A metaphysical & scientific study of the evolutionary prospects of the human body in the light of Sri Aurobindo's vision & assurance of the body's divine destiny.
Chapter III
THE WAKING STATE AND
THE 'WHY' OF THE SAMADHI-PLUNGE
Above us dwells a superconscient god
Hidden in the mystery of his own light:
Around us is a vast of ignorance
Lit by the uncertain ray of the human mind,
Below us sleeps the Inconscient dark and mute.
(Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Book VII, Canto II, p. 484)
Since mind-consciousness is the sole waking state possessed by mental being,...it cannot ordinarily quite enter into another without leaving behind completely both all our waking existence and all our inward mind. This is the necessity of the Yogic trance.
(Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 379)
To enter into Samadhi is to pass into a state of which no
conscious memory remains on awakening....
When people speak of Samadhi, I tell them, " Well, try to develop
your inner individuality and you can enter into these very regions in
full consciousness, with the delight of communion with the highest
regions without losing consciousness for that and returning with
a zero instead of an experience."
(The Mother, Bulletin, Vol. XIV, No. 3, pp. 43-45)
Yes, they [all the states of higher realisation] can be attained
even in full activity. Trance is not essential.
(Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, p. 744)
A thoroughgoing psychological self-investigation far transcending its present artificial bounds, an occult-spiritual exploration of the total field of our being, reveals the truth that what we normally know of ourselves is not all we are: it is no more than 'a bubble on the ocean of our existence.' Indeed, apart from the very insignificant and restricted part of our waking individual consciousness, we are normally perfectly ignorant of the whole of
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the rest of our being, 'the immense more', that lies hidden in apparently inaccessible "reaches of being which descend into the profoundest depths of the subconscient and rise to highest peaks of superconscience, or which surround the little field of our waking self with a wide circumconscient existence of which our mind and sense catch only a few indications."1
As a matter of fact, following the ancient Wisdom of the Upanishads,2 we can broadly divide the totality of our existence into four provinces or states: the 'waking state' (jāgrat), the subliminal or the 'dream-state' (svapna), the superconscient or the 'sleep-state' (suṣupti) and finally the state beyond or the 'ultimate state' (turīya). Corresponding to these four states of our existence, we have in us four selves or rather the four-fold status of the one Self that is Brahman: the waking self or Vaiśvānara, the Waker; the dream-self or Taijasa, the Dreamer; the sleep-self or Prājña, the Sleeper; and finally the supreme or absolute self of being, the Fourth (caturtha), the Incommunicable (avyavahārya), the One without second (advaita), of which the three before are derivations.
In less abstruse and mystical terms, we may state that the fourfold scale of being delineated above represents, so to say, the 'degrees of the ladder of being' that an embodied soul must successively attain if he would seek to climb back from his phenomenal and ignorant self-view towards the supreme superconscience of the highest state of his self-being. But what are the essential traits of these four statuses?
The Waking State: Our waking consciousness, the consciousness that we normally possess and that is dominated by the physical mind, is a limping surface consciousness shut up in the body limitation and within the confines of the little bit of personal mind. We are ordinarily aware only of our surface selves and quite ignorant of all that functions behind the veil. And yet "what is on the surface, what we know or think we know of ourselves and even believe that that is all we are, is only a small part of our being"3, and by far the larger part lies hidden "behind the frontal consciousness, behind the veil, occult and known only by an occult knowledge."4
While in. this normal waking consciousness, a man becomes
1 The Synthesis of Yoga, pp. 498-99.
2 Vide, in particular, Mandukya Upanishad and Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.
3 4 Letters on Yoga, p. 348.
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externalised and gazes outward and rarely if ever inward (paraṁ paśyati nāntarātmari)1. Hence the self in this status of external wakefulness has been described as 'wise of the outward' (jāgaritasthā-no bahiḥprajñaḥ)2. No spiritual life or any higher or deeper realisation becomes possible if one remains fettered to this waking state.
