March 2021 SRI AUROBINDO SOCIETY VOL 35.03 Singapore NEWSLETTER Sat-Chit-Ananda (Chit, Consciousness) Consciousness turned towards the Supramental Light It thirsts for truth and will find its satisfaction only in the truth. Helianthus Sunflower Medium to large single compositae flowers with a prominent centre of brown or green disc florets and yellow orange ray florets; borne singly. An annual or perennial herb. “Consciousness of being and Delight of being are the first parents. Also, they are the last transcendences. Unconsciousness is only an intermediate swoon of the conscious or its obscure sleep; pain and self-extinction are only delight of being running away from itself in order to find itself elsewhere or otherwise. “Delight of being is not limited in Time; it is without end or beginning. God comes out from one form of things only to enter into another. “What is God after all? An eternal child playing an eternal game in an eternal garden.” (Thoughts and Glimpses, SABCL, Vol. 16, pp. 380 – 81)
Sat-Chit-Ananda (Chit – Consciousness) Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. March 2021. Guiding Light of the Month There is only one recourse; to unite as perfectly as possible with the highest and purest light that one can conceive, to identify one’s consciousness as completely as possible with the absolute Consciousness, to strive to receive all inspirations from that Consciousness alone so as to foster as best one can its manifestation upon earth, and, trusting in its power, to regard all events with serenity. March 23, 1914 Prayers and Meditations, The Mother From the Editor’s Desk “Consciousness is a fundamental thing, the fundamental thing in existence - it is the energy, the motion, the movement of consciousness that creates the universe and all that is in it - not only the Still comfortably on Sri Aurobindo’s symbol and its macrocosm but the microcosm is nothing but consciousness arranging itself. For instance, when significance, this issue of our newsletter takes a look at consciousness in its movement or rather a certain the descending triangle, which The Mother referred to as Sat-Chid-Ananda or Existence – Consciousness – stress of movement forgets itself in the action it becomes an apparently unconscious” energy; when it Bliss. In our last issue, we took up Sat or Existence to dwell upon Sri Aurobindo’s words on that. forgets itself in the form it becomes the electron, the atom, the material object. In reality it is still consciousness that works in the energy and determines In this edition, we take a look at Consciousness. What the form and the evolution of form.” is Consciousness? Is it an awareness that is a function of the nervous system? Does consciousness transcend Here, Consciousness is shown as an entity, all the nervous system? Is it always active, always present? knowing and self-existent; more than just an Could one loose consciousness? When would that be individual’s awareness of something of the case? Could one gain in Consciousness? In what himself and the world around . Its movements conditions would that be possible? So, going back to create the entire Universe. It moots existence. the drawing board, what is Consciousness? Sri Aurobindo knows it to be the determinant force in being, in the way of its being, its The Oxford dictionary describes Consciousness in two activity as well cessation from activity. In ways: other words, all that we are, all that is around the state of being able to use your senses and mental us is an expression of consciousness. As it powers to understand what is happening appears, while the dictionary definition the state of being aware of something stands, it is only one state of consciousness, rather a limited state confined to and mainly In Sanskrit, consciousness is denoted as Chit, or pure associated with the individual’s mental awareness. activity. Sri Aurobindo speaks of a larger consciousness that is everything that is in What is this awareness, or rather, pure awareness? Is it existence and beyond and also the cause and something in our body that is aware, or in our mind, or determinant of everything existent and non- in the heart? Is this awareness arising out of something existent. more than these parts of nature in us? Here is Sri. Aurobindo’s explanation of Would it suffice to contemplate on these words of Sri Aurobindo to get a tiny glimpse consciousness: of the ocean of consciousness? www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg 2 Sat-Chit-Ananda (Chit – Consciousness)
Sat-Chit-Ananda (Chit – Consciousness) Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. March 2021. www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg Savitri A scene was set for Nature’s conscious play. Then stirred the Spirit’s mute immobile sleep; The Force concealed broke dumbly, slowly out. A dream of living woke in Matter’s heart, A will to live moved the Inconscient’s dust, A freak of living startled vacant Time, Ephemeral in a blank eternity, Infinitesimal in a dead Infinite. A subtler breath quickened dead Matter’s forms; The world’s set rhythm changed to a conscious cry; A serpent Power twinned the insensible Force. Islands of living dotted lifeless Space And germs of living formed in formless air. At first was only an etheric Space: Its huge vibrations circled round and round Housing some unconceived initiative: Upheld by a supreme original Breath Expansion and contraction’s mystic act Created touch and friction in the void, Into abstract emptiness brought clash and clasp: Parent of an expanding universe In a matrix of disintegrating force, By spending it conserved an endless sum. On the hearth of Space it kindled a viewless Fire That, scattering worlds as one might scatter seeds, Whirled out the luminous order of the stars. An ocean of electric Energy Formlessly formed its strange wave-particles Constructing by their dance this solid scheme, Its mightiness in the atom shut to rest; Masses were forged or feigned and visible shapes; Light flung the photon’s swift revealing spark And showed, in the minuteness of its flash Imaged, this cosmos of apparent things. Thus has been made this real impossible. 3 Sat-Chit-Ananda (Chit – Consciousness)
