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2 October 1957
“The essential character of Supermind is a Truth-Consciousness which knows by its own inherent right of nature, by its own light: it has not to arrive at knowledge but possesses it. It may indeed, especially in its evolutionary action, keep knowledge behind its apparent consciousness and bring it forward as if from behind the veil; but even then this veil is only an appearance and does not really exist: the knowledge was always there, the consciousness its possessor and present revealer.…In the Mind of Light when it becomes full-orbed this character of the Truth reveals itself though in a garb that is transparent even when it seems to cover: for this too is a truth-consciousness and a self-power of knowledge. This too proceeds from the Supermind and depends upon it even though it is limited and subordinate. What we have called specifically the Mind of Light is indeed the last of a series of descending planes of consciousness in which the Supermind veils itself by a self-chosen limitation or modification of its self-manifesting activities, but its essential character remains the same: there is in it an action of light, of truth, of knowledge in which inconscience, ignorance and error claim no place. It proceeds from knowledge to knowledge; we have not yet crossed over the borders of the truth-conscious into ignorance.”
The Supramental Manifestation, pp. 70-71
Sweet Mother, I did not understand this passage: “In the Mind of Light when it becomes full-orbed this character of the Truth reveals itself though in a garb that is transparent even when it seems to cover…” Page – 192 And so? What is it you don’t understand? This garb that is transparent and…
This is an image. It is somewhat like this. In the supramental vision one has a direct and total and immediate knowledge of things, in the sense that one sees everything at the same time, complete in itself, total. The truth of a thing in all its aspects at the same time and…simultaneous, complete. And as soon as one wants to explain that or to describe it, one is obliged to come down, so to say, to a plane which he calls here “the Mind of Light”, where things have to be said or even thought or expressed one after another, in a certain order and a certain relation with one another; the simultaneity disappears, for in the present state of our mode of expression, to say everything at the same time, all at once, is impossible, and we are compelled to veil one part of what we see or know in order to bring it out one thing after another; and this is what he calls the “veil”, which is transparent, for one sees everything, knows everything at the same time; one has the total knowledge of a thing, but one cannot express it fully all at once. There are no words or any possibility of expression, so long as we are what we are. We must necessarily make use of an inferior process to express ourselves, and yet, at the same time we have the full knowledge; it is only the necessity of transmitting his knowledge in words which compels us to veil, so to say, a part of what we know and to let it come out only successively. But it is a transparent veil, for we know the thing – we know it, see it, understand it in its totality – but we cannot express it all at the same time. We have to say it, one thing after another, successively. It is the veil of the expression adapted to our needs both of utterance and understanding. The knowledge is there, it is there in reality – not that one is searching for it and expressing it as one goes on finding it\is there in its totality but the expression demands that one Page – 193 it one thing after another; and so this naturally diminishes the omnipotence of which he speaks, for omnipotence is the total vision of the thing expressed in its totality. Omniscience is there in principle, it is there, perceptible, but the total power of this omniscience cannot act since it needs to come down one plane to be able to express itself. Do you catch what I mean? Yes? To be able to live fully in the supramental knowledge requires other means of expression than the ones we have now. New means of expression must be worked out to make it possible to express the supramental knowledge in a supramental way.…Now, we are obliged to raise our mental capacity to its utmost so that there is only, so to say, a sort of hardly perceptible borderline, but one that still exists, for all our means of expression still belong to this mental world, do not have the supramental capacity. We do not have the necessary organs for that. We would have to become beings of the supermind, with a supramental substance, a supramental inner organisation, in order to be able to express the supramental knowledge in a supramental way. So far we are…half way; we can, somewhere in our consciousness, rise entirely into the supramental vision and knowledge, but we cannot express it. We have to come down again one plane in order to express ourselves. So, this veil which is transparent even when it seems to cover, is transparent for the consciousness, you see, for the consciousness sees and knows things in a supramental way, but one part is veiled and it only comes out progressively, for there is no other way of doing it. But for the consciousness it is transparent, though apparently it seems to hide. That’s it. (Silence)
I have been asked some questions about the film we saw yesterday….¹ The first one is to say the least bizarre! I am giving
¹An English documentary on the Buddha: Gautama Buddha. Page – 194 it to you exactly as it is here. I am asked:
“Is the real Buddha you know, whom you speak of in Prayers and Meditations,¹ the same as the one whose statues are worshipped?”