The Dream-State: This represents the subliminal condition of our conscious existence, the large luminous realm of interior consciousness, that corresponds to the subtler life-plane and mind-plane and even a subtle physical plane of our being. Indeed, behind our outer existence, our outer mind and life and body,
Our larger being sits behind cryptic walls:
There are greatnesses hidden in our unseen parts
That wait their hour to step into life's front:
Our inner Mind dwells in a larger light,
Its brightness looks at us through hidden doors;
A mighty life-self with its inner powers
Supports the dwarfish modicum we call life;
Our body's subtle self is throned within
In its viewless palace of veridical dreams.3
Thus, the subliminal reach of our being comprises our inner existence, that is to say, our inner mind, inner life and inner physical with the soul or psychic entity supporting them all. It is of the nature of a secret intraconscient and circumconscient awareness in full possession of a brilliant mind power, a limpid life-force and an unclouded subtle-physical sense of things.
It is in this subliminal realm of our interior existence, the realm of subtle subjective supraphysical experiences and of dreams and visions and heavenly intimations, a veritable world of wonderful illuminations, that our mind and vital being retire when they withdraw by inward-drawn concentration from their absorption in surface activities.
1 Katha Upanishad, II. 1.1.
2 Mandukya Upanishad, 3.
3 Savitri, Book VII, Canto II, pp. 484-85.
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It is because of its inward plunge bringing in its train a wealth of inner experiences, dreams and visions, that the self in this status has been termed the 'dream-self that is wise of the inward' (svapnasthāno'ntaḥprajñaḥ).1
The Sleep-State: This corresponds to a still higher super-conscient status, a state of pure consciousness (prajñānaghana)2, pure bliss (ānandamaya hyānandabhuk3) and pure mastery (sar-veśvara4). This exalted state of self-absorbed consciousness is called 'sleep' because all mental or sensory experiences cease when We enter this superconscience. This 'dreamless sleep state' (yata supto...na kañcana svapnaṁ paśyati)5, this status of massed consciousness and omnipotent Intelligence (sarveśvara sarvajña6), contains in it "all the powers of being but all compressed within itself and concentrated solely on itself and, when active, then active in a consciousness where all is the self."7 It is in this superconscient 'sleep-state' that we become "inherently and intrinsically conscious of our self and spirit, not as here below by a reflection in silent mind or by acquisition of the knowledge of a hidden Being within us; it is through it, through that ether of super-conscience, that we can pass to a supreme status, knowledge, experience."8
The Turīya State: This corresponds to the highest status far transcending the first three, being the status of pure self-existence and absolute being, where consciousness and unconsciousness as we actually conceive of both lose their validity. It is the supreme state of Sachchidananda, 'a state of superconscience absorbed in its self-existence, in a self-silence or a self-ecstasy.'
About the self of this fourth or the Turiya state, the Mandukya Upanishad speaks:
"He who is neither inward-wise, nor outward-wise, nor both inward and outward wise, nor wisdom self-gathered, nor possessed of wisdom, nor unpossessed of wisdom, He who is unseen and incommunicable, unseizable, featureless, unthinkable, and
1Mandukya Upanishad, 4.
23 5 Ibid., 5.
4 6 Ibid., 6.
7 The Life Divine, p. 452 f.n.
8 Ibid., p. 561.
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unnameable, Whose essentiality is awareness of the Self in its single existence, in Whom all phenomena dissolve, Who is Calm, Who is Good, Who is One than Whom there is no other, Him they deem the fourth: He is the Self, He is the object of Knowledge."1
Such is then the fourfold division of the totality of our existence, and true knowledge, that is to say, spiritual knowledge about our self-being as well as about the world-being becomes available to us only when we succeed in establishing a conscious rapport with the subliminal and the now superconscient realms of our being. But unfortunately our waking state is blissfully ignorant of its connection with or even the very existence of these supernal reaches. So the goal of Yoga which is essentially an attempt at arriving at an integral self-knowledge, an entire consciousness and power of being and a supreme union or unity with Sachchidananda, the Existence-Consciousness-Bliss Absolute, can be attained only by a progressive ascension of the mind to higher and still higher planes or degrees of consciousness.
