The Supramental Manifestation

The Supramental Manifestation 1

We, the human beings, are born in ignorance and darkness and unconsciousness, out of ignorance and darkness and unconsciousness, and are bearing and carrying in us the same ignorance and darkness and unconsciousness. Did the first Homo Neanderthal [1] , or rather the first group of Homo Neanderthals, ever had the capacity or the possibility of even dreaming of the present day world, or even the world of the times of the Vedas, or of the age when there was the Buddha on earth, or even when Jesus was traveling and walking on this earth, of dreaming and imagining that some Newton or Einstein or Hawkins, some Shakespeare or Shaw or Tagore, some Sri Ramkrishna or Swami Vivekananda, one Sri Aurobindo or Mira Alfassa would be born in this race?

That was and is the story of the human evolution — from the first group of Homo Neanderthal to the first Persons who realized and touched the Supramental Consciousness : Sri Aurobindo and The Mother [Mira Alfassa].

It was surely the Divine Intervention on earth that there was the appearance of the first group of Homo Neanderthals. Amid all ignorance and darkness and amid all animal and vital activities, the first group of rebels of the Light appeared. They wanted to break the chains, wanted to surpass the animal limits and habits, the animal way of instinctive but subjugated life. They started to stand erect and started using Mind, though initially in a small, rudimentary and limited degree. They started walking, talking, laughing, thinking though in a crude way. They began the human world — a world of Hope, of Aspiration, of Struggle against darkness and divisions and death, against Inconscience and Ignorance and Incapacity.
Sri Aurobindo said that this race, though “born into a world of ignorance and inconscience,” was “capable of an upward evolution of its consciousness and an ascent into the light and power and bliss of a spiritual being and spiritual nature.”
That was a moment, when the first group of Homo Neanderthals appeared — a step towards the Future, at that point of Time, as early as 350,000 years ago.
Now, we have Sri Aurobindo, the Hope of Man, who has promised us of the New World, the New Horizon, and not only that, he has also taken, along with The Mother [Mira Alfassa], the First Steps towards the Next Future, the Illumined Future.

***

The Mother said : What Sri Aurobindo represents in the world's history is not a teaching, not even a revelation ; it is a decisive action, direct from the Supreme.

During the Birth Centenary of Sri Aurobindo in 1972, The Mother gave us the following Message:
“Sri Aurobindo is an emanation of the Supreme who came on earth to announce the manifestation of a new race and a new world: the supramental.
“Let us prepare for it in all sincerity and eagerness.”

The Mother gave us also other messages on Sri Aurobindo at that time, one of which I am quoting below:
“Man is the creation of yesterday.
Sri Aurobindo came to announce the creation of tomorrow: the coming of the supramental being.”

On 30 January 1972, she further told us:
“Sri Aurobindo came upon earth to announce the manifestation of the supramental world and not merely did he announce this manifestation but embodied also in part the supramental force and showed by example what one must do to prepare oneself for manifesting it. The best thing we can do is to study all that he has told us and endeavor to follow his example and prepare ourselves for the new manifestation.”

***

Supermind is not a higher type of Mind. It is not a more perfect mind. Every student of Sri Aurobindo knows it.

According to Sri Aurobindo, Mind is a “half-lit and diminished principle.” Generally, the word ‘Mind’ is used to mean the general and ordinary mental consciousness, including the vital and emotional aspects. The vital and emotional aspects of our consciousness, all our passions, cravings, hungers, sentiments etc belong to the vital being or the principle of Life in us, as per the definition given by Sri Aurobindo. The vital being or Life is different from Mind, as defined by Sri Aurobindo. Even our higher emotions, love, sympathy, patriotism, — all of them — belong to the vital being, but the higher vital being. When we mention of the heart, not the physical one, but the emotional center, we then refer to the inner higher vital. Mind generally refers to the principle of reason and logic, intelligence, memory, will, thinking, understanding etc. This is the “half-lit and diminished principle of mind.” However, Mind is also used in a higher and wider sense. In the wider sense, it refers to the higher ranges starting from the Higher Mind to the Overmind. Of course these ranges exclude Supermind. As I have stated, Supermind is not a higher mind. It is a Higher Consciousness, transcending all the stages and planes of Mind. In between the ordinary Mind and the principle of Supermind, according to Sri Aurobindo , there are four stages of Mind: the Higher Mind, the Illumined Mind, the Intuitive Mind, and then, the Overmind.

