(Table of Contents)

Chapter 23 - Man and the Evolution

· Spiritual evolution
§ Spiritual evolution is an evolution of consciousness in matter.
§ It is concealed at first, and only reveals itself slowly, in rudimentary forms.
§ The material inconscient nature exerts a downward pull, a retardation, limitation.
§ Next product of evolution will be the fully conscious supramental being.
§ It has a double process: outward forms, and inward soul evolution.
· Challenges to this theory of spiritual evolution
§ Even admitting the eternal, grades of consciousness, spiritual evolution of the individual might not be inevitable.
§ Each thing could be divine in itself, in no need of change; the divine has nothing to gain.
§ Each type has a pattern; does not follow that it will evolve to supermind.
§ Lower half of creation may remain the same, with human as the summit.
· Science and evolution
§ Does affirm evolution, but only physically.
§ Hereditary process is conservative, and types vary within a pattern.
§ No proof that each type evolved into the next; all that can be said is that each type (life, animal, etc.) came into being.
· Variety of types
§ Why then all the different types?
§ Could be many processes or patterns of the consciousness-force.
§ Humanity is one type, the most complex, but perhaps we cannot go outside the type.
§ Perfection then would be within the type, not beyond it.
§ And if supramental were intended, it would be a different type.
§ Animals do not show evidence of evolving beyond themselves now.
§ Humanity itself does not appear to be advancing through history.
§ Rebirth may be just transmigration, not for progressive evolution.
· Answers to the challenges
§ Although some propositions are valid, the above is not conclusive.
§ Materialist and metaphysical arguments.
§ Materialist assumes all is the work of inconscient energy.
§ But there does seem to be an urge of necessity in the inconscient; not irrational to admit a teleological element.
§ Metaphysical sees no purpose in a universal totality.
§ But the material world is not an integral totality.
§ The teleology proposes the realization of the totality in the part; the purpose is the perfect manifestation of all possibilities.
· Spiritual evolution versus physical form evolution
§ The two are not identical.
§ The theory or machinery of forms is secondary, whereas the successive creation is primary.
§ The gradation from life, animal, human is self-evident.
§ Idea of human as a later creation has precedents in Upanishad, Puranas, Tantra.
· Status of the human in evolution
§ Either human suddenly appeared, or evolved from animal.
§ For the latter, would just need the evolution of the necessary physical organization to support the new faculties of consciousness.
§ The mental, once emerged, would then develop, even if small and crude in the beginning.
§ A sudden appearance poses problems, and most ways of explaining it imply an evolutionary process, even if pre-existent or other planes are involved.
· Types and progress
§ Each type has a law, but the law of the human may be towards self-exceeding.
§ Human progress is real: there has been an increasing subtlety, complexity, etc. in life, science, society.
§ Falls happen, but they are temporary or limited.
§ Probable that a few especially evolved individuals would progress before the mass; the human type would need to be preserved as a grade, transition point.
§ Change of consciousness will be the chief factor.
· Change of form versus consciousness
§ Appearance of human mind marks the step where there is a will to grow, widen.
§ Previously, the push in evolution had been in the physical form, to aid growth in consciousness.
§ In human, this is reversed, and change of body is no longer needed.
§ Possible that we will be able to aid nature in our own spiritual and physical evolution, just as we have with plants and animals.
§ Emergence of the psychic element will demand a more divine existence.
§ Not conclusive that such a transformation can only take place in a heaven beyond; this would only be true if ignorance were the entire meaning of the world.
§ Spiritual urge till now has been mainly other-worldly, but aspiration for spiritual mastery has also been there.
§ If evolution of consciousness is the hidden truth, then human cannot be the last term.

Chapter 24 - The Evolution of the Spiritual Man

Spiritual first emerges in common activities, through the mind or emotions. Has been through religion, occultism, spiritual thought, and finally realization. Spiritual realization so far has not been transformative, but still it is to prepare the being. Though the lines are general, there must be a great variety.

