Part II
- Sat is existence and can exist without being conscious of Itself or sensing Itself or comprehending Itself.
- As Brahman chose to exist, Sat chooses to be conscious of Itself; the result is consciousness.
- Sat or consciousness chooses to sense Itself and that sensation is Ananda.
- Sachchidananda chooses to know or comprehend Itself and that is the Supermind.
- Then we can say each successive stage is the Nature of the previous one or the consciousness of the previous stage.
- To be conscious of oneself is to express one’s Nature or power.
- One can choose to be conscious of Himself or NOT.
Q- Can we say these two correspond to Time and Timelessness.
A- The third dimension - the Simultaneous integrality of Time and Timelessness - is the Unity rediscovering itself in multiplicity.
Q- The Rishis reached by their mind partial Perception of the Brahman - one aspect of Sachchidananda - in Samadhi. There is a beyond.
A- The Supermind in man can have the experience of the Totality of Brahman in waking consciousness.
Q- Won’t it be in samadhi?
A- When THAT is there awake in man, how can man be unconscious?
Q- So, consciousness is to be conscious of the third dimension where Brahman takes birth.
A- Then, Unity is the consciousness of the Self.
Q- Unity with the world being is the consciousness of the Self.
A- Which is, the Self is conscious of Itself in the world being while it is fully united.
Q- So, what is Truth-Consciousness?
A- Truth, conscious of itself in Timelessness or in Time in the cosmos is Truth-consciousness.
Q- So, evolution is the Truth conscious of itself in matter, life or mind.
A- Unity, totality, fullness and the consequent JOY are achieved by the highest expressing Itself perfectly in the lowest.
Q- So, what will you call man, the conscient?
A- What the unmanifest Brahman wants to recognise - Himself — in the manifest Brahman is Man, the conscient.
Q- That means man’s unsatisfied desires of Ignorance that he has tasted in creation keep him in creation.
A- The unsatisfied desires can be called Taste of Ignorance or man’s choice or Nature’s slow deliberate pleasure or his unconscious patience.
Q- What, then, is the ANSWER !
A- It is there for the asking. You can have it if you want.
Q- Is it true of everything?
A- It is true of supramentalisation, genius, luck, solving problems or of anything.
Q- Do you see it as such?
A- I see it. Seeing is different from doing.
Q- I am unable to see it.
A- If you want, you can see it.
Q- So great a thing, so easily attainable. It is baffling!
A- It is great as it is beyond, not so great when you are that.
Q- That is what HE and S HE offer us.
A- Increasingly so.
Q- Are we that blind?
A- We enjoy being blind.
Q- So, we have to enjoy SEEING That?
A- How do we know we enjoy it?
Q- If we so enjoy, that Energy, the evolutionary energy will be released in us.
A- That is why Mother insists on cheerfulness.
Q- Cheerfulness is the positive vital energy.
A- The first realisation is to realise that the subliminal moves the surface.
Q- Our surface, the end of our surface mind is the vitality.
A- So, we are there always. We can choose to be either in the human vital or in the vital psychic.
Q- What makes for the difference?
A- Decision, choice, aspiration.
Q- How long will it take to realise it after such a choice?
A- Instantaneously.
Q- Mother is not in favour of instantaneous conversions.
A- There will be an instantaneous OPENING making it clear to you that it is possible - the possibility shows itself as actuality for a second or for some hours or a day. And then you have to work to make it full, permanent.
Q- That can’t be instantaneous?
A- It can be, if the subconscious preparation is there.
Q- Then, in the absence of that subconscious preparation instantaneous result is not possible.
A- It is not impossible, if Faith is there.
Q- So, Faith prepares the subconscient too.
A- In a way, it is HE awaking in the inconscient that we see as Faith.
Q- Is it the Hour of God HE speaks of ?
A- Now, HE is awake in the inconscient, ready to bring about the instantaneous change in us.
Q- HE is awaiting that choice of ours.
A- HE waited in vain.
Q- If we awake Now?
A- It remains to be seen.
Q- It is the greatest HOUR for the earth, not only man.
A- The aim of our meeting now where everyone of us is raising a point and every other person is answering is to take a . look at the chapter where HE brings this point of view.
Q- Sure, in each chapter, HE brings out this point of view in several ways. Can someone tell me all those ways?
