{"id":966,"date":"2013-07-13T01:31:38","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=966"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:31:38","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:38","slug":"44-gnosis-and-ananda-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\/44-gnosis-and-ananda-vol-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","title":{"rendered":"-44_Gnosis and Ananda.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


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

\n <\/font><\/span>Gnosis and Ananda<\/span><\/font><\/b> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n


\nT<\/font><\/span><\/b>HE<\/span><\/font> ascent to the gnosis, the possession of
\nsomething of the gnostic consciousness must elevate the soul of man and sublimate
\nhis life in the world into a glory of light and power and bliss and infinity
\nthat can seem in comparison with the lame action and limited realisations of
\nour present mental and physical existence the very status and dynamis of a
\nperfection final and absolute. And it is a true perfection, such as nothing
\nbefore it has yet been in the ascension of the spirit. For even the highest
\nspiritual realisation on the plane of mentality has in it something top-heavy,
\none-sided and exclusive; even the widest mental spirituality is not wide enough
\nand it is marred too by its imperfect power of self-expression in life. And yet
\nin comparison with what is beyond it, this too, this first gnostic splendour is
\nonly a bright passage to a more perfect perfection. It is the secure and
\nshining step from which we can happily mount still upwards into the absolute infinities
\nwhich are the origin and the goal of the incarnating spirit. In this farther
\nascension the gnosis does not disappear, but reaches rather its own supreme
\nLight out of which it has descended to mediate between mind and the supreme
\nInfinite.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Upanishad
\ntells us that after the knowledge-self above the mental is possessed and all
\nthe lower selves have been drawn up into it, there is another and last step of
\nall still left to us \u2013 though one might ask, is it eternally the last or only
\nthe last practically conceivable or at all necessary for us now? \u2013 to take up
\nour gnostic existence into the Bliss-Self and there complete the spiritual
\nself-discovery of the divine Infinite. Ananda, a supreme Bliss eternal, far
\nother and higher in its character than the highest human joy or pleasure, is
\nthe essential and original nature of the spirit. In Ananda our spirit will find
\nits true self, in Ananda its essential consciousness, in Ananda the absolute
\npower
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 477<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

of its existence. The
\nembodied soul’s entry into this highest absolute, unlimited, unconditional
\nbliss of the spirit is the infinite liberation and the infinite perfection. It
\nis true that something of this bliss can be enjoyed by reflection, by a
\nqualified descent even on the lower planes where the Purusha plays with his
\nmodified and qualified Nature. There can be the experience of a spiritual and
\nboundless Ananda on the plane of matter, on the plane of life, on the plane of
\nmind as well as on the gnostic truth-plane of knowledge and above it. And the
\nYogin who enters into these lesser realisations, may find them so complete and
\ncompelling that he will imagine there is nothing greater, nothing beyond it.
\nFor each of the divine principles contains in itself the whole potentiality of
\nall the other six notes of our being; each plane of Nature can have its own
\nperfection of these notes under its own conditions. But the integral perfection
\ncan come only by a mounting ascent of the lowest into the highest and an
\nincessant descent of the highest into the lowest till all becomes one at once
\nsolid block and plastic sea-stuff of the Truth infinite and eternal.<\/span><\/p>\n

    The very
\nphysical consciousness in man, the annamaya<\/i><\/span> puruşa<\/i>,
\ncan without this supreme ascent and integral descent yet reflect and enter into
\nthe self of Sachchidananda. It can do it either by a reflection of the Soul in
\nphysical Nature, its bliss, power and infinity secret but still present here,
\nor by losing its separate sense of substance and existence in the Self within
\nor without it. The result is a glorified sleep of the physical mind in which
\nthe physical being forgets itself in a kind of conscious Nirvana or else moves
\nabout like a thing inert in the hands of Nature, jadava<\/i>t<\/span>, like a leaf in the wind,
\nor otherwise a state of pure happy and free irresponsibility of action, bālavat<\/i><\/span>, a
\ndivine childhood. But this comes without the higher glories of knowledge and
\ndelight which belong to the same status upon a more exalted level. It is an
\ninert realisation of Sachchidananda in which there is neither any mastery of
\nthe Prakriti by the Purusha nor any sublimation of Nature into her own supreme
\npower, the infinite glories of the Para Shakti. Yet these two, this mastery and
\nthis sublimation, are the two gates of perfection, the splendid doors into the
\nsupreme Eternal.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 478<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

