{"id":2182,"date":"2013-07-13T01:39:58","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2182"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:39:58","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:58","slug":"18-chapter-xiii-the-supermind-and-the-yoga-of-works-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\/18-chapter-xiii-the-supermind-and-the-yoga-of-works-vol-23-24-the-synthesis-of-yoga","title":{"rendered":"-18_Chapter XIII The Supermind and the Yoga of Works.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAppendix <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tto
\n\t\t\tPart I <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe following chapter was left unfinished. It was not
\n\t\t\tincluded in the edition of
\nThe Synthesis of Yoga<\/i>, Part I, that was published during Sri Aurobindo’s
\n\t\t\tlifetime.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n

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

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Supermind and the <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tYoga of Works <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA<\/font>N INTEGRAL<\/b> Yoga
\n\t\t\tincludes as a vital and indispensable element in its total and
\n\t\t\tultimate aim the conversion of the whole being into a higher
\n\t\t\tspiritual consciousness and a larger divine existence. Our parts of
\n\t\t\twill and action, our parts of knowledge, our thinking being, our
\n\t\t\temotional being, our being of life, all our self and nature must
\n\t\t\tseek the Divine, enter into the Infinite, unite with the Eternal.
\n\t\t\tBut man’s present nature is limited, divided, unequal, \u2014 it is
\n\t\t\teasiest for him to concentrate in the strongest part of his being
\n\t\t\tand follow a definite line of progress proper to his nature: only
\n\t\t\trare individuals have the strength to take a large immediate plunge
\n\t\t\tstraight into the sea of the Divine Infinity. Some therefore must
\n\t\t\tchoose as a starting-point a concentration in thought or
\n\t\t\tcontemplation or the mind’s one-pointedness to find the eternal
\n\t\t\treality of the Self in them; others can more easily withdraw into
\n\t\t\tthe heart to meet there the Divine, the Eternal: yet others are
\n\t\t\tpredominantly dynamic and active; for these it is best to centre
\n\t\t\tthemselves in the will and enlarge their being through works. United
\n\t\t\twith the Self and source of all by their surrender of their will
\n\t\t\tinto its infinity, guided in their works by the secret Divinity
\n\t\t\twithin or surrendered to the Lord of the cosmic action as the master
\n\t\t\tand mover of all their energies of thought, feeling, act, becoming
\n\t\t\tby this enlargement of being selfless and universal, they can reach
\n\t\t\tby works some first fullness of a spiritual status. But the path,
\n\t\t\twhatever its point of starting, must debouch into a vaster dominion;
\n\t\t\tit must proceed in the end through a totality of integrated
\n\t\t\tknowledge, emotion, will of dynamic action, perfection of the being
\n\t\t\tand the entire nature. In the supramental consciousness, on the
\n\t\t\tlevel of the supramental existence this integration becomes
\n\t\t\tconsummate;<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 <\/font>279<\/font>   <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t there knowledge, will, emotion, the perfection
\n\t\t\tof the self and the dynamic nature rise each to its absolute of
\n\t\t\titself and all to their perfect harmony and fusion with each other,
\n\t\t\tto a divine integrality, a divine perfection. For the supermind is a
\n\t\t\tTruth-Consciousness in which the Divine Reality, fully manifested, no
\n\t\t\tlonger works with the instrumentation of the Ignorance; a truth of
\n\t\t\tstatus of being which is absolute becomes dynamic in a truth of
\n\t\t\tenergy and activity of the being which is self-existent and perfect.
\n\t\t\tEvery movement there is a movement of the self-aware truth of Divine
\n\t\t\tBeing and every part is in entire harmony with the whole. Even the
\n\t\t\tmost limited and finite action is in the Truth-Consciousness a
\n\t\t\tmovement of the Eternal and Infinite and partakes of the inherent
\n\t\t\tabsoluteness and perfection of the Eternal and Infinite. An ascent
\n\t\t\tinto the supramental Truth not only raises our spiritual and
\n\t\t\tessential consciousness to that height but brings about a descent of
\n\t\t\tthis Light and Truth into all our being and all our parts of nature.
