CWTVKS Volume 2

8) New Lights

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Poetic creations may be legion; yet they cannot exhaust the materials for Poetry. Nature is as immense as her Lord and his world-poems do not exhaust her resources for further creations. This is a truth that is specially applicable to the creative genius who deploys his energy for the reorientation of the Spirit of man for a fuller and freer life, for effecting a change in his stuff and setup, for the shift of his centre of knowledge and power and action to an eminence.

We shall make a brief note of the cardinal principles of Sri Aurobindo's teachings and think out their value in that they shed new lights on the main problem of man's life on earth, and incidentally on some of the concepts in ancient teachings. The fundamentals of this system differ in some essentials from those of others in more than one way; they constitute a fresh approach to the problem of man and his place in the universe. The system is indeed new in its conception, new in its manner of envisaging and attacking the problem, new also in the ultimate result towards which it sets out with a full eye to the practical value at every step taken in the course of the endeavour.

It is a trite saying that there is nothing new under the sun. For, either it caters to the cynical indolence and stresses the atavistic incline in the group-mind, or at best it is, when genuine, a self-pleasing ventilation of the belief in the unalterable value of the past and adherence to it in the close preserves of whatever is fixed and stable in it from the very beginning. Nevertheless it is an illusion that the past continues the same without change; for it becomes the dead body or ghost of itself if it is not renewed and re-lived in new forms under changing conditions in the march of Time. Renewal of forms is a necessity for the past if it is to live in the present. While the past is a tremendous source of strength for conserving and fixing the norms and standards of the race, it is also a repertory of immense potentialities for the creation of new forms; it provides the material for moulding renewed ideals, for fashioning proper instruments for progress without which the springs dry up, life ceases to flow, decay sets in. ‘Nothing absolutely new’ is true in the sense that every creation is effected from previously existing material and that no formation can be devised from nothing. But once the creative spirit handles the old material, it so shapes it as to fit new conditions, casts it into a fresh mould to answer to the needs of the present and call of the future. The result is a new creation with a definite purpose fulfilling the wants of the evershifting, active present to meet the future that incessantly beacons it. The old material persists indeed; but the process adopted, the use made of it and the ideal re-fashioned, change the very structure in such a way that in its resuscitation we find that the approaches to it are quite different, the forms are fresh, and the ultimate meaning becomes clearer and nearer to the thought-vision revealed as something within the range of living experience. Such a creation then is certainly new for all practical purposes. If that is not, what else is new?

What are the bases on which such a system is built? What are the materials out of which the structure is erected and shaped into a living whole providing a working faith in the truths that constitute the door-ways of the edifice?

The materials employed for the many-sided system of thought in Sri Aurobindo's teachings are huge, varied, multidimensional. They are huge because they cover the whole field of human thought and culture in general with special stress on the sources and deeper strata of man's knowledge of himself and the world around him; varied because they embrace a vast domain of finished products of thought-patterns of the West and the East, of ancient and modern times; multi-dimensional because the world-view they take is not confined to the field of sense-data; they sound deeper into the sources of perceptual knowledge of the Physical world and take an inner view of them without denying at the same time the basis and value of the external knowledge; they rise to a level higher than that of the sense-mind and of the most developed reasoning intelligence that takes its stand on it, and from there take a larger world-view in which the position of man and his appearance in the Cosmic arena are exposed to the light of a still higher Knowledge derived from a comprehending Wisdom. In such a complex fabric of thought-system different view-points fall to their just positions. The essentials in all cultures receive their due treatment. The marked values of different lines of cultural development are underlined; in short, the diverse forms of thought and culture of the Spirit are recognised for their worth for a fuller and richer realisation that man is capable of in the scheme of this world-existence.

