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SECTION ELEVEN
EXPERIENCES OF THE INNER AND THE COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS
I. CONDITIONS FOR GETTING TRUE EXPERIENCES II. EXPERIENCES OF THE INNER PLANES III. EXPERIENCES OF COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF IV. SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCES AND OBJECTIVE REALISATION
I. CONDITIONS FOR GETTING TRUE EXPERIENCES
Purification of Consciousness for Right Reception of Experiences
DO not be over-eager for experiences; for experiences you can always get, having once broken the barrier between the physical mind and the subtle planes. What you have to aspire for most is the improved quality of the recipient consciousness in you, discrimination in the mind, the unattached impersonal Witness look on all that goes on in you and around you, purity in the vital, calm equanimity, enduring patience, absence of pride and the sense of greatness—and more especially, the development of the psychic being in you— surrender, self-giving, psychic humility, devotion. It is a consciousness made up of these things, cast in this mould, that can bear without breaking, stumbling or deviation into error the rush of lights, power and experiences from the supraphysical planes. An entire perfection in these respects is hardly possible until the whole nature from the higher Page-267 mind to the subconscient physical is made one in the light that is greater than the mind, but a sufficient foundation and a consciousness always self-observant, vigilant and growing in these things is indispensable —for perfect purification is the basis of the perfect Siddhi.
12-11-1932 Purification before Descent of Higher Truth
QUITE correct. Unless the Adhar is made pure, neither the higher truth (intuitive, illumined, spiritual) nor the overmental nor the supramental can manifest; whatever forces come down from them get mixed with the inferior consciousness and the half- truth takes the place of the Truth or even sometimes a dangerous error. Page-268 (1)
PURITY or impurity depends upon the consciousness; in the divine consciousness everything is pure, in the ignorance everything is subject to impurity, not the body only or part of the body, but mind and vital and all. Only the self and the psychic being remain always pure.
4-7-1933 (2)
Purity means freedom from soil or mixture. The divine Purity is that in which there is no mixture of the turbid ignorant movements of the lower nature. Ordinarily, purity is used to mean (in the common language) freedom from sexual passion and impulse.
Importance of Calm and Strength
To fix the calm and strength is the main thing now— more important than fresh experience; these will come fast enough if the calm and strength become durable and made the habit and stuff of the consciousness.
13-11-1933 Page-269
IF you can achieve quietude followed by an upward openness, it is better than the effort which sways between strong experiences and strong adverse reactions.
7-8-1933 (1)
DURING the experience the mind should be quiet. After the experience is over it can be active. If it is active while it is there, the experience may stop altogether.
31-7-1936 (2)
Yes, the human mind’s activities come very much in the way of receiving the higher knowledge. Page-270 (3)
It (the higher knowledge) comes through the mind, so the mind can always modify its expression unless it is entirely and absolutely still.
23-9-1936 Need of Curbing Impatience in Receiving Experience (1)
IT is necessary to curb the mind’s impatience a little. Knowledge is progressive—if it tries to leap up to the top at once, it may make a hasty construction which it will have afterwards to undo. The knowledge and experience must come by degrees and step by step.
17-6-1933 Page-271 (2)
In the mind there is always a certain haste to seize quickly at what is presented to it as the highest Truth. That is unavoidable, but the more one is stilled in mind the less it will distort things.
14-6-1933 (3)
The attempt of the mind and vital to seize on the experience is always one of the chief obstacles.
2-7-1933
AN experience should be allowed its full time to develop or have its full effect. It should not be interrupted except in case of necessity or, of course, if it is not a good experience.
13-8-1934 Page-272 Need of Discrimination in Judging Experiences
EXPERIENCES on the mental and vital and subtle physical planes or thought formations and vital formations are often represented as if they were concrete external happenings; true experiences are in the same way distorted by mental and vital accretions and additions. One of the first needs in our Yoga is a discrimination and a psychic tact distinguishing the false from the true, putting each thing in its place and giving it its true value or absence of value, not carried away by the excitement of the mind or the vital being.