Statues…there are thousands of statues of the Buddha. There is the Buddha as he is known in India, the Buddha known in Ceylon, the Buddha known in Tibet, the Buddha known in China, in Cambodia, Thailand, Japan and elsewhere. If you are speaking of the historical fact, I think they would all tell you that it is to the Gautama Buddha of India they pray, but in fact, each one of these branches of Buddhism, and many more, has its own conception of the Buddha, and it is the conception of a godhead which is worshipped in statues, much more than a divine being, so…If you show me a statue and ask me, “In this statue is there the influence or the presence of the Buddha as you know him?”, I could reply yes or no to you; but when you say “whose statues are worshipped”, I cannot answer you, for that depends on what they have drawn into the statue they worship. Historically, it is always the same name but in fact I don’t know if it is always the same spiritual person! So I cannot answer you. If you ask me about the statues we saw yesterday…You saw how many there were and some of them were very, very different, it was a very different Buddha. There was one which was shown to us very often, and which is quite authentic, but there were many others which represented at the very least other personalities of the Buddha. It depends on what you mean; if you mean historically, yes, they always say it is the Buddha; but each statue is different. So, that’s one question. Now we come to something quite different:
¹ Prayers and Meditation., 20 and 21 December 1916. Page – 195 “In what way can the teaching of the Buddha now be an obstacle or help to humanity on the path of supramentalisation?”
Everything that helps humanity to make progress is a help, and all that prevents it from making progress is an obstacle! In fact, you are asking this because we study and meditate on the Dhammapada….¹ Naturally, I took this text because I consider that at a particular stage of development it can be very useful. It is a discipline which has been crystallised in certain formulas and if one uses these formulas profitably, it can be very helpful, otherwise I wouldn’t have taken it. How helpful depends on each one. It depends on whether one knows how to profit from it or not. And then, the last question:
“Sri Aurobindo has said that the Buddha was an avatar….”
We have said this several times already. And then, here it becomes very mysterious:
“Apart from the teaching of the Buddha, what remains of his personality in the world?”
(To the disciple who had asked the question) Why do you make this distinction?
When he entered into Nirvana, it was said that his teaching would now remain in the relics.
In the relics! Well, then that means the two things go together. I don’t see why you separate them. There is something of his
¹For some months, every Friday in the younger children’s class Mother used to read a few verses from the Dhamapada, the most sacred text of Buddhist Teaching. Page – 196 influence in his teaching, naturally! It is the teaching that transmits his influence in the mental field. His direct action, apart from his teaching, is limited to a very few people who are very fervent believers and have the power of evocation. Otherwise, the most important part of his action, almost the whole of his action, is associated, united, fused with his teaching. It seems difficult to make a distinction. (After a silence) The forms of Divine Power which have incarnated in different beings, have incarnated with a specific aim, for a specific action, at a specific moment of universal development, but essentially they are only differentiated aspects of the One Being; therefore, it is in the particular purpose of the action that the difference lies. Otherwise it is always the same Truth, the same Power, the same eternal Life which manifests in these forms and creates these forms at a given moment for a specific reason and a specific aim; this is preserved in history, but eternally they are new forms which are used for new progress. Old forms can endure as a vibration lasts, but their purpose historically, it could be said, was momentary, and one form is replaced by another in order that a new step forward may be taken. The mistake humanity makes is that it always hangs on to what is behind it and wants to perpetuate the past indefinitely. These things must be used at the time when they are useful. For there is a history of each individual development; you may pass through stages in which these disciplines have their momentary utility, but when you have gone beyond that moment you ought to enter into something else and see that historically it was useful but now is so no longer. Certainly, to those who have reached, for instance, a certain state of development and mental control, I won’t say, “Read the Dhammapada and meditate on it”; it would be a waste of time. I give it to those who have not gone beyond the stage where it is necessary. But always man takes upon his shoulders an interminable burden. He does not want to drop anything of the past and he stoops more and more under the weight of a useless accumulation. Page – 197 You have a guide for a part of the way but when you have travelled this part leave the road and the guide and go farther! This is something men find difficult to do. When they get hold of something which helps them, they cling to it, they do not want to move any more. Those who have progressed with the help of Christianity do not want to give it up and they carry it on their shoulders; those who have progressed with the help of Buddhism do not want to leave it and they carry it on their shoulders, and so this hampers the advance and you are indefinitely delayed. Once you have passed the stage, let it drop, let it go! Go farther.
