IT WILL appear from the description
of the complete and perfect equality that this equality
has two sides. It must therefore be arrived at by two
successive movements. One will liberate us from the
action of the lower nature and admit us to the calm
peace of the divine being; the other will liberate us
into the full being and power of the higher nature and
admit us to the equal poise and universality of a divine
and infinite knowledge, will of action, Ananda. The
first may be described as a passive or negative equality,
an equality of reception which fronts impassively the
impacts and phenomena of existence and negates the dualities
of the appearances and reactions which they impose on
us. The second is an active, a positive equality which
accepts the phenomena of existence, but only as the
manifestation of the one divine being and with an equal
response to them which comes from the divine nature
in us and transforms them into its hidden values. The
first lives in the peace of the one Brahman and puts
away from it the nature of the active Ignorance. The
second lives in that peace, but also in the Ananda of
the Divine and imposes on the life of the soul in nature
the signs of the divine knowledge, power and bliss of
being. It is this double orientation united by the common
principle which will determine the movement of equality
in the integral Yoga.
The effort towards a passive or purely receptive equality
may start from three different principles or attitudes
which all lead to the same result and ultimate consequence,—endurance,
indifference and submission. The principle of endurance
relies on the strength of the spirit within us to bear
all the contacts, impacts, suggestions of this phenomenal
Nature that besieges us on every side without being
overborne by them and compelled to bear their emotional,
sensational, dynamic, intellectual reactions. The outer
mind in the lower nature has not this strength. Its
strength is that of a limited force of consciousness
which has to do the best it can with all that comes
in upon it or besieges it from the greater whirl of
consciousness and energy which environs it on this plane
of existence. That it can maintain itself at all and
affirm its individual being in the universe, is due
indeed to the strength of the spirit within it, but
it cannot bring forward the whole of that strength or
the infinity of that force to meet the attacks of life;
if it could, it would be at once the equal and master
of its world. In fact, it has to manage as it can. It
meets certain impacts and is able to assimilate, equate
or master them partially or completely, for a time or
wholly, and then it has in that degree the emotional
and sensational reactions of joy, pleasure, satisfaction,
liking, love, etc., or the intellectual and mental reactions
of acceptance, approval, understanding, knowledge, preference,
and on these its will seizes with attraction, desire,
the attempt to prolong, to repeat, to create, to possess,
to make them the pleasurable habit of its life. Other
impacts it meets, but finds them too strong for it or
too dissimilar and discordant or too weak to give it
satisfaction; these are things which it cannot bear
or cannot equate with itself or cannot assimilate, and
it is obliged to give to them reactions of grief, pain,
discomfort, dissatisfaction, disliking, disapproval,
rejection, inability to understand or know, refusal
of admission. Against them it seeks to protect itself,
to escape from them, to avoid or minimise their recurrence;
it has with regard to them movements of fear, anger,
shrinking, horror, aversion, disgust, shame, would gladly
be delivered from them, but it cannot get away from
them, for it is bound to and even invites their causes
and therefore the results; for these impacts are part
of life, tangled up with the things we desire, and the
inability to deal with them is part of the imperfection
of our nature. Other impacts again the normal mind succeeds
in holding at bay or neutralising and to these it has
a natural reaction of indifference, insensibility or
tolerance which is neither positive acceptance and enjoyment
nor rejection or suffering. To things, persons, happenings,
ideas, workings, whatever presents itself to the mind,
there are always these three kinds of reaction. At the
same time, in spite of their generality, there is nothing
absolute about them; they form a scheme for a habitual
scale which is not precisely the same for all or even
for the same mind at different times or in different
conditions. The same impact may arouse in it at one
time and another the pleasurable or positive, the adverse
or negative or the indifferent or neutral reactions.
The soul which seeks mastery may begin by turning upon
these reactions the encountering and opposing force
of a strong and equal endurance. Instead of seeking
to protect itself from or to shun and escape the unpleasant
impacts it may confront them and teach itself to suffer
and to bear them with perseverance, with fortitude,
an increasing equanimity or an austere or calm acceptance.
