{"id":2134,"date":"2013-07-13T01:39:40","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2134"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:39:40","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:40","slug":"23-the-double-soul-in-man-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\/23-the-double-soul-in-man-vol-21-22-the-life-divine","title":{"rendered":"-23_The Double Soul in Man.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tChapter XXIII
\n<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tThe Double Soul in Man <\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Purusha, the inner Self, no larger than the size of a man’s  thumb.
\n\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tKatha Upanishad.<\/i>1<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tSwetaswatara Upanishad.<\/i>2<\/sup> <\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe who knows this Self who is the eater of the honey of existence and the lord of what is and shall be, has thenceforward
\nno shrinking. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tKatha Upanishad.<\/i>3<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhence shall he have grief, how shall he be deluded who sees everywhere the Oneness?
\n\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tIsha Upanishad.<\/i>4<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe who has found the bliss of the Eternal has no fear from
\nany quarter. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tTaittiriya Upanishad.<\/i>5<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tT<\/font>HE FIRST<\/b> status of Life we found to be characterised by a dumb inconscient drive or urge, a force of some
\ninvolved will in the material or atomic existence, not free and possessor of itself or its works or their results, but entirely
\npossessed by the universal movement in which it arises as the obscure unformed seed of individuality. The root of the second
\nstatus is desire, eager to possess but limited in capacity; the bud of the third is Love which seeks both to possess and be possessed,
\nto receive and to give itself; the fine flower of the fourth, its sign of perfection, we conceive as the pure and full emergence of the
\noriginal will, the illumined fulfilment of the intermediate desire, the high and
\n\t\t\tdeep satisfaction of the conscious interchange of Love by the
\n\t\t\tunification of the state of the possessor and possessed in the divine unity of souls which is the foundation of the
\nsupramental existence. If we scrutinise these terms carefully we <\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t1<\/sup>
\nII. 1. 12, 13; II. 3. 17.            
\n\t\t\t2<\/sup>
\nIII. 13.            
\n\t\t\t3<\/sup>
\nII. 1. 5.            
\n\t\t\t4<\/sup> Verse 7.            
\n\t\t\t5<\/sup>
\nII. 9.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 231<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tshall see that they are shapes and stages of the soul’s seeking for
\nthe individual and universal delight of things; the ascent of Life is in its nature the ascent of the divine Delight in things from its
\ndumb conception in Matter through vicissitudes and opposites to its luminous consummation in Spirit.
\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe world being what it is, it could not be otherwise. For the world is a masked form of Sachchidananda, and the nature of
\nthe consciousness of Sachchidananda and therefore the thing in which His force must always find and achieve itself is divine
\nBliss, an omnipresent self-delight. Since Life is an energy of His conscious-force, the secret of all its movements must be
\na hidden delight inherent in all things which is at once cause, motive and object of its activities; and if by reason of egoistic
\ndivision that delight is missed, if it is held back behind a veil, if it is represented as its own opposite, even as being is masked in
\ndeath, consciousness figures as the inconscient and force mocks itself with the guise of incapacity, then that which lives cannot be satisfied, cannot either rest from the movement or fulfil the movement except by laying hold on this universal delight
\nwhich is at once the secret total delight of its own being and the original, all-encompassing, all-informing, all-upholding delight
\nof the transcendent and immanent Sachchidananda. To seek for delight is therefore the fundamental impulse and sense of Life;
\nto find and possess and fulfil it is its whole motive. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut where in us is this principle of Delight? through what
\nterm of our being does it manifest and fulfil itself in the action of the cosmos
\n\t\t\tas the principle of Conscious-Force manifests and uses Life for its
