{"id":2151,"date":"2013-07-13T01:39:46","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2151"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:39:46","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:46","slug":"19-chapter-i-the-object-of-knowledge-vol-23-24-the-synthesis-of-yoga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/23-24-the-synthesis-of-yoga\/19-chapter-i-the-object-of-knowledge-vol-23-24-the-synthesis-of-yoga","title":{"rendered":"-19_Chapter I The Object of Knowledge.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPart II <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Yoga of Integral Knowledge <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tChapter I
\n<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Object of Knowledge <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA<\/font>LL SPIRITUAL<\/b> seeking moves towards an object of Knowledge to which men ordinarily do not turn the
\neye of the mind, to someone or something Eternal, Infinite, Absolute that is not the temporal things or forces of
\nwhich we are sensible, although he or it may be in them or behind them or their source or creator. It aims at a state of
\nknowledge by which we can touch, enter or know by identity this Eternal, Infinite and Absolute, a consciousness other than
\nour ordinary consciousness of ideas and forms and things, a Knowledge that is not what we call knowledge but something
\nself-existent, everlasting, infinite. And although it may or even necessarily must, since man is a mental creature, start from our
\nordinary instruments of knowledge, yet it must as necessarily go beyond them and use supra-sensuous and supramental means
\nand faculties, for it is in search of something that is itself suprasensuous and supramental and beyond the grasp of the mind
\nand senses, even if through mind and sense there can come a first glimpse of it or a reflected image. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe traditional systems, whatever their other differences, all proceed on the belief or the perception that the Eternal and
\nAbsolute can only be or at least can only inhabit a pure transcendent state of non-cosmic existence or else a non-existence.
\nAll cosmic existence or all that we call existence is a state of ignorance. Even the highest individual perfection, even the most
\nblissful cosmic condition is no better than a supreme ignorance. All that is individual, all that is cosmic has to be austerely
\nrenounced by the seeker of the absolute Truth. The supreme quiescent Self or else the absolute Nihil is the sole Truth, the
\nonly object of spiritual knowledge. The state of knowledge, the consciousness other than this temporal that we must attain is
\nNirvana, an extinction of ego, a cessation of all mental, vital<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\tand physical activities, of all activities whatsoever, a supreme
\nillumined quiescence, the pure bliss of an impersonal tranquillity self-absorbed and ineffable. The means are meditation, a
\nconcentration excluding all things else, a total loss of the mind in its object. Action is permissible only in the first stages of
\nthe search in order to purify the seeker and make him morally and temperamentally a fit vessel for the knowledge. Even this
\naction must either be confined to the performance of the rites of worship and the prescribed duties of life rigorously ordained
\nby the Hindu Shastra or, as in the Buddhistic discipline, must be guided along the eightfold path to the supreme practice of
\nthe works of compassion which lead towards the practical annihilation of self in the good of others. In the end, in any severe
\nand pure Jnanayoga, all works must be abandoned for an entire quiescence. Action may prepare salvation; it cannot give it. Any
\ncontinued adherence to action is incompatible with the highest progress and may be an insuperable obstacle to the attainment
\nof the spiritual goal. The supreme state of quiescence is the very opposite of action and cannot be attained by those who persist
\nin works. And even devotion, love, worship are disciplines for the unripe soul, are at best the best methods of the Ignorance.
