The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 8

Divine Living

We always give the name "Divine" to all that we are not and want to become, all that seems infinitely higher than not only everything we have done but everything we can possibly do, all that is beyond our present capacity and conception.

I am perfectly sure that if we went back into the past a few thousands of years, we would find that when one spoke of the Divine it was of a being somewhat like one of the "overmental" gods. But now, the way of living proper to these overmental divinities who governed the earth and created many things upon earth for a very long time, seems to us very inferior to what we conceive as the Supramental. This Supramental again which we now call the Divine and which we seek to bring down upon earth will have the same effect upon us a few thousand years hence as the Overmental has upon us now.

In other words, in the manifestation, in his Self-expression the Divine is progressive. Outside and beyond manifestation, He is something we cannot conceive of. But when He manifests Himself in this status of constant becoming, He manifests more and more of Himself, as if He has reserved for the final end the most beautiful things of His being.

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As the world progresses, what He expresses of Himself in the world becomes more and more the Divine.

Sri Aurobindo has used the word Supramental in order to be clear to people who live in the evolutionary external consciousness and who are aware of the way in which the terrestrial world has developed, telling them that it is something greater than the creation of man whom he always calls mental being. He calls it Supramental to say that it is beyond mind.

But we can also say that it is something more divine than what has been manifested before. For the Infinity is there; that has no limit. Thus there will always be a growing perfection. What appears to us as imperfect today must have appeared as something perfect, to which certain epochs of history yearned and aspired.

And there is no reason why the movement should stop. If it stopped it would mean an end of things—a new pralaya.

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