{"id":629,"date":"2013-07-13T01:29:20","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=629"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:29:20","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:20","slug":"39-knowledge-by-identity-and-separative-knowledge-vol-18-the-life-divine-volume-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/18-the-life-divine-volume-18\/39-knowledge-by-identity-and-separative-knowledge-vol-18-the-life-divine-volume-18","title":{"rendered":"-39_Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge .htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\nC<\/font>HAPTER<\/font> X<\/p>\n

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

 Knowledge by Identity and Separative
\nKnowledge<\/p>\n

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

                           <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

   
\n           
\n            They see the
\nSelf in the Self by the Self.
\n
                                                                                                  
\nGita.<\/font><\/p>\n

                           
\nWhere there is duality, there other sees other, other hears, touches,
\n                           
\nthinks of, knows other. But when one sees all as the
\nSelf, by what shall
\n                           
\none know it? it is by the Self that one knows all this that is…. All
\nbetrays
\n                           
\nhim who sees all
\nelsewhere than in the Self; for all this that is is the Brahman,
\n                           
\nall beings and all this that is are this Self.
\n
                                                                                                                   
\nBrihadaranyaka Upanishad.<\/font><\/p>\n

                   
\nThe Self-Existent has pierced the doors of sense outward, therefore one sees
\n
\n                          
\nthings outwardly and sees not in one’s
\ninner being. Rarely a sage desiring
\n                          
\nimmortality, his sight turned inward, sees the Self face to face.
\n
                                                                                                                                       
\nKatha Upanishad.<\/font><\/p>\n

                   
\nThere is no annihilation of the seeing of the seer, the speaking of the speaker…
\n
\n                          
\nthe hearing of the hearer… the knowing
\nof the knower, for they are indestructible;
\n                          
\nbut it is not a second or other than and separate from himself that he
\nsees,
\nspeaks
\n                          
\nto, hears, knows.
\n
                                                                                                                       
\nBrihadaranyaka Upanishad.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

      O<\/b><\/font>UR<\/font>
\nsurface cognition, our limited and restricted mental way of looking at
\nour self, at our inner movements and at the world
\noutside us and its objects and happenings, is so constituted that it
\nderives in different degrees from a fourfold order of
\nknowledge. The original and fundamental way of knowing, native to the
\noccult self in things, is a knowledge by identity; the
\nsecond, derivative, is a knowledge by direct contact associated at its
\nroots with a secret knowledge by identity or starting
\nfrom it, but actually separated from its source and therefore powerful
\nbut incomplete in its cognition; the third is a
\nknowledge by separation from the object of observation, but still with
\na direct contact as its support or even a partial identity;
\nthe fourth is a completely separative knowledge which relies on a
\nmachinery of
\n
\n <\/p>\n

          VI.
\n20.         IV. 5. 15,
\n7.         II. 1.
\n1.         IV. 3. 23-30.
\n<\/font><\/p>\n


\nPage 524 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

indirect contact, a knowledge by acquisition which is yet, without being conscious of it, a rendering or bringing up of the
\ncontents of a pre-existent inner awareness and knowledge. A knowledge by identity, a knowledge by intimate direct contact,
\na knowledge by separative direct contact, a wholly separative knowledge by indirect contact are the four cognitive methods
\nof Nature. <\/p>\n

    
\nThe first way of knowing in its purest form is illustrated in the
\nsurface mind only by our direct awareness of our own
\nessential existence: it is a knowledge empty of any other content than
\nthe pure fact of self and being; of nothing else in the
\nworld has our surface mind the same kind of awareness. But in the
\nknowledge of the structure and movements of our
\nsubjective consciousness some element of awareness by identity does
\nenter; for we can project ourselves with a certain
\nidentification into these movements. It has already been noted how this
\ncan happen in the case of an uprush of wrath which
\nswallows us up so that for the moment our whole consciousness seems to
\nbe a wave of anger: other passions, love, grief,
\njoy have the same power to seize and occupy us; thought also absorbs
\nand occupies, we lose sight of the thinker and
\nbecome the thought and the thinking. But very ordinarily there is a
\ndouble movement; a part of our selves becomes the
\nthought or the passion, another part of us either accompanies it with a
\ncertain adherence or follows it closely and knows it
\nby an intimate direct contact which falls short of identification or
\nentire self-oblivion in the movement. <\/p>\n

   
\nThis identification is possible, and also this simultaneous separation
\nand partial identification, because these things are becomings of our
\nbeing, determinations of our mind stuff and mind energy, of our life
\nstuff and life energy; but, since they
\nare only a small part of us, we are not bound to be identified and
\noccupied, — we can detach ourselves, separate the being
\nfrom its temporary becoming, observe it, control it, sanction or
\nprevent its manifestation: we can, in this way, by an inner
\ndetachment, a mental or spiritual separateness, partially or even
\nfundamentally liberate ourselves from the control of mind
\nnature or vital nature over the being and assume the position of the
\nwitness, knower and ruler. Thus we have a double
\nknowledge of the subjective movement: there is an intimate knowledge,
\nby\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 525<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

identity, of its stuff and its force of action, more
\nintimate than we could have by any entirely separative and objective
\nknowledge such as we get of things outside us, things that are to us
\naltogether not-self; there is at the same time a
\nknowledge by detached observation, detached but with a power of direct
\ncontact, which frees us from engrossment by the
\nNature-energy and enables us to relate the movement to the rest of our
\nown existence and world existence. If we are
\nwithout this detachment, we lose our self of being and mastering
\nknowledge in the nature self of becoming and movement
\nand action and, though we know intimately the movement, we do not know
\nit dominatingly and fully. This would not be the
\ncase if we carried into our identification with the movement our
\nidentity with the rest of our subjective existence, — if, that is
\nto say, we could plunge wholly into the wave of becoming and at the
\nsame time be in the very absorption of the state or act
\nthe mental witness, observer, controller; but this we cannot easily do,
\nbecause we live in a divided consciousness in which
\nthe vital part of us, — our life nature of force and desire and passion
\nand action, — tends to control or swallow up the mind,
\nand the mind has to avoid this subjection and control the vital, but
\ncan only succeed in the effort by keeping itself separate;
\nfor if it identifies itself, it is lost and hurried away in the life
\nmovement. Nevertheless a kind of balanced double identity by
\ndivision is possible, though it is not easy to keep the balance; there
\nis a self of thought which observes and permits the
\npassion for the sake of the experience, — or is obliged by some
\nlife-stress to permit it, — and there is a self of life which
\nallows itself to be carried along in the movement of Nature. Here,
\nthen, in our subjective experience, we have a field of the
\naction of consciousness in which three movements of cognition can meet
\ntogether, a certain kind of knowledge by identity, a
\nknowledge by direct contact and, dependent upon them, a separative
\nknowledge. <\/p>\n

    
\nIn thought separation of the thinker and the thinking is more
\ndifficult. The thinker is plunged and lost in the thought or
\ncarried in the thought current, identified with it; it is not usually
\nat the time of or in the very act of thinking that he can
\nobserve or review his thoughts, — he has to do that in retrospect and
\nwith the aid of memory or by a critical pause of
\ncorrective <\/p>\n


