{"id":2099,"date":"2013-07-13T01:39:26","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2099"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:39:26","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:26","slug":"15-the-supreme-truth-consciousness-vol-21-22-the-life-divine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/21-22-the-life-divine\/15-the-supreme-truth-consciousness-vol-21-22-the-life-divine","title":{"rendered":"-15_The Supreme Truth-Consciousness.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"center\">\n<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"center\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<b>Chapter XV<br \/>\n<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"center\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"center\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<b><br \/>\n\t\t\t<font size=\"4\">The Supreme Truth-Consciousness <\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:25pt\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">One seated in the sleep of Superconscience,<br \/>\n\t\t\t\ta massed Intelligence, blissful and the enjoyer of Bliss. . . . This is the omnipotent, this is the omniscient, this is the inner control, this is the source of all.<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"right\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<i>Mandukya Upanishad.<\/i><sup>1<\/sup> <\/span> <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<b><font size=\"5\">W<\/font>E HAVE<\/b> to regard therefore this all-containing, all-originating, all-consummating Supermind as the nature of the Divine Being, not indeed in its absolute<br \/>\nself-existence, but in its action as the Lord and Creator of its own worlds. This is the truth of that which we call God. Obviously<br \/>\nthis is not the too personal and limited Deity, the magnified and supernatural Man of the ordinary occidental conception; for<br \/>\nthat conception erects a too human Eidolon of a certain relation between the creative Supermind and the ego. We must not indeed<br \/>\nexclude the personal aspect of the Deity, for the impersonal is only one face of existence; the Divine is All-existence, but it is<br \/>\nalso the one Existent, <font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#8213;<\/font>it is the sole Conscious-Being, but still a Being. Nevertheless, with this aspect we are not concerned at<br \/>\npresent; it is the impersonal psychological truth of the divine Consciousness that we are seeking to fathom: it is this that we<br \/>\nhave to fix in a large and clarified conception. <\/span> <\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"justify\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">The Truth-Consciousness is everywhere present in the universe as an ordering self-knowledge by which the One manifests the harmonies of its infinite potential multiplicity. Without this<br \/>\nordering self-knowledge the manifestation would be merely a shifting chaos, precisely because the potentiality is infinite,<br \/>\n\t\t\t<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#8213;<\/font>which by itself might lead only to a play of uncontrolled unbounded Chance. If there were only infinite potentiality without<br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"justify\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"justify\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\"><sup>1<\/sup> Verses 5, 6.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"center\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page \u2013 141<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">any law of guiding truth and harmonious self-vision, without<br \/>\nany predetermining Idea in the very seed of things cast out for evolution, the world could be nothing but a teeming, amorphous, confused uncertainty. But the knowledge that creates, because what it creates or releases are forms and powers of<br \/>\nitself and not things other than itself, possesses in its own being the vision of the truth and law that governs each potentiality,<br \/>\nand along with that an intrinsic awareness of its relation to other potentialities and the harmonies that are possible between them;<br \/>\nit holds all this prefigured in the general determining harmony which the whole rhythmic Idea of a universe must contain in<br \/>\nits very birth and self-conception and which must therefore inevitably work out by the interplay of its constituents. It is<br \/>\nthe source and keeper of Law in the world; for that law is nothing arbitrary<br \/>\n\t\t\t<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#8213;<\/font>it is the expression of a<br \/>\n\t\t\tself-nature which is determined by the compelling truth of the real<br \/>\n\t\t\tidea that each thing is in its inception. Therefore from the<br \/>\n\t\t\tbeginning the whole development is predetermined in its<br \/>\n\t\t\tself-knowledge and at every moment in its self-working: it is what<br \/>\n\t\t\tit must be at each moment by its own original inherent Truth; it<br \/>\n\t\t\tmoves to what it must be at the next, still by its own original<br \/>\n\t\t\tinherent Truth; it will be at the end that which was contained and<br \/>\n\t\t\tintended in its seed. <\/span> <\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"justify\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">This development and progress of the world according