{"id":994,"date":"2013-07-13T01:31:49","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=994"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:31:49","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:49","slug":"04-integral-yoga-and-other-paths-vol-22-letters-on-yoga-volume-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/22-letters-on-yoga-volume-22\/04-integral-yoga-and-other-paths-vol-22-letters-on-yoga-volume-22","title":{"rendered":"-04_Integral Yoga and Other Paths.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\nS<\/font>ECTION<\/font>
\nT<\/font>WO<\/font><\/b> <\/font><\/p>\n


\nIntegral
\nYoga and Other Paths<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n            I<\/font><\/b>
\n<\/font>do not agree
\nwith the view that the world is an illusion, mithyā<\/i><\/span>. The Brahman is here
\nas well as in the supracosmic<\/span> Absolute. The thing to
\nbe overcome is the Ignorance which makes us blind and prevents us from
\nrealising Brahman in the world as well as beyond it and the true nature of
\nexistence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Shankara knowledge is, as
\nyour Guru pointed out, only one side of the Truth; it is the knowledge of the
\nSupreme as realised by the spiritual Mind through the static silence of the
\npure Existence. It was because he went by this side only that Shankara was
\nunable to accept or explain the origin of the universe except as illusion, a
\ncreation of Maya. Unless one realises the Supreme on the dynamic as well as the
\nstatic side, one cannot experience the true origin of things and the equal
\nreality of the active Brahman. The Shakti or Power of the Eternal becomes then
\na power of illusion only and the world becomes incomprehensible, a mystery of
\ncosmic madness, an eternal delirium of the Eternal. Whatever verbal or ideative<\/span> logic one may bring to support it, this way of
\nseeing the universe explains nothing; it only erects a mental formula of the
\ninexplicable. It is only if you approach the Supreme through his double aspect
\nof Sat and Chit-Shakti, double but inseparable, that the total truth of things
\ncan become manifest to the inner experience. This other side was developed by
\nthe Shakta<\/span> Tantriks<\/span>. The
\ntwo together, the Vedantic and the Tantric truth unified, can arrive at the
\nintegral knowledge. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But philosophically this is what your Guru’s teaching comes
\nto and it is obviously a completer truth and a wider knowledge than that given
\nby the Shankara formula. It is already indicated in the Gita’s teaching of the
\nPurushottama and the Parashakti<\/span> (Adya<\/span>
\nShakti) who become the Jiva and uphold the universe. It is evident that
\nPurushottama and Parashakti<\/span> are both eternal<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 39<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

and are inseparable and one in
\nbeing; the Parashakti<\/span> manifests the universe,
\nmanifests too the Divine in the universe as the Ishwara and Herself appears at
\nHis side as the Ishwari Shakti. Or, we may say, it is the Supreme Conscious
\nPower of the Supreme that manifests or puts forth itself as Ishwara Ishwari, Atma<\/span> Atma-shakti<\/span>, Purusha
\nPrakriti, Jiva Jagat<\/span>. That is the truth in its
\ncompleteness as far as the mind can formulate it. In the supermind these
\nquestions do not even arise: for it is the mind that creates the problem by
\ncreating oppositions between aspects of the Divine which are not really opposed
\nto each other but are one and inseparable. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This supramental knowledge has not
\nyet been attained, because the supermind itself has not been attained, but the
\nreflection of it in intuitive spiritual consciousness is there and that was
\nwhat was evidently realised in experience by your Guru and what he was
\nexpressing in mental terms in the quoted passage. It is possible to go towards
\nthe knowledge by beginning with the experience of dissolution in the One, but
\non condition that you do not stop there, taking it as the highest Truth, but
\nproceed to realise the same One as the supreme Mother, the Consciousness-Force
\nof the Eternal. If, on the other hand, you approach through the Supreme Mother,
\nshe will give you the liberation in the silent One also as well as the
\nrealisation of the dynamic One, and from that it is easier to arrive at the
\nTruth in which both are one and inseparable. At the same time, the gulf created
\nby mind between the Supreme and His manifestation is bridged, and there is no
\nlonger a fissure in the truth which makes all incomprehensible. If in the light
\nof this you examine what your Guru taught, you will see that it is the same
\nthing in less metaphysical language. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As for Adesh<\/span>,
\npeople speak of Adesh<\/span> without making the necessary
\ndistinctions, but these distinctions have to be made. The Divine speaks to us
\nin many ways and it is not always the imperative Adesh<\/span>
\nthat comes. When it does, it is clear andirresistible<\/span>,
\nthe mind has to obey and there is no question possible, even if what comes is
\ncontrary to the preconceived ideas of the mental intelligence. It was such an Adesh<\/span> that I had when I came away to Pondicherry. But more
\noften what is said is an intimation or even less, a mere indication, which the
\nmind may<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 40<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

not follow because it is not
\nimpressed with its imperative necessity. It is something offered but not
\nimposed, perhaps something not even offered but only suggested from the Truth
\nabove.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If Shankara’s<\/span>
\nconception of the undifferentiated pure Consciousness as the Brahman is your
\nview of it, then it is not the path of this yoga that you should choose; for
\nhere the realisation of pure Consciousness and Being is only a first step and
\nnot the goal. But an inner creative urge from within can have no place in an
\nundifferentiated Consciousness \u2013 all action and creation must necessarily be
\nforeign to it. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I do not base my yoga on the insufficient ground that the Self
\n(not soul) is eternally free. That affirmation leads to nothing beyond itself,
\nor, if used as a starting-point, it could equally well lead to the conclusion
\nthat action and creation have no significance or value. The question is not
\nthat but of the meaning of creation, whether there is a Supreme who is not
\nmerely a pure undifferentiated Consciousness and Being, but the source and
\nsupport also of the dynamic energy of creation and whether the cosmic existence
\nhas for It a significance and a value. That is a question which cannot be
\nsettled by metaphysical logic which deals in words and ideas, but by a
\nspiritual experience which goes beyond Mind and enters into spiritual
\nrealities. Each mind is satisfied with its own reasoning, but for spiritual
\npurposes that satisfaction has no validity, except as an indication of how far
\nand on what line each one is prepared to go in the field of spiritual
\nexperience. If your reasoning leads you towards the Shankara idea of the
\nSupreme, that might be an indication that the Vedanta Adwaita (Mayavada<\/span>) is your way of advance. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This yoga accepts the
\nvalue of cosmic existence and holds it to be a reality; its object is to enter
\ninto a higher Truth-Consciousness or Divine supramental Consciousness in which
\naction and creation are the expression not of ignorance and imperfection, but
\nof the Truth, the Light, the Divine Ananda. But for that, surrender of the
\nmortal mind, life and body to that Higher Consciousness is indispensable, since
\nit is too difficult for the<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 41<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

mortal human being to pass by its
\nown effort beyond mind to a supramental Consciousness in which the dynamism is
\nno longer mental but of quite another power. Only those who can accept the call
\nto such a change should enter into this yoga.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I don’t know that I can help you
\nvery much with an answer to your friend’s questions. I can only state my own
\nposition with regard to these matters.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1. SHANKARA’S EXPLANATION OF THE UNIVERSE\u00a0 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is rather
\ndifficult to say nowadays what really was Shankara’s<\/span>
\nphilosophy: there are numberless exponents and none of them agrees with any of
\nthe others. I have read accounts given by some scores of his exegetes and each
\nfollowed his own line. We are even told by some that he was no Mayavadin<\/span> at all, although he has always been famed as the
\ngreatest exponent of the theory of Maya, but rather, the greatest Realist in philosophical
\nhistory. One eminent follower of Shankara even declared that my philosophy and Shankara’s<\/span> were identical, a statement which rather took my
\nbreath away. One used to think that Shankara’s<\/span>
\nphilosophy was this that the Supreme Reality is a spaceless<\/span>
\nand timeless Absolute (Parabrahman<\/span>) which is beyond
\nall feature or quality, beyond all action or creation, and that the world is a
\ncreation of Maya, not absolutely unreal, but real only in time and while one
\nlives in time; once we get into a knowledge of the Reality, we perceive that
\nMaya and the world and all in it have no abiding or true existence. It is, if
\nnot non-existent, yet false, jaganmithyā<\/span>; it is
\na mistake of the consciousness, it is and it is not; it is an irrational and
\ninexplicable mystery in its origin, though we can see its process or at least
\nhow it keeps itself imposed on the consciousness. Brahman is seen in Maya as
\nIshwara upholding the works of Maya and the apparently individual soul is
\nreally nothing but Brahman itself. In the end, however, all this seems to be a
\nmyth of Maya, mithyā<\/span>, and not anything really
\ntrue. If that is Shankara’s<\/span> philosophy, it is to me
\nunacceptable and incredible, however brilliantly ingenious it may be and<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 42<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

however boldly and incisively
\nreasoned; it does not satisfy my reason and it does not agree with my
\nexperience. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I don’t know exactly what is meant by this yuktivāda<\/span>.
\nIf it is meant that it is merely for the sake of arguing down opponents, then
\nthis part of the philosophy has no fundamental validity; Shankara’s<\/span>
\ntheory destroys itself. Either he meant it as a sufficient explanation of the
\nuniverse or he did not. If he did, it is no use dismissing it as Yuktivada<\/span>. I can understand that thorough-going Mayavadin’s<\/span> declaration that the whole question is
\nillegitimate, because Maya and the world do not really exist; in fact, the
\nproblem how the world came to existence is only a part of Maya, is like Maya
\nunreal and does not truly arise; but if an explanation is to be given, it must
\nbe a real, valid and satisfying explanation. If there are two planes and in
\nputting the question we are confusing the two planes, that argument can only be
\nof value if both planes have some kind of existence and the reasoning and
\nexplanation are true in the lower plane but cease to have any meaning for a
\nconsciousness which has passed out of it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2. ADWAITA<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

People are apt to speak of the
\nAdwaita as if it were identical with Mayavada<\/span> monism,
\njust as they speak of Vedanta as if it were identical with Adwaita only; that
\nis not the case. There are several forms of Indian philosophy which base
\nthemselves upon the One Reality, but they admit also the reality of the world,
\nthe reality of the Many, the reality of the differences of the Many as well as
\nthe sameness of the One (bhedābheda<\/span>). But the
\nMany exist in the One and by the One, the differences are variations in
\nmanifestation of that which is fundamentally ever the same. This we actually
\nsee as the universal law of existence where oneness is always the basis with an
\nendless multiplicity and difference in the oneness; as, for instance, there is
\none mankind but many kinds of man, one thing called leaf or flower but many
\nforms, patterns, colours<\/span> of leaf and flower. Through
\nthis we can look back into one of the fundamental secrets of existence, the
\nsecret which is contained in the one Reality itself. The oneness of the
\nInfinite is not something limited, fettered to its unity; it is capable of an
\ninfinite multiplicity. The Supreme Reality is an Absolute not<\/p>\n

 Page \u2013 43<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

limited by either oneness or
\nmultiplicity but simultaneously capable of both; for both are its aspects,
\nalthough the oneness is fundamental and the multiplicity depends upon the
\noneness. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is
\npossible a realistic as well as an illusionist Adwaita. The philosophy of The Life Divine<\/i> is such a realistic
\nAdwaita. The world is a manifestation of the Real and therefore is itself real.
\nThe reality is the infinite and eternal Divine, infinite and eternal Being,
\nConsciousness-Force and Bliss. This Divine by his power has created the world
\nor rather manifested it in his own infinite Being. But here in the material
\nworld or at its basis he has hidden himself in what seem to be his opposites,
\nNon-Being, Inconscience and Insentience. This is what we nowadays call the
\nInconscient which seems to have created the material universe by its
\ninconscient Energy, but this is only an appearance, for we find in the end that
\nall the dispositions of the world can only have been arranged by the working of
\na supreme secret Intelligence. The Being which is hidden in what seems to be an
\ninconscient void emerges in the world first in Matter, then in Life, then in
\nMind and finally as the Spirit. The apparently inconscient Energy which creates
\nis in fact the Consciousness-Force of the Divine and its aspect of
\nconsciousness, secret in Matter, begins to emerge in Life, finds something more
\nof itself in Mind and finds its true self in a spiritual consciousness and
\nfinally a supramental Consciousness through which we become aware of the
\nReality, enter into it and unite ourselves with it. This is what we call
\nevolution which is an evolution of Consciousness and an evolution of the Spirit
\nin things and only outwardly an evolution of species. Thus also, the delight of
\nexistence emerges from the original insentience, first in the contrary forms of
\npleasure and pain, and then has to find itself in the bliss of the Spirit or,
\nas it is called in the Upanishads, the bliss of the Brahman. That is the
\ncentral idea in the explanation of the universe put forward in The Life Divine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n3. Nirguna<\/span>
\nand Saguna<\/b>\u00a0<\/b> <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\nIn a realistic Adwaita there
\nis no need to regard the Saguna as a creation from the Nirguna<\/span>
\nor even secondary or subordinate to it: both are equal aspects of the one
\nReality, its position of<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 44<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

silent status and rest and its
\nposition of action and dynamic force; a silence of eternal rest and peace
\nsupports an eternal action and movement. The one Reality, the Divine Being, is
\nbound by neither, since it is in no way limited; it possesses both. There is no
\nincompatibility between the two, as there is none between the Many and the One,
\nthe sameness and the difference. They are all eternal aspects of the universe
\nwhich could not exist if either of them were eliminated, and it is reasonable
\nto suppose that they both came from the Reality which has manifested the
\nuniverse and are both real. We can only get rid of the apparent contradiction \u2013
\nwhich is not really a contradiction but only a natural concomitance\u00a0 <\/span>\u2013 \u00a0<\/span>by
\ntreating one or the other as an illusion. But it is hardly reasonable to
\nsuppose that the eternal Reality allows the existence of an eternal illusion
\nwith which it has nothing to do or that it supports and enforces on being a
\nvain cosmic illusion and has no power for any other and real action. The force
\nof the Divine is always there in silence as in action, inactive in silence,
\nactive in the manifestation. It is hardly possible to suppose that the Divine
\nReality has no power or force or that its only power is to create a universal
\nfalsehood, a cosmic lie \u00a0<\/span>\u2013 \u00a0<\/span>mithyā<\/i><\/span>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

4. COMPOUNDS AND DISINTEGRATION<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No doubt, all
\ncompounds, being not integral things in themselves but integrations, can
\ndisintegrate. Also it is true of life, though not a physical compound, that it
\nhas a curve of birth or integration and, after it reaches a certain point, of
\ndisintegration, decay and death. But these ideas or this rule of existence
\ncannot be safely applied to things in themselves. The soul is not a compound
\nbut an integer, a thing in itself; it does not disintegrate, but at most enters
\ninto manifestation and goes out of manifestation. That is true even of forms
\nother than constructed physical or constructed life-forms; they do not\u00a0 <\/span>disintegrate but appear and disappear or at
\nmost fade out of manifestation. Mind itself as opposed to particular thoughts
\nis something essential and permanent; it is a power of the Divine
\nConsciousness. So is life, as opposed to constructed living bodies; so I think
\nis what we call material energy which is really the force of
\n <\/p>\n

Page \u2013 45<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

essential substance in motion, a
\npower of the Spirit. Thoughts, lives, material objects are formations of these
\nenergies, constructed or simply manifested according to the habit of the play
\nof the particular energy. As for the elements, what is the pure natural condition
\nof an element? According to modern Science, what used to be called elements
\nturn out to becompounds<\/span> and the pure natural
\ncondition, if any, must be a condition of pure energy; it is that pure
\ncondition into which compounds including what we call elements must go when
\nthey pass by disintegration into Nirvana.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

5. NIRVANA<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What then is
\nNirvana? In orthodox Buddhism it does mean a disintegration, not of the soul \u2013 for
\nthat does not exist \u2013 but of a mental compound or stream of associations or samskāras<\/u><\/i><\/span>
\nwhich we mistake for ourself<\/span>. In illusionist Vedanta
\nit means, not a disintegration but a disappearance of a false and unreal
\nindividual self into the one real Self or Brahman; it is the idea and
\nexperience of individuality that so disappears and ceases, \u2013 we may say a false
\nlight that is extinguished (nirvāna<\/i><\/span>) in the true Light. In spiritual experience it
\nis sometimes the loss of all sense of individuality in a boundless cosmic
\nconsciousness; what was the individual remains only as a centre or a channel
\nfor the flow of a cosmic consciousness and a cosmic force and action. Or it may
\nbe the experience of the loss of individuality in a transcendent being and
\nconsciousness in which the sense of cosmos as well as the individual
\ndisappears. Or again, it may be in a transcendence which is aware of and
\nsupports the cosmic action. But what do we mean by the individual? What we
\nusually call by that name is a natural ego, a device of Nature which holds
\ntogether her action in the mind and body. This ego has to be extinguished,
\notherwise there is no complete liberation possible; but the individual self or
\nsoul is not this ego. The individual soul is the spiritual being which is
\nsometimes described as an eternal portion of the Divine, but can also be
\ndescribed as the Divine himself supporting his manifestation as the Many. This
\nis the true spiritual individual which appears in its complete truth when we
\nget rid of the ego and our false separative sense of individuality, realise <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 46<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

our oneness with the transcendent
\nand cosmic Divine and with all beings. It is this which makes possible the
\nDivine Life. Nirvana is a step towards it; the disappearance of the false
\nseparative individuality is a necessary condition for our realising and living
\nin our true eternal being, living divinely in the Divine. But this we can do in
\nthe world and in life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

6. REBIRTH<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If evolution is
\na truth and is not only a physical evolution of species, but an evolution of
\nconsciousness, it must be a spiritual and not only a physical fact. In that case,
\nit is the individual who evolves and grows into a more and more developed and
\nperfect consciousness and obviously that cannot be done in the course of a
\nbrief single human life. If there is the evolution of a conscious individual,
\nthen there must be rebirth. Rebirth is a logical necessity and a spiritual fact
\nof which we can have the experience. Proofs of rebirth, sometimes of an
\noverwhelmingly convincing nature, are not lacking, but as yet they have not
\nbeen carefully registered and brought together.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

7. EVOLUTION<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In my
\nexplanation of the universe I have put forward this cardinal fact of a
\nspiritual evolution as the meaning of our existence here. It is a series of
\nascents from the physical being and consciousness to the vital, the being dominated
\nby the life-self, thence to the mental being realised in the fully developed
\nman and thence into the perfect consciousness which is beyond the mental, into
\nthe supramental Consciousness and the supramental being, the
\nTruth-Consciousness which is the integral consciousness of the spiritual being.
\nMind cannot be our last conscious expression because mind is fundamentally an
\nignorance seeking for knowledge; it is only the supramental Truth-Consciousness
\nthat can bring us the true and whole Self-Knowledge and world-Knowledge; it is
\nthrough that only that we can get to our true being and the fulfilment of our
\nspiritual evolution.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 47<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

The sentence1 <\/sup>is
\nrather loose in expression. It does not mean that Maya is Brahman’s freedom,
\nbut \u201cthe doctrine of Maya simply comes to this that Brahman is free from the
\ncircumstances through which He expresses Himself.\u201d This limited play is not He,
\nfor He is illimitable; it is only a conditioned (partial) manifestation, but He
\nis not bound by the conditions (circumstances) as the play is bound. The world
\nis a figure of something of Himself which He has put forth into it, but He is
\nmore than that figure. The world is not unreal or illusory, but our present
\nseeing or consciousness of it is ignorant, and therefore the world as seen by
\nus can be described as an illusion. So far the Maya idea is true. But if we see
\nthe world as it really is, a partial and developing manifestation of Brahman,
\nthen it can no longer be described as an illusion, but rather as a Lila. He is
\nstill more than His Lila, but He is in it and it is in Him; it is not an
\nillusion.<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

About Nirvana:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When I wrote in
\nthe Arya<\/span>, 2<\/sup><\/i> I was setting forth an overmind<\/span> view of things to the mind and putting it in
\nmental terms, that was why I had sometimes to use logic. For in such a work \u2013 mediating
\nbetween the intellect and the supra-intellectual \u2013 logic has a place,\u00a0 <\/span>though it cannot have the chief place it
\noccupies in purely mental philosophies. The Mayavadin<\/span>
\nhimself labours<\/span> to establish his point of view or his
\nexperience by a rigorous logical reasoning. Only, when it comes to an
\nexplanation of Maya, he, like the scientist dealing with Nature, can do no more
\nthan arrange and organise<\/span> his ideas of the process of
\nthis universal mystification; he cannot explain how or why his illusionary
\nmystifying Maya came into existence. He can only say, \u201cWell, but it is there.\u201d
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Of course, it is
\nthere. But the question is, first, what is it? Is it really an illusionary
\nPower and nothing else, or is the Mayavadin’s<\/span> idea of
\nit a mistaken first view, a mental imperfect<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1<\/sup> \u201cMaya means nothing more
\nthan the freedom of Brahman from the circumstances through which he expresses
\nhimself.\u201d Sri Aurobindo, The Yoga and its Objects (1968 Edition), p. 39. <\/span><\/p>\n

2<\/span><\/sup> A philosophical journal
\nconducted by Sri Aurobindo during the years 1914-21.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 48<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

reading, even perhaps itself an
\nillusion? And next, \u201cIs illusion the sole or the highest Power which the Divine
\nConsciousness or\u00a0 <\/span>Superconsciousness<\/span>
\npossesses?\u201d The Absolute is an absolute Truth free from Maya, otherwise
\nliberation would not be possible. Has then the supreme and absolute Truth no
\nother active Power than a power of falsehood and with it, no doubt, for the two
\ngo together, a power of dissolving or disowning the falsehood, \u2013 which is yet
\nthere for ever? I suggested that this sounded a little queer. But queer or not,
\nif it is so, it is so \u2013 for, as you point out, the Ineffable cannot be
\nsubjected to the laws of logic. But who is to decide whether it is so? You will
\nsay, those who get there. But get where? To the Perfect and the Highest, pūrnam<\/i><\/span> param<\/i>. Is the Mayavadin’s<\/span>
\nfeatureless Brahman that Perfect, that Complete \u2013 is it the very Highest? Is
\nthere not or can there not be a higher than that highest, parātparam<\/i><\/span>? That is not a
\nquestion of logic, it is a question of spiritual fact, of a supreme and
\ncomplete experience. The solution of the matter must rest not upon logic, but
\nupon a growing, ever heightening, widening spiritual experience \u2013 an experience
\nwhich must of course include or have passed through that of Nirvana and Maya,
\notherwise it would not be complete and would have no decisive value.
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now to reach
\nNirvana was the first radical result of my own yoga. It threw me suddenly into
\na condition above and without thought, unstained by any mental or vital
\nmovement; there was no ego, no real world \u2013 only when one looked through the
\nimmobile senses, something perceived or bore upon its sheer silence a world of
\nempty forms, materialised shadows without true substance. There was no One or
\nmany even, only just absolutely That, featureless, relationless<\/span>,
\nsheer, indescribable, unthinkable, absolute, yet supremely real and solely
\nreal. This was no mental realisation nor something glimpsed somewhere above, \u2013 no
\nabstraction, \u2013 it was positive, the only positive reality, \u2013 although not a
\nspatial physical world, pervading, occupying or rather flooding and drowning
\nthis semblance of a physical world, leaving no room or space for any reality
\nbut itself, allowing nothing else to seem at all actual, positive or
\nsubstantial. I cannot say there was anything exhilarating or rapturous in the <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 49<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

experience, as it then came to
\nme, \u2013 (the ineffable Ananda I had years afterwards), \u2013 but what it brought was
\nan inexpressible Peace, a stupendous silence, an infinity of release and
\nfreedom. I lived in that Nirvana day and night before it began to admit other
\nthings into itself or modify itself at all, and the inner heart of experience,
\na constant memory of it and its power to return remained until in the end it
\nbegan to disappear into a greater Superconsciousness<\/span>
\nfrom above. But\u00a0 <\/span>meanwhile realisation
\nadded itself to realisation and fused itself with this original experience. At
\nan early stage the aspect of an illusionary world gave place to one in which
\nillusion1 <\/sup>is only a small surface phenomenon with an immense Divine
\nReality behind it and a supreme Divine Reality above it and an intense Divine
\nReality in the heart of everything that had seemed at first only a cinematic
\nshape or shadow. And this was no reimprisonment<\/span> in
\nthe senses, no diminution or fall from supreme experience, it came rather as a
\nconstant heightening and widening of the Truth; it was the spirit that saw
\nobjects, not the senses, and the Peace, the Silence, the freedom in Infinity
\nremained always, with the world or all worlds only as a continuous incident in
\nthe timeless eternity of the Divine. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now, that is the
\nwhole trouble in my approach to Mayavada<\/span>. Nirvana in
\nmy liberated consciousness turned out to be the beginning of my realisation, a
\nfirst step towards the complete thing, not the sole true attainment possible or
\neven a culminating finale. It came unasked, unsought for, though quite welcome.
\nI had no least idea about it before, no aspiration towards it, in fact my
\naspiration was towards just the opposite, spiritual power to help the world and
\nto do my work in it, yet it came \u2013 without even a \u201cMay I come in\u201d or a \u201cBy your
\nleave\u201d. It just happened and settled in as if for all eternity or as if it had
\nbeen really there always. And then it slowly grew into something not less but
\ngreater than its first self. How then could I accept Mayavada<\/span>
\nor persuade myself to pit against the Truth imposed on me from above the logic
\nof Shankara? <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1<\/span><\/sup>In fact it is not an
\nillusion in the sense of an imposition of something baseless and unreal on the
\nconsciousness, but a misinterpretation by the conscious mind and sense and a
\nfalsifying misuse of manifested existence.<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 50<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