A-
1. The third dimension of Time.
2. Reconciliation of contradictions.
3. Not to stop the inquiry.
4. Reconciliation at the cosmic and Transcendent consciousness.
5. Reaching the opposite without losing hold of what you have.
6. NOT to exclude what one has exceeded.
7. To unite the above and below in us.
8. To unite the world and ourselves.
9. Not to give the egoistic response.
10. Sift the reason from senses.
11. To see the ocean of energy.
12. To see the small and big are the same.
13. To see no beginning and no end.
14. To understand the meaning of waste.
15. To see life in Matter.
16. To see the Ananda expressed in objects.
17. Life is amoral.
18. To move to the subtle and causal planes.
19. To see we create what we want, Thathasthu.
20. To see the one consciousness splits into three — knower, knowledge, known.
21. God, Jivatma, Ego are the three poises of the Supermind.
22. God is in all; all is in God; all is in each, each is in all.
23. Mind is born when Supermind splits into two. Ignorance is born when Mind loses its contact with Supermind.
24. Mind is the inversion of Supermind.
25. Life is the inversion of consciousness.
26. Incapacity by exertion becomes capacity.
27. Life takes the bodily sensation to the mind to convert it into thought so that body will obey it.
28. The force and consciousness that are separate in Life will rejoin by evolution at the level of consciousness.
29. Ananda inverts as psychic being.
30. The four above invert as the four below.
31. Evolution is possible because all the eight planes are of the same substance.
32. The world is created by the Supermind, not mind.
33. The Reality is ONE, mind sees its aspects and mistakes them for the Whole.
34. The Eternal is the Individual.
35. The Absolute never ceases to be the Absolute.
36. The law of contradiction cannot be the final arbiter.
37. Not time but Supermind has created the world.
38. Unless the world is divinely explained, we won’t understand creation.
39. The negative is not the opposite of the positive, but what is not covered by it.
40. There is no illusion, but there is Ignorance.
41. Mind cannot conceive of non-existent things.
42. Ignorance is the inversion of knowledge.
43. Analysis of action reveals the ego and Purusha when it moves away from action.
44. Reality is wholly known only when the Spirit and Nature are discovered on the surface and in depth.
45. The four types of knowledge are knowledge by identity, intuition, subliminal knowledge and knowledge of the surface.
46. Original, Cosmic, Egoistic, Temporal, Psychological, Constitutional and practical Ignorance are its seven types.
47. Ignorance is not there in any of the eight planes of creation. It begins by mind forgetting Supermind.
48. Ignorance which is completed on the surface mind is the highest product of creation.
49. The simple contrary changes perversely into complex evil.
50. Matter is Delight of existence.
51. Ignorance, inertia and division oppose the evolution of Matter.
52. Life must include the Transcendent.
53. God and Nature must consciously unite in man.
54. So united, they should ascend and integrate themselves into higher forms.
55. Man emerges into seven-fold knowledge from sevenfold Ignorance.
56. Karma is of the Force, not of the Being.
57. The Spirit evolves to return to its origin.
58. Rebirth is inevitable if the Spirit is to evolve.
59. To raise the consciousness of the body to house the evolved Spirit is to evolve man.
60. Man who has discovered the Spirit can serve the world by allowing others to learn it from him.
61. Transformations are three - Psychic, Spiritual, and Supramental.
62. The dark imperative of the physical substance can be handled only by the descending luminous imperative.
63. Shifting to the inner from the outer, the instantaneous miraculousness arises.
64. Transformation that is inevitable is attained by the only known method of Surrender.
65. God has created the world for Ananda.
66. Unity with the passive Brahman is not the end; Unity in Multiplicity is the ultimate realisation.
67. One without the Second, All is Brahman are reconciled in the Brahman that is born in the Becoming. It is the discovery of the Being of the Brahman that is Becoming.
68. There is no pain or darkness in creation.
69. The fulfilment of Ishwara is in his surrendering to Shakti.
70. The aim of creation is to express the inexpressible in the perfect form evolved in Force.
Q- The full realisation of any one of them moves the man into the causal plane through the subtle plane and he is face to face with the Marvel of Supramental life for a short while.
A- One who makes it permanent will have realised all the above realisations.
