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Warning: Regarding the
sense of the word "Supermind" in "The Yoga of Self-Perfection"
please see the importants letters of Sri Aurobindo here.
The Supramental Time Consciousness
[Version A]
The supermind in its supreme status is the truth-consciousness of the
Infinite, the inherent light and power of self-knowledge and all-knowledge
of the Supreme who is the self of all, the living eternal truth of all
that is and of whom all objects and beings, all the universe and motion
of things and happenings in time is a partial continually proceeding manifestation.
The Supreme organises through the power of self-realisation and self-manifestation
that resides in this self-knowledge and all-knowledge all truth of his
being that he has the will and delight to put forth in his universal existence,--to
create, as we say from our standpoint. But this creation is not a making
or bringing into being of that which was non-existent, neither is it a
construction of illusory phenomena in a self of dream, but a revelation
in condition of being, substance of consciousness, movement of force,
name, form, idea, significance, of the truths of being of the Eternal.
All that manifests itself in time, is the coming into play, effective
disclosure, result, form, power, evolution, movement of some truth of
being, a truth of Sat, of the eternal existence of the Supreme and Eternal
The power that brings it into play is the infinite consciousness of the
Supreme aware of itself and all that is itself, not a limited mental consciousness
like ours but supramental and illimitable, not bound by this or that condition,
but determining out of an infinite truth of self-existence its own conditions,
nor by this or that relation or step and sequence, but capable of all
possible relations and steps and sequences. It is a power or force inherent
in that consciousness which spontaneously, sovereignly and imperatively
compels into manifestation the truth it sees and dwells on and evolves
its play, combinations, sequences, not a limited mental will and power
like ours, but a conscious force supramental and illimitable, Tapas, Chit-shakti,
not bound to this or that movement and result of energy, but ordering
out of the infinite truth of self-existence the movement and result of
all possible energies. And it is finally an Ananda of the being that deploys
itself, that ranges at will among the infinities of consciousness and
of its power of manifestation, not a limited mental joy or pleasure like
our chequered delight of being and action and feeling, but supramental
and illimitable, not subject to a given set of reactions, but embracing
and taking a free and sovereign and compelling delight of all that is
possible in the truth of the infinite consciousness and existence.
* * *
[Version B]
It is necessary in order to understand the phenomena of the supramental
time consciousness to realise very firmly certain truths which are strange
to our ordinary mentality or presented to it only as constructions of
the metaphysical intellect, intelligible but unsubstantial abstractions
as all mere philosophical statements must be, but to the supermind are
realised experience and the normal and natural truth of the consciousness
in which it lives, moves, acts and manifests its being. It is only in
their light that we can grasp the truth and reality and the manifestation
of things in time, otherwise only an illusion or else a flux of transient,
inexplicable and incalculable actualities, and the law, source and order
of their manifestation, otherwise only a process of inscrutable Law or
else a play of chance and probabilities and possibilities. The truths
that reveal the inner meaning and way of the universe are of a spiritual
and supramental order. It is difficult however to express them at all
in a language adapted to the mental intellect and one can at most try
to indicate.
The first of the truths that thus becomes real to the consciousness is
the truth of infinite being, a thing abstract to our present sense and
intelligence to which only phenomena are concrete and real, but to the
supramental being always and absolutely and intimately present and real.
This indeed is that which to its knowledge, sense, vision, idea, feeling
is most concretely real and the phenomena which are now so close and all-important
to us, are to it less concrete, not self-existent at all but dependent
on the support of the infinite conscious[ness] and its force of presentation:
there is thus a complete reversal of the order in the conception of realities.
It is not that the phenomena in their turn become abstract, unreal, unsubstantial
creations of consciousness,--that is only the result of a certain exclusive
realisation, when there is an identification with the essence of absolute
being to the exclusion of its power,--but that they are felt as existing
here only in a certain movement of the infinite, real only because they
[are] made, as it were, out of the substance of infinite being. That which
determines them, the truth of their essence and nature, swarupa, swabhava,
that which gives them the power to be, is not originally here, but above
in the supreme being and consciousness of the infinite. All their true
truth, all their real reality is there in that supreme consciousness and
here only hidden in the inmost heart of their existence, guhayam, but
not fully expressed in their overt outward phenomena. Therefore to know
them only through the externals or through superficial inner movements
which is all that our mind now does, is to miss their true truth and reality
and to know them only with a partial and mistaken knowledge subject to
the limitations, errors, incapacities of the mental ignorance. All that
determines their manifestation in our time and space is also beyond and
here only in the hidden secrecy within them, and therefore the mind following
their line of manifestation misses that which determines them and can
only see a part of the actually present outward executive play of forces
that help to give them their immediate character and direction. It is
only the consciousness that reigns above, that of the supreme Ishwara,
and is present in their secret heart, hriddeshe tishthati, that knows
and determines all their true truth and their manifestation in eternal
time.
This supreme of infinite being is supreme in the sense of being above
the manifestation in time, its eternal origin, support, control, itself
beyond time and space. It is this of which the supermind, itself a luminous
power of this supreme of infinite being is always and fundamentally conscious.
Sri Aurobindo
in "The Synthesis of Yoga" - Part 4: The Yoga of Self-Perfection
CWSA volume 24 (1999), pages 906-909
In 1999 The Synthesis of Yoga was brought out as volumes
23 and 24 of The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo (CWSA). The text of this
edition was carefully checked against Sri Aurobindo's manuscripts and
all editions published before 1950. It included for the first time the
author's revisions to the Introduction and Chapters XV-XVII of Part II,
and an incomplete continuation of Part IV entitled “The Supramental Time
Consciousness”.
published by Sri
Aurobindo Ashram - Pondicherry
diffusion by SABDA
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