{"id":144,"date":"2013-07-13T01:26:12","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=144"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:26:12","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:26:12","slug":"04-perfection-of-the-body-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\/04-perfection-of-the-body-vol-16-the-supramental-manifestation-volume-16","title":{"rendered":"-04_Perfection of The Body.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nPerfection of the Body<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n                   T<\/b>HE perfection of the body, as great a
\nperfection as we can bring about by the means at our disposal, must be the
\nultimate aim of physical culture. Perfection is the true aim of all culture, the
\nspiritual and psychic, the mental, the vital and it must be the aim of our
\nphysical culture also. If our seeking is for a total perfection of the being,
\nthe physical part of it cannot be left aside; for the body is the material
\nbasis, the body is the instrument which we have to use. Sariram. khalu
\ndharma- <\/i>s\u00e3dhanam, says the old Sanskrit adage, \u2013 the body is the means of
\nfulfilment of dharma, and dharma means every ideal which we can propose to
\nourselves and the law of its working out and its action. A total perfection is
\nthe ultimate aim which we set be- fore us, for our ideal is the Divine Life
\nwhich we wish to create here, the life of the Spirit fulfilled on earth, life
\naccomplishing its own spiritual transformation even here on earth in the
\nconditions of the material universe. That cannot be unless the body too
\nundergoes a transformation, unless its action and functioning attain to a
\nsupreme capacity and the perfection which is possible to it or which can be made
\npossible.<\/p>\n

          <\/span>I
\nhave already indicated in a previous message a relative perfection of the
\nphysical consciousness in
\nthe body and of the mind, the life, the character which it houses as, no less
\nthan an awakening and development of the body’s own native capacities, a
\ndesirable outcome of the exercises and practices of the physical culture to
\nwhich we have commenced to give in this Ashram a special attention and scope. A
\ndevelopment of the physical consciousness must always be a considerable part of
\nour aim, but for that the right development of the body itself is an essential
\nelement; health, strength, fitness are the first needs, but the physical frame
\nitself must be the best possible. A divine life in a material world implies
\nnecessarily a union of the two ends of existence, the spiritual summit and the
\nmaterial base. The soul with the basis of its life established in Matter ascends
\nto the<\/p>\n

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heights of the
\nSpirit but does not cast away its base, it joins the heights and the depths
\ntogether. The Spirit descends into Matter and the material world with all its
\nlights and glories and powers and with them fills and transforms life in the
\nmaterial world so that it becomes more and more divine. The transformation is
\nnot a change into something purely subtle and spiritual to which Matter is in
\nits nature repugnant and by which it is felt as an obstacle or as a shackle
\nbinding the Spirit; it takes up Matter as a form of the Spirit though now a form
\nwhich conceals and turns it into a revealing instrument, it does not cast away
\nthe energies of Matter, its capacities, its methods; it brings out their hidden
\npossibilities, uplifts, sublimates, discloses their innate divinity. The divine
\nlife will reject nothing that is capable of divinisation; all is to be seized,
\nexalted, made utterly perfect. The mind now still ignorant, though struggling
\ntowards knowledge, has to rise towards and into the supramental light and truth
\nand bring it down so that it shall suffuse our thinking and perception and
\ninsight and all our means of knowing till they become radiant with the highest
\ntruth in their inmost and outermost movements. Our life, still full of obscurity
\nand confusion and occupied with so many dull and lower aims, must feel all its
\nurges and instincts exalted and irradiated and become a glorious counterpart of
\nthe supramental super-life above. The physical consciousness and physical being,
\nthe body itself must reach a perfection in all that it is and does which now we
\ncan hardly conceive. It may even in the end be suffused with a light and beauty
\nand bliss from the Beyond and the life divine assume a body divine.<\/p>\n

But first the evolution of the
\nnature must have reached a point at which it can meet the Spirit direct, feel
\nthe aspiration towards the spiritual change and open itself to the workings of
\nthe Power which shall transform it. A supreme perfection, a total perfection is
\npossible only by a transformation of our lower or human nature, a transformation
\nof the mind into a thing of light, our life into a thing of power, an instrument
\nof right action, right use for all its forces, of a happy elevation of its being
\nlifting it beyond its present comparatively narrow potentiality for a
\nself-fulfilling force of action and joy of life. There must be equally a
\ntransforming change of the body by a conversion of its<\/p>\n

