{"id":2153,"date":"2013-07-13T01:39:47","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2153"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:39:47","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:47","slug":"39-chapter-xxi-the-ladder-of-self-transcendence-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\/39-chapter-xxi-the-ladder-of-self-transcendence-vol-23-24-the-synthesis-of-yoga","title":{"rendered":"-39_Chapter XXI The Ladder of Self-Transcendence.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

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

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

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Ladder of Self-Transcendence <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tT<\/font>HE TRANSCENDENCE<\/b> of
\n\t\t\tthis lower triple being and this lower triple world, to which
\n\t\t\tordinarily our consciousness and its powers and results are limited,
\n\t\t\t\u2014 a transcendence described by the Vedic seers as an exceeding or
\n\t\t\tbreaking beyond the two firmaments of heaven and earth, \u2014 opens out
\n\t\t\ta hierarchy of infinitudes to which the normal existence of man even
\n\t\t\tin its highest and widest flights is still a stranger. Into that
\n\t\t\taltitude, even to the lowest step of its hierarchy, it is difficult
\n\t\t\tfor him to rise. A separation, acute in practice though unreal in
\n\t\t\tessence, divides the total being of man, the microcosm, as it
\n\t\t\tdivides also the world-being, the macrocosm. Both have a
\n\t\t\thigher and a lower hemisphere, the parā<\/font>rdha <\/i>and aparā<\/font>rdha <\/i>
\n\t\t\tof the ancient wisdom. The higher hemisphere is the perfect and
\n\t\t\teternal reign of the Spirit; for there it manifests without
\n\t\t\tcessation or diminution its infinities, deploys the unconcealed
\n\t\t\tglories of its illimitable existence, its illimitable consciousness
\n\t\t\tand knowledge, its illimitable force and power, its illimitable
\n\t\t\tbeatitude. The lower hemisphere belongs equally to the Spirit; but
\n\t\t\there it is veiled, closely, thickly, by its inferior self-expression
\n\t\t\tof limiting mind, confined life and dividing body. The Self in the
\n\t\t\tlower hemisphere is shrouded in name and form; its consciousness is
\n\t\t\tbroken up by the division between the internal and external, the
\n\t\t\tindividual and universal; its vision and sense are turned outward;
\n\t\t\tits force, limited by division of its consciousness, works in
\n\t\t\tfetters; its knowledge, will, power, delight, divided by this
\n\t\t\tdivision, limited by this limitation, are open to the experience of
\n\t\t\ttheir contrary or perverse forms, to ignorance, weakness and
\n\t\t\tsuffering. We can indeed become aware of the true Self or Spirit in
\n\t\t\tourselves by turning our sense and vision inward; we can discover
\n\t\t\ttoo the same Self or Spirit in the external world and its phenomena
\n\t\t\tby plunging them there also inward through the veil of names <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t and forms to that which dwells in these or
\n\t\t\telse stands behind them. Our normal consciousness through this
\n\t\t\tinward look may become by reflection aware of the infinite being,
\n\t\t\tconsciousness and delight of the Self and share in its passive or
\n\t\t\tstatic infinity of these things. But we can only to a very limited
\n\t\t\textent share in its active or dynamic manifestation of knowledge,
\n\t\t\tpower and joy. Even this static identity by reflection cannot,
\n\t\t\tordinarily, be effected without a long and difficult effort and as
\n\t\t\tthe result of many lives of progressive self-development; for very
\n\t\t\tfirmly is our normal consciousness bound to the law of its lower
\n\t\t\themisphere of being. To understand the possibility of transcending
\n\t\t\tit at all, we must restate in a practical formula the relations of
\n\t\t\tthe worlds which constitute the two hemispheres. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll is determined by the Spirit, for all from subtlest existence to
\n\t\t\tgrossest matter is manifestation of the Spirit. But the Spirit, Self
\n\t\t\tor Being determines the world it lives in and the experiences of its
\n\t\t\tconsciousness, force and delight in that world by some poise \u2014 among
\n\t\t\tmany possible \u2014 of the relations of Purusha and Prakriti, Soul and
\n\t\t\tNature, \u2014 some basic poise in one or other of its own cosmic
\n\t\t\tprinciples. Poised in the principle of Matter, it becomes the
\n\t\t\tphysical self of a physical universe in the reign of a physical
\n\t\t\tNature. Spirit is then absorbed in its experience of Matter; it is
\n\t\t\tdominated by the ignorance and inertia of the tamasic Power proper
\n\t\t\tto physical existence. In the individual it becomes a materialised
\n\t\t\tsoul,
\nannamaya purus<\/font>a<\/i>, whose life and
\n.<\/i> mind have developed out of the ignorance and inertia of the material
