{"id":2211,"date":"2013-07-13T01:40:08","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2211"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:40:08","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:40:08","slug":"16-chapter-xi-the-master-of-the-work-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\/16-chapter-xi-the-master-of-the-work-vol-23-24-the-synthesis-of-yoga","title":{"rendered":"-16_Chapter XI The Master of the Work.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

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

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

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Master of the Work <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tT<\/font>HE MASTER<\/b> and Mover of our works
\n\t\t\tis the One, the Universal and Supreme, the Eternal and Infinite. He
\n\t\t\tis the transcendent unknown or unknowable Absolute, the unexpressed
\n\t\t\tand unmanifested Ineffable above us; but he is also the Self of all
\n\t\t\tbeings, the Master of all worlds, transcending all worlds, the Light
\n\t\t\tand the Guide, the All-Beautiful and AllBlissful, the Beloved and
\n\t\t\tthe Lover. He is the Cosmic Spirit and all-creating Energy around
\n\t\t\tus; he is the Immanent within us. All that is is he, and he is the
\n\t\t\tMore than all that is, and we ourselves, though we know it not, are
\n\t\t\tbeing of his being, force of his force, conscious with a
\n\t\t\tconsciousness derived from his; even our mortal existence is made
\n\t\t\tout of his substance and there is an immortal within us that is a
\n\t\t\tspark of the Light and Bliss that are for ever. No matter whether by
\n\t\t\tknowledge, works, love or any other means, to become aware of this
\n\t\t\ttruth of our being, to realise it, to make it effective here or
\n\t\t\telsewhere is the object of all Yoga. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t* *<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut the passage is long and the labour arduous before we can look on
\n\t\t\thim with eyes that see true, and still longer and more arduous must
\n\t\t\tbe our endeavour if we would rebuild ourselves in his true image.
\n\t\t\tThe Master of the work does not reveal himself at once to the
\n\t\t\tseeker. Always it is his Power that acts behind the veil, but it is
\n\t\t\tmanifest only when we renounce the egoism of the worker, and its
\n\t\t\tdirect movement increases in proportion as that renunciation becomes
\n\t\t\tmore and more complete. Only when our surrender to his Divine Shakti
\n\t\t\tis absolute, shall we have the right to live in his absolute
\n\t\t\tpresence. And only then can we see our work throw itself naturally,
\n\t\t\tcompletely and simply into the mould of the Divine Will.  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\t There must, therefore, be stages and gradations in our approach to
\n\t\t\tthis perfection, as there are in the progress towards all other
\n\t\t\tperfection on any plane of Nature. The vision of the full glory may
\n\t\t\tcome to us before, suddenly or slowly, once or often, but until the
\n\t\t\tfoundation is complete, it is a summary and concentrated, not a
\n\t\t\tdurable and all-enveloping experience, not a lasting presence. The
\n\t\t\tamplitudes, the infinite contents of the Divine Revelation come
\n\t\t\tafterwards and unroll gradually their power and their significance.
\n\t\t\tOr, even, the steady vision can be there on the summits of our
\n\t\t\tnature, but the perfect response of the lower members comes only by
\n\t\t\tdegrees. In all Yoga the first requisites are faith and patience.
\n\t\t\tThe ardours of the heart and the violences of the eager will that
\n\t\t\tseek to take the kingdom of heaven by storm can have miserable
\n\t\t\treactions if they disdain to support their vehemence on these
\n\t\t\thumbler and quieter auxiliaries. And in the long and difficult
\n\t\t\tintegral Yoga there must be an integral faith and an unshakable
\n\t\t\tpatience. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt is difficult to acquire or to practise this faith and
\n\t\t\tsteadfastness on the rough and narrow path of Yoga because of the
\n\t\t\timpatience of both heart and mind and the eager but soon faltering
\n\t\t\twill of our rajasic nature. The vital nature of man hungers always
\n\t\t\tfor the fruit of its labour and, if the fruit appears to be denied
\n\t\t\tor long delayed, he loses faith in the ideal and in the guidance.
\n\t\t\tFor his mind judges always by the appearance of things, since that
\n\t\t\tis the first ingrained habit of the intellectual reason in which he
\n\t\t\tso inordinately trusts. Nothing is easier for us than to accuse God
\n\t\t\tin our hearts when we suffer long or stumble in the darkness or to
\n\t\t\tabjure the ideal that we have set before us. For we say, "I have
\n\t\t\ttrusted to the Highest and I am betrayed into suffering and sin and
\n\t\t\terror." Or else, "I have staked my whole life on an idea which the
\n\t\t\tstern facts of experience contradict and discourage. It would have
\n\t\t\tbeen better to be as other men are who accept their limitations and
\n\t\t\twalk on the firm ground of normal experience." In such moments \u2014 and
\n\t\t\tthey are sometimes frequent and long \u2014 all the higher experience is
\n\t\t\tforgotten and the heart concentrates itself in its own bitterness.
\n\t\t\tIt is in these dark passages that it is possible to fall for good or
\n\t\t\tto turn back from the divine labour.  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\t  
\n\t\t\tIf one has walked long and steadily in the path, the faith of the
\n\t\t\theart will remain under the fiercest adverse pressure; even if it is
\n\t\t\tconcealed or apparently overborne, it will take the first
\n\t\t\topportunity to re-emerge. For something higher than either heart or
\n\t\t\tintellect upholds it in spite of the worst stumblings and through
\n\t\t\tthe most prolonged failure. But even to the experienced sadhaka such
\n\t\t\tfalterings or overcloudings bring a retardation of his progress and
\n\t\t\tthey are exceedingly dangerous to the novice. It is therefore
\n\t\t\tnecessary from the beginning to understand and accept the arduous
\n\t\t\tdifficulty of the path and to feel the need of a faith which to the
\n\t\t\tintellect may seem blind, but yet is wiser than our reasoning
\n\t\t\tintelligence. For this faith is a support from above; it is the
\n\t\t\tbrilliant shadow thrown by a secret light that exceeds the intellect
\n\t\t\tand its data; it is the heart of a hidden knowledge that is not at
\n\t\t\tthe mercy of immediate appearances. Our faith, persevering, will be
\n\t\t\tjustified in its works and will be lifted and transfigured at last
\n\t\t\tinto the self-revelation of a divine knowledge. Always we must
\n\t\t\tadhere to the injunction of the Gita, "Yoga must be continually
\n\t\t\tapplied with a heart free from despondent sinking." Always we must
\n\t\t\trepeat to the doubting intellect the promise of the Master, "I will
\n\t\t\tsurely deliver thee from all sin and evil; do not grieve." At the
\n\t\t\tend, the flickerings of faith will cease; for we shall see his face
\n\t\t\tand feel always the Divine Presence. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t* *<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Master of our works respects our nature even when he is
\n\t\t\ttransforming it; he works always through the nature and not by any
\n\t\t\tarbitrary caprice. This imperfect nature of ours contains the
\n\t\t\tmaterials of our perfection, but inchoate, distorted, misplaced,
\n\t\t\tthrown together in disorder or a poor imperfect order. All this
\n\t\t\tmaterial has to be patiently perfected, purified, reorganised,
\n\t\t\tnew-moulded and transformed, not hacked and hewn and slain or
\n\t\t\tmutilated, not obliterated by simple coercion and denial. This world
\n\t\t\tand we who live in it are his creation and manifestation, and he
\n\t\t\tdeals with it and us in a way our narrow  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\tand ignorant mind cannot understand unless it
\n\t\t\tfalls silent and opens to a divine knowledge. In our errors is the
\n\t\t\tsubstance of a truth which labours to reveal its meaning to our
\n\t\t\tgroping intelligence. The human intellect cuts out the error and the
\n\t\t\ttruth with it and replaces it by another half-truth half-error; but
\n\t\t\tthe Divine Wisdom suffers our mistakes to continue until we are able
\n\t\t\tto arrive at the truth hidden and protected under every false cover.
