ESSENTIALLY
then this divine self-perfection is a conversion
of the human into a likeness of and a fundamental
oneness with the divine nature, a rapid shaping
of the image of God in man and filling in of its
ideal outlines. It is what is ordinarily termed
sãdrsya-mukti, a liberation into the divine
resemblance out of the bondage of the human seeming,
or, to use the expression of the Gita, sãdharmya-gati,
a coming to be one in law of being with the supreme,
universal and indwelling Divine. To perceive and
have a right view of our way to such a transformation
we must form some sufficient working idea of the
complex thing that this human nature at present
is in the confused interminglings of its various
principles, so that we may see the precise nature
of the conversion each part of it must undergo and
the most effective means for the conversion. How
to disengage from this knot of thinking mortal matter
the Immortal it contains, from this mentalised vital
animal man the happy fullness of his submerged hints
of Godhead, is the real problem of a human being
and living. Life develops many first hints of the
divinity without completely disengaging them; Yoga
is the unravelling of the knot of Life's difficulty.
First of all we have to know the central secret
of the psychological complexity which creates the
problem and all its difficulties. But an ordinary
psychology which only takes mind and its phenomena
at their surface values, will be of no help to us;
it will not give us the least guidance in this line
of self-exploration and self-conversion. Still less
can we find the clue in a scientific psychology
with a materialistic basis which assumes that the
body and the biological and physiological factors
of our nature are not only the starting-point but
the whole real foundation and regards human mind
as only a subtle development from the life and the
body. That may be the actual truth of the animal
side of human nature and of the human mind in so
far as it is limited and conditioned by the physical
part of our being. But the whole difference between
man and the animal is that the animal mind, as we
know it, cannot get for one moment away from its
origins, cannot break out from the covering, the
close chrysalis which the bodily life has spun round
the soul, and become something greater than its
present self, a more free, magnificent and noble
being; but in man mind reveals itself as a greater
energy escaping from the restrictions of the vital
and physical formula of being. But even this is
not all that man is or can be: he has in him the
power to evolve and release a still greater ideal
energy which in its turn escapes out of the restrictions
of the mental formula of his nature and discloses
the supramental form, the ideal power of a spiritual
being. In Yoga we have to travel beyond the physical
nature and the superficial man and to discover the
workings of the whole nature of the real man. In
other words, we must arrive at and use a psycho-physical
knowledge with a spiritual foundation.
Man is in his real nature,—however obscure
now this truth may be to our present understanding
and self-consciousness, we must for the purposes
of Yoga have faith in it, and we shall then find
that our faith is justified by an increasing experience
and a greater self-knowledge,—a spirit using
the mind, life and body for an individual and a
communal experience and self-manifestation in the
universe. This spirit is an infinite existence limiting
itself in apparent being for individual experience.
It is an infinite consciousness which defines itself
in finite forms of consciousness for joy of various
knowledge and various power of being. It is an infinite
delight of being expanding and contracting itself
and its powers, concealing and discovering, formulating
many terms of its joy of existence, even to an apparent
obscuration and denial of its own nature. In itself
it is eternal Sachchidananda, but this complexity,
this knotting up and unravelling of the infinite
in the finite is the aspect we see it assume in
universal and in individual nature. To discover
the eternal Sachchidananda, this essential self
of our being within us, and live in it is the stable
basis, to make its true nature evident and creative
of a divine way of living in our instruments, supermind,
mind, life and body, the active principle of a spiritual
perfection.
Supermind,
mind, life and body are the four instruments which
the spirit uses for its manifestation in the workings
of Nature. Supermind is spiritual consciousness
acting as a self-luminous knowledge, will, sense,
aesthesis, energy, self-creative and unveiling power
of its own delight and being. Mind is the action
of the same powers, but limited and only very indirectly
and partially illumined. Supermind lives in unity
though it plays with diversity; mind lives in a
separative action of diversity, though it may open
to unity. Mind is not only capable of ignorance,
but, because it acts always partially and by limitation,
it works characteristically as a power of ignorance:
it may even and it does forget itself in a complete
inconscience, or nescience, awaken from it to the
ignorance of a partial knowledge and move from the
ignorance towards a complete knowledge,—that
is its natural action in the human being,—but
it can never have by itself a complete knowledge.