\nFor they are offered to something other, higher and greater than ourselves; but in the supreme knowledge there can be no such
\nthing, since there is either only one self or no self at all and therefore either no one to do the worship and offer the love
\nand devotion or no one to receive it. Even thought-activity must disappear in the sole consciousness of identity or of nothingness
\nand by its own quiescence bring about the quiescence of the whole nature. The absolute Identical alone must remain or else
\nthe eternal Nihil. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis pure Jnanayoga comes by the intellect, although it
\nends in the transcendence of the intellect and its workings. The thinker in us separates himself from all the rest of what we
\nphenomenally are, rejects the heart, draws back from the life and the senses, separates from the body that he may arrive at his
\nown exclusive fulfilment in that which is beyond even himself and his function. There is a truth that underlies, as there is
\n  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\t  
\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA page of the "The Yoga Integral Knowledge"<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t as revised by Sri Aurobindo during the 1930s <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tan experience that seems to justify this attitude. There is an
\nEssence that is in its nature a quiescence, a supreme of Silence in the Being that is beyond its own developments and mutations,
\nimmutable and therefore superior to all activities of which it is at most a Witness. And in the hierarchy of our psychological
\nfunctions the Thought is in a way nearest to this Self, nearest at least to its aspect of the all-conscious knower who regards
\nall activities but can stand back from them all. The heart, will and other powers in us are fundamentally active, turn naturally
\ntowards action, find through it their fulfilment, \u2014 although they also may automatically arrive at a certain quiescence by fullness
\nof satisfaction in their activities or else by a reverse process of exhaustion through perpetual disappointment and dissatisfaction. The thought too is an active power, but is more capable of arriving at quiescence by its own conscious choice and will. The
\nthought is more easily content with the illumined intellectual perception of this silent Witness Self that is higher than all our
\nactivities and, that immobile Spirit once seen, is ready, deeming its mission of truth-finding accomplished, to fall at rest and
\nbecome itself immobile. For in its most characteristic movement it is itself apt to be a disinterested witness, judge, observer of
\nthings more than an eager participant and passionate labourer in the work and can arrive very readily at a spiritual or philosophic
\ncalm and detached aloofness. And since men are mental beings, thought, if not truly their best and highest, is at least their most
\nconstant, normal and effective means for enlightening their ignorance. Armed with its functions of gathering and reflection,
\nmeditation, fixed contemplation, the absorbed dwelling of the mind on its object,
\n\t\t\tś<\/font>ravan<\/font>a<\/i>, manana<\/i>, nididhyā<\/font>sana<\/i>, it stands at
\n.<\/i> our tops as an indispensable aid to our realisation of that which
\nwe pursue, and it is not surprising that it should claim to be the leader of the journey and the only available guide or at least the
\ndirect and innermost door of the temple. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn reality, thought is only a scout and pioneer; it can guide
\nbut not command or effectuate. The leader of the journey, the captain of the march, the first and most ancient priest of our
\nsacrifice is the Will. This Will is not the wish of the heart or  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\tthe demand or preference of the mind to which we often give
\nthe name. It is that inmost, dominant and often veiled conscious force of our being and of all being, Tapas, Shakti, Sraddha, that
\nsovereignly determines our orientation and of which the intellect and the heart are more or less blind and automatic servants and
\ninstruments. The Self that is quiescent, at rest, vacant of things and happenings is a support and background to existence, a
\nsilent channel or a hypostasis of something Supreme: it is not itself the one entirely real existence, not itself the Supreme. The
\nEternal, the Supreme is the Lord and the all-originating Spirit. Superior to all activities and not bound by any of them, it is
\nthe source, sanction, material, efficient power, master of all activities. All activities proceed from this supreme Self and are
\ndetermined by it; all are its operations, processes of its own conscious force and not of something alien to Self, some power
\nother than the Spirit. In these activities is expressed the conscious Will or Shakti of the Spirit moved to manifest its being in infinite
\nways, a Will or Power not ignorant but at one with its own self-knowledge and its knowledge of all that it is put out to
\nexpress. And of this Power a secret spiritual will and soul-faith in us, the dominant hidden force of our nature, is the individual
\ninstrument, more nearly in communication with the Supreme, a surer guide and enlightener, could we once get at it and hold
\nit, because profounder and more intimately near to the Identical and Absolute than the surface activities of our thought powers.
