{"id":993,"date":"2013-07-13T01:31:48","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=993"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:31:48","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:48","slug":"41-the-ladder-of-self-transcendence-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\/41-the-ladder-of-self-transcendence-vol-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","title":{"rendered":"-41_The Ladder of Self-Transcendence.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


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

\n <\/font><\/span>The Ladder of Self-Transcendence<\/span><\/font><\/b> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n


\nT<\/font><\/span><\/b>HE<\/span><\/font> transcendence of this lower triple being
\nand this lower triple world, to which ordinarily our consciousness and its
\npowers and results are limited, \u2013 a transcendence described by the Vedic seers
\nas an exceeding or breaking beyond the two firmaments of heaven and earth, \u2013
\nopens out a hierarchy of infinitudes to which the normal existence of man even
\nin its highest and widest flights is still a stranger. Into that altitude, even
\nto the lowest step of its hierarchy, it is difficult for him to rise. A
\nseparation, acute in practice though unreal in essence, divides the total being
\nof man, the microcosm, as it divides also the world-being, the macrocosm. Both
\nhave a higher and a lower hemisphere, the parārdha<\/i> and aparārdha<\/i>
\nof the ancient wisdom. The higher hemisphere is the perfect and eternal reign
\nof the Spirit; for there it manifests without cessation or diminution its
\ninfinities, deploys the unconcealed glories of its illimitable existence, its
\nillimitable consciousness and knowledge, its illimitable force and power, its
\nillimitable beatitude. The lower hemisphere belongs equally to the Spirit; but here
\nit is veiled, closely, thickly, by its inferior self-expression of limiting
\nmind, confined life and dividing body. The Self in the lower hemisphere is
\nshrouded in name and form; its consciousness is broken up by the division
\nbetween the internal and external, the individual and universal; its vision and
\nsense are turned outward; its force, limited by division of its consciousness,
\nworks in fetters; its knowledge, will, power, delight, divided by this
\ndivision, limited by this limitation, are open to the experience of their
\ncontrary or perverse forms, to ignorance, weakness and suffering. We can indeed
\nbecome aware of the true Self or Spirit in ourselves by turning our sense and
\nvision inward; we can discover too the same Self or Spirit in the external
\nworld and its phenomena by plunging them there also inward through the veil of
\nnames and <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 446<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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forms to that which
\ndwells in these or else stands behind them. Our normal consciousness through
\nthis inward look may become by reflection aware of the infinite being,
\nconsciousness and delight of the Self and share in its passive or static infinity
\nof these things. But we can only to a very limited extent share in its active
\nor dynamic manifestation of knowledge, power and joy. Even this static identity
\nby reflection cannot, ordinarily, be effected without a long and difficult
\neffort and as the result of many lives of progressive self-development; for
\nvery firmly is our normal consciousness bound to the law of its lower
\nhemisphere of being. To understand the possibility of transcending it at all,
\nwe must restate in a practical formula the relations of the worlds which
\nconstitute the two hemispheres.<\/span><\/p>\n