To begin with, Overmind is the highest stage where the mental consciousness could reach, till the Manifestation of the Supermind. It is the Plane of the gods and goddesses, wherefrom several Avatars of the Supreme manifested and represented Him on earth. It is the Consciousness which was represented by Sri Krishna on earth, according to Sri Aurobindo. As Sri Aurobindo has stated, the Higher Mind is the first of the supra-rational levels or planes or grades of existence and consciousness, the first level of “Spiritual Mind”. It is an evolutionary stage beyond the rational mind. It is an ascent to a plane above the level of pure thinking mind, and there can be a descent also from this plane. Above the Higher Mind, there is a further and even more powerful and revelatory supra-rational level or plane of existence and consciousness, which is called the Illumined Mind. The Higher Mind prepares an integration of the being into a greater Force of consciousness and knowledge. This greater Force is that of the Illumined Mind, a Mind no longer of higher Thought, but of spiritual Light. Here, in place of the clear spiritual intelligence and the tranquil daylight of the Higher Mind, one finds “an intense lustre, a splendour and illumination of the Spirit.” And the characteristic action of ‘the larger conceptual-spiritual principle’ adds a fiery ardour of realization and a rapturous ecstasy of knowledge to the consciousness. The Higher Mind has the characteristic of the calm and wide enlightenment and the vast descent of peace, whereas the Illumined Mind has the feature of a play of lightnings of of spiritual truth and power breaking from above into the consciousness.

About the Intuitive Mind, Sri Aurobindo has said:

“Intuition is above the illumined Mind which is simply the higher Mind raised to a great luminosity and more open to modified forms of intuition and inspiration. … The Intuition is the first plane in which there is a real opening to the full possibility of realization - it is through it that one goes farther - first to Overmind and then to Supermind.”

Of course,there are mental, vital, subtle physical intuitions as well as intuitions from the higher and the illumined Mind, and even from the Overmind, as stated by Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo speaks of seven major planes of existence. He also suggests that between Mind and Supermind, or lower (finite, limited, ignorant) and higher (infinite, divine, perfect) creation, there is an important transitional or intermediate reality, which He calls the Overmind.

“At the source of …Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the Supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies, – not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time with its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater Truth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite possibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret Reality. This then is the occult link we were looking for; this is the Power that at once connects and divides the supreme Knowledge and the cosmic Ignorance.” [The Life Divine, p.278]

The Overmind is the plane of the great Gods, the individualized expression of the unitary Supramental Truth. These powers oversee the phenomenal world. It is the level where multiplicity first appears, and indeed is the principle that originally causes multiplicity.

“Overmind Energy (has the)…capacity of separation and combination of the powers and aspects of the integral…all-comprehending Unity (of the Supermind). It takes each aspect or power and gives it an independent action in which it acquires a full separate importance…” [The Life Divine, p.279]

Thus multiplicity emerges from Unity; the Archetypes emerge from the Unmanifest Absolute. Here we have the distinction between the Unmanifest and the Manifest Absolute or Godhead.

***

From Overmind, the next Ascension in the spiritual journey, is to Supermind.
It is the Ascent to Supermind and the Descent of the Supramental Consciousness on earth makes the Next Evolution possible.

Sri Aurobindo has said:

“The supramental change is the thing decreed and inevitable in the evolution of the earth-consciousness; for its upward ascent is not ended and mind is not its last summit. But the change may arrive, take form and endure, there is needed the call from below with a will to recognise and not deny the Light when it comes, and there is needed the sanction of the Supreme from above.”

Thus, as we have seen, Supermind is a principle which is out of reach of the common ordinary mind. But when Man reaches the higher regions of mind, namely the Higher Mind, the Illumined Mind, the Intuitive Mind, and then the Overmind, as defined by Sri Aurobindo, when Man reaches there, he can have the glimpses and the touch of Supermind. It may be very difficult, even appear to be impossible. But when the Supramental Consciousness is present on earth, things will be easier, much easier.
And now the Supermind is on earth, actively present on earth. I am quoting the oft-quoted message of the Mother from Mother's Agenda Vol.1:

FIRST SUPRAMENTAL MANIFESTATION

(During the common meditation on Wednesday
The 29th February 1956)

This evening the Divine Presence, concrete and material, was there present amongst you. I had the form of a living gold, bigger than the universe, and I was facing a huge and massive golden door, which separated the world from the Divine.
As I looked at the door, I knew and willed, in a single movement of consciousness, that ‘the time has come', and lifting with both hands a mighty golden hammer I struck one blow on the door and the door was shattered to pieces.
Then the supramental Light and Force and Consciousness rushed down upon earth in an uninterrupted flow.

***

The Mother has said in this regard:

“The Manifestation of the Supramental upon earth is no more a promise but a living fact, a reality. It is at work here, and one day will come when the most blind, the most unconscious, even the most unwilling shall be obliged to recognise it.”

