Aspiration and adhesion to make the expansion of the being

Re: 13: Nature a Conscious Front of God by RY Deshpande on Wed 30 May 2007 02:26 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link There must be a constant expansion and self-perfecting

In one of the footnotes to the Agni-hymns, Sri Aurobindo makes the following comment: “The supramental world has to be formed or created in us by the Divine Will as the result of a constant expansion and self-perfecting.”

Both the terms are fixed in it, expansion and self-perfecting. Could this not have been the method of Aswapati in creating the new world in the supramental? He had become vast by his largeness, extending all the way up to the Unknowable and enveloping every bit of this vast manifestation, including those of the dark abysses; he had achieved self-perfection that no trace of the Inconscient and the Subconscient was present in it, the oneness that embraces all the positives and the negatives and rejects nothing, that it is all God’s creation. The rendering of the corresponding Rik is as follows: (The Secret of the Veda)

O knower of the births, the man perfect in his works for whom thou createst that other blissful world, reaches a felicity that is peopled happily with his life’s swiftnesses, his herds of Light, the children of his soul, the armies of his energies.

In the context of Aswapati’s yoga-sadhana, we see that he has already done his part of the job and now he has to wait for the other term of the process to come into operation. In his Sachchidananda consciousness he has formed or created this new world, the supramental world, and now he prays to the Divine Will to enter into the play. The Mother makes the point more explicit:

...to hope to receive, use and form in oneself a supramental being, and consequently a supramental world, there must first of all be an expansion of consciousness and constant personal progress... the constant idea of the being... the constant will of the being, the constant preoccupation of the being... there must be enough aspiration and adhesion in the being to make the expansion of the being, the expansion of consciousness possible… There must be great widening to make room for the movements of the Supermind.

The question put to the Mother was: “How is the Supermind going to act? What should be done to receive it? In what form will it manifest?” She is quite categorical in her statement that, it is the Divine Will who is going to do all that. What is expected of us is to have a constant aspiration for progress; we should make our consciousness wide and receptive, open our being more and more to the descending force and light and happiness, strive for self-perfection in every respect, every aspect of our personality, the soul-personality. Agni is the knower of the births, jātavedas, and it is based on our perfection in works that he will give new birth, create for us a new world of blessedness and felicity.

The Mother was the first to pick up this Sri Aurobindo’s very pregnant footnote to the Rik and significantly reveal that, though in reality everything is done by the Divine Will, the urge to progress is the necessary part that has to combine with it in the creation of the supramental world. That is how Aswapati, by his “constant” idea and will and preoccupation, succeeded in building the “godhead of the race”, the supramental race. That is how the real human potential will be fulfilled. That should be the authentic human effort, the human input needed for the process. Now, coupled with this effort, must come the sanction of the Supreme, the “fiat of the Word”, the most important executive pronouncement of Gayatri, the mighty voice of the operative Logos.

We should note that the Veda speaks of the Divine Fire, Agni, as one who is amuram, one who is not perplexed or bewildered, who is free from ignorance. (Rig Veda, III.19.1) At the same time, he is wide-seeing and is the knower of the births, and the bringer of the bright issues of the Eternal, brahma-prajā. He is therefore a supramental Godhead and in his will and action there is that supramental infallibility. The Word that he brings is the Word, brahma, whose light shines in Heaven.

But, then, will that light shine at all in the cave of this darkness also, in the terrestrial darkness, in the recesses of the Inconscience as well? Will it? Perhaps not,—if at all it will shine, it will shine only occasionally,—in its most occult connotation. The Vedic Word is still the Word for an individual aspirant, for the Rishi, to be reborn in the Riches of the Divine. It is not yet the transformative Word, a Word that can usher in the divine experience in this collectivity. For that to happen, that it becomes an aspect of universal working, the evolutionary depths of Inconscience will have to be first filled up with the light of the Supreme; it is it that that shall then give us the Truth, illumine us with it. The original creative Power, the supreme Shakti herself will have to do it. This is the new task which needs a certain urgency of attention, and Aswapati is alert to it. She must come down and do it; she and none else can do it. Aswapati’s concern therefore is to bring her down to carry out this divine work here. RYD