... from a fourfold order of knowledge. The original and fundamental way of knowing, native to the occult self in things, is a knowledge by identity; the second, derivative, Page 543 is a knowledge by direct contact associated at its roots with a secret knowledge by identity or starting from it, but actually separated from its source and therefore powerful but incomplete in its cognition; the... t, a dark knowledge by identity, such as we find already in the Inconscience, is the basis, but it does not reveal itself and its secret. The superior superconscient ranges are based upon the spiritual consciousness free and luminous, and it is there that we can trace the original power of knowledge and perceive the origin and difference of the two distinct orders, knowledge by identity and separative... The Infinite Consciousness and the Ignorance The Life Divine Chapter X Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge They see the Self in the Self by the Self. Gita. (VI. 20.) Where there is duality, there other sees other, other hears, touches, thinks of, knows other. But when one sees all as the Self, by what shall one know it ...
... of knowledge are projected from this knowledge by identity, are parts or movements of it, or at the lowest depend on it for their truth and light, are touched and supported by it even in their own separate way of action and refer back to it overtly or implicitly as their authority and origin. The activity which is nearest to this essential knowledge by identity is the large embracing consciousness... identity, a knowledge by identity,—an identity of being, of consciousness, of force of being and consciousness, of delight of being, an identity with the Infinite, the Divine, and with all that is in the Infinite, all that is the expression and manifestation of the Divine. This awareness and knowledge will use as its means and instruments a spiritual vision of all that the knowledge by identity can found... it holds the object of consciousness as a part of the self or one with it, the unity being spontaneously and directly realised in the act of knowledge. Another supramental activity puts the knowledge by identity more into the background and stresses more the objectivity of the thing known. Its characteristic movement, descending into the mind, becomes the source of the peculiar nature of our mental ...
... description of the highest form of knowledge by identity. So long as there is separation between the knower and the object of his knowledge, the knowledge acquired cannot but be indirect, and what it brings to the knower is not truth, but only half- truth or even falsehood. If we study the lives of the mystics, we come across innumerable instances of the knowledge by identity. Compared with this knowledge... multiply, add, subtract, but it cannot get Page 349 beyond the limits of this mathematics.... Mind cannot possess the infinite..."¹ Real knowledge, on the contrary, is knowledge by identity. I cannot really know a person unless I identify myself with him. An observation of his ways of life his nature and speech and manners and dealings with others, can give me only a superficial... with him, I become his self and his nature; the major and minor vibrations of his consciousness rise in my consciousness, and I can easily know them for what they are. The truth behind this knowledge by identity is that existence is one. Being is one, consciousness is ¹ The Life Divine by Sri Aurobindo. Page 350 one, and when I go down to the all-pervading bedrock consciousness ...
... feelings. Thus at bottom, identification is a reflection of what in yoga has been called knowledge by identity - the highest form of knowledge which consists in becoming one with the object to be known. Sri Aurobindo has stated it thus: "In reality, all experience is in its secret nature knowledge by identity; but its true character is hidden from us because we have separated ourselves from the... caused by physical contact and mental sympathy." 3 From what has been stated above, it follows that hidden behind all the forms of identification normal to human beings there is the secret knowledge by identity possessed by the innermost self. The commonly recognized forms of identification mentioned earlier are only the external and more obvious forms of a subtle and all-pervasive process which, for... you share the Supreme Nature and get the full knowledge whenever you turn to observe any object and identify yourself with it... which is certainly more than what is called in yogic parlance knowledge by identity. For, the kind of identification taught by many disciplines extends your limits of perception without piercing to the innermost heart of an object: it sees from within it, as it were, but only ...
... dealt with the knowledge by identity as a possible source of valid knowledge. And knowledge by identity is not mystic, superstitious or something abnormal, but normally known to almost the whole of humanity in the course of its cultural activity. There is no cultural activity in which something of the knowledge by identity has not worked. We have seen that knowledge by identity is something that... about a change in your system. To bring about a change in your spiritual system some other radical, more nourishing food is to be given, the spiritual food. That is Knowledge by identity,— Knowledge by oneness. Knowledge by identity is the remedy, which means increase or expansion of self-awareness. When one says "man", or "I", or "I am the body", "I am desire", "I am impulses", "I am ideas"... that actually concerns humanity. Humanity has been constantly taking advantage of this knowledge by identity, through the process of intuition. Knowledge by identity does not take place all at once. When identity begins it overpasses the realm of reason and brings the light of intuition, inspiration, revelation into human mentality and it is that which has moulded many of the forms of cultural ...
... aware of anger, as has been acutely said, because we become anger. We are thus aware also of our own existence; and here the nature of experience as knowledge by identity becomes apparent. In reality, all experience is in its secret nature knowledge by identity; but its true character is hidden from us because we have separated ourselves from the rest of the world by exclusion, by the distinction of ourself... must be somewhere in the organism possessed of that reason a means of arriving at or verifying them by experience. The one means we have left in our mentality is an extension of that form of knowledge by identity which gives us the awareness of our own existence. It is really upon a self-awareness more or less conscient, more or less present to our conception that the knowledge of the contents of our ...
... organised is, as has been already indicated, that of pure ideative knowledge. This is transformed on the higher level to the true jñāna , supramental thought, supramental vision, the supramental knowledge by identity. The essential action of this supramental knowledge has Page 841 been described in the preceding chapter. It is necessary however to see also how this knowledge works in outward... self and its inherent Page 848 and eternal self-knowledge. It is thus that the supermind acting as a representative, interpretative, revealingly imperative power of the spirit's knowledge by identity, turning the light of the infinite consciousness freely and illimitably into substance and form of real-idea, creating out of power of conscious being and power of real-idea, stabilising a movement... endeavour. It is sufficient to say that the process here is more sufficient, intense and large in light, imperative, instantaneous, the scope of the active knowledge larger, the way nearer to the knowledge by identity, the thought more packed with the luminous substance of self-awareness and all-vision and more evidently independent of any other inferior support or assistance. These characteristics, it ...
... in directness and greatness of the supramental powers. It is something much more near, profound and comprehensive Page 833 than mental vision, because it derives direct from the knowledge by identity, and it has this virtue that we can proceed at once from the vision to the identity, as from the identity to the vision. Thus when the spiritual vision has seen God, Self or Brahman, the soul... close presence and contact and substance. All these powers prepare us to become one with that which has thus grown near to us through knowledge. The supramental thought is a form of the knowledge by identity and a development, in the idea, of the truth presented to the supramental vision. The identity and the vision give the truth in its essence, its body and its parts in a single view: the thought... all these there will be the same character of a spirit seeing and willing directly above and around and not only in the body it possesses and there will be the same action of the supramental knowledge by identity, the supramental vision, the supramental thought and supramental word, separately or in a united movement. Page 839 This then will be the general character of the supramental thought ...
... ed speech... And yet, though in this way unknowable to us, it is not altogether and in every way unknowable; it is self-evident to itself and, although inexpressible, yet self-evident to a knowledge by identity of which the spiritual being in us must be capable..." (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, p. 322) "Mind is that which does not know, which tries to know and which... consciousness relying on the crutches of thought alone. Indeed, different modes of cognition derive in various degrees from what Sri Aurobindo has called 'a fourfold order of knowledge' 42 : (i) a knowledge by identity, which is the original and fundamental way of knowing; (ii) a knowledge by direct intimate contact; (iii) a knowledge by separative direct contact; and (iv) a wholly separative knowledge by... (iii) a third or representative vision. To have a clear grasp of the nature of these levels, let us refer to the words of Sri Aurobindo: "The supramental thought is a form of the knowledge by identity and a development, in the idea, of the truth presented to the supramental vision. The identity and the vision give the truth in its essence, its body and its parts in a single view: the ...
... Page 113 power of knowledge'. "The original and fundamental way of knowing, native to the occult self in things, is a knowledge by identity; the second, derivative, is a knowledge by direct contact associated at its roots with a secret knowledge by identity or starting from it, but actually separated from its source and therefore powerful but incomplete in its cognition; the third is a... machinery of indirect contact, a knowledge by acquisition which is yet, without being conscious of it, a rendering or bringing up of the contents of a pre-existent inner awareness and knowledge. A knowledge by identity, a knowledge by intimate direct contact, a knowledge by separative direct contact, a wholly separative knowledge by indirect contact are the four cognitive methods of Nature." 82 The true knowledge ...
