{"id":640,"date":"2013-07-13T01:29:24","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=640"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:29:24","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:24","slug":"29-supermind-mind-and-the-overmind-maya-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\/29-supermind-mind-and-the-overmind-maya-vol-18-the-life-divine-volume-18","title":{"rendered":"-29_Supermind, Mind and the Overmind Maya.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n


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

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


\nSupermind, Mind and the
\nOvermind Maya<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is a Permanent, a Truth hidden by a Truth where the Sun unyokes his horses. The ten hundreds (of his rays)
\ncame together—That One. I saw the most glorious of the Forms of the Gods.<\/font><\/p>\n

 Rig Veda.\u00b9
\n<\/font> <\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

The face of Truth is hidden by a golden lid; that remove, O Fostering Sun, for the Law of the Truth, for sight. O Sun, O
\nsole Seer, marshal thy rays, gather them together,—let me see of thee thy happiest form of all; that Conscious Being
\neverywhere, He am I. <\/font><\/p>\n

                                  
\n  Isha Upanishad.\u00b2<\/font> <\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

The Truth, the Right, the Vast. Atharva Veda.\u00b3
\n<\/font> It became both truth and falsehood. It became the Truth, even all this that is.
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

Taittiriya Upanishad.<\/font>4<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

    O<\/font><\/b>NE<\/font> point remains to be cleared which we have till now left in obscurity, the process of the lapse into the Ignorance; for we
\nhave seen that nothing in the original nature of Mind, Life or Matter necessitates a fall from Knowledge. It has been shown
\nindeed that division of consciousness is the basis of the Ignorance, a division of individual consciousness from the cosmic
\nand the transcendent of which yet it is an intimate part, in essence inseparable, a division of Mind from the supramental
\nTruth of which it should be a subordinate action, of Life from the original Force of which it is one energism, of Matter from
\nthe original Existence of which it is one form of substance. But it has still to be made clear how this division came about in
\nthe Indivisible, by what peculiar self-diminishing or self-effacing action of Consciousness-Force in the Being: for since all is
\na movement of that Force, only by some such action obscuring its own plenary light and power can there have arisen the
\ndynamic and effective phenomenon of the Ignorance. But this problem can be left over to be treated in a more close\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

    
\n\u00b9<\/font><\/font> V. 62. 1.   \u00b2<\/font>
\nVerses 15, 16. \u00b3<\/font>XII. 1. 1. 
\n<\/font>
\n4<\/font> II. 6. <\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage-271<\/p>\n

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

\n

examination of the dual phenomenon of Knowledge-Ignorance which makes our consciousness a blend of light and
\ndarkness, a half-light between the full day of the supramental Truth and the night of the material Inconscience. All that is
\nnecessary to note at present is that it must be in its essential character an exclusive concentration on one movement and
\nstatus of Conscious Being, which puts all the rest of consciousness and being behind and veils it from that one movement’s
\nnow partial knowledge.\n<\/p>\n

     Still there is one aspect
\nof this problem which must be immediately considered; it is the gulf
\ncreated between Mind as
\nwe know it and the supramental Truth-Consciousness of which we have
\nfound Mind in its origin to be a subordinate
\nprocess. For this gulf is considerable and, if there are no gradations
\nbetween the two levels of consciousness, a transition
\nfrom one to the other, either in the descending involution of Spirit
\ninto Matter or the corresponding evolution in Matter of the
\nconcealed grades leading back to the Spirit, seems in the highest
\ndegree improbable, if not impossible. For Mind as we know
\nit is a power of the Ignorance seeking for Truth, groping with
\ndifficulty to find it, reaching only mental constructions and
\nrepresentations of it in word and idea, in mind formations, sense
\nformations,—as if bright or shadowy photographs or films
\nof a distant Reality were all that it could achieve. Supermind, on the
\ncontrary, is in actual and natural possession of the Truth
\nand its formations are forms of the Reality, not constructions,
\nrepresentations or indicative figures. No doubt, the evolving
\nMind in us is hampered by its encasement in the obscurity of this life
\nand body, and the original Mind principle in the
\ninvolutionary descent is a thing of greater power to which we have not
\nfully reached, able to act with freedom in its own
\nsphere or province, to build more revelatory constructions, more
\nminutely inspired formations, more subtle and significant
\nembodiments in which the light of Truth is present and palpable. But
\nstill that too is not likely to be essentially different in its
\ncharacteristic action, for it too is a movement into the Ignorance, not
\na still unseparated portion of the Truth-Consciousness.
\nThere must be somewhere in the descending and\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-272<\/p>\n

