THIS is the nature of the divine
Shakti that it is the timeless power of the Divine which
manifests itself in time as a universal force creating,
constituting, maintaining and directing all the movements
and workings of the universe. This universal Power is
apparent to us first on the lower levels of existence
as a mental, vital and material cosmic energy of which
all our mental, vital and physical activities are the
operations. It is necessary for our Sadhana that we
should thoroughly realise this truth in order to escape
from the pressure of the limiting ego-view and universalise
ourselves even on these lower levels where ordinarily
the ego reigns in full force. To see that we are not
the originators of action but that it is rather this
Power that acts in ourselves and in all others, not
I and others the doers, but the one Prakriti, which
is the rule of the Karmayoga, is also the right rule
here. The ego-sense serves to limit, separate and sharply
differentiate, to make the most of the individual form
and it is there because it is indispensable to the evolution
of the lower life. But when we would rise above to a
higher divine life we must loosen the force of the ego
and eventually get rid of it—as for the lower
life the development of ego, so for the higher life
this reverse movement of elimination of the ego is indispensable.
To see our actions as not our own but those of the divine
Shakti working in the form of the lower Prakriti on
the inferior levels of the conscious being, helps powerfully
towards this change. And if we can do this, then the
separation of our mental, vital and physical consciousness
from that of other beings thins and lessens; the limitations
of its workings remain indeed, but they are broadened
and taken up into a large sense and vision of the universal
working; the specialising and individualising differentiations
of Nature abide for their own proper purpose, but are
no longer a prison. The individual feels his mind, life
and physical existence to be one with that of others
amid all differences and one with the total power of
the spirit in Nature.
This, however, is a stage and not the whole perfection.
The existence, however comparatively large and free,
is still subject to the inferior nature. The sattwic,
rajasic and tamasic ego is diminished but not eliminated;
or if it seems to disappear, it has only sunk in our
parts of action into the universal operation of the
gunas, remains involved in them and is still working
in a covert, subconscient fashion and may force itself
to the front at any time. The Sadhaka has therefore
first to keep the idea and get the realisation of a
one self or spirit in all behind all these workings.
He must be aware behind Prakriti of the one Supreme
and universal Purusha. He must see and feel not only
that all is the self-shaping of the one Force, Prakriti
or Nature, but that all her actions are those of the
Divine in all, the one Godhead in all, however veiled,
altered and as it were perverted—for perversion
comes by a conversion into lower forms—by transmission
through the ego and the gunas. This will farther diminish
the open or covert insistence of the ego and, if thoroughly
realised, it will make it difficult or impossible for
it to assert itself in such a way as to disturb or hamper
the farther progress. The ego-sense will become, so
far as it interferes at all, a foreign intrusive element
and only a fringe of the mist of the old ignorance hanging
on to the outskirts of the consciousness and its action.
And, secondly, the universal Shakti must be realised,
must be seen and felt and borne in the potent purity
of its higher action, its supramental and spiritual
workings. This greater vision of the Shakti will enable
us to escape from the control of the gunas, to convert
them into their divine equivalents and dwell in a consciousness
in which the Purusha and Prakriti are one and not separated
or hidden in or behind each other. There the Shakti
will be in its every movement evident to us and naturally,
spontaneously, irresistibly felt as nothing else but
the active presence of the Divine, the shape of power
of the supreme Self and Spirit.
The Shakti in this higher status reveals itself as the
presence or potentiality of the infinite existence,
consciousness, will, delight and when it is so seen
and felt, the being turns towards it in whatever way,
with its adoration or its will of aspiration or some
kind of attraction of the lesser to the greater, to
know it, to be full of and possessed by it, to be one
with it in the sense and action of the whole nature.