... degrees from a fourfold order of knowledge. The original and fundamental way of knowing, native to the occult self in things, is a knowledge by identity; the second, derivative, is a knowledge by direct contact associated at its roots with a securer knowledge by identity or starting from it, but actually separated from its source and therefore powerful but incomplete in its cognition; the third is a... itself is a unitive knowledge through consciousness, in which the knower and the thing known become one. In a similar way, Sri Aurobindo distinguishes four methods of knowledge: 1. Knowledge by identity: The knower and what is known are one; there is no division between the subject and object, between self and not-self. 2. Knowledge by intimate direct contact: There is an intimate... machinery of indirect contact, a knowledge by acquisition which is yet, without being conscious of it, a rendering or bringing up of the contents of a pre-existent inner awareness and knowledge. A knowledge by identity, a knowledge by intimate direct contact, a knowledge by separative direct contact, a wholly separative knowledge by indirect contact are the four cognitive methods of Nature. 56 Page ...
... the knowledge proper to the subliminal being is not complete. According to Sri Aurobindo, knowledge, in order to be true and complete, must be a knowledge by identity. The subliminal knowledge is a knowledge by direct contact but not knowledge by identity. Therefore, a deeper and higher consciousness is needed to cure the deficiencies and mixtures of ignorance and knowledge that we obtain at the level... derive the knowledge which they turn' into thought or sight and bring down to us for the mind's transmutation. Intuition is a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by identity; for it is always something that leaps out direct from a concealed identity. It is when the consciousness of the subject meets with the consciousness in the object, penetrates it and sees, feels... not work primarily by thought, but by vision, and the Intuitive Mind is more than sight, more than conception. Intuition is a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by identity; it is when the consciousness of the subject meets the consciousness in the object, penetrates it and sees, feels or vibrates with the truth of what it contacts, that the intuition leaps out ...
... is a verse in the Upanishad for knowledge by identity – leaving aside the mind. "One must become one with that like an arrow piercing the mark." Sri Aurobindo : That won't fit exactly, because knowledge by identity is much more than that. Generally they mean by "knowledge by identity" the knowledge of self; while that is one part of the knowledge by identity. Disciple : In Raja yoga ...
... to the subliminal being is not complete; for it is a mixture of knowledge and ignorance and it is capable of erroneous as well as of true perception. Sri Aurobindo The Life Divine - I: Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge …they move in masses, waves, currents constantly constituting and reconstituting beings and objects, movements and happenings, entering into them, passing through... contact; when the being enters into the cosmic consciousness, it is still more widely, inclusively, intimately aware of this play of cosmic forces. Sri Aurobindo The Life Divine - I: Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge Each man has his own personal consciousness entrenched in his body and gets into touch with his surroundings only through his body and senses and the mind using ...
... either of the Overmind or the Supermind. And Sri Aurobindo says this, that so long as you are in the mental field, reason helps you, it is your helper, your guide; but if you want to have true knowledge by identity, reason becomes a limitation and a bar. That is not to say that you should lose it! But it must be subordinated to your movement of ascent. Sri Aurobindo does not tell you to become unreasonable... deductions is almost absolute in you. It expresses itself through all sorts of ideas which reasonably enough appear evident to you, yet are exactly the limitations which prevent you from reaching knowledge by identity. For instance, if a man plunges into the water without knowing how to swim, he will be drowned; if there is a fairly powerful wind, it will upset things; when it rains, you get wet, etc.—you ...
... themselves, "I see it, I touch it, I feel it—consequently it is false." We are at opposite poles and there is no way of coming to an understanding. For Sri Aurobindo, true knowledge is precisely Knowledge by identity, and wisdom is the state one achieves when one is in this true knowledge. He says it here: Wisdom looks behind the veil of false appearances and sees the reality behind it. And Sri Aurobindo... the difference between this and that, one act and Page 17 another, one object and another, that one makes decisions and that reason works. But it is precisely true Knowledge, Knowledge by identity and the wisdom which results from it that always see the point where all apparently contradictory things harmonise, complement each other, form a perfectly coherent, coordinated whole. And naturally ...
... being and becoming pouring itself out continually and filling every particular act and activity with the pure and whole delight of its self-existence. For an infinite consciousness with its knowledge by identity there is in each differentiation the joy and experience of the Identical, in each finite is felt the Infinite. An evolution of gnostic consciousness brings with it a transformation of our... working in act of nature. A harmonic action, a working out of the divine motive, an execution of the imperative truth of things would be the law and natural dynamics of the whole existence. A knowledge by identity using the powers of the integrated being for richness of instrumentation would be the principle of the supramental life. In the other grades of the gnostic being, although a truth of spiritual ...
... . I know myself because I am myself, I know the movements of my mind, joy, anger, love, thought, will, because they are myself or parts of myself; I have a direct knowledge of myself, a knowledge by identity. Observation, reasoning there can be as a subsidiary process; but it is not by observation or reasoning that I know them; I feel and know my anger or love as part of myself and have no need... reason in order to know that I am angry or that I love. Intuition is a direct knowledge self-existent and independent of means and devices; it is naturally self-existent and founded upon a knowledge by identity; or when it is gained, it is either by identification or by a knowledge arising from some intimate contact made possible by an underlying or occult identity. 73 Nothing has the value ...
... opening of each chapter. PURANI: About the quotation for the chapter, "Knowledge by identity", there is a sloka which says, "One must become like an arrow piercing its mark." I wonder if that will suit. SRI AUROBINDO: It won't quite fit, because knowledge by identity is more than that. When they speak of knowledge by identity the Upanishads mean knowledge of the Self which is all, but that is one ...
... the knowledge proper to the subliminal being is not complete. According to Sri Aurobindo, knowledge, in order to be true and complete, must be a knowledge by identity. The subliminal knowledge is a knowledge by direct contact but not knowledge by identity. Therefore, a deeper and higher consciousness is needed to cure the deficiencies and mixtures of ignorance and knowledge that we obtain at the level... not work primarily by thought, but by vision, and the Intuitive Mind is more than sight, more than conception. Intuition is a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by identity; it is when the consciousness of the subject meets the consciousness in the object, penetrates it and sees, feels or vibrates with the truth of what it contacts, that the intuition leaps out ...
... Divine knows not only his own essence and being but his manifestation also. Its fundamental character is 72 Letters on Yoga, SABCL, Vol. 22, p. 241. Page 163 knowledge by identity, by that the Self is known, the Divine Sachchidananda is known, but also the truth of manifestation is known, because this too is That. 73 Thus the Supermind is the divine Gnosis which... 242-43. 14 Savitri, pp.704-05. Page 164 Unenigmaed lives, unmasked her face and there Is Nature and the common law of things. 75 Supramental Sight Knowledge by identity between the subject and the object, between the seer and the seen is the basic attribute of the supramental gnosis but this supramental knowledge or experience by identity carries in it as ...
... framework resting on and facilitating states of yogic realisation. This subordination of thinking to a discipline of practice (abhyāsa) leading to ontological changes which permitted direct knowledge by identity (pratyaksha) of Spirit, is what marks the fundamental difference between Indian and Western Philosophy. The primacy of Spirit and the yoking of human effort to it with an aim to union enters... entry of objective and subjective constituents into the human being. 21 A profound experiential equivalence between man and God is established in this way, pointing to the possibility of knowledge by identity in Being and creative capacity. In the canto under our consideration a similar description of the self-representation of Spirit is provided along with a statement of the perpetuation of its ...
... supermind is that all its knowledge is originally a knowledge by identity and oneness and even when it makes numberless apparent divisions and discriminating modifications in itself, still all the knowledge that operates in its workings, even in these divisions, is founded upon and sustained and lit and guided by this perfect knowledge by identity and oneness. The Spirit is one everywhere and it knows ...
