"A tree
evolves out of the seed in which it is already contained, the seed out of the
tree; a fixed law, an invariable process reigns in the permanence of the form
of manifestation which we call a tree. The mind regards this phenomenon, this
birth, life and reproduction of a tree, as a thing in itself and on that basis
studies, classes and explains it. It explains the tree by the seed, the seed by
the tree; it declares a law of Nature. But it has explained nothing; it has
only analysed and recorded the process of a mystery. Supposing even that it
comes to perceive a secret conscious force as the soul, the real being of this
form and the rest as merely a settled operation and manifestation of that
force, still it tends to regard the form as a separate existence with its
separate law of nature and process of development. In the animal and in man
with his conscious mentality this separative tendency of the Mind induces it to
regard itself also as a separate existence, the conscious subject, and other
forms as separate objects of its mentality. This useful arrangement, necessary
to life and the first basis of all its practice, is accepted by the mind as an
actual fact and thence proceeds all the error of the ego.
"But the
Supermind works otherwise. The tree and its process would not be what they are,
could not indeed exist, if it were a separate existence; forms are what they
are by the force of the cosmic existence, they develop as they do as a result
of their relation to it and to all its other manifestations. The separate law
of their nature is only an application of the universal law and truth of all
Nature; their particular development is determined by their place in the
general development. The tree does not explain the seed, nor the seed the tree;
cosmos explains both and God explains cosmos. The Supermind, pervading and
inhabiting at once the seed and the tree and all objects, lives in this greater
knowledge which is indivisible and one though with a modified and not an
absolute indivisibility and unity. In this comprehensive knowledge there is no
independent centre of existence, no individual separated ego such as we see in
ourselves; the whole of existence is to its self-awareness an equable
extension, one in oneness, one in multiplicity, one in all conditions and
everywhere. Here the All and the One are the same existence; the individual
being does not and cannot lose the consciousness of its identity with all
beings and with the One Being; for that identity is inherent in supramental cognition,
a part of the supramental self-evidence
Sri Aurobindo, The Life
Divine, p. 138.
"The starting
point [for the discovery of the soul] is to seek in yourself that which is
independent of the body and the circumstances of life, which is not born of the
mental formation that you have been given, the language you speak, the habits
and customs of the environment in which you live, the country where you are
born or the age to which you belong. You must find, in the depths of your
being, that which carries in it a sense of universality, limitless expansion,
unbroken continuity. Then you decentralize, extend and widen yourself;
you begin to live in all things and in all beings; the barriers separating
individuals from each other break down. You think in their thoughts,
vibrate in their sensations, feel in their feelings, live in the life of all.
What seemed inert suddenly becomes full of life, stones quicken, plants feel
and will and suffer, animals speak in a language more or less inarticulate, but
clear and expressive; everything is animated by a marvelous consciousness
without time or limit. And this is only one aspect of the [realization of
the soul]; there are others, many others. of your destiny,
master of your life."
The
Mother, The Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Center of Education,
February 1952
"Consciousness
is a fundamental thing, the fundamental thing in existence—it is the energy,
the motion, the movement of consciousness that creates the universe and all
that is in it—not only the macrocosm but the microcosm is nothing but
consciousness arranging itself. For instance, when consciousness in its
movement or rather a certain stress of movement forgets itself in the action it
becomes an apparently “unconscious” energy; when it forgets itself in the form
it becomes the electron, the atom, the material object. In reality it is still
consciousness that works in the energy and determines the form and the evolution
of form. When it wants to liberate itself, slowly, evolutionarily, out of
Matter, but still in the form, it emerges as life, as animal, as man and it can
go on evolving itself still farther out of its involution and become something
more than mere man. If you can grasp that, then it ought not to be difficult to
see further that it can subjectively formulate itself as a physical, a vital, a
mental, a psychic consciousness—all these are present in man, but as they are
all mixed up together in the external consciousness with their real status
behind in the inner being, one can only become fully aware of them by releasing
the original limiting stress of the consciousness which makes us live in our
external being and become awake and centred within in the inner being. As the
consciousness in us, by its external concentration or stress, has to put all
these things behind - behind a wall or veil, it has to break down the wall or
veil and get back in its stress into these inner parts of existence - that is what
we call living within; then our external being seems to us something small and
superficial, we are or can become aware of the large and rich and inexhaustible
kingdom within. So also consciousness in us has drawn a lid or covering or
whatever one likes to call it between the lower planes of mind, life, body
supported by the psychic and the higher planes which contain the spiritual
kingdoms where the self is always free and limitless, and it can break or open
the lid or covering and ascend there and become the Self free and wide and
luminous or else bring down the influence, reflection, finally even the
presence and power of the higher consciousness into the lower nature. Now that
is what consciousness is - it is not composed of parts, it is fundamental to
being and itself formulates any parts it chooses to manifest - developing them
from above downward by a progressive coming down from spiritual levels towards
involution in Matter or formulating them in an upward working in the front by
what we call evolution. If it chooses to work in you through the sense of ego,
you think that it is the clear-cut individual “I” that does everything - if it
begins to release itself from that limited working, you begin to expand your
sense of “I” till it bursts into infinity and no longer exists or you shed it
and flower into spiritual wideness. Of course, this is not what is spoken of in
modern materialistic thought as consciousness, because that thought is governed
by science and sees consciousness only as a phenomenon that emerges out of
inconscient Matter and consists of certain reactions of the system to outward
things. But that is a phenomenon of consciousness, it is not consciousness
itself, it is even only a very small part of the possible phenomenon of
consciousness and can give no clue to Consciousness the Reality which is of the
very essence of existence."
Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, p. 236.
"Lift your
eyes towards the Sun; He is there in that wonderful heart of life and light and
splendor. Watch at night the innumerable constellations glittering like
so many solemn watchfires of the Eternal in the limitless silence which is no
void but throbs with the presence of a single calm and tremendous existence;
see there Orion with his sword and belt shining...Sirius in his splendor, Lyra
sailing billions of miles away in the ocean of space. Remember that these
innumerable worlds, most of them mightier than our own, are whirling with indescribable
speed at the beck of that Ancient of Days whither none but He knoweth, and yet
that they are a million times more ancient than your Himalaya, more steady than
the roots of your hills and shall so remain until He at his will shakes them
off like withered leaves from the eternal tree of the Universe. Imagine
the endlessness of Time, realize the boundlessness of Space; and then remember
that when these worlds were not, He was, the Same as now, and when these are
not, He shall be, still the Same; perceive that beyond Lyra He is and far away
in Space where the stars of the Southern Cross cannot be seen, still He is
there. And then come back to the Earth and realize who this He is.
He is quite near to you. See yonder old man who passes near you crouching
and bent, with his stick. Do you realize that it is God who is
passing? There a child runs laughing in the sunlight. Can you hear
Him in that laughter? Nay, He is nearer still to you. He is in you,
He is you. It is yourself that burns yonder millions of miles away in the
infinite reaches of Space, that walks with confident steps on the tumbling
billows of the ethereal sea; it is you who have set the stars in their places
and woven the necklace of the suns not with hands but by that Yoga, that silent
actionless impersonal Will which has set you here today listening to yourself
in me. Look up, O child of the ancient Yoga, and be no longer a trembler
and a doubter; fear not, doubt not, grieve not; for in your apparent body is
One who can create and destroy worlds with a breath."
Sri Aurobindo, Commentary on the Isha
Upanishad
No more slept drugged by Matter’s dominance.
In the dead wall closing us from wider self,
Into a secrecy of apparent sleep,
The mystic tract beyond our waking thoughts,
A door parted, built in by Matter’s force,
Releasing things unseized by earthly sense:
A world unseen, unknown by outward mind
Appeared in the silent spaces of the soul.
He sat in secret chambers looking out
Into the luminous countries of the unborn
Where all things dreamed by the mind are seen and true
And all that the life longs for is drawn close.
He saw the Perfect in their starry homes
Wearing the glory of a deathless form,
Lain in the arms of the Eternal’s peace,
Rapt in the heart-beats of God-ecstasy.
He loved in the mystic space where thought is born
And will is nursed by an ethereal Power
And fed on the white milk of the Eternal’s strengths
Till it grows into the likeness of a god…
He gazed across the empty stillnesses
And heard the footsteps of the undreamed idea
In the far avenues of the beyond.
he heard the secret Voice, the Word that knows,
And saw the secret face that is our own…
A consciousness of beauty and of bliss,
A knowledge which became what it perceived,
Replaced the separated sense and heart
And drew all Nature into its embrace…
Of all that suffers to be still unknown
And all that labors vainly to be born
And all the sweetness none will ever taste
And all the beauty that will never be.
Inaudible to our deaf mortal ears
The wide world-rhythms wove their stupendous chant
To which life strives to fit our rhyme-beats here,
Melting our limits in the illimitable,
Tuning the finite to infinity.
Sri Aurobindo, Savitri
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