Thus, we can see that Mind has reached the its last ranges and is on the process of handing over the task of the Evolution to the supramental consciousness. This is the Truth. We should no longer remain limited within the ranges of our ordinary small ranges of the Mind, but should endeavor to transcend our mental selves and begin our inner journey to the New Creation taken up by the supramental consciousness.

[Continued]

Barindranath Chaki
05-11-2006

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[1]——>

a. The Neanderthal : An extinct human species (Homo neanderthalensis) or subspecies (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) living during the late Pleistocene Epoch throughout most of Europe and parts of Asia and northern Africa and associated with Middle Paleolithic tools.[The Free Dictionary]
b. The Neanderthal (Homo neanderthalensis) or Neandertal was a species of the Homo genus that inhabited Europe and parts of western Asia. The first proto-Neanderthal traits appear in Europe as early as 350,000 years ago. By 130,000 years ago, full blown Neanderthal characteristics had appeared and by 50,000 years ago, Neanderthals disappeared from Europe, although they did not reach extinction in Asia until 30,000 years ago.[ Collected from Wikipedia ]
c. The most widely accepted view among current anthropologists is that Homo sapiens originated in the African savanna between 200,000 and 250,000 years ago, descending from Homo erectus, and colonized Eurasia and Oceania by 40,000 years ago, and finally colonized the Americas by 10,000 years ago. They displaced Homo neanderthalensis, Homo floresiensis and other species descended from Homo erectus (which had colonized Eurasia as early as 2 million years ago) through more successful reproduction and competition for resources.[ Collected from Wikipedia ]
d. Homo erectus (upright man) is an extinct species of genus Homo. In 1890s it was first described as Pithecanthropus erectus based on a skullcap and a modern-looking femur (thighbone) found from the bank of the Solo River central Java.
Throughout much of the 20th century, anthropologists have debated the role of H. erectus in human evolution. Early in the century, due to discoveries on Java and at Zhoukoudian in China, it was believed that modern humans first evolved in Asia. This contradicted Charles Darwin's statements of African origins. However, during the 1950s and 1970s, numerous fossil finds from East Africa (Kenya) yielded evidence that the oldest hominins originated there. It is now believed that H. erectus is a descendant of earlier hominins such as Australopithecus and early Homo species (e.g., H. habilis). [Hominini is the tribe of Homininae that only includes humans (Homo), chimpanzees (Pan), and their extinct ancestors. Members of the tribe are called hominins (cf. Hominidae, "hominids") .]
Australopithecus shared several traits with modern apes and humans and were widespread throughout Eastern and Southern Africa from 4.4 million years to 1.7 million years ago. The available hominid footprints are remarkably similar to modern humans and have been positively dated as 3.7 million years old. Until recently, the footprints have generally been classified as Australopithicine because that had been the only form of pre-human known to have existed in that region at that time; however, some scholars have considered reassigning them to a yet unidentified very early species of the genus Homo.
Australopithecus afarensis and Australopithecus africanus are among the most famous of the extinct hominids. A. africanus used to be regarded as ancestral to the genus Homo (in particular Homo erectus). However, some fossils assigned to the genus Homo have been found that are older than A. africanus. Thus, the genus Homo either split off from the genus Australopithecus at an earlier date or both developed from a yet possibly unknown common ancestor independently.
According to the Chimpanzee Genome Project, both human (Ardipithecus, Australopithecus and Homo) and chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes and Pan paniscus) lineages diverged from a common ancestor about 5-6 million years ago, if we assume a constant rate of evolution.
H. erectus originally migrated from Africa around 2.0 million years ago, and dispersed throughout most of the Old World (Europe, Asia and Africa), reaching as far as Southeast Asia.
Fossilized remains dating to 1.8 and 1.0 million years old have been found in Africa, Europe, and in Indonesia and China in Asia. H. erectus remains an important hominin since it is believed to be the first to leave Africa. Some scholars believe that H. erectus is an evolutionary lineage, derived to have been the ancestor to modern H. sapiens.
Homo erectus has fairly derived (advanced) morphological features, and a larger cranial capacity than that of the newly found Homo habilis. The forehead (frontal bone) is less sloping and the teeth are smaller. Homo erectus would bear a striking resemblance to modern humans, but had a brain about 75 percent (950 to 1100 cc) of the size of that of a modern human's. These early hominines were tall, on average standing about 1.79 m (5 feet, 10 inches). The sexual dimorphism between males and females was almost the same as seen in modern Homo sapiens with males being slightly larger than females.
Homo erectus used more diverse and sophisticated tools than its predecessors. H. erectus first used tools of the Oldowan style and later progressed to the Acheulean style. The surviving tools from both periods are all made of stone. Oldowan tools are the oldest known formed tools and date as far back as about 2.4 million years ago. The Acheulean era began about 1.2 million years ago and ended about 500,000 years ago. The primary innovation associated with Acheulean handaxes is that the stone was chipped on both sides to form two cutting edges.
Homo erectus were probably the first early humans to fit squarely into the category of a hunter gatherer society and not as prey for larger animals. Anthropologists believe that H. erectus was socially closer to modern humans than the more primitive species before it.
The discovery of Turkana boy in 1984 has shown evidence that despite H. erectus's more human-like anatomy, they were not capable of producing sounds of a complexity comparable to modern speech.
H. erectus migrated all throughout the Great Rift Valley, even up to the Red Sea. Early humans, in the person of Homo erectus, were learning to master their environment for the first time. Attributed to H. erectus, around 1.8 million years ago in the Olduvai Gorge, is the oldest known evidence of mammoth consumption. It is suggested that H. erectus may have built rafts and travelled over oceans.
Some dispute that H. erectus was able to control fire. The earliest (least disputed) evidence of controlled fire is around 300,000 years old and comes from a site called Terra Amata, which lies on an ancient beach location on the French Riviera. This site seems to have been occupied by Homo erectus. There are older Homo erectus sites that seem to indicate controlled use of fire, some dating back 500,000 to 1.5 million years ago, in France, China, and other areas. A discovery brought forth in March of 2004 stated that there is evidence for controlled fires in excavations in northern Israel from about 690,000 to 790,000 years ago.
Homo erectus remains one of the most successful and long-lived species of the Homo genus. It is generally considered to have given rise to a number of descendant species and subspecies. The oldest known specimen of the ancient man was found in Africa. Homo neanderthalensis came much later as descndants, followed by Homo sapiens, still later.