This attitude, this discipline brings out three results,
three powers of the soul in relation to things. First,
it is found that what was before unbearable, becomes
easy to endure; the scale of the power that meets the
impact rises in degree; it needs a greater and greater
force of it or of its protracted incidence to cause
trouble, pain, grief, aversion or any other of the notes
in the gamut of the unpleasant reactions. Secondly,
it is found that the conscious nature divides itself
into two parts, one of the normal mental and emotional
nature in which the customary reactions continue to
take place, another of the higher will and reason which
observes and is not troubled or affected by the passion
of this lower nature, does not accept it as its own,
does not approve, sanction or participate. Then the
lower nature begins to lose the force and power of its
reactions, to submit to the suggestions of calm and
strength from the higher reason and will, and gradually
that calm and strength take possession of the mental
and emotional, even of the sensational, vital and physical
being. This brings the third power and result, the power
by this endurance and mastery, this separation and rejection
of the lower nature, to get rid of the normal reactions
and even, if we will, to remould all our modes of experience
by the strength of the spirit. This method is applied
not only to the unpleasant, but also to the pleasant
reactions; the spul refuses to give itself up to or
be carried away by them; it endures with calm the impacts
which bring joy and pleasure, refuses to be excited
by them and replaces the joy and eager seeking of the
mind after pleasant things by the calm of the spirit.
It can be applied too to the thought-mind in a calm
reception of knowledge and of limitations of knowledge
which refuses to be carried away by the fascination
of this attractive or repelled by dislike for that unaccustomed
or unpalatable thought-suggestion and waits on the Truth
with a detached observation which allows it to grow
on the strong, disinterested, mastering will and reason.
Thus the soul becomes gradually equal to all things,
master of itself, adequate to meet the world with a
strong front in the mind and an undisturbed serenity
of the spirit.
The second way is an attitude of impartial indifference.
Its method is to reject at once the attraction or the
repulsion of things, to cultivate for them a luminous
impassivity, an inhibiting rejection, a habit of dissociation
and desuetude. This attitude reposes less on the will,
though will is always necessary, than on the knowledge.
It is an attitude which regards these passions of the
mind as things born of the illusion of the outward mentality
or inferior movements unworthy of the calm truth of
the single and equal spirit or a vital and emotional
disturbance to be rejected by the tranquil observing
will and dispassionate intelligence of the sage. It
puts away desire from the mind, discards the ego which
attributes these dual values to things, and replaces
desire by an impartial and indifferent peace and ego
by the pure self which is not troubled, excited or unhinged
by the impacts of the world. And not only is the emotional
mind quieted, but the intellectual being also rejects
the thoughts of the ignorance and rises beyond the interests
of an inferior knowledge to the one truth that is eternal
and without change. This way too develops three results
or powers by which it ascends to peace.
First, it is found that the mind is voluntarily bound
by the petty joys and troubles of life and that in reality
these can have no inner hold on it, if the soul simply
chooses to cast off its habit of helpless determination
by external and transient things. Secondly, it is found
that here too a division can be made, a psychological
partition between the lower or outward mind still subservient
to the old habitual touches and the higher reason and
will which stand back to live in the indifferent calm
of the spirit. There grows on us, in other words, an
inner separate calm which watches the commotion of the
lower members without taking part in it or giving it
any sanction. At first the higher reason and will may
be often clouded, invaded, the mind carried away by
the incitation of the lower members, but eventually
this calm becomes inexpugnable, permanent, not to be
shaken by the most violent touches, na duhkhena
gurunäpi vicälyate. This inner soul of
calm regards the trouble of the outer mind with a detached
superiority or a passing uninvolved indulgence such
as might be given to the trivial joys and griefs of
a child, it does not regard them as its own or as reposing
on any permanent reality. And, finally, the outer mind
too accepts by degrees this calm and indifferent serenity;
it ceases to be attracted by the things that attracted
it or troubled by the griefs and pains to which it had
the habit of attaching an unreal importance. Thus the
third power comes, an all-pervading power of wide tranquillity
and peace, a bliss of release from the siege of our
imposed fantastic self-torturing nature, the deep undisturbed
exceeding happiness of the touch of the eternal and
infinite replacing by its permanence the strife and
turmoil of impermanent things, brahma-samsparsam
atyantam sukham asnute. The soul is fixed in the
delight of the self, ätmaratih, in the
single and infinite Ananda of the spirit and hunts no
more after outward touches and their griefs and pleasures.
It observes the world only as the spectator of a play
or action in which it is no longer compelled to participate.