· What is the process?
§ Earliest stages of evolution show life, mind, but the possibility of spirit emerging would still seem impossible.
§ At each point there are hints of the next step.
§ Central questions: what is the exact nature of the transition from mental to spiritual person, and what is the process of the evolution of the spiritual out of the mental?
§ We need to know the clear distinction between the mental and the spiritual.
§ Might seem that spirit is only an activity of mind, but this would be superficially looking at the process, not what lies behind.
§ Necessary first to posit the spirit as something distinct from the mental being.
· Emergence of the spiritual
§ Soul at first seems to be mental or emotional activities.
§ But a decisive emergence can happen, where in inner silence the being sees itself as spirit in mind.
§ This is discovery of the self, and often taken as sufficient.
§ Sign of this emergence is status/action of an inherent, self-existent consciousness.
§ At first it may confine itself to observation, knowledge, seeing, and not action.
§ But it can develop higher states, and bring them down to act and transform the current instruments.
· Spirit versus effects
§ Emergence is first a mixture and not self-evident; mental aspiration, vital enthusiasm can be mistaken for spirituality.
§ But spirituality is not these things, nor idealism, ethical turn, austerity, nor religiosity.
§ It is an awakening to the inner reality of the being, to spirit, self other than mind, life, body.
· Double evolution
§ Evolution of our outward nature, and of our inner being.
§ For a long time, the outward nature (including mind) must be nature's preoccupation.
§ Emergence has to wait at each step for the instruments to be ready.
§ There is always a downward gravitation and mixture, temptation to deviation.
§ Which brings the compelling reason for asceticism, other-worldliness.
§ Even though end can only be a complete spiritual victory, the first and sole object for a spiritual person must be contact with the spiritual reality.
· Means for spiritual evolution
§ Four: Religion, occultism, spiritual thought, and inner realization.
§ All have been connected and simultaneous, with elements of each in all.
§ Each corresponds to something in our total being.
§ We must know our inner workings, which is the field of occultism.
§ We must know the hidden powers and spirit in the world, which is religion.
§ We must be able to accept and correlate with the thinking mind, which is spiritual thought.
§ We must have direct experience, established, which is inner realization.
· Process of evolution
§ Through urges/tendencies, small beginnings, formations, then decisive emergence.
· Religion
§ First beginnings must be crude and imperfect, even disastrous, with dogmatism, intolerance, narrowness, fanaticism.
§ Claim to divine authority is excessive and premature.
§ Faith is indispensable, but cannot be imposed.
§ Real business of religion is to prepare for the spiritual consciousness, to bring us to the point where the inner spiritual light begins to emerge.
§ Truth should not be rejected because of errors, rather errors have to be eliminated.
· First awakening to spiritual consciousness
§ Vague sense of the infinite and invisible surrounding the physical being.
§ Need to determine how to control these; intuitions were first used.
§ These were systematized into religion.
§ Which created magic and early forms of occultism.
§ Later began religio-ethical forms; at first it is an amalgam of intuitions, ritual, ethics, mystical experience, mythical symbols.
· Evolution of religion
§ Growing force of reason and intelligence diminishes the occult elements.
§ Creed, practice, and ethics take more importance, and even experience dwindles.
§ Can end in a complete intellectual denial of religion, occultism.
§ In our time, there is a return to inner self-discovery.
· Stages of religion
§ 1) Primitive persons live in a low vital province, corresponding to a like occult plane.
§ 2) Followed by polytheistic belief and mythology.
§ Main factors are worship of divine powers; sacrifice; surface piety; social ethics.
§ Core are the religious symbols.
§ 3) System of knowledge, creed, spiritual discipline.
§ Here we see dynamic expansion and concentrated evolution.
§ To be generalized, the spiritual aspiration loses its purity, height, intensity, and is clothed in intellectual forms of creed or emotional forms of ritual and worship.
§ Further led to the appeal to the many-sidedness (catholic), the other to simple belief and worship (protestant).
· Greater synthesis of religion
§ In India, allowed all developments, all ways of communion.
§ Has produced a durability, generality, universality, subtlety, and wideness.
§ Most in consonance with the method of Nature herself.
· Occultism
§ Attempts mastery of mind/life over matter, communication with worlds and entities, and possession of knowledge of higher grades of cosmic being.
§ Hypnotism is an example.
§ Occultism receded as science took over; also because in the west it never reached maturity.
§ Associated in popular mind with magic, formulae, mechanism.
§ An overstress on formulation leads to error, convention, misuse, and failure.
§ Most important is the discovery of hidden truths and powers.
· Intellectual approach
§ Indispensable to form a reasoned and systematized idea of the goal.
§ Intellect cannot by itself bring us into touch with the reality, but it can help.
§ Mind concerned mainly with statement of general spiritual truth and logic.
§ But also seeks to exercise a critical control, determine what is significant.
§ Means is philosophy, first intuitive, later critical or intellectual.
§ Not entirely indispensable, and can be hampering, but the line of development is necessary, because there must be a bridge between spirit and reason.
· Spiritual experience
§ This is when the real work is done, and the turning point reached.
§ Gives the saint, prophet, rishi, yogi, seer, mystic.
§ At first tentative, small; spiritualizes or influences our natural activities, and produces the person who lives in the spiritual mind, or heart, or moved by psychic.
§ Largest formulation is the total liberation of mind, heart, action.
· Spiritual achievement so far in the human
§ Material mind says that the spiritual tendency has come to very little, because it has not solved any of life's problems.
§ But its real work is to create a new foundation of our being, through an inner change.
§ If not transformative, has been because impulse has always been deflected into other directions such as political or social.
§ Tendency has been to look beyond life, and more individual than collective.
§ Premature attempts for collective vitiated by incompleteness of knowledge, or by imperfection, vital and physical consciousness.
§ Objection to the mystic is that it is subjective, and not a truth common to all.
§ But the truth of the spirit is truth of being, not of thought.
§ It is one and follows the same general lines, but has numberless possibilities.

Chapter 25 - The Triple Transformation

The first transformation comes by the emergence of the psychic being, which uses and then purifies our current instruments through the contact with the divine. It results in a guidance, and a free inflow of all kinds of spiritual experience. The second transformation is the descent from and ascent to the infinity and eternal spiritual consciousness above. The higher ranges of mind begin to form, but its work is still hampered by the disabilities of the lower consciousness. These are preparatory to the supramental transformation.