          The life soul
\nand life consciousness in man, prāņamaya
\npuruşa<\/i>, can in the same way directly reflect and enter into the self
\nof Sachchidananda by a large and splendid and blissful reflection of the Soul in
\nuniversal Life or by losing its separate sense of life and existence in the
\nvast Self within or without it. The result is either a profound state of sheer
\nself-oblivion or else an action driven irresponsibly by the life nature, an
\nexalted enthusiasm of self-abandonment to the great world-energy in its vitalistic<\/span> dance. The outer being lives in a God-possessed
\nfrenzy careless of itself and the world, unmattavat<\/i>,
\nor with an entire disregard whether of the conventions and proprieties of
\nfitting human action or of the harmony and rhythms of a greater Truth. It acts
\nas the unbound vital being, piśācavat<\/i>,
\nthe divine maniac or else the divine demoniac. Here too there is no mastery or
\nsupreme sublimation of nature. There is only a joyful static possession by the
\nSelf within us and an unregulated dynamic possession by the physical and the
\nvital Nature without us. <\/span><\/p>\n

    The mind soul
\nand mind consciousness in man, manomaya
\npuruşa<\/i>, can in the same direct way reflect and enter into Sachchidananda
\nby a reflection of the Soul as it mirrors itself in the nature of pure
\nuniversal mind luminous, unwalled, happy, plastic, illimitable, or by
\nabsorption in the vast free unconditioned uncentred Self within it and without
\nit. The result is either the immobile cessation of all mind and action or a
\ndesire-free unbound action watched by the unparticipating inner Witness. The
\nmental being becomes the eremite soul alone in the world and careless of all
\nhuman ties or the saint soul that lives in a rapturous God-nearness or
\nfelicitous identity and in joyful relations of pure love and ecstasy towards
\nall creatures. The mental being may even realise the Self in all three planes
\ntogether. Then he is all these things alternately, successively or at once. Or
\nhe may transform the lower forms into manifestations of the higher state; he
\nmay draw upward the childlikeness or the inert irresponsibility of the free
\nphysical mind or the free vital mind’s divine madness and carelessness of all
\nrules, proprieties, harmonies and colour or disguise with them the ecstasy of
\nthe saint or the solitary liberty of the wandering eremite. Here again there is
\nno mastery, no sublimation of the Nature by the soul in the
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 479<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

world, but a double
\npossession, by the freedom and delight of the mental-spiritual infinite within
\nand without by the happy, natural and unregulated play of the mind-Nature. But
\nsince the mental being is capable of receiving the gnosis in a way in which the
\nlife soul and physical soul cannot receive it, since he can accept it with knowledge
\nthough only the limited knowledge of a mental response, he may to a certain
\nextent govern by its light his outer action or, if not that, at least bathe and
\npurify in it his will and his thinkings<\/span>. But Mind can
\narrive only at a compromise between the infinite within and the finite nature
\nwithout; it cannot pour the infinity of the inner being’s knowledge and power and
\nbliss with any sense of fullness into its external action which remains always
\ninadequate. Still it is content and free because it is the Lord within who
\ntakes up the responsibility of the action adequate or inadequate, assumes its
\nguidance and fixes its consequence.<\/span><\/p>\n