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

\n

ascending scale of Being an intermediate power and
\nplane of consciousness, perhaps something more than that, something
\nwith an original creative force, through which the involutionary
\ntransition from Mind in the Knowledge to Mind in the
\nIgnorance was effected and through which again the evolutionary reverse
\ntransition becomes intelligible and possible. For
\nthe involutionary transition this intervention is a logical imperative,
\nfor the evolutionary it is a practical necessity. For in the
\nevolution there are indeed radical transitions, from indeterminate
\nEnergy to organised Matter, from inanimate Matter to Life,
\nfrom a subconscious or submental to a perceptive and feeling and acting
\nLife, from primitive animal mentality to conceptive
\nreasoning Mind observing and governing Life and observing itself also,
\nable to act as an independent entity and even to seek
\nconsciously for self-transcendence; but these leaps, even when
\nconsiderable, are to some extent prepared by slow
\ngradations which make them conceivable and feasible. There can be no
\nsuch immense hiatus as seems to exist between
\nsupramental Truth-Consciousness and the Mind in the Ignorance.\n<\/p>\n

     But if such intervening
\ngradations exist, it is clear that they must be superconscient to human
\nmind which does not seem
\nto have in its normal state any entry into these higher grades of
\nbeing. Man is limited in his consciousness by mind and even
\nby a given range or scale of mind: what is below his mind, submental or
\nmental but nether to his scale, readily seems to him
\nsubconscious or not distinguishable from complete inconscience; what is
\nabove it is to him superconscious and he is almost
\ninclined to regard it as void of awareness, a sort of luminous
\nInconscience. Just as he is limited to a certain scale of sounds
\nor of colours and what is above or below that scale is to him inaudible
\nand invisible or at least indistinguishable, so is it with his scale of
\nmental consciousness, confined at either extremity by an incapacity
\nwhich marks his upper and his nether limit. He has no sufficient means
\nof communication even with the animal who is his mental congener,
\nthough not his equal, and he is even capable of denying mind or real
\nconsciousness to it because its modes are other and narrower than those
\nwith which in himself and his kind he is familiar; he can observe sub-<\/p>\n

 Page-273<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n

mental being from outside but cannot at all communicate with it or enter intimately into its nature. Equally the
\nsuperconscious is to him a closed book which may well be filled only with empty pages. At first sight, then, it would appear
\nas if he had no means of contact with these higher gradations of consciousness: if so, they cannot act as links or bridges and
\nhis evolution must cease with his accomplished mental range and cannot exceed it; Nature in drawing these limits has
\nwritten finis to his upward endeavour.\n<\/p>\n

     But when we look more
\nclosely, we perceive that this normality is deceptive and that in fact
\nthere are several directions
\nin which human mind reaches beyond itself, tends towards
\nself-exceeding; these are precisely the necessary lines of contact
\nor veiled or half-veiled passages which connect it with higher grades
\nof consciousness of the self-manifesting Spirit. First,
\nwe have noted the place Intuition occupies in the human means of
\nknowledge, and Intuition is in its very nature a projection
\nof the characteristic action of these higher grades into the mind of
\nIgnorance. It is true that in human mind its action is
\nlargely hidden by the interventions of our normal intelligence; a pure
\nintuition is a rare occurrence in our mental activity: for
\nwhat we call by the name is usually a point of direct knowledge which
\nis immediately caught and coated over with mental
\nstuff, so that it serves only as an invisible or a very tiny nucleus of
\na crystallisation which is in its mass intellectual or
\notherwise mental in character; or else the flash of intuition is
\nquickly replaced or intercepted, before it has a chance of
\nmanifesting itself, by a rapid imitative mental movement, insight or
\nquick perception or some swift-leaping process of thought
\nwhich owes its appearance to the stimulus of the coming intuition but
\nobstructs its entry or covers it with a substituted
\nmental suggestion true or erroneous but in either case not the
\nauthentic intuitive movement. Nevertheless, the fact of this
\nintervention from above, the fact that behind all our original thinking
\nor authentic perception of things there is a veiled, a
\nhalf-veiled or a swift unveiled intuitive element is enough to
\nestablish a connection between mind and what is above it; it
\nopens a passage of communication and of entry into the superior
\nspirit-ranges. There is also the reaching out of mind\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-274<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n

to exceed the personal ego limitation, to see things in a certain impersonality and universality. Impersonality is the first
\ncharacter of cosmic self; universality, non-limitation by the single or limiting point of view, is the character of cosmic
\nperception and knowledge: this tendency is therefore a widening, however rudimentary, of these restricted mind areas
\ntowards cosmicity, towards a quality which is the very character of the higher mental planes,—towards that superconscient
\ncosmic Mind which, we have suggested, must in the nature of things be the original mind-action of which ours is only a
\nderivative and inferior process. Again, there is not an entire absence of penetration from above into our mental limits. The
\nphenomena of genius are really the result of such a penetration,—veiled, no doubt, because the light of the superior
\nconsciousness not only acts within narrow limits, usually in a special field, without any regulated separate organisation of its
\ncharacteristic energies, often indeed quite fitfully, erratically and with a supernormal or abnormal irresponsible governance,
\nbut also in entering the mind it subdues and adapts itself to mind substance so that it is only a modified or diminished dynamis
\nthat reaches us, not all the original divine luminosity of what might be called the overhead consciousness beyond us. Still the
\nphenomena of inspiration, of revelatory vision or of intuitive perception and intuitive discernment, surpassing our less
\nillumined or less powerful normal mind-action, are there and their origin is unmistakable. Finally, there is the vast and
\nmultitudinous field of mystic and spiritual experience, and here the gates already lie wide open to the possibility of extending
\nour consciousness beyond its present limits,—unless, indeed, by an obscurantism that refuses to inquire or an attachment to
\nour boundaries of mental normality we shut them or turn away from the vistas they open before us. But in our present
\ninvestigation we cannot afford to neglect the possibilities which these domains of mankind’s endeavour bring near to us, or
\nthe added knowledge of oneself and of the veiled Reality which is their gift to human mind, the greater light which arms
\nthem with the right to act upon us and is the innate power of their existence.\n<\/p>\n