Q- Is it not worthwhile to discuss, analyse, explain, illustrate each of the above 70 statements in the light of 1) what is said in the chapter and, 2) our daily experience?
A- Yes, and one can be explained in terms of the other. If each of us exercises our mind, we can go through all this and bring up the few that are left out.
Q- Is anything left out?
A- It may not be exactly. That the intellect, intuition and integral experience are the three stages is not mentioned.
Q- Yes. I see the distinction between the immortality of the soul and that of the body can be brought out.
A- Well, it will be nice to be exhaustive. When about ten ideas are analysed, the significance of the rest can be seen.
Q- It can be a repetition of the process beyond ten points if we confine ourselves to one fixed pattern.
A- As the process extends to essence and essence penetrates the substance and the substance has no known end, it can be a delightful enquiry, a rich soul satisfying spiritual experience, depending upon the level of discussion.
Q- Sri Aurobindo added Chapter 28 to the first book in 1940 as HE felt HE could add to the magnificent original.
A- Yes, HE sometimes contemplated completing Synthesis of Yoga which means the scope is unfinished.
Q- We know HE said HE could continue the serialisation for 70 years.
A- What did HE mean by that?
Q- As everything in creation is infinite, explanation too is infinite.
A- Let us have a greater description of the Psychic.
Q- That will be excellent. Also similar explanations of Spirit, Supermind, Mind, Life and Matter are welcome.
A- I was thinking whether the Process of Creation in the upper hemisphere can be again taken up in greater detail in the course of the above descriptions and an attempt made to exhaust every term and shade of a term HE employs.
Q- I don’t get what you say.
A- HE speaks of fundamental spiritual aspects and their principles and powers.
Q- In one place HE says our unity with the world being is the consciousness of the Self.
A- He distinguishes between the Supracosmic and the term Superconscient.
Q- At the end of the chapter Matter, HE refers to Self-presentation.
A- If remembering the forgotten Self is the JOY HE seeks, how does Grace act and why is another question.
Q- Another idea is Love is thrown to restore the lost link.
A- Maybe the comprehension of the infinite in the finite and its perception and sensation are of importance.
Q- The exercise of the mind may jerk open the lost link with the Supermind.
A- The double opening which HE refers to about the ascent and descent of the psychic and the one HE refers to in the creation of the Many from the One are evolutionary ideas. If they could be seen in the light of all these 70 odd statements, it will be nice.
Q- As you say, there is no end to them. That we should get at something significant is essential.
A- I would go further. If these discussions can be extended a little, if not thoroughly, to our life of war, poverty, pollution, terrorism, world union, socialism, morality, values, ROMANCE, and mental peace, it can make the process lively. Include genius too.
Q- Well, let us take a random look and take statement No.6. ‘Not to exclude what is exceeded’. To go ahead, this looks contradictory. What is the import of this statement? Where does the third dimension come here?
A- The soul of man arises or awakens when man exceeds all the lower parts - mind, life and body.
Q- Is it not a stupendous effort one in a million achieves?
A- It is. The soul thus detached from other parts of the being, is said to exceed them. Having escaped the clutches of those lower parts, it journeys in pursuit of the Super soul, its origin, God or Spirit or the Superconscient. This is the Indian tradition.
Q- All right. Sri Aurobindo enters the scene with Integral yoga and asks for the simultaneous liberation of all the parts. What I do not understand here is, the soul is liberated from mind and body; what is the body liberated from?
A- This is a new concept and a new territory in yoga. Sri Aurobindo says the body itself has the soul immanent in it.
Q- That we have heard of as the physical purusha, Annamaya Purusha.
A- Annamaya Purusha is the bodily part of the central being, the Jivatma and therefore it is the non-evolving soul.
Q- Is there a soul of the body apart from Annamaya Purusha?
A- The soul here referred to is not the developed soul as Annamaya Purusha but the immanent Spirit in the body.
Q- What is it called?
A- That comes into existence from immanence when its experience gathers as essence. That soul takes shape when that essence gathers, not until then.
Q- Sri Aurobindo calls it Psychic Being, its physical part as physical psychic, which is very difficult of formation.
A- That Psychic begins its formation in the mind as mental psychic and at the end of the journey the physical psychic arises.