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action, its
\nfunctioning, its capacities as an instrument beyond .the limitations by which it
\nis clogged and hampered even in its greatest present human attainment. In the
\ntotality of the change we have to achieve, human means and forces too have to be
\ntaken up, not dropped but used and magnified to their utmost possibility as part
\nof the new life. Such a sublimation of our present human powers of mind and life
\ninto elements of a divine life on earth can be conceived without much
\ndifficulty; but in what figure shall we conceive the perfection of the body?<\/p>\n

                In the past the body has been regarded by spiritual seekers rather as an
\nobstacle, as something to be overcome and discarded than as an instrument of
\nspiritual perfection and a field of the spiritual change. It has been condemned
\nas a grossness of Matter, as an insuperable impediment and the limitations of
\nthe body as something unchangeable making transformation impossible. This is
\nbecause the human body even at its best seems only to be driven by an energy of
\nlife which has its own limits and is debased in its smaller physical activities
\nby much that is petty or coarse or evil, the body in itself is burdened with the
\ninertia and inconcience of Matter, only partly awake and, although quickened and
\nanimated by a nervous activity, subconscient in the fundamental action of its
\nconstituent cells and tissues and their secret workings. Even in its fullest
\nstrength and force and greatest glory of beauty, it is still a flower of the
\nmaterial Inconscience; the inconcient is the soil from which it has grown and at
\nevery point opposes a narrow boundary to the extension of its powers and to any
\neffort of radical self-exceeding. But if a divine life is possible on earth,
\nthen this self-exceeding must also be possible.<\/p>\n

                 
\nIn the pursuit of perfection we can start at either end of our range of being
\nand we have then to use, initially at least, the means and processes proper to
\nour choice. In Yoga the process is spiritual and psychic; even its vital and
\nphysical processes are given a spiritual or psychic turn and raised to a higher
\nmotion than belongs properly to the ordinary life and Matter, as for instance in
\nthe Hathayogic and Rajayogic use of the breathing or the use of Asana.
\nOrdinarily a previous preparation of the mind and life and body is necessary to
\nmake them fit for the reception<\/p>\n

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of the spiritual
\nenergy and the organisation of, psychic forces and methods, but this too is
\ngiven a special turn proper to the Yoga. On the other hand, if we start in any
\nfield at the lower end we have to employ the means and processes which Life and
\nMatter offer to us and respect the conditions and what we may call the technique
\nimposed by the vital and the material energy. We may extend the activity, the
\nachievement, the perfection attained beyond the initial, even beyond the normal
\npossibilities but still we have to stand on the same base with which we started
\nand within the boundaries it gives to us. It is not that the action from the two
\nends cannot meet and the higher take into itself and uplift the lower
\nperfection; but this can usually be done only by a transition from the lower to
\na higher outlook, aspiration and motive: this we shall have to do if our aim is
\nto transform the human into the divine life. But here there comes in the
\nnecessity of taking up the activities of human life and sublimating them by the
\npower of the spirit. Here the lower perfection will not disappear; it will
\nremain but will be enlarged and transformed by the higher perfection which only
\nthe power of the spirit can give. This will be evident if we consider poetry and
\nart, philosophic thought, the perfection of the written word or the perfect
\norganisation of earthly life: these have to be taken up and the possibilities
\nalready achieved or whatever perfection has already been attained included in a
\nnew and greater perfection but with the larger vision and inspiration of a
\nspiritual consciousness and with new forms and powers. It must be the same with
\nthe perfection of the body.<\/p>\n

         
\nThe
\ntaking up of life and Matter into what is essentially a spiritual seeking,
\ninstead of the rejection and ultimate exclusion of them which was the attitude
\nof a spirituality that shunned or turned away from life in the world, involves
\ncertain developments which a spiritual institution of the older kind could
\nregard as foreign to its purpose. A divine life in the world or an institution
\nhaving that for its aim and purpose cannot be or cannot remain something outside
\nor entirely shut away from the life of ordinary men in the world or unconcerned
\nwith the mundane existence; it has to do the work of the Divine in the world and
\nnot. a work outside or separate from it. The life of the ancient Rishis in their\n<\/p>\n