     There are two successive
\nmovements of consciousness, difficult but well within our capacity, by
\nwhich we can have
\naccess to<\/p>\n

\n Page-275<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n

the superior gradations of our conscious existence. There is first a movement inward by which, instead of living in our
\nsurface mind, we break the wall between our external and our now subliminal self; this can be brought about by a gradual
\neffort and discipline or by a vehement transition, sometimes a forceful involuntary rupture,—the latter by no means safe for
\nthe limited human mind accustomed to live securely only within its normal limits,—but in either way, safe or unsafe, the thing
\ncan be done. What we discover within this secret part of ourselves is an inner being, a soul, an inner mind, an inner life, an
\ninner subtle-physical entity which is much larger in its potentialities, more plastic, more powerful, more capable of a manifold
\nknowledge and dynamism than our surface mind, life or body; especially, it is capable of a direct communication with the
\nuniversal forces, movements, objects of the cosmos, a direct feeling and opening to them, a direct action on them and even a
\nwidening of itself beyond the limits of the personal mind, the personal life, the body, so that it feels itself more and more a
\nuniversal being no longer limited by the existing walls of our too narrow mental, vital, physical existence. This widening can
\nextend itself to a complete entry into the consciousness of cosmic Mind, into unity with the universal Life, even into a
\noneness with universal Matter. That, however, is still an identification either with a diminished cosmic truth or with the
\ncosmic Ignorance.\n<\/p>\n

     But once this entry into
\nthe inner being is accomplished, the inner Self is found to be capable
\nof an opening, an ascent
\nupwards into things beyond our present mental level; that is the second
\nspiritual possibility in us. The first most ordinary
\nresult is a discovery of a vast static and silent Self which we feel to
\nbe our real or our basic existence, the foundation of all
\nelse that we are. There may be even an extinction, a Nirvana both of
\nour active being and of the sense of self into a Reality
\nthat is indefinable and inexpressible. But also we can realise that
\nthis self is not only our own spiritual being but the true self
\nof all others; it presents itself then as the underlying truth of
\ncosmic existence. It is possible to remain in a Nirvana of all
\nindividuality, to stop at a static realisation or, regarding the cosmic
\nmovement as a superficial play or illusion imposed on the
\nsilent Self, to pass into\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-276<\/p>\n

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

\n

some supreme immobile and immutable status beyond the universe. But another less negative line of supernormal
\nexperience also offers itself; for there takes place a large dynamic descent of light, knowledge, power, bliss or other
\nsupernormal energies into our self of silence, and we can ascend too into higher regions of the Spirit where its immobile
\nstatus is the foundation of those great and luminous energies. It is evident in either case that we have risen beyond the mind
\nof Ignorance into a spiritual state; but, in the dynamic movement, the resultant greater action of Consciousness-Force may
\npresent itself either simply as a pure spiritual dynamis not otherwise determinate in its character or it may reveal a spiritual
\nmind-range where mind is no longer ignorant of the Reality,—not yet a supermind level, but deriving from the supramental
\nTruth-Consciousness and still luminous with something of its knowledge.\n<\/p>\n

     It is in the latter
\nalternative that we find the secret we are seeking, the means of the
\ntransition, the needed step towards
\na supramental transformation; for we perceive a graduality of ascent, a
\ncommunication with a more and more deep and
\nimmense light and power from above, a scale of intensities which can be
\nregarded as so many stairs in the ascension of
\nMind or in a descent into Mind from That which is beyond it. We are
\naware of a sealike downpour of masses of a
\nspontaneous knowledge which assumes the nature of Thought but has a
\ndifferent character from the process of thought to
\nwhich we are accustomed; for there is nothing here of seeking, no trace
\nof mental construction, no labour of speculation or
\ndifficult discovery; it is an automatic and spontaneous knowledge from
\na Higher Mind that seems to be in possession of
\nTruth and not in search of hidden and withheld realities. One observes
\nthat this Thought is much more capable than the mind
\nof including at once a mass of knowledge in a single view; it has a
\ncosmic character, not the stamp of an individual thinking.
\nBeyond this Truth-Thought we can distinguish a greater illumination
\ninstinct with an increased power and intensity and
\ndriving force, a luminosity of the nature of Truth-Sight with thought
\nformulation as a minor and dependent activity. If we
\naccept the Vedic image of the Sun of Truth,—an image which in this
\nexperience becomes a reality,<\/p>\n

