{"id":948,"date":"2013-07-13T01:31:31","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=948"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:31:31","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:31","slug":"30-the-realisation-of-the-cosmic-self-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\/30-the-realisation-of-the-cosmic-self-vol-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","title":{"rendered":"-30_The Realisation of the Cosmic Self.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


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

\n <\/font><\/span>The Realisation of the Cosmic Self<\/span><\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n <\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n


\nO<\/font><\/span><\/b>UR<\/span><\/font> first imperative aim when we draw back
\nfrom mind, life, body and all else that is not our eternal being, is to get rid
\nof the false idea of self by which we identify ourselves with the lower
\nexistence and can realise only our apparent being as perishable or mutable
\ncreatures in a perishable or ever mutable world. We have to know ourselves as
\nthe self, the spirit, the eternal; we have to exist consciously in our true
\nbeing. Therefore this must be our primary, if not our first one and
\nall-absorbing idea and effort in the path of knowledge. But when we have
\nrealised the eternal self that we are, when we have become that inalienably, we
\nhave still a secondary aim, to establish the true relation between this eternal
\nself that we are and the mutable existence and mutable world which till now we
\nhad falsely taken for our real being and our sole possible status.<\/span><\/p>\n

In order that
\nthere should be any real relation, it must be a relation between two realities.
\nFormerly we had thought the eternal self to be a remote concept far from our
\nmundane existence if not an illusion and an unreality, because in the nature of
\nthings we could not conceive of ourselves as anything except this mind, life,
\nbody, changing and moving in the succession of Time. When we have once got rid
\nof our confinement to this lower status, we are apt to seize on the other side
\nof the same erroneous relation between self and world; we tend to regard this
\neternity which we increasingly are or in which we live as the sole reality and
\nbegin to look down from it upon the world and man as a remote illusion and
\nunreality, because that is a status quite opposite to our new foundation in
\nwhich we no longer place our roots of consciousness, from which we have been
\nlifted up and transfigured and with which we seem to have no longer any binding
\nlink. Especially is this likely to happen if we have made the finding of the
\neternal Self not only our primary, but our one and ab- <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 352<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

sorbing objective in the
\nwithdrawal from the lower triplicity; for then we are likely to shoot at once
\nfrom pure mind to pure spirit without treading the stairs between this middle
\nand that summit and we tend to fix on our consciousness the profound sense of a
\ngulf which we cannot bridge and can no longer cross over again except by a
\npainful fall. <\/span><\/p>\n

But the self
\nand the world are in an eternal close relation and there is a connection
\nbetween them, not a gulf that has to be overleaped. Spirit and material
\nexistence are highest and lowest rung of an orderly and progressive series.
\nTherefore between the two there must be a real relation and principle of
\nconnection by which the eternal Brahman is able to be at once pure Spirit and
\nSelf and yet hold in himself the universe of himself; and it must be possible
\nfor the soul that is one with or in union with the Eternal to adopt the same
\npoise of divine relation in place of our present ignorant immersion in the world.
\nThis principle of connection is the eternal unity between the Self and all
\nexistences; of that eternal unity the liberated soul must be capable, just as
\nthe ever free and unbound Divine is capable of it, and that we should realise
\nequally with the pure self-existence at which we have first to aim. For
\nintegral self-possession we must be one not only with the Self, with God, but
\nwith all existences. We must take back in the right relation and in the poise
\nof an eternal Truth the world of our manifested existence peopled by our
\nfellow-beings from which we had drawn back because we were bound to them in a wrong
\nrelation and in the poise of a falsehood created in Time by the principle of
\ndivided consciousness with all its oppositions, discords and dualities. We have
\nto take back all things and beings into our new consciousness but as one with all,
\nnot divided from them by an egoistic individuality.<\/span><\/p>\n