Mother, the present religio-political movement for the revival of Buddhism…
What? Oh! I don’t take part in politics. It is altogether useless. People use things just for political ends, but that is not at all interesting. Page – 198
Mother reads the last pages of The Supramental Manifestation.
“Even in the material world which seems to us a world of ignorance, a world of the workings of a blind and inconscient Force starting from inconscience and proceeding through Ignorance and reaching with difficulty towards an imperfect Light and Knowledge, there is still a secret Truth in things which arranges all, guides towards the Self many contrary powers of being and rises towards its own heights where it can manifest its own highest truth and fulfil the secret purpose of the universe. Even this material world of existence is built upon a pattern of the truth in things which we call Law of Nature, a truth from which we climb to a greater truth until we emerge in the Light of the Supreme. This world is not really created by a blind force of Nature: even in the Inconscient the presence of the supreme Truth is at work; there is a seeing Power behind it which acts infallibly and the steps of the Ignorance itself are guided even when they seem to stumble; for, what we call the Ignorance is a cloaked Knowledge, a Knowledge at work in a body not its own but moving towards its own supreme self-discovery. This Knowledge is the covert Supermind which is the support of the creation and is leading all towards itself and guides behind this multitude of minds and creatures and objects which seem each to be following its own law of nature; in this vast and apparently confused mass of existence there is a law, a one truth of being, a guiding and fulfilling purpose of the world-existence. The Supermind is veiled here Page – 199 and does not work according to its characteristic law of being and self-knowledge, but without it nothing could reach its aim. A world governed by an ignorant mind would soon drift into a chaos; it could not in fact come into existence or remain in existence unless supported by the secret Omniscience of which it is the cover; a world governed by a blind inconscient force might repeat constantly the same mechanical workings but it would mean nothing and arrive nowhere. This could not be the cause of an evolution that creates life out of Matter, out of life mind, and a gradation of planes of Matter, Life and Mind culminating in the emergence of Supermind. The secret truth that emerges in Supermind has been there all the time, but now it manifests itself and the truth in things and the meaning of our existence.” The Supramental Manifestation, pp. 73-74 In fact this was not finished. It stopped short there. There were others to come.…
(Silence) So, we are going to finish without questions?
Mother, about the last paragraph here, there is a question: If the Supermind is hidden behind things, why is it so difficult to find it?
Because it is hidden! (Laughter)
Even in the Ignorance it is working, it leads to the Truth.…
Sri Aurobindo explains that if the supramental truth had not Page – 200 been there behind things, the world could never have been organised, even as it is organised now. We have the feeling of a consciousness with a very enlightened will which has organised everything in accordance with a very precise plan, which cannot be the result either of ignorance or of unconsciousness. In fact, your difficulty in perceiving the Supermind or the Truth-Consciousness behind things indicates the exact] measure of your personal ignorance and unconsciousness; for those who have come out of this ignorance and unconsciousness see it very clearly. The difficulty depends on the state of unconsciousness one is in. But for one who has gone beyond this state of unconsciousness it is not at all difficult to find the Supermind; it is very perceptible.
