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Integral Supramental Education
“Those who are ready within, who are open and in touch with the higher forces, those who have had a more or less direct personal contact with the Supramental Light and Consciousness, are capable of feeling the difference in the earth atmosphere... But for this ... only like can know like. Only the Supramental Consciousness in an individual can perceive the Supramental acting in the earth atmosphere. Those who, for whatever reason, have developed this perception can see it. But those who are not even remotely conscious of their inner beings, who would be quite at a loss to say what their souls look like, are certainly not ready to perceive the difference in the earth atmosphere. They still have quite a way to go for that. Because, for those whose consciousness is more or less exclusively centered in the outer being – mental, vital and physical – things need to have an absurd or unexpected appearance to be noticeable. And then they call it a miracle... But we do not call a miracle the constant miracle of the forces that intervene to change circumstances and human natures and which have very far reaching consequences, for we see only the appearance, and this appearance seems quite natural. But in truth, if you were to reflect upon the least thing that happens, you would be forced to acknowledge that it is miraculous.... It is simply because you do not reflect upon it and assume things to be as they are, what they are, unquestioningly; otherwise you would have quite a number of opportunities everyday to say to yourself, ‘But look! That is absolutely amazing! How did it happen?’"
The Mother
The Mother's Agenda/May 2 1956
Supramental Education:
“Hardly for a moment glimpsed viewless to Mind,
As if a torch held by a power of God,
The radiant world of the everlasting Truth
Glimmered like a faint star bordering the night
Above the golden Overmind’s shimmering ridge.” Savitri-41
“At her will the inscrutable Supermind leans down
To guide her force that feels but cannot know,
Its breath of power controls her restless seas
And life obeys the governing Idea.” Savitri-121
“There in a world of everlasting Light,
In the realms of the immortal Supermind
Truth who hides here her head in mystery,
Her riddle deemed by reason impossible
In the stark structure of material form,
Unenigmaed lives, unmasked her face and there
Is Nature and the common law of things.” Savitri-661-662
“The incarnate dual Power shall open God’s door,
Eternal supermind touch earthly Time.” Savitri-705
“The supermind shall be his nature’s fount,
The Eternal’s truth shall mould his thoughts and acts,
The Eternal’s truth shall be his light and guide.” Savitri-706
“The supermind shall claim the world for Light
And thrill with love of God the enamoured heart
And place Light’s crown on Nature’s lifted head
And found Light’s reign on her unshaking base.” Savitri-707
The Supramental Education is defined in its three poises, that of firstly, it is the original self-concentration which endeavours to realise the Knowledge of the One, Vidya; secondly, the diffusion and apparent disintegration of all that is concentrated in its unity which gives birth to the Knowledge of the Many, Avidya, or limitation of knowledge and form; thirdly, it upholds the diffusion and prevents the existence from its real disintegration, maintains unity in utmost diversity and stability in utmost mutability. Or, Supramental Education is at once the Knowledge of the One, the Knowledge of the Many and the holding together of the Knowledge of the One and the Many.
Mental Education is established on the basis of Ignorance seeking exclusive Knowledge and growing into it. Psychic and Spiritual Education are the knowledge of intermediate Worlds and without them one cannot rise to the Universal and Supramental plane. Supramental Education is established here on the basis of comprehensive Knowledge and growing into its own greater Knowledge. The gulf between mind and Supermind can be bridged by opening a passage in the Psychic and Spiritual plane through vertical movement of ascent and descent of Consciousness, where there is now void, gap, gulf and silence.
Here in order to visualise integral transformation through Supramental Education, a comparative study has been made between the Supramental Education hinted in the Gita and that which is further developed in Savitri. “A complete and radical change can only be brought about by bringing in persistently the spiritual light and intimate experience of the spiritual truth, power, bliss into the recalcitrant elements until they too recognise that their own way of fulfilment lies there, that they are themselves a diminished power of the spirit and can recover by this new way of being their own truth and integral nature. This illumination is constantly opposed by the Forces of the lower nature and still more by the adverse Forces that live and reign by the world’s imperfections and have laid down their formidable foundation on the black rock of the Inconscience.”¹¹
Supramental Education hinted in The Gita:
Five gradations of All-inclusive Supramental Education:-
“24th November, 1926 was the descent of Krishna into the Physical. Krishna is not the Supramental Light. The descent of Krishna would mean the descent of the Overmind Godhead preparing, though not itself actually, the descent of Supermind and Ananda. Krishna is the Anandamaya; he supports the evolution through the Overmind leading it towards the Ananda.”¹²
Sri Aurobindo
“The Gita at its cryptic close may seem by its silence to stop short of that solution for which we are seeking; it pauses at the borders of highest spiritual mind and does not cross them into the splendours of the Supramental Light.”¹³
Sri Aurobindo
“The Blessed Lord said: Hear, O Partha, how by practicing Yoga with a mind attached to Me and with Me as asraya thou shalt know Me integrally, samagram mam, without any remainder of doubt. I will speak to thee without omission or remainder the exclusive knowledge, Jnanam, attended with all-inclusive knowledge, Vijnanam, by knowing which there shall be no other thing here left to be known.”
The Gita-7.1, 2
“Among the thousands of men one here and there strives after perfection, siddhi, and of those who strive and attain to perfection one here and there knows Me Integrally, in all principles of my existence, samagram mam.”
The Gita-7.3
“The Blessed Lord said: What I am going to tell thee, the uncarping, is the most secret thing of all, the exclusive knowledge, Jnanam, followed by all-inclusive knowledge, Vijnanam, by knowing which thou shalt be released from evil.
The Gita-9.1
“He who undeluded thus has knowledge of Me as the Purushottama, adores Me with the whole knowledge in every way of nature, sarvavit sarvabhavena.”
The Gita-15.19
“This same ancient and original Yoga has been today declared to thee by Me, for thou art My devotee and My friend; this is the highest secret, rahasyam uttamam.”