In other
\nwords, besides the consciousness of the transcendent Self pure, self-existent,
\ntimeless, spaceless we have to accept and become the cosmic consciousness, we
\nhave to identify our being with the Infinite who makes himself the base and
\ncontinent of the worlds and dwells in all existences. This is the realisation
\nwhich the ancient Vedantins spoke of as seeing all existences in the self and
\nthe self in all existences; and in addition they speak of the crowning
\nrealisation of the man in whom the original
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 353<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

miracle of existence has
\nbeen repeated, self-being has become all these existences that belong to the
\nworlds of the becoming.\u00b9 In these three terms is expressed, fundamentally, the
\nwhole of that real relation between the self and the world which we have to
\nsubstitute for the false relation created by the limiting ego. This is the new
\nvision and sense of infinite being which we have to acquire, this the
\nfoundation of that unity with all which we have to establish.<\/span><\/p>\n

For our real
\nself is not the individual mental being, that is only a figure, an appearance;
\nour real self is cosmic, infinite, it is one with all existence and the
\ninhabitant of all existences. The self behind our mind, life and body is the
\nsame as the self behind the mind, life and body of all our fellow-beings, and
\nif we come to possess it, we shall naturally, when we turn to look out again
\nupon them, tend to become one with them in the common basis of our
\nconsciousness. It is true that the mind opposes any such identification and if
\nwe allow it to persist in its old habits and activities, it will rather strive
\nto bring again its veil of dissonances over our new realisation and possession
\nof self than to shape and subject itself to this true and eternal vision of
\nthings. But in the first place, if we have proceeded rightly on the path of our
\nYoga, we shall have attained to Self through a purified mind and heart, and a
\npurified mind is one that is necessarily passive and open to the knowledge. Secondly,
\neven the mind in spite of its tendency to limit and divide can be taught to
\nthink in the rhythm of the unifying Truth instead of the broken terms of the
\nlimiting appearance. We must therefore accustom it by meditation and
\nconcentration to cease to think of things and beings as separately existent in
\nthemselves and rather to think always of the One everywhere and of all things
\nas the One. Although we have spoken hitherto of the withdrawing motion of the
\nJiva as the first necessity of knowledge and as if it were to be pursued alone
\nand by itself, yet in fact it is better for the sadhaka of the integral Yoga to
\nunite the two movements. By one he will find the self within, by the other he
\nwill find that self in all that seems to us at present to be outside us. It is possible
\nindeed to begin with the latter movement, to realise all things in this visible
\nand sen- <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00b9 <\/span>Isha
\nUpanishad.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 354<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

sible existence as God
\nor Brahman or Virat Purusha and then to go beyond to all that is behind the
\nVirat. But this has its inconveniences and it is better, if that be found
\npossible, to combine the two movements.<\/span><\/p>\n

This
\nrealisation of all things as God or Brahman has, as we have seen, three aspects
\nof which we can conveniently make three successive stages of experience. First,
\nthere is the Self in whom all beings exist. The Spirit, the Divine has manifested
\nitself as infinite self-extended being, self-existent, pure, not subject to
\nTime and Space, but supporting Time and Space as figures of its consciousness.
\nIt is more than all things and contains them all within that self-extended
\nbeing and consciousness, not bound by anything that it creates, holds or
\nbecomes, but free and infinite and all-blissful. It holds them, in the old
\nimage, as the infinite ether contains in itself all objects. This image of the
\nethereal (Akasha) Brahman may indeed be of great practical help to the sadhaka
\nwho finds a difficulty in meditating on what seems to him at first an abstract
\nand unseizable idea. In the image of the ether, not physical but an
\nencompassing ether of vast being, consciousness and bliss, he may seek to see
\nwith the mind and to feel in his mental being this supreme existence and to
\nidentify it in oneness with the self within him. By such meditation the mind
\nmay be brought to a favourable state of predisposition in which, by the rending
\nor withdrawing of the veil, the supramental vision may flood the mentality and
\nchange entirely all our seeing. And upon that change of seeing, as it becomes
\nmore and more potent and insistent and occupies all our consciousness, there
\nwill supervene eventually a change of becoming so that what we see we become.
\nWe shall be in our self-consciousness not so much cosmic as ultra-cosmic,
\ninfinite. Mind and life and body will then be only movements in that infinity
\nwhich we have become, and we shall see that what exists is not world at all but
\nsimply this infinity of spirit in which move the mighty cosmic harmonies of its
\nown images of self-conscious becoming. <\/span><\/p>\n