\nPage 526<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

judgment before he proceeds further: but still a
\nsimultaneity of thinking and conscious direction of the mind’s action
\ncan be
\nachieved partially when the thought does not engross, entirely when the
\nthinker acquires the faculty of stepping back into the
\nmental self and standing apart there from the mental energy. Instead of
\nbeing absorbed in the thought with at most a vague
\nfeeling of the process of thinking, we can see the process by a mental
\nvision, watch our thoughts in their origination and
\nmovement and, partly by a silent insight, partly by a process of
\nthought upon thought, judge and evaluate them. But whatever
\nthe kind of identification, it is to be noted that the knowledge of our
\ninternal movements is of a double nature, separation and
\ndirect contact: for even when we detach ourselves, this close contact
\nis maintained; our knowledge is always based on a
\ndirect touch, on a cognition by direct awareness carrying in it a
\ncertain element of identity. The more separative attitude is
\nordinarily the method of our reason in observing and knowing our inner
\nmovements; the more intimate is the method of our
\ndynamic part of mind associating itself with our sensations, feelings
\nand desires: but in this association too the thinking mind
\ncan intervene and exercise a separative dissociated observation and
\ncontrol over both the dynamic self-associating part of
\nmind and the vital or physical movement. All the observable movements
\nof our physical being also are known and controlled
\nby us in both these ways, the separative and the intimate; we feel the
\nbody and what it is doing intimately as part of us, but
\nthe mind is separate from it and can exercise a detached control over
\nits movements. This gives to our normal knowledge of
\nour subjective being and nature, incomplete and largely superficial
\nthough it still is, yet, so far as it goes, a certain intimacy,
\nimmediacy and directness. That is absent in our knowledge of the world
\noutside us and its movements and objects: for there,
\nsince the thing seen or experienced is not-self, not experienced as
\npart of us, no entirely direct contact of consciousness
\nwith the object is possible; an instrumentation of sense has to be used
\nwhich offers us, not immediate intimate knowledge of
\nit, but a figure of it as a first datum for knowledge. <\/p>\n

     In the cognition of external things, our knowledge has an\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 527<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

entirely separative basis; its whole machinery and
\nprocess are of the nature of an indirect perception. We do not identify
\nourselves with external objects, not even with other men though they
\nare beings of our own nature; we cannot enter into
\ntheir existence as if it were our own, we cannot know them and their
\nmovements with the directness, immediateness,
\nintimacy with which we know, — even though incompletely, — ourselves
\nand our movements. But not only identification lacks,
\ndirect contact also is absent; there is no direct touch between our
\nconsciousness and their consciousness, our substance and
\ntheir substance, our self of being and their self-being. The only
\nseemingly direct contact with them or direct evidence we
\nhave of them is through the senses; sight, hearing, touch seem to
\ninitiate some kind of a direct intimacy with the object of
\nknowledge: but this is not so really, not a real directness, a real
\nintimacy, for what we get by our sense is not the inner or
\nintimate touch of the thing itself, but an image of it or a vibration
\nor nerve message in ourselves through which we have to
\nlearn to know it. These means are so ineffective, so exiguous in their
\npoverty that, if that were the whole machinery, we
\ncould know little or nothing or only achieve a great blur of confusion.
\nBut there intervenes a sense-mind intuition which
\nseizes the suggestion of the image or vibration and equates it with the
\nobject, a vital intuition which seizes the energy or
\nfigure of power of the object through another kind of vibration created
\nby the sense contact, and an intuition of the
\nperceptive mind which at once forms a right idea of the object from all
\nthis evidence. Whatever is deficient in the
\ninterpretation of the image thus constructed is filled up by the
\nintervention of the reason or the total understanding
\nintelligence. If the first composite intuition were the result of a
\ndirect contact or if it summarised the action of a total intuitive
\nmentality master of its perceptions, there would be no need for the
\nintervention of the reason except as a discoverer or
\norganiser of knowledge not conveyed by the sense and its suggestions:
\nit is, on the contrary, an intuition working on an
\nimage, a sense document, an indirect evidence, not working upon a
\ndirect contact of consciousness with the object. But
\nsince the image or vibration is a defective and summary documentation
\nand the intuition itself\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 528<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

limited and communicated through an obscure medium,
\nacting in a blind light, the accuracy of our intuitional interpretative
\nconstruction of the object is open to question or at least likely to be
\nincomplete. Man has had perforce to develop his reason
\nin order to make up for the deficiencies of his sense instrumentation,
\nthe fallibility of his physical mind’s perceptions and the
\npaucity of its interpretation of its data. <\/p>\n

 
\n  Our world-knowledge is therefore a difficult structure made up
\nof the imperfect documentation of the sense-image, an
\nintuitional interpretation of it by perceptive mind, life-mind and
\nsense-mind, and a supplementary filling up, correction,
\naddition of supplementary knowledge, co-ordination, by the reason. Even
\nso our knowledge of the world we live in is narrow
\nand imperfect, our interpretations of its significances doubtful:
\nimagination, speculation, reflection, impartial weighing and
\nreasoning, inference, measurement, testing, a further correction and
\namplification of sense evidence by Science,—all this
\napparatus had to be called in to complete the incompleteness. After all
\nthat the result still remains a half-certain,
\nhalf-dubious accumulation of acquired indirect knowledge, a mass of
\nsignificant images and ideative representations,
\nabstract thought-counters, hypotheses, theories, generalisations, but
\nalso with all that a mass of doubts and a never-ending
\ndebate and inquiry. Power has come with knowledge, but our imperfection
\nof knowledge leaves us without any idea of the
\ntrue use of the power, even of the aim towards which our utilisation of
\nknowledge and power should be turned and made
\neffective. This is worsened by the imperfection of our self-knowledge
\nwhich, such as it is, meagre and pitifully insufficient,
\nis of our surface only, of our apparent phenomenal self and nature and
\nnot of our true self and the true meaning of our
\nexistence. Self-knowledge and self-mastery are wanting in the user,
\nwisdom and right will in his use of world-power and
\nworld-knowledge. <\/p>\n

     
\nIt is evident that our state on the surface is indeed a state of
\nknowledge, so far as it goes, but a limited knowledge
\nenveloped and invaded by ignorance and, to a very large extent, by
\nreason of its limitation, itself a kind of ignorance, at best
\na mixed knowledge-ignorance. It could not be otherwise since our\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 529<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

awareness of the world is born of a separative and surface observation with only an indirect means of cognition at its
\ndisposal; our knowledge of ourselves, though more direct, is stultified by its restriction to the surface of our being, by an
\nignorance of our true self, the true sources of our nature, the true motive-forces of our action. It is quite evident that we
\nknow ourselves with only a superficial knowledge, — the sources of our consciousness and thought are a mystery; the true
\nnature of our mind, emotions, sensations is a mystery; our cause of being and our end of being, the significance of our life
\nand its activities are a mystery: this could not be if we had a real self-knowledge and a real world-knowledge. <\/p>\n

  
\nIf we look for the reason of this limitation and imperfection, we shall
\nfind first that it is because we are concentrated on
\nour surface; the depths of self, the secrets of our total nature are
\nshut away from us behind a wall created by our externalising
\nconsciousness, — or created for it so that it can pursue its activity
\nof egocentric individualisation of the mind, life
\nand body uninvaded by the deeper and wider truth of our larger
\nexistence: through this wall we can look into our inner self
\nand reality only through crevices and portholes and we see little there
\nbut a mysterious dimness. At the same time our
\nconsciousness has to defend its ego-centric individualisation, not only
\nagainst its own deeper self of oneness and infinity, but
\nagainst the cosmic infinite; it builds up a wall of division here also
\nand shuts out all that is not centred round its ego, excludes
\nit as the not-self. But since it has to live with this not-self, — for
\nit belongs to it, depends upon it, is an inhabitant within it, — it
\nmust maintain some means of communication; it has too to make
\nexcursions out of its wall of ego and wall of self-restriction within
\nthe body in order to cater for those needs which the not-self can
\nsupply to it: it must learn to know in some way all that surrounds it
\nso as to be able to master it and make it as far as possible a servant
\nto the individual and collective human life and ego. The body provides
\nour consciousness with the gates of the senses through which it can
\nestablish the necessary communication and means of observation and
\naction upon the world, upon the not-self outside it; the mind uses
\nthese means and invents others that supplement <\/p>\n