           But I do not
\ninsist on everybody passing through my experience or following the Truth that
\nis its consequence. I have no objection to anybody accepting Mayavada<\/span> as his soul’s truth or his mind’s truth or their
\nway out of the cosmic difficulty. I object to it only if somebody tries to push
\nit down my throat or the world’s throat as the sole possible, satisfying and
\nall-comprehensive explanation of things. For it is not that at all. There are
\nmany other possible explanations; it is not at all satisfactory, for in the end
\nit explains nothing; and it is \u2013 and must be unless it departs from its own
\nlogic \u2013 all-exclusive, not in the least all-comprehensive. But that does not
\nmatter. A theory may be wrong or at least one-sided and imperfect and yet
\nextremely practical and useful. This has been amply shown by the history of
\nScience. In fact, a theory whether philosophical or scientific, is nothing else
\nthan a support for the mind, a practical device to help it to deal with its
\nobject, a staff to uphold it and make it walk more confidently and get along on
\nits difficult journey. The very exclusiveness and one-sidedness of the Mayavada<\/span> make it a strong staff or a forceful stimulus for
\na spiritual endeavour which means to be one-sided, radical and exclusive. It
\nsupports the effort of the Mind to get away from itself and from Life by a
\nshort cut into superconscience<\/span>. Or rather it is the
\nPurusha in Mind that wants to get away from the limitations of Mind and Life
\ninto the superconscient Infinite. Theoretically, the way for that is for the
\nmind to deny all its perceptions and all the preoccupations of the vital and
\nsee and treat them as illusions. Practically, when the mind draws back from
\nitself, it enters easily into a relationless<\/span> peace in
\nwhich nothing matters, \u2013 for in its absoluteness there are no mental or vital
\nvalues, \u2013 and from which the mind can rapidly move towards that great short cut
\nto the superconscient, mindless trance, suşupti<\/i><\/span>. In proportion to the thoroughness of that
\nmovement all the perceptions it had once accepted become unreal to it \u2013 illusion,
\nMaya. It is on its road towards immergence. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mayavada<\/span> therefore with its sole stress on Nirvana, quite
\napart from its defects as a mental theory of things, serves a great spiritual
\nend and, as a path, can lead very high and far. Even, if the Mind were the last
\nword and there were nothing beyond it
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 51<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

except the pure Spirit, I would
\nnot be averse to accepting it as the only way out. For what the mind with its
\nperceptions and the vital with its desires have made of life in this world, is
\na very bad mess, and if there were nothing better to be hoped for, the shortest
\ncut to an exit would be the best. But my experience is that there is something
\nbeyond Mind; Mind is not the last word here of the Spirit. Mind is an
\nignorance-consciousness and its perceptions cannot be anything else than either
\nfalse, mixed or imperfect \u2013 even when true, a partial reflection of the Truth
\nand not the very body of Truth herself. But there is a Truth-Consciousness, not
\nstatic only and self-introspective, but also dynamic and creative, and I prefer
\nto get at that and see what it says about things and can do rather than take
\nthe short cut away from things offered as its own end by the Ignorance. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Still, I would have
\nno objection if your attraction towards Nirvana were not merely a mood of the
\nmind and vital but an indication of the mind’s true road and the soul’s issue.
\nBut it seems to me that it is only the vital recoiling from its own
\ndisappointed desires in an extreme dissatisfaction, not the soul leaping gladly
\nto its true path. This Vairagya<\/span> is itself a vital
\nmovement; vital Vairagya<\/span> is the reverse side of vital
\ndesire \u2013 though the mind of course is there to give reasons and say ditto. Even
\nthis Vairagya<\/span>, if it is one-pointed and exclusive,
\ncan lead or point towards Nirvana. But you have many sides to your personality
\nor rather many personalities in you; it is indeed their discordant movements
\neach getting in the way of the other, as happens when they are expressed
\nthrough the external mind, that have stood much in the way of your sadhana.
\nThere is the vital personality which was turned towards success and enjoyment
\nand got it and wanted to go on with it but could not get the rest of the being
\nto follow. There is the vital personality that wanted enjoyment of a deeper
\nkind and suggested to the other that it could very well give up these
\nunsatisfactory things if it got an equivalent in some faeryland<\/span>
\nof a higher joy. There is the psycho-vital personality that is the Vaishnava<\/span> within you and wanted the Divine Krishna and
\nbhakti and Ananda. There is the personality which is the poet and musician and
\na seeker of beauty through these things. There is the mental-vital personality
\nwhich, when it saw <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 52<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

the vital standing in the way,
\ninsisted on a grim struggle of Tapasya, and it is no doubt that also which
\napproves Vairagya<\/span> and Nirvana. There is the
\nphysical-mental personality which is the Russellite<\/span>,
\nextrovert, doubter. There is another mental-emotional personality all whose
\nideas are for belief in the Divine, yoga, bhakti, Guruvada<\/span>.
\nThere is the psychic being also which has pushed you into the sadhana and is
\nwaiting for its hour of emergence.
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What are you
\ngoing to do with all these people? If you want Nirvana, you have either to
\nexpel them or stifle them or beat them into coma. All authorities assure us
\nthat the exclusive Nirvana business is a most difficult job (duhkham<\/i><\/span> dehavadbhih<\/span><\/i>,
\nsays the Gita), and your own attempt at suppressing the others was not
\nencouraging, \u2013 according to your own account it left you as dry and desperate
\nas a sucked orange, no juice left anywhere. If the desert is your way to the
\npromised land, that does not matter. But \u2013 well, if it is not, then there is
\nanother way \u2013 it is what we call the integration, the harmonisation<\/span>
\nof the being. That cannot be done from outside, it cannot be done by the mind
\nand vital being \u2013 they are sure to bungle their affair. It can be done only
\nfrom within by the soul, the Spirit which is the centraliser<\/span>,
\nitself the centre of these radii. In all of them there is a truth that can
\nharmonise with the true truth of the others. For there is a truth in Nirvana \u2013 Nirvana
\nis nothing but the peace and freedom of the Spirit which can exist in itself,
\nbe there world or no world, world-order or world-disorder. Bhakti and the
\nheart’s call for the Divine have a truth \u2013 it is the truth of the divine Love
\nand Ananda. The will for Tapasya has in it a truth \u2013 it is the truth of the Spirit’s
\nmastery over its members. The musician and poet stand for a truth, it is the
\ntruth of the expression of the Spirit through beauty. There is a truth behind
\nthe mental affirmer; even there is a truth behind the mental doubter, the Russellian<\/span>, though far behind him \u2013 the truth of the denial
\nof false forms. Even behind the two vital personalities there is a truth, the
\ntruth of the possession of the inner and outer worlds not by the ego but by the
\nDivine. That is the harmonisation<\/span> for which our yoga
\nstands \u2013 but it cannot be achieved by any outward arrangement, it can only be
\nachieved by going inside and looking, willing and
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 53<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

acting from the psychic and from
\nthe spiritual centre. For the truth of the being is there and the secret of
\nHarmony also is there.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One may be aware of the essential
\nstatic self without relation to the play of the cosmos. Again one may be aware
\nof the universal static self omnipresent in everything without being
\nprogressively awake to the movement of the dynamic viśva-prakrti<\/i><\/span>. The first
\nrealisation of the Self or Brahman is often a realisation of something that
\nseparates itself from all form, name, action, movement, exists in itself only,
\nregarding the cosmos as only a mass of cinematographic shapes unsubstantial and
\nempty of reality. That was my own first complete realisation of the Nirvana in
\nthe Self. That does not mean a wall between Self and Brahman, but a scission
\nbetween the essential self-existence and the manifested world. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I believe according to the Adwaitins<\/span> God is only the reflection of Brahman in Maya \u2013 just
\nas Brahman is seen outwardly as the world which has only a practical not a real
\nreality, so subjectively Brahman is seen as God, Bhagavan, Ishwara, and that
\nalso would be a practical not a real reality \u2013 which is and can be only the relationless<\/span> Brahman all by itself in a worldless<\/span>
\neternity. At least that is what I have read \u2013 I don’t know whether Shankara
\nhimself says that. One is always being told by modern Adwaitins<\/span>
\nthat Shankara did not mean what people say he meant \u2013 so one has to be careful
\nin attributing any opinion to him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They want to show that Shankara
\nwas not so savagely illusionist as he is represented \u2013 that he gave a certain
\ntemporary reality to the world, admitted Shakti etc. But these (supposing he
\nmade them) are concessions inconsistent with the logic of his own philosophy
\nwhich is that only the Brahman exists and the rest is ignorance and illusion.
\nThe rest has only a temporary and <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 54<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

therefore an illusory reality in Maya.
\nHe further maintained that Brahman could not be reached by works. If that was
\nnot his philosophy, I should like to know what was his philosophy. At any rate
\nthat was how his philosophy has been understood by people. Now that the general
\nturn is away from the rigorous Illusionism, many of the Adwaitins<\/span>
\nseem to want to hedge and make Shankara hedge with them. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Vivekananda
\naccepted Shankara’s<\/span> philosophy with modifications,
\nthe chief of them being Daridra-Narayan-Seva<\/span> which is
\na mixture of Buddhist compassion and modern philanthropy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Of course
\nShankara must have meant Mayavada<\/span>. It is hardly
\npossible that everybody should have misunderstood his ideas (which were not in
\nthe least veiled or enigmatic) till his modern apologists discovered what they really
\nwere.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Shankara surely
\nstands or falls by the Mayavada<\/span>. Even the Bhaja-Govindam<\/span> poem is Mayavadic<\/span>
\nin spirit. I am not well-acquainted with these other writings \u2013 so it is
\ndifficult for me to say anything about that side of the question.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chittashuddhi<\/span> belongs to Rajayoga. In the pure Adwaita the
\nmethod is rather to detach oneself by vicāra<\/i><\/span> and viveka<\/i>
\nand realise \u201cI am not the mind, not the life, etc. etc.\u201d In that case, no śuddhi<\/i><\/span> would
\nbe necessary\u00a0 <\/span>\u2013 the self would separate
\nfrom the nature good or bad and regard it as a machinery which having no more
\nthe support of the ātman<\/i><\/span>
\nwould fall away of itself along with the body. Of course cittaśuddhi<\/i><\/span> can be resorted
\nto also, but for cessation of the cittavrtti<\/i>,
\nnot for their better dynamism as an instrument of the Divine. Shankara insists
\nthat all karma must fall off before one can be liberated \u2013 the soul must
\nrealise itself as akartā<\/i><\/span>,
\nthere is no solution in or by works in the pure Yoga of <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 55<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

Knowledge. So how could Shankara
\nrecognise dynamism? Even if he recognises cittaśuddhi<\/i><\/span> as necessary, it
\nmust be as a preparation for getting rid of karma, not for anything else.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The essential \u201cI\u201d sense
\ndisappears when there is the stable realisation of the one universal Self in
\nall and that remains at all moments in all conditions under any circumstances.
\nUsually this comes first in the Purusha consciousness and the extension to the
\nPrakriti movements is not immediate. But even if there are \u201cI\u201d movements in the
\nPrakriti reactions, the Purusha within observes them as the continued running
\nof an old mechanism and does not feel them as his own. Most Vedantists<\/span>
\nstop there, because they do think that those reactions will fall away from one
\nat death and all will disappear into the One. But for a change of the nature it
\nis necessary that the experience and seeing of the Purusha should spread to all
\nthe parts, mind, vital, physical, subconscient<\/span>. Then
\nthe ego movements of Prakriti can also disappear gradually from one field after
\nanother till none is left. For this a perfect samatā<\/i><\/span> even in the cells of
\nthe body and in every vibration of the being is necessary \u2013 sama<\/i><\/span> hi brahma<\/span><\/i>. One is then quite free from
\nit in works also. The individual remains but that is not the small separative
\nego, but a form and power of the Universal which feels itself one with all
\nbeings, an acting centre and instrument of the Universal Transcendent, full of
\nthe Ananda of the presence and the action but not thinking or moving
\nindependently or acting for its own sake. That cannot be called egoism. The
\nDivine can be called an ego only if he is a separate Person limited as in the
\nChristian idea of God by his separateness (though even there esoteric
\nChristianity abolishes the limitation). An I which is not separate in that way
\nis no I at all.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I doubt whether the condition of
\nwhich you speak is that of the realised Vedantin \u2013 except of course the loss of
\nthe sense of personality and the non-identification with desire and the <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 56<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

movements of Prakriti. Still perhaps
\nthe condition of the jadavat<\/i><\/span>
\nParamahamsa<\/span> (like Jada<\/span> Bharata<\/span>) may resemble it. That theory of prārabdha<\/i><\/span> karma <\/i>goes farther than that \u2013 it
\nassumes that even if there are vital movements, that is also only the
\ncontinuance of the machine of Prakriti and will drop off at death. They may,
\nperhaps. I don’t base the gospel of the transformation of Nature on an
\nimpossibility of taking a static release as final \u2013 the static release is
\nnecessary, but I don’t consider that to take it as final is the object of coming
\ninto world-existence. I hold that the static release is only a beginning, a
\nfirst step in the Divine. If anyone is satisfied with the first step as all
\nthat is possible for him, I have no objection to his taking it like that.<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Your objection is correct. The
\nsnake-rope image cannot be used to illustrate the non-existence of the world,
\nit would only mean that our seeing of the world is not that of the world as it
\nreally is. The idea of complete illusion would better be illustrated by the
\njuggler’s rope-climbing trick where there is no rope and no climber, and yet
\none is persuaded that they are there.<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The illusionist metaphors all
\nfail when you drive them home \u2013 they are themselves an illusion. Identification
\nwith the body is an error, not an illusion. We are not the body, but the body
\nis still something of ourselves. With realisation the erroneous identification
\nceases \u2013 in certain experiences the existence of the body is not felt at all.
\nIn the full realisation the body is within us, not we in it, it is an
\ninstrumental formation in our wider being, \u2013 our consciousness exceeds but also
\npervades it, \u2013 it can be dissolved without our ceasing to be the self. That is
\nabout all.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is the Vedantic Adwaita
\nexperience of laya<\/span>. It is only one phase
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 57<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

of the experience, not the whole
\nor the highest Truth of the Divine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The impulse towards laya<\/i><\/span> is a
\ncreation of the mind, it is not the sole possible destiny of the soul. When the
\nmind tries to abolish its own Ignorance, it finds no escape from it except by laya<\/i><\/span>, because it
\nsupposes that there is no higher principle of cosmic existence beyond itself \u2013 beyond
\nitself is only the pure Spirit, the absolute impersonal Divine. Those who go
\nthrough the heart (love, bhakti) do not accept laya<\/i><\/span>, they believe in a state
\nbeyond of eternal companionship with the Divine or dwelling in the Divine
\nwithout laya<\/i><\/span>.
\nAll this quite apart from supramentalisation. What then becomes of your
\nstarting-point that laya<\/i><\/span> <\/i>is the inevitable destiny of the soul
\nand it is only the personal descent of the Avatar that saves it from inevitable
\nlaya<\/i><\/span>!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There were two points of error.
\n(1) That the soul formerly had no other possibility once it reached the Divine
\nthan laya<\/i><\/span>.
\nThere were other possibilities, e.g., passing into a higher plane, living in
\nthe Divine or in the presence of the Divine. Both imply the refusal of birth
\nand leaving the Lila on earth. (2) That it was only for the sake of living with
\nthe incarnate Divine and by reason of this descent that the soul consented to
\ngive up laya<\/i><\/span>.
\nThe capital point is the supramentalisation of the being which is the Divine
\nintention in the evolution on earth and cannot fail to come; the descent or
\nincarnation is only an instrumentation for bringing that about. Your statement
\ntherefore becomes wrong by incompleteness. <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But they [the Mayavadic<\/span>
\nVedantins] had no clear perception of these things [overmind<\/span>,
\nsupermind, etc.] because they lived at the highest in the spiritualised higher
\nmind, and for the rest could only receive things from even the Overmind \u2013 they
\ncould not enter it except by deep samadhi (susupti<\/i>). Prajna<\/span>
\nand Ishwara were for them Lord of the susupti<\/i>.
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 58<\/span><\/p>\n

\n


\n\t\tII<\/b> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I<\/b>n our yoga the Nirvana is the
\nbeginning of the higher Truth, as it is the passage from the Ignorance to the
\nhigher Truth. The Ignorance has to be extinguished in order that the Truth may
\nmanifest.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I don’t think I have written, but
\nI said once that souls which have passed into Nirvana may (not \u201cmust\u201d) return to
\ncomplete the larger upward curve. I have written somewhere, I think, that for
\nthis yoga (it might also be added, in the natural complete order of the
\nmanifestation) the experience of Nirvana can only be a stage or passage to the
\ncomplete realisation. I have said also that there are many doors by which one
\ncan pass into the realisation of the Absolute (Parabrahman<\/span>),
\nand Nirvana is one of them, but by no means the only one. You may remember
\nRamakrishna’s saying that the Jivakoti<\/span> can ascend the
\nstairs, but not return, while the Ishwarakoti<\/span> can
\nascend and descend at will. If that is so, the Jivakoti<\/span>
\nmight be those who describe only the curve from Matter through Mind into the
\nsilent Brahman and the Ishwarakoti<\/span> those who get to
\nthe integral Reality and can therefore combine the Ascent with the Descent and
\ncontain the \u201ctwo ends\u201d of existence in their single being.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The realisation of this yoga is
\nnot lower but higher than Nirvana or Nirvikalpa<\/span>
\nSamadhi.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If Buddha really combated and denied
\nall Vedantic conceptions of the Self, then it can be no longer true that Buddha
\nrefrained <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 59<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

from all metaphysical
\nspeculations or distinct pronouncements as to the nature of the ultimate
\nReality. The view you take of his conception of Nirvana seems to concur with
\nthe Mahayanist interpretation and its conception of the Permanent, dhruvam<\/i><\/span>, which
\ncould be objected to as a later development like the opposite Nihilistic
\nconception of the Shunyam<\/span>. What Buddha very certainly
\ntaught was that the world is not-Self and that the individual has no true
\nexistence since what does exist in the world is a stream of impermanent
\nconsciousness from moment to moment and the individual person is fictitiously
\nconstituted by a bundle of samskāras<\/i><\/span> and can be dissolved by dissolving the
\nbundle. This is in conformity with the Vedantic Monistic view that there is no
\ntrue separate individual. As to the other Vedantic view of the one Self,
\nimpersonal and universal and transcendent, it does not seem that Buddha made any
\ndistinct and unmistakable pronouncement on abstract and metaphysical questions;
\nbut if the world or all in the world is not-Self, anātman<\/i><\/span>, there can be no
\nmore room for a universal Self, only at most for a transcendent Real Being. His
\nconception of Nirvana was of something transcendent of the universe, but he did
\nnot define what it was because he was not concerned with any abstract
\nmetaphysical speculations about the Reality; he must have thought them
\nunnecessary and irrelevant and any indulgence in them likely to divert from the
\ntrue object. His explanation of things was psychological and not metaphysical
\nand his methods were all psychological, \u2013 the breaking up of the false
\nassociations of consciousness which cause the continuance of desire and
\nsuffering, so getting rid of the stream of birth and death in a purely
\nphenomenal (not unreal) world; the method of life by which this liberation
\ncould be effected was also a psychological method, the eightfold path
\ndeveloping right understanding and right action. His object was pragmatic and
\nseverely practical and so were his methods; metaphysical speculations would
\nonly draw the mind away from the one thing needful. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As to Buddha’s
\nattitude towards life, I do not quite see how \u201cservice to mankind\u201d or any ideal
\nof improvement of the world-existence can have been part of his aim, since to
\npass out of life into a transcendence was his object. His eightfold path was <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 60<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

the means towards that end and
\nnot an aim in itself or indeed in any way an aim. Obviously, if right
\nunderstanding and right action become the common rule of life, there would be a
\ngreat improvement in the world, but for Buddha’s purpose that could be an
\nincidental result and not at all part of his central object. You say, \u201cBuddha
\nhimself urged the necessity to serve mankind; his ideal was to achieve a
\nconsciousness of inner eternity and then be a source of radiant influence and
\naction.\u201d But where and when did Buddha say these things, use these terms or
\nexpress these ideas? \u201cThe service of mankind\u201d sounds like a very modern and
\nEuropean conception; it reminds me of some European interpretations of the Gita
\nas merely teaching the disinterested performance of duty or the pronouncement
\nthat the whole idea of the Gita is service. The exclusive stress or overstress
\non mankind or humanity is also European. Mahayanist Buddhism laid stress on
\ncompassion, fellow-feeling with all, vasudhaiva<\/i><\/span> kutumbakam<\/span><\/i>, just as the Gita speaks of the feeling of
\noneness with all beings and preoccupation with the good of all beings, sarvabhūta<\/i><\/span> hite<\/span> ratāh<\/span><\/i>, but this does not mean humanity only, but
\nall beings and vasudh<\/span>\\=a means all earth-life. Are
\nthere any sayings of Buddha which would justify the statement that the object
\nor one object in attaining to Nirvana was to become a source of radiant
\ninfluence and action? The consciousness of inner eternity may have that result,
\nbut can we really say that that was Buddha’s ideal, the object which he held in
\nview or for which he came?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is no reason why the
\npassage about Buddhism should be omitted. It gives one side of the Buddhistic
\nteaching which is not much known or is usually ignored, for that teaching is by
\nmost rendered as Nirvana (Sunyavada<\/span>) and a spiritual
\nhumanitarianism. The difficulty is that it is these sides that have been
\nstressed especially in the modern interpretations of Buddhism and any
\nstrictures I may have passed were in view of these interpretations and that
\none-sided stress. I am aware of course of opposite tendencies in the Mahayana
\nand the Japanese cult of Amitabha Buddha which is a cult of bhakti. It is now
\nbeing said even of <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 61<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