\n\t\t\tcosmic term and the principle of Supermind manifests and uses Mind? We have distinguished a
\nfourfold principle of divine Being creative of the universe,
\n\t\t\t―<\/font>Existence, Conscious-Force, Bliss and Supermind. Supermind,
\nwe have seen, is omnipresent in the material cosmos, but veiled; it is behind the actual phenomenon of things and occultly
\nexpresses itself there, but uses for effectuation its own subordinate term, Mind. The divine Conscious-Force is omnipresent
\nin the material cosmos, but veiled, operative secretly behind the actual phenomenon of things, and it expresses itself there<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 232<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tcharacteristically through its own subordinate term, Life. And,
\nthough we have not yet examined separately the principle of Matter, yet we can already see that the divine All-existence
\nalso is omnipresent in the material cosmos, but veiled, hidden behind the actual phenomenon of things, and manifests itself
\nthere initially through its own subordinate term, Substance, Form of being or Matter. Then, equally, the principle of divine
\nBliss must be omnipresent in the cosmos, veiled indeed and possessing itself behind the actual phenomenon of things, but
\nstill manifested in us through some subordinate principle of its own in which it is hidden and by which it must be found and
\nachieved in the action of the universe. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThat term is something in us which we sometimes call in
\na special sense the soul, ―<\/font>that is to say, the psychic principle which is not
\n\t\t\tthe life or the mind, much less the body, but which holds in itself
\n\t\t\tthe opening and flowering of the essence of all these to their own
\n\t\t\tpeculiar delight of self, to light, to love, to joy and beauty and
\n\t\t\tto a refined purity of being. In fact, however, there is a double
\n\t\t\tsoul or psychic term in us, as every other cosmic principle in us is
\n\t\t\talso double. For we have two minds, one the surface mind of our
\n\t\t\texpressed evolutionary ego, the superficial mentality created by us
\n\t\t\tin our emergence out of Matter, another a subliminal mind which is
\n\t\t\tnot hampered by our actual mental life and its strict limitations, something large, powerful and luminous, the true mental being behind that superficial form of
\nmental personality which we mistake for ourselves. So also we have two lives, one outer, involved in the physical body, bound
\nby its past evolution in Matter, which lives and was born and will die, the other a subliminal force of life which is not cabined
\nbetween the narrow boundaries of our physical birth and death, but is our true vital being behind the form of living which we
\nignorantly take for our real existence. Even in the matter of our being there is this duality; for behind our body we have
\na subtler material existence which provides the substance not only of our physical but of our vital and mental sheaths and
\nis therefore our real substance supporting this physical form which we erroneously imagine to be the whole body of our<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 233<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tspirit. So too we have a double psychic entity in us, the surface
\ndesire-soul which works in our vital cravings, our emotions, aesthetic faculty and mental seeking for power, knowledge and
\nhappiness, and a subliminal psychic entity, a pure power of light, love, joy and refined essence of being which is our true soul
\nbehind the outer form of psychic existence we so often dignify by the name. It is when some reflection of this larger and purer
\npsychic entity comes to the surface that we say of a man, he has a soul, and when it is absent in his outward psychic life that we
\nsay of him, he has no soul. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe external forms of our being are those of our small egoistic
\n\t\t\texistence; the subliminal are the formations of our larger true
\n\t\t\tindividuality. Therefore are these that concealed part of our being in which our individuality is close to our universality, touches it, is in constant relation and commerce with it. The subliminal
\nmind in us is open to the universal knowledge of the cosmic Mind, the subliminal life in us to the universal force of the cosmic
\nLife, the subliminal physicality in us to the universal force-formation of cosmic Matter; the thick walls which divide from
\nthese things our surface mind, life, body and which Nature has to pierce with so much trouble, so imperfectly and by so many
\nskilful-clumsy physical devices, are there, in the subliminal, only a rarefied medium at once of separation and communication.