\n\t\t\tOur sins are the misdirected steps of a seeking Power that aims, not
\n\t\t\tat sin, but at perfection, at something that we might call a divine
\n\t\t\tvirtue. Often they are the veils of a quality that has to be
\n\t\t\ttransformed and delivered out of this ugly disguise: otherwise, in
\n\t\t\tthe perfect providence of things, they would not have been suffered
\n\t\t\tto exist or to continue. The Master of our works is neither a
\n\t\t\tblunderer nor an indifferent witness nor a dallier with the luxury
\n\t\t\tof unneeded evils. He is wiser than our reason and wiser than our
\n\t\t\tvirtue. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOur nature is not only mistaken in will and ignorant in knowledge
\n\t\t\tbut weak in power; but the Divine Force is there and will lead us if
\n\t\t\twe trust in it and it will use our deficiencies and our powers for
\n\t\t\tthe divine purpose. If we fail in our immediate aim, it is because
\n\t\t\the has intended the failure; often our failure or ill-result is the
\n\t\t\tright road to a truer issue than an immediate and complete success
\n\t\t\twould have put in our reach. If we suffer, it is because something
\n\t\t\tin us has to be prepared for a rarer possibility of delight. If we
\n\t\t\tstumble, it is to learn in the end the secret of a more perfect
\n\t\t\twalking. Let us not be in too furious a haste to acquire even peace,
\n\t\t\tpurity and perfection. Peace must be ours, but not the peace of an
\n\t\t\tempty or devastated nature or of slain or mutilated capacities
\n\t\t\tincapable of unrest because we have made them incapable of intensity
\n\t\t\tand fire and force. Purity must be our aim, but not the purity of a
\n\t\t\tvoid or of a bleak and rigid coldness. Perfection is demanded of us,
\n\t\t\tbut not the perfection that can exist only by confining its scope
\n\t\t\twithin narrow limits or putting an arbitrary full stop to the ever
\n\t\t\tself-extending scroll of the Infinite. Our object is to change into
\n\t\t\tthe divine nature, but the divine nature is not a mental or moral
\n\t\t\tbut a spiritual condition, difficult to achieve, difficult even to
\n\t\t\tconceive by our <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\tintelligence. The Master of our work and our Yoga knows the thing to
\n\t\t\tbe done, and we must allow him to do it in us by his own means and
\n\t\t\tin his own manner. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe movement of the Ignorance is egoistic at its core and nothing is
\n\t\t\tmore difficult for us than to get rid of egoism while yet we admit
\n\t\t\tpersonality and adhere to action in the half-light and half-force of
\n\t\t\tour unfinished nature. It is easier to starve the ego by renouncing
\n\t\t\tthe impulse to act or to kill it by cutting away from us all
\n\t\t\tmovement of personality. It is easier to exalt it into
\n\t\t\tself-forgetfulness immersed in a trance of peace or an ecstasy of
\n\t\t\tdivine Love. But our more difficult problem is to liberate the true
\n\t\t\tPerson and attain to a divine manhood which shall be the pure vessel
\n\t\t\tof a divine force and the perfect instrument of a divine action.
\n\t\t\tStep after step has to be firmly taken; difficulty after difficulty
\n\t\t\thas to be entirely experienced and entirely mastered. Only the
\n\t\t\tDivine Wisdom and Power can do this for us and it will do all if we
\n\t\t\tyield to it in an entire faith and follow and assent to its workings
\n\t\t\twith a constant courage and patience. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe first step on this long path is to consecrate all our works as a
\n\t\t\tsacrifice to the Divine in us and in the world; this is an attitude
\n\t\t\tof the mind and heart, not too difficult to initiate, but very
\n\t\t\tdifficult to make absolutely sincere and all-pervasive. The second
\n\t\t\tstep is to renounce attachment to the fruit of our works; for the
\n\t\t\tonly true, inevitable and utterly desirable fruit of sacrifice \u2014 the
\n\t\t\tone thing needful \u2014 is the Divine Presence and the Divine
\n\t\t\tConsciousness and Power in us, and if that is gained, all else will
\n\t\t\tbe added. This is a transformation of the egoistic will in our vital
\n\t\t\tbeing, our desire-soul and desire-nature, and it is far more
\n\t\t\tdifficult than the other. The third step is to get rid of the
\n\t\t\tcentral egoism and even the ego-sense of the worker. That is the
\n\t\t\tmost difficult transformation of all and it cannot be perfectly done
\n\t\t\tif the first two steps have not been taken; but these first steps
\n\t\t\ttoo cannot be completed unless the third comes in to crown the
\n\t\t\tmovement and, by the extinction of egoism, eradicates the very
\n\t\t\torigin of desire. Only when the small egosense is rooted out from
\n\t\t\tthe nature can the seeker know his true person that stands above as
\n\t\t\ta portion and power of the Divine     248<\/i>
\nThe Yoga of Divine Works<\/i> and renounce all motive-force other than the
\n\t\t\twill of the Divine Shakti. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t* *<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere are gradations in this last integralising movement; for it
\n\t\t\tcannot be done at once or without long approaches that bring it
\n\t\t\tprogressively nearer and make it at last possible. The first
\n\t\t\tattitude to be taken is to cease to regard ourselves as the worker
\n\t\t\tand firmly to realise that we are only one instrument of the cosmic
