... Can a state of this kind where a radical conversion has occurred be one of Spiritual Mind? Of course, Spiritual Mind can be a state of knowledge from the beginning, but here is a case of ignorance radically ceasing for the first time - an entirely different case. And what we have to decide is whether Spiritual Mind at even its highest can bring about such a state. For, if it can, it can itself... that of embodied Spiritual Mind? We should expect this state to be not only devoid of ignorance in a radical way: we should expect it also to be superior in every respect to what Spiritual Mind could do by embodiment. Why, then, inferiority on any score at all? Inferiority on any score can come only if somehow, previous to the creation of the Mind of Light, Spiritual Mind has not descended... call it down. But neither the substantial commerce with Spiritual Mind nor the dealings with the supramental Gnosis will everywhere be present. While in a number of human beings they will both be present, in others Spiritual Mind alone will be more or less freely contacted and in still others no free contact with even Spiritual Mind and so none with Supermind either will be there. From the ...
... The first form the Mind of Light takes seems an added last rung of the luminous ladder of Spiritual Mind. It appears to stand below Higher Mind in quality of Light. But it is superior to all degrees of Spiritual Mind, even Overmind, if its quality of Light is compared to the quality the grades of Spiritual Mind have achieved in the physical-mental in their descended forms. It is in terms of descent... be made between the state that is this Mind and the grades of Spiritual Mind. In such terms this Mind outshines them all from the very beginning, for it is the Supermind's own manifestation. 5)That manifestation develops a second and greater form, which is a completely descended Spiritual Mind — an entire embodiment by Spiritual Mind of itself, which under its own power it could not achieve. The... like what Spiritual Mind is in its overhead status, but with two differences. It is a mental Gnosis embodied. And it is a mental Gnosis which Supermind has assumed or put forth without a crucial poise-change as in Spiritual Mind. 6)The third form of the Mind of Light goes farther than such mental Gnosis. It embodies the Supramental Gnosis free from any frontal appearance of Spiritual Mind. Not, ...
... For we have seen something of the nature Page 954 and law of the transition from intellectual to spiritual mind; from that achieved starting-point we can begin to trace the passage to a higher dynamic degree of the new consciousness and the farther transition from spiritual mind towards supermind. The indications must necessarily be very imperfect, for it is only some initial representations... soul change which emancipates mind, life, body from the snare of their own imperfections and impurities. At this point, a greater spiritual dynamisation, the working of the higher powers of the spiritual mind and overmind, can fully intervene: they may indeed have started their work before, though only as influences; but under the new conditions they can uplift the central being towards their own level... all-embracing, cosmic, infinite. The overmind change is the final consummating movement of the dynamic spiritual transformation; it is the highest possible status-dynamis of the spirit in the spiritual-mind plane. It takes up all that is in the three steps below it and raises their characteristic workings to their highest and largest power, adding to them a universal wideness of consciousness and ...
... at the summit of which lies the Supermind or Divine Gnosis. 8 Now the ascending sight of the sadhaka undergoes a progressive transformation as it mounts the ladder of the four-rung 'Spiritual Mind' series. We describe in a brief outline the nature of sight in each of the four levels represented by (i) the Higher Mind, (ii) the Illumined Mind, (iii) the Intuitive Mind, and (iv) the Overmind... circumscribed than brief-lived men And subtler bodies than these passing frames, Objects too fine for our material grasp, Acts vibrant with a superhuman light. 9 Sight in the Spiritual Mind Planes To recapitulate: Once we cross the confines of the normal mind of man, we meet on our ascending climb a series of hierarchised luminous planes of consciousness serving as links... Infinity, Outskirts and dependencies of the house of Truth, Upraised estates of Mind and measureless. 12 Sight in the Higher Mind The Higher Mind is the first plane of spiritual mind-consciousness to which the first ascent out of four normal mentality takes us. This is a mind of automatic and spontaneous knowledge, knowledge assuming the nature of Truth-Thought. Its most ...
... bring out the secret soul, the psyche, or to ascend above our normal mental level into planes of intuitive consciousness dense with light derived from the spiritual gnosis, ascending planes of pure spiritual mind in which we are in direct contact with the infinite, in touch with the self and highest reality of things, Sachchidananda. In ourselves, behind our surface natural being, there is a soul, an inner... d, self-disciplined, harmonised mental being, she has tried to go higher and deeper within and call out into the front the soul and inner mind and heart, call down from above the forces of the spiritual mind and higher mind and overmind and create under their light and by their influence the spiritual sage, seer, prophet, God-lover, Yogin, gnostic, Sufi, mystic. This is man's only way of true s... evolutionary Nature in man; it is the initial step towards a radical transmutation of the Ignorance into the Knowledge. The spiritual change begins by an influence of the inner being and the higher spiritual mind, an action felt and accepted on the surface; but this by itself can lead only to an illumined mental idealism or to the growth of a religious mind, a religious temperament and some devotion in ...
... summit of which lies the Supermind or Divine Gnosis." (p. 938) Now the ascending sight of the sadhaka undergoes a progressive transformation as it mounts the ladder of the four-rung "spiritual Mind" series. We now intend to describe in brief outline the nature of the sight in each of the four levels represented by (i) the Higher Mind, (ii) the Illumined Mind, (iii) the Intuitive Mind, and... brief-lived men And subtler bodies than these passing frames, Objects too fine for our material grasp, Acts vibrant with a superhuman light..." (28) (B) Sight in the Spiritual Mind Planes : To recapitulate: once we cross the confines of the normal mind of man, we meet on our ascending climb a series of Page 58 hierarchised luminous planes of... Outskirts and dependencies of the house of Truth, Upraised estates of Mind and measureless." (659) (B.l) Sight in the Higher Mind : The Higher Mind is the first plane of spiritual mind-consciousness to which the ascent out of our normal mentality takes us. This is a mind of automatic and spontaneous knowledge, knowledge assuming the nature of Truth-Thought. Its most characteristic ...
... deepest soul of man and of the universal spirit in things, not only with another and a more complete vision, but in the very inmost language of the self-experience of the soul and the sight of the spiritual mind. The attempt to speak in poetry the inmost things of the spirit or to use a psychical and spiritual seeing other than that of the more outward imagination and intelligence has indeed been made... the expression is not so much encircled by past spiritual forms and traditions. It is in any case the shock upon each other of the oriental and occidental mentalities, on the one side the large spiritual mind and inward eye turned upon self and eternal realities, on the other the free inquiry of thought and the courage of the life energy assailing the earth and its problems that is creating the future... its Celtic originality and psychic delicacy of vision and purpose has entered into this poetic field. It is receiving too for a time an element or at least an embassy and message from the higher spiritual mind and imagination of India. The countries beyond the seas, still absorbed in their material making, have yet to achieve spiritual independence, but once that comes, the poetry of Whitman shows what ...
... being and all its self-expression and not merely in imperfect attempts, incomplete constructions, ever-changing approximations. The higher ranges of spiritual Mind have to open upon our being and consciousness and also that which is beyond even spiritual Mind must appear in us if we are to fulfil the divine possibility of our birth into cosmic existence. Overmind in its descent reaches a line which... dynamic movement, the resultant greater action of Consciousness-Force may present itself either simply as a pure spiritual dynamis not otherwise determinate in its character or it may reveal a spiritual mind-range where mind is no longer ignorant of the Reality,—not yet a supermind level, but deriving from the supramental Truth-Consciousness and still luminous with something of its knowledge. It ...