\n\t\t\tAll then becomes part of the Divine Truth, an element and means of
\n\t\t\tthe supreme union and oneness; this ascent and descent must be
\n\t\t\ttherefore an ultimate aim of this Yoga. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA union with the Divine Reality of our being and all being is the
\n\t\t\tone essential object of the Yoga. It is necessary to keep this in
\n\t\t\tmind; we must remember that our Yoga is not undertaken for the sake
\n\t\t\tof the acquisition of supermind itself but for the sake of the
\n\t\t\tDivine; we seek the supermind not for its own joy and greatness but
\n\t\t\tto make the union absolute and complete, to feel it, possess it,
\n\t\t\tdynamise it in every possible way of our being, in its highest
\n\t\t\tintensities and largest widenesses and in every range and turn and
\n\t\t\tnook and recess of our nature. It is a mistake to think, as many are
\n\t\t\tapt to think, that the object of a supramental Yoga is to arrive at
\n\t\t\ta mighty magnificence of supermanhood, a divine power and greatness,
\n\t\t\tthe self-fulfilment of a magnified individual personality. This is a
\n\t\t\tfalse and disastrous conception, \u2014 disastrous because it is likely
\n\t\t\tto raise the pride, vanity and ambition of the rajasic vital mind in
\n\t\t\tus and that, if not overpassed and overcome, must lead to spiritual
\n\t\t\tdownfall, false because it is an egoistic conception and the first
\n\t\t\tcondition of the supramental change is to get rid of ego. It is most
\n\t\t\tdangerous for the active and  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 <\/font>280<\/font>  \n\t<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tdynamic nature of the man of will and works which can easily be led
\n\t\t\taway by the pursuit of power. Power comes inevitably by the
\n\t\t\tsupramental change, it is a necessary condition for a perfect
\n\t\t\taction: but it is the Divine Shakti that comes and takes up the
\n\t\t\tnature and the life, the power of the One acting through the
\n\t\t\tspiritual individual; it is not an aggrandisement of the personal
\n\t\t\tforce, not the last crowning fulfilment of the separative mental and
\n\t\t\tvital ego. Self-fulfilment is a result of the Yoga, but its aim is
\n\t\t\tnot the greatness of the individual. The sole aim is a spiritual
\n\t\t\tperfection, a finding of the true self and a union with the Divine
\n\t\t\tby putting on the divine consciousness and nature.\u00b9<\/font> All the rest is
\n\t\t\tconstituent detail and attendant circumstance. Ego-centric impulses,
\n\t\t\tambition, desire of power and greatness, motives of self-assertion
\n\t\t\tare foreign to this greater consciousness and would be an
\n\t\t\tinsuperable bar against any possibility of even a distant approach
\n\t\t\ttowards the supramental change. One must lose one’s little lower
\n\t\t\tself to find the greater self. Union with the Divine must be the
\n\t\t\tmaster motive; even the discovery of the truth of one’s own being
\n\t\t\tand of all being, life in that truth and its greater consciousness,
\n\t\t\tperfection of the nature are only the natural results of that
\n\t\t\tmovement. Indispensable conditions of its entire consummation, they
\n\t\t\tare part of the central aim only because they are a necessary
\n\t\t\tdevelopment and a major consequence. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt must also be kept in mind that the supramental change is
\n\t\t\tdifficult, distant, an ultimate stage; it must be regarded as the
\n\t\t\tend of a far-off vista; it cannot be and must not be turned into a
\n\t\t\tfirst aim, a constantly envisaged goal or an immediate objective.
\n\t\t\tFor it can only come into the view of possibility after much arduous
\n\t\t\tself-conquest and self-exceeding, at the end of many long and trying
\n\t\t\tstages of a difficult self-evolution of the nature. One must first
\n\t\t\tacquire an inner Yogic consciousness and replace by it our ordinary
\n\t\t\tview of things, natural movements, motives of life; one must
\n\t\t\trevolutionise the whole present build of our being. Next, we have to
\n\t\t\tgo still deeper, discover our veiled psychic entity and <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\u00b9<\/font>
\nsā<\/font>dharmya mukti<\/i>.   <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 <\/font>281<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tin its light and under its government psychicise
\n\t\t\tour inner and outer parts, turn mind-nature, life-nature,
\n\t\t\tbody-nature and all our mental, vital, physical action and states
\n\t\t\tand movements into a conscious instrumentation of the soul.
