... impotencies are quieted can those higher powers get a fuller force and reveal more of their original luminous character. The Higher Planes and the Supermind The Ignorance can act from above the head—but not as part of the higher planes—it comes from outside. The higher planes just above the head are not however the absolute Truth; that you only get in the supermind. Absolute certitude about... Realisations Letters on Yoga - III Chapter II Experiences on the Higher Planes The Higher or Spiritual Consciousness It [ the consciousness above the head ] is what we call the higher or spiritual consciousness—it contains or supports all the higher planes, the higher worlds. When one begins to feel this always above, it is a great step forward in the sadhana;... To go into the supermind is impossible for the human mind. One has to rise into the higher planes of consciousness above human mind and transform the human mind into that; only afterwards can we hope to touch the supermind. One has to go by stages, and to reach and be conscious on the higher planes between mind and Overmind is already sufficiently difficult without insisting on Supermind ...
... that happens in the trance. When the consciousness rises, my mental Purusha can follow it only up to a certain distance on the higher planes, after which the consciousness flies away, leaving the mental Purusha behind. That is quite natural. The higher planes are not planes on which man is naturally conscious and he is even not open to their direct influence - only to some indirect influence... is why there is always conflict between philosophies and religions. Page 206 THE HIGHER PLANES What is the source of peace, silence and knowledge? That comes from above the mind. As there is love and joy on the higher planes, is there not also devotion and surrender as in the psychic? There can be, but it is not inevitable... too conscious of identity with the "Brahman" to have devotion or surrender. What is the position of the 7th centre in connection with the higher planes? The 7th centre is a place of communication with the higher planes of consciousness - the planes themselves are mostly above. What is the difference between a spiritual thing and a thing having the essential ...
... become a perfect channel and not an obstacle. 191 Poetry is the most convenient means of conveying what these higher planes of consciousness are. In a poem's rhythm one can easily perceive vibrations. We will therefore use poetry to convey a sense of what these higher planes are, even though the Superconscient is not the sole privilege of poets. In his vast correspondence on poetry and in his... almost starting, point of evolution; through this body, slowly, after countless undifferentiated lives, a "self" takes on an individuality by coming Page 108 in contact with higher and higher planes of consciousness, and vaster and vaster reaches of consciousness on each plane. Hence, there are as many different kinds of death or sleep as there are lives, because they are the same thing; everything... vision behind the veil of his dimly sparkling intellect and the reeking fog of his vital feelings, emotions, impulses, sensations and impressions. 182 Our sole freedom is to lift ourselves to higher planes through individual evolution. Our only role is to transcribe and materially embody the truths of the plane we belong to. Two important points, which apply to every plane of consciousness, from the ...
... The Spiritual Transformation Letters on Yoga - III Chapter II Ascent to the Higher Planes Contact with the Above These are the ordinary normal experiences of the sadhana when there is an opening from above—the contact with the peace of the Brahman, Self or Divine and the contact with the higher Power, the Power of the Mother. He does not know what... above, but so long as the mind is not full of the higher calm, peace, silence, one cannot be in direct contact. These influences get diminished, mentalised, vitalised and are not the powers of the higher planes in their native character. Nor is this sufficient to get control of the hidden forces of all the planes of consciousness, which is perhaps what he means by occultism. Page 428 Indirect... experience of the Yoga. It is the free ascent of the consciousness to join the Divine. When, liberated from its ordinary identification with the body, it rises upward to have experiences of the higher planes, to link itself with the psychic or the true being or to join the Divine Consciousness, then there is this experience of ascension and of speeding or expanding through space. The joy you feel is ...
... The Vertical System: Supermind to Subconscient Letters on Yoga - I Chapter IV The Higher Planes of Mind The Higher Planes and Higher Consciousness The higher planes are the higher mind, illumined, intuitive, over mind, supermind. The psychic, mind, vital, physical belong to the ordinary manifestation. The planes and the body are not the same... on any plane of consciousness. By the intuitive self I meant the intuitive being, that part which belongs to the intuitive plane or is in connection with it. The intuition is one of the higher planes of consciousness between the human thinking mind and the supramental plane. The difference between intuition and thought is very much like that between seeing a thing and badgering one's... comes from a higher and higher source. This light etc. are still rather diluted and diffused in the illumined mind; it becomes more and more intense, clearly defined, dynamic and effective on the higher planes, so much so as to change always the character and power of the knowledge. The Higher Mind The higher mind is a thing in itself above the intellect. It is only when something of its power comes ...
... personality that reincarnates; the personality is only for the one life, so it does not bind though it may influence at certain points the present life. Beings of the Higher Planes It is always possible for a being of the higher planes to take birth on earth—in that case they create a mind or vital for themselves or else they join a mind, vital and body which has already been prepared under their ... —it is the psychic being itself that takes up a body. 3) No, the psychic being cannot take up more than one body. There is only one psychic being for each human being, but the Beings of the higher planes, e.g. the Gods of the Overmind can manifest in more than one human body at a time by sending different emanations into different bodies. These would be called Vibhutis of these Devatas. 4) These... a man in his various ordinary planes of consciousness, so also several beings can associate themselves with his consciousness as it develops afterwards—descending into his higher mind or other higher planes of being and connecting themselves with his personality. That is for the principle. But as for the particular information [ about a certain person ], it is inaccurate. It has probably reference ...
... the body rising upwards to meet the Divine Consciousness above—the descent and the ascent. The sadhana is based on the fact that a descent of Forces from the higher planes and an ascent of the lower consciousness to the higher planes is the means of transformation of the lower nature—although naturally it takes time and the complete transformation can only come by the supramental descent. Your... experiences here are forms of the widening experiences of this process. The practice of this Yoga is double—one side is of an ascent of the consciousness to the higher planes, the other is of a descent of the power of the higher planes into the earth consciousness so as to drive out the Power of darkness and ignorance and transform the nature. All the consciousness in the human being who is... being. It only divides the consciousness into two and its only logical outcome is Nirvana. I have always written that the descent is necessary to change the nature; ascent is useful to open the higher planes and exalt the level of the consciousness, but it does not change the lower being except superficially by opening to it certain possibilities it had not before. But the descent must first take place ...
... three higher planes? It is rather myself who wanted to ask you the above questions! You spoke of the three higher planes. I simply wanted to know what planes you meant. As there were three carriages my mind interpreted them as three planes. But you say that one of the carriages is the psychic. That is not one of the higher planes. The... a carriage with three horses. It is either one or two or more but always in pairs. My mind interprets the dream thus: The one carriage outside the shop may mean one of the three higher planes already in manifestation and in full dynamism. The other two carriages which are not real, only pictured, indicate the last Page 41 two highest planes yet to project themselves... The higher planes are the higher mind, illumined, intuitive, overmind, supermind. The psychic, mind, vital, physical belong to the ordinary manifestation. I am afraid my interpretation of the carriage with three horses as the psychic and the triple lower being was not true. It may be true. But all the details are not clear. Here I send you three dreams. I had ...
... being; but that primary work can have a sequel only by the veil being at least partially lifted or else made penetrable so that the higher planes of mind, life and spirit may pour their significances into human existence. It is possible to suppose that these higher planes and worlds have been created subsequently to the manifestation of the material cosmos, to aid the evolution or in some sense as a... out of the Nescience. It is a creation of their forms here by a reception of their powers; there is an enlargement of our subjective life on this plane by the discovery of its true relation with higher planes of its own being from which it was separated by the veil of the material Nescience. This veil exists because the soul in the body has put behind it these greater possibilities in order that it might... Divine in the material being. We do not create the gods, his powers, but rather such divinity as we manifest is the partial reflection and the shaping here of eternal godheads. We do not create the higher planes, but are intermediaries by which they reveal their light, power, beauty in whatever form and scope can be given to them by Nature force on the material plane. It is the pressure of the life-world ...
... (notably the Taittiriya) there are some indications of these higher planes and their nature and the possibility of gathering up the whole consciousness and rising into them. But this was forgotten afterwards and people spoke only of the buddhi as the highest thing with the Purusha or Self just above, but there was no clear idea of these higher planes. Page 288 Ergo, ascent possibly to unknown... the mind which would be likely to make its own wrong constructions about it. Page 284 The sadhak should first get the higher consciousness down and know something by experience of the higher planes before trying to know what is the Supermind. 10 January 1936 Somewhere you said that it would be sufficient for most sadhaks to become psychicised. This would mean that only a very few will... found them out in my own experience. The reason is that the old Yogins when they went above the spiritual mind passed into samadhi, which means that they did not attempt to be conscious in these higher planes—their aim being to pass away into the Superconscient and not to bring the Superconscient into the waking consciousness, which is that of my Yoga. 26 July 1935 We do not find the process of ...
... the Divine. This could only be gained by an ascension into higher planes of cosmic existence or their descent Page 223 into one's consciousness — and, if this were not envisaged or accepted, the push to Nirvana would still remain as a way of escape. The other way would be the ascent after death into these higher planes — the heavens of the religions signify after all nothing but... Divine, already in front in the nature. Letters on Yoga, pp. 316-17 The cosmic consciousness has many levels — the cosmic physical, the cosmic vital, the cosmic Mind, and above the higher planes of cosmic Mind there is the Intuition and above that the overmind and still above that the supermind where the Transcendental begins. In order to live in the Intuition plane (not merely Page... but such an urge to a greater, luminous, beatific Divine Existence. But, one might ask, if the higher planes or if the overmind itself were to manifest their consciousness with all their power, light, freedom and vastness and these things were to descend into an individual consciousness here, would not that make unnecessary both the cosmic negation or the Nirvanic push and the urge towards ...
... knowledge and spiritual perception but spontaneously seeing the truth. Could one cross the higher planes without establishing peace and silence? If so, would one feel the vibrations? I do not see how it can be done without peace and silence, if it is the higher planes which are spoken of. Of course large mental and vital planes can be reached without it and in that passage... the higher part of the being. During the past seven days the Mother opened me to the first of the higher planes. Now a suggestion says that a preparation for the second plane is on. And I am passing through the intermediate zone, which lies between the two higher planes. Is that why the downward pull of the adverse forces is so strong and obstinate at present? What do... Guidance from Sri Aurobindo - Volume 2 HIGHER PLANES OF CONSCIOUSNESS Is not the higher mind the first plane above our mind? That is right. It is the first of the planes above the ordinary human mind. Is the forehead (inner mind centre) a part of the higher mind? No, it indicates the mind generally ...
... manifesting higher planes of consciousness upon her surface,—by realising perfect Knowledge unerring Will and unflagging Delight. Then he felt sure of a divine presence in and behind the world-process. His own will rose in union with the divine will to fulfil the world purpose. He could not, thereafter, rest content with ordinary life. As a result of his efforts his consciousness rose to higher planes of being... Man, though outwardly small and insignificant, can rise to those infinite regions of Light, Power and Bliss. Instead of human consciousness ascending to those higher planes it is also possible that something from those higher planes can descend here into the human consciousness. In such a case man would feel himself possessed by a greater personality than the human, or he would feel the presence... this ignorant condition man feels the need of finding the solution, he feels an aspiration within him for perfection. And, in this task and search he is helped by the great gods who live in their higher planes unaffected by all the difficulties, oppositions, and conflicts of the human being "Immaculate in self-knowledge and self-power, Calm they repose on the eternal Will. They are guardians ...
... enter into the field of our mental consciousness would naturally suggest the validity of the second alternative, but it would not by itself be altogether conclusive. But what we find is that these higher planes are actually at every moment acting upon and in communication with our own plane of being, although this action is naturally not present to our ordinary waking or outer consciousness, because that... our waking consciousness beyond the scope of the physical contacts, we become aware of something of this higher action. We find even that the human being can project himself partially into these higher planes under certain conditions, even while in the body; a fortiori must he be able to do it when out of the body, and to do it then completely, since there is no longer the disabling condition of the... temporary sojourn of the human conscious being in other worlds than the physical after the dissolution of the physical body. On the other side they open to us the possibility of an action of the higher planes on the material existence which can liberate the powers they represent, the powers of life, mind and spirit for the evolutionary intention inherent within Nature by the very fact of their embodiment ...
... as of value. The vision of the higher planes or the idea of what they are can be had long before the transformation. If that were not possible, how could the transformation take place—the lower Page 88 nature cannot change of itself, it changes by the growing vision, perception, descent of the higher consciousness belonging to the higher planes? It is through aspiration, through an... not shut the door that was opening. Evidently, he made a mistake when he stopped the visions that were coming. Vision and hallucination are not the same thing. The inner vision is an open door on higher planes of consciousness beyond the physical mind which gives room for a wider truth and experience to enter and act upon the mind. It is not the only or the most important door, but it is one which comes ...
... vision (hundreds of people do) or had experiences. Some people seem to be quite misled in the matter of the higher planes. When they are in these planes or receive something from them, they begin to think that they have reached a great height, and that the higher planes have nothing to do with the Mother. Especially about the Supermind they have such queer notions — that it is something... person may be there. The Supermind coming down on earth will change nothing in a man if he clings to the ego. Page 270 Some sadhaks say that as one enters into higher planes one meets with greater ego, ignorance and falsehood. How can this be? It is because they go higher and higher in the same plane of consciousness as before and do not rise beyond — e ...
... probable. I admit it on this ground. b) Putting aside the idea that the leaders of the T.S. are consciously deceitful, how to account for their assertions about their relations with the masters—on the higher planes, but also on the physical plane ? HPB, HSO, CWL, for example, have met living masters. If one admits these statements, how to explain the little spirituality of the T.S. in general, and the general... purposely done by me nor was it a vital rush, but a quiet and mild pressure and it was put forth from the top of the head. I had twice similar experiences, of finding myself working on the higher planes without purposely intending to do it. The first one was when C. S. was ill. At the evening gathering, you asked the news about him and then remained silent for a while. Then I felt myself carried... raging during our evening meeting, I found also that I was putting forth a kind of force in that direction. K. also felt that. It is because the consciousness begins to be awake on the higher planes and to work consciously there. There is nothing of pure imagination in it. It is a fact. I brought today photos of my friend's wife in order that you may know what she is like. Can ...
... possible Overmind poetry. As it now stands there is a general Overmind influence, I believe, sometimes coming fully through, sometimes colouring the poetry of the other higher planes fused together, sometimes lifting any one of these higher planes to its highest or the psychic, poetic intelligence or vital towards them." The position arrived at in 1946 can be apprehended from a letter written in that year... speechless ecstasy, your soul takes a flight beyond time and space. Before I knew much about Sri Aurobindo, I asked him in my foolish way, why, himself being the master of inspiration and having all higher planes at his command, sending inspiration to others, should he still have to work so hard? With his consciousness entirely silent, he had only to hitch to the right source and words, images, ideas would ...
... if one has faith already. The vision of the higher planes or the idea of what they are can be had long before the transformation. If that were not possible, how could the transformation take place—the lower nature cannot change by itself, it changes by the growing vision, perception, descent of the higher consciousness belonging to the higher planes. Yoga experience often begins with some opening... can be strong enough) but if fully followed out bring a constant growth of the being and the consciousness and its richness of experience and its scope.. The inner vision is an open door on higher planes of consciousness beyond the physical mind which gives room for a wider truth and experience to enter and act upon the mind. These first seeings are only an outer fringe—behind lie whole worlds ...
... Overmind poetry. As it now stands there is a general Overmind influence, I believe, sometimes coming fully through, sometimes colouring the poetry of the other higher planes fused together, sometimes lifting any one of these higher planes to its highest or the psychic, poetic intelligence or vital towards them." 4 The position arrived at in 1946 can be apprehended from a letter written in... speechless ecstasy, your soul takes a flight beyond time and space. Before I knew much about Sri Aurobindo, I asked him in my foolish way, why, himself being the master of inspiration and having all higher planes at his command, sending inspiration to others, should he still have to work so hard? With his consciousness entirely silent, he had only to hitch to the right source and words, images, ideas ...
... power, bliss of the Divine. This could only be gained by an ascension into higher planes of cosmic existence or their descent into one's consciousness—and, if this were not envisaged or accepted, the push to Nirvana would still remain as a way of escape. The other way would be the ascent after death into these higher planes,—the heavens of the religions signify after all nothing but such an urge to... to a greater, luminous, beatific Divine Existence. But, one might ask, if the higher planes or if the Overmind itself were to manifest their consciousness with all that power, light, freedom and vastness and these things were to descend into an individual consciousness here, would not that make unnecessary both the cosmic negation or the Nirvanic push and the urge towards some Divine Transcendence ...
... higher beings from which he can receive or be helped to knowledge, powers, joys, a growth of his being otherwise impossible. All these things, the ancient knowledge asserts, exist,—other worlds, higher planes, the possibility of Page 451 communication, of ascension, of growth by contact with and influence from that which is above him in the present scale of his realised being. As there... these powers merely tendencies, inconscient forces, nor, except on the verges Page 453 of Matter, subconscient, but conscious powers, beings, living influences. As we awaken to the higher planes of our existence, we become aware of them as friends or enemies, powers which seek to possess or which we can master, overcome, pass beyond and leave behind. It is this possible relation of the... live more or less fully on planes of our existence other than the material which is now all in all to us. What has been said of the life-world applies with the necessary differences to still higher planes of the cosmic existence. For beyond that is a mental plane, a world of mental existence in which neither life, nor matter, but mind is the first determinant. Mind there is not determined by material ...
... simple and elementary to need assimilation and the natural being too crude to be capable of a complex assimilative process; the higher parts would not be sufficiently developed to lift themselves to higher planes of existence. There can be, then, in the absence of such connections with other worlds, a theory of rebirth which admits only of a constant transmigration; here the existence of other worlds and... circumstance which intervenes to help out the process of a difficult spiritual evolution in the physical existence. There is a relation which the human being in his evolution on earth develops with higher planes of existence, and that must have a predominant effect on his internatal dwelling in these planes; it must determine his direction after death and determine too the place, period and character of... necessity for these internatal intervals, or at least any of so great a dynamic power as to lead to an irresistible conclusion. We shall find one such necessity in the decisive part played by the higher planes in the earth evolution and the relation that it has created between them and the evolving soul-consciousness. Our development takes place very largely by their superior but hidden action upon the ...
... most intense. White Light with Light of Other Colours The white light is that of the Pure Conscious Force from which all the rest come. The golden light is that of the Divine Truth on the higher planes. The pale blue light is mine—the white light is the Mother's. The world you saw above the head was the plane of the illumined Mind which is a level of consciousness much higher than the human... different things. If the blue lights [ seen in vision ] were of different shades it might mean the overhead planes, Overmind, Intuition, Illumined Mind, Higher Mind. The light from the higher planes of consciousness just above the mind is blue. The light indicates an action of force (bluish probably indicates the spiritual-mind-force), the rest was a working to open the higher spiritual... the thinking mind. The shades indicate different intensities of mental light. Yellow is light of the mind—golden is light from above the mind. It is again the ascent into one of the higher planes of mind illumined with the light of the Divine Truth. Yellow is the light Page 131 of mind growing brighter as one goes higher till it meets the golden light of the Divine Truth. ...
... (notably the Taittiriya) there are some indications of these higher planes and their nature and the possibility of gathering up the whole consciousness and rising into them. But this was forgotten afterwards and people spoke only of the buddhi as the highest thing with the Purusha or Self just above, but there was no clear idea of these higher planes. Ergo, ascent possibly to unknown and ineffable heavenly... found them out in my own experience. The reason is that the old Yogins when they went above the spiritual mind passed into samadhi, which means that they did not attempt to be conscious in these higher planes—their aim being to pass away into the Page 377 Superconscient and not to bring the Superconscient into the waking consciousness, which is that of my Yoga. I explain this absence ...
... e of Matter, was the starting point, not something that came in after life had begun. If there had been a gradual descent of the supramental light in the beginning, the true life, mind and higher planes might have been released and organised. A gradual descent of the Supramental Light into what? Matter being the starting point, life and mind had to evolve first—to begin with a supramental descent... all is only the first step. Page 668 Is that the height of realisation achieved here so far among sadhaks? What is the next step? The next step is to get into contact with the higher planes above spiritual mind—for as soon as one gets into the spiritual Mind or Higher Mind, this realisation is possible. Now the big question is: Is the realisation of the Self a state of perpetual ...
... infinite Light, Power and Ananda, infallible Will and Power, what can he be but a self-deceiving fool or lunatic? And where then would be the need of bringing down the said Light, Power etc. from the higher planes, if it was already gambolling about all over this blessed earth and its absurd troop of human-animal beings? But perhaps you are of the opinion of Ramana Maharshi, "The Divine is here, how can he... vital and has glimpses through them of the Self. He receives some things intuitively in his mind. But he goes no further than that. He has neither the knowledge nor the power nor bliss of the higher planes. What he speaks is all purely mental—if he has any glimpses of realisation, they are in the mind only. 4 September 1933 I don't think there is much either in this man himself or in his ...
... Parts of the Being In this higher consciousness there are many degrees, of which the supramental is the summit or the source. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - III: Experiences on the Higher Planes There are above us… successive states, levels or graded powers of being overtopping our normal mind, hidden in our own superconscient parts, higher ranges of Mind, degrees of spiritual con... intuitions, inspirations and the rest of it. Or if any intuitions come, they can be twisted and spoiled by the mixture of these forces of the Ignorance. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: The Higher Planes of Mind * Overmind Above the mind there are several levels of conscious being, among which the really divine world is what Sri Aurobindo has called the Supermind, the world of the Truth ...
... separating it from its mental coatings, rejecting the mere rapidities of the mind which imitate the form of the intuition without being of its true substance. It will be easier to discern rapidly the higher planes of the true supramental being and call down their power to effect the desired transformation and to refer all the lower action to the superior power and light that it may reject and eliminate, purify... purify and transform and select among them its right material for the Truth that has to be organised within us. This opening up of a higher level and of Page 805 higher and higher planes of it and the consequent re-formation of our whole consciousness and its action into their mould and into the substance of their power and luminous capacity is found in practice to be the greater part of ...
... worlds that correspond to these parts of the nature. It is the repeated and constant ascent of the lower consciousness that enables the mind, the vital, the physical to come into touch with the higher planes up to the supramental and get impregnated with their light and power and influence. And it is the repeated and constant descent of the Divine Consciousness and its Force Page 216 that... which could receive at once firmly and freely from above. The crystals at once indicate organised formation and a firm transparence in which the greater vision and experience descending from the higher planes could be clearly reflected. As for the other experience, his rejection of the waking consciousness evidently had the result of throwing him into an Page 220 inner awareness in which ...
... unless they are immediately fixed and recorded before rising. Most people move most in the vital in sleep because it is the nearest to the physical and easiest to remain. One does enter the higher planes but either the transit there is brief or one does not remember. For in returning to the waking consciousness it is again through the lower vital and subtle physical that one passes and as these... physical become entirely vivid, real, coherent, significant and expressive of a truth that one can at once recognise. The dream-experiences of the highest vital, the psychic and the mental or still higher planes have always this character, because when they can get through they impose themselves more than those of the lower vital realms and are less subject to distortion or mixture by the physical subconscience ...
... truth. 17 June 1935 Some people seem to be quite misled in understanding the Mother's status with regard to the higher planes. When they are in these planes or receive something from them, they begin to think that they have reached a great height, and that the higher planes have nothing to do with the Mother. They value them more than they value the Mother! Especially about the Supermind they ...
... conscious in what is now superconscient to us, by an ascension to the native heights of the Spirit. Page 764 In the superconscience beyond our present level of awareness are included the higher planes of mental being as well as the native heights of supramental and pure spiritual being. The first indispensable step in an upward evolution would be to elevate our force of consciousness into those... Page 767 by a withdrawal from our absorbing material preoccupation,—that does not necessitate a rejection or neglect of the life in the body,—and a constant living on the inner and higher planes of the mind and the spirit. For the heightening of our consciousness into its spiritual principle is effectuated by an ascent and a stepping back inward—both these movements are essential—out of ...
... self-existent, as the material universe in which he lives is also not a thing apart and self-existent, but is in constant relation to the higher planes and acted on by their powers and beings. He Page 630 can open up and increase the action of these higher planes in himself and enjoy some sort of participation in the life of the other worlds,—which, for the rest, are or can be his dwelling place ...
... from the inner consciousness whether mind, vital or subtle physical. Naturally, the lower planes cannot express the Spirit with its full and native voice as the higher planes do unless something comes down into them from the higher planes." To this we may add from a third letter: "The sense of the Infinite and the One which is pervasive in the overhead planes...can be expressed indeed by overhead poetry ...
... y the Taittiriya) there are some indications of these higher planes and their nature and the possibility of gathering up the whole consciousness and rising into them. But this was forgotten afterwards and people spoke only of the buddhi as the highest thing with the Purusha or Self just above, but there was no clear idea of these higher planes." 5 If I don't tire you I should like to quote ...
... are different levels of cosmic consciousness. As Sri Aurobindo states: The cosmic consciousness has many levels - the cosmic physical, the cosmic vital, the cosmic Mind, and above the higher planes of cosmic Mind there is the Intuition and above that the overmind and still above that the supermind where the Transcendental begins. 18. Ibid ., pp. 1052-53. 19. Ibid ., p.... is possible on any of the cosmic planes, but the full entering into it, the entire union with the Supreme Divine dynamic as well as static, comes with the transcendence. 21 Even the higher planes of the cosmic consciousness mentioned above are part of the Ignorance (Avidya), and therefore have both sides - cosmic Truth and cosmic Ignorance. Sri Aurobindo states: There are in the ...
... then in progress: "As it now stands there is a general Overmind influence, I believe, sometimes coming fully through, sometimes colouring the poetry of the other higher planes fused together, sometimes lifting any one of these higher planes to the highest or the Page 329 psychic, poetic intelligence or vital towards them." Again, like the final version it not only strikes the identical ...
... Overmind poetry. As [Savitri] now stands there is a general Overmind influence, I believe, sometimes coming fully through, sometimes colouring the poetry of the other higher planes fused together, sometimes lifting any one of these higher planes to its highest or the psychic, poetic intelligence or vital towards them." Mention of Overmind aligns Savitri to the top reach of the Vedas, the Upanishads and ...
... manifestation." 38 The poet of the spirit becomes a seer and a hearer of the voices of the Truth, satyaśrutah. But this great poetry is possible only by opening ourselves to the higher planes from where comes the inspired utterance. In that inspired utterance there is also a certain kind of inevitability which in its resolute manner confirms the revelatory truth that it is proposing... the spirit of Savitri, they bring out several shades of meaning that are there in its secret depths; or else we suddenly have at times marvellous insights and revelations that can lift us to higher planes of awareness. On a research level there are also doctoral theses dealing with one or other specific literary aspect of the epic. A good number of books are now available and they offer certain ...
... simple and elementary to need assimilation and the natural being too crude to be capable of a complex assimilative process; the higher parts would not be sufficiently developed to lift themselves to higher planes of existence." (Ibid.) In such cases there would be immediate rebirth for the individual. "For the soul personality, as it develops, must get sufficient power over its own nature-formation... up more than one body at the same time? (A. 28): "No, the psychic being cannot take up more than one body. There is only one psychic being for each human being, but the beings of the higher planes, e.g., the Gods of the overmind can manifest in more than one human body at a time by sending different emanations into different bodies." (Ibid., p. 442) (Q. 29): When and where is ...
... It is the centre of the inner mind - therefore also of the inner mental will and inner mental vision. I sometimes feel as if my inner being is located above and lives on the higher planes. The inner being cannot be "located" above, it can only join with the above, penetrate it and be penetrated by it. If it were located above, then there would be no inner being. ... being. It only divides the consciousness into two and its only logical outcome is Nirvana. I have always written that the descent is necessary to change the nature; ascent is useful to open the higher planes and exalt the level of the consciousness, but it does not change the lower being except superficially by opening to it certain possibilities it had not before. But the descent must first take place ...
... and of the cosmic consciousness - the Divine as all beings and all that is. To the other two, 'that of the supreme Reality with the static and dynamic Brahman as its two aspects and that of the higher planes of consciousness leading to the Supermind', he is 'already on his way'. 1910 At a talk by Alexandra David-Neel on Buddhism, sees the Buddha in a bluish light, standing beside Alexandra. They... Narada Sutras, the Bhagavad Gita and some of the sayings of Sri Ramakrishna. 1912 May 7 Speaks of the work to be done: To become conscious of and unite with the Divine Presence; to realise the higher planes of consciousness and 'put the earth in connection with one or more of the fountains of universal force that are still sealed to it'; 'to speak again to the world the eternal word'; and 'collectively ...
... change after his death. For fifteen days he spoke to Sri Aurobindo in the Alipore Jail on "a restricted but very important" part of his sadhana. He didn't point him to the Supermind, but to certain higher planes leading to it. Sri Aurobindo has hewn his path through a virgin forest. He has done what nobody before him ever conceived of. As the Mother says, "Sri Aurobindo does not belong to History ; he is... instructions to Sri Aurobindo in Alipore Jail, it was not the Vivekananda whom we know from his writings and speeches, but a Vivekananda who had acquired new and considerable knowledge of the higher planes after his death. The Vivekananda we know was a combination of two disparate tendencies—one, derived from Sri Ramakrishna which drove him to action, "The Mother's work", as Ramakrishna called it ...
... says that now is the time when the seat of creation may be raised from the receiving mind of the poets to any of the overhead planes. The problem is to open, if possible, consciously, to these higher planes, establish a contact, and receive without mixture of the lower nature the Overhead creation. As he wrote in one of his letters it is a question of establishing the right kind of silence in the... Supermind. As Supermind is too high for the human being to attain at one bound efforts have to be made to stabilise the stages, the gradations that lead to it. Poetic creation coming down from these higher planes would give rise to a new Overhead aesthesis. It may appear as if these levels of consciousness above Mind are "mystical", because they have been so regarded in the past. Sri Aurobindo shows ...
... from the inner consciousness whether mind, vital or subtle physical. Naturally, the lower planes cannot express the Spirit with its full and native voice as the higher planes do unless something comes down into them from the higher planes." To this we may add from a third letter: "The sense of the Infinite and the One which is pervasive in the overhead planes... can be expressed indeed by overhead ...
... man. We see that "sapphire" is not restricted to heaven alone, but is placed in different contexts of sea and air, a soothing vision that embalms hurt spirits. It is also the hue of the higher planes of spiritual consciousness that open before Savitri: At first to her beneath the sapphire heavens 63 60 Ibid ., p. 390. 61 Ibid ., p. 429. 62 Ibid , p. 430. 63 Ibid... uses "crystal" in two senses: as the abode of spiritual powers and as the pure elemental quality of air, light and fire. Its association with purity and transparency is possible only in the higher planes of consciousness. What is abstract about these planes is concretised through the use of "crystal"; witness, for instance, The inner planes uncovered their crystal doors. 92 Our ...
... Regarding the Higher Thought and Knowledge, Sri Aurobindo writes: Page 97 Afterwards [when rhe peace and silence have become massive and complete] knowledge begins to come from the higher planes—the Higher Mind to begin with, and this creates a new action of thought and perception which replaces the ordinary mental. It does that first in the thinking mind, but afterwards also in the vital... liable to get mixed up with or imitated by the lower, and that is a bother and a hindrance. So the silence is necessary. 49 As stated in the passage just quoted, the thought from the higher planes of mind does not disturb the silence. For, Sri Aurobindo distinguishes between absolute silence in which there is a complete absence of thought or any other movement, and a fundamental silence ...
... ignorance. Nevertheless, these levels do act upon human consciousness. They 1 The Foundations of Indian Culture, SABCL, Vol. 14, pp. 286-93. Page 96 also include higher planes of consciousness which have not yet manifested here but which are pressing upon the earth-consciousness for manifestation. They contain beings, powers and presences that live on those planes... imitation, but in him the Goddess of Speech seems to act—consciously on his part — from above the plane of human mind and is constantly bringing in currents, — and torrents even — of Light from higher planes which have been touched or tapped occasionally but are far from being the normal possession of even the highest genius of poetical expression. When Sri Aurobindo speaks of "a torrent of rapid ...
... self-aware action by the emergent gnostic principle. 12 An important dynamic in the evolution of spiritual consciousness stems from the strife which takes place as the forces of the higher planes of consciousness encounter the opposition and resistance of the energies of the lower levels of consciousness which one is attempting to outgrow. ...these higher forces are not in their... leap beyond mind, it is necessary to grow inwards and enter the consciousness of the inner being and discover the inner Person behind the outer personality, or to grow upwards and ascend to the higher planes above the mind. Only thus can a radical change be brought about in human consciousness, transforming the human being from a mental into a spiritual being. ...if we can live thus deeper ...
... involution in Inconscience is struggling to evolve." 35 "In the superconscience beyond our present level of awareness are included the higher planes of mental being as well as the native heights of supramental and pure spiritual being." 36 Among the higher planes of mental being, Sri Aurobindo distinguishes various distinct levels which he terms Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuitive Mind and Overmind ...
... possible Overmind poetry. As it now stands there is a general Overmind influence, I believe, sometimes coming fully through, sometimes colouring the poetry of the other higher planes fused together, sometimes lifting any one of these higher planes to its highest or the psychic, poetic intelligence or vital towards them." Sri Aurobindo has also pointed out that overhead poetry in small quantities had ...
... stands there is a general Overmind influence, I believe, sometimes coming fully Page 200 through, sometimes colouring the poetry of the other higher planes fused together, sometimes lifting any one of these higher planes to its highest or the psychic, poetic intelligence or vital towards them." Sri Aurobindo has also pointed out that overhead poetry in small quantities had ...
... the same with a slighter illumination (9, 10), last line again the uplifting Overmind Intuition influence." * (What precisely is meant when we say poems exist already on the higher planes and have only to be transmitted here by the human consciousness? If the parts of a poem hail from quite different planes, where exactly does the whole exist? Are there poetic fragments floating... Page 162 who catches them? And have these fragments a form already of language or do they become expressed by us alone? Are all the innumerable languages of earth spoken in the higher planes or do the latter possess merely modes or states of consciousness?) "A poem may pre-exist in the timeless as all creation pre-exists there or else in some plane where the past, present ...
... possible Overmind poetry. As it now stands there is a general Overmind influence, I believe, sometimes coming fully through, sometimes colouring the poetry of the other higher planes fused together, sometimes lifting any one of these higher planes to its highest or the psychic, poetic intelligence or vital towards them. 3 November 1936 It will take you exactly eight minutes to read the third section ...
... close contact with the higher now superconscient planes and a formation of subliminal Overmind might take place behind the veil; as a result a slow emergence of the consciousness proper to these higher planes might awake on our surface. It is conceivable that in this way there might appear a race of mental beings thinking and acting not by the intellect or reasoning and reflecting intelligence, or not... complete and mature action of them is possible. It is then that the turning of the spiritual towards the supramental transformation commences; for the heightening of the consciousness to higher and higher planes builds in us the gradation of the ascent to supermind, that difficult and supreme passage. It is not to be supposed that the circumstances and the lines of the transition would be the same for ...