... new depths and ranges of knowledge. In either case there is always an element of self-existent truth and a sense of absoluteness of origination suggestive of its proceeding from the spirit's knowledge by identity. It is the disclosing of a knowledge that is secret but already existent in the being: it is not an acquisition, but something that was always there and revealable. It sees the truth from ... of the supramental knowledge, a greater scale less insistent on actualities, that opens out yet greater potentialities in time and space and beyond. And lastly there is a highest knowledge by Page 823 identity that is a gate of entrance to the essential self-awareness and the omniscience and omnipotence of the Ishwara. It must not however be supposed that these superimposed stages are ...
... in the consciousness which brings a precise knowledge on a particular point and it is not at all a result of analyses and deductions. In fact, it is the first manifestation of the knowledge by identity. Knowledge by identity—you understand clearly what that means? If one succeeds in identifying himself with something, well, one becomes this thing for a time, and becoming this thing one Page 423 ...
... itself to an intense lustre, a splendour and illumination of the Spirit. Intuition: a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate than the above-mentioned gradations to the original knowledge by identity. What is thought-knowledge in the Higher Mind becomes illumination in the Illumined Mind and direct intimate vision in the Intuition. This true and authentic intuition must be distinguished... superior to mentality, it exists, acts and proceeds in the fundamental truth and unity of things and not like the mind in their appearances and phenomenal divisions. Its fundamental character is knowledge by identity, by which the Self is known, the Divine Sachchidananda is known, but also the truth of manifestation is known because this too is that. tamas (Tamas) —the quality that hides or darkens; ...
... systems refer to jnāna, which is. knowledge by identity of the subject and the object (Isha Upanishad verse 7). To use the modern terminology, jnāna is the subject matter of epistemology, which discusses various modes of knowledge, namely, knowledge by description, knowledge by acquaintance or as in the epistemology of Sri Aurobindo, "knowledge by identity, a knowledge by intimate direct contact ...
... isn't it? I see it is all right. SRI AUROBINDO: It is all right without his knowing it. (Laughter) DR. MANILAL: Yes, Sir. Purani knows it without my knowing myself. SRI AUROBINDO: Knowledge by identity! (Laughter) DR. MANILAL: That would have been all right if by my eating Purani's hunger would have been satisfied. SRI AUROBINDO: But suppose it is by Purani's eating that your hunger... trouble would be saved, Sir, but it isn't; my hunger is still as strong. SRI AUROBINDO: Consider it an illusion. (Laughter) DR. MANILAL: I am not a Mayavadin, Sir. NIRODBARAN: Will knowledge by identity give one knowledge of diagnosis of a case? SRI AUROBINDO: If it is complete. If you identify only with the patient's mind, however, you may not know because the patient himself may not know ...
... living in it with the power of inner being, a spiritual seizing by a kind of identification with the object of knowledge. It was by an integral knowing of self, it was by living in and attaining knowledge by identity that the Vedantic sages confirmed and restated the truths of a transcendent Being or Existence, Brahman; and they have left with us in the Upanishads a fresh record of their yoga and stated... Upanishads revisited the Vedas with fresh and bold enquiry, and by the development of illumined experiences through the cultivation and development of the intuitive and revelatory faculties of knowledge by identity, they confirmed the Vedic Page 19 methods of yoga and even developed them further so as to bring out the deeper subtleties of the knowledge of the world of the individual in the ...
... earth is one and so is mankind and human nature. All is One. Disciple : About the knowledge of identity, is the identity of Sushupti the same as knowledge by identity? Sri Aurobindo : No, it is not the same as knowledge by identity. They all speak of knowledge of the self by identity. But there can be the knowledge of other things also by identity. Disciple : What is meant ...
... view only God-thought, God-force, God-form. That is what the Gita means by living and acting in Vasudeva, mayi vartate . The spiritual consciousness is aware of the Godhead with that close knowledge by identity which is so much more tremendously real than any mental perception of the thinkable or any sensuous experience of the sensible. It is so aware even of the Absolute who is behind and beyond all ...
... than by the mind—for the heart is in touch with the psychic and the internal sense is the essential action of mind as opposed to its external and formal action. Both of these are nearer to a knowledge by identity or by direct communion than the active mind, and the "essence" can only be seized by identity or by direct communion. The active mind cannot do it except by falling silent and leaning on the ...
... or unity, restricted by much non-understanding and often burdened or endangered by a mass of misunderstanding, of mutual misinterpretation and error. Sri Aurobindo The Life Divine - I: Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge There is always a drawing of vital forces from one to another in all human social mixture; it takes place automatically. Lovemaking is one of the most powerful ...
... riches of the Divine's activity. Still, within your sphere, you are able to see correctly and according to the truth of things—which is certainly more than what is called in yogic parlance knowledge by identity. For, the kind of identification taught by many disciplines extends your limits of perception without piercing to the innermost heart of an object: it sees from within it, as it were, but only ...
... Aurobindo to refer to the superconscient plane above the Illumined Mind, the term has a much deeper connotation.] "Intuition is a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by identity; for it is always something that leaps out direct from a concealed identity. It is when the consciousness of the subject meets with the consciousness in the object, penetrates it and sees, feels ...
... Sevenfold Ignorance towards the Sevenfold Knowledge × Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine - I: Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge ...
... speculation based on the uncertain data of an indirect means of knowledge. It must come by a direct vision or contact of the consciousness with the soul and body of the Truth itself or through a knowledge by identity, by the self that becomes one with the self of things and with their truth of power and their truth of essence. But it is urged that the actual result of this method is not one truth common ...
... pure and nude, but a draped figure,—often it is only the drapery that is visible. But this character does not apply to truth perceived by a direct action of consciousness or to the truth of knowledge by identity; our seeing there may be limited, but so far as it extends, it is authentic, and authenticity is a first step towards absoluteness: error may attach itself to a direct or identical vision of ...
... Self-Consciousness and the Ignorance XXIX IX Revised form of a chapter originally published in the Arya . Memory, Ego and Self-Experience XXX X Entirely new chapter. Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge -- XI Revised form of a chapter originally published in the Arya . The Boundaries of the Ignorance XXXI XII Revised form of a chapter originally ...
... but our mental affirmatives and negatives, whether taken separatively or together, cannot limit or define it. But at the same time there is a spiritual consciousness, a spiritual knowledge, a knowledge by identity which can seize the Reality in its fundamental aspects and its manifested powers and figures. All that is comes within this description and, if seen by this knowledge in its own truth or its ...
... grip but also moves massively with a radiant "globality". Interpretation, image and intimate sense are all raised here to their uttermost and transfigured by a vastness of sheer revelation, of knowledge by identity, as if a Cosmic Spirit were voicing its own secrets. With regard to the quality of poems hailing from the overhead levels, two points have to be noted. As Sri Aurobindo once said in ...
... One. The One does not become the Many, but the One is for ever the Many even as the Many are for ever the One. This by a self-existent self-knowledge thou shalt know, through a supramental knowledge by identity—the problem, the opposition, the shifts of philosophy, the rifts of Science, the fragmentary upliftings of Religion are the devices of a still ignorant consciousness, a [. . .] seeking knowledge ...
... mentality is capable by extension of a comprehensive relation with cosmic things and of entering into unity with the universe. Mind's starting-point is not a containing universal vision or a knowledge by identity, but an individualised viewpoint from which it sees the universe. Still mind can arrive at a sort of containing vision, a mentalised cosmic consciousness. What then compels embodied mind ...
... defined. 18 It is ineffable by mental thought and language; It is beyond the grasp of the ineffectual probe of separative mental consciousness. But there is a spiritual consciousness, a knowledge by identity which can seize this reality in its fundamental aspects and its manifold powers and forms and figures. This Absolute is then "the ineffable Reality overtopping and underlying and immanent ...
... receives the light of the Truth. These faculties are not a direct expression of the supreme Truth, but a transcription, an indirect reflection of it. They include intuition, foreknowledge, knowledge by identity and certain powers such as that of healing and, to an extent, of acting upon circumstances. If it refers to the supreme faculties of the supramental being, we cannot say much about them, ...