This system, then, represents to a remarkable degree the substance of all that is noteworthy in the development of the human spirit and thought for millenniums. It starts with man as a spiritual being on earth, studies him in his radical and original aspect and relation to the ultimate Reality. It takes a survey of his being in all the elements that constitute his terrestrial existence and discovers—in order to restore—his proper relation and rights to the mastery of the component parts of his being. It aims at activising the achievement in the human being for an extended application of the same to his fellow-beings around, to his group, to his kind at large. As a sequel, or even as an accompanying phase of the systematic progress, the movement of the Spirit in man takes unfaltering steps in its rapid strides and realises and extracts the value of all well-ordered human institutions in its own terms, and discards or changes those that cannot stand its scrutiny and are of no avail or value to it. In short, it ultimately gives a value to human polity itself, transforms it so that it can be estimated in enduring terms of the Spirit. Needless to say that this is not a philosophical system built on speculative bases though it has a philosophy formulated, presentable for intellectual grasp. It is a system built on the foundations of the cumulative results of realisations in the realm of the spirit for ages. At every turn and step in its progress, it has reference to truths that can be verified by competent minds that take to the venture, enter the field and follow the road that leads to the high Destiny that awaits the pilgrim. It is essentially an art, an art of the spirit that applies itself to thought, life and general behaviour in the individual with all its bearings on the environments—in one word, it is Yoga, much more than Sankhya which is the philosophy-aspect that explains the process and educates the mind for acceptance of this truth in order to work out its possibilities under earth-conditions. Sankhya, in its extended sense, is Thought that enumerates and formulates the principles woven into the texture of the Theory of Existence and of Knoweldge. Yoga is the art of living in conscious union with the truths envisaged and realised in the planned progress of the endeavour. Both of them together represent the twin aspect—theory and practice—of the system of this Teaching.

It is evident then that it is the Art, the actual work undertaken for the purpose that matters most while the theory giving explanations of the principles and process has value to the extent of its being helpful to open the mind to receive the light that is the soul of the art of Yoga.

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What is the character of this Light, is it just a metaphor? Whence does it proceed? How does it execute the art, employ the Yoga-force for achieving the end in view? This is a light that illumines the path and works out the process of Yoga. It is the light that uses for its purpose the fruits of the spiritual realisations of man in the past in their essentials. It is a light that is creative of higher forms of the human material and sets out from the supreme Abode from which creation of the world proceeds. This Light is an effulgent Power, not a figure or a symbol alone, but much more than a figure of knowledge and a symbol of strengths To understand the character and purpose of this Light is to grasp the central thought of the whole teaching. Let us then dwell a little on the first principles which form the sheet-anchor of this study. It is a Vedantic dictum that consciousness, chit, is fundamental to being, to all existence, sat. If this is postulated by the Vedantic thinkers of later times, it is an axiomatic truth with the mystics and sages of the Upanishads. And this is unreservedly accepted here also as the basis to proceed upon. It is necessary to bear in mind what we mean by consciousness. Obviously it is something aware of itself; it is, in man, a self-evident awareness which challenges analysis, and is of course subjective, though it is not limited to his subjective being. That is because it is infinite and One, not simple and unitary alone; there is an inherent power in it which is immense and deployed in multiple forms of consciousness. We may call it manifestation of the Many from the One. We can perceive this twofold distinction in the consciousness in our own psychology. One aspect of it is the apprehending consciousness which consists in the awareness ‘I am’, and another in the comprehending consciousness which lies in the perception and the concept based upon it that ‘All is'. Thus the essential One, the unity of all existence, is the basic consciousness on which is founded the manifold development of itself. The diverse forms it assumes are worked out by the Power that is ever implicit in the comprehending movement of the Force in the infinitude of the Sole Being. This diversity of forms in the Manifestation is released in degrees and kind, in quality and bulk, so much so that we find apparent absence of sentience in matter—what we call inanimate objects—a certain breath of life, a sigh of submerged consciousness in the plant, and a clear sign of emergent consciousness in the rising grades of animal life reaching its acme in man. But everywhere consciousness is present, only its manifestation differs in range because the instruments of expression differ in form and quality and kind.

