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"Mind and Supermind"
(Book 1 Chapter XVIII)

 

Background
Sri Aurobindo had initially indicated that we are divided beings unable to fulfill our ultimate human aspiration in life. It is so because of our divided nature. He then took us on a tour of creation to show us not only how the universe came to be from a Divine Source, but where the "fall" of man into an essential Ignorance began.

For those purposes, he began with a discussion of the ultimate Omnipresent reality (Brahman, the Absolute), and then described how Sat (the Pure Existent), Chit (Conscious Force), and Ananda (Delight) emerged for the purpose of manifesting a universe of forms. He then describe how Supermind carried out the intention of Satchitananda. In this descent (or involution of the Supreme to a known universe), there is the further involution of Mind out of Supermind, Life out of Mind, and Matter out of Life. Then there is the ascent of matter back up through life, mind, and spirit.

Introduction
 In this chapter he further describes the method by which Supermind created the universe, as well as the further descent of Supermind into the plane of Mind (and its qualities and limitations) in the involution. He explains-

1. How Supermind is the Creator of the Universe -- not Mind -- through the Action of Its Apprehending Consciousness.

2. The Limits of Mind and Its Fall from Supermind, including-


 Here are the main points in greater detail:

1. How Supermind is the Creator of the Universe -- not Mind --
through the Action of Its Apprehending Consciousness
 

-What Supermind Is
-Supermind is the Divine Maya, this Truth consciousness, this Real Idea by which the Conscious Force of the Transcendent and Universal Existence, conceives, forms, and governs the universe.
 

-Supermind that Knows Ignorance and Knowledge Created the Universe; not Mind
-Mind is not the cause of the universe.

The Divine Maya (however) that comprehends, knows the Ignorance and the Knowledge.

-There is an original consciousness which contains the view of the Ignorance and Knowledge at the same time. (It is Supermind). Otherwise, no world could exist.

-[Supermind, not Mind is the creator of the universe.]


-How Supermind Creates the Universe through Its Apprehending Consciousness
-The apprehending consciousness (of Supermind) places the workings of the indivisible All as a process and object of creative Knowledge, like the poet creates and views the creations of his own consciousness before him. (They are the play of the self-formation of his own being.)

-The apprehending consciousness makes the fundamental division, which leads to all the rest.

-The forms seen and created are multiple forms of the Being, which are placed by Him as Knowledge before Himself as Knower, by Himself as Force, before Himself as Creator.

-The elements of division have come into being through the apprehending consciousness.

-First, the One has translated itself into extension in conceptual Time and Space.

-Secondly, the One translates itself into a multiplicity of Conscious Soul.

-Third, the multiplicity of soul-forms become divided habitation of an extended unity.

-The Conscious Being (the Purusha) in each form actively identifies with each.

[A thought: This is the process of creation in the universe in action that is related to that same process for ourselves I am an artist. From the whole of reality I have a vision of a thing. I am in one sense carving out a possibility in my mind. Comprehending Supermind does something similar with Real Ideas it can manifest. Then I go ahead and make it real, so that the vision becomes a distinct cut out object in reality. Appending Supermind makes real its vision of Real Ideas by creating an object of its subjective awareness in space and time creating embodied principles, forces, and forms.]
 

2. The Limits of Mind and Its Fall from Supermind

-Limits and Capacity of Divinity in Mind, Life, and Matter
-And yet we do not yet made a connection between these terms with the three lower planes we live in; of matter, life, and mind; and how the Lower Maya could have come from the Higher Maya.

-And yet what we call the undivine can only be an action of the four divine principles themselves.

-It is even probable that mind, life, and body are to be found in their pure forms the divine truth itself.

-Mind, life, and body must be capable of divinity.

-Their separation from the Divine truth can be abrogated by the expanding energy of the Divine in humanity.
 

-On Mind
-We are only the first shackled movement of the Mind.

-We are not yet liberated from the plunge of the Light into its shadow by which the darkened material consciousness was created.

-How Mind Works
-Mind conceives, perceives, sees things as if rigidly cut out from a background or a mass and employs them as fixed units of the material given to it for creation or possession.

-Mind is a consciousness which measures, limits, cuts out forms of things from the individual whole.

-Mind picks out parts as things that can be dealt with separately apart from the whole.

[A thought: When you wake up in the morning all is a blur. Then you start noticing individual objects. Now the mind has moved into action. It is carving out an object, e.g. a lamp from the entire background or blur of reality. Mind is constantly doing that when we are fully awake during the day as well.  Another thought: The process of creation is related to this. I am an artist. From the whole of reality I have a vision of a thing. I am in one sense carving out a possibility in my mind. Comprehending Supermind does something similar. Then I go ahead and make it real, so that the vision becomes a distinct cut out object in reality. Appending Supermind makes real its vision of Real Ideas by creating an object of its subjective awareness in space and time that creates embodied principles, forces, and forms.]