\nPage 530<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

them and it succeeds in establishing some construction, some system of knowledge which serves its immediate purpose or
\nits general will to master partially and use this huge alien environmental existence or deal with it where it cannot master it.
\nBut the knowledge it gains is objective; it is mainly a knowledge of the surface of things or of what is just below the surface,
\npragmatic, limited and insecure. Its defence against the invasion of the cosmic energy is equally insecure and partial: in spite
\nof its notice of no entry without permission, it is subtly and invisibly invaded by the world, enveloped by the not-self and
\nmoulded by it; its thought, its will, its emotional and its life energy are penetrated by waves and currents of thought, will,
\npassion, vital impacts, forces of all kinds from others and from universal Nature. Its wall of defence becomes a wall of
\nobscuration which prevents it from knowing all this interaction; it knows only what comes through the gates of sense or
\nthrough mental perceptions of which it cannot be sure or through what it can infer or build up from its gathered sense-data;
\nall the rest is to it a blank of nescience.<\/p>\n

        
   
\n It is, then, this double wall of self-imprisonment, this
\nself-fortification in the bounds of a surface ego, that is the cause of
\nour limited knowledge or ignorance, and if this self-imprisonment were
\nthe whole character of our existence, the ignorance
\nwould be irremediable. But, in fact, this constant outer ego-building
\nis only a provisional device of the Consciousness-Force
\nin things so that the secret individual, the spirit within, may
\nestablish a representative and instrumental formation of itself in
\nphysical nature, a provisional individualisation in the nature of the
\nIgnorance, which is all that can at first be done in a world
\nemerging out of a universal Inconscience. Our self-ignorance and our
\nworld-ignorance can only grow towards integral self-knowledge and
\nintegral world-knowledge in proportion as our limited ego and its
\nhalf-blind consciousness open to a greater inner existence and
\nconsciousness and a true self-being and become aware too of the
\nnot-self outside it also as self, — on one side a Nature constituent of
\nour own nature, on the other an Existence which is a boundless
\ncontinuation of our own self-being. Our being has to break the walls of
\nego-consciousness <\/p>\n


\nPage 531<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

which it has created, it has to extend itself beyond its body and inhabit the body of the universe. In place of its knowledge by
\nindirect contact, or in addition to it, it must arrive at a knowledge by direct contact and proceed to a knowledge by identity.
\nIts limited finite of self has to become a boundless finite and an infinite. <\/p>\n

   
\nBut the first of these two movements, the awakening to our inner
\nrealities, imposes itself as the prior necessity because
\nit is by this inward self-finding that the second, — the cosmic
\nself-finding, — can become entirely possible: we have to go into
\nour inner being and learn to live in it and from it; the outer mind and
\nlife and body must become for us only an antechamber.
\nAll that we are on the outside is indeed conditioned by what is within,
\noccult, in our inner depths and recesses; it is thence
\nthat come the secret initiatives, the self-effective formations; our
\ninspirations, our intuitions, our life-motives, our mind’s
\npreferences, our will’s selections are actuated from there, — in so far
\nas they are not shaped or influenced by an insistence,
\nequally hidden, of a surge of cosmic impacts: but the use we make of
\nthese emergent powers and these influences is
\nconditioned, largely determined and, above all, very much limited by
\nour outermost nature. It is then the knowledge of this
\ninner initiating self coupled with the accurate perception of the outer
\ninstrumental self and the part played by both of them in
\nour building that we have to discover. <\/p>\n

    On the surface we know only so much
\nof our self as is formulated there and of even this only a portion; for we see
\nour total surface being in a general vagueness dotted and sectioned by points or
\nfigures of precision: even what we discover by a mental introspection is only a
\nsum of sections; the entire figure and sense of our personal formation escapes
\nour notice. But there is also a distorting action which obscures and disfigures
\neven this limited self-knowledge; our self-view is vitiated by the constant
\nimpact and intrusion of our outer life-self, our vital being, which seeks always
\nto make the thinking mind its tool and servant: for our vital being is not
\nconcerned with self-knowledge but with self-affirmation, desire, ego. It is
\ntherefore constantly acting on mind to build for it a mental structure of
\napparent <\/p>\n


\nPage 532<\/font><\/i> <\/p>\n

\n

self that will serve these purposes; our mind is persuaded to present to us and to others a partly fictitious representative
\nfigure of ourselves which supports our self-affirmation, justifies our desires and actions, nourishes our ego. This vital
\nintervention is not indeed always in the direction of self-justification and assertion; it turns sometimes towards
\nself-depreciation and a morbid and exaggerated self-criticism: but this too is an ego-structure, a reverse or negative egoism,
\na poise or pose of the vital ego. For
\nin this vital ego there is frequently a mixture of the charlatan and
\nmountebank, the poser
\nand actor; it is constantly taking up a role and playing it to itself
\nand to others as its public. An organised self-deception is
\nthus added to an organised self-ignorance; it is only by going within
\nand seeing these things at their source that we can get
\nout of this obscurity and tangle. <\/p>\n

   
\n For a larger mental being is there within us, a larger inner
\nvital being, even a larger inner subtle-physical being other
\nthan our surface body-consciousness, and by entering into this or
\nbecoming it, identifying ourselves with it, we can observe
\nthe springs of our thoughts and feelings, the sources and motives of
\nour action, the operative energies that build up our
\nsurface personality. For we discover and can know the inner being that
\nsecretly thinks and perceives in us, the vital being
\nthat secretly feels and acts upon life through us, the subtle-physical
\nbeing that secretly receives and responds to the contacts
\nof things through our body and its organs. Our surface thought,
\nfeeling, emotion is a complexity and confusion of impulsions
\nfrom within and impacts from outside us; our reason, our organising
\nintelligence can impose on it only an imperfect order:
\nbut here within we find the separate sources of our mental, our vital
\nand our physical energisms and can see clearly the pure
\noperations, the distinct powers, the composing elements of each and
\ntheir interplay in a clear light of self-vision. We find that
\nthe contradictions and the struggles of our surface consciousness are
\nlargely due to the contrary or mutually discordant
\ntendencies of our mental, vital and physical parts opposing and
\nunreconciled with each other and these again to the discord of many
\ndifferent inner possibilities of our being and even of different
\npersonalities on each level in us which are behind the intermixed
\ndisposition <\/p>\n


\nPage 533 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

and differing tendencies of our surface nature. But
\nwhile on the surface their action is mixed together, confused and
\nconflicting, here in our depths they can be seen and worked upon in
\ntheir independent and separate nature and action and a harmonisation of
\nthem by the mental being in us, leader of the life and body,1<\/sup>
\n— or, better, by the central psychic entity, — is not so difficult,
\nprovided we have the right psychic and mental will in the endeavour:
\nfor if it is with the vital-ego motive that we make the entry into the
\nsubliminal being, it may result in serious
\ndangers and disaster or at the least an exaggeration of ego,
\nself-affirmation and desire, an enlarged and more powerful
\nignorance instead of an enlarged and more powerful knowledge. Moreover,
\nwe find in this inner or subliminal being the
\nmeans of directly distinguishing between what rises from within and
\nwhat comes to us from outside, from others or from
\nuniversal Nature, and it becomes possible to exercise a control, a
\nchoice, a power of willed reception, rejection and
\nselection, a clear power of self-building and harmonisation which we do
\nnot possess or can operate very imperfectly in our
\ncomposed surface personality but which is the prerogative of our inner
\nPerson. For by this entry into the depths the inner
\nbeing, no longer quite veiled, no longer obliged to exercise a
\nfragmentary influence on its outer instrumental consciousness, is
\nable to formulate itself more luminously in our life in the physical
\nuniverse.    
\n
\n      In its essence the inner being’s
\nknowledge has the same elements as the outer mind’s surface knowledge,
\nbut there is
\nbetween them the difference between a half blindness and a greater
\nclarity of consciousness and vision due to a more direct
\nand powerful instrumentation and a better arrangement of the elements
\nof knowledge. Knowledge by identity, on the
\nsurface a vague inherent sense of our self-existence and a partial
\nidentification with our inner movements, can here deepen
\nand enlarge itself from that indistinct essential perception and
\nlimited sensation to a clear and direct intrinsic awareness of
\nthe whole entity within: we can enter into possession of our whole
\nconscious mental being and life being and arrive at a
\nclose intimacy of direct penetrating and enveloping contact with the
\ntotal <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1<\/font><\/sup> manomayah pranasariraneta — Mundaka
\nUpanishad, 2. 2. 7.<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n