The Gita-4.3
The four exclusive quests are related to the ascension of Psychic and Spiritual Consciousness, whereas the five all-inclusive Supermind are related to the descent of Supreme Consciousness. The ‘psychic and the spiritual transformation must be far advanced, even as complete as may be, before there can be any beginning of the third and consummating supramental change.’¹⁵ But there are certain Supramental experiences in which ‘a consciously felt descent is not indispensable’²³ and there are still unknown higher sources of Supramental where ‘actual feeling of a descent is not there.’²³ The similar experience is also observed in The Mother’s experience of ‘Divine Love’ on the night of 12-13th April, 1962. Since in the Gita, the particular experience of the descent of Divine Consciousness to Apara prakriti is hinted as Jagat Dharayete (which means Para-prakriti has penetrated, purified, transformed and perfected the Apar-prakriti) but not explored, so in our concentration, we can rest satisfied with that Supramental action without having an actual feeling of the descent. Here, the concept will be that since the presence of Sachchidananda is everywhere, so ‘if the inner doors are flung sufficiently open, the light from the sanctuary can suffuse the nearest and farthest chambers of the outer being.’²³ The highest secret, rahasyam uttamam,²¹ is the Supramental¹⁷ revealed as Purushottama, the integral Divine, who is Nameless, Formless, all-embracing and all-exceeding Sachchidananda and is capable of assuming all Name and Form. In Supramental, all things find their secret truth of Oneness with all existence, universalised order, great harmony and their perfect reconciliation and the sense of separative individual identity is lost in the sole ecstasy of the Divine Beloved.
The five gradations of Supermind represent the action of the same Purushottama Consciousness in varying intensity, while capturing all the worlds, sarvaloka. The literal meaning of Sadharmyam, Sva Prakriti, Madbhava and Param Bhava are same that of becoming the nature of the Divine, but here in this essay, they have been used for different gradations of Divine Nature. Supramental manifestation is the promise of tomorrow and the vision of the latest spiritual developments, but we can return to the Gita for large inspiration, necessary guidance and support.
1) Guhya Vijnana of Supermind and corresponding transformation Sadharmyam :-
“It is like the message of the Gita as Sri Aurobindo explained it: not overmental, but Supramental. It is Oneness, the experience of Oneness.”¹
The Mother
“(Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual Experience at Alipore jail) is Supramental. Yes, the Supramental experience. He called it Narayana because he was Indian.”¹
The Mother
“Very rare is the great soul who knows that all things are Brahman, Vasudevah Sarvamiti.”
The Gita-7.19
“The man whose self is in Yoga, sees the Brahman in all things and all things in the Brahman, he is equal visioned everywhere.”
The Gita-6.29
“He who sees Brahman everywhere and sees all in Brahman, to him Brahman does not get lost, nor does he get lost to the Brahman.”
The Gita-6.30
“The Blessed Lord said: I will again declare the supreme Knowledge, the highest of all knowings, which having known, all the sages have gone hence to the highest perfection. Having taken refuge in this knowledge and become of like nature and law of being with Me, sadharmyam agatah…”
The Gita-14.1, 2
The secret formula of Supermind was first discovered by Sri Aurobindo at Alipore jail during His spiritual experience of Vasudevah sarvamiti, whereas the same was revealed to Sri Krishna during His evolving relation with Sri Radha and it was further developed through universalization of His manifestation, symbolised as the Gopis. Sri Aurobindo’s discovery of the Supramental attained further momentum, strength and concrete form with the Mother’s arrival. ‘A vast universality of soul and an intense unity with all is the base and fixed condition of the supramental consciousness and spiritual life. In that universality and unity alone can we find the supreme law of the divine manifestation in the life of the embodied spirit; in that alone can we discover the supreme motion and right play of our individual nature. In that alone can all these lower discords resolve themselves into a victorious harmony of the true relations between manifested beings who are portions of the one Godhead and children of one universal Mother.’⁵
Sri Aurobindo was interested to invert the gained Supramental power towards earth nature as He was destined to carry evolution ahead through the transformation of the earth. ‘When the higher descends into the lower consciousness, it alters the lower but is also modified and diminished by it; when the lower ascends, it is sublimated but at the same time qualifies the sublimating substance and power.’¹⁴ Sri Krishna’s Avatara role was directed to liberate the then humanity from the tyranny of asuras, evolve the svadharma and svabhava of spiritual law of the race and descend supreme universal Ananda to the earth represented through the Gopis. He corrected, synthesised completed and perfected the earlier available six ancient Spiritual disciplines and reconciled their mutual opposition and developed the most profound theory of Karma Yoga for people of all time and all ages, which will serve as a base for the Supramental realisation. His contact with Supramental was neither systemized, nor streamlined and left it as a Supreme mystery which can neither be expressed in words, sabdabrahmativartate²⁴, nor heard through illumined seers, srotavyasya srutasya ca²⁵ but to be lived through new means of expression. But the work He initiated on earth will advance and will be completed through Supramental manifestation, and His support to carry this action is an important leverage for Sri Aurobindo’s action, as the latter contains within Himself all the Powers and Presence of the past Avataras. Sri Aurobindo developed, systemized and perfected the secrets hinted in the Gita, the Upanishads, the Vedas and the Tantras and universalised their exclusive quests and multiplied the acceleration of present evolution through His entry into Integral concentration.
The direct Divine touch of profound intensity received by the then Gopis in their relation with Sri Krishna and the more profound subtle physical Divine contact received by the Mother’s children through their direct relation with the Divine Mother are the preliminary Supramental experience intended to transform the individual and collective or universalise mind, life and body. The former relation left permanent memory of Divine touch in the mind of the race, smriti, which can activate and repeat in the numberless souls of same Divine intensity till the supreme Ananda is established; whereas the latter relation is a step ahead in learning the lesson of subtle physical Divine touch to percolate in to the physical sheath and bringing an opportunity of physical transformation of the race.
2) Guhyatara Vijnana of Supermind and corresponding Supramental transformation of Sva Prakriti:-
“There are two worlds adjacent to this material world, Superconscient and Subconscient; Superconscient world has already been described at length: hear from Me, O Partha, the Subconscient, asuric world.”
The Gita-16.6
“Out of compassion for them, I, lodged in their self, lift the blazing lamp of knowledge and destroy the darkness which is born out of the Subconscient Ignorance.”
The Gita-10.11
“Leaning—pressing down upon My own Nature, Sva Prakriti, I create all this multitude of existence, all helplessly subject to the control of Nature.”
