{"id":945,"date":"2013-07-13T01:31:30","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=945"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:31:30","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:30","slug":"21-the-object-of-knowledge-vol-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20\/21-the-object-of-knowledge-vol-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","title":{"rendered":"-21_The Object of Knowledge.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\nChapter
\nI<\/span><\/font><\/b> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/font>The Object of
\nKnowledge<\/font><\/b><\/span> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nA<\/font><\/span>LL<\/span><\/font> spiritual
\nseeking moves towards an object of Knowledge to which men ordinarily do not turn
\nthe eye of the mind, to someone or something Eternal, Infinite, Absolute that is
\nnot the temporal things or forces of which we are sensible, although he or it
\nmay be in them or behind them or their source or creator. It aims at a state of
\nknowledge by which we can touch, enter or know by identity this Eternal,
\nInfinite and Absolute, a consciousness other than our ordinary consciousness of
\nideas and forms and things, a Knowledge that is not what we call knowledge but
\nsomething self-existent, everlasting, infinite. And although it may or even
\nnecessarily must, since man is a mental creature, start from our ordinary
\ninstruments of knowledge, yet it must as necessarily go beyond them and use
\nsupra-sensuous and supramental means and faculties, for it is in search of
\nsomething that is itself supra-sensuous and supramental and beyond the grasp of
\nthe mind and senses, even if through mind and sense there can come a first
\nglimpse of it or a reflected image. <\/span><\/p>\n

The
\ntraditional systems, whatever their other differences, all proceed on the
\nbelief or the perception that the Eternal and Absolute can only be or at least
\ncan only inhabit a pure transcendent state of non-cosmic existence or else a
\nnon-existence. All cosmic existence or all that we call existence is a state of
\nignorance. Even the highest individual perfection, even the most blissful
\ncosmic condition is no better than a supreme ignorance. All that is individual,
\nall that is cosmic has to be austerely renounced by the seeker of the absolute
\nTruth. The supreme quiescent Self or else the absolute Nihil is<\/span>
\nthe sole Truth, the only object of spiritual knowledge. The state of knowledge,
\nthe consciousness other than this temporal that we must attain is Nirvana, an
\nextinction of ego, a cessation of all mental, vital and physical activities, of
\nall activities whatsoever, a supreme illumined quiescence, the
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 273<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

pure<\/span><\/span> bliss of an
\nimpersonal tranquillity self-absorbed and ineffable. The means are meditation,
\na concentration excluding all things else, a total loss of the mind in its
\nobject. Action is permissible only in the first stages of the search in order
\nto purify the seeker and make him morally and temperamentally a fit vessel for
\nthe knowledge. Even this action must either be confined to the performance of the
\nrites of worship and the prescribed duties of life rigorously ordained by the
\nHindu Shastra or, as in the Buddhistic discipline, must be guided along the
\neightfold path to the supreme practice of the works of compassion which lead
\ntowards the practical annihilation of self in the good of others. In the end,
\nin any severe and pure Jnanayoga, all works must be abandoned for an entire
\nquiescence. Action may prepare salvation; it cannot give it. Any continued
\nadherence to action is incompatible with the highest progress and may be an
\ninsuperable obstacle to the attainment of the spiritual goal. The supreme state
\nof quiescence is the very opposite of action and cannot be attained by those
\nwho persist in works. And even devotion, love, worship are disciplines for the
\nunripe soul, are at best the best methods of the Ignorance. For they are offered
\nto something other, higher and greater than ourselves; but in the supreme
\nknowledge there can be no such thing, since there is either only one self or no
\nself at all and therefore either no one to do the worship and offer the love
\nand devotion or no one to receive it. Even thought-activity must disappear in
\nthe sole consciousness of identity or of nothingness and by its own quiescence
\nbring about the quiescence of the whole nature. The absolute Identical alone
\nmust remain or else the eternal Nihil.<\/span><\/p>\n