 Shankara that there was another
\nside of his doctrine \u2013 but his followers have made him stand solely for the
\nGreat Illusion, the inferiority of bhakti, the uselessness of Karma \u2013 jagan<\/i><\/span> mithyā<\/span><\/i>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Buddha, it must be remembered,
\nrefused always to discuss what was beyond the world. But from the little he
\nsaid it would appear that he was aware of a Permanent beyond equivalent to the Vedantic
\nPara-Brahman, but which he was quite unwilling to describe. The denial of
\nanything beyond the world except a negative state of Nirvana was a later
\nteaching, not Buddha’s.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Buddhist Nirvana and the Adwaitin’s<\/span> Moksha are the same thing. It corresponds to a
\nrealisation in which one does not feel oneself any longer as an individual with
\nsuch a name or such a form, but an infinite eternal Self spaceless<\/span>
\n(even when in space), timeless (even when in time). Note that one can perfectly
\nwell do actions in that condition and it is not to be gained only by Samadhi.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It [Nirvana of Buddha] is the
\nsame [as Brahma Nirvana of the Gita]. Only the Gita describes it as Nirvana in
\nthe Brahman while Buddha preferred not to give any name or say anything about
\nthat into which the Nirvana took place. Some later schools of Buddhists
\ndescribed it as Shunya<\/span>, the equivalent of the Chinese
\nTao, described as the Nothing which is everything.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Buddhism is of many kinds and the
\nentirely nihilistic kind is only one variety. Most Buddhism admits a Permanent
\nas beyond the realm of Karma and Sanskaras<\/span>. Even the Shunya<\/span> of the Shunyapanthis<\/span> is
\ndescribed like the Tao of Lao Tse<\/span> as a Nothing which
\nis All. So as a higher `above mental’ state is admitted which one<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 62<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

tries to reach by a strong
\ndiscipline of the consciousness, it may be called spirituality.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

About the One [of the Buddhists]
\nthere are different versions. I just read somewhere that the Buddhist One is a Superbuddha<\/span> from whom all Buddhas<\/span>
\ncome \u2013 but it seemed to me a rehash of Buddhism in Vedantic terms born of a
\nmodern mind. The Permanent of Buddhism has always been supposed to be Supracosmic<\/span> and Ineffable \u2013 that is why Buddha never tried
\nto explain what it was; for, logically, how can one talk about the Ineffable?
\nIt has really nothing to do with the Cosmos which is a thing of Sanskaras<\/span> and Karma.<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The impressions in the approach
\nto Infinity or the entry into it are not always quite the same; much depends on
\nthe way in which the mind approaches it. It is felt first by some as an
\ninfinity above, by others as an infinity around into which the mind disappears
\n(as an energy) by losing its limits. Some feel not the absorption of the
\nmind-energy into the infinite, but a falling entirely inactive; others feel it
\nas a lapse or disappearance of energy into pure Existence. Some first feel the
\ninfinity as a vast existence into which all sinks or disappears, others, as you
\ndescribe it, as an infinite ocean of Light above, others as an infinite ocean
\nof Power above. If certain schools of Buddhists felt it in their experience as
\na limitless Shunya<\/span>, the Vedantists<\/span>,
\non the contrary, see it as a positive Self-Existence featureless and absolute.
\nNo doubt, the various experiences were erected into various philosophies, each
\nputting its conception as definitive; but behind each conception there was such
\nan experience. What you describe as a completely emptied mind-substance devoid
\nof energy or light, completely inert, is the condition of neutral peace and
\nempty stillness which is or can be a stage of the liberation. But it can
\nafterwards feel itself filled with infinite existence, consciousness (carrying
\nenergy in it) and finally Ananda. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 63<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

 The passage1<\/sup> in The Yoga and its Objects <\/i>is written from
\nthe point of view of the spiritualised mind approaching the supreme Truth directly,
\nwithout passing through the supermind or disappearing into it. The mind spiritualises<\/span> itself by shedding all its own activities and
\nformations and reducing everything to a pure Existence, sad-ātman<\/span><\/i>, from which all things and
\nactivities proceed and which supports everything. When it wants to go still
\nbeyond, it negates yet further and arrives at an asat<\/i><\/span>, which is the negation of
\nall this existence and yet something inconceivable to mind, speech or defining
\nexperience. It is the silent Unknowable, the Turiya or featureless and relationless<\/span> Absolute of the monistic Vedantins, the Shunyam<\/span> of the nihilistic Buddhists, the Tao or omnipresent
\nand transcendent Nihil of the Chinese, the indefinable and ineffable Permanent
\nof the Mahayana. Many Christian mystics also speak of the necessity of a
\ncomplete ignorance in order to get the supreme experience and speak too of the
\ndivine Darkness \u2013 they mean the shedding of all mental knowledge, making a
\nblank of the mind and engulfing it in the Unmanifest, the param avyaktam<\/span><\/i>. All this is the mind’s
\nway of approaching the Supreme \u2013 for beyond the avyaktam<\/i><\/span>, tamasah<\/span> parastāt<\/span><\/i>,
\nis the Supreme, the Purushottama of the Gita, the Para Purusha of the
\nUpanishads. It is ādityavarna<\/i><\/span>
\nin contrast to the darkness of the Unmanifest; it is a metaphor, but not a mere
\nmetaphor, for it is a symbol also, a symbol visually seen by the sūksma<\/i><\/span> drsti<\/i>, the subtle vision, and not
\nmerely a symbol, but, as one might say, a fact of spiritual experience. The sun
\nin the yoga is the symbol of the supermind and the supermind is the first power
\nof the Supreme which one meets across the border where the experience of
\nspiritualised mind ceases and the unmodified divine Consciousness begins the
\ndomain of the supreme Nature, parā<\/i><\/span> prakrti<\/span><\/i>. It is that Light of which the Vedic mystics
\ngot a glimpse and it is the opposite of the intervening darkness of the
\nChristian mystics, for the supermind is all light and no darkness. To the mind
\nthe Supreme is avyaktāt<\/i><\/span> param avyaktam<\/span> <\/i>but
\nif we follow the line leading to the supermind, it is an increasing affirmation
\nrather<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 1<\/span><\/sup>\u201cFor behind the sad ātman<\/i><\/span> <\/i>is the silence of the asat<\/i><\/span> <\/i>which the Buddhist Nihilists realised
\nas the śūnyam<\/i><\/span> <\/i>and beyond that silence is the parātpara<\/i><\/span> purusa<\/i> (puruso<\/i><\/span> varenya<\/span> ādityavarnas<\/span>
\ntamasah<\/span> parastāt<\/span><\/i>).
\nSri Aurobindo, The Yoga and its Objects <\/i>(1968
\nEdition), pp. 12-13.<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 64<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

than an increasing negation
\nthrough which we move.
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Light is always
\nseen in yoga with the inner eye, even with the outer eye, but there are many
\nlights; all are not and all do not come from the supreme Light, param jyotih<\/i>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The universe is only a partial
\nmanifestation and Brahman as its foundation is the Sat. But there is also that
\nwhich is not manifested and beyond manifestation and is not contained in the
\nbasis of manifestation. The Buddhists and others got from that the conception
\nof Asat<\/span> as the ultimate thing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Another meaning
\ngiven is \u2013 Sat=the Eternal, Asat<\/span>=the Temporary and
\nUnreal.<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The feeling of the Self as a vast
\npeaceful Void, a liberation from existence as we know it, is one that one can
\nalways have, Buddhist or no Buddhist. It is the negative aspect of Nirvana \u2013 it
\nis quite natural for the mind, if it follows the negative movement of
\nwithdrawal, to get that first, and if you lay hold on that and refuse to go
\nfarther, being satisfied with this liberated Non-Existence, then you will
\nnaturally philosophise<\/span> like the Buddhists that Shunya<\/span> is the eternal truth. Lao Tse<\/span>
\nis more perspicacious when he spoke of it as the Nothing that is All. Many of
\ncourse have the positive experience of the Atman first, not as a void but as
\npure unrelated Existence like the Adwaitins<\/span> (Shankara)
\nor as the one Existent. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They [those who have the
\nexperience of Nirvana] do not feel as if they had any existence at all. In the
\nBuddhistic Nirvana they feel as if there were no such thing at all, only an
\ninfinite zero without form. In the Adwaita Nirvana there is felt only one Vast
\nExistence, no separate being is discernible anywhere. There are forms of course
\nbut they are only forms, not separate beings. Mind is silent, thought has
\nceased, \u2013 desires, passions, vital <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 65<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

movements there are none. There
\nis consciousness but only a formless elemental consciousness without limits.
\nThe body moves and acts, but the sense of the body is not there. Sometimes
\nthere is only the consciousness of pure existence, sometimes only pure
\nconsciousness, sometimes all that exists is only a ceaseless limitless Ananda.
\nWhether all else is really dissolved or only covered up is a debatable point,
\nbut at any rate it is an experience as if of their dissolution.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The ego and its continuity, they
\n[the Buddhists] say, are an illusion, the result of the continuous flowing of
\nenergies and ideas in a determined current. There is no real formation of an
\nego. As to the liberation, it is in order to get free from duhkha<\/i><\/span> <\/i>etc., \u2013 it is a painful flow of energies and to get free from the
\npain they must break up their continuity. That is all right, but how it
\nstarted, why it should end at all and how anybody is benefited by the
\nliberation, since there is nobody there, only a mass of idea and action \u2013 these
\nthings are insoluble mysteries. But is there not the same difficulty with the Mayavadin<\/span> also, since there is no Jiva really, only Brahman
\nand Brahman is by nature free and unbound for ever? So how did the whole absurd
\naffair of Maya come into existence and who is liberated? That is what the old
\nsages said at last, \u201cThere is none bound, none freed, none seeking to be free\u201d.
\nIt was all a mistake (a rather long-standing one though). The Buddhists, I
\nsuppose, could say that also. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

According to both Buddha and
\nShankara liberation means laya<\/i><\/span> <\/i>of the
\nindividual in some transcendent Permanence that is not individualized \u2013 so
\nlogically a belief in the individual soul must prevent liberation while the
\nsense of misery in the world leads to the attempt to escape. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 66<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

The phrase \u201cto pass on\u201d1<\/sup>
\nshows that what is meant by them is an evolution not on earth but somewhere
\nbeyond, God knows where. In that case Nirvana would be a place or world on the
\nway to other worlds and the soul evolves from one world to\u00a0 <\/span>another \u2013 e.g. from earth to Nirvana and from
\nNirvana to some Beyond-Nirvana. This is an entirely European idea and it is
\nmost unlikely that it was held by the Buddhists. The Indian idea was that the
\nevolution is here and even the Gods if they want to go beyond their godhead and
\nget liberation have to come down on earth for the purpose. It is the Western
\nspiritualists and others who think that the birth on earth is a stage of
\nprogress from some place inferior to earth and after once being born on earth
\none does not return but goes to some other world and remains there till one can
\nprogress to some other better world and so on and on…. Again, this \u201cperfected
\nsocial order on earth\u201d is certainly not a Buddhist idea, the Buddhas<\/span> never dreamed of it \u2013 their preoccupation was with
\nhelping men towards Nirvana, not towards a perfected order here. All that is a
\nsheer contradiction of Buddhism.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nirvana cannot be at once the
\nending of the Path with nothing beyond to explore and yet only a rest house or rather
\nthe beginning of the Higher Path with everything still to explore….\u00a0 <\/span>The reconciliation would be that it is the
\nend of the lower Path through the lower Nature and the beginning of the Higher
\nEvolution. In that case it would accord exactly with the teaching of our yoga.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How is this Absolute 2<\/sup>
\ndifferent from the Absolute of the Vedanta? or this emancipation different from
\nthe Vedantic<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1<\/span><\/sup> \u201cThe Great Ones… renounce
\ntheir right to pass on to a still Higher Evolution and remain within the Cosmos
\nfor the good of all sentient beings…. It is these Bodhic<\/span>
\nForces…\u00a0 <\/span>which lead mankind… towards
\na perfected social order on Earth.\u201d Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines by Dr.
\nW.Y. Evans-Wentz.<\/span> <\/p>\n

2<\/span><\/sup> \u201cThus the Doctrine of Shunyata<\/span> underlying the whole of the Prajna-Paramita<\/span>,
\nposits… an Absolute as inherent in phenomena, for the Absolute is the source
\nand support of the phenomena… and in the last analysis of things by the Bodhi<\/span>-illuminated mind, freed of Ignorance, duality vanishes
\nand there remains but the One in All, the All in One.\u201d Ibid<\/i>.<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 67<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

Mukti? If it were so, there would
\nnever have been all this quarrel between Buddhism and the Vedantic schools. It
\nmust be a new-fangled version of Buddhism or else it was a later development in
\nwhich Buddhism reduced itself back to Adwaita. <\/p>\n

But, is this
\nHigher Evolution really a Buddhistic idea or only a European version of what
\nNirvana might be?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is no difference between
\nsuch a description 1<\/sup> and what is meant by soul, except that it is
\ncalled \u201cimpersonal\u201d \u2013 but evidently here impersonal is used as opposed to the
\nthing dependent on name, body and form, what is called personality. Europeans
\nespecially, but also people without philosophic ideas would easily mistake this
\noutward personality for the soul and then they would deny the name of soul to
\nthe unborn and endless entity. Do they then consider it as spirit or self\u00a0 <\/span>\u2013 \u00a0<\/span>ātman<\/i><\/span>? But
\nthe difficulty is that the old Buddhists rejected the conception of ātman<\/i><\/span> <\/i>also. So we are left entirely at sea.
\nThe Nihilistic Buddhistic teaching is plain and comprehensible that there is no
\nsoul, only a bundle of Sanskaras<\/span> continuing or a
\nstream of them renewing themselves without dissolution (Nirvana). But this
\nMahayanist affair seems a sort of loose and curt compromise with Vedanta. <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There are elements in most yogas<\/span> which enter into this one, so it is not surprising if
\nthere is something in Buddhism also. But such notions as a Higher Evolution
\nbeyond Nirvana seem to me not genuinely Buddhistic, unless of course there is
\nsome offshoot of Buddhism which developed something so interpreted by the<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

             
\n1<\/sup> \u201cAn impersonal principle, this microcosmic representation
\nof the macrocosmic persists throughout all existences, or states of conditioned
\nbeing within the Sangsara<\/span>…. But the impersonal
\nconsciousness principle is not to be in any way identified with the personality
\nrepresented by a name, or bodily form or a Sangsaric<\/span> mind…
\nit is itself non-Sangsaric<\/span>, being uncreated, unborn,
\nunshaped, beyond human concept or definition, and therefore transcending time
\nand space… it is beginningless and endless.\u201d Ibid.<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 68<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

author. I never heard of it as
\npart of Buddha’s teachings \u2013 he always spoke of Nirvana as the goal and refused
\nto discuss metaphysically what it might be.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Jain philosophy is concerned
\nwith individual perfection. Our effort is quite different. We want to bring
\ndown the supermind as a new faculty. Just as the mind is now a permanent state
\nof consciousness in humanity, so also we want to create a race in which the
\nsupermind will be a permanent state of consciousness.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIII<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is not a fact that the Gita
\ngives the whole base of Sri Aurobindo’s message; for the Gita seems to admit
\nthe cessation of birth in the world as the ultimate aim or at least the
\nultimate culmination of yoga; it does not bring forward the idea of spiritual
\nevolution or the idea of the higher planes and the supramental
\nTruth-Consciousness and the bringing down of that consciousness as the means of
\nthe complete transformation of earthly life. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The idea of the supermind, the
\nTruth-Consciousness is there in the Rig Veda according to Sri Aurobindo’s
\ninterpretation and in one or two passages of the Upanishads, but in the
\nUpanishads it is there only in seed in the conception of the being of
\nknowledge, vijna\u00f1āmaya<\/i><\/span> purusa<\/i>, exceeding the mental, vital and
\nphysical being; in the Rig Veda the idea is there but in principle only, it is
\nnot developed and even the principle of it has disappeared from the Hindu
\ntradition.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is these
\nthings among others that constitute the novelty of Sri Aurobindo’s message as
\ncompared with the Hindu tradition \u2013 the idea that the world is not either a
\ncreation of Maya or only a play, līlā<\/i><\/span>, of the Divine, or a cycle of births in the
\nignorance from which we have to escape, but a field of manifestation in which
\nthere is a progressive evolution of the soul and the nature <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 69<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

in Matter and from Matter through
\nLife and Mind to what is beyond Mind till it reaches the complete revelation of Sachchidananda in life. It is this that is the basis of the yoga and gives a
\nnew sense to life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is no real contradiction;
\nthe two passages 1 <\/sup>indicate in the Gita’s system two different
\nmovements of its yoga, the complete surrender being the crowning movement. One
\nhas first to conquer the lower nature, deliver the self involved in the lower
\nmovement by means of the higher Self which rises into the divine nature; at the
\nsame time one offers all one’s actions including the inner action of the yoga
\nas a sacrifice to the Purushottama, the transcendent and immanent Divine. When
\none has risen into the higher Self, has the knowledge and is free, one makes the
\ncomplete surrender to the Divine, abandoning all other dharmas<\/span>,
\nliving only by the divine Consciousness, the divine Will and Force, the divine
\nAnanda. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Our yoga is not
\nidentical with the yoga of the Gita although it contains all that is essential in
\nthe Gita’s yoga. In our yoga we begin with the idea, the will, the aspiration
\nof the complete surrender; but at the same time we have to reject the lower
\nnature, deliver our consciousness from it, deliver the self involved in the
\nlower nature by the self rising to freedom in the higher nature. If we do not
\ndo this double movement, we are in danger of making a tamasic and therefore
\nunreal surrender, making no effort, no tapas<\/span> and
\ntherefore no progress; or else we may make a rajasic surrender not to the Divine
\nbut to some self-made false idea or image of the Divine which masks our rajasic
\nego or something still worse. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This world is, as the Gita
\ndescribes it, anityamasukham<\/i><\/span>,
\nso long as we live in the present world-consciousness; it is only by
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 70<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

turning from that to the Divine
\nand entering into the Divine Consciousness that one can possess, through the
\nworld also, the Eternal.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The language of the Gita in many
\nmatters seems sometimes contradictory because it admits two apparently opposite
\ntruths and tries to reconcile them. It admits the ideal of departure from samsāra<\/i><\/span> into
\nthe Brahman as one possibility; also it affirms the possibility of living free
\nin the Divine (in Me, it says) and acting in the world as the Jivanmukta. It is
\nthis latter kind of solution on which it lays the greatest emphasis. So
\nRamakrishna put the \u201cdivine souls\u201d (Ishwarakoti<\/span>) who
\ncan descend the ladder as well as ascend it higher than the Jivas<\/span>
\n(Jivakoti<\/span>) who, once having ascended, have not the
\nstrength to descend again for divine work. The full truth is in the supramental
\nconsciousness and the power to work from there on life and Matter.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Gita cannot be described as
\nexclusively a gospel of love. What it sets forth is a yoga of knowledge,
\ndevotion and works based on a spiritual consciousness and realisation of
\noneness with the Divine and of the oneness of all beings in the Divine. Bhakti,
\ndevotion and love of God carrying with it unity with all beings and love for
\nall beings is given a high place but always in connection with knowledge and
\nworks.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But note that the Gita was not
\nmeant by the writer to be an allegory \u2013 you can say, if you like, that now we
\nshould dismiss the ancient war element by interpreting it as if it were an
\nallegory. The Gita is yoga, spiritual truth applied to the external life and
\naction\u2014but it may be any action and not necessarily an action resembling that
\nof the Gita. The principle of the spiritual consciousness applied to action has
\nto be kept \u2013 the particular
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 71<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

example used by the Gita may be
\ntreated as a thing belonging to a past world.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Gita does not speak expressly
\nof the Divine Mother; it speaks always of surrender to the Purushottama \u2013 it mentions
\nher only as the Para Prakriti who becomes the Jiva, that is, who manifests the
\nDivine in the multiplicity and through whom all these worlds are created by the
\nSupreme and he himself descends as the Avatar. The Gita follows the Vedantic
\ntradition which leans entirely on the Ishwara aspect of the Divine and speaks
\nlittle of the Divine Mother because its object is to draw back from
\nworld-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation beyond it; the Tantric
\ntradition leans on the Shakti or Ishwari aspect and makes all depend on the
\nDivine Mother because its object is to possess and dominate the world-nature
\nand arrive at the supreme realisation through it. This yoga insists on both the
\naspects; the surrender to the Divine Mother is essential, for without it there
\nis no fulfilment of the object of the yoga.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In regard to the
\nPurushottama the Divine Mother is the supreme divine Consciousness and Power
\nabove the worlds, Adya<\/span> Shakti; she carries the
\nSupreme in herself and manifests the Divine in the worlds through the Akshara<\/span> and Kshara<\/span>. In regard to
\nthe Akshara<\/span> she is the same Para Shakti holding the
\nPurusha immobile in herself and also herself immobile in him at the back of all
\ncreation. In regard to the Kshara<\/span> she is the mobile
\ncosmic Energy manifesting all beings and forces. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I do not know that there is
\nanything like a Purushottama consciousness which the human being can attain or
\nrealise for himself<\/i>; for, in the
\nGita, the Purushottama is the Supreme Lord, the Supreme Being who is beyond the
\nImmutable and the Mutable and contains both the One and the Many. Man, says the
\nGita, can attain the Brahmic<\/span> consciousness, realise
\nhimself as an eternal portion of the Purushottama and live in the Purushottama.
\nThe Purushottama consciousness is the consciousness <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 72<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

of the Supreme Being and man by
\nloss of ego and realisation of his true essence can live in<\/i> it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the spiritual thought of India
\nduring the time of the Rishis and even before, the Sankhya and Vedanta elements
\nwere always combined. The Sankhya account of the constitution of the being,
\n(Purusha, Prakriti, the elements, Indriyas<\/span>, Buddhi,
\netc.) was universally accepted and Kapila<\/span> was
\nmentioned with veneration everywhere. In the Gita he is mentioned among the
\ngreat Vibhutis; Krishna says, \u201cI am Kapila<\/span> among the
\nsages.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIV<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Veda and Vedanta are one side of
\nthe One Truth; Tantra with its emphasis on Shakti is another; in this yoga all
\nsides of the Truth are taken up, not in the systematic forms given them
\nformerly but in their essence, and carried to the fullest and highest
\nsignificance. But Vedanta deals more with the principles and essentials of the
\ndivine knowledge and therefore much of its spiritual knowledge and experience
\nhas been taken bodily into the Arya<\/span>. Tantra deals
\nmore with forms and processes and organised powers \u2013 all these could not be
\ntaken as they were, for the integral yoga needs to develop its own forms and
\nprocesses; but the ascent of the consciousness through the centres<\/span>
\nand other Tantric knowledge are there behind the process of transformation to
\nwhich so much importance is given by me \u2013 also the truth that nothing can be
\ndone except through the force of the Mother. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The process of
\nthe Kundalini awakened rising through the centres<\/span> as
\nalso the purification of the centres<\/span> is a Tantric
\nknowledge. In our yoga there is no willed process of the purification and
\nopening of the centres<\/span>, no raising up of the\u00a0 <\/span>Kundalini by a set process either. Another
\nmethod is used, but still there is the ascent of the consciousness from and
\nthrough the different levels to join the higher consciousness above; there is
\nthe opening of
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 73<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

