{"id":2202,"date":"2013-07-13T01:40:05","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2202"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:40:05","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:40:05","slug":"40-chapter-xxii-vijnana-or-gnosis-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\/40-chapter-xxii-vijnana-or-gnosis-vol-23-24-the-synthesis-of-yoga","title":{"rendered":"-40_Chapter XXII Vijnana or Gnosis.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n\t<\/p>\n

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

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tVijnana or Gnosis <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tI<\/font>N OUR<\/b> perfect self-transcendence we
\n\t\t\tpass out and up from the ignorance or half-enlightenment of our
\n\t\t\tmental conscious-being into a greater wisdom-self and truth-power
\n\t\t\tabove it, there to dwell in the unwalled light of a divine
\n\t\t\tknowledge. The mental man that we are is changed into the gnostic
\n\t\t\tsoul, the  truth-conscious godhead, the vijnā<\/font>namaya <\/i>Purusha. Seated on
\n\t\t\tthat level of the hill of our ascension we are in a quite different
\n\t\t\tplane from this material, this vital, this mental poise of the
\n\t\t\tuniversal spirit, and with this change changes too all our view and
\n\t\t\texperience of our soul-life and of the world around us. We are born
\n\t\t\tinto a new soul-status and put on a new nature; for according to the
\n\t\t\tstatus of the soul is the status of the Prakriti. At each transition
\n\t\t\tof the world-ascent, from matter to life, from life to mind, from
\n\t\t\tmind bound to free intelligence, as the latent, half-manifested or
\n\t\t\talready manifest soul rises to a higher and higher level of being,
\n\t\t\tthe nature also is elevated into a superior working, a wider
\n\t\t\tconsciousness, a vaster force and an intenser or larger range and
\n\t\t\tjoy of existence. But the transition from the mind-self to the
\n\t\t\tknowledge-self is the great and the decisive transition in the Yoga.
\n\t\t\tIt is the shaking off of the last hold on us of the cosmic ignorance
\n\t\t\tand our firm foundation in the Truth of things, in a consciousness
\n\t\t\tinfinite and eternal and inviolable by obscurity, falsehood,
\n\t\t\tsuffering or error. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis is the first summit which enters into the divine perfection,
\n\t\t\tsā<\/font>dharmya<\/i>, sā<\/font>drś<\/font>ya<\/i>;
\n\t\t\tfor all the rest only look up to it or catch some rays of its
\n\t\t\tsignificance. The highest heights of mind or of overmind come still
\n\t\t\twithin the belt of a mitigated ignorance; they can refract a divine
\n\t\t\tLight but not pass it on in undiminished power to our lower members.
\n\t\t\tFor so long as we are within the triple stratum of mind, life and
\n\t\t\tbody, our active nature continues to work in the force of the
\n\t\t\tignorance even when the soul in Mind  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>475<\/font>  \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tpossesses something of the knowledge. And even if the soul
\n\t\t\twere to reflect or to represent all the largeness of the knowledge
\n\t\t\tin its mental consciousness, it would be unable to mobilise it
\n\t\t\trightly in force of action. The truth in its action might greatly
\n\t\t\tincrease, but it would still be pursued by a limitation, still
\n\t\t\tcondemned to a divisibility which would prevent it from working
\n\t\t\tintegrally in the power of the infinite. The power of a divinely
\n\t\t\tillumined mind may be immense compared with ordinary powers, but it
\n\t\t\twill still be subject to incapacity and there can be no perfect
\n\t\t\tcorrespondence between the force of the effective will and the light
\n\t\t\tof the idea which inspires it. The infinite Presence may be there in
\n\t\t\tstatus, but the dynamis of the operations of nature still belongs to
\n\t\t\tthe lower Prakriti, must follow its triple modes of working and
\n\t\t\tcannot give any adequate form to the greatness within it. This is
\n\t\t\tthe tragedy of in-effectivity, of the hiatus between ideal and
\n\t\t\teffective will, of our constant incapacity to work out in living
\n\t\t\tform and action the truth we feel in our inner consciousness that
\n\t\t\tpursues all the aspiration of mind and life
\n\t\t\ttowards the divinity behind them. But the vijnā<\/font>na <\/i>or gnosis
