In the Mother's Light

Transformation

IF a perfect manifestation of the Divine in material life is the end of evolution, transformation of human nature is the principal means of achieving it. Man in his unregenerate state manifests not the Divine but the animal from which he has emerged and upon which he stands in his endeavour to transcend himself. His inherent divinity lies asleep or half-awake within him, unable to come to the fore and express itself because of the crudeness and opacity of his natural instruments. Even when it is fully awake and strong enough to reveal something of its love and light and peace and purity, it finds only one or two parts of the nature purified and prepared to be the channels of that revelation, while the rest lie lapped in unredeemed obscurity. For a full and unobstructed self-manifestation of the Divine in man, it is essential that human nature should undergo a radical and integral transformation by a complete elimination of its basic animality and a conversion of all its members, faculties, and functions into their divine counterparts. Nothing short of a fully divinised nature can manifest the integral Divine.

What is Transformation ?

In the philosophy of the Mother's Yoga as well as in Sri Aurobindo's, the word "transformation" bears a special and very comprehensively profound sense. It is the keyword of the long and arduous process of total self-perfection which is the indispensable prerequisite of divine manifestation. Transformation means a radical change and conversion of human nature, its thorough transmutation and transfiguration. Let us try to understand what it really amounts to. Human nature in its unperfected state is composed of a mind of ignorance seeking for knowledge, a life of desires and passions and dogging discontent, and a fragile body, conservative in its inertia and insensible to the higher values of existence. This triple

Page 116

mechanism has always opposed the soul's transcendence of the human formula and assumption and expression of the divine, and yet, paradoxical as it may seem, it has been created to be the very means of that expression. Derived from the inconscience of Matter and conditioned by it, the mechanism is found to be much too dense and inapt to meet the demands of the evolving soul, the disabling weight of ignorance and the downward pull of material inertia greatly impeding its necessary self- modification and self-adaptation. The soul, exerting a steady ethicspiritual will, effects a certain amount of purification, sometimes even a great amount—it rays out something of its light into the mind, transmits something of its peace and calm and detachment into the vital, and controls some of the movements of the body, but it finds that there is a limit to this purification, which cannot be easily overpassed. This has been the invariable experience of most of the spiritual disciplines of the world. A certain inherent imperfection of human nature has been taken for granted and put up with. It is only a few dynamic Yogas, such as the Vedic and the Tantric in India, and the most illumined of the ancient mystery cults in the West, that sought to cross the Rubicon and achieve something like a thorough purification and mastery of human nature. But mastery is not transformation. And, besides, never has the result been commensurate with the endeavour—the stuff of human nature proving a little too intractable to the will of the ethical or spiritualised mind of man, which was the only means the Spirit could employ to prepare its vehicle of expression on earth. Some Yogas did register a comparative success, but it was either unilateral or partial, never the sovereign victory which was their ideal.

Perhaps there was something lacking in their ideal itself. Perhaps they did not bestow on the nether bases of life the same amount of attention as they bestowed on its radiant peaks, or, as in the case of the Tantra, in their exploration of the submerged regions of human consciousness, they let go their hold on the light of the peaks and floundered in the reeking swamps. Perhaps many of them failed to command the integral

Page 117

vision of the omnipresent Reality—the Superconscient, the Subliminal, the mentally Conscient, the Subconscient and the Inconscient—and discover the supreme divine Principle whose all-achieving dynamic could effect a total transformation of human nature. So, in spite of high transcendental realisations, they could not compel life to be the manifesting instrument of the Divine.

As we have said above, by transformation the Mother means not a mere purification and enlightenment of nature, an ethical sublimation, but a fundamental change and conversion of the the very poise and constituents of the whole nature. What are the poise and the constituents ? The normal poise of human nature is an ego-centric triplicity of mind, life, and body, separated in its individualised formation from the world, and yet carrying on perforce a commerce of mutuality and interchange with it, which is the condition of its development and growth. This poise, though inevitable and indispensable in the lower stages of evolution when the individuality is being formed around the nuclear ego, is a wrong poise, opposed to the essential truth of unity which is the bed-rock principle of all existence. A conversion of this normal poise by the process of transformation will mean a reversal to the unitarian as opposed to the separative consciousness. The whole being will then live in and act from a permanent consciousness of unity, seeing itself in all and all in itself, and dealing with the world of diversity as if it was—as, indeed, it is—a multiple self-deploying of the One.

