Integral Yoga and Other Paths
The Divine can be realised on any plane according to the capacity of that plane, as the Divine is everywhere. The yogis and saints realise the Divine on the spiritualised mind plane; that does not mean they become supramental.
Because he is a great man does it follow that everything he thinks or says is right? or because he lives in the light does it follow that his light is absolute and complete? The “Truth-Consciousness” is a phrase I use for the supermind. X is not in the supermind. He may be and is in a true Consciousness, but that is a different matter.
Perhaps you are of the opinion of X, “The Divine is here, how can he descend from anywhere?” The Divine may be here, but if he has covered here his Light with darkness of Ignorance and his Ananda with suffering, that, I should think, makes a big difference to the plane and, even if one enters into that sealed Light etc., it makes a difference to the consciousness but very little to the Energy at work in this plane which remains of a dark or mixed character.
The Divine Force can act on any plane – it is not limited to the supramental Force. The supramental is only one aspect of the power of the Divine.
The sadhak of integral yoga who stops short at the Impersonal is no longer a sadhak of integral yoga. Impersonal realization is the realisation of the silent Self, of the pure Existence, Consciousness and Bliss in itself without any perception of an Existent, Conscient, Blissful. It leads therefore to Nirvana. In the integral knowledge the realisation of the Self and of the impersonal Sachchidananda is only a step, though a very important
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step, or part of the integral knowledge. It is a beginning, not an end of the highest realisation.
These feelings are the usual attitude of the physical consciousness left to itself towards the Divine – a complete Agnosticism and inability to experience.
The knowledge of the impersonal Divine by itself does not affect the material facts of earth or at least need not. It only produces a subjective change in the being itself and, if it is complete, a new vision and attitude towards all things immaterial or material. But the complete knowledge of the Divine can produce a change in material things, for it sets a Force working which ends by acting even upon these material things that seem to the physical consciousness so absolute, invincible and unchangeable.
Why cannot one love or experience [the Cosmic and the Transcendent Divine] concretely? Many have done it. And why assume that He is immobile, silent and aloof? The Cosmic Divine can be as close to one as one's own self and the Transcendent as intimate as the closest friend or lover. It is only in the physical consciousness that there is some difficulty in realising it.
The Jain realisation of an individual godhead is all right so far as it goes – its defect is that it is too individual and isolated.
I never heard of silence descending in other yogas – the mind goes into silence. Since however I have been writing of ascent and descent, I have been told from several quarters that there is nothing new in this yoga – so I am wondering whether people were not getting ascents and descents without knowing it! or at least without noticing the process. It is like the rising above the head and taking the station there – which I and others have experienced in this yoga. When I spoke of it first, people stared
Page – 108
and thought I was talking nonsense. Wideness must have been felt in the old yogas because otherwise one could not feel the niverse in oneself or be free from the body consciousness or unite with the Anantam Brahman. But generally as in Tantric yoga one speaks of the consciousness rising to the Brahmarandhra, top of the head, as the summit. Rajayoga of course lays stress on Samadhi as the means of the highest experience. But obviously if one has not the Brāhmisthiti in the waking state, there is no completeness in the realisation. The Gita distinctly speaks of being samāhita (which is equivalent to being in Samadhi) and the Brāhmisthiti as a waking state in which one lives and does all actions.
The Divine can be realised on any plane according to the capacity of that plane, as the Divine is everywhere. The yogis and saints realise the Divine on the spiritualised mind plane; that does not mean they become supramental.
Because he is a great man does it follow that everything he thinks or says is right? or because he lives in the light does it follow that his light is absolute and complete? The “Truth-Consciousness” is a phrase I use for the supermind. X is not in the supermind. He may be and is in a true Consciousness, but that is a different matter.
Perhaps you are of the opinion of X, “The Divine is here, how can he descend from anywhere?” The Divine may be here, but if he has covered here his Light with darkness of Ignorance and his Ananda with suffering, that, I should think, makes a big difference to the plane and, even if one enters into that sealed Light etc., it makes a difference to the consciousness but very little to the Energy at work in this plane which remains of a dark or mixed character.
The Divine Force can act on any plane – it is not limited to the supramental Force. The supramental is only one aspect of the power of the Divine.
The sadhak of integral yoga who stops short at the Impersonal is no longer a sadhak of integral yoga. Impersonal realization is the realisation of the silent Self, of the pure Existence, Consciousness and Bliss in itself without any perception of an Existent, Conscient, Blissful. It leads therefore to Nirvana. In the integral knowledge the realisation of the Self and of the impersonal Sachchidananda is only a step, though a very important
Page – 107
step, or part of the integral knowledge. It is a beginning, not an end of the highest realisation.
These feelings are the usual attitude of the physical consciousness left to itself towards the Divine – a complete Agnosticism and inability to experience.
The knowledge of the impersonal Divine by itself does not affect the material facts of earth or at least need not. It only produces a subjective change in the being itself and, if it is complete, a new vision and attitude towards all things immaterial or material. But the complete knowledge of the Divine can produce a change in material things, for it sets a Force working which ends by acting even upon these material things that seem to the physical consciousness so absolute, invincible and unchangeable.
Why cannot one love or experience [the Cosmic and the Transcendent Divine] concretely? Many have done it. And why assume that He is immobile, silent and aloof? The Cosmic Divine can be as close to one as one's own self and the Transcendent as intimate as the closest friend or lover. It is only in the physical consciousness that there is some difficulty in realising it.
The Jain realisation of an individual godhead is all right so far as it goes – its defect is that it is too individual and isolated.
I never heard of silence descending in other yogas – the mind goes into silence. Since however I have been writing of ascent and descent, I have been told from several quarters that there is nothing new in this yoga – so I am wondering whether people were not getting ascents and descents without knowing it! or at least without noticing the process. It is like the rising above the head and taking the station there – which I and others have experienced in this yoga. When I spoke of it first, people stared
Page – 108
and thought I was talking nonsense. Wideness must have been felt in the old yogas because otherwise one could not feel the niverse in oneself or be free from the body consciousness or unite with the Anantam Brahman. But generally as in Tantric yoga one speaks of the consciousness rising to the Brahmarandhra, top of the head, as the summit. Rajayoga of course lays stress on Samadhi as the means of the highest experience. But obviously if one has not the Brāhmisthiti in the waking state, there is no completeness in the realisation. The Gita distinctly speaks of being samāhita (which is equivalent to being in Samadhi) and the Brāhmisthiti as a waking state in which one lives and does all actions.
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