The Central Truth of The Life Divine

            “A spiritual evolution, an evolution of consciousness in Matter in a constant developing self-formation till the form can reveal the indwelling spirit, is then the key-note, the central significant motive of the terrestrial existence.”¹

Sri Aurobindo

 
            “If consciousness is the central secret, life is the outward indication, the effective power of being in Matter; for it is that which liberates consciousness and gives it its form or embodiment of force and its effectuation in material act.”²

Sri Aurobindo

                “But also the central Consciousness in its turn will take up more and more the outer mental activities of knowledge and turn them into a parcel of itself or an annexed province; it will infuse into them its more authentic movement and make a more and more spiritualised and illumined mind its instrument in these surface fields, its new conquests, as well as in its own deeper spiritual empire.”¹⁷

Sri Aurobindo

 
            “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.”⁸

Sri Aurobindo

                                                                       
            The central thought, the central secret and central truth of Integral Evolution is identified as Consciousness, which is the real creative Power, the universal Witness, the force of awareness, a play of Energy, an infinite, indivisible Existence moves out of its fundamental purity into the varied play of Force; for whom the world is a field and condition of Divine Life; life is the exterior and dynamic sign and index of that revelation and effectuation; all life is the fundamental poise of its own constituting Consciousness in possession both of unity and of diversity where the former contains and governs the latter; the physical, vital, mind, soul and Supermind are instruments of Consciousness; the accessories or subordinate energies of these instruments are identified as elements of Consciousness; following this line the individual Consciousness fulfils itself by that which is beyond his obscured and limited ego, beyond the thought and speech, a centre of the Divine Life and of the universal Consciousness embracing, utilising and transforming all individual determinations into the Divine harmony; universal Consciousness fulfils itself by variations of numberless individuals and not by suppressing the variations; the Transcendent Consciousness fulfils, contains, manifests, constitutes the cosmos and the individual by its own infinite harmonic varieties and it is the true truth and source of both the Individuality and the Cosmic Being.
 
            Consciousness or the power of Being is like the nave of a wheel works through the individual centre, with the Divine Life or transformed Becoming is its circumference, the wheel. The spokes, the radiating bars connecting the wheel and the nave are the instruments of Consciousness responsible for rightly relating the existence with the Supreme through change of consciousness and thus the evolutionary growth of life is accelerated.
 
Consciousness:

          “An integral consciousness will become the basis of an entire harmonisation of life through the total transformation, unification, integration of the being and the nature…An integral consciousness with a multiform dynamic experience is essential for the complete transformation of our nature.”⁷

Sri Aurobindo

           
“Consciousness is the breath that makes everything live.”¹⁴

The Mother

            The Highest Consciousness is an awareness of the Spirit by Identity, subordinated by the awareness of the Spirit by Inclusion of Psychic opening and Indwelling of Spiritual opening, which is the very stuff of the Spirit’s triple self-knowledge. We have two fundamental facts – a fact of pure Existence or Being and a fact of world existence or Becomings; to deny one or the other is to bring either narrow limitation to our Spiritual order or an incompetent and restricting physical life and to recognise the facts of Consciousness is to find out their true and fruitful relation. Consciousness is only a bridge of transition in which initially the Spirit becomes partially aware of itself and finally becomes the normal waking trance of luminous Superconscience. The extension of this consciousness can be satisfied by an inner enlargement from the individual consciousness into the cosmic existence and in the Transcendent Consciousness, both the individual and universal find its own fullness, freedom of reality and perfect harmonisation. Therefore, man’s importance in the world is recognised by the development of a comprehensive Consciousness in which Silence and cosmic Activity are reconciled and a transfiguration by a perfect self-discovery becomes possible.
 
            We must note that what we mean ordinarily by the superficial man6 is not the inner self, but only a sum of apparent continuous movement of consciousness-force concentrated on the surface in a certain stream of superficial workings or an unequal concentration of consciousness in which there is the beginning of self-division, which does all his works, thinks all his thoughts, feels all his emotions. Behind this stream of energy there is the whole sea of consciousness, the vast sea of Subliminal, Superconscient and Subconscient Self which is aware of the stream but of which the stream is unaware. Yet it is really the hidden sea and not the superficial stream which is doing all the action and the source of all his movement.
 