to an original<br \/>\n\t\t\ttruth of its own being implies a succession of Time, a relation in<br \/>\n\t\t\tSpace and a regulated interaction of related things in Space to<br \/>\n\t\t\twhich the succession of Time gives the aspect of Causality. Time and<br \/>\n\t\t\tSpace, according to the metaphysician, have only a conceptual and<br \/>\n\t\t\tnot a real existence; but since all things and not these only are<br \/>\n\t\t\tforms assumed by Conscious-Being in its own consciousness, the<br \/>\n\t\t\tdistinction is of no great importance. Time and Space are that one<br \/>\n\t\t\tConscious-Being viewing itself in extension, subjectively as Time,<br \/>\n\t\t\tobjectively as Space. Our mental view of these two categories is<br \/>\n\t\t\tdetermined by the idea of measure which is inherent in the action of<br \/>\n\t\t\tthe analytical, dividing movement of Mind. Time is for the Mind a mobile extension measured<br \/>\nout by the succession of the past, present and future in which Mind places itself at a certain standpoint whence it looks before<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"center\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page \u2013 142<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">and after. Space is a stable extension measured out by divisibility<br \/>\nof substance; at a certain point in that divisible extension Mind places itself and regards the disposition of substance around it.<br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"justify\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">In actual fact Mind measures Time by event and Space by Matter; but it is possible in pure mentality to disregard the<br \/>\nmovement of event and the disposition of substance and realise the pure movement of Conscious-Force which constitutes Space<br \/>\nand Time; these two are then merely two aspects of the universal force of Consciousness which in their intertwined interaction<br \/>\ncomprehend the warp and woof of its action upon itself. And to a consciousness higher than Mind which should regard our past,<br \/>\npresent and future in one view, containing and not contained in them, not situated at a particular moment of Time for its point of<br \/>\nprospection, Time might well offer itself as an eternal present. And to the same consciousness not situated at any particular<br \/>\npoint of Space, but containing all points and regions in itself, Space also might well offer itself as a subjective and indivisible<br \/>\nextension, <font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#8213;<\/font>no less subjective than Time. At certain moments we become aware of such an indivisible regard upholding by its<br \/>\nimmutable self-conscious unity the variations of the universe. But we must not now ask how the contents of Time and Space<br \/>\nwould present themselves there in their transcendent truth; for this our mind cannot conceive,<br \/>\n\t\t\t<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#8213;<\/font>and it is even ready to deny<br \/>\nto this Indivisible any possibility of knowing the world in any other way than that of our mind and senses.<br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"justify\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">What we have to realise<br \/>\n\t\t\tand can to a certain extent conceive is the one view and<br \/>\n\t\t\tall-comprehending regard by which the Supermind embraces and unifies the successions of Time and the divisions of Space. And first, if there were not this factor of the<br \/>\nsuccessions of Time, there would be no change or progression; a perfect harmony would be perpetually manifest, coeval with<br \/>\nother harmonies in a sort of eternal moment, not successive to them in the movement from past to future. We have instead<br \/>\nthe constant succession of a developing harmony in which one strain rises out of another that preceded it and conceals in itself<br \/>\nthat which it has replaced. Or, if the self-manifestation were to exist without the factor of divisible Space, there would be<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"center\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page \u2013 143<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">no mutable relation of forms or intershock of forces; all would<br \/>\nexist and not be worked out, <font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#8213;<\/font>a spaceless<br \/>\n\t\t\tself-consciousness purely subjective would contain all things in an<br \/>\n\t\t\tinfinite subjective grasp as in the mind of a cosmic poet or dreamer, but would not distribute itself through all in an indefinite objective<br \/>\nself-extension. Or again, if Time alone were real, its successions would be a pure development in which one strain would rise<br \/>\nout of another in a subjective free spontaneity as in a series of musical sounds or a succession of poetical images. We have<br \/>\ninstead a harmony worked out by Time in terms of forms and forces that stand related to one another in an all-containing<br \/>\nspatial extension; an incessant succession of powers and figures of things and happenings is our vision of existence.