The constituents of the nature of man are the physical body, the vital, that is to say, the principle and active formation of life, and the mind. Behind this triple formation is the psyche or the soul evolving in this nature for a divinely perfect self-expression and self-fulfilment on earth. But the body, life, and mind, being derived from material inconscience, are normally turbid and impure, and cannot mirror the immaculate purity of the soul. The soul, however, goes on purifying them by infusing into them its aspiration, devotion, peace, and freedom. In this way, a considerable purity, plasticity and transparency may be

Page 118

established in the nature, but the basic defects and disabilities persist, in however diminished a form, and prevent a full divine out flowering. Now, conversion is calculated to rid the nature of these very basic defects and limitations. Matter, life, and mind have their spiritual counterparts in Existence, Consciousness- Force and Supermind respectively. If Matter is converted into the immortal substance of the eternal Existence, life into the luminous Consciousness-Force, and mind into the Supermind, they shed for ever their obscuring deficiencies and become perfect instruments of the Divine. This is conversion and transformation—a radical sublimation of the lower nature of man into the higher nature, parā prakṛti. But this sublimation does not imply suppression or annihilation, the triple formation of mind, life and body persists and acts, but with a new consciousness, a new dynamism, and a new triumphant effectivity. The Upanishads say that there is nothing here that is not there above, and nothing there that is not here. This formula not only links the earth to Heaven, but discovers Heaven even in the murk and slime of the earth; and the inescapable corollary to this formula is that Heaven is in the earth in order that earth may live in Heaven. All the divine principles and powers that make up the splendour of Heaven are involved or partly evolved in the material world, and can be fully evolved. Earth can become Heaven and man divine. This is the logic of transformation. This is real Resurrection or New Birth of man, far more radical and integral than the current conception of it.

Process of Transformation

The most essential condition of transformation is a total and active surrender of the whole being of man to the divine Presence within and above him. The first stage of this long process is marked by an increasing emergence of the psychic being or the soul and its self-infusion into the mind, life and body. This is called psychicisation. The innate aspiration, devotion, love and joy of the psyche are transmitted into the Mind, life and body which, progressively cleansed of the taint

Page 119

of the inconscience in Matter, begin to radiate the soul. This psychic transformation is in itself a great achievement. It makes a global opening in the entire nature and initiates a wealth of uplifting spiritual experiences which flood the being with light and bliss and raise its consciousness above mortality. "As a final result the whole conscious being is made perfectly apt for spiritual experience of every kind, turned towards spiritual truth of thought, feeling, sense, action, turned to the right responses, delivered from the darkness and stubbornness of the tāmasic inertia, the turbidities and turbulences and impurities of the rājasic passion and restless unharmonised kinetism, the enlightened rigidities and sāttwic limitations or poised balancements of constructed equilibrium which are the character of the Ignorance”.¹

The second stage is characterised by an ascent of the liberated, psychicised consciousness into the teeming vastness of the universal Self. An unprecedented wideness, a realisation of the Cosmic Divine, a direct perception of and participation in the cosmic movement, and an influx from the spiritual planes of Light and Power and Peace and Bliss into the human vessel, are some of the outstanding experiences of this middle stage of transformation, which is called spiritual transformation.

At the third stage there is a victorious ascent beyond the spiritual ranges of the mind, beyond even the universal formula, into the Supermind, which is the Truth-Consciousness, the almighty Creator-Consciousness. This is the entry into the very home of Light and Unity and Harmony, which is regarded as the highest achievement of man, or more truly, the highest gift of Grace. This ascent is followed by a succession of descents, which give the final, finishing, decisive touches to the work of transformation, and consummate the divine perfectioning of the human being. The supramental Light penetrates into the subconscient and the inconscient and illumines them and liberates the supramental principle latent in them. The supramental Force is the supreme, authentic Force of the Divine, capable of grappling with all the obscure resistance of Matter and conquering and compelling it to be an outlet of the divine

¹ The Life Divine by Sri Aurobindo, Vol. II, Chap. 25.