\nPage 534<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

movements of our mental and vital energy; we meet clearly and closely and are, — but more freely and understandingly, — all
\nthe becomings of ourself, the whole self-expression of the Purusha on the present levels of our nature. But also there is or
\ncan be along with this intimacy of knowledge a detached observation of the actions of the nature by the Purusha and a great
\npossibility, through this double status of knowledge, of a complete control and understanding. All the movements of the
\nsurface being can be seen with a complete detachment, but also with a direct sight in the consciousness by which the
\nself-delusions and mistakes of self of the outer consciousness can be dispelled; there is a keener mental vision, a clearer and
\nmore accurate mental feeling of our subjective becoming, a vision which at once knows, commands and controls the whole
\nnature. If the psychic and mental parts in us are strong, the vital comes under mastery and direction to an extent hardly
\npossible to the surface mentality; even the body and the physical energies can be taken up by the inner mind and will and
\nturned into a more plastic instrumentation of the soul, the psychic being. On the other hand, if the mental and psychic parts
\nare weak and the vital strong and unruly, power is increased by entry into the inner vital, but discrimination and detached
\nvision are deficient; the knowledge, even if increased in force and range, remains turbid and misleading; intelligent
\nself-control may give place to a vast undisciplined impetus or a rigidly disciplined but misguided egoistic action. For the
\nsubliminal is still a movement of the Knowledge-Ignorance; it has in it a greater knowledge, but the possibility also of a
\ngreater because more self-affirming ignorance. This is because, though an increased self-knowledge is normal here, it is not
\nat once an integral knowledge: an awareness by direct contact, which is the principal power of the subliminal, is not
\nsufficient for that; for it may be contact with greater becomings and powers of Knowledge, but also with greater becomings
\nand powers of the Ignorance. <\/p>\n

      But the subliminal being has also a
\nlarger direct contact with the world; it is not confined like the surface Mind
\nto the interpretation of sense-images and sense-vibrations supplemented by the
\nmental and vital intuition and the reason. There is indeed an inner sense in the
\nsubliminal nature, a subtle sense of vision, <\/p>\n


\nPage 535 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

hearing, touch, smell and taste; but these are not confined to the creation of images of things belonging to the physical
\nenvironment, — they can present to the consciousness visual, auditory, tactual and other images and vibrations of things
\nbeyond the restricted range of the physical senses or belonging to other planes or spheres of existence. This inner sense can
\ncreate or present images, scenes, sounds that are symbolic rather than actual or that represent possibilities in formation,
\nsuggestions, thoughts, ideas, intentions of other beings, image-forms also of powers or potentialities in universal Nature;
\nthere is nothing that it cannot image or visualise or turn into sensory formations. It is the subliminal in reality and not the
\nouter mind that possesses the powers of telepathy, clairvoyance, second sight and other supernormal faculties whose
\noccurrence in the surface consciousness is due to openings or rifts in the wall erected by the outer personality’s unseeing
\nlabour of individualisation and interposed between itself and the inner domain of our being. It should be noted, however, that
\nowing to this complexity the action of the subliminal sense can be confusing or misleading, especially if it is interpreted by
\nthe outer mind to which the secret of its operations is unknown and its principles of sign-construction and symbolic
\nfigure-languages foreign; a greater inner power of intuition, tact, discrimination is needed to judge and interpret rightly its
\nimages and experiences. It is still the fact that they add immensely to our possible scope of knowledge and widen the
\nnarrow limits in which our sense-bound outer physical consciousness is circumscribed and imprisoned. <\/p>\n

    But more important is the power of
\nthe subliminal to enter into a direct contact of consciousness with other
\nconsciousness or with objects, to act without other instrumentation, by an
\nessential sense inherent in its own substance, by a direct mental vision, by a
\ndirect feeling of things, even by a close envelopment and intimate penetration
\nand a return with the contents of what is enveloped or penetrated, by a direct
\nintimation or impact on the substance of mind itself, not through outward signs
\nor figures, — a revealing intimation or a self-communicating impact of thoughts,
\nfeelings, forces. It is by these means that the inner being achieves an
\nimmediate, intimate and accurate spontaneous <\/p>\n


\nPage 536 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

knowledge of persons, of objects, of the occult and
\nto us intangible energies of world-Nature that surround us and impinge
\nupon our own personality, physicality, mind-force and life-force. In
\nour surface mentality we are sometimes aware of a
\nconsciousness that can feel or know the thoughts and inner reactions of
\nothers or become aware of objects or happenings
\nwithout any observable sense-intervention or otherwise exercise powers
\nsupernormal to our ordinary capacity; but these
\ncapacities are occasional, rudimentary, vague. Their possession is
\nproper to our concealed subliminal self and, when they
\nemerge, it is by a coming to the surface of its powers or operations.
\nThese emergent operations of the subliminal being or
\nsome of them are now fragmentarily studied under the name of psychic
\nphenomena, — although they have ordinarily nothing
\nto do with the psyche, the soul, the inmost entity in us, but only with
\nthe inner mind, the inner vital, the subtle-physical parts
\nof our subliminal being; but the results cannot be conclusive or
\nsufficiently ample because they are sought for by methods of
\ninquiry and experiment and standards of proof proper to the surface
\nmind and its system of knowledge by indirect contact.
\nUnder these conditions they can be investigated only in so far as they
\nare able to manifest in that mind to which they are
\nexceptional, abnormal or supernormal, and therefore comparatively rare,
\ndifficult, incomplete in their occurrence. It is only if
\nwe can open up the wall between the outer mind and the inner
\nconsciousness to which such phenomena are normal, or if
\nwe can enter freely within or dwell there, that this realm of knowledge
\ncan be truly explained and annexed to our total
\nconsciousness and included in the field of operation of our awakened
\nforce of nature. <\/p>\n

     In our surface mind we have no direct
\nmeans of knowing even other men who are of our own kind and have a similar
\nmentality and are vitally and physically built on the same model. We can acquire
\na general knowledge of the human mind and the human body and apply it to them
\nwith the aid of the many constant and habitual outer signs of the human inner
\nmovements with which we are familiar; these summary judgments can be farther
\neked out by our experience of personal character and habits, by instinctive
\napplication of what self-knowledge we have <\/p>\n


