The Supramental 1
We, the human beings, are born in ignorance and darkness and unconsciousness, out of ignorance and darkness and unconsciousness, and are bearing and carrying in us the same ignorance and darkness and unconsciousness. Did the first Homo Neanderthal [1] , or rather the first group of Homo Neanderthals, ever had the capacity or the possibility of even dreaming of the present day world, or even the world of the times of the Vedas, or of the age when there was the Buddha on earth, or even when Jesus was traveling and walking on this earth, of dreaming and imagining that some Newton or Einstein or Hawkins, some Shakespeare or Shaw or Tagore, some Sri Ramkrishna or Swami Vivekananda, one Sri Aurobindo or Mira Alfassa would be born in this race?
That was and is the story of the human evolution — from the first group of Homo Neanderthal to the first Persons who realized and touched the Supramental Consciousness : Sri Aurobindo and The Mother [Mira Alfassa].
It was surely the Divine Intervention on earth that there was the appearance of the first group of Homo Neanderthals. Amid all ignorance and darkness and amid all animal and vital activities, the first group of rebels of the Light appeared. They wanted to break the chains, wanted to surpass the animal limits and habits, the animal way of instinctive but subjugated life. They started to stand erect and started using Mind, though initially in a small, rudimentary and limited degree. They started walking, talking, laughing, thinking though in a crude way. They began the human world — a world of Hope, of Aspiration, of Struggle against darkness and divisions and death, against Inconscience and Ignorance and Incapacity.
Sri Aurobindo said that this race, though “born into a world of ignorance and inconscience,” was “capable of an upward evolution of its consciousness and an ascent into the light and power and bliss of a spiritual being and spiritual nature.”
That was a moment, when the first group of Homo Neanderthals appeared — a step towards the Future, at that point of Time, as early as 350,000 years ago.
Now, we have Sri Aurobindo, the Hope of Man, who has promised us of the New World, the New Horizon, and not only that, he has also taken, along with The Mother [Mira Alfassa], the First Steps towards the Next Future, the Illumined Future.
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The Mother said : What Sri Aurobindo represents in the world's history is not a teaching, not even a revelation ; it is a decisive action, direct from the Supreme.
During the Birth Centenary of Sri Aurobindo in 1972, The Mother gave us the following Message:
“Sri Aurobindo is an emanation of the Supreme who came on earth to announce the manifestation of a new race and a new world: the supramental.
“Let us prepare for it in all sincerity and eagerness.”
The Mother gave us also other messages on Sri Aurobindo at that time, one of which I am quoting below:
“Man is the creation of yesterday.”
“Sri Aurobindo came to announce the creation of tomorrow: the coming of the supramental being.”
On 30 January 1972, she further told us:
“Sri Aurobindo came upon earth to announce the manifestation of the supramental world and not merely did he announce this manifestation but embodied 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 endeavor to follow his example and prepare ourselves for the new manifestation.”
Supermind is not a higher type of Mind. It is not a more perfect mind. Every student of Sri Aurobindo knows it.
According to Sri Aurobindo, Mind is a “half-lit and diminished principle.” Generally, the word ‘Mind’ is used to mean the general and ordinary mental consciousness, including the vital and emotional aspects. The vital and emotional aspects of our consciousness, all our passions, cravings, hungers, sentiments etc belong to the vital being or the principle of Life in us, as per the definition given by Sri Aurobindo.
The vital being or Life is different from Mind, as defined by Sri Aurobindo. Even our higher emotions, love, sympathy, patriotism, — all of them — belong to the vital being, but the higher vital being. When we mention of the heart, not the physical one, but the emotional center, we then refer to the inner higher vital.
Mind generally refers to the principle of reason and logic, intelligence, memory, will, thinking, understanding etc. This is the “half-lit and diminished principle of mind.” However, Mind is also used in a higher and wider sense. In the wider sense, it refers to the higher ranges starting from the Higher Mind to the Overmind. Of course these ranges exclude Supermind.
As I have stated, Supermind is not a higher mind. It is a Higher Consciousness, transcending all the stages and planes of Mind. In between the ordinary Mind and the principle of Supermind, according to Sri Aurobindo , there are four stages of Mind: the Higher Mind, the Illumined Mind, the Intuitive Mind, and then, the Overmind.
To begin with, Overmind is the highest stage where the mental consciousness could reach, till the Manifestation of the Supermind. It is the Plane of the gods and goddesses, wherefrom several Avatars of the Supreme manifested and represented Him on earth. It is the Consciousness which was represented by Sri Krishna on earth, according to Sri Aurobindo.
As Sri Aurobindo has stated, the Higher Mind is the first of the supra-rational levels or planes or grades of existence and consciousness, the first level of “Spiritual Mind”. It is an evolutionary stage beyond the rational mind. It is an ascent to a plane above the level of pure thinking mind, and there can be a descent also from this plane.