The Gita-9.8
Like Sri Aurobindo, The Mother had the experience of Supermind up above in the Supramental sheath and down below in the Inconscient sheath during Her Spiritual training at Tlemcen, before Her actual contact with Sri Aurobindo. So the frightful battle of Subconscient sheath resumed again and attained momentum with Sri Aurobindo during Their systematic joint work of Supramental descent to mind domain first, then to vital, physical and Subconscient sheaths respectively. The Veda described this domain as darkness hidden by darkness, an ocean without mental consciousness. All possible difficulties in the Subconscient rose up en mass; it is a domain hopelessly weak, dull, enslaved to everything. One has to fight against all those dark lower forces, irrational habits, chronic illnesses, aggressive ill will, that are unwilling to change, all that dominates the world. It unfolds night after night, unimaginable quantity of Subconscient impressions recorded and stored, heaped one on top of the other, piling up helplessly. These difficulties had hounded Sri Aurobindo ferociously and the Mother had to face the same problems in a relentless fashion. When the Mother and Sri Aurobindo descended together from plane to plane and reached the Subconscient, They discovered that it was no longer individual Subconscient but it was terrestrial. There are three ways in which the Subconscient problems can be handled. First one is to act from above through intervention of Divine force; by this exercise one can keep these problems under control, hold them in place and prevent them from any unpleasant events and even mastery over these forces can be gained but nothing is transformed through this exercise; secondly, one has to enter into the Subconscient plane along with the Divine force; this is done by rising to summit of Consciousness through progressive ascent that one unites with the Supermind, then one can redescend with Supramental consciousness to Subconscient plane and can experience permanent transformation of nature; thirdly, to experience the same Divine force in the Subconscient plane through invasion of Divine force from Subconscient Self and Inconscient Self; with the experience of union with Supermind through ascension of consciousness, one discovers a presence of Supermind in the heart of Subconscient and Inconscient during the process of descent and with the activation of Supermind in the Subconscient Self and Inconscient Self, one experiences direct invasion of Supramental to Subconscient plane and experiences the permanent transformation of nature.
3) Guhyatamam Vijnana of the most secret Supermind and corresponding Supramental Transformation, Madbhava:-
“If thou art one in heart and consciousness with Me (Purushottama) at all times, then by My grace thou shalt pass safe through all difficult and perilous passages of Inconscient sheath…”
The Gita-18,58
“Threefold are the doors of hell (of Inconscient world)…—desire, wrath and greed…by following the own higher good (of Supramental descent), he arrives at the highest soul status and liberated from these triple doors of darkness.”
The Gita-16,21-22
“Delivered from the Inconscient problems of sense attachment, fear and wrath, full of Me, take refuge in Me, many purified by the austerity of knowledge arrived at My Nature, Mad bhavam agatah.”
The Gita-4,10
The Mother’s experience of the first Supramental manifestation on 29th February, 1956, marked an important transition in universal event. It was not a complete descent, a part of the Supramental Light and Force and Consciousness rushed down upon earth in an uninterrupted flow and was immediately absorbed and swallowed by the Inconscient sheath. This experience indicates that the earth’s darkest zone has the greatest thirst towards the highest Divine. While transformation work continued in the Subconscient sheath, the higher intensities of Supramental force resumed action due to more identification with the Supreme, in the still nether most incredible dark dregs of mud of Inconscient Sheath. So it has become clear that it is impossible to manifest the Divine integrally without everything below being offered to the Supreme Light and one cannot go to the very bottom of Inconscient unless one goes to the very heights of Supermind. The present Inconscient is not as unconscious as the Inconscient at the beginning of creation. So the Supramental action in Inconscient will have two results, firstly, more and more Inconscient problems will rise and enter subconscient planes for transformation; secondly, it will purify all those darkest realms in their own home and spread the supreme Light and supreme Vibrations.
4) Param Guhyatamam Vijnana or the supreme most secret Supermind concealed in the Inconscient and the corresponding Supramental Transformation of Param bhava:-
“At the very bottom of the Inconscient, most hard and rigid and narrow and stifling, I struck upon an almighty spring that cast up forthwith into a formless, limitless Vast, vibrating with the seeds of a new world.”²²
The Mother
“I have entered into this form of (inconscient) earth and sustain by My might these multitudes…”
The Gita-15.13
“In the egoism of their strength and power, in the violence of their wrath and arrogance they hate, despise and belittle the God concealed (in the inconscient cave)…”
The Gita-16.18
“Those, whose mind are deluded by Inconscient Ignorance, despise Me lodged in the human body (The Lord seated in the Inconscient sheath) because they know not my supreme Nature, Param bhava, the Lord of all existence.”
The Gita-9.11
“As the one sun illumines the entire earth, so the Lord concealed in the Field (which constitute our mind, life, body, subconscient and inconscient sheath) illumines the entire Field, O Bharata.”
The Gita-13.34
The Mother has given the assurance that one can realize the Divine in the Inconscient as soon as one has found the Divine within. Because realization of the Divine within helps to ascent the Consciousness to unite with the Supermind above. As soon as this union is achieved one gets the passage of entry into Inconscient sheath and meets the Supermind concealed in the Inconscient Self. The Mother’s experience of 24-25 July, 1959, gave more clear details about its working, “for the first time the Supramental light entered directly into my body, without passing through the inner beings. It entered through the feet and it climbed up and up. And as it climbed, the fever also climbed because the body was not accustomed to this intensity. As all this light neared the head, I thought I would burst and that the experience would have to be stopped…”²⁶
The discovery of the Supramental in the Inconscient made another passage clear for the direct action of It on the body. Since this force is already dynamised in Earth’s atmosphere, so contact with It can be restored by concentration below the feet centre. The experience of this kind can be repeated till the experience becomes constant and established.
5) Juxtaposition of Madbhava and Parambhava of Guhyatamam Vijnana, Daivi Prakriti:-
“When into all the doors in the body (nine doors, navadwara) there comes a flooding of light…”
The Gita-14.11
‘The light of the sun that illumines all these worlds… that light know as from Me.”
The Gita-15.12
“The great-souled, O Partha, who dwell in the Divine Nature, daivi Prakriti, or ‘two Oceans of Light’ know Me (the Godhead lodged in human body) as the Imperishable from whom all existences originate and so knowing they turn to Me with a sole and entire love.”