Page 120

splendour. A radical, integral conversion and transfiguration of human nature is the result of the supramental transformation.

It can be said that the psychic transformation liberates the inner and considerably refines and enlightens the outer being of man; the spiritual transformation universalises it, illumines it, within and without, and brings into it the native rhythm of the Infinite; and the supramental transformation integrates and sublimates the whole being from the inconscient to the superconscient, forging all its parts into a luminous unity and harmony, and makes of it a perfect manifesting instrument of the Divine. The infinite Knowledge, the infinite Power, the infinite Freedom and Bliss of the Divine, which the human soul secretly aspires after, can be not only possessed but sovereignly expressed in life, a natural outcome of this supramental transformation.

Evidently, this triple transformation is not an easy work. Nothing like it on such a vast collective scale has ever been conceived and attempted in the history of spiritual culture. It is not, as we have already affirmed, a moral purification and enlightenment of the human nature by self-discipline, prayer and contemplation. It is much too radical, much too comprehensive and conclusive to be effected by any of the agencies and powers normally available to man. It is only the Supermind and its omnipotence that can achieve it. The whole colossal enterprise, therefore, depends upon the discovery of the Supermind and its descent into the earth-consciousness.

The Mother's Mission and Experiences

of Transformation

The Mother has made this transformation—transformation of human nature as an inevitable condition of divine manifestation—the whole work and mission of her life. The Prayers and Meditations of the Mother is a living record of how she, after having attained a "constant and definitive" union with the Divine, had to forgo its rapt ecstasy, often for long spans of

Page 121

time, in order to plunge into the dark depths of Matter and labour to reproduce there, even in those obscure regions of inconscience, the Light and Bliss of the Union enjoyed above. Her life has been a ceaseless sacrifice, a holocaust, an ungrudging renunciation of all that constitutes the happiness and solace of an exclusive spiritual existence in the material world. She has voluntarily travelled down far afield from the absorbed unitive life, which is held to be the apex of spiritual fulfilment, so that the uncharted subconscient and inconscient bases of human life may also be included in the union, and the integral being of man, blissfully and creatively active, may live for evermore in the Light and Love and Harmony of the Divine.

Giving a mystically metaphysical outline of the essential work of transformation, the Mother says :

"In each of the domains of the being, we must awaken the consciousness to the perfect existence, knowledge and beatitude. These three worlds or modes of the Divine are found in the physical reality as well as in the regions of Force and Light and those of impersonality, infinitude and eternity. When we enter fully conscious into the higher regions, it is easy, almost inevitable, to live this existence, this light and this beatitude. But what is very important, as also very difficult, is to awaken the being to this triple divine consciousness on the most material levels. This is the first point. Then we must find out the centre of all the divine worlds (probably in the intermediate world), from where we can unite the consciousness of these divine worlds, synthesise them and act simultaneously and in full knowledge in all the domains”¹.

What the Mother means here is that the vital-physical and the gross physical consciousness of man must also awake to the constant perception of Sat-Chit-Ananda, as his inner and subtler consciousness does on the spiritual planes, where the perception is more or less native and abiding. A full and revealing emergence of "the perfect Existence, Knowledge and Beatitude,'' on all the levels of the individual being—each being comprises

¹ Prayers and Meditations of the Mother, May 27, 1914.

Page 122

in itself all the levels or planes of consciousness—depend for its perfection, on the transformation of the obscure physic levels which, up till now, have opposed the greatest, resistance to it. A constant and dynamic consciousness of Sat-Chit-Ananda on the most material levels will be the final triumph of the transforming descent of the Supermind. The second point that the Mother speaks of is that the individual consciousness must station itself in the intermediate world (called by Sri Aurobindo the Supermind) from where it can, effecting a synthesis of a the planes of consciousness, act simultaneously, freely and in full knowledge in all of them. This will be possible only when the entire consciousness of the individual has been transformed into the divine consciousness.

The physical transformation is an extremely long and laborious process, of which we get glimpses in many of the Prayers, particularly the later ones, of the Mother's book.

