{"id":638,"date":"2013-07-13T01:29:24","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=638"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:29:24","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:24","slug":"34-the-cosmic-illusion-mind-dream-and-hallucination-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\/34-the-cosmic-illusion-mind-dream-and-hallucination-vol-18-the-life-divine-volume-18","title":{"rendered":"-34_The Cosmic Illusion, Mind, Dream and Hallucination .htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n


\nC<\/font>HAPTER <\/font>
\nV <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n


\n\t\tThe Cosmic Illusion;
\nMind, Dream and Hallucination <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

   
\n           
\n           
\n    Thou who hast come to this transient and unhappy
\nworld, turn
\n                               
\nto Me.
\n
                                                                                                                                       
\nGita.1<\/sup><\/font><\/p>\n

                               
\nThis Self is a self of Knowledge, an inner light in the heart; he is
\n                               
\nthe conscious being common to all the states of being
\nand moves
\n                               
\nin both worlds. He becomes a dream-self and passes beyond this
\n                               
\nworld and its forms of death…. There are
\ntwo planes of this con-
\n                               
\nscious being, this and the other worlds; a third state is their place
\n
                               
\nof joining, the state of dream,
\nand when he stands in this place of
\n                               
\ntheir joining, he sees both planes of his existence, this world and
\n                               
\nthe other world.
\nWhen he sleeps, he takes the substance of this
\n                               
\nworld in which all is and himself undoes and himself builds by his
\n                               
\nown
\nillumination, his own light; when this conscious being sleeps,
\n                               
\nhe becomes luminous with his self-light…. There are no
\nroads nor
\n                               
\nchariots, nor joys nor pleasures, nor tanks nor ponds nor rivers,
\n                               
\nbut he creates them by his own light, for he is
\nthe maker. By sleep
\n                               
\nhe casts off his body and unsleeping sees those that sleep; he
\n                               
\npreserves by his life-breath this
\nlower nest and goes forth, im-
\n                               
\nmortal, from his nest; immortal, he goes where he wills, the golden
\n
                               
\nPurusha, the solitary
\nSwan. They say, “the country of waking only
\n                               
\nis his, for the things which he sees when awake, these only he sees
\n                               
\nwhen
\nasleep”; but there he is his own self-light.
\n                                                                                                       
\nBrihadaranyaka Upanishad.2<\/sup><\/font><\/p>\n

                               
\nWhat is seen and what is not seen, what is experienced and what
\n                               
\nis not experienced, what is and what is not,—all it
\nsees, it is all
\n                               
\nand sees.
\n
                                                                                                       
\nPrasna Upanishad.3<\/sup><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

     A<\/font>LL<\/font><\/b> human thought, all mental man’s experience moves between a constant affirmation and negation; there is for his mind no
\ntruth of idea, no result of experience that cannot be affirmed, none that cannot be negated. It has negated the existence of
\nthe individual being, negated the existence of the cosmos, negated the existence of any immanent or underlying Reality,
\nnegated any Reality beyond the individual and the cosmos; but it is also constantly affirming these things, — sometimes one
\nof <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

         1<\/font><\/sup>  IX. 33       
\n2<\/sup>  IV. 3. 7, 9-12,14.       
\n3<\/sup>  IV. 5. <\/font><\/p>\n


\nPage 412<\/p>\n

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

\n

them solely or any two or all of them together. It has to do so because our thinking mind is in its very nature an ignorant
\ndealer in possibilities, not possessing the truth behind any of them, but sounding and testing each in turn or many together if
\nso perchance it may get at some settled belief or knowledge about them, some certitude; yet, living in a world of relativities
\nand possibilities, it can arrive at no final certainty, no absolute and abiding conviction. Even the actual, the realised can
\npresent itself to our mentality as a “may be or may not be”, syad va na syad va<\/i>,
\nor as an “is” under the shadow of the
\n“might not have been” and wearing the aspect of that which will not be
\nhereafter. Our life-being is also afflicted by the
\nsame incertitude; it can rest in no aim of living from which it can
\nderive a sure or final satisfaction or to which it can assign
\nan enduring value. Our nature starts from facts and actualities which
\nit takes for real; it is pushed beyond them into a pursuit
\nof uncertain possibilities and led eventually to question all that it
\ntook as real. For it proceeds from a fundamental ignorance
\nand has no hold on assured truth; all the truths on which it relies for
\na time are found to be partial, incomplete and
\nquestionable.<\/p>\n

    
\nAt the outset man lives in his physical mind which perceives the
\nactual, the physical, the objective and accepts it as fact
\nand this fact as self-evident truth beyond question; whatever is not
\nactual, not physical, not objective it regards as unreal or unrealised,
\nonly to be accepted as entirely real when it has succeeded in becoming
\nactual, becoming a physical fact,
\nbecoming objective: its own being too it regards as an objective fact,
\nwarranted to be real by its existence in a visible and
\nsensible body; all other subjective beings and things it accepts on the
\nsame evidence in so far as they can become objects of
\nour external consciousness or acceptable to that part of the reason
\nwhich builds upon the data supplied by that
\nconsciousness and relies upon them as the one solid basis of knowledge.
\nPhysical Science is a vast extension of this
\nmentality: it corrects the errors of the sense and pushes beyond the
\nfirst limitations of the sense-mind by discovering means
\nof bringing facts and objects not seizable by our corporeal organs into
\nthe field of objectivity; but it has the same standard of
\nreality, the objective, the physical actuality; its test\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 413<\/p>\n

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

\n

of the real is possibility of verification by positive reason and objective evidence. <\/p>\n

    
\nBut man also has a life-mind, a vital mentality which is an instrument
\nof desire: this is not satisfied with the actual, it is a
\ndealer in possibilities; it has the passion for novelty and is seeking
\nalways to extend the limits of experience for the
\nsatisfaction of desire, for enjoyment, for an enlarged self-affirmation
\nand aggrandisement of its terrain of power and profit.
\nIt desires, enjoys, possesses actualities, but it hunts also after
\nunrealised possibilities, is ardent to materialise them, to possess
\nand enjoy them also. It is not satisfied with the physical and
\nobjective only, but seeks too a subjective, an imaginative, a
\npurely emotive satisfaction and pleasure. If there were not this
\nfactor, the physical mind of man left to itself would live like
\nthe animal, accepting his first actual physical life and its limits as
\nhis whole possibility, moving in material Nature’s
\nestablished order and asking for nothing beyond it. But this vital
\nmind, this unquiet life-will comes in with its demands and
\ndisturbs this inert or routine satisfaction which lives penned within
\nthe bounds of actuality; it enlarges always desire and
\ncraving, creates a dissatisfaction, an unrest, a seeking for something
\nmore than what life seems able to give it: it brings about
\na vast enlargement of the field of physical actuality by the
\nactualisation of our unrealised possibilities, but also a constant
\ndemand for more and always more, a quest for new worlds to conquer, an
\nincessant drive towards an exceeding of the
\nbounds of circumstance and a self-exceeding. To add to this cause of
\nunrest and incertitude there comes in a thinking mind
\nthat inquires into everything, questions everything, builds up
\naffirmations and unbuilds them, erects systems of certitude but
\nfinally accepts none of them as certain, affirms and questions the
\nevidence of the senses, follows out the conclusions of the
\nreason but undoes them again to arrive at different or quite opposite
\nconclusions, and continues indefinitely if not ad
\ninfinitum<\/i> this process. This is the history of human thought and human endeavour, a constant breaking of bounds only to
\nmove always in the same spirals enlarged perhaps but following the same or constantly similar curves of direction. The mind
\nof humanity, ever seeking, ever active, never arrives\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 414<\/p>\n