\n\t\t\tis not only truth but truth power, it is the very working of the
\n\t\t\tinfinite and divine nature; it is the divine knowledge one with the
\n\t\t\tdivine will in the force and delight of a spontaneous and luminous
\n\t\t\tand inevitable self-fulfilment. By the gnosis, then, we change our
\n\t\t\thuman into a divine nature. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhat then is this gnosis and how can we describe it? Two opposite
\n\t\t\terrors have to be avoided, two misconceptions that disfigure
\n\t\t\topposite sides of the truth of gnosis. One error of 
\n\t\t\tintellect-bounded thinkers takes vijnā<\/font>na <\/i>as synonymous with
\n\t\t\tthe other Indian term
\nbuddhi <\/i>and buddhi <\/i>as synonymous with the reason, the discerning
\n\t\t\tintellect, the logical intelligence. The systems that accept this
\n\t\t\tsignificance, pass at once from a plane of pure intellect to a plane
\n\t\t\tof pure spirit. No intermediate power is recognised, no diviner
\n\t\t\taction of knowledge than the pure reason is admitted; the limited
\n\t\t\thuman means for fixing truth is taken for the highest possible
\n\t\t\tdynamics of consciousness, its topmost force and original movement.
\n\t\t\tAn opposite error, a misconception of the mystics identifies
\n\t\t\tvijnā<\/font>na <\/i>with the consciousness of  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>476<\/font>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tthe Infinite free from all ideation or else ideation packed
\n\t\t\tinto one essence of thought, lost to other dynamic action in the
\n\t\t\tsingle and invariable idea of the One. This is the
\ncaitanyaghana <\/i>of the Upanishad and is one movement or rather one thread
\n\t\t\tof the many-aspected movement of the gnosis. The gnosis, the Vijnana,
\n\t\t\tis not only this concentrated consciousness of the infinite Essence;
\n\t\t\tit is also and at the same time an infinite knowledge of the myriad
\n\t\t\tplay of the Infinite. It contains all ideation (not mental but
\n\t\t\tsupramental), but it is not limited by ideation, for it far exceeds
\n\t\t\tall ideative movement. Nor is the gnostic ideation in its character
\n\t\t\tan intellectual thinking; it is not what we call the reason, not a
\n\t\t\tconcentrated intelligence. For the reason is mental in its methods,
\n\t\t\tmental in its acquisitions, mental in its basis, but the ideative
\n\t\t\tmethod of the gnosis is self-luminous, supramental, its yield of
\n\t\t\tthought-light spontaneous, not proceeding by acquisition, its
\n\t\t\tthought-basis a rendering of conscious identities, not a translation
\n\t\t\tof the impressions born of indirect contacts. There is a relation
\n\t\t\tand even a sort of broken identity between the two forms of thought;
\n\t\t\tfor one proceeds covertly from the other, mind is born from that
\n\t\t\twhich is beyond mind. But they act on different planes and reverse
\n\t\t\teach other’s process. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEven the purest reason, the most luminous rational intellectuality
\n\t\t\tis not the gnosis. Reason or intellect is only the lower
\nbuddhi<\/i>; it is dependent for its action on the percepts of the sense-mind
\n\t\t\tand on the concepts of the mental intelligence. It is not like the
\n\t\t\tgnosis, self-luminous, authentic, making the subject one with the
\n\t\t\tobject. There is, indeed, a higher form of the
\nbuddhi <\/i>that can be called the intuitive mind or intuitive reason, and
\n\t\t\tthis by its intuitions, its inspirations, its swift revelatory
\n\t\t\tvision, its luminous insight and discrimination can do the work of
\n\t\t\tthe reason with a higher power, a swifter action, a greater and
\n\t\t\tspontaneous certitude. It acts in a self-light of the truth which
\n\t\t\tdoes not depend upon the torch-flares of the sense-mind and its
\n\t\t\tlimited uncertain percepts; it proceeds not by intelligent but by
\n\t\t\tvisional concepts: it is a kind of truth-vision, truth-hearing,
\n\t\t\ttruth-memory, direct truth-discernment. This true and authentic
\n\t\t\tintuition must be distinguished from a power of the ordinary <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>477<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tmental reason which is too easily confused
\n\t\t\twith it, the power of involved reasoning that reaches its conclusion
\n\t\t\tby a bound and does not need the ordinary steps of the logical mind.