<br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"justify\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">Different potentialities are embodied, placed, related in this field of Time and Space, each with its powers and possibilities fronting other powers and possibilities, and as a result the successions of Time become in their appearance to the mind a<br \/>\nworking out of things by shock and struggle and not a spontaneous succession. In reality, there is a spontaneous working<br \/>\nout of things from within and the external shock and struggle are only the superficial aspect of this elaboration. For the inner<br \/>\nand inherent law of the one and whole, which is necessarily a harmony, governs the outer and processive laws of the parts or<br \/>\nforms which appear to be in collision; and to the supramental vision this greater and profounder truth of harmony is always<br \/>\npresent. That which is an apparent discord to the mind because it considers each thing separately in itself, is an element of the<br \/>\ngeneral ever-present and ever-developing harmony to the Supermind because it views all things in a multiple unity. Besides,<br \/>\nthe mind sees only a given time and space and views many possibilities pell-mell as all more or less realisable in that time<br \/>\nand space; the divine Supermind sees the whole extension of Time and Space and can embrace all the mind&#8217;s possibilities<br \/>\nand very many more not visible to the mind, but without any error, groping or confusion; for it perceives each potentiality in<br \/>\nits proper force, essential necessity, right relation to the others and the time, place and circumstance both of its gradual and its<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"center\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page \u2013 144<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">ultimate realisation. To see things steadily and see them whole<br \/>\nis not possible to the mind; but it is the very nature of the transcendent Supermind.<br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"justify\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">This Supermind in its conscious vision not only contains all the forms of itself which its conscious force creates, but it<br \/>\npervades them as an indwelling Presence and a self-revealing Light. It is present, even though concealed, in every form and<br \/>\nforce of the universe; it is that which determines sovereignly and spontaneously form, force and functioning; it limits the<br \/>\nvariations it compels; it gathers, disperses, modifies the energy which it uses; and all this is done in accord with the first laws<sup>2<\/sup><br \/>\nthat its self-knowledge has fixed in the very birth of the form, at the very starting-point of the force. It is seated within everything<br \/>\nas the Lord in the heart of all existences, <font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#8213;<\/font>he who turns them as on an engine by the power of his Maya;<sup>3<\/sup> it is within them<br \/>\nand embraces them as the divine Seer who variously disposed and ordained objects, each rightly according to the thing that it<br \/>\nis, from years sempiternal.<sup>4<\/sup> <\/span> <\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"justify\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">Each thing in Nature, therefore, whether animate or inanimate, mentally self-conscious or not self-conscious, is governed in its being and in its operations by an indwelling Vision and<br \/>\nPower, to us subconscient or inconscient because we are not conscious of it, but not inconscient to itself, rather profoundly<br \/>\nand universally conscient. Therefore each thing seems to do the works of intelligence, even without possessing intelligence,<br \/>\nbecause it obeys, whether subconsciously as in the plant and animal or half-consciously as in man, the real-idea of the divine<br \/>\nSupermind within it. But it is not a mental Intelligence that informs and governs all things; it is a self-aware Truth of being<br \/>\nin which self-knowledge is inseparable from self-existence: it is this Truth-consciousness which has not to think out things but<br \/>\nworks them out with knowledge according to the impeccable self-vision and the inevitable force of a sole and self-fulfilling<br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"justify\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"justify\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<sup><font size=\"2\">2<\/font><\/sup><font size=\"2\"> A Vedic expression. The gods act according to the first laws, original and therefore supreme, which are the law of the truth of things.<br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/font><br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"justify\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<sup><font size=\"2\">3<\/font><\/sup><font size=\"2\"> <i>Gita<\/i>, XVIII. 61.<br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/font><br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"justify\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<sup><font size=\"2\">4<\/font><\/sup><font size=\"2\"> <i>Isha Upanishad<\/i>, Verse 8.