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Ashramas had such
\na connection; they were creators, educators, guides of men and the life of the
\nIndian people in ancient times was largely developed and directed by their
\nshaping influence. The life and activities involved in the new endeavour are not
\nidentical but they too must be an action upon the world and a new creation in
\nit. It must have contacts and connections with it and activities which take
\ntheir place in the general life and whose initial or primary objects may not
\nseem to differ from those of the same activities in the outside world. In our
\nAshram here we have found it necessary, to establish a school for the education
\nof the children of the resident sadhaks teaching upon familiar lines though with
\ncertain modifications and taking as part and an important part of their
\ndevelopment an intensive physical training which has given form to the sports
\nand athletics practised by the Jeunesse Sportive of the Ashram and of which this
\nBulletin is the expression. It has been questioned by some what place sports can
\nhave in an Ashram created for spiritual seekers and what connection there can be
\nbetween spirituality and sports. The first answer lies in what I have already
\nwritten about the connections of an institution of this kind with the activities
\nof the general life of men and what I have indicated in the previous number as
\nto the utility such a training can have for the life of a nation and its benefit
\nfor the international life. Another answer can occur to us if we look beyond
\nfirst objects and turn to the aspiration for a total perfection including the
\nperfection of the body.<\/p>\n

         
\nIn
\nthe admission of an activity such as sports and physical exercises into the life
\nof the Ashram it is evident that the methods and the first objects to be
\nattained must belong to what we have called the lower end of the being.
\nOriginally they have been introduced for the physical education and bodily
\ndevelopment of the children of the Ashram School and these are too young for a
\nstrictly spiritual aim or practice to enter into their activities and it is not
\ncertain that any great number of them will enter the spiritual life when they
\nare of an age to choose what shall be the direction of their future. The object
\nmust be the training of the body and the development of certain parts of mind
\nand character so far as this can be done by or in connection with this training
\nand I\n<\/p>\n

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have already
\nindicated in a previous number how and in what directions this can be done. It
\nis a relative and human perfection that can be attained within these limits;
\nanything greater can be reached only by the intervention of higher powers,
\npsychic powers, the power of the spirit. Yet what can be attained within the
\nhuman boundaries can be something very considerable and sometimes immense: what
\nwe call genius is part of the development of the human range of being and its
\nachievements, especially in things of the mind and will, can carry us halfway to
\nthe divine. Even what the mind and will can do with the body in the field proper
\nto the body and its life, in the way of physical achievement, bodily endurance,
\nfeats of prowess of all kind, a lasting activity refusing fatigue or col1apse
\nand continuing beyond what seems at first to be possible, courage and refusal to
\nsuccumb under an endless and murderous physical suffering, these and other
\nvictories of many kinds sometimes approaching or reaching the miraculous are
\nseen in the human field and must be reckoned as a part of our concept of a total
\nperfection. The un-flinching and persistent reply that can be made by the body
\nas well as the mind of man and by his life-energy to whatever call can be
\nimposed on it in the most difficult and discouraging circumstances by the
\nnecessities of war and travel and adventure is of the same kind and their
\nendurance can reach astounding proportions and even the inconscient in the body
\nseems to be able to return a surprising response.<\/p>\n

 
\n The
\nbody, we have said, is a creation of the Inconscient and itself inconscient or
\nat least subconscient in parts of itself and much of its hidden action; but what
\nwe call the Inconscient is an appearance, a dwelling place, an instrument of a
\nsecret Consciousness or a Superconscient which has created the miracle we call
\nthe universe. Matter is the field and the creation of the Inconscient and the
\nperfection of the operations of inconscient Matter, their perfect adaptation of
\nmeans to an aim and end, the wonders they perform and the marvels of beauty they
\ncreate, testify, in "spite of all the ignorant denial we can oppose, to the
\npresence and power of consciousness of this Superconscience in every part and
\nmovement of the material universe. It is there in the body, has made it and its
\nemergence in our consciousness\n<\/p>\n

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is the secret aim
\nof evolution and the key to the mystery of our existence.<\/p>\n