Sat-Chit-Ananda (Chit – Consciousness) Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. March 2021. Sri Aurobindo Consciousness Consciousness is a fundamental thing, the fundamental thing in existence - it is the energy, the motion, the movement of consciousness that creates the universe and all that is in it - not only the macrocosm but the microcosm is nothing but consciousness arranging itself. For instance, when consciousness in its movement or rather a certain stress of movement forgets itself in the action it becomes an apparently unconscious” energy; when it forgets itself in the form it becomes the electron, the atom, the material object. In reality it is still consciousness that works in the energy and determines the form and the evolution of form. When it wants to liberate itself, slowly, evolutionarily, out of Matter, but still in the form, it emerges as life, as animal, as man and it can go on evolving itself still farther out of its involution and become something more than mere man. (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine) Consciousness is usually identified with mind, but mental consciousness is only the human range which no more exhausts all the possible ranges of consciousness than human sight exhausts all the gradations of colour or human hearing all the gradations of sound — for there is much above or below that is to man invisible and inaudible. So there are ranges of consciousness above and below the human range, with which the normal human [consciousness] has no contact and they seem to it unconscious.... (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine) Our physical organism no more causes or explains thought and consciousness than the construction of an engine causes or explains the motive-power of steam or electricity. The force is anterior, not the physical instrument. (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine) Consciousness is not only power of awareness of self and things, it is or has also a dynamic and creative energy. It can determine its own reactions or abstain from reactions; it can not only answer to forces, but create or put out from itself forces. Consciousness is Chit but also Chit Shakti, awareness but also conscious force. (Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga) We mean [by planes of consciousness, planes of existence] a general settled poise or world of relations between Purusha and Prakriti, between the Soul and Nature. For anything that we can call world is and can be nothing else than the working out of a general relation which a universal existence has created or established between itself, or let us say its eternal fact or potentiality and the powers of its becoming. That existence in its relations with and its experience of the becoming is what we call soul or Purusha, individual soul in the individual, universal soul in the cosmos; the principle and the powers of the becoming are what we call Nature or Prakriti. (Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga) ... the knowledge we have to arrive at is not truth of the intellect; it is not right belief, right opinions, right information about oneself and things, that is only the surface mind's idea of knowledge. To arrive www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg 4 Sat-Chit-Ananda (Chit – Consciousness)
Sat-Chit-Ananda (Chit – Consciousness) Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. March 2021. at some mental conception about God and ourselves and the world is an object good for the intellect but not large enough for the Spirit; it will not make us the conscious sons of Infinity. Ancient Indian thought meant by knowledge a consciousness which possesses the highest Truth in a direct perception and in self-experience; to become, to be the Highest that we know is the sign that we really have the knowledge..... For the individual to arrive at the divine universality and supreme infinity, live in it, possess it, to be, know, feel and express that one in all his being, consciousness, energy, delight of being is what the ancient seers of the Veda meant by the Knowledge. (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine) Chit or Consciousness You seem to want to reduce everything to a catalogue and a scientific analysis. Nobody has ever been able to do that with the working of the consciousness. The elements of a condition of consciousness cannot be classified like the “elements” of Matter. *** Consciousness is not, to my experience, a phenomenon dependent on the reactions of personality to the forces of Nature and amounting to no more than a seeing or interpretation of these reactions. If that were so, then when the personality be comes silent and immobile and gives no reactions, as there would be no seeing or interpretative action, there would therefore be no consciousness. That contradicts some of the fundamental experiences of Yoga, e.g., a silent and immobile consciousness infinitely spread out, not dependent on the personality but impersonal and universal, not seeing and interpreting contacts but motionlessly self-aware, not dependent on the reactions, but persistent in itself even when no reactions take place. The subjective personality itself is only a formation of consciousness which is a power inherent, not in the activity of the temporary manifested