INSTITUTE FOR INTEGRAL YOGA PSYCHOLOGY

(a project of Mirravision Trust, Financed by Auroshakti Foundation)

 
Chapters
Chapter I
Chapter II - Part 1
Chapter II - Part 2
Chapter II - Part 3
Chapter II - Part 4
Chapter III - Part 1
Chapter III - Part 2
Chapter III - Part 3
Chapter III - Part 4
Chapter III - Part 5
Chapter III - Part 6
Chapter IV - Part 1
Chapter IV - Part 2
Chapter IV - Part 3
Chapter IV - Part 4
Chapter V-Part 1
Chapter V - Part 2
Chapter V - Part 3
Chapter V - Part 4
Chapter V - Part 5
Chapter VI - Part 1
Chapter VI - Part 2
Chapter VI - Part 3
Chapter VI - Part 4
Chapter VI - Part 5
Chapter VII - Part 1
Chapter VII - Part 2
Chapter VII - Part 3
Chapter VII - Part 4
Chapter VII - Part 5
Chapter VIII - Part 1
Chapter VIII - Part 2
Chapter VIII - Part 3
Chapter VIII - Part 4
Chapter IX - Part 1
Chapter IX - Part 2
Chapter X - Part 1
Chapter X - Part 2
Chapter X - Part 3
Chapter X - Part 4
Chapter X - Part 5
Chapter X - Part 6
Chapter XI - Part 1
Chapter XI - Part 2
Chapter XI - Part 3
Chapter XI - Part 4
Chapter XII - Part 1
Chapter XII - Part 2
Chapter XII - Part 3
Chapter XII - Part 4
Chapter XII - Part 5
Chapter XIII - Part 1
Chapter XIII - Part 2
Chapter XIV - Part 1
Chapter XIV - Part 2
Chapter XIV - Part 3
Chapter XIV - Part 4
Chapter XIV - Part 5
Chapter XV - Part 1
Chapter XV - Part 2
Chapter XV - Part 3
Chapter XV - Part 4
Chapter XV - Part 5
Chapter XV - Part 6
Chapter XV - Part 7
Chapter XV - Part 8
Chapter XV - Part 9
Chapter XVI - Part 1
Chapter XVI - Part 2
Chapter XVI - Part 3
Chapter XVI - Part 4
Chapter XVI - Part 5
Chapter XVI - Part 6
Chapter XVI - Part 7
Chapter XVI - Part 8
Chapter XVI - Part 9
Chapter XVI - Part 10
Chapter XVI - Part 11
Chapter XVI - Part 12
Chapter XVI - Part 13
Chapter XVII - Part 1
Chapter XVII - Part 2
Chapter XVII - Part 3
Chapter XVII - Part 4
Chapter XVIII - Part 1
Chapter XVIII - Part 2
Chapter XVIII - Part 3
Chapter XVIII - Part 4
Chapter XVIII - Part 5
Chapter XVIII - Part 6
Chapter XVIII - Part 7
Chapter XVIII - Part 8
Chapter XVIII - Part 9
Chapter XVIII - Part 10
Chapter XIX - Part 1
Chapter XIX - Part 2
Chapter XIX - Part 3
Chapter XIX - Part 4
Chapter XIX - Part 5
Chapter XIX - Part 6
Chapter XIX - Part 7
Chapter XX - Part 1
Chapter XX - Part 2
Chapter XX - Part 3
Chapter XX - Part 4
Chapter XX - Part 4
Chapter XXI - Part 1
Chapter XXI - Part 2
Chapter XXI - Part 3
Chapter XXI - Part 4
Chapter XXII - Part 1
Chapter XXII - Part 2
Chapter XXII - Part 3
Chapter XXII - Part 4
Chapter XXII - Part 5
Chapter XXII - Part 6
Chapter XXIII Part 1
Chapter XXIII Part 2
Chapter XXIII Part 3
Chapter XXIII Part 4
Chapter XXIII Part 5
Chapter XXIII Part 6
Chapter XXIII Part 7
Chapter XXIV Part 1
Chapter XXIV Part 2
Chapter XXIV Part 3
Chapter XXIV Part 4
Chapter XXIV Part 5
Chapter XXV Part 1
Chapter XXV Part 2
Chapter XXV Part 3
Chapter XXVI Part 1
Chapter XXVI Part 2
Chapter XXVI Part 3
Chapter XXVII Part 1
Chapter XXVII Part 2
Chapter XXVII Part 3
Chapter XXVIII Part 1
Chapter XXVIII Part 2
Chapter XXVIII Part 3
Chapter XXVIII Part 4
Chapter XXVIII Part 5
Chapter XXVIII Part 6
Chapter XXVIII Part 7
Chapter XXVIII Part 8
Book II, Chapter 1, Part I
Book II, Chapter 1, Part II
Book II, Chapter 1, Part III
Book II, Chapter 1, Part IV
Book II, Chapter 1, Part V
Book II, Chapter 2, Part I
Book II, Chapter 2, Part II
Book II, Chapter 2, Part III
Book II, Chapter 2, Part IV
Book II, Chapter 2, Part V
Book II, Chapter 2, Part VI
Book II, Chapter 2, Part VII
Book II, Chapter 2, Part VIII
Book II, Chapter 3, Part I
Book II, Chapter 3, Part II
Book II, Chapter 3, Part III
Book II, Chapter 3, Part IV
Book II, Chapter 3, Part V
Book II, Chapter 4, Part I
Book II, Chapter 4, Part II
Book II, Chapter 4, Part III
Book II, Chapter 5, Part I
Book II, Chapter 5, Part II
Book II, Chapter 5, Part III
Book II, Chapter 6, Part I
Book II, Chapter 6, Part II
Book II, Chapter 6, Part III
Book II, Chapter 7, Part I
Book II, Chapter 7, Part II
Book II, Chapter 8, Part I
Book II, Chapter 8, Part II
Book II, Chapter 9, Part I
 