This pure
\nJnanayoga comes by the intellect, although it ends in the transcendence of the
\nintellect and its workings. The thinker in us separates himself from all the
\nrest of what we phenomenally are, rejects the heart, draws back from the life and
\nthe senses, separates from the body that he may arrive at his own exclusive
\nfulfilment in that which is beyond even himself and his function. There is a
\ntruth that underlies, as there is an experience that seems to justify this
\nattitude. There is an Essence that is in its nature a quiescence, a supreme of
\nSilence in the Being that is beyond its own developments and mutations,
\nimmutable and therefore <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 274<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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superior<\/span><\/span> to all
\nactivities of which it is at most a Witness. And in the hierarchy of our
\npsychological functions the Thought is in a way nearest to this Self, nearest
\nat least to its aspect of the all-conscious knower who regards all activities
\nbut can stand back from them all. The heart, will and other powers in us are
\nfundamentally active, turn naturally towards action, find through it their fulfilment,
\n\u2013 although they also may automatically arrive at a certain quiescence by
\nfullness of satisfaction in their activities or else by a reverse process of
\nexhaustion through perpetual disappointment and dissatisfaction. The thought
\ntoo is an active power, but is more capable of arriving at quiescence by its
\nown conscious choice and will. The thought is more easily content with the
\nillumined intellectual perception of this silent Witness Self that is higher
\nthan all our activities and, that immobile Spirit once seen, is ready, deeming
\nits mission of truth-finding accomplished, to fall at rest and become itself immobile.
\nFor in its most characteristic movement it is itself apt to be a disinterested
\nwitness, judge, observer of things more than an eager participant and
\npassionate labourer in the work and can arrive very readily at a spiritual or
\nphilosophic calm and detached aloofness. And since men are mental beings,
\nthought, if not truly their best and highest, is at least their most constant,
\nnormal and effective means for enlightening their ignorance. Armed with its
\nfunctions of gathering and reflection, meditation, fixed contemplation, the
\nabsorbed dwelling of the mind on its object, śravaņa, manana,
\nnididhyāsana, it stands at our tops as an indispensable aid to our
\nrealisation of that which we pursue, and it is not surprising that it should
\nclaim to be the leader of the journey and the only available guide or at least
\nthe direct and innermost door of the temple. <\/span><\/p>\n

In reality,
\nthought is only a scout and pioneer; it can guide but not command or
\neffectuate. The leader of the journey, the captain of the march, the first and
\nmost ancient priest of our sacrifice is the Will. This Will is not the wish of
\nthe heart or the demand or preference of the mind to which we often give the
\nname. It is that inmost, dominant and often veiled conscious force of our being
\nand of all being, Tapas, Shakti, Sraddha, that sovereignly determines our
\norientation and of which the intellect
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 275<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

and<\/span><\/span> the heart
\nare more or less blind and automatic servants and instruments. The Self that is
\nquiescent, at rest, vacant of things and happenings is a support and background
\nto existence, a silent channel or a hypostasis of something Supreme: it is not
\nitself the one entirely real existence, not itself the Supreme. The Eternal,
\nthe Supreme is the Lord and the all-originating Spirit. Superior to all
\nactivities and not bound by any of them, it is the source, sanction, material,
\nefficient power, master of all activities. All activities proceed from this
\nsupreme Self and are determined by it; all are its operations, processes of its
\nown conscious force and not of something alien to Self<\/span>,
\nsome power other than the Spirit. In these activities is expressed the
\nconscious Will or Shakti of the Spirit moved to manifest its being in infinite
\nways, a Will or Power not ignorant but at one with its own self-knowledge and
\nits knowledge of all that it is put out to express. And of this Power a secret
\nspiritual will and soul-faith in us, the dominant hidden force of our nature,
\nis the individual instrument, more nearly in communication with the Supreme, a
\nsurer guide and enlightener, could we once get at it and hold it, because
\nprofounder and more intimately near to the Identical and Absolute than the
\nsurface activities of our thought powers. To know that will in ourselves and in
\nthe universe and follow it to its divine finalities, whatever these may be,
\nmust surely be the highest way and truest culmination for knowledge as for
\nworks, for the seeker in life and for the seeker in Yoga.<\/span><\/p>\n