... derive the knowledge which they turn into thought or sight and bring down to us for the mind's transmutation. Intuition is a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by identity; for it is always something that leaps out direct from a concealed identity. It is when the consciousness of the subject meets with the consciousness in the object, penetrates it and sees ...
... fervent. A knowledge which became what is perceived, Replaced the separated sense and heart, And drew all Nature into its embrace. 6 Is Sri Aurobindo referring here to knowledge by identity? The Mother: Yes, it is a very exact description. A greater force than the earthly held his limbs... Unwound the triple cord of mind and freed The heavenly wideness of a ...
... is an enquiry and unless Page 26 there is a pupil who is seized by enthusiasm to enquire and to persist in the enquiry till the goal is reached, the goal of realization through knowledge by identity where the subject and the object are so identical that the objective truth of knowledge becomes undeniable and indisputable in the subjective consciousness of the inquirer. Such a pupil and ...
... of divine incarnation that we find in many traditions and in regard to which Buddha, Christ, Krishna and others have been described as divine incarnations. All union with the divine, all knowledge by identity with the divine, all the manifestation of the divine in human being, is essentially an influx of the divine from its transcendence and universality, and each individual who receives in his being ...
... Experience and Integral Realisation I A Preliminary Note If experience is a means of knowledge, and even of higher and the highest degrees and kinds of knowledge by identity in which the subject and the object of knowledge are united, and if such experiences are a means of growth, of ennoblement of character and personality, of expansion, deepening and heightening ...
... ultimate reality which is experienced to be eternally permanent. The yoga of knowledge (Jndnayoga) utilizes the power of meditation that can transform mental thought into experience or into knowledge by identity. Two particular meditations are pursued in Jndnayoga, negative and positive. In the negative meditation, one develops and concentrates on the thought that the One or the internal Self is alone ...
... and inspiration. Besides, a distinction seems to be made in the operations of the Supermind between knowledge by a comprehending and pervading consciousness which is very near to subjective knowledge by identity and knowledge by a projecting, confronting, apprehending consciousness which is the beginning of objective cognition. These are the Vedic clues. And we may accept from this ancient experience ...
... dwells in all, indivisible, yet as if divided and distributed. If we look again with an observing perception not dominated by intellectual concepts, but informed by intuition and culminating in knowledge by identity, we shall see that the consciousness of this infinite Energy is other than our mental consciousness, that it is indivisible and gives, not an equal part of itself, but its whole self at one ...
... Ideative rationality demands undeniably the positing of the Infinite Pure Existence, but integrality of our being demands, equally undeniably, possession of the Infinite in intuition or knowledge by identity. This process ends in double certainty Page 17 of Cod's existence in thought and in actual possession in experience. These four chapters present this integrality, and in ...
... illumination through which an individual's consciousness can be so Page 25 enlarged as to experience universal and transcendental reality by a kind of identification or identity. Knowledge by identity was the special method of the Upanishads, and they considered anything that was remote from this kind of knowledge to be Ignorance. According to them, the knowledge of multiplicity gained by ...
... outside. [It is] the Truth-Consciousness whether above or in the universe by which the Divine knows not only his own essence and being but his manifestation also. Its fundamental character is knowledge by identity, by that the Self is known, the Divine Sachchidananda is known, but also the truth of manifestation is known, because this too is That..." (Letters on Yoga, pp. 242-43) Thus the ...
... The Ascent of Sight in Sri Aurobindo's Savitri 3. Supramental Sight: Knowledge by identity between the subject and the object, between the seer and the seen, is the basic attribute of the supramental gnosis but this supramental knowledge or experience by identity carries in it as a secondary part of itself a supramental vision. This vision can come even ...
... terms? No, it will not be so; and therein lies a mystery of the occult functioning of the human consciousness. Sri Aurobindo has explained this phenomenon in great detail in the chapter "Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge" of The Life Divine. Here is a relevant portion of what he has said there: "... an uprush of wrath... swallows us up so that for the moment our whole consciousness ...
... inspiration. Besides, a distinction seems to be made in the operations of the Supermind between knowledge by a comprehending and pervading consciousness which is very near to subjective knowledge by identity and knowledge by a projecting, confronting, apprehending consciousness which is the beginning of objective cognition. These are the Vedic clues. And we may accept from this ancient experience ...
... .[It is] the Truth-Consciousness whether above or in the universe by which the Divine knows not only his own essence and being but bis manifestation also. Its fundamental character is knowledge by identity, by that the Self is known, the Divine Sachchidananda is known, But also the truth of manifestation is known, because this too is That." 4 Hence it becomes imperative for the soul ...
... true knowledge which never errs is that by identity. Steiner distinguishes three degrees of occult knowledge: imaginative, inspired and unitive; the last, which cannot err, is probably knowledge by identity ? The first form of intuition is clothed in mental forms which distort it. Moreover, the mind is not satisfied with what it receives and it crystallizes everything around its own accretions ...
... mind, the intelligence too has to hold and realise the same. Normally intellect acts as a lid, but it can also be a reflector or projector. One knows the Revealer for one becomes it. Knowledge by identity is the characteristic of spiritual knowledge. If one keeps oneself separate and seeks to apprehend the Divine as an object outside, the Divine escapes or is caught only by the trail it leaves ...
... to what they ought to be. In other words, a total acceptance with a perfect neutrality and indifference is the indispensable condition for a knowledge through integral identification. 3 Knowledge by identity, which means that one knows because one is: one knows the amethyst or Mr. Smith because one is the amethyst or that Mr. Smith. If there is one detail, however small, that escapes neutrality ...
... includes a full and perfect knowledge of the basic principles and processes of that manifestation. It is at once the plenary self-vision and the world-vision of the Divine; and since it is a knowledge by identity— as all true spiritual knowledge must needs be—it gives us a dynamic union with the Divine and with all existence. This integral knowledge arms us with the supreme Will and Force of the Divine ...
... intense lustre, a splendour and illumination of the Spirit." 2 From the Illumined Mind it climbs to the Intuition, which is a "power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by identity." 3 Its perception is "more than sight, more than conception: 1 The Life Divine by Sri Aurobindo. 2 ibid. 3 ibid. Page 64 it is the result of a ...
... only when our consciousness can pass beyond its present normal limit in man: for then it becomes directly aware of its self and of the Power in the world and begins to have at least an initial knowledge by identity which is the sole true knowledge. Henceforward it knows and sees, no longer by the reason groping among external data, but by an ever increasing and always more luminous self-illumining and ...
... by agnosticism [and] will one day be transcended & checked by the faith in the vijnana. The faith in the vijnana must be checked & harmonised by a faith in a still higher form of knowledge,—knowledge by identity. But within its own province each instrument is supreme and must be trusted. In relying, therefore, upon the vijnana, in asserting and demanding a preliminary faith in it, the Yogin is making ...
... that, iti iti . And yet, though in this way unknowable to us, it is not altogether and in every way unknowable; it is self evident to itself and, although inexpressible, yet self-evident to a knowledge by identity of which the spiritual being in us must be capable; for that spiritual being is in its essence and its original and intimate reality not other than this Supreme Existence. But although thus ...
... grip but also moves massively with a radiant "globality". Interpretation, image and intimate sense are all raised here to their uttermost and transfigured by a vastness of sheer revelation, of knowledge by identity, as if a Cosmic Spirit were voicing its own secrets. With regard to the quality of poems hailing from the overhead levels, two points have to be noted. As Sri Page 60 ...
... vision is the second in directness and greatness of the supramental powers. It is something much more near, profound and comprehensive than mental vision, because it derives direct from the knowledge by identity and it has this virtue that we can proceed at once from the vision to the identity, as from the identity to the vision. Thus when the spiritual vision has seen God, Self or Brahman, the soul ...
... exists, acts and proceeds in the fundamental truth and unity of things and not like the mind in their appearances and phenomenal Page 416 divisions. Its fundamental character is knowledge by identity, by which the Self is known, the Divine Sachchidananda is known, but also the truth of manifestation is known because this too is that. su ṣ upti, Sushupti — deep sleep; the Sleep-State ...