\nTo know that will in ourselves and in the universe and follow it to its divine finalities, whatever these may be, must surely be the
\nhighest way and truest culmination for knowledge as for works, for the seeker in life and for the seeker in Yoga. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe thought, since it is not the highest or strongest part of
\n\t\t\tNature, not even the sole or deepest index to Truth, ought not to
\n\t\t\tfollow its own exclusive satisfaction or take that for the sign of
\n\t\t\tits attainment to the supreme Knowledge. It is here as the guide, up
\n\t\t\tto a certain point, of the heart, the life and the other members,
\n\t\t\tbut it cannot be a substitute for them; it has to see not only what
\n\t\t\tis its own ultimate satisfaction but whether there is not an
\n\t\t\tultimate satisfaction intended also for these other <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>290<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tmembers. An exclusive path of abstract thought would be justified, only if the object of the Supreme Will in the universe has been nothing more than a descent into the activity of the
\nignorance operated by the mind as blinding instrument and jailor through false idea and sensation and an ascent into the
\nquiescence of knowledge equally operated by the mind through correct thought as enlightening instrument and saviour. But the
\nchances are that there is an aim in the world less absurd and aimless, an impulse towards the Absolute less dry and abstract,
\na truth of the world more large and complex, a more richly infinite height of the Infinite. Certainly, an abstract logic must
\nalways arrive, as the old systems arrived, at an infinite empty Negation or an infinite equally vacant Affirmation; for, abstract
\nit moves towards an absolute abstraction and these are the only two abstractions that are absolutely absolute. But a concrete ever
\ndeepening wisdom waiting on more and more riches of infinite experience and not the confident abstract logic of the narrow
\nand incompetent human mind is likely to be the key to a divine suprahuman knowledge. The heart, the will, the life and even the
\nbody, no less than the thought, are forms of a divine Conscious-Being and indices of great significance. These too have powers
\nby which the soul can return to its complete self-awareness or means by which it can enjoy it. The object of the Supreme Will
\nmay well be a culmination in which the whole being is intended to receive its divine satisfaction, the heights enlightening the
\ndepths, the material Inconscient revealed to itself as the Divine by the touch of the supreme Superconscience. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe traditional Way of Knowledge proceeds by elimination and rejects successively the body, the life, the senses, the
\nheart, the very thought in order to merge into the quiescent Self or supreme Nihil
\n\t\t\tor indefinite Absolute. The way of integral knowledge supposes that
\n\t\t\twe are intended to arrive at an integral self-fulfilment and the
\n\t\t\tonly thing that is to be eliminated is our own unconsciousness, the
\n\t\t\tIgnorance and the results of the Ignorance. Eliminate the falsity of
\n\t\t\tthe being which figures as the ego; then our true being can manifest
\n\t\t\tin us. Eliminate the falsity of the life which figures as mere vital
\n\t\t\tcraving and the mechanical  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\tround of our corporeal existence; our true life in the power of
\nthe Godhead and the joy of the Infinite will appear. Eliminate the falsity of the senses with their subjection to material shows
\nand to dual sensations; there is a greater sense in us that can open through these to the Divine in things and divinely reply
\nto it. Eliminate the falsity of the heart with its turbid passions and desires and its dual emotions; a deeper heart in us can open
\nwith its divine love for all creatures and its infinite passion and yearning for the responses of the Infinite. Eliminate the falsity of
\nthe thought with its imperfect mental constructions, its arrogant assertions and denials, its limited and exclusive concentrations;
\na greater faculty of knowledge is behind that can open to the true Truth of God and the soul and Nature and the universe.
\nAn integral self-fulfilment, \u2014 an absolute, a culmination for the experiences of the heart, for its instinct of love, joy, devotion
\nand worship; an absolute, a culmination for the senses, for their pursuit of divine beauty and good and delight in the forms of
\nthings; an absolute, a culmination for the life, for its pursuit of works, of divine power, mastery and perfection; an absolute,
\na culmination beyond its own limits for the thought, for its hunger after truth and light and divine wisdom and knowledge.
\nNot something quite other than themselves from which they are all cast away is the end of these things in our nature, but
\nsomething supreme in which they at once transcend themselves and find their own absolutes and infinitudes, their harmonies
\nbeyond measure. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBehind the traditional way of Knowledge, justifying its
\nthought-process of elimination and withdrawal, stands an overmastering spiritual experience. Deep, intense, convincing,
\ncommon to all who have overstepped a certain limit of the active mind-belt into horizonless inner space, this is the great experience of liberation, the consciousness of something within us that is behind and outside of the universe and all its forms, interests,