the centres<\/span>
\nand of the planes (mental, vital, physical) which these centres<\/span>
\ncommand; there is also the descent which is the main key of the spiritual
\ntransformation. Therefore, there is, I have said, a Tantric knowledge behind
\nthe process of transformation in this yoga.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In our yoga there is no willed
\nopening of the chakras<\/span>, they open of themselves by
\nthe descent of the Force. In the Tantric discipline they open from down
\nupwards, the Muladhar<\/span> first; in our yoga, they open
\nfrom up downward. But the ascent of the force from the Muladhar<\/span>
\ndoes take place. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the Tantra the centres<\/span> are opened and Kundalini is awakened by a special
\nprocess, its action of ascent is felt through the spine. Here it is a pressure
\nof the Force from above that awakens it and opens the centres<\/span>.
\nThere is an ascension of the consciousness going up till it joins the higher
\nconsciousness above. This repeats itself (sometimes a descent also is felt)
\nuntil all the centres<\/span> are open and the consciousness
\nrises above the body. At a later stage it remains above and widens out into the
\ncosmic consciousness and the universal self. This is a usual course, but
\nsometimes the process is more rapid and there is a sudden and definite opening
\nabove.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The ascension and descent of the
\nForce in this yoga accomplishes itself in its own way without any necessary
\nreproduction of the details laid down in the Tantric books. Many become
\nconscious of the centres<\/span>, but others simply feel the
\nascent or descent in a general way or from level to level rather than from
\ncentre to centre, that is, they feel the Force descending first to the head, then
\nto the heart, then to the navel and still below. It is not at all necessary to
\nbecome aware of the deities in the centres<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 74<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

according to the Tantric
\ndescription, but some feel the Mother in the different centres<\/span>.
\nIn these things our sadhana does not cleave to the knowledge given in the
\nbooks, but only keeps to the central truth behind and realises it independently
\nwithout any subjection to the old forms and symbols. The centres<\/span>
\nthemselves have a different interpretation here from that given in the books of
\nthe Tantriks<\/span>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yes, the object of our yoga is to
\nestablish direct contact with the Divine above and bring down the divine
\nConsciousness from above into all the centres<\/span>. Occult
\npowers belonging to the mental, vital and subtle physical planes are not our
\nobject. One can have contact with various Divine Forces and Personalities on
\nthe way, but there is no need to establish them in the centres<\/span>,
\nthough sometimes that happens automatically (as with the four Personalities of
\nthe Mother) for a time in the course of the sadhana. But it is not a rule to do
\nso. Our yoga is meant to be plastic and to allow all necessary workings of the
\nDivine Power according to the nature, but these in their details may vary with
\neach individual.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Occultism is the knowledge and
\nright use of the hidden forces of Nature.
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Occult forces
\nare the forces that can only be known by going behind the veil of apparent
\nphenomena \u2013 especially the forces of the subtle physical and supraphysical<\/span> planes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ordinarily, all the more inward
\nand all the abnormal psychological experiences are called psychic. I use the
\nword psychic for the soul as distinguished from the mind and vital. All
\nmovements and experiences of the soul would in that sense be called psychic,
\nthose which rise from or directly touch the psychic being; where mind and vital
\npredominate, the experience would be called psychological (surface or occult).
\n\u201cSpiritual\u201d has not a <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 75<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

necessary connection with the
\nAbsolute. Of course the experience of the Absolute is spiritual. All contacts
\nwith self, the higher consciousness, the Divine above are spiritual. There are
\nothers that could not be so sharply classified or one set off against another. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The spiritual
\nrealisation is of primary importance and indispensable. I would consider it
\nbest to have the spiritual and psychic development first and have it with the
\nsame fullness before entering the occult regions. Those who enter the latter
\nfirst may find their spiritual realisation much delayed \u2013 others fall into the
\nmazy traps of the occult and do not come out in this life. Some no doubt can
\ncarry on both together, the occult and the spiritual, and make them help each
\nother; but the process I suggest is the safer. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The governing
\nfactors for us must be the spirit and the psychic being united with the Divine
\n\u2013 the occult laws and phenomena have to be known but only as an
\ninstrumentation, not as the governing principles. The occult is a vast field
\nand complicated and not without its dangers. It need not be abandoned but it
\nshould not be given the first place. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

An activity of the astral plane
\nin contact with the astral forces attended by a leaving of the body is not a
\nspiritual aim but belongs to the province of occultism. It is not a part of the
\naim of yoga. Also fasting is not permissible in the Ashram, as its practice is
\nmore often harmful than helpful to the spiritual endeavour. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This aim
\nsuggested to you seems to be part of a seeking for occult powers; such a
\nseeking is looked on with disfavour<\/span> for the most part
\nby spiritual teachers in India, because it belongs to the inferior planes and
\nusually pushes the seeker on a path which may lead him very far from the
\nDivine. Especially, a contact with the forces and beings of the astral (or, as
\nwe term it, the vital) plane is attended with great dangers. The beings of this
\nplane are often hostile to the true aim of spiritual life and establish contact
\nwith the seeker and offer him powers and occult <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 76<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

experiences only in order that
\nthey may lead him away from the spiritual path or else that they may establish
\ntheir own control over him or take possession of him for their own purpose.
\nOften representing themselves as divine powers, they mislead, give erring
\nsuggestions and impulsions and pervert the inner life. Many are those who,
\nattracted by these powers and beings of the vital plane, have ended in a
\ndefinitive spiritual fall or in mental and physical perversion and disorder.
\nOne comes inevitably into contact with the vital plane and enters into it in
\nthe expansion of consciousness which results from an inner opening, but one
\nought never to put oneself into the hands of these beings and forces or allow
\noneself to be led by their suggestions and impulsions. This is one of the chief
\ndangers of the spiritual life and to be on one’s guard against it is a
\nnecessity for the seeker if he wishes to arrive at his goal. It is true that
\nmany supraphysical<\/span> or supernormal powers come with
\nthe expansion of the consciousness in yoga; to rise out of the body consciousness,
\nto act by subtle means on the supraphysical<\/span> planes,
\netc. are natural activities for the yogi. But these powers are not sought
\nafter, they come naturally, and they have not the astral character. Also, they
\nhave to be used on purely spiritual lines, that is by the Divine Will and the
\nDivine Force, as an instrument, but never as an instrumentation of the forces
\nand beings of the vital plane. To seek their aid for such powers is a great
\nerror. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Prolonged fasting
\nmay lead to an excitation of the nervous being which often brings vivid
\nimaginations and hallucinations that are taken for true experiences; such
\nfasting is frequently suggested by the vital Entities, because it puts the
\nconsciousness into an unbalanced state which favours<\/span>
\ntheir designs. It is therefore discouraged here. The rule to be followed is
\nthat laid down by the Gita which says that \u201cYoga is not for one who eats too
\nmuch or who does not eat\u201d \u2013 a moderate use of food sufficient for the maintenance
\nof health and strength of the body. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is no
\nbrotherhood of the kind you describe in India. There are yogis who seek to
\nacquire and practise occult powers but it is as individuals learning from an
\nindividual Master. Occult associations, lodges, brotherhoods for such a purpose
\nas described by European occultists are not known in Asia. <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 77<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

As regards secrecy, a certain
\ndiscretion or silence about the instructions of the Guru and one’s own
\nexperiences is always advisable, but an absolute secrecy or making a mystery of
\nthese things is not. Once a Guru is chosen, nothing must be concealed from him.
\nThe suggestion of absolute secrecy is often a trick of the astral powers to
\nprevent the seeking for enlightenment and succour.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All these \u201cexperiments\u201d of yours
\nare founded upon the vital nature and the mind in connection with it; working
\non this foundation, there is no security against falsehood and fundamental
\nerror. No amount of powers (small or great) developing can be a surety against
\nwandering from the Truth; and, if you allow pride and arrogance and ostentation
\nof power to creep in and hold you, you will surely fall into error and into the
\npower of rajasic Maya and Avidya<\/span>. Our object is not
\nto get powers, but to ascend towards the divine Truth-Consciousness and bring
\nits Truth down into the lower members. With the Truth all the necessary powers
\nwill come, not as one’s own, but as the Divine’s. The contact with the Truth
\ncannot grow through rajasic mental and vital self-assertion, but only through
\npsychic purity and surrender. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The astasiddhis<\/i><\/span> <\/i>as obtained in the ordinary yoga are vital powers or, as in the
\nRajayoga, mental siddhis. Usually they are uncertain in their application and
\nprecarious depending on the maintenance of the process by which they were
\nattained. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The physical Nature does not mean
\nthe body alone but the phrase includes the transformation of the whole physical
\nmind, vital, material nature \u2013 not by imposing siddhis on them, but by creating
\na new physical nature which is to be the habitation of the supramental being in
\na new evolution. I am not aware that this has been done by any Hathayogic or
\nother process. Mental <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 78<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

or vital occult power can only
\nbring siddhis of the higher plane into the individual life \u2013 like the Sannyasi<\/span> who could take any poison without harm, but he
\ndied of a poison after all when he forgot to observe the conditions of the
\nsiddhi. The working of the supramental power envisaged is not an influence on
\nthe physical giving it abnormal faculties but an entrance and permeation
\nchanging it wholly into a supramentalised physical. I did not learn the idea
\nfrom Veda or Upanishad, and I do not know if there is anything of the kind
\nthere. What I received about the supermind was a direct, not a derived
\nknowledge given to me; it was only afterwards that I found certain confirmatory
\nrevelations in the Upanishad and Veda.<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There are many yogins<\/span> of the Vedantic school who follow both siddhis and
\nthe final emancipation \u2013 they would say, I suppose, that they take the siddhis
\non the way to Nirvana. The harmonisation<\/span> is in the
\nsupermind \u2013 the Divine Truth at once static and dynamic, a withdrawal and
\nextinction of the Ignorance, a recreation in the Divine Knowledge.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have not myself read the Yoga-Vāśsttha<\/span><\/i>,
\nbut from what I have read about it, it must be a book written by somebody with
\na remarkable occult knowledge.<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 79<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

V<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

              <\/b> It seems to me that these
\ndifferences of valuation come from the mind laying stress on one side or
\nanother of the approach to the Divine or exalting one aspect of realisation
\nover another. When there is the approach through the heart, through Love and Bhakti, the highest culmination is in a transcendent Ananda, an unspeakable
\nBliss or Beatitude of union with the Divine through Love. The school of Chaitanya<\/span> laid especial <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 79<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

and indeed sole emphasis on this
\nway and made this the whole reality of Krishna consciousness. But the
\ntranscendent Ananda is there at the origin and end of all existence and this is
\nnot and cannot be the sole way to it. One can arrive at it through the Vasudeva<\/span> consciousness, which is a wider, more mentalised<\/span> approach \u2013 as in the method of the Gita where
\nknowledge, works, bhakti are all centred in Krishna, the One, the Supreme, the
\nAll, and arrive through the cosmic consciousness to the luminous transcendence.
\nThere is the way too described in the Taittiriya<\/span>
\nUpanishad, the Vedanta’s Gospel of Bliss. These are certainly wider methods,
\nfor they take up the whole existence through all its parts and ways of being to
\nthe Divine. If less intense at their starting-point, a vaster and slower
\nmovement, there is no reason to suppose that they are less intense on their
\nsummits of arrival. It is the same transcendence to which all arrive, either with
\na large movement gathering up everything spiritual in us to take it there in a
\nvast sublimation, or in a single intense uplifting from one part, a single
\nexaltation leaving all the rest aside. But who shall say which is profounder of
\nthe two? Concentrated love has a profundity of its own which cannot be
\nmeasured; concentrated wisdom has a wider profundity, but one cannot say that
\nit is deeper. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Cosmic values
\nare only reflections of the truth of the Transcendence in a lesser truth of
\ntime experience which is separative and sees diversely a thousand aspects of
\nthe One. As one rises through the mind or any part of the manifested being, any
\none or more of these aspects can become more and more sublimated and tend
\ntowards its supreme transcendental intensity, and whatever aspect is so
\nexperienced is declared by the spiritualised mental consciousness to be the
\nsupreme thing. But when one goes beyond mind, all tends not only to sublimate
\nbut to fuse together until the separated aspects recover their original unity,
\nindivisible in the absoluteness of all made one. Mind can conceive and have
\nexperience of existence without consciousness or Ananda and this receives its
\nutmost expression in the inconscience attributed to Matter. So also it can
\nconceive of Ananda or Love as a separate principle; it even feels consciousness
\nand existence losing themselves in a trance or <\/p>\n

\nPage 80<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

swoon of Love or Ananda. So, too,
\nthe limited personal loses itself in the illimitable Person, the lover in the
\nsupreme Beloved, or else the personal in the Impersonal \u2013 the lover feels
\nhimself immersed, losing himself in the transcendental reality of Love and
\nAnanda. The personal and the impersonal are themselves posited and experienced
\nby mind as separate realities and one or other is declared and seen as supreme,
\nso that the personal can have laya<\/span> in the Impersonal
\nor, on the contrary, the impersonal disappears into the absolute reality of the
\nsupreme and divine Person \u2013 the impersonal in that view is only an attribute or
\npower of the personal Divine. But at the summit of spiritual experience passing
\nbeyond mind one begins to feel the fusion of all these things into one.
\nConsciousness, Existence, Ananda return to their indivisible unity,
\nSachchidananda. The personal and the impersonal become irrevocably one, so that
\nto posit one as against the other appears as an act of ignorance. This tendency
\nof unification is the basis of the supramental consciousness and experience;
\nfor cosmic or creative purposes the supermind can put forward one aspect
\nprominently where that is needed but it is aware of all the rest behind it or
\ncontained in it and does not admit into its view any separation or opposition
\nanywhere. For that reason a supramental creation would be a manifold harmony,
\nnot a separative process fragmenting or analysing<\/span> the
\nOne into parts and setting these parts over against each other or else putting
\nthem contradictorily against each other and having afterwards to synthetise<\/span> and piece them together in order to arrive at
\nharmony or else to exclude one or all of the parts in order to realise the
\nindivisible One. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You speak of the
\nVaishnava<\/span> school emphasising<\/span>
\nthe personal felicities, as in the classification of the Bhavas<\/span>,
\nand you say that these are short and quick feelings and lack in vastness or
\namplitude. No doubt, when they are first felt and as they are felt by the
\nlimited consciousness in its ordinary functioning and movement; but that is
\nonly because the emotional in man with this imperfect bodily instrument acts
\nlargely by spasms of intensity when it wants to sublimate and cannot maintain
\neither the continuity or the extension or the sublimated paroxysm of these <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 81<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

things. But as the individual
\nbecomes cosmic (the universalising of the individual without his losing his higher
\nindividuality as a divine centre is one of the processes which leads towards
\nthe supramental Truth), this disability begins to disappear. The truth behind
\nthe dāsya<\/i><\/span> <\/i>or madhura<\/i><\/span> <\/i>or any other Bhava or fusion of Bhavas<\/span>
\nbecomes a vast and ample continuous state, \u2013 if, by chance, they lose something
\nof their briefer intensities by this extension of themselves, they recover them
\na thousandfold<\/span> in the movement of the universalised<\/span> individual towards the Transcendence. There
\nis an ever-enlarging experience which takes up the elements of spiritual
\nrealisation, and in this uplifting and transforming process they become other
\nand greater things than they were and more and more they take their place by
\nsublimation, first in the spiritual cosmic, then in the all-embracing
\ntranscendent whole. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The difference
\nof view between Shankara and Ramanuja<\/span> and on the
\nother side Chaitanya<\/span> about Krishna arises from the
\nturn of their experience. Krishna was only an aspect of Vishnu to the others
\nbecause that ecstatic form of love and bhakti which had become associated with
\nKrishna was not for them the whole. The Gita, like Chaitanya<\/span>,
\nbut from a different viewpoint, regarded Krishna as the Divine himself. To Chaitanya<\/span> he was Love and Ananda, and Love and Ananda being
\nfor him the highest transcendental experience, so Krishna too must be the
\nSupreme. For the writer of the Gita, Krishna was the source of Knowledge and
\nPower as well as Love, the Destroyer, Preserver, Creator in one, so necessarily
\nVishnu was only an aspect of this universal Divine. In the Mahabharata indeed
\nKrishna comes as an incarnation of Vishnu, but that can be turned by taking it
\nthat it was through the Vishnu aspect as his frontal appearance that he
\nmanifested; for that the greater Godhead can manifest later than others is
\nlogical if we consider the manifestation as progressive, \u2013 just as Vishnu is in
\nthe Veda a younger Indra, Upendra<\/span>, but gains upon his
\nelder and subsequently takes place above him in the Trimurti<\/span>. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I cannot say
\nmuch about the Vaishnava<\/span> idea of the form of Krishna.
\nForm is the basic means of manifestation and without it it<\/span>
\nmay be said that the manifestation of anything is
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 82<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

not complete. Even if the
\nFormless logically precedes Form, yet it is not illogical to assume that in the
\nFormless, Form is inherent and already existent in a mystic latency, otherwise
\nhow could it be manifested? For, any other process would be the creation of the
\nnon-existent, not manifestation. If so, it would be equally logical to assume
\nthat there is an eternal form of Krishna, a spirit body. As for the highest
\nReality it is no doubt Absolute Existence, but is it only that? Absolute
\nExistence as an abstraction may exclude everything else from itself and amount
\nto a sort of very positive zero; but Absolute Existence as a reality who shall
\ndefine and say what is or is not in its inconceivable depths, its illimitable
\nMystery? Mind can ordinarily conceive of the Absolute Existence only as a
\nnegation of its own concepts spatial, temporal or other. But it cannot tell
\nwhat is at the basis of manifestation or what manifestation is or why there is
\nany manifestation at all out of its positive zero \u2013 and the Vaishnavas, we must
\nremember, do not admit this conception as the absolute and original truth of
\nthe Divine. It is therefore not rigidly impossible that what we conceive and
\nperceive as spatial form may correspond to some power of the spaceless<\/span> Absolute. I do not say all that as a definite
\nstatement of Truth, I am only pointing out that the Vaishnava<\/span>
\nposition on its own ground is far from being logically or metaphysically
\nuntenable.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Vaishnavites<\/span>
\naccept the world as a Lila, but the true Lila is elsewhere in the eternal Brindavan<\/span>. All the religions which believe in the personal
\nGodhead accept the universe as a reality, a Lila or a creation made by the Will
\nof God, but temporal and not eternal. The aim is the eternal status above. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The idea of a temporary kingdom
\nof heaven on earth is contained in the Puranas<\/span> and
\nconceived by some Vaishnava<\/span> saints or poets; but it is
\na devotional idea, no philosophical base is given for the expectation. I think
\nthe Tantric overcoming of <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 83<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

imperfections is an individual
\nachievement, not collective.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You describe the rich human egoistic
\nlife you might have lived and you say \u201cnot altogether a wretched life, you will
\nadmit.\u201d On paper it sounds even very glowing and satisfactory, as you describe
\nit. But there is no real or final satisfaction in it, except for those who are
\ntoo common or trivial to seek anything else, and even they are not really
\nsatisfied or happy, \u2013 and in the end, it tires and palls. Sorrow and illness,
\nclash and strife, disappointment, disillusionment and all kinds of human
\nsuffering come and beat its glow to pieces \u2013 and then decay and death. That is
\nthe vital egoistic life as man has found it throughout the ages, and yet it is
\nthat which this part of your vital regrets. How do you fail to see, when you
\nlay so much stress on the desirability of a merely human consciousness, that
\nsuffering is its badge? When the vital resists the change from the human into
\nthe divine consciousness, what it is defending is its right to sorrow and
\nsuffering and all the rest of it, varied and relieved no doubt by some vital or
\nmental pleasures and satisfactions, but very partially relieved by them and
\nonly for a time. In your own case, it was already beginning to pall on you and
\nthat was why you turned from it. No doubt, there were the joys of the intellect
\nand of artistic creation, but a man cannot be an artist alone; there is the
\nouter, quite human, lower vital part and, in all but a few, it is the most
\nclamorous and insistent part. But what was dissatisfied in you? It was the soul
\nwithin, first of all, and through it the higher mind and the higher vital. Why
\nthen find fault with the Divine for misleading you when it turned to the yoga
\nor brought you here? It was simply answering to the demand of your own inner
\nbeing and the higher parts of your nature. If you have so much difficulty and become
\nrestless, it is because you are still divided and something in your lower vital
\nstill regrets what it has lost or, as a price for its adhesion or a
\ncompensation \u2013 a price to be immediately paid down to it \u2013 asks for something
\nsimilar and equivalent in the spiritual life. It refuses to believe that there
\nis a greater compensation,
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 84<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

a larger vital life waiting for
\nit, something positive in which there shall not be the old inadequacy and
\nunrest and final dissatisfaction. The foolishness is not in the divine
\nguidance, but in the irrational and obstinate resistance of this confused and
\nobscure part of you to the demand, made not only by this yoga, but by all yoga
\n\u2013 to the necessary conditions for the satisfaction of the aspiration of your
\nown soul and higher nature.
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The \u201chuman\u201d
\nvital consciousness has moved always between these two poles, the ordinary
\nvital life which cannot satisfy and the recoil from it to the ascetic solution.
\nIndia has gone fully through that seesaw, Europe is beginning once more after a
\nfull trial to feel the failure of the mere vital egoistic life. The traditional
\nyogas<\/span> \u2013 to which you appeal \u2013 are founded upon the
\nmovement between these two poles. On one side are Shankara and Buddha and most
\ngo, if not by the same road, yet in that direction; on the other are Vaishnava<\/span> or Tantric lines which try to combine asceticism
\nwith some sublimation of the vital impulse. And where did these lines end? They
\nfell back to the other pole, to a vital invasion, even corruption and a loss of
\ntheir spirit. At the present day the general movement is towards an attempt at
\nreconciliation, and you have alluded sometimes to some of the protagonists of
\nthis attempt and asked me my opinion about them, yours being unfavourable<\/span>. But these men are not mere charlatans, and if
\nthere is anything wrong with them (on which I do not pronounce), it can only be
\nbecause they are unable to resist the magnetic pull of this lower pole of the
\negoistic vital desire-nature. And if they are unable to resist, it is because
\nthey have not found the true force which will not only neutralise<\/span>
\nthat pull and prevent deterioration and downward lapse, but transform and
\nutilise and satisfy in their own deeper truth, instead of destroying or
\nthrowing away, the life-force and the embodiment in Matter; for, that can only
\nbe done by the supermind power and by no other. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You appeal to
\nthe Vaishnava<\/span>-Tantric traditions; to Chaitanya<\/span>, Ramprasad<\/span>,
\nRamakrishna. I know something about them and, if I did not try to repeat them,
\nit is because I do not find in them the solution, the reconciliation I am
\nseeking. Your
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 85<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

quotation from Ramprasad<\/span> does not assist me in the least \u2013 and it does not
\nsupport your thesis either. Ramprasad<\/span> is not speaking
\nof an embodied, but of a bodiless and invisible Divine \u2013 or visible only in a
\nsubtle form to the inner experience. When he speaks of maintaining his claim or
\ncase against the Mother until she lifts him into her lap, he is not speaking of
\nany outer vital or physical contact, but of an inner psychic experience; precisely,
\nhe is protesting against her keeping him in the external vital and physical
\nnature and insists on her taking him on the psycho-spiritual plane into
\nspiritual union with her.
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All that is very
\ngood and very beautiful, but it is not enough: the union has indeed to be
\nrealised in the inner psycho-spiritual experience first, because without that
\nnothing sound or lasting can be done; but also there must be a realisation of
\nthe Divine in the outer consciousness and life, in the vital and physical planes
\non their own essential lines. It is that which, without your mind understanding
\nit or how it is to be done, you are asking for, and I too; only I see the
\nnecessity of a vital transformation, while you seem to think and to demand that
\nit should be done without any radical transformation, leaving the vital as it
\nis. In the beginning, before I discovered the secret of the supermind, I myself
\ntried to seek the reconciliation through an association of the spiritual
\nconsciousness with the vital, but my experience and all experience show that
\nthis leads to nothing definite and final, \u2013 it ends where it began, midway
\nbetween the two poles of human nature. An association is not enough, a
\ntransformation is indispensable. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The tradition of
\nlater Vaishnava<\/span> Bhakti is an attempt to sublimate the
\nvital impulses through love by turning human love towards the Divine. It made a
\nstrong and intense effort and had many rich and beautiful experiences; but its
\nweakness was just there, that it remained valid only as an inner experience
\nturned towards the inner Divine, but it stopped at that point. Chaitanya’s<\/span> prema<\/span> was nothing but
\na psychic divine love with a strong sublimated vital manifestation. But the
\nmoment Vaishnavism<\/span> before or after him made an
\nattempt at greater externalisation<\/span>, we know what
\nhappened \u2013 a vitalistic<\/span> deterioration, much
\ncorruption and decline. You cannot appeal to <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 86<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