Limits of Mind that Only Sees the Particular not the Whole
-Mind only perceives the particular, every phenomenon as a thing of itself.

-Mind disperses and aggregates ad infinitum, cutting up wholes into smaller wholes into atoms and these into nothingness.

-Mind does not perceive the Whole.

[Comment: Mind knows by division of the whole into an infinite number of parts and by an aggregation of parts to form composite wholes. The more it concentrates on knowing the part, the more it abstracts the part from the whole and loses the context in which it exists and is real. (MSS]  In Supermind each part knows itself in context of the Whole, i.e. the Essence and One. In Mind, this is lost, if not completely.]

-The Fundamental Error of Mind is Its Perception of Its Own Separateness
-The fundamental error of the Mind is then this fall from self-knowledge by which the individual soul conceives of the its own individuality as a separate fact instead as a form of Oneness and makes itself the center of its own universe instead of knowing itself as one concentration of the universal. From that original error of its particular ignorances and limitations are contingent results.

-Mind Cannot Perceive the Infinite; Spiritual Mind and Above Can
-Mind can perceive a formless vast but not a spaceless infinite.

-Mind cannot possess the infinite.

-Only by ascending the spiritual planes above mind to Supermind can it embrace (come to know) the infinite.

-Mind is the nodus of the great Ignorance.


-The Fall from Supermind to Mind through Exclusivity Experienced by Individual Soul
-How did the fall from Supermind to Mind occur (i.e. the Avidya)?

-It precedes form the individualized soul viewing everything from its own standpoint and excluding others. I.e. by an exclusive concentration of consciousness; an exclusive self-identification of the soul with a particular temporal and spatial action.

-It starts from the soul's ignoring the facts that all others are itself, all other actions its own action and all other states of being and consciousness equally its own as well as the action of one particular moment in Time and one particular standing point in Space and the one particular form it presently occupies. It concentrates on the moment, the fields the form, the movement so as to lose the rest.

-It has thus lost the truth of the indivisibility of Time, the indivisibility of Force and Substance. It has lost sight if the obvious fact that all minds are one mind taking many standpoints.


From Corporeal to Spiritual Mind is Explained
-We can rise out of our limiting corporeal mentality to a higher spiritualized mentality

-The corporeal mind, the beyond the corporeal mentality, the Various Ignorance, pure thinking of higher mind and illumined mind, etc. are explained in detail. (pp181-184)


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[Further overview of the chapter on the limits of mind as source of our Ignorance and  how we can rise to spiritualized mind to overcome our seperative consciousness.]

Overview
Though the plane of Mind is an instrument of Supermind and helped enable creation, Mind in Man is Ignorant due to the divided nature. Rising above it to Supermind, he regains that unitarian view and rises out of his Ignorance.

Detailed
Utility and Power of Mind -- Sri Aurobindo explains that Mind is a subordinate action and instrumentation of Truth Consciousness, Supermind. What purpose then does it serve? Mind serves a great purpose, it is a creative agency for Life. It enables us to organize Life and Matter in a creative manner to serve our and the needs of Nature.

However, Mind sees in fragments, in contradictions and conflicts. Mind deals with things separately; it divides, perceiving the particular. It divides time, force, and substance. It does not know the whole, the unified.

Thus man is essentially ignorant of the true truth. Mind is the nodus of Ignorance, because it is the organization of what which divides and distributes. This Ignorance is supported in man's ego, in seeing things from its vantage point of only itself, in its exclusive concentration of consciousness. Furthermore, this ego sense and ignorance is deepened by its identification with the physical body.

We can rise beyond the limitations of mind by rising to Spiritual Mind and then to Supermind. At that point we see existence in its essential unity, instead of in its division and duality that we now see through Mind.

He explains that there are realms, planes above mind that we are unconscious of; they are "superconscient" to us. Above mind is spiritual mind (Higher, Illumined, Intuitive), and further to Overmind, and Supermind. There is even the E-CF-D above this. These are realms we can evolve towards. There are also realms below mind that we are also unconscious of; they are "subconscient" to us. We need to somehow make these realms more conscious. we do this by bringing the superconscient "above" into the dark subconscient "within, rooted in the dumb inconscience of matter, to effect and change it, which will enable our core nature of darkness and unconsciousness to give way to truth and light.