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Absolute in the Physical

 

                                                                  

The Vedic Rishis have realised that Man is Brahman, the world is Brahman and they have also realised the Brahman in Itself. They have realised the Reality, the Absolute, the Brahman says Sri Aurobindo. It means their spirits, in their meditation, rose to reach the Absolute. Their spirits have communed with the Absolute and in their daily life they made it a point to live by that exalted realisation treating the mountains, the rivers, the cows and all men as Brahman. Sri Aurobindo says they knew the Reality.

The Mother says He realised the Absolute in His physical consciousness. She also realised it at that level. If, to realise the Absolute in the Spirit is the first step, to realise it in the physical is the last step. What are the external expressions of such a realisation?

Between the body and the mind, we can conceive of mind touching the body, body realising the mind and the mental transformation of the body. Body can raise itself to experience thought which is reaching the mind. Mind can come down into the body and give the body its own thoughts as skills. When the finger, a minute before putting a key into a lock, feels it will open, it is the body raising itself to the mind. The finger automatically selecting the right key for the lock is mind functioning in the body while the mental transformation of the body is body's knowledge in every work being an unfailing one. A plane rising to a higher plane is an initial step. A higher plane descending to a lower plane - for example, mentalising the body - is a further stage. Transformation is the lower plane completing the process of conversion into the higher plane.

Ascent, descent, transformation are three different processes.

Mind rising in dhyana to Supermind mentally cognises or conceives that 'I and the other man are the same'.  This is a conception but without mind rising to Supermind this conception is not possible. To glimpse for a second  that the other man is in you either by sympathy or by an idea or by a vision, is the descent of Supermind into the mind. Supramental transformation of the mind is to possess this always.

Any plane rising to another plane has its symptoms in that plane. Equality, identification with another are the symptoms in the mind for possessing the Supermind, says The Mother.

It must be possible for us to work out the symptoms in each plane for its being possessed by a higher plane.

Mind rising to Higher Mind understands without thought, at the Illumined Mind understanding is through light, while at the Intuitive Mind understanding dispenses with thought as well as light. At the supramental level understanding is through identification. At the next level understanding changes into the sensation of Ananda. Further the process of understanding and comprehension give way to being conscious of the object. At the stage of Existence it is no longer conscious, but exists without being conscious. Crossing this stage into that of the Absolute the understanding, comprehension, ananda, consciousness, existence turn into their unmanifest potential. What is the reverse order of the Absolute becoming existence, consciousness, ananda, supermind, mind, vital or body?  The Absolute at different levels acquires different status. What are they?

Sri Aurobindo says authenticity is the first step towards being Absolute. Supermind coming into the body makes the body lose its grossness, blindness, know not through senses but directly through identification and lose its capacity to decay and die, that is, the body becomes a deathless substance.

What is Ananda coming into mind or body?  Mind when touched by Ananda has no pain, body when touched by Ananda has no decay or the pain of disintegration. Happiness comes from growth, pain by decay. The body feels happy touched by Ananda.

The Absolute is Freedom. In the body the Absolute must express its freedom for it to behave not as the habits dictate or senses direct, but as it chooses at the moment. Even when the Supermind comes into the body, the body can move at its will.

Presently only the Non-Existence can hold the freedom of the Absolute. The body is blind, ignorant, a slave of habits, dominated by the vital and mind, bound to death and decay. The Absolute in the physical must make the body aware, conscious, free of habits, free from mind and vital and free from death.

To work out how the Absolute expresses itself in each plane is to have a great knowledge. To work out how each plane expresses itself in a lower plane is to have complete knowledge.

Authenticity arises either from previous experience or the experience of others or from Grace working without interruption. That which produces an unfailing result is authentic. This authenticity coming from inside of any plane is the Absolute in that plane.

Mind thinks, rationalises, conceptualises, tests and arrives at a result. Suppose the mind when it starts thinking receives an idea from the higher planes, they will carry the clarity, certitude, joy or the consciousness of those planes. The Absolute expressing in any plane will be limited in its expression by the structure of that plane. The Absolute in the mind can only express as thought or light and cannot express otherwise. But the thought can be an absolute thought carrying its own authenticity. Body does not cease to be the body because the mind touches it or even the Supermind. When the Absolute reaches the physical, the physical substance expresses the potential powers of the Absolute in terms of its motions, actions or existence. A Power issues out of the body that can accomplish by itself, not even needing an action, but simply by coming into contact with the objects. When Mother's hand touched a paper weight, Her hand crushed it.

It is the Supreme that runs the world deciding the number of sugar cubes in our coffee.  If this is so, it can be extended to the Absolute too. It does not interfere with our capacities and endowments. The Faith that brushes aside the capacities, in that measure, allows the higher plane to act in us.

In the measure man does not insist on himself, the higher powers can be realised in him. Even the Absolute can be so realised in any part of his being. The Absolute can function in man at any level where the interference of the higher planes are removed. In the plane itself, in the measure it withdraws its insistence, the Absolute can function. If so, how does it function in the body.

Mother has explained how the Supermind functions in the body and She also explains the Ananda and Consciousness expressing in the body. They are to be collected and ordered and the behaviour of the Absolute in the body fixed. For the present, I can say a few things.