· Transformation, not departure
§ We have supposed that the intention of the being is not only revelation of the spirit, but integral transformation of the nature.
§ The spiritual person has evolved, but not the supramental being.
§ So far, the principle of spirituality has been a power for the mental being to escape.
§ And instrumentation has been purely an individual achievement, not a normal type.
§ Triple transformation necessary: conversion of our nature into soul-instrumentation (psychic); descent of higher consciousness (spiritual); transformation of the entire nature (supramental).
· Psychic element
§ Psychic element in us is fundamentally the same, ever-pure, intimately aware of truth, good, beauty; but veiled.
§ It is covered over by mind, vital ego - at first it supports the natural evolution of body, life, mind.
§ So in the early stages, psychic activities are vital, physical, or mental. There is no consciousness of soul.
· Psychic being
§ This soul-personality slowly develops, and shows as a sensitivity for the good, true, beautiful.
§ But it is mixed with ideas, desires, physical tendencies, into idealism, fervour, thrill.
§ The composite is often taken for the soul.
§ May remain weak and undeveloped, and may be separated from its inner reality by the obscurity of our consciousness.
· Elements mistaken for the psyche
§ Sub-physical or vital formation of personality (ghost).
§ Parts of the inner mind or vital, or the vital or mental self, purusha.
§ Aggregate or amalgam of these is heterogenous, not harmonious.
§ We are in our manifestation of self a multiperson, whose coordination is incomplete.
· Different selves and stages of human personality
§ If physical purusha dominates, there is the physical person preoccupied with body, habitual needs.
§ Can arrive at the idea of a finer, more perfect physical life.
§ If vital being, there is the person concerned with power, excitement, adventure, struggle.
§ With the support of the mind, can impose on nature and the environment.
§ If mind, then mental ideas, etc dominate.
§ But harder to harmonize because body and life are strong and impose themselves.
§ Mind is often impotent before the inconscient/subconscient, and it cannot integrate the nature.
§ So at best get an unstable equilibrium.
· Soul's emergence
§ First condition is a direct contact in the surface being with the inner reality.
§ At first sought through outer signs, representations, which have their value.
§ Thinking mind at its highest drawn towards the impersonal.
§ Higher endeavor of the mind leads to the formless and featureless, where it loses its hold on forms.
§ Spiritualized consciousness is achieved, soul merges into silence, but not transformation.
§ Heart acts through emotions, devotion, with a force of concrete experience.
§ Consecration of the will eliminates the ego and desire.
· Shift to the inner
§ For the change to reach its widest, center must shift from the surface to the inner.
§ To do this, the outer must become quiet, purified, of a finer substance.
§ Can also be done by a strong call or vehement will.
§ But this can be dangerous, bring a chaos of supernormal experiences, and if there is egoism or other weakness, the person can be seized and misled.
§ Dangers only surmounted by a complete sincerity, will for purity, surrender.
· Separation of the purusha
§ Facilitates the entry into the inner self.
§ Brings liberation, but not necessarily transformation - for that, must reach the psychic.
§ Most central way is surrender to the divine being.
· Coming forward of psychic being
§ Guidance begins, with every movement exposed to the light of truth.
§ Purification in this light can be fast or slow, depending on the resistance still left in the nature.
§ Second result is a free inflow of all kinds of spiritual experience, as a result of the opening outward of the inmost being.
§ These can come before, by the inner vital and mental, but then they are open to ignorance, and can lead to a magnified ego or the titanic or demonic.
§ All of this is still limited to the instruments of body, mind, life, a reflection of things whose full reality is above.
· Conditions for spiritual transformation
§ Psychic change prepares this, by opening to the cosmic and by thinning the wall of separating mind.
§ It is an opening upward to the ranges where instrumentation of the self is unveiled and permanent.
§ Can also come before the psychic is much advanced.
· Spiritual opening
§ Either an ascent or a descent.
§ Infinity, boundless ecstasy, light, power may be felt or seen.
§ May feel an infinite ascension but no memory on return.
§ Ascent often takes place in trance, but can occur in the waking consciousness.
· Permanent descent and ascent
§ Waves or currents that penetrate and touch the lower being.
§ New consciousness begins to form, a higher mind (illumined, intuitive, overmental).
§ Ends in the consciousness fixing itself on the higher plane, and from there progressively remoulds the mind, then the life, then the physical consciousness.
§ Brings the abiding spiritual sense of the infinite and eternal.
· Preparation of the nature
§ Nature requires that every part, with its past moulds, be transmuted.
§ The higher consciousness often comes but withdraws or works behind the veil, because the being is impure.
§ Seizing on the powers or result can cause disastrous errors, and the power may have to work behind the veil for long periods, or the work stop for a single life.
§ And because the force has to descend and work at each lower level, there is a modification and diminution, a hampering of the effect.
§ These are the same disabilities that nature encounters in the emergence of consciousness from matter.
§ Only the supermind can descend without losing its full power - all the steps before are transitional and require the supermind to complete them.

Chapter 26 - The Ascent towards Supermind

Inner awareness and a breaking down of the barrier between inner and outer are the first conditions of this transition. The psychic and spiritual transformations are crucial and prepare the being. The four main stages are higher, illumined, intuitive, and overmind. Each has its own substance, power. The actuality is more complex, owing to the necessity of integration, gradations, interpenetration of degrees, and the necessity to transform the outer, dynamic side of our nature.