... s. This fourfold scale corresponds to the degrees of the ladder of being by which we climb back towards the absolute Divine. Normally therefore we cannot get back from the physical mind to the higher planes or degrees of consciousness without receding from the waking state, without going in and away from it and losing touch with the material world. Hence to those who desire to have the experience of... the subtle ether, by which not only the signs of all things past and present, but even those of things future can be seized; for things future are already accomplished to knowledge and vision on higher planes of mind and their images can be reflected upon mind in the present. But these things which are exceptional to the waking mentality, difficult and to be perceived only by the possession of a special ...
... an intuitive knowledge to which its faith is the first step, inexpressible realities of which its symbols are the figured expression, a deeper sense for its scattered truths, mysteries of the higher planes of existence of which even its dogmas and superstitions are crude hints and indications. What Science does for our knowledge of the material world, replacing first appearances and uses by the hidden... hidden truths and as yet occult powers of its great natural forces and in our own minds beliefs and opinions by verified experience and a profounder understanding, Yoga does for the higher planes and worlds and possibilities of our being which are aimed at by the religions. Therefore all this mass of graded experience existing behind closed doors to which the consciousness of man may find, if it wills ...
... have to transform them into the terms of the central unity. That I believe is yours. (P.R) To define your case is difficult. A Deva above, a strong Jnana Deva able to communicate with the higher planes, an Asura below representing the development of many lives, a Rakshasa force behind constantly weakened and fading, but not yet cast away by the drawing up of the vital being by the others, also... open upward so as to admit the influences from above and shape them for the being; the left hand are those who open downward to the world here and the actualised experience and send them up to the higher planes. That at least is the division which seems to me to correspond best in the arrangement. That is quite different; it belongs to a more mystic truth of which I have not the key. Is there not something ...
... necessary to have technical knowledge in order to feel what is behind the music. Mother of course does not play for the sake of a technical musical effect, but to bring down something from the higher planes and that anyone can receive who is open. 16 September 1933 When I entered the Mother's room, she had just finished playing for a long time—that is why I did not expect her to play for me... do not remember the third in this form but it was a firm assurance of the realisation. 27 September 1933 Is it true that when the Mother plays on the organ she calls down the Gods of the higher planes to help us? Not consciously. 9 February 1934 You wrote in reply to my letter of yesterday: "Not consciously." Does it mean that the Gods are attracted to the Mother's music and so come ...
... nature will take place. Spiritualisation and Transformation Spiritualisation means the descent of the higher peace, force, light, knowledge, purity, Ananda etc. which belong to any of the higher planes from Higher Mind to Overmind, for in any of these the Self can be realised. It brings about a subjective transformation; the instrumental Nature is only so far transformed that it becomes an instrument... transformation—the full transformation of the instrumental Nature can only come when the Supramental change takes place. Till then the nature remains full of many imperfections, but the self in the higher planes does not mind them, as it is itself free and unaffected. The inner being down to the inner physical can also become free and unaffected. The Overmind is subject to limitations in the working of ...
... vitally, mentally and psychically, of course, by former lives. The present structure, Mother, is it that which decides the intervention of the higher planes or not, in order to work miracles? That is to say, whether it is predestined that the higher planes... The other day you said that it can change completely. Yes Then, if the present remains like this... But look here! Let us take ...
... examples to you. But this belongs to a single plane, the material plane—the purely material physical, mental and vital plane. It is only a higher knowledge and a contact with the higher planes and the descent of these higher planes into the physical plane, which can change circumstances. So too, if one succeeded in bringing down the supramental plane permanently into the physical life, physical life would ...
... the same with a slighter illumination (9, 10), last line again the uplifting Overmind Intuition influence." * (What precisely is meant when we say poems exist already on the higher planes and have only to be transmitted here by the human consciousness ? If the parts of a poem hail from quite different planes, where exactly does the whole exist} Are there poetic fragments floating... the mind of the man who catches them ? And have these fragments a form already of language or do they become expressed by us alone ? Are all the innumerable languages of earth spoken in the higher planes or do the latter possess merely modes or states of consciousness ?) "A poem may pre-exist in the timeless as all creation pre-exists there or else in some plane where the past, present ...
... NIRODBARAN: Here is the passage. SRI AUROBINDO (after reading it): I must have meant the reflections of the higher planes in the mind. Thus, for instance, one may receive a reflection from the Overmind. One may not oneself know it. What is called genius is the reflection from the higher planes—from the Intuitive Mind, for example. But it does not mean that one is living in that plane. There may be ...
... realization of the Self or when the emphasis in the yogic endeavour is sought to be developed mainly by the aid of cosmic powers and cosmic Beings or Gods of the higher planes. It may also be said that by means of ascension on the higher planes of consciousness between the mind and the supermind one can attain to varieties of spiritual experience, but when the spiritual power and light descend into the ...
... Here again is the rajasic ego in you, dictating to us what we should have done and showing us our mistakes. Page 92 THE EGO AND THE HIGHER PLANES Some sadhaks say that as one enters into higher planes one meets with a greater ego, ignorance and falsehood. How can this be? It is because they go higher and higher in the same plane of consciousness ...
... difference between spiritualisation and supramentalisation. Spiritualisation means the descent of the higher peace, force, light, knowledge, purity, Ananda etc. which belong to any of the higher planes from higher mind to Overmind, for in any of these the Self can be realised. It brings about a subjective transformation; the instrumental Nature is only so far transformed that it becomes an instrument... ion of the instrumental Nature can only come when the Supramental change takes place. Till then the nature Page 280 remains full of many imperfections, but the Self in the higher planes does not mind them, as it is itself free and unaffected. The inner being down to the inner physical can also become free and unaffected. The Overmind itself is subject to limitations in the working ...
... the Spirit as the ultimate Reality. Q: I grant it is an all-organic synthesis in the respect that explains life and the necessity of ascending from our plane to higher planes. It is very difficult to conceive of the higher planes — I think we have to believe in them—that is, believe in their existence, and the need of rising to them. It is all so removed from our ordinary comprehension. ...
... worlds of being that are connected with humanity which are not perceived by it because of its limitations of ignorance. Nevertheless, these levels do act upon human consciousness. They also include higher planes of consciousness which have not yet manifested here but which are pressing upon the earth-consciousness for manifestation. They contain beings, powers and presences that live on those planes of... for imitation, but in him the Goddess of speech seems to act—consciously on his part—from above the plane of human mind and is constantly bringing in currents,—and torrents even—, of Light from higher planes which have been touched or tapped occasionally but are far from being the normal possession of even the highest genius of poetical expression. When Sri Aurobindo speaks of "a torrent of rapid l ...
... more his imperial right and becomes "Heir to delight and immortality". All the ideals which man dreams of on earth, his dreams of perfection, have all their fully realised counterpart in those higher planes. And it is from there that, in reality, "Immortal footfalls in mind's corridors sound". Human souls can climb to those regions and become in the highest sense, the Man ī s ī , the Thinker, who... made possible the descent of the immortal life in time. They have captured truth and want to establish her worship and empire in the world. This Power of Truth, Parā śakti, that is above these higher planes of the mind can become the mental nature in man, serving him as his consort and companion. Man can have a relation of subjection and mastery with her and through all his dealings with her he can ...
... now stands there Page 369 is a general Overmind influence, I believe, sometimes coming fully through, sometimes colouring the poetry of the other higher planes fused together, sometimes lifting any one of these higher planes to its highest or the psychic, poetic intelligence, or vital towards them.... It is only occasionally that it is pure Higher Mind—a mixture of the Intuitive or ...
... and looks "towards greater heights". The dialectic of advance is a singular meeting of opposing movements: there is the climb of consciousness, from the material, vital and mental, to still higher planes; there is the descent of consciousness from the higher—the highest—to the lower realms; and there is the meeting, the fusion, the transformation. All the time there is the veiled Guide or Presence... .. .fill the immense lacuna we have made, Re-wed the closed finite s lonely consonant With the open vowels of Infinity, .... 12 The gods who inhabit the higher planes enjoy a condition of static perfection, which is in sharp contrast to man's dynamic evolving destiny. In Sri Aurobindo's poem, The Life Heavens, there is a significant affirmation: ...
... Disciple : We have heard, and partly known, that the experience of delight is possible on the higher planes. Is it possible to experience "beauty" on these planes? Sri Aurobindo : Beauty and delight are inalienable in the ultimate analysis, or rather in the ultimate experience on the higher planes. Disciple : Could experience of beauty be compatible with Shankara's conception of ...
... Disciple : We have heard, and partly known, that the experience of delight is possible on the higher planes. Is it possible to experience "beauty" on these planes? Sri Aurobindo : Beauty and delight are inalienable in the ultimate analysis, or rather in the ultimate experience on the higher planes. Disciple : Could experience of beauty be compatible with Shankara's conception ...
... clue to a synthesis had started unfolding itself as well: To the other two realisations, that of the supreme Reality with the static and dynamic Brahman as its two aspects and that of the higher planes of consciousness leading to the Supermind he was already on his way in his meditations in the Alipore jail. 18 Is Reality "nothing"? Is Reality "everything"? Is it both static and dynamic... And this precisely was Sri Aurobindo's preoccupation. According to his own admission, during his prison days at Alipur Sri Aurobindo was already on his way to the realisation of "the higher planes of consciousness leading to the Supermind". When he was asked many years later whether the "Supermind" was his own idea, he answered: It is not my thought or idea. I have told you before ...
... vision, the true consciousness; it becomes so concrete, so real [yes, true Matter]. Nothing — nothing else, nothing else can give that fullness. Escaping, fleeing, dreaming, meditating, going into higher planes, all that is all very nice, but how poor it looks in comparison, how poor! So poor. 68.45 The whole solid base that makes up the corporeal person — hop! gone, taken away. For instance, I had... of the material world. It's very interesting. You see, all the memory that came from mental knowledge has long since gone, and I used to receive necessary indications only from above [from the higher planes of consciousness]. But now it's A SORT OF MEMORY BEING BUILT FROM BELOW. It's like a shift in the directing will. It's no longer the same thing that makes you act — “act,” or anything, of course: ...
... in common whatsoever with those coming from above when pursuing the path of ascent: they are not revelations, not inspirations or visions or illuminations, not the flashes and thunder of the higher planes of the mind. They seem, rather, to be a very humble and material functioning, one concerned with the tiniest detail, the slightest passing breath, this street corner, that automatic gesture, these... â€� 5:570. × 7 This ascending path has been described in By the Body of the Earth and the higher planes of the mind have been discussed in Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness. × 8 Sri ...
... higher. He should, therefore, arrange and regulate his life and nature and environment in such a way that they may help him in this evolutionary ascent to the higher planes of consciousness, for, beyond the intelligence there are still higher planes of the spiritual mind to which also he has to climb, and through which he has to pass on his way to the infinitudes of Spirit. Our consciousness is in ...
... "did not know about the planes." Page 308 It was Vivekananda who "showed me the Intuitive Plane" during his meditation in Alipore Jail. "Then afterwards I began to see the still higher planes." Sri Aurobindo said, "I myself got the idea of the Supramental after ten years of Sadhana. The Supramental does not come in the beginning but at the end of Sadhana." Nolini, for his part,... 310 Another important point to note is that "the old Yogins when they went above the spiritual mind passed into Samadhi, which means that they made no attempt to be conscious in these higher planes...." But Sri Aurobindo always kept his eyes wide open. He mapped for us the geography of the planes he traversed. At first, going upwards, he found well-beaten tracks. Then as he crisscrossed the ...
... has got hold of that side of the truth and in relation to it sees all the rest. He not only stands firmly on the earth, but he has his head in the terrestrial atmosphere and looks up from it to higher planes. The Eastern has his foot on earth, but his head is in the psychical and spiritual realms and it is their atmosphere that affects his vision of the earth. He regards the material as the first fact ...
... darkness by the Dawn and the Sun and the Cows, he spreads out the high plateau of the earthly hill into wideness and upholds the higher world of heaven. For the result of the opening up of the higher planes of consciousness is to increase the wideness of the physical, to raise the height of the mental. "This, indeed," says the Rishi Nodha, "is his mightiest work, the fairest achievement of the achiever ...
... the giving of the rich felicity; within where there is no play of light let the Panis sleep unwaking in the heart of the darkness." Into this nether darkness they have to be cast down from the higher planes while the Dawns imprisoned by them in that night have to be lifted to the highest planes. "Panis who make the knot of the crookedness, who have not the will to works, spoilers of speech, who have ...
... on comes only by inner sadhana and development. A darshan can at best only give some strong experience. Several times when my mind has become blank I have experienced light descending from higher planes—probably supramental. But he has the root experience already in the descent of the Light in the state of blankness. The Light is the Divine Light from the plane of spiritual consciousness above ...
... still operative in them which it has kept. But, in addition, some psychic beings have come here who are ready to join with great lines of consciousness above, represented often by beings of the higher planes, and are therefore specially fitted to join with the Mother intimately in the great work that has to be done. These have all a special relation with the Mother which adds to the past one. As ...
... have seriously tackled only a short time ago. And it is not in a few months that that can be done. Even the best sadhaks find after many experiences and large changes on the Page 200 higher planes that here much remains to be done. How do you expect to get rid of it at once unlike everybody else? A Yoga like this needs patience, because it means a change both of the radical motives and of ...
... political, social, financial, educational or sanitary, are precisely the individuals who have developed their consciousness more or less to an exceptional degree and put themselves in contact with higher planes of consciousness. But their ideas remained on the whole theoretical; or, if an attempt was ever made to realise them practically, it always failed lamentably in the long or short run: for no human ...
... Divine in the material being. We do not create the gods, his powers, but rather such divinity as we manifest is the partial reflection and the shaping here of eternal godheads. We do not create the higher planes, but are intermediaries by which they reveal their light, power, beauty in whatever form and scope can be given to them by Nature force on the material plane. It is the pressure of the life-world ...
... distribution. There is another power, another divine movement that collects and amasses; it gathers and accumulates forces and things and all possible possessions, whether of the lower or of the higher planes. The man you tax with avarice was meant to be an instrument of this movement. Both are important, both needed in the entire plan; the movement that stores up and concentrates is no less needed than ...
... in ancient traditions about gods incarnating upon earth; some mythologies speak of them. That corresponds to something true. But all psychic beings are not necessarily united with a being of the higher planes. Then Mother passes on to another question, that of "possession" or the embodiment on earth of beings of the vital world (See Questions and Answers 1929 , 12 May ). Have these vital beings ...
... comes down into the lower planes of the being. "The role of the superconscient has been to evolve slowly the spiritual man out of the mental half-animal." 26 The superconscient includes the higher planes of mind—Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuition and Overmind—as well as what is beyond mind, namely, Supermind and the Supreme Reality called Sachchidananda (Existence-Consciousness-Bliss). These ...
... political, social, financial, educational and sanitary—are individuals who have, to a greater or lesser extent, developed their consciousness in an exceptional way and put themselves in contact with higher planes of consciousness. But their ideas have remained more or less theoretical or, if an attempt has been made to realise them practically, it has always failed lamentably after a certain period of time; ...
... capacity means simply a natural capacity for true spiritual experience and development. It can be had on any plane, but the natural result is that one gets easily into touch with the Self and the higher planes. Fitness for Yoga Nobody is fit for the sadhana—i.e. nobody can do it by his sole capacity. It is a question of preparing oneself to bring in fully the Force not one's own that can do it with ...
... seems to admit the cessation of birth in the world as the ultimate aim or at least the ultimate culmination of Yoga; it does not bring forward the idea of spiritual evolution or the idea of the higher planes and the supramental Truth-Consciousness and the bringing down of that consciousness as the means of the complete transformation of earthly life. The idea of the supermind, the Truth-Consciousness ...
... and He has not chosen to manifest all His powers or His full power in Matter, in Life, in Mind; He has not even made them fit by themselves for some future manifestation of all that, whereas on higher planes there is already that manifestation and by a descent from them the full manifestation can be brought here. All the planes have their own power, beauty, some kind of perfection realised even among ...
... of the sole complete reality of physical things with the rest as a sort of brilliant fireworks of the imagination, of lights and glories that can only have their full play in heavens beyond, on higher planes of existence, but not here; it afflicts the idea and aspiration with the burden of doubt, the evidence of the subtle senses and the intuition with uncertainty and the vast field of supraphysical ...
... — All life around me I become: A rarified immense Alone.... And slowly in myself I seem Infinitudes of worlds and men. Yes, it is the overmind view—but it can be felt in any of the higher planes (intuition, illumined or higher mind); something of it can be thrown by reflection even into the liberated mind and vital—I mean when there comes into them the sense of the cosmic Self, the cosmic ...
... remembered that this too has a consciousness of its own, the obscure consciousness proper to the limbs, cells, tissues, glands, organs. To make this obscurity luminous and directly instrumental to the higher planes and to the divine movement is what we mean in our Yoga by making the body conscious,—that is to say, full of a true, awake and responsive awareness instead of its own obscure, limited half-subconscience ...
... It is part of the cosmic consciousness—but the human individual when he opens into the cosmic usually remains in the cosmic Mind-LifeMatter receiving only inspirations and influences from the higher planes of Intuition and Overmind. He receives through the spiritualised higher and illumined mind the fundamental experiences on which spiritual knowledge is based; he can become even full of intuitive ...
... centre is in the throat. The neck and throat and the lower part of the face belong to the externalising mind, the physical mental. The forehead to the inner Mind. Above the head are the higher planes of Mind. The organ of speech is an instrument of the physical mental or expressive externalising mind. The Chest, Stomach and Abdomen It is because the centre of your difficulties has ...
... the characteristic of the planes that rise towards the vast universality of the Overmind level. ... That is why the lower planes cannot express the Spirit with its full and native voice as the higher planes do—unless something comes down into them from the higher and overrides their limitations for the moment. October 1936 Poetic Intelligence and Illumined Mind Certainly, if you want to achieve ...
... supposed by intellectual criticism to be symbolic but there is more than that, is a frequent element in mystic vision; I may mention the powerful and vivid vision in which Ramakrishna went up into the higher planes and saw the mystic truth behind the birth of Vivekananda. At least, the fact that these poems have appealed so strongly to your friend's mind may perhaps be taken by me as a sufficient proof that ...
... inexhaustible kingdoms within. So also consciousness in us has drawn a lid or covering or whatever one likes to call it between the lower planes of mind, life, body supported by the psychic and the higher planes which contain the spiritual kingdoms where the self is always free and limitless,—and it can break or open the lid or covering and ascend there and become the Self free and wide and luminous or ...
... subtle physical plane. What we in Sanskrit call the Bhutas mostly come under this class. But there are two kinds of elementals, the one mischievous and the other not. There are no Asuras on the higher planes where the Truth prevails, except in the Vedic sense—"the Divine in its strength". The mental and vital Asuras are only a deviation of that power. The Gandharvas are of the vital plane but ...
... between what is above and the universe. There is something in you that has become aware of the higher consciousness and gone up there—above the head where the ordinary consciousness and the higher planes meet. That has to be developed till the whole source of the consciousness is there and all the rest directed from there—with, at the same time, a liberation of the psychic so that it may support ...
... not attacked or troubled by these movements, finds them foreign to itself and automatically refuses assent to them and feels itself always turned to or in contact with the Divine Forces and the higher planes of consciousness. Find that part of your being and live in it; to be able to do so is the true foundation of the Yoga. By so standing back it will be easier also for you to find a quiet poise ...
... the inner planes of consciousness, it may be the subconscient, it may be the mental, vital or subtle physical plane. From there one goes into the corresponding worlds or else one rises up into higher planes superconscious to us—to the ranges above our mind or to the spiritual mental plane in which one can unite with the Sachchidananda consciousness or to the Supramental. What you describe seems to ...
... it falls upon—the result may be vision, memory, knowledge, right will, right impulse etc. There are many lights of various planes—there is also the Divine Light that comes down from the higher planes and illumines the Adhar. It is not necessary or possible to define [ the Divine Light ]. Page 118 Light is light just like the light you see, only subtle—it clarifies the con ...
... and devotion. Narada Narada stands for the expression of the Divine Love and Knowledge. Mahakali and Kali Mahakali and Kali are not the same, Kali is a lesser form. Mahakali in the higher planes appears usually with the golden colour. These—Kali, Shyama, etc.—are ordinary forms seen through the vital; the real Mahakali form whose origin is in the Overmind is not black or dark or ...
... Divine (transcendent, universal, individual)—the shield means protection. Crown The crown is the sign of fulfilment (here in the intuitive consciousness) and the going up means an ascent to higher planes. The crown indicates the higher consciousness in its static condition, the wheel its dynamic action. The red light is the Power sent down to change the physical. Diamond The diamond ...
... But that can only be done on the basis of which I have spoken and with the psychic being constantly in front and acting as an intermediary between the instrumental mind, vital and body and these higher planes of Being. So this basic stabilisation must first be completed. It [ purification of the physical nature ] is rather a necessity of the work itself for the supramental descent. The effect ...
... themselves moved by them and move them. The Hostile Forces and the Spiritual Consciousness From the higher mind upwards, all is free from the action of the hostile forces. For they [ the higher planes ] all belong to the spiritual consciousness though with varying degrees of light and power and completeness. Page 768 ...
... her in a white colour. I know that Kali is called Shyama because her colour is black, but I saw white. Why is this? Mahakali and Kali are not the same, Kali is a lesser form. Mahakali in the higher planes appears usually with the golden colour. 13 March 1934 ...
... active on the plane of mind and in free touch with their secret sources. The Force in us is able therefore to draw power & delight & knowledge thence without the danger of losing itself in the higher planes so difficult for us to be in touch with—they being sushupta in us,—that we also in our ordinary state must become sushupta in the trance of Samadhi to reach them and cannot command them in our waking ...
... riches we seek and leads man on the divine path. She is the queen of all boons and the wealth she gives, expressed in the mystic symbols of the Cow and the Horse, is the bright abundance of the higher planes; Agni begs from her and attains in her luminous coming their delightful substance; she gives to the mortal inspired knowledge and plenitude and impelling force and vast energy. It is she who creates ...
... four planes from which the speech issues, three of them hidden in the secrecy while the fourth is human, and from there comes the ordinary word; but the word and thought of the Veda belongs to the higher planes (I.164.45). Elsewhere in the Riks the VedicWord is described (X.71) as that which is supreme and the topmost height of speech, the best and the most faultless. It is something that is hidden in ...
... surge of the universal life-forces, Page 183 detect the origin and law of our feelings, emotions, sensations, passions, are free to accept, reject, new-create, open to wider, rise to higher planes of Life-Power. We begin to perceive too the key to the enigma of Matter, follow the interplay of Mind and Life and Consciousness upon it, discover more and more its instrumental and resultant function ...
... an element in all that is supraphysical. It is the main instrumentation of our subliminal self, its central means of awareness; for the subliminal self or inner being is a projection from these higher planes to meet the subconscience and it inherits the character of consciousness of its planes of origin with which it is intimately associated and in touch by kinship. In our outer being we are children ...
... belief in the immortality, the eternal persistence of the individual human spirit apart from the body is the keyword of this conception of life. That of itself necessitates its other belief in higher planes of existence than the material or terrestrial, since for a disembodied spirit there can be no abiding place in a world whose every operation depends upon some play of force, whether spiritual, mental ...
... relation between sense and substance, between the Divine as knower and the Divine as object, or if, other relations being possible, they are yet not in any way possible here, but must be sought on higher planes of existence. In that case, it is in heavens beyond that we must seek our entire divine fulfilment, as the religions assert, and their other assertion of the kingdom of God or the kingdom of the ...
... something better and more true and harmonious than the ordinary mental and vital life. But if Nature is ready and has taken her evolutionary decision or if the power of the Spirit descending from the higher planes is sufficiently strong, the difficulty would be overcome and a first evolutionary formation or formations would be possible. But if an entire reliance upon the guiding Light and Will and a luminous ...
... integral being is to attain liberation and enjoy immortality. Page 439 Here there comes in the complication of the idea that immortality is only possible after death in other worlds, upon higher planes of existence or that liberation must destroy all possibility of mental or bodily living and annihilate the individual existence for ever in an impersonal infinity. These ideas derive their strength ...
... of union with the Highest. Moreover, the Yogin, while in the body, is not always mentally inactive and sunk in Samadhi, and an account of the powers and states which are possible to him on the higher planes of his being is necessary to the completeness of the science. Page 541 These powers and experiences belong, first, to the vital and mental planes above this physical in which we live ...
... referred to these as the first two of the "four great realisations" of his yoga. The other two — "that of the supreme Reality with the static and dynamic Brahman as its two aspects and that of the higher planes of consciousness leading to the Supermind" — began in jail, but developed more fully during the period of sadhana chronicled in the Record. In April 1910, Sri Aurobindo left politics and ...
... a many layered plane of Mind, planes of Supermind, of Bliss, of Consciousness Force and of infinite Being on which the physical existence depends for its origination and its continuance. It is higher planes that flood the constantly unfolding unseen energies which have raised its evolution from the obscurity in which it began to the splendour of a light of consciousness to which the highest human mind ...
... there, no deep chambers; the occult things in man's being are foreign to his intelligence,—for it is in the light of the poetic intelligence that he works." "Naturally, something from the higher planes can come into the poetry whose medium is the poetic intelligence and uplift it. That happens in such lines as [Milton's] Those thoughts that wander through Eternity." "The Mantra ...
... the subtle physical almost materially and extends right to the lake, seven miles away from here. Beyond, my consciousness can be felt in the material vital, and then on the mental and the other higher planes everywhere. When I came here for the first time, I felt Sri Aurobindo's atmosphere, felt it materially, ten miles from the shore—ten nautical miles, not kilometers! It was very sudden, very concrete ...
... Savitri . Sri Aurobindo has encrusted the lines of his epic with an abundance of gold and precious stones in order to translate for the common reader something of that ineffable grandeur of the higher planes of consciousness. In his book Letters On Yoga Sri Aurobindo discusses the spiritual value of gold: Gold indicates at its most intense something from the supramental, otherwise overmind ...
... Visions of Champaklal Visions of Champaklal Journey of an Aspiring Soul towards Higher Planes 1978-12-08 It was the night of 8th December. I woke up in the middle of it. It was 2.10 a.m. when I looked at the clock and I lay down again. I was lying with my eyes closed. Then I had a vision. ...
... be very firm and steady. No short cuts! The psychic, then, gradually starts blooming (flowers). A lot of active energy for work (dark green and dark blue) is required, as level by level the higher planes of consciousness are reached (yellow, pink, light blue, etc.). Finally, the brilliant golden light of Divine Truth is seen and one discovers and realises one's self and the Divine Truth (Thousa ...
... who, when he used to come to me during meditation in Alipore Jail, showed me the Intuitive Plane. For a month or so he gave instructions about Intuition. Then afterwards I began to see the still higher planes.” (Nirodbaran: Talks with Sri Aurobindo I, p. 53) Sri Aurobindo was imprisoned in Alipore Jail from May 1908 till May 1909; Swami Vivekananda had died in 1902. ...
... his action. As Sri Aurobindo wrote: “Some psychic beings have come here [near him in Pondicherry] who are ready to join with great lines of consciousness above, represented often by beings of the higher planes and are therefore specially fitted to join with the Mother intimately in the great work that has to be done. These have all a special relation with the Mother which adds to the past one.” 19 ...
... Naturally, the whole being must surrender, not the mind, vital and body alone. Q. (2) Is this surrender the same as the psychic surrender? A. No, it is the surrender of the self on the higher planes. Q. (3) Is this surrender final among all surrenders? A. Neither is complete without the other. The psychic brings about the surrender of the manifested nature—the self on the higher plane ...
... door that was opening. Evidently, he made a mistake when he stopped the visions that were coming. Vision and hallucination are not the same thing. The inner vision is an open door on higher planes of consciousness beyond the physical mind which gives room for a wider truth and experience to enter and act upon the mind. It is not the only or the most important door, but it is one which ...
... whole being. Otherwise one can get mukti but not perfection or transformation (except a relative psycho-spiritual change)." 2 The descent of the spiritual potencies and forces of the higher planes (from the Higher Mind to the Overmind) is thus the third necessary motion following the other two of ascension and permanent stationing above. In this process of percolation, downpour or influx ...
... who, when he used to come to me during meditation in Alipore jail, showed me the Intuitive Plane. For a month or so he gave instructions about Intuition. Then afterwards I began to see the still higher planes … It was the spirit of Vivekananda who first gave me a clue in the direction of the Supermind. This clue led me to see how the Truth-Consciousness works in everything … He didn’t say “Supermind ...
... 25, 1966 ( Regarding the conversation of May 18 in which Mother said that ninety percent of the visions and dreams in the vital, or even on the other, higher planes, are subjective. ) All the same, there is something disturbing about that almost total subjectivity. Ah, why? You wonder what's true, what you really encounter. Isn't it all a figment ...
... substance and the expression making the large lingering _____________ 1 Ibid. Page 237 rhythm exercise its sovereign right. He grants: "Naturally, something from the higher planes can come into a poetry whose medium is the poetic intelligence and uplift it." 1 A direct uplifting into the Mantric Overmind cannot be expected more frequently than once or twice, but now and ...
... thinking. We can perceive also an Page 60 occult or subliminal mind in ourselves from which thoughts and perceptions and will-impulses and mental feelings arise; we can perceive too higher planes of consciousness from which a superior mind energy works through us or upon us. Finally we discover that that which observes all this is a mental being supporting the mind substance and mind ...
... by intellectual criticism to be symbolic but there is more than that, is a frequent element in mystic vision; I may mention the powerful and vivid vision in which Ramakrishna went up into the higher planes and saw the mystic truth behind the birth of Vivekananda. At least, the fact that these poems have appealed so strongly to your friend's mind may perhaps be taken by me as a sufficient proof ...
... increase the stature of God. He is richer for having come down and participated in the labour of the earth's evolution. Earth is the field of progress. There is no progress of our kind on the higher planes. Sri Aurobindo cites the passage from Vishnu Purana where it is said that even the gods, if they want to rise higher, have to come down to the earth and take a human birth. That is the purport ...
... such as is displayed by plunderers and smugglers, becomes the source of beautiful images for the Spirit's poetry. In the following lines the image is applied to Inspiration that comes from the higher planes of our being: Overleaping with a sole and perilous bound The high black wall hiding superconscience, She broke in with inspired speech for scythe And plundered the Unknowable's ...
... Savitri is as wide as the cosmos and takes into its purview worlds of being that are connected with humanity. These worlds or planes of existence do act upon human consciousness. They also include higher planes of consciousness which have not yet manifested here but which are pressing upon the earth-consciousness for manifestation. The soul of aspiring humanity symbolised in Aswapati, the Lord of manifested ...
... Mind, the Deeper Mind, Cosmic Consciousness, the Higher Self, Spirit and other similar global terms. Sri Aurobindo, however, distinguishes various distinct levels of consciousness among these higher planes of being which lie above the ordinary mind. There are above us... successive states, levels or graded powers of being overtopping our normal mind, hidden in our own superconscient parts ...
... itself means that, within he feels himself assured that it can be a very powerful as well as felicitous medium to express in its joyous self-awareness the revelatory knowledge belonging to the higher planes of reality. He says: ( Jnaneshwari : 6.14-21) True, my Marathi tongue is simple and plain yet I shall speak in its fondness. I shall speak and endearingly ...
... physical reality is a subordinate reality and that the higher or superior or ultimate reality or realities are supra-physical in character; all religions promise to open the gates for dwelling in higher planes or heavens for joy and harmony, the quality of which transcends the limitations of pains and pleasures of the physical world; and all religions advocate kindness, compassion and pursuit of ethical ...
... rangings of divine knowledge, power, joy, love and glory. This process was sought to be accomplished by synthesising the individual with the cosmic powers and beings in their operations in those higher planes which are hidden from the physical senses and the material mentality. This synthesis was crowned by the experience of the transcendental and blissful divine reality and its unity with the increasing ...
... Alipore jail, Sri Aurobindo was also on his way in his meditations to two other realisations: that of the Supreme Reality with the static and dynamic Brahman as its two aspects, and that of the higher planes of consciousness above the Mind leading up to the Supermind. It is a fact that Sri Aurobindo received help from Swami Vivekananda in regard to a transition to some of the planes of consciousness ...
... body is mental and not supramental, still it is a subtle and pure mentality and makes an easier communication with the supramental centres. .. .This opening up of a higher level and of higher and higher planes of it and the consequent reformation of our whole consciousness and its action into their mould and into the substance of their power and luminous capacity is found in practice to be the greater ...
... Alipore jail, Sri Aurobindo was also on his way in his meditations to two other realisations: that of the Supreme Reality with the static and dynamic Brahman as its two aspects, and that of the higher planes of consciousness above the Mind leading up to the Supermind. It is a fact that Sri Aurobindo received help from Vivekananda in regard to a transition to some of the planes of consciousness above ...
... almost lost to the spiritual memory of the race with all the adverse consequences attendant upon it. In ancient lore, "in the Upanishad (usually the Taittiriya) there are some indications of these higher planes and their nature and the possibility of gathering up the whole consciousness and rising into them. But this was forgotten afterwards and people spoke only of the Buddhi as the highest thing with ...
... the sole complete reality of physical things with the rest as a sort of brilliant fireworks of the imagination, of lights and glories that can only have their full play in heavens beyond, on higher planes of existence, but not here; it afflicts the idea and aspiration with the burden of doubt, the evidence of the subtle senses and the intuition with uncertainty and the vast field of supraphysical ...
... something better and more true and harmonious than the ordinary mental and vital life. But if Nature is ready and has taken her evolutionary decision or if the power of the Spirit descending from the higher planes is Page 49 sufficiently strong, the difficulty would be overcome and a first evolutionary formation or formations would be possible." "A true beginning has to be made; the rest ...
... Thy sweet presence is always there. That does happen, but usually only when the psychic is in full activity. Page 227 SOME DREAMS OF THE HIGHER PLANES A dream: There was a small dog that wanted to take revenge on me, I don't know why. I had to run away from it in order to save myself. But it always pursued me, no matter where ...
... from a higher and higher source. This light etc. are still rather diluted and diffused in the illumined mind; they become more and more intense, clearly defined and dynamic and effective on the higher planes so much so as to change always the character and power of the knowledge. Page 259 ...
... make the peace solid and dynamic. The Brahmic passage (the top of the head) remains open all the time. It is felt like an open window. Does it not denote a keen working of the higher planes? The pressure is all over the head. It is necessary for the wide Atman realisation, the liberation from the body consciousness and other things that must come. Page 159 ...