... luminous inherent self-awareness there is a consciousness plunged into an abyss of self-oblivion, inherent in being but not awake in being. Yet is this involved consciousness still a concealed knowledge by identity; it carries in it the awareness of all the truths of existence hidden in its dark infinite and, when it acts and creates, — but it acts first as Energy and not as Consciousness, — everything ...
... connotation of mind 85-86 consciousness 58-59 ego 19,111-12 fullness of being 62,63 habit 104 healing-power of knowledge 56 the Inconscient and Matter 31 knowledge by identity 71 matter, Life and Mind 31-32 mind 44 motivating forces 7 need to know the whole 29 psychoanalysis 5, 13-14, 37 psychology 3,4,16-17 Rajas 131,141-42 and ...
... is not what is meant by this word in the common parlance: a hint, a feeling, a presentiment, a suspicion, or whatever to the same effect. By “intuition” Sri Aurobindo and the Mother mean a “knowledge by identity”, which is the only real knowledge; it is proper to the spiritual level of the same name; it is “a messenger from the superconscient and therefore our highest faculty”. – “Intuition always stands ...
... but our mental affirmatives and negatives, whether taken separatively or together, cannot limit or define it. But at the same time there is a spiritual consciousness, a spiritual knowledge, a knowledge by identity which can seize the Reality in its fundamental aspects and its manifested powers and figures. All that comes within this description and, if seen by this knowledge in its own truth or its occult ...
... the meditation after one of the classes, in November 1958, she asked the question to herself. But for her asking a question meant identifying with the very concreteness of the problem. Only knowledge by identity is true knowledge, she said, time and again. Afterwards she has described how she was sucked down into that unconsciousness there in front of her, deeper, and deeper still, ‘looking for the ...
... 16 September 1966 For some time now I am able to foresee events, but they are always commonplace or not at all pleasant. Why? These are the first experiences of knowledge by identity, and in these experiences the phenomenon of identity is much more important than the circumstance of the identification. Later, when the capacity has become conscious and voluntary, then ...
... Supermind and mind is difficult to explain fully to the mind, for it contradicts the logic of the mind and substitutes a way of knowing which is SWAYAMPRAKASHA (self-revealing) and rooted in a knowledge by identity of which the mind at its best can only grasp a thin reflection or a shadow. But it makes an immense difference in the possibilities of consciousness, a difference which one can only realise ...
... like a flux and a construction by an impermanent Consciousness. But this cannot prevail as a whole account of existence if there is a greater and deeper self-knowledge and world-knowledge, a knowledge by identity, a consciousness to which that knowledge is normal and a Being of which that consciousness is the eternal self-awareness; for then the subjective and the objective can be real and intimate to ...
... the supramental the Truth-Consciousness whether above or in the universe by which the Divine knows not only his own essence and being but his manifestation also. Its fundamental character is knowledge by identity, by that the Self is known, the Divine Sachchidananda is known, but also the truth of the manifestation is known, because this too is That— sarvaṁ khalvidaṁ brahma, Vāsudevaḥ sarvam etc. Mind ...
... derive the knowledge which they turn into thought or sight and bring down to us for the mind's transmutation. Intuition is a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by identity; for it is always something that leaps out direct from a concealed identity. It is when the consciousness of the subject meets with the consciousness in the object, penetrates it and sees, feels ...
... riches of the Divine's activity. Still, within your sphere, you are able to see correctly and according to the truth of things— which is certainly more than what is called in yogic parlance knowledge by identity. For, the kind of identification taught by many disciplines extends your limits of perception without piercing to the innermost heart of Page 32 an object: it sees from within ...
... inspirations from above, from high above, from the divine Wisdom. That is what this means. As for the knowledge of which Sri Aurobindo speaks here, it is ordinary knowledge, it is not Knowledge by identity; it is knowledge that can be acquired by the intellect through thought, through ordinary means. But once again—and in any case we shall have occasion to return to this when we study the next ...
... force operative in the universe; a principle of consciousness superior to mentality which exists, acts and proceeds in the fundamental truth and unity of things; its fundamental character is knowledge by identity. vital The vital is the life nature made up of desires, sensations, feelings, passions, energies of action, will of desire, reactions of the desire soul of man and of all that play of ...
... convey different aspects of the same Truth, — so different, indeed, that the first aspect is the diametrically opposite of the last — and they are all thrown into the One. If you have the knowledge by identity you can easily get at my thoughts and my meaning. But I find that the same thing spoken to all carries a different meaning to each. The subject was continued at lunch-time. Sri Aurobindo: ...
... others, more refined, more subtle, more plastic, are able to feel concretely the presence of the divine Grace, the divine Will, the divine Power, this Knowledge that is not intellectual but a knowledge by identity, when one feels this in the cells of the body, then the experience is so total, so imperative, so living, concrete, tangible, real that everything else seems a vain dream. Page 325 ...
... being necessary. In intuition things already happen somewhat in this way; but spiritual intervention is, as it were, a super-intuition, a direct expression of the vision, of the experience, of knowledge by identity. ( Silence ) There are many stages in this transformation and the first are like a kind of mental imitation of the movement. The whole process of analysis, reasoning, deduction and formulation ...
... the knowledge which is obtained through effort and mental development, whereas here, on the contrary, the knowledge he speaks of is the essential Knowledge, the supramental divine Knowledge, Knowledge by identity. And this is why he describes it here as "vast and eternal", which clearly indicates that it is not human knowledge as we normally understand it. Many people have asked why Sri Aurobindo ...
... having the experience so that no previous knowledge intervenes. Only afterwards do I see. It is not a mental construction, nor does it come from something higher than the mind (it is not even a knowledge by identity that makes me see things); no, the body (when the Page 230 experience is in the body) is ... like that, what in English is called blank . As if it had just been born, as if just ...
... November 1968 "A knowledge which became what it perceived, Replaced the separated sense and heart And drew all Nature into its embrace." 13 Is Sri Aurobindo referring here to knowledge by identity? Yes, it is a very exact description. 7 November 1968 "A greater force than the earthly held his limbs,... Unwound the triple cord of mind and freed The heavenly wideness of ...
... them receives the light of Truth. These faculties are not a direct expression of the supreme Truth but a transcription, an indirect reflection of it. They include intuition, foreknowledge, knowledge by identity, and certain powers such as those of healing and of acting upon circumstances to a certain extent. If it refers to the supreme faculties of the supramental being, we cannot say much about ...
... Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1 Knowledge by Identity SRI AUROBINDO says, knowledge – true knowledge – comes always by identity, i.e., when you are identified with the object, when the knower and the known are one. He further adds that even ordinary knowledge, sense-perception, comes in fact by that way, although it may look otherwise, ...
... to nothing about death and the other worlds. But what about the Mother and Sri Aurobindo themselves? Readers will pardon us if we dare say that, through the application of the principle of "knowledge by identity", they have come to know about many of the inscrutable problems of this world of manifestation. Therefore, it is to them that we propose to turn with our insistent questions, meditate on their ...
... (iii)This absolute Reality is in its nature indefinable; it is beyond the grasp of the ineffectual probe of separative mental consciousness; but there is a spiritual consciousness, a knowledge by identity, - attainable by a certain psycho-spiritual discipline otherwise called Yoga, - that can seize this Reality in its fundamental aspects and its manifold powers and forms and figures; Yoga can ...
... for us, there are in this age two persons who fulfil these conditions in ample measure. We are, of course, referring to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. With their perfected method of "knowledge by identity" they have delved deeply into the mysteries of Death, Fate, Karma and Rebirth and brought to us their inestimable treasures. These treasures are scattered throughout their voluminous writings ...
... and the central experiences of spirituality will flower and the .soul and the Supreme Divine and Divine Will are discovered and possessed by process of expansion, universalisation, union and knowledge by identity. * * * Spiritual education will exclude no domain of knowledge, and humanistic, aesthetic, scientific and technological studies will all be encouraged in their fullness and in their ...
... thinking but as a seeing with the soul and total living in it with the power of inner being, a spiritual seizing by a kind of identification with the object of knowledge. Through this process of knowledge by identity or intuition the seers of Upanishads came easily to see that the self in us is one with the universal self of all things and that this self again is the same as God and Brahman, the transcendent ...