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

\n

at a firmly settled reality of life’s aims and
\nobjects or at a settled reality of its own certitudes and convictions,
\nan established
\nfoundation or firm formation of its idea of existence. <\/p>\n

   
\nAt a certain point of this constant unrest and travail even the
\nphysical mind loses its conviction of objective certitude
\nand enters into an agnosticism which questions all its own standards of
\nlife and knowledge, doubts whether all this is real or
\nelse whether all, even if real, is not futile; the vital mind, baffled
\nby life and frustrated or else dissatisfied with all its
\nsatisfactions, overtaken by a deep disgust and disappointment, finds
\nthat all is vanity and vexation of spirit and is ready to
\nreject life and existence as an unreality, all that it hunted after as
\nan illusion, Maya; the thinking mind, unbuilding all its
\naffirmations, discovers that all are mere mental constructions and
\nthere is no reality in them or else that the only reality is
\nsomething beyond this existence, something that has not been made or
\nconstructed, something Absolute and Eternal, — all
\nthat is relative, all that is of time is a dream, a hallucination of
\nthe mind or a vast delirium, an immense cosmic Illusion, a
\ndelusive figure of apparent existence. The principle of negation
\nprevails over the principle of affirmation and becomes
\nuniversal and absolute. Thence arise the great world-negating religions
\nand philosophies; thence too a recoil of the
\nlife-motive from itself and a seeking after a life elsewhere flawless
\nand eternal or a will to annul life itself in an immobile
\nReality or an original Non-Existence. In India the philosophy of
\nworld-negation has been given formulations of supreme
\npower and value by two of the greatest of her thinkers, Buddha and
\nShankara. There have been, intermediate or later in
\ntime, other philosophies of considerable importance, some of them
\nwidely accepted, formulated with much acumen of
\nthought by men of genius and spiritual insight, which disputed with
\nmore or less force and success the conclusions of these
\ntwo great metaphysical systems, but none has been put forward with an
\nequal force of presentation or drive of personality
\nor had a similar massive effect. The spirit of these two remarkable
\nspiritual philosophies, — for Shankara in the historical
\nprocess of India’s philosophical mind takes up, completes and replaces
\nBuddha, — has weighed with a tremendous power on
\nher thought, religion <\/p>\n


\nPage 415<\/p>\n

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

\n

and general mentality: everywhere broods its mighty shadow, everywhere is the impress of the three great formulas, the
\nchain of Karma, escape from the wheel of rebirth, Maya. It is necessary therefore to look afresh at the Idea or Truth
\nbehind the negation of cosmic existence and to consider, however briefly, what is the value of its main formulations or
\nsuggestions, on what reality they stand, how far they are imperative to the reason or to experience. For the present it will be
\nenough to throw a regard on the principal ideas which are grouped around the conception of the great cosmic Illusion, Maya,
\nand to set against them those that are proper to our own line of thought and vision; for both proceed from the conception of
\nthe One Reality, but one line leads to a universal Illusionism, the other to a universal Realism, — an unreal or real-unreal
\nuniverse reposing on a transcendent Reality or a real universe reposing on a Reality at once universal and transcendent or
\nabsolute. <\/p>\n

   
\nIn itself and by itself the vital being’s aversion, the life-mind’s
\nrecoil from life cannot be taken as valid or conclusive. Its
\nstrongest motive is a sense of disappointment and an acceptance of
\nfrustration which has no greater claim to conclusiveness
\nthan the idealist’s opposite motive of invariable hope and his faith
\nand will to realise. Nevertheless there is a certain validity
\nin the mental support of this sense of frustration, in the perception
\nat which the thinking mind arrives that there is an illusion
\nbehind all human effort and terrestrial endeavour, the illusion of his
\npolitical and social gospels, the illusion of his ethical
\nefforts at perfection, the illusion of philanthropy and service, the
\nillusion of works, the illusion of fame, power, success, the
\nillusion of all achievement. Human, social and political endeavour
\nturns always in a circle and leads nowhere; man’s life and
\nnature remain always the same, always imperfect, and neither laws nor
\ninstitutions nor education nor philosophy nor morality
\nnor religious teachings have succeeded in producing the perfect man,
\nstill less a perfect humanity, — straighten the tail of the
\ndog as you will, it has been said, it always resumes its natural curve
\nof crookedness. Altruism, philanthropy and service,
\nChristian love or Buddhist compassion have not made the world a whit
\nhappier, they only\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 416<\/p>\n

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

\n

give infinitesimal bits of momentary relief here and
\nthere, throw drops on the fire of the world’s suffering. All aims are
\nin the
\nend transitory and futile, all achievements unsatisfying or evanescent;
\nall works are so much labour of effort and success
\nand failure which consummate nothing definitive: whatever changes are
\nmade in human life are of the form only and these
\nforms pursue each other in a futile circle; for the essence of life,
\nits general character remains the same for ever. This view
\nof things may be exaggerated, but it has an undeniable force; it is
\nsupported by the experience of man’s centuries and it
\ncarries in itself a significance which at one time or another comes
\nupon the mind with an overwhelming air of self-evidence.
\nNot only so, but if it is true that the fundamental laws and values of
\nterrestrial existence are fixed or that it must always turn
\nin repeated cycles, — and this has been for long a very prevalent
\nnotion, — then this view of things in the end is hardly
\nescapable. For imperfection, ignorance, frustration and suffering are a
\ndominant factor of the existing world-order, the
\nelements contrary to them, knowledge, happiness, success, perfection
\nare constantly found to be deceptive or inconclusive:
\nthe two opposites are so inextricably mixed that, if this state of
\nthings is not a motion towards a greater fulfilment, if this is
\nthe permanent character of the world-order, then it is hard to avoid
\nthe conclusion that all here is either the creation of an
\ninconscient Energy, which would account for the incapacity of an
\napparent consciousness to arrive at anything, or
\nintentionally a world of ordeal and failure, the issue being not here
\nbut elsewhere, or even a vast and aimless cosmic Illusion. <\/p>\n

    
\nAmong these alternative conclusions the second, as it is usually put
\nbefore us, offers no ground for the philosophic
\nreason, since we have no satisfying indication of the connection
\nbetween the here and the elsewhere which are posited
\nagainst each other but not explained in the inevitability of their
\nrelations, and there is no light cast on the necessity or
\nfundamental significance of the ordeal and failure. It could only be
\nintelligible,—except as the mysterious will of an arbitrary
\nCreator,—if there was a choice by immortal spirits to try the adventure
\nof the Ignorance and a necessity for them to learn
\nthe nature\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 417<\/p>\n