6-5-1929 Intensity and Purity of Experience—Veiling of The Mother’s Presence— Internal and External Self-giving
I DO not question at all the personal intensity or concreteness of your internal experiences, but experiences can be intense and yet be very mixed in their truth and their character. In your experience your own subjectivity, sometimes your Page-273 ego-pushes interfere very much and give them their form and the impression they create on you. It is only if there is a pure psychic response that the form given to the experience is likely to be the right one and the mental and vital movements will then present themselves in their true nature. Otherwise the mind, the vital, the ego give their own colour to what happens, their own turn, very usually their own deformation. Intensity is not a guarantee of entire truth and correctness in an experience; it is only purity of the consciousness that can give an entire truth and correctness. The Mother’s presence is always there; but if you decide to act on your own—your own idea, your own notion of things, your own will and demand upon things, then it is quite likely that her presence will get veiled; it is not she who withdraws from you, but you who draw back from her. But your mind and vital don’t want to admit that, because it is always their preoccupation to justify their own movements. If the psychic were allowed its full predominance, this would not happen; it would have felt the veiling, but it would at once have said, "There must have been some mistake in me, a mist has arisen in me," and it would have looked and found the cause. Page-274 It is perfectly true that so long as there is not an unreserved self-giving in both the internal and external, there will always be veilings, dark periods and difficulties. But if there is unreserved self- giving in the internal, the unreserved self-giving in the external would naturally follow; if it does not, it means that the internal is not unreservedly surrendered; there are reservations in some part of the mind insisting on its own ideas and notions; reservations in some part of the vital insisting on its own demands, impulses, movements, ego-ideas, formations; reservations in the internal physical insisting on its own old habits of many kinds, and all claiming consciously, half-consciously or sub- consciously that these should be upheld, respected, satisfied, taken as an important element in the work, the "creation" or the Yoga.
25-3-1932
EXPERIENCE of Truth is an isolated or repeated descent of the Truth into the consciousness or ascent of the consciousness into it. Realisation is when the Truth becomes a settled part of the consciousness.
21-7-1933 Page-275
THE Yogi is one who is already established in realisation—the sadhak is one who is getting or still trying to get realisation.
(1)
ALL this is to make unnecessary distinctions. An experience of a truth in the substance of mind, in the vital or the physical, wherever it may be, is the beginning of realisation. When I experience peace, I begin to realise what it is. Repetition of the experience leads to a fuller and more permanent realisation. When it is settled anywhere, that is the full realisation of it in that place or that part of the being.
18-10-1933 Page-276 (2)
All experiences can be brought into the smallest constituents of the being.
September 1934
I REALLY do not know what kind of joy you want. All experiences are not accompanied by joy. Interest is another matter.
23-6-1936 Effect of Experiences in the Physical Consciousness (1)
WHEN the physical consciousness prevails, often one does not feel any sign or effect even if the experiences are there.
25-9-1936 Page-277 (2)
How do you expect anything so obtuse and forgetful as the physical consciousness to have the effect if the experiences are not repeated? It is as when you learn a lesson, you have to repeat it till the physical mind gets hold of it—otherwise it does not become a part of consciousness.
11-3-1933 (3)
All experiences that penetrate the centres are recorded in the body and seem to be the body’s experiences, but one has to distinguish between the reflection of the experiences there and the experiences that belong to the physical body-consciousness itself. It is a matter of consciousness and free discernment. There is no absolute law about the time.
13-6-1936 Page-278 (4)
I spoke only of the fact that what one feels recorded in the physical body may be actually taking place only in the subtle body. Whether in a particular case it is that or a direct experience in the physical body also, is a matter to be seen in each case. One must distinguish for oneself what it is.
16-6-1936 (5)
Why "mere" record? If you think the experiences in the subtle body are feeble vague things, you are mistaken—they can be quite as intense, swift, palpable, massive as those of the body. (6)
Any reflection or outflowing from the subtle body into the physical would also be felt as tangible. Page-279 II. EXPERIENCES OF THE INNER PLANES
Signs of the Opening of the Inner Consciousness
THE sounds of bells and the seeing of lights and colours are signs of the opening of the inner consciousness which brings with it an opening also to sights and sounds of other planes than the physical. Some of these things like the sound of bells, crickets, etc. seem even to help the opening. The Upanishad speaks of them as brahmavyaktikarāṇi yoge. The lights represent forces—or sometimes a formed light like that you saw may be the light of a being of the supraphysical plane.