\n\t\t\tThe logical reason proceeds pace after pace and tries the sureness
\n\t\t\tof each step like a man who is walking over unsafe ground and has to
\n\t\t\ttest by the hesitating touch of his foot each span of soil that he
\n\t\t\tperceives with his eye. But this other supralogical process of the
\n\t\t\treason is a motion of rapid insight or swift discernment; it
\n\t\t\tproceeds by a stride or leap, like a man who springs from one sure
\n\t\t\tspot to another point of sure footing, \u2014 or at least held by him to
\n\t\t\tbe sure. He sees the space he covers in one compact and flashing
\n\t\t\tview, but he does not distinguish or measure either by eye or touch
\n\t\t\tits successions, features and circumstances. This movement has
\n\t\t\tsomething of the sense of power of the intuition, something of its
\n\t\t\tvelocity, some appearance of its light and certainty, and we always
\n\t\t\tare apt to take it for the intuition. But our assumption is an error
\n\t\t\tand, if we trust to it, may lead us into grievous blunders. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt is even thought by the intellectualists that the intuition itself
\n\t\t\tis nothing more than this rapid process in which the whole action of
\n\t\t\tthe logical mind is swiftly done or perhaps half-consciously or
\n\t\t\tsubconsciously done, not deliberately worked out in its reasoned
\n\t\t\tmethod. In its nature, however, this proceeding is quite different
\n\t\t\tfrom the intuition and it is not necessarily a truth-movement. The
\n\t\t\tpower of its leap may end in a stumble, its swiftness may betray,
\n\t\t\tits certainty is too often a confident error. The validity of its
\n\t\t\tconclusions must always depend on a subsequent verification or
\n\t\t\tsupport from the evidence of the sense-perceptions or a rational
\n\t\t\tlinking of intelligent conceptions must intervene to explain to it
\n\t\t\tits own certitudes. This lower light may indeed receive very readily
\n\t\t\ta mixture of actual intuition into it and then a pseudo-intuitive or
\n\t\t\thalf-intuitive mind is created, very misleading by its frequent
\n\t\t\tluminous successes palliating a whirl of intensely self-assured
\n\t\t\tfalse certitudes. The true intuition on the contrary carries in
\n\t\t\titself its own guarantee of truth; it is sure and infallible within
\n\t\t\tits limits. And so long as it is pure intuition and does not admit
\n\t\t\tinto itself any mixture of sense-error or <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>478<\/font>  \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tintellectual ideation, it is never contradicted by experience: the
\n\t\t\tintuition may be verified by the reason or the sense-perception
\n\t\t\tafterwards, but its truth does not depend on that verification, it
\n\t\t\tis assured by an automatic self-evidence. If the reason depending on
\n\t\t\tits inferences contradicts the greater light, it will be found in
\n\t\t\tthe end on ampler knowledge that the intuitional conclusion was
\n\t\t\tcorrect and that the more plausible rational and inferential
\n\t\t\tconclusion was an error. For the true intuition proceeds from the
\n\t\t\tself-existent truth of things and is secured by that self-existent
\n\t\t\ttruth and not by any indirect, derivatory or dependent method of
\n\t\t\tarriving at knowledge. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut even the intuitive reason is not the gnosis; it is only an edge
\n\t\t\tof light of the supermind finding its way by flashes of illumination
\n\t\t\tinto the mentality like lightnings in dim and cloudy places. Its
\n\t\t\tinspirations, revelations, intuitions, self-luminous discernings are
\n\t\t\tmessages from a higher knowledge-plane that make their way
\n\t\t\topportunely into our lower level of consciousness. The very
\n\t\t\tcharacter of the intuitive mind sets a gulf of great difference
\n\t\t\tbetween its action and the action of the self-contained gnosis. In
\n\t\t\tthe first place it acts by separate and limited illuminations and
\n\t\t\tits truth is restricted to the often narrow reach or the one brief