\naims, events and happenings, calm, untouched, unconcerned, illimitable, immobile, free, the uplook to something above us
\nindescribable and unseizable into which by abolition of our personality we can enter, the presence of an omnipresent eternal
\n  <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\twitness Purusha, the sense of an Infinity or a Timelessness that
\nlooks down on us from an august negation of all our existence and is alone the one thing Real. This experience is the highest
\nsublimation of spiritualised mind looking resolutely beyond its own existence. No one who has not passed through this
\nliberation can be entirely free from the mind and its meshes, but one is not compelled to linger in this experience for ever. Great
\nas it is, it is only the Mind’s overwhelming experience of what is beyond itself and all it can conceive. It is a supreme negative
\nexperience, but beyond it is all the tremendous light of an infinite Consciousness, an illimitable Knowledge, an affirmative
\nabsolute Presence. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe object of spiritual knowledge is the Supreme, the Divine,
\nthe Infinite and Absolute. This Supreme has its relations to our individual being and its relations to the universe and it transcends both the soul and the universe. Neither the universe nor the individual are what they seem to be, for the report of them
\nwhich our mind and our senses give us is, so long as they are unenlightened by a faculty of higher supramental and suprasensuous knowledge, a false report, an imperfect construction, an attenuated and erroneous figure. And yet that which the universe and the individual seem to be is still a figure of what they really are, a figure that points beyond itself to the reality behind
\nit. Truth proceeds by a correction of the values our mind and senses give us, and first by the action of a higher intelligence that
\nenlightens and sets right as far as may be the conclusions of the ignorant sense-mind and limited physical intelligence; that is the
\nmethod of all human knowledge and science. But beyond it there is a knowledge, a Truth-consciousness, that exceeds our intellect
\nand brings us into the true light of which it is a refracted ray. There the abstract terms of the pure reason and the constructions of the mind disappear or are converted into concrete soulvision and the tremendous actuality of spiritual experience. This
\nknowledge can turn away to the absolute Eternal and lose vision of the soul and the universe; but it can too see this existence
\nfrom that Eternal. When that is done, we find that the ignorance of the mind and the senses and all the apparent futilities of
\n  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\thuman life were not a useless excursion of the conscious being,
\nan otiose blunder. Here they were planned as a rough ground for the self-expression of the Soul that comes from the Infinite,
\na material foundation for its self-unfolding and self-possessing in the terms of the universe. It is true that in themselves they
\nand all that is here have no significance and to build separate significances for them is to live in an illusion, Maya; but they
\nhave a supreme significance in the Supreme, an absolute Power in the Absolute and it is that that assigns to them and refers to
\nthat Truth their present relative values. This is the all-uniting experience that is the foundation of the deepest integral and
\nmost intimate self-knowledge and world-knowledge. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn relation to the individual the Supreme is our own true and
\nhighest self, that which ultimately we are in our essence, that of which we are in our manifested nature. A spiritual knowledge,
\nmoved to arrive at the true Self in us, must reject, as the traditional way of knowledge rejects, all misleading appearances. It
\nmust discover that the body is not our self, our foundation of existence; it is a sensible form of the Infinite. The experience of
\nMatter as the world’s sole foundation and the physical brain and nerves and cells and molecules as the one truth of all things in
\nus, the ponderous inadequate basis of materialism, is a delusion, a half-view taken for the whole, the dark bottom or shadow
\nof things misconceived as the luminous substance, the effective figure of zero for the Integer. The materialist idea mistakes a
\ncreation for the creative Power, a means of expression for That which is expressed and expresses. Matter and our physical brain
\nand nerves and body are the field and foundation for one action of a vital force that serves to connect the Self with the form of its
\nworks and maintains them by its direct dynamis. The material movements are an exterior notation by which the soul represents
\nits perceptions of certain truths of the Infinite and makes them effective in the terms of Substance. These things are a language,
\na notation, a hieroglyphic, a system of symbols, not themselves the deepest truest sense of the things they intimate. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNeither is the Life ourself, the vitality, the energy which plays in the brain, nerves and body; it is a power and not the <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\twhole power of the Infinite. The experience of a life-force instrumentalising Matter as the foundation, source and true sum of all things, the vibrating unsteady basis of vitalism, is a delusion, a half-view taken for the whole, a tide on a near shore misconceived as all the ocean and its waters. The vitalist idea
\ntakes something powerful but outward for the essence. Life-force is the dynamisation of a consciousness which exceeds it.