Q- I have heard that when the physical psychic flowers in the physical substance, it is the Supramental Being. The yogi who seeks moksha disregards all these possibilities, the parts of being exceeded - and the possible emergence of their respective psychic beings - and reaches after the Spirit. So, Sri Aurobindo is not for the partial upward movement. He is for the downward movement.
A- No, it is a simultaneous double opening — the downward movement reaching the vital, physical and their substances while the upward movement evolves the psychic beings proper to each level of the Spiritual mind range, till the Supermind is reached where it becomes the Ishwara or Supramental Being.
Q- Please explain the third dimension.
A- We live in Time, the first for us.
Q- The Rishi seeks the Timeless dimension, the second.
A- Because he seeks the Being — the unevolving Being.
Q- The third dimension is not our life of Becoming, not the goal of the Rishi — the Being — but the Being of the Becoming, the Psychic which is the essence of soul experience of our mind.
A- It would be interesting to raise the question of contradiction here.
Q- Man and his world are in conflict in our life. That is clear.
A- Of course, the Rishi in pursuit of Being avoids that conflict.
Q- Does the psychic being bring in the complementary element? If so, what is the complement of what?
A- The emerging psychic is NOT in conflict with its world. It is obvious it is in harmony with its environment.
Q- Now I see it is our ego that brings in the conflict.
A- Withdrawing the ego, allowing the psychic, creates harmony and makes the conflicting elements, Man and the world, into complements.
Q- It is so simple to say “Don’t quarrel, be good”.
A- This is of interest. ‘Don’t quarrel’ is not in the third dimension, it is in the first dimension where ego remains the ego in Becoming, but subdued.
Q- A subdued ego, of course, cannot be the evolving soul. That is, the normal good behaviour of not quarrelling is not the thing. The psychic emerging, not being able to quarrel is the thing.
A- What are the other sides from which we can discuss this?
Q- In our list, one important item is missing. It is ‘Unity, Truth, Goodness, Knowledge, Power and Love’ should all be full before the work is complete.
A- The soul going to Spirit is to exercise its power of detachment. Obviously, Unity is not there, nor is the Love. Knowledge here means knowledge of the totality. It is not there.
Q- What does this list signify?
A- It represents the three aspects of Sachchidananda.
Q- Outer-inner. Which is outer?
A- Inside, all the four parts - mind, etc. - are one. Only outside are they separate. Integral Yoga can be called entirely a yoga of the inner consciousness.
Q- More explanations please.
A- The inner is not only total and integrated, it is also fast.
Q- Even moksha abridges several hundred years into one life. Man may attain moksha slowly. Why, what about integral yoga? Where is its speed? No one comes near consecration in fifty years.
A- Speed is NOT in shifting from outside to the inside. The speed is seen after the shift is effected.
Q- Can you illustrate?
A- Sri Aurobindo completed Raja Yoga in three days, and all Indian yogas in six years.
Q- I would like the example from others.
A- There is no one doing yoga for us to illustrate. We can show feeble examples where the speed of the Force can be seen.
Q- That I know. What takes years or months is done in a trice by the Force. I don’t see where the shift comes and how.
A- When the prayer changes into consecration, the outer prayer disappears. Whether it goes inside or not, we don’t see. It does go in. That generates the speed.
Q- Egoistic response?
A- Moksha is realisation of the ego. Therefore it must be shunned.
Q- Though we all have read much on Jivatma, let us discuss it.
A- The word Jivatma in the tradition means the soul of man that has no reality seeks release from its embodied being and disappears into the Spirit. Sri Aurobindo confers eternity on it and says it is, in spiritual fact, the Eternal. We see Him using the word Jiva and Jivatman when the context explains the limited connotation. In discussing the soul of man HE invariably called it the individual. In other places HE calls it the Central Being.
Q- That is good. Why does HE do so?
A- The Sankhya speaks of one Prakriti and many Purushas. Sri Aurobindo says there are not many Purushas but only one. It is the world Purusha. The world Purusha seen inside is the Supreme, the Transcendent, the Self-conscious Being. It is this Being that is seen in man as his central being. Further, man sees his own ego as his Purusha.
Q- Please explain from the point of view of the tradition.
A- In the tradition mind sees the One either as One or the Many. Mind sees two aspects of the One successively and takes them to be two different entities. It is just like seeing an officer in the office of the police station and seeing the same man on the beach with his family in plain clothes. Both are the same man. Mind is capable of thinking they are two different individuals.