Chaitanya’s<\/span>
\nexample as against psychic or divine love; his was not something merely
\nvital-human; in its essence, though not in its form, it was very much the first
\nstep in the transformation, which we ask of the sadhaks, to make their love
\npsychic and use the vital not for its own sake, but as an expression of the
\nsoul’s realisation. It is the first step and perhaps for some it may be sufficient,
\nfor we are not asking everybody to become supramental; but for any full
\nmanifestation on the physical plane the supramental is indispensable. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the later Vaishnava<\/span> tradition the sadhana takes the form of an
\napplication of human vital love in all its principal turns to the Divine; viraha<\/span>, abhimāna<\/i><\/span>, even complete separation (like the departure
\nof Krishna to Mathura<\/span>) are made prominent elements of
\nthis yoga. But all that was only meant \u2013 in the sadhana itself, not in the Vaishnava<\/span> poems \u2013 as a passage of which the end is milana<\/span> or complete union; but the stress laid on the
\nuntoward elements by some would almost seem to make strife, separation, abhimāna<\/i><\/span>,
\nthe whole means, if not the very object of this kind of prema<\/i><\/span>-yoga<\/i>. Again, this method was only applied to the inner, not to a
\nphysically embodied Divine and had a reference to certain states and reactions
\nof the inner consciousness in its seeking after the Divine. In the relations
\nwith the embodied Divine Manifestation, or, I may add, of the disciple with the
\nGuru, such things might rise as a result of human imperfection, but they were
\nnot made part of the theory of the relations. I do not think they formed a
\nregular and authorised<\/span> part of the relations of the bhaktas<\/span> to the Guru. On the contrary, the relation of the
\ndisciple to the Guru in the Guruvada<\/span> is supposed
\nalways to be that of worship, respect, a complete happy confidence, an
\nunquestioning acceptance of the guidance. The application of the unchanged
\nvital relations to the embodied Divine may lead and has led to movements which
\nare not conducive to the progress of the yoga. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ramakrishna’s
\nyoga was also turned only to an inner realisation of the inner Divine, \u2013 nothing
\nless, but also nothing more. I believe Ramakrishna’s sentence about the claim of
\nthe sadhak on the Divine for whom he has sacrificed everything was the
\nassertion of an inner and not an outer claim, on the inner
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 87<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

rather than on any physically
\nembodied Divine: it was a claim for the full spiritual union, the God-lover seeking
\nthe Divine, but the Divine also giving himself and meeting the God-lover. There
\ncan be no objection to that; such a claim all seekers of the Divine have; but
\nas to the modalities of this divine meeting, it does not carry us much farther.
\nIn any case, my object is a realisation on the physical plane and I cannot
\nconsent merely to repeat Ramakrishna. I seem to remember too that for a long
\ntime he was withdrawn into himself, all his life was not spent with his
\ndisciples. He got his siddhi first in retirement and when he came out and
\nreceived everyone, well, a few years of it wore out his body. To that, I
\nsuppose, he had no objection; for he even pronounced a theory, when Keshav<\/span> Chandra was dying, that spiritual experience ought
\nto wear out the body. But at the same time, when asked why he got illness in
\nthe throat, he answered that it was the sins of his disciples which they threw
\nupon him and he had to swallow. Not being satisfied, as he was, with an inner
\nliberation alone, I cannot accept these ideas or these results, for that does
\nnot sound to me like a successful meeting of the Divine and the sadhak on the
\nphysical plane, however successful it might have been for the inner life. Krishna
\ndid great things and was very clearly a manifestation of the Divine. But I
\nremember a passage of the Mahabharata in which he complains of the unquiet life
\nhis followers and adorers gave him, their constant demands, reproaches, their
\nthrowing of their unregenerate vital nature upon him. And in the Gita he speaks
\nof this human world as a transient and sorrowful affair and, in spite of his
\ngospel of divine action, seems almost to admit that to leave it is after all
\nthe best solution. The traditions of the past are very great in their own
\nplace, in the past, but I do not see why we should merely repeat them and not
\ngo farther. In the spiritual development of the consciousness upon earth the
\ngreat past ought to be followed by a greater future. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is the
\nrule that you seem all to ignore entirely \u2013 the difficulties of the physical
\nembodiment and the divine realisation on the physical plane. For most it seems
\nto be a simple alternative, either the Divine comes down in full power and the
\nthing is done, no difficulty, no necessary condition, no law or process, <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 88<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

only miracle and magic, or else,
\nwell, this cannot be the Divine. Again you all (or almost all) insist on the
\nDivine becoming human, remaining in the human consciousness and you protest
\nagainst any attempt to make the human Divine. On the other hand, there is an outcry
\nof disappointment, bewilderment, distrust, perhaps indignation if there are
\nhuman difficulties, if there is strain in the body, a swaying struggle with
\nadverse forces, obstacles, checks, illness and some begin to say, \u201cOh, there is
\nnothing Divine here!\u201d \u2013 as if one could remain vitally and physically in the
\nuntransformed individual human consciousness, in unchanged contact with it,
\nsatisfy its demands, and yet be immune under all circumstances and in all
\nconditions against strain and struggle and illness. If I want to divinise<\/span> the human consciousness, to bring down the
\nsupramental, the Truth-Consciousness, the Light, the Force into the physical to
\ntransform it, to create there a great fullness of Truth and Light and Power and
\nBliss and Love, the response is repulsion or fear or unwillingness \u2013 or a doubt
\nwhether it is possible. On one side there is the claim that illness and the
\nrest should be impossible, on the other a violent rejection of the only
\ncondition under which these things can become impossible. I know that this is
\nthe natural inconsistency of the human vital mind wanting two inconsistent and
\nincompatible things together; but that is one reason why it is necessary to
\ntransform the human and put something a little more luminous in its place. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But is the
\nDivine then something so terrible, horrible or repellent that the idea of its
\nentry into the physical, its divinising of the human should create this
\nshrinking, refusal, revolt or fear? I can understand that the unregenerate
\nvital attached to its own petty sufferings and pleasures, to the brief ignorant
\ndrama of life, should shrink from what will change it. But why should a
\nGod-lover, a God-seeker, a sadhak fear the divinisation<\/span>
\nof the consciousness? Why should he object to become one in nature with what he
\nseeks, why should he recoil from sādrśya<\/i><\/span>-mukti<\/i>?
\nBehind this fear there are usually two causes: first, there is the feeling of
\nthe vital that it will have to cease to be obscure, crude, muddy, egoistic,
\nunrefined (spiritually), full of stimulating desires and small pleasures and
\ninteresting sufferings (for it<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 89<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

shrinks even from the Ananda
\nwhich will replace this); next there is some vague ignorant idea of the mind,
\ndue, I suppose, to the ascetic tradition, that the divine nature is something
\ncold, bare, empty, austere, aloof, without the glorious riches of the egoistic
\nhuman vital life. As if there were not a divine vital and as if that divine
\nvital is not itself and, when it gets the means to manifest, will not make the
\nlife on earth also infinitely more full of beauty, love, radiance, warmth,
\nfire, intensity and divine passion and capacity for bliss than the present
\nimpotent, suffering, pettily and transiently excited and soon tired vitality of
\nthe still so imperfect human creation. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But you will say
\nthat it is not the Divine from which you recoil, rather you accept and ask for
\nit (provided that it is not too divine), but what you object to is the
\nsupramental \u2013 grand, aloof, incomprehensible, unapproachable, a sort of austere
\nNirakar<\/span> Brahman. The supramental so described is a
\nbogey created by this part of your vital mind in order to frighten itself and
\njustify its attitude. Behind this strange description there seems to be an idea
\nthat the supramental is a new version of the Vedantic featureless and
\nincommunicable Parabrahman<\/span>, vast, grand, cold, empty,
\nremote, devastating, overwhelming; it is not quite that, of course, since it
\ncan come down, but for all practical purposes it is just as bad! It is curious
\nthat you admit your ignorance of what the supramental can be, and yet you in
\nthese moods not only pronounce categorically what it is like, but reject
\nemphatically my experience about it as of no practical validity or not valid
\nfor anybody but myself! I have not insisted, I have answered only casually
\nbecause I am not asking you now to be non-human and divine, much less to be
\nsupramental; but as you are always returning to this point when you have these attacks
\nand making it the pivot \u2013 or at least a main support \u2013 of your depression, I am
\nobliged to answer. The supramental is not grand, aloof, cold and austere; it is
\nnot something opposed to or inconsistent with a full vital and physical
\nmanifestation; on the contrary, it carries in it the only possibility of the
\nfull fullness of the vital force and the physical life on earth. It is because
\nit is so, because it was so revealed to me and for no other reason that I have
\nfollowed after it and persevered till I came <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 90<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

into contact with it and was able
\nto draw down some power of it and its influence. I am concerned with the earth,
\nnot with worlds beyond for their own sake; it is a terrestrial realisation that
\nI seek and not a flight to distant summits. All other yogas<\/span>
\nregard this life as an illusion or a passing phase; the supramental yoga alone
\nregards it as a thing created by the Divine for a progressive manifestation and
\ntakes the fulfilment of the life and the body for its object. The supramental
\nis simply the Truth-Consciousness and what it brings in its descent is the full
\ntruth of life, the full truth of consciousness in Matter. One has indeed to
\nrise to high summits to reach it, but the more one rises, the more one can
\nbring down below. No doubt, life and body have not to remain the ignorant,
\nimperfect, impotent things they are now; but why should a change to fuller
\nlife-power, fuller body-power be considered something aloof, cold and
\nundesirable? The utmost Ananda the body and life are now capable of is a brief
\nexcitement of the vital mind or the nerves or the cells which is limited, imperfect
\nand soon passes: with the supramental change all the cells, nerves, vital
\nforces, embodied mental forces can become filled with a thousandfold<\/span>
\nAnanda, capable of an intensity of bliss which passes description and which
\nneed not fade away. How aloof, repellent and undesirable! The supramental love
\nmeans an intense unity of soul with soul, mind with mind, life with life, and
\nan entire flooding of the body consciousness with the physical experience of
\noneness, the presence of the Beloved in every part, in every cell of the body.
\nIs that too something aloof and grand but undesirable? With the supramental
\nchange, the very thing on which you insist, the possibility of the free
\nphysical meeting of the embodied Divine with the sadhak without conflict of
\nforces and without undesirable reactions becomes possible, assured and free.
\nThat too is, I suppose, something aloof and undesirable? I could go on \u2013 for
\npages, but this is enough for the moment.<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The supramental is something in which
\nthe basis is absolute calm and however intense a Divine Love there is in it, it
\ndoes not disturb the calm but increases its depth. Chaitanya’s<\/span>
\nexperience<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 91<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

was not that of supermind, but of Love and Ananda brought from above into the
\nvital \u2013 the response of the vital is an extreme passion and exultation of
\nGodward love and Ananda the result of which are these vikāras<\/i><\/span>. Chaitanya<\/span>
\nclaimed this supremacy for the Radha<\/span> experience
\nbecause Ananda is higher than the experiences of the spiritual mind, Ananda
\nbeing, according to the Upanishads, the supreme plane of experience. But this
\nis a logical conclusion which cannot be accepted wholly \u2013 one must pass through
\nthe supermind to arrive to the highest Ananda, and in the supermind there is an
\nunification and harmonisation<\/span> of all the divine
\nPowers (Knowledge etc. as well as Love and Ananda). Different sadhaks emphasise<\/span> one aspect or other as the highest, but it is
\nthis union of all that must be the true basis of the highest realization and
\nexperience.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is not necessary to repeat
\npast forms [of Bhakti Yoga] \u2013 to bring out the Bhakti of the psychic being and
\ngive it whatever forms come naturally in the development is the proper way for
\nour sadhana. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is not I only who have done
\nwhat the Vedic Rishis did not do. Chaitanya<\/span> and
\nothers developed an intensity of Bhakti which is absent in the Veda and many
\nother instances can be given. Why should the past be the limit of spiritual
\nexperience?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Well, I don’t suppose the new
\nrace can be created by or according to logic or that any race has been. But why
\nshould the idea of the creation of a new race be illogical?… As for the past
\nseers, they don’t trouble me. If going beyond the experiences of past seers and
\nsages is so shocking, each new seer or sage in turn has done that shocking
\nthing \u2013 Buddha, Shankara, Chaitanya<\/span>, etc. all did
\nthat wicked act. If not, what was the necessity of their starting new
\nphilosophies, religions, schools of yoga? If <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 92<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

they were merely verifying and meekly
\nrepeating the lives and experiences of past seers and sages without bringing
\nthe world some new thing, why all that stir and pother? Of course, you may say,
\nthey were simply explaining the old truth but in the right way \u2013 but this would
\nmean that nobody had explained or understood it rightly before \u2013 which is again
\n\u201cgiving the lie etc.\u201d Or you may say that all the new sages (they were not
\namong X’s cherished past ones in their day), e.g., Shankara, Ramanuja<\/span>, Madhva<\/span> were each merely
\nrepeating the same blessed thing as all the past seers and sages had repeated
\nwith an unwearied monotony before them. Well, well, but why repeat it in such a
\nway that each \u201cgives the lie\u201d to the others? Truly, this shocked reverence for
\nthe past is a wonderful and fearful thing! After all, the Divine is infinite
\nand the unrolling of the Truth may be an infinite process or at least, if not
\nquite so much, yet with some room for new discovery and new statement, even
\nperhaps new achievement, not a thing in a nutshell cracked and its contents
\nexhausted once for all by the first seer or sage, while the others must
\nreligiously crack the same nutshell all over again, each tremblingly fearful
\nnot to give the lie to the \u201cpast\u201d seers and sages. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sri Krishna never set out to arrive
\nat any physical transformation, so anything of the kind could not be expected
\nin his case.
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Neither Buddha
\nnor Shankara nor Ramakrishna had any idea of transforming the body. Their aim
\nwas spiritual mukti and nothing else. Krishna taught Arjuna<\/span>
\nto be liberated in works, but he never spoke of any physical transformation. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I do not know
\nthat we can take this [Yudhisthira<\/span> entering the
\nheavenly kingdom in the Himalayas with his mortal body] as a historical fact. Svargais<\/span> not somewhere in the Himalayas, it is another
\nworld in another plane of consciousness and substance. Whatever the story may
\nmean, therefore, it has nothing to do with the question of physical
\ntransformation on earth. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 93<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

Ramakrishna himself never thought
\nof transformation or tried for it. All he wanted was bhakti for the Mother and
\nalong with that he received whatever knowledge she gave him and did whatever
\nshe made him do. He was intuitive and psychic from the beginning and only
\nbecame more and more so as he went on. There was no need in him for the
\ntransformation which we seek; for although he spoke of the divine man (Ishwarakoti<\/span>) coming down the stairs as well as ascending,
\nhe had not the idea of a new consciousness and a new race and the divine
\nmanifestation in the earth-nature.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

Whatever may have happened to Chaitanya<\/span> or Ramalingam<\/span>, whatever
\nphysical transformation they may have gone through is quite irrelevant to the
\naim of the supramentalisation of the body. Their new body was either a
\nnon-physical or subtle physical body not adapted for life on the earth. If it
\nwere not so, they would not have disappeared. The object of supramentalisation
\nis a body fitted to embody and express the physical consciousness on earth so
\nlong as one remains in the physical life. It is a step in the spiritual
\nevolution on the earth, not a step in the passage towards a supraphysical<\/span>
\nworld. The supramentalisation is the most difficult part of the change arrived
\nat by the supramental yoga, and all depends on whether a sufficient change can
\nbe achieved in the consciousness at present to make such a step possible, but
\nthe nature of the step is different from that aimed at by other yogas<\/span>. There is not therefore much utility in these
\ndiscussions \u2013 one has first of all to supramentalise<\/span>
\nsufficiently the mind and vital and physical consciousness generally \u2013 afterwards
\none can think of supramentalisation of the body. The psychic and spiritual
\ntransformation must come first, only afterwards would it be practical or useful
\nto discuss the supramentalisation of the whole being down to the body.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By divine realisation is meant
\nthe spiritual realisation \u2013 the realisation of Self, Bhagwan<\/span>
\nor Brahman on the mental-spiritual <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 94<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

plane or else the overmental<\/span> plane. That is a thing (at any rate the
\nmental-spiritual) which thousands have done. So it is obviously easier to do
\nthan the supramental. Also nobody can have the supramental realisation who has
\nnot had the spiritual…. It is true that neither can be got in an effective
\nway unless the whole being is turned towards it \u2013 unless there is a real and
\nvery serious spirit and dynamic reality of sadhana… It is true that I want
\nthe supramental not for myself but for the earth and souls born on the earth,
\nand certainly therefore I cannot object if anybody wants the supramental. But
\nthere are the conditions. He must want the divine Will first and the soul’s
\nsurrender and spiritual realisation (through works, bhakti, knowledge,
\nself-perfection) on the way…
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The central sincerity
\nis the first thing and sufficient for an aspiration to be entertained \u2013 a total
\nsincerity is needed for the aspiration to be fulfilled…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There are
\ndifferent statuses (avasthā<\/i><\/span>)
\nof the Divine Consciousness. There are also different statuses of transformation.
\nFirst is the psychic transformation, in which all is in contact with the Divine
\nthrough the individual psychic consciousness. Next is the spiritual
\ntransformation in which all is merged in the Divine in the cosmic
\nconsciousness. Third is the supramental transformation in which all becomes
\nsupramentalised in the divine gnostic consciousness. It is only with the last
\nthat there can begin the complete transformation of mind, life and body \u2013 in my
\nsense of completeness<\/i>.
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You are mistaken
\nin two respects. First, the endeavour towards this achievement is not new and
\nsome yogis have achieved it, I believe \u2013 but not in the way I want it. They
\nachieved it as a personal siddhi maintained by yoga-siddhi \u2013 not a dharma of
\nthe nature. Secondly, the supramental transformation is not the same as the
\nspiritual-mental. It is a change of mind, life and body which the mental or overmental<\/span>-spiritual cannot achieve. All whom you mention
\nwere spirituals, but in different ways. Krishna’s mind for instance was overmentalised<\/span>, Ramakrishna’s intuitive, Chaitanya’s<\/span> spiritual-psychic, Buddha’s illumined higher mental.
\nI don’t know about B.G. \u2013 he seems to have been brilliant but rather chaotic.
\nAll that is different from <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 95<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

the supramental. Then take the
\nvital of the Paramhansas<\/span>. It is said that their vital
\nbehaves either like a child (Ramakrishna) or like a madman or like a demon or
\nlike something inert (cf. Jadabharata<\/span>). Well, there
\nis nothing supramental in all that. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One can be a fit
\ninstrument of the Divine in any of the transformations. The question is, an
\ninstrument for what?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Paramhansa is a particular
\ngrade of realisation, there are others supposed to be lower or higher. I have
\nno objection to them in their own place. But I must remind you that in my yoga
\nall vital movements must come under the influence of the psychic and of the
\nspiritual calm, knowledge, peace. If they conflict with the psychic or the
\nspiritual control, they upset the balance and prevent the forming of the base
\nof transformation. If unbalance is good for other paths, that is the business
\nof those who follow them. It does not suit mine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I do not know that any except a
\nvery few great yogis have really changed their outer nature. In all the Ashrams
\nI have seen people were just as others except for certain specific moral
\ncontrols put on certain kinds of outer action (food, sex etc.), but the general
\nnature was the human nature (as in the story of Narad<\/span>
\nand Janaka). It is even a theory of the old yogas<\/span>
\nthat the prārabdha<\/i><\/span> karma <\/i>and therefore necessarily the
\npermanent elements of the external character do not change \u2013 only one gets the
\ninner realisation and separates oneself from it so that it drops off at death
\nlike a soiled robe and leaves the spirit free to enter into Nirvana. Our object
\nis a spiritual change and not merely an ethical control, but this can only come
\nfirst by a spiritual rejection from within and then by a supramental descent
\nfrom above.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I don’t know of any [Vedic
\nRishis] that have taken birth this time. <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 96<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

According to the Puranic<\/span> stories there must have been many Rishis who were
\nfar from being jitendriya<\/i><\/span> jitakrodha<\/span><\/i>.
\nBut also there are many yogis who are satisfied with having the inner
\nexperience of the Self but allow movements of a rajasic or tamasic nature on
\nthe surface, holding that these will fall off with the body.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wonderful! The realisation of the
\nSelf which includes the liberation from ego, the consciousness of the One in
\nall, the established and consummated transcendence out of the universal
\nIgnorance, the fixity of the consciousness in the union with the Highest, the
\nInfinite and Eternal is not anything worth doing or recommending to anybody \u2013 is
\n\u201cnot a very difficult stage\u201d!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nothing new! Why
\nshould there be anything new? The object of spiritual seeking is to find out
\nwhat is eternally true, not what is new in Time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

From where did
\nyou get this singular attitude towards the old yogas<\/span>
\nand yogis? Is the wisdom of the Vedanta and Tantra a small and trifling thing?
\nHave then the sadhaks of the Ashram attained to self-realisation and are they
\nliberated Jivanmuktas<\/span>, free from ego and ignorance?
\nIf not, why then do you say, \u201cit is not a very difficult stage\u201d, \u201ctheir goal is
\nnot high\u201d, \u201cis it such a long process?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have said that
\nthis yoga is \u201cnew\u201d because it aims at the integrality of the Divine in this
\nworld and not only beyond it and at a supramental realisation. But how does
\nthat justify a superior contempt for the spiritual realisation which is as much
\nthe aim of this yoga as of any other?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As for the depreciation of the
\nold yogas<\/span> as something quite easy, unimportant and
\nworthless and the depreciation of Buddha, Yajnavalkya and other great spiritual
\nfigures of the past, is it not evidently absurd on the face of it?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 97<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