... luck to befall her child. Aswapati's queen decides to arraign Destiny itself. In this turbulent condition of mind, she loses all balance; her mind that had hitherto won for itself a place on the higher planes of living now descends into the vital plane where ordinary human passions rage and rule. To her now earthly mind, the workings of destiny come as an unnatural shock. In her throat rises the desperate ...
... whole also was fast taking its final shape. Although in the meantime he had developed his theory of the overhead aesthesis and was in practice often writing in response to the movements in the higher planes of consciousness, he was nevertheless aware of inequalities of level in the still widening expanse of the poem. "In so large a plan", he wrote in 1946, "covering most subjects of philosophical thought ...
... the change. Because of these changes it will all look like total freedom. For the intervention or the descent of one plane upon another will have unforeseen consequences for the lower one. The higher planes may foresee, but the lower ones cannot. Being unforeseen, things and events have then an air of the absolutely free and the totally unexpected. It is only when you live consciously and constantly ...
... supermind in the atoms, but these are not manifest and not organised, not on the surface as it were. These principles-life and mind-would not manifest if there was not the pressure from the higher planes; because of the pressure they come out and organise themselves. That is the reason why we feel pressure from above when we bring the Supermind. The Supermind tries ...
... descent we heard about from you the other day. SRI AUROBINDO ( after reading both the letters ): The first one is the usual ascent and descent. The consciousness has not got fixed above in the higher planes. It is the mental opening through the head and going up. The second one is the major ascent, rather the beginning. It has to become fixed above and the descent of the higher consciousness has to ...
... no Grace without effort. A little contradictory! SATYENDRA: There are cases where people have got realisation without effort. Suddenly they got brilliant experiences and that opened them to higher planes. NIRODBARAN: Dilip challenges anybody to show a single example. SATYENDRA: Why? What about Ramana Maharshi? NIRODBARAN: I thought he had to make a tremendous effort. He himself says he ...
... arise from the Inconscient, then when it is worked out, all diseases should cease—Dr. Manilal's too. SRI AUROBINDO: That depends on Manilal. NIRODBARAN: If by Sri Aurobindo's working on the higher planes we can open more easily to them, then by his working on the Inconscient our diseases ought to be cured. PURANI: Yes, but we can open only in the reverse way! (Laughter) There was news that ...
... the needed ten minutes' susupti state of Brahman consciousness, but rather to tune the waking state itself to intensities of seeing and being, and thereby to push consciousness to higher and higher planes and the highest possible. But although one might talk of planes and grades, yet all is one whole arc of consciousness: In all the series of the planes or grades of consciousness there ...
... residence, 381, 382; teacher of Latin, Greek, French & Italian, 381; financial stringency, 382; early (1911) letters on his Yoga, 572ff; move under Aliens Act, 382; "seat of sadhana", 383; higher planes of consciousness, 388; clue from Vivekananda, 389; exploration of Inconscience, 391-2; synthesis of experience and knowledge, 393-4; the coming "golden age", 393; Paul Richard's tribute, ...
... philosophical magnum opus is the luminous and voluminous treatise, The Life Divine, a jewel of a title, yet wonderfully apt to describe its total content. It grew out of his experience of the higher planes of consciousness which indicated to him the ultimate possibility of the descent of the Supermind. He sought corroborative Page 30 evidence in India's ancient scriptures—the ...
... without any transition, absolutely living, intense, conscious, marvellous .... 30 The link had been established at last, and there was no danger of it snapping or the experiences of the higher planes being lost on return to the material consciousness. Max Théon, a Polish Jew, and his wife Alma, an Englishwoman, an even greater occultist, lived at Tlemcen in Algeria. In 1906, leaving the ...
... upon it, meet with unreceptiveness or blind refusal of the Ignorance, experience the negation and obstruction of the Inconscience."5 The problem is to open, if possible, consciously, to these higher planes, establish a contact, and receive without mixture of the lower nature the Overhead creation. Though it is usual to regard these planes as mystical, it is known that their powers have been acting ...
... they are inadequate to the fulfilment of the ideal Sri Aurobindo has placed before us. Human nature is a complex manifold, shot through with the threads of the ego, and the light and power of the higher planes that come down to illumine and transform it cannot completely prevail against its tangled impurities. The first and most important reason of it is, that the light and power that descend cannot act ...
... consciousness of the devotee of God being eclipsed and swallowed up Page 355 in the all-mastering consciousness of the Supreme Being. Sri Ramakrishna on his mystic journey through the higher planes to the highest transcendence of saccidānanda identifies himself successively with the planes of Power and Light and Bliss to such an extent that he becomes at the moment of identification nothing ...
... of consciousness. But the complete elimination of the ego is yet a far cry. What we have described above is a change brought about in the individual by his self-extension and ascent to the higher planes of the being, and the descent of the characteristic forces of those planes into him. But, though it is a considerable change, it is not a radical conversion; for the ego still persists in the nether ...
... of one level. There is a hierarchy in the levels of creation; from each level the artist can create great art. The attempt of the artist must be to raise the level of his creation to higher and higher planes till he reaches the doors of Divine Beauty. Lest it may be thought that this is a mystic ideal, a speciality of the Indian temperament, I give here a few quotations from A. E. the great ...
... at it for quite some time. Was it really a vision or something else? SRI AUROBINDO: The bright blue light was probably the light of the spiritualised mind and the golden light is that of the higher planes of knowledge. Probably it was the light of some Being you saw projected before you, but the vision not being developed you did not see the figure clearly. Sometimes these lights are those of some ...
... nature is a task you have seriously tackled only a short time ago. And it is not in a few months that that can be done. Even the best sadhaks find after many experiences and large changes on the higher planes that much remains to be done. How do you expect to get rid of it at once unlike everybody else? A Yoga like this needs patience, because it means a change both of the radical motives and of each ...
... conquer." Without a shadow of doubt Vivekananda was Sri Ramakrishna's strongest disciple. Sri Aurobindo mentions in a letter "the powerful and vivid vision in which Ramakrishna went up into higher planes and saw the mystic truth behind the birth of Vivekananda." The Master used to say about his Noren that he was a portion of Shiva — Ishwara Koti—and that he was of the eternally liberated souls ...
... assign to it its comparative value in relation to the higher uses. The aesthetic is of immense importance and until it has done its work, mankind is not really fitted to make full use of Art on the higher planes of human development. Aristotle assigns a high value to tragedy because of its purifying force. He describes its effect as katharsis , a sacramental word of the Greek mysteries, which, in the secret ...
... has a claim on his being. It is open to him to become awake to profounder depths and higher heights within and such awakening is his intended progress. And as he mounts thus to higher and ever higher planes of himself, new worlds open to his life and his vision and become the field of his experience and the home of his spirit. He lives in contact and union with their powers and godheads and remoulds ...
... sometimes intense; but it varies from the mental to the vijnanamaya and Ananda levels and is generally upon the mental. It is only by tapas and smarana that Page 1005 it returns to the higher planes. The subjective prema-kamananda is also now absent, except by smarana . 31 August 1917 Ananda Steady progress in the tivra . Orgiastic kamananda is becoming more frequent and ...
... and the Son of Strength overpowering the Panis and Vritras, effects this completeness. 6) He is the envoy & effects the great commerce between earth & heaven, bringing the gods down from the higher planes so that they may be manifested in man in the terrestrial and taking our offerings, the fruits of our terrestrial life upwards to be divinised, transformed into the divine essence, eaten, in the ...
... accepted by us as our own thinking. We can perceive also an occult or subliminal mind in ourselves from which thoughts and perceptions and will-impulses and mental feelings arise; we can perceive too higher planes of consciousness from which a superior mind energy works through us or upon us. Finally we discover that that which observes all this is a mental being supporting the mind substance and mind energy; ...
... living Infinity, an illimitable Oneness deploying itself in a myriad modes, remaining not only transcendental and static but throwing itself out in a cosmic dance, a dance that is divine on the higher planes but shot with shadows on the lower. On the lower there is a tremendous hide and seek, the soul has to pierce through masks and meet its own white truth. Once the piercing is done, the light is seen ...
... Visions of Champaklal Visions of Champaklal Journey of an Aspiring Soul towards Higher Planes 1978-12-08 The Voyage “A beautiful record of a beautiful Voyage through other heavens towards the Highest Heaven.” 16.1.1970 NOLINIDA “What you have seen in your vision is similar to what Aswapati saw, which is described in Book 2, Canto ...
... strength that binds the lovers together. Time and Eternity, which remained apart in Satyavan's earlier life, have now got joined with each other. Similarly, what seemed to be abstract about the higher planes of consciousness at once becomes concrete in the image of the crystal. The crystal mood of air conveys a sense of mystery that condenses and expands into purity of air. The effective use ...
... Entry into the Inner Countries, just gives a brief indication as when in one of the corridors she finds a "glorious crowd" of gods and goddesses. As in the Tantra, these deities belonging to higher planes are helpers of man in his Yoga. They give a helpful direction to Savitri too: O Savitri, from thy hidden soul we come. We are the messengers, the occult gods Who help man's drab ...
... of inner discipline. Evolution is a gradual growth towards supreme knowledge, leading man towards self-transcendence. The world is an unfinished work and its fulfilment lies in her manifesting higher planes of consciousness upon her surface by realising perfect Knowledge, unerring Will and unflagging Delight. There is, therefore, a divine presence in and behind the world-process. The mind as ...
... subconscient, the subliminal proper and the superconscient. the Superconscient; Superconscience — consciousness above and beyond our present level of awareness in which are included the higher planes of mental being as well as the supramental and spiritual. Supermind — the Supramental, the Truth-Consciousness, the Divine Gnosis, the highest divine consciousness and force operative ...
... of our highest as of our inmost self, is our first, our capital ignorance. The Life Divine, p. 561 In the superconscience beyond our present level of awareness are included the higher planes of mental being as well as the native heights of supramental and pure spiritual being. The first indispensable step in an upward evolution would be to elevate our force of consciousness into those ...
... clue to the symbols. The Future Poetry, pp. 447-48 Most people move most in the vital in sleep because it is the nearest to the physical and easiest to remain. One does enter the higher planes but either the transit there is brief or one does not remember. For in returning to the waking consciousness it is again through the lower vital and subtle physical that one passes and as these ...
... (well-being) 62,63,83-84, 129,141 Mind 33-34,56,118-20 and consciousness 17 and the vital 85-86 connotation of 85-86 control over 142 disturbances of 87-96 higher planes 43 limitations of 44,120 mental will 103-104,119,120, 121,124,125,140 physical 87,92-96 vital 90-91 Mother, the (quotations) becoming conscious 56 circumstances ...
... inexhaustible kingdom within. So also consciousness in us has drawn a lid or covering or whatever one likes to call it between the lower planes of mind, life, body supported by the psychic and the higher planes which contain the spiritual kingdoms where the self is always free and limitless, and it can break or open the lid or covering and ascend there and become the Self free and wide and luminous ...
... experience of the Yoga. It is the free ascent of the consciousness to join the Divine. When, liberated from its ordinary identification with the body, it rises upward to have experience of the higher planes, to link itself with the psychic or the true being or to join the Divine Consciousness, then there is this experience of ascension and of speeding or expanding through space. The joy you feel is ...
... and will now reach its culmination.” 22 “Some psychic beings have come here [in the Ashram] who are ready to join with great lines of consciousness above, represented often by beings of the higher planes, and are therefore specially fitted to join with the Mother intimately in the great work that has to be done. These have all [a] special relation with the Mother which adds to the past one,” 23 ...
... Savitri. It is no exaggeration to maintain that practically all poetry of Sri Aurobindo’s written after his first great experiences was autobiographical. In it he conveyed his experiences on the higher planes, among them those from where the poets in general, often without actually realizing it, draw their inspiration — and he formulated those experiences in the highest poetic expression of the irreplaceable ...
... essentials, one might say that Rama is the Divine accepting and glorifying a mould of the human mental, while Krishna seems rather to break the human moulds in order to create others from the higher planes; for he comes down direct from the Overmind and hammers with its forces on the mind and vital and heart of man to change and liberate and divinise them. At least that is one way of looking at ...
... the repeated Page 97 and constant ascent of the lower consciousness (not always translated by these signs) that enables the mind, the vital the physical to come into touch with the higher planes un to the supramental and get impregnated with their light and power and influence. And it is the repeated and constant descent of the Divine Consciousness and its Force that is the means for the ...
... the subtle ether, by which not only the signs of all things past and present, but even those of things future can be seized; for things future are already accomplished to knowledge and vision on higher planes of mind, and their images can be reflected upon mind in the present.’ 46 The existence of this recording ether may explain the idea of the foundation of another Sun City in southern Italy ...
... by intellectual criticism to be symbolic but there is more than that, is a frequent element in mystic vision; I may mention the powerful and vivid vision in which Ramakrishna went up into the higher planes and saw the mystic truth behind the birth of Vivekananda..." Now a final observation. Mr. Ezekiel generalises his case against Sri Aurobindo so as to cover his many volumes of poetry: ...
... seer. The brain-cells will open to hold what the ancient rishis would have called the nectar of Knowledge. In such a condition Light will come as a revelatory Laughter. Indeed the Light of the higher planes is best considered the aura of Ananda and this ultimate nature of it is realised best by the mind's putting its own individuality helplessly in the care of the Unthinkable, the Unnamable. The ...
... all beings and all that is, which happened in the Alipore Jail. To the other two realisations, that of the supreme Reality with the static and dynamic Brahman as its two aspects and that of the higher planes of consciousness leading up to the Supermind, he was already on his way in his meditations in the Alipore Jail." This means that by 1910 - the year in which he came to Pondicherry - he ...
... the esoteric" occurs with the "secular" giving up its usual activity of the building brain and letting its striving thoughts be replaced by the assured luminous thinking of the "esoteric", the higher planes, or else allowing its own thought-stuff to be moulded by their light. To put it otherwise, it is not "between" but "in" the "pauses" that the integration takes shape. This sense is borne in on us ...
... The intellect is a valuable faculty; it is always there, I suppose, in some mode or other in all self-aware experience, Page 9 a human mode on our plane and a divine mode on higher planes, but its function is not successful in giving us the being and the body of anything: it has to join with other faculties, other modes of consciousness. To these modes prose cannot make as successful ...
... idealistic acceptance of the clay's caress; the human is given a reality, a justification to exist in its own nature just because that nature is regarded as an echo of some divine drama enacted on the higher planes. Beauty's self is here visioned as projecting its own glories below rather than absorbing those of the earth and drawing the poet's consciousness beyond: We liken love to this and that; ...
... being behind each aspect of our surface personality - the inner mind, the inner vital and the subtle physical; second, an inmost psychic being or soul behind these inner parts; third, the higher planes of the spiritual consciousness posited in Yogic psychology above the mind-level. Most of the spiritual poetry so far has drawn its inspiration either from the luminous subliminal regions or ...
... Not that Sri Aurobindo altogether denies to Milton the substance and the expression making the large lingering rhythm exercise its sovereign right. He grants: "Naturally, something from the higher planes can come into a poetry whose medium is the poetic intelligence and uplift it." 16 A direct uplifting into the Mantric Overmind cannot be expected more frequently than once or twice, but now ...
... sexual connotations in his quest for the beyond. There is a conscious effort at discovering a purer aesthetics based on Mother-cult. The poet is possibly trying to imagine the beauty of higher planes and this sense of beauty comes only after a great purification. In trying to imagine, Sethna's eyes open to the *This article appeared first in the March 1992 issue of Mother India ...
... necessary to have technical knowledge in order to feel what is behind the music. Mother, of course, does not play for the sake of a technical musical effect, but to bring down something from the higher planes and that anyone can receive who is open. The Mother's music reminds me of these lines from Savitri : Immortal harmonies filled her listening ear; A great spontaneous utterance of the ...
... another or from one series of steps to another either by an imperceptible process or by some bound or crisis or, perhaps, by an intervention from above,—some descent or ensouling or influence from higher planes of Nature. But, by whatever means, the Consciousness secretly indwelling in matter, the occult Inhabitant, is able thus to make its way upward from the lower to the higher gradations, taking up ...
... Sometimes Devi-power may mean the power of the universal World-Force; but this is only one side of the Shakti. Mahakali and Kali are not the same, Kali is a lesser form. Mahakali in the higher planes appears usually with the golden colour. Ganesh is the Power that removes obstacles by the force of Knowledge—Kartikeya represents victory over the hostile Powers. Of course the names given ...
... that is turning. It is that and the mechanical that last longest, but these too fall silent when the peace and silence become massive and complete. Afterwards knowledge begins to come from the higher planes—the Higher Mind to begin with, and this creates a new action of thought and perception which replaces the ordinary mental. Page 183 It does that first in the thinking mind, but afterwards ...
... The Transformation of the Body in Other Traditions It [ a body of light seen by the correspondent in a vision ] is the luminous body spoken of in the Veda as possessed by the beings of the higher planes. It is supposed by certain schools of Yoga in the East and West that in the final transformation on earth man will develop a body having these qualities. It was called the corps glorieux , "body ...
... things acting together, in which case there is the greatest possibility of an effective creation. Next, as a consequence, it follows that only a limited part of the action of the vital or other higher planes is concerned with the earth-existence. But even this creates a mass of possibilities which is far greater than the earth can at one time manifest or contain in its own less plastic formulas. All ...
... particular source of inspiration from where he or she writes? Not at all necessary. 18 July 1936 Some poems that come are unintelligible to the mind. Why? Is it because they come from higher planes? Yes, the mind is used as a medium: it may be an understanding—transcribing agent or it may be only a passive channel. If an agent, it transcribes what comes from above, understands but does ...
... nature—is a task you have seriously tackled only a short time ago. And it is not in a few months that that can be done. Even the best sadhaks find after many experiences and large changes on the higher planes that here much remains to be done. How do you expect to get rid of it at once unlike everybody else? A Yoga like this needs patience, because it means a change both of the radical motives and 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; this is, clearly, a state admitting us into the higher planes of the spirit normally now superconscient to our waking being. × This position has been shaken ...
... from heaven to the place of sacrifice,— vahasi, vehis ? That corresponds to no possible physical fact. Psychologically, the sense is clear enough. he Seer-Will first bears man's activities to the higher planes by Page 566 his purified consecration of them to the Godhead. This is the first part of the embassy. Then comes the time for the descent of the divine Powers into the human mind & body ...
... of activity and creation. And it is when the Ideal arisen, vehement, energetic, refuses to be debarred from possession and throws Page 113 itself with all the gigantic force of the higher planes of existence on this reluctant and rebellious stuff of life and matter to conquer it that we have the great eras which change the world by carrying out the potentialities of several centuries in ...
... to essentials, one might say that Rama is the Divine accepting and glorifying a mould of the human mental, while Krishna seems rather to break the human moulds in order to create others from the higher planes; for he comes down direct from the Overmind and hammers with its forces on the mind and vital and heart of man to change and liberate and divinise them. At least that is one way of looking at their ...
... achieved the overmind one opens directly to the supramental consciousness. The cosmic consciousness has many levels—the cosmic physical, the cosmic vital, the cosmic Mind, and above the higher planes of cosmic Mind there is the Intuition and above that the Overmind and still above that the Supermind where the Transcendental begins. In order to live on the Intuitive plane (not merely to receive ...
... colour. But there are also suns of a similar colour above, only more bright, from which these minor suns derive their light and power. The golden [ Sun ] is the Light of the Truth on the higher planes. The white [ Sun ] is the Sun of the Mother's consciousness (the Divine Consciousness) which manifests on all the planes. Page 143 The white sun indicates the purity and peace of ...
... psychic—it is often seen as a deep well or abyss into which one plunges and finds no end; but here it is evidently the psychic penetrating down into all the lower planes and also rising up to the higher planes above. The empty condition by itself is not called samadhi—it is when one goes inside, is conscious within but not conscious of outside things. What you describe yourself as doing involuntarily ...
... are probably symbols,—unless the Tibetan priest is an impression from a past life. The experience itself is that of concentration in a flame of aspiration with the result of an ascension into the higher planes of consciousness where the separative self disappears into the universal. The second is an experience of the descent of the higher consciousness through the spinal cord from the mental to the vital ...
... attaining it in the ordinary limited sense. The physical is of course the basis—that of the Overmind is in between the two hemispheres. The lower hemisphere must contain all the mind including its higher planes, the vital, the physical. The upper hemisphere contains the Divine existence-consciousness-bliss, with the Supermind as its means of self-formulation. The Overmind is at the head of the lower hemisphere ...
... Alipore jail and of which he has spoken in his speech at Uttarpara. To the other two realisations, that of the supreme Reality with the static and dynamic Brahman as its two aspects and that of the higher planes of consciousness leading to the Supermind, he was already on his way in his meditations in Alipore jail. Moreover, he had accepted from Lele as the principle of his sadhana to rely wholly on the ...
... When you wrote to me from America some of the experiences you narrated in your letter [ ] 2 indicated a very clear call to the new supramental life. And we understood also that a Power from the higher planes that had a place in our work was trying to manifest through your personality. But a call is only the beginning; it is after many ordeals that it matures into a definite and irrevocable choice. Moreover ...
... hold of those and read them. Supramental nature can only be understood if one understands what supermind is and that is not altogether possible for mind so long as it does not open into the higher planes. So far as a mental account can be given, I have done it in the Arya . Divine Nature is the nature of the divine Consciousness, Truth, Peace, Light, Purity, Knowledge, Power, Ananda on whichever ...
... before coming down the staircase. Is this light from inside or outside? Since I saw it only for a while, I cannot believe my own eyes. The golden Light is the light of the Divine Truth on the higher planes above the ordinary mind—a light supramental in origin. It is also the light of Mahakali above the mind. The golden light is also often seen emanating from the Mother like the white Light. 17 ...
... began writing the Arya , 1 in 1914. It was neither a mental knowledge nor even a mental creation which he transcribed: he silenced his mind and sat at the typewriter, and from above, from the higher planes, all that had to be written came down, all ready, and he had only to move his fingers on the typewriter and it was transcribed. It was in this state of mental silence which allows the knowledge—and ...
... physical — all turned towards the Divine.. .." 9 By spiritual transformation is meant "the descent of the higher peace, force, light, knowledge, purity, Ananda, etc. which belong to any of the higher planes" 10 of mind above the ordinary mind. Supramental transformation "is a putting on of the spiritual consciousness, dynamic as well as static, in every part of the being down to the subconscient"; ...
... almost materially, in the subtle physical, and extends to the Lake, ten kilometres from here. Farther, my consciousness can be felt in the material vital, then on the mental plane and the other higher planes, everywhere. When I came here for the first time, I felt the atmosphere of Sri Aurobindo, felt it materially at a distance of ten miles, ten nautical miles, not kilometres. It was very sudden, very ...
... of it, neither the story, nor the being, nor the head sticking out of the ground—and she wanted me to get her out of it. They 'feel' the atmosphere. They are aware—they may not be conscious on higher planes, but they are conscious on vital planes, aware of vital power and the vital force it represents.... It's like this asura from M.: when I came in he suddenly seemed to tremble on his pedestal; then ...
... very little to remember everything. But what's difficult is to extend your consciousness. Basically, the guru's real power is to fill up the gaps! To bring you into contact: when you are in the higher planes, to bring you into contact with the Highest. Or to bring you into contact with Page 217 your soul, your psychic being within, or to bring you into contact with the Supreme—but that not ...
... of a novel laborious and dangerous self-discovery, the brute blindness in which everything lies "involved" and from which power after power is evolved under the pressure of and invasion by the higher planes where the same powers stand freely expressed: I made an assignation with the Night; In the abyss was fixed our rendezvous: In my breast carrying God's deathless light I came ...
... Consciousness], all philosophies, all religions, all isms, all spiritual paths were only the refined products of the 'mental circle' [according to 'Supermanhood']. All experiences were merely on 'the higher planes of the mind.' Those 'peaks of the Spirit' are but 'self-paroxysms,' p. 61; 'we must cleanse ourselves of the wisdoms of the past, the ascents of the past, the illuminations of the past and the whole ...
... finding any knowledge of these "planes" in Gopi Krishna, Vivekananda or even Ramakrishna, Nair finds fault with Sri Aurobindo's statements that the Gita "does not bring forward the idea of the higher planes and the supramental Truth-Consciousness..." 5 Similarly, not understanding what precisely Sri Aurobindo intends by the word "transformation" 6 in spite of his making it quite clear what he does ...
... 1 The Life Divine, p. 560. 2 Ibid., p. 561. 3 Letters on Yoga, p. 993. (Italics ours) Page 172 instead wake up more and more on the deeper and higher planes of our existence. Yes, it is truly an 'awakening' into the superior and sublimer states (uttara-dhāma); for, after all, is not the normal run of our waking life whose essential badge ...
... power and love and deathless ecstasies. 8.8.1938, 22.3.1944 Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems: Life-Unity ============= The Golden Light: is that of the Divine Truth on the higher planes. Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III: Colours Golden Light always means the light of Truth; but the nature of the Truth varies according to the plane to which it belongs. Sri Aurobindo ...
... mind (Overmind and those above it), do the forms exist as we have them on the planes relating to the material creation? The forms of gods we have here in icons etc., do they actually exist on the higher planes? My question is: Do the forms actually exist in those planes, or is it the creation of the mind which gives the forms to those powers, in the sense that it is half the creation of the mind and half ...
... between the thought-substance of one person and that of another? Why don't thoughts, in some, shape themselves as profoundly, harmoniously and luminously as in others? Question of the opening into higher planes? And why is the beating not always successful? Well done or badly done; also good condition or bad condition of the mental recipient. First of all these thought-waves, thought-seeds or t ...
... still not very clear. SRI AUROBINDO: In the usual experience, it is one's habitual consciousness that rises: it may be any part of the being, the mental, vital or physical, that goes up to the higher planes above the mind and stays there for a time; some organisation takes place and then the consciousness comes down with some result. In the ascent and descent about which I have written in The Life ...
... You said to somebody that the Adya Shakti, the Primal Goddess-Power of the Supermind, brings down the Supermind. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. SATYENDRA: Brings from where? SRI AUROBINDO: From the higher planes. SATYENDRA: There is also the Unmanifest? SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, from the Unmanifest comes the Manifest. NIRODBARAN: Some people find your book The Mother very difficult. SRI AUROBINDO: ...
... who, when he used to come to me during meditation in Alipore Jail, showed me the intuitive plane. For a month or so he gave instructions about intuition. Then afterwards I began to see the still higher planes. I am not satisfied with only a part of the Supermind in the physical consciousness. I want to bring down the whole mass of it, pure, and that is an extremely difficult business. DR. MANILAL: ...
... (Laughter, Sri Aurobindo exclaimed, "Oh!") —are they concerned with only a higher plane of knowledge. Sir? SRI AUROBINDO: How do you mean? DR. MANILAL: I mean, are they concerned only with the higher planes of existence, not our day-to-day mundane affairs? SRI AUROBINDO: By clairvoyance also one can see things. But what is your idea about Sarvajna? Who, according to you, is Sarvajna? DR. MANILAL: ...
... Inconscient? SRI AUROBINDO: Nothing. The Inconscient is the basis of matter. NIRODBARAN: I mean, what will be the next phase of the working? SRI AUROBINDO: Development of Supermind or of the higher planes. NIRODBARAN: Will the troubles be less? SRI AUROBINDO: For whom? NIRODBARAN: General. SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, open your Inconscient first. NIRODBARAN: I thought it was open. SRI AUROBINDO: ...
... also a consciousness of its own, the consciousness proper to the limbs, cells, tissues, glands and organs. To make this consciousness luminous and directly instrumental to the Page 255 higher planes and to the divine movement is what is meant in Sri Aurobindo's Yoga by making the body conscious,—that is to say, full of a true, awakened and responsive awareness instead of its own obscure limited ...
... The Truth manifesting on all the planes is one thing, the Supramental is another, although it is the source of all Truth. Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III: Experiences on the Higher Planes ...
... 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 ...
... repeated rebirths upon earth. For, it may be supposed that the human personality, once capable of attaining to other planes beyond the physical, may not care to return from those supraphysical higher planes but pursue its existence there. In this way it would have finished with its terrestrial life-evolution. We now come to the theory advanced by the older Adwaitic Vedantism based on the teachings ...
... end to divinise the human nature. Indian spirituality as seen in the Veda, recognised both the spiritual and physical poles of existence, and sought the experience and realisation of higher planes of the Spirit even in the physical consciousness (prithvi). The legend of the Angirasa Rishis indicates the effort to discover the lost sun and herds of light in the caves of darkness, ...
... Purushottama manifests in the world and as the world but the world of our experience is normally limited to be the world of Matter, Life and Mind; but this is not the entirety of the world. There are higher planes of the world, and Para Prakriti is seen manifest as a supramental world. An important aspect that is explicitly stated in the Gita is that of the higher nature which has manifested as the individual ...
... superconscient as well as its ultimate and supreme possibility of union with the highest. Raja Yoga is psychic science, and it gives an account of the powers and states which are possible on the higher planes of the being. They can be acquired and fixed by certain processes and their use then becomes subject to the will; or they can be allowed to be developed of themselves and use only when they come ...
... superconscient as well as its ultimate and supreme possibility of union with the highest. Raja Yoga is psychic science, and it gives an account of the powers and states which are possible on the higher planes of the being. They can be acquired and fixed by certain processes and their use then becomes subject to the will; or they can be allowed to be developed of themselves and used only when they come ...
... Aurobindo began writing the Arya in 1914. It was neither a mental knowledge nor even a mental creation which he transcribed: he silenced his mind and sat at the typewriter, and from above, from the higher planes, all that had to be written came down, all ready, and he had only to move his fingers on the typewriter and it was transcribed. It was in this state of mental silence which allows the knowledge ...
... July 28, 1935 So your remarks about A.B. only prove that he was not of the common stock. I don't know. It only proves that he was a good "adhar' If one comes down from the higher planes, as I understand K has done for your work, everything becomes a Grand Trunk Road for him. Nobody has found this Yoga, a Grand Trunk Road, neither A.B. nor K nor even myself or the Mother. All ...
... Supra-mental descent? Of course not, this realisation of the Self as all and the Divine as all is only the first step. What's the next step? The next step is to get into. contact with the higher planes above spiritual mind—for as soon as one gets into the spiritual Mind or Higher Mind, this realisation is possible. Now the big question is: Is the realisation of the Self a state of perpetual ...
... atmosphere almost materially, in the subtle physical and extends to the Lake, 10 kilometres from here. Farther, my consciousness can be felt in the material vital, then on the mental plane and other higher planes, everywhere. When I came here for the first time, I felt the atmosphere of Sri Aurobindo, felt materially, at a distance of ten miles, ten nautical miles, not kilometres. It was very sudden, very ...
... It is true that when one crosses the border of mind and lives above the head, the word "difficulty" exists no more for him. For the hostile or the lower forces cannot touch the higher planes which are the Mother's. From the higher mind upwards all is free from the action of the hostile forces. For they all belong to the spiritual consciousness though with varying degrees ...
... any conquest over my lower nature? If it becomes a dynamic descent, then yes. If the sadhana continues like that, it would just be a fit board to jump into the higher planes of consciousness. As the Mother's sweet love and grace are with me such jumps would be safe and easy. I would like to know if today's state has come as a natural development of my ...
... with the Mother. How to achieve what I want? There is no way except to open to the higher con-sciousness so that it may descend and open to the Mother. I am speaking of the higher planes of mind which are always more luminous than the ordinary mental. How is it that the vital beings allow Gods to remain on their plane? The vital plane is not one world ...
... complete and mature action of them is possible. It is then that the turning of the spiritual towards the supramental transformation commences; for the heightening of the consciousness to higher and higher planes builds in us the gradation of the ascent to Supermind, that difficult and supreme passage." 48 This difficult passage consists of heightening, widening, ascent and integration, and series ...
... material part has also a consciousness of its own, the consciousness proper to the limbs, cells, tissues, glands and the organs. To make this consciousness luminous and directly instrumental to the higher planes and to the divine movement is what is meant in Sri Aurobindo's yoga making Page 33 the body conscious, — that is to say, fall of a true, awakened and responsive awareness instead of ...
... physical reality is a subordinate reality and that the higher or superior or ultimate reality or realities are supra- physical in character; all religions promise to open the gates for dwelling in higher planes or heavens for joy and harmony, the quality of which transcends the limitations of pains and pleasures of the physical world; and all religions advocate kindness, compassion and pursuit of ethical ...
... and in the end to divinise human nature. Indian spirituality, as seen in the Veda recognised both the spiritual and physical poles of existence, and sought the experiences and realisation of higher planes of the Spirit even in physical consciousness (prithvi). The legend of the Angirasa Rishis indicates the effort to discover the lost sun and herds of light in the caves of darkness, symbolising ...
... material part has also a consciousness of its own, the consciousness proper to the limbs, cells, tissues, glands and organs. To make this consciousness luminous and directly instrumental to the higher planes and to the divine movement is what is meant in Sri Aurobindo's Yoga making the body conscious, that it to say, full of a true, awakened and responsive awareness instead of its own obscure, limited ...
... of the sole complete reality of physical things with the rest as a sort of brilliant fireworks of the imagination, of lights and glories that can only have their full play in heavens beyond, on higher planes of existence, but not here; it afflicts the idea and aspiration with the burden, of doubt, the evidence of the subtle senses and the intuition with uncertainty and the vast field of supraphysical ...
... Nature's plastic and protean change And, strong by death to slay or to create, The riven invisible atom's omnipotent force." Sāvitrī, Book II, Canto 10. While speaking of the higher planes of consciousness above the mind he takes advantage of the scientific image by the spontaneous alchemy of his vision and gives us the convincing line: "Above in a high breathless stratosphere" ...
... helps the growth of plants and increases the yield. Many people experience a lifting of the consciousness to a higher level by the power of music. Music tends to bring down some harmony from the higher planes and establish it here in life. At its highest it brings Eternity in fleeting Time. While describing the growth of Savitri Sri Aurobindo refers to this art as follows : Music brought ...
... inexhaustible kingdom within. So also consciousness in us has drawn a lid or covering, or whatever one likes to call it, between the lower planes of mind, life, body supported by the psychic and the higher planes which contain the spiritual kingdom where the self is always free and limitless, and it can break or open the lid or covering and ascend there and become the Self free and wide and luminous or ...
... only by the earth and its forces but by life, and vital forces that are subtle and by mental forces and even by forces beyond mind. But it does not Page 180 mean that all the higher planes are very near and easily available to man's ordinary consciousness and the very highest plane of Light, as the poet says, "but now, the Light supreme is far away" and generally "Our conscious ...
... and attractively catholic, and there is an instinctive dread and distrust of all that is mystic or esoteric. The overweening ignorance of the human mind refuses to believe that there can be any higher planes of consciousness or subtler formulations of energy beyond what it perceives and conceives. The boundaries of man's little consciousness are held to be the boundaries of Reality, of which man, in ...