\nThat consciousness is felt and acts but does not become valid to us in intelligence until we arrive at the higher term of Mind, our
\npresent summit. Mind is here apparently a creation of Life, but it is really the ulterior
\n\u2014 not the ultimate \u2014 sense of Life itself
\nand what is behind it and a more conscious formulation of its secret; Mind is an expression not of Life, but of that of which
\nLife itself is a less luminous expression. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd yet Mind also, our mentality, our thinking, understanding part, is not our Self, is not That, not the end or the beginning; it is a half-light thrown from the Infinite. The experience of
\nmind as the creator of forms and things and of these forms and things existing in the Mind only, the thin subtle basis of
\nidealism, is also a delusion, a half-view taken for the whole, a pale refracted light idealised as the burning body of the Sun
\nand its splendour. This idealist vision also does not arrive at the essence of being, does not even touch it but only an inferior mode
\nof Nature. Mind is the dubious outer penumbra of a conscious existence which is not limited by mentality but exceeds it. The
\nmethod of the traditional way of knowledge, eliminating all these things, arrives at the conception and realisation of a pure
\nconscious existence, self-aware, self-blissful, unconditioned by mind and life and body and to its ultimate positive experience
\nthat is Atman, the Self, the original and essential nature of our existence. Here at last there is something centrally true, but in
\nits haste to arrive at it this knowledge assumes that there is nothing between the thinking mind and the Highest,
\nbuddheh<\/font><\/i>  paratas tu sah<\/font><\/i>, and, shutting its eyes in Samadhi, tries to rush
\n.<\/i> through all that actually intervenes without even seeing these
\ngreat and luminous kingdoms of the Spirit. Perhaps it arrives at its object, but only to fall asleep in the Infinite. Or, if it remains <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tawake, it is in the highest experience of the Supreme into which
\nthe self-annulling Mind can enter, but not in the supreme of the Supreme, Paratpara. The Mind can only be aware of the Self in
\na mentalised spiritual thinness, only of the mind-reflected Sachchidananda. The highest truth, the integral self-knowledge is not
\nto be gained by this self-blinded leap into the Absolute but by a patient transit beyond the mind into the Truth-consciousness
\nwhere the Infinite can be known, felt, seen, experienced in all the fullness of its unending riches. And there we discover this Self
\nthat we are to be not only a static tenuous vacant Atman but a great dynamic Spirit individual, universal and transcendent.
\nThat Self and Spirit cannot be expressed by the mind’s abstract generalisations; all the inspired descriptions of the seers and
\nmystics cannot exhaust its contents and its splendours. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn relation to the universe the Supreme is Brahman, the one
\nReality which is not only the spiritual material and conscious substance of all the ideas and forces and forms of the universe,
\nbut their origin, support and possessor, the cosmic and supracosmic Spirit. All the last terms to which we can reduce the universe,
\nForce and Matter, Name and Form, Purusha and Prakriti, are still not entirely that which the universe really is, either in itself
\nor its nature. As all that we are is the play and form, the mental, psychic, vital and physical expression of a supreme Self unconditioned by mind and life and body, the universe too is the play and form and cosmic soul-expression and nature-expression of a
\nsupreme Existence which is unconditioned by force and matter, unconditioned by idea and name and form, unconditioned by the
\nfundamental distinction of Purusha and Prakriti. Our supreme Self and the supreme Existence which has become the universe
\nare one Spirit, one self and one existence. The individual is in nature one expression of the universal Being, in spirit an emanation of the Transcendence. For if he finds his self, he finds too that his own true self is not this natural personality, this created
\nindividuality, but is a universal being in its relations with others and with Nature and in its upward term a portion or the living
\nfront of a supreme transcendental Spirit. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis supreme Existence is not conditioned by the individual <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\tor by the universe. A spiritual knowledge can therefore surpass
\nor even eliminate these two powers of the Spirit and arrive at the conception of something utterly Transcendent, something that
\nis unnameable and mentally unknowable, a sheer Absolute. The traditional way of knowledge eliminates individual and universe.
\nThe Absolute it seeks after is featureless, indefinable, relation-less, not this, not that,
\nneti neti<\/i>. And yet we can say of it that
\nit is One, that it is Infinite, that it is ineffable Bliss, Consciousness, Existence. Although unknowable to the mind, yet through
\nour individual being and through the names and forms of the universe we can approach the realisation of the supreme Self
\nthat is Brahman, and by the realisation of the self we come to a certain realisation also of this utter Absolute of which our
\n\u00af<\/i> true self is the essential form in our consciousness (svarū<\/font>pa<\/i>).
\nThese are the devices the human mind is compelled to use if it is to form to itself any conception at all of a transcendent and
\nunconditioned Absolute. The system of negation is indispensable to it in order to get rid of its own definitions and limited
\nexperience; it is obliged to escape through a vague Indefinite into the Infinite. For it lives in a closed prison of constructions and
\nrepresentations that are necessary for its action but are not the self-existent truth either of Matter or Life or Mind or Spirit. But
\nif we can once cross beyond the Mind’s frontier twilight into the vast plane of supramental Knowledge, these devices cease to be
\nindispensable. Supermind has quite another, a positive and direct and living experience of the supreme Infinite. The Absolute is
\nbeyond personality and beyond impersonality, and yet it is both the Impersonal and the supreme Person and all persons. The
\nAbsolute is beyond the distinction of unity and multiplicity, and yet it is the One and the innumerable Many in all the universes.