All is
\ndetermined by the Spirit, for all from subtlest existence to grossest matter is
\nmanifestation of the Spirit. But the Spirit, Self or Being determines the world
\nit lives in and the experiences of its consciousness, force and delight in that
\nworld by some poise \u2013 among many possible \u2013 of the relations of Purusha and
\nPrakriti, Soul and Nature, \u2013 some basic poise in one or other of its own cosmic
\nprinciples. Poised in the principle of Matter, it becomes the physical self of
\na physical universe in the reign of a physical Nature. Spirit is then absorbed
\nin its experience of Matter; it is dominated by the ignorance and inertia of
\nthe tamasic Power proper to physical existence. In the individual it becomes a
\nmaterialised soul, annamaya<\/i><\/span> puruşa<\/i>, whose life and mind have
\ndeveloped out of the ignorance and inertia of the material principle and are
\nsubject to their fundamental limitations. For life in Matter works in
\ndependence on the body; mind in Matter works in dependence on the body and on
\nthe vital or nervous being; spirit itself in Matter is limited and divided in
\nits self-relation and its powers by the limitations and divisions of this
\nmatter-governed and life-driven mind. This materialised soul lives bound to the
\nphysical body and its narrow superficial external consciousness, and it takes
\nnormally the experiences of its physical organs, its senses, its matter-bound
\nlife and mind, with at most some limited spiritual glimpses, as the whole truth
\nof existence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Man is a
\nspirit, but a spirit that lives as a mental being in
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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physical Nature; he is
\nto his own self-consciousness a mind in a physical body. But at first he is
\nthis mental being materialised and he takes the materialised soul, annamaya<\/i><\/span> puruşa<\/i>, for his real self. He is
\nobliged to accept, as the Upanishad expresses it, Matter for the Brahman
\nbecause his vision here sees Matter as that from which all is born, by which
\nall lives and to which all return in their passing. His natural highest concept
\nof Spirit is an Infinite, preferably an inconscient Infinite, inhabiting or
\npervading the material universe (which alone it really knows), and manifesting
\nby the power of its presence all these forms around him. His natural highest
\nconception of himself is a vaguely conceived soul or spirit, a soul manifested
\nonly by the physical life’s experiences, bound up with physical phenomena and
\nforced on its dissolution to return by an automatic necessity to the vast
\nindeterminateness of the Infinite. But because he has the power of
\nself-development, he can rise beyond these natural conceptions of the
\nmaterialised soul; he can supplement them with a certain derivative experience
\ndrawn from supraphysical<\/span> planes and worlds. He can concentrate
\nin mind and develop the mental part of his being, usually at the expense of the
\nfullness of his vital and physical life and in the end the mind predominates
\nand can open to the Beyond. He can concentrate this self-liberating mind on the
\nSpirit. Here too usually in the process he turns away more and more from his
\nfull mental and physical life; he limits or discourages their possibilities as
\nmuch as his material foundation in nature will allow him. In the end his
\nspiritual life predominates, destroys his earthward tendency and breaks its
\nties and limitations. Spiritualised, he places his real existence beyond in
\nother worlds, in the heavens of the vital or mental plane; he begins to regard
\nlife on earth as a painful or troublesome incident or passage in which he can
\nnever arrive at any full enjoyment of his inner ideal self, his spiritual essence.
\nMoreover, his highest conception of the Self or Spirit is apt to be more or
\nless quietistic<\/span>; for, as we have seen, it is its
\nstatic infinity alone that he can entirely experience, the still freedom of Purusha
\nunlimited by Prakriti, the Soul standing back from Nature. There may come indeed
\nsome divine dynamic manifestation in him, but it cannot rise entirely above the
\nheavy limitations of physical
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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Nature. The peace of the
\nsilent and passive Self is more easily attainable and he can more easily and
\nfully hold it; too difficult for him is the bliss of an infinite activity, the
\ndynamis of an immeasurable Power.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the
\nSpirit can be poised in the principle of Life, not in Matter. The Spirit so founded
\nbecomes the vital self of a vital world, the Life-soul of a Life-energy in the
\nreign of a consciously dynamic Nature. Absorbed in the experiences of the power
\nand play of a conscious Life, it is dominated by the desire, activity and
\npassion of the rajasic principle proper to vital existence. In the individual
\nthis spirit becomes a vital soul, prāņamaya<\/i><\/span>
\npuruşa<\/i>, in whose nature the life-energies tyrannise over the mental
\nand physical principles. The physical element in a vital world readily shapes
\nits activities and formations in response to desire and its imaginations, it
\nserves and obeys the passion and power of life and their formations and does
\nnot thwart or limit them as it does here on earth where life is a precarious
\nincident in inanimate Matter. The mental element too is moulded and limited by
\nthe life-power, obeys it and helps only to enrich and fulfil the urge of its
\ndesires and the energy of its impulses. This vital soul lives in a vital body
\ncomposed of a substance much subtler than physical matter; it is a substance surcharged
\nwith conscious energy, capable of much more powerful perceptions, capacities,
\nsense-activities than any that the gross atomic elements of earth-matter can
\noffer. Man too has in himself behind his physical being, subliminal to it,
\nunseen and unknown, but very close to it and forming with it the most naturally
\nactive part of his existence, this vital soul, this vital nature and this vital
\nbody; a whole vital plane connected with the life-world or desire-world is
\nhidden in us, a secret consciousness in which life and desire find their
\nuntrammelled play and their easy self-expression and from there throw their influences
\nand formations on our outer life. <\/span><\/p>\n