... Vivekananda who used to come to me in Alipore Jail and showed to me Intuitive plane and for about two to three weeks or so gave me training as regards Intuition. Then afterwards I began to see still higher planes. I am not satisfied with only a part, or a flash of Supermind but I want to bring down the whole mass of the Supermind pure, and that is an extremely difficult business. Disciple : We hear ...
... active self, from Krishna to Kali, the total elimination of the ego and the total sovereignty of Krishna and Kali, divine Knowledge coupled with divine Power; and then, the opening up of the higher planes of consciousness up to and including the supramental, and the subjection of mind, life and matter to these powers; finally, the possession of the supramental Light and Force, and through it the ...
... the body, and dominated and deluded by the senses, and a subliminal mind, which is wider and wiser, open to the universal mind and its movements, and full of intimations and inspirations from the higher planes of consciousness. Similarly, we have a double soul—the egoistic desire-soul in front, living in the disquieting illusion of a separate existence, and cut off from its source, which yet sustains ...
... and freely from above. The crystals Page 41 received at once indicate organised formation and a firm transparence in which the greater vision and experience desending from the higher planes could be clearly reflected. As for the other experience, his rejection of the waking consciousness evidently had the result of throwing him into an inner awareness in which he began to have ...
... mind fell silent when he meditated with the Yogi Lele for three days in Baroda in December, 1907, and he ceased to think at all. All that he spoke and wrote since then came down to him from the higher planes of consciousness above the thought-mind. Under the caption, The Question of the Month, Sri Aurobindo wrote in the first issue of the Arya: "What is the Synthesis needed at the present ...
... gradation of worlds or planes as a whole, we see them as a great connected complex movement; the higher precipitate their influences on the lower, the lower react to the higher and develop or manifest in themselves within their own formula something that corresponds to the superior power and its action. The material world has evolved life in obedience to a pressure from the vital plane, mind in obedience... obedience to a pressure from the mental plane. It is now trying to evolve supermind in obedience to a preSSure from the supramental plane. In more detail, particular forces, movements, powers, beings of a higher World can throw themselves on the lower to establish appropriate and corresponding forms which will connect them with the material domain and, as it were, reproduce or project their action here. And... acting together, in which case there is the greatest possibility of an effective creation. Next, as a consequence, it follows that only a limited part of the action of the vital or other higher plane is concerned with the earth-existence. But even this creates a mass of possibilities which is far greater than the earth can at one time manifest or contain in its own less plastic formulas. All ...
... Sri Aurobindo's Comment "It is quite up to the mark—very fine. Higher Mind, I think, with lines 6 and 7 raised up to what might be called (if we must find a name for these combinations) Higher Mind Intuition. There are various combinations possible, as in the process of sublimation each higher plane infuses itself into those below and then takes them up into itself." Page 45 ...
... permanent realisation. When it is settled anywhere, that is the full realisation of it in that plane or in that part of the being. Your going up to a higher plane is an experience—the descent of the higher plane into you, if temporary, is an experience. If you become fully aware of the nature of the higher plane and if that becomes part of your consciousness, it is a realisation. These are the... Divine is not the same thing as the spiritual realisation. The consciousness of one plane is different from the consciousness of another. Spiritual and psychic love are different from mental, vital or physical love—so with everything else. So too with the perception of oneness and its effects. That is why the different planes have their importance; otherwise their existence would have no meaning. ...
... divine part which is turned towards the Divine, descending from there and ascending to it. Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III: The Animal World Swan is the symbol of the soul on the higher plane. Swan is the liberated soul. Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III: The Animal World The silent Consciousness in which the soul is liberated from the universe. Beyond this there ...
... narrow in order to make himself understood. You feel you could be sitting in front of a genius and have no means to communicate, except like this ( gesture above the head of a communication on a higher plane ). They are wondering how to communicate with other solar systems.... But our very way of thinking stems from our form, it's because we count one-two-three-four-five with our fingers, so we say ...
... a real communication from a higher plane, marked by a feeling of elevation and wonder, it gets transcribed by the subconscient and what that forms is either flat or ludicrous. Moreover, this was seen between sleep and waking—and things so seen are not dreams, but experiences from other planes—either mental or vital or subtle physical or more rarely psychic or higher plane experiences. Page 15 ... those who make a school and all write on the same lines. 18 July 1936 Different sources of inspiration may express differently the same thing. I can't say what plane is imaged in the poem [ submitted by the correspondent ]. Planes are big regions of being with all sorts of things in them. 17 October 1936 Poetry of the Material or Physical Consciousness The Vedic times were an age in which... of the individual mind and consequent alteration—from a plane above the physical mind, a vital world of creative art and beauty in which these things are prepared and come down through the fit channel. The musician, poet or artist, if he is conscious, may be quite aware and sensitive of the transmission, even feel or see something of the plane from which it comes. Usually, however, this is in the waking ...
... spiritually, one escapes from the absolute law of these horoscopes. This would be a kind of notation on the material plane of the relations between universal and individual life, and these relations can be altered by the introduction of a higher plane of consciousness into the material plane of consciousness. All this is what might be called a half-knowledge, which is a kind of very primitive attempt ...
... are sometimes glimpses of the things on other planes, sometimes symbols; e.g., the golden water, golden tree, rising moon. At certain stages of the inner opening such things come in great number before the inner vision. The feet of which you saw the golden footprints must have been the Mother's in one of her divine forms descending from the higher plane. The pricking and the heat are both of them signs ...
... agencies. Page 272 This complete harmony established, Agastya's Yoga will proceed triumphantly on the new and straight path prescribed to it. It is always the elevation to a higher plane that is the end,—higher than the ordinary life of divided and egoistic sensation, emotion, thought and action. And it is to be pursued always with the same puissant will towards victory over all that resists... There in the present state of mankind the Purusha is supposed to be seated centrally. Nearer to the vastness of the subconscient, it is there that, in ordinary mankind,—man not yet exalted to a higher plane where the contact with the Infinite is luminous, intimate and direct,—the inspirations of the Universal Soul can most easily enter in and most swiftly take possession of the individual soul. It... that the human being seeks with his desire, all the active energies of his waking consciousness,—his days, as it is expressed in the brief symbolic language of the Veda,—must be uplifted to that higher plane. By vanāni are meant the receptive sensations seeking in all objectivities the Ananda whose quest is their reason for existence. These, too, are not excluded. Nothing has to be rejected, all has ...
... aid the cosmic purpose. It does not matter whether they have ego or not—they are not doing Yoga. If a man rises to a higher plane of consciousness, it does not necessarily follow that he will be a greater man of action or a greater creator. One may rise to spiritual planes of inspiration undreamed of by Shakespeare and yet not be as great a poetic creator as Shakespeare. "Greatness" is not the ...
... factor and come back to the original position from where you seemed to have Page 8 regressed, you find that you are not exactly at the same point but at a corresponding point on a higher plane. That forms a spiral, not merely a circle. There are, in the universe, an infinite number of points moving, each forming a spiral; so there are an infinite number of spirals. And these ...
... Page 98 and enjoyment of life, the limited knowledge of the mind - man is aware of nothing beyond. But there is something above the body, life and mind. When one reaches that higher plane, one becomes full of truth-consciousness, that is to say, one owns the nature and the law of conduct of, the Gods. Body, life and mind stand in the way of the aspirant to the realm of the Gods ...
... gathered the by-passed factor and come back to the original position from where you seemed to have regressed, you find that you are not exactly at the same point but at a corresponding point on a higher plane. That forms a spiral, not merely a circle. There are, in the universe, an infinite number of points moving, each forming a spiral; so there are an infinite number of spirals. And these spirals ...
... laya. Was it not helped by the higher knowledge? It may have been a partial knowledge, but badly expressed by the mind. What was wrong in it? There were two points of error. (1) That the soul formerly had no other possibility once it reached the Divine than laya. There were other possibilities, e.g., passing into a higher plane, living in the Divine or in the... creation of the mind, it is not the sole possible destiny of the soul. When the mind tries to abolish its own ignorance, it finds no escape from it except laya, because it supposes that there is no higher principle of cosmic existence beyond itself — beyond itself is only the pure Spirit, the absolute impersonal Divine. Those who go through the heart (love, bhakti) do not accept laya, they believe in ...
... as something higher is a mistake. 2.Every Avatar has a special divine aspect to incarnate and a special plane to employ as his instrument of manifestation. It was Sri Krishna's purpose, according to Sri Aurobindo, to manifest the Bliss-Self, the Anandamaya, through the Overmind. Other Avatars had other purposes. An intense expression of the Bliss-Self through their particular planes of manifestation... purpose of any of them who came before Sri Krishna. This is not in disagreement with Sri Aurobindo's evolutionary vision that there is a progressive incarnation, each Avatar descending from a higher plane than his predecessor, even though all the Avatars may be regarded as coming ultimately from the Bliss-Self. 3.Chaitanya was, as you say, a case of possession, but in the highest sense of that... "SEVEN DOUBTS" Here is my attempt to answer your "seven doubts". 1.It is according to Sri Aurobindo that Sri Krishna is known to have revealed what you designate "the plane of Purushottama" in the Gita. I venture to suggest that he could disclose Sri Krishna's ultimate status because he was himself Sri Krishna in a past birth: the status of an Uttama (supreme) Purusha ...
... enough to be able to resist this movement of what I might call "levelling". And this is what gives the impression that the general level has fallen, which is not correct. The general level is on a higher plane than it formerly was, but the individual level has dropped in many cases, and individuals who were capable of one realisation or another have felt, without understanding why, weighed down by a load... yielding to this kind of levelling effect, he resisted it in order to transform, transmute, uplift the elements, influences, currents he receives from the group, then the whole would rise up into a higher consciousness far ahead of where it was before. This is what I was aiming at—without explaining the thing to you in detail—when I spoke to you of a more and more Page 174 urgent need... kind of apparent fall which, in fact, is not one. It is the spiral movement of progress which makes it necessary to move away from a certain realisation in order to make it not only vaster but also higher. If every one collaborates consciously and with goodwill, it will go much faster. It was an imperative necessity if one wanted this Ashram life to be viable. Everything that does not progress n ...
... for all nations have such a Devi supporting their separate existence, and keeping it in being. Such beings are as real and more permanently real than the men they influence, but they belong to a higher plane, are part of the cosmic consciousness and being and act here on earth by shaping the human consciousness on which they exercise their influence. Each nation is a Shakti... field. It might be called "the seeking for perfection on the material plane". • These qualities should become the basis of the national life. This would automatically solve many of the divisive problems that beset India today. • To these should be added the urge and desire for perfection on the psychological plane. It should become one of the chief motivating elements in the life of... comes. It opens a door to heaven". It is this spirit that has to permeate the whole national life of India. This war has to be fought by every citizen of India, and this war is the war between the higher nature and the lower nature of man. • The officer of the Indian Armed Forces has the ability to lead from the front. This has been demonstrated in the two World wars and later in the Indo-Pak ...
... mental, vital and physical planes from above, by the power of a supramental Light and Force acting through the higher illumined mind and the psychic being. For that purpose she was calling down beings of a higher plane (like the one of which you speak) as an indispensable aid in that process. All went on well enough so long as the work was on the mental, psychic and higher vital levels. But as soon ...
... Purusha." But when the Purusha itself has become one with Prakriti', what is one to do? There is no need of rejection when the Purusha is one with the Prakriti — but that happens only on a higher plane. Here the Purusha is not one, it is only subjected to Prakriti as long as it remains inert. Today the leaning towards the ordinary nature seems to be reducing to a great extent... At present how far is my Purusha in direct touch with the Divine? At present it is the Purusha in the mind that you feel—when you become aware of the Purusha on the spiritual plane then there is more chance of its getting into direct touch with the Divine. P believes that the Purusha can remain withdrawn and allow the lower nature (the Prakriti) to satisfy its... Between these two there is a period of transition when there is no control at all. How is one then to deal with the activities of life? Page 97 You have to call down the higher control in such a case. But the withdrawal of mental control need not be sudden and complete — it can be replaced as it goes by the action of the Purusha — his consent or refusal. ...
... action which comes down into its peace and silence and fills it with power also and Ananda and the light of knowledge. If my mind is right, the Mother has opened me to some higher plane. And that is why my inner being remains in constant touch with the above-world. Yes. Page 38 ... her new creation. They may be very good and helpful for active-minded writers, as they carry some higher truth. But, for me, they come at Page 37 When one is plunged in the immutable Brahman, does one not usually prefer to keep oneself all still, unmoved even by the higher knowledge? Not necessarily. The immutable Brahman is only a base for the transcendent... for the Divine, and they follow their own ignorant light and cling to it instead of opening to the Divine Knowledge. What are the conditions in the lower vital and physical for the higher consciousness to begin action? There must be the will to purify, the will of sadhana, some capacity for introspection and experience. The year 1934 ...
... called down the mental being, the Mind-Purusha, into the realm of living Matter in order to take up the vital-mental energy already at work and lift it into a higher mentality. But this would still be a process of evolution, the higher plane only intervening to assist the appearance and enlargement of its own principle in terrestrial Nature." The Life Divine, SABCL, Vol. 19, pp. 839-40 ... upsurgence but a descent of mentality from a Mind-plane above us, perhaps the descent of a soul or mental being into terrestrial Nature. The difficulty would then be the appearance of the human body, too complex and difficult an organ to have been suddenly created or manifested; for such a miraculous speed of process, though quite possible on a supraphysical plane of being, does not seem to figure among the ...
... touched these lines with greatness? Claudio's images are drawn from the vital and the physical, and yet they are passed through the fire and purified in the fountain and lifted up to a higher plane—say, that of the Higher Mind or the Illumined Mind—because, "there is something behind...which comes not primarily from the mind or the vital emotions or the physical seeing but from the cosmic self and its... revelation is complete. Turner and Blake both write about the Tiger; but one is the creation of the vital or mental aesthesis, the other is a torrent of suggestion or an onrush of power from a higher plane. Another example: here is Matthew Arnold on the prospect of death: The air of heaven is soft, And warm, and pleasant; but the grave is cold. ... y, seldom sustained over a passage of considerable length. It is generally a sudden blaze, a momentary swell. For even poets are but human beings and ordinarily function on the mental plane, although this plane itself is no uniform dry desert of reason but has its own sensuous arbours, delectable oases, and the towered castles of the imagination. It is interesting to watch the sudden rise in the ...
... need for progress, a spontaneous need to progress on some plane or other—on the mental plane is the most usual way, but if by chance it answers an inner aspiration, a problem one is tackling and wants to solve, then the question becomes interesting and living and truly useful, and it can give rise to a vision, a perception on a higher plane, an experience in the consciousness which can make the formula ...
... from each other—the higher in you and the lower, the inner and the outer strata of your being and consciousness—meet and are slowly joined together and gradually they fuse into one truth, one harmony. It is in this way that what are called miracles happen. The world is made up of innumerable planes of consciousness and each has its own distinct laws; the laws of one plane do not hold good for... another plane where you become a conscious participant and a dynamic agent in the working out of a Higher Destiny. This movement of the consciousness follows a double line. First of all there is an ascension; Page 13 you rise yourself out of the level of material consciousness into superior ranges. But this ascension of the lower into the higher calls a descent of the higher into the... the clash of possibilities is realised the thing that has to happen. On this plane we can choose and select; we can refuse one possibility and accept another; We can follow one path, turn away from another. And that we can do, even though what is actually happening may have been foreseen and predetermined in a higher plane. Page 10 The Supreme Consciousness knows everything beforehand ...
... beginning by grouping together young men of different castes and religions in a common ideal. All sectarian and political questions are necessarily foreign to its idea and its activities. It is on a higher plane of thought superior to external differences of race, caste, creed and opinion and in the solidarity of the spirit that unity can be realised. The Idée Nouvelle has two rules only for its members... of being helpful to others. This is, naturally, only the minimum of initial self-training necessary for those who have yet to cast the whole trend of their thought and feeling into the mould of a higher life and to enlarge the egoistic into a collective consciousness. The Society has its headquarters at Pondicherry with a reading-room and library. A section has been founded at Karikal and others ...
... nothing so revolutionary and astonishing, but only the capacity in the human mentality, when it has reached a certain level or a certain point of stress of the evolutionary impetus, to press towards a higher plane of consciousness and its embodiment in the being. The being will necessarily undergo by this embodiment a change from the normal constitution of its nature, a change certainly of its mental and... And it is only with this spiritual capacity of rising to a higher level and replacing the animal's unconsciousness by a spiritual super-consciousness that there comes into the being not only the capacity to see the goal of existence and to foresee Page 303 the culmination of the effort but also a clear-sighted trust in a higher spiritual power to which one can surrender one's whole being... necessity Page 304 of surrendering all responsibility and relying on a higher principle. Otherwise peace is impossible. And yet, consciousness has been given to man so that he can progress, can discover what he doesn't know, develop into what he has not yet become; and so it may be said that there is a higher state than that of an immobile and static peace: it is a trust total enough for ...
... must awake and force the nature to change. These are the four ways in which change can be brought about. When you are in connection with the higher worlds above the mental, with the mental and the psychic or even with some of the higher vital planes, then there is the peace and Ananda—but connection with the lower vital worlds can easily bring disturbance and unrest, so long as your vital itself... giving it its true value or absence of value, not carried away by the excitement of the mind or the vital being. What do you mean by true? You have a subjective experience belonging to a higher plane of consciousness; when you descend you come down with it into the material and the whole of existence is seen by you in the terms of that consciousness—just as when a man sees the vision of the... long as you live in yourself, apart from any close contact with external physical life; but it does not stand the test of objective experience. In each plane there is an objective as well as a subjective side. It is not the physical plane and life alone that are objective. When you have the power of formation of which I spoke, whatever is suggested to the mind, the mind constructs and establishes ...
... each other—the higher in you and the lower, the inner and the outer strata of your Page 30 being and consciousness—meet and are slowly joined together and gradually they fuse into one truth, one harmony. It is in this way that what are called miracles happen. The world is made up of innumerable planes of consciousness and each has its own distinct laws; the laws of one plane do not hold... and rise into another plane where you become a conscious participant and a dynamic agent in the working out of a Higher Destiny. This movement of the consciousness follows a double line. First of all there is an ascension; you raise yourself out of the level of material consciousness into superior ranges. But this ascension of the lower into the higher calls a descent of the higher into the lower. When... the clash of possibilities is realised the thing that has to happen. On this plane we can choose and select; we can refuse one possibility and accept another; we can follow one path, turn away from another. And that we can do, even though what is actually happening may have been foreseen and predetermined in a higher plane. Page 28 The Supreme Consciousness knows everything beforehand, because ...
... all things he reproduces the-characteristics of Indra. × The seer by this self-fulfilment on the higher plane is born, as it were, into many realms of consciousness and from each of these there go up its words that express the impulses in it which seek a divine fulfilment. The Mind-Soul answers to these... performs when by the power of Agni it attains to vision on its own vital plane, when it becomes, in the figure of the hymn, the illumined seer Ashwamedha. × The complete hundred powers of the Life by whom all the abundance of the vital plane is showered upon the growing man. The vital forces being the instrument... the hundred powers, the vital strength needed for the upward journey; the Rishi prays that this Life-Soul may attain to that vast strength which is the power of the Sun of Truth on the superconscient plane.] अनस्वन्ता सत्पतिर्मामहे मे गावा चेतिष्ठो असुरो मघोनः । त्रैवृष्णो अग्ने दशभिः सहस्रैर्वैश्वानर त्र्यरुणश्चिकेत ॥१॥ 1) O Will, O Universal Power, 1 the mighty One supreme in vision, master ...
... Does the above experience mean that my Page 70 consciousness was not only in the inner being but on some higher plane? It is the inner being. But the stillness comes from the higher consciousness. It is sufficient to begin with if there is a constant inner stillness not disturbed by any thoughts or movements on the surface. ... Is it not true that our vital lays bare all our hidden desires and impulses? It is not the vital that does that. It is either the psychic or something from the inner mind or the higher consciousness. I did some offering, but something was kept back. Someone from within me was constantly beating me for keeping that back. So there was depression. What was... guidance from within ? You have to be conscious of your inner being. I would very much like to bring out my inner being and live in it. If you call down the higher consciousness, its descent of itself will show you your inner being as separate from the outer. Until then you can only go on observing yourself and the movements of your nature till you see the difference ...
... ridiculous riddle spun out by Swinburne: The manner of man by the boy begotten Is son to the child that his sire begets And sire to the child of his father's son. On a higher plane - the Chubbian plane, I might say where at present you are floating since you are now studying philosophy under my friend Dr. Chubb, I may cite as a magnificent example of the first category Shankara's theory... bondage Page 33 into the one and only Reality that is never either bound or individualised and is too static even to effect the most unreal of escapes! Of course, by "the Chubbian plane" I mean simply a generality: the philosophical field of thought. I do not equate Dr. Chubb's philosophical position to Shankara's. In this field, the second category may be piquantly exemplified ...
... the habitation of the supramental being in a new evolution. I am not aware that this has been done by any Hathayogic or other process. Mental or vital occult power can only bring Siddhis of the higher plane into the individual life—like the Sannyasi who could take any poison without harm, but he died of a poison after all when he forgot to observe the conditions of the Siddhi. The working of the s ...
... mental being, the directly or partly illumined mental being, the mental being in direct or part communion with the higher-thought plane would emerge: these would become more and more numerous, more and more evolved and secure in their type, and might even exist as a formed race of higher humanity leading upwards the less evolved in a true fraternity born of the sense of the manifestation of the One Divine... the fullness of a divine life in a divine body. There would be a body still human and indeed animal in its origin and fundamental character and this would impose its own inevitable limitations on the higher parts of the embodied being. Sri Aurobindo: Essays in Philosophy and Yoga , pp. 536-37 It can be affirmed with certainty that there will be an intermediate specimen between the mental and the ...
... the talk of 25 January 1939. Nirodbaran's report of Sri Aurobindo's statement about his discovery of the Supermind after the pointer, given in Alipore by Vivekananda's "spirit", to the Higher Consciousness-planes of divine dynamism above the mind—provides some body of detail to the general indications found in the published writing of Sri Aurobindo on this subject. Thus we read in Sri Aurobindo on... as all beings and all that is,... happened in the Alipore Jail.... To the other two realisations, that of the supreme Reality with the static and dynamic Brahman as its two aspects and that of the higher plain of consciousness leading to the Supermind he was already on his way in his meditations in Alipore Jail." (pp. 107-108) Further light on Vivekananda's coming to Sri Aurobindo is shed by the ...
... the artist. 2. But the subjectivity that he brings into expression is infra-rational. 3. What might help the artist to create truly is his ascent to or contact with, higher levels of his being, the Suprarational. The higher the plane and truer the contact of the artist the greater would be his art. Page 69 ...
... that one finds in his works is universal, its expression is impersonal and yet it is the most intense. Beauty, in his view, is not only of the intellectual plane, nor merely of the life-plane,—though he is familiar with the beauty of those planes—but it also belongs to the overhead. But because it is of the overhead origin it is not abstract, and airy nothing, it is on the contrary much more concrete... "āntarah kepi hetu" "some inner, mysterious affinity." The attraction of the bee for the flower is natural in a certain sense. But the sunlight works on the flower on almost a different plane, their relation is on a higher plane and nearer the true expression of beauty. From that absolute love for the Divine as the Beautiful came the attitude of unconditional self-surrender known as Madhur-Bhava. ... aesthetic enjoyment. Now and then, some sparks from some unknown higher regions have illumined his experience with a light that can be called divine. The acceptance of the phenomenon of inspiration, intuition etc. as exceptional, points to the mystic origin of such light. But if man is a growing and evolving being and if ascent to higher plane than mind is the goal of his evolution, then his aesthetic ...
... It is not by abandoning life on earth in order to pursue immortality on other more favourable planes of existence that the great achievement becomes possible. It is here, ihaiva , in this mortal life and body that immortality must be won, here in this lower Brahman and by this embodied soul that the Higher must be known and possessed. "If here one find it not, great is the perdition." This Life-force... s and inferiority of our present existence. All that we follow after here is an imperfect representation, a broken and divided functioning of what is eternally in an absolute perfection on that higher plane of existence. This mind of ours unpossessed of its object, groping, purblind, besieged by error and incapacity, its action founded on an external vision of things, is only the shadow thrown by a... of which the Upanishad speaks are essentially soul-conditions and not geographical divisions of the cosmos. This material universe is itself only existence as we see it when the soul dwells on the plane of material movement and experience in which the spirit involves itself in form, and therefore all the framework of things in which it moves by the life and which it embraces by the consciousness is ...
... supreme vision and discernment. All vibration of sound on that higher plane is, then, instinct with and expressive of this supreme discernment of a truth in things and is at the same time creative, instinct with Page 31 a supreme power which casts into forms the truth discerned and eventually, descending from plane to plane, reproduces it in the physical form or object created in Matter... conscious use of the vibrations of sound which will produce corresponding forms or changes of form. But Matter is only, in the ancient view, the lowest of the planes of existence. Let us realise then that a vibration of sound on the material plane presupposes a corresponding vibration on the vital without which it could not have come into play; that, again, presupposes a corresponding originative vibration... in other minds than that of the user, but can produce vibrations in the mental and vital atmosphere which result in effects, in actions and even in the production of material forms on the physical plane. As a matter of fact, even ordinarily, even daily and hourly we do produce by the word within us thought-vibrations, thought-forms which result in corresponding vital and physical vibrations, act ...
... Page 537 × The felicity or happy wealth of the wide Truth-Consciousness manifested not only in the higher mental planes of our consciousness, but in our physical being. × The straight impulsion which the gods possess; ...
... The vision begins with Champaklal having, a very sincere aspiration to attain or reach a realm of consciousness (place) guided by Sri Aurobindo. He seems to be sitting on the verge of the higher mental plane (indicated by 'thought') which readily responds to the call from his psychic being and immediately the help comes in the form of a vehicle driven by the Divine Force (Sri Aurobindo). After... Divine Consciousness (Sri Aurobindo and the Mother). The obstacles are broken and “the door opens automatically.” The “Yajna” of self-purification is to be performed if one is to enter the realm of higher consciousness. Sri Aurobindo chanting vedic hymns perhaps symbolises that one has to go beyond the mind and experience directly the various forces or the free play of the Divine. Initially, these are ...
... its capacity of action for the inner and outer transformation has already evaporated. There it may be said that expression, explanation is always a coming down. The experience itself is on a much higher plane. Page 331 ...
... how? It is there above you. You have to aspire for it to descend into you. When we get peace and purity and light and other such things, from what plane do they come? From any higher plane. Peace and purity may come from the psychic also. How is one to remain quiet within even while carrying on all kinds of activities? By having a separate... disturbed. Consciousness cannot feel at rest and free, if there is no peace. Can silence and peace be established without the descent of the Higher Consciousness? The silence and peace are themselves part of the higher consciousness—the rest comes in the silence and peace. Is it possible to feel peace in the midst of a disturbance in one's being? ... thoughts of the Divine or for spiritual aspirations? In the entirely silent mind there is usually the static sense of the Divine without any active movement. But there can come into it all the higher thought and aspiration and movements. There is then no absolute silence but one feels a fundamental silence behind which is not disturbed by any movement. Suppose a man begins to ...
... for its action is blind, ignorant and very egoistic. Sweet Mother, is the divine plane the plane of the psychic being? It is a higher plane than that of the psychic being. The psychic being is, so to say, the vehicle of the Divine, it contains the Divine, is the habitation of the Divine, but the Divine is higher than it. For the psychic being is only an aspect of the divine manifestation. ... Is not the Supermind also the psychic being? The Supermind is far higher than the psychic being also. What Sri Aurobindo calls the Supermind is the element or the divine Principle which is now going to come into play in the universe. He calls it the Supermind because it comes after Page 298 the mind, that is to say, it is a new manifestation of the supreme divine Principle. And... suffer, well, one may leave them quiet in their own movement and only make an effort to transform oneself without imposing one's will on others, which even in ordinary life is a step towards something higher and a little more harmonious. Page 302 ...
... because on a higher plane good and beauty and all else that is divine in origin meet, coalesce, harmonise. But what men call good is often ugly or drab or unattractive. Human beauty is not always the picture of the good, it is sometimes the mask of evil—the reality behind that mask is not always goodness. These things are obvious, but probably Rabindranath meant good and beauty in their higher aspects or... August 1933 What is the meaning of Supramental Beauty? Is it the perception of the Divine as the All-Beautiful and All-Delight? No, that you can get on any plane, and it becomes easy as soon as one is in contact with the higher Mind. Beauty is the special divine Manifestation in the physical as Truth is in the mind, Love in the heart, Power in the vital. Supramental beauty is the highest divine... or ugly becomes an out ward play, and becomes suffused with the beauty and Ananda behind. It is specially the Overmind consciousness of things—although it can be felt from time to time on the other planes also. A great equality and the view of the Divine everywhere is necessary for this to come fully. 10 March 1934 As you say, there is a truth behind Tagore's statement. 1 There is such a thing ...
... ormist angle nor deem mysticism a flight from the concrete world of the senses. Technological development cannot argue a higher stage of essential consciousness. Is a modern scientist more evolved in consciousness than Aristotle or Leonardo da Vinci? Is Stalin on a higher plane of being than Draco or Lycurgus or our own Buddhist Asoka whom H. G. Wells, himself a scientific mind, calls the most enlightened ...
... a greater and completer truth than any of the lower planes, it would not be worth while trying to reach it. Each plane has its own truths. Some of them are no longer true on a higher plane; e.g., desire and ego were truths of the mental, vital and physical Ignorance - a man there without ego or desire would be a Tamasic automaton. As we rise higher, ego and desire appear no longer as truths, they are... * All the consciousness in the human being who is the mental embodied in living Matter has to rise so as to meet the higher consciousness; the higher consciousness has also to descend into mind, into life, into Matter. In that way the barriers will be removed and the higher consciousness will be able to take up the whole lower nature and transform it by the power of the supermind. The earth... principle involved there in the earth-consciousness; but only Matter is at first organised; then life descends from the life plane and gives shape and organisation and activity to the life principle in Matter, creates the plant and animal; then mind descends from the mind plane, creating man. Now Supermind is to descend so as to create a supramental race. * In order to get the dynamic realisation ...
... life. Man is not interested in knowing the secret of life. He wants to serve the demands of life. He does not realise that life is trying to exceed its limitations, it is aspiring to ascend to a higher plane. It is sad to see that man submits himself to life and acts as if satisfying the demands of life,—its impulses, desires, passions, greeds and ambitions,—wire the highest goal of man. In order... This does not mean there is no pain or suffering. It only means that values of ignorance are true in ignorance. And values of the same experience change when the consciousness of man rises to a higher plane. The first appearance, the first evidence of our sense mind is not final; very often the first reaction is not the true reaction. Scientific advance is made possible by not accepting the first... Consciousness. It is a process in the direction opposite to that of involution in which there is a gradual covering of the Reality creating a world, a plane, at every downward step. Man, the mental being, is transitional. He has yet to ascend to a Higher Consciousness beyond mind. This is the great spiritual Odyssey that is now to be consciously undertaken by man. If material science lays open ...
... results may still last on for a time, but there is no longer the same inevitability. This would seem to show that there is or can be a higher-power or higher-plane or higher-source spiritual destiny which can, if its hour has come, override the lower power, lower-plane or lower-source vital and material fate of which the stars are indicators. I say vital because character can also be indicated from the... it, because the celestial & astral influences are the sensational or nervous force in Nature which become the instruments of our karma. That is why the European mystics gave the name of astral plane to the plane of sensational or nervous existence and astral fluid to the magnetic power or current of nervous, vital force in a man. It is this same vital force which pours upon us from all parts of the solar... very evident that it uses them for other and larger purposes, has a supraphysical method, evolves much greater motives and significances. The moral energy is in itself a distinct power, has its own plane of karma, moves me even, and that characteristically, to override my vital and physical nature. Forms of one universal Force at bottom—or at top—these may be, but in practice they are different energies ...
... this does not mean that one should not recognise other planes. There is the vital plane whose law is force and success. If you have force you win; if you have speed you outrun others. The laws of the mind come in to act as a means of balance. They balance diverse things to make a mental-vital standard. It you go above the vital and mental planes, you come to a point where the Gita's "Sarvadharman ... moral. There is no question of right or wrong there. One goes above all standards and looks from a higher plane. But then it is essential to have the perception and feeling of the Divine in all. One can see the Divine in all behind the veil of the Gunas, the Nature qualities. From the spiritual plane one finds that the Gita is right about the Gunas and that man is made to do one thing or another by... man and yet he killed many people. NIRODBARAN: Then what did you mean when you spoke of a true voice? SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, that is the psychic voice. But there can be many other voices from many planes. And how will you say which is right? What would you say of Lord Curzon's decision? NIRODBARAN; For the Bengal Partition? SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. Was he right? He thought he had the right inspiration ...
... maintained by the help of Yogasiddhis, and not as a dharma, natural law, of the transformed physical nature. But "mental or vital occult power", warns Sri Aurobindo, "can only bring Siddhis of the higher plane into the individual life — like the Sannyasi who could take any poison without harm, but he died of a poison after all when he forgot to observe the conditions of the siddhi." 3 Among... Procedures : Leaving behind the field of scientific achievements as well as failures, we pass on now to a summary consideration of some of the attempts made by man, starting from the other, the higher, end of the range of our being. These occult-spiritual attempts at dehasiddhi, the attainment of perfection of the material body of man, have in the majority of cases come down to us in ...
... these domains are filled with beings who exist, each in its own domain, and if you are awake and conscious on a particular plane—for instance, if on going out of a more material body you awake on some higher plane, you have the same relation with the things and people of that plane as you had with the things and people of the material world. That is to say, there exists an entirely objective relation... cannot say dense, because it is not dense, one cannot even say material, because matter as we know it does not exist on those planes—through realities more and more concrete. Page 355 According to traditions and occult schools, all these zones of realities, these planes of realities have got different names; they have been classified in a different way, but there is an essential analogy, and... defects. In the gods there is no fault because they live according to their own nature, spontaneously and without constraint: as gods, it is their manner of being. But if you take a higher point of view, if you have a higher vision, a vision of the whole, you see that they lack certain qualities that are exclusively human. By his capacity of love and self-giving, man can have as much power as the gods ...
... operations of ignorance. It was against this background that the final answer of the Gita goes beyond the higher level of consciousness indicated by Sankhya. The call of the Gita is not to subordinate the higher plane to the lower, but it calls us to rise higher and even to higher than the higher and to ascend to a supreme poise above the mainly practical, above the purely ethical, and even above the... strains is felt to be so drenched in grief that the only way in which one can cure that grief is to discover a higher level of consciousness, if such exists, and if in that state, a perfectly pure action devoid of any blemish can be possible. Sri Krishna, the Master of Yoga, has the key to that higher level of consciousness in the light of which a positive solution and a fully affirmative answer can be obtained... and justification and relevance at a certain stage of consciousness which rules man in his lower stages of ascent from the life of impulses to the life of reason, and from there to the life of higher and higher levels of consciousness. While evaluating the teaching of the Gita and, particularly, the doctrines of duty and utilitarianism, we have to note that Indian ethics respects gradations of consciousness ...