Instruments of Consciousness:

            Consciousness is a self-aware force of existence whose middle term is Mind, below it, it sinks into Vital, Physical and Subconscient movements and above it, it rises to Subliminal, Spiritual and Supramental heights. This Consciousness is quite involved in Inconscient Matter, hesitating on the verge between involution and conscious evolution in the non-animal form of life, consciously evolving but greatly limited and hampered in the mind housed in the living body of man, destined to be fully evolved by awakening the Supermind in the embodied fully developed mental being and Nature. The phenomenon of Consciousness is certainly a Force, a formative movement of energies and all material forms are born out of meeting and mutual adaptation between unshaped forces. Subconscient consciousness is the Inconscient vibrating on the borders of consciousness, sending up its motions to be changed into conscious stuff, swallowing into its depths impressions of past experience as seeds of unconscious habit and returning them constantly but often chaotically to the surface consciousness; for surface consciousness is bound down to ego in all its activities and the first formation of egoistic consciousness is the dualities of life and death, joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, truth and error, good and evil. The supraphysical plane of consciousness³ is not governed by the law of Spiritual evolution and from this world, bright and dark forces cast their influence on the physical plane of existence. The enlargement of the superficially active surface consciousness is possible either by some kind of untaught effort and casual ill-ordered effect or by a scientific and well-regulated practice. The surface consciousness is having three appearances; firstly, the material consciousness is a submerged consciousness, self-oblivious, and is lost in the form but really obeys faultlessly the laws of Right and Truth fixed for it by the Divine Will concealed in its own superficial expressive action; this body consciousness is a patient servant and what it craves for is long life, good health, physical strength and comfortable easy life and the right action of the physical consciousness is distorted by the pressure of separative consciousness of physical mind; secondly, the vital consciousness is an emerging consciousness seen as an important part in animal life and intuitively evident in plant, it acts in the cells of the body for purposeful movements, automatic vital function and a process of the growth, activity, attraction, repulsion and decay of form to which our mind is a stranger; it has the same initial reactions of pleasure and pain, sleep and wakefulness as that of mental consciousness but different in constitution of its self-experience;  thirdly, the mental consciousness is not the completely illumined consciousness emerged out of the obscuration of Matter but it is the emerged individual limited consciousness, aware of things and forces in their apparent division and opposition to each other but not in their real unity, reflects new ideas as facts of life, modifies comfortably the internal and the external existence of the being; delivers out of its imprisonment but it is not yet master of the act and form and is aware therefore only of a fragmentary movement of its own total progressive activities; it is a many-sided mental effort in order to arrive at an apprehensive knowledge. Apprehensive Consciousness, Prajnana, is a luminous mental activity in the body, sense mind and nerves unconsciously without any notice; it is active, formative of creative knowledge, originative, cognizant as the processor and witness of its own working; it is in its nature truth seeing, truth hearing and truth remembering; apprehensive active consciousness works as an energy throwing up knowledge and activity out of itself; an apprehensive passive consciousness does not act as an energy with absence of force of action; mental waking consciousness is only a small selection of the entire conscious being, it is a perceptive consciousness of waking state where the transcript of physical things and of our contacts with universe are recorded. If we develop our inner being, live more inwardly than most men do, then the balance is changed and a larger dream consciousness opens before us; our dreams can take on a subliminal and no longer a subconscious character and can assume a reality and significance; this is also subliminal consciousness, which is a witness to truth through truth vision, truth hearing, truth discernment, truth touch, truth thought and truth action and its testimony can be confirmed again and again in physical and objective field, it delivers us definitely from circumscription by the material and from the illusion of the obvious; on the border of subliminal consciousness there is Psychic Consciousness,⁹ which can identify itself with other Souls, can enter into them, can realise its unity with them and this can take place in perfect waking state, observes all distinctions of objective world and exceeds them.  Above it there is Spiritual Consciousness,¹⁰ which is intrinsic, self-existent, more embracing, universal and transcendent, it can take up mind, life and body into its light and give them the immobile and featureless Divine touch; for it has a greater instrumentality of knowledge, a fountain of deeper light, power and will, an unlimited splendour and force of love, joy and beauty; its highest state is Overmind Consciousness, which can hold any number of seemingly fundamental oppositions together in a reconciling global vision. In Sleep Consciousness all the material and sensory experiences cease in the deeper trance when we enter into superconscience, no record from it or transcript of its contents can normally reach us; it is only by a special or an unusual development, in a supernormal condition or through a break or rift in our confined normality, that we can be on the surface conscious of the contacts or messages of the Superconscience. This Consciousness of the upper hemisphere, also known as the Supramental Truth Consciousness¹¹ is at once a total self-awareness and ordering self-knowledge of the Eternal and Infinite and a power of self-determination inherent in that self-awareness by which the One manifests the harmonies of its infinite potential multiplicity; its other name, the Gnostic Consciousness is that in which all contradictions are cancelled and fused into each other in a higher light of unified plasticity, self-knowledge and world-knowledge, instead of ego-insistence on personal ideas there would be a unifying sense of a common truth in many forms, a common self in many consciousness and bodies; it is extended as an original and ultimate Consciousness which is a power of unity in diversity, it is integral, all-accepting, all-embracing, all-discriminating, all-determining and an indivisible whole-vision. In this comprehensive Supramental Consciousness, it is equally possible to regard and rank waking, dream and sleep consciousness together as three different orders of one Reality or as three different grades of embodied contact of self-experience and world-experience. If we can develop a causal body or Supramental Sheath, which is not formed in most human beings, then this faculty will remain active in the conscious waking state. Beyond the Supramental Consciousness is the infinite Consciousness of Sachchidananda which must always find and achieve itself in the Divine Bliss, an Omnipresent Self-delight. This highest state of Consciousness of the Self is also called Turiya of pure existence and our absolute state of Being, with which it is difficult to have direct contact.
 