... develops in us, once we rise out of the sphere of mortal mind and look deep and high and far, we discover the splendours of a graded series of planes and powers of consciousness — an intervening spiritual mind-range — serving as links and bridges between the now normal waking mind and 'the native heights of supramental and pure spiritual being.' It is in these 'radiant altitudes' of the Spirit... delegated light from the supramental gnosis.' The Overmind is in direct contact with the Supramental Truth-Consciousness and represents the 'highest possible status-dynamis' of the Spirit in the spiritual-mind range. 'The cosmic empire of the Overmind' 3 represents 'the boundless finite's last expanse' 4 and Time's buffer state bordering Eternity, Too vast for the experience of man's... not our line. Since we seek to possess divinely our world-being as well as our self-being, we must cross the borderline, pass into the upper hemisphere transcending even the highest reach of spiritual mind and seek to realise Sachchidananda on the plane of Supermind. For, supermind is Sachchidananda's "...power of self-awareness and world-awareness, the world being known as within itself and not ...
... The Teachings of Eckhart Tolle and Sri Aurobindo - Some Comparisons Eckhart Tolle and Sri Aurobindo Levels of Spiritual Mind Above the Ordinary Mind Sri Aurobindo speaks of various levels of mental existence above the ordinary mind. In an ascending order these are: Higher Mind: A first plane of spiritual consciousness white one becomes constantly aware... Thus, whereas Eckhart regards the consciousness beyond the ordinary mind as a realm of no-mind and a consciousness without thought, Sri Aurobindo distinguishes various superconscient levels of spiritual mind above the ordinary mind and speaks of Higher Thought originating from these superconscient mental levels. It is when the ordinary mind falls silent that Higher Thought and Knowledge manifest from ...
... the philosophical differences in explaining the nature of the ultimate reality, Sri Aurobindo states: "The overmind 12 presents the truth of things in all sorts of aspects and mind, even the spiritual mind, fastens on one or the other as the very truth, the one real truth of the matter. It is the mind that makes these differences...." 13 Reconciling the mutually exclusive theories of Nihilism... the Spirit in things and only outwardly an evolution of species. 23 The Shankara knowledge is... only one side of the Truth; it is the knowledge of the Supreme as realised by the spiritual Mind through the static silence of the pure Existence. It was because he went by this side only that Shankara was unable to accept or explain the origin of the universe except as illusion, a creation ...
... consciousness generally, then it begins to be spiritualised and its highest ranges merge into the spiritual mind-consciousness of which this higher mind can be a beginning. This merging is part of the spiritual transformation. For the mind there are many centres: (1) the sahasradala which centralises spiritual mind, higher mind, intuitive mind and acts as a receiving station for the intuition proper and ...
... these are great and splendid achievements of our spiritual self-finding, but they are not necessarily the last end and entire consummation; more is possible. For these are achievements of the spiritual mind in man; they are movements of that mind passing beyond itself, but on Page 241 its own plane, into the splendours of the Spirit. Mind, even at its highest stages far beyond our present... existence as only a state of the one Being, the Infinite Person. Its spiritual achievement, its road of passage towards the supreme aim will follow these dividing lines. But beyond this movement of spiritual Mind is the higher experience of the supermind Truth-Consciousness; there these opposites disappear and these partialities are relinquished in the rich totality of a supreme and integral realisation ...
... the mind and all that is characteristic of him belongs to the wonderful play of mind taking up physicality and life and developing and enriching its gains till it can exceed itself and become a spiritual mind, the divine Mind in man. He turns first his view on the outward physical world and on his own life of outward action and concentrates on that or throws into its mould his life-suggestions, his... content to regard the intellect and the world of positive fact as all or the intellectual reason as a sufficient mediator between life and the spirit, but is beginning to perceive that there is a spiritual mind which can admit us to a greater and more comprehensive vision. This does not mean any sacrifice of the gains of the past, but a raising and extending of them not only by a seeking of the inner ...
... 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 centre ( sahasradala ). Blue is the normal colour of the spiritual planes; moonlight indicates the spiritual mind and its light. Moonlight indicates spirituality—the blue light may be that of the higher or illumined ...
... one lives and does all actions. It happens that people may get the descent without noticing that it is a descent because they feel the result only. The ordinary Yoga does not go beyond the spiritual mind—people feel at the top of the head the joining with the Brahman, but they are not aware of a consciousness above the head. In the same way in the ordinary Yoga one feels the ascent of the awakened... principle or place in a complete sadhana. At least I never heard of these things from others before I 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 ...
... supramental. But why should they [ Yogis of the traditional schools ] feel any pressure [ of the supramental descent ] when they are satisfied with the realisation they have? They live in the spiritual mind and the nature of the mind is to separate—here to separate some high aspect or state of the Divine and seek that to the exclusion of all else. All the spiritual philosophies and schools of Yoga... one peak, you find another beyond it. In order to see more than this one has to get into conscious waking touch with the supramental or at least get a glimpse of it—and that means passing beyond spiritual mind. Page 412 Certainly, the realisation of the Spirit comes long before the development of Overmind or Supermind; hundreds of sadhaks in all times have had the realisation of the Atman ...
... Page 169 include in general the Spiritual Mind, the domain of the Cosmic Knowledge, which he described as standing between the Cosmic Ignorance and the Transcendental or Integral Truth - Supermind. But the definition falls short when he distinguishes Mind from Spiritual Mind as well as demarcates the highest grade of the latter - namely, Overmind ...
... 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 peace, joy and bliss? If it is thoroughly ...
... Aurobindo states: "The Gita at its cryptic close may seem by its silence to stop short of that solution for which we are seeking; it pauses Page 77 at the borders of the highest spiritual mind and does not cross them into the splendours of the supramental Light. And yet its secret of dynamic, and not only static, identity with the inner Presence, its highest mystery of absolute surrender... higher and deeper within. Their efforts indicate their call to the inner soul, inner mind and inner heart to come out into the front, and they also indicate their call to the higher forces of the spiritual mind and higher mind and overmind to come down; and we find among them the flowering, under the light and the influence that have come down from above, of the spiritual Sage, Seer, God-lover, Yogin ...
... or process of working is noticeable in the path shown here by Rishi Sanatkumara to Narada. At the beginning of the series is the physical mind, at the end is the spiritual mind. The physical mind is the slave of sense) the spiritual mind is to become centred in God. The first series ends with Knowledge, Knowledge again begins the last series. It seems that the first is the knowledge of particulars ...
... Knowledge and be transformed in consequence as Mind of Light?* Technically it would be below Higher Mind, yet it might be more intrinsically (if feebly) supramental than the four higher states of the spiritual mind and it might also solve humanity's immediate problem of meeting the evolutionary crisis: A mind of light will replace the present confusion and trouble of this earthly ignorance.... a... essays Sri Aurobindo has only thrown a few hints, and there is even a certain ambiguity regarding the exact location of the Mind of Light in the hierarchy of powers. Lesser than the powers of the spiritual-mind, yet a force of pure (if subdued) light, a new power of consciousness that is the result of the direct action of Supermind on Mind - not a pre-existing power like Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuition ...