Q- How does this distinction or error affect our yoga or life?
A- When you see different persons as different individuals, it can foster selfishness. ‘Jivatma and Paramatma are one’ has a further consequence that all Jivatmas are one and this facilitates selflessness or even self-giving.
Q- Good will and Self-giving are, then, an easy passage to the Supermind.
A- Yes, it is very true. But here, too, there is something of importance. Mother says all wills are ill-will.
Q- Why?
A- Mind is an instrument of ignorance. It acts through ego. Naturally, mental will is not good will.
Q- Will the third dimension come here?
A- Yes. What we call third dimension is the Supramental plane. Yogically it is called the causal plane. Sri Aurobindo calls the powers of that plane Self-existent.
Q- What is Self-existent?
A- Light is the opposite of darkness. It is a light of the plane where light dwells with darkness.
Q- I have read darkness or shadow needs light, but light does not need shadow.
A- In the higher hemisphere Light is there; there is no darkness. Here light is a force, not the opposite of darkness. That HE calls Self-existent.
Q- In that case, it can be said of love, knowledge, goodness, etc.
A- Yes. The Infinity of the Absolute is thus Self-existent Infinity, though to the Absolute we cannot attribute even so high a quality as infinity.
Q- Having a Self-existent GOOD will is desirable.
A- It is a common saying that we wish everyone well lokakshemam. In practice, it becomes lip service.
Q- Then our traditional ideal is great.
A- It is. Here we raise it to a plane of consciousness that is new to the world, non-existent so far.
Q- What is important is the third dimension.
A- The level of our consciousness is important.
Q- Can there be life examples?
A- In teaching, it is well brought out. Teaching for us is to tell the pupil what we know. The Spirit of teaching is what the child learns on its own.
Q- Does it make such a difference?
A- That is the difference between the genius and an ordinary child.
Q- Genius? You mean to say genius is learning all by oneself?
A- A child that learns by itself will ask non-stop questions to which no one knows the answer.
Q- How can a child ask questions to which the adult knows no answer?
A- An adult knows what he is taught. He is not trained to think.
Q- The child thinks on its own.
A- That opens the mind of the child to the environment.
Q- More than thinking, the mind’s capacity to learn by seeing is great is what you mean.
A- How long does the camera film take to register?
Q- In that case, the child is very fast.
A- The pity is he is learning of the adult environment - the false surroundings.
Q- If we do not impose on the child subtly, you mean he will grow into a genius?
A- Since 1956 it is eminently possible. To save the child from the adult, who is the social environment for the child, is impossible.
Q- Can we not do it by encouraging curiosity?
A- Not to impose yourself on the child is very very great.
Q- It is true of Good will.
A- To wish, rather to let that WISH arise from inside — good will for another — is to be divine.
Q- How does good will get that power?
A- Truth of Sat and knowledge of Chit merging give birth to GOODNESS.
Q- You mean goodness is the knowledge of Truth.
A- So, the secret lies in Truth.
Q- Truth is Sat in objectivity.
A- A child will become a genius if the inner power is evoked.
Q- So a statue becomes god.
A- Exactly, in the statue the priest invokes the hidden power.
Q- In the child, the divine power inherent in him, rather immanent in him emerges.
A- The only culprit is the social environment, the PARENT.
Q- Getting rid of the social consciousness is the thing.
A- Like the fish escaping water. Beyond the social consciousness lies the moral consciousness.
Q- You mean ethical values.
A- Mother calls the conscience an adversary.
Q- Simple GOOD will, when it is raised to the third dimension is that powerful.
A- Anything raised to that dimension is powerful.
Q- How to do it?
A- In life we think, the Rishi concentrates, we consecrate.
Q- I thought consecration is elementary.
A- Have you ever tried it successfully?
Q- A powerful SILENCE descends on me.
A- That is true consecration.
Q- That is more meaningful than all the 70 points of The Life Divine.
A- Is not The Life Divine powerful?
Q- We approach it only mentally.
A- Consecration is spiritual.
Q- Can’t we read The Life Divinespiritually?
A- That would be to read it like Swami Vivekananda. He took a book and then read the first line. At once the entire book entered him.
Q- That is beyond man. Let us go back to the 70 points.
A- Point 44 says to know Reality we need to know Spirit and Nature above and below.
