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

A Psychological Approach to Sri Aurobindo's

The Life Divine

The Triple Status of Supermind

Linking the One and Many: The Secondary Poise of the Supermind

While the primary comprehending poise of the Supermind carries the creative essence of the manifestation in its unitary and indivisible status of consciousness, the secondary poise of the Supermind modifies the unitary character of the primary poise ‘so as to support the manifestation of the many in One and One in Many’. Sri Aurobindo emphasizes the fact that the manifestation needs to be supported by a particular (the Secondary) poise of the Supermind. The manifestation cannot occur in an utter Nihil for it needs a base, a field, a matrix for its support. If there is no such field or matrix, the ‘form’ cannot be maintained or supported. This support must be dynamic in character so that the form can be replicated or reproduced or give way to new forms. The relation of Time and Space provides this dynamism.

The secondary poise of the Supermind which is an apprehending principle provides the field or matrix to support the manifestation by permitting two important shifts:

(a) A shift from the non-spatial reality to spatial reality by changing the equal and pervasive consciousness of the primary poise to an unequal concentration of consciousness so that ‘spaces’ appear to eventually support specific forms, and

(b) A shift from the non-temporal to temporal reality by changing the self-absorption inherent in the primary poise where energy or force lies dormant to a dynamic and multiple distribution of force.

The secondary poise thus brings forth Space and Time and their complex interaction to constitute the matrix for the manifestation.

The Yogic narrative of the experiential contact with the secondary poise

The experiential contact with the primary poise of the Supermind gives the vision of an all-comprehensive and inalienable unity.

In the experiential contact with the secondary poise of the Supermind, consciousness is experienced as ‘unequally distributed’ though fundamentally the same. Each ‘unequal concentration’ of consciousness is unique and supports a particular form, and hence supports the essence or nucleus or soul of each unique form. This is how the concept of the ‘individual Divine’ or ‘Jivatman’ evolved.

Sri Aurobindo elaborates:

‘In the second poise of the Supermind the Divine Consciousness stands back in the idea from the movement which it contains, realizing it by a sort of apprehending consciousness, following it, occupying and inhabiting its works, seeming to distribute itself in its forms. In each name and form it would realize itself as the stable Conscious-Self , the same in all; but also it would realize itself as a concentration of Conscious-Self following and supporting the individual play of movement and upholding its differentiation from other play of movement, -- the same everywhere in soul-essence , but varying in soul-form. This concentration supporting the soul-form would be the individual Divine or Jivatman as distinguished from the universal Divine or one all-constituting self. There would be no essential difference, but only a practical differentiation for the play which would not abrogate the real unity. The universal Divine would know all soul-forms as itself and yet establish a different relation with each separately and in each with all the others. The individual Divine would envisage its existence as a soul-form and soul-movement of the One and, while by the comprehending action of consciousness it would enjoy its unity with the One and with all soul-forms, it would also by a forward or frontal apprehending action support and enjoy its individual movement and its relations of a free difference in unity both with the One and with all its forms. If our purified mind were to reflect this secondary poise of Supermind, our soul could support and occupy its individual existence and yet even there realize itself as the One that has become all, inhabits all, contains all, enjoying in its particular modification its unity with God and its fellows. In no other circumstance of the supramental existence would there be any characteristic change; the only change would be this play of the One that has manifested its multiplicity and of the Many that are still one, with all that is necessary to maintain and conduct the play’ (The Life Divine, pg 159)