· Limitations of conceiving of supramental
§ Not yet mapped in its completeness.
§ Only has a meaning to our intelligence when we have had some experience of the higher consciousness.
§ Only abstract generalizations or initial representations can be given.
§ But one helpful element is that the process or logic of evolutionary nature continues, even if modified, which allows us to follow the lines.
· Transition to supermind
§ Past ascensions have acted through the ignorance, but supermind has no organized formations in our subliminal.
§ So descent and formulation in our being of its powers is a sine qua non of the transition.
§ Conceivably could occur by a long evolution, but this might only result in a superior mentalisation.
§ For real transformation, needs a direct intervention from above, and a complete surrender of the lower consciousness.
· Inner awareness is first condition
§ We need to become inwardly aware of our own deeper law and processes.
§ Which includes an increasing control.
§ Intelligence has will and choice, but is limited.
§ Should have an intuition that enters the heart of things, by direct contact.
· Action of intuitive intelligence
§ Can penetrate and modify, but not abolish the ignorance.
§ Would enlarge the individual to an extended vision of the workings of the conscious force
§ And bring a greater power of choice and free will, through the inner psychic or mental being.
· Free will versus mechanical determination
§ Generally thought of as independent, isolated action, but we can rise out of subjection only by identification with a greater truth and nature.
§ When the will becomes an instrumentation of a higher power, it becomes free from mechanical determinism.
§ Individual force, will becomes a formation or center of the universal will, shakti - and thereby more effective.
· Opening, surrender to supernature: first conditions
§ This opening to the action of supernature is a condition of the supramental transformation.
§ Must be the consent of the prakriti, the parts of our being, in addition to the purusha, spirit.
§ But each part tends to remain obstinate in its habits or reactions.
§ So the second condition for the transformation is the conscious surrender of the whole being to the higher truth.
§ Which means that the psychic and spiritual transformations must be far advanced before the supramental can begin.
§ Only when the psychic and spiritual are fully emerged, can the mind, vital, physical give up their grooves.
· Breaking down the wall between inner and outer: third condition
§ Supreme cannot establish itself in our surface consciousness.
§ All the chakras must be open, and the psychic be in full control.
§ Must be conscious of the higher light, ananda, power, knowledge, otherwise the highest light will not descend.
· Gradations
§ Spiritual evolution obeys the logic of a successive unfolding, which follows steps even if it is rapid.
§ Thus the evolution of life, mind, spirit have their own times, but are successive.
§ Even in this last transition, gradations, degrees, successive levels are necessary.
§ The first movements can take place by an invisible action from the psychic, and a consciously felt descent is not indispensable.
§ Similarly there can be an occult descent from above, with the source unknown.
· Demand for integration
§ The demand for integration, an imposing of the higher on the lower becomes more important with this transformation.
§ With mind, considerable parts remain subconscient or inconscient, and even the spiritual light using the mind uses an inferior means.
§ The lower parts cling to their own self-law, dharma, even though inferior.
· Inner and psychic opening crucial
§ These liberate a larger, finer awareness able to communicate with the universal.
§ The fundamental inconscience can be penetrated and lessened.
§ With the psychic, the higher mind and overmind can fully intervene.
§ With the greater results of the spiritual (silence, cosmic, nirvana, higher force), the spiritual turns to the supramental.
· Four main stages: higher, illumined, intuitive, overmind
§ All are gnostic in principle and power, and are grades of the energy-substance of the spirit.
§ All are domains of being, grades of substance, fields of existence.
§ The descent of each affects our entire being, and is a general conversion.
§ With each ascent, the substance is finer but stronger, more luminous, more ecstatic.
§ When they descend, they change and repair what is below; this can happen because all is fundamentally the same substance, but in different degrees.
· Higher mind
§ First decisive step out of human intelligence.
§ Basic substance is a unitarian sense of being.
§ Dominated by thought, a luminous thought-mind, conceiving by self-power of the Idea.
§ Characteristic movement is a mass ideation, totality of truth-seeing at a single view, where relations of idea with idea pre-exist.
§ Also works through the will, on the rest of the being, through the power of idea.
· Power of resistance of existing forms
§ When the higher forces descend, they meet the resistance of matter, as well as the resistance of established forms (mental, vital, physical) in our nature.
§ This may amount to a refusal or a perverse deformation of the higher light.
§ Evolutionary nature has given this right of persistence to forms, to bring steadiness into her steps.
§ The resistance is more intense the lower we go (life, body, inconscient), because the substance is less conscious.
§ The power for quietude, silence, or a controlled passivity of the nature is necessary to allow entry of the higher light.
§ An established psychic control also creates a general responsiveness, or a preliminary spiritual transformation.
· Illumined mind
§ Basic substance is of spiritual light.
§ Has an intense lustre, a play of lightnings, a fiery ardour and rapturous ecstasy, a luminous inner force and power.
§ Works primarily by vision, and thought is a secondary and even dispensable process.
§ The origin of thought itself is a cognitive seizing; in the spiritual light there is a deeper perceptive response from the substance of consciousness, an exact revelatory ideograph.
§ Brings a more powerful integration and spiritual light into the mind, heart, vital, sense.
· Intuitive mind
§ This is the source of the thought or sight of the previous two.
§ Is the result of a penetrating and revealing touch with the consciousness in the object.
§ The human mind has such an intuition, but there are also seeming intuitions that are really pseudo-intuitions, communications, often from the vital.
§ Because of their uncertain character, we are disposed to use the reason to judge them - but this renders their authority only that of the reason, not direct certitude.
§ On its own level its rays are entirely veridical; they are a mass of stable lightnings.
§ When it descends, the reason can only act as an observer or register; to verify an isolated intuition, another completing intuition is called for.
§ Has a four-fold power of truth-seeing, -hearing, -touch, and -discrimination, so it can perform all the action of reason.
· Overmind
§ A power of cosmic or global consciousness; a high individual opening is not sufficient.
§ To reach it, the inner being must have replaced the surface, and the ego-sense be entirely subordinated in the perception of a universal self and movement.
§ Thought, emotions all manifest from above or in cosmic waves, not from the individual.
§ Many formulations: uncentered diffusion; universe in oneself; identification with all beings; all beings in oneself; passive or dynamic free play; governance of the Ishwara; impersonal but individual center.
§ Varieties are innumerable; may have an organic, cosmic structure that stretches into the infinite.
§ All spiritual experiences become habitual, normal, more substantial, global, catholic.
· Limits of overmind
§ Is a power of the lower hemisphere, an action of division, and a play of possibilities.
§ Cannot lead mind beyond itself, and cannot dynamise the transcendence.
§ Can transform the conscious being, but cannot transform the inconscience.
§ Each formulation is independent, separate; it does not have the supreme power of unity.
§ The pull of the inconscient to dissolve all formations would still be there.
· Schematic map versus intermediate degrees and complexity
§ This map is correct in so far that integration of one has to be secure before ascent to the next.
§ But nature is a totality, interpenetrating, and each ascent/descent qualifies what it touches.
§ So there is not actually a simple series, but a comprehensive complexity of movement, the evolution of the whole consciousness, a tide or mounting flux.
§ At each stage, the higher may be provisional while the lower is in formation of the new change.
· Consequences of the complexity
§ 1) New powers emerge when the former is sufficiently organized, but do not wait for the former to be complete.
Happens because each descending power makes the being capable of a still higher invasion, and also because transformation is aided by each higher power.
§ 2) Need of integration requires that each descending power work first in the mind, then vital, then physical.
And each of these has a mixed nature, partly the old and partly the new.
So the higher power will descend into the vital before the transformation of the mind is complete, in order to assist the mind, and so on.
§ 3) Consciousness can live in more than one status at a time.
Especially true of the split between inner and outer - the inner is often sufficiently transformed but the outer lags.
This disparity repeats itself at every step, which requires a constantly repeated labor of assumption, adaptation, orientation.
· Subjective/indwelling spirituality versus an objectivized, dynamic spirituality
§ The latter can only happen through receiving influences through the circumconscient.
§ The circumconscient must become steeped in the spiritual substance, but this is a difficult perfection.
§ Essential difficulty is that our normal substance is moulded from the inconscience.
§ This nescience can invade or swallow up into its darkness all that enters it, or at least limit its truth and force.
§ Because of this, a full action of any new law of the being is difficult.
§ Only the supermind can entirely overcome the law of death, darkness, inertia with which the nescience meets all the spiritual light.
· Supramental established in the terrestrial whole
§ Individual change will have permanent significance only when the supramental is established in the workings of nature.
§ Then the intervening powers of overmind, etc. would be established on their own basis, and a hierarchy of states would rise from mind, and other degrees above mind would be accessible.