\n\t\t\tForce. At first it is not the one Force but many cosmic forces that
\n\t\t\tseem to move us; but these may be turned into feeders of the ego and
\n\t\t\tthis vision liberates the mind but not the rest of the nature. Even
\n\t\t\twhen we become aware of all as the working of one cosmic Force and
\n\t\t\tof the Divine behind it, that too need not liberate. If the egoism
\n\t\t\tof the worker disappears, the egoism of the instrument may replace
\n\t\t\tit or else prolong it in a disguise. The life of the world has been
\n\t\t\tfull of instances of egoism of this kind and it can be more
\n\t\t\tengrossing and enormous than any other; there is the same danger in
\n\t\t\tYoga. A man becomes a leader of men or eminent in a large or lesser
\n\t\t\tcircle and feels himself full of a power that he knows to be beyond
\n\t\t\this own ego-force; he may be aware of a Fate acting through him or a
\n\t\t\tWill mysterious and unfathomable or a Light within of great
\n\t\t\tbrilliance. There are extraordinary results of his thoughts, his
\n\t\t\tactions or his creative genius. He effects some tremendous
\n\t\t\tdestruction that clears the path for humanity or some great
\n\t\t\tconstruction that becomes its momentary resting-place. He is a
\n\t\t\tscourge or he is a bringer of light and healing, a creator of beauty
\n\t\t\tor a messenger of knowledge. Or, if his work and its effects are on
\n\t\t\ta lesser scale and have a limited field, still they are attended by
\n\t\t\tthe strong sense that he is an instrument and chosen for his mission
\n\t\t\tor his labour. Men who have this destiny and these powers come
\n\t\t\teasily to believe and declare themselves to be mere instruments in
\n\t\t\tthe hand of God or of Fate: but even in the declaration we can see
\n\t\t\tthat there can intrude or take refuge an intenser and more
\n\t\t\texaggerated egoism than ordinary men have the courage to assert or
\n\t\t\tthe strength to  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\thouse within them. And often if men of this kind speak of God, it is
\n\t\t\tto erect an image of him which is really nothing but a huge shadow
\n\t\t\tof themselves or their own nature, a sustaining Deific Essence of
\n\t\t\ttheir own type of will and thought and quality and force. This
\n\t\t\tmagnified image of their ego is the Master whom they serve. This
\n\t\t\thappens only too often in Yoga to strong but crude vital natures or
\n\t\t\tminds too easily exalted when they allow ambition, pride or the
\n\t\t\tdesire of greatness to enter into their spiritual seeking and
\n\t\t\tvitiate its purity of motive; a magnified ego stands between them
\n\t\t\tand their true being and grasps for its own personal purpose the
\n\t\t\tstrength from a greater unseen Power, divine or undivine, acting
\n\t\t\tthrough them of which they become vaguely or intensely aware. An
\n\t\t\tintellectual perception or vital sense of a Force greater than ours
\n\t\t\tand of ourselves as moved by it is not sufficient to liberate from
\n\t\t\tthe ego. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis perception, this sense of a greater Power in us or above and
\n\t\t\tmoving us, is not a hallucination or a megalomania. Those who thus
\n\t\t\tfeel and see have a larger sight than ordinary men and have advanced
\n\t\t\ta step beyond the limited physical intelligence, but theirs is not
\n\t\t\tthe plenary vision or the direct experience. For, because they are
\n\t\t\tnot clear in mind and aware in the soul, because their awakening is
\n\t\t\tmore in the vital parts than into the spiritual substance of Self,
\n\t\t\tthey cannot be the conscious instruments of the Divine or come face
\n\t\t\tto face with the Master, but are used through their fallible and
\n\t\t\timperfect nature. The most they see of the Divinity is a Fate or a
\n\t\t\tcosmic Force or else they give his name to a limited Godhead or,
\n\t\t\tworse, to a Titanic or demoniac Power that veils him. Even certain
\n\t\t\treligious founders have erected the image of the God of a sect or a
\n\t\t\tnational God or a Power of terror and punishment or a Numen of
\n\t\t\tsattwic love and mercy and virtue and seem not to have seen the One
\n\t\t\tand Eternal. The Divine accepts the image they make of him and does
\n\t\t\this work in them through that medium, but, since the one Force is
\n\t\t\tfelt and acts in their imperfect nature but more intensely than in
\n\t\t\tothers, the motive principle of egoism too can be more intense in
\n\t\t\tthem than in others. An exalted rajasic or sattwic ego still holds
\n\t\t\tthem and stands between them and the integral Truth. Even this is<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tsomething, a beginning, although far from the
\n\t\t\ttrue and perfect experience. A much worse thing may befall those who
\n\t\t\tbreak something of the human bonds but have not purity and have not
\n\t\t\tthe knowledge, for they may become instruments, but not of the
\n\t\t\tDivine; too often, using his name, they serve unconsciously his
\n\t\t\tMasks and black Contraries, the Powers of Darkness. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOur nature must house the cosmic Force but not in its lower aspect
\n\t\t\tor in its rajasic or sattwic movement; it must serve the universal
\n\t\t\tWill, but in the light of a greater liberating knowledge. There must
\n\t\t\tbe no egoism of any kind in the attitude of the instrument, even
\n\t\t\twhen we are fully conscious of the greatness of the Force within us.