\nSo too is the subliminal soul in us open to the universal delight which the cosmic soul takes in its own existence and in the existence of the myriad souls that represent it and in the operations of mind, life and matter by which Nature lends herself to their
\nplay and development; but from this cosmic delight the surface soul is shut off by egoistic walls of great thickness which have
\nindeed gates of penetration, but in their entry through them the touches of the divine cosmic Delight become dwarfed, distorted
\nor have to come in masked as their own opposites. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt follows that in this surface or desire-soul there is no true
\nsoul-life, but a psychic deformation and wrong reception of the touch of things. The malady of the world is that the individual
\ncannot find his real soul, and the root-cause of this malady is again that he cannot meet in his embrace of things outward<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 234<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tthe real soul of the world in which he lives. He seeks to find
\nthere the essence of being, the essence of power, the essence of conscious-existence, the essence of delight, but receives instead a
\ncrowd of contradictory touches and impressions. If he could find that essence, he would find also the one universal being, power,
\nconscious existence and delight even in this throng of touches and impressions; the contradictions of what seems would be
\nreconciled in the unity and harmony of the Truth that reaches out to us in these contacts. At the same time he would find
\nhis own true soul and through it his self, because the true soul is his self’s delegate and his self and the self of the world are
\none. But this he cannot do because of the egoistic ignorance in the mind of thought, the heart of emotion, the sense which
\nresponds to the touch of things not by a courageous and wholehearted embrace of the world, but by a flux of reachings and
\nshrinkings, cautious approaches or eager rushes and sullen or discontented or panic or angry recoils according as the touch
\npleases or displeases, comforts or alarms, satisfies or dissatisfies. It is the desire-soul that by its wrong reception of life becomes
\nthe cause of a triple misinterpretation of the
\nrasa<\/i>, the delight in things, so that, instead of figuring the pure essential joy of being,
\nit comes rendered unequally into the three terms of pleasure, pain and indifference.
\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWe have seen, when we considered the Delight of Existence in its relations to the world, that there is no absoluteness or
\nessential validity in our standards of pleasure and pain and indifference, that they are entirely determined by the subjectivity
\nof the receiving consciousness and that the degree of either pleasure and pain can be heightened to a maximum or depressed to a
\nminimum or even effaced entirely in its apparent nature. Pleasure can become pain or pain pleasure because in their secret reality
\nthey are the same thing differently reproduced in the sensations and emotions. Indifference is either the inattention of the surface
\ndesire-soul in its mind, sensations, emotions and cravings to the
\nrasa
\n<\/i>of things, or its incapacity to receive and respond to it, or
\nits refusal to give any surface response or, again, its driving and crushing down of the pleasure or the pain by the will into the<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 235<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tneutral tint of unacceptance. In all these cases what happens is
\nthat either there is a positive refusal or a negative unreadiness or incapacity to render or in any way represent positively on the
\nsurface something that is yet subliminally active. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor, as we now know by psychological observation and
\nexperiment that the subliminal mind receives and remembers all those touches of things which the surface mind ignores,
\nso also we shall find that the subliminal soul responds to the
\nrasa<\/i>, or essence in experience, of these things which the surface
\ndesire-soul rejects by distaste and refusal or ignores by neutral unacceptance. Self-knowledge is impossible unless we go behind
\nour surface existence, which is a mere result of selective outer experiences, an imperfect sounding-board or a hasty, incompetent and fragmentary translation of a little out of the much that we are,
\n\t\t\t―<\/font>unless we go behind this and send down our plummet
\ninto the subconscient and open ourself to the superconscient so as to know their relation to our surface being. For between these
\nthree things our existence moves and finds in them its totality. The superconscient in us is one with the self and soul of the world
\nand is not governed by any phenomenal diversity; it possesses therefore the truth of things and the delight of things in their