The Gita-9.13
“Powerful and prolonged penetration of the Supramental forces into the body, it was pressing to enter, from everywhere, but everywhere at the same time… it was not a current flowing in, it was an atmosphere penetrating from everywhere. It lasted for at least four to five hours.”¹⁹
The Mother
In Integral Yoga all the ten selves, or the Divine contained in all the ten sheaths are dynamised, and all these Divine Selves act on the respective Sheaths or higher Selves on the lower Sheaths or lower Selves on the higher Sheaths; bring the required transformation and build each sheath to the extent of Their full perfection. With the progress of this experience of diffusion of Divine from all Centres one meets the Divine from all ends capturing all the sheaths of the body, and this experience can be repeated till It becomes constant and established. This is probably the normal state of the greatest Integral Yogi, yoginam api sarvesam,²⁰ and the highest secret, rahasyam uttamam,²¹ manifested in normal human life.
Supramental Education developed in Savitri:
Six gradations of All-inclusive Supramental Education through Ananda:-
“His single freedom could not satisfy,
Her light, her bliss he asked for earth and men.” Savitri-315
“Too far thy heavens for me from suffering men
Imperfect is the joy not shared by all.” Savitri-686
All-inclusive enjoyment is the capacity to retain the perennial joy as it is, which is behind the root of all things. For such retention to be practicable, the humanity has to go through the process of strong subtle and causal body formation. It will be executed by the pressure of Supramental force.
Supramental Ananda (or Light, Love, Will, Force, Peace, Knowledge etc.) is having three simultaneous movements; firstly, it supports individual evolution; secondly, it accelerates the universal evolution; thirdly it unites all things of the manifestation and unites individual with the cosmic and transcendent principle; when the reflection of Supermind falls on our purified self we lose the sense of our separate individuality; when It falls on our purified nature it gives the sense of melting into our greater universal Self. Supramental action through prepared individuals will force the unconscious humanity to open themselves towards Supreme Ananda and drive the whole diversity of individuals towards some miraculous change.
1) First discovery or all mighty Supramental Descent¹⁶:-
“A last and mightiest transformation came.
His soul was all in front like a great sea
Flooding the mind and body with its waves;
His being, spread to embrace the universe,
United the within and the without
To make of life a cosmic harmony,
An empire of immanent Divine.
In this tremendous universality
Not only his soul-nature and mind-sense
Included every soul and mind in his,
But even the life of flesh and nerve was changed
And grew one flesh and nerve with all that lives;
He felt the joy of others as his joy,
He bore the grief of others as his grief;
His universal sympathy upbore,
Immense like ocean, the creation’s load
As earth upbears all beings’ sacrifice,
Thrilled with the hidden Transcendent’s joy and peace.
There was no more division’s endless scroll;
One grew the Spirit’s secret unity,
All Nature felt again the single bliss.” Savitri-318-19
“A mighty transformation came on her.
A halo of the indwelling Deity,
The Immortal’s lustre that had lit her face
And tented its radiance in her body’s house,
Overflowing made the air a luminous sea.
In a flaming moment of apocalypse
The Incarnation thrust aside its veil.
A little figure in infinity
Yet stood and seemed the Eternal’s very house,
As if the world’s centre was her very soul
And all wide space was but its outer robe.” Savitri-664-665
Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual experience of Vasudeva sarvamiti at Alipore jail is Supramental experience of lower range, where He realised that this world, Jagat is as real as the Brahman and the relation between the Jagat and the Brahman has been reinforced through triple realisation of Brahman is in all things, all things are in Brahman and all things are Brahman. To live permanently within the physical Presence of the Divine is one of the characteristics of this experience. After this experience He first directed Sat, Chit-Tapas and Ananda through Supramental, Vijnana towards the Mind centre for its full transformation and as the result was not effective due to complex relation of the mind centre with the physical and vital centres, so He further directed It towards the vital and physical centres. Supramental Ananda can fully capture these triple centres and intense Ananda is totally established. These centres will experience part transformation of nature and for full transformation, the root of all these three centres are to be assessed, which are identified as Subconscient and Inconscient Sheaths.
The lowest range of Supramental¹⁸ can be assessed by intensification of the aspiration of the psychic and spiritual faculties. This discovery annuls the division of things in a universalised individual Consciousness and supports the process towards the discovery of higher ranges of the Supramental.
The Mother gave importance to this Supramental education in following words, “In contrast with the types of education we have mentioned previously, which progress from below upwards by an ascending movement of the various parts of the being, the supramental education will progress from above downwards, its influence spreading from one state of being to another until at last the physical is reached. This last transformation will only occur visibly when the inner states of being have already been considerably transformed. It is therefore quite unreasonable to try to recognise the presence of the supramental by physical appearances. For these will be the last to change and the supramental force can be at work in an individual long before anything of it becomes perceptible in his bodily life.”³⁰
2) Second discovery or the higher range of Supramental working in the Subconscient Sheath:-
“A low muttering rose from the subconscient caves,
The stammer of the primal ignorance;
Answer to that inarticulate questioning,
There stooped with lightning neck and thunder's wings
A radiant hymn to the Inexpressible
And the anthem of the superconscient light.” Savitri-30
“An old pull of subconscious cords renews;
It draws the unwilling spirit from the heights,
Or a dull gravitation drags us down
To the blind driven inertia of our base.
This too the supreme Diplomat can use,
He makes our fall a means for greater rise.” Savitri-34
“A divinising stream possessed his veins,
His body’s cells awoke to spirit sense,
Each nerve became a burning thread of joy:
Tissue and flesh partook beatitude.
Alight, the dun unplumbed subconscient caves
Thrilled with prescience to her longed for tread
And filled with flickering crests and praying tongues.” Savitri-334
“A divine force shall flow through tissue and cell
And take the charge of breath and speech and act
And all the thoughts shall be a glow of suns
And every feeling a celestial thrill.