... is made not only the initial but the whole and final object: enjoyment of spiritual being there is, but either in a dissolution of the human and individual into the silence of self-being or on a higher plane in another existence. The Tantric system makes liberation the final, but not the only aim; it takes on its way a full perfection and enjoyment of the spiritual power, light and joy in the human... more than a spirit in body and assumes in him the capacity to begin on that level, to spiritualise his being by the power of the soul in mind opening itself directly to a higher spiritual force and being and to perfect by that higher force so possessed and brought into action the whole of his nature. For that reason our initial stress has fallen upon the utilisation of the powers of soul in mind and... after centre and awakens, too, in its ascent and passage the forces of each successive nodus of our being, the nervous life, the heart of emotion and ordinary mentality, the speech, sight, will, the higher knowledge, till through and above the brain it meets with and it becomes one with the divine consciousness. In Rajayoga the chosen instrument is the mind. Our ordinary mentality is first disciplined ...
... of one kind or another, more often threats from the vital plane or hostile influences on the physical. The serpent is a symbol of force, very often a hostile or evil force of the vital plane. The sea is a symbol of a plane of consciousness. The white light is a manifestation of pure divine force descending from one of the truth-planes leading to the supramental. The indication is that of a... Blue Bird is always a symbol of aspiration towards something Beyond. The blue bird is the symbol of aspiration to the heights. Swan or Hansa The swan is a symbol of the soul on the higher plane. The swan is the liberated soul. Both [ the goose and the swan ] are symbols of the beings in a man—but the goose or ordinary Hansa usually refers to the manomaya puruṣa . ... cleared of obscurities. Seeing the higher part of the bodies [ of the peacocks ] would mean a victory in the higher parts of the consciousness, in the mental (head and neck) and perhaps also in vital mind and in emotional. Page 175 Dove or Pigeon The dove signifies peace. The colours indicate the vital—green would be self-giving in the vital; blue the higher consciousness in the vital. So ...
... they do not improve. And for a consciousness seated a little higher, it is quite evident that all evil—at least what we call evil—all falsehood, all that is contrary to the Page 23 Truth, all suffering, all opposition is the result of a disequilibrium. I believe that one who is habituated to seeing things from this higher plane sees immediately that it is like that. Consequently, the world ...
... election, I met him once (there is a part of his mental being, a higher intelligence, that's very well formed, conscious, individualized), and I had a spontaneous conversation that I hadn't sought and which was very interesting. But at one point, I replied to something he said, and I told him with the force I have there [on that higher plane], "The Lord is everywhere—even in hell the Lord is there." And... Direction; and after that, it can start doing work again. For some people, it takes years; for others, it's done very quickly—it depends on the quality of the vital. If it's a refined vital, of a higher quality, it goes quickly; if it is something very brutish, which goes like a bulldog or a buffalo, it takes a little more time. Anyhow, there's a long way to go for a vital that had the habit of... something greater than it; then it goes much faster. For those who run away from the necessary change, it may mean several more lives. Those who have learned to bear up (who generally have enough higher intelligence to govern), those who have endurance, who have learned to bear up and not to worry about the vital's lack of collaboration, for them, it can be done Page 304 relatively quickly ...
... often an aspiration towards greater realisation, a further progress to manifest better or further the Divine. As the result of this pull, it generally draws towards itself a being of a higher order, from a higher plane, from the Overmind, as Sri Aurobindo calls it, a being of involution who incarnates in the psychic being. These over-mental entities are termed gods or divinities by men. Now when the... These beings have very many qualities which men have not, but they lack this divine presence which is quite an exceptional thing belonging to the earth alone. All the inhabitants of the higher worlds—the Higher Mind, the Overmind and other domains—do not have the psychic being. Naturally, the beings of the vital worlds have not got it either. But these vital beings do not regret, for they do not ...
... often an aspiration towards greater realisation, a further progress to manifiest better or further the Divine. As the result of this pull, it generally draws towards itself a being of a higher order, from a higher plane, from the Overmind, as Sri Aurobindo calls it, a being of involution who incarnates in the psychic being. These overmental entities are termed gods and divinities by men. Now when the... These beings have very many qualities which men have not, but they lack this divine presence which is quite an exceptional thing belonging to the earth alone. All the inhabitants of the higher worlds – the Higher Mind, the Overmind and other domains – do not have the psychic being. Naturally, the beings of the vital worlds have not got it either. But these vital beings do not regret, for they do not ...
... existence to their utmost capacity and, exceeding these, create in their turn the higher worlds or planes. The higher existence is the divine, the infinite of which the shining Cow, the infinite Mother, Aditi, is the symbol; the lower is subject to her dark form Diti. The object of the sacrifice is to win the higher or divine being and possess with it and make subject to its law and truth the lower... true delight of Page 241 existence beyond this earth of body, this mid-region of vital force, this ordinary sky or heaven of mind. We have to cross beyond all these planes in order to arrive at the higher plane of that superconscient Truth which is the own home of the gods and the foundation of Immortality. This is the world of Swar, to which the Angirases have found the path for their... months are the Dashagwas, seers of the ten rays who enter with Indra into the cave of the Panis and recover the lost herds. The sacrifice is the giving by man of what he possesses in his being to the higher or divine nature and its fruit is the farther enrichment of his manhood by the lavish bounty of the gods. The wealth thus gained constitutes a state of spiritual riches, prosperity, felicity which ...
... easily lend one's hand to someone, deliberately, knowing who it is and acting on a higher plane, but that already demands a great consciousness and a great self-mastery, which is not within everybody's reach. One must have quite a considerable inner development to be able to see whom one is dealing with on a particular plane and willingly lend oneself to the experiment with full knowledge of what one is... awakening and living its own life, all these things teach you nothing at all. I knew some people—one of them especially, who was a man of science, intelligent, a man of real ability; he had studied higher science, become an engineer and held an important position; this man was a member of a society known as "spiritualist", which had found a medium who really had quite exceptional abilities. And he used ...
... Page 738 one loses taste for jazz and can hear with real pleasure only the great masters or music of a high or exquisite quality. It is not deterioration when one rises from a lower to a higher plane of thinking, feeling or artistic self-expression. Can one say of the man who has grown out of childishness and no longer plays with nursery toys that he has narrowed and deteriorated by the change ...
... therefore the next step of perfection will be the evolution of the mental into the gnostic being. This evolution is effected by a breaking beyond the mental limitation, a stride upward into the next higher plane or region of our being hidden from us at present by the shining lid of the mental reflections and a conversion of all that we are into the terms of this greater consciousness. In the gnosis itself... The gnostic perfection, spiritual in its nature, is to be accomplished here in the body and takes life in the physical world as one of its fields, even though the gnosis opens to us possession of planes and worlds beyond the material universe. The physical body is therefore a basis of action, pratiṣṭhā , which cannot be despised, neglected or excluded from the spiritual evolution: a perfection of... or by the methods of the Tantric discipline. But while these may be optionally used at certain stages by the integral Yoga, they are not indispensable; for here the reliance is on the power of the higher being to change the lower existence, a working is chosen mainly from above downward and not the opposite way, and therefore the development of the superior power of the gnosis will be awaited as the ...
... original summit is revealed. But there is a still closer mystery, the mystery of mysteries. There has not been merely a general descent, the descent of a world-force on a higher plane into another world-force on a lower plane; but that there is the descent of the individual, the personal Godhead into and as an earthly human being. The Divine born as a man and leading the life of a man among us and... down and embodies a higher principle of human organisation, a greater consciousness which he infuses into the existing pattern, individual or collective, which has served its purpose, has become otiose and time-barred and needs to be remodelled, has been at the most preparatory to something else. The Avatar means a new revelation and the uplift of the human consciousness into a higher mode of being. The ...
... original summit is revealed. But there is a still closer mystery, the mystery of mysteries. There has not been merely a general descent, the descent of a world-force on a higher plane into another world-force on a lower plane; but that there is the descent of the individual, the personal Godhead into and as an earthly human being. The Divine born as a man and leading the life of a man among us and... embodies a higher principle of human organisation, a greater consciousness which he infuses into the existing pattern, individual or collective, which has served its purpose, has become otiose and time-barred and needs to be remodelled, has been at the most preparatory to Page 26 something else. The Avatar means a new revelation and the uplift of the human consciousness into a higher mode ...
... original summit is revealed. But there is a still closer mystery, the mystery of mysteries. There has not been merely a general descent, the descent of a world-force on a higher plane into another world-force on a lower plane; but that there is the descent of the individual, the personal Godhead into and as an earthly human being. The Divine born as a man and leading the life of a man among us and... stress upon the positive aspect of the matter, viz, the role of the Incarnation as the inaugurator and establisher of a new order in life – dharmasamsthapanarthaya. The Avatar brings down and embodies a higher principle of human organisation, a greater consciousness which he infuses into the existing pattern, individual or collective, which has -served its purpose, has become otiose and time-barred and needs... needs to be remodelled, has been at the most preparatory tosomething else. Page 126 The Avatar means a new revelation and the uplift of the human consciousness into a higher mode of being. The physical form he takes signifies the physical pressure that is exerted for the corroboration and fixation of the inner illumination that he brings upon earth and in the human frame. The Indian ...
... the clash of possibilities is realised the thing that has to happen. On this plane we can choose and select; we can refuse one possibility and accept another; we can follow one path, turn away from another. And that we can do, even though what is actually happening may have been foreseen and predetermined in a higher plane." Questions and Answers 1929 ( 28 April ) The word "predetermined" does... 1951 1951 March Questions and Answers (1950-1951) 1 March 1951 "There is a plane of divine consciousness in which all is known absolutely, and the whole plan of things foreseen and predetermined. That way of seeing lives in the highest reaches of the Supramental; it is the Supreme's own vision. But when we do not possess that consciousness, it... constitute the content of this universe; and there, the universe is pre-existent, but not manifested, and Time begins with objectivisation. Can it be said that Time begins with the supramental plane? It is not the same kind of Time. There is only a beginning of Time and a beginning of form. Time there is of a very different quality. There is a global, static consciousness before arriving at ...
... , this very desire which helped you to come out of the inconscience prevents you from liberating yourself from the bonds of matter and rising to a higher consciousness. It is the same thing for the ego, the self. In order to pass on to a higher plane, one must first exist; and to exist one must become a conscious, separate individual, and to become a conscious separate individual, the ego is in... indispensable, otherwise one remains mingled with all that lies around us. But once the individuality is formed, if one wants to rise to a higher level and live a spiritual life, if one wants even to become simply Page 367 a higher type of man, the limitations of the ego are the worst obstacles, and the ego must be surpassed in order to enter the true consciousness. And indeed, for the... not have reason, things which would lead you straight to your ruin Page 373 and could have extremely unfortunate consequences, for your best means of discernment until you have attained higher levels is reason. When one no longer listens to reason, one can be led into all sorts of absurdities. Naturally, it is neither the ideal nor the summit, it is only a kind of control and a guide for ...
... staged by her [the Mother as the Mahashakti] with the cosmic Gods for her assistants and herself as a veiled actor." So this means that everything that happens here has already been staged on a higher plane. So everything is predestined Mother. Then there is no free-will? It is not like that. It is put like that and it is one particular way of seeing things. But in fact, it is... it ( After a silence... aspiration, to enter into contact with a higher domain and introduce the action of this higher domain in these more material determinisms. And there it is still the same thing; these two things combined: a determinism which we could call "horizontal" (to make it understandable) in each domain, which is absolute, and the intervention of other domain or a much higher domain, in that determinism, which changes... So, everyone at the same time is a set of determinisms which seem quite absolute, and has a total freedom to bring in the intervention of states of being or states of consciousness or forces of a higher domain; and calling these forces and bringing them into the external determinisms alters everything completely.And it is only thus that things can give the impression of the unexpected, the unknown ...
... of what one thinks, of all one's activities, of strictly doing only what can help you on the spiritual path; it does not necessarily have to be very narrow and limited, but it must be on a little higher plane than the ordinary life, and with a concentration of will and aspiration which does not allow any wandering on the path, going here and there uselessly. This is austere; it is difficult to take up... time we said that it was an exceptional Statesman. Well, we can say this time that it is an exceptional Writer who has reached the psychological point where he can awaken to another consciousness, a higher consciousness. And yet the description he gives is truly that of the highest human possibilities. He did not see things as they are, lifeless, he saw the spirit which was behind, he communicated with ...
... the old legend. It was almost twenty-five years later that—perhaps under the influence of Schiller—the characterisation of Faust acquired deeper symbolic hues and that he was raised to a higher philosophical plane. The Second Part, written during the last eight years of his life when he enjoyed the friendship of Eckermann, gave the play a further dimension and made the whole work a philosophical poem... Further, it is a striking parallelism between the Commedia and Faust that even as it is Beatrice who conducts Dante through Paradise, it is Gretchen who finally comes forward to guide Faust to the higher spheres: Page 423 To guide him, let-it be given to me; Still dazzles him, the new-born day. 126 In Sri Aurobindo's epic, likewise, it is Savitri ...
... that one finds in his work is universal, its expression is impersonal and yet it is the most intense. Beauty, in his view, is not only of the intellectual plane, nor merely of the life plane, though he is familiar with the beauty of those planes - but it also belongs to the overhead. But because it is of the overhead origin it is not abstract, and airy-nothing, it is on the contrary much more concrete... Kopi hetu"—"' some inner, mysterious affinity". The attraction of the bee for the flower is natural in a certain sense. But the sunlight works on the flower on almost a different plane, their relation is on a higher plane and nearer the true expression of beauty. From that absolute love for the Divine as beautiful came the attitude of unconditional self-surrender known as Madhur-Bhava. Tagore's... "Antarah Kopi hetu"—"some inner, mysterious affinity." The attraction of the bee for the flower is natural in a certain sense. But the sunlight works on the flower on almost a different plane, their relation is on a higher plane and nearer the true expression of beauty. From that absolute love for the Divine as beautiful, came the attitude of unconditional self-surrender known as Madhur-Bhava. ...
... mental being supernormal and superhuman planes. There Chit as the universal conscious-stuff of existence takes other poises, moves out in other modes, on other principles and by other faculties of action. There is above the mind, as the old Vedic sages discovered, a Truth-plane, a plane of self-luminous, self-effective Idea, which can be turned in light and force upon our mind, reason, sentiments, impulses... concomitant, unified, but are one being of consciousness and power of consciousness. It is this Chit which modifies itself so as to become on the Truth-plane the supermind, on the mental plane the mental reason, will, emotion, sensation, on the lower planes the vital or physical instincts, impulses, habits of an obscure force not in superficially conscious possession of itself. All is Chit because all is... creature of conscious instinct and impulse, not reflective or rational, as well as that which turns back in thought and will on its experience, meets it from above with the light and force of a higher plane and to some degree controls, uses and modifies it. But the animal in man is only the head of our subhuman being; below it there is much that is also sub-animal and merely vital, much that acts by ...
... experience. In action I feel detached and the Mother's Force working in my place; I find myself above with her at the same time. All is very good — to live on a higher plane and see the action in the physical from it as something separate is a definite stage in the movement towards transformation. The mind and vital are simply flooded with the experiences... already shows its beginning in my active state. That is good. That deeper silence will spontaneously open me to the understanding of the inner experiences and the higher devel- Page 286 opments by the light of the Knowledge from above. Then there will be no need to write to you so much about my sadhana as now . Yes, for the most... me. In the morning there was a keen and strong pressure on my right temple, and an inner intoxication which kept me merged in her Peace and Silence all through. I noticed that most of the inner and higher parts, which ordinarily remain prominent, withdrew in a deep passivity; the outer being was then left to itself without any dynamic control. When this happened the inertia tried to take advantage by ...
... it does not intervene; that is, in the higher animal life Page 85 there is already a mental determinism which intervenes that is altogether different from the determinism of the vegetable plane. Above these planes there are others—above each plane there are others, following one another right up to the highest plane. The highest plane is the plane of absolute freedom. If in your consciousness... free. It is the Plane where there are no more contradictions, where all things are and are in harmony without contradicting one another. In the lower planes can't one say what will happen at a particular moment? That depends. On certain planes there are consciousnesses that form, that make formations and try to send them down to earth and manifest them. These are planes where the great forces... complete freedom; for the intervention or descent of one plane into another has unforeseen consequences for the other plane, the lower plane. The higher plane can foresee, but the lower ones cannot. So, as these consequences are unforeseen, that gives altogether the impression of the unexpected and of freedom. And it is only if you remain consciously and constantly on the highest level, that is, in the ...
... (1937 - 1941) To a Frenchwoman who came to live at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1937, at the age of sixty-six. Nothing is inevitable. At every moment an intervention may come from a higher plane into the material one and alter the course of circumstances. But in this particular case there is a conflict between a very powerful mental construction founded on medical opinion and your faith ...
... light. The physical itself was taken up. Will you please explain this phenomenon? There is nothing to explain. It was what you describe: At once the raising of the consciousness to a higher plane and the descent of that into the physical. Today's special working seems to be on the eyes. Something definitely is going on there. A strong pressure is felt working on them. ... the mind sense? In a full and solid experience of this kind will there be any trace of the mind's existence? That depends on the experience. It is usually had on the spiritual mental plane. There may be no active thinking mind, but the stuff of consciousness is still mental, even though it may be mind spiritual and liberated. Of course there may be the sense of pure spiritual existence... quickly— if forced it quickly becomes tamasic. Cannot the vital aspirations drive out the mental or physical tamas by their intensity? For the time being only. It must be a higher power that will take them away permanently. When there is intensity in the vital it always brings down a lot of energy. What does the intensity in the physical give? Solidity ...
... results may still last on for some time, but there is no longer the same inevitability. This would seem to show that there is or can be a higher power or higher plane or higher source of spiritual destiny which can, if its hour has come, override the lower power, lower plane or lower source of vital and material fate of which the stars are indicators. I say vital because character can also be indicated from ...
... the different planes of inspiration—unless one can say that the effective style comes from the higher mind, illumined from the illumined mind, the inspired from the plane of intuition. But I don't know whether that would stand at all times—especially when each style reaches its inevitable power." We may note here apropos of The Triumph of Dante that about Dante's own plane of poetry Sri... the rest of the first part. This passage has a seizing originality and authenticity in it—it is here that one gets a pure inevitability. In the last lines the intuition descends towards the higher mental plane with á less revelatory power in it but more precise in its illumination. That is the difference between sheer vision and thought. But the poem is exceedingly fine as a whole, the close also... also is of the first order." The description "pure inevitability" in this comment is to be understood in reference to the various kinds of style which, apart from the various sources or planes of inspiration, have been distinguished by Sri Aurobindo. A letter of his, answering a question about pure inevitability, reads: "To the two requisites you mention which are technical—'the Tightness ...
... the lower vital plane where Aswapathy found the denial of the highest possibilities of man he came up to the kingdoms of the higher vital where he found at least "a dubious hope". There was in this plane of consciousness a possibility of self-finding, a sureness of form, adventure of the mind and choice of the human heart, "And a touch of sure delight in unsure things". In this higher vital world there... and the world was based upon that idea. It could have a conception of God. The beings who live upon this higher plane of life are capable of embodying an ideal. They are beings who hear "A voice of unborn things" They feel the need of bringing about a change in life in the image of some higher light and are equipped with great power to achieve their aims. Sometimes they succeed in establishing the... world except, perhaps as an occasional murmur. Very rarely, some blissful voice or beauty's touch recalls the strength and sweetness which are not to be found in their purity on this plane, yet exist somewhere on a higher plane of being. Even though the outer mind of this vital force has forgotten the. purpose for which it exists, still, "Her depths remember what she came to do". It was to effect a ...
... undesirable things are a mistranslation in the Ignorance of something that on a higher plane is or might be desirable. Inertia, tamas, is the mistranslation of the divine śama , rest, quietude, peace; pain is a mistranslation of Ananda, lust of love etc. It is only when the lower perversions are got rid of that the higher things in their truth can reign. It is the tendency of the physical to... choose whether you shall do or not do—you should reject what you see to be wrong, accept only what is true and right. In Nature there is the higher and the lower, the true and the false. What the Divine wants of you is that you should grow in the Truth and the higher Nature, reject the false and the lower Nature. As you have indulged the Prakriti for the last ten thousand lives or so, it has been... Behind it is the living Consciousness and Force of the Divine, the divine Shakti. The Prakriti itself is divided into the lower and higher,—the lower is the Prakriti of the Ignorance, the Prakriti of mind, life and matter separated in consciousness from the Divine; the higher is the Divine Prakriti of Sachchidananda with its manifesting power of Supermind, always aware of the Divine and free from Ignorance ...
... functions. And yet the excuse or occasion for the formation was undoubtedly some revelation from what one could call a Divine Being, a Being who came from elsewhere bringing down with him from a higher plane a certain Knowledge and Truth for the earth. He came and suffered for his Truth; but very few understood what he said, few cared to find and hold to the Truth for which he suffered. Buddha retired... 9 June 1929 What is exactly the nature of religion? Is it an obstacle in the way of the spiritual life? Religion belongs to the higher mind of humanity. It is the effort of man's higher mind to approach, as far as lies in its power, something beyond it, something to which humanity gives the name God or Spirit or Truth or Faith or Knowledge or the Infinite... truth in the world, you stop the advance and widening of your inner soul. But if you look at religion from another angle, it need not always be an obstacle to all men. If you regard it as one of the higher activities of humanity and if you can see in it the aspirations of man without ignoring the imperfection of all man-made things, it may well be a kind of help for you to approach the spiritual life ...
... come down from a higher plane for a specific work in the world. Is that possible? NIRODBARAN: Ramakrishna called him an Ishwarakoti. SRI AUROBINDO: There is a plane of liberation from which beings can come down and perhaps that is what Ramakrishna meant by souls that are Ishwarakoti or Nityamukta—those that are eternally liberated and can go up and down the ladder of the planes. SATYENDRA: Is... Is there any evolution in these planes—I mean evolution of the sort we have on earth? SRI AUROBINDO: No; there are only types there. If the typal beings want to evolve they have to take birth here. Even the Gods are compelled to take human birth for the purpose of evolving. NIRODBARAN: But why should the Gods want to evolve? They are quite happy in their own state. SRI AUROBINDO: They may... could not have been there always, for by that time he must have realised some higher consciousness setting him free from them. NIRODBARAN: It may not have been merely a passing mood. These things he must have noticed in himself, and he wrote about them because he perceived or saw them. PURANI: Simultaneously with a higher consciousness, one can see these things in one's nature. NIRODBARAN: He ...
... all opens again. If you do not give up faith and confidence, there may be delay but there is no danger. It is again our ego which makes us think that on the higher spiritual planes there would be no need of aspiration. Even our sweet Mother prays day and night — we can feel it distinctly when she plays on the organ! Yes — All that is very true. It is a ...
... SRI AUROBINDO'S COMMENT "It is quite up to the mark—very fine. Higher Mind, I think , with lines 6 and 7 raised up to what might be called (if we must find a name for these combinations) Higher Mind Intuition. There are various combinations possible, as in the process of sublimation each higher plane infuses itself into those below and then takes them up into itself." * ... like a vast moon upon the deep. SRI AUROBINDO'S COMMENT 'A very fine poem, lines 1, 4 are from the Illumined Higher Mind. The second comes very splendidly from the Illumined Mind, the third is Higher Mind at a high level. The fifth comes from the I higher Mind—the sixth, seventh and eighth from the Illumined Mind touched with something from the Overmind Intuition, though the touch... AUROBINDO'S COMMENT "A very fine poem throughout. The 2nd and 3rd lines are from the Illumined Mind. The first from the Higher Mind—the fourth is in substance from the Illumined Mind but there is a mental rhythm—very good and expressive rhythm, no doubt. The rest is the Higher Mind with touch of Illumination and Intuition—The last three lines are the Illumined Mind with Overmind Intuition touch, extremely ...
... mental being, the directly or partly illumined mental being, the mental being in direct or part communion with the higher-thought plane would emerge; these would become more and more numerous, more and more evolved and secure in their type, and might even exist as a formed race of higher humanity leading upwards the less evolved in a true fraternity born of the sense of the manifestation of the One Divine... revolutionary and astonishing, but only the capacity in the human mentality, when it has reached a certain level or a certain point of stress of the evolutionary impetus, to press forward towards a higher plane of consciousness and its embodiment in the being.” 6 “Man is an abnormal who has not found his own normality, – he may imagine he has, he may appear to be normal in his own kind, but that... life of the Ignorance.” 21 “A gnostic being will possess not only a truth-conscious control of the realised Spirit’s power over its physical world, but also the full power of the mental and vital planes and the use of their greater forces for the perfection of the physical existence. This greater knowledge and wider hold of all existence will enormously increase the power of instrumentation of the ...
... been pointed out that in the evolutionary process, at each stage of higher ascent from a lower stage, the higher does not abandon the lower, but its first occupation is to take up and assimilate the lower by intense cultivation, sharpening, subtilizing and sublimination. As man ascends from the animal, he looks downward from his plane of will and intelligence and enlarges, subtilizes and elevates his... nothing so revolutionary and astonishing, but only the capacity in the human mentality, when it has reached a certain level or a certain point of stress of the evolutionary impetus, to press towards a higher plane of consciousness and its embodiment in the being. It ha^ further been explained that the being will necessarily undergo by this embodiment a change of the normal constitution of its nature, a change... As there are several lower and higher elements-in man, the process of assimilation and sublimation becomes long and complex, and there appears to be not a straight line of progression, but development in a cycle. In reality, when the process is examined more closely, it turns out to be a process of spiral progression, in which a cycle of development ends at a higher point than the point which was earlier ...
... and Epicurean, which were Page 403 dynamic not only for thought but for conduct of life and developed a discipline, an effort at inner perfection of the being; this reached a higher spiritual plane of knowledge in later Christian or Neo-pagan thought-structures where East and West met together. But later on the intellectualisation became complete and the connection of philosophy with... concrete inner contact. It must also be said that the critical control of the intellect over spiritual experience can be hampering and unreliable, for it is an inferior light turned upon a field of higher illumination; the true controlling power is an inner discrimination, a psychic sense and tact, a superior intervention of guidance from above or an innate and luminous inner guidance. But still this... unspiritual elements or one-sided or incomplete in its catholicity. For the transformation of the Ignorance into the integral Knowledge the growth in us of a spiritual intelligence ready to receive a higher Page 404 light and canalise it for all the parts of our nature is an intermediate necessity of great importance." The Life Divine, SABCL, Vol. 19, pp. 878-80 There's enough ...
... realms are filled with beings who exist separately in their own realms, and if you are awake and conscious on a given plane—for example, if while going out of a more material body you awaken on some higher plane—you can have the same relationship with the things and people of that plane as with the things and people of the material world. In other words, there exists an entirely objective relationship... realities that were ever more—one can't say dense because it isn't really dense, nor can one even say material, since matter as we know it does not exist on these planes—through more and more concrete substances. All these zones, these planes of reality, received different names and were classified in different ways according to the occult schools, according to the different traditions, but there is ...
... task master. But when he looks frankly at imperfections, errors, weaknesses in various spheres, there is also the accompanying vibration of love which softens all troubles; it lifts me to a higher plane of seeing that comprehends and harmonises and that keeps everything on the focus of benevolence. Spontaneity, genuineness, and generosity characterize his action. None would ever feel small ...
... of evolution, there are gradations of stages, and at each stage of higher ascent from a lower stage, the higher does not abandon the lower, but its first occupation is to take up and assimilate the lower by intenser cultivation, sharpening, subtilizing and sublimation. As man ascends from the animal, he looks downward from his plane of will and intelligence and enlarges, subtilizes and elevates his... nothing so revolutionary and astonishing, but only the capacity in the human mentality, when it has reached a certain level or a certain point of stress of the evolutionary impetus, to press towards a higher plane of consciousness and its embodiment in the being. It has further been explained that the being will necessarily undergo by this embodiment a change of the normal constitution of its nature, a change... descent into it of the same powers from the higher gradations of the system to deliver there kindred movements here from the strictness of a material limitation. This would imply the teleology of the evolution that would consist of a manifestation of the greater powers of Existence till the whole being itself is manifest in the material world in the terms of a higher and a spiritual creation. This teleology ...
... the nature of this unifying movement of progress, and what is that plane of consciousness on which the final reconciliation between the One and the many, between Time and Eternity, silence and activity, and Spirit and Matter can be effected? We are awake on the physical, vital and mental planes of consciousness, all of them planes of the separative ignorance, which makes us see and feel things,... time, because He is greater than the universe of His own creation and "higher than the highest Immutable". He takes His stand upon the plane of the Truth-Consciousness, the rta-cit of the Vedic description, the plane of the Truth, the Right and the Vast, which is the eternal home of unity and harmony. Basing this plane of the creative Truth-consciousness is His own being of Sat, Chit and Ananda... beyond the mind, beyond even the spiritual ranges of the mind, to that plane where Sachchidânanda stands as at once the transcendent Absolute and the timeless Creator of the universe. This ascent is a superhuman labour, impossible of achievement except by the Grace of the Divine; for, it involves an opening of the "higher layers of our being and an awakening into all the states and ranges of our ...
... real thing takes time to come into existence. Q : We won't get away from this, will we, until we get off the mental plane and into a higher plane ? There will always be dogmatism on the mental plane, isn't that natural ? A : Well, it is a question of allowing the Higher Power to work out. We see that the religious impulse is working out in forms that are not worth preserving. Inertia is there... you have to exercise detachment. When you sit on a higher plane and watch your personality going through what to outsiders is suffering—you are exercising a detachment, but when you put endurance, then you are putting forth your will, in order to react equally to pleasure and pain. The force that is evoked is not the same; not on the same plane. In one there is a strength of vibration of will, in... consciousness. If you go deep down, it will be found that even the human mental personality has behind it an impersonal ground or plane where it is receiving without any distortion the universal delight that is flowing throughout the creation. It is able to contact that plane behind, and not on the surface consciousness of the waking being. Behind, there must be something much vaster than the human mental ...
... of the restless mind and its elevation to a higher plane through concentration of mental force by the successive stages which lead to the utmost inner concentration or ingathered state of the consciousness which is called Samadhi. By Samadhi, in which the mind acquires the capacity of withdrawing from its limited waking activities into freer and higher states of consciousness, Rajayoga serves a double... double purpose. It compasses a pure mental action liberated from the confusions of the outer consciousness and passes thence to the higher supra-mental planes on which the individual soul enters into its true spiritual existence. But also it acquires the capacity of that free and concentrated energising of consciousness on Page 36 its object which our philosophy asserts as the primary cosmic... make the spiritual life and its experiences fully active and fully utilisable in the waking state and even in the normal use of the functions. But in Rajayoga it tends to withdraw into a subliminal plane at the back of our normal experiences instead of descending and possessing our whole existence. The triple Path of devotion, knowledge and works attempts the province which Rajayoga leaves unoccupied ...
... on for a time, but there is no longer the same inevitability. This would seem to show that there is or Page 516 can be a higher-power or higher-plane or higher-source spiritual destiny which can, if its hour has come, override the lower power, lower-plane or lower-source vital and material fate of which the stars are indicators. I say vital because character can also be indicated from the... factor in existence or there are other factors also that can modify destiny,—or, destiny being given, there are not different sources or powers or planes of destiny and we can modify the one with which we started by calling in another destiny source, power or plane and making it active in our life. Metaphysical questions are not so simple that they can be trenchantly solved either in one sense or in another... Page 517 things are predictable at all, some power or plane through which or on which all is foreseeable; if there is a divine Omniscience and Omnipotence it must be so. Even then what is foreseen has to be worked out, actually is worked out by a play of forces,—spiritual, mental, vital, physical forces—and in that plane of forces there is no absolute rigidity discoverable. Personal will ...
... and the self-ruling will is the ideal of a true culture and the beginning of an accomplished humanity. We get then by elimination to a positive idea and definition of culture. But still on this higher plane of the mental life we are apt to be pursued by old exclusivenesses and misunderstandings. We see that in the past there seems often to have been a quarrel between culture and conduct; yet according... stratum and is governed not by the higher faculties of man, but by the crudities of the unuplifted sense-mind. Nor is it enough for it to open windows in this prison by which it may get draughts of agreeable fresh air, something of the free light of the intellect, something of the fragrance of art and beauty, something of the large breath of wider interests and higher ideals. It has yet to break out of... self-expression. But that even this much reconciliation may come about they must be taken up and enlightened by a higher principle which must be capable of understanding and comprehending both equally and of disengaging and combining disinterestedly their purposes and potentialities. That higher principle seems to be provided for us by the human faculty of reason and intelligent will. Our crowning capacity ...
... what may be called a king-idea or the seven-headed Thought or the power of the seven-rayed Thinker, saptaguh. Is it merely a legend when we are told that one can rise into higher plane of swar and rise also into the highest plane of Truth, symbolised by the Sun? A famous hymn of the Rigveda declares the passage from darkness to the supreme light, when it states: "ud vayam tamasas pan swar pashyanta... ancient wisdom of India is to be underlined, we should not be blind to the need of exploring other systems of wisdom and even new knowledge. Ancient Indian wisdom has always counselled us to rise higher and higher and to be always more and more luminous, unfettered by the past and any dogmas or preconceived beliefs. In India, we speak of the Aryan spirit, and the Aryan spirit is not something narrow or... vital will not cease to produce new varieties of human and superhuman species or the urge inherent in Space and Time is preparing the birth of Deity or God in the making or drive of ingression of higher powers of consciousness will continue to liberate corresponding powers imprisoned in man. Flying on the wings of speculation of leading philosophers like Bergson, Alexander and Whitehead, we also ...
... what may be called a king-idea or the seven-headed Thought or the power of the seven-rayed Thinker, saptaguh. Is it merely a legend when we are told that one can rise into higher plane of swar and rise also into the highest plane of Truth, symbolised by the Sun? A famous hymn of the Rigveda declares the passage from darkness to the supreme light, when it states: "ud vayam tamasas pari swar pashyanta... ancient wisdom of India is to be underlined, we should not be blind to the need of exploring other systems of wisdom and even new knowledge. Ancient Indian wisdom has always counselled us to rise higher and higher and to be always more and more luminous, unfettered by the past and any dogmas or preconceived beliefs. In India, we speak of the Aryan spirit, and the Aryan spirit is not something narrow or... elan vital will not cease to produce new varieties of human and superhuman species or the urge inherent in Space and Time is preparing the birth of Deity or God in the making or drive of ingression of higher powers of consciousness will continue to liberate corresponding powers imprisoned in man. Flying on the wings of speculation of leading philosophers like Bergson, Alexander and Whitehead, we also see ...