\n\t\t\tAfterwards or concurrently we have to spiritualise the being in its
\n\t\t\tentirety by a descent of a divine Light, Force, Purity, Knowledge,
\n\t\t\tfreedom and wideness. It is necessary to break down the limits of
\n\t\t\tthe personal mind, life and physicality, dissolve the ego, enter
\n\t\t\tinto the cosmic consciousness, realise the self, acquire a
\n\t\t\tspiritualised and universalised mind and heart, life-force, physical
\n\t\t\tconsciousness. Then only the passage into supramental consciousness
\n\t\t\tbegins to become possible, and even then there is a difficult ascent
\n\t\t\tto make each stage of which is a separate arduous achievement. Yoga
\n\t\t\tis a rapid and concentrated conscious evolution of the being, but
\n\t\t\thowever rapid, even though it may effect in a single life what in an
\n\t\t\tunassisted Nature might take centuries and millenniums or many
\n\t\t\thundreds of lives, still all evolution must move by stages; even the
\n\t\t\tgreatest rapidity and concentration of the movement cannot swallow
\n\t\t\tup all the stages or reverse natural process and bring the end near
\n\t\t\tto the beginning. A hasty and ignorant mind, a too eager force
\n\t\t\teasily forget this necessity; they rush forward to make the
\n\t\t\tsupermind an immediate aim and expect to pull it down with a
\n\t\t\tpitchfork from its highest heights in the Infinite. This is not only
\n\t\t\tan absurd expectation but full of danger. For the vital desire may
\n\t\t\tvery well bring in an action of dark or vehement vital powers which
\n\t\t\thold out before it a promise of immediate fulfilment of its
\n\t\t\timpossible longing; the consequence is likely to be a plunge into
\n\t\t\tmany kinds of self-deception, a yielding to the falsehoods and
\n\t\t\ttemptations of the forces of darkness, a hunt for supernormal
\n\t\t\tpowers, a turning away from the Divine to the Asuric nature, a fatal
\n\t\t\tself-inflation into an unnatural unhuman and undivine bigness of
\n\t\t\tmagnified ego. If the being is small, the nature weak and incapable,
\n\t\t\tthere is not this large-scale disaster; but a loss of balance, a
\n\t\t\tmental unhinging and fall into unreason or a vital unhinging and
\n\t\t\tconsequent moral aberration or a deviation into some kind of morbid
\n\t\t\tabnormality of the nature may be the untoward consequence. This is
\n\t\t\tnot a Yoga in which  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 <\/font>282<\/font>  \n\t<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tabnormality of any kind, even if it be an exalted abnormality, can be
\n\t\t\tadmitted as a way to self-fulfilment or spiritual realisation. Even
\n\t\t\twhen one enters into supernormal and suprarational experience, there
\n\t\t\tshould be no disturbance of the poise which must be kept firm from
\n\t\t\tthe summit of the consciousness to its base; the experiencing
\n\t\t\tconsciousness must preserve a calm balance, an unfailing clarity and
\n\t\t\torder in its observation, a sort of sublimated commonsense, an
\n\t\t\tunfailing power of self-criticism, right discrimination,
\n\t\t\tcoordination and firm vision of things; a sane grasp on facts and a
\n\t\t\thigh spiritualised positivism must always be there. It is not by
\n\t\t\tbecoming irrational or infrarational that one can go beyond ordinary
\n\t\t\tnature into supernature; it should be done by passing through reason
\n\t\t\tto a greater light of superreason. This superreason descends into
\n\t\t\treason and takes it up into higher levels even while breaking its
\n\t\t\tlimitations; reason is not lost but changes and becomes its own true
\n\t\t\tunlimited self, a coordinating power of the supernature. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnother error that has to be guarded against is also one to which
\n\t\t\tour mentality is easily prone; it is to take some higher
\n\t\t\tintermediate consciousness or even any kind of supernormal
\n\t\t\tconsciousness for the supermind. To reach supermind it is not enough
\n\t\t\tto go above the ordinary movements of the human mind; it is not