Supermind is incapable of real ignorance ; even
if it puts full knowledge behind it in the limitation
of a particular working, yet all its working refers
back to what it has put behind it and all is instinct
with self-illumination; even if it involves itself
in material nescience, it yet does there accurately
the works of a perfect will and knowledge. Supermind
lends itself to the action of the inferior instruments;
it is always there indeed at the core as a secret
support of their operations. In matter it is an
automatic action and effectuation of the hidden
idea in things; in life its most seizable form is
instinct, an instinctive, subconscious or partly
subconscious knowledge and operation; in mind it
reveals itself as intuition, a swift, direct and
self-effective illumination of intelligence, will,
sense and aesthesis. But these are merely irradiations
of the supermind which accommodate themselves to
the limited functioning of the obscurer instruments:
its own characteristic nature is a gnosis super-conscient
to mind, life and body. Supermind or gnosis is the
characteristic, illumined, significant action of
spirit in its own native reality.
Life is an energy of spirit subordinated to action
of mind and body, which fulfils itself through mentality
and physicality and acts as a link between them.
It has its own characteristic operation but nowhere
works independently of mind and body. All energy
of the spirit in action works in the two terms of
existence and consciousness, for the self-formation
of existence and the play and self-realisation of
consciousness, for the delight of existence and
the delight of consciousness. In this inferior formulation
of being in which we at present live, the spirit's
energy of life works between the two terms of mind
and matter, supporting and effecting the formulations
of substance of matter and working as a material
energy, supporting the formulations of consciousness
of mind and the workings of mental energy, supporting
the interaction of mind and body and working as
a sensory and nervous energy. What we call vitality
is for the purposes of our normal human existence
power of conscious being emerging in matter, liberating
from it and in it mind and the higher powers and
supporting their limited action in the physical
life,—just as what we call mentality is power
of conscious being awaking in body to light of its
own consciousness and to consciousness of all the
rest of being immediately around it and working
at first in the limited action set for it by life
and body, but at certain points and at a certain
height escaping from it to a partial action beyond
this circle. But this is not the whole power whether
of life or mentality; they have planes of conscious
existence of their own kind, other than this material
level, where they are freer in their characteristic
action. Matter or body itself is a limiting form
of substance of spirit in which life and mind and
spirit are involved, self-hidden, self-forgetful
by absorption in their own externalising action,
but bound to emerge from it by a self-compelling
evolution. But matter too is capable of refining
to subtler forms of substance in which it becomes
more apparently a formal density of life, of mind,
of spirit. Man himself has, besides this gross material
body, an encasing vital sheath, a mental body, a
body of bliss and gnosis. But all matter, all body
contains within it the secret powers of these higher
principles; matter is a formation of life that has
no real existence apart from the informing universal
spirit which gives it its energy and substance.
This is the nature of spirit and its instruments.