Chapter 27 - The Gnostic Being

The emergence of the gnostic being will be gradual, and it will be continue to evolve, with a great diversity. It will be the consummation of the spiritual life, always having the experience of the divine, acting from the divine will, in perfect harmony with all forces and beings. Discovery (mind), growth (life), and the body will continue, but based on a divine identity. The person will not be a fixed set of qualities, but rather an index of the infinite behind. Standards of conduct will not be necessary, because the gnostic will automatically obey the inherent law in each instance.

· Difficulty of describing the supermind
§ Having a clear idea is almost impossible, because it crosses a line where mental forms are no longer sufficient, even goes beyond mental cognition.
§ The supramental sees from a basis of oneness, unity, whereas the mind starts from division.
§ And acts from the inherent reality of each thing, whereas the mind starts from rule or device.
§ But differences could be used to at least describe the transition, or first status.
· Transition
§ Will be gradual unfolding or forming of the supramental being here, not a sudden descent.
§ It will be a progressive revelation, moving in the power of the truth-consciousness.
§ A race of gnostic beings will be established, which will follow the pattern of an inflow from above and a taking up of what is below.
§ But the veil between inner and outer must have already broken down.
· Effect on the rest of evolution
§ Will establish a hierarchy of ascending degrees of the gnostic light.
§ A stress of harmony, intuition, inner response would affect the whole evolution.
§ Inevitable, because supermind is always an integralizing and harmonizing influence.
§ The overmind could create knowledge separate from the surrounding ignorance, but the supermind would create a harmonic unity with the still surviving mental world.
· Diversity
§ Because the law of the supermind is unity fulfilled in diversity, there would be an infinite diversity in the manifestation of the gnostic consciousness.
§ Each would be unique, but one with all the rest in essence and sense of oneness.
· Consummation of the spiritual person
§ Whole way of thinking, acting would be governed by the power of a vast universal spirituality.
§ Transcendent self, universal self, world mother, purusha within, divinity in all movements and beings would be felt always.
§ No bondage to inferior forces, but the individual life and all life would be like a perfect work of art, the working out of a multitudinous order.
· Perfection of the individual
§ Each being would be a new totality, self-equation of the One.
§ The will, knowledge, action of the individual would be the expression in diversity of the One.
§ It would be a perfect self-expression and mastery.
· Relation to the cosmos
§ The gnostic being would act in the cosmic consciousness, aware of the cosmic forces.
§ So there would not be the disharmony that results from our conflict with the world, its reactions upon our outer being and inner life, our inability to harmonize with it.
§ In the mental being even the pressure of the cosmic consciousness or awareness of the transcendent might not bring this about, but the supramental has the truth of this relation in itself, since both individual and universe are interrelated expressions of the same Being.
· Delight (ananda)
§ Would be the play of the joy of the spirit.
§ One in self with all, the gnostic being would seek the delight of self-manifestation in all, and will be a power for bringing that bliss.
§ For this, will not need to efface oneself, nor will there be a contradiction between the good of oneself and of others.
§ Nor a need to participate through sympathy with lesser joy and suffering.
· Action in the world
§ Its action has the knowledge, the power to effectuate, and each action is in unison with a luminous totality.
§ The whole sense of an integral being and bliss will be in each action.
§ Will consummate the movement in us of moulding the outer life by the inner.
§ Normally the spiritual person lives within, and must guard the inner life from forces of the ignorance; but the gnostic being will cure this antimony between the inner and the outer.
§ The peace of god within will become dynamic, the inner oneness will enter all actions.
§ Will be in contact with all beings through a concrete extension of cosmic consciousness; action on the world will be largely inner, through the power of the spirit, with the outer only a fringe.
§ Will also have a full power in the mental and vital planes, and can use them for the perfection of the physical existence.
· Evolution of the gnostic being
§ Unlike on the supramental plane itself, the gnostic being would be an evolving consciousness.
§ In the ignorance we are here to grow, to know, and to get something done, but we do not know what to do or what to become.
§ The spiritual person lives within, and so will the gnostic; but the gnostic starts from that basis and turns it into a luminous becoming in the knowledge, and a realized power of being.
· Knowledge and discovery
§ For thinking mind the joy of existence is in discovery.
§ The gnostic will fulfill that, but by a bringing out of the known, a finding of the self by the self in the self, in endless forms and ways.
§ This will proceed by identification with all, bringing a leap of self-discovery.
§ Intellectual seeking will be replaced by an integrated movement of the knower, knowledge, and thing , and it will know the thing as part of itself with a direct internal knowledge.
· Life
§ Life seeks for possession, growth, mastery, enjoyment, expression, action.
§ The gnostic being will act for an increasing possession of the individual and the world by the divine presence, light, power.
§ The satisfaction of manifestation, love, joy will be for the manifestation of the divine, meeting the divine in the world, joy of identity.
· Relationship with the body
§ Currently the body limits and determines self-expression, and has a subconscient law and movement.
§ The gnostic being will complete the change already started in the intuitive and overmind being of control over the body; the subconscient will have become conscious and transformed into a supporting superconscience.
§ This will reverse the necessary separation from body consciousness that is required for the spiritual life.
§ Matter will be seen as the Brahman, bringing a certain reverence in all dealings with matter.
§ Can establish what the body naturally wants, which is duration, health, strength, liberation from suffering, ease.