... that, iti iti. And yet, though in this way unknowable to us, it is not altogether and in every way unknowable; it is self-evident to itself and, although inexpressible, yet self-evident to a knowledge by identity of which the spiritual being in us must be capable; for that spiritual being is in its essence and its original and intimate reality not other than this Supreme Existence. 8 Sri ...
... luminous inherent self-awareness there is a consciousness plunged into an abyss of self-oblivion, inherent in being but not awake in being. Yet is this involved consciousness still a concealed knowledge by identity; it carries in it the awareness of all the truths of existence hidden in its dark infinite and, when it acts and creates, — but it acts first as Energy and not as Consciousness,—everything is ...
... higher than the highest, of the Upanishad; it is Purushotamma of the Gita; it is the Supreme Lord of the Shakti of the Tantra. It is unknowable to our mental consciousness but self-evident to knowledge by identity of which the spiritual being in us is capable. It is That which is known to us when it is manifest Page 63 to us as Sachchidananda, an Eternal and the Infinite and Absolute self ...
... epistemological validity of the contentions in these chapters can be better appreciated, if the readers study two more chapters of "The Life Divine", namely, "Methods of Vedantic Knowledge" and "Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge".) Page 99 Notes and references 1. Laws, X. 886, Jowett's translation, The Dialogues of Plato (New York: Random House, 1937), vol. II, p ...
... not work primarily by thought, but by a vision, and the Intuitive Mind is more than sight, more than conception. Intuition is a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by identity; it is when the consciousness of the subject meets the consciousness in the object, penetrates it and sees, feels or vibrates with the truth of what it contacts, that the intuition leaps out ...
... of man to unite with the Divine because the soul — the psychic being, as Sri Aurobindo calls it — is a portion of the Divine and it is through this union that man can gain true Knowledge, 'knowledge by identity', in Sri Aurobindo's words Ordinarily, i.e. in our ordinary state of consciousness, we are unaware of our psychic being or of the Divine Consciousness and live in a state of ignorance and separation ...
... the mental movements. It is ever luminous with the full knowledge and a will that is instantly effective the moment one thinks or wants something, — without any intermediary whatsoever, — a knowledge by identity and a will that accomplishes. This is its power of execution, and I do not know what else… how to express it in a language which is so poor and which after all does not lead anywhere. And I ...
... It may also be noted that the Page 39 knowledge proper to the subliminal being is not complete. According to Sri Aurobindo, knowledge, in order to be true and complete must be a knowledge by identity and must arrive at oneness and unity in diversity. Therefore, a deeper and higher consciousness is needed to cure the deficiencies and mixtures of ignorance and knowledge that we obtain at the ...
... other words, there is the attainment of the complete release from ego and knowledge by identification in the being with the One in all and beyond all. But this attainment is not only that of knowledge by identity but it wins also the unity in Beatitude and the harmonized diversity in Love, so that all relations of the play remain possible even when one retains on the heights of the being the eternal ...
... thinking but as a seeing with the soul and total living in it with the power of inner being, a spiritual seizing by a kind of identification with the object of knowledge. Through this process of knowledge by identity or intuition the seers of Upanishads came easily to see that the self in us is one with the universal self of all things and that this self again is the same as God and Brahman, a transcendent ...
... different aspects of the same Truth, – so different, indeed, that the first aspect is the diametrically opposite of the last – and they are all thrown into the One. If you have the knowledge by identity you can easily get at my thoughts and my meaning. But I find that the same thing spoken to all carries a different meaning to each. (The subject was continued at lunch-time) Sri Aurobindo ...
... acting in a luminous harmony.. Interminable activity wells out of an impregnable peace and calm, the Creative Word leaps out of an eternal silence. In the higher Nature all knowledge is knowledge by identity. The object of knowledge is one with the subject itself, a part or aspect or facet of the subject, or a principle Page 200 of its infinite being, or a form of its Manifold se ...
... "A knowledge which became what it perceived, Replaced the separated sense and heart And drew all Nature into its embrace." 1 Is Sri Aurobindo referring here to knowledge by identity? Yes, it is a very exact description. 7.11.1968 "A greater force than the earthly held his limbs, Unwound the triple cord of mind and freed The heavenly wideness ...
... possible! And I was fully conscious of the usefulness of this work: I was keeping them under control. 1 But the things it involves... ugh! Because for me, all knowledge is through identity—even in the subconscient it's a knowledge through identity—so you can imagine what that means.... Yes... oh, there are some horrible beings there! Horrible ( Mother laughs ). All right. You don't know ...
... to manifest the Divine Grace upon earth. To be a disciple of the Avatar is to become an instrument of the Divine Grace. The Mother is the great dispensatrix―through identity―of the Divine Grace, with a perfect knowledge―through identity―of the absolute mechanism of Universal Justice. And through her mediation each movement of sincere and confident aspiration towards the Divine calls down in response... principle. The Divine Grace cannot be explained through words and mental formulas. 7 April 1939 Page 84 It is only the Divine's Grace that can give peace, happiness, power, light, knowledge, beatitude and love in their essence and their truth. 30 November 1954 Who is worthy or unworthy in front of the Divine Grace? All are children of the one and the same Mother. Her ...
... "hear well" and so on—we would have the other perception, which is much TRUER. And that intimacy with things... things are no longer foreign. But there is no thought in it; they speak of "knowledge through identity," you know, but that's all intellectual notions, Page 295 it's not that! It's... And always that feeling of something smooth ( same round gesture ), smooth, without any clashes... come a sort of very... ( same round, global gesture ) very soft thing, in the sense of smooth , very soft, very complete, very living, and with a very intimate perception of things. Along with a knowledge that becomes... if there weren't that mixture of the old habit, it would be really extraordinary: the perception of things not as if they were outside, but an INTIMATE perception. When someone enters ...
... which reaches God through knowledge; this naturally attaches itself to Monism, for it seeks only the knowledge of its identity with God & its tendency is to discourage all action & emotion which interfere with this aim. Then there is the actional state of soul which reaches God through action leading to knowledge & inspired by emotion; this aims at the knowledge of its identity with God, but its actional... actional state requires a certain sense of difference from God without which action becomes meaningless; its tendency therefore, if the knowledge-impulse predominates over the emotional, is to rest for a time in modified Monism, though it recognises pure Monism as a far goal beyond; but if the emotional impulse predominates over the intellectual, its tendency is to adopt modified Monism as a final solution ...
... and neutrality is the indispensable condition for a knowledge by integral identity. If there be a single detail, however small, which escapes the neutrality, that detail escapes also the identification. Therefore, the absence of all personal reaction, for whatever end it may be, even the most exalted, is a primary necessity for a total knowledge. One can thus say, paradoxically, that we can know ...
... that to be a weakness—it is their only strength. ( Silence ) It is really when one has the experience—the experience and Page 209 knowledge and identity with the higher forces—that one can see the relativity of all external knowledge; but until then, no, one cannot, one denies the other realities. I think this is what Sri Aurobindo meant: only when the other consciousness has been... most up-to-date knowledge, so I am not quite sure, I do not know how far they admit the unpredictable or the incalculable. What Sri Aurobindo means, I think, is that when one is in communion with the soul and has the knowledge of the soul, that knowledge is so much more wonderful than material knowledge that there is almost a smile of disdain. I do not think he means that the knowledge of the soul teaches... JNANA (Knowledge): Third Period of commentaries (1962-1966) JNANA (Knowledge): Third Period of commentaries (1962-1966) On Thoughts and Aphorisms Aphorism - 110 110—To see the composition of the sun or the lines of Mars is doubtless a great achievement; but when thou hast the instrument that can show thee a man's soul as thou seest a picture, ...