... 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 peace, joy and bliss? If it is thoroughly ...
... been a basis of calm and peace. It happens that people may get the descent without noticing that it is a descent because they feel the result only. The ordinary Yoga does not go beyond the spiritual mind—people feel at the top of the head the joining with the Brahman, but they are not aware of a consciousness above the head. In the same way in the ordinary Yoga one feels the ascent of the awakened... principle or place in a complete sadhana. At least I never heard of these things from others before I 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 ...
... at best an uncertain and limited status between the two poles. As the higher intelligence of man is situated between his animal and customary human mind below and his evolving spiritual mind above, so this first spiritual mind is situated between the intellectualised human mentality and the greater supramental knowledge. The nature of mind is that it lives between half-lights and darkness, amid ...
... The first shows that some part of your Page 383 mind was open and this aided by an opening in the psychic enabled you to ascend into the regions above, the ranges of the liberated spiritual mind with the infinite path of the spirit leading to the highest realisation. But the rest of the nature was not ready. The straining to recover the experience was not the right thing to do then; what... heart from the dark force and make possible a cleaning of the rest by a quiet and steady rather than a vehement working attended by chaotic action and struggle. When there is an opening in the spiritual mind but not a sufficient psychic change, there is or can be this kind of vehement force-action and resistance; when the psychic opens, then it acts on the whole nature, mind, vital, physical, governing ...
... Page 914 God, the soldier of the spirit. All these take their stand on one part of the natural being lifted up by a spiritual light, power or ecstasy. The sage and seer live in the spiritual mind, their thought or their vision is governed and moulded by an inner or a greater divine light of knowledge; the devotee lives in the spiritual aspiration of the heart, its self-offering and its... mass through mind as the instrument, it can exercise an influence on the earth-life but not bring about a transformation of that life. For this reason there has been a prevalent tendency in the spiritual mind to be satisfied with such an influence and in the main to seek fulfilment in other-life elsewhere or to abandon altogether any outward-going endeavour and concentrate solely on an individual spiritual ...
... and the debile submission of the bodily self to the normal habits of response of material Nature are not obligatory or unalterable. Still more significant is the power that comes on the level of spiritual mind Page 1024 or overmind to change the vibrations of pain into vibrations of Ananda: even if this were to go only up to a certain point, it indicates the possibility of an entire reversal... gnostic nature. It has been held that ecstasy is a lower and transient passage, the peace of the Supreme is the supreme realisation, the consummate abiding experience. This may be true on the spiritual-mind plane: there the first ecstasy felt is indeed a spiritual rapture, but it can be and is very usually mingled with a supreme happiness of the vital parts taken up by the spirit; there is an exaltation ...
... circumscribed than brief-lived men And subtler bodies than these passing frames, Objects too fine for our material grasp, Acts vibrant with a superhuman light. 9 Sight in the Spiritual Mind Planes To recapitulate: Once we cross the confines of the normal mind of man, we meet on our ascending climb a series of hierarchised luminous planes of consciousness serving as links... Infinity, Outskirts and dependencies of the house of Truth, Upraised estates of Mind and measureless. 12 Sight in the Higher Mind The Higher Mind is the first plane of spiritual mind-consciousness to which the first ascent out of four normal mentality takes us. This is a mind of automatic and spontaneous knowledge, knowledge assuming the nature of Truth-Thought. Its most ...
... unexpressed part of a supreme mystery. ...The Gita at its cryptic close may seem by its silence to stop short of that solution for which we are seeking; it pauses at the borders of the highest spiritual mind and does not cross them into the splendours of the supramental Light. And yet its secret of dynamic, and not only static, identity with the inner Presence, its highest mystery of absolute surrender... Aurobindo points out, "The Gita at its cryptic close may seem by its silence to stop short of that solution for which we are seeking; it pauses Page 78 at the borders of the highest spiritual mind and does not cross them into the splendours of the supramental Light." 66 As in the Veda and in the Upanishad, so also in the Gita there is, Sri Aurobindo points out, the idea of the higher ...
... or process of working is noticeable in the path shown here by Rishi Sanatkumara to Narada. At the beginning of the series is the physical mind, at the end is the spiritual mind. The physical mind is the slave of sense, the spiritual mind is to become centred in God. The first series ends with Knowledge, Knowledge again begins the last series. It seems that the first is the knowledge of particulars ...
... diminished and diluted by the lower energies of human nature. The ¹ The Life Divine by Sri Aurobindo. Page 433 second reason is, that the powers of the higher ranges of the spiritual mind, were it even possible for them to work here in their own purity and force, could not achieve a radical conversion of human nature, for, they are not the supreme creative powers of the Spirit.... heart and floods it with its own termless bliss and love and sweetness; it descends into life and its energies and informs them with its own all-achieving force. Its powers, unlike those of the spiritual mind-ranges, suffer no clouding or dilution by their contact with the elements of the earthly nature—they work in their own right and in the divine fullness of their. potencies. One comes to perceive ...
... is all and man's being is only a bubble on the ocean of Time still "the soul grows concealed within its house." Man studies life and thinks about its goal. "At last he wakes into spiritual mind."—There, in the spiritual mind—out of the narrow scope of finite thought—man glimpses eternity, touches the infinite and feels the universe as his Page 353 larger self—and "in the heart's cave speaks ...
... the categorical imperatives of Dharma. The political and economic structure was supported by the social compact, which in its turn was reared on immaculate spiritual foundations: The spiritual mind of India regarded life as a manifestation of the self: the community was the body of the creator Brahman, the people was a life body Page 507 of Brahman in the samasti, the... supreme source of light and strength and turning to discover the complete meaning and a vaster form of her Dharma. 59 If the India of long past ages had built on the foundation of the spiritual mind and the broad and durable framework of Dharma a great and stable civilisation and a free and noble people, ancient Greece developed to a remarkable extent intellectual reason and form and beauty ...
... religions, but it has not yet been successful in finding its way or imposing new lines on human life. The circumstances were adverse, the hour not yet come. This greatest movement of the Indian spiritual mind has a double impulse. Its will is to call the community of men and all men each according to his power to live in the greatest light of all and found their whole life on some fully revealed power ...
... firmly strength and power and patriotism and law and order, modern Europe has raised to enormous proportions practical reason, science and efficiency and economic capacity, India developed the spiritual mind working on the other powers of man and exceeding them, the intuitive reason, the philosophical harmony of the Dharma informed by the religious spirit, the sense of the eternal and the infinite ...
... experiences of the spirit, and it has used the reason as a critical power testing and assuring the steps and aiding but not replacing the life and the spirit—always the true and sound constructors. The spiritual mind of India regarded life as a manifestation of the self: the community was the body of the creator Brahma, the people was a life body of Brahman in the samaṣṭi , the collectivity, it was the collective ...
... still remains behind the exclusive absorption and can be recovered in the form of a profound mental intuition or else in the idea or sentiment of an underlying truth of integral oneness; in the spiritual mind this can develop into an ever-present experience. All aspects of the omnipresent Reality have their fundamental truth in the Supreme Existence. Thus even the aspect or power of Inconscience ...