\nplenitude. The subconscient, so called,6<\/sup> in that luminous head of itself which we call the subliminal, is, on the contrary, not a true
\npossessor but an instrument of experience; it is not practically one with the soul and self of the world, but it is open to it
\nthrough its world-experience. The subliminal soul is conscious inwardly of the
\nrasa
\n<\/i>of things and has an equal delight in all
\ncontacts; it is conscious also of the values and standards of the surface desire-soul and receives on its own surface corresponding
\ntouches of pleasure, pain and indifference, but takes an equal delight in all. In other words, our real soul within takes joy
\nof all its experiences, gathers from them strength, pleasure and knowledge, grows by them in its store and its plenty. It is this
\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t6<\/sup> The real subconscious is a nether diminished consciousness close to the Inconscient; the subliminal is a consciousness larger than our surface existence. But both belong
\nto the inner realm of our being of which our surface is unaware, so both are jumbled together in our common conception and parlance.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 236<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\treal soul in us which compels the shrinking desire-mind to bear
\nand even to seek and find a pleasure in what is painful to it, to reject what is pleasant to it, to modify or even reverse its
\nvalues, to equalise things in indifference or to equalise them in joy, the joy of the variety of existence. And this it does because
\nit is impelled by the universal to develop itself by all kinds of experience so as to grow in Nature. Otherwise, if we lived only
\nby the surface desire-soul, we could no more change or advance than the plant or stone in whose immobility or in whose routine
\nof existence, because life is not superficially conscious, the secret soul of things has as yet no instrument by which it can rescue
\nthe life out of the fixed and narrow gamut into which it is born. The desire-soul left to itself would circle in the same grooves for
\never. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the view of old philosophies pleasure and pain are inseparable like intellectual truth and falsehood and power and incapacity and birth and death; therefore the only possible escape from them would be a total indifference, a blank response to the excitations of the world-self. But a subtler psychological
\nknowledge shows us that this view which is based on the surface facts of existence only, does not really exhaust the possibilities
\nof the problem. It is possible by bringing the real soul to the surface to replace the egoistic standards of pleasure and pain
\nby an equal, an all-embracing personal-impersonal delight. The lover of Nature does this when he takes joy in all the things
\nof Nature universally without admitting repulsion or fear or mere liking and disliking, perceiving beauty in that which seems
\nto others mean and insignificant, bare and savage, terrible and repellent. The artist and the poet do it when they seek the
\nrasa<\/i>
\nof the universal from the aesthetic emotion or from the physical line or from the mental form of beauty or from the inner sense
\nand power alike of that from which the ordinary man turns away and of that to which he is attached by a sense of pleasure. The
\nseeker of knowledge, the God-lover who finds the object of his love everywhere, the spiritual man, the intellectual, the sensuous,
\nthe aesthetic all do this in their own fashion and must do it if they would find embracingly the Knowledge, the Beauty, the Joy<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 237<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tor the Divinity which they seek. It is only in the parts where the
\nlittle ego is usually too strong for us, it is only in our emotional or physical joy and suffering, our pleasure and pain of life, before
\nwhich the desire-soul in us is utterly weak and cowardly, that the application of the divine principle becomes supremely difficult
\nand seems to many impossible or even monstrous and repellent. Here the ignorance of the ego shrinks from the principle of
\nimpersonality which it yet applies without too much difficulty in Science, in Art and even in a certain kind of imperfect spiritual
\nliving because there the rule of impersonality does not attack those desires cherished by the surface soul and those values of
\ndesire fixed by the surface mind in which our outward life is most vitally interested. In the freer and higher movements there
\nis demanded of us only a limited and specialised equality and impersonality proper to a particular field of consciousness and
\nactivity while the egoistic basis of our practical life remains to us; in the lower movements the whole foundation of our life has
\nto be changed in order to make room for impersonality, and this the desire-soul finds impossible.