Why should Mother dislike Yoga of
\nKnowledge? The realisation of self and of the cosmic being (without which the
\nrealisation of self is incomplete) are essential steps in our yoga; it is the
\nend of other yogas<\/span>, but it is, as it were, the
\nbeginning of ours, that is to say, the point where its own characteristic
\nrealisations commence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nVI<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By transformation I do not mean
\nsome change of the nature \u2013 I do not mean, for instance, sainthood or ethical
\nperfection or yogic siddhis (like the Tantrik’s<\/span>) or a
\ntranscendental (cinmaya<\/span>) body. I use transformation
\nin a special sense, a change of consciousness radical and complete and of a
\ncertain specific kind which is so conceived as to bring about a strong and
\nassured step forward in the spiritual evolution of the being of a greater and
\nhigher kind and of a larger sweep and completeness than what took place when a mentalised<\/span> being first appeared in a vital and material
\nanimal world. If anything short of that takes place or at least if a real
\nbeginning is not made on that basis, a fundamental progress towards this
\nfulfilment, then my object is not accomplished. A partial realisation,
\nsomething mixed and inconclusive, does not meet the demand I make on life and
\nyoga. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Light of
\nrealisation is not the same thing as Descent. Realisation by itself does not
\nnecessarily transform the being as a whole; it may bring only an opening or
\nheightening or widening of the consciousness at the top so as to realise
\nsomething in the Purusha part without any radical change in the parts of
\nPrakriti. One may have some light of realisation at the spiritual summit of the
\nconsciousness but the parts below remain what they were. I have seen any number
\nof instances of that. There must be a descent of the light not merely into the mind
\nor part of it but into all the being down to the physical and below before a
\nreal transformation can take place. A light in the mind may spiritualise<\/span>
\nor otherwise change the mind or part of it in one way or another, but it need
\nnot change the vital nature; a light in the vital may purify and enlarge the
\nvital movements or else silence and <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 98<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

immobilise<\/span>
\nthe vital being, but leave the body and the physical consciousness as it was,
\nor even leave it inert or shake its balance. And the descent of Light is not
\nenough, it must be the descent of the whole higher consciousness, its Peace,
\nPower, Knowledge, Love, Ananda. Moreover, the descent may be enough to
\nliberate, but not to perfect, or it may be enough to make a great change in the
\ninner being, while the outer remains an imperfect instrument, clumsy, sick or
\nunexpressive. Finally, transformation effected by the sadhana cannot be
\ncomplete unless it is a supramentalisation of the being. Psychicisation<\/span>
\nis not enough, it is only a beginning; spiritualisation and the descent of the
\nhigher consciousness is not enough, it is only a middle term; the ultimate
\nachievement needs the action of the supramental Consciousness and Force.\u00a0 <\/span>Something less than that may very well be
\nconsidered enough by the individual, but it is not enough for the
\nearth-consciousness to take the definitive stride forward it must take at one
\ntime or another. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have never
\nsaid that my yoga was something brand new in all its elements. I have called it
\nthe integral yoga and that means that it takes up the essence and many
\nprocesses of the old yogas<\/span> \u2013 its newness is in its
\naim, standpoint and the totality of its method. In the earlier stages which is
\nall I deal with in books like the \u201cRiddle\u201d or the \u201cLights\u201d or in the new book
\nto be published 1<\/sup> there is nothing in it that distinguishes it from
\nthe old yogas<\/span> except the aim underlying its
\ncomprehensiveness, the spirit in its movements and the ultimate significance it
\nkeeps before it \u2013 also the scheme of its psychology and its workings: but as
\nthat was not and could not be developed systematically or schematically in
\nthese letters, it has not been grasped by those who are not already acquainted
\nwith it by mental familiarity or some amount of practice. The detail or method
\nof the later stages of the yoga which go into little known or untrodden<\/span> regions, I have not made public and I do not at
\npresent intend to do so.
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I know very well
\nalso that there have been seemingly allied ideals and anticipations \u2013 the
\nperfectibility of the race, certain Tantric sadhanas<\/span>,
\nthe effort after a complete physical siddhi by certain schools of yoga, etc.,
\netc. I have alluded to these things<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1<\/span><\/sup> Bases of Yoga.<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 99<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

myself and have put forth the
\nview that the spiritual past of the race has been a preparation of Nature not
\nmerely for attaining the Divine beyond the world, but also for this very step
\nforward which the evolution of the earth-consciousness has still to make. I do not
\ntherefore care in the least \u2013 even though these ideals were, up to some extent
\nparallel, yet not identical with mine \u2013 whether this yoga and its aim and
\nmethod are accepted as new or not; that is in itself a trifling matter. That it
\nshould be recognised<\/span> as true in itself by those who
\ncan accept or practise it and should make itself true by achievement is the one
\nthing important; it does not matter if it is called new or a repetition or
\nrevival of the old which was forgotten. I laid emphasis on it as new in a
\nletter to certain sadhaks so as to explain to them that a repetition of the aim
\nand idea of the old yogas<\/span> was not enough in my eyes,
\nthat I was putting forward a thing to be achieved that has not yet been
\nachieved, not yet clearly visualised<\/span>, even though it
\nis the natural but still secret outcome of all the past spiritual endeavour.
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is new as
\ncompared with the old yogas<\/span>:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1. Because it
\naims not at a departure out of world and life into Heaven or Nirvana, but at a
\nchange of life and existence, not as something subordinate or incidental, but
\nas a distinct and central object. If there is a descent in other yogas<\/span>, yet it is only an incident on the way or resulting
\nfrom the ascent\u2014the ascent is the real thing. Here the ascent is the first
\nstep, but it is a means for the descent. It is the descent of the new
\nconsciousness attained by the ascent that is the stamp and seal of the sadhana.
\nEven the Tantra and Vaishnavism<\/span> end in the release
\nfrom life; here the object is the divine fulfilment of life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2. Because the
\nobject sought after is not an individual achievement of divine realisation for
\nthe sake of the individual, but something
\nto be gained for the earth-consciousness here, a cosmic, not solely a
\nsupra-cosmic achievement. The thing to be gained also is the bringing in of a
\nPower of Consciousness (the supramental) not yet organised or active directly
\nin earth-nature, <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 100<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

 even
\nin the spiritual life, but yet to be organised and made directly active.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3. Because a method
\nhas been preconized<\/span> for achieving this purpose which
\nis as total and integral as the aim set before it, viz., the total and integral
\nchange of the consciousness and nature, taking up old methods but only as a
\npart action and present aid to others that are distinctive. I have not found
\nthis method (as a whole) or anything like it professed or realised in the old yogas<\/span>. If I had, I should not have wasted my time in hewing
\nout a road and in thirty years of search and inner creation when I could have
\nhastened home safely to my goal in an easy canter over paths already blazed
\nout, laid down, perfectly mapped, macadamised<\/span>, made
\nsecure and public. Our yoga is not a retreading<\/span> of
\nold walks, but a spiritual adventure.<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I meant by it the descent of the
\nsupramental consciousness upon earth; all truths below the supramental (even
\nthat of the highest spiritual on the mental plane, which is the highest that
\nhas yet manifested) are either partial or relative or otherwise deficient and
\nunable to transform the earthly life; they can only at most modify and
\ninfluence it. The supermind is the vast Truth-Consciousness of which the
\nancient seers spoke; there have been glimpses of it till now, sometimes an
\nindirect influence or pressure, but it has not been brought down into the
\nconsciousness of the earth and fixed there. To so bring it down is the aim of
\nour yoga. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But it is better
\nnot to enter into sterile intellectual discussions. The intellectual mind
\ncannot even realise what the supermind is; what use, then, can there be in
\nallowing it to discuss what it does not know? It is not by reasoning but by
\nconstant experience, growth of consciousness and widening into the Light that
\none can reach those higher levels of consciousness above the intellect from
\nwhich one can begin to look up to the Divine Gnosis. Those levels are not yet
\nthe supermind, but they can receive something of its knowledge.
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage 101<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

The Vedic Rishis
\nnever attained to the supermind for the earth or perhaps did not even make the
\nattempt. They tried to rise individually to the supramental plane, but they did
\nnot bring it down and make it a permanent part of the earth-consciousness. Even
\nthere are verses of the Upanishad in which it is hinted that it is impossible
\nto pass through the gates of the Sun (the symbol of the supermind) and yet
\nretain an earthly body. It was because of this failure that the spiritual
\neffort of India culminated in Mayavada<\/span>. Our yoga is a
\ndouble movement of ascent and descent; one rises to higher and higher levels of
\nconsciousness, but at the same time one brings down their power not only into
\nmind and life, but in the end even into the body. And the highest of these
\nlevels, the one at which it aims is the supermind. Only when that can be
\nbrought down is a divine transformation possible in the earth-consciousness. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I can’t say whether any of them
\n[the Vedic Rishis] attained the supramental plane, but the ascent to it was
\ntheir object. Svar<\/i><\/span> <\/i>is evidently the illumined regions of
\nMind, between the supramental and the human intelligence formed by the rays of
\nthe Sun. According to the Upanishads those who ascend into the rays of the Sun
\nreturn, but those who ascend into the Sun itself do not come back. That is
\nbecause the ascent to supermind was envisaged, but the descent and organisation
\nof the supermind here (as apart from the descent of the Rays) was not. We need
\nnot bother about the rebirth of the Rishis \u2013 they will come along if they are
\nneeded, I suppose.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is quite possible that the śloka<\/i><\/span> refers
\nto a going up into higher worlds of felicity and light and this can be called a
\nliberation or release. In later times the idea was strong that from all these
\nhigher worlds return is inevitable and it is only the release from all cosmic
\nexistence that gives mukti. The Vedic Rishis seem to have looked to an ascent
\ninto a luminous world or state above <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 102<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

the falsehood and ignorance. In
\nthe Upanishad the sun is the symbol of the supramental Truth and it is said that
\nthose who pass into it may return but those who pass through the gates of the
\nsun itself do not; possibly this means that an ascent into the supermind itself
\nabove the golden lid of overmind<\/span> was the definitive
\nliberation. The Veda speaks of the Truth hidden by a Truth where the Sun looses
\nhis horses from his car and there all the myriad rays are drawn together into
\none and that was considered the goal. The Isha<\/span>
\nUpanishad also speaks of the golden lid hiding the face of the Truth by
\nremoving which the Law of the Truth is seen, and the highest knowledge in which
\nthe one Purusha is known (so’hamasmi<\/i>)
\nis described as the \u2018kalyānatama<\/span>\u2019<\/i>
\nform of the Sun. All this seems to refer to the supramental states of which the
\nSun is the symbol.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Vedic Rishis were mystics of
\nthe ancient type who everywhere, in India, Greece, Egypt and elsewhere, held
\nthe secret truths and methods of which they were in possession as very sacred
\nand secret things, not to be disclosed to the unfit who would misunderstand,
\nmisapply, misuse and degrade the knowledge. Their writings were therefore so
\ncouched as only to be intelligible in their secret meaning to the initiated, ninyā<\/i><\/span> vacāmsi<\/span> nivacanāani<\/span> kavaye<\/i>1 <\/sup>\u2013 secret words that
\ncarry their significance only to the seer. They were equipped with an apparent
\nmeaning exoteric and religious for the people, esoteric, occult and spiritual
\nfor the initiates. That the people should not find out the real Truth was their
\nintention; they wanted them only to know the outward truths for which they were
\nfit.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The fundamental difference is in
\nthe teaching that there is a dynamic divine Truth (the supermind) and that into
\nthe present world of Ignorance that Truth can descend, create a new
\nTruth-Consciousness and divinise<\/span> Life. The old yogas<\/span> go straight from <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1<\/span><\/sup>Rig Veda, IV. 3. 16. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 103<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

mind to the absolute Divine,
\nregard all dynamic existence as Ignorance, Illusion or Lila; when you enter the
\nstatic and immutable Divine Truth, they say, you pass out of cosmic existence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This yoga aims at the conscious
\nunion with the Divine in the supermind and the transformation of the nature.
\nThe ordinary yogas<\/span> go straight from Mind into some
\nfeatureless condition of the cosmic silence and through it try to disappear
\nupward into the Highest. The object of this yoga is to transcend Mind and enter
\ninto the Divine Truth of Sachchidananda which is not only static but dynamic
\nand raise the whole being into that truth. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Divine union, yes \u2013 but for the ascetic
\nschools it was union with the featureless Brahman, the Unknowable beyond
\nexistence or, if with the Ishwara, still it was the Ishwara in a supracosmic<\/span> consciousness. From that point of view Patanjali’s<\/span> aphorism1 <\/sup>is sound enough. When he
\nsays yoga, he means the process of yoga, the object which has to be kept in
\nview in the process \u2013 for by the cessation of cittavrtti<\/i> one gets into samādhi<\/i><\/span> and samādhi<\/i><\/span> is the only way of unity solely and completely
\nwith the Brahman beyond existence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the former yogas<\/span>
\nit was the experience of the Spirit which is always free and one with the
\nDivine that was sought. The nature had to change only enough to prevent its
\nbeing an obstacle to that knowledge and experience. The complete change down to
\nthe physical was only sought for by a few and then more as a \u201csiddhi\u201d than
\nanything else, not as the manifestation of a new Nature in the
\nearth-consciousness.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1<\/span><\/sup>Yogaścittavrttinirodhah.<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nPage – 104<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

There are many planes above man’s
\nmind, \u2013 the supramental is not the only one, and on all of them the Self can be
\nrealised, \u2013 for they are all spiritual planes. <\/p>\n

Mind, vital and
\nphysical are inextricably mixed together only on the surface consciousness \u2013 the
\ninner mind, inner vital, inner physical are separated from each other. Those
\nwho seek the Self by the old yogas<\/span> separate
\nthemselves from mind, life and body and realise the self of it all as different
\nfrom these things. It is perfectly easy to separate mind, vital and physical
\nfrom each other without the aid of supermind. It is done by the ordinary yogas<\/span>. The difference between this and the old yogas<\/span> is not that they are incompetent and cannot do these
\nthings \u2013 they can do this perfectly well \u2013 but that they proceed from
\nrealisation of Self to Nirvana or some Heaven and abandon life, while this does
\nnot abandon life. The supramental is necessary for the transformation of
\nterrestrial life and being, not for reaching the Self. One must realise Self
\nfirst, only afterwards can one realise the supermind.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One can feel the experiences of
\nany sadhana as a part of this one.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The realisation of the Spirit
\ncomes long before the development of overmind<\/span> or
\nsupermind; hundreds of sadhaks in all times have had the realisation of the
\nAtman in the higher mental planes, buddheh<\/i>
\nparatah<\/i><\/span>,
\nbut the supramental realisation was not theirs. One can get partial
\nrealisations of the Self or Spirit or the Divine on any plane, mental, vital,
\nphysical even, and when one rises above the ordinary mental plane of man into a
\nhigher and larger mind, the Self begins to appear in all its conscious
\nwideness. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is by full
\nentry into this wideness of the Self that cessation of mental activity becomes
\npossible; one gets the inner Silence. After that this inner Silence can remain
\neven when there is activity of any kind; the being remains silent within, the
\naction goes on in the instruments, and one receives all the necessary
\ninitiations and execution of action whether mental, vital or <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 105<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

physical from a higher source
\nwithout the fundamental peace and calm of the Spirit being troubled.
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The overmind<\/span> and supermind states are something yet higher than
\nthis; but before one can understand them, one must first have the
\nself-realisation, the full action of the spiritualised mind and heart, the
\npsychic awakening, the liberation of the imprisoned consciousness, the
\npurification and entire opening of the Adhar. Do not think now of those
\nultimate things (overmind<\/span>, supermind), but get first
\nthese foundations in the liberated nature.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Spiritualisation means the
\ndescent of the higher peace, force, light, knowledge, purity, Ananda, etc.,
\nwhich belong to any of the higher planes from Higher Mind to overmind<\/span>, for in any of these the Self can be realised. It
\nbrings about a subjective transformation; the instrumental Nature is only so
\nfar transformed that it becomes an instrument for the Cosmic Divine to get some
\nwork done, but the self within remains calm and free and united with the
\nDivine. But this is an incomplete individual transformation \u2013 the full
\ntransformation of the instrumental Nature can only come when the supramental
\nchange takes place. Till then the nature remains full of many imperfections,
\nbut the Self in the higher planes does not mind them, as it is itself free and
\nunaffected. The inner being down to the inner physical can also become free and
\nunaffected. The overmind<\/span> is subject to limitations in
\nthe working of the effective Knowledge, limitations in the working of the
\nPower, subject to a partial and limited Truth, etc. It is only in the supermind
\nthat the full Truth-Consciousness comes into being.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Living in the true consciousness
\nis living in a consciousness in which one is spiritually in union with the
\nDivine in one way or another. But it does not follow that by so living one will
\nhave the complete, exact and infallible truth about all actions, all things and
\nall persons.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 106<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The Divine can be realised on any
\nplane according to the capacity of that plane, as the Divine is everywhere. The
\nyogis and saints realise the Divine on the spiritualised mind plane; that does
\nnot mean they become supramental.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Because he is a great man does it
\nfollow that everything he thinks or says is right? or because he lives in the
\nlight does it follow that his light is absolute and complete? The
\n\u201cTruth-Consciousness\u201d is a phrase I use for the supermind. X is not in the
\nsupermind. He may be and is in a true Consciousness, but that is a different
\nmatter. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Perhaps you are of the opinion of
\nX, \u201cThe Divine is here, how can he descend from anywhere?\u201d The Divine may be
\nhere, but if he has covered here his Light with darkness of Ignorance and his
\nAnanda with suffering, that, I should think, makes a big difference to the
\nplane and, even if one enters into that sealed Light etc., it makes a
\ndifference to the consciousness but very little to the Energy at work in this
\nplane which remains of a dark or mixed character.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Divine Force can act on any
\nplane \u2013 it is not limited to the supramental Force. The supramental is only one
\naspect of the power of the Divine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The sadhak of integral yoga who
\nstops short at the Impersonal is no longer a sadhak of integral yoga.
\nImpersonal realization is the realisation of the silent Self, of the pure
\nExistence, Consciousness and Bliss in itself without any perception of an
\nExistent, Conscient<\/span>, Blissful. It leads therefore to
\nNirvana. In the integral knowledge the realisation of the Self and of the
\nimpersonal Sachchidananda is only a step, though a very important <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 107<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

step, or part of the integral
\nknowledge. It is a beginning, not an end of the highest realisation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

These feelings are the usual
\nattitude of the physical consciousness left to itself towards the Divine \u2013 a
\ncomplete Agnosticism and inability to experience. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The knowledge of
\nthe impersonal Divine by itself does not affect the material facts of earth or
\nat least need not. It only produces a subjective change in the being itself
\nand, if it is complete, a new vision and attitude towards all things immaterial
\nor material. But the complete knowledge of the Divine can produce a change in
\nmaterial things, for it sets a Force working which ends by acting even upon
\nthese material things that seem to the physical consciousness so absolute,
\ninvincible and unchangeable.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Why cannot one love or experience
\n[the Cosmic and the Transcendent Divine] concretely? Many have done it. And why
\nassume that He is immobile, silent and aloof? The Cosmic Divine can be as close
\nto one as one’s own self and the Transcendent as intimate as the closest friend
\nor lover. It is only in the physical consciousness that there is some
\ndifficulty in realising it.
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Jain realisation
\nof an individual godhead is all right so far as it goes \u2013 its defect is that it
\nis too individual and isolated.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I never heard of
\nsilence descending in other yogas<\/span> \u2013 the mind goes
\ninto silence. Since however I have been writing of ascent and descent, I have
\nbeen told from several quarters that there is nothing new in this yoga \u2013 so I
\nam wondering whether people were not getting ascents and descents without
\nknowing it! or at least without noticing the process. It is like the rising
\nabove the head and taking the station there \u2013 which I and others have
\nexperienced in this yoga. When I spoke of it first, people stared
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 108<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

and thought I was talking
\nnonsense. Wideness must have been felt in the old yogas<\/span>
\nbecause otherwise one could not feel the niverse<\/span> in
\noneself or be free from the body consciousness or unite with the Anantam<\/span> Brahman. But generally as in Tantric yoga one
\nspeaks of the consciousness rising to the Brahmarandhra, top of the head, as
\nthe summit. Rajayoga of course lays stress on Samadhi as the means of the
\nhighest experience. But obviously if one has not the Brāhmisthiti<\/i><\/span> <\/i>in the waking state, there is no
\ncompleteness in the realisation. The Gita distinctly speaks of being samāhita<\/i><\/span> <\/i>(which is equivalent to being in
\nSamadhi) and the Brāhmisthiti<\/i><\/span> <\/i>as a waking state in which one lives
\nand does all actions. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So I have always thought. I
\nexplain this absence of the descent experiences myself by the old yogas<\/span> having been mainly confined to the
\npsycho-spiritual-occult range of experience \u2013 in which the higher experiences
\ncome into the still mind or the concentrated heart by a sort of filtration or
\nreflection \u2013 the field of this experience being from the Brahmarandhra
\ndownward. People went above this only in Samadhi or in a condition of static
\nmukti without any dynamic descent. All that was dynamic took place in the
\nregion of the spiritualised mental and vital-physical consciousness. In this
\nyoga the consciousness (after the lower field has been prepared by a certain
\namount of psycho-spiritual-occult experience) is drawn upwards above the
\nBrahmarandhra to ranges above belonging to the spiritual consciousness proper
\nand instead of merely receiving from there has to live there and from there
\nchange the lower consciousness altogether. For there is a dynamism proper to
\nthe spiritual consciousness whose nature is Light, Power, Ananda, Peace,
\nKnowledge, infinite Wideness and that must be possessed and descend into the
\nwhole being. Otherwise one can get mukti but not perfection or transformation (except
\na relative psycho-spiritual change.) But if I say that, there will be a general
\nhowl against the unpardonable presumption of claiming to have a knowledge not
\npossessed by the ancient saints and sages and pretending to transcend them. In
\nthat connection I may say that in the Upanishads (notably the Taittiriya<\/span>) there <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 109<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

are some indications of these
\nhigher planes and their nature and the possibility of gathering up the whole
\nconsciousness and rising into them. But this was forgotten afterwards and
\npeople spoke only of the buddhi as the highest thing with the Purusha or Self
\njust above, but there was no clear idea of these higher planes. Ergo, ascent
\npossibly to unknown and ineffable heavenly regions in Samadhi, but no descent
\npossible \u2013 therefore no resource, no possibility of transformation here, only
\nescape from life and mukti in Goloka<\/span>, Brahmaloka<\/span>, Shivaloka<\/span> or the
\nAbsolute. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It happens that people may get
\nthe descent without noticing that it is a descent because they feel the result
\nonly. The ordinary yoga does not go beyond the spiritual mind \u2013 people feel at
\nthe top of the head the joining with the Brahman, but they are not aware of a
\nconsciousness above the head. In the same way in the ordinary yoga one feels
\nthe ascent of the awakened lower consciousness (Kundalini) to the Brahmarandhra
\nwhere the Prakriti joins the Brahman-consciousness, but they do not feel the
\ndescent. Some may have had these things, but I don’t know that they understood
\ntheir nature, principle or place in a complete sadhana. At least I never heard
\nof these things from others before I found them out in my own experience. The
\nreason is that the old yogins<\/span> when they went above
\nthe spiritual mind passed into Samadhi, which means that they made no attempt
\nto be conscious in these higher planes \u2013 their aim being to pass away into the
\nSuperconscient and not to bring the Superconscient into the waking
\nconsciousness, which is that of my yoga. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the Veda there is no idea or
\nexperience of a personal emanation or incarnation of any of the Vedic gods.
\nWhen the Rishis speak of Indra or Agni<\/span> or Soma in
\nmen, they are speaking of the god in his cosmic presence, power or function.
\nThis is evident from the very language when they speak of Agni<\/span>
\nas the immortal in mortals, the immortal Light in men, the inner Warrior, the <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 110<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

Guest in human beings. It is the
\nsame with Indra or Soma. The building of the gods in man means a creation of
\nthe divine Powers, \u2013 Indra the Power of the Light, Soma the Power of the Ananda,
\n\u2013 in the human nature. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No doubt, the
\nRishis felt the actual presence of the gods above, near, around or in them, but
\nthis was a common experience of all, not special and personal, not an emanation
\nor incarnation. One may see or feel the presence of the Divine or a divine
\nPower above the head or in the heart or in any or all the centres<\/span>,
\nfeel the presence, see the form living there; one may be governed in all one’s
\nactions, thoughts and feelings by it; one may lose one’s separate personality
\nin it, may identify and merge. But all that does not constitute an incarnation
\nor emanation of the Divine or of the Power. These things are universal
\nexperiences to which any yogin<\/span> may arrive; to reach
\nthis condition with relation to the Divine is indeed a common object of yoga. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