Barindranath Chaki
05-11-2006

In the Hour of God

Sri Aurobindo spoke of The Hour of God.

Not all moments are the Hour of God. There have been the Ages of Darkness on earth, on several places on earth. Men have been left to their ignorance and egoism, to their lack of knowledge and wisdom, to their imperfection and incompleteness, to their mortality.

But some Hours on earth are those of the Divine.

There are moments when the Spirit moves among men and the breath of the Lord is abroad upon the waters of our being; there are others when it retires and men are left to act in the strength or the weakness of their own egoism. The first are the periods when even a little effort produces great results and changes destiny; the second are spaces of time when much labour goes to the making of a little result. [ The Hour of God ]

This earth is a field of Evolution : Evolution of the Spirit involved in Matter. All living beings and all humans are the outcome of this Evolution. But Man is not in the final stage of Evolution. He is in the initial stage of the Manifestation of Consciousness. He is in a rudimentary stage. So imperfect, so incomplete he is !

As Sri Aurobindo said, the time has come when evolution must surpass man. Man is not the perfect being, not the complete being. But he aspires and dreams for becoming perfect, for becoming complete. Ultimately, the task of Evolution is to manifest the Divine, the Source of this Manifestation, the Supreme Existence-Consciousness-Bliss (in Sanskrit and other Indian languages called Sat-Chit-Ananda or Sachchidananda). The Superman is to emerge and manifest out of Man. Man has to prepare and transform himself for the coming of the Superman. He should grow and become the Superman. That is the purpose of Man's appearance — the Advent of the Superman, of the Supramental Consciousness — and the purpose must now be fulfilled, through man's surpassing himself will do that. If Man fails to collaborate with the new phase of evolution, the evolutionary forces will surpass him, push him aside, go beyond him and find out its own means.

During the periods when the Divine is not actively interfering with the Manifestation, and is in distance, Man may call the Divine and the ‘smoke of sacrifice’ that he offers through his work and aspiration and prayer reaches the Divine. The Hour of God is the answer of the Divine, and His Grace!

It is true that the latter [ordinary moments] may prepare the former [the Divine moments], may be the little smoke of sacrifice going up to heaven which calls down the rain of God’s bounty. [ The Hour of God ]

The Divine Consciousness descends and becomes ready to answer the Call and the Aspiration of the human being, to lift him up to Light and Force and Joy and Love, but Man fails. The Divine comes and gives us Light, shows us the Way, but we cover the Light with the Shades of Darkness and create hurdles on the Way by creating walls and barricades of Ignorance. We love Darkness and Ignorance and thus we ignore Light and Truth and Wisdom. We are never really prepared.

This is the Time when the field is ready for the human being to grow and become the supramental being. The Hour of God that has descended on earth with the coming of Sri Aurobindo still continues and will continue till the Work is accomplished, till the Supramental Beings emerge on earth.