The thought,
\nsince it is not the highest or strongest part of Nature, not even the sole or
\ndeepest index to Truth, ought not to follow its own exclusive satisfaction or
\ntake that for the sign of its attainment to the supreme Knowledge. It is here
\nas the guide, up to a certain point, of the heart, the life and the other
\nmembers, but it cannot be a substitute for them; it has to see not only what is
\nits own ultimate satisfaction but whether there is not an ultimate satisfaction
\nintended also for these other members. An exclusive path of abstract thought
\nwould be justified, only if the object of the Supreme Will in the universe has been
\nnothing more than a descent into the activity of the ignorance operated by the
\nmind as blinding instrument and jailor through false idea and sensation and an
\nascent into the quiescence of
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 276<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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knowledge<\/span><\/span> equally
\noperated by the mind through correct thought as enlightening instrument and
\nsaviour. But the chances are that there is an aim in the world less absurd and aimless,
\nan impulse towards the Absolute less dry and abstract, a truth of the world
\nmore large and complex, a more richly infinite height of the Infinite.
\nCertainly, an abstract logic must always arrive, as the old systems arrived, at
\nan infinite empty Negation or an infinite equally vacant Affirmation; for,
\nabstract it moves towards an absolute abstraction and these are the only two
\nabstractions that are absolutely absolute. But a concrete ever deepening wisdom
\nwaiting on more and more riches of infinite experience and not the confident
\nabstract logic of the narrow and incompetent human mind is likely to be the key
\nto a divine suprahuman knowledge. The heart, the will, the life and even the
\nbody, no less than the thought, are forms of a divine Conscious-Being and
\nindices of great significance. These too have powers by which the soul can
\nreturn to its complete self-awareness or means by which it can enjoy it. The
\nobject of the Supreme Will may well be a culmination in which the whole being
\nis intended to receive its divine satisfaction, the heights enlightening the
\ndepths, the material Inconscient revealed to itself as the Divine by the touch
\nof the supreme Superconscience.<\/span><\/p>\n

The
\ntraditional Way of Knowledge proceeds by elimination and rejects successively
\nthe body, the life, the senses, the heart, the very thought in order to merge
\ninto the quiescent Self or supreme Nihil or indefinite Absolute. The way of
\nintegral knowledge supposes that we are intended to arrive at an integral
\nself-fulfilment and the only thing that is to be eliminated is our own
\nunconsciousness, the Ignorance and the results of the Ignorance. Eliminate the
\nfalsity of the being which figures as the ego; then our true being can manifest
\nin us. Eliminate the falsity of the life which figures as mere vital craving
\nand the mechanical round of our corporeal existence; our true life in the power
\nof the Godhead and the joy of the Infinite will appear. Eliminate the falsity
\nof the senses with their subjection to material shows and to dual sensations;
\nthere is a greater sense in us that can open through these to the Divine in things
\nand divinely reply to it. Eliminate the falsity of the heart with its turbid
\npassions and desires and <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
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\n

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its<\/span><\/span> dual
\nemotions; a deeper heart in us can open with its divine love for all creatures
\nand its infinite passion and yearning for the responses of the Infinite.
\nEliminate the falsity of the thought with its imperfect mental constructions,
\nits arrogant assertions and denials, its limited and exclusive concentrations;
\na greater faculty of knowledge is behind that can open to the true Truth of God
\nand the soul and Nature and the universe. An integral self-fulfilment, \u2013 an
\nabsolute, a culmination for the experiences of the heart, for its instinct of
\nlove, joy, devotion and worship; an absolute, a culmination for the senses, for
\ntheir pursuit of divine beauty and good and delight in the forms of things; an
\nabsolute, a culmination for the life, for its pursuit of works, of divine
\npower, mastery and perfection; an absolute, a culmination beyond its own limits
\nfor the thought, for its hunger after truth and light and divine wisdom and
\nknowledge. Not something quite other than themselves from which they are all
\ncast away is the end of these things in our nature, but something supreme in
\nwhich they at once transcend themselves and find their own absolutes and
\ninfinitudes, their harmonies beyond measure.<\/span><\/p>\n