\n\t\t\tspot of knowledge lit up by that one lightning-flash with which its
\n\t\t\tintervention begins and terminates. We see the action of the
\n\t\t\tinstinct in animals, \u2014 an automatic intuition in that vital or
\n\t\t\tsense-mind which is the highest and surest instrument that the
\n\t\t\tanimal has to rely on, since it does not possess the human light of
\n\t\t\tthe reason, only a cruder and yet ill-formed intelligence. And we
\n\t\t\tcan observe at once that the marvellous truth of this instinct which
\n\t\t\tseems so much surer than the reason, is limited in the bird, beast
\n\t\t\tor insect to some particular and restricted utility it is admitted
\n\t\t\tto serve. When the vital mind of the animal tries to act beyond that
\n\t\t\trestricted limit, it blunders in a much blinder way than the reason
\n\t\t\tof man and has to learn with difficulty by a succession of
\n\t\t\tsense-experiences. The higher mental intuition of the human being is
\n\t\t\tan inner visional, not a sense intuition; for it illumines the
\n\t\t\tintelligence and not the sense-mind, it is self-conscious and
\n\t\t\tluminous, not a half-subconscious blind light: it <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>479<\/font>  \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tis freely self-acting, not mechanically
\n\t\t\tautomatic. But still, even when it is not marred by the imitative
\n\t\t\tpseudo-intuition, it is restricted in man like the instinct in the
\n\t\t\tanimal, restricted to a particular purpose of will or knowledge as
\n\t\t\tis the instinct to a particular life utility or Nature purpose. And
\n\t\t\twhen the intelligence, as is its almost invariable habit, tries to
\n\t\t\tmake use of it, to apply it, to add to it, it builds round the
\n\t\t\tintuitive nucleus in its own characteristic fashion a mass of mixed
\n\t\t\ttruth and error. More often than not, by foisting an element of
\n\t\t\tsense-error and conceptual error into the very substance of the
\n\t\t\tintuition or by coating it up in mental additions and deviations, it
\n\t\t\tnot merely deflects but deforms its truth and converts it into a
\n\t\t\tfalsehood. At the best therefore the intuition gives us only a
\n\t\t\tlimited, though an intense light; at the worst, through our misuse
\n\t\t\tof it or false imitations of it, it may lead us into perplexities
\n\t\t\tand confusions which the less ambitious intellectual reason avoids
\n\t\t\tby remaining satisfied with its own safe and plodding method, \u2014 safe
\n\t\t\tfor the inferior purposes of the reason, though never a satisfying
\n\t\t\tguide to the inner truth of things. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt is possible to cultivate and extend the use of the intuitive mind
\n\t\t\tin proportion as we rely less predominantly upon the reasoning
\n\t\t\tintelligence. We may train our mentality not to seize, as it does
\n\t\t\tnow, upon every separate flash of intuitive illumination for its own
\n\t\t\tinferior purposes, not to precipitate our thought at once into a
\n\t\t\tcrystallising intellectual action around it; we can train it to
\n\t\t\tthink in a stream of successive and connected intuitions, to pour
\n\t\t\tlight upon light in a brilliant and triumphant series. We shall
\n\t\t\tsucceed in this difficult change in proportion as we purify the
\n\t\t\tinterfering intelligence, \u2014 if we can reduce in it the element of
\n\t\t\tmaterial thought enslaved to the external appearances of things, the
\n\t\t\telement of vital thought enslaved to the wishes, desires, impulses
\n\t\t\tof the lower nature, the element of intellectual thought enslaved to
\n\t\t\tour preferred, already settled or congenial ideas, conceptions,
\n\t\t\topinions, fixed operations of intelligence, if, having reduced to a
\n\t\t\tminimum those elements, we can replace them by an intuitive vision
\n\t\t\tand sense of things, an intuitive insight into appearances, an