\n\t\t\tEvery man is knowingly or unknowingly the instrument of a universal
\n\t\t\tPower and, apart from the inner Presence, there is no such essential
\n\t\t\tdifference between one action and another, one kind of
\n\t\t\tinstrumentation and another as would warrant the folly of an
\n\t\t\tegoistic pride. The difference between knowledge and ignorance is a
\n\t\t\tgrace of the Spirit; the breath of divine Power blows where it lists
\n\t\t\tand fills today one and tomorrow another with the word or the
\n\t\t\tpuissance. If the potter shapes one pot more perfectly than another,
\n\t\t\tthe merit lies not in the vessel but the maker. The attitude of our
\n\t\t\tmind must not be "This is my strength" or "Behold God’s power in
\n\t\t\tme", but rather "A Divine Power works in this mind and body and it
\n\t\t\tis the same that works in all men and in the animal, in the plant
\n\t\t\tand in the metal, in conscious and living things and in things
\n\t\t\tapparently inconscient and inanimate." This large view of the One
\n\t\t\tworking in all and of the whole world as the equal instrument of a
\n\t\t\tdivine action and gradual self-expression, if it becomes our entire
\n\t\t\texperience, will help to eliminate all rajasic egoism out of us and
\n\t\t\teven the sattwic ego-sense will begin to pass away from our nature. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe elimination of this form of ego leads straight towards the true
\n\t\t\tinstrumental action which is the essence of a perfect Karmayoga. For
\n\t\t\twhile we cherish the instrumental ego, we may pretend to ourselves
\n\t\t\tthat we are conscious instruments of the Divine, but in reality we
\n\t\t\tare trying to make of the Divine Shakti an instrument of our own
\n\t\t\tdesires or our egoistic purpose. And <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\teven if the ego is subjected but not eliminated, we may indeed be
\n\t\t\tengines of the Divine Work, but we shall be imperfect tools and
\n\t\t\tdeflect or impair the working by our mental errors, our vital
\n\t\t\tdistortions or the obstinate incapacities of our physical nature. If
\n\t\t\tthis ego disappears, then we can truly become, not only pure
\n\t\t\tinstruments consciously consenting to every turn of the divine Hand
\n\t\t\tthat moves us, but aware of our true nature, conscious portions of
\n\t\t\tthe one Eternal and Infinite put out in herself for her works by the
\n\t\t\tsupreme Shakti. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t* *<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere is another greater step to be taken after the surrender of our
\n\t\t\tinstrumental ego to the Divine Shakti. It is not enough to know her
\n\t\t\tas the one Cosmic Force that moves us and all creatures on the
\n\t\t\tplanes of mind, life and matter; for this is the lower Nature and,
\n\t\t\talthough the Divine Knowledge, Light, Power are there concealed and
\n\t\t\tat work in this Ignorance and can break partly its veil and manifest
\n\t\t\tsomething of their true character or descend from above and uplift
\n\t\t\tthese inferior workings, yet, even if we realise the One in a
\n\t\t\tspiritualised mind, a spiritualised life-movement, a spiritualised
\n\t\t\tbody-consciousness, an imperfection remains in the dynamic parts.
\n\t\t\tThere is a stumbling response to the Supreme Power, a veil over the
\n\t\t\tface of the Divine, a constant mixture of the Ignorance. It is only
\n\t\t\twhen we open to the Divine Shakti in the truth of her Force which
\n\t\t\ttranscends this lower Prakriti that we can be perfect instruments of
\n\t\t\ther power and knowledge. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNot only liberation but perfection must be the aim of the Karmayoga.
\n\t\t\tThe Divine works through our nature and according to our nature; if
\n\t\t\tour nature is imperfect, the work also will be imperfect, mixed,
\n\t\t\tinadequate. Even it may be marred by gross errors, falsehoods, moral
\n\t\t\tweaknesses, diverting influences. The work of the Divine will be
\n\t\t\tdone in us even then, but according to our weakness, not according
\n\t\t\tto the strength and purity of its source. If ours were not an
\n\t\t\tintegral Yoga, if we sought only the liberation of the self within
\n\t\t\tus or the motionless existence <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 <\/font>251<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tof Purusha separated from Prakriti, this dynamic
\n\t\t\timperfection might not matter. Calm, untroubled, not depressed, not
\n\t\t\telated, refusing to accept the perfection or imperfection, fault or
\n\t\t\tmerit, sin or virtue as ours, perceiving that it is the modes of
\n\t\t\tNature working in the field of her modes that make this mixture, we
\n\t\t\tcould withdraw into the silence of the spirit and, pure, untouched,
\n\t\t\twitness only the workings of Prakriti. But in an integral
\n\t\t\trealisation this can only be a step on the way, not our last
\n\t\t\tresting-place. For we aim at the divine realisation not only in the
\n\t\t\timmobility of the Spirit, but also in the movement of Nature. And
\n\t\t\tthis cannot be altogether until we can feel the presence and power
\n\t\t\tof the Divine in every step, motion, figure of our activities, in
\n\t\t\tevery turn of our will, in every thought, feeling and impulse. No
\n\t\t\tdoubt, we can feel that in essence even in the nature of the
\n\t\t\tIgnorance, but it is the divine Power and Presence in a disguise, a
\n\t\t\tdiminution, an inferior figure. Ours is a greater demand, that our
\n\t\t\tnature shall be a power of the Divine in the Truth of the Divine, in
\n\t\t\tthe Light, in the force of the eternal self-conscient Will, in the
\n\t\t\twideness of the sempiternal Knowledge. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAfter the removal of the veil of ego, the removal of the veil of
\n\t\t\tNature and her inferior modes that govern our mind, life and body.
\n\t\t\tAs soon as the limits of the ego begin to fade, we see how that veil
\n\t\t\tis constituted and detect the action of cosmic Nature in us, and in
\n\t\t\tor behind cosmic Nature we sense the presence of the cosmic Self and
\n\t\t\tthe dynamis of the world-pervading Ishwara. The Master of the
\n\t\t\tinstrument stands behind all this working, and even within the
\n\t\t\tworking there is his touch and the drive of a great guiding or
\n\t\t\tdisposing Influence. It is no longer ego or ego-force that we serve;
\n\t\t\twe obey the World-Master and his evolutionary impulse. At each step
\n\t\t\twe can say in the language of the Sanskrit verse, "Even as I am
\n\t\t\tappointed by Thee seated in my heart, so, O Lord, I act." But still
\n\t\t\tthis action may be of two very different kinds, one only illumined,
\n\t\t\tthe other transformed and uplifted into a greater supernature. For
\n\t\t\twe may keep on in the way of action upheld and followed by our
\n\t\t\tnature when by her and her illusion of egoism we were "turned as if
\n\t\t\tmounted on a machine," but now with a perfect <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 <\/font>252<\/font> <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tunderstanding of the mechanism and its utilisation for his world
\n\t\t\tpurposes by the Master of works whom we feel behind it. This is
\n\t\t\tindeed as far as even many great Yogis have reached on the levels of
