Sri Aurobindo came upon the earth to announce the manifestation of the Supramental world and not merely did he announce this manifestation but embodies also in part the Supramental force and showed by example what one must do to prepare oneself for manifesting it. The best thing we can do is to study all that he has told us and endeavour to follow his example and prepare ourselves for the new manifestation.
– The Mother
What we propose in our yoga is nothing less than to break up the whole formation of our past and present which makes up the ordinary material and mental man and to create a new center of attention and a new universe of activities in ourselves which shall constitute a divine humanity or a superhuman nature….
Life has to be transcended in order that it may be freely accepted; the works of the universe have to be over-passed in order that they may be divinely fulfilled.The soul even in apparent bondage is really free and only plays at being bound; but it has to go back to the consciousness of freedom and possess and enjoy universally not this or that but the Divine and the All.
The ascent of man into heaven is not the key, but rather his ascent here into the spirit and the descent also of the spirit into his normal humanity and the transformation of this earthly nature. For that and not some post mortem salvation is the real new birth for which humanity waits as the crowning movement of its longs obscure and painful course.
The Goal of Integral Yoga is Supramental Transformation
The personal effort required is a triple labour of aspiration, rejection and surrender :
The lifting of the level of consciousness from the mind to the supermind and the consequent transformation of the being from the state of the mental to that of the Supramental Purusha must bring with it to be complete a transformation of all the parts of the nature and all its activities. The whole mind is not merely made into a passive channel of the Supramental activities, a channel of their downflow into the life and body and of their outflow or communication with the outward world, the material existence, that is only the first stage of the process, but is itself supramentalised along with all its instruments.
The awakening of the psychical consciousness liberates in us the direct use of the mind as a sixth sense, and this power may be made constant and normal….
There in the Supramental Gnosis is the fulfillment, the culminating height, the all-embracing extent of the inner adoration, the profound and integral union, the flaming wings of love upbearing the power and joy of a supreme Knowledge. For Supramental Love brings an active ecstasy that surpasses the void passive peace and stillness which is the heaven of the liberated Mind and does not betray the deeper greater calm which is the beginning of the Supramental silence. The unity of a love which is able to include in itself all differences without being diminished or abrogated by their present limitations and apparent dissonances is raised to its full potentiality on the Supramental level. For there an intense oneness with all creatures founded on a profound oneness of the soul with the Divine can harmonise with a play of relations that only makes the oneness more perfect and absolute. The power of Love supramentalised can take hold of all living relations without hesitation or danger and turn them Godwards delivered from their crude, mixed and petty human settings and sublimated into the happy material of a divine life. For it is the very nature of the Supramental experience that it can perpetuate the play of difference without forfeiting or in the least diminishing either the divine union or the infinite oneness. For a supramentalised consciousness it would be utterly possible to embrace all contacts with men and the world in a purified flame-force and with a transfigured significance, because the soul would then perceive always as the object of all emotion and all seeking for love or beauty the One Eternal and could spiritually use a wide and liberated life-urge to meet and join with that One Divine in all things and all creatures.
SAVITRI
“Awakened to the meaning of my heart,
That to feel love and oneness is to live
And this the magic of our golden change
Is all the truth I know or seek,…”
By transformation I do not mean some change of the nature – I do not mean for instance sainthood or ethical perfection or Yogic Siddhis (like the Tantrik’s). I use transformation in a special sense, a change of consciousness radical and complete and of a certain specific kind which is so conceived as to bring about a strong and assured step forward in the spiritual evolution of the consciousness such as and greater than what took place when a mentalised being first appeared in a vital and material animal world. If anything short of that takes place or at least if a real beginning is not made on that basis, a fundamental progress towards it, then my object is not accomplished. A partial realisation does not meet the demand I make on life and Yoga.
Light of realisation is not the same thing as Descent. I do not think realisation by itself, necessarily transforms anything; it may bring only an opening or heightening or widening of the consciousness so as to realise something in the Purusha part without any radical change in the parts of Prakriti. One may have some light of 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 transformation can take place. A light in the mind may spiritualise or otherwise change the mind or part of it in one way or another, but it need not change the vital nature, a light in the vital may purify and enlarge the vital movements or else silence and immobilize the vital being, but leave the body and the physical consciousness as it was, or even leave it inert or shake its balance. And the descent of Light is not enough, it must be the descent of the whole higher consciousness, its Peace, Power, Knowledge, Love, Ananda. Moreover, the descent may be enough to liberate, but not to perfect, or enough to make a great change in the inner being, while the outer remains an imperfect instrument, clumsy, sick or unexpressive. Finally, the transformation effected by the sadhana cannot be complete unless it is a supramentalisation of the being. Psychicisation is not enough, it is only a beginning; spiritualisation and the descent of the higher consciousness is not enough, it is only a middle term; the ultimate achievement needs the action of the supramental consciousness and Force. Something less than that may very well be considered enough by the individual, but it is not enough for the earth consciousness to take the definitive stride forward it must take at one time or another….
Because it aims not at a departure out of world and life into Heaven or Nirvana, but at a change of life and existence, not as something subordinate or incidental, but as a distinct and central object. If there is a descent in other Yogas, yet it is only an incident on the way or resulting from the ascent – the ascent is the real thing. Here the ascent is the first step, but it is a means for the descent. It is the descent of the new consciousness attained by the ascent that is the stamp and seal of the sadhana. Even the Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life; here the object is the divine fulfilment of life.
It is the object of my yoga to transform life by bringing down into it the Light, Power, and Bliss of the divine Truth and it’s dynamic certitudes. This yoga is not a Yoga of world- shunning asceticism, but of divine life.
The usual way, the easiest, if one can manage it at all, is to call down the silence from above you into the brain, mind and body.
The one aim of his Yoga, is an inner self – development, by which each one who follows it can in time discover the One Self in all and evolve a higher consciousness than the mental, a spiritual, and supramental consciousness which will transform and divinise human nature.
Spirituality is in its essence an awakening of the inner reality of our being, to a Spirit, self, soul, which is other than our mind, life and body, an inner aspiration to know, to feel to be that, to enter into contact with a greater Reality beyond and pervading the universe which inhabits also our own being, to be in communion with It in union with It, and a turning, a conversion, a transformation of our whole, being as a result of the aspiration, the contact, the union, a growth, or waking into a new becoming or new being, a new self, a new nature.
One man’s perfection still can save the world.
– Savitri