Behind the
\ntraditional way of Knowledge, justifying its thought-process of elimination and
\nwithdrawal, stands an overmastering spiritual experience. Deep, intense,
\nconvincing, common to all who have overstepped a certain limit of the active
\nmind-belt into horizonless inner space, this is the great experience of
\nliberation, the consciousness of something within us that is behind and outside
\nof the universe and all its forms, interests, aims, events and happenings,
\ncalm, untouched, unconcerned, illimitable, immobile, free, the uplook to
\nsomething above us indescribable and unseizable into which by abolition of our
\npersonality we can enter, the presence of an omnipresent eternal witness Purusha,
\nthe sense of an Infinity or a Timelessness that looks down on us from an august
\nnegation of all our existence and is alone the one thing Real. This experience
\nis the highest sublimation of spiritualised mind looking resolutely beyond its
\nown existence. No one who has not passed through this liberation can be
\nentirely free from the mind and its meshes, but one is not compelled to linger
\nin this experience for ever. Great
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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as<\/span><\/span> it is, it is
\nonly the Mind’s overwhelming experience of what is beyond itself and all it can
\nconceive. It is a supreme negative experience, but beyond it is all the tremendous
\nlight of an infinite Consciousness, an illimitable Knowledge, an<\/span> affirmative absolute Presence.<\/span><\/p>\n

The object of
\nspiritual knowledge is the Supreme, the Divine, the Infinite and Absolute. This
\nSupreme has its relations to our individual being and its relations to the
\nuniverse and it transcends both the soul and the universe. Neither the universe
\nnor the individual are what they seem to be, for the report of them which our
\nmind and our senses give us is, so long as they are unenlightened by a faculty
\nof higher supramental and suprasensuous knowledge, a false report, an imperfect
\nconstruction, an attenuated and erroneous figure. And yet that which the
\nuniverse and the individual seem to be is still a figure of what they really
\nare, a figure that points beyond itself to the reality behind it. Truth
\nproceeds by a correction of the values our mind and senses give us, and first
\nby the action of a higher intelligence that enlightens and sets right as far as
\nmay be the conclusions of the ignorant sense-mind and limited physical
\nintelligence; that is the method of all human knowledge and science. But beyond
\nit there is a knowledge, a Truth-consciousness, that exceeds our intellect and
\nbrings us into the true light of which it is a refracted ray. There the
\nabstract terms of the pure reason and the constructions of the mind disappear
\nor are converted into concrete soul-vision and the tremendous actuality of
\nspiritual experience. This knowledge can turn away to the absolute Eternal and
\nlose vision of the soul and the universe; but it can too see this existence
\nfrom that Eternal. When that is done, we find that the ignorance of the mind
\nand the senses and all the apparent futilities of human life were not a useless
\nexcursion of the conscious being, an otiose blunder. Here they were planned as
\na rough ground for the self-expression of the Soul that comes from the
\nInfinite, a material foundation for its self-unfolding and self-possessing in
\nthe terms of the universe. It is true that in themselves they and all that is
\nhere have no significance and to build separate significances for them is to
\nlive in an illusion, Maya; but they have a supreme significance in the Supreme,
\nan abso<\/span>– <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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lute<\/span><\/span> Power in the
\nAbsolute and it is that that assigns to them and refers to that Truth their
\npresent relative values. This is the all-uniting experience that is the
\nfoundation of the deepest integral and most intimate self-knowledge and world-knowledge.<\/span><\/p>\n

