, we have to consider, what
\nwould the descent of the Supermind mean for mankind and what would be its result
\nor its promise for the whole life and evolutionary future and destiny of the
\nhuman race<\/span> ?<\/p>\n

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

\nPage
\n\u2013 49<\/p>\n

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

Supermind and the Life Divine                   A DIVINE life upon earth, the ideal we have placed before us, can only come about by a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-16-the-supramental-manifestation-volume-16","wpcat-5-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132","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=132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}