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

\n

of a world of Ignorance in order that they might reject it. But such a creative motive, necessarily incidental and quite
\ntemporary in its incidence, with the earth as its casual field of experience, could hardly by itself account for the immense
\nand enduring phenomenon of this complex universe. It can become an operative part of a satisfactory explanation if this
\nworld is the field for the working out of a greater creative motive, if it is a manifestation of a divine Truth or a divine
\nPossibility in which under certain conditions an initiating Ignorance must intervene as a necessary factor, and if the
\narrangement of this universe contains in it a compulsion of the Ignorance to move towards Knowledge, of the imperfect
\nmanifestation to grow into perfection, of the frustration to serve as steps towards a final victory, of the suffering to prepare
\nan emergence of the divine Delight of Being. In that case the sense of disappointment, frustration, illusion and the vanity of
\nall things would not be valid; for the aspects that seem to justify it would be only the natural circumstances of a difficult
\nevolution: all the stress of struggle and effort, success and failure, joy and suffering, the mixture of ignorance and knowledge
\nwould be the experience needed for the soul, mind, life and physical part to grow into the full light of a spiritual perfected
\nbeing. It would reveal itself as the process of an evolutionary manifestation; there would be no need to bring in the fiat of an
\narbitrary Omnipotence or a cosmic Illusion, a phantasy of meaningless Maya. <\/p>\n

    
\nBut there is too a higher mental and spiritual basis for the philosophy
\nof world-negation and here we are on more solid
\nground: for it can be contended that the world is in its very nature an
\nillusion and no reasoning from the features and
\ncircumstances of an Illusion could justify it or raise it into a
\nReality, — there is only one Reality, the transcendent, the
\nsupracosmic: no divine fulfilment, even if our life were to grow into
\nthe life of gods, could nullify or cancel the original
\nunreality which is its fundamental character; for that fulfilment would
\nbe only the bright side of an Illusion. Or even if not
\nabsolutely an illusion, it would be a reality of an inferior order and
\nmust come to an end by the soul’s recognition that the
\nBrahman alone is true, that there is nothing but the transcendent\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 418<\/p>\n

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

\n

and immutable Absolute. If this is the one Truth, then all ground is cut away from under our feet; the divine Manifestation,
\nthe victory of the soul in Matter, its mastery over existence, the divine life in Nature would itself be a falsehood or at least
\nsomething not altogether real imposed for a time on the sole true Reality. But here all turns on the mind’s conception or the
\nmental being’s experience of Reality and how far that conception is valid or how far that experience is imperative, — even if
\nit is a spiritual experience, how far it is absolutely conclusive, solely imperative. <\/p>\n

     
\nThe cosmic Illusion is sometimes envisaged, — though that is not the
\naccepted position, — as something that has the
\ncharacter of an unreal subjective experience; it is then, — or may be,
\n— a figure of forms and movements that arises in some
\neternal sleep of things or in a dream-consciousness and is temporarily
\nimposed on a pure and featureless self-aware
\nExistence; it is a dream that takes place in the Infinite. In the
\nphilosophies of the Mayavadins,—for there are several
\nsystems alike in their basis but not altogether and at every point
\ncoincident with each other,—the analogy of dream is given,
\nbut as an analogy only, not as the intrinsic character of the
\nworld-illusion. It is difficult for the positive physical mind to admit
\nthe idea that ourselves, the world and life, the sole thing to which
\nour consciousness bears positive witness, are inexistent, a
\ncheat imposed on us by that consciousness: certain analogies are
\nbrought forward, the analogies especially of dream and
\nhallucination, in order to show that it is possible for the experiences
\nof the consciousness to seem to it real and yet prove to
\nbe without any basis or without a sufficient basis in reality; as a
\ndream is real to the dreamer so long as he sleeps but
\nwaking shows it to be unreal, so our experience of world seems to us
\npositive and real but, when we stand back from the
\nillusion, we shall find that it had no reality. But it may be as well
\nto give the dream-analogy its full value and see whether our
\nsense of world-experience has in any way a similar basis. For the idea
\nof the world as a dream, whether it be a dream of
\nthe subjective mind or a dream of the soul or a dream in the Eternal,
\nis often entertained and it powerfully enforces the
\nillusionist tendency\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 419<\/p>\n

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

\n

in human feeling and thinking. If it has no
\nvalidity, we must definitely see that and the reasons of its
\ninapplicability and set it
\naside well out of the way; if it has some validity, we must see what it
\nis and how far it goes. If the world is an illusion, but
\nnot a dream-illusion, that distinction too must be put on a secure
\nbasis. <\/p>\n

    
\nDream is felt to be unreal, first, because it ceases and has no farther
\nvalidity when we pass from one status of
\nconsciousness to another which is our normal status. But this is not by
\nitself a sufficient reason: for it may well be that there
\nare different states of consciousness each with its own realities; if
\nthe consciousness of one state of things fades back and
\nits contents are lost or, even when caught in memory, seem to be
\nillusory as soon as we pass into another state, that would
\nbe perfectly normal, but it would not prove the reality of the state in
\nwhich we now are and the unreality of the other which
\nwe have left behind us. If earth circumstances begin to seem unreal to
\na soul passing into a different world or another plane
\nof consciousness, that would not prove their unreality; similarly, the
\nfact that world-existence seems unreal to us when we
\npass into the spiritual silence or into some Nirvana, does not of
\nitself prove that the cosmos was all the time an illusion. The
\nworld is real to the consciousness dwelling in it, an unconditioned
\nexistence is real to the consciousness absorbed in Nirvana;
\nthat is all that is established. But the second reason for refusing
\ncredit to our sleep experience is that a dream is something
\nevanescent without antecedents and without a sequel; ordinarily, too,
\nit is without any sufficient coherence or any
\nsignificance intelligible to our waking being. If our dreams wore like
\nour waking life an aspect of coherence, each night
\ntaking up and carrying farther a past continuous and connected
\nsleep-experience as each day takes up again our waking
\nworld-experience, then dreams would assume to our mind quite another
\ncharacter. There is therefore no analogy between a
\ndream and waking life; these are experiences quite different in their
\ncharacter, validity, order. Our life is accused of
\nevanescence and often it is accused too, as a whole, of a lack of inner
\ncoherence and significance; but its lack of complete
\nsignificance may be due\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 420<\/p>\n

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

\n

to our lack or limitation of understanding:
\nactually, when we go within and begin to see it from within, it assumes
\na complete
\nconnected significance; at the same time whatever lack of inner
\ncoherence was felt before disappears and we see that it
\nwas due to the incoherence of our own inner seeing and knowledge and
\nwas not at all a character of life. There is no
\nsurface incoherence in life, it rather appears to our minds as a chain
\nof firm sequences, and, if that is a mental delusion, as is
\nsometimes alleged, if the sequence is created by our minds and does not
\nactually exist in life, that does not remove the
\ndifference of the two states of consciousness. For in dream the
\ncoherence given by an observing inner consciousness is
\nabsent, and whatever sense of sequence there is seems to be due to a
\nvague and false imitation of the connections of
\nwaking life, a subconscious mimesis, but this imitative sequence is
\nshadowy and imperfect, fails and breaks always and is
\noften wholly absent. We see too that the dream-consciousness seems to
\nbe wholly devoid of that control which the waking
\nconsciousness exercises to a certain extent over life-circumstances; it
\nhas the Nature-automatism of a subconscient
\nconstruction and nothing of the conscious will and organising force of
\nthe evolved mind of the human being. Again the
\nevanescence of a dream is radical and one dream has no connection with
\nanother; but the evanescence of the waking life is
\nof details,—there is no evidence of evanescence in the connected
\ntotality of world-experience. Our bodies perish but souls
\nproceed from birth to birth through the ages: stars and planets may
\ndisappear after a lapse of aeons or of many light-cycles,
\nbut universe, cosmic existence may well be a permanent as it is
\ncertainly a continuous activity; there is nothing to prove that
\nthe Infinite Energy which creates it has an end or a beginning either
\nof itself or of its action. So far there is too great a
\ndisparateness between dream-life and waking life to make the analogy
\napplicable. <\/p>\n