\n\t\t\tprinciple and are subject to their fundamental limitations. For life
\n\t\t\tin Matter works in dependence on the body; mind in Matter works in
\n\t\t\tdependence on the body and on the vital or nervous being; spirit
\n\t\t\titself in Matter is limited and divided in its self-relation and its
\n\t\t\tpowers by the limitations and divisions of this matter-governed and
\n\t\t\tlife-driven mind. This materialised soul lives bound to the physical
\n\t\t\tbody and its narrow superficial external consciousness, and it takes
\n\t\t\tnormally the experiences of its physical organs, its senses, its
\n\t\t\tmatter-bound life and mind, with at most some limited spiritual
\n\t\t\tglimpses, as the whole truth of existence.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t Man is a spirit, but a spirit that lives as a mental being in
\n\t\t\tphysical Nature; he is to his own self-consciousness a mind in a
\n\t\t\tphysical body. But at first he is this mental being materialised and
\n\t\t\the takes the materialised soul, annamaya purus<\/font>a<\/i>, for his real
\n\t\t\tself. .<\/i>
\n\t\t\tHe is obliged to accept, as the Upanishad expresses it, Matter for
\n\t\t\tthe Brahman because his vision here sees Matter as that from which
\n\t\t\tall is born, by which all lives and to which all return in their
\n\t\t\tpassing. His natural highest concept of Spirit is an Infinite,
\n\t\t\tpreferably an inconscient Infinite, inhabiting or pervading the
\n\t\t\tmaterial universe (which alone it really knows), and manifesting by
\n\t\t\tthe power of its presence all these forms around him. His natural
\n\t\t\thighest conception of himself is a vaguely conceived soul or spirit,
\n\t\t\ta soul manifested only by the physical life’s experiences, bound up
\n\t\t\twith physical phenomena and forced on its dissolution to return by
\n\t\t\tan automatic necessity to the vast indeterminateness of the
\n\t\t\tInfinite. But because he has the power of self-development, he can
\n\t\t\trise beyond these natural conceptions of the materialised soul; he
\n\t\t\tcan supplement them with a certain derivative experience drawn from
\n\t\t\tsupraphysical planes and worlds. He can concentrate in mind and
\n\t\t\tdevelop the mental part of his being, usually at the expense of the
\n\t\t\tfullness of his vital and physical life and in the end the mind
\n\t\t\tpredominates and can open to the Beyond. He can concentrate this
\n\t\t\tself-liberating mind on the Spirit. Here too usually in the process
\n\t\t\the turns away more and more from his full mental and physical life;
\n\t\t\the limits or discourages their possibilities as much as his material
\n\t\t\tfoundation in nature will allow him. In the end his spiritual life
\n\t\t\tpredominates, destroys his earthward tendency and breaks its ties
\n\t\t\tand limitations. Spiritualised, he places his real existence beyond
\n\t\t\tin other worlds, in the heavens of the vital or mental plane; he
\n\t\t\tbegins to regard life on earth as a painful or troublesome incident
\n\t\t\tor passage in which he can never arrive at any full enjoyment of his
\n\t\t\tinner ideal self, his spiritual essence. Moreover, his highest
\n\t\t\tconception of the Self or Spirit is apt to be more or less quietistic; for, as we have seen, it is its static infinity alone
\n\t\t\tthat he can entirely experience, the still freedom of Purusha
\n\t\t\tunlimited by Prakriti, the Soul standing back from Nature. There may
\n\t\t\tcome <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>467<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tindeed some divine dynamic manifestation
\n\t\t\tin him, but it cannot rise entirely above the heavy limitations of
\n\t\t\tphysical Nature. The peace of the silent and passive Self is more
\n\t\t\teasily attainable and he can more easily and fully hold it; too
\n\t\t\tdifficult for him is the bliss of an infinite activity, the dynamis
\n\t\t\tof an immeasurable Power. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut the Spirit can be poised in the principle of Life, not in
\n\t\t\tMatter. The Spirit so founded becomes the vital self of a vital
\n\t\t\tworld, the Life-soul of a Life-energy in the reign of a consciously
\n\t\t\tdynamic Nature. Absorbed in the experiences of the power and play of
\n\t\t\ta conscious Life, it is dominated by the desire, activity and
\n\t\t\tpassion of the rajasic principle proper to vital existence. In
\n\t\t\tthe individual this spirit becomes a vital soul, prā<\/font>n<\/font>amaya purus<\/font>a<\/i>, 
\n\t\t\tin whose nature the life-energies tyrannise over the mental and
\n\t\t\tphysical principles. The physical element in a vital world readily
\n\t\t\tshapes its activities and formations in response to desire and its
\n\t\t\timaginations, it serves and obeys the passion and power of life and
\n\t\t\ttheir formations and does not thwart or limit them as it does here
\n\t\t\ton earth where life is a precarious incident in inanimate Matter.
