The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo

CHAPTER XII

MIND AND ITS PURIFICATION

PART I

MANY things are meant by the general term mind. It is indiscriminately used for the intellect, intelligence, reason, thought, understanding etc., and is even stretched to cover feeling and emotion. It is, therefore, essential that it should be properly defined and classified, its various functions described with precision, and their hierarchical order clearly indicated, if we are to embark upon the work of its Yogic as distinguished from ethical purification. A certain amount of detailed knowledge of the psychology of our nature is a great help in the beginning of the spiritual life, and saves us many a stumble and bewilderment. When the inner light dawns, we can dispense with the mental knowledge and know the whole working of our nature by spiritual vision and direct experience.

THE CHITTA OR THE BASIC CONSCIOUSNESS

What is mind and how does it evolve? The term antaḥkaraṇa, employed by most of the schools of Hindu philosophy, is wide enough to comprehend all the principal

Page 224

subjective developments of the instrumental being of man in the Ignorance. It comprises, as we said in the last chapter, citta or the basic consciousness, manas or the sense-mind, buddhi or the intelligence, and ahankāra or the ego-sense. Citta is the primal consciousness, the basic stuff of our psychological being, as it evolves from the material in conscience. It is mostly subconscient and mechanical in its action, which is of two kinds: (1) passive and receptive, and (2) active and formative. The citta passively receives all impacts and impressions, and "stores them in an immense reserve of passive subconscient memory on which the mind as an active memory can draw."¹ Even the things which escape the attention of our mind, but have been the object of our outer senses, are snapped by the citta. These impressions form a chaotic jumble in the citta, from which they surge up into our surface consciousness, in waking, and often in sleep, in various fantastic combinations. This action of the citta is automatic and unpredictable. The active and formative part of the citta is responsible for most of the impulses and habits of our aboriginal animal nature and the automatic emotional reactions, citta vṛttis, which rise in response to the outer stimuli. In plant life the citta is the source of the sensations of pleasure and pain, comfort and discomfort, which have more a nervous than a feeling value. In the animal, a life-mind and a sense-mind evolve out of this primal citta, and the nervous-physical sensation

¹The Synthesis of Yoga—by Sri Aurobindo.

Page 225

of the plant life assumes a mental hue and acquires a rudimentary mental value. And yet the mind that has developed in the animal is involved in the action of the senses, and the hungers and craving of the physical life —it cannot get beyond them. From this welter of the citta, instincts come and impulses, by it are formed the vital and physical habits of the animal, which are nothing better than crystallizations of the samskāras or impressions of its past evolution with certain characteristic evolutionary modifications. The citta is an immense sea of amorphous or half-formed elements, out of which develop the various faculties and functions of the evolving being.

MANAS OR THE SENSE-MIND

In man the citta develops the life-mind and the sense- mind to a much greater extent than in the animal. The sense-mind throws out a thought-mind, a very elementary state of which we find in some of the advanced species of animals; but in the generality of men this thought-mind is tied to the sense-mind and can, with a greater precision, be called a sensational thought-mind. This sensational thought-mind works on the basis of the data of the senses, and cannot rise superior to them and move in an ether of unfettered thinking. Or, it works on the basis of the subjective reactions generated in the citta by the outer impacts. But in either case, it is absolutely dependent upon the senses and limited to their reports. It is nothing more than a slight improvement on the mind of the

Page 226

animal—only more elaborately and extensively active, but not very different in essence. Modem scientific training on its practical and technological side gives a wide development to this sensational thought-mind, and is justified in priding itself on this achievement. Minute and accurate observation by a disciplined use of the senses, and a construction of experimental hypotheses on the results of such an observation are certainly an outstanding triumph of the empirical method of science; but, instead of being blinded by its glamour, if we try to assess it in the light of Yogic psychology, we shall find that it is the triumph of only the sensational thought-mind, which is tethered to the senses, and attached to life.

The ordinary human mind is not a mind of reason and will—it is a sense-mind. It is a crude organizer of sense experiences, and of its own reactions to the external contacts. At every step of its action, it is conditioned by the stored-up memories and associations in the citta, and the defective and misleading data of the senses. When it reasons, it does nothing else than sway from one proposition to another under the varying goad of life's desires and preferences. Very often it does not reason at all, it consents to the demands and decisions of the vital (prāṇa) without demur, and justifies them by a specious pretence of reasoning. It is a mind which has not yet come into its own, not yet been able to disengage itself from the teguments of its nether origin.