         
\nIn
\nthe use of such activities as sports and physical exercises for the education of
\nthe individual in childhood and first youth, which should mean the bringing out
\nof his actual and latent possibilities to their fullest development, the means
\nand methods we must use are limited by the nature of the body and its aim must
\nbe such relative human perfection of the body’s powers and capacities and those
\nof the powers of mind, will, character, action of which it is at once the
\nresidence and the instrument so far as these methods can help to develop them. I
\nhave written sufficiently about the mental and moral parts of perfection to
\nwhich these pursuits can contribute and this I need not repeat here. For the
\nbody itself the perfections that can be developed by these means are those of
\nits natural qualities and capacities and, secondly, the training of its general
\nfitness, as an instrument for all the activities which may be demanded from it
\nby the mind and the will, by the life-energy or by the dynamic perceptions,
\nimpulses and instincts of our subtle physical being which is an unrecognised but
\nvery important element and agent in our nature. Health and strength are the
\nfirst conditions for the natural perfection of the body, not only muscular
\nstrength and the solid strength of the limbs and physical stamina, but the
\nfiner, alert and plastic and adaptable force which our nervous and subtle
\nphysical parts can put into the activities of the frame. There is also the still
\nmore dynamic force which a call upon the life-energies can bring into the body
\nand stir it to greater activities, even feats of the most extraordinary
\ncharacter of which in its normal state it would not be capable. There is also
\nthe strength which the mind and will by their demands and stimulus and by their
\nsecret powers which we use or by which we are used without knowing clearly the
\nsource of their action can impart to the body or impose upon it as masters and
\ninspirers. Among the natural qualities and powers of the body which can be thus
\nawakened, stimulated and trained to a normal activity we must reckon dexterity
\nand stability in all kinds of physical action such as swiftness in the race,
\ndexterity in combat, skill and endurance of the mountaineer, the constant and
\noften extraordinary response to all that can be demanded\n<\/p>\n

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from the body of
\nthe soldier, sailor, traveller or explorer, to which I have already made
\nreference, or in adventure of, all kinds and all the wide range of physical
\nattainment to which man has accustomed himself or to which he is exceptionally
\npushed by his own will or by the compulsion of circumstance. It is a general
\nfitness of the body for all that can be asked from it which is the common
\nformula of all this action, a fitness attained by a few or by many, that could
\nbe generalised by an extended and many-sided physical education and discipline.
\nSome of these activities can be included under the name of sports; there are
\nothers for which sport and physical exercises can be an effective preparation.
\nIn some of them a training for common action, combined movement, discipline are
\nneeded and for that our physical exercises can make one ready; in others a
\ndeveloped individual will, skill of mind and quick perception, forcefulness of
\nlife-energy and subtle physical impulsion are more prominently needed and may
\neven be the one sufficient trainer. All must be included in our conception of
\nthe natural powers of the body and its capacity and instrumental fitness in the
\nservice of the human mind and will and therefore in our concept of the total
\nperfection of the body.<\/p>\n

         
\nThere
\nare two conditions for this perfection, an awakening in as great an entirety as
\npossible of the body consciousness and an education, an evocation of its
\npotentialities, also as entire and fully developed and, it may be, as many-sided
\nas possible. The form or body is, no doubt, in its origin a creation of the
\nInconscient and limited by it on all sides, but still of the Inconscient
\ndeveloping the secret consciousness concealed within it and growing in light of
\nknowledge, power and Ananda. We have to take it at the point it has reached in
\nits human evolution in these things, make as full a use of them as may be and,
\nas much as we can, further this evolution to as high a degree as is permitted by
\nthe force of the individual temperament and nature. In all forms in the world
\nthere is a force at work, unconsciously active or oppressed by inertia in its
\nlower formulations, but in the human being conscious from the first, with its
\npotentialities partly awake, partly asleep or latent: what is awake in it we
\nhave to make fully conscious; what is\n<\/p>\n

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asleep we have to
\narouse and set to its work; what is latent we have to evoke and educate. Here
\nthere are two aspects of the body consciousness, one which seems to be a kind of
\nautomatism carrying on its work in the physical plane without any intervention
\nof the mind and in parts even beyond any possibility of direct observation by
\nthe mind or, if conscious or observable, still proceeding or capable of
\ncontinuing, when once started, by an apparently mechanical action not needing
\ndirection by the mind and continuing so long as the mind does not intervene.<\/p>\n