\nPage 537 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

to our understanding and judgment of others, by
\ninference from speech and conduct, by insight of observation and
\ninsight of
\nsympathy. But the results are always incomplete and very frequently
\ndeceptive: our inferences are as often as not
\nerroneous constructions, our interpretation of the outward signs a
\nmistaken guess-work, our application of general
\nknowledge or our self-knowledge baffled by elusive factors of personal
\ndifference, our very insight uncertain and unreliable.
\nHuman beings therefore live as strangers to each other, at best tied by
\na very partial sympathy and mutual experience; we
\ndo not know enough, do not know as well as we know ourselves, — and
\nthat itself is little, — even those nearest to us. But in
\nthe subliminal inner consciousness it is possible to become directly
\naware of the thoughts and feelings around us, to feel their
\nimpact, to see their movements; to read a mind and a heart becomes less
\ndifficult, a less uncertain venture. There is a
\nconstant mental, vital, subtle-physical interchange going on between
\nall who meet or live together, of which they are
\nthemselves unaware except in so far as its impacts and
\ninterpenetrations touch them as sensible results of speech and action
\nand outer contact: for the most part it is subtly and invisibly that
\nthis interchange takes place; for it acts indirectly, touching
\nthe subliminal parts and through them the outer nature. But when we
\ngrow conscious in these subliminal parts, that brings
\nconsciousness also of all this interaction and subjective interchange
\nand intermingling, with the result that we need no longer
\nbe involuntary subjects of their impact and consequence, but can accept
\nor reject, defend ourselves or isolate. At the same
\ntime, our action on others need no longer be ignorant or involuntary
\nand often unintentionally harmful; it can be a conscious
\nhelp, a luminous interchange and a fruitful accommodation, an approach
\ntowards an inner understanding or union, not as
\nnow a separative association with only a limited intimacy or unity,
\nrestricted by much non-understanding and often burdened
\nor endangered by a mass of misunderstanding, of mutual
\nmisinterpretation and error. <\/p>\n

     Equally important would be the change
\nin our dealings with the impersonal forces of the world that surround us. These
\nwe know only by their results, by the little that we can seize of their <\/p>\n


\nPage 538 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

visible action and consequence. Among them it is
\nmostly the physical world-forces of which we have some knowledge, but
\nwe live constantly in the midst of a whirl of unseen mind-forces and
\nlife-forces of which we know nothing, we are not even
\naware of their existence. To all this unseen movement and action the
\nsubliminal inner consciousness can open our
\nawareness, for it has a knowledge of it by direct contact, by inner
\nvision, by a psychic sensitiveness; but at present it can
\nonly enlighten our obtuse superficiality and outwardness by unexplained
\nwarnings, premonitions, attractions and repulsions,
\nideas, suggestions, obscure intuitions, the little it can get through
\nimperfectly to the surface. The inner being not only
\ncontacts directly and concretely the immediate motive and movement of
\nthese universal forces and feels the results of their
\npresent action, but it can to a certain extent forecast or see ahead
\ntheir farther action; there is a greater power in our
\nsubliminal parts to overcome the time barrier, to have the sense or
\nfeel the vibration of coming events, of distant happenings,
\neven to look into the future. It is true that this knowledge proper to
\nthe subliminal being is not complete; for it is a mixture of
\nknowledge and ignorance and it is capable of erroneous as well as of
\ntrue perception, since it works not by knowledge by
\nidentity, but by a knowledge through direct contact and this is also a
\nseparative knowledge, though more intimate even in separation than
\nanything that is commanded by our surface nature. But the mixed
\ncapacity of the inner mental and vital nature for a greater ignorance
\nas well as a greater knowledge can be cured by going still deeper
\nbehind it to the psychic entity which supports our individual life and
\nbody. There is indeed a soul-personality, representative of this
\nentity, already built up within us, which puts forward a fine psychic
\nelement in our natural being: but this finer factor in our normal
\nmake-up is not yet dominant and has only a limited action. Our soul is
\nnot the overt guide and master of our thought and acts; it has to rely
\non the mental, vital, physical instruments for self-expression and is
\nconstantly overpowered by our mind and life-force: but if once it can
\nsucceed in remaining in constant communion with its own larger occult
\nreality, — and this can only happen when we go deep into our subliminal
\nparts, — it is no longer <\/p>\n


\nPage 539 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

dependent, it can become powerful and sovereign, armed with an intrinsic spiritual perception of the truth of things and a
\nspontaneous discernment which separates that truth from the falsehood of the Ignorance and Inconscience, distinguishes the
\ndivine and the undivine in the manifestation and so can be the luminous leader of our other parts of nature. It is indeed when
\nthis happens that there can be the turning-point towards an integral transformation and an integral knowledge. <\/p>\n

   
\nThese are the dynamic functionings and pragmatic values of the
\nsubliminal cognition; but what concerns us in our
\npresent inquiry is to learn from its way of action the exact character
\nof this deeper and larger cognition and how it is related
\nto true knowledge. Its main character is a knowledge by the direct
\ncontact of consciousness with its object or of
\nconsciousness with other consciousness; but in the end we discover that
\nthis power is an outcome of a secret knowledge by
\nidentity, a translation of it into a separative awareness of things.
\nFor as in the indirect contact proper to our normal
\nconsciousness and surface cognition it is the meeting or friction of
\nthe living being with the existence outside it that awakens
\nthe spark of conscious knowledge, so here it is some contact that sets
\nin action a pre-existent secret knowledge and brings it
\nto the surface. For consciousness is one in the subject and the object,
\nand in the contact of existence with existence this
\nidentity brings to light or awakens in the self the dormant knowledge
\nof this other self outside it. But while this pre-existent
\nknowledge comes up in the surface mind as a knowledge acquired, it
\narises in the subliminal as a thing seen, caught from
\nwithin, remembered as it were, or, when it is fully intuitive,
\nself-evident to the inner awareness; or it is taken in from the
\nobject contacted but with an immediate response as to something
\nintimately recognisable. In the surface consciousness knowledge
\nrepresents itself as a truth seen from outside, thrown on us from the
\nobject, or as a response to its touch on the sense, a perceptive
\nreproduction of its objective actuality. Our surface mind is obliged to
\ngive to itself this account of its knowledge, because the wall between
\nitself and the outside world is pierced by the gates of sense and it
\ncan catch through these gates the surface of outward objects though not
\nwhat is within them, but <\/p>\n


\nPage 540 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

there is no such ready-made opening between itself and its own inner being: since it is unable to see what is within its
\ndeeper self or observe the process of the knowledge coming from within, it has no choice but to accept what it does see, the
\nexternal object, as the cause of its knowledge. Thus all our mental knowing of things represents itself to us as objective, a
\ntruth imposed on us from outside; our knowledge is a reflection or responsive construction reproducing in us a figure or
\npicture or a mental scheme of something that is not in our own being. In fact, it is a hidden deeper response to the contact, a
\nresponse coming from within that throws up from there an inner knowledge of the object, the object being itself part of our
\nlarger self; but owing to the double veil, the veil between our inner self and our ignorant surface self and the veil between
\nthat surface self and the object contacted, it is only an imperfect figure or representation of the inner knowledge that is
\nformed on the surface. <\/p>\n

   
\nThis affiliation, this concealed method of our knowledge, obscure and
\nnon-evident to our present mentality, becomes
\nclear and evident when the subliminal inner being breaks its boundaries
\nof individuality and, carrying our surface mind with
\nit, enters into the cosmic consciousness. The subliminal is separated
\nfrom the cosmic through a limitation by the subtler
\nsheaths of our being, its mental, vital, subtle-physical sheaths, just
\nas the surface nature is separated from universal Nature
\nby the gross physical sheath, the body; but the circumscribing wall
\naround it is more transparent, is indeed less a wall than a
\nfence. The subliminal has besides a formation of consciousness which
\nprojects itself beyond all these sheaths and forms a circumconscient,
\nan environing part of itself, through which it receives the contacts of
\nthe world and can become aware of
\nthem and deal with them before they enter. The subliminal is able to
\nwiden indefinitely this circumconscient envelope and more and more
\nenlarge its self-projection into the cosmic existence around it. A
\npoint comes where it can break through the separation altogether,
\nunite, identify itself with cosmic being, feel itself universal, one
\nwith all existence. In this freedom of entry into cosmic self and
\ncosmic nature there is a great liberation of the individual being; it
\nputs on a cosmic consciousness, becomes the universal <\/p>\n

