The path of the revelation of the Immortal Supreme Self (Atman) is a path of the progressive inward movement of the individual consciousness, in order to finally recognize the Supreme Self (Atman) as our true nature.
The mind manas is constantly turned outwardly, through the use of the senses, busy identifying itself with everything that it is not. By this tendency it becomes the main tool of the ego, Ahamkara, to avoid absorption in the Self.
The awakening and the experience of Vijnanamaya Kosha plays an important role in the progressive inward movement of the individual consciousness, because it is only then that we can truly turn the awareness inwardly and begin the process of Self-discovery.
Vijnana
The fourth shell of the human being is the Vijnanamaya Kosha. The word Vijnana means knowledge. Vijnanamaya Kosha is the sheath of the higher knowledge, the seat of the intellect, an aspect superior to the mind, manas.
The level of Vijnanamaya Kosha is the level where wisdom begins, which seeks the truth in order to penetrate deeper into the spiritual search for the eternal centre of being, the Immortal Self (Atman).
The term Vijnana refers to the knowledge in the form of recognitions of things as they are in essence, their true form undistorted by associations, opinions etc. It is the knowledge that is experienced in the soul as a oneness with that which is known. This knowledge is experienced as states and in this way is known fully because it is lived.
At the level of Mano maya kosha, that which we falsely take as knowledge is narrow points of view, is colored by the emotions of the individual, previous experiences and doctrines.
As an ultimate definition, jnana is the eternal, unbroken, natural state of abiding in the Self. That alone is the only true knowledge.
The Supramental
The term supramental defines the aspect of our consciousness, at the level of Vijnanamaya Kosha, that is above the lower mental aspect, the rational mind (manas).
It is quite difficult to define the supramental consciousness in mental terms, for it is non-mental by definition, and it defies all our three-dimensional laws and perspectives. The word itself may mislead us, because the supramental is not an epitome of normal human consciousness, but a type of superior consciousness.
The supramental vision is a global vision. The mind, manas, dissects little fragments and opposes them to one another. The supramental connects everything with a single beam, which terminates in a single point, and it sees everything from its own particular point of view.
The Supramental is unitary and universal either by way of excluding all other perspectives or else by annexing them. The Supramental, sees not only the whole of things and beings within a single vision, connecting every part together without opposing anything, but it also sees the point of view of each separate thing, each being, each force; it is an all-encompassing view that terminate in myriads of points, which are mystically aligned with a central point.
The Supramental does not set truth against truth to see which will stand and survive, but completes truth by truth in the light of the one Truth.
The supramental vision sees things from above figuratively speaking, not from outside and judged by their surfaces, but from within and viewed from the truth of their centre.
From a supramental vision, each thing, each being, each force on the earth moves toward an absolute state of existing, expressing it more or less accurately but even often perversely, but despite all the flaws and perversions it obeys an intimate law that impels it towards the one truth of its being.
The material object becomes to the sight of the supramental something different from what we usually see. The objects do not appear as separate objects on the background of the environment (of the rest of Nature) but as indivisible parts and even in a subtle way, as an expression of the unity of all that we see. And this unity is that of the identity of the eternal, the unity of the Immortal Spirit. The objects appear and are seen as Spirit itself in a form of itself and as a conscious extension of the Spirit.
Not only does the supramental consciousness capture all points of view, but also the deeper forces at work behind each thing as well as the truth within each thing, thus it is a Truth-Consciousness – and because it sees all, it automatically possesses Power. We are usually powerless because we do not see. To see, and to see totally, necessarily means to have power.
The supramental power does not obey our logic or rational morality; it sees far into space and time, and it does not try to do away with evil in order to save the good, it frees the good that is within the evil, applying its force and light on the dark half so it consents to its luminous counterpart.
The supramental is a stupendous evolutionary ferment. Whatever it touches is impelled to transform according to its own inner truth. The supramental awareness upon feelings, painful or blissful, extract the wisdom of the phenomena without judging it or categorizing it as good or bad.