In relation
\nto the individual the Supreme is our own true and highest self, that which
\nultimately we are in our essence, that of which we are in our manifested
\nnature. A spiritual knowledge, moved to arrive at the true Self in us, must
\nreject, as the traditional way of knowledge rejects, all misleading
\nappearances. It must discover that the body is not our self, our foundation of
\nexistence; it is a sensible form of the Infinite. The experience of Matter as
\nthe world’s sole foundation and the physical brain and nerves and cells and
\nmolecules as the one truth of all things in us, the ponderous inadequate basis
\nof materialism, is a delusion, a half-view taken for the whole, the dark bottom
\nor shadow of things misconceived as the luminous substance, the effective
\nfigure of zero for the Integer. The materialist idea mistakes a creation for
\nthe creative Power, a means of expression for That<\/span>
\nwhich is expressed and expresses. Matter and our physical brain and nerves and body
\nare the field and foundation for one action of a vital force that serves to
\nconnect the Self with the form of its works and maintains them by its direct
\ndynamis. The material movements are an exterior notation by which the soul
\nrepresents its perceptions of certain truths of the Infinite and makes them
\neffective in the terms of Substance. These things are a language, a notation, a
\nhieroglyphic, a system of symbols, not themselves the deepest truest sense of
\nthe things they intimate.<\/span><\/p>\n

Neither is
\nthe Life ourself, the vitality, the energy which plays in the brain, nerves and
\nbody; it is a power and not the whole power of the Infinite. The experience of
\na life-force instrumentalising Matter as the foundation, source and true sum of
\nall things, the vibrating unsteady basis of vitalism, is a delusion, a
\nhalf-view taken for the whole, a tide on a near shore misconceived as all the
\nocean and its waters. The vitalist idea takes something powerful but outward
\nfor the essence. Life-force is the dynamisation of a consciousness which
\nexceeds it. That consciousness is felt and acts but does not become valid to us
\nin intelligence until we arrive at the higher term of Mind, our
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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present<\/span><\/span> summit. Mind
\nis here apparently a creation of Life, but it is really the ulterior \u2013 not the
\nultimate \u2013 sense of Life itself and what is behind it and a more conscious formulation
\nof its secret; Mind is an expression not of Life, but of that of which Life
\nitself is a less luminous expression. <\/span><\/p>\n

And yet Mind
\nalso, our mentality, our thinking, understanding part, is not our Self, is not That<\/span>, not the end or the beginning; it is a half-light
\nthrown from the Infinite. The experience of mind as the creator of forms and
\nthings and of these forms and things existing in the Mind only, the thin subtle
\nbasis of idealism, is also a delusion, a half-view taken for the whole, a pale
\nrefracted light idealised as the burning body of the Sun and its splendour.
\nThis idealist vision also does not arrive at the essence of being, does not
\neven touch it but only an inferior mode of Nature. Mind is the dubious outer penumbra
\nof a conscious existence which is not limited by mentality but exceeds it. The
\nmethod of the traditional way of knowledge, eliminating all these things,
\narrives at the conception and realisation of a pure conscious existence,
\nself-aware, self-blissful, unconditioned by mind and life and body and to its
\nultimate positive experience that is Atman, the Self, the original and
\nessential nature of our existence. Here at last there is something centrally
\ntrue, but in its haste to arrive at it this knowledge assumes that there is
\nnothing between the thinking mind and the Highest, buddheh paratastu sah, and,
\nshutting its eyes in Samadhi, tries to rush through all that actually intervenes
\nwithout even seeing these great and luminous kingdoms of the Spirit. Perhaps it
\narrives at its object, but only to fall asleep in the Infinite. Or, if it
\nremains awake, it is in the highest experience of the Supreme into which the
\nself-annulling Mind can enter, but not in the supreme of the Supreme, Parātpara.
\nThe Mind can only be aware of the Self in a mentalised spiritual thinness, only
\nof the mind-reflected Sachchidananda. The highest truth, the integral
\nself-knowledge is not to be gained by this self-blinded leap into the Absolute
\nbut by a patient transit beyond the mind into the Truth-consciousness where the
\nInfinite can be known, felt, seen, experienced in all the fullness of its
\nunending riches. And there we discover this Self that we are to be not only a
\nstatic tenuous vacant Atman but a great dynamic Spirit individual, <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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universal<\/span><\/span> and
\ntranscendent. That Self and Spirit cannot be expressed by the mind’s abstract
\ngeneralisations; all the inspired descriptions of the seers and mystics cannot
\nexhaust its contents and its splendours.<\/span><\/p>\n