  But the
\ngnostic soul, the vij\u00f1ānamaya puruşa, is the first to participate not
\nonly in the freedom, but in the power and sovereignty of the Eternal. For it
\nreceives the fullness, it has the sense of plenitude of the Godhead in its
\naction; it shares the free, splendid and royal march of the Infinite, is a
\nvessel of the original knowledge, the immaculate power, the inviolable bliss,
\ntransmutes all life into the eternal Light and the eternal Fire and the eternal
\nWine of the nectar. It possesses the infinite of the Self and it possesses the
\ninfinite of Nature. It does not so much lose as find its nature self in the
\nself of the Infinite. On the other planes to which the mental being has easier
\naccess, man finds God in himself and himself in God; he becomes divine in
\nessence rather than in person or nature. In the gnosis, even the mentalised<\/span> gnosis, the Divine Eternal possesses, changes
\nand stamps the human symbol, envelops and partly finds himself in the person
\nand nature. The mental being at most receives or reflects that which is true,
\ndivine and eternal; the gnostic soul reaches a true identity, possesses the
\nspirit and power of the truth-Nature. In the gnosis the dualism of Purusha and
\nPrakriti, Soul and Nature, two separate powers complementary to each other, the
\ngreat truth of the Sankhyas founded on the practical truth of our present
\nnatural existence, disappears in their biune entity, the dy<\/span>–<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 480<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 <\/span>namic<\/span><\/span> mystery of
\nthe occult Supreme. The Truth-being is the Hara-Gauri\u00b9 of the Indian
\niconological symbol; it is the double Power masculine-feminine born from and
\nsupported by the supreme Shakti of the Supreme.<\/span><\/p>\n

  Therefore the
\ntruth-soul does not arrive at self-oblivion in the Infinite; it comes to an
\neternal self-possession in the Infinite. Its action is not irregular; it is a
\nperfect control in an infinite freedom. In the lower planes the soul is
\nnaturally subject to Nature and the regulating principle is found in the lower
\nnature; all regulation there depends on the acceptance of a strict subjection
\nto the law of the finite. If the soul on these planes withdraws from that law
\ninto the liberty of the infinite, it loses its natural centre and becomes centreless<\/span> in a cosmic infinitude; it forfeits the living
\nharmonic principle by which its external being was till then regulated and it
\nfinds no other. The personal nature or what is left of it merely continues mechanically
\nfor a while its past movements, or it dances in the gusts and falls of the
\nuniversal energy that acts on the individual system rather than in that system,
\nor it strays in the wild steps of an irresponsible ecstasy, or it remains inert
\nand abandoned by the breath of the Spirit that was within it. If on the other
\nhand the soul moves in its impulse of freedom towards the discovery of another
\nand divine centre of control through which the Infinite can consciously govern
\nits own action in the individual, it is moving towards the gnosis where that
\ncentre pre-exists, the centre of an eternal harmony and order. It is when he
\nascends above mind and life to the gnosis that the Purusha becomes the master
\nof his own nature because subject only to supreme Nature. For there force or
\nwill is the exact counterpart, the perfect dynamis of the divine knowledge. And
\nthat knowledge is not merely the eye of the Witness, it is the immanent and
\ncompelling gaze of the Ishwara. Its luminous governing power, a power not to be
\nhedged in or denied, imposes its self-expressive force on all the action and
\nmakes true and radiant and authentic and inevitable every movement and impulse.<\/span><\/p>\n

   The gnosis
\ndoes not reject the realisations of the lower planes; for it is not an
\nannihilation or extinction, not a Nirvana<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

  \u00b9 <\/span>The
\nbiune body of the Lord and his Spouse, Ishwara and Shakti, the right half male,
\nthe left half female.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 481<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

