The Third Dimension in Yoga

July 21, 2002

 Sri Aurobindo declares Man is under no obligation to accept implicitly the religious revelations of the past, whether it is heaven - hell combined or the karmic burden. Man has a divine future if he chooses, which is not only not inhibited as we know but is elevated to its evolutionary poise form which it is seen as a Marvel. God has created the world for one more JOY for Himself and He has not provided for pain in his scheme of things. The utter Freedom that is the basis of such a creation offers man the possibility to choose even the opposite of Joy, which God does not interfere with. Man is free to come back to the play of evolutionary JOY he has not known.  We know life and soul which in yogic language are Becoming and Being. Sri Aurobindo speaks of a third poise - Being of the Becoming. Becoming is life that alternates between pain and pleasure; Being is away from both and rises to Bliss that is static. He says the static bliss of Sachchidananda tries to express itself in the objects of creation to attain permanency and elevate itself to active Delight. Throughout the Book of three parts and 56 chapters He expresses this theme differently as HE explains the basis of His yoga. I have called it the third dimension of yoga which has nothing to do with third dimension of depth in geometry.

• 1) Contradictions belong to life. Mastery belongs to strong life. They can be compromised or reconciled. But when they discover they are really complements serving a higher order, they enter this third dimension of Sri Aurobindo.
• 2) Matter and Spirit belong to life below and heaven above. Their reconciliation in the cosmic consciousness followed by a higher reconciliation that is integration, Matter becomes the Being, really the Being of the Becoming.
• 3) The animal is subconscient. The Spirit is Superconscient while man is conscient. Now we are unconscious. By becoming conscious, we can see the subconscient ant the Superconscient are only two halves of the ONE conscient that we are.
• 4) Man is the individual while there is the universal. Each exists in its own domain. Moving away from where we are to the Being of the Becoming or the Simultaneous integrality of Time-eternity as well as Timeless-eternity (the third dimension of Time) we see the individual fulfils in the universe and the universe fulfills itself in the individual that is in us as the Transcendent.
• 5) We are the ego, but truly we are not this limited ego subject to pain and death. When the Rishi rises above, he knows we are not the ego but Sachchidananda. To the new vision offered to us by Him, we are Sachchidananda acquiring the outer garb of ego which we are free to shed.
• 6) We function through the intellect. The Rishi sees with intuition. Sri Aurobindo's further step is integral experience that knows the Force (Chit) as a power of Being (Sat). Integral experience is to become the thing itself. To know about the powers of a Minister as a citizen is comparable to the intellect. To be his brother or his personal assistant to see his powers in action is intuition. Integral experience is comparable to our becoming the Minister ourselves.
• 7) The three dimensions can be considered in many ways as,

Our life is force separated from consciousness; Life guided by Mind is mentally conscious life; the third term is Life where Force rejoins consciousness in Supermind.