\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe true soul secret in us
\n\t\t\t―<\/font>subliminal, we have said, but the word is misleading, for this presence is not situated below
\nthe threshold of waking mind, but rather burns in the temple of the inmost heart behind the thick screen of an ignorant mind,
\nlife and body, not subliminal but behind the veil,
\n\t\t\t―<\/font>this veiled psychic entity is the flame of the Godhead always alight within
\nus, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness of any spiritual self within which obscures our outward nature. It is
\na flame born out of the Divine and, luminous inhabitant of the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn it towards the
\nKnowledge. It is the concealed Witness and Control, the hidden Guide, the Daemon of Socrates, the inner light or inner voice
\nof the mystic. It is that which endures and is imperishable in us from birth to birth, untouched by death, decay or corruption,
\nan indestructible spark of the Divine. Not the unborn Self or Atman, for the Self even in presiding over the existence of the
\nindividual is aware always of its universality and transcendence, it is yet its deputy in the forms of Nature, the individual soul,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 238<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tcaitya purusa<\/i>, supporting mind, life and body, standing behind
\n.<\/i> the mental, the vital, the subtle-physical being in us and watching and
\n\t\t\tprofiting by their development and experience. These other
\n\t\t\tperson-powers in man, these beings of his being, are also veiled in
\n\t\t\ttheir true entity, but they put forward temporary personalities
\n\t\t\twhich compose our outer individuality and whose combined superficial
\n\t\t\taction and appearance of status we call ourselves: this inmost
\n\t\t\tentity also, taking form in us as the psychic Person, puts forward a
\n\t\t\tpsychic personality which changes, grows, develops from life to life; for this is the traveller between birth and
\ndeath and between death and birth, our nature parts are only its manifold and changing vesture. The psychic being can at first
\nexercise only a concealed and partial and indirect action through the mind, the life and the body, since it is these parts of Nature
\nthat have to be developed as its instruments of self-expression, and it is long confined by their evolution. Missioned
\n\t\t\tto lead man in the Ignorance towards the light of the Divine
\n\t\t\tConsciousness, it takes the essence of all experience in the
\n\t\t\tIgnorance to form a nucleus of soul-growth in the nature; the rest
\n\t\t\tit turns into material for the future growth of the instruments
\n\t\t\twhich it has to use until they are ready to be a luminous
\n\t\t\tinstrumentation of the Divine. It is this secret psychic entity
\n\t\t\twhich is the true original Conscience in us deeper than the
\n\t\t\tconstructed and conventional conscience of the moralist, for it is this which points
\nalways towards Truth and Right and Beauty, towards Love and Harmony and all that is a divine possibility in us, and persists
\ntill these things become the major need of our nature. It is the psychic personality in us that flowers as the saint, the sage, the
\nseer; when it reaches its full strength, it turns the being towards the Knowledge of Self and the Divine, towards the supreme
\nTruth, the supreme Good, the supreme Beauty, Love and Bliss, the divine heights and largenesses, and opens us to the touch of
\nspiritual sympathy, universality, oneness. On the contrary, where the psychic personality is weak, crude or ill-developed, the finer
\nparts and movements in us are lacking or poor in character and power, even though the mind may be forceful and brilliant,
\nthe heart of vital emotions hard and strong and masterful, the<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 239<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tlife-force dominant and successful, the bodily existence rich and
\nfortunate and an apparent lord and victor. It is then the outer desire-soul, the pseudo-psychic entity, that reigns and we mistake its misinterpretations of psychic suggestion and aspiration, its ideas and ideals, its desires and yearnings for true soul-stuff
\nand wealth of spiritual experience.7<\/sup> If the secret psychic Person can come forward into the front and, replacing the desire-soul,
\ngovern overtly and entirely and not only partially and from behind the veil this outer nature of mind, life and body, then
\nthese can be cast into soul images of what is true, right and beautiful and in the end the whole nature can be turned towards
\nthe real aim of life, the supreme victory, the ascent into spiritual existence.