Thus, supramental awareness is the most effective psychotherapy that not only aims to fix the mind, to get rid of an unwanted mental state, but instead to integrate the psychological issues into a perspective that reveals the value of each mental issue in the light of transforming the individual being into a cosmic being, as well as in the light of the withdrawal of the individual consciousness into the Self, which is normally easier possible when the being is in a state of inner balance.
The supramental functions through higher intuition and a direct perception of truth not relying on sensuous perceptions for perceiving reality. The language of the supramental consciousness is the language of symbols, of poetry and artistic expressions. The awakened supramental consciousness understands easily abstract concepts and representations.
This language is also expressed in telepathic communication, even about concrete daily aspects, or in the silent teaching of the Master creating an exemplified field of consciousness that the disciple can enter into a state of occult resonance with. As an example, is the spiritual exemplifications that Grieg is offering to us. Or the silent telepathic teachings that happens in the present of the Spiritual Master as in the case of Ramana Maharshi who preferred to teach telepathically without words.
Immobility is the basis of the supramental power, but silence is the condition for its perfect operation. The supramental consciousness does not follow mental criteria to determine its actions. There are no more “dilemmas”; its actions arise naturally and spontaneously. Spontaneity is the particular mark of the Supramental: spontaneity of life, spontaneity of knowledge, spontaneity of power. In ordinary life, we try to know what is good or right, and once we think we have found it, we somehow try to implement our thought. The supramental consciousness, on the contrary, does not try to know or to decipher what it must do or not do; it is perfectly silent and still, living each second of time spontaneously, unconcerned by the future; then at each second, the exact required knowledge falls like a droplet of light in the silence of the consciousness: “This has to be done, that has to be said, or seen, or understood.”
The teachings of Sri Aurobindo
According to Sri Aurobindo, The Supramental Consciousness is the creative power God, the force that links the Supreme Reality with the evolving universe, the bridge or the intermediary between the unmanifest and the manifest, between God and the individual souls. He explained it as s consciousness that knows by identity: it sees all things in their oneness and yet holds each in its unique truth. It sees the inner truth of things because it is one with them. Because it, the Supramental, is free from division, it acts without error, conflict, or contradiction.
The mind, Manas, even at its highest, perceives reality through division: it analyzes, compares, questions, and infers. It sees truths in fragments and often confuses appearance with essence. The Supramental, by contrast, is a plane of truth-consciousness, a state in which knowledge is inherent, not constructed. This direct, integral knowledge is accompanied by a will that expresses truth spontaneously. In the Supramental Consciousness, knowledge and action are one “movement”, perfectly aligned. The Supramental, can also be expressed as a state in which knowledge, will, love, and action are unified in a luminous harmony.
For Sri Aurobindo, yoga was not a personal liberation from the world but a collaborative work with evolution. He described three major transformations:
Psychic Transformation; The soul’s inner being comes forward, guiding life with truth, purity, and devotion.
Spiritual Transformation; A state of higher consciousness where peace, wideness, light and silence descends from above.
Supramental Transformation; The supramental truth-power descends into consciousness and life, and even the physical body, reshaping them into instruments of godly consciousness.
It is, according to Sri Aurobindo, this last transformation that brings about a divine life on earth, not as a mystical ideal but as a new phase of terrestrial evolution.
Senses
When a being is endowed with a dynamized Vijnanamaya Kosha and engages in sensuous experiences, the lower mind manas will not be able to distort the impressions and information by associations
The information from the senses will thus reach unaltered at the level of the supramental consciousness giving a truthful insight of the sensuous experience. Moreover, the energy of the experience will thus not activate mano maya kosha as it usually does, but instead will energize, dynamize and expand Vijnanamaya Kosha.
Thus, sensorial experiences can either contract the energy at the level of mano maya kosha and strengthening the identification with the ego, Ahamkara which is usually the case or can dynamize Vijnanamaya Kosha when we have no expectations, preconceived ideas, fears, judgments etc. about the experience, living it with the same purity of a little child seeing something wonderful for the first time
Acquisition of knowledge
The supramental acquires experiences and knowledge through an intuitive expansion of the consciousness (at this level) that approaches the given object of knowledge not only from a single point of view but embrace it from countless angels.