    <\/span>        
\nThere
\nare other movements taught and trained by the mind which can yet go on operating
\nautomatically but faultlessly even when not attended to by the thought or will;
\nthere are others which can operate in sleep and produce results of value to the
\nwaking intelligence. But more important is what may be described as a trained
\nand developed automatism, a perfected skill and capacity of eye and ear and the
\nhands and all the members prompt to respond to any call made on them, a
\ndeveloped spontaneous operation as an instrument, a complete fitness for any
\ndemand that the mind and life-energy can make upon it. This is ordinarily the
\nbest we can achieve at the lower end, when we start from that end and limit
\nourselves to the means and methods which are proper to it. For more we have to
\nturn to the mind and life-energy themselves or to the energy of the spirit and
\nto what they can do for a greater perfection of the body. The most we can do in
\nthe physical field by physical means is necessarily insecure as well as bound by
\nlimits; even what seems a perfect health and strength of the body is pre-carious
\nand can be broken down at any moment by fluctuations from within or by a strong
\nattack or shock from outside: only by the breaking of our limitations can a
\nhigher and more en- during perfection come. One direction in which our
\nconsciousness must grow is an increasing hold from within or from above on the
\nbody and its powers and its more conscious response to the higher parts of our
\nbeing. The mind pre-eminently is man; he is a mental being and his human
\nperfection grows the more he fulfils the description of the Upanishad, a mental
\nbeing, Purusha, leader of the life and the body. If the mind can take up and
\ncontrol the instincts and automatisms of the life-<\/p>\n

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energy and the
\nsubtle physical consciousness and the body, if it can enter into them,
\nconsciously use and, as we may say, fully mentalise their instinctive or
\nspontaneous action, the perfection of these energies, their action too becomes
\nmore conscious and more aware of itself and more perfect. But it is necessary
\nfor the mind too to grow in perfection and this it can do best when it depends
\nless on the fallible intellect of physical mind, when it is not limited even by
\nthe more orderly and accurate working of the reason and can grow in intuition
\nand acquire a wider, deeper and closer seeing and the more luminous drive of
\nenergy of a higher intuitive will. Even within the limits of its present
\nevolution it is difficult to measure the degree to which the mind is able to
\nextend its control or its use of the body’s powers and capacities and when the
\nmind rises to higher powers still and pushes back its human boundaries, it
\nbecomes impossible to fix any limits: even, in certain realisations, an
\nintervention by the will in the automatic working of the bodily organs seems to
\nbecome possible. Wherever limitations recede and in pro- portion as they recede,
\nthe body becomes a more plastic and responsive and in that measure a more fit
\nand perfect instrument of the action of the spirit. In all effective and
\nexpressive activities here in the material world the cooperation of the two ends
\nof our being is indispensable. If the body is unable whether by fatigue or by
\nnatural incapacity or any other cause to second the thought or will or is in any
\nway irresponsive or insufficiently responsive, to that extent the action fails
\nor falls short or becomes in some degree unsatisfying or incomplete. In what
\nseems to be an exploit of the spirit so purely mental as the outpouring of
\npoetic inspiration, there must be a responsive vibration of the brain and its
\nopenness as a channel for the power of the thought and vision and the light of
\nthe word that is making or breaking its way through or seeking for its perfect
\nexpression. If the brain is fatigued or dulled by any clog, either the
\ninspiration cannot come and nothing is written or it fails and something
\ninferior is all that can come out; or else a lower inspiration takes the place
\nof the more luminous formulation that was striving to shape itself or the brain
\nfinds it more easy to lend itself to a less radiant stimulus or else it labours
\nand constructs or responds to<\/p>\n

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poetic artifice.
\nEven in the most purely mental activities the fitness, readiness or perfect
\ntraining of the bodily instrument is a condition indispensable. That readiness,
\nthat response too is part of the total perfection of the body.<\/p>\n