\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut it might seem then that by bringing this psychic entity, this true soul in us, into the front and giving it there the lead
\nand rule we shall gain all the fulfilment of our natural being that we can seek for and open also the gates of the kingdom
\nof the Spirit. And it might well be reasoned that there is no need for any intervention of a superior Truth-Consciousness or
\nprinciple of Supermind to help us to attain to the divine status or the divine perfection. Yet, although the psychic transformation
\nis one necessary condition of the total transformation of our existence, it is not all that is needed for the largest spiritual
\nchange. In the first place, since this is the individual soul in Nature, it can open to the hidden diviner ranges of our being
\nand receive and reflect their light and power and experience, but another, a spiritual transformation from above is needed for us
\nto possess our self in its universality and transcendence. By itself <\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t7<\/sup> The word “psychic” in our ordinary parlance is more often used in reference to this
\ndesire-soul than to the true psychic. It is used still more loosely of psychological and other phenomena of an abnormal or supernormal character which are really connected
\nwith the inner mind, inner vital, subtle physical being subliminal in us and are not at all direct operations of the psyche. Even such phenomena as materialisation and
\ndematerialisation are included, though, if established, they evidently are not soul-action and would not shed any light upon the nature or existence of the psychic entity, but
\nwould rather be an abnormal action of an occult subtle physical energy intervening in the ordinary status of the gross body of things, reducing it to its own subtle condition
\nand again reconstituting it in the terms of gross matter.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 240<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tthe psychic being at a certain stage might be content to create a
\nformation of truth, good and beauty and make that its station; at a farther stage it might become passively subject to the world-self, a mirror of the universal existence, consciousness, power, delight, but not their full participant or possessor. Although
\nmore nearly and thrillingly united to the cosmic consciousness in knowledge, emotion and even appreciation through the senses, it
\nmight become purely recipient and passive, remote from mastery and action in the world; or, one with the static self behind the
\ncosmos, but separate inwardly from the world-movement, losing its individuality in its Source, it might return to that Source and
\nhave neither the will nor the power any further for that which was its ultimate mission here, to lead the nature also towards
\nits divine realisation. For the psychic being came into Nature from the Self, the Divine, and it can turn back from Nature to
\nthe silent Divine through the silence of the Self and a supreme spiritual immobility. Again, an eternal portion of the Divine,8<\/sup>
\nthis part is by the law of the Infinite inseparable from its Divine Whole, this part is indeed itself that Whole, except in its frontal
\nappearance, its frontal separative self-experience; it may awaken to that reality and plunge into it to the apparent extinction or
\nat least the merging of the individual existence. A small nucleus here in the mass of our ignorant Nature, so that it is described
\nin the Upanishad as no bigger than a man’s thumb, it can by the spiritual influx enlarge itself and embrace the whole world
\nwith the heart and mind in an intimate communion or oneness. Or it may become aware of its eternal Companion and elect
\nto live for ever in His presence, in an imperishable union and oneness as the eternal lover with the eternal Beloved, which of all
\nspiritual experiences is the most intense in beauty and rapture. All these are great and splendid achievements of our spiritual
\nself-finding, but they are not necessarily the last end and entire consummation; more is possible.
\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor these are achievements of the spiritual mind in man; they are movements of that mind passing beyond itself, but on
\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t8<\/sup> Gita<\/i>, XV. 7.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 241<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tits own plane, into the splendours of the Spirit. Mind, even at
\nits highest stages far beyond our present mentality, acts yet in its nature by division; it takes the aspects of the Eternal and
\ntreats each aspect as if it were the whole truth of the Eternal Being and can find in each its own perfect fulfilment. Even it
\nerects them into opposites and creates a whole range of these opposites, the Silence of the Divine and the divine Dynamis, the
\nimmobile Brahman aloof from existence, without qualities, and the active Brahman with qualities, Lord of existence, Being and
\nBecoming, the Divine Person and an impersonal pure Existence; it can then cut itself away from the one and plunge itself into
\nthe other as the sole abiding Truth of existence. It can regard the Person as the sole Reality or the Impersonal as alone true; it can
\nregard the Lover as only a means of expression of eternal Love or love as only the self-expression of the Lover; it can see beings as
\nonly personal powers of an impersonal Existence or impersonal existence as only a state of the one Being, the Infinite Person. Its
\nspiritual achievement, its road of passage towards the supreme aim will follow these dividing lines. But beyond this movement
\nof spiritual Mind is the higher experience of the supermind Truth-Consciousness; there these opposites disappear and these
\npartialities are relinquished in the rich totality of a supreme and integral realisation of eternal Being. It is this that is the aim we
\nhave conceived, the consummation of our existence here by an ascent to the supramental Truth-Consciousness and its descent
\ninto our nature. The psychic transformation after rising into the spiritual change has then to be completed, integralised, exceeded
\nand uplifted by a supramental transformation which lifts it to the summit of the ascending endeavour.