\n\t\t\tintuitive will, an intuitive ideation. This is hard   <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>480<\/font>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tenough for our consciousness naturally bound by the triple tie of
\n\t\t\tmentality, vitality, corporeality to its own imperfection and
\n\t\t\tignorance, the upper, middle and lower cord in the Vedic parable of
\n\t\t\tthe soul’s bondage, cords of the mixed truth and falsehood of
\n\t\t\tappearances by which Shunahshepa was bound to the post of sacrifice. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut even if this difficult thing were perfectly accomplished, still
\n\t\t\tthe intuition would not be the gnosis; it would only be its thin
\n\t\t\tprolongation into mind or its sharp edge of first entrance. The
\n\t\t\tdifference, not easy to define except by symbols, may be expressed
\n\t\t\tif we take the Vedic image in which the Sun represents the gnosis
\n\t\t\tand the sky, mid-air and earth the mentality, vitality, physicality
\n\t\t\tof man and of the universe. Living on the earth, climbing into the
\n\t\t\tmid-air or even winging in the sky, the mental being, the
\n\t\t\tmanomaya
\n<\/i>Purusha, would still live in the rays of the sun and not in its bodily
\n\t\t\tlight. And in those rays he would see things not as they are, but as
\n\t\t\treflected in his organ of vision, deformed by its faults or limited
\n\t\t\tin their truth by its restrictions.  But the vijnā<\/font>namaya <\/i>
\n\t\t\tPurusha lives in the Sun itself, in the very body and blaze of the
\n\t\t\ttrue light;\u00b9<\/font> he knows this light to be his own self-luminous being
\n\t\t\tand he sees besides all that dwells in the rays of the sun, sees the
\n\t\t\twhole truth of the lower triplicity and each thing that is in it. He
\n\t\t\tsees it not by reflection in a mental organ of vision, but with the
\n\t\t\tSun of gnosis itself as his eye, \u2014 for the Sun, says the Veda, is
\n\t\t\tthe eye of the gods. The mental being, even in the intuitive mind,
\n\t\t\tcan perceive the truth only by a brilliant reflection or limited
\n\t\t\tcommunication and subject to the restrictions and the inferior
\n\t\t\tcapacity of the mental vision; but the supramental being sees it by
\n\t\t\tthe gnosis itself, from the very centre and outwelling fount of the
\n\t\t\ttruth, in its very form and by its own spontaneous and
\n\t\t\tself-illumining process. For the Vijnana is a direct and divine as
\n\t\t\topposed to an indirect and human knowledge. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe nature of the gnosis can only be indicated to the intellect by
\n\t\t\tcontrasting it with the nature of the intellect, and even then <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\u00b9<\/font> So the Sun is called in the Veda, r<\/font>tam jyotih<\/font><\/i>.
\n.<\/i>  <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>481<\/font>  <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tthe phrases we must use cannot illuminate
\n\t\t\tunless aided by some amount of actual experience. For what language
\n\t\t\tforged by the reason can express the suprarational? Fundamentally,
\n\t\t\tthis is the difference between these two powers that the mental
\n\t\t\treason proceeds with labour from ignorance to truth, but the gnosis
\n\t\t\thas in itself the direct contact, the immediate vision, the easy and
\n\t\t\tconstant possession of the truth and has no need of seeking or any
\n\t\t\tkind of procedure. The reason starts with appearances and labours,
\n\t\t\tnever or seldom losing at least a partial dependence on appearances,
\n\t\t\tto arrive at the truth behind them; it shows the truth in the light
\n\t\t\tof the appearances. The gnosis starts from the truth and shows the
\n\t\t\tappearances in the light of the truth; it is itself the body of the
\n\t\t\ttruth and its spirit. The reason proceeds by inference, it
\n\t\t\tconcludes; but the gnosis proceeds by identity or vision, \u2014 it is,
\n\t\t\tsees and knows. As directly as the physical vision sees and grasps
\n\t\t\tthe appearance of objects, so and far more directly the gnosis sees
\n\t\t\tand grasps the truth of things. But where the physical sense gets