September 1934
First Result of the Awakening of the Inner Being
THERE is a stage in the sadhana in which the inner being begins to awake. Often the first result is the condition made up of the following elements:
Page-280
It seems as if this condition were trying to come in you; but it is still imperfect. For instance, in this condition (1) there should be no disgust or impatience or anger when people talk, only indifference and an inner peace and silence. Also, (2) there should not be a mere neutral quiet and indifference, but a positive sense of calm, detachment and peace. Again, (3) there should be no going out of the body so that you do not know what is happening or what you are doing. There may be a sense of not being the body but something else,—that is good; but there should be a perfect awareness of all that is going on in or around you. Moreover, this condition even when it is perfect is only a transitional stage—it is intended to bring a certain state of freedom and liberation. But in that peace there must come the feeling of the Divine Presence, the sense of the Mother’s power working on you, the joy or Ananda. If you can concentrate in the heart as well as in the head, then these things can more easily come.
March 1933 Page-281 Breaking up of the Surface Being into the Inner Consciousness
THERE is no need of the question. At this stage you have only to watch the experiences and observe their significance. It is only when the experiences are in the vital realm that some are likely to be false formations. These of which you write are simply the common experiences of an opening Yogic consciousness and they have to be understood, simply. Here it is the breaking up of the small surface vital into the largeness of the true or inner vital being which can at once open to the Higher Consciousness, its power, light and Ananda. There is also begun a similar breaking of the small physical mind and sense into the wideness of the inner physical consciousness. The inner planes are always wide and open into the Universal, while the outer surface parts are shut up in themselves and full of narrow and ignorant movements.
4-9-1933 Page-282
WHEN the vital being goes out, it moves on the vital plane and in the vital consciousness and, even if it is aware of physical scenes and things, it is not with a physical vision. It is possible for one who has trained his faculties to enter into touch with physical things although he is moving about in the vital body, to see and sense them accurately, even to act on them and physically move them. But the ordinary sadhaka who has no knowledge or organised experience or training in these things cannot do it. He must understand that the vital plane is different from the physical and that things that happen there are not physical happenings, though, if they are of the right kind and properly understood and used, they may have a meaning and value for the earth life. But also the vital consciousness is full of false formations and many confusions and it is not safe to move among them without knowledge and without a direct protection and guidance.
9-10-1927 Page-283 Precautions for Avoiding Dangers in the Vital Worlds
YOUR three experiences related in your letter mean that you are going out in your vital body into the vital worlds and meeting the beings and formations of these worlds. The old man of the temple and the girls you saw are hostile beings of the vital plane. It is better not to go in this way unless one has the protection of some one (physically present) who has knowledge and power on the vital world. As there is no one there who can do this for you, you should draw back from this movement. Aspire for perfect surrender, calm, peace, light, consciousness and strength in the mind and the heart. When the mental being and the psychic being are thus open, luminous and surrendered, then the vital can open and receive the same illumination. Till then premature adventures on the vital plane are not advisable. If the movement cannot be stopped, then observe the following instructions: 1. Never allow any fear to enter into you. Face all you meet and see in this world with detachment and courage. 2. Ask for our protection before you sleep or meditate. Use our names when you are attacked or tempted. 3. Do not indulge in this world in any kind of sympathy for the old man in the temple or accept such suggestions, e.g., that he was your spiritual preceptor, Page-284 which was obviously false since you could have no other spiritual preceptor than us. It was because of this sympathy and the accepted suggestion that he was able to go inside you and create the pain you felt. 4. Do not allow any foreign personality to enter into you, only the Light, Power, etc. from above.