\n\t\t\tThe mental element too is moulded and limited by the life-power,
\n\t\t\tobeys it and helps only to enrich and fulfil the urge of its desires
\n\t\t\tand the energy of its impulses. This vital soul lives in a vital
\n\t\t\tbody composed of a substance much subtler than physical matter; it
\n\t\t\tis a substance surcharged with conscious energy, capable of much
\n\t\t\tmore powerful perceptions, capacities, sense-activities than any
\n\t\t\tthat the gross atomic elements of earth-matter can offer. Man too has
\n\t\t\tin himself behind his physical being, subliminal to it, unseen and
\n\t\t\tunknown, but very close to it and forming with it the most naturally
\n\t\t\tactive part of his existence, this vital soul, this vital nature and
\n\t\t\tthis vital body; a whole vital plane connected with the life-world
\n\t\t\tor desire-world is hidden in us, a secret consciousness in which
\n\t\t\tlife and desire find their untrammelled play and their easy
\n\t\t\tself-expression and from there throw their influences and formations
\n\t\t\ton our outer life. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn proportion as the power of this vital plane manifests itself in
\n\t\t\tman and takes hold of his physical being, this son of  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>468<\/font>  \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tearth becomes a vehicle of the life energy, forceful in his desires,
\n\t\t\tvehement in his passions and emotions, intensely dynamic in his
\n\t\t\taction, more and more the rajasic man. It is possible now for him to
\n\t\t\tawaken in his consciousness to the vital plane and to become \u00af.<\/i>
\n\t\t\tthe vital soul, prā<\/font>n<\/font>amaya purus<\/font>a<\/i>,, put on the vital nature and
\n\t\t\t.<\/i>
\n\t\t\tlive in the secret vital as well as the visible physical body. If he
\n\t\t\tachieves this change with some fullness or one-pointedness \u2014 usually
\n\t\t\tit is under great and salutary limitations or attended by saving
\n\t\t\tcomplexities \u2014 and without rising beyond these things, without
\n\t\t\tclimbing to a supra-vital height from which they can be used,
\n\t\t\tpurified, uplifted, he becomes the lower type of Asura or Titan, a
\n\t\t\tRakshasa in nature, a soul of sheer power and life-energy, magnified
\n\t\t\tor racked by a force of unlimited desire and passion, hunted and
\n\t\t\tdriven by an active capacity and colossal rajasic ego, but in
\n\t\t\tpossession of far greater and more various powers than those of the
\n\t\t\tphysical man in the ordinary more inert earth-nature. Even if he
\n\t\t\tdevelops mind greatly on the vital plane and uses its dynamic energy
\n\t\t\tfor self-control as well as for
\n\t\t\tself-satisfaction, it will still be with an Asuric energism (tapasyā<\/font><\/i>)
\n\t\t\talthough of a higher type and directed to a more governed
\n\t\t\tsatisfaction of the rajasic ego. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut for the vital plane also it is possible, even as on the
\n\t\t\tphysical, to rise to a certain spiritual greatness in its own kind.