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"center\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page \u2013 145<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">Existence. Mental intelligence thinks out because it is merely a<br \/>\n\t\t\treflecting force of consciousness which does not know, but seeks to<br \/>\n\t\t\tknow; it follows in Time step by step the working of a knowledge<br \/>\n\t\t\thigher than itself, a knowledge that exists always, one and whole,<br \/>\n\t\t\tthat holds Time in its grasp, that sees past, present and future in<br \/>\n\t\t\ta single regard. <\/span> <\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"justify\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">This, then, is the first operative principle of the divine Supermind; it is a cosmic vision which is all-comprehensive, all-pervading, all-inhabiting. Because it comprehends all things in<br \/>\nbeing and static self-awareness, subjective, timeless, spaceless, therefore it comprehends all things in dynamic knowledge and<br \/>\ngoverns their objective self-embodiment in Space and Time. <\/span> <\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"justify\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">In this consciousness the knower, knowledge and the known<br \/>\nare not different entities, but fundamentally one. Our mentality makes a distinction between these three because without distinctions<br \/>\n\t\t\tit cannot proceed; losing its proper means and fundamental law of<br \/>\n\t\t\taction, it becomes motionless and inactive. Therefore, even when I<br \/>\n\t\t\tregard myself mentally, I have still to make this distinction. I am,<br \/>\n\t\t\tas the knower; what I observe in myself, I regard as the object of<br \/>\n\t\t\tmy knowledge, myself yet not myself; knowledge is an operation by<br \/>\n\t\t\twhich I link the knower to the known. But the artificiality, the<br \/>\n\t\t\tpurely practical and utilitarian character of this operation is<br \/>\n\t\t\tevident; it is evident that it does not represent the fundamental<br \/>\n\t\t\ttruth of things. In reality, I the knower am the consciousness which<br \/>\n\t\t\tknows; the knowledge is that consciousness, myself, operating; the<br \/>\n\t\t\tknown is also myself, a form or movement of the same consciousness.<br \/>\n\t\t\tThe three are clearly one existence, one movement, indivisible<br \/>\n\t\t\tthough seeming to be divided, not distributed between its forms<br \/>\n\t\t\talthough appearing to distribute itself and to stand separate in each. But this is a knowledge which the mind can arrive at, can reason out, can<br \/>\nfeel, but cannot readily make the practical basis of its intelligent operations. And with regard to objects external to the form of<br \/>\nconsciousness which I call myself, the difficulty becomes almost insuperable; even to feel unity there is an abnormal effort and to<br \/>\nretain it, to act upon it continually would be a new and foreign action not properly belonging to the Mind. Mind can at most<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"center\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page \u2013 146<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">hold it as an understood truth so as to correct and modify by<br \/>\nit its own normal activities which are still based upon division, somewhat as we know intellectually that the earth moves round<br \/>\nthe sun and are able to correct by it but not abolish the artificial and physically practical arrangement by which the senses persist<br \/>\nin regarding the sun as in motion round the earth. <\/span> <\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"justify\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">But the Supermind possesses and acts always, fundamentally,<br \/>\n\t\t\ton this truth of unity which to the mind is only a secondary or<br \/>\n\t\t\tacquired possession and not the very grain of its seeing. Supermind sees the universe and its contents as itself in a single indivisible act of knowledge, an act which is its life, which is the<br \/>\nvery movement of its self-existence. Therefore this comprehensive divine consciousness in its aspect of Will does not so much<br \/>\nguide or govern the development of cosmic life as consummate it in itself by an act of power which is inseparable from the act of<br \/>\nknowledge and from the movement of self-existence, is indeed one and the same act. For we have seen that universal force and<br \/>\nuniversal consciousness are one <font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#8213;<\/font>cosmic force is the operation of cosmic consciousness. So also divine Knowledge and divine<br \/>\nWill are one; they are the same fundamental movement or act of existence.<br \/>\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"justify\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">This indivisibility of the comprehensive Supermind which contains all multiplicity without derogating from its own unity,<br \/>\nis a truth upon which we have always to insist, if we are to understand the cosmos and get rid of the initial error of our analytic<br \/>\nmentality. A tree evolves out of the seed in which it is already contained, the seed out of the tree; a fixed law, an invariable<br \/>\nprocess reigns in the permanence of the form of manifestation which we call a tree. The mind regards this phenomenon, this<br \/>\nbirth, life and reproduction of a tree, as a thing in itself and on that basis studies, classes and explains it. It explains the tree by<br \/>\nthe seed, the seed by the tree; it declares a law of Nature. But it has explained nothing; it has only analysed and recorded the<br \/>\nprocess of a mystery. Supposing even that it comes to perceive a secret conscious force as the soul, the real being of this form and<br \/>\nthe rest as merely a settled operation and manifestation of that force, still it tends to regard the form as a separate existence with<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"center\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page \u2013 147<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">its separate law of nature and process of development. In the<br \/>\nanimal and in man with his conscious mentality this separative tendency of the Mind induces it to regard itself also as a separate<br \/>\nexistence, the conscious subject, and other forms as separate objects of its mentality. This useful arrangement, necessary to<br \/>\nlife and the first basis of all its practice, is accepted by the mind as an actual fact and thence proceeds all the error of the ego.