But at first while we still live in the mind, there
is a gulf of division or else a double action. The mental,
vital and physical energy in us and the universe is
felt to be a derivation from the supreme Shakti, but
at the same time an inferior, separated and in some
sense another working. The real spiritual force may
send down its messages or the light and power of its
presence above us to the lower levels or may descend
occasionally and even for a time possess, but it is
then mixed with the inferior workings and partially
transforms and spiritualises them, but is itself diminished
and altered in the process. There is an intermittent
higher action or a dual working of the nature. Or we
find that the Shakti for a time raises the being to
a higher spiritual plane and then lowers it back into
the inferior levels. These alternations must be regarded
as the natural vicissitudes of a process of transformation
from the normal to the spiritual being. The transformation,
the perfection cannot for the integral Yoga be complete
until the link between the mental and the spiritual
action is formed and a higher knowledge applied to all
the activities of our existence. That link is the supramental
or gnostic energy in which the incalculable infinite
power of the supreme being, consciousness, delight formulates
itself as an ordering divine will and wisdom, a light
and power in the being which shapes all the thought,
will, feeling, action and replaces the corresponding
individual movements.
This
supramental Shakti may form itself as a spiritualised
intuitive light and power in the mind itself, and that
is a great but still a mentally limited spiritual action.
Or it may transform altogether the mind and raise the
whole being to the supramental level. In any case this
is the first necessity of this part of the Yoga, to
lose the ego of the doer, the ego-idea and the sense
of one's own power of action and initiation of action
and control of the result of action and merge it in
the sense and vision of the universal Shakti originating,
shaping, turning to its ends the action of ourselves
and others and of all the persons and forces of the
world. And this realisation can become absolute and
complete in all the parts of our being only if we can
have that sense and vision of it in all its forms, on
all the levels of our being and the world being, as
the material, vital, mental and supra-mental energy
of the Divine, but all these, all the powers of all
the planes must be seen and known as self-formulations
of the one spiritual Shakti, infinite in being, consciousness
and Ananda. It is not the invariable rule that this
power should first manifest itself on the lower levels
in the lower forms of energy and then reveal its higher
spiritual nature. And if it does so come, first in its
mental, vital or physical universalism, we must be careful
not to rest content there. It may come instead at once
in its higher reality, in the might of the spiritual
splendour. The difficulty then will be to bear and hold
the Power until it has laid powerful hands on and transformed
the energies of the lower levels of the being. The difficulty
will be less in proportion as we have been able to attain
to a large quiet and equality, samata, and
either to realise, feel and live in the one tranquil
immutable self in all or else to make a genuine and
complete surrender of ourselves to the divine Master
of the Yoga.
It
is necessary here to keep always in mind the three powers
of the Divine which are present and have to be taken
account of in all living existences. In our ordinary
consciousness we see these three as ourselves, the Jiva
in the form of the ego, God—whatever conception
we may have of God, and Nature. In the spiritual experience
we see God as the supreme Self or Spirit, or as the
Being from whom we come and in whom we live and move.
We see Nature as his Power or God as Power, Spirit in
Power acting in ourselves and the world. The Jiva is
then himself this Self, Spirit, Divine, so'ham, because
he is one with him in essence of his being and consciousness,
but as the individual he is only a portion of the Divine,
a self of the Spirit, and in his natural being a form
of the Shakti, a power of God in movement and action,
parä prakrtir jivabhütä. At
first, when we become conscious of God or of the Shakti,
the difficulties of our relation with them arise from
the ego-consciousness which we bring into the spiritual
relation. The ego in us makes claims on the Divine other
than the spiritual claim, and these claims are in a
sense legitimate, but so long as and in proportion as
they take the egoistic form, they are open to much grossness
and great perversions, burdened with an element of falsehood,
undesirable reaction and consequent evil, and the relation
can only be wholly right, happy and perfect when these
claims become part of the spiritual claim and lose their
egoistic character. And in fact the claim of our being
upon the Divine is fulfilled absolutely only then when
it ceases at all to be a claim and is instead a fulfilment
of the Divine through the individual, when we are satisfied
with that alone, when we are content with the delight
of oneness in being, content to leave the supreme Self
and Master of existence to do whatever is the will of
his absolute wisdom and knowledge through our more and
more perfected Nature. This is the sense of the self-surrender
of the individual self to the Divine, ätma-samarpana.