§ Will liberate the obscured and spoiled intuitive instincts in the body, and flood the whole being with a supreme energy of consciousness-force.
· Pain and ananda
§ Pain is the result of the inability of the limited being to meet the shocks of the world.
§ Growth in consciousness usually brings more sensitivity, because it is not accompanied by a growth in force.
§ But the power of the spirit over its instruments can be developed, leading to peace, willed insensibility, or even a change of the vibrations of pain to ananda.
§ The gnostic completes this reversal and gives the body a power for total delight.
· Evolution of the being of bliss
§ The demand for delight is in all our parts, but first sought through external means.
§ Ananda is the essence of the Brahman, the matrix from which consciousness comes.
§ The evolution of the gnostic being would be followed by an evolution of the being of bliss.
§ In the gnostic being, peace and ecstasy cease to be different, and become one.
§ Even before the gnostic change there can be delight in the mind, the heart, the will, the body's perceptions.
· Problem of personality and ethics
§ In the ordinary conception, if the person disappears in the impersonal or universal, there is no longer any question of personality, responsibility, or ethics.
§ But in the supermind, personality and impersonality are inseparable, not opposites.
§ The pure substance or force is impersonal, whereas the expression is what we call the personality.
§ The gnostic being repeats the mystery of the divine being - at the same time absolute, universal, and individual.
· Gnostic individual or person
§ In all persons there is the double element of a fixed set of qualities, and the unformed but limited flux of nature out of which those qualities are formed.
§ In the gnostic being, the self-expression would no longer be described by fixed qualities.
§ The gnostic would also have a third element, the Person, Self, Soul both in the depths and the surface.
§ This can be distinctively felt as a power, a potency, a sea of energy, a Someone.
§ The individual manifestation may be distinct or protean, but in either case harmonious, and only an index of the infinite that could be felt behind.
· Question of ethics, good and evil
§ Sin and evil are essentially a wrong dealing with oneself or others.
§ The gnostic being manifests the essential truth, good, love; these are not constructed laws but part of the essence, consciousness; all becomes a self-flow of self-nature.
§ There is no struggle to observe constructed laws, no sin or virtue.
§ The nature of the gnostic being is the conscious process of a reality, in full possession of its own truth, itself a fulfillment of all true laws.
· Individual will, conflict, standards
§ The all-will of the divine is one in each gnostic individual and in many gnostic individuals; they are conscious of the same will, self, energy in all.
§ This assures a symphonic movement of unity, harmony, mutuality, an entire accord between free self-expression and obedience to the inherent law of the supreme.
§ Because there is no separate individuality, there is no conflict with the world or other beings.
§ So there is no need of rigid standards, which the mind uses because it is limited in vision.
§ The gnostic is bound only by the truth of the whole and the object, not a fixed mental symbol; it would have the self-evolving plasticity of the infinite acting upon its own finites.
· Individuality and cosmicity, law and dharma
§ The gnostic individual creates a self-manifestation, but as a center of the universal and a center of the transcendence.
§ This would cure the antimony of the purusha and the prakriti; the individual nature being an outflowing of supernature, there would be an authentic, automatic, and plastic order.
§ We start from the automatic laws of infrarational nature, and then impose standards of thought and life.
§ The ideal of the spiritual life is freedom, however; "abandon all dharmas."
§ Though it is possible to pass through a stage where there is inner freedom but a lack of outer order, to the gnostic, freedom and order are fundamentally one, because they both arise from an identity.
§ The freedom of the gnostic is not license; that would be alien to the being, a restriction and not a liberation.
§ The absence of a constructed law would not lead to chaos, conflict, or disorder, because the gnostic is self-possessed of a truth universal, inherent, and all actions spring from that.
· Ego, super-ego, will
§ In mental nature there can be conflict between self-effort and obedience to a higher will.
§ But in the gnostic, these two springs of action would be the same.
§ The gnostic would see the truth of forces and put forth what was willed to be done, without the play of a separative ego.
§ The freedom of the gnostic is founded upon the unity of the will with the eternal will.
§ Universal love, sympathy, oneness would penetrate each action, not stand in opposition to other impulses - there would be no conflict between the powers of the nature.
· Instrumentation of lower gnostic grades
§ Higher, illumined, intuitive, overmind would each have an instrumentation of a different order.
§ Thought, vision, direct contact, comprehensive grasp would be the action of these.
§ In the true gnosis the basis is identity, but the play of these (thought, etc.) would still be present.
§ The knowledge of gnosis is the instrumentation of an operative consciousness of being.
· Diversity in the gnostic manifestation
§ In the gnostic evolution there would be a great diversity in operation, poise, status.
§ It may put forth a partial frontal self-expression and hold the rest behind.
§ This limitation would be an act of self-knowledge.
· Gnostic collectivity
§ Would have the same integration of life and action, realized unity, freedom and order.
§ Mental idea of oneness is sameness, but gnostic oneness would have a richness, a complementary plenitude.
§ The mind learns with difficulty another's nature, whereas in the gnostic, there would be a naturally dynamic, spontaneous unity.
· Relation to the continued world of the ignorance
§ Lower manifestation would continue.
§ The higher spiritual mental would draw light and energy from the gnostic, and all that rose into the higher, illumined, etc. would undergo a transmutation.
§ Involved power of the gnosis would lay something of its harmony on the inconscience.
§ And the untransformed part of humanity might evolve a greater order of mental beings.
§ It is unlikely that the evolution from the inconscience would cease, since it is so pervasive, but a first result might be the subjection of the evolution to the law of harmony, of unity, and no longer an evolution in strife.