... all-embracing, cosmic, infinite. The overmind change is the final consummating movement of the dynamic spiritual transformation; it is the highest possible status-dynamis of the Spirit in the spiritual-mind plane. It takes up all that is in the three steps below it and raises their charateristic workings to their highest and largest power, adding to them a universal wideness of consciousness and ...
... Yourself in a lovely moonlight with a self-luminous blue scarf. You looked the essence of magic, she says. Blue is the normal colour of the spiritual plane; moonlight indicates the spiritual mind and its light. (2) Mother in a powerful sunlight on a lion – her jagaddhatrT aspect, I infer. She looked so puissant, etc. It was probably the Durga aspect. (3) Near you ...
... a picture of the general process of higher powers from beyond the mind coming down to act in the aspiring consciousness in the course of the Integral Yoga. Here the Supermind, no less than the Spiritual Mind with its four levels - Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuition, Overmind - has been at play, but more indirectly than otherwise. The first direct action of the Supermind in the human constitution ...
... above and taken up the vital surge into its movement—so much so that if it had been a spiritual experience of which the poet was speaking, we could at once have detected an action of the illumined spiritual Mind taking up the vital love and soaring into spiritual greatness. Or take the quotation— Page 391 the prophetic soul Of the wide world dreaming on things to come ...
... Of course there are certain things that cannot be done from there, but neither poetry nor fiction is in that case. They can be lifted to a higher level and made the expression of the psychic or spiritual mind and vision. When that is said, all is said. I hope my brevity has been of the right kind—and not left the question mystically obscure. 9 June 1936 Tragedy in Fiction I did not like the ...
... Page 266 spirit's means of self-finding and all can be converted into its instruments of divine living. And they will see that the great necessity is the conversion of the normal into the spiritual mind and the opening of that mind again into its own higher reaches and more and more integral movement. For before the decisive change can be made, the stumbling intellectual reason has to be converted ...
... top to bottom. The emptiness and wideness in the brain is a very good sign. It is a condition for the opening horizontally into the cosmic consciousness and upward into the Self and higher spiritual Mind above the head. The lightness, the feeling of the disappearance of the head and that all is open is a sign of the wideness of the mental consciousness which is no longer limited by the brain ...
... . It can also indicate the flow of spiritual Ananda (nectar is in the moon according to the old tradition). The moon indicates spirituality, sometimes also spiritual Ananda. It [ spiritual mind, symbolised by the moon ] is Mind in contact with truths of the spirit and reflecting them. The Sun is the light of the Truth, the Moon only reflects the light of the Truth—that is the difference ...
... Due to Resistance What you saw was indeed a sun,—the sun of blue light which is the light of a higher mind than the ordinary human mind. The sun is the symbol of Light and Truth. This higher spiritual Mind is trying to wake in you, but at the beginning there is always a difficulty because the consciousness is not habituated to receive, so there is the sense of pressure deepening sometimes into a ...
... call to such a change should enter into this Yoga. The Shankara knowledge is, as your Guru pointed out, only one side of the Truth; it is the knowledge of the Supreme as realised by the spiritual Mind through the static silence of the pure Existence. It was because he went by this side only that Shankara was unable to accept or explain the origin of the universe except as illusion, a creation ...
... the transformed supramental status, except perhaps in detail. There is a great difference in consciousness, because Nirvana means absorption into a static Brahman on the level of spiritual Page 309 mind—the other would mean identification with the integral Divine in the much higher Truth of Supermind. It seems to me that the number of people in the world accepting our Yoga of tr ...
... mass through mind as the instrument, it can exercise an influence on the earth-life but not bring about a transformation of that life. For this reason there has been a prevalent tendency in the spiritual mind to be satisfied with such an influence and in the main to seek fulfilment in other-life elsewhere or to abandon altogether any outward-going endeavour and concentrate solely on an individual spiritual ...
... writing what he has called "Overhead Poetry"—poetry breaking from secret planes of consciousness above the mind. It is Thought with a capital T. Not the vitalistic mind, not the mind proper, but the spiritual mind is vibrant throughout, with its touch on spiritual realities that are known by subtle inner senses or by direct identity through an extension of one's sheer self. Eyeful Thought uttering an experience ...
... with your own literary mind in this sphere. Page 16 So far you have indulged in generalities and off-hand judgments. At times you say that the Indian mind, all the more the Indian spiritual mind, is alien to the genius of the English language and yet you have told us in your new book on Yeats "of the great Hindu scriptures, of which, with his Swami, Sri Purohit, he made those fine translations ...
... material plane, 1 The Synthesis of Yoga, pp. 415-16. (Italics ours) Page 147 a life-plane and the planes of mind. But even on the highest range of spiritual-mind planes, the absolute harmony of the union of Purusha-Prakriti is not fully recovered. Thus even though the separate liberation and static release of the soul become feasible there, the latter ...
... after Overmind—or before it? SRI AUROBINDO: Why is he particular about the Non-Being? You arrive at the Non-Being by following the negative path. That is to say, when you start from mind, I mean spiritual mind, you come or open yourself to the experience of Nirvana. This Nirvana is the negation of all that the mind can affirm as the Being but it is only a gate of entry into the Absolute. From this Nirvana ...
... ordinary life or physical consciousness with the sky as the ordinary mind and the mountain as the hill of the Divine Truth with the moonlight cloud as the spiritual Call (the moon is the symbol of the spiritual mind) and the birds as souls called by the Truth, I think the significance of the details of the vision will be clear to you.” Rājhamsa [The Swan]: “It is truly a marvellous success…he [Nishikanto] ...
... all-embracing, cosmic, infinite. The overmind change is the final consummating movement of the dynamic spiritual transformation; it is the highest possible status-dynamis of the Spirit in the spiritual-mind plane. It takes up all that is in the three steps below it and raises their characteristic workings to their highest and largest power, adding to them a universal wideness of consciousness and ...
... ent and not to bring back its dynamic riches to the waking outer existence with a view to effectuate a spiritual transformation there. Hence, as soon as the Yogin goes above the level of the spiritual mind, he does not seek to retain any continuity of awareness there; instead, he passes into the "mystic sleep" of Samadhi, a state of superconsciousness in which the human mind in its actually evolved ...
... 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 sadhana s are not meant for us who are just pygmies and tyros on the spiritual Path. Page 283 ...
... And still there is a further beyond. For Supermind, as a power of consciousness, is concealed here in the terrestrial evolution. Therefore, the line of rebirth cannot stop even when the spiritual-mind planes have been possessed. It cannot cease in its ascent before the mental has been replaced by the supramental nature and an embodied supramental being becomes the leader of the terrestrial existence ...
... prevented him from doing what he intended to do.* He discouraged his disciples because his aim was the realisation of the inner Self and intuition — in other words the fullness of the spiritual Mind —visions and voices belong to the inner occult sense, therefore he did not want them to lay stress on it. I also discourage some from having any dealing with visions and voices because I see that ...
... and the other high above, in fact so high up that I cannot see it but can have only an impression of it. This flight has many gradations. It is the line of connection between the spiritual mind, through higher mind, illumined mind, intuition, overmind to the supramental. For the last two days, my consciousness seems to soar much higher than the Higher Mind. Not only ...