But to understand its operations and to get at a
knowledge which will give to us a power of leverage
in uplifting them out of the established groove
in which our life goes spinning, we have to perceive
that the Spirit has based all its workings upon
two twin aspects of its being, Soul and Nature,
Purusha and Prakriti. We have to treat them as different
and diverse in power,—for in practice of consciousness
this difference is valid,—although they are
only two sides of the same reality, pole and pole
of the one conscious being. Purusha or soul is spirit
cognisant of the workings of its nature, supporting
them by its being, enjoying or rejecting enjoyment
of them in its delight of being. Nature is power
of the spirit, and she is too working and process
of its power formulating name and form of being,
developing action of consciousness and knowledge,
throwing itself up in will and impulsion, force
and energy, fulfilling itself in enjoyment. Nature
is Prakriti, Maya, Shakti. If we look at her on
her most external side where she seems the opposite
of Purusha, she is Prakriti, an inert and mechanical
self-driven operation, inconscient or conscient
only by the light of Purusha, elevated by various
degrees, vital, mental, supramental, of his soul-illumination
of her workings. If we look at her on her other
internal side where she moves nearer to unity with
Purusha, she is Maya, will of being and becoming
or of cessation from being and becoming with all
their results, apparent to the consciousness, of
involution and evolution, existing and non-existing,
self-concealment of spirit and self-discovery of
spirit. Both are sides of one and the same thing,
Shakti, power of being of the spirit which operates,
whether superconsciously or consciously or subconsciously
in a seeming inconscience,—in fact all these
motions co-exist at the same time and in the same
soul,—as the spirit's power of knowledge,
power of will, power of process and action, jnãna-sakti,
icchã-sakti, kriyã-sakti. By this
power the spirit creates all things in itself, hides
and discovers all itself in the form and behind
the veil of its manifestation.
Purusha
is able by this power of its nature to take whatever
poise it may will and to follow the law and form
of being proper to any self-formulation. It is eternal
soul and spirit in its own power of self-existence
superior to and governing its manifestations ; it
is universal soul and spirit developed in power
of becoming of its existence, infinite in the finite;
it is individual soul and spirit absorbed in development
of some particular course of its becoming, in appearance
mutably finite in the infinite. All these things
it can be at once, eternal spirit universalised
in cosmos, individualised in its beings; it can
too found the consciousness rejecting, governing
or responding to the action of Nature in any one
of them, put the others behind it or away from it,
know itself as pure eternity, self-supporting universality
or exclusive individuality. Whatever the formulation
of its nature, soul can seem to become that and
view itself as that only in the frontal active part
of its consciousness; but it is never only what
it seems to be; it is too the so much else that
it can be; secretly, it is the all of itself that
is yet hidden. It is not irrevocably limited by
any particular self-formulation in Time, but can
break through and beyond it, break it up or develop
it, select, reject, new-create, reveal out of itself
a greater self-formulation. What it believes itself
to be by the whole active will of its consciousness
in its instruments, that it is or tends to become,
yo yacchraddhah sa eva sah: what it believes it
can be and has full faith in becoming, that it changes
to in nature, evolves or discovers.
This power of the soul over its nature is of the
utmost importance in the Yoga of self-perfection;
if it did not exist, we could never get by conscious
endeavour and aspiration out of the fixed groove
of our present imperfect human being; if any greater
perfection were intended, we should have to wait
for Nature to effect it in her own slow or swift
process of evolution. In the lower forms of being
the soul accepts this complete subjection to Nature,
but as it rises higher in the scale, it awakes to
a sense of something in itself which can command
Nature; but it is only when it arrives at self-knowledge
that this free will and control becomes a complete
reality. The change effects itself through process
of nature, not therefore by any capricious magic,
but an ordered development and intelligible process.
When complete mastery is gained, then the process
by its self-effective rapidity may seem a miracle
to the intelligence, but it still proceeds by law
of the truth of Spirit,—when the Divine within
us by close union of our will and being with him
takes up the Yoga and acts as the omnipotent master
of the nature. For the Divine is our highest Self
and the self of all Nature, the eternal and universal
Purusha.
Purusha may establish himself in any plane of being,
take any principle of being as the immediate head
of his power and live in the working of its proper
mode of conscious action. The soul may dwell in
the principle of infinite unity of self-existence
and be aware of all consciousness, energy, delight,
knowledge, will, activity as conscious form of this
essential truth, Sat or Satya. It may dwell in the
principle of infinite conscious energy, Tapas, and
be aware of it unrolling out of self-existence the
works of knowledge, will and dynamic soul-action
for the enjoyment of an infinite delight of the
being. It may dwell in the principle of infinite
self-existent delight and be aware of the divine
Ananda creating out of its self-existence by its
energy whatever harmony of being. In these three
poises the consciousness of unity dominates; the
soul lives in its awareness of eternity, universality,
unity, and whatever diversity there is, is not separative,
but only a multitudinous aspect of oneness. It may
dwell too in the principle of supermind, in a luminous
self-determining knowledge, will and action which
develops some coordination of perfect delight of
conscious being. In the higher gnosis unity is the
basis, but it takes its joy in diversity; in lower
fact of supermind diversity is the basis, but it
refers back always to a conscious unity and it takes
joy in unity. These ranges of consciousness are
beyond our present level; they are superconscious
to our normal mentality. That belongs to a lower
hemisphere of being.