Experiences of Withdrawal into Inner Planes
B’s experiences are those which usually attend the withdrawal from the outer consciousness into an inner plane of experience. The feeling of coldness of the body in the first is one of the signs—like the immobility and stiffness of D’s experience—that the consciousness is withdrawing from the outer or physical sheath and retiring inside. The crystallisation was the form in which he felt the organisation of an inner consciousness which could receive at once firmly and freely from above. The crystals at once indicate organised formation and a firm transparence in which the greater vision and experience descending from the higher planes could be clearly reflected. Page-285 As for the other experience, his rejection of the waking consciousness evidently had the result of throwing him into an inner awareness in which he began to have contact with the supraphysical planes. What was meant by the sea of red colour and stars depends on the character of the red colour. If it was crimson, what he saw was the sea of the physical consciousness and physical life as it is represented to the inner symbolic vision; if it was purple red, then it was the sea of the vital consciousness and the vital life-force. Perhaps, if he had not stopped his sense of the Mother’s presence, it would have been better,—he should rather, if he can, take it with him into the inner planes, then he would have had no occasion to fear. In any case, if he wants to go into the inner consciousness and move in the inner planes—which will inevitably happen if he shuts off the waking consciousness in his meditation—he must cast away fear. Probably he expected to get the silence or the touch of the Divine Consciousness by following out the suggestion of the Gita. But the silence or the touch of the Divine Consciousness can be equally and for some more easily got in the waking meditation through the Mother’s presence and the descent from above. The inward movement, however, is probably unavoidable and he should try to understand and, not shrinking or afraid, to go to it with Page-286 the same confidence and faith in the Mother as he has in the waking meditation. His dreams are, of course, experiences on the inner (vital) plane, I need not repeat the explanation I have already given to D. P.S. The dream about the Mahadeva image may mean that some one (not of this world, of course) wanted to mislead him and make him confuse some narrower traditional form of the past with the greater living Truth that he is seeking.
The Inward and the Outward Movement
IT is on the surface that the transformation is done. One comes up to the surface with what one has gained in the depths to change it. It may be your need to go in again and find it difficult to make the movement back quickly. When the whole being becomes plastic you will be able to make whatever movement is needed more quickly.
8-11-1932 Page-287 True and Mixed Experiences—Difficulty of Retaining True Consciousness in Sleep
WHAT he is having now are the true spiritual and psychic experiences—not those of the vital plane which most have at the beginning. The experiences of the vital plane (in which there is much imagination and fantasy) are useful for opening up the consciousness; but it is when they are replaced by the spiritual and psychic consciousness that there is the beginning of the true progress. The difficulty of keeping the consciousness at night happens to most—it is because the night is the time of sleep and relaxation and the subconscient comes up. The true consciousness comes at first in the waking state or in meditation, it takes possession of the mental, the vital, the conscious physical, but the subconscious vital and physical remain obscure and this obscurity comes up when there is sleep or an inert relaxation. When the subconscient is enlightened and penetrated by the true consciousness this disparity disappears. The Pisachic woman that tried to enter is the false vital impure Shakti—and the voice that spoke was that of his psychic being. If he keeps his psychic being awake and in front, it will always protect him against these dark forces as it did this time.
4-1-1932 Page-288 Inadvisability of Admitting Others in One’s Adhar
THERE is no utility in such experiences; they may happen on the vital plane so long as one has still to pass through the vital range of experiences, but the aim should be to get beyond them and live in a pure psychic and spiritual experience. To admit or call the invasion of others into one’s own being is to remain always in the confusions of the intermediate zone. Only the Divine should be called into one’s personal Adhar—by which is not meant the loss of one’s personal being or any idea of becoming the Divine, for that should be avoided. The ego has to be overcome, but the central personal being (which is not the ego but the individual self, soul, a portion of the Divine) has to remain a channel and instrument of the Divine Shakti. As for others, sadhakas, etc. one can feel them in one’s universalised consciousness, be aware of their movements, live in harmony with them in the Divine All, but not allow or call their presence within the personal Adhar. Very often that leads to the invasion of the consciousness by vital powers or presences which assume the forms of those who are so admitted—and that is most undesirable. The sadhaka must make his basic consciousness silent, calm, pure, peaceful and preserve or attain an absolute control over what he Page-289 shall or shall not admit into it—otherwise, if he does not keep this control, he is in danger of becoming a field of confused and disorderly experiences or a plaything of all sorts of mental and vital beings and forces. Only one rule or influence other than one’s own should be admitted, the rule of the Divine Shakti over the Adhar.
15-12-1932 Misleading Communications on the Intermediate Plane
THIS kind of manifestation (Adesh) comes very often at a certain stage of the practice of Yoga. My experience is that it does not come from the highest source and cannot be relied upon and it is better to wait until one is able to enter a higher consciousness and a greater truth than any that these communications represent. Sometimes they come from beings of an intermediate plane who want to use the sadhaka for some work or purpose. Many sadhakas accept and some, though by no means all, succeed in doing something, but it is often at the cost of the greater aims of Yoga. In other cases they come from beings who are hostile to the sadhana and wish to bring it Page-290 to nothing by exciting ambition, the illusion of a great work or some other form of ego. Each sadhaka must decide for himself (unless he has a Guru to guide him) whether to treat it as a temptation or a mission.