personality, but in the being, the Self or Purusha. Consciousness is a reality inherent in existence. It is there even when it is not active on the surface, but silent and immobile; it is there even when it is invisible on the surface, not reacting on outward things or sensible to them, but withdrawn and either active or inactive within; it is there even when it seems to us to be quite absent and the being to our view unconscious and inanimate. Consciousness is not only power of awareness of self and things, it is or has also a dynamic and creative energy. It can determine its own reactions or abstain from reactions; it can not only answer to forces, but create or put out from itself forces. Consciousness is Chit but also Chit Shakti. Consciousness is usually identified with mind, but mental consciousness is only the human range which no more exhausts all the possible ranges of consciousness than human sight exhausts all the gradations of colour or human hearing all the gradations of sound—for there is much above or below that is to man invisible and inaudible. So there are ranges of consciousness above and below the human range, with which the normal human has no contact and they seem to it unconscious,—supramental or overmental and submental ranges. *** The ordinary view of consciousness is based on normal superficial experience plus science. For physical science consciousness is a temporary phenomenon in an unconscious world, something evolved in an www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg 5 Sat-Chit-Ananda (Chit – Consciousness)
Sat-Chit-Ananda (Chit – Consciousness) Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. March 2021. animate organisation that somehow develops in an originally inanimate and unconscious Matter. It is not inherent in life, for the plant has it not, it is rather a growing flicker that, once established, lasts intermittently through sleep and waking while life lasts and disappears with the dissolution of life. The ordinary mind identifies consciousness with human waking consciousness possibly shared by the animal—though that is not certain, for many refuse consciousness to the animal. A man is conscious while he lives, when he is dead consciousness disappears, when he is asleep, stunned, drugged, anaesthetised, in trance, then his consciousness is suspended; he is temporarily unconscious. How far is this scientific-superficial view correct or maintainable? For it raises two fundamental questions—is the waking surface consciousness the only form of consciousness possible? and again, is the consciousness synonymous with mind, is all consciousness mental or are other forms of it, supramental or submental, possible? (Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga) The Evolution of Consciousness All life here is a stage or a circumstance in an unfolding progressive evolution of a Spirit that has involved itself in Matter and is labouring to manifest itself in that reluctant substance. This is the whole secret of earthly existence. But the key of that secret is not to be found in life itself or in the body; its hieroglyph is not in embryo or organism,—for these are only a physical means or base: the one significant mystery of this universe is the appearance and growth of consciousness in the vast mute unintelligence of Matter. The escape of Consciousness out of an apparent initial Inconscience,—but it was there all the time masked and latent, for the inconscience of Matter is itself only a hooded consciousness—its struggle to find itself, its reaching out to its own inherent completeness, perfection, joy, light, strength, mastery, harmony, freedom, this is the prolonged miracle and yet the natural and all-explaining phenomenon of which we are at once the observers and a part, instrument and vehicle. A Consciousness, a Being, a Power, a Joy was here from the beginning darkly imprisoned in this apparent denial of itself, this original night, this obscurity and nescience of material Nature. That which is and was for ever, free, perfect, eternal and infinite, That which all is, That which we call God, Brahman, Spirit, has here shut itself up in its own self-created opposite. The Omniscient has plunged itself into Nescience, the All-Conscious into Inconscience, the All-Wise into perpetual Ignorance. The Omnipotent has formulated itself in a vast cosmic self-driven Inertia that by disintegration creates; the Infinite is self-expressed here in a boundless fragmentation; the All-Blissful has put on a huge insensibility out of which it struggles by pain and hunger and desire and sorrow. Elsewhere the Divine is; here in physical life, in this obscure material world, it would seem almost as if the Divine is not but is only becoming, theos ouk estin alla gignetai. This gradual becoming of the Divine out of its own phenomenal opposites is the meaning and purpose of the terrestrial evolution. Evolution in its essence is not the development of a more and more organised body or a more and more efficient life—these are only its machinery and outward circumstance. Evolution is the strife of a Consciousness somnambulised in Matter to wake and be free and find and possess itself and all its possibilities to the very utmost and widest, to the very last and highest. Evolution is the emancipation of a self-revealing Soul secret in Form and Force, the slow becoming of a Godhead, the growth of a Spirit. In this evolution mental man is not the goal and end, the completing value, the highest last significance; he is too small and imperfect to be the crown of all this travail of Nature. Man is not final, but a middle term only, a transitional being, an instrumental intermediate creature. www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg 6 Sat-Chit-Ananda (Chit – Consciousness)