... the "psychic"? Are they different planes? Yes, the psychic plane belongs to the personal manifestation; the psychic is that which is divine in you put out to be dynamic in the play. But when we speak of the spiritual we are thinking of something that is concentrated in the Divine rather than in the Page 63 external manifestation. The spiritual plane is something static behind and above... creation or origination? All depends upon the plane of consciousness from which you are looking at things and speaking of them or on the part of the being from which you act. If you look from one plane of consciousness, the individual will appear to you as if he were not only an instrument and recorder, but a creator. But look from another and higher plane of consciousness with a wider view of things... same time the movement we call mind penetrates into other planes. In the mental world itself there are many levels. All these mind-planes and mind-forces are interdependent; but yet there is a difference in the quality of their movements and for facility of expression we have to separate them from one another. Thus we can speak of a higher mind, an intermediary mind, a physical and even a quite material ...
... and earthliness. For in reality the symbol is not merely the symbol. It is mere symbol in regard to the truth so long as we take our stand on the lower plane when we have to look at the truth through the symbol; but if we view it from the higher plane, from truth itself, it is no longer mere symbol but the very truth bodied forth. Whatever there is of symbolism on earth and its beauties, in sense and... rolling.¹ The heart and its urges, the vital and its surges, the physical impulses – it is these of which the poets sang in their infinite variations. But the mind proper, that is to say, the higher reflective ideative mind, was not given the right of citizenship in the domain of poetry. I am not forgetting the so-called Metaphysicals. The element of metaphysics among the Metaphysicals has already... to the Upanishads, but these strike quite a different, almost an opposite line in this connection. They are in a sense truly metaphysical: they bypass the mind and the mental powers, get hold of a higher mode of consciousness, make a direct contact with truth and beauty and reality. It was Buddha's credit to have forged this missing link in man's spiritual consciousness, to have brought into play the ...
... force which is most likely to succeed. But generally it is that force which represents the higher Page 159 decision on that plane. But you can't be always sure that it will succeed unless you know definitely that it represents the highest decision – the Truth. Thirdly there is a higher plane where important decisions are made. For that movement you have to go very high. It is difficult... a very complex movement. There is the Truth above and when you go on increasing in knowledge you go on ascending higher and higher, but it does not descend, does not come down at once. It comes down only when everything is ready. If the Truth could be made once the law of the earth-plane then it would endure. It is difficult to make it flow down so long as there is a mixed movement. Disciple :... can be prevented ; secondly there is the image of the event on the subtle physical plane which, if it is fixed, can't be avoided. Disciple : Are there events absolutely fixed which cannot be changed ? Sri Aurobindo : Yes, there are. If you want to change then you have to go to a plane which is higher than the one where these things are decided and that is not always easy. There are ...
... I leaned at a time towards a hesitating acceptance, but I am certain that I was never certain about it. "Besides, I imagine Shelley was not an evolutionary being but a being of a higher plane assisting in the evolution." 19.7.1937 Page 24 Is it true that the same consciousness- that took the form of Leonardo da Vinci had previously... as the physical: the furniture is arranged somewhat differently. My conclusion is that I move in a subtle body in a subtle plane; but is that always unavoidable? Does one's subtle body never move in the very physical plane? In my latest experience I went to the pier, but the street through which I ran to reach the pier was of a strange kind because... Divine Consciousness and the Light that comes from it is the Light of the Divine Truth. "One who receives and accepts and lives in the Mother's Light will begin to see the truth on all the planes, the mental, the vital, the physical. He will reject all that is undivine - the undivine is the falsehood, the ignorance, the error of the dark forces; the undivine is all that is obscure and ...
... reasoning that men have, a capacity which has made them commit so many stupidities. Only one cannot turn and go back. One cannot become a dog again. So one must become a higher man and have the quality of the dog on a higher plane; that is, instead of its being a half-conscious fidelity, and in any case very instinctive, a sort of need that ties it down, it must be a willed, conscious fidelity, and... it is all right for him to eat anything at all, whatever agrees with him, whatever does him good. But if one wishes to pass from this ordinary life to a higher one, the problem begins to become interesting; and if, after having come to a higher life, one tries to prepare oneself for the transformation, then it becomes very important. For there certainly are foods which help the body to become subtle... you have had enough of this, you say, "Keep quiet, sleep, don't move", and you put that to sleep, and rise to a still higher consciousness, and so on, till you reach a state where you are on the borders of form , I am not speaking of physical form—on the borders of all form, much higher than the form of thought, naturally; on the borders of all form and all vibration, in the perfect silence, what here ...
... to a plane defined by him as intermediate between Intuition and Overmind. (K.D.S.) 1 From The Life Heavens . Page 138 (I said to Nirod and Jyoti that it has been a habit with me to re-read and repeat and hum lines which I have felt to have come from very high sources. I mentioned your recent poems as my aid to drawing inspiration from the Overhead planes. Jyoti... reasonably hope for a greater development hereafter. I myself have more than once abstained for some time from writing because I did not wish to produce anything except as an expression from a higher plane of consciousness, but to do that you must be sure of your poetic gift, that it will not rust by too long a disuse." * Page 141 "I have said that overhead poetry is not... Overmind touch. 5."Illumined Mind. 6."Difficult to say. More of Higher Mind perhaps than anything else—but something of illumination and intuition also. 7."It is a mixture. Something of the Illumined Mind, something of the Poetic Intelligence diluting the full sovereignty of the higher expression. 8."Higher Mind combined with Illumined. 9."Illumined Mind with something from ...
... on its own plane, the rule principally dependent on external status and the rule independent of status and entirely dependent on the thought and conscience. The Gita does not teach us to subordinate the higher plane to the lower, it does not ask the awakened moral consciousness to slay itself on the altar of duty as a sacrifice and victim to the law of the social status. It calls us higher and not lower;... will release thee from all sin; do not grieve." The argument of the Gita resolves itself into three great steps by which action rises out of the human into the divine plane leaving the bondage of the lower for the liberty of a higher law. First, by the renunciation of desire and a perfect equality works have to be done as a sacrifice by man as the doer, a sacrifice to Page 37 a deity who... Time, and the Gita would have us live in the Eternal. Or if these higher things are now beginning to be vaguely envisaged, it is only to make them subservient to man and society; but God and spirituality exist in their own right and not as adjuncts. And in practice the lower in us must learn to exist for the higher, in order that the higher also may in us consciously exist for the lower, to draw it nearer ...
... over again and many similar phenomena. (3) A being of the lower vital planes who has assumed the discarded vital sheath of a departed human being or a fragment of his vital personality and appears and acts in the form and perhaps with the surface thoughts and memories of that person. (4) A being of the lower vital plane who by the medium of a living human being or by some other means or agency... They [ mediums and clairvoyants ] are most of them in contact with the vital-physical or subtle physical worlds and do not receive anything higher at all. Not much confidence can be placed in all that [ communications from spirit guides on other planes ]. If examined closely it will be seen that these spirit guides only suggest to their subjects what is in the mind of the sitter or sitters or... arrow probably indicates something going out of the mental consciousness towards some aim or object. Sometimes it is a part of the mind-consciousness itself that goes like that either upward to a higher plane or somewhere in the world around—and afterwards returns. Sometimes it is a thought-force or a will force. Forces are always going out from us without our knowing it even, and often they have some ...
... harmony of supreme faculties, corresponding roughly to the psychological faculties of revelation, inspiration and intuition, yet acting not in the intuitive reason or the divine mind, but on a still higher plane, which see Truth directly face to face, or rather live in the truth of things both universal and transcendent and are its formulation and luminous activity. And these faculties are the light of... towards the development of a higher life and of more powerful faculties which are yet to manifest and to take possession of the lower instrument, just as mind itself has so taken possession of the body that the physical being no longer lives only for its own satisfaction but provides the foundation and the materials for a superior activity. The assertion of a higher than the mental life is the whole... found in some unrealised harmony, some insufficiency of the intellectual and material basis to which she has now returned, some over-specialisation of the higher to the detriment of the lower existence. But what then constitutes this higher or highest existence to which our evolution is tending? In order to answer the question we have to deal with a class of supreme experiences, a class of unusual ...
... and range in its becoming. Each plateau of the hill of being gives to our widening experience a higher plane of our consciousness and a richer world for our existence. But how does this ascending series affect the possibilities of our material existence? It would not affect them at all if each plane of consciousness, each world of existence, each grade of substance, each degree of cosmic force were... powers of all these planes, worlds, grades, degrees are involved in the material existence, so are they all capable of evolution out of it. It is for this reason that material being does not begin and end with gases and chemical compounds and physical forces and movements, with nebulae and suns and earths, but evolves life, evolves mind, must evolve eventually supermind and the higher degrees of the spiritual... this evolution end with the first meagre formulation of life, mind, supermind, spirit conceded to these higher powers by the reluctant power of Matter. For as they evolve, as they awake, as they become more active and avid of their own potentialities, the pressure on them of the superior planes, a pressure involved in the existence and close connection and interdependence of the worlds, must also increase ...
... complicated diagram! But the trouble is that people will say: what's the need for a 'descent' if all is involved and then evolves? Why a descent? Why should there be an intervention from a higher plane? I beg your pardon, but what was built up through this involution had to be unbuilt. The CAUSE of this involution had to be undone. The way Theon told it, there was first the universal Mother... only that. For example, Sri Aurobindo says that when Life appeared there was a pressure from below, from evolution, to make Life emerge from Matter, and simultaneously a descent of Life from its own plane. Then, when Mind emerged out of Life, the same thing from above happened again. Why this intervention from above each time? Why don't things emerge normally, one after another, without needing a 'descent'... so to speak, bringing in a sort of perfection of the state and an individual mastery of the new creation. These beings in corresponding worlds (like the gods of the overmind, 4 or the beings of higher regions) came upon earth as soon as the corresponding element began to evolve out of its involution. This accelerates the action, first of all, but also makes it more perfect—more perfect, more powerful ...
... of beauty. Sri Aurobindo : Beauty is not an abstraction. It is a power of the Supreme on the plane above mind. On the plane of mind you have abstractions. It is the mind's way of representing realities of planes higher than the mind. Behind these abstractions there is a Reality. On the plane above the mind there are no abstractions, there are realities and powers. For instance, you form an abstract... physical plane, but they have vital and mental and psychic parts. Do the beings Page 265 of the vital plane possess also mental and psychic parts? Sri Aurobindo : The vital and physical planes are different On the physical plane there is evolution through different grades of beings : ours is a plane of evolution On the vital plane there is no evolution. It is a plane of typal... his ego. On the vital plane the corresponding forces we call the Rakshashas which represent violent passions and impulses. There are other beings on the vital plane which we call pramatta and piśächa and these ; manifest, more or less, on the physico-vital plane. Distiple : What is the corresponding being on the higher plane ? Sri Aurobindo : On the higher plane there are no Asuras – there ...
... error [ in the correspondent's remarks about laya ]. (1) That the soul formerly had no other possibility once it reached the Divine than laya. There were other possibilities, e.g. passing into a higher plane, living in the Divine or in the presence of the Divine. Both imply the refusal of birth and leaving the Lila on earth. (2) That it was only for the sake of living with the incarnate Divine and by... holds it to be a reality; its object is to enter into a higher Truth-Consciousness or Divine Supramental Consciousness in which action and creation are the expression not of ignorance and imperfection, but of the Truth, the Light, the Divine Ananda. Page 447 But for that, surrender of the mortal mind, life and body to that Higher Consciousness is indispensable, since it is too difficult... get there. But get where? To the Perfect and the Highest, pūrṇaṁ param . Is the Mayavadin's featureless Brahman that Perfect, that Complete—is it the very Highest? Is there not or can there not be a higher than that highest, parātparam ? That is not a question of logic, it is a question of spiritual fact, of a supreme and complete experience. The solution of the matter must rest not upon logic, but ...
... appeal for life. There is a plane of the higher vital being—a higher vital world—far above the plane of ordinary life of everyday, where forms of great power and beauty exist. An artist can either rise to this plane occasionally and draw inspiration for his work from there. He can straightaway bring down forms—either literary or plastic, into his creation from this plane or may modify them in transit... can see this world—men, nature, etc.—from that higher plane and it would be a very different view of it! Above the mental level, there are ranges of consciousness attainable by man. The greatest artists are those who either unconsciously or consciously succeed in contacting these levels of consciousness and bring down some forms from that great world of harmony. Behind all the turmoil and strife... the life-plane, though that is its most important field for expression. This harmony is spiritual—it belongs to the levels above the life plane, but its aim is to manifest itself on the life plane. Art is one medium through which it can express that world of harmony on the plane of life in terms of material medium. An artist can contact—in fact great artist have always contacted—this plane of harmony ...
... , nimitta-mātram , for the helping of the world. Such is the intimate union between knowledge and equality; knowledge here in the buddhi reflected as equality in the temperament; above, on a higher plane of consciousness, knowledge as the light of the Being, equality as the stuff of the Nature. Always in this sense of a supreme self-knowledge is this word jñāna used in Indian philosophy and... temporary uses; in the higher they are stumbling-blocks: for there the whole secret is not the balancing of truth and error, but a constantly progressing realisation of revealed truth. In Page 204 intellectual knowledge there is always a mixture of falsehood or incompleteness which has to be got rid of by subjecting the truth itself to sceptical inquiry; but in the higher knowledge falsehood... truth and therefore questioning the higher realities, ajñāna-sambhūtaṁ hṛtsthaṁ saṁśayam . They have to be cut away by the sword of knowledge, says the Gita, by the knowledge that realises, by resorting constantly to Yoga, that is, by living out the union with the Supreme whose truth being known all is known, yasmin vijñāte sarvaṁ vijñātam . The higher knowledge we then get is that which is ...
... Mother has come to the end of the path, her body will get mixed with the soil of the earth. Then I suddenly woke up from meditation. Was this a vision? What plane was it from? Yes, it is a vision from the plane of mind (not ordinary, but higher mind). It indicates the descent of the Mother with her light of purity and Truth (white and golden) into Matter. 5 August 1933 This afternoon in a dream... all this true? You seem to have ascended into a plane of the Higher Spiritualised Mind with a descent into it of Maheshwari bringing the power of the Divine Truth. The result in the physical consciousness was a perception of the One Consciousness and Life in all things and an illumination of the cells of the body with the golden light of the higher Truth. October 1933 While looking at the Mother... flooded with the light. The physical itself was taken up. Can this experience be explained? There is nothing to explain. It was what you describe. At once the raising of the consciousness to a higher plane and the descent of that into the physical. 5 September 1934 X told us today that on the Puja day the Mother was trying to bring down the personality of Durga. There was no trying—it came ...
... full, or tyrannously chain it to its present formulations. This perfect equality of the thinking mind is indispensable because the objective of this progress is the greater light which belongs to a higher plane of spiritual cognizance. This equality is the most delicate and difficult of all, the least practised by the human mind; its perfection is impossible so long as the supramental light does not fall... first necessity for spiritual perfection is a perfect equality. Perfection in the sense in which we use it in Yoga, means a growth out of a lower undivine into a higher divine nature. In terms of knowledge it is a putting on the being of the higher self and a casting away of the darker broken lower self or a transforming of our imperfect state into the rounded luminous fullness of our real and spiritual... proportion. But through it all he moves things according to his large aim in the cycles and draws the soul upward in the evolution through its apparent progress and retrogression towards the higher and ever higher development which is the sense of the cosmic urge. The self-perfecting individual who seeks to be one in will with the Divine and make his nature an instrument of the divine purpose, must enlarge ...
... ss under the influence, if not the control, of the higher forces. Why is my attention drawn all of a sudden in that direction? Generally, I am not interested in all those things. For the action, I am concerned only with the little field of experience I have been given, and my terrestrial action is of quite another nature; it's on a higher plane, very independent of individuals. Page 200 ... But the man has power—real power; not a Pope's power, I mean: real power, inside him. Vital power, you mean, or spiritual? Not spiritual! Not spiritual: power. Power—which means a somewhat higher mental capacity along with a vital realization. He's a man who, were he not the Pope, would have no scruples. Page 199 But he happens ( laughing ) to be obliged at least to appear good... above... Let's even assume it's an Asuric power—it isn't... ( Mother hesitates ) it isn't clearly and distinctly an Asuric power, because by his very position, the Pope is OBLIGED to recognize a god higher than himself; that god may, of course, be an Asura, but... I have a sort of memory—the memory of a very ancient story no one ever told me... in which the first Asura challenged the supreme Lord and ...
... Page 74 entry into the mental and vital and subtle-physical planes of the universal consciousness, it is not confined to the material plane and the physical world; it possesses means of communication with the worlds of being which the descent towards involution created in its passage and with all corresponding planes or worlds that may have arisen or been constructed to serve the purpose... going inward behind the veil of superficial mind and living within, in an inner mind, an inner life, an inmost soul of our being that we can be fully self-aware, — by this and by rising to a higher plane of mind than that which our waking consciousness inhabits. An Page 77 enlargement and completion of our present evolutionary status, now still so hampered and truncated, would be... help by an evolution out of the Inconscient for the utility of our present mental and physical life on earth; this that is behind is a formation mediating between the Inconscient and the larger planes of Life and Mind which have been created by the involutionary descent and whose pressure has helped to bring about the evolution of Mind and Life in Matter. Our surface responses to physical existence ...
... nothing so revolutionary and astonishing, but only the capacity in the human mentality, when it has reached a certain level or a certain point of stress of the evolutionary impetus, to press towards a higher plane of consciousness and its embodiment in the being. The being will necessarily undergo by this embodiment a change from the normal constitution of its nature, a change certainly of its mental and... from the more sensitive reactions of Life in the metal and the plant up to its full organization in man, so in man himself there is the same ascending series, the preparation, if nothing more, of a higher and divine life. It is, therefore, contended that it is a supramentalised, perfected and divinized life for which the earth-nature is secretly seeking, and that a progressive manifestation of this... forerunners. In any case, it may be argued that nothing warrants the idea that he will ever hew his way out of the half-knowledge, half- ignorance which is the stamp of his kind or, even if he develops a higher knowledge, that he can break out of the utmost boundary of the mental circle. 4 Page 4 Sri Aurobindo has examined this argument and even formulated it in full sharpness. He has, therefore ...
... called down the mental being, the mind Purusha, into the realm of living Matter in order to take up the vital-mental energy already at work and lift it into a higher mentality. But this would still be a process of evolution, the higher plane only intervening to assist the appearance and enlargement of its own principle in terrestrial Nature. Next, it may be conceded that each type or pattern of... progress reaching infinitely upward or sidewise into the Infinite is a delusion. If the soul of man is to go beyond humanity, to reach either a supramental or a still higher status, it must pass out of this cosmic existence, either to a plane or world of bliss and knowledge or into the unmanifest Eternal and Infinite. It is true that Science now affirms an evolutionary terrestrial existence: but if the... nothing so revolutionary and astonishing, but only the capacity in the human mentality, when it has reached a certain level or a certain point of stress of the evolutionary impetus, to press towards a higher plane of consciousness and its embodiment in the being. The being will necessarily undergo by this embodiment a change from the normal constitution of its nature, a change certainly of its mental and ...
... opposite culture continues. But since it will be in effect an assistance to all the best that is emerging from the advanced thought of the Occident, it will culminate in the beginning of concert on a higher plane and a preparation of oneness. Page 66 × This contention cannot be accepted in an unqualified sense. English... spiritual like the still persistent culture of India. India's central conception is that of the Eternal, the Spirit here incased in matter, involved and immanent in it and evolving on the material plane by rebirth of the individual up the scale of being till in mental man it enters the world of ideas and realm of conscious morality, dharma . This achievement, this victory over unconscious matter develops ...
... hasn't understood anything at all, understood absolutely nothing of what I said. Absolutely nothing. It is not at all that. It is not at all that. It did not come from below, it came from a much higher plane than your consciousness can reach. It is not ill-will, infinitely far from that... That's how people understand what I say! I must be really careful! Is there anyone else who has understood in... with what we had done. It was work well done, done in the right spirit, as well as we could do it. Everybody was happy. There was some impishness somewhere. Was it impishness? It was something much higher than that: it was an observation. So we are going to see. As for me, it interests me, these things. Unfortunately it is like this, I can't take sides, I look on, and it amuses me. ( Laughter ) I... "But what is it to you whether a thousand odd fools see or not the effort you have made?" For it is truly... one thing is certain, that if you see the deep law of things and are in contact with a higher consciousness in order to realise something that far surpasses all human conceptions, what can a human opinion mean to you? It is as though you asked a dog the value of a problem of science you have ...
... ess reaches that state. No.... Just closet myself, go to the Himalayas and stay put. "Doing"... there are many planes of "doing." Maybe if... ( Mother props her head in her hands ). I am tiring you, Mother, I'm really sorry. You see, one "does" in higher regions. Sri Aurobindo insisted, he said you were ready to get the superman's consciousness—not "superman": supramental, the... hand! (André:) Yes, Mother, that's right.... I'll tell you frankly what bothers me. What bothers me is that I know from experience that you're always right because you always see things from a higher plane than we. Also I know from experience that even if at the time I feel you say something that.... ( Mother laughs ) ... that doesn't match my own thinking, well, you're still right. And that's... On the contrary the feeling was that the time had come for you to rise above all human conceptions and to look at the creation and all circumstances—ALL circumstances—within the Great Plane, the immense divine plane. Such was my impression. Yes. But what is to be done, then? Should one withdraw in that Consciousness, seek to attain it and, well, just let the material world unfold as it can with ...
... Homer deals with human life as Phidias dealt with the human form when he wished to create a god in marble. In both the Iliad and Odyssey, one feels uplifted upon the earth that belongs to a higher plane of a greater dynamic of life, and so long as we remain there, we have a greater vision in a more lustrous air and we feel ourselves raised to a semi-divine stature. Homer may be regarded as ...
... sadhaks in all times have had the realisation of the Atman on the higher mental plane, buddheḥ parataḥ , but the supramental realisation was not theirs. One can get partial realisations of the Self or Spirit or the Divine on any plane, mental, vital, physical even, and when one rises above the ordinary mental plane of man into a higher and larger mind, the Self begins to appear in all its conscious... anda which is not only static but dynamic and raise the whole being into that Truth. The Divine can be realised on any plane according to the capacity of that plane, as the Divine is everywhere. The Yogis and saints realise the Divine on the spiritualised mind plane, that does not mean they become supramental. But why should they [ Yogis of the traditional schools ] feel any pressure... get first these foundations in the liberated nature. By divine realisation is meant the spiritual realisation—the realisation of Self, Bhagavan or Brahman on the mental-spiritual plane or else the overmental plane. That is a thing (at any rate the mental-spiritual) which thousands have done. So it is obviously easier to do than the supramental. Also nobody can have the supramental realisation who ...
... self-fulfilment in man by the sacrifice with knowledge to the supreme Godhead, is much more difficult; its results belong to a higher plane of existence and they are less easily grasped. Men therefore have to follow the fourfold law of their nature and works and on this plane of mundane action they seek the Godhead through his various qualities. But, says Krishna, though I am the doer of the fourfold... for the upholding of the Dharma is not an all-sufficient object in itself, not the supreme possible aim for the manifestation of a Christ, a Krishna, a Buddha, but is only the general condition of a higher aim and a more supreme and divine utility. For there are two aspects of the divine birth; one is a descent, the birth of God in humanity, the Godhead manifesting itself in the human form and nature ...
... gunas and the higher is the divine nature and the true soul-nature. This is the key which reconciles and explains what we might have otherwise to leave as contradictions and inconsistencies. There are, in fact, different planes of our conscious existence, and what is practical truth on one plane ceases to be true, because it assumes a quite different appearance, as soon as we rise to a higher level from... and can be lived, on a higher and vaster plane of consciousness and being. To view these truths from below is to mis-see, misunderstand and probably to misuse them. It is a higher truth that the distinction of good and evil is indeed a practical fact and law valid for the egoistic human life which is the stage of transition from the animal to the divine, but on a higher plane we rise beyond good and... will find fault with this higher teaching, assert against it their present mental experience, their ignorant idea of free will and, yet more confirmed by the plausibility of their logic in their Page 216 bewilderment and the deception of ego and desire, lose their chance of liberation in a deeper, more obstinate confirmation of the ignorance. In fact, these higher truths can only be helpful ...
... The life of the reason and intelligent will stands between that upper and this nether power. On one side it takes up and enlightens the life of the instincts and impulses and helps it to find on a higher plane the finite order for which it gropes. On the other side it looks up towards the absolute, looks out towards the infinite, looks in towards the One, but without being able to grasp and hold their... it, of the spiritual ranges of our being and the unmasking of their inherent light and power, their knowledge and their divine capacities. We shall better understand what may be this higher being and those higher faculties, if we look again at the dealings of the reason with the trend towards the absolute in our other faculties, in the divergent principles of our complex existence. Let us study ... resemble intellectual operations, the illuminating faculties are not imagination, logic and rational judgment, but revelations, inspirations, intuitions, intuitive discernments that leap down to us from a plane of suprarational light. The love of God is an infinite and absolute feeling which does not admit of any rational limitation and does not use a language of rational worship and adoration; the delight ...
... does, what the power of trans formation does. That power is given to artists and we should use it to transform the audience's sorrow, or the audience's mood, and uplift them, take them to a higher plane. But if that is lost within me, what can I give? _______________________ Interview with Sonal Mansingh May 10, 1993 Page 413 ... countries only if Kampuchea was also included. I was four days in Cambodia. We gave three performances. A visit to Angkor Wat was also thrown in. Angkor Wat had been closed to the world and a special plane had to be arranged for me and my troupe and an army convoy... Bullet marks on the temple, Buddha heads severed... It was just... those apsaras, oh my god, breathtaking! The next day we were leaving ...
... aspiration for a ¹ Words of the Mother, 3rd Series, Page 101 greater realisation, a higher ascent, in order to manifest the Divine more perfectly on earth. "As a result of this pullet generally draws towards itself a being of a higher order, from a higher plane, from the Overmind, as Sri Aurobindo calls it, a being of involution who incarnates in the psychic being. These... sheath, then, dissolves in its turn, and the soul lives on in the mental sheath, manomaya koṣa, till that too is dissolved. When all the three sheaths are dissolved, the soul goes to its own plane, the psychic plane, for rest, for assimilation of its past experiences—the quintessence of which it carries with it—and for preparation for the next incarnation. "In the psychic world there is a kind of blissful... a marvellous artist; it was the hands of the other person which made use of him.”¹ To take up our thread. When the time is ripe for another incarnation, the psychic comes out of the psychic plane and begins again the downward journey. The Mother gives a very interesting description of how the soul chooses in advance the form it will take, the place where it will be born, and the line of progress ...
... for all nations have such a Devi supporting their separate existence and keeping it in being. Such Beings are as real and more permanently real than the men they influence, but they belong to a higher plane, are part of the cosmic consciousness and being and act here on earth by shaping the human consciousness on which they exercise their influence. It is natural for man who only sees his own consciousness... are literally true or merely symbols of deep spiritual realities ] depends on what value one attaches to spiritual experience and to mystic and occult experience, that is to say, to the data of other planes of consciousness than the physical, as also on the nature of the relations between the cosmic consciousness and the individual and collective consciousness of man. From the point of view of spiritual... not break out of the obscurity—for that is the meaning of the manifestation. An Incarnation is the Divine Consciousness and Being manifesting through a physical body. It is possible from any plane. It is the omnipresent cosmic Divine who supports the action of the universe; if there is an Incarnation, it does not in the least diminish the cosmic Presence and the cosmic action in the three ...
... Outside First of all, these thought-waves, thought-seeds or thought-forms or whatever they are, are of different values and come from different planes of consciousness. Even the same thought-substance can take higher or lower vibrations according to the plane of consciousness through which the thoughts come in (e.g., thinking mind, vital mind, physical mind, subconscient mind) or the power of consciousness... personal mind is still, whatever mental action is needed is taken up and done by the Force itself which does all the necessary thinking and progressively transforms it by bringing down into it a higher and higher plane of perception and knowledge. It is in the silence of the mind that the strongest and freest action Page 55 can come, e.g. the writing of a book, poetry, inspired speech etc... into these things is to still the mind and open to the consciousness from which things are done. Then you would first have a direct experience of the way the divine consciousness acts on different planes and secondly a light of Page 50 knowledge about the experience. This is the only true way—all the rest is only words and sterile mental logic. A thousand questions can be asked about ...
... But when the being or consciousness reaches the level of the head and takes its firm station there, it can not only widen itself out by opening horizontally on all sides, it can also rise to a higher plane, even without any definite knowledge, simply with the feeling that it has reached somewhere. You may remember that somewhere in the Beyond is the Force and the Presence of the Mother. If you can get... This all of you can try and you can see for yourself how greatly. it invigorates the body, how fresh and alive it becomes. The results are still more deep and intense if you can rise a step higher; then it becoms a part of yoga and spiritual training. To relax a part of the body means unravelling one of its knots or strands, widening and opening out what was limited within bounds and self-centred;... into play. Through ś avāsana one becomes unified with the universal life-energy; from head to foot there streams in the vitality inherent in all Nature. . One may proceed still farther, take a higher step. I have. just been speaking of ascending and descending up and down the different parts and levels of the body, as it were polishing them smooth in the process, making them quiet and still. But ...
... being, its drift is towards vital and physical enjoyment, enlightened indeed and checked to a certain extent in its impulses by the higher powers, but enlightened only and very partially, not transformed,—checked, not dominated and uplifted to a higher plane. The higher life is still only a thing superimposed on the lower, a permanent intruder upon our normal existence. The intruder interferes constantly... of their being, lived a one-sided and limited existence, or else they arrived at a compromise by which, while the higher life was given great prominence, the lower was still allowed to graze in its own field under the eye more or less strict or the curb more or less indulgent of the higher power or powers: in itself, in its own instincts and demands it remained unchanged. There was a dominance, but not... will to be and our power of living is the secret which our nature is seeking to discover. All that we have done hitherto is some half-successful effort to transfer this will and power to the mental plane; our highest endeavour and labour has been to become the mental being and to live in the strength of the idea. But the mental idea in us is always intermediary and instrumental; always it depends on ...
... fullness of the action as righteousness, purity and justice. Arriving on the high ideal plane these too become, no less than the ethical motive, no longer a seeking and necessity of this relative nature and importance, but a law and call to spiritual perfection, an inner and absolute divine imperative. The higher mind of man seeks not only after good, but after truth, after knowledge. He has an in... the output of the energy of knowledge brings its results as surely as the energy of the will seeking after success in action or after right ethical conduct. But the result that it brings on this higher plane of the Page 424 seeking in mind is simply and purely the upward growth of the soul in light and truth; that and whatever happiness it brings is the one supreme reward demanded by the... ego, but by an insistence from the higher mind on the lower, an insistence on right for its own sake, on imperative moral values, on an absolute law and truth of ethical being and ethical conduct that must be obeyed whatever the recalcitrances of the lower mind, whatever the pains of the vital problem, whatever the external result, the inferior issue. This higher mind holds its pure and complete sway ...
... the supreme Godhead, takes place from various planes of being by an incarnation of the central Divine Personality poised on a plane. It can take place from the Mind plane to establish the rule of an ideal and Spirit- Page 159 touched Dharma answering to the finest mental aspiration; or from the Overmind plane to bring a many-sided direct impulsion from... only in the inward but also in the outward the utter Godhead and all potentialities of future Avatarhood are continuous with those which it manifests and come out not so much from a higher plane as from a plane in its own background. A new form or incarnation for a new manifestation is no longer a necessity. It is the intuitive inkling of this absence of further embodiment, rather than ... ion can never be exhausted: depth after depth must keep disclosing itself. When the Supermind, the Vijnana-plane, has established its splendour amongst us, it will serve as the beginning of a movement towards establishing the wonder that is the Transcendent Bliss, the Ananda-plane. After that, other secrets of the Supreme will work out their revelation. But we must not overlook a great ...
... sprang from "an inner need for progress", and ...if by chance it answers an inner aspiration, a problem one is tackling and wants to solve, then... it can give rise to a vision, a perception on a higher plane, an experience in the consciousness which can make the formula new so that it carries a new power for realisation. 18 Page 608 There were also occasional questions not arising out... the Divine. In one of his Evening Talks in 1926, Sri Aurobindo had referred to two movements of the money force (which is basically a vital force): a lower, controlled by Mammon or the Asura, and a higher movement inspired by Mahalakshmi (or the Divine). The people who follow the lower movement are the amassers of wealth by fair means or foul, and such are either misers, or they use money for self-... division and discord rather than that of cooperation and harmony, she wrote to one of her disciples on 31 January 1955: It is important and urgent that the people of your Unity Party should rise to a higher level of consciousness and stop all attacks of a petty political character on persons. They must learn to fight/or the Truth and the Divine Realisation and not against any political party. From the ...
... existence. The experience is in accord with that which is brought to us by the first opening of vision: the mind rises into a higher plane of pure self, silent, tranquil, illimitable; or it rises into regions of light or of felicity, or into planes where it feels an infinite Power or a divine Presence or experiences the contact of a divine Love or Beauty or the atmosphere of a wider and greater and luminous... . It achieves itself and culminates in an upward ascent often repeated by which in the end the consciousness fixes itself on a higher plane and from there sees and governs the mind, life and body; it achieves itself also in an increasing descent of the powers of the higher consciousness and knowledge which become more and more the whole normal consciousness and knowledge. A light and power, a knowledge... of that higher state. This is because it has been superconscient to mind and therefore mind, when it rises into it, is unable at first to retain there its power of conscious discernment and defining experience. But when this power begins to awake and act, when mind becomes by degrees conscious in what was to it superconscient, then there begins a knowledge and experience of superior planes of existence ...
... Achievement of dhyana in which the mind becomes concentrated leads to the state of samadhi which gives an entry into higher states of consciousness. Mental action is liberated from the confusions of the outer-consciousness, and it passes thence to the higher supramental planes in which the individual soul, Purusha, enters into its spiritual existence, distinct and independent of Prakriti, Nature... important and complementary to each other. Three important features of the Tantric Yoga are that (a) they emphasise the role that the life-energy can play not only in the discovery and realisation of the higher and the highest objects of worship but also in arriving at control and mastery over the life-forces and activity in the physical world; (b) they emphasise the collective aspect of realisation; and... improved upon them with its special knowledge of the occult worlds and applied page - 54 these means for opening up the inner centres, chakras, that window upon the supra-physical and still higher regions. Tantra developed also another sadhana which had its origin in the Veda. This is Mantra Yoga. A mantra is considered a sound-body of a Power charged with the intense vibrations of the spiritual ...