    
\nBut it may be questioned whether our dreams are indeed totally unreal
\nand without significance, whether they are not a
\nfigure, an image-record or a symbolic transcript or representation of
\nthings that are real. For that we have to examine,
\nhowever summarily, the nature of sleep and of dream-phenomena,\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 421<\/p>\n

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

\n

their process of origination and their provenance.
\nWhat happens in sleep is that our consciousness withdraws from the
\nfield
\nof its waking experiences; it is supposed to be resting, suspended or
\nin abeyance, but that is a superficial view of the matter.
\nWhat is in abeyance is the waking activities, what is at rest is the
\nsurface mind and the normal conscious action of the bodily
\npart of us; but the inner consciousness is not suspended, it enters
\ninto new inner activities, only a part of which, a part
\nhappening or recorded in something of us that is near to the surface,
\nwe remember. There is maintained in sleep, thus near
\nthe surface, an obscure subconscious element which is a receptacle or
\npassage for our dream experiences and itself also a
\ndream-builder; but behind it is the depth and mass of the subliminal,
\nthe totality of our concealed inner being and
\nconsciousness which is of quite another order. Normally it is a
\nsubconscient part in us, intermediate between consciousness
\nand pure inconscience, that sends up through this surface layer its
\nformations in the shape of dreams, constructions marked
\nby an apparent inconsequence and incoherence. Many of these are
\nfugitive structures built upon circumstances of our
\npresent life selected apparently at random and surrounded with a
\nphantasy of variation; others call back the past, or rather
\nselected circumstances and persons of the past, as a starting-point for
\nsimilar fleeting edifices. There are other dreams of
\nthe subconscious which seem to be pure phantasy without any such
\ninitiation or basis; but the new method of
\npsycho-analysis, trying to look for the first time into our dreams with
\nsome kind of scientific understanding, has established in
\nthem a system of meanings, a key to things in us which need to be known
\nand handled by the waking consciousness; this of
\nitself changes the whole character and value of our dream-experience.
\nIt begins to look as if there were something real
\nbehind it and as if too that something were an element of no mean
\npractical importance. <\/p>\n

    
\nBut the subconscious is not our sole dream-builder. The subconscious in
\nus is the extreme border of our secret inner
\nexistence where it meets the Inconscient, it is a degree of our being
\nin which the Inconscient struggles into a half\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 422<\/p>\n

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

\n

consciousness; the surface physical consciousness also, when it sinks back from the waking level and retrogresses towards
\nthe Inconscient, retires into this intermediate subconscience. Or, from another viewpoint, this nether part of us may be
\ndescribed as the antechamber of the Inconscient through which its formations rise into our waking or our subliminal being.
\nWhen we sleep and the surface physical part of us, which is in its first origin here an output from the Inconscient, relapses
\ntowards the originating inconscience, it enters into this subconscious element, antechamber or substratum, and there it finds
\nthe impressions of its past or persistent habits of mind and experiences, — for all have left their mark on our subconscious
\npart and have there a power of recurrence. In its effect on our waking self this recurrence often takes the form of a
\nreassertion of old habits, impulses dormant or suppressed, rejected elements of the nature, or it comes up as some other not
\nso easily recognisable, some peculiar disguised or subtle result of these suppressed or rejected but not erased impulses or
\nelements. In the dream-consciousness the phenomenon is an apparently fanciful construction, a composite of figures and
\nmovements built upon or around the buried impressions with a sense in them that escapes the waking intelligence because it
\nhas no clue to the subconscient’s system of significances. After a time this subconscious activity appears to sink back into
\ncomplete inconscience and we speak of this state as deep dreamless sleep; thence we emerge again into the
\ndream-shallows or return to the waking surface. <\/p>\n

   
\nBut, in fact, in what we call dreamless sleep, we have gone into a
\nprofounder and denser layer of the subconscient, a
\nstate too involved, too immersed or too obscure, dull and heavy to
\nbring to the surface its structures, and we are dreaming
\nthere but unable to grasp or retain in the recording layer of
\nsubconscience these more obscure dream-figures. Or else, it
\nmay be, the part of our mind which still remains active in the sleep of
\nthe body has entered into the inner domains of our
\nbeing, the subliminal mental, the subliminal vital, the
\nsubtle-physical, and is there lost to all active connection with the
\nsurface
\nparts of us. If we are still in the nearer depths of these regions, the
\nsurface subconscient which is our sleep-wakefulness
\nrecords something of what we\n<\/p>\n


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experience in these depths; but it records it in its
\nown transcription, often marred by characteristic incoherences and
\nalways,
\neven when most coherent, deformed or cast into figures drawn from the
\nworld of waking experience. But if we have gone
\ndeeper inward, the record fails or cannot be recovered and we have the
\nillusion of dreamlessness; but the activity of the
\ninner dream consciousness continues behind the veil of the now mute and
\ninactive subconscient surface. This continued
\ndream activity is revealed to us when we become more inwardly
\nconscious, for then we get into connection with the heavier
\nand deeper subconscient stratum and can be aware, — at the time or by a
\nretracing or recovering through memory, — of what
\nhappened when we sank into these torpid depths. It is possible too to
\nbecome conscious deeper within our subliminal selves
\nand we are then aware of experiences on other planes of our being or
\neven in supraphysical worlds to which sleep gives us
\na right of secret entry. A transcript of such experiences reaches us;
\nbut the transcriber here is not the subconscious, it is the
\nsubliminal, a greater dream-builder. <\/p>\n

   
\nIf the subliminal thus comes to the front in our dream-consciousness,
\nthere is sometimes an activity of our subliminal
\nintelligence, — dream becomes a series of thoughts, often strangely or
\nvividly figured, problems are solved which our waking
\nconsciousness could not solve, warnings, premonitions, indications of
\nthe future, veridical dreams replace the normal
\nsubconscious incoherence. There can come also a structure of
\nsymbol-images, some of a mental character, some of a vital
\nnature: the former are precise in their figures, clear in their
\nsignificance; the latter are often complex and baffling to our
\nwaking consciousness, but, if we can seize the clue, they reveal their
\nown sense and peculiar system of coherence. Finally,
\nthere can come to us the records of happenings seen or experienced by
\nus on other planes of our own being or of universal
\nbeing into which we enter: these have sometimes, like the symbolic
\ndreams, a strong bearing on our own inner and outer life
\nor the life of others, reveal elements of our or their mental being and
\nlife-being or disclose influences on them of which our
\nwaking self is totally ignorant; but sometimes they have no such
\nbearing and are purely\n<\/p>\n