\n Page-277<\/p>\n

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

\n

—we may compare the action of the Higher Mind to a
\ncomposed and steady sunshine, the energy of the Illumined Mind
\nbeyond it to an outpouring of massive lightnings of flaming sun-stuff.
\nStill beyond can be met a yet greater power of the
\nTruth-Force, an intimate and exact Truth-vision, Truth-thought,
\nTruth-sense, Truth-feeling, Truth-action, to which we can
\ngive in a special sense the name of Intuition; for though we have
\napplied that word for want of a better to any
\nsupra-intellectual direct way of knowing, yet what we actually know as
\nintuition is only one special movement of
\nself-existent knowledge. This new range is its origin; it imparts to
\nour intuitions something of its own distinct character and is
\nvery clearly an intermediary of a greater Truth-Light with which our
\nmind cannot directly communicate. At the source of
\nthis Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct
\ncontact with the supramental Truth-Consciousness, an
\noriginal intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental
\nenergies,—not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind
\nthat covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole
\nlower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links
\nit with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time
\nwith its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater
\nTruth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite
\npossibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of
\nthe spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret
\nReality. This then is the occult link we were looking for; this is
\nthe Power that at once connects and divides the supreme Knowledge and
\nthe cosmic Ignorance.<\/p>\n

     
\nIn its nature and law the Overmind is a delegate of the Supermind Consciousness, its delegate to the Ignorance. Or we
\nmight speak of it as a protective double, a screen of dissimilar similarity through which Supermind can act indirectly on an
\nIgnorance whose darkness could not bear or receive the direct impact of a supreme Light. Even, it is by the projection of
\nthis luminous Overmind corona that the diffusion of a diminished light in the Ignorance and the throwing of that contrary
\nshadow which swallows up in itself all light, the Inconscience, became at all possible. For Supermind transmits to Overmind
\nall its realities, but leaves it to formulate them in a movement and according to\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-278<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n

an awareness of things which is still a vision of
\nTruth and yet at the same time a first parent of the Ignorance. A line
\ndivides Supermind and Overmind which permits a free transmission,
\nallows the lower Power to derive from the higher Power all it
\nholds or sees, but automatically compels a transitional change in the
\npassage. The integrality of the Supermind keeps always
\nthe essential truth of things, the total truth and the truth of its
\nindividual self-determinations clearly knit together; it maintains
\nin them an inseparable unity and between them a close interpenetration
\nand a free and full consciousness of each other: but
\nin Overmind this integrality is no longer there. And yet the Overmind
\nis well aware of the essential Truth of things; it
\nembraces the totality; it uses the individual self-determinations
\nwithout being limited by them: but although it knows their
\noneness, can realise it in a spiritual cognition, yet its dynamic
\nmovement, even while relying on that for its security, is not
\ndirectly determined by it. Overmind Energy proceeds through an
\nillimitable capacity of separation and combination of the
\npowers and aspects of the integral and indivisible all-comprehending
\nUnity. It takes each Aspect or Power and gives to it an
\nindependent action in which it acquires a full separate importance and
\nis able to work out, we might say, its own world of
\ncreation. Purusha and Prakriti, Conscious Soul and executive Force of
\nNature, are in the supramental harmony a
\ntwo-aspected single truth, being and dynamis of the Reality; there can
\nbe no disequilibrium or predominance of one over the
\nother. In Overmind we have the origin of the cleavage, the trenchant
\ndistinction made by the philosophy of the Sankhyas in
\nwhich they appear as two independent entities, Prakriti able to
\ndominate Purusha and cloud its freedom and power, reducing
\nit to a witness and recipient of her forms and actions, Purusha able to
\nreturn to its separate existence and abide in a free
\nself-sovereignty by rejection of her original overclouding material
\nprinciple. So with the other aspects or powers of the
\nDivine Reality, One and Many, Divine Personality and Divine
\nImpersonality, and the rest; each is still an aspect and power
\nof the one Reality, but each is empowered to act as an independent
\nentity in the whole, arrive at the fullness of the
\npossibilities of its separate expression and develop the dynamic\n<\/p>\n

 Page-279<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n

consequences of that separateness. At the same time in Overmind this separateness is still founded on the basis of an
\nimplicit underlying unity; all possibilities of combination and relation between the separated Powers and Aspects, all
\ninterchanges and mutualities of their energies are freely organised and their actuality always possible.\n<\/p>\n