Often a lustrous inner dawn shall come
Lighting the chambers of the slumbering mind;
A sudden bliss shall run through every limb
And Nature with a mightier Presence fill.” Savitri-710
After 1926 siddhi, Sri Aurobindo entered higher ranges of Supramental action where the power of penetration of Divine force was more intense. With the discovery of higher ranges of Supramental, through the ascension of Consciousness, the Supermind is able to enter the universal and individual Subconscient domain in addition to its earlier penetration in mind, life and body centres. In this nether world, there are occult shadows, tenebrous Powers, Titan, Fury, Djinn and demon powers. These awful guests hide in man’s lower nature and through earth-ways they break out from all doors with horror, carnage, blood-lust and will to slay. Slain thoughts, old longings, rejected nature and dead passions live again and they recur in mind’s nocturnal walks in sleep. An old pull of subconscious cord, a dull gravitation and blind driven inertia drag us down. In successive Supramental encounters of this higher range, many of these dark forces were killed, some bore the pressure of new light and suffered transformation of nature and many others escaped to their inconscient home.
In this Book ten of Savitri we deal with special importance because it deals (1) with Subconscient transformation and (2) The Mother had translated this whole book ten with its four Cantos, into French language. For the last many years, She was undergoing transformation of this twilight world. Those who wish to collaborate in Her Divine work are to become part of this unfinished Subconscient transformation action. This action can go unconsciously in everybody and consciously with those who are open to Her Supramental Consciousness.
Book-10, Canto-1, gives the hint about the border world between Inconscient and Subconscient sheath and subsequently, after the transformation of the Inconscient sheath (Book-9, Canto-1 & 2) it gives a hint about the twilight Subconscient world.
Entry into Subconscient plane is a terrible battle against the forces of darkness and in the Mother’s language, “I am given the awareness of how huge this thing (Divine descent) is one drop at a time…so I won’t be crushed,”² or ‘Light conquered now even by that feeble beam:’³ and this Subconscient transformation could be done ‘only in deep meditation…and not in any other time, in activity or even in concentration.’⁴
3) Third discovery or the highest range of Supramental Working in the Inconscient Sheath:-
“The persistent thrill of a transfiguring touch
Persuaded the inert black quietude
And beauty and wonder disturbed the fields of God.” Savitri-3
“Lightnings of glory after glory burned,
Experience was a tale of blaze and fire,
Air rippled round the argosies of the Gods,
Strange riches sailed to him from the Unseen;
Splendours of insight filled the blank of thought,
Knowledge spoke to the inconscient stillnesses,
Rivers poured down of bliss and luminous force,
Visits of beauty, storm-sweeps of delight
Rained from the all-powerful Mystery above.” Savitri-37
“With Truth-Light strike earth’s massive roots of trance,
Wake the dumb self in the inconscient depths
And raise a lost Power from its python sleep
That the eyes of the Timeless might look out from Time
And the world manifest the unveiled Divine.” Savitri-72
“A small thinking being watched the works of Time.
A difficult evolution from below
Called a masked intervention from above;
Else this great, blind inconscient universe
Could never have disclosed its hidden mind,
Or even in blinkers worked in beast and man
The Intelligence that devised the cosmic scheme.” Savitri-146-147
“Its saviour light the inconscient universe.
And when that greater Self comes sea-like down
To fill this image of our transience,
All shall be captured by delight, transformed:
In waves of undreamed ecstasy shall roll
Our mind and life and sense and laugh in a light
Other than this hard limited human day
The body’s tissues thrill apotheosised,
Its cells sustain bright metamorphosis.” Savitri-171
“A golden fire came in and burned Night’s heart;
Her dusky mindlessness began to dream;
The Inconscient conscious grew,
Night felt and thought.” Savitri-601
While purification and transformation work continued in these Subconscient domains, the Supramental Ananda (and also Light, Force, Truth etc.) further penetrates into still nether domain of the Inconscient sheath for greater transformation of the individual and the world. This Supramental action of highest range is entrusted to lead all towards the discovery of the Eternal who ‘wraps his head in black pall’6 in the Inconscient sheath and successive possession of darkest layer of universal Inconscient by the Supreme Ananda.
The experience of this highest range of Supramental Ananda confirms the possibility of the whole transformation of nature and annihilation of all the problems of existence from their root. In the past spiritual quests, a comprehensive solution of the problems of existence was not dared due to inaccessibility to these highest ranges.
4) Fourth discovery of Subconscient Self or Supramental Concealed in the Subconscient Sheath:
“A throe that came and left a quivering trace,
Gave room for an old tired want unfilled,
At peace in its subconscient moonless cave
To raise its head and look for absent light,
Straining closed eyes of vanished memory,
Like one who searches for a bygone self
And only meets the corpse of his desire.” Savitri-2
“Into the abysmal secrecy he came
Where darkness peers from her mattress, grey and nude,
And stood on the last locked subconscient’s floor
Where Being slept unconscious of its thoughts
And built the world not knowing what it built.” Savitri-231
“In a narrow passage, the subconscient’s gate,
She breathed with difficulty and pain and strove
To find the inner self concealed in sense.” Savitri-489
“O human copy and disguise of God
Who seekst the deity thou keepest hid
And livest by the Truth thou hast known,
Follow the world’s winding highway to its source.
There in the silence few have ever reached,
Thou shalt see the Fire burning on the bare stone
And deep cavern of thy secret soul.” Savitri-501
“A spirit moved in black immensities
And built a thought in ancient Nothingness;
A soul was lit in the God’s tremendous Void,
A secret laboring glow of nascent fire.” Savitri-622
“Of a transcendent Wisdom finding ways
To meet her Lord in the shadow and the Night:” Savitri-624
Through overhead Supramental descent into Subconscient sheath, the Subconscient Self opens. Thus, a Supramental Centre is established in the Subconscient sheath. Its discovery is described in Savitri as ‘Lord in the shadow and the Night.’²⁷ It is identified as a priceless gift whose ‘value could have saved the world.’¹
5) Fifth discovery of Inconscient Self or the highest range of Supramental concealed in the Inconscient Sheath:-
“A fire in the Night is its mighty action’s blaze.” Savitri-56
“In this drop from consciousness to consciousness
Each leaned on the occult Inconscient’s power,” Savitri-89
“The Inconscient found its heart of consciousness,
The idea and feeling groping in Ignorance
At last clutched passionately the body of Truth,
The music born in Matter’s silences
Plucked nude out of the Ineffable’s fathomlessness
The meaning it had held but could not voice;
The perfect rhythm now only sometimes dreamed
An answer brought to the torn earth’s hungry need
Rending the night that had concealed the Unknown,
Giving to her her forgotten soul.