A point must be noted here and that is of the utmost importance for us when we deal with Creation. It is this that once we accept that Consciousness is omnipresent and infinite, we have accepted that it is not confined to the boundaries of the three-dimensional space. Apart from its reserve as the Unmanifest, it comprehends in its infinitude an essential extension in which it pours out of its inherent force vast masses of energy that go to build the worlds. And this extension is in its roots an expansive mood and aspect of the Divine Spirit and shall not be confounded with the physical space in which we perceive this stellar universe; it is multi-dimensional and has many directions, more than we are accustomed to imagine. And this fact is to be borne in mind when we are instructed that Creation proceeds from above. This is a cardinal principle that must be grasped before one can understand this Yogic system with its philosophy-adjunct. And when we say ‘above' it may be asked ‘above what?’ Where is this ‘above?’ Surely there cannot be ‘above and below’ for Consciousness, as it is infinite and everywhere. Nor can it be an ‘above’ absolutely beyond any particular creation in the physical universe, because the latter itself is a creation, also because there is no absolutely fixed direction anywhere as all bodies are in constant motion. Nor can we dismiss the’ above’ as just a figure to signify the sublime character of the sole Source of all creation. For it is a statement of the mystics all the world over; it has been so perceived by the seers of all times. In India we find it repeatedly mentioned in the Vedas; the Atharva Veda contains a short section of verses in which the Abode of the Supreme Being from which creation proceeds is named with great significance. It is an irony that the term it employs to denote the Supreme Source and mainstay of all creation has come to mean in later Sanskrit ‘leavings of food,’ ucchishta. In the Vedic text it is used in the sense of ‘The Residual above’ ut-shishta. Obviously it is so termed because any number of creations cannot diminish the infinitude of the Supreme Being that for ever remains above the creation which descends from it. When the supreme Force, Shakti, of the Infinite Being above deploys certain energies for the creation of the worlds, He remains still inexhaustible and rests there forming the foundation above, upari budhna, for the creation in its downward course. References to the Supreme Truth as the oceanic Being above, upari samudra, are quite common in the Rig Veda; but in the Atharva Veda (Book XI) we find a graphic account in a less symbolic imagery.

Still the question remains unanswered—above what? There is no difficulty now in finding the answer. For, while there is no question of directions in regard to the Infinite Consciousness in itself as there is nothing inside or outside of it, every manifestation in it, thrown into creation out of it, has a boundary which means that it is endowed with the property of direction as related to similar objects of creation as well as to the source and support of its own being in the All-existence. Besides, this source and foundation of created existence cannot be an ‘Absolute above' because it is related to Creation. But it is constantly above the perceiving consciousness in the embodied being, whether the embodiment is individual or universal and cosmic in formation. Therefore the question of direction is related to and concerns most the created being that perceives and feels that its foundation is above. It is a fact of mystic vision and knowledge which is much more real in its sphere than the reality of ourselves and our common experience in the physical existence. Nor can we say that there is nothing permanently above the embodied being, in spatial terms of the experiencing consciousness on the ground of an invalid reason that the perception is purely subjective. For it must be noted that all perceptions are subjective, and all knowledge of the objective existence is subjective, nay, all the objective existence itself is a manifestation worked out by the Force-currents emanating from the Infinite Consciousness and abides in it; and in this sense the objective existence itself rests in the subjective and apprehending aspect of the Consciousness in the unalterable infinitude of Being. We must remember in this context that creation starts initially from other dimensions of space in the higher altitudes of Being, proceeds through various grades in the descending order before arriving at a state in which we perceive its material aspect in the physical space. But there are many creations, many Universes. Let us, then, confine ourselves to our creation, to the Cosmos of which our Earth is a part occupying the lowest rung. We say ‘lowest rung’, because there are many levels above, and at the summit is the Godhead, the Creative Spirit who supports the Cosmic system from above and there is the Foundation of this created existence. It is necessary to stress this fact in order to remove a possible wrong notion that the Earth is a sudden drop from above and that there is a hiatus between the Earth here and the Supreme Source above. These grades in the cosmic existence are really various levels and states of Consciousness with their corresponding fields for active participation in the cosmic scheme, which we call the planes of being. It is not necessary for our purpose here to discuss the question of these planes. Suffice it to say that the Cosmic system itself is an embodiment of the Divine Spirit, the Creative Godhead, presiding over it above and entering into it in a supporting column erect, with the higher end at the summit and the lower end here on the Earth-plane. This vertical column of support is termed Skambha’ in the Rig Veda in many places and in the Atharva Veda (Book X) there are two long hymns devoted to it wherein we find many passages describing the Godhead as Skambha, the source, support and substance of all that exists, the world, gods and men and other beings here or elsewhere in the Cosmic Manifestation. ‘It is the Skambha that upholds dadhara...it is the Skambha that enters into and possesses all this Universe, idam vishwam bhuvanam a-vivesha', says the Veda. This again confirms the fact earlier noted that creation proceeds from above; and the Skambha is the Cosmic Pillar, the Spinal column of the Cosmic Being, represented in the microcosmic creation, in the evolution of the human body, by the backbone, the axial pole which gives it its erect posture.