     If we regard the Powers of
\nthe Reality as so many Godheads, we can say that the Overmind releases
\na million
\nGodheads into action, each empowered to create its own world, each
\nworld capable of relation, communication and interplay
\nwith the others. There are in the Veda different formulations of the
\nnature of the Gods: it is said they are all one Existence
\nto which the sages give different names; yet each God is worshipped as
\nif he by himself is that Existence, one who is all the
\nother Gods together or contains them in his being; and yet again each
\nis a separate Deity acting sometimes in unison with
\ncompanion deities, sometimes separately, sometimes even in apparent
\nopposition to other Godheads of the same Existence.
\nIn the Supermind all this would be held together as a harmonised play
\nof the one Existence; in the Overmind each of these
\nthree conditions could be a separate action or basis of action and have
\nits own principle of development and consequences
\nand yet each keep the power to combine with the others in a more
\ncomposite harmony. As with the One Existence, so with
\nits Consciousness and Force. The One Consciousness is separated into
\nmany independent forms of consciousness and
\nknowledge; each follows out its own line of truth which it has to
\nrealise. The one total and many-sided Real-Idea is split up
\ninto its many sides; each becomes an independent Idea-Force with the
\npower to realise itself. The one Consciousness-Force
\nis liberated into its million forces, and each of these forces has the
\nright to fulfil itself or to assume, if needed, a hegemony
\nand take up for its own utility the other forces. So too the Delight of
\nExistence is loosed out into all manner of delights and
\neach can carry in itself its independent fullness or sovereign extreme.
\nOvermind thus gives to the One
\nExistence-Consciousness-Bliss the character of a teeming of infinite
\npossibilities which can be developed into a multitude of
\nworlds or thrown together into one world in which the endlessly
\nvariable\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-280<\/p>\n

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

\n

outcome of their play is the determinant of the creation, of its process, its course and its consequence.\n<\/p>\n

     Since the
\nConsciousness-Force of the eternal Existence is the universal creatrix,
\nthe nature of a given world will depend
\non whatever self-formulation of that Consciousness expresses itself in
\nthat world. Equally, for each individual being, his
\nseeing or representation to himself of the world he lives in will
\ndepend on the poise or make which that Consciousness has
\nassumed in him. Our human mental consciousness sees the world in
\nsections cut by the reason and sense and put together
\nin a formation which is also sectional; the house it builds is planned
\nto accommodate one or another generalised formulation
\nof Truth, but excludes the rest or admits some only as guests or
\ndependents in the house. Overmind Consciousness is global
\nin its cognition and can hold any number of seemingly fundamental
\ndifferences together in a reconciling vision. Thus the
\nmental reason sees Person and the Impersonal as opposites: it conceives
\nan impersonal Existence in which person and
\npersonality are fictions of the Ignorance or temporary constructions;
\nor, on the contrary, it can see Person as the primary
\nreality and the impersonal as a mental abstraction or only stuff or
\nmeans of manifestation. To the Overmind intelligence
\nthese are separable Powers of the one Existence which can pursue their
\nindependent self-affirmation and can also unite
\ntogether their different modes of action, creating both in their
\nindependence and in their union different states of
\nconsciousness and being which can be all of them valid and all capable
\nof coexistence. A purely impersonal existence and
\nconsciousness is true and possible, but also an entirely personal
\nconsciousness and existence; the Impersonal Divine,
\nNirguna Brahman, and the Personal Divine, Saguna Brahman, are here
\nequal and coexistent aspects of the Eternal.
\nImpersonality can manifest with person subordinated to it as a mode of
\nexpression; but, equally, Person can be the reality
\nwith impersonality as a mode of its nature: both aspects of
\nmanifestation face each other in the infinite variety of conscious
\nExistence. What to the mental reason are irreconcilable differences
\npresent themselves to the Overmind intelligence as
\ncoexistent correlatives; what to the mental reason are contraries are
\nto the Overmind  intelli-<\/p>\n

\nPage-281<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n

gence complementaries. Our mind sees that all things
\nare born from Matter or material Energy, exist by it, go back into
\nit; it concludes that Matter is the eternal factor, the primary and
\nultimate reality, Brahman. Or it sees all as born of
\nLife-Force or Mind, existing by Life or by Mind, going back into the
\nuniversal Life or Mind, and it concludes that this world
\nis a creation of the cosmic Life-Force or of a cosmic Mind or Logos. Or
\nagain it sees the world and all things as born of,
\nexisting by and going back to the Real-Idea or Knowledge-Will of the
\nSpirit or to the Spirit itself and it concludes on an
\nidealistic or spiritual view of the universe. It can fix on any of
\nthese ways of seeing, but to its normal separative vision each
\nway excludes the others. Overmind consciousness perceives that each
\nview is true of the action of the principle it erects; it
\ncan see that there is a material world-formula, a vital world-formula,
\na mental world-formula, a spiritual world-formula, and
\neach can predominate in a world of its own and at the same time all can
\ncombine in one world as its constituent powers.
\nThe self-formulation of Conscious Force on which our world is based as
\nan apparent Inconscience that conceals in itself a
\nsupreme Conscious-Existence and holds all the powers of Being together
\nin its inconscient secrecy, a world of universal
\nMatter realising in itself Life, Mind, Overmind, Supermind, Spirit,
\neach of them in its turn taking up the others as means of its
\nself-expression, Matter proving in the spiritual vision to have been
\nalways itself a manifestation of the Spirit, is to the
\nOvermind view a normal and easily realisable creation. In its power of
\norigination and in the process of its executive
\ndynamis Overmind is an organiser of many potentialities of Existence,
\neach affirming its separate reality but all capable of
\nlinking themselves together in many different but simultaneous ways, a
\nmagician craftsman empowered to weave the
\nmulticoloured warp and woof of manifestation of a single entity in a
\ncomplex universe.\n<\/p>\n