In proportion
\nas the power of this vital plane manifests itself in man and takes hold of his
\nphysical being, this son of earth becomes a vehicle of the life energy, forceful
\nin his desires, vehement in his passions and emotions, intensely dynamic in his
\naction, more and more the rajasic man. It is possible now for him to awaken in
\nhis consciousness to the vital plane and to
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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become the vital soul, prāņamaya<\/i><\/span> puruşa<\/i>, put on the vital nature
\nand live in the secret vital as well as the visible physical body. If he
\nachieves this change with some fullness or one-pointedness<\/span>
\n\u2013 usually it is under great and salutary limitations or attended by saving
\ncomplexities \u2013 and without rising beyond these things, without climbing to a
\nsupra-vital height from which they can be used, purified, uplifted, he becomes
\nthe lower type of Asura or Titan, a Rakshasa in nature, a soul of sheer power
\nand life-energy, magnified or racked by a force of unlimited desire and
\npassion, hunted and driven by an active capacity and colossal rajasic ego, but
\nin possession of far greater and more various powers than those of the physical
\nman in the ordinary more inert earth-nature. Even if he develops mind greatly
\non the vital plane and uses its dynamic energy for self-control as well as for
\nself-satisfaction, it will still be with an Asuric energism<\/span>
\n(tapasyā<\/i><\/span>)
\nalthough of a higher type and directed to a more governed satisfaction of the
\nrajasic ego. <\/span><\/p>\n

But for the
\nvital plane also it is possible, even as on the physical, to rise to a certain
\nspiritual greatness in its own kind. It is open to the vital man to lift
\nhimself beyond the conceptions and energies natural to the desire-soul and the
\ndesire-plane. He can develop a higher mentality and, within the conditions of
\nthe vital being, concentrate upon some realisation of the Spirit or Self behind
\nor beyond its forms and powers. In this spiritual realisation there would be a
\nless strong necessity of quietism; for there would be a greater possibility of
\nan active effectuation of the bliss and power of the Eternal, mightier and more
\nself-satisfied powers, a richer flowering of the dynamic Infinite. Nevertheless
\nthat effectuality could never come anywhere near to a true and integral
\nperfection; for the conditions of the desire-world are like those of the
\nphysical improper to the development of the complete spiritual life. The vital
\nbeing too must develop spirit to the detriment of his fullness, activity and
\nforce of life in the lower hemisphere of our existence and turn in the end away
\nfrom the vital formula, away from life either to the Silence or to an ineffable
\nPower beyond him. If he does not withdraw from life, he must remain enchained
\nby life, limited in his self-fulfilment by the downward pull of the
\ndesire-world in its own right <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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alone, and its dominant rajasic principle. On the vital plane also, in its own right alone, a perfect
\nperfection is impossible; the soul that attains only so far would have to
\nreturn to the physical life for a greater experience, a higher
\nself-development, a more direct ascent to the Spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n

Above matter
\nand life stands the principle of mind, nearer to the secret Origin of things.
\nThe Spirit poised in mind becomes the mental self of a mental world and dwells
\nthere in the reign of its own pure and luminous mental Nature. There it acts in
\nthe intrinsic freedom of the cosmic Intelligence supported by the combined
\nworkings of a psycho-mental and a higher emotional mind-force, subtilised<\/span> and enlightened by the clarity and happiness of
\nthe sattwic principle proper to the mental existence. In the individual the
\nspirit so poised becomes a mental soul, manomaya<\/i><\/span> puruşa<\/i>,
\nin whose nature the clarity and luminous power of the mind acts in its own
\nright independent of any limitation or oppression by the vital or corporeal
\ninstruments; it rather rules and determines entirely the forms of its body and
\nthe powers of its life. For mind in its own plane is not limited by life and
\nobstructed by matter as it is here in the earth-process. This mental soul lives
\nin a mental or subtle body which enjoys capacities of knowledge, perception,
\nsympathy and interpenetration with other beings hardly imaginable by us and a
\nfree, delicate and extensive mentalised<\/span> sense-faculty
\nnot limited by the grosser conditions of the life nature or the physical
\nnature.<\/span><\/p>\n