... fleeting hours 31 -4- Savitri with its 23, 837 lines is a vast epic, unique in its sustained grandeur and sublimity revealing to us plane after plane of spiritual illumination and each plane a tier-terraced mountain: The unfallen planes, the thought-created worlds Where Knowledge is the leader of the act And Matter is of thinking substance made, Feeling, a heaven-bird... senseless world of objective reality, that he makes us live and breathe in a purer and finer air? I have said, a great poet is an explorer who either discloses to us some new realm of experience on a higher plane or reveals a new Page 241 splendour in something that custom had made stale and void of savour. Newton, absorbed in his arid mathematical problems, must have been a sight without... magnificence leaving him in the luxury of twilight." Nowhere does this apply with such appositeness as in many passages of Savitri . Here are two instances. Aswapati is shown ascending from plane to plane in the second book, The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds. Coming out of The 13 The Hour of God, SABCL, Vol.17, p. 46. 14 Savitri, p. 460. 15 Collected Poems, SABCL ...
... persistent character the lines of movement, the way of Karma of the thinking, willing, feeling, refining human animal,—not to be despised or excluded from our total way of being when we climb to a higher plane of conception and action, but still only a small part of human possibility and, if regarded as the main preoccupation or most imperative law of the human being, then limiting and degrading it; for... the first thing we see before us, are not the whole self-expression of the universal Being here and therefore not the whole of Nature. Man comes into it to express and realise a higher law of Nature and therefore a higher system of the lines of Karma. The mental energy divides itself and runs in many directions, has an ascending scale of the levels of its action, a great variety and combination of... an intelligent utilisation of it for the greater, more ordered, more perfect enjoyment of his vital and physical existence, perpetuation, reproduction, possession, enjoyment, expansion. There is a higher law of mental being and nature of which he is bound to become aware and to seek to impose it on his life and his action. At first he is very predominantly governed by the life needs and the movement ...
... interesting only when its character has been analysed and understood. There is no such opposition when the psychic Page 358 and the higher plane knowledge act together predominantly—the psychic welcomes knowledge that supports its emotion, the higher thought consciousness rejoices in the bhakti. It is a mistake to think that a constant absence of vyākulatā is a sign that the aspiration... form) of the Mother. It is as the inner realisation grows that the presence in the physical form takes its full value. Viraha or Pangs of Separation Viraha is a transitional experience on the plane of the vital seeking for the Spirit—there is no reason why it should not be possible at a quite early stage. It is the realisations without any uneasiness, realisations in pure Ananda that belong to... proceeds to a large extent by a taking away or throwing out of the old superficial self and its movements and replacing them by a new deeper self and its true action. It does not matter if the higher feelings, devotion etc. seem to you sometimes like an influence or colouring. It looks like that when you feel yourself in the external physical or outer vital or outer mind. These feelings really ...
... Page 202 × "If you look from one plane of consciousness, the individual will appear to you as if he were not only an instrument and recorder, but a creator. But look from another and higher plane of consciousness with a wider view of things and you will see that this is only an appearance. In the workings of the universe... Page 188 things.... That depends also upon the level from which one sees. There is a plane where there are all the possibilities, and on that level, as there are all the possibilities, there is the possibility also of changing these possibilities. If a catastrophe is foreseen in that plane, one can have the power of preventing it also. In other cases, even though one is forewarned, one... attitude towards the experience that occurs, you have a good reaction, a good attitude, and you derive as much benefit as possible out of what has happened. In either case, it depends absolutely on the plane on which you see. When you have control over your nights and are conscious of your sleep and your dreams or of your visions, you also see the difference between the two; you can distinguish the difference: ...
... the supramental being in a new evolution." And he continues: "I am not aware that this has been done by any Hathayogic or other process. Mental or vital occult power can only bring siddhis of the higher plane into the individual life — like the Sannyasi who could take any poison without harm, but he died of a poison after all when he forgot to observe the conditions of the siddhi. The working of the... to abandon the dogma of a new soul called into existence ex nihilo at every birth and to evade the concept of a soul going through many lives, getting diverse experiences, gradually rising higher and higher. If evolution is a fact and if it is to have a spiritual meaning, the spiritual evolution can proceed only through the progress of an individual soul through a series of lives across the ages... dharma [= inherent law] of the nature." The Aurobindonian supra-mentalisation has to be an intrinsic permanent state of the body by the junction of the descending free Supermind from above the mental plane with the Supermind evoked from matter where, according to Sri Aurobindo, it lies involved. Both the spiritual vision and the spiritual dynamics of his Integral Yoga differ from those recognisable in ...
... objective of this progress is the greater light which belongs to a higher plane of spiritual cognizance." (p. 679) Here ends our essay on the sadhana of the Mind. There are, of course, two other stages: (i) Establishment of mental silence; and (ii) Ascent of consciousness beyond normal mind into the 'spiritual mind planes'; and, then, further on to Supramental Gnosis and beyond. But these... something divisible; (ii)miss the vision of the Truth in its entirety; but, instead, (iii)manipulate truth's numerous shadow-formations; and, finally, (iv)to construct wider and wider circles on the same plane, never being able to transcend it, and considering this movement alone as the progression in knowledge and power. Now, whenever and wherever Mind becomes operative, these basic features of its... bondage when it becomes anachronistic and hampers further progression. Therefore, as soon as its utility is over, the sadhaka should not hesitate to discard it mercilessly and adopt instead a still higher principle which will help the sadhaka make a new lease of progress. This capacity of making and breaking of rules and principles wenever a genuine need is felt for this operation, is a very ...
... but on its own higher plane. This draws up into itself in the end the intuitive mentality it has created as its representative and assumes the charge of the whole activity of the consciousness. The process is progressive and for a long time chequered by admixture and Page 825 the necessity of a return upon the lower movements in order to correct and transform them. The higher and the lower... perfection. The range of knowledge covered by the supramental thought, experience and vision will be commensurate with all that is open to the human consciousness, not only on the earthly but on all planes. It will however act increasingly in an inverse sense to that of the mental thinking and experience. The centre of mental thinking is the ego, the person of the individual thinker. The supramental... thinks and acts in a radius determined by the smallness or largeness of his mentality and of its experience. The range of the supramental man will be all the earth and all that lies behind it on other planes of existence. And finally the mental man thinks and sees on the level of the present life, though it may be with an upward aspiration, and his view is obstructed on every side. His main basis of knowledge ...
... endeavour that helps us to rise from the mortal to the immortal planes," 20 was not developed at length until the period extending from the late 1920s to the early 1940s, when Sri Aurobindo set aside most of the rest of the poem in order to concentrate on what became Part One. Aswapati's part in the epic represents the ascent into a higher consciousness which is one of two principal movements in Sri... subjective handling of the human aspect of the story. 30 Savitri, "Author's Note", Op. cit. Page 371 The original sense of the ancient legend was recovered on a higher plane of spiritual vision. Through Sri Aurobindo's genius and untiring labour, Savitri grew into the prophetic poem, not only of a future India, but of a future humanity. RICHARD HARTZ ... 14 Savitri, p. 634. 15 Collected Poems, SABCL, Vol. 5, p. 242. 16 Savitri, p. 592. Page 366 could remain intact through the repeated rewriting from higher and higher levels of consciousness to which Sri Aurobindo alluded in his letters. A Baroda Savitri? We are often told that the composition of Savitri began with a version Sri Aurobindo ...
... what we possess and cherish, and an aspiration for something higher and wider. If we are sincerely convinced of the inherent limitations of the human mind and its inability to lead us to Truth, we must cease to glorify it, and, renouncing our exclusive reliance on it and obsession with its pursuits, aspire for an ascent to the next higher plane of consciousness. A keenly felt discontent with mental limitations ...
... Please do not confuse the higher knowledge and mental knowledge. The intellectual man will be able to give a wider and more orderly expression to what higher knowledge he gets than the homo psychicus ; but it does not follow he will have more of it. He will have that only if he rises to an equal width and plasticity and comprehensiveness of the higher knowledge planes. In that case he will replace... express a wider knowledge than his intellect or even the intellect of the intellectual man could have harboured or organised. Let us not bind the phenomena of the higher consciousness by the possibilities and probabilities of a lower plane. Page 18 An unintellectual mind cannot bring down the Knowledge? What then about Ramakrishna? Do you mean to say that the majority of the sadhaks... transformed into the higher mind which is itself a passage towards the true knowledge. It is no use trying to decide the things of the Spirit by the power and in the light of the intellect. The intellect can only reason and infer and its reasonings are partial and its inferences vitiated by error. One has to awaken the divinations in the soul, the psychic being, and wait for a higher knowledge which ...
... intervening planes. If an ordinary man were to get into direct contact even with one of these intermediate planes, he would be dazzled and blinded, would be crushed under the weight of the sense of immensity or would lose his balance; and yet it is not the Supermind. Behind the common idea that a Yogi can know all things and answer all questions is the actual fact that there is a plane in the mind... plane illumined by some other light still farther above. But all that has nothing to do with the action of Supermind and this higher mental level is far removed from the supramental plane. Men are too easily inclined to believe that they have climbed into regions quite divine when they have only gone above the average level. There are many stages between the ordinary human mind and the Supermind, many... the mental plane? It is said that Einstein found his theory of relativity not through any process of reasoning, but through some kind of sudden inspiration. Has that inspiration anything to do with the Supermind? Page 93 The scientist who gets an inspiration revealing to him a new truth, receives it from the intuitive mind. The knowledge comes as a direct perception in the higher mental plane ...
... pressure of the Mother's Force. It comes like that to most people. Once the consciousness is open and the Force enters, there is no longer this feeling. It is the pressure of the higher consciousness (planes of blue light beyond the ordinary mind) that has come down and is pressing upon the resistances down to the body and below. At the same time the weight of the subconscient Matter is being... a very characteristic and well-known way of descent of the higher Consciousness; it brings peace but it also brings all other possibilities of the higher Consciousness too and, as you Page 475 felt, the seeds of transformation of the physical consciousness—by the coming in it of the seeds of the powers and qualities of the higher Nature. I am very glad that the experience we have... Chapter VI Feelings and Sensations in the Process of Descent Sensations in the Inner Centres It [ a pressure felt in meditation ] is what we call the pressure of the Force (the Force of the higher spiritual or divine consciousness, the Mother's Force); it comes in various forms, vibrations, currents, waves, a wide flow, a shower like rain etc. It passes to each centre in turn, the crown of the ...
... may reasonably hope for a greater development hereafter. I myself have more than once abstained for some time from writing because I did not wish to produce anything except as an expression from a higher plane of consciousness, but to do that you must be sure of your poetic gift, that it will not rust by too long a disuse." * "I have said that overhead poetry is not necessarily greater... Overmind touch. 5. "Illumined Mind. 6. "Difficult to say. More of Higher Mind perhaps than anything else—but something of illumination and intuition also. 7. "it is a mixture. Something of the Illumined Mind, something of the Poetic Intelligence diluting the full sovereignty of the higher expression. 8. "Higher Mind combined with Illumined. 9. "Illumined Mind with something from... well-achieved but falling short of their greater possibilities. Page 199 As for planes, if we may go by Sri Aurobindo's evaluations elsewhere, the cast of vision, word and rhythm in the lines marked by a cross suggests overhead poetry. The remaining lines belong to the mental plane. * (Once the consciousness is aware of a certain vibration and poetic quality, it ...
... steady, organised action following certain definite lines. Its effectiveness as well as its action is determined first by its own height and intensity or that of the plane from which it comes (it may be from any plane ranging from the Higher Mind upward to the Overmind), partly by the condition of the objects or the field in which it acts, partly by the movement which it has to effect, general or particular... applied without any intuition—an intuition can come without any close connection with a Force, except the force of intuition itself which is another matter. Moreover a Force may be applied from a higher plane than that of any Intuition. 17 April 1937 Response of the Divine You can send your Force to whomever you like—Lenin, Kemal, Gandhi, but how people calling Shiva or Krishna for their Ishta... spiritual plane. The force put on the gentleman you speak of at least made it necessary for him to change if he remained here. He had no will in the vital to change and so did not remain here but went to his fate. The rest is for the indefinable future. One day I shall certainly try to explain methodically and by examples what the spiritual force is; how it has worked on the earth-plane, how it ...
... for all nations have such a Devi supporting their separate existence and keeping it in being. Such Beings are as real and more permanently real than the men they influence but they belong to a higher plane, are part of the cosmic consciousness and being and act here on earth by shaping the human consciousness on which they exercise their influence. It is natural for man who sees only his own consciousness... commanded and support what has to be supported, even if it means war and strife carried on whether Page 239 through chariots and bows and arrows or tanks and cars and American bombs and planes, in either case ghoram karma [a dreadful work, Gita, 3.1] As for violence etc. the old command rings out for us once again after many ages: "Mayaivaite nihatah purvam eva nimittamatram bhava... such as the general increase of cynicism, a refusal to believe in anything at all, a decrease of honesty, an immense corruption, a preoccupation with food, money, comfort, pleasure to the exclusion of higher things and a general expectation of worse and worse things awaiting the world. All that, however acute, is a temporary phenomenon for which those who know anything about the workings of the world-energy ...
... the supra-mental being in a new evolution". And he continues: "I am not aware that this has been done by any Hathayogic or other process. Mental or vital occult power can only bring siddhis of the higher plane into the individual life - like the Sannyasi who could take any poison without harm, but he died of a poison after all when he forgot to observe the conditions of Page 10 the siddhi... to abandon the dogma of a new soul called into existence ex nihilo at every birth and to evade the concept of a soul going through many lives, getting diverse experiences, gradually rising higher and higher. If evolution is a fact and if it is to have a spiritual meaning, the spiritual evolution can proceed only through the progress of an individual soul through a series of lives across the ages... dharma [=inherent law] of the nature." The Aurobindonian supramentalisation has to be an intrinsic permanent state of the body by the junction of the descending free Supermind from above the mental plane with the Supermind evoked from matter where, according to Sri Aurobindo, it lies involved. Both the spiritual vision and the spiritual dynamics of his Integral Yoga differ from those recognisable in ...
... the remark carries the pakka Aurobindonian seal. But I was always sure that I understood his politics. I had a fear all along that he would suddenly leave us, one day, to go up to a higher plane. Well, has he not done so more than once? From Baroda to Calcutta, from Calcutta to Pondicherry, from Pondicherry to another world, as soon as he received the call from within, or from above! As ...
... chapter 4. In fact, there is already a tendency, a tension at work in the mental consciousness always to go beyond the difficulties of a divided being that is man. For man to refuse the ascent to the higher plane would be to limit the force of evolution. Sri Aurobindo wants man to justify the upward trend of Nature by making a conscious movement to go beyond the mental consciousness. Page 173 ... the Supra-mental Truth-Consciousness. Mind as we know it is derived from That. Life as we feel it is derived from That. There is a relation of the Supermind to mind, life and body. We have seen five planes : the Transcendent, the Infinite, or Eternal Satchidananda; then there is the Supermind or Truth-Consciousness; and then from there are derived the three : Mind, Life and Body. Now here what we are... bridging these five is Divine Maya, and there is the undivine Maya, undivine nature. Maya is another name for Nature. Now the question is : what is the relation between these two natures and these three planes ? That is what he is trying to work out, the relation between the Transcendent, and the Supermind and these three, mind, life and body and how they are related to the Truth-Consciousness and to the ...
... we call evil - all falsehood, all that is contrary to the Truth, all suffering, all opposition is the result of a disequilibrium. I believe that one who is habituated to seeing things from this higher plane sees immediately that it is like that. Consequently, the world cannot be founded upon a disequilibrium, for if so it would have long since disappeared. One feels that at the origin of the universe... only the highest truth one can perceive, and at the same time know that this perception has to be progressive and this what seems to you the most true now will no longer be so tomorrow, and that a higher truth will have to be express more and more through you. This leaves no room an longer for sleeping in a comfortable tamas. I think it was just today or perhaps yesterday, I was pleading... chosen. I am not at all keen on your becoming scholars, far from it! For then one fall s into the other extreme: one fills one's head with so many things that there is no longer any room for the higher light; but there is a minimum that is indispensable for not.. . well, for not being the cork. THE MOTHER Page 29 Little Children ...
... workings and partially transforms and spiritualises them, but is itself diminished and altered in the process. There is an intermittent higher action or a dual working of the nature. Or we find that the Shakti for a time raises the being to a higher spiritual plane and then lowers it back into the inferior levels. These alternations must be regarded as the natural vicissitudes of a process of transformation... energy of the Divine, but all these, all the powers of all the planes must be seen and known as self-formulations of the one spiritual Shakti, infinite in being, consciousness and Ananda. It is not the invariable rule that this power should first manifest itself on the lower levels in the lower forms of energy and then reveal its higher spiritual nature. And if it does so come, first in its mental,... nature into the higher spiritual being. When that is done, the Purusha is no longer only a witness, but also the master of his prakriti, īśvara . At first it it may not be apparent how this ideal of active self-mastery can be reconciled with the apparently opposite ideal of self-surrender and of becoming the assenting instrument of the divine Shakti. But in fact on the spiritual plane there is no difficulty ...
... forces of the inner planes which it is not safe to follow. Your first experience is an opening into the inner mental self—the space between the eyebrows is the centre of the inner mind, vision, will and the blue light you saw was that of a higher mental plane, a spiritual mind, one might say, which is above the ordinary human mental intelligence. An opening into this higher mind is usually accompanied... sunk into this subconscious state; it passes beyond the veil into other planes of being which are connected with our own inner planes, planes of supraphysical existence, worlds of a larger life, mind or psyche which are there behind and whose influences come to us without our knowledge. Occasionally we get a dream from these planes, something more than a dream,—a dream experience which is a record direct... inward is not undesirable and need not be resisted. At a particular stage it may be accompanied by an abundance of visions due to the growth of the inner sight which sees things belonging to all the planes of existence. That is a valuable power helpful in the sadhana and should not be discouraged. But one must see and observe without attachment, keeping always the main object in front, realisation of ...
... look at all else as secondary, dependent, to be handled and determined in the light of the higher knowledge; the outer world was seen as an expression, a preliminary field or aid to the deeper spiritual aim. In other words, this approach led to a tendency to create whatever it had to create first on the inner plane and afterwards in its other and outer aspects. The early mind of India understood... for all nations have such a Devi supporting their separate existence, and keeping it in being. Such beings are as real and more permanently real than the men they influence, but they belong to a higher plane, are part of the cosmic consciousness and being and act here on earth by shaping the human consciousness on which they exercise their influence". 1 "Each nation is a Shakti or power of... of the insufficiency of Western civilization or of the political incapacity of the European peoples that the idea of European unity should have remained for so long an ineffective dream on the ideal plane and has only just managed to succeed, it is not just to apply a different system of values to the much clearer ideal of unity or at least of unification, the persistent attempt at its realisation and ...
... gave me shelter under his cloak. It was the most thrilling incident in my young life. I had the privilege to touch his thick belt! I wrote of it to my younger brother and how he envied me! On a higher plane an unforgettable experi- Page 117 ence was a visit to the art galleries of Paris where artists on tall ladders were touching up old paintings. I changed my ambition from being... in 1938. But I am said to outdo his achievement. His was in the middle of the thigh-bone, while mine is next to the knee. The two parts of his femur were in contact though one was thrust a little higher than the other. My fragments - three in fact -were all separate and in a kind of jumble. The healing will also have to be in a rough way and will take a long time. My nephew, a doctor, who happened ...
... is a scale that can move upward or move down. It is a scale because it is limited by the capacity of sensation and perception and emotion. When the consciousness is widened out into the higher range or higher plane, then the scale changes. Then even this limited apparatus of mind and self is used by that vast and infinite Consciousness only as an indication, so that when you touch an object through... Life is one and indivisible and the aspiration for higher life or spirituality must also pervade life. Life must become a field, first, for attaining to this Higher Consciousness, and after it is attained, for expressing it in life. That is what the Gita says, that when one is in the stage of the aspirant, he uses life as a ladder to rise to the Higher Consciousness. When he has risen to the top, then... harmony of sensation, impulse, desire, ego, selfishness, can be turned into a little higher harmony. It is not that the world has to become all ethical, but that man is helped out of his lower harmony by ethics. He struggles out of the lower harmony and universality based upon inconscience—, a life of discord, toward a higher harmony, based upon Oneness, a conscious perception of aims and ideals. Therefore ...
... lowered the individual level - a little - except for those who had already attained an inner realisation strong enough to be able to resist this movement of... "leveling".... The general level is on a higher plane than it formerly was, but the individual level has dropped in many cases... weighed down by a load they did not have to carry before, which is the result of this interdependence. If the Ashram... described his advent as "an eternal birth in the history of the universe". 25 When pressed to explain the phrase, the Mother said on 4 September that the meaning was a little different on the different planes but also complementary: Physically, it means that the consequences... of Sri Aurobindo's birth will be felt throughout the entire existence of the Earth. And so I called it "eternal", a little... expression, the vehicle of a higher and more universal truth. It is not a new religion, much less a synthetic religion, that we want; it is a new life that has to be created and sustained by the new supramental Light, Force and Consciousness. Further, commenting on the two movements of perfection - from above and from below - the Mother said on 24 April: The higher perfection is spiritual and ...
... the gross, it has a greater permanence in its being along with a greater potentiality, plasticity and range in its becoming. Each plateau of the hill of being gives to our widening experience a higher plane of our consciousness and a richer world of our existence.’ 13 ‘Consciousness is a fundamental thing, the fundamental thing in existence.’ 14 (Sri Aurobindo) Of this we actually have no idea... to superman takes place in a way analogous to what has happened every time a higher species appeared on Earth: the human species has reached its ceiling; because of the irresistible evolutionary impulse in it, its soul has called for the manifestation on Earth of a higher consciousness in a new material form; this higher consciousness, in this case the supramental Unity-consciousness, has answered... being is, just like the Earth, a condensation or representation of the cosmos. This is why it was called a microcosm in the occult mysteries and by the alchemists. ‘Man, the microcosm, has all these planes in his own being, ranged from his subconscient to his superconscient existence,’ 9 wrote Sri Aurobindo referring to the sheaths described above. ‘All things are potentially present in the substance ...
... evolution and transformation of consciousness in Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga implies a double vertical movement. There is first an ascension of consciousness to its higher plane and then descent of Peace, Light and Power of the higher into the lower so as to transform the latter. These two vertical movements of ascent and descent in Integral Yoga find powerful symbolic expressions in the following... after coloured and ecstatic world Climbs towards some far unseen epiphany. 25 This is an intuitive revelation of the manifestation of all the planes of consciousness on earth; then shall evolution attain its goal with beings of all the planes of consciousness living together harmoniously on earth. That shall be the day of divine fulfilment and "Matter shall reveal the spirit's face." Towards... describe the divinity of Savitri, the incarnation of the Divine Mother and heroine of the epic. It is said that the source of inspiration of the passage is the Overmind plane, even it could be the transcendental Supramental plane. When chanted with proper intonation this symbolic image will reveal its mantric power. Usage of symbols in Savitri forms the most important element of its poetic ...
... has always been associated with religious feeling and an inner life.... ... Beethoven, when he composed the Ninth Symphony, had the vision of an opening into a higher world and of the descent of a higher world into this earthly plane .... There is a domain far above the mind which we could call the world of Harmony .... If by Yoga you are capable of reaching this source of all art,... divine movement. By Yoga you leave the mechanical round of Nature in which you are an ignorant slave, a helpless and miserable tool, and rise into another plane where you become a conscious participant and a dynamic agent in the working out of a Higher Destiny. 23 VI In Sri Aurobindo's Yoga, the aim is to exceed the mental consciousness and attain in the overhead levels up to the supramental... Religion. Certainly, all religions had their beginnings in a seminal mystical or "The spiritual experience, some revelation from "what one could call a Divine Being ... bringing down with him from a higher plane a certain Knowledge and Truth for the earth". 47 Mahavira, the Buddha, the Christ, the Prophet Mahomet, Guru Nanak were all historical personalities, and were also divine-human persons who originated ...
... to have all kinds of experiences. We have all gone through all kinds of beautiful experiences. This was not because of anybody’s merit. At that time Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were working on a higher plane. It was easy to meditate. The Mother used to get even the gods down in our midst. Now the Mother and Sri Aurobindo are working with the lower nature. Now everyone has to go through the various problems... himself. He organised every part of his being around his psychic being. He was an extremely conscious human being. I saw him rise straight upward, gathering every part of his being, straight to that plane where Sri Aurobindo is at work. That’s where he has gone.” The Mother told Satprem many things about death. While talking about this, She described father’s journey after his death in great detail... gathered together, well united, thoroughly homogenous, in a great aspiration and rising, rising without dispersing, without deviating, straight up to the frontier of what Sri Aurobindo has called ‘the higher hemisphere’, there where Sri Aurobindo in his supramental action presides over earth. And he melted into that light. “Some time before his heart attack he said to his children: ‘The coat is old ...
... white fire is that which contains in itself all the colours. The gods in the overmental plane have not many heads and arms—this is a vital symbolism, it is not necessary in other planes. This figure [ of Vaidyuta Agni, mentioned in the preceding letter ] may have belonged to the subtle physical plane. (1) It [ the vision of a flower ] was seen through the physical eyes but by the subtle... something of the light of the subtle physical plane to surround it and give it its natural medium. If seen with the eyes shut, it would be no longer a subtle physical form, but an object or formation of the vital, mental or other plane. Unless, indeed, the inner consciousness had progressed so far as to be able to project itself into the physical planes; but this is a rare and, in most cases, a late... with Radha, Mahalakshmi and Mahakali influences. The vision of writing is also frequent on the mental plane—it is known by us as the lipi , and if it organises itself so as to be legible and intelligible, it can embody many things such as intuitions, messages from one or other of the mental planes—the voice you heard was probably one of these messages. There is no necessity to explain the vision of ...
... consciousness of the Divine everywhere and in all other beings also; so it will not have the consciousness of a separate ego but of one centre among many of the Divine Multiplicity. On the higher spiritual planes there is no ego, because the oneness of the Divine is felt, but there may be the sense of one's true person or individual being—not ego, but a portion of the Divine. The Karana Purusha ... ve of himself on each plane of the consciousness. On the mental plane it is the true mental being, manomaya puruṣa , on the vital plane the true vital being, prāṇamaya puruṣa , on the physical plane the true physical being, annamaya puruṣa . Each being therefore is, so long as the Ignorance lasts, centred round his mental, vital or physical Purusha, according to the plane on which he predominantly... the consciousness of the Jivatman in a supramental creation. There is no statement that the place of the Jivatman is in the supramental plane alone—if that were so, man could have no knowledge of his individual Self or Spirit before he rose to the supramental plane; he could not have any experience of the Self, though he may have the sense of the dissolution of his ego in something Universal. But he ...
... probable. But it would not be inevitable; for it might be supposed that the human personality, once capable of attaining to other planes, need not return from them: it would naturally, in the absence of some greater compelling reason, pursue its existence upon the higher plane to which it had arisen; it would have finished with the Page 779 terrestrial life-evolution. Only if faced with actual... y continuous, assuming name after name and form after form and moving between different planes backward and forward, is not apparent and, even as a possibility, does not strongly impose itself; still less is there any room for an evolutionary progress inevitably Page 783 pursued from form to higher form such as must be supposed by a theory of rebirth that affirms the involution and evolution... some kind of soul formation which after death occupies other animal forms on earth and finally a human body. For there is little likelihood that the animal soul passes beyond earth and enters other planes of life than the physical and constantly returns here until it is ready for the human incarnation; the animal's conscious individualisation does not seem sufficient to bear such a transfer or to adapt ...
... evolves, the duality of good and evil, true and false, etc., belongs to the mind. The call on the human soul is of the infinite, the human being has to rise to the consciousness of Infinity. On that higher plane - the supermind—the soul rises above duality, because it goes beyond Mind and its ignorance. Ethics as the ultimate remedy is imperfect. Page 24 THE ORIGIN OF IGNORANCE ... day death may be conquered by physical means and its reasonings are perfectly sound. There is no reason why the supramental Force should not do it. Forms on earth do not last (they do in other planes) because these forms are too rigid to grow expressing the progress of the spirit. If they become plastic enough to do that there is no reason why they should not last. " . ( On Yoga... or another takes for gold coin of Truth.., I think I can say that I have been testing day and night for years upon years more scrupulously than any scientist his theory or his method on the physical plane." ( 18-8-1932 )10 (2) " When I concentrate, I work upon others, upon the world, upon the play of forces." (19-12-1934).11 (3) " The invisible Force producing tangible ...
... finding its way by flashes of illumination into the mentality like lightnings in dim and cloudy places. Its inspirations, revelations, intuitions, self-luminous discernings are messages from a higher knowledge-plane that make their way opportunely into our lower level of consciousness. The very character of the intuitive mind sets a gulf of great difference between its action and the action of the sel... other Indian term buddhi and buddhi as synonymous with the reason, the discerning intellect, the logical intelligence. The systems that accept this significance, pass at once from a plane of pure intellect to a plane of pure spirit. No intermediate power is recognised, no diviner action of knowledge than the pure reason is admitted; the limited human means for fixing truth is taken for the highest... reason and intelligence, it is hardly possible to speak of it except in figures and symbols. And first we must remember that the gnostic level, Mahat, Vijnana, is not the supreme plane of our consciousness, but a middle or link plane. Interposed between the triune glory of the utter Spirit, the infinite existence, consciousness and bliss of the Eternal and our lower triple being and nature, it is as if it ...
... close to me. My beloved Mother, is it not possible to meet You on some other plane than the physical? I don't mean by leaving the body; even when in the body, is it not possible to meet on some other higher plane? Certainly, this is quite possible. But one must awaken to the consciousness of these planes. Mother, I want simply to leave the body; it is the body which separates me... that I must climb to the plane where You are, to be able to have You intimately, and that I must not expect You to come down here. But Mother, You are so great and remain so high up that it seems to me almost impossible to climb up there. There is a world of difference between our two planes. I dare not dream of the moment I shall be at your side; You will always be higher, and I shall aspire to You;... You; I shall follow You from plane to plane, but You will be always far from me. This picture does not appear bad to me, because I know there is a great Page 161 joy in seeking; but it is true that my heart will always be thirsty. From a certain point of view what you say is true; but there is also a sort of reversal of consciousness in which it comes out of its state of blind and falsifying ...
... called down the mental being, the Mind-Purusha, into the realm of living Matter in order to take up the vital-mental energy already at work and lift it into a higher mentality. But this would still be a process of evolution, the higher plane only intervening to assist the appearance and enlargement of its own principle in terrestrial Nature.” (LD 840) “Man is a type among many types so constructed... and the brilliances of the Supermind to the worlds of mind and life, higher and lower. There is “this world that we see and those other worlds that we do not see.” (LD 42) “You speak as if the evolution were the sole creation,” Sri Aurobindo wrote in a letter. “The creation or manifestation is very vast and contains many planes and worlds that existed before the evolution, all different in character... it, remain connected to their involutionary planes of origin. “The immense material world in which we live is not the sole reality but only one of innumerable potential and existent universes; all of them need not have either Matter as we know it or the Inconscient as we know it for their base. Indeed, this world of Matter is itself dependent on many planes of consciousness and existence which are not ...
... thought. If he had led the ordinary life, he would have been a great organiser, conqueror and creator. If a man rises to a higher plane of consciousness, it does not necessarily follow that he will be a greater man of action or a greater creator. One may rise to spiritual planes of inspiration undreamed of by Shakespeare and yet not be as great a poetic creator as Shakespeare. "Greatness" is not the... Avatar at all, it would have been as an Avatar of the impersonal Truth. You say Buddha achieved Illumined Mind and Ramakrishna the Intuitive. According to your explanation, Intuitive plane appears to be on a higher level than the Illumined. How is it then that Buddha's works and manifestation of realisation greatly superseded that of Ramakrishna's? He had a more powerful vital than Ramakrishna... essay but a few compendious aphorisms on intuition and how to get it. I had a talk with J which has rather puzzled me. He said that intuitions are of various kinds and come to us from different planes. Quite true. So the process would depend on what one wants. There is a silencing of the mind, a kind of rapid thinking, concentration. etc. True also, but how do they work or how are they ...
... are refuges for the deeper parts of our nature. But still evolutionary Nature keeps alive her ulterior intentions in the minds of a few and uses man's greater mental evolution to raise them to a higher plane and deeper issues. In the present time itself, after an age of triumphant intellectuality and materialism, we can see evidences of this natural process,—a return towards inner self-discovery, an... the Pythagorean, Stoic and Epicurean, which were dynamic not only for thought but for conduct of life and developed a discipline, an effort at inner perfection of the being; this reached a higher spiritual plane of knowledge in later Christian or Neo-pagan thought-structures where East and West met together. But later on the intellectualisation became complete and the connection of philosophy with... truth of an inferior but very effective kind that we have lost with our superior development. Primitive man lives much in a low and small province of his life-being, and this corresponds on the occult plane to an invisible Nature which is of a like character and whose occult powers can be called into activity by a knowledge and methods to which the lower vital intuitions and instincts may open a door of ...
... do works not dictated by desire but by the law of right living or by the essential nature, its knowledge, its ideal, its faith in itself and the Truth it sees, its śraddhā . Or else, on a higher spiritual plane, they are dictated by the will of the Master and done with the mind in Yoga, without any personal attachment either to the action or to the fruit of the action. There must be a complete r... forcefully together by the mind in order to make some kind of pathway through the confusion of our half-knowledge and half-ignorance. Or else it is a restless kinetic multiple action with no firm governing higher ideal and self-possessed law of true light and power within it. The sattwic knowledge on the contrary sees existence as one indivisible whole in all these divisions, one imperishable being in all... impulsion of the physical mind and the crude vital nature is the chief instrumental force of the tamasic doer of action. The instrument of the liberated man is a greater spiritual light and power, far higher than the highest sattwic intelligence, and it works in him by an enveloping descent from a supraphysical centre and uses as a clear channel of its force a purified and receptive mind, life and body ...
... nothing so revolutionary or astonishing, but the capacity in the human mentality, when it has reached a certain level or a certain point of stress of the evolutionary impetus, to press towards a higher plane of consciousness and its embodiment in the being. It has been further suggested that the urge of man towards self-exceeding is not likely ever to die out totally in the race, and that the human... (RV 1.72.9). Commenting on this statement of Parashara, Sri Aurobindo states: "That is to say, the physical being visited by the greatness of the infinite planes above and by the power of the great godheads who reign on those planes breaks its limits, opens out to the Light and is upheld in its new wideness by the infinite Consciousness, mother Aditi, and her sons, the divine Powers of the supreme... Earth (the three earths) Our earth, according to the Veda, has been shaped out of the dark inconscient ocean of existence, and our physical life lifts its high formations and ascending planes towards the heaven of mind having its own formations. The streams of the clarity and the honey ascend out of the Subconscient Ocean upwards and they seek the Superconscient Ocean above. That upper ...
