Lights on Yoga

APPENDIX*

SOME EXPLANATIONS

"The difference or contrast between the Personal and Impersonal is a truth of the Overmind _ there is no separate truth of them in the Supermind, they are inseparably one."

(P.5)

If this refers to the Personal and Impersonal Divine, the question of the difference can hardly arise, because the Personal Divine (i.e. the Avatar) is not always there. It is only very rarely that the Divine becomes the Avatar to come on earth.

I do not understand. The Personal Divine does not mean the Avatar. What I said was that the scission between the two aspects of the Divine is a creation of the Overmind which takes various aspects of the Divine and separates them into separate entities. Thus it divides Sat, Chit and Ananda, so that they become three separate aspects different from each other. In fact in the Reality there is no separateness, the three aspects are so fused into each other, so inseparably one that they are a single undivided reality. It is the same with the Personal and Impersonal, the Saguna and Nirguna, the Silent and the Active Brahman. In the Reality they are not contrasted and incompatible aspects; what we call Personality and what we call Impersonality are inseparably fused together into a single Truth. In fact

* A sadhak had put some questions to Sri Aurobindo in 1935-36 asking for explanations of some passages in Lights on Yoga. These questions along with Sri Aurobindo's explanations are included in this Appendix. The last question was put by another sadhak.

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"fused together" even is a wrong phrase, because there they were never separated so that they have to be fused. All the quarrels about either the Impersonal being the only true truth or the Personal being the only highest truth are mind created quarrels derivative from this dividing aspect of the Overmind. The Overmind does not deny any in the aspects as the Mind does, it admits them all as aspects of the One Truth, but by separating them it originates the quarrel in the more ignorant and more limited and divided Mind, because the Mind cannot see how two opposite things can exist together in one Truth, how the Divine can be nirguno guīn; - having no experience of what is behind the two words it takes each in an absolute sense. The Impersonal is Existence, Consciousness, Bliss, not a Person, but a state. The Person is the Existent, the Conscious, the Blissful: consciousness, existence, bliss taken as separate things are only states of his being. But in fact the two (personal being and eternal state) are inseparable and are one reality.

*

"Moreover the multiple Divine is an eternal reality antecedent to the creation here." (P. 17)

(a) Does this mean that the souls eternally existed separately from the Brahman - in other words, are Jiva and Brahman eternally separate, as in Dwaitavada? If so, does it not correspond to the idea in Jainism and Sankhya in which many Purushas exist eternally?

(b) Does "antecedent to the creation" mean creation as it takes place from the Supermind or merely the material creation?

(c) If the multiple Divine is an eternal reality, does it not amount to a pure Dwaitavada?

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(a)The Brahman is not a mathematical one with the Many as an illusion - he is an infinite One with an infinite multiplicity implied in the Oneness. This is not Dwaitavada - for in Dwaitavada the many are quite different from the One. In the Sankhya Prakriti is one but the Purushas are many, so it is not Sankhya, nor I suppose Jainism, unless Jainism was quite different from what it is usually represented to be.

(b)The material creation or the creation of the universe generally.

(c)It is on the contrary a complete Adwaitavada, more complete than Shankara's who splits Brahman into two incompatible principles - the Brahman and a universe of Maya which is not Brahman and yet somehow exists. In this view which is that of the Gita and some other Vedantic schools the Para Shakti and the Maya are also Brahman. Unity and Multiplicity are aspects of the Brahman, just as are Personality and Impersonality, Nirguna and Saguna.

*

"This central being has two forms - above, it is Jivatman...below, it is the psychic being..." (P. 15)

(a)Is it meant that the Jivatman and the psychic being are different forms of the central being? If they are forms of the central being, how can they be beings or selves?

(b)Again, when one rises from the state below to the Jivatman above, does the psychic being cease to be? And when one rises above the Jivatman does the central being become formless?

(a) 'Forms' is not used in a physical sense here. The central being is the being in its original self, the psychic

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being is the same in the becoming.

(b) The evolution or becoming continues, so the psychic also continues, just as the rest of the nature continues, only spiritualised and felt as one being in all planes. It is not a question of formed or formless. As I have said 'forms' is not used here in its outward but its inward or metaphysical sense.

*

"The Jivatman... knows itself as one centre of the multiple Divine, not as the Parameshwara. It is important to remember the distinction; for, otherwise, if there is the least vital egoism, one may begin to think of oneself as an Avatar or lose balance like Hridaya with Ramakrishna". (P. 16)

Does this imply that the Jivatman status in which "it presides over the dynamics of manifestation" can be realised before the vital egoism is abolished?