Q- Now we know Nature on the surface, Spirit below. To know both in both the places is to know it totally.
A- A simple analogy will make it clear. We know a man in his office. It is his official personality. When we know him in his house, it is his private personality. Knowing him in both the places is to know him fully.
Q- That helps. Such illustrations help vastly. But, I have a feeling that there is a further dimension.
A- You mean the third dimension?
Q- Maybe yes or maybe not. To bring out the theoretical significance fully in the example will make the understanding perfect.
A- Of course, we tried it in money. It came out very well.
Q- No. 17 says life is amoral. Sri Aurobindo gives this argument in the chapter on ‘Delight of Existence’. He points out that when we judge amoral life by moral standards we confuse ourselves. Delight is not moral, rather it is above moral codes. If we subject Delight to the judgement of moral codes, we do violence to it. When we withdraw from such an attitude, our understanding is no longer warped. Such a free understanding is needed to know the Delight.
A- Do any of us have a question here? If not, let me raise mine.
Q- My question is not directly relevant. I wish to know whether it can be explained to me that the man seeking the objects misses delight.
A- That is the third dimension.
Q- Let me elaborate my question. Bliss is above in Sachchidananda. He says it is transient. It is Matter that gives permanence to Bliss when it expresses through Matter. Expressing through Matter, Bliss becomes Delight. Man misses the Delight seeking the objects. Do not objects carry delight? Why should he miss it?
A- One who aims at a degree misses education.
Q- Does he not receive education to deserve a degree?
A- Of course, he does get something. Maybe a crude analogy will illustrate. Today in
Q- That of course illustrates. He gets a paper and if that paper gets him a job, he will be exposed. If his fraud comes out, he will end up in jail.
A- The example is vulgar but serves the purpose.
Q- I would like to understand through a good example.
A- A child is an object of affection. To look upon a son as a source of income often brings in a daughter-in-law who also looks upon him so and takes him away.
Q- Will not the third dimension come in here?
A- A son is a soul. Our relationship with another soul is to give Love in exchange for Love. That way relationship with a son enhances the level of one’s consciousness. The relationship ceases to be mercenary or even biological and enters into the realm of spirituality.
Q- It is clear, but not tangible.
A- Have you ever given yourself to another?
Q- It never occurred to me.
A- Man’s existence can be delightful. His level of delight is enhanced by the quality of his Self-giving. Self-giving to the Divine is the highest. That is excelled by the Self-giving to the Divine in man.
Q- Can we not come down to earth?
A- Love thy neighbour can be a golden rule.
Q- In
A- Why, the employer was called Aanday, God. Women all over the world had the same social attitude to men as in
Q- Pain - Bliss - Delight are the three dimensions. Selfish smallness gives rise to pain. Spiritual aloofness releases Bliss unrelated to life. Selfless living where the rule of Self-giving is practised transforms pain into Delight.
A- That is clear.
Q- We see two opposite trends in the world. One is every ethnic group demands a state of its own and is ready for war with those who deny it. Another is no democracy goes to war on its own initiative. Can we look at this phenomenon from one of these 70 points or any other writing of Sri Aurobindo?
A- The Life Divine is a document that argues for Freedom, a Freedom after the full scope of imprisonment. The Absolute that is utterly free voluntarily loses its freedom in involution and gains it in evolution. The ethnic minorities cherish their cultural identities. Others enjoy denying them, and would rather crush the minorities. We see wherever the minorities enjoy increasing freedom they enjoy integrating with other sections of the population, which is seen in the democracies shunning war.
Q- How do these two come together?
A- Democracy assures freedom. Freedom loves to expand freely as is evidenced in the European Union. Encourage the free expression and growth of the language, the culture of the minorities, assure them free play, not as a concession but as their right, and their energies will be absorbed in developing their own culture.
Q- The contradiction is not resolved for me.
A- The future of the world is for freedom — political, cultural, racial and all types of freedom. In such a land of freedom, the ethnic groups live in greater amity. The tendency to separation is next to nil. Increasing freedom to the intense vital urges of ethnic description blunts the edge of pugnacity which leads to shunning war. Democracy has arisen as its institutional symbol in politics.
Q- Can we say, then, this corresponds to the theme of Unity in Multiplicity?