The supramental focus, is thus a focus from many angles simultaneously and will in this way get us much closer to the perception of the truth of a phenomenon than the point of view presented at the level of Manomaya Kosha which argue for its rights by denying other points of views.
Sri Aurobindo said, “The supramental does not oppose a truth to another truth in order to see which of them resists and survives, it completes a truth with a truth in the light of the Ultimate Truth to which all truths are but aspects.”
Thus, at the level of the supramental, the supramental thinking can be described as spherical, a thinking that unites all aspects instead of dividing and separating them as the mind, manas does.
The supramental focus is a focus that is narrowing the perspective, leaving out with no compromise all that is irrelevant for the investigation but, and very important, simultaneously fully open in a state of intuitive expansion recognizing all elements relevant for the center of the focus, the object of the investigation. Thus, it is an action that equally contracts and expand the field of awareness enabling the consciousness to function in a state of perfect balance.
As a comparison, the focus exerted from the level of manas, the lower mind is constantly under the influence of its tendency to associate, which makes the center of focus unstable and to move from its initial point. To counter act this, an attitude of tension, narrowmindedness, dogmatism and fanaticism is usually engaged which leave the practitioner exhausted, tensed and frustrated.
Here is what Aurobindo says about the supramental experience: “There are no more walls that limit, it is an oceanic and subtle sense, in which every particular censorial knowledge, every sensation is like a wave or movement, like a breeze, like a drop in which is concentrated the whole ocean and inseparable from the ocean.”
The Now
The supramental consciousness is not anxiously turned toward the future as we habitually are. Everything is exposed before its eyes, but the supramental lives time in a godly way: every second of time is an absolute, as filled with plenitude as all the millennia combined. It is the utter perfection of time.
In ordinary life, we never live in the present; we are either thrust ahead by our hopes or pulled backward by our regrets, because the present moment never quite meets our expectations; it is most often lacking something, most often terribly empty.
For the supramental consciousness, each thing is at each instant fully what it should be and as it should be. Living in a supramental state makes us live spontaneously each moment by being always fully aware and centered in the present moment.
We are usually busy seeking new things or new objects because each thing lacks all the other things that are not present in it; our objects are as empty as our minutes. But for the supramental consciousness, each object, each thing it touches feels as full and infinite as a vision of the immensities of the sum of all possible objects. In this supramental experience the Absolute is everywhere, every finite is an infinite.
In this state there is a sense of ever-renewed wonder arising from the constant rediscovery of that eternal infinity, that timeless Absolute in each space-bound object and each second of time. There is an utter plenitude of life. While the supramental plenitude finds infinity in the finite and timelessness in the temporal, it lives spontaneously every sound, every object, every experience as well as the immensity that contains all seconds and all objects.
Vijnanamaya Kosha is the level of individual consciousness
The fundamental idea “I am” is rising in the heart, the center, as the source of the individuality, of the manifested consciousness and beingness, as the source of the mind.
When the state of ‘I am’ is mixed with past memories, and when we add to it, I am this and that, I have this and that, when it is attached to the sensory mind (manas), a state of almost total self-forgetfulness appears.
Staying aware of the “I am” or “I” not allowing any attachment to it, such as I am this or that, or I feel this or that, centers the being at the level of Vijnanamaya Kosha. This is the most direct way of entering the supramental.
Thoughts alone constitute the mind; and for all thoughts the base is the “I” thought. Thus the “I”-thought is the mind itself and of all thoughts the “I”-thought is the root. What is called mind and individual consciousness is but the notion “I.”
The thoughts arise because there is the thinker. The thinker is the ego who can only exist through chains of thoughts which confirms its existence. Staying aware of the “I” alone as often as possible, will interrupt the chains of thoughts and finally eliminate it together with the Thinker, the ego.
No attempt should be made to destroy the mind. To think or wish is in itself a thought. If the thinker is sought, the thoughts will disappear because they are unreal. This is the foremost goal of the supramental investigation of our own being.