\n\t\t\tinto relation with objects by a veiled contact, the gnosis gets into
\n\t\t\tidentity with things by an unveiled oneness. Thus it is able to know
\n\t\t\tall things as a man knows his own existence, simply, convincingly,
\n\t\t\tdirectly. To the reason only what the senses give is direct
\n\t\t\tknowledge, pratyaks<\/font>a<\/i>, the rest of .<\/i>
\n\t\t\ttruth is arrived at indirectly; to the gnosis all its truth is
\n\t\t\tdirect knowledge,
\npratyaks<\/font>a<\/i>. Therefore the truth gained by the intellect
\n.<\/i> is an acquisition over which there hangs always a certain shadow of
\n\t\t\tdoubt, an incompleteness, a surrounding penumbra of night and
\n\t\t\tignorance or half-knowledge, a possibility of alteration or
\n\t\t\tannullation by farther knowledge. The truth of the gnosis is free
\n\t\t\tfrom doubt, self-evident, self-existent, irrefragable, absolute. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe reason has as its first instrument observation general,
\n\t\t\tanalytical and synthetic; it aids itself by comparison, contrast and
\n\t\t\tanalogy, \u2014 proceeds from experience to indirect knowledge by logical
\n\t\t\tprocesses of deduction, induction, all kinds of inference, \u2014 rests
\n\t\t\tupon memory, reaches out beyond itself by imagination, secures
\n\t\t\titself by judgment: all is a process of groping and seeking. The
\n\t\t\tgnosis does not seek, it possesses. Or if it has to enlighten, it
\n\t\t\tdoes not even then seek; it reveals, it illumines. In <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>482<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\ta consciousness transmuted from intelligence to gnosis, imagination
\n\t\t\twould be replaced by truth-inspiration, mental judgment would give
\n\t\t\tplace to a self-luminous discerning. The slow and stumbling logical
\n\t\t\tprocess from reasoning to conclusion would be pushed out by a swift
\n\t\t\tintuitive proceeding; the conclusion or fact would be seen at once
\n\t\t\tin its own right, by its own self-sufficient witness, and all the
\n\t\t\tevidence by which we arrive at it would be seen too at once, along
\n\t\t\twith it, in the same comprehensive figure, not as its evidence, but
\n\t\t\tas its intimate conditions, connections and relations, its
\n\t\t\tconstituent parts or its wings of circumstance. Mental and sense
\n\t\t\tobservation would be changed into an inner vision using the
\n\t\t\tinstruments as channels, but not dependent on them as the mind in us
\n\t\t\tis blind and deaf without the physical senses, and this vision would
\n\t\t\tsee not merely the thing, but all its truth, its forces, powers, the
\n\t\t\teternities within it. Our uncertain memory would fall away and there
\n\t\t\twould come in its place a luminous possession of knowledge, the
\n\t\t\tdivine memory that is not a store of acquisition, but holds all
\n\t\t\tthings always contained in the consciousness, a memory at once of
\n\t\t\tpast, present and future. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor while the reason proceeds from moment to moment of time and
\n\t\t\tloses and acquires and again loses and again acquires, the gnosis
\n\t\t\tdominates time in a one view and perpetual power and links past,
\n\t\t\tpresent and future in their indivisible connections, in a single
\n\t\t\tcontinuous map of knowledge, side by side. The gnosis starts from
\n\t\t\tthe totality which it immediately possesses; it sees parts, groups
\n\t\t\tand details only in relation to the totality and in one vision with
\n\t\t\tit: the mental reason cannot really see the totality at all and does
\n\t\t\tnot know fully any whole except by starting from an analysis and
\n\t\t\tsynthesis of its parts, masses and details; otherwise its whole-view
\n\t\t\tis always a vague apprehension or an imperfect comprehension or a
\n\t\t\tconfused summary of indistinct features. The reason deals with
\n\t\t\tconstituents and processes and properties; it tries in vain to form
\n\t\t\tby them an idea of the thing in itself, its reality, its essence.