One can get the knowledge or perception in the higher mind "I am That" while the vital is still untransformed, -then the vital ego can take it up and give it a wrong application.

*

Even if the vital egoism can remain after realising the Jivatman, how can one go so far as to think of oneself as an Avatar? Is it because the union with the Divine and the sense of all-powerfulness that it brings is reflected in the vital ego as something grandiose?

Yes. It is when one feels that one is the Divine, So aham,

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but not in the impersonal way to which all is the one Brahman, the One Self, but in the personal way "I am God, the Parameshwara". It is as in the Puranic story in which the knowledge was given both to Indra and Virochana and the God understood but the Asura concluded that he the ego was the Divine and therefore went about trying to impose his ego on the universe.

*

"...if the mental is strongly developed, then the mental being can remain; so also can the vital, provided they are organised by and centred around the true psychic being; they share the immortality of the psychic." (P. 18)

Does this mean that the vital of strong persons like Napoleon is carried forward in the future lives? But how can it be said that their vital was centred round the psychic being? It is only about the Bhaktas and the Jnanis that we can say that their vital was centred around the psychic.

If one has had a strong spiritual development, that makes it easier to retain the developed mental or vital after death. But it is not absolutely necessary that the person should have been a Bhakta or a Jnani. One like Shelley or like Plato for instance could be said to have a developed mental being centred round the psychic - of the vital the same can hardly be said. Napoleon had a strong vital, but not one organised round the psychic being.

*

"The ego is a formation of Nature; but it is not a formation of physical nature alone, therefore it does not cease with the

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body. There is a mental and vital ego also." (Pp. 16-17)

Does this mean that the ego is carried by the psychic as a separate principle after death just as it carries with it a highly developed mental or vital, or that it is taken up in the psychic as a seed-samskāra, or that it exists side by side with the psychic in the after-death state?

It is only meant that the separative ego is not a creation of birth in the physical body; the mental and the vital have it also. So, so long as the mental and vital are subject toignorance, the ego will last also. When the psychic being goes into rest it naturally takes it with the essence of its past experience and in coming back it takes up a mental, vital and physical existence which has the mark of the ego and the ignorance.

*

"The true vital being... is wide, vast, calm, strong, without limitations, firm and immovable, capable of all power, all knowledge, all Ananda". (P. 13)

Does this imply that the true vital belongs to the cosmic or supracosmic consciousness? If not, how can it have such qualities?

The true being mental, vital or subtle physical has always the greater qualities of its plane - it is the Purusha and like the psychic though in another way a projection of the Divine, - therefore in connection with the higher consciousness and reflects something of it, though it is not altogether that - it is also in tune with the cosmic Truth.

*

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If the true vital is "capable of all power, all knowledge, all Ananda", it seems as if it is the supramental vital itself or the vital of the Ishwara. How can it then be possible for the individual being to have such a vital?

It is capable of receiving the movements of the higher consciousness, and afterwards it can be capable of receiving the still greater supramental power and Ananda. If it is not, then the descent of the higher consciousness would be impossible and supramentalisation would be impossible. It is not meant that it possesses these things itself in its own right and that as soon as one is aware of the true vital, one gets all these things as inherent in the true vital.

*

In the change of the vital nature, is the external surface vital to be entirely effaced and replaced by the true vital or is it to be kept and changed into the nature of the true vital? In either case, what is the need of an external vital at all if the true vital is already there?

The true vital is in the inner consciousness, the external is that which is instrumental for the present play of Prakriti in the surface personality. When the change comes, the true vital rejects what is out of tune with its own truth from the external and makes it a true instrument for its expression, a means of expression of its inner will, not a thing of responses to the suggestions of the lower Nature. The strong distinction between the two practically disappears.

*

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"The taking away of the Force of destruction implies a creation that will not be destroyed but last and develop always." (Pp. 7-8)

Does this mean that in the Truth-creation the Force of destruction will be taken away and only the Forces of creation and preservation remain? Does it mean that nobody will die - not even plants and animals?

That might be true if the whole world were to be supra-mentalised and that supramentalisation meant inability to change or put off a form, but it is not so.

*

"It is really for the vital part of the being that Shraddha and rites are done - to help the being to get rid of the vital vibrations which still attach it to the earth or to the vital worlds, so that it may pass quickly to its rest in the psychic peace." (P. 18)

Does this mean that the Shraddha ceremony performed at present by the Brahmins is correct? Does feeding the caste and the Brahmins fulfil the purpose?

I only said what was originally meant by the ceremonies-the rites. I was not referring to the feeding of the caste or the Brahmins which is not a rite or ceremony. Whether the śrādha as performed is actually effective is another matter - for those who perform it have not either the knowledge or the occult power.

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