(Silence)
If one enters into a somewhat philosophical, psychological and subjective consciousness, one can very easily become aware of a sort of “objective unreality” of things; and the one thing which is real, tangible, concrete, measurable, so to speak, for the ordinary consciousness becomes so fluid, almost unsubstantial, and has a reality only in the consciousness that perceives it – an absolutely variable reality and at times quite contradictory according to the perception of the consciousness. If we put before us the different explanations that have been given about the world, the different ways in which it has been expressed, we shall have a series of notions that are sometimes absolutely contradictory, which are nevertheless perceptions of one identical thing by different consciousnesses. In fact, with this last paragraph, we have an extreme point which is the affirmation that all that is, is the total and complete expression of the Divine Will – there is what could be called a certain school of thinkers who, on the basis of their personal experience, have asserted that everything is the expression of the Divine Will in a perfect way – and then, at the other extreme, the affirmation that the world Page – 201 is a sort of chaos without rhyme or reason, which has come into being one doesn’t know how or why, which is going one doesn’t know where, which has no logic, no reason, no coordination\is just chance. It happens to be like this, one doesn’t know why. Well, if you take these two extremes and put before you all that has been said, written, taught, thought about the world from one end to the other, and if you can see all that together, you will realise that, since it is all about the same world and yet the explanations are so totally different, this world exists, so to say, only in the consciousness of the one who sees it.…There must indeed be “something” there, but that something must be beyond what men think about it – far beyond, very different. And so the whole feeling is of an elusive unreality. And in fact, the reality of the world is entirely subjective for each person’s consciousness. The world has no objective reality, for in one case it can be said that it is the result of the supremely conscious, supreme Will and that all is ruled by that, and in the other case, it may be said that it is something without any reason for existence except an elusive chance – and yet, these two notions apply to one and the same thing. Have you never thought about that? Everyone has his own idea which is more or less clear, more or less organised, more or less precise, and this idea he calls the world. Everyone has his own way of seeing, his own way of feeling and his particular relationship with everything else, and this he calls the world. He naturally puts himself at the centre, and then everybody is organised around him, according to the way in which he sees it, feels it, understands and desires it, according to his own reaction, but since for each consciousness, individually, it is different, this means that what we call the world – the thing in itself – escapes our perception completely. It must be something else. And we must come out of our individual consciousness to be able to understand what it is; and this is what Sri Aurobindo calls the passage from the lower to the higher hemisphere. In the lower hemisphere there are as Page – 202 many universes as individuals, and in the higher hemisphere there is “something” – which is what it is – in which all consciousnesses must meet. This is what he calls the “Truth-Consciousness”. As the human consciousness progresses, it has a greater and greater sense of this relativity, and at the same time a sort of feeling, it could be said, a vague impression that there is a Truth, which is not perceptible by ordinary means but must be perceptible in some way or other. That is all. So I hope that with our next book, The Life Divine, we shall find the key to the problem. Page – 203
I have received four questions. Naturally they are not about what I have just read, and they are on three different subjects. And each one needs a very lengthy answer. But still, I am going to take the first two which go together. They are about the involution of the Spirit.¹ The first question:
“If all that is to manifest is already involved in Matter, are there, hidden in it, other principles besides the supermind which will be revealed when it has been fully manifested?”
Logically speaking, “yes”, for essentially, there is an identity between Matter and the Supreme. But – and this brings in the second question:
“Did the involution take place in Time and does it have a history as evolution has?”