A grand solution closed the long impasse
In which the heights of mortal effort end.” Savitri-89-90
“Because eternal eyes turned on earth’s gulfs
The lucent clarity of a pure regard
And saw a shadow of the Unknowable
Mirrored in the Inconscient’s boundless sleep,
Creation’s search for self (Inconscient Self) began its stir.” Savitri-101
“The Force concealed broke dumbly, slowly out.” Savitri-156
“Impelled by an unseen Will there could break out
Fragments of some vast impulse to become
And vivid glimpses of a secret self,
And the doubtful seeds and force of shapes to be
Awoke from the inconscient swoon of things.” Savitri-158
“She turned her dream towards some high Unknown;
A breath was felt below of One supreme.” Savitri-159
“The bliss which sleeps in things and tries to wake” Savitri-165
“The secret power (Inconscient Self) in the inconscient depths,
Compelling the blinded Godhead to emerge,” Savitri-272
“A black veil has been lifted; we have seen
The mighty shadow of the omniscient Lord;
But who has lifted up the veil of light
And who has seen the body of the King?” Savitri-311
“All seemed to have perished that was undivine:
Yet some minutest dissident might escape
And still a centre lurk of the blind force.
For the Inconscient too is infinite;
The more its abysses we insist to sound,
The more it stretches, stretches endlessly.
Then lest a human cry should spoil the Truth
He tore desire up from its bleeding roots
And offered to the gods the vacant place.
Thus could he bear the touch immaculate.” Savitri-318
“At first glimmering like an unshaped idea
Passive she lay sheltered in wordless sleep,
Involved and drowned in Matter’s giant trance,
An infant heart of the deep-caved world-plan
In cradle of divine inconscience rocked
By the universal ecstasy of the suns.” Savitri-354
“All in inconscient ecstasy lain wrapped
Or under imagination’s coloured lids
Held up in a large mirror-air of dream,
Broke forth in flame to recreate the world,
And in that flame to new things she was born.” Savitri-395
“A mystery wakes in our inconscient stuff,
A bliss is born that can remake our life.” Savitri-397-98
“Across an intangible border of soul-space
He passed from Mind into material things
Amid the inventions of the inconscient Self
And the workings of a blind somnambulist Force.” Savitri-415
“He sang the Inconscient and its secret self,
Its power omnipotent knowing not what it does,
All-shaping without will or thought or sense,
Its blind unerring occult mystery,
And darkness yearning towards the eternal Light,
And Love that broods within the deem abyss
And waits the answer of the human heart,
And death that climbs to immortality.” Savitri-416
“All underwent a high celestial change:
Breaking the black Inconscient’s blind mute wall,
Effacing the circles of the Ignorance,
Powers and divinities burst flaming forth;
Each part of the being trembling with delight
Lay overwhelmed with tides of happiness
And saw her hand in every circumstance
And felt her touch in every limb and cell.” Savitri-529
After the activation of the highest ranges of Supramental, which took Sri Aurobindo straight to the innermost chamber of Inconscient sheath and led Him to the discovery of the same intensity of Divine force concealed there as Inconscient Self. The activation of this Self opened new vistas in the transformation action of the world. This Supramental ananda, while dispersing the inconscient sheath, also captures the physical, vital and mental sheaths for transformation action. The revelation of Supramental Energy in the Inconscient Sheath is ‘a grand solution’²⁹ and a confirmation of the acceleration of the individual and universal transformation of nature. This discovery of Inconscient Self is also identified as ‘the last transcendent power,’²⁸ where ‘Matter still slept empty of its Lord.’²⁸
The fundamental difference between the third and fifth discovery is that in the former the Divine force rushes in from head and penetrates the mind, vital and physical centres respectively and finally enter the Subconscient and inconscient sheaths; whereas in the latter the Divine force rushes in from the feet and travels upward from inconscient sheath towards Subconscient, physical, vital and mental sheaths respectively.
6) Sixth discovery or the juxtaposition of the Supramental revealed in the highest plane above the head and the lowest planes below the feet:-
“During the experience (of Supreme Ananda), I knew there would be another one, which is yet to come, which would join with this one to form a third, and that junction will change something in the appearances. I don’t know when it will come.”⁸ The Mother
“For the evolution proceeded in the past by (1) the upsurging at each critical stage, of a concealed (Supramental) Power from its involution in the Inconscience, but also (2) by a descent from above, from its own plane, of that (Supramental) Power already self-realised in its own higher natural province.”⁹ Sri Aurobindo
“A supramental change of the whole substance of the being and therefore necessarily of all its characters, powers, movements takes place when (1) the involved supermind in Nature emerges to meet and join (2) with the supramental light and power descending from Supernature.”¹⁰ Sri Aurobindo
“(1) the supramental Consciousness-Force from above and (2) the evolving Consciousness-Force from behind the veil acting on the awakened awareness and will of the mental human being would accomplish by their united power the momentous transition.”⁶ Sri Aurobindo
“In other respects the process will be identical, (1) --a Supramental inflow from above, the descent of a Gnostic being into the nature and (2) an emergence of the concealed Supramental force from below; the influx and unveiling between them will remove what is left of the nature of the Ignorance. (2) The rule of the Inconscience will be hanged by the outburst of the greater secret Consciousness within it, the hidden Light, into what it always was in reality, a sea of the secret Superconscience. A first formation of a gnostic consciousness and nature will be the consequence.”⁹
“Impure, degraded though her motions are,
Always a heaven-truth broods in life’s deeps;
In her obscurest members burns that fire.” Savitri-138-39
“I (Satyavan) sat with the forest sages in their trance:
There poured awakening streams of diamond light, (Supramental Self)
I glimpsed the presence of the One in all.
But still there lacked the last transcendent power (Inconscient Self)
And Matter still slept empty of its Lord.” Savitri-405
“This world is a vast unbroken totality,
A deep solidarity joins its contrary powers;
God’s summits look back on the mute Abyss.” Savitri-541
“The truth above shall wake a nether truth,…
The Spirit’s tops and Nature’s base shall draw
Near to the secret of their separate truth
And know each other as one deity.” Savitri-709
“To meet me in the abyss and on the height…
And love me in the noble and vile,
In beautiful things and terrible desire.” Savitri-700
“This too the supreme Diplomat can use,
He makes our fall a means for greater rise.
