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

PART THREE

Insights from the Veda and the Upanishad

At the same time, it must be mentioned that we have, in the Veda and the Upanishads, as also in the Gita, great insights which can aid us in exploring this aspect of the integral yoga.

(a) Ancient explorations had discovered that all aspects of the world-experience have their fundamental truth in the Supreme Existence. Even the aspect of the power of the Inconscience which seems to be an opposite, a negation of the eternal Reality, it still corresponds to a Truth held in itself by the self-aware and all-conscious Infinite. The Veda had discovered the Inconscience and there is, the image for it in the Veda of 'the infinite rock' that symbolizes the inconscience, and it is affirmed that when the infinite rock is shattered, the seeker uncovers "The Sun dwelling in the darkness".¹⁷ It is found that the world's heart is Joy, and Joy dwells in the depths of all things, "the well of honey covered by the rock".¹⁸

This discovery is an important clue, and this is confirmed by Sri Aurobindo, when he points out that when we realize the supramental consciousness, we find that among its innumerable powers and innumerable possibilities of its manifestation, it has also a power of plunging the consciousness into a trance of self-involution, a self-oblivion of the Spirit veiled in its own abyss where nothing is manifest but all is inconceivable and can emerge from that

"In the heights of Spirit this state of cosmic or infinite trance-sleep appears to our cognition as a luminous uttermost Superconscience: at the other end of being it offers itself to cognition as the Spirit's potency of presenting to itself the opposites of its own truths of being, — an abyss of non-existence, a profound Night of inconscience, a fathomless swoon of insensibility from which yet all forms of being, consciousness and delight of existence can manifest themselves, — but they appear in limited terms, in slowly emerging and increasing self-formulations, even in contrary terms of themselves; it is the play of a secret all-being, all-delight, all-knowledge, but it observes the rules of its own self-oblivion, self-opposition, self-limitation until it is ready to surpass it. This is the Inconscience and Ignorance that we see at work in the material universe. It is not a denial, it is one term, one formula of the infinite and eternal Existence."¹⁹

(b) The Vedic seers, who had discovered the supermind, were conscious of the supermind as a divine self-manifestation and looked on it as an imperishable greater world beyond our lesser world, a freer and wider plane of consciousness and being. They described the first step of manifestation as the truth-manifestation, and they described it as the seat or own home of the Truth, the vast Truth or the Truth, the Right, the Vast (satyam, rtam, brhat). They also described it as the Truth hidden by a Truth where the Sun of Knowledge finishes his journey and unyokes his horses, where the thousand rays of consciousness stand together so that there is That One, the supreme form of the Divine Being.²⁰ This supramental world, which is imperishable, does not get abolished or attenuated, simply because there is

in one of its poises a movement in which a certain operation of consciousness separates itself for purposes of self-oblivion and enters into the abysmal trance of the inconscience. The self-oblivion of the Inconscience cannot and does not abolish the supramental world, which is imperishable; that is not cognized by the Inconscience, but the supermind cognizes it, stands behind it, it is even involved in it. That is the reason why the Vedic Rishis, even while attaining the supramental world were aware of the world in which we live, and they declared it to be a mingled weft in which truth is disfigured by an abundant falsehood, anrtasya bhūreh.^2[ They pointed out that the light has to be born of its own vast force out of an initial darkness of sea of Inconscience, which they called 'apraketam salilam'. The Vedic seers had seen two sides of existence and seen behind them the One Reality, and therefore the bridging of the gulf between these two sides of existence was forecast in the mystic parables of the Veda, such as those of the Angirasa Rishis.

The Vedic view of Knowledge and Ignorance

(c) In the Veda, we find the distinction between acitti and citti. Acitti stands for ignorance which is the unconsciousness of the Truth and Right, and citti, in contrast, signifies knowledge or a consciousness of the truth and the right, satyam rtam. As Sri Aurobindo explains: "Ignorance is the absence of the divine eye of perception which gives us the sight of the supramental Truth; it is the non-perceiving principle in our consciousness as opposed to the truth-perceiving conscious vision and knowledge (acitti and citti). In its actual operation this non-perceiving is not an entire inconscience, the inconscient sea from which this world has