Chapter 28 - The Divine Life

Consciousness and life are the keywords of evolution, but they are still imperfect. The foundation of the spiritual and divine life must be an inner growth; the outer is then transformed by that inner reality. A gnostic collectivity is held together by the same principle of oneness, mutuality, harmony as the gnostic individual. The supernature that we have to evolve includes new powers of consciousness, which are natural to it. The perfection of society comes by the perfection of the individuals within it. The gnostic collectivity will harmonize with the life of the ignorance around it, and will be the unfolding of a constant, creative miracle, not a monotone.

· Consciousness and life
§ Consciousness and life are the keywords to what is being worked out in time, but both are unfinished.
§ The essence of consciousness is to be aware of itself and its objects; the perfect state of this is beyond the mind.
§ That totally self-aware consciousness we have called supermind or gnosis, and we must be becomings of that being.
§ Life is the effective power of being in matter, but it is still imperfect, and life evolves through greater consciousness.
§ Supermind is the native dynamism of the spirit, so for life to be a manifestation of the spirit, it must be with a gnostic power.
· Spiritual life: inner and outer
§ Spiritual life is a long growth into divine living, where the mental and spiritual intermingle.
§ It must be a remoulding of the outer as well as the inner, and this must include a collective life of gnostic beings.
§ There can be an inward divine life, not dependent on anything external, with the outer unchanged in principle.
§ But for a change of the whole, there must be a new order of gnostic beings.
§ The foundation of the gnostic life must be inward; the inner life is of the first importance.
§ We must reverse the normal order, and remake the world by the self-conceiving spirit.
· Three directions of growth: inner; personal; world
§ The mind concentrates on one of these three: inner spiritual growth; development of surface nature; outer world.
§ All three are terms of the divine, and the individual is poised in the middle.
§ In the growth to a divine life, the spirit within must be our first preoccupation.
§ Once the inner is created, our other preoccupation must be to convert the our surface being.
§ Outer action can stimulate inner growth, but the growth must still come from within.
§ Knowledge, thought, action are really means of discovering what the spirit seeks to be; the physical mind sees this upside down, and takes the surface as fundamental.
§ In the spiritual stage of evolution, the occult process must be the whole process: the first necessity is for the individual to discover the spirit, the divine reality within.
· Attributes of the complete consciousness; to be fully in the reality is to:
§ Have self-awareness of one's total being, reality.
§ Have the full force of being, which is will, the will of the spirit.
§ Have the full, self-existent delight of being.
§ Be universally, without the limitations of ego.
§ Have the consciousness of transcendent, timeless, eternal being.
Which transcends body, mind, life, even the universe.
· Inward living
§ These attributes are impossible for the surface self; to live within is the first necessity for transformation of nature.
§ Inward living is difficult for the extroverted mind, and it is not the same thing as the type of introversion that is preoccupied with the life-ego and mind-ego.
§ The first reaction of mind is to see darkness, or to recoil from the inner silence.
§ But true movement within brings greater experience, vision, joy.
· The collective life, and unity
§ If done on the surface, it is a make-believe, bound by ego, an association with minor inner result.
§ Collective life must be based on an inner inclusion of others in our own being, an inner sense of oneness.
§ The gnostic being has a close consciousness of the self of others, and will find himself in the fulfillment of others.
§ Individual perfection and inner completeness is our first condition; a perfected relation with all others and things is the second; the third is new world or collective life based on gnosis.
§ The gnostic collectivity is held together by a common consciousness, not physical life facts.
§ The collective would be based on the same principle as the gnostic individual; they would feel themselves embodiments of a single self and reality.
§ Any laws would be self-determined, received inwardly by the inner being.
· Diversity versus uniformity
§ There would be a considerable free diversity in a community or between communities.
§ But it would be a harmonious sense of one truth, one force in many forms and bodies.
§ Forms would arise in the right place; there would be no need of struggle.
§ An inner spiritual hierarchy as well as a fundamental spiritual equality would take place, with each in harmony no matter what the position in the whole.
§ Unity, mutuality, harmony would be the character of a gnostic collectivity.
· Supernature and current nature
§ The perfection we seek can only be found by passing out of our current nature of ignorance into a supernature of spiritual self-knowledge.
§ Anything we construct cannot be entirely true, effective, because it cannot go beyond our nature.
§ Without an inner unity, our social life is a construction or association, marred by discord.
§ Only if our nature develops beyond itself, which is the eventual necessity if evolution of being is the law, can we have perfect unity, mutuality, harmony.
· Wholeness of sight and action
§ Currently we have all kinds of disparity of knowledge, will, capacity.
§ An innate character of supernature is a wholeness of sight and action, even if restricted within limits.
§ Knowledge is power, but in the current formation this is not apparent, because the conscious mind is a small agent in relation to the automatic inconscient force.
§ Even in mentality and life, greater consciousness means greater power.
· Subjection to matter
§ The subjection of life and mind to matter is not insuperable.
§ The mastery of matter by consciousness reaches its acme in the gnostic being.
§ This would be a direct, intuitive, and immediate control by the self-effective real-idea.
§ Some degree of this is present in the lesser stages leading to the complete gnostic being.