but a sublime fulfilment
\nof our manifested Nature. It possesses the first realisations under its own
\nconditions after it has transformed them and made them elements of a divine
\norder. The gnostic soul is the child, but the king-child; \u00b9 here is the royal
\nand eternal childhood whose toys are the worlds and all universal Nature is the
\nmiraculous garden of the play that tires never. The gnosis takes up the
\ncondition of divine inertia; but this is no longer the inertia of the subject
\nsoul driven by Nature like a fallen leaf in the breath of the Lord. It is the
\nhappy passivity bearing an unimaginable intensity of action and Ananda of the
\nNature-Soul at once driven by the bliss of the mastering Purusha and aware of
\nherself as the supreme Shakti above and around him and mastering and carrying
\nhim blissfully on her bosom for ever. This biune being of Purusha-Prakriti is
\nas if a flaming Sun and body of divine Light self-carried in its orbit by its
\nown inner consciousness and power at one with the universal, at one with a
\nsupreme Transcendence. Its madness is a wise madness of Ananda, the incalculable
\necstasy of a supreme consciousness and power vibrating with an infinite sense
\nof freedom and intensity in its divine life-movements. Its action is
\nsupra-rational and therefore to the rational mind which has not the key it
\nseems a colossal madness. And yet this that seems madness is a wisdom in action
\nthat only baffles the mind by the liberty and richness of its contents and the
\ninfinite complexity in fundamental simplicity of its motions, it is the very
\nmethod of the Lord of the worlds, a thing no intellectual interpretation can
\nfathom, \u2013 a dance this also, a whirl of mighty energies, but the Master of the
\ndance holds the hands of His energies and keeps them to the rhythmic order, the
\nself-traced harmonic circles of his Rasa-lila<\/span>. The
\ngnostic soul is not bound any more than the divine demoniac by the petty
\nconventions and proprieties of the normal human life or the narrow rules
\nthrough which it makes some shift to accommodate itself with the perplexing
\ndualities of the lower nature and tries to guide its steps among the seeming
\ncontradictions of the world, to avoid its numberless stumbling-blocks and to
\nfoot with gingerly care around its dangers and pitfalls. The gnostic
\nsupramental life is abnormal to us because it is free to all the hardi<\/span>– <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9 So
\nHeraclitus, \u201cThe kingdom is of the child.\u201d<\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 482<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

hoods and audacious
\ndelights of a soul dealing fearlessly and even violently with Nature, but yet
\nis it the very normality of the infinite and all governed by the law of the
\nTruth in its exact unerring process. It obeys the law of a self-possessed
\nKnowledge, Love, Delight in an innumerable Oneness. It seems abnormal only
\nbecause its rhythm is not measurable by the faltering beats of the mind, but
\nyet it steps in a wonderful and transcendent measure.<\/span><\/p>\n

   And what then
\nis the necessity of a still higher step and what difference is there between
\nthe soul in gnosis and the soul in the Bliss? There is no essential difference,
\nbut yet a difference, because there is a transfer to another consciousness and a
\ncertain reversal in position,\u2014for at each step of the ascent from Matter to the
\nhighest Existence there is a reversal of consciousness. The soul no longer
\nlooks up to something beyond it, but is in it and from it looks down on all
\nthat it was before. On all planes indeed the Ananda can be discovered, because
\neverywhere it exists and is the same. Even there is a repetition of the Ananda
\nplane in each lower world of consciousness. But in the lower planes not only is
\nit reached by a sort of dissolution into it of the pure mind or the life-sense
\nor the physical awareness, but it is, as it were, itself diluted by the dissolved
\nform of mind, life or matter, held in the dilution and turned into a poor
\nthinness wonderful to the lower consciousness but not comparable to its true
\nintensities. The gnosis has on the contrary a dense light of essential consciousness\u00b9
\nin which the intense fullness of the Ananda can be. And when the form of gnosis
\nis dissolved into the Ananda, it is not annulled altogether, but undergoes a
\nnatural change by which the soul is carried up into its last and absolute freedom;
\nfor it casts itself into the absolute existence of the spirit and is enlarged
\ninto its own entirely self-existent bliss infinitudes. The gnosis has the
\ninfinite and absolute as the conscious source, accompaniment, condition,
\nstandard, field and atmosphere of all its activities, it possesses it as its
\nbase, fount, constituent material, indwelling and inspiring Presence; but in its
\naction it seems to stand out from it as its operation, as the rhythmical
\nworking of its activities, as a divine Maya \u00b2 or Wisdom-Formation of the<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b9<\/span> Chidghana<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b2<\/span> Not
\nin the sense of illusion, but in the original Vedic significance of the word
\nMaya.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 483<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

Eternal. Gnosis is the
\ndivine Knowledge-Will of the divine Consciousness-Force; it is harmonic consciousness
\nand action of Prakriti-Purusha \u2013 full of the delight of the divine existence.
\nIn the Ananda the knowledge goes back from these willed harmonies into pure
\nself-consciousness, the will dissolves into pure transcendent force and both
\nare taken up into the pure delight of the Infinite. The basis of the gnostic
\nexistence is the self-stuff and self-form of the Ananda. <\/span><\/p>\n