The Absolute is full of Absolute Potentials which are infinite. The purpose of the Absolute in the physical is to hasten the evolution and that it would do in its own fashion. Evolution of the body consciousness into the supramental consciousness is the passage of the psychic into a more concrete substance, that is, psychic consciousness into psychic substance and that into supramental substance. This passage follows the methods permissible in the circumstances, that is decided by the limitations of the body habits of several levels. When the Absolute is there in the physical, the transformation takes on wings. This behaviour will have the characteristic of self-determination circumscribed by the conditions of evolution.

This is Super-Grace that acts avoiding our endowments. For the Super Grace to act, a knowledge or an attitude or skill is necessary. That comes to us in our turning to Mother consciously.

Mother is a creative spiritual institution that can deliver to us Super Grace even as the school is the institution that delivers us the knowledge of the centuries. If people cannot turn to Mother in any country, they can be offered the Absolute Knowledge in their own fields which they cannot refuse. That knowledge will be irresistibly attractive to the population at large.

He who can deliver that surely to the population is one who has done it for his own sake in his own life. One can start with a programme for others or a programme for himself or at both ends.

To work out these 'absolutes' in utter Freedom is to usher in the Supermind. To do so in a social or psychological context is to usher in social or psychological progress. That will make possible for the individual all the psychological progress he wants to make or dreams of. For the society, this will give all the social progress they need.

If we are not able to work out those absolutes but are willing to make an initial inner effort like consecration, it can give all the progress unconsciously when complete.

When consecration is complete, it eliminates the individual, his capacities, his endowments and so on,. thereby making Super Grace act on the person. By working out the absolutes one consciously makes for progress. By consecration, the same progress will be made but the process of that progress will not be fully clear all the time.

One necessary condition of that consecration yielding all the results is complete positivity. Our thoughts are sometimes negative even when our acts are not. Something inside us reacts when thoughts are positive. Negativism as in a child's behaviour is widespread. To verbally react to a statement, to vitally reject an idea or a programme, to be negative behind these is a common human response. Not to be negative, but to be fully positive is an essential condition for the consecration to be effective.

In other words, an entirely positive personality when accepting Mother and resorting to complete consecration can choose to make all the individual psychological progress he seeks or give his nation or community all the social progress she wants to make when he works out the present and future absolutes of behaviour.

There is a physical organisation of the world where things happen absolutely and whenever necessary instantaneously. There is a social vital organisation whose functioning is as nearly total as the physical organisation. Presently it is functioning by the 'absolutes' at its level. This is something we know of and it is possible for us to know it more fully. To fashion our approach so as to touch this layer and its functioning is the strategy we need now.

The individual grows on the surface and at the depths. The collective evolution centers in the depths while the individual knows only the surface. To guide the individual social evolution, centering in the depths will make possible the spiritual evolution of the collective, through the individual. It is easier to guide the social evolution similarly.

Several levels of awareness

The story of a brahmachari who learnt that everything is Brahman and decided to practise it and confronted an elephant on the road illustrates it. The man on the elephant warned the brahmachari to move but the brahmachari refused, saying 'The elephant is Brahman. I do not have to fear it.'  The man on the elephant said that he too was Brahman and therefore he should be obeyed. In the meantime the elephant lifted the brahmachari and dropped him on the side of the road. The brahmachari was aware of the elephant-Brahman, but at what level? According to the level of awareness, the effectivity is there.

   To be able to

   touch the elephant is physical awareness;

   see the elephant is sensational or vital awareness;

   understand it as an animal is mental awareness;

   identify with it is supramental awareness;

   receive any sensation of the elephant only as ananda is to realise Ananda.

The brahmachari has a mental knowledge of the elephant as Brahman. His vital realisation of the same thing will make the elephant obey him. His physical realisation of the same will give him mastery over the elephant

To understand that the pearl and the diamond have something in common and have their own essences too by the knowledge of which we can make either or transmute one into another, is to realise the Absolute of the pearl and the diamond in the mind. To feel their commonality, individuality and essentiality is to realise the Absolute in the vital. To have the physical skill of making the one into another is to realise the Absolute in the physical. ( pg. 380 of The Life Divine)

To understand the opposites are arising from the Absolute as two different expressions of it is mental realisation.  To have the sensation that the two opposites are from the same Absolute is vital realisation. To have a mastery over them and be able to change the one into another is the physical realisation.

There can be no greater realisation for an individual than realising the Absolute in his physical unless we bring in the ideas of transformations higher than the Supramental Transformation. To complete the Supramental Transformation, maybe realising the Absolute in the physical is necessary. If He and She have realised it, we, their devotees, can achieve at what level?  Can we not realise the 'absolute' in our daily life or its first version of authenticity? Because their consciousness is subconsciously in us, a maximum yogic effort can give us their own realisation at least as an experience, a one time experience.

Our maximum effort at the level of our present consciousness must give us the maximum result that level of consciousness is capable of. The world has not yet seen that much or even a major part of it. That is the minimum open to their devotees.



story | by Dr. Radut