June 1929 Doubtful Value of Experiences of the Intermediate Planes
IN the first place one is not obliged to believe all that X’s disciples have written about him after his death. Besides, the experiences they relate about him are of the intermediate planes, not of the highest spiritual consciousness. Whatever experience he had of the highest was hidden by them in a jungle of miraculous and romantic legends. It is probable that in trying to make him out a great Siddha, they have lowered him below what he really was.
11-3-1933 Page291 False Notions about Progress in Sadhana
How can the people in this Ashram judge whether a man has progressed in Yoga or not? They judge from outward appearances—if a sadhak secludes himself, sits much in meditation, gets voices and experiences, etc. etc., they think he is a great sadhak! X was always a very poor Adhar. He had a few experiences of an elementary kind—confused and uncertain, but at every step he was getting into trouble and going off on a side-path and we had to pull him up. At last he began to get voices and inspirations which he declared to be ours—I wrote to him many letters of serious warning and explanation but he refused to listen, was too much attached to his false voices and inspirations and, to avoid rebuke and correction, ceased to write or inform us. So he went wholly wrong and finally became hostile, You can tell this by my authority to anybody who is puzzled like yourself about this matter.
11-3-1933 Inadvisability of Complete Seclusion
IT is not advisable to cut oneself off from mixing with people altogether. You must remain in the higher consciousness even when with people.
24-10-1933 Page-292 Conditions for Receiving True Intuition
To have the true intuition one must get rid of the mind’s self-will and the vital’s also, their preferences, fancies, phantasies, strong insistences and to eliminate the mental and vital ego’s pressure which sets the consciousness to work in the service of its own claims and desires. Otherwise these things will come in with force and claim to be intuitions, inspirations and the rest of it. Or if any intuitions come, they can be twisted and spoiled by the mixture of these forces of the Ignorance.
28-11-1944
Page-293 III. EXPERIENCES OF COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF
Widening and Union with the Universal Infinite
IT is very good. The widening of the consciousness so as to be at one with the universal Infinite is an important stage in the sadhana.
9-11-1933 Page-293
THERE is no difference between the terms "universal" and "cosmic" except that "universal" can be used in a freer way than "cosmic". Universal may mean "of the universe", cosmic in that general sense. But it may also mean "common to all", e.g., "This is a universal weakness"—but you cannot say "This is a cosmic weakness."
1933 Experience of the True Cosmic Self
IT is probably the true cosmic Self or spirit with its cosmic consciousness and power that you feel on a plane above the ordinary mind or vital or physical— what plane is not as yet clear—for what you describe is common to this Self on whatever plane it manifests; it is felt like that as soon as the being or any part of the being detaches itself from the surface Ignorance.
26-1-1934 Page-294 Influence of the Experience of the Cosmic Self on Vital and Physical
THE experience you feel is that of the Atman, the cosmic Self supporting the cosmic consciousness— not yet clear but in its first impression. When the consciousness goes down from that condition, it brings something of it into the vital and physical consciousness and the result is either that these parts or at least the vital open and get into touch with what has been brought down. The inert tāmasikatā or the unease in the legs comes because the physical is not able to receive or assimilate. This will disappear when that part opens and receives and is able to assimilate. It was there the occasional descent of the Force to establish a connection—here the descent is taking another form intended to establish the fundamental experiences of the Realisation.
31-8-1933 Page-295 Initial Opening to Cosmic Consciousness
You had a mental and the beginning of a vital opening to the cosmic consciousness—kept on the spiritualised level, the vision or feeling of the Divine Ananda without seeking for possession or a gross outer enjoyment, it would have established a Yogic consciousness and made a base for knowledge and peace and power and psychic love and surrender to come down.
17-10-1933 Liberation from the Body Sense
IT means the liberation from the body sense in which one can truly say, "I am not the body". This liberation is part of the cosmic consciousness—as is also the realisation of the cosmic Will. It is the liberation from the body sense only. That is quite different from the control of the body.