  This in the
\nascension takes place because there is here completed the transition to the
\nabsolute unity of which the gnosis is the decisive step, but not the final
\nresting-place. In the gnosis the soul is aware of its infinity and lives in it,
\nyet it lives also in a working centre for the individual play of the Infinite.
\nIt realises its identity with all existences, but it keeps a distinction
\nwithout difference by which it can have also the contact with them in a certain
\ndiverseness. This is that distinction for the joy of contact which in the mind
\nbecomes not only difference, but in its self-experience division from our other
\nselves, in its spiritual being a sense of loss of self one with us in others
\nand a reaching after the felicity it has forfeited, in life a compromise
\nbetween egoistic self-absorption and a blind seeking out for the lost oneness.
\nIn its infinite consciousness, the gnostic soul creates a sort of voluntary limitation
\nfor its own wisdom-purposes; it has even its particular luminous aura of being
\nin which it moves, although beyond that it enters into all things and
\nidentifies itself with all being and all existences. In the Ananda all is
\nreversed, the centre disappears. In the bliss nature there is no centre, nor
\nany voluntary or imposed circumference, but all is, all are one equal being,
\none identical spirit. The bliss soul finds and feels itself everywhere; it has
\nno mansion, is aniketa<\/i>, or has the all
\nfor its mansion, or, if it likes, it has all things for its many mansions open
\nto each other for ever. All other selves are entirely its own selves, in action
\nas well as in essence. The joy of contact in diverse oneness becomes altogether
\nthe joy of absolute identity in innumerable oneness. Existence is no longer
\nformulated in the terms of the Knowledge, because the known and knowledge and
\nthe knower are wholly one self here and, since all possesses all <\/span><\/p>\n

———–<\/span><\/p>\n

All in the
\ngnostic existence is real, spiritually concrete, eternally verifiable.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 484<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

in an intimate identity
\nbeyond the closest closeness, there is no need of what we call knowledge. All
\nthe consciousness is of the bliss of the Infinite, all power is power of the
\nbliss of the Infinite, all forms and activities are forms and activities of the
\nbliss of the Infinite. In this absolute truth of its being the eternal soul of
\nAnanda lives, here deformed by contrary phenomena, there brought back and transfigured
\ninto their reality.<\/span><\/p>\n

  The soul
\nlives: it is not abolished, it is not lost in a featureless Indefinite. For on
\nevery plane of our existence the same principle holds; the soul may fall asleep
\nin a trance of self-absorption, dwell in an ineffable intensity of
\nGod-possession, live in the highest glory of its own plane, \u2013 the Anandaloka<\/span>, Brahmaloka<\/span>, Vaikuntha<\/span>, Goloka<\/span> of various
\nIndian systems, \u2013 even turn upon the lower worlds to fill them with its own
\nlight and power and beatitude. In the eternal worlds and more and more in all
\nworlds above Mind these states exist in each other. For they are not separate;
\nthey are coexistent, even coincident powers of the consciousness of the
\nAbsolute. The Divine on the Ananda plane is not incapable of a world-play or self-debarred
\nfrom any expression of its glories. On the contrary, as the Upanishad insists,
\nthe Ananda is the true creative principle. For all takes birth from this divine
\nBliss;\u00b9 all is pre-existent in it as an absolute truth of existence which the
\nVijnana brings out and subjects to voluntary limitation by the Idea and the law
\nof the Idea. In the Ananda all law ceases and there is an absolute freedom without
\nbinding term or limit. It is superior to all principles and in one and the same
\nmotion the enjoyer of all principles; it is free from all gunas and the enjoyer
\nof its own infinite gunas; it is above all forms and the builder and enjoyer of
\nall its self-forms and figures. This unimaginable completeness is what the
\nspirit is, the spirit transcendent and universal, and to be one in bliss with
\nthe transcendent and universal spirit is for the soul too to be that and
\nnothing less. Necessarily, since there is on this plane the absolute and the
\nplay of absolutes, it is ineffable by any of the conceptions of our mind or by
\nsigns of the phenomenal or ideal realities of which mind-conceptions are the
\nfigures in our intelligence. These <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