arisen (apraketam salilam), but either a limited or a false knowledge, a knowledge based on the division of undivided being, founded upon the fragmentary, the little, opposed to the opulent, vast and luminous completeness of things; it is a cognition which by the opportunity of its limitations is turned into falsehood and supported in that aspect by the Sons of Darkness and Division, enemies of the divine endeavour in man, the assailants, robbers, coverers of his light of knowledge... .This idea of the Vedic mystics can in a more metaphysical thought and language be translated into the conception that the Ignorance is in its origin a dividing mental knowledge which does not grasp the unity, essence, self-law of things in their one origin and in their universality, but works rather upon divided particulars, separate phenomena, partial relations, as if they were the truth we had to seize or as if they could really be understood at all without going back behind the division to the unity, behind the dispersion to the universality. The knowledge is that which tends towards unification and, attaining to the supramental faculty, seizes the oneness, the essence, the self-law of existence and views and deals with the multiplicity of things out of that light and plenitude, in some sort as does the Divine Himself from the highest height whence He embraces the world."²²

Upanishadic view of Knowledge and Ignorance

(d) In the Upanishads, the original Vedic terms are replaced by new terms, vidyā and avidyā. With the change of terms, vidyā or knowledge came to mean the knowledge of the One and avidya or ignorance came to mean the knowledge of plurality, multiplicity or of the divided Many divorced from the unifying consciousness of the One Reality.

Thus, the word Knowledge and Ignorance came to stand against each other in sharp opposition, and Ignorance came to be regarded as of no or little significance in the pursuit of Knowledge. There is, however, a reference in the Upanishads where the words Knowledge and Ignorance had less trenchant opposition. We have in the Isha Upanishad the following three verses:

"Into a blind darkness they enter who follow after the Ignorance, they as if into a greater darkness who devote themselves to the Knowledge alone."

"Other, verily, it is said, is that which comes by the Knowledge, other than that which comes by the Ignorance; this is the lore we have received from the wise who revealed That to our understanding."

"He who knows That as both in one, the Knowledge and the Ignorance, by the Ignorance crosses beyond death and by the Knowledge enjoys Immortality".²³

These verses show that he who follows after the Knowledge only enters as if into a blinder darkness than he who follows after the Ignorance and that the man who knows Brahman as both the Ignorance and the Knowledge, as both the One and the Many, crosses by the Ignorance, by the experience of the Multiplicity, beyond death and by the Knowledge enjoys Immortality. In other words, the Upanishad expounds an integral view of the One and the Many, of the One and the All, and of the Knowledge and the Ignorance, where the experience of the multiplicity has significance and role to play in the pursuit of the knowledge and of immortality, since the experience of the multiplicity enables one to cross beyond death, although it is only by the Knowledge of unity and oneness that one can enjoy

immortality. But what is that Knowledge where the experience of the multiplicity has significance? What is the state of the Knowledge and what is the content of that knowledge? The state of true Knowledge and all that comes to be known of Reality in the state of Knowledge are described in the following three verses:

"But he who sees everywhere the Self in all existences and all existences in the Self, shrinks not thereafter from aught."

"He in whom it is the Self-Being that has become all existences that are becomings, for he has the perfect knowledge, how shall he be deluded, whence shall he have grief who sees everywhere oneness?"

"It is He that has gone abroad - That which is bright, bodiless, without scar of imperfection, without sinews, pure, unpierced by evil. The Seer, the Thinker, the One who becomes everywhere, the Self-Existent has ordered objects perfectly according to their nature from years sempiternal".²⁴

We get in these verses a comprehensive statement of the status of vidyā or knowledge as a status of comprehensive knowledge (vijnānatah) as also of the comprehensive Object of knowledge. It is clear that vidyā is not merely the knowledge of the One but knowledge of the One as present in all existences and of all beings in the One and, still more, of the Self-Being that has become all existences that are Becomings. That status is described as the status of the perfect knowledge. Similarly, the object that is known in that status of perfect knowledge is comprehensive and integral. In the next verse, that object is described at once as It and as He. That object of knowledge is the pure immutable, since it is bright, bodiless, without scar of imperfection, without sinews and therefore it does not pour out Power, does not

dispense Force in multiple channels, does not lose it here, increase it there; it is without nerves or force and it is unpierced by evil, since it is unmodified. At the same time, it is He that has gone abroad, and he is known in the status of vidyā as the self-existent (swayambhūh) who orders objects perfectly according to their nature by taking three stands, — first as Kavi, the Wise, the Seer, second as Manīsi, the Thinker who distributes the Seer's vast unities and all-containing comprehensiveness in terms of detailed determinations and discriminations, and third as Paribhū who eventuates everywhere and manifests the realm of becomings and eventualities.