But here a serious and seemingly insuperable hitch presents itself. For mind is the sole waking consciousness actually possessed by man the mental being and this mind in its actuality completely fails to remain awake, beyond a certain line, in the really higher states of realisation where the heightened and intensified spiritual experiences are in the nature of things sought. This almost absolute incompatibility of our waking mentality with the highest ranges of spiritual consciousness is strikingly brought out in the following very interesting account of Sri Ramakrishna's repeated failures to remain physically awake on the summits of realisation. Swami Saradananda, one of the closest direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna and the writer of his authoritative biography, is reporting:
"In how simple terms the Thakur [i.e. Sri Ramakrishna] used to explain to us these abstruse truths of spiritual life:
" 'Well, something rises from my feet and climbs towards the head. So long as it does not reach the head, I retain consciousness ; but as soon as it reaches there, an utter forgetfulness overtakes me — then there is no more seeing or hearing, far be it to
1 Mandukya Upanishad, 7. (Sri Aurobindo's translation).
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speak of talking.' Who would speak then ? — The very sense of 'I' and 'Thou' vanishes altogether! I often decide to speak everything to you, all about the visions and experiences that accompany this ascension. So long as that has reached so far (pointing to his heart) or even so far (pointing to his throat), reporting is possible and in fact I report; but as soon as that transcends this region (pointing to his throat), it seems somebody shuts my mouth and I fail to control my forgetfulness! (Pointing to his throat) when one ascends still further than this level, no sooner than I contemplate for a moment to speak of the visions and experiences there, the mind immediately shoots upwards and no reporting becomes any more possible!'
"Oh, innumerable are the occasions when the Thakur sought to exercise the utmost control over himself so that he could report to us about the types of experiences that one has when the mind transcends the throat-centre but each time he failed!... One day he emphatically stated:
" 'Today I must speak to you everything, not a bit would I hide' — and he started to speak. He could very well speak all about the centres upto the heart and the throat, and then pointing to the junction of his eye-brows he said, 'Whenever the mind ascends here, the embodied soul has a vision of the supreme Self and goes into Samadhi. Then there exists but a thin transparent veil between the individual Self and the Supreme. And there the soul experiences in this way —'. Speaking so far, as soon as he started detailing the realisation of the Supreme, he went into the Samadhi state. After coming out of his trance state, he recommenced reporting again, but again went into Samadhi. After such repeated attempts and failures he spoke to us with tears in his eyes:
" 'My sons, my intention is to report to you everything without hiding the least bit of it: but the Mother won't allow me to speak — She completely shut my mouth!'
"We wondered at this and thought: 'How strange! It is apparent that he is trying to report and that he is even suffering because of his failure to do so, but he seems to be altogether helpless in this matter. — Surely the Mother must have been very naughty indeed! He wants to speak about holy things, about the vision of God, and it is surely odd that She should shut his mouth!'
"We did not know at that time that the mind's range is indeed
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very much limited and that, unless one proceeds farther than its farthest reach, one cannot expect to have the realisation of the Supreme! In our innocence we could not understand at that time that out of sheer love for us the Thakur was attempting the impossible!"1
Sri Ramakrishna himself in his inimitable style emphasised on more than one occasion this fact of the inability of our mind-consciousness to retain its 'power of conscious discernment and defining experience' when it rises to the superconscient heights. He said:
"What happens when the mind reaches the seventh plane [and goes into Samadhi] cannot be described. Once a boat enters the 'black waters' of the ocean, it does not return. Nobody knows what happens to the boat after that. Therefore the boat [i.e. Mind] cannot give us any information about the ocean.
"Once a salt doll went to measure the depth of the ocean. No sooner did it enter the water than it melted. Now, who would tell how deep the ocean was?"2
So it is seen that in the actual state of our evolved waking existence the ascension and entry into the higher realms of our being becomes at all possible only by receding farther and farther from the waking mentality, by withdrawing from and losing touch with the dynamic surface life and taking a plunge into the immobile or ecstatic trance of absorbed superconscience. And herein lies for the spiritual seeker the necessity or even the inevitability of the Yogic trance state, so much so that it is emphatically asserted that Samadhi is "not only a supreme means of arriving at the highest consciousness, but...the very condition and status of that highest consciousness itself, in which alone it can be completely possessed and enjoyed while we are in the body."3
But in that case our goal of dynamic divinisation of life becomes foredoomed to failure. So we must now see whether the trance can be progressively transformed into a waking Samadhi and its spiritual gains made manifest and active even in our waking existence.
1 Swami Saradananda, Sri Ramakrishna Lila-Prasanga (Gurubhava, Purvardha), pp. 64-66. (Italics ours)
2 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 101.
3 The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 506. (Italics ours)
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