Now we come to the question of the Supreme Light to which we made earlier reference as the Light that works out the process of Yoga for the creation of higher forms of the self-conscious human material. That the creation of higher forms results through the process of evolution for which the earth is the field needs no special mention. For we proceed on the basis that Evolution here is essentially of a spiritual nature, while the physical evolution is an accompaniment for working out suitable organisms to hold, express and radiate rays of the evolving Spirit. In all crucial stages of evolution when a higher principle is to be evolved however intense may be the evolutionary urge in the Earth-Spirit, whatever intrinsic merit the evolutionary Force may have, the higher principle that waits for manifestation waits mutely until a Power from the plenary home of that principle comes down and lifts it up from its submerged wakefulness. This is how Life has entered Matter and Mind has got into living matter changing it for the expression of Spirit through thinking life. The next higher principle is one far above the Mind and therefore far above the Ignorance, is self-luminous, intimately spiritual, directly Divine in its domain, in knowledge, strength and force of movement and action. It is a Light. It is this principle, technically called Supermind, which connotes much more than what it literally denotes, that is to be established here at the crucial stage in the march of the evolving spirit progressing from the mental to the higher step. To speak of establishing the Supermind above the mental being in man is the same thing as to say that it is to be organised in man for its functioning normally just as mind has been organised for functioning in man in the course of evolution. Now, how can this be done without the intervention of the Supramental Being, the Divine at the summit whose own principle for knowledge and action is to be fixed here on Earth? It is a special Grace that at first sets in motion the delegated powers to prepare the field for the Divine intervention, for the Descent of His Light to take direct charge of the Yoga Force at work. It is this Light, then, which is the Soul and Master of this Yoga. It is not a figure of speech or an imaginary symbol, but a sublime conscious body of Light that emanates and comes down from the supreme abode to uplift the Earth-consciousness and divinise it in the human being. It makes the best possible use of the materials that have accumulated through the evolutionary labour in man for ages. It is ever watchful and active over the end to be achieved here on Earth.

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What is the end to be achieved? It is, of course, the coming down of the Supramental Light to the Earth-consciousness and establishing itself as the supreme principle of all knowledge and life and action in man. When it descends, it organises itself as the supremest all-ruling element in the human being. It is only then that it takes direct charge of the work to be done in and through the human system. But even before the arrival of the hour, much work has to be and is done for preparing the human instrument by its own Yoga-force which is a special Power of the supramental Godhead, an instrument for the purification of the being, and making it fit to receive and hold the infiltrations of the forces of strength and knowledge and peace into the system. It is a special Yoga-force because it is not a force generated by human effort as in the well-known lines of Sadhana in which control of the senses, regulation of life-breath and mental disciplines play the dominant role. This Yoga-force is active in its own right, though the human instrument can and has to contribute to its effectiveness by submitting to its work, by making an exclusive call upon it, by an all-round willing consent to its workings. There is one important process here which cannot be initiated and carried to a successful result by any kind of human effort, by any sort of meditation or concentration. It is the yogic process of separation first and then re-adjustment of the various parts of the being. The import of this separation is far-reaching and therefore it is necessary to draw pointed attention to its implications in the light of this Philosophy upon Yogic truths.