In relation
\nto the universe the Supreme is Brahman, the one Reality which is not only the
\nspiritual material and conscious substance of all the ideas and forces and
\nforms of the universe, but their origin, support and possessor, the cosmic and
\nsupracosmic Spirit. All the last terms to which we can reduce the universe,
\nForce and Matter, Name and Form, Purusha and Prakriti, are still not entirely
\nthat which the universe really is, either in itself or its nature. As all that
\nwe are is the play and form, the mental, psychic, vital and physical expression
\nof a supreme Self unconditioned by mind and life and body, the universe too is
\nthe play and form and cosmic soul-expression and nature-expression of a supreme
\nExistence which is unconditioned by force and matter, unconditioned by idea and
\nname and form, unconditioned by the fundamental distinction of Purusha and
\nPrakriti. Our supreme Self and the supreme Existence which has become the
\nuniverse are one Spirit, one self and one existence. The individual is in
\nnature one expression of the universal Being, in spirit an emanation of the
\nTranscendence. For if he finds his self, he finds too that his own true self is
\nnot this natural personality, this created individuality, but is a universal
\nbeing in its relations with others and with Nature and in its upward term a
\nportion or the living front of a supreme transcendental Spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n

This supreme
\nExistence is not conditioned by the individual or by the universe. A spiritual
\nknowledge can therefore surpass or even eliminate these two powers of the
\nSpirit and arrive at the conception of something utterly Transcendent,
\nsomething that is unnameable and mentally unknowable, a sheer Absolute. The
\ntraditional way of knowledge eliminates individual and universe. The Absolute
\nit seeks after is featureless, indefinable, relationless, not this, not that, neti neti<\/i>. And yet we can say of it that
\nit is One, that it is Infinite, that it is ineffable Bliss, Consciousness,
\nExistence. Although unknowable to the mind, yet through our individual being
\nand through the names and forms of the universe we can approach the realisation
\nof the supreme Self that is Brahman, <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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and<\/span><\/span> by the realisation
\nof the self we come to a certain realisation also of this utter Absolute of
\nwhich our true self is the essential form in our consciousness (svarūpa<\/i>). These are the devices the
\nhuman mind is compelled to use if it is to form to itself any conception at all
\nof a transcendent and unconditioned Absolute. The system of negation is
\nindispensable to it in order to get rid of its own definitions and limited
\nexperience; it is obliged to escape through a vague Indefinite into the
\nInfinite. For it lives in a closed prison of constructions and representations
\nthat are necessary for its action but are not the self-existent truth either of
\nMatter or Life or Mind or Spirit. But if we can once cross beyond the Mind’s
\nfrontier twilight into the vast plane of supramental Knowledge, these devices
\ncease to be indispensable. Supermind has quite another, a positive and direct
\nand living experience of the supreme Infinite. The Absolute is beyond
\npersonality and beyond impersonality, and yet it is both the Impersonal and the
\nsupreme Person and all persons. The Absolute is beyond the distinction of unity
\nand multiplicity, and yet it is the One and the innumerable Many in all the
\nuniverses. It is beyond all limitation by quality and yet it is not limited by
\na qualitiless void but is too all infinite qualities. It is the individual soul
\nand all souls and none of them; it is the formless Brahman and the universe. It
\nis the cosmic and the supracosmic Spirit, the supreme Lord, the supreme Self,
\nthe supreme Purusha and supreme Shakti, the Ever Unborn who is endlessly born,
\nthe Infinite who is innumerably finite, the multitudinous One, the complex
\nSimple, the many-sided Single, the Word of the Silence Ineffable, the
\nimpersonal omnipresent Person, the Mystery translucent in highest consciousness
\nto its own spirit, but to a lesser consciousness veiled in its own exceeding
\nlight and impenetrable for ever. These things are to the dimensional mind
\nirreconcilable opposites, but to the constant vision and experience of the
\nsupramental Truth-consciousness they are so simply and inevitably the intrinsic
\nnature of each other that even to think of them as contraries is an
\nunimaginable violence. The walls constructed by the measuring and separating Intellect
\nhave disappeared and the Truth in its simplicity and beauty appears and reduces
\nall to terms of its harmony and unity and light. Dimensions and distinctions
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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remain<\/span><\/span> but as
\nfigures for use, not a separative prison for the self-forgetting Spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n