This lower being begins where a veil falls between
soul and nature, between spirit in supermind and
spirit in mind, life and body. Where this veil has
not fallen, these instrumental powers are not what
they are in us, but an enlightened part of the unified
action of supermind and spirit. Mind gets to an
independent idea of its own action when it forgets
to refer back to the light from which it derives
and becomes absorbed in the possibilities of its
own separative process and enjoyment. The soul when
it dwells in the principle of mind, not yet subject
to but user of life and body, knows itself as a
mental being working out its mental life and forces
and images, bodies of the subtle mental substance,
according to its individual knowledge, will and
dynamis modified by its relation to other similar
beings and powers in the universal mind. When it
dwells in the principle of life, it knows itself
as a being of the universal life working out action
and consciousness by its desires under similar modifying
conditions proper to a universal life-soul whose
action is through many individual life-beings. When
it dwells in the principle of matter, it knows itself
as a consciousness of matter acting under a similar
law of the energy of material being. In proportion
as it leans towards the side of knowledge, it is
aware of itself more or less clearly as a soul of
mind, a soul of life, a soul of body viewing and
acting in or acted upon by its nature; but where
it leans towards the side of ignorance, it knows
itself as an ego identified with nature of mind,
of life or of body, a creation of Nature. But the
native tendency of material being leads towards
an absorption of the soul's energy in the act of
formation and material movement and a consequent
self-oblivion of the conscious being. The material
universe begins from an apparent inconscience.
The universal Purusha dwells in all these planes
in a certain simultaneity and builds upon each of
these principles a world or series of worlds with
its beings who live in the nature of that principle.
Man, the microcosm, has all these planes in his
own being, ranged from his subconscient to his superconscient
existence. By a developing power of Yoga he can
become aware of these concealed worlds hidden from
his physical, materialised mind and senses which
know only the material world, and then he becomes
aware that his material existence is not a thing
apart and self-existent, as the material universe
in which he lives is also not a thing apart and
self-existent, but is in constant relation to the
higher planes and acted on by their powers and beings.
He can open up and increase the action of these
higher planes in himself and enjoy some sort of
participation in the life of the other worlds,—which,
for the rest, are or can be his dwelling-place,
that is to say, the station of his awareness, dhama,
after death or between death and rebirth in a material
body. But his most important capacity is that of
developing the powers of the higher principles in
himself, a greater power of life, a purer light
of mind, the illumination of supermind, the infinite
being, consciousness and delight of spirit. By an
ascending movement he can develop his human imperfection
towards that greater perfection.
But whatever his aim, however exalted his aspiration,
he has to begin from the law of his present imperfection,
to take full account of it and see how it can be
converted to the law of a possible perfection. This
present law of his being starts from the inconscience
of the material universe, an involution of the soul
in form and subjection to material nature; and,
though in this matter, life and mind have developed
their own energies, yet they are limited and bound
up in the action of the lower material, which is
to the ignorance of his practical surface consciousness
his original principle. Mind in him, though he is
an embodied mental being, has to bear the control
of the body and the physical life and can only by
some more or less considerable effort of energy
and concentration consciously control life and body.
It is only by increasing that control that he can
move towards perfection,—and it is only by
developing soul-power that he can reach it. Nature-power
in him has to become more and more completely a
conscious act of soul, a conscious expression of
all the will and knowledge of spirit. Prakriti has
to reveal itself as Shakti of the Purusha.