For into ignorant Nature’s gusty field,
Into the half-ordered chaos of mortal life
The formless Power, the Self of eternal light
Follow in the shadow of the spirit’s descent;
The twin duality for ever one
Chooses its home mid the tumults of the sense.
He comes unseen into our darker parts
And, curtained by the darkness, does his work,
A subtle and all-knowing guest and guide,
Till they too feel the need and will to change.” Savitri-34-35
“Protecting no more a dual eternity” Savitri-82 (Divine existence above the head and below the feet.)
“Even the body will awake and unite at last its consciousness subliminal no longer to the supramental superconscious Force, feel all her powers permeating from above and below and around it and thrill to a supreme Love and Ananda.”³²
“It (Spirit) is within, below, without, above.” Savitri-98
"Our life is entrenched between two rivers of Light,
We have turned space into a gulf of peace
And made the body a Capitol of bliss." Savitri-531
“Lain like an infant spirit unaware…. of two consenting worlds.” Savitri-716
“The first and the highest are truth; in the middle there is falsehood, but it is taken between the truth on both sides of it and it draws its being from the truth.” Brihadaranyaka Upanishad-V.5.1.
(The meaning of the above line can be interpreted as, that there is a Truth-consciousness or Supramental concealed in the Inconscient sheath below and revealed in the Superconscient sheath above. In to intermediate sheaths of mental, vital and physical planes, falsehood can enter. Truth-consciousness is pressing from both ends to turn the misconstruction and transform the three sheaths into the truth of life and truth of spirit.)
“Extended within the Infinite…headless and footless, concealing his two ends.” Rig Veda-IV.1.7,11
(The meaning of the above line can be interpreted as the Supramental is all-pervading and can penetrate all the sheaths and can be approached from the two gates of head and feet.)
"All was made wide above, all lit below." Savitri-41
“Two golden serpents round the lintel curled,
Enveloping it with their pure and dreadful strength,
Looked out with wisdom’s deep and luminous eyes.” Savitri-524
“Assailed by my infinitudes above,
And quivering in immensities below,…
A swimmer lost between two leaping seas
By my outer pains and inner sweetnesses
Finding my joy in my opposite mysteries
Thou shat respond to me from every nerve.” Savitri-700
“Two powers from one original ecstasy born…
One leans to earth, the other yearns to the skies:” Savitri-684
“Heaven’s leaning down to embrace from all sides earth,
A quiet rapture, a vast security.” Savitri-716-17
“If the chamber’s door is even a little ajar,
What then can hinder God from stealing in
Or who forbid his kiss on the sleeping soul?” Savitri-649
“And bear the splendour of the Divine’s rush
And his impetuous knock at unseen doors.” Savitri-709
When the third and fifth discoveries are sustained in the physical substance, then it paves the path clear for the simultaneous action of two Ananda from both ends. The Mother explained that with the activation of this experience, the very appearance of matter would have changed.
It is observed that the above five stages of Supramental action culminate in the last experience of possession of the Supramental from all sides. Once these six stages are dynamised in Earth’s atmosphere, they need not adhere to strict sequences of action as there is wide plasticity and catholicity of its function. Depending on the opening of our inner doors, we can undergo any of these experiences and the intensities of these experiences are also controlled automatically by the Supramental force, depending on the preparation of our adhara.
Now the Supramental is already dynamised³¹ in all the six stages on earth’s atmosphere and few prepared souls are ready to experience either of the six experiences or all the six experiences constantly and the whole of humanity is exposed unconsciously to such experience intermittently and with lower intensity so that now earth is on the verge of new era of physical transformation.
OM TAT SAT
References:
1: Savitri-42,
2: The Mother’s Agenda-July 15, 1961,
3: Savitri-601,
4: The Mother’ Agenda- December 11, 1963,
5: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-204-205,
6: “For a real transformation there must be a direct and unveiled intervention from above; there would be necessary too a total submission and surrender of the lower consciousness, a cessation of its insistence, a will in it for its separate law of action to be completely annulled by transformation and lose all rights over our being. If these two conditions can be achieved even now by a conscious call and will in the spirit and a participation of our whole manifested and inner being in its change and elevation, the evolution, the transformation can take place by a comparatively swift conscious change; (1) the supramental Consciousness-Force from above and (2) the evolving Consciousness-Force from behind the veil acting on the awakened awareness and will of the mental human being would accomplish by their united power the momentous transition. There would be no farther need of a slow evolution counting many millenniums for each step, the halting and difficult evolution operated by Nature in the past in the unconscious creatures of the Ignorance.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-956-957,
7: “In order that the involved principles of Overmind and Supermind should emerge from their veiled secrecy, the being and powers of the superconscience must descend into us and uplift us and formulate themselves in our being and powers; this descent is a sine qua non (an essential condition) of the transition and transformation.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-955-956, “But the transition from the mind-self to the knowledge-self is the great and the decisive transition in the Yoga. It is the shaking off of the last hold on us of the cosmic ignorance and our firm foundation in the Truth of the things, in a consciousness infinite and eternal and inviolable by obscurity, falsehood, suffering or error.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-475
8: The Mother’s Agenda/5/79
9: CWSA-22/The Life Divine-1002-1003,
10: CWSA-22/The Life Divine-997,
11: CWSA-22/The Life Divine-970,
12: SABCL-26/p-119,
13: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-94-95
14: “This or something more largely planned on these lines might be regarded as the schematic, logical or ideal account of the spiritual transformation, a structural map of the ascent to the supramental summit, looked at as a succession of separate steps, each accomplished before the passage to the next commences. It would be as if the soul, putting forth an organised natural individuality, were a traveller mounting the degrees of consciousness cut out in universal Nature, each ascent carrying it totally as a definite integer, as a separate body of conscious being, from one state of its existence to the next in order. This is so far correct that a sufficient integration of one status has to be complete before an ascent to the next higher station can be entirely secure: this clear succession might also be the course followed by a few even in the early stages of this evolution, and it might become too a normal process after the whole stair-flight of the evolution had been built and made safe. But evolutionary Nature is not a logical series of separate segments; it is a totality of ascending powers of being which interpenetrate and dovetail and exercise in their action on each other a power of mutual modification. When the higher descends into the lower consciousness, it alters the lower but is also modified and diminished by it; when the lower ascends, it is sublimated but at the same time qualifies the sublimating substance and power. This interaction creates an abundant number of different intermediate and interlocked degrees of the force and consciousness of being, but it also makes it difficult to bring about a complete integration of all the powers under the full control of any one power. For this reason there is not actually a