Supermind in Integral Yoga - Problem of Ignorance Bondage, Liberation and Perfection - Part Seven

PART SEVEN

The Aim of Integral Liberation and Integral Perfection

Against this background, it may be said that Sri Aurobindo's synthesis of yoga does not aim merely at the liberation of the individual or of the individual Purusha from the ignorance which appears to be inherent in the Nature of Prakriti; it also aims at the liberation of the Prakriti itself from its bondage to ignorance by eliminating all that appears to be inherent in it but which is not really so; since Prakriti of the three gunas is derived from supramental Para Prakriti, it can be liberated from its own limitations and transformed into Supramental Nature. Sri Aurobindo thus speaks of the liberation of the soul from Nature and of the liberation of the nature of Prakriti from its own limitations; it proposes integral liberation and integral perfection.⁶⁸

Liberation of the soul is usually sought by withdrawal from the action of lower nature or by attainment of mastery over the lower nature. The liberation of nature from its own limitations is effected when it is found that the three gunas of Prakriti are basically derived from the essential powers of the Divine, and therefore, these three gunas can come to be held in some kind of harmony under the preponderance of sattwa guna in the state of liberation of the soul or realization of immutable spirit; but they can even be uplifted by supramental transformation from their limitations and rendered into their supernal equivalence of the Divine

supramental nature. As Sri Aurobindo points out:

"Tamas in the spiritual being becomes a divine calm, which is not an inertia and incapacity of action, but a perfect power, sakti, holding in itself all its capacity and capable of controlling and subjecting to the law of calm even the most stupendous and enormous activity: Rajas becomes a self-effecting initiating sheer Will of the spirit, which is not desire, endeavour, striving passion, but the same perfect power of being, sakti, capable of an infinite, imperturbable and blissful action. Sattwa becomes not the modified mental light, prakāśa, but the self-existent light of the divine being, jyotih, which is the soul of the perfect power of being and illumines in their unity the divine quietude and the divine will of action. The ordinary liberation gets the still divine light in the divine quietude, but the integral perfection will aim at this greater triune unity.

"...The integral liberation comes when this passion for release, mumuksutva, founded on distaste or vairāgya, is itself transcended; the soul is then liberated both from attachment to the lower action of nature and from all repugnance to the cosmic action of the Divine. This liberation gets its completeness when the spiritual gnosis can act with a supramental knowledge and reception of the action of Nature and a supramental luminous will in initiation. The gnosis discovers the spiritual sense in Nature, God in things, the soul of good in all things that have the contrary appearance; that soul is delivered in them and out of them, the perversions of the imperfect or contrary forms fall away or are transformed into their higher divine truth, — even as the gunas go back to their divine principles, — and the spirit lives in a universal, infinite and absolute Truth, Good, Beauty, Bliss which is the supramental or ideal divine Nature. The

liberation of the Nature becomes one with the liberation of the spirit, and there is founded in the integral freedom the integral perfection."⁶⁹

Integral Perfection: Six Elements

As stated elsewhere, Sri Aurobindo analyses the ideal of perfection as consisting of six elements. The first element of perfection is that of perfect equality and perfect action of equality. The second element of perfection is attained by raising all the active parts of the human nature to that of higher condition of working pitch of the power and capacity on which they become capable of being divinised into true instruments of the free, perfect, spiritual and divine action. This would mean the perfection of the powers and capacities of the mind, the vital and the physical. This would also imply the perfect dynamic force of the temperament, character and inmost soul-nature which would result in what Sri Aurobindo calls the perfection of the four-fold personality, the personality of knowledge, of strength, of harmony and love and of perfection of skill and service. This movement is further strengthened by the faith in the divine Power of Shakti to replace the limited human energy so that it may be shaped into the image of and filled with the force of greater infinite energy. The third element of perfection is, according to Sri Aurobindo, the evolution of the mental into the supramental Gnostic being which would progressively take up all the terms of intelligence, will, sense-mind, heart, the vital and sensational being and translate them by a luminous and harmonizing conversion into a unity of the truth, power and delight of a living existence. The next element of perfection is that of the Gnostic perfection in the physical body. The fifth element is arrived at when the perfection of

the body is pushed to its highest conclusion which, according to Sri Aurobindo, brings in spiritualizing and illumination of the whole physical consciousness and divinizing of the law of the body. Finally, the sixth element is that of the perfect action and enjoyment of being on the supramental Gnostic basis. And this integrality of perfection would mark the status of the siddha or perfected soul who will live in union with the Purushottama in the fullness of spiritual being, consciousness and bliss of Sachchidananda or eternal Brahman. In the words of Sri Aurobindo:

"The Siddha or perfected soul will live in union with the Purushottama in this Brahmic consciousness, he will be conscious in the Brahman that is the All, sarvam brahma, in the Brahman infinite in being and infinite in quality, anantam brahma, in Brahman as self-existent consciousness and universal knowledge, jñānam brahma, in Brahman as the self-existent bliss and its universal delight of being, ānandam brahma. He will experience all the universe as the manifestation of the One, all quality and action as the play of his universal and infinite energy, all knowledge and conscious experience as the out-flowing of that consciousness, and all in the terms of that one Ananda. His physical being will be one with all material Nature, his vital being with the life of the universe, his mind with the cosmic mind, his spiritual knowledge and will with the divine knowledge and will both in itself and as it pours itself through these channels, his spirit with the one spirit in all beings. All the variety of cosmic existence will be changed to him in that unity and revealed in the secret of its spiritual significance. For in this spiritual bliss and being he will be one with That which is the origin and continent and inhabitant and spirit and constituting power of all existence.

This will be the highest reach of self-perfection."⁷⁰

The integrality of perfection cannot remain confined to the individual, but it would extend progressively to the development of the collective divine life on the earth. In the words of Sri Aurobindo:

"The divinising of the normal material life of man and of his great secular attempt of mental and moral self-culture in the individual and the race by this integralisation of a widely perfect spiritual existence would thus be the crown alike of our individual and of our common effort. Such a consummation being no other than the kingdom of heaven within reproduced in the kingdom of heaven without, would be also the true fulfilment of the great dream cherished in different terms by the world's religions.

"The widest synthesis of perfection possible to thought is the sole effort entirely worthy of those whose dedicated vision perceives that God dwells concealed in humanity."⁷¹

But this great consummation of perfection that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have placed before humanity has involved the development of the new processes of ascent into various planes of the superconscient and of the descent of the highest level of the superconscient, namely of the supermind, into the inconscient so as to transform it. All these new processes, always incorporating into them all the relevant fund of knowledge gathered in the past, provide us the real kernel of the new synthesis of yoga, which Sri Aurobindo has expounded in 'The Life Divine', 'The Synthesis of Yoga', 'The Supramental Manifestation upon the Earth', 'Savitri', and this has been recorded as worked out in detail by the Mother in thirteen volumes of 'Mother's Agenda'.