         
\nThe
\nessential purpose and sign of the growing evolution here is the emergence of
\nconsciousness in an apparently inconscient universe, the growth of the
\nconsciousness and with it growth of the light and power of the being; the
\ndevelopment of the form and its functioning or its fitness to survive, athough
\nindispensable, is not the whole meaning or the central motive. The greater and
\ngreater awakening of consciousness and its climb to a higher and higher level
\nand a wider extent of its vision and action is the condition of our progress
\ntowards that supreme and total perfection which is the aim of our existence. It
\nis the condition also of the total perfection of the body. There are higher
\nlevels of the mind than any we now conceive and to these we must one day reach
\nand rise beyond them to the heights of a greater, a spiritual existence. As we
\nrise we have to open to them our lower members and fill these with those
\nsuperior and supreme dynamisms of light and power; the body we have to make a
\nmore and more and even entirely conscious frame and instrument, a conscious sign
\nand seal and power of the spirit. As it grows in this perfection, the force and
\nextent of its dynamic action and its response and service to the spirit must
\nincrease, the control of the spirit over it also must grow and the plasticity of
\nits functioning both in its developed and acquired parts of power and in its
\nautomatic responses down to those that are now purely organic and seem to be the
\nmovements of a mechanic inconscience. This cannot happen without a veritable
\ntransformation and a transformation of the mind and life and very body is indeed
\nthe change to which our evolution is secretly moving and without this
\ntransformation the entire fullness of a divine life on earth cannot emerge. In
\nthis transformation the body itself can become an agent and a partner. It might
\nindeed be possible for the spirit to achieve a considerable manifestation with
\nonly a passive and imperfectly conscious body as its last or bottommost means of
\nmaterial functioning, but this could not be anything perfect or complete. A
\nfully\n<\/p>\n

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conscious body
\nmight even discover and work out the right material method and process of a
\nmaterial transformation. For this, no doubt, the spirit’s supreme light and
\npower and creative joy must have manifested on the summit of the individual
\nconsciousness and sent down their fiat into the body, but still the body may
\ntake in the working out its spontaneous part of self-discovery and achievement.
\nIt would be thus a participator and agent in its own transformation and the
\nintegral transformation of the whole being; this too would be a part and a sign
\nand evidence of the total perfection of the body.<\/p>\n

         
\nIf
\nthe emergence and growth of consciousness is the central motive of the evolution
\nand the key to its secret purpose, then by the very nature of that evolution
\nthis growth must involve not only a wider and wider extent of its capacities but
\nalso an ascent to a higher and higher level till it reaches the highest
\npossible. For it starts from a nethermost level of involution in the
\nInconscience which we see at work in Matter creating the material universe; it
\nproceeds by an Ignorance which is yet ever developing knowledge and reaching out
\nto an ever greater light and ever greater organisation and efficacy of the will
\nand harmonisation of all its own inherent and emerging powers; it must at last
\nreach a point where it develops or acquires the complete fullness of its
\ncapacity and that must be a state or action in which there is no longer an
\nignorance seeking for knowledge but Knowledge self-possessed, inherent in the
\nbeing, master of its own truths and working them out with a natural vision and
\nforce that is not afflicted by limitation or error. Or if there is a limitation,
\nit must be a self-imposed veil behind which it would keep truth back for a
\nmanifestation in Time but draw it out at will and without any need of search or
\nacquisition in the order of a right perception of things or in the just
\nsuccession of that which has to be manifested in obedience to the call of Time.
\nThis would mean an entry or approach into what might be called a
\ntruth-consciousness self-existent in which the being would be aware of its own
\nrealities and would have the inherent power to manifest them in a Time-creation
\nin which all would be Truth following out its own unerring steps and combining
\nits own harmonies; every thought\n<\/p>\n