Elements of Consciousness:

           There are some more terminologies through which the instruments of Consciousness are linked to the Divine Life and we have to understand all of them in relation to Consciousness. Ignorance is an unconsciousness, achiti, of the Truth and Right; it is the non-perceiving principle of our consciousness as opposed to the truth-perceiving conscious vision and knowledge; it can only come about as a subordinate phenomenon by some concentration of consciousness absorbed in a part knowledge or a part action of the being and excluding the rest from its awareness; this Ignorance is a frontal power of that all-consciousness which limits itself in certain field, within certain boundaries to a particular operation of knowledge, a particular mode of conscious working, and keeps back all the rest of its knowledge in waiting as a force behind it. Falsehood is a personal attachment to limited consciousness absorbed in part truth and a by-product of world movement. Its necessity becomes inevitable in the fragmentary evolution of Ignorance. Suffering, a great stumbling-block to understand the truth of the universe, is a failure of the consciousness in us to meet the shocks of existence, the incapacity to bear the touch of delight. Evil is a wrong consciousness governed by life ego. Death is a loss of consciousness or failure of consciousness to unite the cells of the body. It is a peaceful transition from one state of surface consciousness to another state of subtle consciousness and can destroy unconsciousness. All Death, Decay and Destruction are the outcome of the arrest of growth of consciousness or the distortion of consciousness. When one enters higher ranges of consciousness beyond mind, he experiences Divine action, creation and Ananda and when one enters lower ranges of consciousness below mind, he experiences undivine action, destruction and suffering. 
 