  \u00b9 <\/span>Therefore the world of the
\nAnanda is called the Janaloka<\/span>, in the double sense of
\nbirth and delight.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 485<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

realities are themselves
\nindeed only relative symbols of those ineffable absolutes. The symbol, the
\nexpressive reality, may give an idea, a perception, sense, vision, contact even
\nof the thing itself to us, but at last we get beyond it to the thing it
\nsymbolises, transcend idea, vision, contact, pierce through the ideal and pass
\nto the real realities, the identical, the supreme, the timeless and eternal, the
\ninfinitely infinite.<\/span><\/p>\n

   Our first
\nabsorbing impulse when we become inwardly aware of something entirely beyond
\nwhat we now are and know and are powerfully attracted to it, is to get away
\nfrom the present actuality and dwell in that higher reality altogether. The extreme
\nform of this attraction when we are drawn to the supreme Existence and the
\ninfinite Ananda is the condemnation of the lower and the finite as an illusion
\nand an aspiration to Nirvana in the beyond, \u2013 the passion for dissolution,
\nimmersion, extinction in the Spirit. But the real dissolution, the true nirvāņa<\/i> is the release of all
\nthat is bindingly characteristic of the lower into the larger being of the
\nHigher, the conscious possession of the living symbol by the living Real. We
\ndiscover in the end that not only is that higher Reality the cause of all the
\nrest, not only it embraces and exists in all the rest, but as more and more we
\npossess it, all this rest is transformed in our soul-experience into a superior
\nvalue and becomes the means of a richer expression of the Real, a more
\nmany-sided communion with the Infinite, a larger ascent to the Supreme.
\nFinally, we get close to the absolute and its supreme values which are the
\nabsolutes of all things. We lose the passion for release, mumukşutva<\/i>, which till then actuated us, because we are now
\nintimately near to that which is ever free, that which is neither attracted
\ninto attachment by what binds us now nor afraid of what to us seems to be bondage.
\nIt is only by the loss of the bound soul’s exclusive passion for its freedom
\nthat there can come an absolute liberation of our nature. The Divine attracts
\nthe soul of man to him by various lures; all of them are born of its own
\nrelative and imperfect conceptions of bliss; all are its ways of seeking for
\nthe Ananda, but, if clung to till the end, miss the inexpressible truth of
\nthose surpassing felicities. First in order comes the lure of an earthly
\nreward, a prize of material, intellectual, ethical or other joy in the
\nterrestrial mind and
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 486<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

body. A second, remoter
\ngreater version of the same fruitful error is the hope of a heavenly bliss, far
\nexceeding these earthly rewards; the conception of heaven rises in altitude and
\npurity till it reaches the pure idea of the eternal presence of God or an
\nunending union with the Eternal. And last we get the subtlest of all lures, an
\nescape from these worldly or heavenly joys and from all pains and sorrows,
\neffort and trouble and from all phenomenal things, a Nirvana, a
\nself-dissolution in the Absolute, an Ananda of cessation and ineffable peace.
\nIn the end all these toys of the mind have to be transcended. The fear of birth
\nand the desire of escape from birth must entirely fall away from us. For, to
\nrepeat the ancient language, the soul that has realised oneness has no sorrow
\nor shrinking; the spirit that has entered into the bliss of the Spirit has
\nnought to fear from anyone or anything whatsoever. Fear, desire and sorrow are
\ndiseases of the mind; born of its sense of division and limitation, they cease
\nwith the falsehood that begot them. The Ananda is free from these maladies; it
\nis not the monopoly of the ascetic, it is not born from the disgust of
\nexistence.<\/span><\/p>\n