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records of other organised systems of consciousness independent of our physical existence. The subconscious dreams
\nconstitute the bulk of our most ordinary sleep-experience and they are those which we usually remember; but sometimes the
\nsubliminal builder is able to impress our sleep consciousness sufficiently to stamp his activities on our waking memory. If we
\ndevelop our inner being, live more inwardly than most men do, then the balance is changed and a larger
\ndream-consciousness opens before us; our dreams can take on a subliminal and no longer a subconscious character and can
\nassume a reality and significance. <\/p>\n

    
\nIt is even possible to become wholly conscious in sleep and follow
\nthroughout from beginning to end or over large
\nstretches the stages of our dream-experience; it is found that then we
\nare aware of ourselves passing from state after state
\nof consciousness to a brief period of luminous and peaceful dreamless
\nrest, which is the true restorer of the energies of the
\nwaking nature, and then returning by the same way to the waking
\nconsciousness. It is normal, as we thus pass from state to
\nstate, to let the previous experiences slip away from us; in the return
\nonly the more vivid or those nearest to the waking
\nsurface are remembered: but this can be remedied, — a greater retention
\nis possible or the power can be developed of going
\nback in memory from dream to dream, from state to state, till the whole
\nis once more before us. A coherent knowledge of
\nsleep-life, though difficult to achieve or to keep established, is
\npossible. <\/p>\n

   
\n Our subliminal self is not, like our surface physical being, an
\noutcome of the energy of the Inconscient; it is a
\nmeeting-place of the consciousness that emerges from below by evolution
\nand the consciousness that has descended from
\nabove for involution. There is in it an inner mind, an inner vital
\nbeing of ourselves, an inner or subtle-physical being larger
\nthan our outer being and nature. This inner existence is the concealed
\norigin of almost all in our surface self that is not a
\nconstruction of the first inconscient World-Energy or a natural
\ndeveloped functioning of our surface consciousness or a
\nreaction of it to impacts from the outside universal Nature, — and even
\nin this construction, these functionings, these
\nreactions the subliminal takes part and exercises on them a
\nconsiderable influence. There is here a\n<\/p>\n


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consciousness which has a power of direct contact with the universal unlike the mostly indirect contacts which our surface
\nbeing maintains with the universe through the sense-mind and the senses. There are here inner senses, a subliminal sight,
\ntouch, hearing; but these subtle senses are rather channels of the inner being’s direct consciousness of things than its
\ninformants: the subliminal is not dependent on its senses for its knowledge, they only give a form to its direct experience of
\nobjects; they do not, so much as in waking mind, convey forms of objects for the mind’s documentation or as the
\nstarting-point or basis for an indirect constructive experience. The subliminal has the right of entry into the mental and vital
\nand subtle-physical planes of the universal consciousness, it is not confined to the material plane and the physical world; it
\npossesses means of communication with the worlds of being which the descent towards involution created in its passage
\nand with all corresponding planes or worlds that may have arisen or been constructed to serve the purpose of the re-ascent
\nfrom Inconscience to Superconscience. It is into this large realm of interior existence that our mind and vital being retire
\nwhen they withdraw from the surface activities whether by sleep or inward-drawn concentration or by the inner plunge of
\ntrance. <\/p>\n

   
\nOur waking state is unaware of its connection with the subliminal
\nbeing, although it receives from it, — but without any
\nknowledge of the place of origin, — the inspirations, intuitions,
\nideas, will-suggestions, sense-suggestions, urges to action that
\nrise from below or from behind our limited surface existence. Sleep
\nlike trance opens the gate of the subliminal to us; for in
\nsleep, as in trance, we retire behind the veil of the limited waking
\npersonality and it is behind this veil that the subliminal has
\nits existence. But we receive the records of our sleep experience
\nthrough dream and in dream figures and not in that
\ncondition which might be called an inner waking and which is the most
\naccessible form of the trance state, nor through the
\nsupernormal clarities of vision and other more luminous and concrete
\nways of communication developed by the inner
\nsubliminal cognition when it gets into habitual or occasional conscious
\nconnection with our waking self. The subliminal, with
\nthe subconscious as\n<\/p>\n

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\n

an annexe of itself, — for the subconscious is also
\npart of the behind-the-veil entity, — is the seer of inner things and
\nof supraphysical experiences; the surface subconscious is only a
\ntranscriber. It is for this reason that the Upanishad describes
\nthe subliminal being as the Dream Self because it is normally in
\ndreams, visions, absorbed states of inner experience that we
\nenter into and are part of its experiences, — just as it describes the
\nsuperconscient as the Sleep Self because normally all
\nmental or sensory experiences cease when we enter this superconscience.
\nFor in the deeper trance into which the touch of
\nthe superconscient plunges our mentality, no record from it or
\ntranscript of its contents can normally reach us; it is only by
\nan especial or an unusual development, in a supernormal condition or
\nthrough a break or rift in our confined normality, that
\nwe can be on the surface conscious of the contacts or messages of the
\nSuperconscience. But, in spite of these figurative
\nnames of dream-state and sleep-state, the field of both these states of
\nconsciousness was clearly regarded as a field of
\nreality no less than that of the waking state in which our movements of
\nperceptive consciousness are a record or transcript
\nof physical things and of our contacts with the physical universe. No
\ndoubt, all the three states can be classed as parts of an
\nillusion, our experiences of them can be ranked together as
\nconstructions of an illusory consciousness, our waking state no
\nless illusory than our dream state or sleep-state, since the only true
\ntruth or real reality is the incommunicable Self or
\nOne-Existence (Atman, Adwaita) which is the fourth state of the Self
\ndescribed by the Vedanta. But it is equally possible to
\nregard and rank them together as three different orders of one Reality
\nor as three states of consciousness in which is
\nembodied our contact with three different grades of self-experience and
\nworld-experience. <\/p>\n

     
\nIf this is a true account of dream-experience, dreams can no longer be
\nclassed as a mere unreal figure of unreal things
\ntemporarily imposed upon our half-unconsciousness as a reality; the
\nanalogy therefore fails even as an illustrative support
\nfor the theory of the cosmic Illusion. It may be said, however, that
\nour dreams are not themselves realities but only a
\ntranscript of reality, a system of symbol-images, and our waking
\nexperience of the\n<\/p>\n