\n\t\t\tIt is open to the vital man to lift himself beyond the conceptions
\n\t\t\tand energies natural to the desire-soul and the desire-plane. He can
\n\t\t\tdevelop a higher mentality and, within the conditions of the vital
\n\t\t\tbeing, concentrate upon some realisation of the Spirit or Self
\n\t\t\tbehind or beyond its forms and powers. In this spiritual realisation
\n\t\t\tthere would be a less strong necessity of quietism; for there would
\n\t\t\tbe a greater possibility of an active effectuation of the bliss and
\n\t\t\tpower of the Eternal, mightier and more self-satisfied powers, a
\n\t\t\tricher flowering of the dynamic Infinite. Nevertheless that
\n\t\t\teffectuality could never come anywhere near to a true and integral
\n\t\t\tperfection; for the conditions of the desire-world are like those of
\n\t\t\tthe physical improper to the development of the complete spiritual
\n\t\t\tlife. The vital being too must develop spirit to the detriment of
\n\t\t\this fullness, activity and force of life <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tin the lower hemisphere of our existence
\n\t\t\tand turn in the end away from the vital formula, away from life
\n\t\t\teither to the Silence or to an ineffable Power beyond him. If he
\n\t\t\tdoes not withdraw from life, he must remain enchained by life,
\n\t\t\tlimited in his self-fulfilment by the downward pull of the
\n\t\t\tdesire-world and its dominant rajasic principle. On the vital plane
\n\t\t\talso, in its own right alone, a perfect perfection is impossible;
\n\t\t\tthe soul that attains only so far would have to return to the
\n\t\t\tphysical life for a greater experience, a higher self-development, a
\n\t\t\tmore direct ascent to the Spirit. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAbove matter and life stands the principle of mind, nearer to the
\n\t\t\tsecret Origin of things. The Spirit poised in mind becomes the
\n\t\t\tmental self of a mental world and dwells there in the reign of its
\n\t\t\town pure and luminous mental Nature. There it acts in the intrinsic
\n\t\t\tfreedom of the cosmic Intelligence supported by the combined
\n\t\t\tworkings of a psycho-mental and a higher emotional mind-force,
\n\t\t\tsubtilised and enlightened by the clarity and happiness of the
\n\t\t\tsattwic principle proper to the mental existence. In the individual
\n\t\t\tthe spirit so poised becomes a mental soul,
\nmanomaya purus<\/font>a<\/i>, in whose nature the clarity and luminous .<\/i>
\n\t\t\tpower of the mind acts in its own right independent of any
\n\t\t\tlimitation or oppression by the vital or corporeal instruments; it
\n\t\t\trather rules and determines entirely the forms of its body and the
\n\t\t\tpowers of its life. For mind in its own plane is not limited by life
\n\t\t\tand obstructed by matter as it is here in the earth-process. This
\n\t\t\tmental soul lives in a mental or subtle body which enjoys capacities
\n\t\t\tof knowledge, perception, sympathy and interpenetration with other
\n\t\t\tbeings hardly imaginable by us and a free, delicate and extensive
\n\t\t\tmentalised sense-faculty not limited by the grosser conditions of
\n\t\t\tthe life nature or the physical nature. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMan too has in himself, subliminal, unknown and unseen, concealed
\n\t\t\tbehind his waking consciousness and visible organism this mental
\n\t\t\tsoul, mental nature, mental body and a mental plane, not
\n\t\t\tmaterialised, in which the principle of Mind is at home and not as
\n\t\t\there at strife with a world which is alien to it, obstructive to its
\n\t\t\tfreedom and corruptive of its purity and clearness. All the higher
\n\t\t\tfaculties of man, his intellectual and psycho-mental <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tbeing and powers, his higher emotional life awaken and increase in
\n\t\t\tproportion as this mental plane in him presses upon him. For the
\n\t\t\tmore it manifests, the more it influences the physical parts, the
\n\t\t\tmore it enriches and elevates the corresponding mental plane of the
\n\t\t\tembodied nature. At a certain pitch of its increasing sovereignty it
\n\t\t\tcan make man truly man and not merely a reasoning animal; for it
\n\t\t\tgives then its characteristic force to that mental being within us
\n\t\t\twhich our humanity is in the inwardly governing but still too
\n\t\t\thampered essence of its psychological structure. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt is possible for man to awaken to this higher mental
\n\t\t\tconsciousness, to become this mental being,\u00b9<\/font> put on this mental