An incarnation
\nis something more, something special and individual to the individual being. It
\nis the substitution of the Person of a divine being for the human person and an
\ninfiltration of it into all the movements so that there is a dynamic personal
\nchange in all of them and in the whole nature; not merely a change of the
\ncharacter of the consciousness or general surrender into its hands, but a
\nsubtle intimate personal change. Even when there is an incarnation from the
\nbirth, the human elements have to be taken up, but when there is a descent,
\nthere is a total conscious substitution.
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is a long,
\nsubtle and persistent process. The incarnating Person first overshadows as an
\ninfluence, then enters into the centres<\/span> one after the
\nother sometimes in the same form, sometimes in different forms, then takes up
\nall the nature and its actions. What you describe does not correspond to this
\nprocess; it seems to be an endeavour to build the gods in yourself in the Vedic
\nsense and the Vedic manner. That can bring, if it succeeds, their powers and a
\nsense of their presence; it cannot bring about an incarnation. An incarnation
\nis destined, is chosen for you; the human person cannot choose or create an
\nincarnation for himself by his own personal will. To attempt it is to invite a
\nspiritual disaster.
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 111<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

One thing must be said \u2013 that an
\nincarnation is not the object of this yoga; it is only a condition or means
\ntowards the object. The one and the only aim we have before us is to bring down
\nthe supramental Consciousness and the supramental Truth into the world; the
\nTruth and nothing but the Truth is our aim, and if we cannot embody this Truth,
\na hundred incarnations do not matter. But to bring down the true supramental,
\nto escape from all mental mixture is not an easy matter. The mere descent of
\nthe suns into the centres<\/span>, even of all the seven suns
\ninto all the seven centres<\/span> is only the seed; it is
\nnot the thing itself done and finished. One may feel the descent of the suns,
\none may have the attempt, the beginning of an incarnation, and yet in the end
\none may fail, if there is a flaw in the nature or a failure to pass through all
\nthe ordeals and satisfy all the hard conditions of the perfect spiritual
\nsuccess. Not only the whole mental, vital and physical nature of the ignorant
\nhuman being has to be overcome and transformed, but also the three states of
\nmental consciousness which intervene between the human and the supramental and
\nlike all mind are capable of admitting great and capital errors. Till then
\nthere may be descents of the supramental influence, light, power, Ananda, but
\nthe supramental Truth cannot be possessed, organised, put in possession of the
\nwhole nature. One must not think before that that one possesses the supermind,
\nfor that is a delusion which would prevent the fulfilment.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One thing more.
\nThe more intense the experiences that come, the higher the forces that descend,
\nthe greater become the possibilities of deviation and error. For the very
\nintensity and the very height of the force excites and aggrandises<\/span>
\nthe movements of the lower nature and raises up in it all opposing elements in
\ntheir full force, but often in the disguise of truth, wearing a mask of
\nplausible justification. There is needed a great patience, calm, sobriety,
\nbalance, an impersonal detachment and sincerity free from all taint of ego or
\npersonal human desire. There must be no attachment to any idea of one’s own, to
\nany experience, to any kind of imagination, mental building or vital demand;
\nthe light of discrimination must always play to detect those things, however
\nfair or plausible they may seem. Otherwise, the Truth <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 112<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

will have no chance of
\nestablishing itself in its purity in the nature.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The methods described in the account
\nare the well-established methods of Jnana<\/span> Yoga \u2013 (1)
\none-pointed concentration followed by thought-suspension, (2) the method of
\ndistinguishing or finding out the true self by separating it from mind, life,
\nbody and coming to the pure `I’ behind; this also can disappear into the
\nimpersonal Self. The usual result is a merging in the Atman or Brahman \u2013 which
\nis what one would suppose is meant by the Overself<\/span>,
\nfor it is that which is the real Overself<\/span>. This
\nBrahman or Atman is everywhere, all is in it, it is in all, but it is in all
\nnot as an individual being in each but is the same in all \u2013 as the Ether is in
\nall. When the merging in the Overself<\/span> is complete,
\nthere is no ego, no distinguishable I, nor any formed separative person or
\npersonality. All is an indivisible and undistinguishable Oneness either free
\nfrom all formation or carrying all formations in it without being affected; one
\ncan realise it in either way. There is a realisation in which all things are
\nmoving in the one Self and this Self is there stable in all beings; there is
\nanother more complete and thorough-going in which not only is it so but all are
\nvividly realised as the Self, the Brahman, the Divine. In the former, it is
\npossible to dismiss all beings as creations of Maya, leaving the one Self alone
\nas true \u2013 in the other it is easier to regard them as real manifestations of
\nthe Self, not as illusions. But one can also regard all beings as souls,
\nindependent realities in an eternal Nature dependent on the one Divine. These
\nare the characteristic realisations of the Overself<\/span>
\nfamiliar to the Vedanta. But on the other hand, you say that this Overself<\/span> is realised as lodged in the heart-centre, and it
\nis described as something concealed which when it manifests appears as the real
\nThinker, source of all action but now guiding thought and action in the Truth.
\nNow the first description applies to the Purusha in the heart, described by the
\nGita as Ishwara situated in the heart and by the Upanishads as the Purusha Antaratma<\/span>; the second could apply also to the mental
\nPurusha, manomayah prānaśarīra<\/span>
\nnetā<\/span><\/i> of the Upanishads, the mental Being or
\nPurusha who leads <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 113<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

the life and the body. So your
\nquestion is one which on the data given relates to and accepts all these
\nexperiences, but they are strung together without any sufficient distinction or
\ngradation being made or thought necessary between the various aspects of the
\none Being. There are a thousand ways of approaching and realising the Divine
\nand each way has its own experiences which have their own truth and stand
\nreally on a basis one in essence but complex in aspects, common to all but not
\nexpressed in the same way by all. There is not much use in discussing these
\nvariations; the important thing is to follow one’s own way well and thoroughly.
\nIn this yoga, one can realise the psychic being as a portion of the Divine
\nseated in the heart with the Divine supporting it there \u2013 this psychic being
\ntakes charge of the sadhana and turns the whole being to the Truth, the Divine,
\nwith results in the mind, the vital and the physical consciousness which I need
\nnot go into here \u2013 that is the first transformation. We realise next the one
\nSelf, Brahman, Divine, first above the body, life, mind and not only within the
\nheart supporting them \u2013 above and free and unattached as the static Self in all
\nand dynamic too as the active Divine Being and Power, Ishwara-Shakti,
\ncontaining the world and pervading it as well as transcending it, manifesting
\nall cosmic aspects. But what is most important for us is that it manifests as a
\ntranscending Light, Knowledge, Power, Purity, Peace, Ananda of which we become
\naware and which descends into the being and progressively replaces the ordinary
\nconsciousness itself by its own movements \u2013 that is the second transformation.
\nWe realise also the consciousness itself as moving upward, ascending through
\nmany planes, physical, vital, mental, overmental<\/span> to
\nthe supramental and Ananda planes. This is nothing new; it is stated in the Taittiriya<\/span> Upanishad that there are five Purushas<\/span>, the physical, the vital, the mental, the Truth
\nPurusha (supramental) and the Bliss Purusha; it says that one has to draw the
\nphysical self into the vital self, the vital into the mental, the mental into
\nthe Truth self, the Truth self into the Bliss self and so attain perfection.
\nBut in this yoga we become aware not only of this taking up but of a pouring
\ndown of the power of the higher Self, so that there comes in the possibility of
\na descent of the supramental Self and Nature <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 114<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

to dominate and change our
\npresent nature and turn it from nature of Ignorance into nature of
\nTruth-Knowledge (and through the supramental into nature of Ananda) \u2013 this is
\nthe third or supramental transformation. It does not always go in this order,
\nfor with many the spiritual descent begins first in an imperfect way before the
\npsychic is in front and in charge, but the psychic development has to be
\nattained before a perfect and unhampered spiritual descent can take place, and
\nthe last or supramental change is impossible so long as the two first have not
\nbecome full and complete. That’s the whole matter put as briefly as possible.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What you demand
\nof me would mean a volume, not a letter \u2013 especially as these are matters of
\nwhich people know a great deal less than nothing and would either understand
\nnothing or misunderstand everything. Some day, I suppose, I shall write
\nsomething but the supramental won’t bear talking of now. Something about the
\nspiritual transformation might be possible and I may finish the letter on that
\npoint. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I do not want to
\ngo further into the question of M’s realisation. As I have said, comparisons
\nare of no use; each path has its own aim and direction and method, and the
\ntruth of each one does not invalidate the truth of the other. The Divine (or if
\nyou like, the Self) has many aspects and can be realised in many ways \u2013 to
\ndwell upon these differences is irrelevant and without use. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cTransformation\u201d
\nis a word that I have brought in myself (like \u201csupermind\u201d) to express certain
\nspiritual concepts and spiritual facts of the integral yoga. People are now
\ntaking them up and using them in senses which have nothing to do with the
\nsignificance which I put into them. Purification of the nature by the
\n\u201cinfluence\u201d of the Spirit is not what I mean by transformation; purification is
\nonly part of a psychic change or a psycho-spiritual change \u2013 the word besides
\nhas many senses and is very often given a moral or ethical meaning which is
\nforeign to my purpose. What I mean by the spiritual transformation is something
\ndynamic (not merely liberation of the
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage 115<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

Self or realisation of the One
\nwhich can very well be attained without any descent). It is a putting on of the
\nspiritual consciousness, dynamic as well as static, in every part of the being
\ndown to the subconscient<\/span>. That cannot be done by the
\ninfluence of the Self leaving the consciousness fundamentally as it is with
\nonly purification, enlightenment of the mind and heart and quiescence of the
\nvital. It means a bringing down of the Divine Consciousness static and dynamic
\ninto all these parts and the entire replacement of the present consciousness by
\nthat. This we find unveiled and unmixed above mind, life and body. It is a
\nmatter of the undeniable experience of many that this can descend and it is my
\nexperience that nothing short of its full descent can thoroughly remove the
\nveil and mixture and effect the full spiritual transformation. No metaphysical
\nor logical reasoning in the void as to what the Atman \u201cmust\u201d do or can do or
\nneeds or needs not to do is relevant here or of any value. I may add that
\ntransformation is not the central object of other paths as it is of this yoga \u2013
\nonly so much purification and change is demanded by them as will lead to
\nliberation and the beyond-life. The influence of the Atman can no doubt do that
\n\u2013 a full descent of a new consciousness into the whole nature from top to
\nbottom to transform life here is not needed at all for the spiritual escape
\nfrom life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The heart spoken of by the
\nUpanishads corresponds with the physical cardiac centre; it is the hrdpadma<\/i><\/span> <\/i>of the Tantriks<\/span>.
\nAs a subtle centre, cakra<\/span>, it is supposed to have its
\napex on the spine and to broaden out in front. Exactly where in this area one
\nor another feels it does not matter much; to feel it there and be guided by it
\nis the main thing. I cannot say what M has realised \u2013 but what is described as
\nthe Self is certainly this Purusha Antaratma<\/span> but
\nconcerned here rather with Mukti and a liberated action than with
\ntransformation of the nature. What the psychic realisation does bring is a
\npsychic change of the nature purifying it and turning it altogether towards the
\nDivine. After that or along with it comes the realisation of the cosmic Self.
\nIt is these two things that the old yogas<\/span> encompassed
\nand through them
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 116<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

they passed to Moksha, Nirvana or
\nthe departure into some kind of celestial transcendence. The yoga practised
\nhere includes both liberation and transcendence, but it takes liberation or
\neven a certain Nirvana, if that comes, as a first step and not as the last step
\nof its siddhi. Whatever exit to or towards the Transcendent it achieves is an
\nascent accompanied by a descent of the power, light, consciousness that has
\nbeen achieved and it is by such descents that is achieved the spiritual and
\nsupramental transformation here. This does not seem to be admitted in M’s
\nthought; he considers the Descent as superfluous and logically impossible. \u201cThe
\nDivine is here, from where will He descend?\u201d is his argument. But the Divine is
\neverywhere, he is above as well as within, he has many habitats, many strings
\nto his bow of Power, there are many levels of his dynamic Consciousness and
\neach has its own light and force. He is not confined to his position in the
\nheart or to the single word of the psycho-spiritual realisation. He has also
\nhis supramental station above the heart-centre and mind-centre and can descend
\nfrom there if he wills to do so.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think Ramatirtha’s<\/span>
\nrealisations were more mental than anything else. He had opening of the higher
\nmind and a realisation there of the cosmic Self, but I find no evidence of a
\ntransformed mind and vital; that transformation is not a result or object of
\nthe Yoga of Knowledge. The realisation of the Yoga of Knowledge is when one
\nfeels that one lives in the wideness of something silent, featureless and
\nuniversal (called the Self) and all else is seen as only forms and names; the
\nSelf is real, nothing else. The realisation of \u201cmy self in other forms\u201d is a
\npart of this or a step towards it, but in the full realisation the \u201cmy\u201d should
\ndrop so that there is only the one Self or rather only the Brahman. For the
\nSelf is merely a subjective aspect of the Brahman, just as the Ishwara is its
\nobjective aspect. That is the Vedantic \u201cKnowledge\u201d. Its result is peace,
\nsilence, liberation. As for the active Prakriti, (mind, vital, body,) that Yoga
\nof Knowledge does not make it its aim to transform them \u2013 that would be no use
\nas the idea is that if the liberation has come, it will all drop off at death.
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 117<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

The only change wanted is to get
\nrid of the idea of ego and realise as true only the supreme Self, the Brahman.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have not read R’s writings nor
\nam I at all acquainted with his personality or what may be the level of his
\nexperience. The words you quote from him could be expressions either of a
\nsimple faith or of a pantheistic experience; evidently, if they are used or
\nintended to establish the thesis that the Divine is everywhere and is all and
\ntherefore all is good, being Divine, they are very insufficient for that
\npurpose. But as an experience, it is a very common thing to have this feeling
\nor realisation in the Vedantic sadhana \u2013 in fact without it there would be no
\nVedantic sadhana. I have had it myself on various levels of consciousness and
\nin numerous forms and I have met scores of people who have had it very
\ngenuinely \u2013 not as an intellectual theory or perception, but as a spiritual
\nreality which was too concrete for them to deny whatever paradoxes it may
\nentail for the ordinary intelligence. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Of course it
\ndoes not mean that all here is good or that in the estimation of values\u00a0 <\/span>a brothel is as good as an Ashram, but it
\ndoes mean that all are part of one manifestation and that in the inner heart of
\nthe harlot as in the inner heart of the sage or saint there is the Divine. Again
\nhis experience is that there is One Force working in the world both in its good
\nand in its evil \u2013 one Cosmic Force; it works both in the success (or failure)
\nof the Ashram and in the success (or failure) of the brothel. Things are done
\nin this world by the use of the force, although the use made is according to
\nthe nature of the user, one uses it for the works of Light, another for the
\nworks of Darkness, yet another for a mixture. I don’t think any Vedantin
\n(except perhaps some modernised<\/span> ones) would maintain
\nthat all is good here \u2013 the orthodox Vedantic idea is that all is here an
\ninextricable mixture of good and evil, a play of the Ignorance and therefore a
\nplay of the dualities. The Christian missionaries, I suppose, hold that all
\nthat God does is morally good, so they are shocked by the Taoist priests aiding
\nthe work of the brothel by their rites. But <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 118<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

do not the Christian priests
\ninvoke the aid of God for the destruction of men in battle and did not some of
\nthem sing Te Deums<\/span> over a victory won by the massacre
\nof men and the starvation of women and children? The Taoist who believes only
\nin the Impersonal Tao is more consistent and the Vedantin who believes that the
\nSupreme is beyond good and evil, but that the Cosmic Force the Supreme has put
\nout here works through the dualities, therefore through both good and evil, joy
\nand suffering, has a theory which at least accounts for the double fact of the
\nexperience of the Supreme which is All Light, All Bliss and All Beauty and a
\nworld of mixed light and darkness, joy and suffering, what is fair and what is
\nugly. He says that the dualities come by a separative Ignorance and so long as
\nyou accept this separative Ignorance, you cannot get rid of that, but it is
\npossible to draw back from it in experience and to have the realisation of the
\nDivine in all and the Divine everywhere and then you begin to realise the
\nLight, Bliss and Beauty behind all and this is the one thing to do. Also you
\nbegin to realise the one Force and you can use it or let it use you for the
\ngrowth of the Light in you and others \u2013 no longer for the satisfaction of the
\nego and for the works of the ignorance and darkness.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As to the
\ndilemma about the cruelty of things, I do not know what answer R would give.
\nOne answer might be that the Divine within is felt through the psychic being
\nand the nature of the psychic being is that of the Divine Light, Harmony, Love,
\nbut it is covered by the mental and separative vital ego from which strife,
\nhate, cruelty naturally come. It is therefore natural to feel in the kindness
\nthe touch of the Divine, while the cruelty is felt as a disguise or perversion
\nin Nature, although that would not prevent the man who has the realisation from
\nfeeling and meeting the Divine behind the disguise. I have known even instances
\nin which the perception of the Divine in all accompanied by an intense
\nexperience of universal love or a wide experience of an inner harmony had an
\nextraordinary effect in making all around kind and helpful, even the most
\ncoarse and hard and cruel. Perhaps it is some such experience which is at the
\nbase of R’s statement about the kindness. As for the Divine working, the
\nexperience of the Vedantin’s<\/span> realisation is that
\nbehind the <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 119<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

confused mixture of good and evil
\nsomething is working that he realises as the Divine and in his own life he can
\nlook back and see what each step, happy or unhappy, meant for his progress and
\nhow it led towards the growth of his spirit. Naturally this comes fully as the
\nrealisation progresses; before that he had to walk by faith and may have often
\nfelt his faith fail and yielded to grief, doubt and despair for a time. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As for my
\nwritings, I don’t know if there is any that would clear up the difficulty. You
\nwould find mostly the statement of the Vedantic experience, for it is that
\nthrough which I passed and, though now I have passed to something beyond, it
\nseems to me the most thorough-going and radical preparation for whatever is
\nbeyond, though I do not say that it is indispensable to pass through it. But
\nwhatever the solution, it seems to me that the Vedantin is right in insisting
\nthat one must, to arrive at it, admit the two facts, the prevalence of evil and
\nsuffering here and the experience of that which is free from these things \u2013 and
\nit is only by the progressive experience that one can get a solution \u2013 whether
\nthrough reconciliation, a conquering descent or an escape. If we start from the
\nbasis taken as an axiom that the prevalence of suffering and evil in the
\npresent and in the hard, outward fact of things, disproves of itself all that
\nhas been experienced by sages and mystics of the other side, the realisable<\/span> Divine, then no solution seems possible.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No, certainly I did not mean that
\nthe Vedantin who sees a greater working behind the appearances of the world is
\nliving in a different world from this material one \u2013 if I had meant that, all
\nthat I had written would be without point or sense. I meant a Vedantin who
\nlives in this world with all its suffering and ignorance and ugliness and evil
\nand has had a full measure of these things, betrayal and abandonment by
\nfriends, failure of outward objects and desires in life, attack and
\npersecution, accumulated illnesses, constant difficulty, struggles, stumblings
\nin his yoga. It is not that he lives in a different world, but he has a
\ndifferent way of meeting its ordeals, blows and dangers. He takes them as
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage 120<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

the nature of this world and the
\nresult of the ego-consciousness in which it lives. He tries therefore to grow
\ninto another consciousness in which he feels what is behind the outward
\nappearance, and as he grows into that larger consciousness he begins to feel
\nmore and more a working behind which is helping him to grow in the spirit and
\nleading him toward mastery and freedom from ego and ignorance and he sees that
\nall has been used for that purpose. Till he reaches this consciousness with its
\nlarger knowledge of things, he has to walk by faith and his faith may sometimes
\nfail him, but it returns and carries him through all the difficulties.
\nEverybody is not bound to accept this faith and this consciousness, but there
\nis something great and true behind it for the spiritual life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One thing I feel I must say in
\nconnection with your remark about the soul of India and X’s observation about
\n\u201cthis stress on this-worldliness to the exclusion of other-worldliness\u201d. I do
\nnot quite understand in what connection his remark was made or what he meant by
\nthis-worldliness, but I feel it necessary to state my own position in the
\nmatter. My own life and my yoga have always been, since my coming to India,
\nboth this-worldly and other-worldly without any exclusiveness on either side.
\nAll human interests are, I suppose, this-worldly and most of them have entered
\ninto my mental field and some, like politics, into my life, but at the same
\ntime, since I set foot on the Indian soil on the Apollo Bunder<\/span>
\nin Bombay, I began to have spiritual experiences, but these were not divorced
\nfrom this world but had an inner and infinite bearing on it, such as a feeling
\nof the Infinite pervading material space and the Immanent inhabiting material
\nobjects and bodies. At the same time I found myself entering supraphysical<\/span> worlds and planes with influences and an
\neffect from them upon the material plane, so I could make no sharp divorce or
\nirreconcilable opposition between what I have called the two ends of existence
\nand all that lies between them. For me all is Brahman and I find the Divine
\neverywhere. Everyone has the right to throw away this-worldliness and choose other-worldliness
\nonly, and if he finds peace by that choice he is greatly blessed.
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 121<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