It does not exclude a will for the delight of oneness,
for participation in the divine consciousness, wisdom,
knowledge, light, power, perfection, for the satisfaction
of the divine fulfilment in us, but the will, the aspiration
is ours because it is his will in us. At first, while
there is still insistence on our own personality, it
only reflects that, but becomes more and more indistinguishable
from it, less personal and eventually it loses all shade
of separateness, because the will in us has grown identical
with the divine Tapas, the action of the divine Shakti.
And equally when we first become aware of the infinite
Shakti above us or around or in us, the impulse of the
egoistic sense in us is to lay hold on it and use this
increased might for our egoistic purpose. This is a
most dangerous thing, for it brings with it a sense
and some increased reality of a great, sometimes a titanic
power, and the rajasic ego, delighting in this sense
of new enormous strength, may instead of waiting for
it to be purified and transformed throw itself out in
a violent and impure action and even turn us for a time
or partially into the selfish and arrogant Asura using
the strength given him for his own and not for the divine
purpose: but on that way lies, in the end, if it is
persisted in, spiritual perdition and material ruin.
And even to regard oneself as the instrument of the
Divine is not a perfect remedy; for, when a strong ego
meddles in the matter, it falsifies the spiritual relation
and under cover of making itself an instrument of the
Divine is really bent on making instead God its instrument.
The one remedy is to still the egoistic claim of whatever
kind, to lessen persistently the personal effort and
individual straining which even the sattwic ego cannot
avoid and instead of laying hold on the Shakti and using
it for its purpose, rather to let the Shakti lay hold
on us and use us for the divine purpose. This cannot
be done perfectly at once,—nor can it be done
safely if it is only the lower form of the universal
energy of which we are aware, for then, as has already
been said, there must be some other control, either
of the mental Purusha or from above,—but still
it is the aim which we must have before us and which
can be wholly carried out when we become insistently
aware of the highest spiritual presence and form of
the divine Shakti. This surrender too of the whole action
of the individual self to the Shakti is in fact a form
of real self-surrender to the Divine.
It
has been seen that a most effective way of purification
is for the mental Purusha to draw back, to stand as
the passive witness and observe and know himself and
the workings of Nature in the lower, the normal being;
but this must be combined, for perfection, with a will
to raise the purified nature into the higher spiritual
being. When that is done, the Purusha is no longer only
a witness, but also the master of his prakriti, ïsvara.
At first it may not be apparent how this ideal of active
self-mastery can be reconciled with the apparently opposite
ideal of self-surrender and of becoming the assenting
instrument of the divine Shakti. But in fact on the
spiritual plane there is no difficulty. The Jiva cannot
really become master except in proportion as he arrives
at oneness with the Divine who is his supreme Self.
And in that oneness and in his unity with the universe
he is one too in the universal self with the will that
directs all the operations of Nature. But more directly,
less transcendentally, in his individual action too,
he is a portion of the Divine and participates in the
mastery over his nature of that to which he has surrendered
himself. Even as instrument, he is not a mechanical
but a conscious instrument. On the Purusha side of him
he is one with the Divine and participates in the divine
mastery of the Ishwara. On the nature side of him he
is in his universality one with the power of the Divine,
while in his individual natural being he is an instrument
of the universal divine Shakti, because the individualised
power is there to fulfil the purpose of the universal
Power. The Jiva, as has been seen, is the meeting-place
of the play of the dual aspect of the Divine, Prakriti
and Purusha, and in the higher spiritual consciousness
he becomes simultaneously one with both these aspects,
and there he takes up and combines all the divine relations
created by their interaction. This it is that makes
possible the dual attitude.