     In this simultaneous
\ndevelopment of multitudinous independent or combined Powers or
\nPotentials there is yet—or there
\nis as yet—no chaos, no conflict, no fall from Truth or Knowledge. The
\nOvermind is a creator of truths, not of illusions or
\nfalsehoods: what is worked out in any given\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-282 <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n

overmental energism or movement is the truth of the
\nAspect, Power, Idea, Force, Delight which is liberated into independent
\naction, the truth of the consequences of its reality in that
\nindependence. There is no exclusiveness asserting each as the sole
\ntruth of being or the others as inferior truths: each God knows all the
\nGods and their place in existence; each Idea admits all
\nother ideas and their right to be; each Force concedes a place to all
\nother forces and their truth and consequences; no
\ndelight of separate fulfilled existence or separate experience denies
\nor condemns the delight of other existence or other
\nexperience. The Overmind is a principle of cosmic Truth and a vast and
\nendless catholicity is its very spirit; its energy is an
\nall-dynamism as well as a principle of separate dynamisms: it is a sort
\nof inferior Supermind,—although it is concerned
\npredominantly not with absolutes, but with what might be called the
\ndynamic potentials or pragmatic truths of Reality, or
\nwith absolutes mainly for their power of generating pragmatic or
\ncreative values, although, too, its comprehension of things
\nis more global than integral, since its totality is built up of global
\nwholes or constituted by separate independent realities
\nuniting or coalescing together, and although the essential unity is
\ngrasped by it and felt to be basic of things and pervasive in
\ntheir manifestation, but no longer as in the Supermind their intimate
\nand ever-present secret, their dominating continent, the
\novert constant builder of the harmonic whole of their activity and
\nnature.<\/p>\n

     
\nIf we would understand the difference of this global Overmind Consciousness from our separative and only imperfectly
\nsynthetic mental consciousness, we may come near to it if we compare the strictly mental with what would be an
\novermental view of activities in our material universe. To the Overmind, for example, all religions would be true as
\ndevelopments of the one eternal religion, all philosophies would be valid each in its own field as a statement of its own
\nuniverse-view from its own angle, all political theories with their practice would be the legitimate working out of an Idea
\nForce with its right to application and practical development in the play of the energies of Nature. In our separative
\nconsciousness, imperfectly visited by glimpses of catholicity and universality, these things exist as opposites;\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-283<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n

each claims to be the truth and taxes the others
\nwith error and falsehood, each feels impelled to refute or destroy the
\nothers
\nin order that itself alone may be the Truth and live: at best, each
\nmust claim to be superior, admit all others only as inferior
\ntruth-expressions. An overmental Intelligence would refuse to entertain
\nthis conception or this drift to exclusiveness for a
\nmoment; it would allow all to live as necessary to the whole or put
\neach in its place in the whole or assign to each its field of
\nrealisation or of endeavour. This is because in us consciousness has
\ncome down completely into the divisions of the
\nIgnorance; Truth is no longer either an Infinite or a cosmic whole with
\nmany possible formulations, but a rigid affirmation
\nholding any other affirmation to be false because different from itself
\nand entrenched in other limits. Our mental
\nconsciousness can indeed arrive in its cognition at a considerable
\napproach towards a total comprehensiveness and
\ncatholicity, but to organise that in action and life seems to be beyond
\nits power. Evolutionary Mind, manifest in individuals or
\ncollectivities, throws up a multiplicity of divergent viewpoints,
\ndivergent lines of action and lets them work themselves out
\nside by side or in collision or in a certain intermixture; it can make
\nselective harmonies, but it cannot arrive at the harmonic
\ncontrol of a true totality. Cosmic Mind must have even in the
\nevolutionary Ignorance, like all totalities, such a harmony, if
\nonly of arranged accords and discords; there is too in it an underlying
\ndynamism of oneness: but it carries the completeness
\nof these things in its depths, perhaps in a supermind-overmind
\nsubstratum, but does not impart it to individual Mind in the
\nevolution, does not bring it or has not yet brought it from the depths
\nto the surface. An Overmind world would be a world of
\nharmony; the world of Ignorance in which we live is a world of
\ndisharmony and struggle.\n<\/p>\n

     And still we can recognise
\nat once in the Overmind the original cosmic Maya, not a Maya of
\nIgnorance but a Maya of
\nKnowledge, yet a Power which has made the Ignorance possible, even
\ninevitable. For if each principle loosed into action
\nmust follow its independent line and carry out its complete
\nconsequences, the principle of separation must also be allowed its
\ncomplete course and arrive at its absolute consequence; this is\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-284<\/p>\n