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\n
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and will and
\nfeeling and act would be spontaneously right, inspired or intuitive, moving by
\nthe light of Truth and therefore perfect. All would express inherent realities
\nof the spirit; some fullness of the power of the spirit would be there. One
\nwould have overpassed the present limitations of mind: mind would become a
\nseeing of the light of Truth, will a force and power of the Truth, Life a
\nprogressive fulfilment of the Truth, the body itself a conscious vessel of the
\nTruth and part of the means of its self-effectuation and a form of its
\nself-aware existence. It would be at least some initiation of this
\nTruth-Consciousness, some first figure and action of it that must be reached and
\nenter into a first operation if there is to be a divine life or any full
\nmanifestation of a spiritualised consciousness in the world of Matter. Or, at
\nthe very least, such a Truth-Consciousness must be in communication with our own
\nmind and life and body, descend into touch with it, control its seeing and
\naction, impel its motives, take hold of its forces and shape their direction and
\npurpose. All touched by it might not be able to embody it fully, but each would
\ngive some form to it according to his spiritual temperament, inner capacity, the
\nline of his evolution in Nature: he would reach securely the perfection of which
\nhe was immediately capable and he would be on the road to the full possession of
\nthe truth of the Spirit and of the truth of Nature.<\/p>\n

         
\nIn
\nthe workings of such a Truth-consciousness there would be a certain conscious
\nseeing and willing automatism of the steps of its truth which would replace the
\ninfallible automatism of the inconscient or seemingly inconscient Force that has
\nbrought out of an apparent Void the miracle of an ordered universe and this
\ncould create a new order of the manifestation of the Being in which a perfect
\nperfection would become possible, even a supreme and total perfection would
\nappear in the vistas of an ultimate possibility. If we could draw down this
\npower into the material world, our agelong dreams of human perfectibility,
\nindividual perfection, the perfectibility of the race, of society, inner mastery
\nover self and a complete mastery, governance and utilisation of the forces of
\nNature could see at long last a prospect of total achievement. This complete
\nhuman self- fulfilment might well pass beyond limitations and be trans-\n<\/p>\n

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\n
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formed into the
\ncharacter of a divine life. Matter after taking into itself and manifesting the
\npower of life and the light of mind would draw down into .it the superior or
\nsupreme power and light of the spirit and in an earthly body shed its parts of
\ninconscience and become a perfectly conscious frame of the spirit. A secure
\ncompleteness and stability of the health and strength of its physical tenement
\ncould be maintained by the will and force of this inhabitant; all the natural
\ncapacities of the physical frame, all powers of the physical consciousness would
\nreach their utmost extension and be there at command and sure of their flawless
\naction. As an instrument the body would acquire a fullness of capacity, a
\ntotality of fitness for all uses which the inhabitant would demand of it far
\nbeyond anything. now possible. Even it could become a revealing vessel of a
\nsupreme beauty and bliss, \u2013 casting the beauty of the light of the spirit
\nsuffusing and radiating from it as a lamp reflects and diffuses the luminosity
\nof its indwelling flame, carrying in itself the beatitude of the spirit, its joy
\nof the, seeing mind, its joy of life and spiritual happiness, the joy of Matter
\nreleased into a spiritual consciousness and thrilled with a constant ecstasy.
\nThis would be the total perfection of the spiritualised body.<\/p>\n

         
\nAll
\nthis might not come all at once, though such a sudden illumination might be
\npossible if a divine Power and Light and Ananda could take their stand on the
\nsummit of our being and send down their force into the mind and life and body
\nillumining and remoulding the cells, awaking consciousness in all the frame. But
\nthe way would be open and the consummation of all that is possible in the
\nindividual could progressively take place. The physical also would have its
\nshare in that consummation of the whole.\n<\/p>\n

\n

There
\nwould always remain vistas beyond as the infinite Spirit took up towards higher
\nheights and larger breadths the evolving Nature, in the movement or the
\nliberated, being towards the possession of the supreme Reality, the supreme
\nexistence, consciousness, beatitude. But of this it would be premature to speak:
\nwhat has been written is perhaps as much as the human mind as it is now
\nconstituted can venture to look forward to and the enlightened thought
\nunderstand in some measure. These\n<\/p>\n

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\n
\n<\/div>\n

consequences of
\nthe Truth-Consciousness descending and laying its hold upon Matter would be a
\nsufficient justification of the evolutionary labour. In this upward
\nall-uplifting sweep of the Spirit there could be a simultaneous or consecutive
\ndownward sweep of the triumph of a spiritualised Nature all-including,
\nall-transmuting and in it there could occur a glorifying change of Matter and
\nthe physical consciousness and physical form and functioning of which we could
\nspeak as not only the total but the supreme perfection of the body.<\/p>\n

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

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