... consciousness to which evil too belongs. In other words, we tried to deal with the world and treat it with the force of the Mind, even though in some cases, the mind was a high or even the highest spiritual mind. To touch the roots of the malady that extend into our deepest fibres, our most material being, dead inconscience, one must rise to the very source of consciousness, the creative truth-consciousness: ...
... Aurobindo, the overmind change is the Page 61 final consummating movement of the dynamic spiritual transformation; it is the highest possible status — dynamis of the Spirit in the spiritual-mind plane. The overmind carries the consciousness to the point of a vast illumined universality and an organized play of this wide and potent spiritual awareness of utter existence, force-consciousness ...
... the human being. The Greek mind was " philosophical, aesthetic, political," the modern. mind is " scientific, economic, utilitarian." The ancient Indian culture arrived at the harmony of " the spiritual mind, intuitive reason informed by a religious spirit, a living. sense of the Eternal and the Infinite."4 During the, struggle for independence in India very few leaders saw beyond the political ...
... each of our actions. This is the initial progress. Later, by a further purification and transformation of our consciousness and nature, another centre opens high above, beyond the ranges of the spiritual mind, which gives an immediate and infallible lead to all the movements of our being. It is here, in the supreme creative Consciousness, called by the Upanishads the Truth-Consciousness, that the conquest ...
... for while still remaining man, for, "the overmind change is the final consummating movement of the dynamic spiritual transformation; it is the highest possible status dynamis of the spirit in the spiritual-mind plane." 15 Page 296 ...
... 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 constant flux and movement. It rises or falls according to ...
... to check the veracity of my statement. 1 Among the Great, 221, 226. Page 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 ...
... instance to achieve calm to the exclusion of kinesis of action, but that is because we approach him first through the selecting spirit in the mind. Afterwards when we are able to rise above even the spiritual mind, we can see that each divine power contains all the rest and can get rid of this initial error. 2 We see then that action is possible without the subjection of the soul to the normal degraded ...
... to life of the long torpid Mussulman mass in India. Perhaps none of these forms, nor all the sum of them may be definitive, they may constitute only the preparatory self-finding of the Indian spiritual mind recovering its past and turning towards its future. India is the meeting-place of the religions and among these Hinduism alone is by itself a vast and complex thing, not so much a religion as a ...
... rather they were making spiritual progress through them. He discouraged his disciples because his aim was the realisation of the inner Self and intuition—in other words the fullness of the spiritual Mind—visions and voices belong to the inner occult sense, therefore he did not want them to lay stress on it. I also discourage some from having any dealing with visions and voices because I see that ...
... Truth"; then, there your responsibility begins—but not before. ( Looking at a disciple ) He is longing to speak! Sri Aurobindo has said, "The Gita... pauses at the borders of the highest spiritual mind and does not cross them into the splendours of the supramental Light." The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 87 By following the Gita, why doesn't one catch the central truth and come to the ...
... and exultation of Godward love and Ananda, the result of which is these vikāras . Chaitanya claimed this supremacy for the Radha experience because Ananda is higher than the experiences of the spiritual mind, Ananda being according to the Upanishads the supreme plane of experience. But this is a logical conclusion which cannot be accepted wholly—one must pass through the supermind to arrive to the ...
... consciousness. Page 336 The love that belongs to the spiritual planes is of a different kind—the psychic has its own more personal love, bhakti, surrender. Love in the higher or spiritual mind is more universal and impersonal. The two must join together to make the highest divine love. The psychic realisation is one of diversity in unity (the portion and the whole); it is not ...
... are not the same. Above the head are seen all the planes from the overmind down to the higher mind, but this is only a correlation in the consciousness—not an actual location in space. The spiritual mind is a mind which, in its fullness, is aware of the Self, reflecting the Divine, seeing and understanding the nature of the Self and its relations with the manifestation, living in that or in contact ...
... it is to be described, presents itself differently, in different aspects, one may say, to different people. The Overmind presents the truth of things in all sorts of aspects and mind, even the spiritual mind, fastens on one or the other as the very truth, the one real truth of the matter. It is the mind that makes these differences, but that does not matter, because, through its own way of seeing and ...
... act according to its own nature with a free aspiration, a direct contact with the higher consciousness and a power to change the ignorant nature. Higher Mind is one of the planes of the spiritual mind, the first and lowest of them; it is above the normal mental level. Inner mind is that which lies behind the surface mind (our ordinary mentality) and can only be directly experienced (apart from ...
... things is demanded. That is why the struggle is more felt, not because these things rise more strongly in sadhaks than in ordinary men, but because of the intensity of the struggle between the spiritual mind which demands control and the vital movements which rebel and wish to continue in the new as they did in the old life. As for the idea that the sadhana raises up things of the kind, the only truth ...
... He [ Ramana Maharshi ] discouraged his disciples [ from having any occult dealings ] because his aim was the realisation of the inner Self and the intuition—in other words the fullness of the spiritual Mind—visions and voices belong to the inner occult sense, therefore he did not want them to lay stress on it. I also discourage some from having any dealing with visions and voices because I see that ...
... them or their intensity or the joy and confidence they give should make them suspect as untrue. A man who has risen high can fall low, especially if his experiences are only through the spiritual mind and the vital and physical remain as they were. But it is an absurdity to say that he is sure to fall low. I have not said that to reach the overmind is impossible; I have only said that ...
... 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 by a silence of the ordinary mental thought. Our thoughts are not ...
... The One and the Supreme Mother The Shankara knowledge is, as your Guru pointed out, only one side of the Truth; it is the knowledge of the Supreme as realised by the spiritual Mind through the static silence of the pure Existence. It was because he went by this side only that Shankara was unable to accept or explain the origin of the universe except as illusion, a creation ...
... secret which in its fullness can be grasped only when he overpasses the double term that reigns here of Knowledge inextricably intertwined with an original Ignorance and crosses the border where spiritual mind disappears into supramental Gnosis. It is through this third and most dynamic dual aspect of the One that the seeker begins with the most integral completeness to enter into the deepest secret ...
... only to those who are already of the wise. The Gita at its cryptic close may seem by its silence to stop short of that solution for which we are seeking; it pauses at the borders of the highest spiritual mind and does not cross them into the splendours of the supramental Page 94 Light. And yet its secret of dynamic, and not only static, identity with the inner Presence, its highest mystery ...
... writing what he has called "Overhead Poetry" — poetry breaking from secret planes of consciousness above the mind. It is Thought with a capital T. Not the vital mind, nor the mind proper, but the spiritual mind is vibrant throughout, with its touch on spiritual realities that are known by subtle inner senses or by direct identity through an extension of one's sheer self. Eyeful Thought uttering an experience ...
... its own formulas. This is because each is a creation and activity of Mind, Science of the concretising experimental mind, Philosophy of the abstracting intellectual mind, Religion of the dynamic spiritual mind. But Mind is bound always by its partial formulations of the Truth; Mind grasps formulas or images but is itself grasped by its own creations, it cannot get free from them or go beyond them. But ...
... has ended in a paradox. We have attempted on the contrary to establish from its data a comprehensive Adwaita. We have shown that mind and life and matter are derivations from the Self through a spiritual mind or supermind which is the real support of cosmic existence and by developing mind into that, man can arrive at the real truth of the spirit in the world and the real truth and highest law of life ...