\n\t\t\tBut the gnosis sees the thing in itself first, penetrates to its
\n\t\t\toriginal and eternal nature, adjoins its processes and properties
\n\t\t\tonly as a self-expression of its nature. The reason dwells in the
\n\t\t\tdiversity and is its prisoner: it deals <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\twith things separately and treats each as
\n\t\t\ta separate existence, as it deals with sections of Time and
\n\t\t\tdivisions of Space; it sees unity only in a sum or by elimination of
\n\t\t\tdiversity or as a general conception and a vacant figure. But the
\n\t\t\tgnosis dwells in the unity and knows by it all the nature of the
\n\t\t\tdiversities; it starts from the unity and sees diversities only of a
\n\t\t\tunity, not diversities constituting the one, but a unity
\n\t\t\tconstituting its own multitudes. The gnostic knowledge, the gnostic
\n\t\t\tsense does not recognise any real division; it does not treat things
\n\t\t\tseparately as if they were independent of their true and original
\n\t\t\toneness. The reason deals with the finite and is helpless before the
\n\t\t\tinfinite: it can conceive of it as an indefinite extension in which
\n\t\t\tthe finite acts, but the infinite in itself it can with difficulty
\n\t\t\tconceive and cannot at all grasp or penetrate. But the gnosis is,
\n\t\t\tsees and lives in the infinite; it starts always from the infinite
\n\t\t\tand knows finite things only in their relation to the infinite and
\n\t\t\tin the sense of the infinite. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIf we would describe the gnosis as it is in its own awareness, not
\n\t\t\tthus imperfectly as it is to us in contrast with our own reason and
\n\t\t\tintelligence, it is hardly possible to speak of it except in figures
\n\t\t\tand symbols. And first we must remember that the gnostic level,
\n\t\t\tMahat, Vijnana, is not the supreme plane of our consciousness, but a
\n\t\t\tmiddle or link plane. Interposed between the triune glory of the
\n\t\t\tutter Spirit, the infinite existence, consciousness and bliss of the
\n\t\t\tEternal and our lower triple being and nature, it is as if it stood
\n\t\t\tthere as the mediating, formulated, organising and creative wisdom,
\n\t\t\tpower and joy of the Eternal. In the gnosis Sachchidananda gathers
\n\t\t\tup the light of his unseizable existence and pours it out on the
\n\t\t\tsoul in the shape and power of a divine knowledge, a divine will and
\n\t\t\ta divine bliss of existence. It is as if infinite light were
\n\t\t\tgathered up into the compact orb of the sun and lavished on all that
\n\t\t\tdepends upon the sun in radiances that continue for ever. But the
\n\t\t\tgnosis is not only light, it is force; it is creative knowledge, it
\n\t\t\tis the self-effective truth of the divine Idea. This idea is not
\n\t\t\tcreative imagination, not something that constructs in a void, but
\n\t\t\tlight and power of eternal substance, truth-light full of
\n\t\t\ttruth-force; and it brings out what is latent in being, it does not
\n\t\t\tcreate a fiction that never <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n \t\t\twas in being. The ideation of the gnosis is radiating light-stuff
\nof the consciousness of the eternal Existence; each ray is a truth. The will in the gnosis is a conscious force of eternal knowledge;
\nit throws the consciousness and substance of being into infallible forms of truth-power, forms that embody the idea and make it
\nfaultlessly effective, and it works out each truth-power and each truth-form spontaneously and rightly according to its nature.