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universe is similarly not a reality but only a
\ntranscript of reality, a series of collection of symbol-images. It is
\nquite true that
\nprimarily we see the physical universe only through a system of images
\nimpressed or imposed on our senses and so far the
\ncontention is justified; it may also be admitted that in a certain
\nsense and from one viewpoint our experiences and activities
\ncan be considered as symbols of a truth which our lives are trying to
\nexpress but at present only with a partial success and
\nan imperfect coherence. If that were all, life might be described as a
\ndream-experience of self and things in the
\nconsciousness of the Infinite. But although our primary evidence of the
\nobjects of the universe consists of a structure of
\nsense-images, these are completed, validated, set in order by an
\nautomatic intuition in the consciousness which immediately
\nrelates the image with the thing imaged and gets the tangible
\nexperience of the object, so that we are not merely regarding
\nor reading a translation or sense-transcript of the reality but looking
\nthrough the sense-image to the reality. This adequacy is
\namplified too by the action of a reason which fathoms and understands
\nthe law of things sensed and can observe
\nscrupulously the sense-transcript and correct its errors. Therefore we
\nmay conclude that we experience a real universe
\nthrough our imaged sense-transcript by the aid of the intuition and the
\nreason, — an intuition which gives us the touch of
\nthings and a reason which investigates their truth by its conceptive
\nknowledge. But we must note also that even if our image
\nview of the universe, our sense-transcript, is a system of
\nsymbol-images and not an exact reproduction or transcription, a
\nliteral translation, still a symbol is a notation of something that is,
\na transcript of realities. Even if our images are incorrect,
\nwhat they endeavour to image are realities, not illusions; when we see
\na tree or a stone or an animal, it is not a non-existent
\nfigure, a hallucination that we are seeing; we may not be sure that the
\nimage is exact, we may concede that other-sense
\nmight very well see it otherwise, but still there is something there
\nthat justifies the image, something with which it has more
\nor less correspondence. But in the theory of Illusion the only reality
\nis an indeterminable featureless pure Existence,
\nBrahman, and there is no possibility of its being translated or
\nmistranslated\n<\/p>\n


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into a system of symbol-figures, for that could only
\nbe if this Existence had some determinate contents or some unmanifested
\ntruths of its being which could be transcribed into the forms or names
\ngiven to them by our consciousness: a
\npure Indeterminable cannot be rendered by a transcript, a multitude of
\nrepresentative differentiae, a crowd of symbols or
\nimages; for there is in it only a pure Identity, there is nothing to
\ntranscribe, nothing to symbolise, nothing to image. Therefore
\nthe dream-analogy fails us altogether and is better put out of the way;
\nit can always be used as a vivid metaphor of a certain
\nattitude our mind can take towards its experiences, but it has no value
\nfor a metaphysical inquiry into the reality and
\nfundamental significances or the origin of existence. <\/p>\n

    
\nIf we take up the analogy of hallucination, we find it hardly more
\nhelpful for a true understanding of the theory of
\ncosmic Illusion than the dream-analogy. Hallucinations are of two
\nkinds, mental or ideative and visual or in some way
\nsensory. When we see an image of things where those things are not, it
\nis an erroneous construction of the senses, a visual
\nhallucination; when we take for an objective fact a thing which is a
\nsubjective structure of the mind, a constructive mental
\nerror or an objectivised imagination or a misplaced mental image, it is
\na mental hallucination. An example of the first is the
\nmirage, an example of the second is the classic instance of a rope
\ntaken for a snake. In passing we may note that there are
\nmany things called hallucinations which are not really that but
\nsymbol-images sent up from the subliminal or experiences in
\nwhich the subliminal consciousness or sense comes to the surface and
\nputs us into contact with supraphysical realities; thus
\nthe cosmic consciousness which is our entry by a breaking down of our
\nmental limitations into the sense of a vast reality,
\nhas been classed, even in admitting it, as a hallucination. But, taking
\nonly the common hallucination, mental or visual, we
\nobserve that it seems to be at first sight a true example of what is
\ncalled imposition in the philosophic theory; it is the
\nplacement of an unreal figure of things on a reality, of a mirage upon
\nthe bare desert air, of the figure of a non-present
\nsnake on the present and real rope. The world, we may contend, is such
\na hallucination, an imposition of a\n<\/p>\n


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non-existent unreal figure of things on the bare ever-present sole reality of the Brahman. But then we note that in each case
\nthe hallucination, the false image is not of something quite non-existent; it is an image of something existent and real but not
\npresent in the place on which it has been imposed by the mind’s error or by a sense-error. A mirage is the image of a city,
\nan oasis, running water or of other absent things, and if these things did not exist, the false image of them, whether raised up
\nby the mind or reflected in the desert air, would not be there to delude the mind with a false sense of reality. A snake exists
\nand its existence and form are known to the victim of the momentary hallucination: if it had not been so, the delusion would
\nnot have been created; for it is a form-resemblance of the seen reality to another reality previously known elsewhere that is
\nthe origin of the error. The analogy therefore is unhelpful; it would be valid only if our image of the universe were a falsity
\nreflecting a true universe which is not here but elsewhere or else if it were a false imaged manifestation of the Reality
\nreplacing in the mind or covering with its distorted resemblance a true manifestation. But here the world is a non-existent
\nform of things, an illusory construction imposed on the bare Reality, on the sole Existent which is for ever empty of things
\nand formless: there would be a true analogy only if our vision constructed in the void air of the desert a figure of things that
\nexist nowhere, or else if it imposed on a bare ground both rope and snake and other figures that equally existed nowhere. <\/p>\n

    
\nIt is clear that in this analogy two quite different kinds of illusion
\nnot illustrative of each other are mistakenly put
\ntogether as if they were identical in nature. All mental or
\nsense-hallucinations are really misrepresentations or
\nmisplacements or impossible combinations or false developments of
\nthings that are in themselves existent or possible or in
\nsome way within or allied to the province of the real. All mental
\nerrors and illusions are the result of an ignorance which miscombines
\nits data or proceeds falsely upon a previous or present or possible
\ncontent of knowledge. But the cosmic
\nIllusion has no basis of actuality, it is an original and
\nall-originating illusion; it imposes names, figures, happenings that
\nare
\npure inventions on a Reality in which there\n<\/p>\n


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never were and never will be any happenings, names
\nor figures. The analogy of mental hallucination would only be
\napplicable if we admit a Brahman without names, forms or relations and
\na world of names, forms and relations as equal
\nrealities imposed one upon the other, the rope in the place of the
\nsnake, or the snake in the place of the rope, — an attribution,
\nit might be, of the activities of the Saguna to the quiescence of the
\nNirguna. But if both are real, both must be either
\nseparate aspects of the Reality or co-ordinate aspects, positive and
\nnegative poles of the one Existence. Any error or
\nconfusion of Mind between them would not be a creative cosmic Illusion,
\nbut only a wrong perception of realities, a wrong
\nrelation created by the Ignorance. <\/p>\n

    
\nIf we scrutinise other illustrations or analogies that are offered to
\nus for a better understanding of the operation of
\nMaya, we detect in all of them an inapplicability that deprives them of
\ntheir force and value. The familiar instance of
\nmother-of-pearl and silver turns also, like the rope and snake analogy,
\nupon an error due to a resemblance between a
\npresent real and another and absent real; it can have no application to
\nthe imposition of a multiple and mutable unreality upon
\na sole and unique immutable Real. In the example of an optical illusion
\nduplicating or multiplying a single object, as when we
\nsee two moons instead of one, there are two or more identical forms of
\nthe one object, one real, one — or the rest — an
\nillusion: this does not illustrate the juxtaposition of world and
\nBrahman; for in the operation of Maya there is a much more
\ncomplex phenomenon, — there is indeed an illusory multiplication of the
\nIdentical imposed upon its one and ever-unalterable
\nIdentity, the One appearing as many, but upon that is imposed an
\nimmense organised diversity in nature, a diversity of forms
\nand movements which have nothing to do with the original Real. Dreams,
\nvisions, the imagination of the artist or poet can
\npresent such an organised diversity which is not real; but it is an
\nimitation, a mimesis of a real and already existent organised
\ndiversity, or it starts from such a mimesis and even in the richest
\nvariation or wildest invention some mimetic element is
\nobservable. There is here no such thing as the operation attributed to
\nMaya in which there is no mimesis but a pure and
\nradically original creation of unreal forms and movements <\/p>\n