\n\t\t\tnature and live not only in the vital and physical sheaths, but in
\n\t\t\tthis mental body. If there were a sufficient completeness in this
\n\t\t\ttransformation he would become capable of a life and a being at
\n\t\t\tleast half divine. For he would enjoy powers and a vision and
\n\t\t\tperceptions beyond the scope of this ordinary life and body; he
\n\t\t\twould govern all by the clarities of pure knowledge; he would be
\n\t\t\tunited to other beings by a sympathy of love and happiness; his
\n\t\t\temotions would be lifted to the perfection of the psycho-mental
\n\t\t\tplane, his sensations rescued from grossness, his intellect subtle,
\n\t\t\tpure and flexible, delivered from the deviations of the impure pranic energy and the obstructions of matter. And he would develop
\n\t\t\ttoo the reflection of a wisdom and bliss higher than any mental joy
\n\t\t\tand knowledge; for he could receive more fully and without our
\n\t\t\tincompetent mind’s deforming and falsifying mixture the inspirations
\n\t\t\tand intuitions that are the arrows of the supramental Light and form
\n\t\t\this perfected mental existence in the mould and power of that vaster
\n\t\t\tsplendour. He could then realise too the self or Spirit in a much
\n\t\t\tlarger and more luminous and <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\u00b9 <\/font>I include here in mind, not only the highest range of mind
\n\t\t\tordinarily known to man, but yet higher ranges to which he has
\n\t\t\teither no current faculty of admission or else only a partial and
\n\t\t\tmixed reception of some faint portion of their powers, \u2014 the
\n\t\t\tillumined mind, the intuition and finally the creative Overmind or
\n\t\t\tMaya which stands far above and is the source of our present
\n\t\t\texistence. If mind is to be understood only as Reason or human
\n\t\t\tintelligence, then the free mental being and its state would be
\n\t\t\tsomething much more limited and very inferior to the description
\n\t\t\tgiven here. <\/font> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tmore intimate intensity than is now
\n\t\t\tpossible and with a greater play of its active power and bliss in
\n\t\t\tthe satisfied harmony of his existence. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd to our ordinary notions this may well seem to be a consummate
\n\t\t\tperfection, something to which man might aspire in his highest
\n\t\t\tflights of idealism. No doubt, it would be a sufficient perfection
\n\t\t\tfor the pure mental being in its own character; but it would still
\n\t\t\tfall far below the greater possibilities of the spiritual nature.
\n\t\t\tFor here too our spiritual realisation would be subject to the
\n\t\t\tlimitations of the mind which is in the nature of a reflected,
\n\t\t\tdiluted and diffused or a narrowly intensive light, not the vast and
\n\t\t\tcomprehensive self-existent luminosity and joy of the Spirit. That
\n\t\t\tvaster light, that profounder bliss are beyond the mental reaches.
\n\t\t\tMind indeed can never be a perfect instrument of the Spirit; a
\n\t\t\tsupreme self-expression is not possible in its movements because to
\n\t\t\tseparate, divide, limit is its very character. Even if mind could be
\n\t\t\tfree from all positive falsehood and error, even if it could be all
\n\t\t\tintuitive and infallibly intuitive, it could still present and
\n\t\t\torganise only half-truths or separate truths and these too not in
\n\t\t\ttheir own body but in luminous representative figures put together
\n\t\t\tto make an accumulated total or a massed structure. Therefore the
\n\t\t\tself-perfecting mental being here must either depart into pure
\n\t\t\tspirit by the shedding of its lower existence or return upon the
\n\t\t\tphysical life to develop in it a capacity not yet found in our
\n\t\t\tmental and psychic nature. This is what the Upanishad expresses when
\n\t\t\tit says that the heavens attained by the mind Purusha are those to
\n\t\t\twhich man is lifted by the rays of the sun, the diffused, separated,
\n\t\t\tthough intense beams of the supramental truth-consciousness, and
\n\t\t\tfrom these it has to return to the earthly existence. But the
\n\t\t\tilluminates who renouncing earth-life go beyond through the gateways
\n\t\t\tof the sun, do not return hither. The mental being exceeding his
\n\t\t\tsphere does not return because by that transition he enters a high
\n\t\t\trange of existence peculiar to the superior hemisphere. He cannot
\n\t\t\tbring down its greater spiritual nature into this lower triplicity;
\n\t\t\tfor here the mental being is the highest expression of the Self.