(e)The Upanishadic view of knowledge is that of a status of consciousness in which the One and the Many are not separated from each other but where the Many issue from the One, which, even though transcendental of the Many, manifests the Many as inherently present and yet transcended in the One. In this view, Knowledge reveals the integral reality which is at once immutable and mutable who are both synthesized in supreme integrality, identical with the Reality which is described in the Gita as kshara (mutable), and akshara (immutable), and uttama (supreme).

(f)But in due course of time, the distinction between the Knowledge and the Ignorance became more separative. Ignorance came to be regarded as erroneous knowledge of the Many divorced from the true knowledge of the One; it also came to be regarded as a creative power of the false appearance of the Many and multiplicity. Knowledge came to mean the knowledge of the One in the presence of which the manyness and multiplicity which is falsely created by Ignorance vanishes up to such a vanishing-point that it cannot even be referred to in any manner.

Analysis of Knowledge and Ignorance in the light of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

According to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, there is no doubt that the Supreme Reality, which is supposed to be fully conscious and which is supposed to be the only Reality and the only ground of everything that is there in the world, including the phenomenon of Ignorance, must surely know itself and the cause of ignorance, and therefore there is no ground to despair or to deny our capacity of knowing that supreme reality and the original cause of the ignorance. It is to be underlined that Ignorance is not, as it is often assumed or conceived or presented, the power that creates multiplicity. Multiplicity, according to Sri Aurobindo, is inherent in the ultimate oneness of the ultimate reality; it is not created by the Ignorance.

(i)Firstly, Ignorance is, as emphasized by Sri Aurobindo, the act of ignoring the unity behind the multiplicity, — the multiplicity that becomes manifest as a result of an operation of the triple status of the Supermind. This is the character of the involutionary movement of the Ignorance.

(ii)Secondly, this involutionary ignorance is to be distinguished from that ignorance which emerges by the ascending evolutionary process from the Inconscience; the evolutionary ignorance is characterized by a groping consciousness, limited consciousness that wanders in the tangled field of multiplicity; it mistakes one for the other, and, since in the beginning and for a long time, it remains remote from the idea and experience of unity and oneness which are always present at the origin and everywhere, — although constantly ignored, — it fails to arrive at the

real understanding of what is really real and the relationship between the ultimate reality, the original multiplicity which emerges from that ultimate reality, and the multiplicity which is perceived by the ignorance in the process of its groping for knowledge and truth; it remains throughout its groping movement a parent of error or even of falsehood. Indeed, the errors committed by the groping movement of ignorance constitute various kinds of partialities, half views, hallucinations and illusions. Errors, falsehoods and illusions are, thus, according to Sri Aurobindo, to be acknowledged and to be remedied. But in the light of this acknowledgement, illusoriness is a part of human experience of the world, but illusion is not the very character of multiplicity and the world of multiplicity.

It has been argued that ignorance is the perception of multiplicity as independent of oneness of the Ultimate Reality; but it is further urged that when multiplicity is viewed as grounded in ultimate oneness, there remains no multiplicity, and it is then recognized as an erroneous illusion, which never existed and which could have never existed. But in the light of Sri Aurobindo's analysis of Ignorance, it may be admitted that Ignorance can be corrected by Knowledge in which multiplicity is realized to be grounded in the ultimate unity and oneness, but in the state of Knowledge what evaporates necessarily is not multiplicity but the error of thinking and believing that multiplicity exists as the only existence without any grounding in the ultimate oneness and unity. In the integral knowledge, the attainment of which is inherent in the groping and ascending movement of Ignorance, the ignorant perception of multiplicity of the world vanishes,

but at the same time the multiplicity of the world is seen with freshness of luminosity where not only the unity and oneness are seen but there is a further perception of the flooding of the knowledge of multiplicity of the world in its fullness and its right significance. That knowledge of the world and of its significance provides to the yoga of Sri Aurobindo a new aim and a new key for its integrality.