I, personally, have not found it
\nnecessary to do this in order to have peace. In my yoga also I found myself
\nmoved to include both worlds in my purview \u2013 the spiritual and the material \u2013 and
\nto try to establish the Divine Consciousness and the Divine Power in men’s
\nhearts and earthly life, not for a personal salvation only but for a life
\ndivine here. This seems to me as spiritual an aim as any and the fact of this
\nlife taking up earthly pursuits and earthly things into its scope cannot, I
\nbelieve, tarnish its spirituality or alter its Indian character. This at least
\nhas always been my view and experience of the reality and nature of the world
\nand things and the Divine: it seemed to me as nearly as possible the integral
\ntruth about them and I have therefore spoken of the pursuit of it as the
\nintegral yoga. Everyone is, of course, free to reject and disbelieve in this
\nkind of integrality or to believe in the spiritual necessity of an entire
\nother-worldliness altogether, but that would make the exercise of my yoga
\nimpossible. My yoga can include indeed a full experience of the other worlds,
\nthe plane of the Supreme Spirit and the other planes in between and their
\npossible effects upon our life and the material world; but it will be quite
\npossible to insist only on the realisation of the Supreme Being or Ishwara even
\nin one aspect, Shiva, Krishna as Lord of the world and Master of ourselves and
\nour works or else the Universal Sachchidananda, and attain to the essential
\nresults of this yoga and afterwards to proceed from them to the integral
\nresults if one accepted the ideal of the divine life and this material world
\nconquered by the Spirit. It is this view and experience of things and of the
\ntruth of existence that enabled me to write The
\nLife Divine<\/i> and Savitri<\/i>. The
\nrealisation of the Supreme, the Ishwara, is certainly the essential thing; but
\nto approach Him with love and devotion and bhakti<\/i>,
\nto serve Him with one’s works and to know Him, not necessarily by the
\nintellectual cognition, but in a spiritual experience, is also essential in the
\npath of the integral yoga. If you accept K’s<\/span>
\ninsistence that this and no other must be your<\/i>
\npath, it is this you have to attain and realise, then any exclusive
\nother-worldliness cannot be your<\/i> way.
\nI believe that you are quite capable of attaining this and realising the Divine
\nand I have never been able to share your constantly recurring doubts about your
\ncapacity and their <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 122<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

persistent recurrence is not a
\nvalid ground for believing that they can never be overcome. Such a persistent
\nrecurrence has been a feature in the sadhana of many who have finally emerged
\nand reached the goal; even the sadhana of very great yogis has not been exempt
\nfrom such violent and constant recurrences, they have sometimes been special
\nobjects of such persistent assaults, as I have indeed indicated in Savitri<\/i> in more places than one, and
\nthat was indeed founded on my own experience. In the nature of these
\nrecurrences there is usually a constant return of the same adverse experiences,
\nthe same adverse resistance, thoughts destructive of all belief and faith and
\nconfidence in the future of the sadhana, frustrating doubts of what one has
\nknown as the truth, urgings to abandonment of the yoga or to other disastrous
\ncounsels of d\u00e9ch\u00e9ance<\/i><\/span>.
\nThe course taken by the attacks is not indeed the same for all, but still they
\nhave strong family resemblance. One can eventually overcome if one begins to
\nrealise the nature and source of these assaults and acquires the faculty of
\nobserving them, bearing, without being involved or absorbed into their gulf,
\nfinally becoming the witness of their phenomena and understanding them and
\nrefusing the mind’s sanction even when the vital is still tossed in the whirl
\nand the most outward physical mind still reflects the adverse suggestions. In
\nthe end, these attacks lose their power and fall away from the nature; the
\nrecurrence becomes feeble or has no power to last: even, if the detachment is
\nstrong enough, they can be cut out very soon or at once. The strongest attitude
\nto take is to regard these things as what they really are: incursions of dark
\nforces from outside taking advantage of certain openings in the physical mind
\nor the vital part, but not a real part of oneself or spontaneous creation in
\none’s own nature. To create a confusion and darkness in the physical mind and
\nto throw into it or awake in it mistaken ideas, dark thoughts, false
\nimpressions is a favourite<\/span> method of these assailants,
\nand if they can get the support of this mind from over-confidence in its own
\ncorrectness or the natural rightness of its impressions and inferences, then
\nthey can have a field-day until the true mind reasserts itself and blows the
\nclouds away. Another device of theirs is to awake some hurt or rankling sense
\nof grievance in the lower vital parts and keep them hurt or
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 123<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

rankling as long as possible. In
\nthat case one has to discover these openings in one’s nature and learn to close
\nthem permanently to such attacks or to throw out the intruders at once or as
\nsoon as possible. The recurrence is no proof of a fundamental incapacity; if
\none takes the right inner attitude, it can and will be overcome. One must have
\nfaith in the Master of our life and works, even if for a long time He conceals
\nHimself, and then in His own right time He will reveal His Presence. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You have always
\nbelieved in Guruvada<\/span>: I would ask you then to put
\nyour faith in the Guru and the guidance and rely on the Ishwara for the
\nfulfilment, to have faith in my abiding love and affection, in the affection
\nand divine goodwill and loving kindness of the Mother, stand firm against all
\nattacks and go forward perseveringly towards the spiritual Goal and the
\nall-fulfilling and all-satisfying touch of the All-Blissful, the Ishwara. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I send you the promised letter
\ntoday; you will see that it is less a reply to the exact terms of your letter
\nthan a \u201cdefence<\/span> of the gospel of divinisation<\/span>
\nof life\u201d against the strictures and the incomprehensions<\/span>
\nof the mentality (or more often the vitality) that either misunderstands or
\nshrinks from it \u2013 or perhaps misunderstands because it shrinks, and shrinks too
\nbecause it misunderstands both my method and my object. It is not a complete defence<\/span>, but only raises or answers a main point here and
\nthere. The rest will come hereafter. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But all language
\nis open to misunderstanding; so I had better in sending on the letter make or
\ntry to make certain things clear. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Although I have
\nlaid stress on things divine in answer to an excessive (because contrary)
\ninsistence on things human, it must not be understood that I reject everything
\nhuman, \u2013 human love or worship or any helpful form of human approach as part of
\nthe yoga. I have never done so, otherwise the Ashram could not be in existence.
\nThe sadhaks who enter the yoga are human beings and if they were not allowed a
\nhuman approach at the beginning and long after, they would not be able to start
\nthe yoga
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 124<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

or would not be able to continue
\nit. The discussion arises only because the word \u201chuman\u201d is used in practice,
\nnot only as identical with the human vital (and the outward mind), but with
\ncertain forms of human vital ego-nature. But the human vital has many other
\nthings in it and is full of excellent material. All that is asked by the yoga
\nis that this material should be utilized in the right way and with the right
\nspiritual attitude and also, that the human approach to the Divine should not
\nbe constantly turned into a human revolt and reproach against it. And that too
\nwe ask only for the success of the approach itself and of the human being who
\nis making it.
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Divinisation<\/span> itself does not mean the destruction of the
\nhuman elements; it means taking them up, showing them the way to their own
\nperfection, raising them by purification and perfection to their full power and
\nAnanda and that means the raising of the whole of earthly life to its full
\npower and Ananda.
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If there were
\nnot a resistance in vital human nature, a pressure of forces adverse to the change,
\nforces which delight in imperfection and even in perversion, this change would
\neffect itself without difficulty by a natural and painless\u00a0 <\/span>flowering \u2013 as, for example, your own powers
\nof poetry and music have flowered out here with rapidity and ease under the
\nlight and rain of a spiritual and psychic influence \u2013 because everything in you
\ndesired that change and your vital was willing to recognise imperfections, to
\nthrow away any wrong attitude \u2013 e.g., the desire for mere fame, and to be
\ndedicated and perfect. Divinisation<\/span> of life means, in
\nfact, a greater art of life; for the present art of life produced by ego and
\nignorance is something comparatively mean, crude and imperfect (like the lower
\nforms of art, music and literature which are yet more attractive to the
\nordinary human mind and vital), and it is by a spiritual and psychic opening
\nand refinement that it has to reach its true perfection. This can only be done
\nby its being steeped in the divine Light and Flame in which its material will
\nbe stripped of all heavy dross and turned into the true metal. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 Unfortunately,
\nthere is the resistance, a very obscure and obstinate resistance. That
\nnecessitates a negative element in the yoga, an element of rejection of things that
\nstand in the way and of pressure upon those forms that are crude and useless to
\ndis<\/span>appear,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 125<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

on those that are useful
\nbut imperfect or have been perverted to retain or to recover their true
\nmovement. To the vital this pressure is painful, first, because it is obscure
\nand does not understand and, secondly, because there are parts of it that want
\nto be left to their crude motions and not to change. That is why the
\nintervention of a psychic attitude is so helpful. For the psychic has the happy
\nconfidence, the ready understanding and response, the spontaneous surrender; it
\nknows that the touch of the Guru is meant to help and not to hurt, or, like Radha<\/span> in the poem, that whatever the Beloved does is meant
\nto lead to the Divine Rapture.
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At the same
\ntime, it is not from the negative part of the movement that you have to judge
\nthe yoga, but from its positive side; for the negative part is temporary and
\ntransitional and will disappear, the positive alone counts for the ideal and
\nfor the future. If you take conditions which belong to the negative side and to
\na transitional movement as the law of the future and the indication of the
\ncharacter of the yoga, you will commit a serious misjudgment, a grave mistake.
\nThis yoga is not a rejection of life or of closeness and intimacy between the
\nDivine and the sadhaks. Its ideal aims at the greatest closeness and unity on
\nthe physical as well as the other planes, at the most divine largeness and
\nfullness and joy of life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sri Aurobindo has no remarks 1<\/sup>
\nto make on Huxley’s comments with which he is in entire agreement. But in the
\nphrase \u201cto its heights we can always reach\u201d, very obviously \u201cwe\u201d does not refer
\nto humanity in general but to those who have a sufficiently developed inner
\nspiritual life. It is probable that Sri Aurobindo<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1<\/span><\/sup> These remarks were dictated
\nby Sri Aurobindo apropos of the phrase \u201cto its heights we can always reach\u201d
\noccurring in the follo’wing<\/span> passage in The Life
\nDivine quoted and commented upon by Aldous<\/span> Huxley in
\nhis book, The Perennial Philosophy (1946 Edition), p. 74:<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe touch of Earth is
\nalways reinvigorating to the son of Earth, even when he seeks a supraphysical<\/span> Knowledge. It may even be said that the supraphysical<\/span> can only be really mastered in its fullness \u2013
\nto its heights we can always reach \u2013 when we keep our feet firmly on the
\nphysical. `Earth is His footing,’ says the Upanishad whenever it images the
\nSelf that manifests in the universe.\u201d (American Edition, p. 13.)<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 126<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

was thinking of his own
\nexperience. After three years of spiritual effort with only minor results he
\nwas shown by a yogi the way to silence his mind. This he succeeded in doing
\nentirely in two or three days by following the method shown. There was an
\nentire silence of thought and feeling and all the ordinary movements of
\nconsciousness except the perception and recognition of things around without
\nany accompanying concept or other reaction. The sense of ego disappeared and
\nthe movements of the ordinary life as well as speech and action were carried on
\nby some habitual activity of Prakriti alone which was not felt as belonging to
\noneself. But the perception which remained saw all things as utterly unreal;
\nthis sense of unreality was overwhelming and universal. Only some undefinable<\/span> Reality was perceived as true which was beyond
\nspace and time and unconnected with any cosmic activity, but yet was met
\nwherever one turned. This condition remained unimpaired for several months and
\neven when the sense of unreality disappeared and there was a return to
\nparticipation in the world-consciousness, the inner peace and freedom which
\nresulted from this realisation remained permanently behind all surface
\nmovements and the essence of the realisation itself was not lost. At the same
\ntime an experience intervened: something else than himself took up his dynamic
\nactivity and spoke and acted through him but without any personal thought or
\ninitiative. What this was remained unknown until Sri Aurobindo came to realise
\nthe dynamic side of the Brahman, the Ishwara, and felt himself moved by that in
\nall his sadhana and action. These realisations and others which followed upon
\nthem, such as that of the Self in all and all in the Self and all as the Self,
\nthe Divine in all and all in the Divine, are the heights to which Sri Aurobindo
\nrefers and to which he says we can always rise; for they presented to him no
\nlong or obstinate difficulty. The only real difficulty which took decades of
\nspiritual effort to work out towards completeness was to apply the spiritual
\nknowledge utterly to the world and to the surface psychological and outer life
\nand to effect its transformation both on the higher levels of Nature and on the
\nordinary mental, vital and physical levels down to the subconscience<\/span>
\nand the basic Inconscience and up to the supreme Truth-Consciousness or <\/p>\n

\nPage 127<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

 supermind in which alone the
\ndynamic transformation could be entirely integral and absolute. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I do not gather from these
\nextracts1 <\/sup>the true nature of the transformation spoken of here. It
\nseems to be something mental and moral with the love of God and a certain kind
\nof union in separateness brought about by this divine love as the spiritualising<\/span> element. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Love of God and union in separateness through that love and a
\ntransformation of the nature by realising certain mental, ethical, emotional \u2013 perhaps
\neven physical possibilities (for the Vaishnavas speak of a new cinmaya<\/i><\/span> <\/i>body) is the principle of Vaishnava<\/span> yoga. So there is nothing here that was not
\nalready present in that line of Asiatic mysticism which looks to a Personal
\nDeity and insists on the eternal pre-existence and survival of the individual
\nbeing. A spiritual raising of the nature to its highest possibilities is a part
\nof the Tantric discipline \u2013 so that too is not absent from Indian yoga. The
\nwriter seems, like most European writers, to know only Illusionism and Buddhism
\nand to accept them as the whole wisdom of Asia (sagesse<\/span>
\nasiatique<\/span>); but even there he misinterprets their
\nidea and their experience. Adwaita even in its extreme form does not aim at the
\nextinction of existence, the adoption of nothingness, the end of the being and
\ndestruction of the essence. Only a certain kind of Nihilistic Buddhism aims at
\nthat and even so, that Nothingness, Shunya<\/span>, is
\ndescribed on another side of it as the Permanent. What these disciplines aim at
\nis a passing from Time to Eternity, a putting off of the finite and putting on
\nof the Infinite, a casting off of the bonds of ego and its results, desire,
\nsuffering, a falsified existence, in order to live in the true Self. These
\ndescriptions of the Christian writer betray an entire ignorance of the
\nrealisation which he decries, its infinity, freedom, surpassing peace, the
\necstasy of the Brahmananda<\/span>. It is an extinction of
\nthe limited individual personality but a liberation into cosmic and then into
\ntranscendent consciousness \u2013 an extinction of thought and life
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n1<\/span><\/sup> From La Defense de l’Occident<\/span>
\nby Henri Massis<\/span>.<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 128<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

but a liberation into an unlimited
\nconsciousness and knowledge and being. The personality is extinguished but in
\nsomething greater than itself, not in something less nor in mere \u201cN\u00e9ant<\/i><\/span>\u201d. If it be
\nsaid that that negates earthly life, so does the Christian ideal, for the
\nChristian ideal aims at the attainment of a celestial existence beyond the
\nearth existence (beyond this single earth life, for reincarnation is not
\nadmitted), which is only a vale of sorrows and a passing ordeal. It insists on
\nthe preservation of the spiritual personality, but so do Vaishnavism<\/span>
\nand Shaivism<\/span> and other \u201cAsiatic\u201d ideals. The writer’s
\nignorance of the many-sidedness of Asiatic wisdom deprives this depreciation of
\nit of all value.
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The phrases
\nwhich struck you as resembling superficially at least our ideal of
\ntransformation are of a general character and could be adopted without
\nhesitation by almost any spiritual discipline, even Illusionism would be
\nwilling to include it as a stage or experience on the way. All depends on the
\ncontent you put into the words, what actual change in the consciousness and
\nlife they are intended to cover. If the transformation be \u201cfrom sin to
\nsainthood\u201d by the union of the soul with God \u201cin an intellectual light full of
\nlove\u201d \u2013 which is the most definite description of it in these extracts, \u2013 then
\nit is not at all identical, but rather very far from what I mean by
\ntransformation. For the transformation I aim at is not from sin to sainthood,
\nbut from the lower nature of the Ignorance to the Divine Nature of Light,
\nPeace, Truth, Divine Power and Bliss beyond the Ignorance. It journeys towards
\na supreme self-existent good and leaves behind it the limited struggling human
\nconception of sin and virtue; it is not an intellectual light that is the sun
\nof its aspiration but a spiritual supra-intellectual supramental light; it is
\nnot sainthood that is its culmination but divine consciousness \u2013 or if you
\nlike, soul-hood, spirit-hood, conscious self-hood, divine-hood. There is
\ntherefore between these two kinds or two degrees of transformation an immense
\ndifference. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI.<\/b> \u201cC’est<\/span> un abandon h\u00e9ro\u00efque<\/span> o\u00f9<\/span> l’\u00e2me<\/span> parvient<\/span>
\nau sommet<\/span> de l’activit\u00e9<\/span> libre<\/span>, o\u00f9<\/span> la personne<\/span>
\nse transforme<\/span>, o\u00f9<\/span> ses<\/span> facult\u00e9s<\/span> sont<\/span>
\n\u00e9pur\u00e9es<\/span>, d\u00e9ifi\u00e9es<\/span> par la gr\u00e2ce<\/span>, sans que<\/span> son essence soit<\/span> detruite<\/span>.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 129<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

           What is meant by
\nfree activity? With us the freedom consists in freedom from the darkness,
\nlimitation, error, suffering, transience of the ignorant lower Nature, but also
\nin a total surrender to the Divine. Free action is the action of the Divine in
\nus and through us; no other action can be free. That seems to be accepted in II
\nand III; but this perception, this conception is as old as spiritual knowledge
\nitself \u2013 it is not peculiar to Catholicism. What again is meant by the
\npurification and deification of the faculties by Grace? If it is an ethical
\npurification, that goes a very small way and does not bring deification. Again,
\nif the deification is limited by the intellectual light, it must be a rather
\npetty affair at the best. There was a similar aim in ancient Indian spirituality,
\nbut it had a larger sweep and a higher height than that. No spiritual
\ndiscipline aims at purification or deification by the destruction of the
\nessence \u2013 there can be no such thing, the very phrase is meaningless and
\nself-contradictory. The essence of the being is indestructible. Even the most
\nrigid Adwaita discipline does not aim at any such destruction; its object is
\nthe purest purity of the essential self. Transformation aims at this essential
\npurity of the pure Spirit, but it asks also for the purity and divinity of the
\nsupreme Nature; it is not the essence of being but the accidents of our
\nundeveloped imperfect nature that are destroyed and replaced by the
\nmanifestation of the divine Nature. The monistic Adwaita aims at the
\ndisappearance of the ego, not of the essence of the person; it arrives at this
\ndisappearance by identity with the One, by dissolution of the
\nNature-constructed ego into the reality of the eternal Self, for that, it says,
\nnot ego, is the essence of the person \u2013 so’ham<\/i><\/span>, tat tvam<\/span> asi<\/span><\/i>. In our idea of
\ntransformation also there is the destruction of the ego, its dissolution into
\nthe cosmic and the divine consciousness, but by that destruction we recover the
\ntrue or spiritual person which is an eternal portion of the Divine. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nII<\/b>. \u201cLa
\ncontemplation du<\/span> Chr\u00e9tien est<\/span>
\nins\u00e9parable<\/span> de l’\u00e9tat<\/span> de
\nGr\u00e2ce1<\/sup> et de la vie divine. S’il<\/span> doit<\/span> s’an\u00e9antir<\/span>, c’est<\/span> encore sa personnalit\u00e9<\/span> qui triomphe<\/span> en se laissant<\/span> arracher<\/span> \u00e0<\/span> tout ce<\/span> qui n’est<\/span> pas <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1 <\/span><\/sup>Grace is not a conception peculiar
\nto the Christian spiritual idea \u2013 it is there in Vaishnavism<\/span>,
\nShaivism<\/span>, the Shakta<\/span>
\nreligion, \u2013 it is as old as the Upanishads.<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 130<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

elle<\/span>,
\nen brisant<\/span> tous<\/span> les liens
\nqui l’unissent<\/span> \u00e0<\/span> son individu<\/span> de chair, afin<\/span> que<\/span> le Dieu<\/span> vivant puisse<\/span> s’en<\/span> saisir<\/span>,
\nl’assumer<\/span>, l’habiter<\/span>.\u201d <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIII. <\/b>\u201cLibert\u00e9<\/span> consiste<\/span> d’abord<\/span> \u00e0<\/span> subordonner<\/span>
\nce<\/span> qui est<\/span> inf\u00e9rieur<\/span> dans<\/span> sa nature \u00e0<\/span> ce<\/span> qui lui<\/span>
\nest<\/span> sup\u00e9rieur<\/span>.\u201d <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

These passages
\ncan be taken in the above sense and as approximating to our ideal; but the
\nconfusion here is in the use of the word \u201cpersonality\u201d. Personality is a
\ntemporary formation and to eternise<\/span> it would be to eternise<\/span> ignorance and limitation. The true \u201cI\u201d is not the
\nmental ego or the present personality which is only a mask, but the eternal \u201cI\u201d
\nwhich assumes various personalities in various lives. The Christian and
\nEuropean conception of a single life on earth tends to bring about this error
\nby making our present personality appear as if it were our whole self….
\nAgain, it is not merely the bodily individuality to which ignorance ties us,
\nbut the mental individuality and vital individuality also. All these ties have
\nto be broken, the imperfect forms of mind and life transcended, mind
\ntransformed into something beyond mind, life into divine life, if the transformation
\nis to be real and not merely a new shaping or heightening of the lights of the
\nIgnorance.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIV.<\/b> \u201cCette<\/span> solitude de l’\u00e2me<\/span> (de l’asc\u00e8te<\/span> asiatique<\/span>) … n’est<\/span> pas le vrai<\/span> loi<\/span> sir spirituel<\/span>, la solitude
\nactive o\u00f9<\/span> s’op\u00e8re<\/span> la
\ntransformation du<\/span> p\u00e9ch\u00e9<\/span> en saintet\u00e9<\/span> par l’union<\/span> de l’\u00e2me<\/span> avec Dieu<\/span> dans<\/span> une<\/span> lumi\u00e8re<\/span>
\nintellectuelle<\/span> toute<\/span> pleine<\/span> d’amour.\u201d <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have commented
\nalready on this description of the transformation to be effected and have to
\nadd only one more reserve. The solitude of the self in the Divine has no doubt
\nto be active as well as passive and static; but none who has not arrived at the
\nsilence and motionless solitude of the eternal Self can have the free and
\nintegral activity of the higher divine Nature. For the action is based on the
\nsilence and by the silence it is free. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nV.<\/b> \u201c… la vie chr\u00e9tienne<\/span> \u2013 mystique, progressive \u2013 qui est<\/span> un enrichissement<\/span>, un \u00e9largissement<\/span> infini<\/span> de la personne<\/span> humaine<\/span>.\u201d <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 131<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

This is not our idea of
\ntransformation \u2013 for the human person is the mental being limited by life and
\nbody. An enrichment and enlargement of it cannot go beyond the extreme limit of
\nthat formula, it can only widen and adorn its present poverty and narrowness.
\nIt cannot ascend out of the mental ignorance into a greater Truth and Light or
\nbring that down in any fullness into earthly nature, which is the aim of
\ntransformation as we conceive it. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nVI.<\/b> \u201cPour l’asiatique<\/span> la personnalit\u00e9<\/span> est<\/span> la chute de l’homme<\/span>; pour le chr\u00e9tien<\/span>, c’est<\/span> le dessein<\/span> m\u00eame<\/span> de Dieu<\/span>, le principe<\/span> de l’union<\/span>, le sommet<\/span> naturel<\/span> de la cr\u00e9ation<\/span>, qu’il<\/span> appelle<\/span> tout enti\u00e8re<\/span> \u00e0<\/span> la Gr\u00e2ce<\/span>.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The personality
\nof this single life in man is a formation in the Ignorance, therefore a fall;
\nit cannot be the summit of the being. We do not admit that it is the summit of
\nthe natural creation either, but say there are higher summits to which we have
\nto climb and reveal their powers in earthly nature. The natural creation is an
\nevolution of the hidden Divine Consciousness in Nature which is limited and
\ndisguised at first by the Ignorance. It has still to climb out of the Ignorance
\n\u2013 therefore to get beyond the human person into the divine person. It is in
\nthis spiritual evolution that the Plan Divine (dessein<\/span>
\nde Dieu<\/span>) manifests its central and significant line
\nand calls all creation to the crowning Grace. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You will see,
\ntherefore, that the resemblance of the transformation here to our ideal is only
\non the surface, in the words, but not in the content of the words which is much
\nnarrower and of another order. So far as there is agreement and coincidence, it
\nis because there is contained in them what is common (a certain conversion of
\nthe consciousness) to all spiritual disciplines; for all, in the East or in the
\nWest, have a common core of experience \u2013 it is in their developments, range,
\nturn to this or that aspect or else their will towards the totality of the
\nTruth that they differ.
\n <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n⁂<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 132<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

There is no connection between
\nthe Christian conception (of the Kingdom of Heaven) and the idea of the
\nsupramental descent. The Christian conception supposes a state of things
\nbrought about by religious emotion and moral purification; but these things are
\nno more capable of changing the world, whatever value they may have for the individual,
\nthan mental idealism or any other power yet called upon for the purpose. The
\nChristian proposes to substitute the sattwic religious ego for the rajasic and
\ntamasic ego, but although this can be done as an individual achievement, it has
\nnever succeeded and will never succeed in accomplishing itself in the mass. It
\nhas no higher spiritual or psychological knowledge behind it and ignores the
\nfoundation of human character and the source of the difficulty \u2013 the duality of
\nmind, life and body. Unless there is a descent of a new Power of Consciousness,
\nnot subject to the dualities but still dynamic which will provide a new
\nfoundation and a lifting of the centre of consciousness above the mind, the
\nKingdom of God on earth can only be an ideal, not a fact realised in the
\ngeneral earth-consciousness and earth-life. <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 133<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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