\n\t\t\tspiritualised mind; but it need not be so always, for there is a
\n\t\t\tgreater supramental possibility. It is possible to rise beyond
\n\t\t\tspiritualised mind and to act spontaneously in the living presence
\n\t\t\tof the original divine Truth-Force of the Supreme Mother. Our motion
\n\t\t\tone with her motion and merged in it, our will one with her will,
\n\t\t\tour energy absolved in her energy, we shall feel her working through
\n\t\t\tus as the Divine manifest in a supreme Wisdom-Power, and we shall be
\n\t\t\taware of the transformed mind, life and body only as the channels of
\n\t\t\ta supreme Light and Force beyond them, infallible in its steps
\n\t\t\tbecause transcendent and total in its knowledge. Of this Light and
\n\t\t\tForce we shall not only be the recipients, channels, instruments,
\n\t\t\tbut become a part of it in a supreme uplifted abiding experience. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAlready, before we reach this last perfection, we can have the union
\n\t\t\twith the Divine in works in its extreme wideness, if not yet on its
\n\t\t\tmost luminous heights; for we perceive no longer merely Nature or
\n\t\t\tthe modes of Nature, but become conscious, in our physical
\n\t\t\tmovements, in our nervous and vital reactions, in our mental
\n\t\t\tworkings, of a Force greater than body, mind and life which takes
\n\t\t\thold of our limited instruments and drives all their motion. There
\n\t\t\tis no longer the sense of ourselves moving, thinking or feeling but
\n\t\t\tof that moving, feeling and thinking in us. This force that we feel
\n\t\t\tis the universal Force of the Divine, which, veiled or unveiled,
\n\t\t\tacting directly or permitting the use of its powers by beings in the
\n\t\t\tcosmos, is the one Energy that alone exists and alone makes
\n\t\t\tuniversal or individual action possible. For this force is the
\n\t\t\tDivine itself in the body of its power; all is that, power of act,
\n\t\t\tpower of thought and knowledge, power of mastery and enjoyment,
\n\t\t\tpower of love. Conscious always and in everything, in ourselves and
\n\t\t\tin others, of the Master of Works possessing, inhabiting, enjoying
\n\t\t\tthrough this Force that is himself, becoming through it all
\n\t\t\texistences and all happenings, we shall have arrived at the divine
\n\t\t\tunion through works and achieved by that fulfilment in works all
\n\t\t\tthat others have gained <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 <\/font>253<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tthrough absolute devotion or through pure
\n\t\t\tknowledge. But there is still another step that calls us, an ascent
\n\t\t\tout of this cosmic identity into the identity of the Divine
\n\t\t\tTranscendence. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Master of our works and our being is not merely a Godhead here
\n\t\t\twithin us, nor is he merely a cosmic Spirit or some kind of
\n\t\t\tuniversal Power. The world and the Divine are not one and the same
\n\t\t\tthing, as a certain kind of pantheistic thinking would like to
\n\t\t\tbelieve. The world is an emanation; it depends upon something that
\n\t\t\tmanifests in it but is not limited by it: the Divine is not here
\n\t\t\talone; there is a Beyond, an eternal Transcendence. The individual
\n\t\t\tbeing also in its spiritual part is not a formation in the cosmic
\n\t\t\texistence \u2014 our ego, our mind, our life, our body are that; but the
\n\t\t\timmutable spirit, the imperishable soul in us has come out of the
\n\t\t\tTranscendence. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t* *<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA Transcendent who is beyond all world and all Nature and yet
\n\t\t\tpossesses the world and its nature, who has descended with something
\n\t\t\tof himself into it and is shaping it into that which as yet it is
\n\t\t\tnot, is the Source of our being, the Source of our works and their
\n\t\t\tMaster. But the seat of the Transcendent Consciousness is above in
\n\t\t\tan absoluteness of divine Existence \u2014 and there too is the absolute
\n\t\t\tPower, Truth, Bliss of the Eternal \u2014 of which our mentality can form
\n\t\t\tno conception and of which even our greatest spiritual experience is
\n\t\t\tonly a diminished reflection in the spiritualised mind and heart, a
\n\t\t\tfaint shadow, a thin derivate. Yet proceeding from it there is a
\n\t\t\tsort of golden corona of Light, Power, Bliss and Truth \u2014 a divine
\n\t\t\tTruth-Consciousness as the ancient mystics called it, a Supermind, a
\n\t\t\tGnosis, with which this world of a lesser consciousness proceeding
\n\t\t\tby Ignorance is in secret relation and which alone maintains it and
\n\t\t\tprevents it from falling into a disintegrated chaos. The powers we
\n\t\t\tare now satisfied to call gnosis, intuition or illumination are only
\n\t\t\tfainter lights of which that is the full and flaming source, and
\n\t\t\tbetween the highest human intelligence and it there lie many levels
\n\t\t\tof ascending consciousness, highest mental or overmental, which    <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\twe would have to conquer before we arrived there or could bring down
\n\t\t\tits greatness and glory here. Yet, however difficult, that ascent,
\n\t\t\tthat victory is the destiny of the human spirit and that luminous
\n\t\t\tdescent or bringing down of the divine Truth is the inevitable term
\n\t\t\tof the troubled evolution of the earth-nature;
\n\t\t\tthat intended consummation is its raison d’\u00ea<\/font>tre<\/i>, our culminating
\n\t\t\tstate and the explanation of our terrestrial existence. For though
\n\t\t\tthe transcendental Divine is already here as the Purushottama in the
\n\t\t\tsecret heart of our mystery, he is veiled by many coats and
\n\t\t\tdisguises of his magic world-wide Yoga-Maya; it is only by the
\n\t\t\tascent and victory of the Soul here in the body that the disguises
\n\t\t\tcan fall away and the dynamis of the supreme Truth replace this
\n\t\t\ttangled weft of half-truth that becomes creative error, this
\n\t\t\temergent Knowledge that is converted by its plunge into the
\n\t\t\tinconscience of Matter and its slow partial return towards itself
\n\t\t\tinto an effective Ignorance. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor here in the world, though the Gnosis is there secretly behind
\n\t\t\texistence, what acts is not the Gnosis but a magic of
\n\t\t\tKnowledge-Ignorance, an incalculable yet apparently mechanical
\n\t\t\tOvermind Maya. The Divine appears to us here in one view as an
\n\t\t\tequal, inactive and impersonal Witness Spirit, an immobile
\n\t\t\tconsenting Purusha not bound by quality or Space or Time, whose
\n\t\t\tsupport or sanction is given impartially to the play of all action
\n\t\t\tand energies which the transcendent Will has once permitted and
\n\t\t\tauthorised to fulfil themselves in the cosmos. This Witness Spirit,
\n\t\t\tthis immobile Self in things, seems to will nothing and determine
\n\t\t\tnothing; yet we become aware that his very passivity, his silent
\n\t\t\tpresence compels all things to travel even in their ignorance
\n\t\t\ttowards a divine goal and attracts through division towards a yet
\n\t\t\tunrealised oneness. Yet no supreme infallible Divine Will seems to
\n\t\t\tbe there, only a widely deployed Cosmic Energy or a mechanical