\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEven as between the other divided and opposed terms of manifested Being, so also a supramental consciousness-energy
\ncould alone establish a perfect harmony between these two terms
\n\t\t\t―<\/font>apparently opposite only because of the Ignorance
\n\t\t\t―<\/font>of spirit status and world dynamism in our embodied existence. In the Ignorance Nature centres the order of her psychological
\nmovements, not around the secret spiritual self, but around its substitute, the ego-principle: a certain ego-centrism is the basis<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 242<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\ton which we bind together our experiences and relations in the
\nmidst of the complex contacts, contradictions, dualities, incoherences of the world in which we live; this ego-centrism is our
\nrock of safety against the cosmic and the infinite, our defence. But in our spiritual change we have to forego this defence; ego
\nhas to vanish, the person finds itself dissolved into a vast impersonality, and in this impersonality there is at first no key
\nto an ordered dynamism of action. A very usual result is that one is divided into two parts of being, the spiritual within, the
\nnatural without; in one there is the divine realisation seated in a perfect inner freedom, but the natural part goes on with the old
\naction of Nature, continues by a mechanical movement of past energies her already transmitted impulse. Even, if there is an
\nentire dissolution of the limited person and the old ego-centric order, the outer nature may become the field of an apparent
\nincoherence, although all within is luminous with the Self. Thus we become outwardly inert and inactive, moved by circumstance
\nor forces but not self-mobile,9<\/sup> even though the consciousness is enlightened within, or as a child though within is a plenary
\nself-knowledge,10<\/sup> or as one inconsequent in thought and impulse though within is an utter calm and serenity,11<\/sup> or as the
\nwild and disordered soul though inwardly there is the purity and poise of the Spirit.12<\/sup> Or if there is an ordered dynamism
\nin the outward nature, it may be a continuation of superficial ego-action witnessed but not accepted by the inner being, or
\na mental dynamism that cannot be perfectly expressive of the inner spiritual realisation; for there is no equipollence between
\naction of mind and status of spirit. Even at the best where there is an intuitive guidance of Light from within, the nature of its
\nexpression in dynamism of action must be marked with the imperfections of mind, life and body, a King with incapable
\nministers, a Knowledge expressed in the values of the Ignorance. Only the descent of the Supermind with its perfect unity of
\nTruth-Knowledge and Truth-Will can establish in the outer as <\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t9<\/sup>
\njad<\/font>avat.<\/i>  <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t10<\/sup> bā<\/font>lavat.<\/i>
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t11<\/sup>
\nunmattavat.<\/i> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t12<\/sup> <\/font>
\npiśā<\/font>cavat.<\/font><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 243<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tin the inner existence the harmony of the Spirit; for it alone can
\nturn the values of the Ignorance entirely into the values of the Knowledge.
\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the fulfilment of our psychic being as in the consummation of our parts of mind and life, it is the relating of it to its
\ndivine source, to its correspondent truth in the Supreme Reality, that is the indispensable movement; and, here too as there, it
\nis by the power of the Supermind that it can be done with an integral completeness, an intimacy that becomes an authentic
\nidentity; for it is the Supermind which links the higher and the lower hemispheres of the One Existence. In Supermind is the
\nintegrating Light, the consummating Force, the wide entry into the supreme Ananda: the psychic being uplifted by that Light and
\nForce can unite itself with the original Delight of existence from which it came: overcoming the dualities of pain and pleasure,
\ndelivering from all fear and shrinking the mind, life and body, it can recast the contacts of existence in the world into terms of
\nthe Divine Ananda.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 244<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter XXIII   The Double Soul in Man   The Purusha, the inner Self, no larger than the size of a man’s  thumb. Katha Upanishad.1…<\/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-2134","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\/2134","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=2134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2134\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}