... Please do not confuse the higher knowledge and mental knowledge. The intellectual man will be able to give a wider and more orderly expression to what higher knowledge he gets than the homo psychicus; but it does not follow he will have more of it. He will have that only if he rises to an equal width and plasticity and comprehensiveness of the higher knowledge planes. In that case he will replace... express a wider knowledge than his intellect or even the intellect of the intellectual man could have harboured or organised. Let us not bind the phenomena of the higher consciousness by the possibilities and probabilities of a lower plane. Nirod, 9-5-35 What is the use and limitations of mercury powder? Is it not an unsafe thing which may do harm as well as good? In what illness can it be... universal and individual? So many questions come up! Of course the subconscient is universal as well as individual like all the other main parts of the Nature. But there are different parts or planes of the subconscient. All upon earth is based on the Inconscient as it is called, though it is not really inconscient at all, but rather a complete subconscience in which there is everything but nothing ...
... an Avatar of a higher plane. It is not a question of Sri Krishna's disciples, but of the earth Page 407 consciousness—Rama was a mental man, there is no touch of the overmind consciousness (direct) in anything he said or did, but what he did was done with the greatness of the Avatar. But there have since been men who did live in touch with the planes above mind—higher mind, illumined... that matter, even by the Divine. If he were, they would say "O, it was latent in him." One can't say categorically and absolutely that the Divine is omnipotent, because there are different planes from which he works. It is when he acts from the supramental level that his Power is omnipotent. If the Divine were not in essence omnipotent, he could not be omnipotent anywhere—whether in the... illumined mind, Intuition. There is no question of asking whether they were "greater" than Rama; they might have been less "great", but they were able to live from a new plane of consciousness. And Krishna's opening the overmind certainly made it possible for the attempt at bringing Supermind to the earth to be made. I would not mind your fury in revenge if only you would crush me with a convincing assault ...
... realities in a state of trance. She was in contact with the Mother and it was the Mother who guided her inwardly although she never came to Pondicherry. The Mother once said that she was a being from a higher plane. She passed away in 1940. Sudhir Kumar Sarkar After her passing Sudhir’s only wish was to bring his family to live at the Mother’s feet in Pondicherry. For it is here that he found ...
... true that with Atmajnana the complete surrender becomes more possible. Surrender and the Brahmic Condition There can be [ devotion and surrender on the higher spiritual planes ], but it is not inevitable as in the psychic. In the higher mind one may be too conscious of identity with the "Brahman" to have devotion or surrender. The Brahmic condition brings a negative peace of shanti and... rest is a matter of time and process—and there is no reason for disturbance. The central and effective surrender has been made. Complete or Absolute Surrender If you are surrendered only in the higher consciousness, with no peace or purity in the lower, certainly that is not enough and you have to aspire for the peace and purity everywhere. It [ surrender ] cannot be absolutely complete in... being and nature and the physical consciousness are under the influence of the lower nature. As long as the vital and physical being are not surrendered or do not on their own account call for the higher life, this struggle is likely to continue. Surrender everything, reject all other desires or interests, call on the divine Shakti to open the vital nature and bring down calm, peace, light, Ananda ...
... soul over the Ignorance and the darkness. The opportunity for these forces is given when the sadhaka descends in the inevitable course of the sadhana from the mental Page 785 or higher vital plane to the physical consciousness. Always this is accompanied by a fading of the first deep experiences and a descent to the neutral obscure inertia which is the bedrock of the unredeemed physical... the psychic and the higher consciousness. It all depends on that. The psychic must be strong enough to compel the vital and physical to give themselves to the Divine—or the higher consciousness must so descend and occupy everything that the old movements can only at most move on the surface without being able to enter in or touch the inner calm—or the two together, psychic and higher consciousness, must... to be rid of these movements, the will of the higher vital would also come into line and the rest which is more obstinate against change because it is a thing of habitual Page 789 movements, supported on the subconscient and not governed by reason or knowledge, would yet be unable to resist permanently or vehemently the pressure from the higher will of the being. Its force of resistance would ...
... historian and mythologist, revealed their secret to the seer-poet, Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo's experiences confirm the belief of the Vedic Rishis that their mantras were inspired from a higher hidden plane of conscious-ness and contained a secret knowledge and that the words of the Veda could only be known in their true meaning by one who is himself a seer or a mystic. In one of the hymns... the dynamic presence and action of Sri Krishna Vasudeva everywhere. It was again in the same jail that Sri Aurobindo heard the voice of Swami Vivekananda for a fortnight and received the knowledge of planes of consciousness between the mind and the supermind. After his acquittal from the jail, Sri Aurobindo continued the inner yogic development, which led him to leave Calcutta under the direct command ...
... Indumatī's sudden demise! It was an ideally harmonious conjugal life the couple had befor this sad and unexpected separation of one from the other thrugh death. This harmony was so refined,and on a higher plane that, once disturbed could not be restored again. In Aja's lamentation, immediately after the sad demise of his beloved queen, Indumatī, as described by the poet with exquisite poetic skill, becomes ...
... beginning by grouping together young men of different castes and religions in a common ideal. All sectarian and political questions are necessarily foreign to its idea and activities. It is on a higher plane of thought superior to external differences of race, caste, creed and opinion and in the solidarity of the spirit that unity can be realized … The Society has its headquarters at Pondicherry with... unless there is already a concealed consciousness in things with its inherent and native powers emerging little by little.’ 27 And Sri Aurobindo compares the mounting and descending hierarchy of planes to a double ladder, first lapsing into the nescience of the Inconscient and Matter and then climbing up again ‘through the flowering of life and soul and mind into the infinity of the Spirit.’ Nobody... content with the results so obtained [in an egoistic aspiration for their own salvation] … He who wants to be perfect in Thy manifestation cannot be satisfied with that, he must manifest Thee on all the planes, in all the states of being and thus turn the knowledge he has acquired to the best account for the whole universe … It is a veritable work of creation we have to do … Thou hast made a promise, Thou ...
... of supreme faculties, corresponding roughly to the psychological faculties of revelation, inspiration and intuition, yet acting not in the intuitive reason or the divine mind, but on a still higher plane, which see Truth directly face to face, or rather live in the truth of things both universal and transcendent and are its formulation and luminous activity. And these faculties are the light of... Page 260 but which dwell in us in a superconscious plane and to which, therefore, we may always ascend.... We perceive then, these three steps in Nature, a bodily life which is the basis of our existence here in the material world, a mental life into which we emerge and by which we raise the bodily to higher uses and enlarge it into a greater completeness, and a divine existence... found in some unrealised harmony, some insufficiency of the intellectual and material basis to which she has now returned, some over-specialisation of the higher to the detriment of the lower existence. But what then constitutes this higher or highest existence to which our evolution is tending? In order to answer the question we have to deal with a class of supreme experiences, a class of ...
... the consciousness of the poet as of all men is complex and there are therefore several planes of consciousness as possible sources of poetry in him. The poetical symbols are also of various kinds and can be seen on various planes of being. All symbols are true—i.e. effective—as far as they go. The higher the plane from which a symbol is seen the greater is the authenticity it carries. Sri Aurobindo... of the Self and the world. The entire second Book is, in fact, Aswapathy' s travel over worlds heaped upon worlds in a complex cosmogony mounting from the plinth of the plane of Matter right up to levels of Higher Mind and the plane of the Cosmic Being leading to worlds of greater knowledge. Aswapathy represents the aspiring human soul down the millenniums of evolution in his search for the truth of... possibilities of the human consciousness, its deeper depths and its higher and the highest heights. In his heart bums the flame of aspiration to create here on earth an image of the perfection which his soul feels is possible for man and earth to attain. The third Book describes Aswapathy's entry into and his experience of Supracosmic planes of consciousness and his meeting face to face with the Supreme ...
... deeper point of view it pulls down the work to a lower region of mental and vital forces and the methods current on that lower plane. The work we have to do does not belong to that plane and cannot be done by current methods. It can only be done by rising to a higher spiritual plane and working silently from there on the forces in action so as to prepare a favourable field for the growth of the true c... consciousness and the true life-action. So long as that is not done, to engage in any activity which means opposition and struggle on the lower plane or to resort to its methods can only put it at a disadvantage and imperil its future. It is from the higher levels that things have to be worked out before the lower can be ready. Your article is not at all conclusive except to people who are already... gospel of this Yoga would not do at all. In the Gita I only explain the spiritual sense of the cāturvarṇya ; I do not put that forward as my own economic or social teaching. Our aim is to rise to a higher spiritual consciousness and to create from there—to drag in mental forms from the present or past society could only spoil or hamper the purity and freedom of the future spiritual working. 29 September ...
... the gross, it has a greater permanence in its being along with a greater potentiality, plasticity and range in its becoming. Each plateau of the hill of being gives to our widening experience a higher plane of our consciousness and a richer world of our existence.’ 24 The supramental body therefore requires ‘a substance other than ours, a subtle substance tangible only to subtle sense, a supraphysical... determines the higher phases of the divinization of the material manifestation of the psychic being. Even in its mature state — the maturity of the soul is, as we have seen, the primordial condition of supramentalization — the psychic being cannot halt at the point in the evolution now reached by humanity. For its redivinization it has also to experience and integrate into itself the higher levels of existence... curious development. For some time, but increasingly more accurately, when one reads something to me, when I listen to music or when I am told a fact, I feel immediately the origin of the activity of the plane on which that is located, or the origin of the inspiration is automatically rendered by a vibration in one of the centres [chakras]. And that is then, in accordance with the quality of the vibration ...
... done with the greatness of the Avatar. But there have since been men who did live in touch with the planes above mind—higher mind, illumined mind, Intuition. There is no question of asking whether they were "greater" than Rama ; they might have been less "great", but they were able to live from a new plane of consciousness. And Krishna's opening the overmind certainly made it possible for the attempt at... steady, organised action following certain definite lines. Its effectiveness as well as its action is determined first by its own height and intensity or that of the plane from which it conies (it may be from any plane ranging from the Higher Mind upward to the Overmind), partly by the condition of the objects or the field in which it acts, partly by the movement which it has to effect, general or particular... practically realised. Past history does not seem to prove it. In Krishna's time, no disciple of his was a greater spiritual figure than the preceding Avatar Rama, even though Krishna was an Avatar of a higher plane. What is all this obsession of greater or less? In our Yoga we do not strive after greatness. It is not a question of Sri Krishna's disciples, but of the earth-consciousness—Rama was a mental ...
... applied without any intuition—an intuition can come without any close connection with a Force, except the force of intuition itself which is another matter. Moreover a Force may be applied from a higher plane than that of any Intuition. By the way, it seems your Supramental is a magnificent something wide apart by gulfs and seas from all other Powers and Forces. Certainly, otherwise I wouldn't... wherever Yoga or Yajna is done, there the hostile forces gather together to stop it by any means. It is known that there is a lower nature and a higher spiritual nature—it is known that they pull different ways and the lower is strongest at first and the higher afterwards. It is known that the hostile Forces take advantage of the movements of the lower nature and try to spoil through them, smash or retard ...
... from the psychic centre) are mind-planes or mind-centres, that Tiphareth in the middle is the psychic, the three between it and the earth are vital planes. In the absence of precise information I cannot carry the correlation farther. Now as to the three Supernals. I do not quite understand L.O.E.'s sentence about them—for she speaks of two only, the real and higher man and the separated man. Should... supermind" [ p. 305 ]. But you should have seen that by "supramental planes" I did not mean supermind, but any of the spiritual planes above the mind. Is there no need of the higher spiritual planes for separating the mind, vital and physical from one another? Spiritual and supramental are not the same thing. The spiritual planes from higher mind to Overmind are accessible to the old sadhanas so there... vital). All this makes it pretty clear that Tiphareth is either the psychic or else the psychic + the emotional plane or centre. You speak of the flaming sword and the gulf below the Overmind. But is there a gulf—or any other gulf than human unconsciousness? In all the series of the planes or grades of consciousness there is nowhere any real gulf, always there are connecting gradations and one can ...
... Intuition in Mathematics "The scientist who gets an inspiration revealing to him a new truth, receives it from the intuitive mind. The knowledge comes as a direct perception in the higher mental plane illumined by some other light still farther above." 17 Mathematicians have not only discarded the vain hope of enthroning reason as the sole arbiter of Reality and Truth; as an... it is the scientific world that will first get transformed; because that demands a very great sincerity and a great perseverance in effort, and these are indeed the qualities that open the door to a higher life." The Mother It is a curious but significant fact that some of the greatest philosophical thinkers, notably Pythagoras, Descartes, Pascal and Leibnitz, were great mathematicians... the intellect and there is a wrong movement; one helps, the other hinders. The intellect that believes too much in its own importance and wants satisfaction for its own sake, is an obstacle to the higher realisation.... Any part of the being that keeps to its proper place and plays its appointed role is helpful; but directly it steps beyond its sphere, it becomes twisted and perverted and therefore ...
... cosmic perception and knowledge: this tendency is therefore a widening, however rudimentary, of these restricted mind areas towards cosmicity, towards a quality which is the very character of the higher mental planes,—towards that superconscient cosmic Mind which, we have suggested, must in the nature of things be the original mind-action of which ours is only a derivative and inferior process. Again, there... necessary lines of contact or veiled or half-veiled passages which connect it with higher grades of consciousness of the self-manifesting Spirit. First, we have noted the place Intuition occupies in the human means of knowledge, and Intuition is in its very nature a projection of the characteristic action of these higher grades into the mind of Ignorance. It is true that in human mind its action is largely... outer surface self also to the messages of these higher ranges of consciousness, by growing into them, we can become ourselves also intuitive and overmental beings, not limited by the intellect and sense, but capable of a more universal comprehension and a direct touch of truth in its very self and body. In fact flashes of enlightenment from these higher ranges already come to us, but this intervention ...
... the different planes of inspiration -unless one can say that the effective style comes from the higher mind, illumined from the illumined mind, the inspired from the plane of intuition. But I don't know whether that would stand at all times— especially when each style reaches its inevitable power." We may note here apropos of The Triumph of Dante that about Dante's own plane of poetry Sri... what? SRI AUROBINDO'S REPLY "What super-excellence? As poetry? When I say that a line comes from a higher or overhead plane or has the Overmind Page 106 touch I do not mean that it is superior in pure poetic excellence to others from loweR planes—that Amal's lines outshine Shakespeare or Homer for instance. I simply mean that it has some vision, light, etc. from... view the Dark Well poems when I wrote about Harin. I was thinking of his ordinary way of writing. If I remember right, the Dark Well poems came from the inner mind centre, some from the Higher Mind—other planes may have sent their message to his mind to put in poetic speech, but the main worker was the poetic intelligence which took what was given and turned it into something very vivid, coloured ...
... and the vital mind, so that they may become fit instruments of the Truth. That is a big enough work.... 52 On 13 July, he said that, for bringing down any higher spiritual force (especially the Supermind) into the earth-plane and the physical being, one had to sit down to it and call it down and hold it, and not prematurely rush into inconsequential action. "Therefore I say," he added, "it... shouldn't mean a cancellation of the way down. As interpreted by T.V. Kapali Sastry, the first boon Nachiketas secures from Yama in the Kathopanishad really involves the power "to come back from the higher plane to the physical with the connection between this and the life beyond established, maintaining the thread of consciousness". 58 Always to extend, to connect, to integrate - to stand the magic ladder... t to what was happening in Bengal or in India. There were visitors, and there were interviews, and there were discussions and there was also some significant action, as yet nameless, on the occult planes. Advocate S. Doraiswami Aiyar from Madras, W. W. Pearson from Shantiniketan, Dr. Moonje from Nagpur, Colonel Wedgewood from Britain, and Saraladevi Chaudhurani from Calcutta were among the more important ...
... apparently they do not improve. And for a consciousness seated a little higher, it is quite evident that all evil at least what we call evil all falsehood, all that is contrary to the Truth, all suffering, all opposition is the result of a disequilibrium. I believe that one who is habituated to seeing things from this higher plane sees immediately that it is like that. Consequently, the world cannot... of what one thinks, of all one's activities, of strictly doing only what can help you on the spiritual path; it does not necessarily have to be very narrow and limited, but it must be on a little higher plane than the ordinary life, and with a concentration of will and aspiration which does not allow any wandering on the path, going here and there uselessly. This is austere; it is difficult to take this... subject... you must be active while you are there. It must be... If the students want to practise meditation, concentration, to try to come into... it is to come into contact with the intuitive plane, it is instead of receiving a purely mental reply which is like that to receive a reply from above which is a little luminous and living. But that habit should be acquired at home. Naturally, someone ...
... on its own plane, the rule principally dependent on external status and the rule independent of status and entirely dependent on the thought and conscience. The Gita does not teach us to subordinate the higher plane to the lower, it does not ask the awakened moral consciousness to slay itself on the altar of duty as a sacrifice and victim to the law of the social status. It calls us higher and not lower;... release thee from all sin; do not grieve." The argument of the Gita resolves itself into three great steps by which action rises out of the human into the divine plane leaving the bondage of the lower for the liberty of a higher law. First, by the renunciation of desire and a perfect equality works have to be done as a sacrifice by man as the doer, a sacrifice to a deity who is the supreme and... Time, and the Gita would have us live in the Eternal. Or if these higher things are now beginning to be vaguely envisaged, it is only to make them subservient to man and society; but God and spirituality exist in their own right and not as adjuncts. And in practice the lower in us must learn to exist for the higher, in order that the higher also may in us consciously exist for the lower, to draw it nearer ...
... sadhaks in all times have had the realisation of the Atman in the higher mental planes, buddheh paratah, but the supramental realisation was not theirs. One can get partial realisations of the Self or Spirit or the Divine on any plane, mental, vital, physical even, and when one rises above the ordinary mental plane of man into a higher and larger mind, the Self begins to appear in all its conscious... be in union with the Divine Knowledge, Will and Love. Secondly, to develop the yogic consciousness, i.e., to universalise the being in all the planes, become aware of the cosmic being and cosmic forces and be in union with the Divine on all the planes up to the overmind. Thirdly, to come into contact with the transcendent Divine beyond the overmind through the supramental consciousness, supramentalise... highest flights and widest rangings of divine knowledge, power, joy, life and glory with the cosmic existence of the gods, pursued behind the symbols of the material universe into those superior planes which are hidden from the physical sense and the material mentality. The crown of this synthesis was in the experience of the Vedic Rishis something divine, transcendent and blissful in whose unity ...
... identical with him. The Master is once more a little remote & the Manomaya Purusha half veils the Vijnanamaya. There is continual advance & progress but on the Page 550 old planes at a higher level & not on the new planes which seemed to have been permanently gained for the siddhi. It is not precisely asiddhi that has conquered, but for the time being, a lower form of siddhi. Ananda. The... before, the wall of Vala shutting out the light, still less the veil of Vritra preventing the activities. Anima Agni is now manifesting in all the seven planes of consciousness of the physical being with a reference back to the mental plane. Persist in the will for perfection; give no consent to an imperfect fullness. Ananda. The persistence of ahaituka tivra increased greatly today... well done & rapidly done. Vijnana Particular perception is now manifesting a great power of ritam which is of the nature of chit that is tapas, a perception that fulfils itself & is on the higher plane the cause of its fulfilment, Knowledge that is at the same time self-effective Will. The prediction constantly made throughout the Yoga, which always seemed to be contradicted & turn into falsehood ...
... intellectual Page 257 and moral palsy seizes them and keeps them down to a low level of being, they are like insects grovelling in the dust, and before they can be lifted up to the higher plane of sattva, they must pass through rajas. 24 Did not the champions of the new-spirituality (who were really the defenders of tamas) - did they not know what Sri Chaitanya himself... and work for the whole world. By losing themselves in the adoration and service of the Mother, they would experience a great accession of strength in them and in the Mother, and that would be the higher fulfilment. "When in future I shall look upon your career of glorious activity," Sri Aurobindo concluded, "I may have the pride of remembering that I did something to prepare and begin it." ... that conceded independence to India (and Pakistan) on 15 August. Page 260 perversions of what had once been Englishmen! Need we be surprised now that all Anglo-India, all the higher echelons of the bureaucracy, the British Government itself, all gnashed their teeth, fumed in impotent fury, and vowed that the culprit who, veiling himself behind editorial anonymity, could perpetrate ...
... later-demarcated planes not only the Higher Mind but also the Illumined Mind. The Super-mind started beyond them - at the plane of the intuition." This argument is rather insecure. The remaining new definitions do not appear to bear out its conclusion. Thus the third shows the thousand-petalled lotus as the centralising Chakra - that is, the centre - for "the thinking mind and higher intelligence"... Krishna with the Gopis who are ¹. "Sri Aurobindo at Evening Talk", Mother India., Page 24 his devotees, is not a fact of the physical plane but of the higher and deeper planes. In the Puranas we have mental representations of truths about the Gods, but these representations point yet to the real world of the Gods. These Gods have their Ganas, the ... but the heart is higher than they, and the Overmind is higher than the heart; he who is higher than the Overmind, that is He." As is evident from his later Essays on the Gita, Sri Aurobindo means in all these instances the higher intelligence or superior mind in man, the Buddhi or intellect, what he also called "the intelligent will". Here is no going beyond the mental plane. It is not easy ...
... Pythagorean, Stoic and Epicurean, which were dynamic not only for thought but for conduct of life and developed a discipline, an effort at inner perfection of being. A little later, this reached a higher spiritual plane of knowledge in later Christian or Neo-pagan thought-structures where the East and the West met together. But later on, the intellectualisation became complete and the connection of Philosophy... between the ethical and the spiritual and the resolution of ethical dilemmas in the light of higher spiritual knowledge. Page 219 VII The course in Applied Philosophy would underline the study of those uplifting forces which have provided to humanity the basic impetus to rise to higher and higher levels of culture and would thus stimulate students to practise in their own life the lessons... which has been developed for thousands of years in India as Applied Philosophy, has begun to command increasing recognition. Yoga has developed various kinds of evidence of the existence of other planes of beings and communication with them. They include objectification of the outer sense, subtle-sense contacts, mind contacts, life contacts, contacts through the subliminal in special states of co ...
... operations of ignorance. It was against this background that the final answer of the Gita goes beyond the higher level of consciousness indicated by Sankhya. The call of the Gita is not to subordinate the higher plane to the lower, but it calls us to rise higher and even to higher than the higher and to ascend to a supreme poise above the mainly practical, above the purely ethical, and even above the... but through a higher source of the higher Prakriti, Para Prakriti. That higher nature is higher because it is the direct will of the Purushottama himself, and it is as universal and luminously universal as the Purushottama, even though Purushottama is still transcendental in a state where both immobility of Purusha or Brahman is synthesized with the mobility of higher nature. That higher nature is luminously... eight-fold Prakriti, which is My nature. That is My lower nature, O Mighty-armed Arjuna! Other than this, know my higher Nature which has manifested as the individual souls, and it is that higher nature by which this entire world is sustained ....O Arjuna, there exists nothing else that is higher than Me. All this is woven upon Me like rows of gems upon a string."³³ In chapter eight, the following d ...
... means to us, to wit, a kind of irrational capacity of feeling things which may be surprisingly correct but also very unreliable. In Sri Aurobindo’s scheme of the world, intuition is one of the higher spiritual planes. When he wrote that the Mother knew by means of her intuition, he meant that she knew the things by a direct knowledge derived from the Unity-Consciousness where all is known in ‘the three... Question: ‘In what sense is the Mother everywhere? Does she know all happenings in the physical plane?’ His answer: ‘Including what Lloyd George 93 had for breakfast today or what Roosevelt 94 said to his wife about the servants? Why should the Mother “know” in the human way all happenings in the physical plane? Her business in her embodiment is to know the workings of the universal forces and use them... this? One reads in the Agenda how the Mother once told Satprem that Nolini, one of the first companions of Sri Aurobindo whom we have already met in this story, inwardly could rise at will to the plane of Being-Consciousness-Bliss — that is to say to the highest level of the divine manifestation. After Nolini’s demise, in 1984, several persons have published their remembrances of him. There we read ...
... all other saints, sages and even past avatars. The idea was abroad that he was assuredly superior to Krishna as the latter was but an avatar of the Overmental plane whereas he (Sri Aurobindo) belonged to the still higher, Supramental, plane. This kind of crude and blatant gossip often got on my nerves and made me repeat sturdily the Bhagavat pronuciamento about Krishna being the ultimate Divine buttressed... "There is no question of jugglery about it. What is not true is not supramental. As for calm and silence, there is no need of the supramental to get that. One gets it even on the level of the Higher Mind which is the next, above the human intelligence. I got these things in 1908 twenty-seven years ago, and I can assure you they were solid and marvellous enough in all conscience without any need... necessary for the Divine purpose it has to be done, Sri Ramakrishna himself answered thousands of questions, I believe. But the answers must be such as he gave and such as I try to give answers from a higher spiritual experience, from a deeper source of knowledge and not lucubrations of the logical intellect trying to co-ordinate its ignorance; still less can there be a placing of the Divine ...
... a real communication from a higher plane, marked by a sense of elevation and wonder, it gets transcribed by the subconscient and what that forms is either flat or ludicrous. Moreover, this was seen between sleep and waking—and things so seen are not dreams, but experiences from other planes—either mental or vital or subtle physical or more rarely psychic or higher plane experiences. In this case... The first is a sort of formation on the vital plane or a possibility for the future—whether or how it will come about in the physical is a different matter. The other is an excursion into the vital world where there are all the types and forms of things that happen here, and having its own region or province there. One is constantly going into these planes (and others also mental and psychic and subtle... difficult to offer Rs.300 even — (Sri Aurobindo's note :) One may have the experiences on the mental plane without this knowledge coming—for there Mind and Idea Predominate and one does not feel the play of Forces—it is only in the vital that that becomes clear. In the mind plane they manifest at most as mental suggestions and not as concrete Powers, Also, if one looks at things with the Mind ...
... physical plane. My education in England was badly neglected—though people say to the contrary. I filled in most of the lacunae afterwards, but some remained of which the musical gap is one. But that is no reason why I should not sing on the supraphysical plane where you saw me! There is no exact correspondence between the formation here and the formations there—on the contrary on these inner planes the... theirs; it is not deterioration when one rises from a lower to a higher plane of thinking, feeling or artistic self-expression. I used to write poems on vital love. I could not do it now (for if I wrote of love, it would be the psychic and spiritual feeling)—not because I have narrowed or deteriorated, but I have centred myself in a higher consciousness and anything merely vital would not express me... impressions arising out of the subconscient, but they have a different character. This must be a contact with Girish Ghose somewhere in another world or plane—such contacts are frequent when one has become consciously active in dream on supraphysical planes. June 15, 1933 The other day at pranam the Mother saw in me the great Latin poet Horace as one of my former incarnations, and ...
... the brightness of lightning for a higher consciousness. We can doubt or deny, nevertheless, things will be accomplished. We who today attempt to confine Time in mathematical formulae live, as it were, in slow motion what, with another consciousness, appears in another rhythm. This is not to be accounted to our mistakes, but is simply a matter of different planes of consciousness. We live thus in... in our vision, we have believed that it would take place in a single day, whereas the activation of the cells of our brain may well take centuries Page 14 before linking us to a higher plane of universal consciousness from which, without ceasing to be human, mental creatures, we shall perceive the universe from within. Dominating the continued double current of desire and refusal, we... while He will more and more fill our consciousness. At present our thinking is horizontal. It only really explores a single plane of being: Matter, not Matter in itself, but such as is perceived by the mental. Our thinking will become vertical. It will raise itself to higher levels where it will not cease to modify, purify and enlighten itself. In the presence of the wonder, and presaging what ...
... done quickly, on the physico-vital and physical planes. But this has very violent reactions and therefore the mental and the vital being, instead of seizing upon the higher light and power, should surrender themselves to the higher Power. We have not to rest satisfied with partial transformation. We have to bring down the higher Power to the physical plane and govern the most external details of life... ourselves to the higher Light, the absolute surrender. If there is the entire essential sincerity, opening to the Light and surrender and a gradual growth of consciousness on all the planes you can become an ideal sadhaka of this yoga." ¹ + + + On another occasion Sri Aurobindo referred to his sadhana as follows: "When I was doing sadhana on the mental plane things came so easily. It... conscious on all the planes of Page 199 our being, and to bring down the higher light, power and ananda to govern even the most external details of life. We must detach ourselves and observe all that is going on in the nature; not even the smallest movement, the most external act must remain unnoticed. This process is comparatively easy in the mental and vital planes. But in the ph ...
... be profound. The "untransformed part of humanity" must throw up in due course more and more highly evolved beings, some intuitivised, some overmentalised, some in constant communion with the higher thought-planes. 61 Sri Aurobindo also makes it clear that, although it is the elected individual who spearheads each evolutionary advance, he will not by himself be able to bring Page 437 ... divine being. The knot of the two, the higher and the lower hemisphere, is where mind and Supermind meet with a veil between them. The rending of the veil is the condition of the divine life in humanity; for by that rending, by the illumining descent of the higher into the nature of the lower being and the forceful ascent of the lower being into the nature of the higher, mind can recover its divine light... by Asceticism to life". 14 Modern materialism, in the main a Western phenomenon, has given signal service to questing man by providing him with a considerable body of knowledge regarding the lower planes of existence, just as asceticism, in the main an Eastern and even peculiarly an Indian phenomenon, has served aspiring man by boldly adventuring into the unknown and giving him intimations of the ...
... mental being, the directly or partly illumined mental being, the mental being in direct or part communion with the higher-thought plane would emerge: these would become more and more numerous, more and more evolved and secure in their type, and might even exist as a formed race of higher humanity leading upwards the less evolved in a true fraternity born of the sense of the manifestation of the One Divine... the Page 1002 upsurging, at each critical stage, of a concealed Power from its involution in the Inconscience, but also by a descent from above, from its own plane, of that Power already self-realised in its own higher natural province. In all these previous stages there has been a division between surface self and consciousness and subliminal self and consciousness; the surface was formed... confined to an inner pervasive and inclusive contact with the physical world alone: it will extend beyond it through the full realisation of the subliminal inner being's natural connection with other planes of being; a knowledge of their powers and influences will have become a normal element of the inner experience, and the happenings of this world will be seen not solely in their external aspect but ...
... Cows whom Brihaspati finds and Soma and the pressing-stones and the illumined seers" (verses 10-11). Here is a hint to the Panis that they, instead of being overcome and oppressed, may rise to a higher plane and voluntarily let go the precious bearers of light to their true home. Their Indra-ward conversion is shown as possible by this proposal. Sri Aurobindo 396 follows up the sense of that... in connection with the surpassing of the human formula by means of the triple dawn effecting the Indra-type in man's mentality and creating the demi-god: "The seer of this self-fulfilment on the higher plane is born, as it were, into many realms of consciousness and from each of these there go up its words that express the impulses in it which seek a divine fulfilment. The Mind-Soul answers to these... Obviously these "Aryan adversaries" noted by Sri Aurobindo are lords of higher states of being and consciousness in the inner world, beyond whom the Aryan man would go and who therefore resent his progress and join hands with the Dāsa-Dasyus, the obstructors in that occult dimension. The idea that the lords of higher states of being and consciousness in this dimension could be designated "Aryan" ...
... this Path. It was the same for those boys. My Sadhana was incomplete until the Mother's coming. She came and the Ashram grew around her, the Sadhana Page 218 became more intense; higher realms and planes were revealed to my vision. Do you understand? This was the Ashram's most brilliant period. I will tell you more about it later. Did Nolini tell you anything more?" "Yes, he did. He told... shines.' " "The Mother has described Savitri as mantric, and your poem 'Rose of God' too." "Is that so? Well, 'Rose of God' and a few others have come down, in their entirety, from a higher plane. It is my custom, often, to make alterations after I have written the poem - alterations which also come from 'overhead' - but 'Rose of God' is as if it were already composed and arranged in full... it is not always necessary to understand the sense. The waves of sound can generate in you vibrations of light and joy and force and can even draw up your consciousness to a Page 139 higher plane. Take, for example 'Bande Mataram' that we were talking about. If you change it into 'Mataram Bande', you do not alter the sense at all, but it is no longer mantric. It will never make your hair ...
... may still last on for some time, but there is no longer the same inevitability. This would seem to show that there is or can be a higher power or higher plane or higher source of spiritual destiny which can, if its hour has come, override the lower power, lower plane or lower source of vital and material fate of which the stars are indicators. I say vital because character can also be indicated... of the Infinite pervading material space and the Immanent inhabiting material objects and bodies. At the same time I found myself entering supraphysical worlds and planes with influences and an effect from them upon the material plane, so I could make no sharp divorce or irreconcilable opposition between what I have called the two ends of existence and all that lies between them. For me all is Brahman... runs in your veins. I have no doubt that you will follow the latter course. I have three manias, one might call them madness. The first is that I firmly believe that the qualities, talent, higher education and learning, and wealth God has given me, all belong to Him, and that I am entitled to use only so much of them as is necessary for the maintenance of the family, and whatever else is ...
... results may still last on for a time, but there is no longer the same inevitability. This would seem to show that there is or can be a higher power or higher plane or higher source of spiritual destiny which can, if its hour has come, override the lower-power, lower-plane or lower source of vital and material fate of which the stars are indicators. I say vital because character can also be indicated from... strain her. As for the question about the illness, perfection in the physical plane is indeed part of the idea of the Yoga, but it is the last item and, so long as the fundamental change has not been made in the material consciousness to which the body belongs, one may have a certain perfection on other planes without having immunity in the body. We have not sought perfection for our own separate... accepting and facing the difficulties of the realisation and transformation and overcoming them for ourselves. It has been done to a sufficient degree on the other planes—but not yet on the most material part of the physical plane. Till it is done, the fight there continues and, though there may be and is a force of Yogic action and defence, there cannot be immunity. The Mother's difficulties ...
... money with that Society, 26 mind you! Ah, he was ... he bribed everyone: the magistrates, the postmen, everything.... He was in control of everything . The planes, a fantastic intelligence service: you could not take a plane without his knowing it, you could not mail a letter without its being opened, you could not make a phone call without its being listened to — incredible 1 And murderers... “doctor of souls,” the “ideal father,” and so on), it was meant to be vaster than that, more universal, and to create. François never could create because he was never able to put his love on a higher plane and the creative force he did not use turned into a destructive force. No, François was not an ordinary man, but his heart was not commensurate with that which strove to pass through him. And... are reaching there, that is, the veil is wearing down — not in our head: in our body. So when this body’s consciousness is very heavy and slurred, all is very-very-far-away, forming planes and planes, “subtle” physical here, “subtle” physical there — then one fine day everything becomes “subtle” or is no longer subtle at all: it is all here, quite simply. The supramental “invasion” is our ...
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