\n\t\t\texecutive Process, Prakriti. This is one side of the cosmic Self;
\n\t\t\tthe other presents itself as a universal Divine, one in being,
\n\t\t\tmultiple in personality and power, who conveys to us, when we enter
\n\t\t\tinto the consciousness of his universal forces, a sense of infinite
\n\t\t\tquality and will and act and worldwide knowledge and a one yet
\n\t\t\tinnumerable delight; for through  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\thim we become one with all existences not only
\n\t\t\tin their essence but in their play of action, see ourself in all and
\n\t\t\tall in ourself, perceive all knowledge and thought and feeling as
\n\t\t\tmotions of the one Mind and Heart, all energy and action as kinetics
\n\t\t\tof the one Will in power, all Matter and form as particles of the
\n\t\t\tone Body, all personalities as projections of the one Person, all
\n\t\t\tegos as deformations of the one and sole real "I" in existence. In
\n\t\t\thim we no longer stand separate, but lose our active ego in the
\n\t\t\tuniversal movement, even as by the Witness who is without qualities
\n\t\t\tand for ever unattached and unentangled, we lose our static ego in
\n\t\t\tthe universal peace. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd yet there remains a contradiction between these two terms, the
\n\t\t\taloof divine Silence and the all-embracing divine Action, which we
\n\t\t\tmay heal in ourselves in a certain manner, in a certain high degree
\n\t\t\twhich seems to us complete, yet is not complete because it cannot
\n\t\t\taltogether transform and conquer. A universal Peace, Light, Power,
\n\t\t\tBliss is ours, but its effective expression is not that of the
\n\t\t\tTruth-Consciousness, the divine Gnosis, but still, though
\n\t\t\twonderfully freed, uplifted and illumined, supports only the present
\n\t\t\tself-expression of the Cosmic Spirit and does not transform, as
\n\t\t\twould a transcendental Descent, the ambiguous symbols and veiled
\n\t\t\tmysteries of a world of Ignorance. Ourselves are free, but the
\n\t\t\tearth-consciousness remains in bondage; only a further
\n\t\t\ttranscendental ascent and descent can entirely heal the
\n\t\t\tcontradiction and transform and deliver. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor there is yet a third intensely close and personal aspect of the
\n\t\t\tMaster of Works which is a key to his sublimest hidden mystery and
\n\t\t\tecstasy; for he detaches from the secret of the hidden Transcendence
\n\t\t\tand the ambiguous display of the cosmic Movement an individual Power
\n\t\t\tof the Divine that can mediate between the two and bridge our
\n\t\t\tpassage from the one to the other. In this aspect the transcendent
\n\t\t\tand universal person of the Divine conforms itself to our
\n\t\t\tindividualised personality and accepts a personal relation with us,
\n\t\t\tat once identified with us as our supreme Self and yet close and
\n\t\t\tdifferent as our Master, Friend, Lover, Teacher, our Father and our
\n\t\t\tMother, our Playmate <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\tin the great world-game who has disguised himself throughout as
\n\t\t\tfriend and enemy, helper and opponent and, in all relations and in
\n\t\t\tall workings that affect us, has led our steps towards our
\n\t\t\tperfection and our release. It is through this more personal
\n\t\t\tmanifestation that we are admitted to some possibility of the
\n\t\t\tcomplete transcendental experience; for in him we meet the One not
\n\t\t\tmerely in a liberated calm and peace, not merely with a passive or
\n\t\t\tactive submission in our works or through the mystery of union with
\n\t\t\ta universal Knowledge and Power filling and guiding us, but with an
\n\t\t\tecstasy of divine Love and divine Delight that shoots up beyond
\n\t\t\tsilent Witness and active World-Power to some positive divination of
\n\t\t\ta greater beatific secret. For it is not so much knowledge leading
\n\t\t\tto some ineffable Absolute, not so much works lifting us beyond
\n\t\t\tworld-process to the originating supreme Knower and Master, but
\n\t\t\trather this thing most intimate to us, yet at present most obscure,
\n\t\t\twhich keeps for us wrapped in its passionate veil the deep and
\n\t\t\trapturous secret of the transcendent Godhead and some absolute
\n\t\t\tpositiveness of its perfect Being, its all-concentrating Bliss, its
\n\t\t\tmystic Ananda. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut the individual relation with the Divine does not always or from
\n\t\t\tthe beginning bring into force a widest enlargement or a highest
\n\t\t\tself-exceeding. At first this Godhead close to our being or immanent
\n\t\t\twithin us can be felt fully only in the scope of our personal nature
\n\t\t\tand experience, a Leader and Master, a Guide and Teacher, a Friend
\n\t\t\tand Lover, or else a spirit, power or presence, constituting and
\n\t\t\tuplifting our upward and enlarging movement by the force of his
\n\t\t\tintimate reality inhabiting the heart or presiding over our nature
\n\t\t\tfrom above even our highest intelligence. It is our personal
\n\t\t\tevolution that is his preoccupation, a personal relation with him
\n\t\t\tthat is our joy and fulfilment, the building of our nature into his
\n\t\t\tdivine image that is our self-finding and perfection. The outside
\n\t\t\tworld seems to exist only as a field for this growth and a provider
\n\t\t\tof materials or of helping and opposing forces for its successive
\n\t\t\tstages. Our works done in that world are his works, but even when
\n\t\t\tthey serve some temporary universal end, their main purpose for us
\n\t\t\tis to make outwardly dynamic or give inward power to our relations
\n\t\t\twith <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\tthis immanent Divine. Many seekers ask for no
\n\t\t\tmore or see the continuation and fulfilment of this spiritual
\n\t\t\tflowering only in heavens beyond; the union is consummated and made
\n\t\t\tperpetual in an eternal dwelling-place of his perfection, joy and
\n\t\t\tbeauty. But this is not enough for the integral seeker; however
\n\t\t\tintense and beautiful, a personal isolated achievement cannot be his
\n\t\t\tsole aim or his entire experience. A time must come when the
\n\t\t\tpersonal opens out into the universal; our very individuality,
\n\t\t\tspiritual, mental, vital, physical even, becomes universalised: it
\n\t\t\tis seen as a power of his universal force and cosmic spirit, or else
\n\t\t\tit contains the universe in that ineffable wideness which comes to
\n\t\t\tthe individual consciousness when it breaks its bonds and flows
\n\t\t\tupward towards the Transcendent and on every side into the Infinite. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t* *<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn a Yoga lived entirely on the spiritualised mental plane it is
\n\t\t\tpossible and even usual for these three fundamental aspects of the
\n\t\t\tDivine \u2014 the Individual or Immanent, the Cosmic and the Transcendent
\n\t\t\t\u2014 to stand out as separate realisations. Each by itself then appears
\n\t\t\tsufficient to satisfy the yearning of the seeker. Alone with the
\n\t\t\tpersonal Divine in the inner heart’s illumined secret chamber, he
\n\t\t\tcan build his being into the Beloved’s image and ascend out of
\n\t\t\tfallen Nature to dwell with him in some heaven of the Spirit.
