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Growth Online

On Becoming Universal & Transcendent Beings

Knowledge Base

by Roy Posner and MSS

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Individual, Universal, and Transcendent Self
A realized individual being who discovers his individual soul nature can go on and discover his universal soul nature, fulfilling the second purpose of our existence. The third is to discover the transcendent spiritual soul nature and Self, connecting us in a completed circle to the divine source.

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We have a triple purpose; to find our individual Self, our universal Self, and our Transcendent Self. We also come to see that these three are really one. Our purpose in life is to discover these aspects and purposes in our lives. By discovering our universal Self we serve the universal purpose (in the collective, society, and the universe). By discovering our transcendent self we serve the transcendent purpose, i.e. The Absolute, Gods', Brahman's purpose.

"There are three realms; the Transcendent, the Universal, and the Individual. From any one the other two can be experienced. Thus the transcendent Divine expresses through the creation it has manifest in the universe and in the individual. Likewise, the individual can experience his individual Self, his universal Self, and the transcendent Self beyond the universal."

Individual Achieves for Divine Goals, Universal Goals
The individual achieves in the world not just for his own goals, but for the goals of the Divine purpose and the goals and purpose of the universe.

Transformational Life Requires Overcoming Personal and Corresponding Universal Resistances
Accepting life, he has to bear not only his own burden, but a great part of the world's burden too along with it, as a continuation of his own sufficiently heavy load. Therefore his Yoga has much more of the nature of a battle than others; but this is not only an individual battle, it is a collective war waged over a considerable country. He has not only to conquer in himself the forces of egoistic falsehood and disorder, but to conquer them as representatives of the same adverse and inexhaustible forces in the world. Their representative character gives them a much more obstinate capacity of resistance, an almost endless right to recurrence. Often he finds that even after he has won persistently his own personal battle, he has still to win it over and over again in a seemingly interminable war, because his inner existence has already been so much enlarged that not only it contains his own being with its well-defined needs and experiences, but is in solidarity with the being of others, because in himself he contains the universe.
(Sri Aurobindo, from The Synthesis of Yoga, p.75)

The Individual's Power of Universal Action
We can change the course of history by calling out to the Divine for the sake of the collective. It is part of our evolutionary destiny to be not only a true individual Self, but a true Universal Self and being.

Birth of the Universal Being
A universal prayer with the requisite knowledge enables one to begin to become a universal being.

The Universe and the Transcendent Meet in the Individual
The individual through his transformation realizes that he is a spiritual being, an individual Self; that he is a universal being, i.e. he extends across the universe, is influenced by the universe, and can have the powers and energies of the universe; and he is a transcendent being, i.e. he is an emanation of the transcendent Omnipresent Reality, the Divine. He is then the instrument of his individual evolution, the evolution of the universe, and of the transcendent Divine.

Individual's Higher Consciousness Leads Social Evolution
The individual rising to a higher consciousness enables further evolution of the society. Now society pretty much evolves through the slow and painful workings of Nature, a fact we are unconscious of. We don't even understand the concept of "Nature," which is not trees and birds and sky, but Self-conscious Life that is evolving.

Silence as Foundation of World Peace
It is from a status of Silence that we can elicit peace and harmony among the nations of the world.

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"The outer shifting to the inner brings the whole universe inside." (MSS)

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The art of molding public opinion is a subtle art of great dexterity. (MSS) [How?]

Overcoming a Limitation for the World
If you perceive something wrong in the world, you can overcome it by conquering the corresponding element in one's self. In this sense we are universal beings on the road to discovering our universal Selves.

Response to One's Spirit-Based Value Spreads to Others
The Spirit is universal in its action, which means what one man does [rooted in spirit]

benefits all such men in his emotional world. E.g. one individual dedicated to spirit applied that ideal through extreme cleanliness of her surroundings. As a result of this value, events transpired that not only benefited her, but expanded out, multiplied to benefit many others surrounding her. (Paraphrase of MSS)

Spirit-Based Individual Can Invigorate/Deflate the Market; (i.e. the Individual Can Move the Universal)
Those who invoke the Spirit enter the market and the market booms. After some time they lose interest and the market slumps. They in their modesty do not see that their own attitude is the cause and the market the effect. They exclaim, "The market is in a slump. There is nothing I can do."

It is not the single person who enters the market who can egoistically claim the credit of the boom, but it is the Force of the Spirit for which he was an instrument. Unless they see things in the proper perspective, there is no solution for them. In the meantime, they can philosophize. (MSS)

TO BE CATEGORIZED

Individual, Universal, Transcendent

Confluence of the Individual, the Universal, and the Transcendent

When we take to the spirit or have some destiny, spiritual or otherwise, there is a confluence of the Individual, the Universal, and the Transcendent. Sri Aurobindo in The Life Divine often mentions the confluence of these three in Life, and Appa has written extensively on the subject in his various commentaries.

Moreover, this multi-dimensional flow can only be seen from a distance; from a higher consciousness that is able to perceive the march of events in its right context.

For example only later in life did it occur to me that when I made the great connection with the people at MSS in 1975 that it was the result of not only my inner initiative (Individual), but was fulfilled through the Center I visited (Universal/Societal), whose purpose was determined by a Divine Will (Transcendent); in this case, the Mother's aspiration for the founder to form a center in the US so that Her and Sri Aurobindo's consciousness and action could spread there.

All Purposes from the Macro to the Micro Are One; Have a Unity of Purpose

The Divine has a purpose in creation. The universe has a purpose in evolving living beings and humans in the world. Society has a purpose to accomplish. Countries have their own purposes. Individuals have their own purpose in life. In essence, every purpose is One from the point of view of the Supermind. There is a unity of purpose in the diverse purposes. (paraphrase of Nedumaran)