A Psychological Approach to Sri Aurobindo's

The Life Divine

 
Chapter XXIII Part 6


The Double Soul in Man

The Spiritual Mind and Beyond

The psychic being as a delegate of the Jivatman comes forward to replace the desire-soul. It can also align with the Jivatman in a gesture of eternal love. Such phenomena occur in the inner recesses of the being. Who can perceive such extra-ordinary phenomena? The ordinary mind which exerts its reasoning through preferences, assumptions and probabilities would find it impossible to gauge the inner dimensions of the being. Sri Aurobindo explains that a different and higher denouement of mind-functioning is needed for such perception. “For these are achievements of the spiritual mind in man; they are movements of that mind passing beyond itself, but on its own plane, into the splendours of the Spirit”(The Life Divine, pg.242).

One could argue that the ordinary mind can also receive intuitions and display premonitions; can intellectualize and philosophize. But this is not sufficient. “The ordinary mind is at the highest the free intelligence, receiving perhaps intuitions and intimations from above which it intellectualizes. It is on the surface and sees things from outside except in so far as it is helped by intuition and other powers to see a little deeper. When this ordinary mind opens within to inner mind and psychic and above to higher mind and higher consciousness generally, then it begins to be spiritualised and its highest ranges merge into the spiritual mind-consciousness of which the higher mind can be a beginning. This merging is part of the spiritual transformation.”(CWSA 28, pg.235).

“The spiritual mind is a mind which, in its fullness, is aware of the Self, reflecting the Divine, seeing and understanding the nature the Self and its relations with the manifestation, living in that or in contact with it , calm, wide and awake to higher knowledge, not perturbed by the play of the Forces. When it gets its full liberated movement, its central station is very usually felt above the head, though its influence can extend downward through all the being and outward through all the being and outward through space.”(CWSA 28 , pg.158).

Beyond the Spiritual Mind

Yet the spiritual mind is not the final consummation of all mental experiences. As Sri Aurobindo points out , “The ordinary Yoga does not go beyond the spiritual mind –people feel at the top of the head the joining with the Brahman, but they are not aware of a consciousness above the head”. (CWSA 29, pg.377).

Sri Aurobindo stresses the psychological truth that even the Mind, “at its highest stages far beyond our present mentality, acts yet in its nature by division; it takes the aspects of the Eternal and treats each aspect as if it were the whole truth of the Eternal Being and can find in each its own perfect fulfilment.”(The Life Divine, pg.242-243). This is how mankind has erected different and apparently contradictory metaphysical schools of Thought and Yoga that consider one or other experiential concept as “the sole abiding Truth of existence”(Ibid, pg.243):

“the Silence of the Divine” or “the divine Dynamis”;

“the immobile Brahman aloof from existence, without qualities” or “the active Brahman with qualities, Lord of existence”; “Being” or “Becoming”, “The Divine Person” or “an impersonal pure Existence”. (Ibid)

Thus even a genuine and exalted spiritual experience tends to pursue one line exclusively while disregarding other lines though all paths lead to the same Divinity. “It can regard the Person as the sole Reality or the Impersonal as alone True; it can regard the Lover as only a means of expression of eternal Love or love as only the self-expression of the Lover; it can see beings as only personal powers of an impersonal Existence or impersonal existence as only a state of the one Being, the Infinite Person”. (Ibid)

Sri Aurobindo postulates that however high is the spiritual mind, there is a yet higher status of consciousness that is the “Supermind Truth-Consciousness” – the Supreme Creative Consciousness which holds the pre-programmed essence of all that manifests. Naturally it is a unitary and totipotent consciousness where all opposites “disappear and these partialities are relinquished in the rich totality of a supreme and integral realisation of eternal Being.” (Ibid)

Thus there are two movements to be initially considered. The first movement is the coming forward of the psychic being which , surpassing the desire-soul, integrates the being around it, Secondly, the being, integrated around the psychic or soul-principle ascends the hierarchies of consciousness to reach the Supramental Consciousness. This is the zone of Integral Cognition that can cognize all things at all planes of consciousness simultaneously.

The stage is then set for a third movement – the descent of the Supramental Consciousness which has the power to transform the being. The Supramental transformation then lifts the being “to the summit of the ascending endeavour”.(Ibid) In fact, the ascent to the highest Supramental consciousness must be accompanied by a descent of the latter into the being poised in the terrestrial consciousness, or else there can be no permanent transformation of the being,

Table:

Date of Update: 22-Jul-19

- By Dr. Soumitra Basu

 

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