\nPage 541 <\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

individual. Its first result, when it is complete,
\nis the realisation of the cosmic spirit, the one self inhabiting the
\nuniverse, and
\nthis union may even bring about a disappearance of the sense of
\nindividuality, a merger of the ego into the world-being.
\nAnother common result is an entire openness to the universal Energy so
\nthat it is felt acting through the mind and life and
\nbody and the sense of individual action ceases. But more usually there
\nare results of less amplitude; there is a direct
\nawareness of universal being and nature, there is a greater openness of
\nthe mind to the cosmic Mind and its energies, to the
\ncosmic Life and its energies, to cosmic Matter and its energies. A
\ncertain sense of unity of the individual with the cosmic, a
\nperception of the world held within one’s consciousness as well as of
\none’s own intimate inclusion in the world
\nconsciousness can become frequent or constant in this opening; a
\ngreater feeling of unity with other beings is its natural
\nconsequence. It is then that the existence of the cosmic Being becomes
\na certitude and a reality and is no longer an ideative
\nperception. <\/p>\n

     But
\nthe cosmic consciousness of things is founded upon knowledge by
\nidentity; for the universal Spirit knows itself as
\nthe Self of all, knows all as itself and in itself, knows all nature as
\npart of its nature. It is one with all that it contains and
\nknows it by that identity and by a containing nearness; for there is at
\nthe same time an identity and an exceeding, and, while
\nfrom the point of view of the identification there is a oneness and
\ncomplete knowledge, so from the point of view of the
\nexceeding there is an inclusion and a penetration, an enveloping
\ncognition of each thing and all things, a penetrating sense
\nand vision of each thing and all things. For the cosmic Spirit inhabits
\neach and all, but is more than all; there is therefore in its
\nself-view and world-view a separative power which prevents the cosmic
\nconsciousness from being imprisoned in the objects
\nand beings in which it dwells: it dwells within them as an
\nall-pervading spirit and power; whatever individualisation takes
\nplace is proper to the person or object, but is not binding on the
\ncosmic Being. It becomes each thing without ceasing from
\nits own larger all-containing existence. Here then is a large universal
\nidentity containing smaller identities; for whatever
\nseparative cognition <\/p>\n


\nPage 542 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

exists in or enters into the cosmic consciousness
\nmust stand on this double identity and does not contradict it. If there
\nis any
\nneed of a drawing back and a knowledge by separation plus contact, it
\nis yet a separateness in identity, a contact in identity;
\nfor the object contained is part of the self of that which contains it.
\nIt is only when a more drastic separativeness intervenes,
\nthat the identity veils itself and throws up a lesser knowledge, direct
\nor indirect, which is unaware of its source; yet is it
\nalways the sea of identity which throws up to the surface the waves or
\nthe spray of a direct or an indirect knowledge. <\/p>\n

    
\nThis is on the side of consciousness; on the side of action, of the
\ncosmic energies, it is seen that they move in masses,
\nwaves, currents constantly constituting and reconstituting beings and
\nobjects, movements and happenings, entering into them,
\npassing through them, forming themselves in them, throwing themselves
\nout from them on other beings and objects. Each
\nnatural individual is a receptacle of these cosmic forces and a dynamo
\nfor their propagation; there passes from each to each
\na constant stream of mental and vital energies, and these run too in
\ncosmic waves and currents no less than the forces of
\nphysical Nature. All this action is veiled from our surface mind’s
\ndirect sense and knowledge, but it is known and felt by the
\ninner being, though only through a direct contact; when the being
\nenters into the cosmic consciousness, it is still more widely,
\ninclusively, intimately aware of this play of cosmic forces. But
\nalthough the knowledge is then more complete, the dynamisation of this
\nknowledge can only be partial; for while a fundamental or static
\nunification with the cosmic self is
\npossible, the active dynamic unification with cosmic Nature must be
\nincomplete. On the level of mind and life, even with the
\nloss of the sense of a separate self-existence, the energisms must be
\nin their very nature a selection through
\nindividualisation; the action is that of the cosmic Energy, but the
\nindividual formation of it in the living dynamo remains the
\nmethod of its working. For the very use of the dynamo of individuality
\nis to select, to concentrate and formulate selected
\nenergies and throw them out in formed and canalised currents: the flow
\nof a total energy would mean that this dynamo had no further use, could
\nbe abolished or put <\/p>\n


\nPage 543 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

out of action; instead of an activity of individual
\nmind, life, body there would be only an individual but impersonal
\ncentre or
\nchannel through which the universal forces would flow unimpeded and
\nunselective. This can happen, but it would imply a
\nhigher spiritualisation far exceeding the normal mental level. In the
\nstatic seizure of the cosmic knowledge by identity, the
\nsubliminal universalised may feel itself one with the cosmic self and
\nthe secret self of all others: but the dynamisation of that
\nknowledge would not go farther than a translation of this sense of
\nidentity into a greater power and intimacy of direct
\ncontact of consciousness with all, a greater, more intimate, more
\npowerful and efficient impact of the force of
\nconsciousness on things and persons, a capacity too of an effective
\ninclusion and penetration, of a dynamised intimate vision
\nand feeling and other powers of cognition and action proper to this
\nlarger nature. <\/p>\n

    
\nIn the subliminal, therefore, even enlarged into the cosmic
\nconsciousness, we get a greater knowledge but not the
\ncomplete and original knowledge. To go farther and see what the
\nknowledge by identity is in its purity and in what way and
\nto what extent it originates, admits or uses the other powers of
\nknowledge, we have to go beyond the inner mind and life and
\nsubtle-physical to the two other ends of the subliminal, interrogate
\nthe subconscient and contact or enter into the
\nsuperconscient. But in the subconscient all is blind, an obscure
\nuniversalism such as is seen in the mass consciousness, an
\nobscure individualism either abnormal to us or ill-formed and
\ninstinctive: here, in the subconscient, a dark knowledge by
\nidentity, such as we find already in the Inconscience, is the basis,
\nbut it does not reveal itself and its secret. The superior
\nsuperconscient ranges are based upon the spiritual consciousness free
\nand luminous, and it is there that we can trace the
\noriginal power of knowledge and perceive the origin and difference of
\nthe two distinct orders, knowledge by identity and
\nseparative knowledge. <\/p>\n

    In the supreme timeless Existence, as
\nfar as we know it by reflection in spiritual experience, existence and
\nconsciousness are one. We are accustomed to identify consciousness with certain
\noperations of mentality and sense and, where these are absent or quiescent, we
\nspeak of that state of being as <\/p>\n


\nPage 544 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

unconscious. But consciousness can exist where there
\nare no overt operations, no signs revealing it, even where it is
\nwithdrawn from objects and absorbed in pure existence or involved in
\nthe appearance of non-existence. It is intrinsic in
\nbeing, self-existent, not abolished by quiescence, by inaction, by
\nveiling or covering, by inert absorption or involution; it is
\nthere in the being, even when its state seems to be dreamless sleep or
\na blind trance or an annulment of awareness or an
\nabsence. In the supreme timeless status where consciousness is one with
\nbeing and immobile, it is not a separate reality, but
\nsimply and purely the self-awareness inherent in existence. There is no
\nneed of knowledge nor is there any operation of
\nknowledge. Being is self-evident to itself: it does not need to look at
\nitself in order to know itself or learn that it is. But if this
\nis evidently true of pure existence, it is also true of the primal
\nAll-Existence; for just as spiritual Self-existence is intrinsically
\naware of its self, so it is intrinsically aware of all that is in its
\nbeing: this is not by an act of knowledge formulated in a
\nself-regard, a self-observation, but by the same inherent awareness; it
\nis intrinsically all-conscious of all that is by the very
\nfact that all is itself. Thus conscious of its timeless self-existence,
\nthe Spirit, the Being is aware in the same
\nway, — intrinsically, absolutely, totally, without any need of a look
\nor act of knowledge, because it is all, — of Time-Existence
\nand of all that is in Time. This is the essential awareness by
\nidentity; if applied to cosmic existence, it would mean an
\nessential self-evident automatic consciousness of universe by the
\nSpirit because it is everything and everything is its being. <\/p>\n