Man too has
\nin himself, subliminal, unknown and unseen, concealed behind his waking
\nconsciousness and visible organism this mental soul, mental nature, mental body
\nand a mental plane, not materialised, in which the principle of Mind is at home
\nand not as here at strife with a world which is alien to it, obstructive to its
\nfreedom and corruptive of its purity and clearness. All the higher faculties of
\nman, his intellectual and psycho-mental being and powers, his higher emotional
\nlife awaken and increase in proportion as this mental plane in him presses upon
\nhim. For the more it manifests, the more it influences the physical parts, the
\nmore it enriches and elevates the corresponding mental plane of the embodied
\nnature. At a certain pitch of its increasing sovereignty it can make man truly
\nman and not merely a reason- <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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ing<\/span><\/span> animal; for
\nit gives then its characteristic force to that mental being within us which our
\nhumanity is in the inwardly governing but still too hampered essence of its
\npsychological structure.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is
\npossible for man to awaken to this higher mental consciousness, to become this
\nmental being, \u00b9 put on this mental nature and live not only in the vital and
\nphysical sheaths, but in this mental body. If there were a sufficient completeness
\nin this transformation he would become capable of a life and a being at least
\nhalf divine. For he would enjoy powers and a vision and perceptions beyond the
\nscope of this ordinary life and body; he would govern all by the clarities of pure
\nknowledge; he would be united to other beings by a sympathy of love and
\nhappiness; his emotions would be lifted to the perfection of the psycho-mental
\nplane, his sensations rescued from grossness, his intellect subtle, pure and
\nflexible, delivered from the deviations of the impure pranic<\/span>
\nenergy and the obstructions of matter. And he would develop too the reflection
\nof a wisdom and bliss higher than any mental joy and knowledge; for he could
\nreceive more fully and without our incompetent mind’s deforming and falsifying
\nmixture the inspirations and intuitions that are the arrows of the supramental
\nLight and form his perfected mental existence in the mould and power of that
\nvaster splendour. He could then realise too the self or Spirit in a much larger
\nand more luminous and more intimate intensity than is now possible and with a
\ngreater play of its active power and bliss in the satisfied harmony of his
\nexistence.<\/span><\/p>\n

And to our
\nordinary notions this may well seem to be a consummate perfection, something to
\nwhich man might aspire in his highest flights of idealism. No doubt, it would
\nbe a sufficient perfection for the pure mental being in its own character, but
\nit would still fall far below the greater possibilities of the spiritual
\nnature. For here too our spiritual realisation would be <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b9 <\/span>I
\ninclude here in mind, not only the highest range of mind ordinarily known to
\nman, but yet higher ranges to which he has either no current faculty of
\nadmission or else only a partial and mixed reception of some faint portion of
\ntheir powers, \u2013 the illumined mind, the intuition and finally the creative
\nOvermind or Maya which stands far above and is the source of our present existence.
\nIf mind is to be understood only as Reason or human intelligence, then the free
\nmental being and its state would be something much more limited and very
\ninferior to the description given here.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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subject to the
\nlimitations of the mind which is in the nature of a reflected, diluted and
\ndiffused or a narrowly intensive light, not the vast and comprehensive
\nself-existent luminosity and joy of the Spirit. That vaster light, that
\nprofounder bliss are beyond the mental reaches. Mind indeed can never be a
\nperfect instrument of the Spirit; a supreme self-expression is not possible in
\nits movements because to separate, divide, limit is its very character. Even if
\nmind could be free from all positive falsehood and error, even if it could be
\nall intuitive and infallibly intuitive, it could still present and organise
\nonly half-truths or separate truths and these too not in their own body but in
\nluminous representative figures put together to make an accumulated total or a
\nmassed structure. Therefore the self-perfecting mental being here must either
\ndepart into pure spirit by the shedding of its lower existence or return upon
\nthe physical life to develop in it a capacity not yet found in our mental and
\npsychic nature. This is what the Upanishad expresses when it says that the
\nheavens attained by the mind Purusha are those to which man is lifted by the
\nrays of the sun, the diffused, separated, though intense beams of the
\nsupramental truth-consciousness, and from these it has to return to the earthly
\nexistence. But the illuminates who renouncing earth-life go beyond through the
\ngateways of the sun, do not return hither. The mental being exceeding his
\nsphere does not return because by that transition he enters a high range of
\nexistence peculiar to the superior hemisphere. He cannot bring down its greater
\nspiritual nature into this lower triplicity<\/span>; for here
\nthe mental being is the highest expression of the Self. Here the triple mental,
\nvital and physical body provides almost the whole range of our capacity and cannot
\nsuffice for that greater consciousness; the vessel has not been built to
\ncontain a greater godhead or to house the splendours of this supramental force
\nand knowledge. <\/span><\/p>\n