<br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"justify\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">But the Supermind works otherwise. The tree and its process would not be what they are, could not indeed exist, if it were<br \/>\na separate existence; forms are what they are by the force of the cosmic existence, they develop as they do as a result of their<br \/>\nrelation to it and to all its other manifestations. The separate law of their nature is only an application of the universal law<br \/>\nand truth of all Nature; their particular development is determined by their place in the general development. The tree does<br \/>\nnot explain the seed, nor the seed the tree; cosmos explains both and God explains cosmos. The Supermind, pervading and<br \/>\ninhabiting at once the seed and the tree and all objects, lives in this greater knowledge which is indivisible and one though<br \/>\nwith a modified and not an absolute indivisibility and unity. In this comprehensive knowledge there is no independent centre of existence, no individual separated ego such as we see in ourselves; the whole of existence is to its self-awareness an<br \/>\nequable extension, one in oneness, one in multiplicity, one in all conditions and everywhere. Here the All and the One are the<br \/>\nsame existence; the individual being does not and cannot lose the consciousness of its identity with all beings and with the One<br \/>\nBeing; for that identity is inherent in supramental cognition, a part of the supramental self-evidence.<br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"justify\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">In that spacious equality of oneness the Being is not divided and distributed; equably self-extended, pervading its extension<br \/>\nas One, inhabiting as One the multiplicity of forms, it is everywhere at once the single and equal Brahman. For this extension<br \/>\nof the Being in Time and Space and this pervasion and indwelling is in intimate relation with the absolute Unity from which it has<br \/>\nproceeded, with that absolute Indivisible in which there is no centre or circumference but only the timeless and spaceless One.<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"center\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page \u2013 148<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">That high concentration of unity in the unextended Brahman<br \/>\nmust necessarily translate itself in the extension by this equal pervasive concentration, this indivisible comprehension of all<br \/>\nthings, this universal undistributed immanence, this unity which no play of multiplicity can abrogate or diminish. &#8220;Brahman is<br \/>\nin all things, all things are in Brahman, all things are Brahman&#8221; is the triple formula of the comprehensive Supermind,<br \/>\n\t\t\ta single truth of self-manifestation in three aspects which it holds together and inseparably in its self-view as the fundamental<br \/>\nknowledge from which it proceeds to the play of the cosmos. <\/span> <\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"justify\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">But what then is the origin of mentality and the organisation of this lower consciousness in the triple terms of Mind, Life and Matter which is our view of the universe? For since<br \/>\nall things that exist must proceed from the action of the all-efficient Supermind,<br \/>\n\t\t\tfrom its operation in the three original terms of Existence,<br \/>\n\t\t\tConscious-Force and Bliss, there must be some faculty of the<br \/>\n\t\t\tcreative Truth-Consciousness which so operates as to cast them into these new terms, into this inferior trio of mentality, vitality and physical substance. This faculty we<br \/>\nfind in a secondary power of the creative knowledge, its power of a projecting, confronting and apprehending consciousness<br \/>\nin which knowledge centralises itself and stands back from its works to observe them. And when we speak of centralisation,<br \/>\nwe mean, as distinguished from the equable concentration of consciousness of which we have hitherto spoken, an unequal<br \/>\nconcentration in which there is the beginning of self-division<br \/>\n\t\t\t<font face=\"Times New Roman\">&#8213;<\/font>or of its phenomenal appearance.