Sat-Chit-Ananda (Chit – Consciousness) Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. March 2021. This character of evolution and this mediary position of man are not at first apparent; for to the outward eye it would seem as if evolution, the physical evolution at least were finished long ago leaving man behind as its poor best result and no new beings or superior creations were to be expected any longer. But this appears to us only so long as we look at forms and outsides only and not at the inner significances of the whole process. Matter, body, life even are the first terms necessary for the work that had to be done. New living forms may no longer be appearing freely, but this is because it is not, or at least it is not primarily, new living forms that the Force of evolution is now busied with evolving, but new powers of consciousness. When Nature, the Divine Power, had formed a body erect and empowered to think, to devise, to inquire into itself and things and work consciously both on things and self, she had what she wanted for her secret aim; relegating all else to the sphere of secondary movements, she turned toward that long-hidden aim her main highest forces. For all till then was a long strenuously slow preparation; but throughout it the development of consciousness in which the appearance of man was the crucial turning point had been kept wrapped within her as her ultimate business and true purpose. This slow preparation of Nature covered immense aeons of time and infinities of space in which they appeared to be her only business; the real business strikes on our view at least when we look with the outward eye of reason as if it came only as a fortuitous accident, in or near the end, for a span of time and in a speck and hardly noticeable corner of one of the smallest provinces of a possibly minor universe among these many boundless finites, these countless universes. If it were so, we could still reply that time and space matter not to the Infinite and Eternal; it is not a waste of labour for That—as it would be for our brief death-driven existences—to work for trillions of years in order to flower only for a moment. But that paradox too is only an appearance—for the history of this single earth is not all the story of evolution—other earths there are even now elsewhere, and even here many earth-cycles came before us, and many are those that will come hereafter. Nature laboured for innumerable millions of years to create a material universe of flaming suns and systems; for a lesser but still interminable series of millions she stooped to make this earth a habitable planet. For all that incalculable time she was or seemed busy only with the evolution of Matter; life and mind were kept secret in an apparent non-existence. But the time came when life could manifest, a vibration in the metal, a growing and seeking, a drawing in and a feeling outward in the plant, an instinctive force and sense, a nexus of joy and pain and hunger and emotion and fear and struggle in the animal,—a first organised consciousness, the beginning of the long-planned miracle. Thence forward she was busy no more exclusively with matter for its own sake, but most with palpitant plasmic matter useful for the expression of life; the evolution of life was now her one intent purpose. And slowly too mind manifested in life, an intensely feeling, a crude thinking and planning vital mind in the animal, but in man the full organisation and apparatus, the developing if yet imperfect mental being, the Manu, the thinking, devising, aspiring, already self-conscient creature. And from that time onward the growth of mind rather than any radical change of life became her shining preoccupation, her wonderful wager. Body appeared to evolve no more; life itself evolved little or only so much in its cycles as would serve to express Mind heightening and widening itself in the living body; an unseen internal evolution was now Nature's great passion and purpose. And if Mind were all that consciousness could achieve, if Mind were the secret Godhead, if there were nothing higher, larger, [no] more miraculous ranges, man could be left to fulfil mind and complete his own being and there would or need be nothing here beyond him, carrying consciousness to its summits, extending it to its unwalled vastnesses, plunging with it into depths unfathomable; he would by perfecting himself consummate Nature. Evolution would end in a Man-God, crown of the earthly cycles. But Mind is not all; for beyond mind is a greater consciousness; there is a supermind and spirit. As Nature laboured in the animal, the vital being, till she could manifest out of him man, the Manu, the thinker, so she is labouring in man, the mental being till she can manifest out of him a spiritual and supramental godhead, the truth conscious Seer, the knower by identity, the embodied Transcendental and Universal in the individual nature. www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg 7 Sat-Chit-Ananda (Chit – Consciousness)