\n\t\t\tHere the triple mental, vital and physical body provides almost the<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>472<\/font><\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\twhole range of our capacity and cannot suffice for that greater
\n\t\t\tconsciousness; the vessel has not been built to contain a greater
\n\t\t\tgodhead or to house the splendours of this supramental force and
\n\t\t\tknowledge. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis limitation is true only so long as man remains closed within
\n\t\t\tthe boundaries of the mental Maya. If he rises into the
\n\t\t\tknowledge-self beyond the highest mental stature, if he becomes
\n\t\t\tthe knowledge-soul, the Spirit poised in gnosis, vijnā<\/font>namaya<\/i>
\npurus<\/font>a<\/i>, and puts on the nature of its infinite truth and power,
\n\t\t\tif he lives in the knowledge-sheath, the causal body as well as in
\n\t\t\tthese subtle mental, interlinking vital and grosser physical sheaths
\n\t\t\tor bodies, then, but then only he will be able to draw down entirely
\n\t\t\tinto his terrestrial existence the fullness of the infinite
\n\t\t\tspiritual consciousness; only then will he avail to raise his total
\n\t\t\tbeing and even his whole manifested, embodied expressive nature into
\n\t\t\tthe spiritual kingdom. But this is difficult in the extreme; for the
\n\t\t\tcausal body opens itself readily to the consciousness and capacities
\n\t\t\tof the spiritual planes and belongs in its nature to the higher
\n\t\t\themisphere of existence, but it is either not developed at all in
\n\t\t\tman or only as yet crudely developed and organised and veiled behind
\n\t\t\tmany intervening portals of the subliminal in us. It draws its stuff
\n\t\t\tfrom the plane of the truth-knowledge and the plane of the infinite
\n\t\t\tbliss and these pertain altogether to a still inaccessible higher
\n\t\t\themisphere. Shedding upon this lower existence their truth and light
\n\t\t\tand joy they are the source of all that we call spirituality and all
\n\t\t\tthat we call perfection. But this infiltration comes from behind
\n\t\t\tthick coverings through which they arrive so tempered and weakened
\n\t\t\tthat they are entirely obscured in the materiality of our physical
\n\t\t\tperceptions, grossly distorted and perverted in our vital impulses,
\n\t\t\tperverted too though a little less grossly in our ideative seekings,
\n\t\t\tminimised even in the comparative purity and intensity of the
\n\t\t\thighest intuitive ranges of our mental nature. The supramental
\n\t\t\tprinciple is secretly lodged in all existence. It is there even in
\n\t\t\tthe grossest materiality, it preserves and governs the lower worlds
\n\t\t\tby its hidden power and law; but that power veils itself and that
\n\t\t\tlaw works unseen through the shackled limitations and limping <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\tdeformations of the lesser rule of our
\n\t\t\tphysical, vital, mental Nature. Yet its governing presence in the
\n\t\t\tlowest forms assures us, because of the unity of all existence, that
\n\t\t\tthere is a possibility of their awakening, a possibility even of
\n\t\t\ttheir perfect manifestation here in spite of every veil, in spite of
\n\t\t\tall the mass of our apparent disabilities, in spite of the
\n\t\t\tincapacity or unwillingness of our mind and life and body. And what
\n\t\t\tis possible, must one day be, for that is the law of the omnipotent
\n\t\t\tSpirit. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe character of these higher states of the soul and their greater
\n\t\t\tworlds of spiritual Nature is necessarily difficult to seize. Even
\n\t\t\tthe Upanishads and the Veda only shadow them out by figures, hints
\n\t\t\tand symbols. Yet it is necessary to attempt some account of their
\n\t\t\tprinciples and practical effect so far as they can be grasped by the
\n\t\t\tmind that stands on the border of the two hemispheres. The passage
\n\t\t\tbeyond that border would be the culmination, the completeness of the
\n\t\t\tYoga of self-transcendence by self-knowledge. The soul that aspires
\n\t\t\tto perfection, draws back and upward, says the Upanishad, from the
\n\t\t\tphysical into the vital and from the vital into the mental Purusha,
\n\t\t\tfrom the mental into the knowledge-soul and from that self of
\n\t\t\tknowledge into the bliss Purusha. This self of bliss is the
\n\t\t\tconscious foundation of perfect Sachchidananda and to pass into it
\n\t\t\tcompletes the soul’s ascension. The mind therefore must try to give
\n\t\t\tto itself some account of this decisive transformation of the
\n\t\t\tembodied consciousness, this radiant transfiguration and
\n\t\t\tself-exceeding of our ever aspiring nature. The description mind can
\n\t\t\tarrive at, can never be adequate to the thing itself, but it may
\n\t\t\tpoint at least to some indicative shadow of it or perhaps some
\n\t\t\thalf-luminous image.   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Chapter XXI   The Ladder of Self-Transcendence   THE TRANSCENDENCE of this lower triple being and this lower triple world, to which ordinarily our consciousness…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-23-24-the-synthesis-of-yoga","wpcat-46-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2153","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=2153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2153\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}