<br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"justify\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">First of all, the Knower holds himself concentrated in knowledge<br \/>\n\t\t\tas subject and regards his Force of consciousness as if continually<br \/>\n\t\t\tproceeding from him into the form of himself, continually working in it, continually drawing back into himself,<br \/>\ncontinually issuing forth again. From this single act of self-modification proceed all the practical distinctions upon which<br \/>\nthe relative view and the relative action of the universe is based. A practical distinction has been created between the Knower,<br \/>\nKnowledge and the Known, between the Lord, His force and the children and works of the Force, between the Enjoyer, the<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"center\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page \u2013 149<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">Enjoyment and the Enjoyed, between the Self, Maya and the<br \/>\nbecomings of the Self. <\/span> <\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"justify\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">Secondly, this conscious Soul concentrated in knowledge,<br \/>\nthis Purusha observing and governing the Force that has gone forth from him, his Shakti or Prakriti, repeats himself in every form of himself. He accompanies, as it were, his Force of consciousness into its works and reproduces there the act of self-division<br \/>\n\t\t\tfrom which this apprehending consciousness is born. In each form<br \/>\n\t\t\tthis Soul dwells with his Nature and observes himself in other forms<br \/>\n\t\t\tfrom that artificial and practical centre of consciousness. In all it is the same Soul, the same divine Being; the<br \/>\nmultiplication of centres is only a practical act of consciousness intended to<br \/>\n\t\t\tinstitute a play of difference, of mutuality, mutual knowledge,<br \/>\n\t\t\tmutual shock of force, mutual enjoyment, a difference based upon essential unity, a unity realised on a practical<br \/>\nbasis of difference. <\/span> <\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"justify\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">We can speak of this new status of the all-pervading Supermind as a further departure from the unitarian truth of things and from the indivisible consciousness which constitutes inalienably the unity essential to the existence of the cosmos. We can see that pursued a little farther it may become truly Avidya,<br \/>\n\t\t\tthe great Ignorance which starts from multiplicity as the fundamental reality and in order to travel back to real unity has<br \/>\nto commence with the false unity of the ego. We can see also that once the individual centre is accepted as the determining<br \/>\nstandpoint, as the knower, mental sensation, mental intelligence, mental action of will and all their consequences cannot fail to<br \/>\ncome into being. But also we have to see that so long as the soul acts in the Supermind, Ignorance has not yet begun; the field of<br \/>\nknowledge and action is still the truth-consciousness, the basis is still the unity.<br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"justify\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">For the Self still regards itself as one in all and all things as becomings<br \/>\n\t\t\tin itself and of itself; the Lord still knows his Force as himself<br \/>\n\t\t\tin act and every being as himself in soul and himself in form; it is<br \/>\n\t\t\tstill his own being that the Enjoyer enjoys, even though in a<br \/>\n\t\t\tmultiplicity. The one real change has been an unequal concentration of consciousness and a multiple distribution of force.<\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"center\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page \u2013 150<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">There is a practical distinction in consciousness, but there is no<br \/>\n\t\t\tessential difference of consciousness or true division in its vision<br \/>\n\t\t\tof itself. The Truth-consciousness has arrived at a position which<br \/>\n\t\t\tprepares our mentality, but is not yet that of our mentality. And it<br \/>\n\t\t\tis this that we must study in order to seize Mind at its origin, at<br \/>\n\t\t\tthe point where it makes its great lapse from the high and vast<br \/>\n\t\t\twideness of the Truth-consciousness into the division and the<br \/>\n\t\t\tignorance. Fortunately, this apprehending Truth-consciousness<sup>5<\/sup><br \/>\n\t\t\tis much more facile to our grasp by its nearness to us, by its<br \/>\n\t\t\tforeshadowing of our mental operations than the remoter realisation that we have hitherto been struggling to express in our<br \/>\ninadequate language of the intellect. The barrier that has to be crossed is less formidable.<br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:25pt;margin-left:0pt\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">5 <\/font> <i><font size=\"2\">praj<font face=\"Times New Roman\">\u00f1&#257;<\/font>na.<\/font><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;text-indent:0pt;margin-left:0pt\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\" align=\"center\">\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page \u2013 151<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chapter XV &nbsp; The Supreme Truth-Consciousness &nbsp; &nbsp; One seated in the sleep of Superconscience, a massed Intelligence, blissful and the enjoyer of Bliss. &#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-21-22-the-life-divine","wpcat-45-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099","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=2099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}