series of simple clear-cut and successive stages in the individual’s evolution; there is instead a complexity and a partly determinate, partly confused comprehensiveness of the movement. The soul may still be described as a traveller and climber who presses towards his high goal by step on step, each of which he has to build up as an integer but must frequently re- descend in order to rebuild and make sure of the supporting stair so that it may not crumble beneath him: but the evolution of the whole consciousness has rather the movement of an ascending ocean of Nature; it can be compared to a tide or a mounting flux, the leading fringe of which touches the higher degrees of a cliff or hill while the rest is still below. At each stage the higher parts of the nature may be provisionally but incompletely organised in the new consciousness while the lower are in a state of flux or formation, partly moving in the old way though influenced and beginning to change, partly belonging to the new kind but still imperfectly achieved and not yet firm in the change. Another image might be that of an army advancing in columns which annexes new ground, while the main body is still behind in a territory overrun but too large to be effectively occupied, so that there has to be a frequent halt and partial return to the traversed areas for consolidation and assurance of the hold on the occupied country and assimilation of its people. A rapid conquest might be possible, but it would be of the nature of an encampment or a domination established in a foreign country; it would not be the assumption, total assimilation, integration needed for the entire supramental change.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-990-991,
15: “It follows that the psychic and the spiritual transformation must be far advanced, even as complete as may be, before there can be any beginning of the third and consummating supramental change; for it is only by this double transmutation that the self-will of the Ignorance can be totally altered into a spiritual obedience to the remoulding truth and will of the greater Consciousness of the Infinite.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-963
16: “And yet the law of participation and the law of surrender are imperative; at each step of the transition the assent of the Purusha is needed and there must be too the consent of each part of the nature to the action of the higher power for its change. There must be then a conscious self-direction of the mental being in us towards this change, this substitution of Supernature for the old nature, this transcendence. The rule of conscious obedience to the higher truth of the spirit, the surrender of the whole being to the light and power that come from the Supernature, is a second condition which has to be accomplished slowly and with difficulty by the being itself before the supramental transformation can become at all possible.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-963,
17: “It must become the normal nature of a new type of being; as mind is established here on a basis of Ignorance seeking for Knowledge and growing into Knowledge, so supermind must be established here on a basis of Knowledge growing into its own greater Light. But this cannot be so long as the spiritual-mental being has not risen fully to supermind and brought down its powers into terrestrial existence. For the gulf between mind and supermind has to be bridged, the closed passages opened and roads of ascent and descent created where there is now a void and a silence. This can be done only by the triple transformation to which we have already made a passing reference: there must first be the psychic change, the conversion of our whole present nature into a soul-instrumentation; on that or along with that there must be the spiritual change, the descent of a higher Light, Knowledge, Power, Force, Bliss, Purity into the whole being, even into the lowest recesses of the life and body, even into the darkness of our subconscience; last, there must supervene the supramental transmutation, — there must take place as the crowning movement the ascent into the supermind and the transforming descent of the supramental Consciousness into our entire being and nature.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-924
18: “For action it may still depend upon the mental, vital, bodily instruments, or it may allow them to act according to their own nature and itself remain satisfied with self-experience and self-knowledge, with an inner liberation, an eventual freedom: but it may also and usually does exercise a certain authority, governance, influence on thought, life movement, physical action, a purifying uplifting control compelling them to move in a higher and purer truth of themselves, to obey or be an instrumentation of an influx of some diviner Power or a luminous direction which is not mental but spiritual and can be recognised as having a certain divine character, — the inspiration of a greater Self or the command of the Ruler of all being, the Ishwara. Or the nature may obey the psychic entity’s intimations, move in an inner light, follow an inner guidance. This is already a considerable evolution and amounts to a beginning at least of a psychic and spiritual transformation. But it is possible to go farther; for the spiritual being, once inwardly liberated, can develop in mind the higher states of being that are its own natural atmosphere and bring down a supramental energy and action which are proper to the Truth-consciousness; the ordinary mental instrumentation, life- instrumentation, physical instrumentation even, could then be entirely transformed and become parts no longer of an ignorance however much illumined, but of a supramental creation which would be the true action of a spiritual truth-consciousness and knowledge.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-888,
19: The Mother’s Agenda, August 28, 1968,
20: The Gita-6.47,
21: The Gita-4.3,
22: The Mother’s Agenda, November 7, 1961,
23: CWSA-22/The Life Divine-967-968,
24: The Gita-6.44,
25: The Gita-2.52,
26: The Mother’s Agenda, October 6, 1959,
27: Savitri-624,
28: Savitri-405,
29: Savitri-90,
30: TMCW/Vol-12/On Education/p-38,
31: "The manifestation of the Supramental upon earth is no more a promise but a living fact, a reality.
It is at work here, and one day will come when the most blind, the most unconscious, even the most unwilling shall be obliged to recognize it." The Mother's Agenda/April-24/1956,
32: CWSA-32/The Mother with letters on the Mother/p-25
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"Individually, each one’s goal was to make himself ready, to enter into a more or less intimate individual relationship with this Force (Supramental Force), so as to help the process; or else, if he could not help, at least be ready to recognize and be open to the Force when it would manifest. Then instead of being an alien element in a world in which your OWN inner capacity remains unmanifest, you suddenly become THAT, you enter directly, fully, into the very atmosphere: the Force is there, all around you, permeating you... If you had had a little inner contact, you would have recognized it immediately, don’t you think so?... Well, in any event, that was the case for those who had a little inner contact; they recognized it, they felt it, and they said, ‘Ah, there it is! It has come!’"
The Mother
The Mother's Agenda/May 2, 1956
"If we follow that (the Mother draws a great curve towards the future), he (Sri Aurobindo) foresaw that one day the earth would be a supramental creation – the entire earth ... entirely changed. That means a long, long way ahead. In other words, later, among the supramental race, they will say, "That's all very well, but it's only the beginning. Now, the entire earth has to become a supramental manifestation." Just as from mental man the supramental being was born, so also from the supramental being will be born the powers that will transform the earth.... Do you see it?! It's interesting."
The Mother
The Mother's Agenda-July 27, 1963
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