It is a universal teaching of the mystics everywhere, though in India it is predominant, that the Realisation of God and the Unity of all existence, whether it is Brahmic Realisation or Self-realisation, is the ultimate goal of all religious aspirants or spiritual seekers of Truth. Even when the fact is recognised that All is Brahman, it is treated as a means for the Realisation before it comes, or as an experience and true vision that accompanies or follows it. Nothing more is thought of, no attempt seems to have been made at probing into the secrets of the world as a Brahmic manifestation from the spiritual view-point, much less into the meaning and divine possibilities of human life on earth. Here a fundamental difference between this Teaching and all the others is quite clear and definite. It lays stress on the necessity of God-realisation not for the soul alone in man, but for all the component parts of the constituted being. This is because it proceeds on the basis that Creation is manifestation of the Divine Being and is real. The fact that a particular manifestation, a world or an object does not endure for all time does not detract from the reality of the manifestation. It may be transient; appear and disappear in space and time, in one word, subject to change. But the change is real; the world is real, the birth and death of the world also are real. It is a manifestation of the Real, related to it in Reality, in space and time also. As a corollary to this truth there is recognition of an intention in the Manifestation. In other words there is a purpose, because there is an Intelligent Will behind and above the birth of the Cosmos. The truth is pre-eminently applicable to our terrestrial existence. Here man is not a soul alone, he is embodied in matter which holds in it wakeful and half-wakeful elements of the cosmic principles that govern the hierarchy of planes that start from above and gradually lapse here. What are these elements which have got mixed up pell-mell, unrecognisable in their distinct nature and function in the human being? They are, broadly speaking, the substantial principles of the Life plane, Mental plane, and of still higher planes above the Mind that are nearer and nearer the self-luminous Spirit, Purusha, in his pristine purity. In the human being all these are lodged, while only a few are partly manifest, awakened and organised and the rest of the subtle principles which govern the spiritual planes above the Mind are submerged here, lie, unawakened, inchoate and mute. Even in those parts which are highly evolved for the functions of life and mind, there are no well-ordered functionings proper to the principles of the higher planes that are to dominate them. There is confusion, encroaching of the powers of one part on the rest, a degradation and misuse of the higher powers of the refined elements for the purposes of the lower ones, or an usurpation of the higher functionings by the lower powers for an illegitimate, crude self-satisfaction ignoring the rights and proper roles of the other parts of the being. Hence the prime necessity of separating the constituent parts of the being and rearranging them for proper adjustment in consonance with the laws of the Spirit, in accord with the demands of a higher Power for establishing its sovereignty in the functionings of the whole human system. This separation of the parts before their reordering for a proper set-up in the new scheme to take effect is not an act that can be mentally done by the adoption of any Sadhana. It cannot be done by any individual with the human means at his disposal. For it is part of a creative labour which is the function of the universal forces at the disposal of the Cosmic Powers in the higher planes of our being. Even though it is an act of separation of various elements that have become a confused mass of undistinguishable material, a fresh formation of each separated part is to be effected; that means an individuation, a creation, a separate life and being for each of the elements which in their renewed existence become constituent parts of the whole being. Can such a work be thought of or undertaken by a human being? It is truly the task of the creative Powers that build the world working out cosmos out of chaos. Indeed in certain lines of Yoga Sadhana, man gains control to a certain extent over his body, his life, his mind, what is called self-control, but that is not a radical formation; it is not a new creation of every part endowed with an individual existence, so much so that the human being can have a life-body or a mind-body just as it has a material body. It can have all these bodies separately yet linked to the same soul that uses them as instruments of expression and world-experience. One cannot afford to miss the meaning and value of the separation and restoring of the crowded elements to their respective places giving them individual existence. When the part is separated and organised by the Yoga-force into a well-formed vehicle, it can receive its full share of the powers of the Plane to which it belongs and can have free movement in that plane and return with the needed strength and knowledge of that plane to the Earth-consciousness; it can thus enrich the strength-content and knowledge and general capacity of the human vessel to receive the Supreme Light, the Supermind, with all that is necessary here for its rule—the spiritual calm and Divine Peace, the power to retain and radiate, and other powers that are its inalienable property.

This then is a salient feature of this Teaching: it recognises the reality of Manifestation, of diverse forms and divisions and their significances which are derived from the One Indivisible Reality that gives them their values. It is opposed to all those lines of thought that lead to the negation of values or sermonise upon what they conceive to be the chimerical character of values for the supposed reason that they do not endure for ever or in another state of consciousness or elsewhere in another world-existence or non-cosmic existence which is the Absolute. It avoids the untenable position of looking at values obtaining under given conditions as non-existent or fanciful because they are not the same under different conditions or for all time and everywhere. Values change and are always relative, but there is something permanent behind the ceaseless change which sustains the change of values. It is perfectly true that in an unconditioned existence or in a state of absolute solitude somewhere in the infinitude of Being and Consciousness, values cannot be thought of, nor can the world-being itself be. Therefore absence of values in a non-cosmic existence—it need not be chaotic—is no argument to deny them in a Cosmic existence. The position and value of man on earth cannot be judged from a super-solar world. Each has a value in its place.

This is the position taken up in this Yoga; consequently the Realisation of the Divine within us and everywhere as the essential unity of the world and all beings is basic and necessary; at the same time, all the constituent parts of the being receive their due shares of the Yoga conferred upon them by the Divine Grace and take their part in the building of the supramental life in the human being.

From what has been stated so far, it will be clear that this Yoga is not a spiritual discipline which is eclectic in character, though to a superficial mind it may appear so, because some aspects of the well-known Yogas, their essentials, are used in the process by the Force at work. But chiefly and substantially, it is a distinct Yoga-force which is the instrument of the Divine employed for preparing the ground for the advent of the Divine Light of Supermind to be installed in the human temple. Therefore in the truest sense of the word, it is not a Yoga practised by man for Divine Realisation here, or for personal salvation, but it is the Yoga of the Divine worked out by the Divine and for the Divine while the human vessel, when that is a chosen or accepted centre, allows itself to be divinised in all the parts that constitute its existence and therefore yields itself in its ego-centre to the supersession by the God-centre, i.e. the human ‘I’ passes, the Divine ‘I’ takes its place.

