Confusions and an explanation

Confusions and an explanation

Words may very often create confusions, mainly for the reason that a word may have various meanings and usages. During a discussion, a particular word may thus create confusion. However confusion cannot be the intention and aim of the discussion. 

When I am having a discussion on Sri Aurobindo and am interpreting His teaching, His philosophy and spirituality and yoga, I always, without fail, without any deviation, use the words as per the definitions and meanings given by Him. If other meanings and definitions and senses are intended, obviously there will be confusion.

Therefore, the solution to avoid any confusion is to adhere to the meaning and definition given by Sri Aurobindo, when the discussion is about His Teaching. When there will be discussion on the Buddha, we should adhere faithfully to the meaning of the words intended by Him. When we discuss Jesus, we must ad here to His intentions. When we discuss Ken Wilber, we should mean by a particular word what he means.

If during a discussion on Sri Aurobindo, I, or someone else, give another meaning or usage to a particular word, confusion may be created. When an attempt to clear the confusion is made, one should understand this and should NOT continue to hold the different meaning or usage as against the intention in the original discussion. Then only we will understand properly.

Sri Aurobindo has defined every word of importance, including Nature. He has also spoken of Supernature and Higher Nature. About the present state of Nature, which has created Man from Matter and Life, let me quote Sri Aurobindo from the Life Divine :

“The transition to Supermind through Overmind is a passage from Nature as we know it into Supernature. It is by that very fact impossible for any effort of the mere Mind to achieve; our unaided personal aspiration and endeavour cannot reach it: our effort belongs to the inferior power of Nature; a power of the Ignorance cannot achieve by its own strength or characteristic or available methods what is beyond its own domain of Nature. All the previous ascensions have been effectuated by a secret Consciousness-Force operating first in Inconscience and then in the Ignorance: it has worked by an emergence of its involved powers to the surface, powers concealed behind the veil and superior to the past formulations of Nature, but even so there is needed a pressure of the same superior powers already formulated in their full natural force on their own planes; these superior planes create their own foundation in our subliminal parts and from there are able to influence the evolutionary process on the surface. Overmind and Supermind are also involved and occult in earth-Nature, but they have no formations on the accessible levels of our subliminal inner consciousness; there is as yet no Overmind being or organized Overmind nature, no supramental being or organized Supermind nature acting either on our surface or in our normal subliminal parts: for these greater powers of consciousness are superconscient to the level of our ignorance. In order that the involved principles of Overmind and Supermind should emerge from their veiled secrecy, the being and powers of the Superconscience must descend into us and uplift us and formulate themselves in our being and powers; this descent is a sine qua non of the transition and transformation.

It is conceivable indeed that, without the descent, by a secret pressure from above, by a long evolution, our terrestrial Nature might succeed in entering into a close contact with the higher now superconscient planes and a formation of subliminal Overmind might take place behind the veil; as a result a slow emergence of the consciousness proper to these higher planes might awake on our surface. It is conceivable that in this way there might appear a race of mental beings thinking and acting not by the intellect or reasoning and reflecting intelligence, or not mainly by it, but by an intuitive mentality which would be the first step of an ascending change; this might be followed by an overmentalisation which would carry us to the borders beyond which lies the Supermind or divine Gnosis. But this process would inevitably be a long and toilsome endeavour of Nature. There is a possibility too that what would be achieved might only be an imperfect superior metallization; the new higher elements might strongly dominate the consciousness, but they would be still subjected to a modification of their action by the principle of an inferior mentality: there would be a greater expanded and illuminating knowledge, a cognition of a higher order; but it would still undergo a mixture subjecting it to the law of the Ignorance, as Mind undergoes limitation by the law of Life and Matter. For a real transformation there must be a direct and unveiled intervention from above; there would be necessary too a total submission and surrender of the lower consciousness, a cessation of its insistence, a will in it for its separate law of action to be completely annulled by transformation and lose all rights over our being. If these two conditions can be achieved even now by a conscious call and will in the spirit and a participation of our whole manifested and inner being in its change and elevation, the evolution, the transformation can take place by a comparatively swift conscious change; the supramental Consciousness-Force from above and the evolving Consciousness-Force from behind the veil acting on the awakened awareness and will of the mental human being would accomplish by their united power the momentous transition. There would be no farther need of a slow evolution counting many millenniums for each step, the halting and difficult evolution operated by Nature in the past in the unconscious creatures of the Ignorance.” [Sri Aurobindo : The Life Divine]