The
\nconsciousness of the transcendent Absolute with its consequence in individual
\nand universe is the last, the eternal knowledge. Our minds may deal with it on
\nvarious lines, may build upon it conflicting philosophies, may limit, modify, overstress,
\nunderstress sides of the knowledge, deduce from it truth or error; but our
\nintellectual variations and imperfect statements make no difference to the
\nultimate fact that if we push thought and experience to their end, this is the
\nknowledge in which they terminate. The object of a Yoga of spiritual knowledge can
\nbe nothing else than this eternal Reality, this Self, this Brahman, this
\nTranscendent that dwells over all and in all and is manifest yet concealed in
\nthe individual, manifest yet disguised in the universe.<\/span><\/p>\n

The
\nculmination of the path of knowledge need not necessarily entail extinction of
\nour world-existence. For the Supreme to whom we assimilate ourselves, the
\nAbsolute and Transcendent into whom we enter has always the complete and
\nultimate consciousness for which we are seeking and yet he supports by it his
\nplay in the world. Neither are we compelled to believe that our world-existence
\nends because by attaining to knowledge its object or consummation is fulfilled and
\ntherefore there is nothing more for us here afterwards. For what we gain at first
\nwith its release and immeasurable silence and quietude is only the eternal self-realisation
\nby the individual in the essence of his conscious being; there will still
\nremain on that foundation, unannulled by the silence, one with the release and
\nfreedom, the infinitely proceeding self-fulfilment of Brahman, its dynamic
\ndivine manifestation in the individual and by his presence, example and action
\nin others and in the universe at large, \u2013 the work which the Great Ones remain
\nto do. Our dynamic self-fulfilment cannot be worked out so long as we remain in
\nthe egoistic consciousness, in the mind’s candle-lit darkness, in the bondage.
\nOur present limited consciousness can only be a field of preparation, it can
\nconsummate nothing; for all that it manifests is marred through and through by
\nan ego-ridden ignorance and error. The true and divine self-fulfilment of
\nBrahman in the manifestation is only
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 284<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

possible<\/span><\/span> on the
\nfoundation of the Brahman-consciousness and therefore through the acceptance of
\nlife by the liberated soul, the Jivanmukta. <\/span><\/p>\n

This is the
\nintegral knowledge; for we know that everywhere and in all conditions all to
\nthe eye that sees is One<\/span>, to a divine experience all
\nis one block of the Divine. It is only the mind which for the temporary
\nconvenience of its own thought and aspiration seeks to cut an artificial line
\nof rigid division, a fiction of perpetual incompatibility between one aspect
\nand another of the eternal oneness. The liberated knower lives and acts in the
\nworld not less than the bound soul and ignorant mind but more, doing all
\nactions, sarvakŗt<\/i>, only with a
\ntrue knowledge and a greater conscient power. And by so doing he does not
\nforfeit the supreme unity nor fall from the supreme consciousness and the
\nhighest knowledge. For the Supreme, however hidden now to us, is here in the
\nworld no less than he could be in the most utter and ineffable self-extinction,
\nthe most intolerant Nirvana.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 285<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter I   The Object of Knowledge    ALL spiritual seeking moves towards an object of Knowledge to which men ordinarily do not turn the eye…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","wpcat-20-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945","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=945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}