... of our times, under conditions of literary and consciousness osmosis there is bound to be a happy and welcome integration of material and spiritual mentalities. A creative fusion of the spiritual mind and the dynamic energies of the life-plane is what makes literature effective and immortal; an aesthetic blend of a saving vision and an announcing language will undoubtedly be our future ...
... spiritualisation brings about mostly a subjective transformation, the instrumental Nature remaining as before full of many disabilities and deficiencies. Even the Overmind, the summit-reach of our spiritual mind-range , fails to effectuate a complete change of Nature, for this too is "subject to limitations in the working of the effective Knowledge, limitations in the working of the Power, subject to ...
... Supermind or Gnosis, the plane of absolute and everlasting Light, that transcends altogether the apar ā rdha or the lower hemisphere of existence. The Higher Mind is the first plane of spiritual mind-consciousness to which the first ascent out of our normal mentalility takes us. This is a Mind of automatic and spontaneous knowledge, knowledge assuming the nature of truth-Thought. For, "its ...
... Mother, enshrines the "prophetic vision of the world's history, including the announcement of the earth's future..." 99 "Out of the narrow scope of finite thought At last he wakes into spiritual mind; 97. Savitri, Book X, Canto IV, p. 659. 98.Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, pp. 33, 41. 99.The Foreword in facsimile to Meditations on Savitri (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo ...
... centralised the thinking mind and higher intelligence communicating with the greater mind planes (illumined mind, intuition, overmind) above." 4 (4) "...the sahasradala which centralises spiritual mind, higher mind, intuitive mind and acts as a receiving station fort he intuition proper and overmind..." 5 (5) "...the sahasradala padma through which the higher intuition, illumined mind ...
... things is demanded. That is why the struggle is more felt, not because these things rise more strongly in sadhaks than in ordinary men, but because of the intensity of the struggle between the spiritual mind which demands control and the vital movements which rebel and want to continue in the new as they did in the old life. As for the idea that the sadhana raises up things of the kind, the only truth ...
... Aurobindo, however, makes these distinctions: 1. Different distinguishable parts of the ordinary mind 2. The ordinary outer mind and the inner or subliminal mind 3. Various levels of spiritual mind above the ordinary mind Page 94 ...
... course there are certain things that cannot be done from there, but neither poetry nor fiction as in that case. They can be lifted to a higher level and made the expression of the psychic or spiritual mind and vision. When that is said, all is said. I hope my brevity has been of the right kind—and not left the question mystically obscure. June 10,1936 Your letter this morning was ...
... the prophet begin to flower; it is here that one can meet the servant of God, the soldier of the spirit. The sage and the seer live in a plane higher than the plane of mind; they live in the spiritual mind, since their thought or their vision is governed and moulded by an inner or a greater divine light of knowledge. The saint is moved by the awakened psychic being in the inner heart, and he has ...
... Purāna is related to the concept of avatāra and the description of various avataras of the Supreme Divine. Purāna literature is very vast and it has made a great impact on the religious and spiritual mind of India. The tradition of philosophy in India goes back to very early times, and based upon the Veda, several systems of philosophy have flourished. These systems are: Ny ā ya, Vaisheshika ...
... or the prophet begin to flower; it is here that one can meet the servant of God, the soldier of the spirit. The sage and the seer live in a plane higher than the plane of mind; they live ln tne spiritual mind, since their thought or their vision is governed and moulded by an inner or a greater divine light of Knowledge. The saint is moved by the awakened psychic page - 33 being in the inner ...
... spiritual and philosophical fields, the stagnancy of the past seems to have taken such deep roots that they have not been sufficiently understood or even noticed by the general philosophical and spiritual mind of the nation. Nevertheless a leap has been taken and a higher ascent has been made. And the complete result of this supreme effort we find in Sri Aurobindo's revelation of the existence and ...
... and power descending from Super-nature. Sri Aurobindo goes farther and states that when the supramental principle is established permanently on the earth, the intervening powers of Overmind and Spiritual mind would be able to found themselves securely upon it and reach their own perfection. They would become, according to Sri Aurobindo, a hierarchy of states of consciousness in the earth-existence rising ...
... can be made the spirit's means of self-finding and all can be converted into its instruments of divine living. And they will see that the great necessity is the conversion of the normal into the spiritual mind and the opening of that mind again into its own higher reaches and more and more integral movement." "The leaders of the spiritual march will start from and use the knowledge and the means ...
... disciples from having any dealings with it? He discouraged his disciples because his aim was the realisation of the inner Self and the intuition - in other words the fullness of the spiritual Mind - visions and voices belong to the inner occult sense, therefore he did not want them to lay stress on it. I also discourage some from having any dealing with visions and voices because I see that ...
... the higher or spiritual planes? The love that belongs to the spiritual planes is of a different kind - the psychic has its own more personal love, bhakti, surrender. Love in the higher or spiritual mind is more universal and impersonal. The two must join together to make the highest divine love. We cannot be satisfied with experiences of the Mother's infinite Peace and Silence: they ...
... had a chequered history, but the tale is not ended: Out of this tangle of intellect and sense, Out of the narrow scope of finite thought At last he wakes into spiritual mind;... 61 There have been already the god-intoxicated climbers of the Himalayas of the Spirit, who have reached radiant altitudes, and glimpsed the far splendours of the "house of Truth" ...
... Ishwara, the Lord. Governing and acting through his instruments he at last takes his kingdom in his hands. This is accomplished in two stages. At first the contact is mental—zone of the spiritual mind (Buddhi ?). Man recognises his mind, his emotions and his body as not-himself. He feels himself existing above them—above the spatial and temporal form. He has peace and certitude. To reach ...
... Spiritual love and psychic love: "The love that belongs to the spiritual planes is of a different kind—the psychic has its own more personal love, bhakti, surrender. Love in the higher or spiritual mind is more universal and impersonal. The two must go together to make the highest divine love."² Psychic love springs from a living sense of essential identity seeking to realise itself in ...
... noted here is that it is not the Mother descending, but only her golden robe which symbolizes the Supernature. The central consciousness of man, once it has travelled beyond the borders of even the spiritual mind, finds a stable base above in the Transcendent, and a tranquil, luminous poise in it, and never spirals back — na punarāvartate — into the whirl of the lower energies. It is the divine nature ...
... With each revision Sri Aurobindo tried to lift the level of the poem higher and higher towards what he called "Over-mind poetry", the mantric, revelatory utterance of that highest of the spiritual mind ranges. ¹Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, pp. 404-06. ² Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Parts Two and Three (Pondicherry : Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1970), p. 728 . ³ Ibid., pp.727-28. ...
... dealing with the same topic: "The seeker of spiritual perfection has to pass as quickly as possible, if he cannot altogether avoid, this zone of danger, and the safe rule here is to be attached to none of these things, but to make spiritual progress one's sole real objective, and to put no sure confidence in other things until the mind and life and soul are purified and the light of the spirit... spirit and Supermind or at least of the spiritually illumined mind and soul are shed on these inner ranges of experience." (pp. 843-44) We reproduce below a few of the verses from Savitri which graphically describe the sight in this dark zone of experiences, also indicate how to avoid its lure: (1)"Whose very gaze was a calamity" (205) (2)"Alluring lips and eyes" (205) ...