If man stopped at this sense-mind, content with its extensive and practical functioning, which is so very

Page 227

conducive to material well-being, and not attempting to transcend it, he would remain a mere human-animal being, and falsify the high hopes cherished of him. The élite of his race have, however, risen beyond it to the intellect or the buddhi, and acquired the capacity of moving, more or less freely, in the ether of thoughts, untrammelled by the senses and their material pursuits. This is a development found at its high-water-mark in the thinkers, scientific or philosophical, in whom thought, cleansed of the dross of the earth and with its wings unfurled in a larger air, flies high in search of truth. This thought-mind, in proportion as it emancipates itself from the yoke of the senses, begins to seek knowledge for its own sake, and not necessarily or exclusively for an immediate life-effectuation. But it is in very rare cases, even among the scientists and philosophers, that it can range freely and securely in its native atmosphere and control and organize life from above, uninfluenced by vital desires and attachments.

BUDDHI OR THE INTELLIGENCE

Describing the buddhi, Sri Aurobindo says in The Synthesis of Yoga, "Buddhi is a construction of conscious. being which quite exceeds its beginnings in the basic citta; it is the intelligence with its power of knowledge and will.... It is in its nature thought-power and will- power of the Spirit turned into the lower form of a mental activity." There are three steps of the action of

Page 228

the buddhi: (1) understanding, (2) reason and (3) intelligence proper. The understanding is only a form of the thought-mind which can be distinguished from the sense-mind by a somewhat more developed thought- process. But it can hardly go beyond the data of the sense-mind, the memories and associations of the subconscient mentality, and the reactions of the heart. It tries in its crude way to understand, record and arrange what is transmitted to it—it is a trafficker in raw percepts and concepts. In most men the action of the sense-mind is topped by the mechanical working of this understanding, which constitutes their chief distinction from the animals, and their claim to humanity.

The reason is the next higher step of the action of the buddhi. It improves upon the first rought-and-ready arrangement of the percepts by the understanding, by means of a process of selection, by analysis and synthesis, and a more elaborate and precise ordering of the various mental-nervous reactions and responses. Most of our cherished views and opinions, our standards of criticism and judgment, our aesthetic and ethical principles are turned out on this second layer of the thought-mind, the mind of reason. It has a will of its own which struggles with a partial or problematical success to impose itself on the lower mentality. Though, more or less, like the understanding, reason too has to abide by the limitations of the sense experience, it has one advantage that, by analysis and synthesis and a new ordering of sense data, it can arrive at definite conceptions and judgments of

Page 229

things, instead of remaining satisfied, as does the under- standing, with the first impressions and their perfunctory reduction to inchoate thought forms. This mind of reason is responsible for most of the theoretical achievements of the scientific method in different fields of human knowledge. By a masterful manipulation of the reports of the senses, and an induction from them of the general laws which govern the operations of Nature, it has armed man with great material powers and extended the horizons of his mental life. The reason has two aspects: pragmatic and idealistic. The pragmatic reason is bent upon life; the will in it is predominantly a will to creation and formation in terms of life—it drives straight towards concrete results. Whatever knowledge it gains by its logical process, based upon the activity of the sense-mind,, it hastens to utilize for an improvement of the conditions of life. It is sceptical about the validity, even the reality, of a knowledge that cannot be easily or immediately harnessed to the objective ends of life. This pragmatic reason has received an immense development in the West, and is at once its glory and danger. An exclusive reliance on it is a great hindrance to the development of the higher powers and potentialities of the human intelligence. The other aspect of the reason is idealistic, which, depending on its powers of comprehension, co- ordination and synthesis rather than on analysis and differentiation, seeks to command a total or whole view of life and Nature. Not satisfied with the surface appearances of things, and the dull bondage of the

Page 230

human mind to the objects of the senses, it seeks to discover the rationale and purpose of life, and the cardinal ideas that determine and direct the processes of things. gut the success it achieves in this new orientation is much qualified by its characteristic habit of discursive thinking.

The third step of the buddhi is the intelligence proper. It is an eminence of the human mind which, unless clouded by the lower impurities, can reflect something of the higher truth of existence. It is a seeker of Reality and a lover of Truth. It has the power to lift the human consciousness for a while out of the turmoil of the vital desires and the helpless suffering of the body. It has a wideness, a depth, and a limpid tranquility which, at their best, can be an ideal condition for the attainment of knowledge. A developed intelligence turns naturally towards infinity and immortality, and is vibrant with intimations of our soul's freedom. But it is only a seeker of knowledge, and not its possessor. It can perceive aspects of Truth or a sum of several aspects, but never the whole Truth; for, the inveterate dividing tendency of the mind vitiates all its attempts at envisaging the indivisible Infinite. Besides, usually, it leans more to- wards knowledge than towards will, and fails to express fully in life what it holds inviolate in its vision. Its exclusive intellectual penchant for knowledge makes it often lose itself in the clouds and indulge in tenuous abstractions. It has also a facile tendency to imprison itself in its own ideas and speculations, and refuse to

Page 231

break beyond them. Cured of these drawbacks, the buddhi or the intelligence can become our best means of self-transcendence. It is, in fact, meant to be, as the Upanishads say, the charioteer of the soul's journey to the Divine. It is the finest flower of man's sāttwic development, and a stepping-stone to naistraiguṇya or a secure superiority to the knotted action of the three guṇas. It is an intermediary between the Light of the Infinite and the life of the material world.