\n\t\t\tAbsolved in the cosmic wideness, released from ego, his personality
\n\t\t\treduced to a point of working of the universal Force, himself calm,
\n\t\t\tliberated, deathless in universality, motionless in the Witness Self
\n\t\t\teven while outspread without limit in unending Space and Time, he
\n\t\t\tcan enjoy in the world the freedom of the Timeless. One-pointed
\n\t\t\ttowards some ineffable Transcendence, casting away his personality,
\n\t\t\tshedding from him the labour and trouble of the universal Dynamis,
\n\t\t\the can escape into an inexpressible Nirvana, annul all things in an
\n\t\t\tintolerant exaltation of flight into the Incommunicable. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut none of these achievements is enough for one who seeks the wide
\n\t\t\tcompleteness of an integral Yoga. An individual salvation is not
\n\t\t\tenough for him; for he finds himself opening to<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\ta cosmic consciousness which far exceeds by its breadth and vastness
\n\t\t\tthe narrower intensity of a limited individual fulfilment, and its
\n\t\t\tcall is imperative; driven by that immense compulsion, he must break
\n\t\t\tthrough all separative boundaries, spread himself in world-Nature,
\n\t\t\tcontain the universe. Above too, there is urgent upon him a dynamic
\n\t\t\trealisation pressing from the Supreme upon this world of beings, and
\n\t\t\tonly some encompassing and exceeding of the cosmic consciousness can
\n\t\t\trelease into manifestation here that yet unlavished splendour. But
\n\t\t\tthe cosmic consciousness too is not sufficient; for it is not all
\n\t\t\tthe Divine Reality, not integral. There is a divine secret behind
\n\t\t\tpersonality that he must discover; there, waiting in it to be
\n\t\t\tdelivered here into Time, stands the mystery of the embodiment of
\n\t\t\tthe Transcendence. In the cosmic consciousness there remains at the
\n\t\t\tend a hiatus, an unequal equation of a highest Knowledge that can
\n\t\t\tliberate but not effectuate with a Power seeming to use a limited
\n\t\t\tKnowledge or masking itself with a surface Ignorance that can create
\n\t\t\tbut creates imperfection or a perfection transient, limited and in
\n\t\t\tfetters. On one side there is a free undynamic Witness and on the
\n\t\t\tother side a bound Executrix of action who has not been given all
\n\t\t\tthe means of action. The reconciliation of these companions and
\n\t\t\topposites seems to be reserved, postponed, held back in an
\n\t\t\tUnmanifest still beyond us. But, again, a mere escape into some
\n\t\t\tabsolute Transcendence leaves personality unfulfilled and the
\n\t\t\tuniversal action inconclusive and cannot satisfy the integral
\n\t\t\tseeker. He feels that the Truth that is for ever is a Power that
\n\t\t\tcreates as well as a stable Existence; it is not a Power solely of
\n\t\t\tillusory or ignorant manifestation. The eternal Truth can manifest
\n\t\t\tits truths in Time; it can create in Knowledge and not only in
\n\t\t\tInconscience and Ignorance. A divine Descent no less than an ascent
\n\t\t\tto the Divine is possible; there is a prospect of the bringing down
\n\t\t\tof a future perfection and a present deliverance. As his knowledge
\n\t\t\twidens, it becomes for him more and more evident that it was this
\n\t\t\tfor which the Master of Works cast down the soul within him here as
\n\t\t\ta spark of his fire into the darkness, that it might grow there into
\n\t\t\ta centre of the Light that is for ever. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Transcendent, the Universal, the Individual are three <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 <\/font>259<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tpowers overarching, underlying and penetrating
\n\t\t\tthe whole manifestation; this is the first of the Trinities. In the
\n\t\t\tunfolding of consciousness also, these are the three fundamental
\n\t\t\tterms and none of them can be neglected if we would have the
\n\t\t\texperience of the whole Truth of existence. Out of the individual we
\n\t\t\twake into a vaster freer cosmic consciousness; but out of the
\n\t\t\tuniversal too with its complex of forms and powers we must emerge by
\n\t\t\ta still greater self-exceeding into a consciousness without limits
\n\t\t\tthat is founded on the Absolute. And yet in this ascension we do not
\n\t\t\treally abolish but take up and transfigure what we seem to leave;
\n\t\t\tfor there is a height where the three live eternally in each other,
\n\t\t\ton that height they are blissfully joined in a nodus of their
\n\t\t\tharmonised oneness. But that summit is above the highest and largest
\n\t\t\tspiritualised mentality, even if some reflection of it can be
\n\t\t\texperienced there; mind, to attain to it, to live there, must exceed
\n\t\t\titself and be transformed into a supramental gnostic light, power
\n\t\t\tand substance. In this lower diminished consciousness a harmony can
\n\t\t\tindeed be attempted, but it must always remain imperfect; a
\n\t\t\tcoordination is possible, not a simultaneous fused fulfilment. An
\n\t\t\tascent out of the mind is, for any greater realisation, imperative.
\n\t\t\tOr else, there must be, with the ascent or consequent to it, a
\n\t\t\tdynamic descent of the self-existent Truth that exists always
\n\t\t\tuplifted in its own light above Mind, eternal, prior to the
\n\t\t\tmanifestation of Life and Matter. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor Mind is Maya, sat-asat<\/i>: there is a field of embrace of
\n\t\t\tthe true and the false, the existent and the non-existent, and it is
\n\t\t\tin that ambiguous field that Mind seems to reign; but even in its
\n\t\t\town reign it is in truth a diminished consciousness, it is not part
\n\t\t\tof the original and supremely originating power of the Eternal. Even
\n\t\t\tif Mind is able to reflect some image of essential Truth in its
\n\t\t\tsubstance, yet the dynamic force and action of Truth appears in it
\n\t\t\talways broken and divided. All Mind can do is to piece together the
\n\t\t\tfragments or deduce a unity; truth of Mind is only a half-truth or a
\n\t\t\tportion of a puzzle. Mental knowledge is always relative, partial
\n\t\t\tand inconclusive, and its outgoing action and creation come out
\n\t\t\tstill more confused in its steps or precise only in narrow limits
\n\t\t\tand by imperfect piecings together. Even<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tin this diminished consciousness the Divine manifests as a Spirit in
\n\t\t\tMind, just as he moves as a Spirit in Life or dwells still more
\n\t\t\tobscurely as a Spirit in Matter; but not here is his full dynamic
\n\t\t\trevelation, not here the perfect identities of the Eternal. Only
\n\t\t\twhen we cross the border into a larger luminous consciousness and
\n\t\t\tself-aware substance where divine Truth is a native and not a
\n\t\t\tstranger, will there be revealed to us the Master of our existence
\n\t\t\tin the imperishable integral truth of his being and his powers and
\n\t\t\this workings. Only there, too, will his works in us assume the
\n\t\t\tflawless movement of his unfailing supramental purpose. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t* *<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut that is the end of a long and difficult journey, and the Master