    But there is another status of
\nspiritual awareness which seems to us to be a development from this state and
\npower of pure self-consciousness, perhaps even a first departure, but is in fact
\nnormal and intimate to it; for the awareness by identity is always the very
\nstuff of all the Spirit’s self-knowledge, but it admits within itself, without
\nchanging or modifying its own eternal nature, a subordinate and simultaneous
\nawareness by inclusion and by indwelling. The Being, the Self-existent sees all
\nexistences in its one existence; it contains them all and knows them as being of
\nits being, consciousness of its consciousness, power of its power, bliss of its
\nbliss; it is at the same time, necessarily, the <\/p>\n


\nPage 545 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

Self in them and knows all in them by its
\npervadingly indwelling selfness: but still all this awareness exists
\nintrinsically,
\nself-evidently, automatically, without the need of any act, regard or
\noperation of knowledge; for knowledge here is not an
\nact, but a state pure, perpetual and inherent. At the base of all
\nspiritual knowledge is this consciousness of identity and by
\nidentity, which knows or is simply aware of all as itself. Translated
\ninto our way of consciousness this becomes the triple
\nknowledge thus formulated in the Upanishad, “He who sees all existences
\nin the Self”, “He who sees the Self in all
\nexistences”, “He in whom the Self has become all existences”, —
\ninclusion, indwelling and identity: but in the fundamental
\nconsciousness this seeing is a spiritual self-sense, a seeing that is
\nself-light of being, not a separative regard or a regard upon
\nself turning that self into object. But in this fundamental
\nself-experience a regard of consciousness can manifest which,
\nthough inherently possible, an inevitably self-contained power of
\nspirit, is not a first active element of the absorbed intrinsic
\nself-luminousness and self-evidence of the supreme consciousness. This
\nregard belongs to or brings in another status of the
\nsupreme spiritual consciousness, a status in which knowledge as we know
\nit begins; there is a state of consciousness and in
\nit, intimate to it there is an act of knowing: the Spirit regards
\nitself, it becomes the knower and the known, in a way the
\nsubject and object, — or rather the subject-object in one, — of its own
\nself-knowledge. But this regard, this knowledge is still
\nintrinsic, still self-evident, an act of identity; there is no
\nbeginning of what we experience as separative knowledge. <\/p>\n

     But when the subject draws a little
\nback from itself as object, then certain tertiary powers of spiritual knowledge,
\nof knowledge by identity, take their first origin. There is a spiritual intimate
\nvision, a spiritual pervasive entry and penetration, a spiritual feeling in
\nwhich one sees all as oneself, feels all as oneself, contacts all as oneself.
\nThere is a power of spiritual perception of the object and all that it contains
\nor is, perceived in an enveloping and pervading identity, the identity itself
\nconstituting the perception. There is a spiritual conception that is the
\noriginal substance of thought, not the thought that discovers the unknown, but
\nthat which brings out the intrinsically known from oneself <\/p>\n


\nPage 546 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

and places it in self-space, in an extended being of
\nself-awareness, as an object of conceptual self-knowledge. There is a
\nspiritual emotion, a spiritual sense, there is an intermingling of
\noneness with oneness, of being with being, of consciousness
\nwith consciousness, of delight of being with delight of being. There is
\na joy of intimate separateness in identity, of relations
\nof love joined with love in a supreme unity, a delight of the many
\npowers, truths, beings of the eternal oneness, of the forms
\nof the Formless; all the play of the becoming in the being founds its
\nself-expression upon these powers of the consciousness
\nof the Spirit. But in their spiritual origin all these powers are
\nessential, not instrumental, not organised, devised or created;
\nthey are the luminous self-aware substance of the spiritual Identical
\nmade active on itself and in itself, spirit made sight,
\nspirit vibrant as feeling, spirit self-luminous as perception and
\nconception. All is in fact the knowledge by identity,
\nself-powered, self-moving in its multitudinous selfhood of
\none-awareness. The Spirit’s infinite self-experience moves
\nbetween sheer identity and a multiple identity, a delight of intimately
\ndifferentiated oneness and an absorbed self-rapture. <\/p>\n

   
\nA separative knowledge arises when the sense of differentiation
\noverpowers the sense of identity; the self still cognises
\nits identity with the object but pushes to its extreme the play of
\nintimate separateness. At first there is not a sense of self
\nand not-self, but only of self and other-self. A certain knowledge of
\nidentity and by identity is still there, but it tends to be
\nfirst overstructured, then submerged, then so replaced by knowledge
\nthrough interchange and contact that it figures as a secondary
\nawareness, as if it were a result and no longer the cause of the mutual
\ncontact, the still pervasive and enveloping touch, the interpenetrating
\nintimacy of the separate selves. Finally, identity disappears behind
\nthe veil and there is the play of being with other beings,
\nconsciousness with other consciousness: an underlying identity is still
\nthere, but it is not experienced; its place is taken by a direct
\nseizing and penetrating contact, intermingling, interchange. It is by
\nthis interaction that a more or less intimate knowledge, mutual
\nawareness or awareness of the object remains possible. There is no
\nfeeling of self meeting self, but there is a <\/p>\n


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\n

mutuality; there is not yet an entire separateness, a complete otherness and ignorance. This is a diminished consciousness,
\nbut it retains some power of the original knowledge curtailed by division, by the loss of its primal and essential completeness,
\noperating by division, effecting closeness but not oneness. The power of inclusion of the object in the consciousness, of an
\nenveloping awareness and knowledge is there; but it is the inclusion of a now externalised existence which has to be made
\nan element of our self by an attained or recovered knowledge, by a dwelling of consciousness upon the object, a
\nconcentration, a taking possession of it as part of the existence. The power of penetration is there, but it has no natural
\npervasiveness and does not lead to identity; it gathers what it can, takes what is thus acquired and carries the contents of
\nthe object of knowledge to the subject. There can still be a direct and penetrating contact of consciousness with
\nconsciousness creating a vivid and intimate knowledge, but it is confined to the points or to the extent of the contact. There
\nis still a direct sense, consciousness-sight, consciousness-feeling which can see and feel what is within the object as well as
\nits outside and surface. There is still a mutual penetration and interchange between being and being, between consciousness
\nand consciousness, waves of thought, of feeling, of energy of all kinds which may be a movement of sympathy and union or
\nof opposition and struggle. There can be an attempt at unification by possession of others or through one’s own acceptance
\nof possession by other consciousness or other being; or there can be a push towards union by reciprocal inclusion, pervasion,
\nmutual possession. Of all this action and interaction the knower by direct contact is aware and it is on this basis that he
\narranges his relations with the world around him. This is the origin of knowledge by direct contact of consciousness with its
\nobject, which is normal to our inner being but foreign or only imperfectly known to our surface nature. <\/p>\n

     This first separative ignorance is evidently still a play of knowledge but of a limited separative
\nknowledge, a play of divided being working upon a reality of underlying unity
\nand arriving only at an imperfect result or outcome of the concealed oneness.
\nThe complete intrinsic awareness of identity and the act <\/p>\n