It could almost be said that the answer to this question depends on the mental attitude of the person who asks it.…Scholars will tell you that there are different schools which have spoken about these things in ways that are also very different. There are the metaphysicians who deny any history, minds that are essentially speculative, philosophical and, as I said, metaphysical, abstract, who consider that histories are only for children. There are the psychologists who translate everything into movements of consciousness, and finally there are those who love images and for
¹ Sri Aurobindo tells us that evolution is the result of an involution. Thus, life is involved in Matter, mind is involved in life and supermind is involved in mind. Nothing can come out of nothing; it is because the Supreme is involved in Matter that the Supreme can emerge from Matter. – Editor Page – 204 whom universal history is a great development which might be described as “cinematographic”, and this development in pictures is for them something much more living and tangible, for even if it is only symbolic, it makes them understand things in a more intimate and real way. It goes without saying that the three explanations are equally true, and that the important thing is to be able to synthesise and harmonise them in one’s thought. But we shall put aside the aridities of metaphysics, for it is better to read about them in the books of scholars who tell you things in a very precise, very exact and very dry fashion! The psychological point of view…it is better to live it than speak about it. So we are left with the story for children. It is good to be always a child. And although we must take care not to believe in it as a dogma in which nothing should be changed if one doesn’t want to be sacrilegious, we can at least take these stories as a means to make living to our childlike consciousness something which would otherwise be too remote from us. There we can choose from many stories that have been told, stories more or less true, more or less complete, more or less expressive. But if by interiorising or exteriorising oneself – which, from a certain point of view, is essentially the same thing – if one can relive this story, at least partially and in its broad outlines, it helps one to understand and hence to master the how and why of things. Some people have done that, they are the ones usually considered as initiates, occultists and prophets at the same time – and very beautiful stories have been told. I am going to tell you one, very succinctly. Don’t take it as a gospel! Take it rather…as a story. When the Supreme decided to exteriorise Himself in order to be able to see Himself, the first thing in Himself which He exteriorised was the Knowledge of the world and the Power to create it. This Knowledge-Consciousness and Force began its work; and in the supreme Will there was a plan, and the first principle of this plan was the expression of both the essential Joy and the Page – 205 essential Freedom, which seemed to be the most interesting feature of this creation. So intermediaries were needed to express this Joy and Freedom in forms. And at first four Beings were emanated to start this universal development which was to be the progressive objectivisation of all that is potentially contained in the Supreme. These Beings were, in the principle of their existence: Consciousness and Light, Life, Bliss and Love, and Truth. You can easily imagine that they had a sense of great power, great strength, of something tremendous, for they were essentially the very principle of these things. Besides, they had full freedom of choice, for this creation was to be Freedom itself.…As soon as they set to work – they had their own conception of how it had to be done – being totally free, they chose to do it independently. Instead of taking the attitude of servant and instrument of which Sri Aurobindo speaks in what I have just read to you,¹ they naturally took the attitude of the master, and this mistake – as I may call it – was the first cause, the essential cause of all the disorder in the universe. As soon as there was separation – for that is the essential cause, separation – as soon as there was separation between the Supreme and what had been emanated, Consciousness changed into inconscience, Light into darkness, Love into hatred, Bliss into suffering, Life into death and Truth into falsehood. And they proceeded with their creations independently, in separation and disorder. The result is the world as we see it. It was made progressively, stage by stage, and it would truly take a little too long to tell you all that, but finally, the consummation is Matter – obscure, inconscient, miserable.…The creative Force which had emanated these four Beings, essentially for the creation of the
¹ “The sword has a joy in the battle-play, the arrow has a mirth in its hiss and its leaping, the earth has a rapture in its dizzy whirl through space, the sun has the royal ecstasy of its blazing splendours and its eternal motion. O thou self-conscious instrument, take thou too the delight of thy own appointed workings.” “The Delight of Works”, extract from The Superman, Cent. Vol. 16, p. 288 Page – 206 world, witnessed what was happening, and turning to the Supreme she prayed for the remedy and the cure of the evil that had been done. Then she was given the command to precipitate her Consciousness into this inconscience, her Love into this suffering, and her Truth into this falsehood. And a greater consciousness, a more total love, a more perfect truth than what had been emanated at first, plunged, so to say, into the horror of Matter in order to awaken in it consciousness, love and truth, and to begin the movement of Redemption which was to bring the material universe back to its supreme origin. So, there have been what might be called “successive involutions” in Matter, and a history of these involutions. The present result of these involutions is the appearance of the Supermind emerging from the inconscience; but there is nothing to indicate that after this appearance there will be no others…for the Supreme is inexhaustible and will always create new worlds. That is my story. Page – 207 |