    The bliss
\nsoul is not bound to birth or to non-birth; it is not driven by desire of the
\nKnowledge or harassed by fear of the Ignorance. The supreme bliss Soul has
\nalready the Knowledge and transcends all need of knowledge. Not limited in
\nconsciousness by the form and the act, it can play with the manifestation
\nwithout being imbued with the Ignorance. Already it is taking its part above in
\nthe mystery of an eternal manifestation and here, when the time comes, it will
\ndescend into birth without being the slave of Ignorance chained to the revolutions
\nof the wheel of Nature. For it knows that the purpose and law of the
\nbirth-series is for the soul in the body to rise from plane to plane and
\nsubstitute always the rule of the higher for the rule of the lower play even
\ndown to the material field. The bliss-soul neither disdains to help that ascent
\nfrom above nor fears to descend down the stairs of God into the material birth
\nand there contribute the power of its own bliss nature to the upward pull of
\nthe divine forces. The time for that marvellous hour of the evolving
\nTime-Spirit is not yet come. Man, generally, cannot yet ascend to the bliss
\nnature; he has first to secure himself on the higher <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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mental altitudes, to
\nascend from them to the gnosis. Still less can he bring down all the Bliss-Power
\ninto this terrestrial Nature; he must first cease to be mental man and become
\nsuperhuman. All he can do now is to receive something of its power into his
\nsoul in greater or less degree, by a diminishing transmission through an
\ninferior consciousness; but even that gives him the sense of an ecstasy and an
\nunsurpassable beatitude.<\/span><\/p>\n

  And what will
\nbe the bliss nature when it manifests in a new supramental race? The fully
\nevolved soul will be one with all beings in the status and dynamic effects of
\nexperience of a bliss-consciousness intense and illimitable. And since love is the
\neffective power and soul-symbol of bliss-oneness he will approach and enter
\ninto this oneness by the gate of universal love, a sublimation of human love at
\nfirst, a divine love afterwards, at its summits a thing of beauty, sweetness
\nand splendour now to us inconceivable. He will be one in bliss-consciousness
\nwith all the world-play and its powers and happenings and there will be
\nbanished for ever the sorrow and fear, the hunger and pain of our poor and
\ndarkened mental and vital and physical existence. He will get that power of the
\nbliss-freedom in which all the conflicting principles of our being shall be unified
\nin their absolute values. All evil shall perforce change itself into good; the
\nuniversal beauty of the All-beautiful will take possession of its fallen
\nkingdoms; every darkness will be converted into a pregnant glory of light and
\nthe discords which the mind creates between Truth and Good and Beauty, Power
\nand Love and Knowledge will disappear on the eternal summit, in the infinite
\nextensions where they are always one.<\/span><\/p>\n

  The Purusha
\nin mind, life and body is divided from Nature and in conflict with her. He
\nlabours to control and coerce what he can embody of her by his masculine force
\nand is yet subject to her afflicting dualities and in fact her plaything from top
\nto bottom, beginning to end. In the gnosis he is biune with her, finds as
\nmaster of his own nature their reconciliation and harmony by their essential
\noneness even while he accepts an infinite blissful subjection, the condition of
\nhis mastery and his liberties, to the Supreme in his sovereign divine Nature.
\nIn the tops of the gnosis and in the Ananda he is one with the
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 488<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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Prakriti and no longer solely
\nbiune with her. There is no longer the baffling play of Nature with the soul in
\nthe Ignorance; all is the conscious play of the soul with itself and all its
\nselves and the Supreme and the divine Shakti in its own and the infinite bliss
\nnature. This is the supreme mystery, the highest secret, simple to its own
\nexperience, however difficult and complex to our mental conceptions and the
\neffort of our limited intelligence to understand what is beyond it. In the free
\ninfinity of the self-delight of Sachchidananda there is a play of the divine
\nChild, a rāsa<\/i><\/span> līlā<\/span><\/i>
\nof the infinite Lover and its mystic soul-symbols repeat themselves in
\ncharacters of beauty and movements and harmonies of delight in a timeless
\nforever. <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 489<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter XXIV   Gnosis and Ananda    THE ascent to the gnosis, the possession of something of the gnostic consciousness must elevate the soul of man…<\/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-966","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\/966","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=966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}