The third way is that of submission, which may be the
Christian resignation founded on submission to the will
of God, or an unegoistic acceptance of things and happenings
as a manifestation of the universal Will in time, or
a complete surrender of the person to the Divine, to
the supreme Purusha. As the first was a way of the will
and the second a way of knowledge, of the understanding
reason, so this is a way of the temperament and heart
and very intimately connected with the principle of
Bhakti. If it is pushed to the end, it arrives at the
same result of a perfect equality. For the knot of the
ego is loosened and the personal claim begins to disappear,
we find that we are no longer bound to joy in things
pleasant or sorrow over the unpleasant; we bear them
without either eager acceptance or troubled rejection,
refer them to the Master of our being, concern ourselves
less and less with their personal result to us and hold
only one thing of importance, to approach God, or to
be in touch and tune with the universal and infinite
Existence, or to be united with the Divine, his channel,
instrument, servant, lover, rejoicing in him and in
our relation with him and having no other object or
cause of joy or sorrow. Here too there may be for some
time a division between the lower mind of habitual emotions
and the higher psychical mind of love and self-giving,
but eventually the former yields, changes, transforms
itself, is swallowed up in the love, joy delight of
the Divine and has no other interests or attractions.
Then all within is the equal peace and bliss of that
union, the one silent bliss that passes understanding,
the peace that abides untouched by the solicitation
of lower things in the depth of our spiritual existence.
These
three ways coincide in spite of their separate starting-points,
first, by their inhibition of the normal reactions of
the mind to the touches of outward things, bähya-sparsän,
secondly, by their separation of the self or spirit
from the outward action of Nature. But it is evident
that our perfection will be greater and more embracingly
complete, if we can have a more active equality which
will enable us not only to draw back from or confront
the world in a detached and separated calm, but to return
upon it and possesss it in the power of the calm and
equal Spirit. This is possible because the world, Nature,
action are not in fact a quite separate thing, but a
manifestation of the Self, the All-Soul, the Divine.The
reactions of the normal mind are a degradation of the
divine values which would but for this degradation make
this truth evident to us,—a falsification, an
ignorance which alters their workings, an ignorance
which alters their workings, an ignorance which starts
from the involution of Self in a blind material nescience.
Once we return to the full consciousness of Self, of
God, we can then put a true divine value on things and
receive and act on them with the calm, joy, knowledge,
seeing will of the Spirit. When we begin to do that,
then the soul begins to have and equal joy in the universe,
an equal will dealing with all energies, an equal knowledge
which takes possession of the spiritual truth behind
all the phenomena of this divine manifestation. It possesses
the world as the Divine possesses it, in a fullness
of the infinite light, power and Ananda.
All
this existence can therefore be approached by a Yoga
of positive and active in place of the negative and
passive equality. This requires, first, a new knowledge
which is the knowledge of unity,—to see all things
as oneself and to see all things in God and God in all
things. There is then a will of equal acceptance of
all phenomena, all events, all happenings, all persons
and forces as masks of the Self, movements of the one
energy, results of one power in action, ruled by the
one divine wisdom;and on the foundation of this will
of greatear knowledge there grows a strength to meet
everything with an untroubled soul and mind. There must
be an identification of myself with the self of the
universe, a vision and a feeling of oneness with all
creatures, a perception of all forces and energies and
results as the movement of this energy of my self and
therfore intimately my own; not, obviously, of my ego-self
which must be silenced, eliminated, cast away,—otherwise
this perfection cannot come,—but of a greater
impersonal or universal self with which I am now one.
For my personality is now only one centre of action
of that universal self, but a centre intimately in relation
and unison with all other personalities and also with
all those other things which are other personalities
and also with all those other things which are to us
only impersonal objects and forces: but in fact they
also are powers of the one impersonal (Purusha), God,
Self and Spirit. My individuality is his and is no longer
a thing incompatible with or separated from universal
being; it is itself universalised, a knower of the universal
Ananda and one with and a lover of all that it knows,
acts on and enjoys. For to the equal knowledge of the
universe and equal will of acceptance of the universe
will be added an equal delight in all the cosmic manifestation
of the Divine.
Here
too we may describe three results or powers of the method.