If the Hour of God recedes back, the Supernature then will definitely have a different Plan, which will never be a welcome situation for Man. Humanity will then have to face warfares and destructions and irrecoverable losses.

Unhappy is the man or the nation which, when the divine moment arrives, is found sleeping or unprepared to use it, because the lamp has not been kept trimmed for the welcome and the ears are sealed to the call. But thrice woe to them who are strong and ready, yet waste the force or misuse the moment; for them is irreparable loss or a great destruction.
[The Hour of God]

Sri Aurobindo calls us for being prepared, for becoming ready, and never to waste the force or misuse the moment. He calls us to become pure, cleansing all self-deceit and hypocrisy and vanity, in this Hour of God. Any insincerity will bring in ‘the blow’ caused by the wrath of God.

In the hour of God cleanse thy soul of all self-deceit and hypocrisy and vain self-flattering that thou mayst look straight into thy spirit and hear that which summons it. All insincerity of nature, once thy defence against the eye of the Master and the light of the ideal, becomes now a gap in thy armour and invites the blow. Even if thou conquer for the moment, it is the worse for thee, for the blow shall come afterwards and cast thee down in the midst of thy triumph.
[The Hour of God]


Sri Aurobindo has said thus elsewhere on sincerity :

To walk through life armoured against all fear, peril and disaster, only two things are needed, two that go always together - the Grace of the Divine Mother and on your side an inner state made up of faith, sincerity and surrender.
[The Mother]

On sincerity, the Mother [Mira Alfassa] has said :

One must have an absolutely transparent sincerity. Lack of sincerity is the cause of the difficulties we meet at present. Insincerity is in all men. Insincerity is in all men. There are perhaps a hundred men on earth who are totally sincere. Man’s very nature makes him insincere — it is very complicated, he is constantly deceiving himself, hiding the truth himself, making excuses for himself. Yoga is the way to become sincere in all parts of the being.
It is difficult to be sincere, but at least one can be mentally sincere… The force is there, present as never before; men’s insincerity prevents it from descending, from being felt. The world lives in falsehood, all relations between men until now have been based on falsehood and deceit. Diplomatic nations between nations are based on falsehood. They claim to want peace, and meanwhile they are arming themselves. Only a transparent sincerity in man and among nations can usher in a transformed world.

[February 1968 : Words of the Mother]

Insincerity is thus ingrained in human beings. For a transformed world, they will have to become sincere and pure. Let us stand up in the truth of our purpose : a supramental manifestation on earth and a transformed world.

But being pure cast aside all fear; for the hour is often terrible, a fire and a whirlwind and a tempest, a treading of the winepress of the wrath of God; but he who can stand up in it on the truth of his purpose is he who shall stand; even though he fall, he shall rise again; even though he seem to pass on the wings of the wind, he shall return.

Nor let worldly prudence whisper too closely in thy ear; for it is the hour of the unexpected, the incalculable, the immeasurable. Mete not the power of the Breath by thy petty instruments, but trust and go forward. But most keep thy soul clear, even if for a while, of the clamour of the ego. Then shall a fire march before thee in the night and the storm be thy helper and thy flag shall wave on the highest height of the greatness that was to be conquered. [The Hour of God]

Thus, we must keep our soul clear and stop listening to the clamour of the ego. We may have fall and failure, but if we stand up with our purpose, we shall rise again, we shall return.

Now, in this Hour of God, even a little effort on our part in this direction will produce great results and change the human destiny.

In the Hour of God, let us be sincere, to ourselves, to the humanity, to the Divine.

The Mother has said:

Be honest towards yourself — (no self-deception).
Be sincere towards the Divine — (no bargaining in the surrender).
Be straightforward with humanity — (no pretence and show).

The Mother has further said in this connection:

Before the Eternal Consciousness a drop of sincerity has more value than an ocean of pretension and hypocrisy.

If we, the mankind as a whole and individually, really aspire for progress, for real progress, instead being and remaining stationed with all darkness, division, difficulties, ignorance, incompleteness and imperfection, then the only way is to be sincere.
If we really aspire to march towards the New Horizon, towards the New World, the first principle that is to be adopted by us should be sincerity.

The Mother has again said :

All division in the being is an insincerity.
The greatest insincerity is to dig an abyss between your body and the truth of your being.
When as abyss separates the true being from the physical being, Nature fills it up immediately with all kinds of adverse suggestions, the most formidable of which is fear, and the most pernicious, doubt.
Allow nothing anywhere to deny the truth of your being —this is sincerity.



Barindranath Chaki
2-11-2006