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

\n

the inevitable descent, facilis descensus, which Consciousness, once it admits the separative principle, follows till it enters
\nby obscuring infinitesimal fragmentation, tucchyena,\u00b9
\n<\/font> into the material Inconscience,—the Inconscient Ocean of
\nthe Rig Veda,—and if the One is born from that by its own
\ngreatness, it is still at first concealed by a fragmentary separative
\nexistence and consciousness which is ours and in which
\nwe have to piece things together to arrive at a whole. In that slow and
\ndifficult emergence a certain semblance of truth is
\ngiven to the dictum of Heraclitus that War is the father of all things;
\nfor each idea, force, separate consciousness, living
\nbeing by the very necessity of its ignorance enters into collision with
\nothers and tries to live and grow and fulfil itself by
\nindependent self-assertion, not by harmony with the rest of existence.
\nYet there is still the unknown underlying Oneness
\nwhich compels us to strive slowly towards some form of harmony, of
\ninterdependence, of concording of discords, of a
\ndifficult unity. But it is only by the evolution in us of the concealed
\nsuperconscient powers of cosmic Truth and of the
\nReality in which they are one that the harmony and unity we strive for
\ncan be dynamically realised in the very fibre of our
\nbeing and all its self-expression and not merely in imperfect attempts,
\nincomplete constructions, ever-changing
\napproximations. The higher ranges of spiritual Mind have to open upon
\nour being and consciousness and also that which is
\nbeyond even spiritual Mind must appear in us if we are to fulfil the
\ndivine possibility of our birth into cosmic existence. <\/p>\n

   
\nOvermind in its descent reaches a line which divides the cosmic Truth
\nfrom the cosmic Ignorance; it is the line at which
\nit becomes possible for Consciousness-Force, emphasising the
\nseparateness of each independent movement created by
\nOvermind and hiding or darkening their unity, to divide Mind by an
\nexclusive concentration from the overmental source.
\nThere has already been a similar separation of Overmind from its
\nsupramental source, but with a transparency in the veil
\nwhich allows a conscious transmission and maintains a certain luminous
\nkinship; but here the veil is opaque and the
\ntransmission of the Overmind motives to the Mind is occult and obscure.
\nMind\n<\/p>\n

     \u00b9<\/font>
\nRig Veda,<\/i> X. 129. 3.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-285 <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n

separated acts as if it were an independent
\nprinciple, and each mental being, each basic mental idea, power, force
\nstands
\nsimilarly on its separate self; if it communicates with or combines or
\ncontacts others, it is not with the catholic universality of
\nthe overmind movement, on a basis of underlying oneness, but as
\nindependent units joining to form a separate constructed
\nwhole. It is by this movement that we pass from the cosmic Truth into
\nthe cosmic Ignorance. The cosmic Mind on this level,
\nno doubt, comprehends its own unity, but it is not aware of its own
\nsource and foundation in the Spirit or can only
\ncomprehend it by the intelligence, not in any enduring experience; it
\nacts in itself as if by its own right and works out what it
\nreceives as material without direct communication with the source from
\nwhich it receives it. Its units also act in ignorance of
\neach other and of the cosmic whole except for the knowledge that they
\ncan get by contact and communication,—the basic
\nsense of identity and the mutual penetration and understanding that
\ncomes from it are no longer there. All the actions of this
\nMind Energy proceed on the opposite basis of the Ignorance and its
\ndivisions and, although they are the results of a certain
\nconscious knowledge, it is a partial knowledge, not a true and integral
\nself-knowledge, nor a true and integral
\nworld-knowledge. This character persists in Life and in subtle Matter
\nand reappears in the gross material universe which
\narises from the final lapse into the Inconscience.\n<\/p>\n

     Yet, as in our subliminal
\nor inner Mind, so in this Mind also a larger power of communication and
\nmutuality still remains,
\na freer play of mentality and sense than human mind possesses, and the
\nIgnorance is not complete; a conscious harmony, an
\ninterdependent organisation of right relations is more possible: mind
\nis not yet perturbed by blind Life forces or obscured by
\nirresponsive Matter. It is a plane of Ignorance, but not yet of
\nfalsehood or error,—or at least the lapse into falsehood and
\nerror is not yet inevitable; this Ignorance is limitative but not
\nnecessarily falsificative. There is limitation of knowledge, an
\norganisation of partial truths, but not a denial or opposite of truth
\nor knowledge. This character of an organisation of partial
\ntruths on a basis of separative knowledge persists in Life and\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-286<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n