\nBecause it carries this creative force of the divine Idea, the Sun, the lord and symbol of the gnosis, is described in the Veda as the
\nLight which is the father of all things, Surya Savitri, the Wisdom-Luminous who is the bringer-out into manifest existence. This
\ncreation is inspired by the divine delight, the eternal Ananda; it is full of the joy of its own truth and power, it creates in
\nbliss, creates out of bliss, creates that which is blissful. Therefore the world of the gnosis, the supramental world is the true
\nand the happy creation, r<\/font>tam<\/i>, bhadram<\/i>, since all in it shares in
\n.<\/i>
\nthe perfect joy that made it. A divine radiance of undeviating knowledge, a divine power of unfaltering will and a divine ease
\nof unstumbling bliss are the nature or Prakriti of the soul in ~\u00af<\/i>
\nsupermind, in vijnā<\/font>na<\/i>. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe stuff of the gnostic or supramental plane is made of the
\nperfect absolutes of all that is here imperfect and relative and its movement of the reconciled interlockings and happy fusions of
\nall that here are opposites. For behind the appearance of these opposites are their truths and the truths of the Eternal are not
\nin conflict with each other; our mind’s and life’s opposites transformed in the supermind into their own true spirit link together
\nand are seen as tones and colourings of an eternal Reality and everlasting Ananda. Supermind or Gnosis is the supreme Truth,
\nthe supreme Thought, the supreme Word, the supreme Sight, the supreme Will-Idea; it is the inner and outer extension of the
\nInfinite who is beyond Space, the unfettered Time of the Eternal who is timeless, the supernal harmony of all absolutes of the
\nAbsolute. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTo the envisaging mind there are three powers of the Vijnana. Its supreme power knows and receives into it from above all the infinite existence, consciousness and bliss of the Ishwara;
\n  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\tit is in its highest height the absolute knowledge and force of
\neternal Sachchidananda. Its second power concentrates the Infinite into a dense luminous consciousness,
\ncaitanyaghana <\/i>or
\ncidghana<\/i>, the seed-state of the divine consciousness in which are contained living and concrete all the immutable principles
\nof the divine being and all the inviolable truths of the divine conscious-idea and nature. Its third power brings or looses out
\nthese things by the effective ideation, vision, authentic identities of the divine knowledge, movement of the divine will-force, vibration of the divine delight intensities into a universal harmony, an illimitable diversity, a manifold rhythm of their
\npowers, forms and interplay of living consequences. The mental
\nPurusha rising into the vijnā<\/font>namaya <\/i>must ascend into these three powers. It must turn by conversion of its movements into the
\nmovements of the gnosis its mental perception, ideation, will, pleasure into radiances of the divine knowledge, pulsations of
\nthe divine will-force, waves and floods of the divine delight-seas. It must convert its conscious stuff of mental nature into the
\ncidghana <\/i>or dense self-luminous consciousness. It must transform its conscious substance into a gnostic self or Truth-self of
\ninfinite Sachchidananda. These three movements are described 
\nin the Isha Upanishad, the first as vyū<\/font>ha<\/i>, the marshalling of the rays of the Sun of gnosis in the order of the Truth-consciousness,
\n\t\t\tthe second as samū<\/font>ha<\/i>, the gathering together of the rays into the
\nbody of the Sun of gnosis, the third as the vision of that Sun’s fairest form of all in which the soul most intimately possesses
\nits oneness with the infinite Purusha.\u00b2<\/font> The Supreme above, in him, around, everywhere and the soul dwelling in the Supreme
\nand one with it, \u2014 the infinite power and truth of the Divine concentrated in
\nhis own concentrated luminous soul nature, \u2014 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t  \u00b2<\/font> Sū<\/font>rya raśmī<\/font>in vyū<\/font>ha samū<\/font>ha tejo yat te kalyā<\/font>n<\/font>atamam rū<\/font>pam tat te paś<\/font>yā<\/font>mi yo<\/font><\/i>  ‘sā<\/font>v asau purus<\/font>ah<\/font> so ‘ham asmi. <\/i>The Veda describes the vijnā<\/font>na
\n<\/i>plane as r<\/font>tam satyam<\/i>
\n. .<\/i> br<\/font>hat<\/i>, the Right, Truth, Vast, the same triple idea differently expressed.
\nR<\/font>tam <\/i>is the
\n.<\/i> .<\/i>
\naction of the divine knowledge, will and joy in the lines of the truth, the play of the truth-consciousness.
\nSatyam <\/i>is the truth of being which so acts, the dynamic essence of
\nthe truth-consciousness. Br<\/font>hat <\/i>is the infinity of Sachchidananda out of which the other 
\ntwo proceed and in which they are founded.
\n\t\t\t<\/font> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\t 
\n   a radiant activity of the divine knowledge, will and joy perfect
\nin the natural action of the Prakriti, \u2014 this is the fundamental experience of the mental being transformed and fulfilled and
\nsublimated in the perfection of the gnosis.   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Chapter XXII   Vijnana or Gnosis   IN OUR perfect self-transcendence we pass out and up from the ignorance or half-enlightenment of our mental conscious-being…<\/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-2202","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\/2202","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=2202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2202\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}