THE THREE TRUTHS

Three things emerge from this study of the hierarchical order of the faculties of the mind. (1) Each successive step of the evolutionary psychology of the being is an ascent to a wider and clearer consciousness, and a progressive freedom from subjection to the lower determinism. The evolution of the sense-mind from the clutter of the subconscient citta is the evolution of a consciousness, which begins to be aware of itself and of its contacts with the world, and exercise its will, however rudimentarily and blindly, through its instincts and desires. The emergence of the buddhi or the intelligence, in its three successive stages, is a further evolution of consciousness and will, and a considerable release from its primal involution in the mechanical drive of Nature, and its subsequent subjection to the senses and their reactions and responses to the outer impacts, vāhya- sparśa. On the highest elevations of the buddhi, the

Page 232

consciousness of man can stand almost secure from the compulsion of Nature and realise its untrammeled separateness. It can take the position of a witness and even of a guide in regard to many of the movements of Nature. (2) Each evolving gradation contains in it the potentiality of the next higher. The dim and drowsy citta contains in it and releases the sense-mind, which, as an instrument of the being, is more awake and alert and active. The sense-mind releases an elementary thought-mind, more sensational than reflective; and from that in its turn springs the buddhi with its ascending scale of awareness and will, its increasing sense not only of detachment and freedom, but also of a partial control and mastery. (3) The ascent of consciousness towards freedom does not imply a rejection of the parts of Nature from which it has risen, but a greater and greater development and enlightenment of them, a progressive integration of them all into an organic unity, and their eventual sublimation into something beyond and yet sustaining them, something, for the manifestation of which all their chequered growth is but a long and purposeful preparation. The citta of the individual being does not remain the same after it has released the sense-mind from it—it tends to become more awake, more refined, more orderly and consistent in its action. It releases out of it the emotive mind and the aesthetic, characterized by a greater rhythm and refinement. The impulses it then throws are less and less blind and chaotic, and its shapeless hungers change into more defined desires. When the

Page 233

sense-mind releases out of it the buddhi, it begins to be more and more regulated and enlightened by the new emergent principle, which itself, in its turn, continues to gain in rhythm and balance and limpidity of perception and will to co-ordination. One of the signal achievements of the buddhi is the mirroring of the soul or the Self of man. It points beyond itself. It is big with the supreme Principle of Knowledge and Will of which it is a lower derivation.

THE DOUBLE MOVEMENT

All this shows that a double movement goes on in each individual—one, helping the awakening and release of the central being and its consciousness, and the other, the development and purification of the nature. In terms of Sri Aurobindo's philosophy, this double process can be described as the awakening and liberation of the puruṣa, and the purification and liberation of prakṛti. This double liberation is the inner sense and justification of the travail of terrestrial life, and it would be sheer spiritual narrowness to ignore it. But is liberation the last word? A synthetic view of this double process leads one to conclude that not liberation, but a fulfilled perfection is the goal of life. Infinite perfectibility is the watchword of evolution. Liberation is only its first decisive step towards perfection. The puruṣa, liberated (not alienated) from prakṛti, and prakṛti, liberated

Page 234

from the shackles of her lower modes, unite in Puruṣottama, the Supreme Being, whose creative Force is Super- nature. All purification in the Integral Yoga is, therefore, a preparation of nature for its final transformation into the Supernature. The graded emergence, development and integration of the various parts and faculties of human nature confirm this perfectionist view of life; but it must be understood that it is a divine perfection that is meant, and not merely an ethical one.

But the obscurity of human nature is great, and the entanglement of its parts, faculties and energies is wellnigh baffling. Evidently, no ethical or pietistic tinkering can be of any avail, so far as the aim of divine perfection is concerned. The simplistic method of cavalier repression is fraught with serious dangers, and ends more often than not in a dismal devastation of nature. The Integral Yoga, being a revolutionary intensification and acceleration of the Yoga of Nature, and fully aware of the confused complexity it has to deal with, proceeds in the natural way of life itself, laying hold of the motor springs of the organic being, one after another, and cleansing, purifying, galvanizing, illumining and integrating them for the utmost perfection in a harmonious working. It represses nothing, maims nothing, cuts away nothing, but disentangles and quickens all, and puts them in their right dynamic relations with each other. Surely, no human mind, however wide and acute it may be, can be the guide and agent of this manifold purification. The Integral Yoga, therefore, provides for the

Page 235

Grace and guidance of the Divine Mother for this super- human work.

We shall now consider the process of purification of the human mind, preparatory to the final work of transformation.

Page 236