subtle Matter, for the exclusive concentration of
\nConsciousness-Force which puts them into separative action does not
\nentirely sever or veil Mind from Life or Mind and Life from Matter. The
\ncomplete separation can take place only when the
\nstage of Inconscience has been reached and our world of manifold
\nIgnorance arises out of that tenebrous matrix. These
\nother still conscient stages of the involution are indeed organisations
\nof Conscious Force in which each lives from his own
\ncentre, follows out his own possibilities, and the predominant
\nprinciple itself, whether Mind, Life or Matter, works out things
\non its own independent basis; but what is worked out are truths of
\nitself, not illusions or a tangle of truth and falsehood,
\nknowledge and ignorance. But when by an exclusive concentration on
\nForce and Form Consciousness-Force seems
\nphenomenally to separate Consciousness from Force, or when it absorbs
\nConsciousness in a blind sleep lost in Form and
\nForce, then Consciousness has to struggle back to itself by a
\nfragmentary evolution which necessitates error and makes
\nfalsehood inevitable. Nevertheless, these things too are not illusions
\nthat have sprung out of an original Non-Existence; they
\nare, we might say, the unavoidable truths of a world born out of
\nInconscience. For the Ignorance is still in reality a
\nknowledge seeking for itself behind the original mask of Inconscience;
\nit misses and finds; its results, natural and even
\ninevitable on their own line, are the true consequence of the lapse,—in
\na way, even, the right working of the recovery from
\nthe lapse. Existence plunging into an apparent Non-Existence,
\nConsciousness into an apparent Inconscience, Delight of
\nexistence into a vast cosmic insensibility are the first result of the
\nfall and, in the return from it by a struggling fragmentary
\nexperience, the rendering of Consciousness into the dual terms of truth
\nand falsehood, knowledge and error, of Existence
\ninto the dual terms of life and death, of Delight of existence into the
\ndual terms of pain and pleasure are the necessary
\nprocess of the labour of self-discovery. A pure experience of Truth,
\nKnowledge, Delight, imperishable existence would here
\nbe itself a contradiction of the truth of things. It could only be
\notherwise if all beings in the evolution were quiescently
\nresponsive to the psychic elements within them and to the Supermind
\nunderlying Nature’s 
\nopera-<\/p>\n

\nPage-287<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n

tions; but here there comes in the Overmind law of each Force working out its own possibilities. The natural
\npossibilities of a world in which an original Inconscience and a division of consciousness are the main principles, would be
\nthe emergence of Forces of Darkness impelled to maintain the Ignorance by which they live, an ignorant struggle to know
\noriginative of falsehood and error, an ignorant struggle to live engendering wrong and evil, an egoistic struggle to enjoy,
\nparent of fragmentary joys and pains and sufferings; these are therefore the inevitable first-imprinted characters, though not
\nthe sole possibilities of our evolutionary existence. Still, because the Non-Existence is a concealed Existence, the
\nInconscience a concealed Consciousness, the insensibility a masked and dormant Ananda, these secret realities must
\nemerge; the hidden Overmind and Supermind too must in the end fulfil themselves in this apparently opposite organisation
\nfrom a dark Infinite.\n<\/p>\n

     Two things render that
\nculmination more facile than it would otherwise be. Overmind in the
\ndescent towards material
\ncreation has originated modifications of itself,—Intuition especially
\nwith its penetrative lightning flashes of truth lighting up
\nlocal points and stretches of country in our consciousness,—which can
\nbring the concealed truth of things nearer to our
\ncomprehension, and, by opening ourselves more widely first in the inner
\nbeing and then as a result in the outer surface self
\nalso to the messages of these higher ranges of consciousness, by
\ngrowing into them, we can become ourselves also intuitive
\nand overmental beings, not limited by the intellect and sense, but
\ncapable of a more universal comprehension and a direct
\ntouch of truth in its very self and body. In fact flashes of
\nenlightenment from these higher ranges already come to us, but
\nthis intervention is mostly fragmentary, casual or partial; we have
\nstill to begin to enlarge ourselves into their likeness and
\norganise in us the greater Truth activities of which we are potentially
\ncapable. But, secondly, Overmind, Intuition, even
\nSupermind not only must be, as we have seen, principles inherent and
\ninvolved in the Inconscience from which we arise in
\nthe evolution and inevitably destined to evolve, but are secretly
\npresent, occult actively with flashes of intuitive emergence in
\nthe cosmic activity of Mind, Life and\n<\/p>\n

\n     Page-288<\/p>\n

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

\n

Matter. It is true that their action is concealed
\nand, even when they emerge, it is modified by the medium, material,
\nvital,
\nmental in which they work and not easily recognisable. Supermind cannot
\nmanifest itself as the Creator Power in the
\nuniverse from the beginning, for if it did, the Ignorance and
\nInconscience would be impossible or else the slow evolution
\nnecessary would change into a rapid transformation scene. Yet at every
\nstep of the material energy we can see the stamp
\nof inevitability given by a supramental creator, in all the development
\nof life and mind the play of the lines of possibility and
\ntheir combination which is the stamp of Overmind intervention. As Life
\nand Mind have been released in Matter, so too must
\nin their time these greater powers of the concealed Godhead emerge from
\nthe involution and their supreme Light descend
\ninto us from above.\n<\/p>\n

     A divine Life in the
\nmanifestation is then not only possible as the high result and ransom
\nof our present life in the
\nIgnorance but, if these things are as we have seen them, it is the
\ninevitable outcome and consummation of Nature’s
\nevolutionary endeavour. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

END OF THE FIRST BOOK <\/font> <\/p>\n

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