16-5-1933 Page-296 Openness of the Senses to the Divine
IT is when you feel the universal or divine beauty or presence in things that the senses are open to the Divine.
6-4-1934
THIS vision is the perception of cosmic movement of things developing from state to state and in that the individual movements which make it up. There is also possible a sense of the All as Time in flow or of the same as a dimension interwoven with Space like warp and woof of a cloth, etc.
THIS vision is a representation in sound of the cosmic harmony from which the Ignorance is a fall and a discord. Page-297
THE harmony of the lower consciousness is a harmony of discords brought about by a clash and mixture of forces.
1933
ALL is in the Self; when identified with the universal self all is in you. Also the microcosm reproduces the macrocosm—so all is present in each, though all is not expressed (and cannot be) in the surface consciousness.
21-9-1933
THE Self is being, not a being. By Self is meant the conscious essential existence, one in all.
7-11-1936 Page-298 Original Substance of the Spirit
THE original substance of all spirit is pure existence carrying in it pure self-existent consciousness (or consciousness-force) and pure self-existent Ananda.
10-7-1936
SUBSTANCE and being are the same thing. In the creation they can be looked upon as two aspects of the spirit.
1933
IT is a normal experience when one universalises oneself. The Self exceeds the planes.
October 1933 Page-299
THE Self is essentially universal; the individualised self is only the universal experienced from or in an individual centre. If what you have realised is not felt to be one in all, then it is not the Atman; it is the central being not yet revealing its universal aspect as Atman.
The Personal ‘I’ and the Cosmic Self
IN the cosmic consciousness the personal ‘I’ disappears into the one Self of all. The ‘I’ which alone exists is not that of the person, the individualised ‘I’, but the universalised ‘I’ identical with all and with the cosmic Self (Atman).
February J934
What will remain after liberation is the central being—not the ego. The central being will live in the consciousness of the Divine everywhere and in all other beings also; so it will not have the consciousness of a separate ego but of one centre among many of the Divine Multiplicity
5-6-1933 Page-300
AFTER liberation Ahankar does not remain, but the individual self as a portion or centre of the Divine is still there.
THE Divine is One and Many. The Divine as many is the multiple Divine.
11-7-1933
THERE should be no difficulty in that. Difference in unity is the law of the higher manifestation.
January 1934 Page-301
THAT is the truth. The Divine is not limited by its Oneness.
December 1933 Two States of Cosmic Consciousness
I THINK you are speaking of the two different states of the cosmic consciousness, that which is behind all cosmos and that which is expressed in the apparent universe. 4-9-1933 The Pure Impersonal and the Manifestation of Divine Truth
THERE is no thought in the pure impersonal, it is silent,—but it is true that Divine Truth can manifest in the background of the silence. This is, of course, the truth of things up to the Overmind.
6-6-1933 Page-302 Reconciliation of the Opposites
IT is the mind that finds these apparent opposites difficult to reconcile,—there is no difficulty in the Divine Consciousness.
WHEN there is knowledge then differences of manifestation have not a separative effect. All is felt as the multiple play of the One.
11-9-1934 Saguna and Nirguna Ishwara and the Mother
IT is all right. There is no difficulty about it. Nirguna Saguna are only aspects taken by the Divine in the manifestation. It is the Mother who manifests (creation is only manifestation) the Saguna or the Nirguna Ishwara.
lB-6-1933 Page-303 (1)
IT is the Divine who is the Master—the Self is inactive, it is always a silent witness supporting all things—that is the static aspect. There is also the dynamic aspect through which the Divine works—behind that is the Mother. You must not lose sight of that, that it is through the Mother that all things are attained. (2)
Static and dynamic in reality always go together —it is in appearance that anything seems only dynamic or only static.
9-7-1933 (3)
Everything has a dynamic as well as a static side.
1-9-1933 Page-304 Purusha and Prakriti—Past and Future Darkness— The Three Gunas
IT is the Purusha and Prakriti sides of the nature— one leading to pure conscious existence, static, the other to pure conscious force, dynamic. The past darkness they have come out of is that of ignorance, the future darkness that is felt above is superconscience. But, of course, the superconscience is really luminous—only its light is not seen. The three forms of consciousness are the three sides of Nature represented by the three gunas—force of subconscious tamas, Inertia, which is the law of Matter, force of half-conscious desire, Kinesis, which is rajas, which is the law of Life, and force of sattwic Prakasha, which is the law of Intelligence.