· New powers of consciousness
§ In addition to the higher over the lower, these would also break down the barriers between soul and soul, life and life.
§ It would have the spontaneous, innate power of unity and harmony, bringing a conscious interchange of forces.
§ The harmony would be a spontaneous expression, borne of mutuality of consciousness, direct inner contact and interchange.
§ The evolution of these powers is not considered admissible by the modern mind, but in fact they are latent and in rudimentary form in our ordinary composition.
§ Mystic experience shows the possibility of new powers of consciousness.
§ Nothing is more liable to misuse than power, but when they come as a result of growth into a greater consciousness, the aspirant does not need to reject them.
· Need for new powers
§ Currently we have an imperfect understanding, struggle and discord, inability to correlate the new with the old, diversity of life and mind.
§ Individuals are not in accord, and neither are the forces in a single individual.
§ We have to grow into a more complete spiritual nature.
§ The harmony and concord of a gnostic individual would be equally natural to a community of gnostic beings, and it would be able to harmonize its existence with the ignorance around.
· Individual and collective perfection
§ In the human aspiration toward perfection, the three preoccupations have been the individual, the society, or the relations between individual and society.
§ In the distant past and the present, the stress has been on the society.
§ India had the ideal of the perfected spiritual individual, but only after passing through the influence of the society.
§ The only way to unify the goals of perfecting self versus subordinating self to society is through finding a deeper principle of being.
§ This is the reality within each thing, which gives each its power and value, including human and collective life.
§ This reality is more than human, and more than the collective; the individual does not cease to exist if the collective ceases.
· Perfection of the individual
§ The collective is largely subconscious, and has to formulate and find itself through the consciousness of its individuals.
§ The allegiance of the individual must be to the spirit, the divine; one must not subordinate oneself to the mass.
§ As long as one is undeveloped, subordination to the greater is required; but in spiritual oneness, a person is preoccupied with the good of all.
§ A perfected community can only come by the perfection of its individuals, which in turn can only come by the discovery in each of one's own spiritual being.
· Evolutionary crisis
§ In our evolution we first had to affirm our material existence, and then the mental.
§ Beyond this, the spiritual must become our next preoccupation, or else under the dominant spirit of a utilitarian science, we risk lapsing into a resurgence of vital barbarism.
§ Reason cannot maintain the race in its progress.
§ We have created a system of civilization that is too big for our mental understanding to manage; we have a chaos of clashing ideas, needs, classes, nations.
§ Evolution now calls for a greater consciousness to meet and master the increasing potentialities of existence.
§ A life of unity, harmony, mutuality is increasingly needed, or else we seem to be headed into a prolonged confusion, crisis, and darkness, driven by colossal forces.
§ The needed larger mental and vital being needs a supporting soul and spirit to maintain it.
· Possible solutions
§ The communal goal has been adopted, but this idealized communal ego is a colossal or even fatal error, because it is a forced unanimity and driven by dark subconscient forces.
§ An imposed unanimity of mind can only compress thought and life; mind and life must have freedom and be allowed to be progressive until a higher instrumentation is developed.
§ An enlightened reason and will, through education, has not been found to change humanity; and it also results in a kind of coercive social machinery.
§ Recoiling from the mechanistic, the mind may seek the religious idea or society; but this has not worked because it had to compromise with the ego and vital nature.
§ Only the full emergence of the soul can overcome these barriers.
· Emergence of the gnostic collectivity
§ The insistence on a radical change might seem to put off hope to a distant future, but even so it is the only way, and the whole of evolution has been preparing this.
§ The vision or need must arise in some, even if only individuals.
§ The collective change can only occur if the gnostic individual finds others with the same kind of inner life; otherwise a common spiritual community will express the same mental values.
§ Might be necessary even for the preparation to have a separate community, and in such a concentration the difficulties would present themselves with concentrated force.
§ It might be assumed that conflict and collision would be the first rule of the relation between a gnostic collective and the life of beings still in the ignorance, but the new power might be more complete, and be able to establish itself and spread its light on mankind.
· The established gnostic consciousness on earth
§ The very principle of the gnostic being would ensure a harmony with life still in the ignorance.
§ Because our nature is a derivation from supernature, whatever spiritual truth is in it will reappear and be fulfilled in the higher life.
§ The mind cannot determine what will survive, and the forms would likely change.
§ War and strife would disappear, whereas art and crafts, physical body would remain.
§ Because desire would not be a factor, simplicity, asceticism, or a withdrawal from life would not be required.
§ Should not be confused with a vital, titanic, exaggerated Nietzschean supermanhood; that belongs to the past, and would only prolong the old lines of development.
§ The true supermanhood is more difficult and simple: a self-realized being, a possession of life in the power of the spirit, the self-revelation of the divinity.
§ The mind sees cessation of the life of adventure and struggle as a monotone, but this is a misconception: the gnostic consciousness would be an entry into the infinite, inexhaustible, the creative constant miracle.
§ If there is an evolution, with consciousness and life as its terms, then this fullness must be the goal of development.