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that are non-existent anywhere and neither imitate
\nnor reflect nor alter and develop anything discoverable in the Reality.
\nThere is nothing in the operations of Mind-illusion that throws light
\nupon this mystery; it is, as a stupendous cosmic Illusion of
\nthis kind must be, sui generis, without parallel. What we see in the
\nuniverse is that a diversity of the identical is everywhere
\nthe fundamental operation of cosmic Nature; but here it presents
\nitself, not as an illusion, but as a various real formation out
\nof a one original substance. A Reality of Oneness manifesting itself in
\na reality of numberless forms and powers of its being
\nis what we confront everywhere. There is no doubt in its process a
\nmystery, even a magic, but there is nothing to show that
\nit is a magic of the unreal and not a working of a Consciousness and
\nForce of being of the omnipotent Real, a self-creation
\noperated by an eternal self-knowledge. <\/p>\n

    
\nThis at once raises the question of the nature of Mind, the parent of
\nthese illusions, and its relation to the original
\nExistence. Is mind the child and instrument of an original Illusion, or
\nis it itself a primal miscreating Force or Consciousness?
\nor is the mental ignorance a misprision of the truths of Existence, a
\ndeviation from an original Truth-Consciousness which is
\nthe real world-builder? Our own mind, at any rate, is not an original
\nand primary creative power of Consciousness; it is, and
\nall mind of the same character must be, derivative, an instrumental
\ndemiurge, an intermediary creator. It is likely then that
\nanalogies from the errors of mind, which are the outcome of an
\nintermediate Ignorance, may not truly illustrate the nature or
\naction of an original creative Illusion, an all-inventing and
\nall-constructing Maya. Our mind stands between a
\nsuperconscience and an inconscience and receives from both these
\nopposite powers: it stands between an occult subliminal
\nexistence and an outward cosmic phenomenon; it receives inspirations,
\nintuitions, imaginations, impulsions to knowledge and
\naction, figures of subjective realities or possibilities from the
\nunknown inner source; it receives the figures of realised
\nactualities and their suggestions of further possibility from the
\nobserved cosmic phenomenon. What it receives are truths
\nessential, possible or actual; it starts from the realised actualities
\nof the physical universe and it brings out <\/p>\n

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from them in its subjective action the unrealised possibilities which they contain or suggest or to which it can arrive by
\nproceeding from them as a starting-point: it selects some out of these possibilities for a subjective action and plays with
\nimagined or inwardly constructed forms of them; it chooses others for objectivisation and attempts to realise them. But it
\nreceives inspirations also from above and within, from invisible sources and not only from the impacts of the visible cosmic
\nphenomenon; it sees truths other than those suggested by the actual physicality around it, and here too it plays subjectively
\nwith transmitted or constructed forms of these truths or it selects for objectivisation, attempts to realise. <\/p>\n

    
\nOur mind is an observer and user of actualities, a diviner or recipient
\nof truths not yet known or actualised, a dealer in
\npossibilities that mediate between the truth and actuality. But it has
\nnot the omniscience of an infinite Consciousness; it is
\nlimited in knowledge and has to supplement its restricted knowledge by
\nimagination and discovery. It does not, like the
\ninfinite Consciousness, manifest the known, it has to discover the
\nunknown; it seizes the possibilities of the Infinite, not as
\nresults or variations of forms of a latent Truth, but as constructions
\nor creations, figments of its own boundless imagination.
\nIt has not the omnipotence of an infinite conscious Energy; it can only
\nrealise or actualise what the cosmic Energy will
\naccept from it or what it has the strength to impose or introduce into
\nthe sum of things because the secret Divinity,
\nsuperconscient or subliminal, which uses it intends that that should be
\nexpressed in Nature. Its limitation of Knowledge
\nconstitutes by incompleteness, but also by openness to error, an
\nIgnorance. In dealing with actualities it may misobserve,
\nmisuse, miscreate; in dealing with possibilities it may miscompose,
\nmiscombine, misapply, misplace; in its dealings with truths
\nrevealed to it it may deform, misrepresent, disharmonise. It may also
\nmake constructions of its own which have no
\ncorrespondence with the things of actual existence, no potentiality of
\nrealisation, no support from the truth behind them; but
\nstill these constructions start from an illegitimate extension of
\nactualities, catch at unpermitted possibilities, or turn truths to
\nan application which is not applicable. Mind creates,\n<\/p>\n


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but it is not an original creator, not omniscient or omnipotent, not even an always efficient demiurge. Maya, the Illusive
\nPower, on the contrary, must be an original creator, for it creates all things out of nothing unless we suppose that it creates
\nout of the substance of the Reality, but then the things it creates must be in some way real; it has a perfect knowledge of
\nwhat it wishes to create, a perfect power to create whatever it chooses, omniscient and omnipotent though only over its own
\nillusions, harmonising them and linking them together with a magical sureness and sovereign energy, absolutely effective in
\nimposing its own formations or figments passed off as truths, possibilities, actualities on the creature intelligence. <\/p>\n

    
\nOur mind works best and with a firm confidence when it is given a
\nsubstance to work on or at least to use as a basis
\nfor its operations, or when it can handle a cosmic force of which it
\nhas acquired the knowledge, — it is sure of its steps when
\nit has to deal with actualities; this rule of dealing with objectivised
\nor discovered actualities and proceeding from them for
\ncreation is the reason of the enormous success of physical Science. But
\nhere there is evidently no creation of illusions, no
\ncreation of non-existence in vacuo and turning them into apparent
\nactualities such as is attributed to the cosmic Illusion. For
\nMind can only create out of substance what is possible to the
\nsubstance, it can only do with the force of Nature what is in
\naccordance with her realisable energies; it can only invent or discover
\nwhat is already contained in the truth and potentiality
\nof Nature. On the other side, it receives inspirations for creation
\nfrom within itself or from above: but these can only take
\nform if they are truths or potentials, not by the mind’s own right of
\ninvention; for if the mind erects what is neither true nor
\npotential, that cannot be created, cannot become actual in Nature.
\nMaya, on the contrary, if it creates on the basis of the
\nReality, yet erects a superstructure which has nothing to do with the
\nReality, is not true or potential in it; if it creates out of
\nthe substance of the Reality, it makes out of it things that are not
\npossible to it or in accordance with it, — for it creates forms
\nand the Reality is supposed to be a Formless incapable of form, it
\ncreates determinations and the Reality is supposed to be
\nabsolutely indeterminable.\n<\/p>\n