\n\t\t\tenough to receive a greater light, a greater power, a greater joy or
\n\t\t\tto develop capacities of knowledge, sight, effective will that
\n\t\t\tsurpass the normal range of the human being. All light is not the
\n\t\t\tlight of the spirit, still less is all light the light of the
\n\t\t\tsupermind; the mind, the vital, the physical itself have lights of
\n\t\t\ttheir own, as yet hidden, which can be very inspiring, exalting,
\n\t\t\tinformative, powerfully executive. A breaking out into the cosmic
\n\t\t\tconsciousness may also bring in an immense enlargement of the
\n\t\t\tconsciousness and power. An opening into the inner mind, inner
\n\t\t\tvital, inner physical, any range of the subliminal consciousness,
\n\t\t\tcan liberate an activity of abnormal or supernormal powers of
\n\t\t\tknowledge, action or experience which the uninstructed mind can
\n\t\t\teasily mistake for spiritual revelations, inspirations, intuitions.
\n\t\t\tAn opening upward into the greater ranges of the higher mental being
\n\t\t\tcan bring down much light and force creating <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 <\/font>283<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tan intense activity of the intuitivised mind and
\n\t\t\tlife-power or an ascent into these ranges can bring a true but still
\n\t\t\tincomplete light easily exposed to mixture, a light which is
\n\t\t\tspiritual in its source though it does not always remain spiritual
\n\t\t\tin its active character when it comes down into the lower nature.
\n\t\t\tBut none of these things is the supramental light, the supramental
\n\t\t\tpower; that can only be seen and grasped when we have reached the
\n\t\t\tsummits of mental being, entered into overmind and stand on the
\n\t\t\tborders of an upper, a greater hemisphere of spiritual existence.
\n\t\t\tThere the ignorance, the inconscience, the original blank Nescience
\n\t\t\tslowly awaking towards a half-knowledge, which are the basis of
\n\t\t\tmaterial Nature and which surround, penetrate and powerfully limit
\n\t\t\tall our powers of mind and life, cease altogether; for an unmixed
\n\t\t\tand unmodified Truth-consciousness is there the substance of all the
\n\t\t\tbeing, its pure spiritual texture. To imagine that we have reached
\n\t\t\tsuch a condition when we are still moving in the dynamics of the
\n\t\t\tIgnorance, though it may be an enlightened or illumined Ignorance,
\n\t\t\tis to lay ourselves open either to a disastrous misleading or to an
\n\t\t\tarrest of the evolution of the being. For if it is some inferior
\n\t\t\tstate that we thus mistake for the supermind, it lays us open to all
\n\t\t\tthe dangers we have seen to attend a presumptuous egoistic haste in
\n\t\t\tour demand for achievement. If it is one of the higher states that
\n\t\t\twe presume to be the highest, we may, though we achieve much, yet
\n\t\t\tfall short of the greater, more perfect goal of our being; for we
\n\t\t\tshall remain content with an approximation and the supreme
\n\t\t\ttransformation will escape us. Even the achievement of a complete
\n\t\t\tinner liberation and a high spiritual consciousness is not that
\n\t\t\tsupreme transformation; for we may have that achievement, a status
\n\t\t\tperfect in itself, in essence, and still our dynamic parts may in
\n\t\t\ttheir instrumentation belong to an enlightened spiritualised mind
\n\t\t\tand may be in consequence, like all mind, defective even in its
\n\t\t\tgreater power and knowledge, still subject to a partial or local
\n\t\t\tobscuration or a limitation by the original circumscribing nescience. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 <\/font>284<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Appendix to Part I   The following chapter was left unfinished. It was not included in the edition of The Synthesis of Yoga, Part I,…<\/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-2182","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\/2182","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=2182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}