... constant equality 2) An absolute certainty in knowledge. To be perfect, the equality must be invariable and spontaneous, effortless, towards all circumstances, all happenings, all contacts, material or psychological, irrespective of their character and impact. The absolute and indisputable certainty of an infallible knowledge through identity. Mother then made the following commentary regarding... Page 97 man I didn't speak of 'power' because the power is almost a consequence and I didn't want to speak of consequences.) But the fact remains: a kind of absoluteness in knowledge springing from identity—one is the thing one knows and experiences: one is it. One knows it because one is it. When these two signs are present (both are necessary, one is incomplete without the other), when... (there's no question of doubt), or anything like that. Without (how to say it ?).... All mental knowledge, even the highest, is a 'conclusive' knowledge, as it were: it comes as a conclusion of something else—an intuition, for instance (an intuition gives you a particular knowledge, and this knowledge is like the conclusion of the intuition). Even revelations are conclusions. They're all conclusions—the ...
... there during my experience and is truly the expression.... I don't know if it's the supreme expression, but for the time being it's certainly the highest I know of. (It's far superior to pure Knowledge through identity, to knowing the thing because one IS it—it's infinitely more Page 414 powerful than that.) it's something formidable! It has the power to change everything—and how! One IS... gone, all gone. A formidable Power! And it made me understand one thing, that the state I had been put in (by the Lord of Yoga, in fact) was for obtaining the particular power that comes through an identity with all material things, a power possessed by certain persons—not always yogis, certain mediums, for instance. I saw it with Madame Theon: she would will a thing to come to her instead of going to ...
... constant equality, 2) an absolute certainty in the knowledge. To be perfect, the equality must be invariable and spontaneous, effortless, towards all circumstances, all happenings, all contacts, material or psychological, irrespective of their character and impact. The absolute and indisputable certainty of an infallible knowledge through identity. February 1961 Page 102 A perfect... perfect equality towards all circumstances, material or psychological, and an absoluteness in the knowledge—a knowledge that comes not through the mind but through identity. The person who is in contact with the supramental possesses these two qualities. You cannot understand unless you have the experience. 23 February 1961 Is this not the first time that the Supramental has come down... The supramental influence liberates man from all that holds him back to the animal. Supramental action: an action which is not exclusive but total. Page 98 Supramental knowledge: an infallible vision of all problems. Supramental consciousness: gloriously awake and powerful, it is luminous, sure of itself, infallible in its movements. To become the builders of ...
... and the more the consciousness diminishes, the more you feel it's no longer the Lord—but it is the Lord all the same! That's how it is. ( silence ) When we speak of "perception or knowledge through identity," it is still something that projects itself, identifies itself and OBSERVES itself while doing so; and it is conscious of the result. But my experience now isn't like that; it isn't something ...
... consider it a weakness—and it's their only strength! ( silence ) It is really when you have the experience—the experience and Page 105 knowledge and identity with the higher forces—that you see the relativity of external knowledge; but before that, no, you cannot see, you deny the other realities. I think this is what Sri Aurobindo meant; it's only once the other consciousness is... the incalculable. What Sri Aurobindo means, I think, is that when you are in communion with the soul and have the soul's knowledge, that knowledge is so much more wonderful than material knowledge that you almost smile with disdain. I don't think he means that the knowledge of the soul makes you know things of material life that science can't teach you. The only point (I don't know if science... never "think" of people), suddenly I saw all that the knowledge of the pundits and those who profess to follow a spiritual life (the whole class of sannyasins, pundits, purohits, 1 etc.), all that that represents. (I am not referring to religions in other countries: it's specific to India.) And they are people who have a knowledge, a mental knowledge, of course, but very precise and very exact, of the ...
... focus a synthesis of various disciplines of knowledge. They take us to the heart of intricate relationship of Ignorance and Knowledge, avidyā and vidyā, of the lower knowledge and the higher knowledge, aparā vidyā and parā vidyā, They speak to us of the golden lid that needs to be broken for the marshalling of the rays of the supreme knowledge of identity of the finite and the infinite, of the ... relationship between the knowledge that comes to us by opening our senses outward with the knowledge that is arrived at by turning inwards; they also describe the transition from the wakeful state to the dream state and to the sleep state that culminates in the fourth state, turīya avasthā. They reveal the secret of the unity of the non-being and the being and even their identity; and through their great... bondage and imperfections. That knowledge has constantly expanded from the ancient times to the present day, and if we take the trouble to study this great line of development, we shall find in it the solution to the most essential part of the contemporary crisis. The Vedic knowledge, — its esoteric knowledge, — can be looked upon as the most ancient body of yogic knowledge that was already a kind of ...
... to manifest the Divine Grace upon earth. To be a disciple of the Avatar is to become an instrument of the Divine Grace. The Mother is the great dispensatrix—through identity—of the Divine Grace with a perfect knowledge—through identity—of the absolute mechanism of Universal Justice. "And through her mediation each movement of sincere and confident aspiration towards the Divine calls down in response... You have side by side, just next to one another, a mushroom that's an excellent food and another which will send you to the other world immediately. We benefit by an accumulated knowledge. And I dare say much of this knowledge must have been lost, for many men have discovered things like these and never noted them down; and we too, we may make discoveries but don't always take care to note them down ...
... consciousness that is sought; where that relation disappears, knowledge is replaced by sheer identity. In what we call existence, the highest knowledge can be no more than the highest relation between that which seeks and that which is sought, and it consists in a modified identity through which we may pass beyond knowledge to the absolute identity. This metaphysical distinction is of importance because... because it prevents us from mistaking any relation in knowledge for the absolute and from becoming so bound by our experience as to lose or miss the fundamental awareness of the absolute which is beyond all possible description and behind all formulated experience. But it does not render the highest relation in knowledge, the modified identity in experience worthless or otiose. On the contrary, it is that... available means for acquiring and expressing knowledge. Must we not say then that this Brahman-consciousness also is unknowable and that we can never hope to know it or possess it while in this body? Yet the Upanishad commands us to know this Brahman and by knowledge to possess it,—for the knowledge intended by the words viddhi, avedīt , is a knowledge that discovers and takes possession,—and it ...
... pride of knowledge." Is there a relation between this mystic light and intuition? It is not intuition. It is knowledge through love, light through love, understanding through love. Sri Aurobindo says that it is not intuition, for intuition belongs to the intellect at least in its expression, the expression of intuition is intellectual. While this is a kind of direct knowledge almost by identity, which... The principle is there; if one wants to apply it, for each one the method is different. It all depends on the extent to which one is conscious of the inspirations from the soul, on the degree of identity one has with it. So one can't give the same remedy for everybody. Is that all? "The more you give, the more you receive," it is said. Does this apply to physical energy? Should one undertake... fervour, all the ardour of the feelings and the religious consciousness, and makes you coldly reasonable. Mother, if the heart can be the means of a more direct knowledge, what is the role of the intellect as an intermediary of knowledge? Page 188 As an intermediary, did you say? For the true role of the mind is the formation and organisation of action. The mind has a formative and ...
... form, obscurely conscious of its divinity. But still there too there is a limitation, there is that imperfection of the manifestation which prevents the lower forms from having the self-knowledge of their identity with the Divine. For in each limited being the limitation of the phenomenal action is accompanied by a limitation also of the phenomenal consciousness which defines the nature of the being... XV The Possibility and Purpose of Avatarhood In speaking of this Yoga in which action and knowledge become one, the Yoga of the sacrifice of works with knowledge, in which works are fulfilled in knowledge, knowledge supports, changes and enlightens works, and both are offered to the Purushottama, the supreme Divinity who becomes manifest within us as Narayana... so it becomes for us the means of the ignorance, avidyā-māyā ; but it is by this same Yogamaya that self-knowledge also is made manifest in the return of our consciousness to the Divine, it is the means of the knowledge, vidyā-māyā ; and in the divine birth it so operates—as the knowledge controlling and enlightening the works which are ordinarily done in the Ignorance. The language of the Gita ...
... determined by the whole and supported by its entire power. It is when the wave feels a separate existence that it becomes small, identified with the little form. But if it could retain the knowledge of its identity with the ocean then every wave could be also surcharged with the consciousness of the totality and in that case every wave-form would be the result of the self-determination of the infinite... l consciousness. Subtle levels of consciousness, vast ranges of knowledge and action are available to man. So, Ignorance is not like a dark sheet completely shutting out all Light, it is rather like a hazy light,—it is partial knowledge. In fact, this Ignorance holds within itself the possibility of a wider consciousness and knowledge for man. Man can train himself and increase the range of his being... still be maintained that in spite of all these ranges of consciousness available to man, he is ignorant because he does not know himself. After all self-knowledge is the true knowledge. The feeling of being ignorant is due to the lack of self-knowledge. Man does not experience his unity with the Omnipresent Reality, and he finds that he is subject to time,—past, present and future—he lives from moment ...
