Evolving Towards a Consciousness of Unity - Sri Aurobindo's Teachings and Lineage
Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest Heaven (The Empyrean);
from Gustave Doré's illustrations to the Divine Comedy, Paradiso Canto 31
In 1908-1909, while spending a year in jail for being a seditionist against British rule in India, Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950) came to the conclusion that the time had come for an entirely new stage of evolution to unfold on planet Earth. So far in our history, out of seemingly inert matter evolved life and out of matter-life evolved mind. The next logical question that arises is, ‘What is next for us? … What exactly are we to become or evolve into?’ The answer, according to Sri Aurobindo and the authors of the Rig Veda, is that we are to become conscious of the One Self that contains and pervades all-selves and all variations throughout all of time and space. Another way of putting this is that our limited mind and fragmented mental-egoic formations are evolutionarily bound to give way to a supramental, or higher-than-mental consciousness of eternity, immortality and unity. Like the seed of a flower is inherently designed to grow through various stages and to bloom, mankind is inherently designed in the course of evolution, to become Gnostic or knowledgeable of the whole living macrocosm of which each individual is a microcosm. As our consciousness evolves in that direction, life on Earth becomes correspondingly luminous, harmonious and divine.
In his magnum opus The Life Divine, which describes this evolutionary vision, Sri Aurobindo begins his description of the ‘Gnostic Being’ with a selection of verses from the Rig Veda that give readers an idea of the eternal Truth of Oneness that lies in wait to illuminate the shadowy mind of Man.
you have discovered the One Light for the many.
Rig Veda I. 93. 4
O Truth-Conscious, be conscious of the Truth,
cleave out many streams of the Truth.
Rig Veda V. 12. 2
A perfect path of the Truth has come into being for our
journey to the other shore beyond the darkness.
Rig Veda I. 46. 11
‘Mental nature and mental thought,’ Sri Aurobindo goes on to explain, ‘are based on a consciousness of the finite; supramental nature is in its very grain a consciousness and power of the Infinite. Supramental Nature sees everything from the standpoint of oneness and regards all things, even the greatest multiplicity and diversity, even what are to the mind the strongest contradictions, in the light of that oneness; its will, ideas, feelings, sense are made of the stuff of that oneness, its actions proceed on that basis. … the supramental, the life divine is a life of essential spontaneous and inherent unity.’
Comment
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Comment by Lori Tompkins on August 11, 2013 at 1:27am
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Hey Paige, I'm really glad you liked the article. If you follow the work of the sages discussed in the article, I imagine you will continue to be inspired. They knowledge content they have 'delivered' is truly amazing.
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Comment by Paige on August 9, 2013 at 2:50pm
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The full article for this was just simply amazing! I really had enjoyed reading it! Thanks for sharing!
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Really a nice article on consciousness and meditation. I had decided to see who Sri Aurobindo was becuase his meditations are very intuitive and have been very helpful for me within the previous days. Very cool.
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The Mother, February 29, 1956 (see The Mother's Agenda available online in pdf format)
FIRST SUPRAMENTAL MANIFESTATION
(During the common meditationon Wednesday the 29th February 1956)
"This evening the Divine Presence, concrete and material, was there present amongst you. I had a form of 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, one single 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."Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet writes that the Age of Aquarius began in 1926 (coinciding with Sri Aurobindo's Siddhi experience in 1926 in which Krishna consciousness descended into him and after which he 'retired' into seclusion to carry out his yoga and upon which the Sri Aurobindo Ashram was formed). That gives us our place in time/on the Map of Evolution as found in The Gnostic Circle. You can see that the Mother's announcement of the 'First Supramental Manifestation' fell some 30 years into the Age of Aquarius. And you can see that now we are 86 years into the Age of Aquarius, and that 'Supramental Manifestation is still in its infancy. The foundations have been layed, via Sri Aurobindo and his line, but I do not pretend to know how and how quickly or slowly the various evolutionary stages and steps will unfold. I can tell you that there has been and continues to be tremendous vital and mental resistance to the Supramental Gnosis and Cosmology. I cannot say how quickly or slowly the Supramental Shakti will conquer that resistance and transform the consciousness of the masses.The Gnostic Circle is definitely a map of evolution, and we can use it to help us understand our past and present and give us some inkling of what is in store for us in the future ... such as we know the Age of Aquarius to be an Age of the 'Brotherhood of Men', the Age of the Friend (Mitra), and the Age of Unity; and the Age of Capricorn some two millenia ahead of us, has the potential to be a truly 'Golden'/Illumined Age (the Illumination of not only vital and mental planes of being, but physical as well). Perhaps this means that the Supramental Consciousness-Force will be the reigning consciousness of civilization at that time. What exactly this means for the transformation and reorganization of matter we will have to live (rather than speculate with our minds). I do know that in the teachings of Sri Aurobindo, the goal is to UNITE spirit with matter/form, rather than to transcend form and physical manifestation.Enjoy your reading of The Gnostic Circle Anand ... as you progress, you will get more of a sense of how the MAP of evolution is to be used/applied. Even when we find our Zero point of the Map and our place on it, still we need to LIVE and LEARN what that means for the soul in it's process of manifesting fully/in matter. Part of that is taking the time to learn the language of the Zodiac ... and the structure of time/evolution. Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet's The Magical Carousel, is a necessary companion to The Gnostic Circle</</body>
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Comment by Capt. Anand Kumar on January 3, 2012 at 9:06pm
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Thank You Lori, for posting this beautiful article. Two simple questions:
1. What time frame are we looking at (decades, centuries) for reaching the Supramental stage. If we know our position on the map, then it may be feasible to calculate.
2. Would humans still require physical form (bodies) when they attain Supramental stage?
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