\n\t\t\tof works does not wait till then to meet the seeker on the path of
\n\t\t\tYoga and put his secret or half-shown Hand upon him and upon his
\n\t\t\tlife and actions. Already he was there in the world as the
\n\t\t\tOriginator and Receiver of works behind the dense veils of the
\n\t\t\tInconscient, disguised in force of Life, visible to the Mind through
\n\t\t\tsymbol godheads and figures. It may well be in these disguises that
\n\t\t\the first meets the soul destined to the way of the integral Yoga. Or
\n\t\t\teven, wearing still vaguer masks, he may be conceived by us as an
\n\t\t\tIdeal or mentalised as an abstract Power of Love, Good, Beauty or
\n\t\t\tKnowledge; or, as we turn our feet towards the Way, he may come to
\n\t\t\tus veiled as the call of Humanity or a Will in things that drives
\n\t\t\ttowards the deliverance of the world from the grasp of Darkness and
\n\t\t\tFalsehood and Death and Suffering \u2014 the great quaternary of the
\n\t\t\tIgnorance. Then, after we have entered the path, he envelops us with
\n\t\t\this wide and mighty liberating Impersonality or moves near to us
\n\t\t\twith the face and form of a personal Godhead. In and around us we
\n\t\t\tfeel a Power that upholds and protects and cherishes; we hear a
\n\t\t\tVoice that guides; a conscious Will greater than ourselves rules us;
\n\t\t\tan imperative Force moves our thought and actions and our very body;
\n\t\t\tan ever-widening Consciousness assimilates ours, a living Light of
\n\t\t\tKnowledge lights all within, or a Beatitude invades us; a Mightiness
\n\t\t\tpresses from above, concrete, massive <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tand overpowering, and penetrates and pours
\n\t\t\titself into the very stuff of our nature; a Peace sits there, a
\n\t\t\tLight, a Bliss, a Strength, a Greatness. Or there are relations,
\n\t\t\tpersonal, intimate as life itself, sweet as love, encompassing like
\n\t\t\tthe sky, deep like deep waters. A Friend walks at our side; a Lover
\n\t\t\tis with us in our heart’s secrecy; a Master of the Work and the
\n\t\t\tOrdeal points our way; a Creator of things uses us as his
\n\t\t\tinstrument; we are in the arms of the eternal Mother. All these more
\n\t\t\tseizable aspects in which the Ineffable meets us are truths and not
\n\t\t\tmere helpful symbols or useful imaginations; but as we progress,
\n\t\t\ttheir first imperfect formulations in our experience yield to a
\n\t\t\tlarger vision of the one Truth that is behind them. At each step
\n\t\t\ttheir mere mental masks are shed and they acquire a larger, a
\n\t\t\tprofounder, a more intimate significance. At last on the supramental
\n\t\t\tborders all these Godheads combine their forces and, without at all
\n\t\t\tceasing to be, coalesce together. On this path the Divine Aspects
\n\t\t\tare not revealed in order to be cast away; they are not temporary
\n\t\t\tspiritual conveniences or compromises with an illusory Consciousness
\n\t\t\tor dream-figures mysteriously cast upon us by the incommunicable
\n\t\t\tsuperconscience of the Absolute; on the contrary, their power
\n\t\t\tincreases and their absoluteness reveals itself as they draw near to
\n\t\t\tthe Truth from which they issue. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFor that now superconscient Transcendence is a Power as well as an
\n\t\t\tExistence. The supramental Transcendence is not a vacant Wonder, but
\n\t\t\tan Inexpressible which contains for ever all essential things that
\n\t\t\thave issued from it; it holds them there in their supreme
\n\t\t\teverlasting reality and their own characteristic absolutes. The
\n\t\t\tdiminution, division, degradation that create here the sense of an
\n\t\t\tunsatisfactory puzzle, a mystery of Maya, themselves diminish and
\n\t\t\tfall from us in our ascension, and the Divine Powers assume their
\n\t\t\treal forms and appear more and more as the terms of a Truth in
\n\t\t\tprocess of realisation here. A soul of the Divine is here slowly
\n\t\t\tawaking out of its involution and concealment in the material
\n\t\t\tInconscience. The Master of our works is not a Master of illusions,
\n\t\t\tbut a supreme Reality who is working out his self-expressive
\n\t\t\trealities delivered slowly from the cocoons of the Ignorance in
\n\t\t\twhich for the purposes <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tof an evolutionary manifestation they were allowed for a while to
\n\t\t\tslumber. For the supramental Transcendence is not a thing absolutely
\n\t\t\tapart and unconnected with our present existence. It is a greater
\n\t\t\tLight out of which all this has come for the adventure of the Soul
\n\t\t\tlapsing into the Inconscience and emerging out of it, and, while
\n\t\t\tthat adventure proceeds, it waits superconscient above our minds
\n\t\t\ttill it can become conscious in us. Hereafter it will unveil itself
\n\t\t\tand by the unveiling reveal to us all the significance of our own
\n\t\t\tbeing and our works; for it will disclose the Divine whose fuller
\n\t\t\tmanifestation in the world will release and accomplish that covert
\n\t\t\tsignificance. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn that disclosure the Transcendent Divine will be more and more
\n\t\t\tmade known to us as the Supreme Existence and the Perfect Source of
\n\t\t\tall that we are; but equally we shall see him as a Master of works
\n\t\t\tand creation prepared to pour out more and more of himself into the
\n\t\t\tfield of his manifestation. The cosmic consciousness and its action
\n\t\t\twill appear no longer as a huge regulated Chance, but as a field of
\n\t\t\tthe manifestation; there the Divine is seen as a presiding and
\n\t\t\tpervading Cosmic Spirit who receives all out of the Transcendence
\n\t\t\tand develops what descends into forms that are now an opaque
\n\t\t\tdisguise or a baffling half-disguise, but destined to be a
\n\t\t\ttransparent revelation. The individual consciousness will recover
\n\t\t\tits true sense and action; for it is the form of a Soul sent out
\n\t\t\tfrom the Supreme and, in spite of all appearances, a nucleus or
\n\t\t\tnebula in which the Divine Mother-Force is at work for the
\n\t\t\tvictorious embodiment of the timeless and formless Divine in Time
\n\t\t\tand Matter. This will reveal itself slowly to our vision and
\n\t\t\texperience as the will of the Master of works and as their own
\n\t\t\tultimate significance, which alone gives to world-creation and to
\n\t\t\tour own action in the world a light and a meaning. To recognise that
\n\t\t\tand to strive towards its effectuation is the whole burden of the
\n\t\t\tWay of Divine Works in the integral Yoga.   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>263<\/font>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter XI   The Master of the Work   THE MASTER and Mover of our works is the One, the Universal and Supreme, the Eternal…<\/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-2211","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\/2211","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=2211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}