\nPage 548 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

of knowledge by identity belong to the higher
\nhemisphere of existence: this knowledge by direct contact is the main
\ncharacter of the highest supraphysical mental planes of consciousness,
\nthose to which our surface being is closed in by a
\nwall of ignorance; in a diminished and more separative form it is a
\nproperty of the lesser supraphysical planes of mind; it is
\nor can be an element in all that is supraphysical. It is the main
\ninstrumentation of our subliminal self, its central means of
\nawareness; for the subliminal self or inner being is a projection from
\nthese higher planes to meet the subconscience and it
\ninherits the character of consciousness of its planes of origin with
\nwhich it is intimately associated and in touch by kinship. In
\nour outer being we are children of the Inconscience; our inner being
\nmakes us inheritors of the higher heights of mind and
\nlife and spirit: the more we open inwards, go inwards, live inwards,
\nreceive from within, the more we draw away from
\nsubjection to our inconscient origin and move towards all which is now
\nsuperconscient to our ignorance. <\/p>\n

     Ignorance
\nbecomes complete with the entire separation of being from being: the
\ndirect contact of consciousness with
\nconsciousness is then entirely veiled or heavily overlaid, even though
\nit still goes on within our subliminal parts, just as there
\nis also, though wholly concealed and not directly operative, the
\nunderlying secret identity and oneness. There is on the
\nsurface a complete separateness, a division into self and not-self;
\nthere is the necessity of dealing with the not-self, but no
\ndirect means of knowing it or mastering it. Nature then creates
\nindirect means, a contact by physical organs of sense, a
\npenetration of outside impacts through the nerve currents, a reaction
\nof mind and its co-ordinations acting as an aid and
\nsupplement to the activity of the physical organs, — all of them
\nmethods of an indirect knowledge; for the consciousness is
\nforced to rely on these instruments and cannot act directly on the
\nobject. To these means is added a reason, intelligence and
\nintuition which seize on the communications thus indirectly brought to
\nthem, put all in order and utilise their data to get as much knowledge
\nand mastery and possession of the not-self or as much partial unity
\nwith it as the original division allows to the separated being. <\/p>\n


\nPage 549 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

These means are obviously insufficient and often
\ninefficient, and the indirect basis of the mind’s operations afflicts
\nknowledge with a fundamental incertitude; but this initial
\ninsufficiency is inherent in the very nature of our material existence
\nand of all still undelivered existence that emerges from the
\nInconscience. <\/p>\n

   
\n The Inconscience is an inverse reproduction of the supreme
\nsuperconscience: it has the same absoluteness of being and
\nautomatic action, but in a vast involved trance; it is being lost in
\nitself, plunged in its own abyss of infinity. Instead of a
\nluminous absorption in self-existence there is a tenebrous involution
\nin it, the darkness veiled within darkness of the Rig
\nVeda, tama asit tamasa gudham<\/i>, which makes it look like
\nNon-Existence; instead of a luminous inherent self-awareness
\nthere is a consciousness plunged into an abyss of self-oblivion,
\ninherent in being but not awake in being. Yet is this involved
\nconsciousness still a concealed knowledge by identity; it carries in it
\nthe awareness of all the truths of existence hidden in its
\ndark infinite and, when it acts and creates, — but it acts first as
\nEnergy and not as Consciousness, — everything is arranged
\nwith the precision and perfection of an intrinsic knowledge. In all
\nmaterial things reside a mute and involved Real-Idea, a
\nsubstantial and self-effective intuition, an eyeless exact perception,
\nan automatic intelligence working out its unexpressed
\nand unthought conceptions, a blindly seeing sureness of sight, a dumb
\ninfallible sureness of suppressed feeling coated in
\ninsensibility, which effectuate all that has to be effected. All this
\nstate and action of the Inconscient corresponds very
\nevidently with the same state and action of the pure Superconscience,
\nbut translated into terms of self-darkness in place of
\nthe original self-light. Intrinsic in the material form, these powers
\nare not possessed by the form, but yet work in its mute
\nsubconscience. <\/p>\n

    We can, in this knowledge, understand
\nmore clearly the stages of the emergence of consciousness from involution to its
\nevolved appearance, of which we have already attempted some general conception.
\nThe material existence has only a physical, not a mental individuality, but
\nthere is a subliminal Presence in it, the one Conscious in unconscious things,
\nthat determines the operation of its indwelling energies. If, as has been
\naffirmed, a <\/p>\n


\nPage 550 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

material object receives and retains the impression
\nof the contacts of things around it and energies emanate from it, so
\nthat
\nan occult knowledge can become aware of its past, can make us conscious
\nof these emanating influences, the intrinsic unorganised Awareness
\npervading the form but not yet enlightening it must be the cause of
\nthis receptivity and these
\ncapacities. What we see from outside is that material objects like
\nplants and minerals have their powers, properties and
\ninherent influences, but as there is no faculty or means of
\ncommunication, it is only by being brought into contact with person
\nor object or by a conscious utilisation by living beings that their
\ninfluences can become active, — such a utilisation is the
\npractical side of more than one human science. But still these powers
\nand influences are attributes of Being, not of mere
\nindeterminate substance, they are forces of the Spirit emerging by
\nEnergy from its self-absorbed Inconscience. This first
\ncrude mechanical action of an inherent absorbed conscious energy opens
\nin the primary forms of life into submental
\nlife-vibrations that imply an involved sensation; there is a seeking
\nfor growth, light, air, life-room, a blind feeling out, which is
\nstill internal and confined within the immobile being, unable to
\nformulate its instincts, to communicate, to externalise itself.
\nAn immobility not organised to establish living relations, it endures
\nand absorbs contacts, involuntarily inflicts but cannot
\nvoluntarily impose them; the inconscience is still dominant, still
\nworks out everything by the secret involved knowledge by
\nidentity, it has not yet developed the surface contactual means of a
\nconscious knowledge. This further development begins
\nwith overtly conscious life; what we see in it is the imprisoned
\nconsciousness struggling out to the surface: it is under the
\ncompulsion of this struggle that the separated living being strives,
\nhowever blindly at first and within narrow limits, to enter
\ninto conscious relations with the rest of the world-being outside it.
\nIt is by the growing amount of contacts that it can receive
\nand respond to and by the growing amount of contacts that it can put
\nout from itself or impose in order to satisfy its needs
\nand impulsions that the being of living matter develops its
\nconsciousness, grows from inconscience or subconscience into a
\nlimited separative knowledge. <\/p>\n


\nPage 551 <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

We see then all the powers inherent in the original self-existent spiritual Awareness slowly brought out and manifested
\nin this growing separative consciousness; they are activities suppressed but native to the secret and involved knowledge by
\nidentity and they now emerge by degrees in a form strangely diminished and tentative. First, there emerges a crude or veiled
\nsense which develops into precise sensations aided by a vital instinct or concealed intuition; then a life-mind perception
\nmanifests and at its back an obscure consciousness-sight and feeling of things; emotion vibrates out and seeks an
\ninterchange with others; last arises to the surface conception, thought, reason comprehending and apprehending the object,
\ncombining its data of knowledge. But all are incomplete, still maimed by the separative ignorance and the first obscuring
\ninconscience; all are dependent on the outward means, not empowered to act in their own right: consciousness cannot act
\ndirectly on consciousness; there is a constructive envelopment and penetration of things by the mind consciousness, but not
\na real possession; there is no knowledge by identity. Only when the subliminal is able to force upon the frontal mind and
\nsense some of its secret activities pure and untranslated into the ordinary forms of mental intelligence, does a rudimentary
\naction of the deeper methods lift itself to the surface; but such emergences are still an exception, they strike across the
\nnormality of our acquired and learned knowledge with a savour of the abnormal and the supernormal. It is only by an
\nopening to our inner being or an entry into it that a direct intimate awareness can be added to the outer indirect awareness.
\nIt is only by our awakening to our inmost soul or superconscient self that there
\ncan be a beginning of the spiritual knowledge with identity as its basis, its
\nconstituent power, its intrinsic substance. <\/p>\n


\nPage 552<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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