There is however a possibility of arriving at this result
without the passage through the passivity of the mental
Purusha, by a more persistently and predominantly kinetic
Yoga. Or there may be a combination of both the methods,
alternations between them and an ultimate fusion. And
here the problem of spiritual action assumes a more
simple form. In this kinetic movement there are three
stages. In the first the Jiva is aware of the supreme
Shakti, receives the power into himself and uses it
under her direction, with a certain sense of being the
subordinate doer, a sense of minor responsibility in
the action,—even at first, it may be, a responsibility
for the result; but that disappears, for the result
is seen to be determined by the higher Power, and only
the action is felt to be partly his own. The Sadhaka
then feels that it is he who is thinking, willing, doing,
but feels too the divine Shakti or Prakriti behind driving
and shaping all his thought, will, feeling and action:
the individual energy belongs in a way to him, but is
still only a form and an instrument of the universal
divine Energy. The Master of the Power may be hidden
from him for a time by the action of the Shakti, or
he may be aware of the Ishwara sometimes or continually
manifest to him. In the latter case there are three
things present to his consciousness, himself as the
servant of the Ishwara, the Shakti behind as a great
Power supplying the energy, shaping the action, formulating
the results, the Ishwara above determining by his will
the whole action.
In the second stage the individual doer disappears,
but there is not necessarily any quietistic passivity;
there may be a full kinetic action, only all is done
by the Shakti. It is her power of knowledge which takes
shape as thought in the mind; the Sadhaka has no sense
of himself thinking, but of the Shakti thinking in him.
The will and the feelings and action are also in the
same way nothing but a formation, operation, activity
of the Shakti in her immediate presence and full possession
of all the system. The Sadhaka does not think, will,
act, feel, but thought, will, feeling, action happen
in his system. The individual on the side of action
has disappeared into oneness with universal Prakriti,
has become an individualised form and action of the
divine Shakti. He is still aware of his personal existence,
but it is as the Purusha supporting and observing the
whole action, conscious of it in his self-knowledge
and enabling by his participation the divine Shakti
to do in him the works and the will of the Ishwara.
The Master of the power is then sometimes hidden by
the action of the power, sometimes appears governing
it and compelling its workings. Here too there are three
things present to the consciousness, the Shakti carrying
on all the knowledge, thought, will, feeling, action
for the Ishwara in an instrumental human form, the Ishwara,
the Master of existence governing and compelling all
her action, and ourself as the soul, the Purusha of
her individual action enjoying all the relations with
him which are created by her workings. There is another
form of this realisation in which the Jiva disappears
into and becomes one with the Shakti and there is then
only the play of the Shakti with the Ishwara, Mahadeva
and Kali, Krishna and Radha, the Deva and the Devi.
This is the intensest possible form of the Jiva's realisation
of himself as a manifestation of Nature, a power of
the being of the Divine, parä prakrtir jivabhütä.
A
third stage comes by the increasing manifestation of
the Divine, the Ishwara in all our being and action.
This is when we are constantly and uninterruptedly aware
of him. He is felt in us as the possessor of our being
and above us as the ruler of all its workings and they
become to us nothing but a manifestation of him in the
existence of the Jiva. All our consciousness is his
consciousness, all our knowledge is his knowledge, all
our thought is his thought, all our will is his will,
all our feeling is his Ananda and form of his delight
in being, all our action is his action. The distinction
between the Shakti and the Ishwara begins to disappear;
there is only the conscious activity in us of the Divine
with the great self of the Divine behind and around
and possessing it; all the world and Nature is seen
to be only that, but here it has become fully conscious,
the Maya of the ego removed, and the Jiva is there only
as an eternal portion of his being, amsa sanätana,
put forth to support a divine individualisation and
living now fulfilled in the complete presence and power
of the Divine, the complete joy of the Spirit manifested
in the being. This is the highest realisation of the
perfection and delight of the active oneness; for beyond
it there could be only the consciousness of the Avatara,
the Ishwara himself assuming a human name and form for
action in the Lila.
-Sri
Aurobindo