"Thou hast taken entire possession of this miserable instrument and if it is not yet perfected enough for Thee to complete its transformation, its transmutation. Thou art at work in each one of its cells to knead it, and make it supple and illumine it, and to class, organise and harmonise it in the ensemble of the being. All is in motion all is changing; Thy divine action makes itself felt as the inexhaustible source of a purifying fire that circulates through all the atoms...”¹

"Break, break the last resistances, consume the impurities, strike with Thy thunder this being, if need be, but let it be transfigured.”²

"The working in the constitution of the physical cells is perceptible; penetrated by a considerable amount of force, they seem to expand and become lighter. But the brain is still heavy and asleep..... I unite myself with this body, O divine Master, and I cry to Thee : 'Do not spare me, act with Thy sovereign omnipotence; into me Thou hast put the will for a total transfiguration.”³

¹ Prayers and Meditations of the Mother, January 22, 1916.

² ibid., January 23, 1916.

³ ibid., July 10, 1914.

Page 123

The prayer addressed to the Divine, as one can very well see, is of the body of the Mother with which she has united herself in order to give an expression to its intense and resolute aspiration. This truth of the body's having a distinct individual consciousness of its own is a definite fact of spiritual experience and provides the rationale of the physical transformation. There is an involved yearning in Matter for a permanent union with the Divine; for essentially Matter is the death- less substance of the divine Existence, and its conversion into that substance even here, in Time and Space, will be its supreme fulfilment, and assure the immortality of the human body. This too can only be achieved by the Supermind and by no other agency.

We can have some idea of the nature of the material exploration, the extreme difficulty of the work in the abyss and the superhuman sacrifice the Mother has joyfully made for its achievement, from the following Prayer :

"O My Lord, my sweet Master, for the accomplishment of Thy work I have sunk down into the unfathomable depths of Matter, I have touched with my finger the horror of the falsehood and the inconscience, I have reached the seat of oblivion and a supreme obscurity ! But in my heart was the Remembrance, from my heart there leaped the call which could arrive to Thee : 'Lord, Lord, everywhere Thy enemies are triumphant; falsehood is the monarch of the world; life without Thee is death, a perpetual hell; doubt has usurped the place of Hope and revolt has pushed out submission; Faith is spent. Gratitude is not born; blind passions and murderous instincts and a guilty weakness have covered and stifled Thy sweet law of love. Lord, wilt Thou permit Thy enemies to prevail, false- hood and ugliness and suffering to triumph?”¹

With the unflinching heart of a divine warrior the Mother mounted the calvary of physical transformation, so that the resistance of Matter might be broken once and for all, its imprisoned aspiration released into a flaming will to transfiguration,

¹ Prayers and Meditations of the Mother, November 24, 1931.

Page 124

and mankind advance with sure steps towards the onl goal of its life—the realisation and manifestation of Sachchidananda upon earth.

The following Prayer breathes the fire of the Mother's heart and the absolute certainty of the ultimate victory of the Divine

" 'Turn and face the danger!’, Thou hast said to me, 'Why dost thou wish to turn thy look away or fly far from action, away from the fight, into a profound contemplation of Truth ? It is its integral manifestation that has to be realised, it is its victor over all the obstacles of blind ignorance and obscure hostility. Look straight at the danger and it will vanish before the Power.’

"O Lord, I have understood the weakness of this most external nature which is always ready to surrender to Matter and to escape, as a compensation, into a supreme intellectual and spiritual independence. But Thou expectest from us action, and action does no allow of such an attitude. It is not enough to triumph in the inner worlds, we must triumph even in the most material worlds. We must not run away from the difficulty or the obstacle, because we have the power to do so by taking shelter in the consciousness where there are no longer any obstacles.... We must look the danger straight in the face, with a faith in Thy Omnipotence and Thy Omnipotence will triumph.

"Give me integrally the heart of a fighter, O Lord, and Thy victory is sure.

" 'To conquer at any cost' must be the present motto. No, because we are attached to the work and its results, not because we are in need of such an action, not because we are incapable of escaping from all contingencies.

"But because such is Thy command to us. But because the time has come for Thy triumph upon earth. But because Thou willest an integral victory.

"And in an infinite love for the world...let us fight”.¹

¹ Prayers and Meditations of the Mother, September 5,1914.

Page 125