\nIt is beyond all limitation by quality and yet it is not limited by a qualitiless void but is too all infinite qualities. It is the
\nindividual soul and all souls and none of them; it is the formless Brahman and the universe. It is the cosmic and the supracosmic Spirit, the supreme Lord, the supreme Self, the supreme Purusha and supreme Shakti, the Ever Unborn who is endlessly
\nborn, the Infinite who is innumerably finite, the multitudinous  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\tOne, the complex Simple, the many-sided Single, the Word of
\nthe Silence Ineffable, the impersonal omnipresent Person, the Mystery translucent in highest consciousness to its own spirit,
\nbut to a lesser consciousness veiled in its own exceeding light and impenetrable for ever. These things are to the dimensional
\nmind irreconcilable opposites, but to the constant vision and experience of the supramental Truth-consciousness they are so
\nsimply and inevitably the intrinsic nature of each other that even to think of them as contraries is an unimaginable violence. The
\nwalls constructed by the measuring and separating Intellect have disappeared and the Truth in its simplicity and beauty appears
\nand reduces all to terms of its harmony and unity and light. Dimensions and distinctions remain but as figures for use, not a
\nseparative prison for the self-forgetting Spirit. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe consciousness of the transcendent Absolute with its
\nconsequence in individual and universe is the last, the eternal knowledge. Our minds may deal with it on various lines, may
\nbuild upon it conflicting philosophies, may limit, modify, overstress, understress sides of the knowledge, deduce from it truth
\nor error; but our intellectual variations and imperfect statements make no difference to the ultimate fact that if we push thought
\nand experience to their end, this is the knowledge in which they terminate. The object of a Yoga of spiritual knowledge can be
\nnothing else than this eternal Reality, this Self, this Brahman, this Transcendent that dwells over all and in all and is manifest
\nyet concealed in the individual, manifest yet disguised in the universe. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe culmination of the path of knowledge need not necessarily entail extinction of our world-existence. For the Supreme
\nto whom we assimilate ourselves, the Absolute and Transcendent into whom we enter has always the complete and ultimate
\nconsciousness for which we are seeking and yet he supports by it his play in the world. Neither are we compelled to believe that
\nour world-existence ends because by attaining to knowledge its object or consummation is fulfilled and therefore there is nothing
\nmore for us here afterwards. For what we gain at first with its release and immeasurable silence and quietude is only the eternal <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>298<\/font>
\n <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tself-realisation by the individual in the essence of his conscious
\nbeing; there will still remain on that foundation, unannulled by the silence, one with the release and freedom, the infinitely
\nproceeding self-fulfilment of Brahman, its dynamic divine manifestation in the individual and by his presence, example and
\naction in others and in the universe at large, \u2014 the work which the Great Ones remain to do. Our dynamic self-fulfilment cannot
\nbe worked out so long as we remain in the egoistic consciousness, in the mind’s candle-lit darkness, in the bondage. Our present
\nlimited consciousness can only be a field of preparation, it can consummate nothing; for all that it manifests is marred through
\nand through by an ego-ridden ignorance and error. The true and divine self-fulfilment of Brahman in the manifestation is only
\npossible on the foundation of the Brahman-consciousness and therefore through the acceptance of life by the liberated soul,
\nthe Jivanmukta. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis is the integral knowledge; for we know that everywhere
\nand in all conditions all to the eye that sees is One, to a divine experience all is one block of the Divine. It is only the mind
\nwhich for the temporary convenience of its own thought and aspiration seeks to cut an artificial line of rigid division, a fiction
\nof perpetual incompatibility between one aspect and another of the eternal oneness. The liberated knower lives and acts in the
\nworld not less than the bound soul and ignorant mind but more, doing all actions,
\nsarvakr<\/font>t<\/i>, only with a true knowledge and a  greater conscient power. And by so doing he does not forfeit the
\nsupreme unity nor fall from the supreme consciousness and the highest knowledge. For the Supreme, however hidden now to
\nus, is here in the world no less than he could be in the most utter and ineffable self-extinction, the most intolerant Nirvana.
\n   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>299<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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