A- Yes, that theme, which is the Master’s special emphasis, needs to be understood in greater clarity.
Q- Unity of the Being is static. Multiplicity does not abrogate unity. Unity is the background, multiplicity is to the fore. Unity in multiplicity is not static, but active, rather an active unity based on static security. Unity in multiplicity is a unity of a higher level capable of greater enjoyment functioning in the third dimension.
A- Put in this light, it looks simple.
Q- If the parallel is drawn to ethnicity, things fall in place.
A- Can this be extended to education?
Q- School prepares children to become fit members of the society in one given field. It is a particular efficiency. If brought up in increasing freedom, they can acquire higher efficiency to become fit members of any field.
A- Very much as the IAS officer is fit to preside over any department.
Q- In the IAS they choose the brightest and train.
A- Here, we can train all to be the brightest and give not only administrative training but training in life.
Q- A detailed consideration will be interesting. More so, to see the spiritual principles express there will be an experience of the unusual.
A- I wish to listen to all the aspects concerned.
Q- It is better to carry the parallels as far as possible. Presently administrators are not specially trained, army officers are. A good general education is enough equipment for one to train himself as an able administrator.
A- What is the truth here?
Q- Educated mind, educated in language, history, geography, and scientific thinking will be able to rise to any social occasion. It is true to some extent, not fully. That is why people fit into one area of life.
A- It follows that, if education can be so planned as to include all facets of life, the boy will meet any, or at least most of the situations in life.
Q- The Rishi develops the Spirit, neglecting mind, life and body.
A- Still, the all-inclusive nature of Spirit enables most of these spiritual men - swamis - to have a greater comprehension of life.
Q- Here comes the principle of integral yoga.
A- The urban life is inclusive of multiple expertise in some measure. When spirituality is integral theoretically, it is really all-inclusive. Again, children in affluent houses or houses of people in power, say a high placed official, are bold, not timid, and are able to meet far more new situations effectively.
Q- That is self-evident. I see, what you are suggesting is what these urban children get unconsciously or in an unorganised fashion the school must organise to acquire consciously. That is good. Where do Sri Aurobindo and the 70 points of The Life Divine come?
A- Metropolis, official house offer social experience. What is offered here is Supramental Consciousness.
Q- Let us see what the grades are. Social experience is concrete but social consciousness is superior to social experience, though not as concrete.
A- One is like the pharmacist’s experience in the hospital and the other is like medical education.
Q- The distance is great, but even social consciousness is vital consciousness. Beyond this lie the mental, higher mental, illumined mental, intuitive mental and overmental before one reaches the Supramental consciousness. Obviously one who understands this will find evolving a system for this purpose not so very impossible. Still, my question remains.
A- Life rises by consciousness; consciousness progresses by organisation.
Q- That answers my question. Once the higher consciousness is there and one sets about organising to deliver the intended goal, the rest can be worked out. All these 70 principles will guide us in organising better. But I do not have even one example in my mind.
A- Let us consider a tough principle of the dark and luminous imperative, No. 62 of our list. The easiest is to teach facts. The most difficult is a complex philosophical idea. All these our system is well equipped to teach at the appropriate ages. But that entire range is mental. Vital attitudes we know are not that easy. Beyond lie the physical habits, especially the dark, negative, aggressive, hostile attitudes in kids. Either we must stop with mental education or going down to teach him character, this principle tells us of the infinite patience that is called for.
Q- Please illustrate.
A- Let us take a well known but rigid habit of miserliness. A child that is eminently trained to preside over a billion dollar corporation very early in life, will surely miss that opportunity because of this miserliness. Miserliness is not only in money. It will rise as an incurable rigidity in a hundred places and early in his career he will be marked out as one who is extraordinarily talented but is not fortunate enough to rise.
Q- The school can choose not to handle that characteristic. Or, when it chooses to, it must know that only the teacher who can bring that luminous imperative can handle this dark imperative.
A- It is necessary that that teacher must be generous - the opposite of miserliness - but also infinitely patient to await the response of the child, without urging him in any direction.
Q- You will add the extra requirement that that generosity is not a mere habit - which is physical - or born out of an idealism - which is mental, but out of the inner light of illumination from above.
A- That way we see the scope of work, its arduous nature, and their theoretical reasons. Such an understanding will yield the desired results.
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