First, we develop this power of equal acceptance in
the spirit and in the higher reason and will which respond
to the spiritual knowledge. But also we find that though
the nature can be induced to take this gereral attitude,
there is yet a struggle between that higher reason and
will and the lower mental being which clings to the
old egoistic way of seeing the world and reacting to
its impacts. Then we find that these two, though at
first confused, mingled together, alternating, acting
on each other, striving for possession, can be divided,
the higher spiritual disengaged from the lower mental
nature. But in this stage,
while the mind is still subject to reactions of grief,
trouble, an inferior joy and pleasure, there is an increased
difficulty which does not act to the same extent in
a more sharply individualised Yoga. For not only does
the mind feel its own troubles and difficulties, but
it shares in the joys and griefs of others, vibrates
to them in a poignant sympathy, feels their impacts
with a subtle sensitiveness, makes them its own; not
only so, but the difficulties of others are added to
our own and the forces which oppose the perfection act
with a greater persistence, because they feel this movement
to be an attack upon and an attempt to conquer their
universal kingdom and not merely the escape of an isolated
soul from their empire. But finally, we find too that
there comes a power to surmount these difficulties;
the higher reason and will impose themselves on the
lower mind, which sensibly changes into the vast types
of the spiritual nature; it takes even a delight in
feeling, meeting and surmounting all troubles, obstacles
and difficulties until they are eliminated by its own
transformation. Then the whole being lives in a final
power, the universal calm and joy, the seeing delight
and will of the Spirit in itself and its manifestation.
To see how this positive method works, we may note very
briefly its principle in the three great powers of knowledge,
will and feeling. All emotion, feeling, sensation is
a way of the soul meeting and putting effective values
on the manifestations of the Self in nature. But what
the self feels is a universal delight, Ananda. The soul
in the lower mind on the contrary gives it, as we have
seen, three varying values of pain, pleasure and neutral
indifference, which tone by gradations of less and more
into each other, and this gradation depends on the power
of the individualised consciousness to meet, sense,
assimilate, equate, master all that comes in on it from
all of the greater self which it has bj separative individualisation
put outside of it and made as if not-self to its experience.
But all the time, because of the greatei Self within
us, there is a secret soul which takes delight in all
these things and draws strength from and grows by all
that touches it, profits as much by adverse as by favourable
experience This can make itself felt by the outer desire
soul, and that in fact is why we have a delight in existing
and can even take a certain kind of pleasure in struggle,
suffering and the harsher colours of existence. But
to get the universal Ananda all our instruments must
learn to take not any partial or perverse, but the essential
joy of all things. In all things there is a principle
of Ananda, which the understanding can seize on and
the aesthesis feel as the taste of delight in them,
their rasa; but ordinarily they put upon them
instead arbitrary, unequal and contrary values: they
have to be led to perceive things in the light of the
spirit and to transform these provisional values into
the real, the equal and essential, the spiritual Rasa.
The life-principle is there to give this seizing of
the principle of delight, rasa-grahana, the
form of a strong possessing enjoyment, bhoga,
which makes the whole life-being vibrate with it and
accept and rejoice in it; but ordinarily it is not,
owing to desire, equal to its task, but turns it into
the three lower forms,—pain and pleasure, sukha-bhoga
duhkha-bhoga, and that rejection of both which
we call insensibility or indifference. The Prana or
vital being has to be liberated from desire and its
inequalities and to accept and turn into pure enjoyment
the rasa which the understanding and aesthesis perceive.
Then there is no farther obstacle in the instruments
to the third step by which all is changed into the full
and pure ecstasy of the spiritual Ananda.
In the matter of knowledge, there are again three reactions
of the mind to things, ignorance, error and true knowledge.
The positive equality will accept all three of them
to start with as movements of a self-manifestation which
evolves out of ignorance through the partial or distorted
knowledge which is the cause of error to true knowledge.
It will deal with the ignorance of the mind, as what
it is psychologically, a clouded, veiled or wrapped-up
state of the substance of consciousness in which the
knowledge of the all-knowing Self is hidden as if in
a dark sheath; it will dwell on it by the mind and by
the aid of related truths already known, by the intelligence
or by an intuitive concentration deliver the knowledge
out of the veil of the ignorance. It will not attach
itself only to the known or try to force all into its
little frame, but will dwell on the known and the unknown
with an equal mind open to all possibility. So too it
will deal with error; it will accept the tangled skein
of truth and error, but attach itself to no opinion,
rather seeking for the element of truth behind all opinions,
the knowledge concealed within the error,—for
all error is a disfiguration of some misunderstood fragments
of truth and draws its vitality from that and not from
its misapprehension; it will accept, but not limit itself
even by ascertained truths, but will always be ready
for new knowledge and seek for a more and more integral,
a more and more extended, reconciling, unifying wisdom.