27-9-1934
THERE is one Purusha—its action is according to the position and need of the consciousness at the time. It is the nature of the action above the ordinary mind or in the cosmic consciousness which is many- sided. Page-305
PRAKRITI is only the executive or working force —the Power behind the Prakriti is Shakti. It is the Chit-Shakti in manifestation: that is the spiritual consciousness.
February 1934
THIS is true of mental Knowledge and Will, but not of the higher knowledge-will. In the Super- mind, Knowledge and Will are one. All energies derive from the Chit-Shakti, but they differentiate from it as they descend. This much is true that Life is characteristically Force—the Physical is characteristically substance, but the dynamism of both derives from Chit- mind dynamism also, all dynamism.
December 1933 Page-306 The One Force—The All-pervading Ananda
THERE is one common Force working in all and a vibration of that Force or any one of its movements can awake (it does not always) the same vibration in another. There is a constant movement (Prakriti) and a constant silence (Purusha). It is a statement of the Upanishad that there is an ether of Ananda in which all breathe and live; if it were not there, none could breathe or live.
15-5-1933 Creating and Stopping of Force
THE force "created" is not yours—it is Prakriti’s —your will sets it in motion, it does not really create it; but once set in motion, it tends to fulfil itself so far as the play of other forces will allow it. So, naturally, if you want to stop it, you have to set a contrary force in motion which will be strong enough to prevail against its momentum.
3-6-1933 Page-307 IV. SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCES AND OBJECTIVE REALISATION
Difficulty of Objectivising Subjective Experiences (1)
THE difficulty of the Yoga is not in getting experience or a subjective realisation of the Truth; it is in objectivising the Truth, that is in making the outer consciousness down to the material an expression of the inner Truth. So long as that is not done the attacks of the lower Nature can always intervene.
January 1935 (2)
It is the difficulty of objectivisation of the spiritual consciousness which is not so easy to overcome.
5-10-1933 Page-308 Subjective Knowledge and Transformation
THE cosmic consciousness, the overmind knowledge and experience is an inner knowledge—but its effect is subjective. As long as one has that one can be free in soul, but to transform the external nature more is necessary.
February 1934 Subjective Experience and Entry into the Supermind
I HAVE told you once before that your experiences are subjective—and in the subjective sphere they are correct in substance so far as they go. But to enter the Supermind, subjective experience is not sufficient. Some sufficient application of intuition and overmind to life must first be done. Page-309 Subjective and Objective Experience (1) IT depends on what you mean by subjective and objective. Knowledge and Ignorance are in their nature subjective. But from the personal point of view, the Force of Ignorance may manifest as something objective outside oneself so that even when one has Knowledge for oneself one cannot remove the environing Ignorance. If that is so, Ignorance is not merely a subjective force in oneself, it is there in the world. (2)
It happens so in the sadhak’s own subjective consciousness. Of course it does not mean that the whole world becomes like that—everybody’s consciousness. …. If your experience were objective, then that would mean that the world had changed, everybody became conscious, no sorrow or suffering anywhere. Needless to say, the material world has not changed objectively in that way, only in your own consciousness subjectively you see the Divine everywhere, all disharmony disappears, sorrow and suffering become impossible for the time at least—that is a subjective experience.
16-7-1933 Page-310 Subjective Experiences of Bhakti
IT seems to have been a series of experiences of the different bhavas of bhakti and it came for experience only—or for a manifold development of the bhakti. These, of course, are purely subjective experiences meant to educate the consciousness and have no definite value for the actual manifestation. It is merely for subjective experience and knowledge.
October 1933 Truth of Subjective Experience (1)
SUBJECTIVE does not mean false. It only means that the Truth is experienced within, but it has not yet taken hold of the dynamic relations with the outside existence. It is an inner experience of the cosmic consciousness and the Overmind Knowledge.
31-7-1933 Page-311 (2)
What do you mean by true? You have a subjective experience belonging to a higher plane of consciousness. When you descend, you come down with it into the material and the whole of existence is seen by you in the truth of that consciousness—just as when a man sees the vision of the Divine everywhere, he sees all down to the material world as the Divine.
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