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        But our
\nmind has the faculty of imagination; it can create and take as true and
\nreal its own mental structures: here, it
\nmight be thought, is something analogous to the action of Maya. Our
\nmental imagination is an instrument of Ignorance; it is
\nthe resort or device or refuge of a limited capacity of knowledge, a
\nlimited capacity of effective action. Mind supplements
\nthese deficiencies by its power of imagination: it uses it to extract
\nfrom things obvious and visible the things that are not
\nobvious and visible; it undertakes to create its own figures of the
\npossible and the impossible; it erects illusory actuals or
\ndraws figures of a conjectured or constructed truth of things that are
\nnot true to outer experience. That is at least the
\nappearance of its operation; but, in reality, it is the mind’s way or
\none of its ways of summoning out of Being its infinite
\npossibilities, even of discovering or capturing the unknown
\npossibilities of the Infinite. But, because it cannot do this with
\nknowledge, it makes experimental constructions of truth and possibility
\nand a yet unrealised actuality: as its power of
\nreceiving inspirations of Truth is limited, it imagines, hypothetises,
\nquestions whether this or that may not be truths; as its
\nforce to summon real potentials is narrow and restricted, it erects
\npossibilities which it hopes to actualise or wishes it could
\nactualise; as its power to actualise is cramped and confined by the
\nmaterial world’s oppositions, it figures subjective
\nactualisations to satisfy its will of creation and delight of
\nself-presentation. But it is to be noted that through the imagination
\nit
\ndoes receive a figure of truth, does summon possibilities which are
\nafterwards realised, does often by its imagination
\nexercise an effective pressure on the world’s actualities. Imaginations
\nthat persist in the human mind, like the idea of travel
\nin the air, end often by self-fulfilment; individual thought-formations
\ncan actualise themselves if there is sufficient strength in
\nthe formation or in the mind that forms it. Imaginations can create
\ntheir own potentiality, especially if they are supported in
\nthe collective mind, and may in the long run draw on themselves the
\nsanction of the cosmic Will. In fact all imaginations
\nrepresent possibilities: some are able one day to actualise in some
\nform, perhaps a very different form of actuality; more are
\ncondemned to sterility because they do not enter into the\n<\/p>\n


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\n

figure or scheme of the present creation, do not come within the permitted potentiality of the individual or do not accord with
\nthe collective or the generic principle or are alien to the nature or destiny of the containing world-existence. <\/p>\n

    
\nThus the mind’s imaginations are not purely and radically illusory:
\nthey proceed on the basis of its experience of
\nactualities or at least set out from that, are variations upon
\nactuality, or they figure the “may-be”s or “might-be”s of the
\nInfinite, what could be if other truths had manifested, if existing
\npotentials had been otherwise arranged or other possibilities
\nthan those already admitted became potential. Moreover, through this
\nfaculty forms and powers of other domains than that
\nof the physical actuality communicate with our mental being. Even when
\nthe imaginations are extravagant or take the form
\nof hallucinations or illusions, they proceed with actuals or possibles
\nfor their basis. The mind creates the figure of a mermaid,
\nbut the phantasy is composed of two actualities put together in a way
\nthat is outside the earth’s normal potentiality; angels,
\ngriffins, chimeras are constructed on the same principle: sometimes the
\nimagination is a memory of former actualities as in
\nthe mythical figure of the dragon, sometimes it is a figure or a
\nhappening that is real or could be real on other planes or in
\nother conditions of existence. Even the illusions of the maniac are
\nfounded on an extravagant misfitting of actuals, as when
\nthe lunatic combines himself, kingship and England and sits in
\nimagination on the throne of the Plantagenets and Tudors.
\nAgain, when we look into the origin of mental error, we find normally
\nthat it is a miscombination, misplacement, misuse,
\nmisunderstanding or misapplication of elements of experience and
\nknowledge. Imagination itself is in its nature a substitute
\nfor a truer consciousness’s faculty of intuition of possibility: as the
\nmind ascends towards the Truth-Consciousness, this
\nmental power becomes a truth-imagination which brings the colour and
\nlight of the higher truth into the limited adequacy or
\ninadequacy of the knowledge already achieved and formulated and,
\nfinally, in the transforming light above it gives place
\nwholly to higher truth-powers or itself turns into intuition and
\ninspiration; the Mind in that uplifting ceases to be a creator of
\ndelusions and an architect of error. Mind then\n<\/p>\n


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\n

is not a sovereign creator of things non-existent or
\nerected in a void: it is an ignorance trying to know; its very
\nillusions start
\nfrom a basis of some kind and are the results of a limited knowledge or
\na half-ignorance. Mind is an instrument of the
\ncosmic Ignorance, but it does not seem to be or does not act like a
\npower or an instrument of a cosmic Illusion. It is a
\nseeker and discoverer or a creator or would-be creator of truths,
\npossibilities and actualities, and it would be rational to
\nsuppose that the original Consciousness and Power, from which mind must
\nbe a derivation, is also a creator of truths,
\npossibilities and actualities, not limited like mind but cosmic in its
\nscope, not open to error, because free from all ignorance, a
\nsovereign instrument or a self-power of a supreme Omniscience and
\nOmnipotence, an eternal Wisdom and Knowledge. <\/p>\n

    
\nThis then is the dual possibility that arises before us. There is, we
\nmay suppose, an original consciousness and power
\ncreative of illusions and unrealities with mind as its instrument or
\nmedium in the human and animal consciousness, so that the
\ndifferentiated universe we see is unreal, a fiction of Maya, and only
\nsome indeterminable and undifferentiated Absolute is
\nreal. Or there is, we may equally suppose, an original, a supreme or
\ncosmic Truth-Consciousness creative of a true universe,
\nbut with mind acting in that universe as an imperfect consciousness,
\nignorant, partly knowing, partly not knowing, — a
\nconsciousness which is by its ignorance or limitation of knowledge
\ncapable of error, mispresentation, mistaken or
\nmisdirected development from the known, of uncertain gropings towards
\nthe unknown, of partial creations and buildings, a constant
\nhalf-position between truth and error, knowledge and nescience. But
\nthis ignorance in fact proceeds, however stumblingly, upon knowledge
\nand towards knowledge; it is inherently capable of shedding the
\nlimitation, the mixture, and can turn by that liberation into the
\nTruth-Consciousness, into a power of the original Knowledge. Our
\ninquiry has so far led rather in the second direction; it points
\ntowards the conclusion that the nature of our consciousness is not of a
\ncharacter that would justify the hypothesis of a Cosmic Illusion as the
\nsolution of its problem. A problem exists, but it consists in the
\nmixture of Knowledge with Ignorance <\/p>\n


\nPage 437<\/p>\n

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\n

in our cognition of self and things, and it is the origin of this imperfection that we have to discover. There is no need of
\nbringing in an original power of Illusion always mysteriously existent in the eternal Reality or else intervening and imposing a
\nworld of non-existent forms on a Consciousness or Superconscience that is for ever pure, eternal and absolute.\n<\/p>\n

\nPage 438<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER V The Cosmic Illusion; Mind, Dream and Hallucination                                                                    Thou who hast come to this…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-18-the-life-divine-volume-18","wpcat-13-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638","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=638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}