This can only come in its fullness by rising to the
ideal supermind, and therefore the equal seeker of truth
will not be attached to the intellect and its workings
or think that all ends there, but be prepared to rise
beyond, accepting each stage of ascent and the contributions
of each power of his being, but only to lift them into
a higher truth. He must accept everything, but cling
to nothing, be repelled by nothing however imperfect
or however subversive of fixed notions, but also allow
nothing to lay hold on him to the detriment of the free
working of the Truth-Spirit. This equality of the intelligence
is an essential condition for rising to the higher supramental
and spiritual knowledge.
The will in us, because it is the most generally forceful
power of our being,—there is a will of knowledge,
a will of life, a will of emotion, a will acting in
every part of our nature,—takes many forms and
returns various reactions to things, such as incapacity,
limitation of power, mastery, or right will, wrong or
perverted will, neutral volition, — in the ethical
mind virtue, sin and non-ethical volition,—and
others of the kind. These too the positive equality
accepts as a tangle of provisional values from which
it must start, but which it must transform into universal
mastery, into the will of the Truth and universal Right,
into the freedom of the divine Will in action. The equal
will need not feel remorse, sorrow or discouragement
over its stumblings; if these reactions occur in the
habitual mentality, it will only see how far they indicate
an imperfection and the thing to be corrected,—for
they are not always just indicators,—and so get
beyond them to a calm and equal guidance. It will see
that these stumblings themselves are necessary to experience
and in the end steps towards the goal. Behind and within
all that occurs in ourselves and in the world, it will
look for the divine meaning and the divine guidance;
it will look beyond imposed limitations to the voluntary
self-limitation of the universal Power by which it regulates
its steps and gradations,—imposed on our ignorance,
self-imposed in the divine knowledge,—and go beyond
to unity with the illimitable power of the Divine. All
energies and actions it will see as forces proceeding
from the one Existence and their perversions as imperfections,
inevitable in the developing movement, of powers that
were needed for that movement; it will therefore have
charity for all imperfections, even while pressing steadily
towards a universal perfection. This equality will open
the nature to the guidance of the divine and universal
Will and make it ready for that supramental action in
which the power of the soul in us is luminously full
of and one with the power of the supreme Spirit.
The integral Yoga will make use of both the passive
and the active methods according to the need of the
nature and the guidance of the inner spirit, the Antaryamin.
It will not limit itself by the passive way, for that
would lead only to some individual quietistic salvation
or negation of an active and universal spiritual being
which would be inconsistent with the totality of its
aim. It will use the method of endurance, but not stop
short with a detached strength and serenity, but move
rather to a positive strength and mastery, in which
endurance will no longer be needed, since the self will
then be in a calm and powerful spontaneous possession
of the universal energy and capable of determining easily
and happily all its reactions in the oneness and the
Ananda. It will use the method of impartial indifference,
but not end in an aloof indifference to all things,
but rather move towards a high-seated impartial acceptance
of life strong to transform all experience into the
greater values of the equal spirit. It will use too
temporarily resignation and submission, but by the full
surrender of its personal being to the Divine it will
attain to the all-possessing Ananda in which there is
no need of resignation, to the perfect harmony with
the universal which is not merely an acquiescence, but
an embracing oneness, to the perfect instrumentality
and subjection of the natural self to the Divine by
which the Divine also is possessed by the individual
spirit. It will use fully the positive method, but will
go beyond any individual acceptance of things which
would have the effect of turning existence into a field
only of the perfected individual knowledge, power and
Ananda. That it will have, but also it will have the
oneness by which it can live in the existence of others
for their sake and not only for its own and for their
assistance and as one of their means, an associated
and helping force in the movement towards the same perfection.
It will live for the Divine, not shunning world-existence,
not attached to the earth or the heavens, not attached
either to a supracosmic liberation, but equally one
with the Divine in all his planes and able to live in
him equally in the Self and in the manifestation.
-Sri
Aurobindo