... consciousness and knowledge. This greater Force is that of the Illumined Mind, a Mind no longer of higher Thought, but of spiritual light. Here the clarity of the spiritual intelligence, its tranquil daylight, gives place or subordinates itself to an intense lustre, a splendour and illumination of the spirit: a play of lightnings of spiritual truth and power breaks from above into the consciousness and adds... into the being through the spiritual idea and its power of truth, so the Illumined Mind brings in a greater consciousness through a Truth-sight and Truth-light and its seeing and seizing power. It can effect a more powerful and dynamic integration; it illumines the thought-mind with a direct inner vision and inspiration, brings a spiritual sight into the heart and a spiritual light and energy into its... of thought.... The Illumined Mind does not work primarily by thought, but by vision; thought is here only a subordinate movement expressive of sight. The human mind, which relies mainly on thought, conceives that to be the highest or the main process of knowledge, but in the spiritual order thought is a secondary and a not indispensable process. As the Higher Mind brings a greater consciousness ...
... the Overmind, that would mean a greater, sustained height of perfection and spiritual quality in poetry than has yet been achieved; but we are discussing here short passages and lines." "The Overmind is essentially a spiritual power. Mind in it surpasses its ordinary self and rises and takes its stand on a spiritual foundation. It embraces beauty and sublimates it; it has an essential aesthesis... knowledge; its truth goes beyond truth of fact and truth of thought, even the higher thought which is the first spiritual range of the thinker. It has the truth of spiritual thought, spiritual feeling, spiritual sense and at its highest the truth that comes by the most intimate spiritual touch or by identity. Ultimately, truth and beauty come together and coincide, but in between there is a difference... 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 fine." * ...
... all? He saw the unshaped thought in soulless forms, Knew Matter pregnant with spiritual sense, Mind dare the study of the Unknowable, Life its gestation of the Golden Child. ( I.V.76 ) A Will, a hope immense now seized his heart, And to discern the superhuman's form He raised his eyes to unseen spiritual heights, Aspiring to bring down a greater world. ( ibid. ) ( silence ) ... reading out a passage ). As you said, the French might be a bit awkward, but it may be the only way to translate precisely. Sometimes I did it purposely. Admitted through a curtain of bright mind That hangs between our thought and absolute sight, He found the occult cave, the mystic door Near to the well of vision in the soul, And entered where the Wings of Glory brood In the sunlit space ...
... consciousness of the spiritual being. Mind cannot be our last conscious expression because mind is fundamentally Page 396 an ignorance seeking for knowledge; it is only the Supramental Truth-Consciousness that can bring us the true and whole SelfKnowledge and world-Knowledge; it is through that only that we can get to our true being and the fulfilment of our spiritual evolution. Page... emerges in the world first in Matter, then in Life, then in Mind and finally as the Spirit. The apparently inconscient Energy which creates is in fact the Consciousness-Force of the Divine and its aspect of consciousness, secret in Matter, begins to emerge in Life, finds something more of itself in Mind and finds its true self in a spiritual consciousness and finally a supramental consciousness through... action in the mind and body. This ego has to be extinguished, otherwise there is no complete liberation possible; but the individual self or soul is not this ego. The individual soul is the spiritual being which is sometimes described as an eternal portion of the Divine but can also be described as the Divine himself supporting his manifestation as the Many. This is the true spiritual individual which ...
... oneself from mind, life and body. Naturally. While referring to the supramental planes lately, I did not mean the supermind, but simply the spiritual planes above the human mind. To separate mind, vital and physical from each other, is there no need of the higher spiritual planes? Spiritual and supramental are not the same thing. The spiritual planes from... the supra-mental planes, the planes above the human mind? There are many planes above man's mind — the supra-mental is not the only one, and on all of them the self can be realised, — for they are all spiritual planes. Mind, vital and physical are inextricably mixed together only on the surface consciousness — the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical are separate from each... depreciation of Buddha and Yajnavalkya and other great spiritual figures of the past, is it not evidently absurd on the face of it? Is it not a fact that the mind, vital and physical are integrally woven into each other and that to separate them and put each one in its proper place is no easy task. When the mind alone is realising the self, the vital and physical will ...
... Mind and the Spiritual Life There are similarities as well as differences in the perspectives of Eckhart and Sri Aurobindo regarding the role of mind in the spiritual life. To Eckhart, mind, from the spiritual viewpoint, is the absence of consciousness. To be identified with mind is to be unconscious; it is to be not present. The one aim of the spiritual life is to liberate... beings have still not fully outgrown, the mind is regarded in yoga as not only a useful but also, in some respects, an indispensable tool until it can be replaced by a higher or deeper consciousness. Thus, in Page 85 various spiritual disciplines, mind has generally been used to serve two chief functions in the spiritual life. First, mind is utilized to acquire a mental understanding... 33 A mistake often made by spiritual seekers pertains to inner experiences. Sri Aurobindo regards the mind as a useful instrument in Page 88 the spiritual life for discriminating between pseudo experiences and genuinely spiritual experiences. As Sri Aurobindo wrote to a disciple: There are imitation higher experiences when the mind or vital catches hold of an idea or ...
... 114 would mean a greater, sustained height of perfection and spiritual quality in poetry than has yet been achieved; but we are discussing here short passages and lines." "The Overmind is essentially a spiritual power. Mind in it surpasses its ordinary self and rises and takes its stand on a spiritual foundation. It embraces beauty and sublimates it; it has an essential aesthesis... knowledge; its truth goes beyond truth of fact and truth of thought, even the higher thought which is the first spiritual range of the thinker. It has the truth of spiritual thought, spiritual feeling, spiritual sense and at its highest the truth that comes by the most intimate spiritual touch or by identity. Ultimately, truth and beauty come together and coincide, but in between there s a difference... 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 is more evident in 6 and 8 only" ...
... whole. The reason is that the intellectual mind took up the work of transcription and a Miltonic rhetorical note comes in, all begins to be thought rather than seen or felt; the poet seems to be writing what he thinks he ought to write on such a subject and doing it very well—one admires, the mind is moved and the vital stirred, but the deeper satisfying spiritual thrill which the first lines set out to... What you say may be correct, but on the other hand it is possible that the mind of the future will be more international than it is now. In that case the expression of various temperaments in English poetry will have a chance. If our aim is not success and personal fame, but to arrive at the expression of spiritual truth and experience of all kinds in poetry, the English tongue is the most widespread... other side are that the English mind is apt to look on poetry by an Indian as a curiosity, something exotic (whether it really is or not, the suggestion will be there), and to stress the distance at which the English temperament stands from the Indian temperament. But Tagore's Gitanjali is most un-English, yet it overcame this obstacle. For the poetry of spiritual experience, even if it has true ...