Sat-Chit-Ananda (Chit – Consciousness) Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. March 2021. From the clod and metal to the plant, from the plant to the animal, from the animal to man, so much has she completed of her journey; a huge stretch or a stupendous leap still remains before her. As from matter to life, from life to mind, so now she must pass from mind to supermind, from man to superman; this is the gulf that she has to bridge, the supreme miracle that she has to perform before she can rest from her struggle and discontent and stand in the radiance of that supreme consciousness, glorified, transmuted, satisfied with her labour. The subhuman was once here supreme in her, the human replacing it walks now in the front of Time, but still, aim and goal of the future there waits the supramental, the superman, an unborn glory yet unachieved before her. (Sri Aurobindo, The Hour of God) February 2021 Sunday Activities at the Centre - A glimpse 7 February 2021: Reading on The Mother by Sri Aurobindo We started chapter 6 of the book \"The Mother\". Sri Aurobindo explains that the Mother is one and many are her powers, personalities, emanations and Vibhutis that do her work in the universe. The Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, and that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind. The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far above all she creates. But something of her ways can be seen and felt through her embodiments because more defined and limited temperament and action of the goddess forms in whom she consents to be manifest to her creatures. There are three ways of being of the Mother of which we can become aware when you enter into touch of oneness with the Conscious Force that upholds us and the universe. These are the Transcendent, the Universal and the Individual. The Transcendental Mother stands above the worlds and links the creation to the ever unmanifest mystery of the Supreme. At the Universal level, she creates all these beings and contains and enters, supports and conducts all these million processes and forces. At the Individual level, she embodies the power of these two vaster ways of her existence, makes them living and near to us and mediates between the human personality and the divine Nature. 14 February 2021: Reading on Synthesis of Yoga We concluded the series of talks on The Synthesis of Yoga with a paragraph that yet again showed itself to be summarising Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga. The paragraph appeared on page 85. Of the printed version and began as such: “But if this total conversion is to be done….” Here, Sri Aurobindo shows us the way to convert ourselves, in thought and feeling, and spirit and body, from who we are now to a more and more perfected being, befitting of being an instrument in the hands of the Divine. He first calls for an acceptance of our capacities as they exist currently followed by a surrender of these capacities into the hands of a higher consciousness, “a greater Power”. He urges the transformation of our small, ego-driven personality to a vast consecrated entity. Then only is there to be a greater life that could be lived here upon earth. Sri Aurobindo ends the paragraph thus: “This total consecration and surrender and this resultant entire transformation and free transmission make up the whole fundamental means and the ultimate aim of an integral Karmayoga.” 21 February 2021: The Mother’s Birth Anniversary Celebrations, 2021 This was indeed a celebration of celebrations at our centre. Young children, teenagers with young adults added colour to this offering with their skits (The Virtues, an adaptation), dance and music, all of which carried meaningful messages that evoked the fire of devotion in our hearts and an aspiration to lead a life consecrated to The Divine. The Darshan message for the day was as follows: www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg 8 Sat-Chit-Ananda (Chit – Consciousness)
Sat-Chit-Ananda (Chit – Consciousness) Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. March 2021. 28 February 2021: Meditations on Savitri with Huta’s Paintings Mr. Ramadoss concludes this session which has been running for a couple of years with the following words of summary. This was the last session of Savitri with Huta Paintings. We took up the last three pictures of Book 1, Canto 4: Secret Knowledge. First, we listened to these passages in Mother’s voice and Sunil’s music. We took this opportunity to review and summarize our key sessions with the Huta Paintings as an offering to our Divine Mother and to thank all our SAS family and to pray for Mother’s Blessings and Grace on all. We brought an integral close by bringing together the last 2 pictures of Book 1 on the bottom left, the last 2 pictures of Book 12 (as well as The Whole of Meditations on Savitri) at the top right and the last 3 pictures of The Secret Knowledge in the middle. With our Mother’s Grace, this picture of 7 pictures also encapsulates The 3 Flames, The 5 Fires and The 7 Dawns embedded in The Doctrine of The Mystics (Secret of Vedas) by our Master. All the credit is to Our Divine Mother and our sincere Gratitude to Her. The centre also holds picture 2 of Book1, Canto 5 The Psychic Being with The History of The World in cryptic language and ever ready to progress by gathering marginal notes on the Triune from all sources. www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg Ram, Jayanthy, Ramadoss 9 Sat-Chit-Ananda (Chit – Consciousness)
Sat-Chit-Ananda (Chit – Consciousness) Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. March 2021. PROGRAMME FOR THE MONTH OF MARCH 2021 DATE TIME DETAILS Monthly Morning Walk * 8 AM 7 Mar 2021 Study Circle - Savitri - by Venkatesh Rao Sunday 6 PM 14 Mar 2021 6 PM Readings on The Mother by Sri Aurobindo - Ram Sunday 5 PM Study Circle by Krishnamurthy and Jared: Hymns to the Mystic Fire 21 Mar 2021 Sunday Mother’s Questions and Answers. - Shailaja 6 PM 28 Mar 2021 Readings and Reflections: The Inner Journey - Jayanthy Sunday 6 PM *Information found on the SAS Group Printed and Published by The Sri Aurobindo Society of Singapore 2A Starlight Road 01-07, Singapore 217755. Ramadoss: 97354063 or [email protected]; Anand Patel:[email protected]; Email: [email protected] Visit our website at: www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg 10 Sat-Chit-Ananda (Chit – Consciousness)
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