From a perusal of the above passages, it is clear if we go back to Nature, we will then go back to Ignorance : the further progress and evolution from Man to Superman will be halted and thwarted. It is seen that Sri Aurobindo views the evolution from Matter to Animals or Plants (i.e., various life-forms) and from Life to Mind and Man has been a “halting and difficult evolution operated by Nature in the past in the unconscious creatures of the Ignorance.” And even now, our effort “belongs to the inferior power of Nature; a power of the Ignorance cannot achieve by its own strength or characteristic or available methods what is beyond its own domain of Nature”

I hope the role of Nature is now clearly understood. It cannot lead us ahead in a proper and swift manner, unless there are the Descents of the Higher Powers and Forces in Nature. And this is possible - but how? Let us see what Sri Aurobindo has said in His book ‘The Mother' :

“There are two powers that alone can effect in their conjunction, the great and difficult thing that is the aim of our endeavour; a fixed and unfailing aspiration that calls from below and a supreme Grace that from above, that answers.

But the supreme Grace will act only in the conditions of the Light and the Truth; it will not act in conditions laid down upon it by the Falsehood and the Ignorance. For if it were to yield to the demands of the Falsehood, it would defeat its own purpose.

These are the conditions of the Light and the Truth, the sole conditions under which the very highest supramental Force descending from above and opening from below that can victoriously handle the physical Nature and annihilate its difficulties …

There must be a total and sincere surrender; there must be an exclusive self-opening to the divine Power; there must be a constant and integral choice of the Truth that is descending; a constant and integral rejection of the falsehood of the mental, vital and physical Powers and Appearances that still rule the earth-Nature.”[Sri Aurobindo :The Mother]

Here, too, we find that Sri Aurobindo has referred to the fact that the falsehood of the mental, vital and physical Powers and Appearances still rule the earth-Nature.

Can we then go back to the Nature, the earth-Nature, which still ruled by the falsehood of the mental, vital and physical Powers and Appearances?

***

Then, there is confusion regarding the words Reason and Intuition.

I will give one example. When Sri Aurobindo wrote the book The Life Divine, He had already reached the threshold of the Supramental Consciousness, far above the plane of the Intuitive Mind, far above Intuition. He interpreted rationally in His philosophical treatise The Life Divine all His Wisdom and Knowledge that He reached directly by Identification, not only by Intuition.  He did not discard Reason. To discard Reason and accept Intuition would have been against His approach of Integration. Can we and should we discard Reason which had been a help to us for millennia for surpassing the surrounding darkness? Reason may not be the highest means of Knowledge. But till the coming of Intuition, it has to be there. Only, it has to be transformed and widened and illumined as far as possible. It is an instrument, and its proper use is in our hands.

And all that appears to us as Intuition is not intuition. There are many false signals also. And the old earth-Nature, in its animal kingdom, worked with instincts. And often the humans work with impulses. All these have to be searched and scrutinized, for they appear to many people as Intuitions. And there are the Anti-Divine Forces, who intimations and we may often think that they are Intuitions. The Mother has many times cautioned us against all these.

I clarify all these, as I do not want that those who read about Sri Aurobindo in The Visionland or in my Blog or in Arpana's Pod Soul-Study do not be misled by the words for their various meanings and usages. [This is posted simultaneously inall the three places.]

With all the best wishes

for all the Zaadsters who read these lines.

Barin

15-07-2006