... Vedic Rishis broke their barriers which were present in the earlier system of communication, and they swept through the highest minds of the nation and fertilised the soil of Indian 'culture for a constant and ever-increasing growth of spiritual consciousness and spiritual experience. And even when this turn was still evident, chiefly among the Kshatriyas and Brahmins, we find too among those who attained... Puranas, the cosmogony which is expressed sometimes in terms proper to the physical universe has a spiritual and psychological meaning and basis. The rich and endless profusion of Puranic stories have produced enormous effect in training the mass mind to respond to a psycho- religious and psycho-spiritual appeal that prepared a capacity for highest things. Not all the Puranas contain high substance uniformly... be appreciated when we realise that the Puranic religion was an effort, successful in a great measure, to open the general mind of the people to a higher and deeper range of inner truth, experience and feeling. It was a catholic attempt to draw towards the spiritual truth minds of all qualities and people of all classes. While much was lost of the profound psychic knowledge of the Vedic seers, much ...
... above man's mind—the supramental is not the only one, and on all of them the self can be realised,—for they are all spiritual planes. Mind, vital and physical are inextricably mixed together only in the surface consciousness—the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical are separate from each other. Those who seek Page 404 the self by the old Yogas separate themselves from mind, life and... realisation at the spiritual summit of the consciousness but the parts below remain what they were. I have seen any number of instances of that. There must be a descent of the light not merely into the mind or part of it but into all the being down to the physical and below before a real and total transformation can take place. A light in the mind may spiritualise or otherwise change the mind or part of it... obviously "we" does not refer to humanity in general but to those who have a sufficiently developed inner spiritual life. 3 It is probable that Sri Aurobindo was thinking of his own experience. After three years of spiritual effort with only minor results he was shown by a Yogi the way to silence his mind. This he succeeded in doing entirely in two or three days by following the method shown. There was ...
... persistent finite, between a luminous Truth-consciousness not expressed or not yet expressed here and the Mind's ignorance. But nothing is more difficult than to bring home the greatness and uplifting power of the spiritual consciousness to the natural man forming the vast majority of the race; for his mind and senses are turned outward towards the external calls of life and its objects and never inwards... the things of the mind. The highest flight they reach—and it is this that the West persistently mistakes for spirituality—is a preference for living in the mind and emotions more than in the gross outward life or else an attempt to subject this rebellious life-stuff to the law of intellectual truth or ethical reason and will or aesthetic beauty or of all three together. But spiritual knowledge perceives... of the mental, vital and psychic consciousness and a highest inmost light of spiritual illumination. Surya, the Sun-God, was the lord of the physical Sun; but he is at the same time to the Vedic seer-poet the giver of the rays of knowledge which illumine the mind and he is too the soul and energy and body of the spiritual illumination. And in all these powers he is a luminous form of the one and infinite ...
... is to be attached to none of these things, but to make spiritual progress one's sole real objective and to put no sure confidence in other things until the mind and life soul are purified and the light of the spirit and supermind or at least of the spiritually illumined mind and soul are shed on these inner ranges of experience. For when the mind is tranquillised and purified and the pure psyche liberated... the mind it uses and is a movement of the self, a direct and original activity of the infinite power of its consciousness. Page 864 The pure action of sense is a spiritual action and pure sense is itself a power of the spirit. The spiritual sense is capable of knowing in its own characteristic way, which is other than that of supramental thought or of the intelligence or spiritual co... action of the spiritual and supramental will and knowledge. It is rapturous with a powerful and luminous delight that makes of it, makes of all sense and sensation a key to or a vessel of the divine and infinite Ananda. Page 866 The supramental sense can act in its own power and is independent of the body and the physical life and outer mind and it is above too the inner mind and its experiences ...
... Overhead Poetry Higher Mind and Poetic Intelligence I mean by the Higher Mind a first plane of spiritual [consciousness] where one becomes constantly and closely aware of the Self, the One everywhere and knows and sees things habitually with that awareness; but it is still very much on the mind level although highly spiritual in its essential substance; and its instrumentation... state between the Truth-Light above and the human mind; communicating the higher knowledge in a form that the Mind intensified, broadened, made spiritually supple, can receive without being blinded or dazzled by a Truth beyond it. The poetic intelligence is not at all part of that clarified spiritual seeing and thinking—it is only a high activity of the mind and its vision moving on the wings of imagination... All the same between the reflected realisation in the mind and the automatic and authentic realisation in the spiritual mental planes there is a wide difference. ... There is also a plane of dynamic Vision which is a part of the inner Mind and perhaps should be called not a plane but a province. There are many kinds of vision in the inner Mind and Page 21 not this dynamic vision alone ...
... am trying to do, the spiritual realisation is the first necessity but it cannot be complete without an outer realisation also in life, in man, in this world. Spiritual consciousness within but also spiritual life without. The Ashram as it is now is not that ideal, for that all its members would have to live in a spiritual consciousness and not in the ordinary egoistic mind and mainly rajasic vital... integral consciousness of the spiritual being. Mind cannot be our last conscious expression because mind is fundamentally an ignorance seeking for knowledge; it is only the supramental Truth-Consciousness that can bring us the true and whole Self-Knowledge and world-Knowledge; it is through that only that we can get to our true being and the fulfilment of our spiritual evolution. October... mental logic that makes the difficulty but in spiritual matters mental logic easily blunders; intuition, faith, a plastic spiritual reason are here the only guides. Page 174 As for faith, his meaning is clear enough. Faith in the spiritual sense is not a mental belief which can waver and change. It can wear that form in the mind, but that belief is not the faith itself, it ...
... appreciate Savitri, one has to be "open to this kind of poetry, able to see the spiritual vision it conveys, capable too of feeling the Overhead touch when it comes." 62 The Overmind touch, even the touch of anything else Overhead (which comprises all the above-mind states of consciousness: Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, 60 Ibid., pp. 788-90. 61 Ibid., p. 743. 62 lbid., p. 759... external and superficial happenings and phenomena. It would not only bring in the occult in its larger and deeper ranges but the truths of the spiritual heights, the spiritual depths, the spiritual intimacies and vastnesses as also the truths of the inner mind, the inner life, an inner or subtle physical beauty 63 Ibid., p. 804. 64 Ibid., p. 802. 65 Ibid., pp. 813-14. Page... indistinguishable. Sri Aurobindo adds: Aesthetics belongs to the mental range and all that depends upon it... . The Overmind is essentially a spiritual power. Mind in it surpasses its ordinary self and rises and takes its stand on a spiritual foundation. It embraces beauty and sublimates it; it has an essential aesthesis which is not limited by rules and canons; it sees a universal and eternal ...
... appreciate Savitri, one has to be "open to this kind of poetry, able to see the spiritual vision it conveys, capable too of feeling the Overhead touch when it comes". 69 The Overmind touch, even the touch of anything else 'overhead' (which comprises all the above-mind states of consciousness: Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuition) must involve, in some measure at least, a "cosmic consciousness", a... external or superficial happenings and phenomena. It would not only bring in the occult in its larger and deeper ranges but the truths of the spiritual heights, the spiritual depths, the spiritual intimacies and vastnesses as also the truths of the inner mind, the inner life, an inner or subtle physical beauty and reality. ... It might even enter into the domain of the infinite and inexhaustible, catch... indistinguishable. Sri Aurobindo adds: Aesthetics belongs to the mental range and all that depends upon it.... The Overmind is essentially a spiritual power. Mind in it surpasses its ordinary self and rises and takes its stand on a spiritual foundation. It embraces beauty Page 678 and sublimates it; it has an essential aesthesis which is not limited by rules and canons; ...
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