... harmony it will. That is a luminous spiritual and in its native action a direct supramental force of knowledge, jyotiḥ , not our modified and derivative mental light, prakāśa . That is the light and bliss Page 466 of widest self-existence, spontaneous self-knowledge, intimate universal identity, deepest self-interchange, not of acquisition, assimilation, adjustment and laboured equivalence... beyond itself and disappear into its source. The reason is evident, because Sattwa is a power of light and happiness, a force that makes for calm and knowledge, and at its highest point it can arrive at a certain reflection, almost a mental identity with the spiritual light and bliss from which it derives. The other two gunas cannot get this transformation, Rajas into the divine kinetic will or Tamas... t is integrally pure; there is a seeking for knowledge and a calm and fixed abiding in knowledge. This is the wealth, the plenitude of the man born into the Deva nature. The Asuric nature has too its wealth, its plenitude of force, but it is of a very different, a powerful and evil kind. Asuric men have no true knowledge of the way of action or the way of abstention ...
... longer contains involved knowledge but is itself contained in a supreme consciousness. Intuitional knowledge is that which is common between them and the foundation of intuitional knowledge is conscious or effective identity between that which knows and that which is known; it is that state of common self-existence in which the knower and the known are one through knowledge. But in the subconscient... intuition manifests itself in the action, in effectivity, and the knowledge or conscious identity is either entirely or more or less concealed in the action. In the superconscient, on the contrary, Light being the law and the principle, the intuition manifests itself in its true nature as knowledge emerging out of conscious identity, and effectivity of action is rather the accompaniment or necessary... mind of Spirit — born conceptual knowledge. In the words of Sri Aurobindo: "An all-awareness emerging from the original identity, carrying the truths the identity held in itself, conceiving swiftly, victoriously, multitudinously, formulating and by self-power of the Idea effectually realizing its conceptions, is the character of this greater mind of knowledge. ...Large aspects of truth come into ...
... luminous thought-mind, a mind of Spirit-born conceptual knowledge. “An all-awareness emerging from the original identity, carrying the truths the identity held in itself, conceiving swiftly, victoriously, multitudinously, formulating and by self-power of the Idea effectually realising its conceptions, is the character of this greater mind of knowledge. This kind of cognition is the last that emerges [in... [in the descending order] from the original spiritual identity before the initiation of a separative knowledge, base of the Ignorance; it is therefore the first [in the ascending order] that meets us when we rise from conceptive and ratiocinative mind, our best organised knowledge-power of the Ignorance, into the realms of the Spirit; it is, indeed, the spiritual parent of our conceptive mental ideation... only a subordinate movement expressive of sight …” 41 Intuition: “Intuition is a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge of identity; for it is always something that leaps out direct from a concealed identity. It is when the consciousness of the subject meets with the consciousness in the object, penetrates it and sees, feels or vibrates with the truth of what ...
... darkness and shining like the sun. This knowledge reveals the identity of the soul and the supreme Light from which all things proceed and in which all things exist. In that oneness one finds "the word of light which can most powerfully illumine our human utterance." 140 Is not the above line itself an example of such an utterance? The knowledge that the seer declares is not a mental but... spiritual hearing seem to build up the soul and set it satisfied and complete on the heights of self-knowledge." 127 Sri Aurobindo gives the highest praise to the Upanishads; he calls them "epic hymns of self-knowledge and world-knowledge and God-knowledge," "chants of inspired knowledge," "spiritual poems of an absolute, an unfailing inspiration inevitable in phrase, wonderful in rhythm... from diverse models." 5 In fact, even what we call innovation is not something that has no link with other works and other authors. As Kuntaka has clearly seen, innovation does not reject acquired knowledge. An original author is one "who succeeds in making all his own, in subordinating what he takes from others to the new complex of his own artistic work." 6 Influence is not imitation, nor direct borrowing ...
... perception, intuition etc. takes place. All true knowledge is by identity, not at all by the intellectual reason. You may put the knowledge into an intellectual form by the Buddhi or intellect, but the knowledge is essentially by identity. You know anger by being one with it, though you can detach yourself and see it as something happening in you. All knowledge is like that. The discrimination therefore... Supermind there is a distinction : there is sometimes a force that tries to realise itself while there is at times a knowledge that tries to be effective, though primarily it is knowledge and secondarily force. In the highest Supermind the two are one : Truth and Force knowledge and will – both are simultaneous and effective. The Sadhaka must make the calm and equality absolutely secure so that... is the distinction between the two ? Sri Aurobindo : The Universal is full of all sorts of things, – true as well as false, good as well as bad, both divine and undivine. One has to get the knowledge and distinguish between them. It is not safe to open oneself to the Universal before one has the power of discrimination, because all kinds of ideas, forces, impulses, even Rākshasic and Paishāchic ...
... of Sachchidananda and the parent of the Mind; by its poise of identity it has total comprehension, and by its power of differentiation it precipitates the processes of the Mind. Further, in Supermind there is no hiatus between knowledge and will, for Supermind is "Real-Idea" which is both knowledge and will in the Idea, for now knowledge is power and to think is to bring the thing itself into being... An innate character of the gnostic consciousness and the instrumentation of Supernature is a wholeness of sight and action, a unity of knowledge with knowledge, a reconciliation of all that seems contrary in our mental seeing and knowing, an identity of Knowledge and Will acting as a single power in perfect unison with the truth of things.... 63 At the end of this monumental work, Sri Aurobindo... say that he could lift the world with a lever if only he could station himself for a while elsewhere? Although a strict national comprehension of Reality may thus have to be ruled out, knowledge through realised identity may still be possible. In the course of a letter to a disciple written in 1930, Sri Aurobindo drew a distinction between Western metaphysics and the Yoga of the Indian saints. In the ...
... through identity: we know because we are what we know. True knowledge , Sri Aurobindo said, is not attained by thinking. It is what you are; it is what you become. 156 Without that secret identity, that underlying total oneness, we would be unable to know anything about the world and beings. Ramakrishna crying out in pain and bleeding from the cuts of the whip that lashed the ox nearby, the psychic... him is seen: a great god has been delivered out of the darkness." ( Rig Veda V.1.2) In strikingly powerful words the Vedic rishis affirmed the eternal identity of Son and Father, and the divine transmutation of man: "Rescue thy father, in thy knowledge keep him safe, thy father who becomes thy son and bears thee." ( Rig Veda V.3.9). The moment we are born, we see that this soul within us is the same... sun and the dance of the earth... in all that is past and all that is now and all that is pressing forward to become. For thou art infinite and all this joy is possible to thee. 153 Knowledge through Identity We might suppose this cosmic consciousness to be a kind of poetic and mystical superimagination, something purely subjective and without any practical bearing. But first, we could try ...
... action of the seeing faculty in the buddhi or the feeling faculty in the heart—for both these things are vision. Our realisation is a realisation of identity by attitude, not of absolute identity by nature, realisation through instruments of knowledge, not through our conscious being in itself. Subtle as the distinction may seem, it is not really so fine as it appears; it makes a wide difference, it... in that attitude means a waning of the divine state or a defect in its fullness. So long as it rests on a continued act of knowledge in mind & heart, the least discontinuity or defect of that knowledge means a defect of or a falling from our divine fullness. Only if identity with all existences has become our whole nature & being of our being, is the divine state perfected, is its permanent and unbroken... regarded as Brahman's & not themselves as Brahman, an element of bheda, difference & dissonance, is preserved which tends to prevent this absolute identity of being & preserve the necessity of attitude & the identity only through the instruments of knowledge. Therefore in his next verse the Rishi gives us a higher & completer realisation which includes the missing elements & perfects the Adwaita. "He ...
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