But what then
\nof all these forms and existences that make up the harmony? Shall they be to us
\nonly images, empty name and form without any informing reality, poor worthless
\nthings in themselves and however grandiose, puissant or beautiful they
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 355<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

once seemed to our
\nmental vision, now to be rejected and held of no value? Not so; although that
\nwould be the first natural result of a very intense absorption in the infinity
\nof the all-containing Self to the exclusion of the infinities that it contains.
\nBut these things are not empty, not mere unreal name and form imagined by a
\ncosmic Mind; they are, as we have said, in their reality self-conscious
\nbecomings of the Self, that is to say, the Self dwells within all of them even
\nas within us, conscious of them, governing their motion, blissful in his habitation
\nas in his embrace of all that he becomes. As the ether both contains and is as
\nit were contained in the jar, so this Self both contains and inhabits all
\nexistences, not in a physical but in a spiritual sense, and is their reality.
\nThis indwelling State of the Self we have to realise; we have to see and
\nourselves to become in our consciousness the Self in all existences. We have,
\nputting aside all vain resistance of the intellect and the mental associations,
\nto know that the Divine inhabits all these becomings and is their true Self and
\nconscious Spirit, and not to know it only intellectually but to know by a
\nself-experience that shall compel into its own diviner mould all the habits of the
\nmental consciousness.<\/span><\/p>\n

This Self
\nthat we are has finally to become to our self-consciousness entirely one with
\nall existences in spite of its exceeding them. We have to see it not only as
\nthat which contains and inhabits all, but that which is all, not only as indwelling
\nspirit, but also as the name and form, the movement and the master of the
\nmovement, the mind and life and body. It is by this final realisation that we
\nshall resume entirely in the right poise and the vision of the Truth all that
\nwe drew back from in the first movement of recoil and withdrawal. The
\nindividual mind, life and body which we recoiled from as not our true being, we
\nshall recover as a true becoming of the Self, but no longer in a purely
\nindividual narrowness. We shall take up the mind not as a separate mentality
\nimprisoned in a petty motion, but as a large movement of the universal mind,
\nthe life not as an egoistic activity of vitality and sensation and desire, but
\nas a free movement of the universal life, the body not as a physical prison of
\nthe soul but as a subordinate instru- <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 356<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

ment and detachable
\nrobe, realising that also as a movement of universal Matter, a cell of the
\ncosmic Body. We shall come to feel all the consciousness of the physical world
\nas one with our physical consciousness, feel all the energies of the cosmic
\nlife around as our own energies, feel all the heart-beats of the great cosmic
\nimpulse and seeking in our heart-beats set to the rhythm of the divine Ananda,
\nfeel all the action of the universal mind flowing into our mentality and our
\nthought-action flowing out upon it as a wave into that wide sea. This unity
\nembracing all mind, life and matter in the light of a supramental Truth and the
\npulse of a spiritual Bliss will be to us our internal fulfilment of the Divine
\nin a complete cosmic consciousness.<\/span><\/p>\n

But since we
\nmust embrace all this in the double term of the Being and the Becoming, the
\nknowledge that we shall possess must be complete and integral. It must not stop
\nwith the realisation of the pure Self and Spirit, but include also all those
\nmodes of the Spirit by which it supports, develops and throws itself out into
\nits cosmic manifestation. Self-knowledge and world-knowledge must be made one
\nin the all-ensphering knowledge of the Brahman.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 357<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter X   The Realisation of the Cosmic Self   OUR first imperative aim when we draw back from mind, life, body and all else that…<\/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-948","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\/948","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=948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}