But it may be supposed that the work of the Supramental Divine consists in making the human realise the Divine Being and transform the nature suited to the functionings of the supramental organ in the human organism. This is true as far as it goes, and is indispensable; but the work does not and cannot stop there. For man is not a solitary creature; if that were so, the problem would be less complex and the solution less difficult. He lives and moves and has his being in the group to which he belongs. He receives the impacts of the group-life and group-mind every moment and reacts to them. There is an incessant commerce subtle and gross, mental and vital, also we may add, psychic and spiritual. How can he hope to escape the influence of his kind? How can he sustain himself without the feeders from the world around? Of course, he can close his whole being, as if dead to the world, and enter into trance for communion with the Divine or pass away into a rarefied state of consciousness. In that case the Supermind has nothing left to work and there is no Supramental Yoga.

Now the question may be put: if man is active and re-active in the transaction that takes place between himself and the world, is the Divine alone when it comes, to remain inactive, self-collected, static as the man in trance? Obviously not. The ancients had a clear perception of the truth. The Divine Truth, Satyam, as the Vedic Rishis saw, is not a static Reality of the Metaphysician, but it is active, it constantly radiates its powers to feed and sustain the worlds; it has its own way and works in its own right, Rita. Though Satya and Rita both are frequently used as synonyms of Truth, in many places there is distinction meant between the two terms. If Satya is the Truth, the way of the workings of that Truth is Rita, Right. Hence the triple formula of the Atharva text, quoted by Sri Aurobindo, the Truth, the Right, the Vast, Sayam, Ritam, Brihat. It is the way of the workings of the Truth that is the Right, that is the Law which in a later language is Dharma. In other words, it is the way the Divine Will works that is the Right, the true Law. The Rishi prays for a knowledge of the Law of Truth, Satya-dharmaya. We may note in passing that in the long march of centuries of India's history, two concepts which owe their origin to the Rig Vedic seers have played a dominant part since the Upanishadic times in the personal and social life of her people. They are the Satya and the Rita of the early seers which are, in their remodelled form, Brahman and Dharma. When the sages, as Yaska says, had a knowledge of Dharma because they realised it, sakshat-krita-dharmanah, it is undoubtedly the Law of the Truth that is meant and not the Shastra Books of Manu or Yajna-valkya, though these are supposed to represent the true laws in consonance with the workings of the Truth-Will of the Divine. Because the early seers of Dharma saw that the Truth-law can operate in life as an inner and spiritual Law as well as a rule of personal conduct, they applied the principle of Dharma as the way of the Divine Will to all life, personal and public, and extended the same to the government of the group-life represented by the State, rajya dharma. Thus the Dharma became a ruling principle of all life, whose nature is really hidden in the secret heart, dharmasya tatwam nihitam guhayam, but which is to be understood by each one by looking into himself within. This was the idea of Dharma that the ancients had when they called upon man to look for it within, and added that to a particular course of action there was necessary ‘the assent of the heart’, hridaya abhyanujnana, a phrase used by Manu even when he was codifying the laws for ethical conduct.

Therefore the true Dharma is the Law of the Truth, Satyadharma; it is the way that the Divine Will works in each, ritasya panthah. The Supramental Being will do its work in its own Divine way; that is the Right, the Law. Active, its law cannot but affect the environment, once it is established here; it will spread out its power and light to others who are immediate and more ready to receive it and get changed into the terms of its Being, its Life, its Knowledge. It will and has to apply itself to the individual life at first of course, but in the process it takes into account the conditions obtaining in the group-life and introduces changes in its own way that the true Dharma can ultimately become a spontaneous outflowering of the Spirit in man. Nothing essential in any branch of Life and thought is excluded from its purview—indeed it does extend itself to change definitively the character of the polity of the human race.

This Yoga, then, is comprehensive and in a comprehensive sweep takes a view of the social possibilities of man in the supramental life, spiritualises the ethical ideals, removes the dross of untenable standards of ego-centric human conduct, transmutes into pure gold of the Spirit whatever stuff of the ethical element remains, and stands the test in the blazing fire of the supra-ethical Divine. It has values for the sciences and arts, for literature and poetry, for all creative expressions, for the results as well as the means of the exercise of the human faculties taught, trained, and transformed into a divine way of dealings in terrestrial life.