This
\nlimitation is true only so long as man remains closed within the boundaries of
\nthe mental Maya. If he rises into the knowledge-self beyond the highest mental
\nstature, if he becomes the knowledge-soul, the Spirit poised in gnosis, vij\u00f1ānamaya puruşa<\/i>, and puts
\non the nature of its infinite truth and power, if he lives in the knowledge-sheath,
\nthe causal body as well as in these subtle mental, interlinking vital and
\ngrosser physical sheaths
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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or bodies, then, but
\nthen only he will be able to draw down entirely into his terrestrial existence
\nthe fullness of the infinite spiritual consciousness; only then will he avail
\nto raise his total being and even his whole manifested, embodied expressive
\nnature into the spiritual kingdom. But this is difficult in the extreme; for
\nthe causal body opens itself readily to the consciousness and capacities of the
\nspiritual planes and belongs in its nature to the higher hemisphere of
\nexistence, but it is either not developed at all in man or only as yet crudely
\ndeveloped and organised and veiled behind many intervening portals of the
\nsubliminal in us. It draws its stuff from the plane of the truth-knowledge and
\nthe plane of the infinite bliss and these pertain altogether to a still
\ninaccessible higher hemisphere. Shedding upon this lower existence their truth
\nand light and joy they are the source of all that we call spirituality and all
\nthat we call perfection. But this infiltration comes from behind thick
\ncoverings through which they arrive so tempered and weakened that they are
\nentirely obscured in the materiality of our physical perceptions, grossly
\ndistorted and perverted in our vital impulses, perverted too though a little
\nless grossly in our ideative<\/span> seekings<\/span>,
\nminimised even in the comparative purity and intensity of the highest intuitive
\nranges of our mental nature. The supramental principle is secretly lodged in
\nall existence. It is there even in the grossest materiality, it preserves and
\ngoverns the lower worlds by its hidden power and law; but that power veils
\nitself and that law works unseen through the shackled limitations and limping deformations
\nof the lesser rule of our physical, vital, mental Nature. Yet its governing
\npresence in the lowest forms assures us, because of the unity of all existence,
\nthat there is a possibility of their awakening, a possibility even of their
\nperfect manifestation here in spite of every veil, in spite of all the mass of
\nour apparent disabilities, in spite of the incapacity or unwillingness of our
\nmind and life and body. And what is possible, must one day be, for that is the
\nlaw of the omnipotent Spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n

The character
\nof these higher states of the soul and their greater worlds of spiritual Nature
\nis necessarily difficult to seize. Even the Upanishads and the Veda only shadow
\nthem out by figures, hints and symbols. Yet it is necessary to attempt some
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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account of their
\nprinciples and practical effect so far as they can be grasped by the mind that
\nstands on the border of the two hemispheres. The passage beyond that border
\nwould be the culmination, the completeness of the Yoga of self-transcendence by
\nself-knowledge. The soul that aspires to perfection, draws back and upward,
\nsays the Upanishad, from the physical into the vital and from the vital into the
\nmental Purusha, \u2013 from the mental into the knowledge-soul and from that self of
\nknowledge into the bliss Purusha. This self of bliss is the conscious
\nfoundation of perfect Sachchidananda and to pass into it completes the soul’s
\nascension. The mind therefore must try to give to itself some account of this
\ndecisive transformation of the embodied consciousness, this radiant
\ntransfiguration and self-exceeding of our ever aspiring nature. The description
\nmind can arrive at, can never be adequate to the thing itself, but it may point
\nat least to some indicative shadow of it or perhaps some half-luminous image.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 455<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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