Above the Higher Mind, there is a further and even more powerful and revelatory supra-rational level or plane of existence and consciousness, which is called the Illumined Mind. The Higher Mind prepares an integration of the being into a greater Force of consciousness and knowledge. This greater Force is that of the Illumined Mind, a Mind no longer of higher Thought, but of spiritual Light. Here, in place of the clear spiritual intelligence and the tranquil daylight of the Higher Mind, one finds “an intense lustre, a splendour and illumination of the Spirit.” And the characteristic action of ‘the larger conceptual-spiritual principle’ adds a fiery ardour of realization and a rapturous ecstasy of knowledge to the consciousness. The Higher Mind has the characteristic of the calm and wide enlightenment and the vast descent of peace, whereas the Illumined Mind has the feature of a play of lightnings of of spiritual truth and power breaking from above into the consciousness.
About the Intuitive Mind, Sri Aurobindo has said:
“Intuition is above the illumined Mind which is simply the higher Mind raised to a great luminosity and more open to modified forms of intuition and inspiration. … The Intuition is the first plane in which there is a real opening to the full possibility of realization - it is through it that one goes farther - first to Overmind and then to Supermind.”
Of course,there are mental, vital, subtle physical intuitions as well as intuitions from the higher and the illumined Mind, and even from the Overmind, as stated by Sri Aurobindo.
Sri Aurobindo speaks of seven major planes of existence. He also suggests that between Mind and Supermind, or lower (finite, limited, ignorant) and higher (infinite, divine, perfect) creation, there is an important transitional or intermediate reality, which He calls the Overmind.
“At the source of …Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the Supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies, – not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time with its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater Truth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite possibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret Reality. This then is the occult link we were looking for; this is the Power that at once connects and divides the supreme Knowledge and the cosmic Ignorance.”
[The Life Divine, p.278]
The Overmind is the plane of the great Gods, the individualized expression of the unitary Supramental Truth. These powers oversee the phenomenal world. It is the level where multiplicity first appears, and indeed is the principle that originally causes multiplicity.
“Overmind Energy (has the)…capacity of separation and combination of the powers and aspects of the integral…all-comprehending Unity (of the Supermind). It takes each aspect or power and gives it an independent action in which it acquires a full separate importance…” [The Life Divine, p.279]
Thus multiplicity emerges from Unity; the Archetypes emerge from the Unmanifest Absolute. Here we have the distinction between the Unmanifest and the Manifest Absolute or Godhead.
Sri Aurobindo has said:
“The supramental change is the thing decreed and inevitable in the evolution of the earth-consciousness; for its upward ascent is not ended and mind is not its last summit. But the change may arrive, take form and endure, there is needed the call from below with a will to recognise and not deny the Light when it comes, and there is needed the sanction of the Supreme from above.”
Thus, as we have seen, Supermind is a principle which is out of reach of the common ordinary mind. But when Man reaches the higher regions of mind, namely the Higher Mind, the Illumined Mind, the Intuitive Mind, and then the Overmind, as defined by Sri Aurobindo, when Man reaches there, he can have the glimpses and the touch of Supermind. It may be very difficult, even appear to be impossible. But when the Supramental Consciousness is present on earth, things will be easier, much easier.
And now the Supermind is on earth, actively present on earth. I am quoting the oft-quoted message of the Mother from Mother’s Agenda Vol.1:
First Supramental Manifestation
(During the common meditation on Wednesday
The 29th February 1956)
This evening the Divine Presence, concrete and material, was present amongst you. I had the form of a living gold, bigger than the universe, and I was facing a huge and massive golden door, which separated the world from the Divine.
As I looked at the door, I knew and willed in a single movement of consciousness, that ‘the time has come’, and lifting with both hands a mighty golden hammer I struck one blow on the door and the door was shattered to pieces.
And then the supramental Light and Force and Consciousness rushed down upon earth in an uninterrupted flow.
The Mother has said in this regard:
“The Manifestation of the Supramental upon earth is no more a promise but a living fact, a reality. It is at work here, and one day will come when the most blind, the most unconscious, even the most unwilling shall be obliged to recognise it.”
Thus, we can see that Mind has reached the its last ranges and is on the process of handing over the task of the Evolution to the supramental consciousness. This is the Truth. We should no longer remain limited within the ranges of our ordinary small ranges of the Mind, but should endeavor to transcend our mental selves and begin our inner journey to the New Creation taken up by the supramental consciousness.
[Continued]
05-11-2006
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[1]è
a. The Neanderthal : An extinct human species (Homo neanderthalensis) or subspecies (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) living during the late Pleistocene Epoch throughout most of
b. The Neanderthal (Homo neanderthalensis) or Neandertal was a species of the Homo genus that inhabited Europe and parts of western Asia. The first proto-Neanderthal traits appear in
c. The most widely accepted view among current anthropologists is that Homo sapiens originated in the African savanna between 200,000 and 250,000 years ago, descending from Homo erectus, and colonized Eurasia and Oceania by 40,000 years ago, and finally colonized the Americas by 10,000 years ago. They displaced Homo neanderthalensis, Homo floresiensis and other species descended from Homo erectus (which had colonized
[ Collected from Wikipedia ]
[Also published simultaneously under the caption
The Supramental Manifestation 1 in my Blogs The New Vision, Barin's Blog in Zaadz and Barin Chaki's Blog in Sulekha.]