            Tamas is the Sanskrit word for the principle and power of inertia of consciousness and the first born of inconscient force:²⁰ a less developed downward depressing consciousness, dull, obscure, sluggish, conservative, unwilling to enlarge itself, recalcitrant to new stimulus of Divine force, barks at all unfamiliar wisdom and light and incompetent in its play is said to be tamasic. Rajas is the principle and power of kinetic force of consciousness impelled by desire and instinct, an intermediate, slow-evolving consciousness, dynamic, possessive, ever restless, governed in its idea not by truth and light, passionate and active; it accepts enjoyment of desire as the ruling human motive. Sattwa is the principle of harmonious upward rising consciousness; a consciousness of limited light, relative freedom, inner satisfaction, happiness, balanced knowledge and eager to possess higher Divine faculties of limitless Wisdom, Love, Delight, Beauty and Silence. Ego is a practical construction of our consciousness devised to centralise the activities of Nature in us; this constant outer ego building is only a provisional device of the Consciousness-Force in things so that the secret individual, the spirit within, may establish a representative and instrumental formation of itself in physical nature; the individual ego is a pragmatic and effective fiction, a translation of the secret self into the terms of surface consciousness, or a subjective substitute for our true self in our surface experience; the limited ego is only an intermediate phenomenon of consciousness necessary for a certain line of development in Ignorance; the nature of the ego is a self-limitation of consciousness by a willed ignorance of the rest of its play and its exclusive absorption in one form, one combination of tendencies, one field of the movement of energies. Memory is only a process and utility of consciousness; it is also a poverty-stricken substitute for an integral direct abiding consciousness of self and a direct integral or global perception of things. Mind, life and body are different organisations and grades of one conscious force of Existence; they are inferior expressions of partial consciousness which strive to arrive in the mould of a varied evolution at that superior expression of itself already existent to the Beyond-Mind. Time experience varies with the variation of state of consciousness and Space is a category of consciousness which arranges the perception of phenomena. Reason is only a messenger, a representative or a shadow of a greater consciousness beyond itself. Mind is a degradation¹⁵ of Supramental Consciousness. (Mental) Maya is the inverse creative movement of the Divine Consciousness and (Supramental) Maya is the forward creative movement of the Eternal Consciousness. Yoga-Maya is the power of Supramental Consciousness-Force put out in self-manifestation. Intuition is a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by identity; it is a special movement of self-existent direct awareness of Knowledge and it brings to man the brilliant messages from the Unknown. Vision is an instrument of the Consciousness of the dream Self to approach and foresee the Divine action. All evolution is, in essence, a heightening of the force of consciousness in the manifest being so that it may be raised into the greater intensity of what is still unmanifest, from matter into life, from life into mind, from the mind into the Spirit.  Nature is the unconscious God whose conscious part is the creative force of consciousness of the Being within us. Being, Purusha, is the conscious God working within Ignorance, is also the static status of the infinite Consciousness. Purusha is a consciousness that observes and can reserve its will power. (Apara) Prakriti is the dynamic state of finite surface consciousness acting within the boundary of three gunas. Prakriti is an energy full of the substance of consciousness that takes the form of knowledge, will and feeling. Para Prakriti, Shakti is the dynamic status of infinite indwelling and over-dwelling Consciousness. Soul is the inner consciousness that aspires to its own complete self-realisation and therefore always exceeds the individual formation of the moment. Brahman is integral and unifies many states of consciousness at a time and knows itself in all that exists. Divine Will is the potency of the power of consciousness applying itself to a work and a result. “If knowledge is the widest power of the consciousness and its function is to free and illumine, yet love is the deepest and most intense and its privilege is to be the key to the most profound and secret recesses of the Divine Mystery.”¹⁶ Tapas is the concentration power of consciousness. Samjnana or Supramental Sense is the contact of Consciousness with its object; its action is the result of extension and vibration of consciousness in a supra-ethereal ether of light, power and bliss. It can be directly aware of all things in all the planes of consciousness without the aid of a sense organ.  Knowledge is a potency of Light and Consciousness that possesses the highest Truth in terms of direct perception and self-experience. Knowledge and Will are dual aspects of one Consciousness or the twin power of actions of Consciousness. Ananda is the very substance of Consciousness and is the outcome of the interaction of Knowledge and Will. Equality is that power of consciousness which brings into the whole of our Nature and Being the sense of eternal tranquillity of Self. Life evolves through growth of consciousness or a greater consciousness means greater life.
 
            Integral Education, a utilitarian aspect of Integral Yoga, proceeds ahead with effort, askesis and tapasya, which are defined as the concentration energy of Consciousness.
 
            Consciousness is the central Truth of Divine Life which is a self-aware force of existence extended from the Inconscient Sheath to the Bliss Sheath. By movement of Consciousness, fullness of Being, fullness of Consciousness and fullness of Life can be attained. Harmony is the inherent Nature of infinite Divine Consciousness and disharmony or limited harmony is the nature of the finite Consciousness of the three gunas. The Law that descends from Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental Consciousness is known as Dharma. The Law that enters the human vessel from the tamasic and rajasic mind and from the surrounding world is known as Adharma. Vedantic Sraddha is the pouring down of Divine attributes of infinite Static consciousness into finite dynamic Consciousness of the three gunas through Purusha Yajna, Vedantic self-discipline. Vedic Sraddha is the pouring down of Divine attributes of infinite Dynamic Consciousness into finite dynamic consciousness of the three gunas by Prakriti Yajna. Sincerity is the concentration of finite dynamic Consciousness of the three gunas around the Psychic being. Exclusive concentration is a concentration of separative mental active consciousness absorbed in part knowledge or a part action of the being and excluding the rest from its awareness. Submission of finite dynamic consciousness to infinite static Consciousness is defined as (Vedantic) surrender. Integral Concentration of Consciousness, Tapas, is the inherent power of Consciousness Force. Submission of finite dynamic consciousness to infinite dynamic consciousness is defined as (Vedic) surrender. Equality is gained when the Consciousness goes beyond the finite consciousness of the three gunas. Renunciation is the rejection of finite dynamic consciousness represented by three gunas of apara-prakriti. 'Samyama is a process of pressure on the consciousness by which the secret Truth, the involved intuition is released…’¹³