(iii) Thirdly, behind the various layers in the human consciousness, there are, as noted above, not only the operations of the Involutionary Ignorance and of Inconscience; there are also lower states of subconscience which have evolved from the Inconscience. Again, there are, what Sri Aurobindo calls the subliminal levels of consciousness, of the inner physical self, inner vital self and inner mental self (those which are called in the Taittiriya Upanishad, annamaya, prānamaya and manomaya),²⁵ the origin of which is not in the Inconscience but in the pressure from the involutionary worlds on the evolutionary movement. There are also several layers of what can be called upper superconscient ends, the origin of the operations of which in us needs to be explored. However, totality of our being of which we are normally aware has one overarching thrust, namely, the evolutionary thrust. It may be said that the evolutionary thrust of our groping consciousness is a special characteristic of the human Ignorance. Sri Aurobindo explains the totality of what we are normally aware as also of what lies below, behind and above that totality as follows:

"We might say then that there are three elements in the totality of our being: there is the submental and the subconscient which appears to us as if it were inconscient,

comprising the material basis and a good part of our life and body; there is the subliminal, which comprises the inner being, taken in its entirety of inner mind, inner life, inner physical with the soul or psychic entity supporting them; there is this waking consciousness which the subliminal and the subconscient throw up on the surface, a wave of their secret surge. But even this is not an adequate account of what we are; for there is not only something deep within behind our normal self-awareness, but something also high above it: that too is ourselves, other than our surface mental personality, but not outside our true self; that too is a country of our spirit. For the subliminal proper is no more than the inner being on the level of the Knowledge-Ignorance luminous, powerful and extended indeed beyond the poor conception of our waking mind, but still not the supreme or the whole sense of our being, not its ultimate mystery. We become aware, in a certain experience, of a range of being superconscient to all these three, aware too of something, a supreme highest Reality sustaining and exceeding them all, which humanity speaks of vaguely as Spirit, God, the Oversoul: from these superconscient ranges we have visitations and in our highest being we tend towards them and to that supreme Spirit. There is then in our total range of existence a superconscience as well as a subconscience and inconscience, overarching and perhaps enveloping our subliminal and our waking selves, but unknown to us, seemingly unattainable and incommunicable."²⁶

(iv) Fourthly, it may be mentioned that Ignorance is not the state of complete darkness, and it is thus distinguishable from the Inconcience. Even the complete darkness of the

inconscience is a state of deep slumber having in its deepest depths the workings of the supermind which are held back but which are still supportive and even generative of whatever is inevitable and indispensable for the maintenance of the abysmal sleep of the inconscience and whatever is allowed by that sleep to evolve out of that sleep. That there is intention and secret intelligence in the workings of the Inconscience becomes more and more detectable not only in the workings of the human consciousness which has evolved from the Inconscience but much more luminously as the human consciousness crosses the boundaries of ignorance and enters and masters the various domains of what may be called the Integral Knowledge. Just as the inconscience is a dark veil behind which the supermind is at work, even so, Ignorance as perceived at work in the human consciousness is an evolutionary veil, which is capable of growth and development and eventually capable of being radically or fully removed. The groping consciousness of Ignorance has its thrust towards Knowledge, even though its road lies through the process of groping which necessitates passage through errors and even falsehoods, even those errors and falsehoods which are illusions or generators of illusions; it may be said that the ignorant human consciousness has in its operations not only the phenomena of non-observation but even of mal-observation. Ignorant consciousness is not only incapable of observing or experiencing the totality of multiplicity but even of admitting that incapacity. Even when it develops a conception of totality or universality, even of oneness or unity behind the multiplicity, it is incapable of any concrete experience of universality or

transcendental oneness. The result is that the ignorant human consciousness comes to think that the limited multiplicity which it observes and experiences or which it manipulates for pragmatic results is all that is there, and if there is something beyond its field of experience of multiplicity, it could not be of any radically different nature. But still, within the province of the Ignorance, there is accumulation of different degrees of knowledge and increasing capacity of testing by means of which error can be increasingly diminished or eliminated. It is with the growth of expansion of experience and knowledge of various degrees of probabilities and certainties that one can begin to live and experience what lies behind the surface waking consciousness. One comes to discover the astonishing phenomena of the subliminal consciousness in which complexities of the subtle physical consciousness, inner vital consciousness and inner mental consciousness can be experienced and studied. One even comes to acknowledge that there are inner treasures of knowledge, will and feelings of which one can learn by means of what is called in yoga the process of inward concentration.²⁷