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    All Life Is Yoga: Consciousness
    All Life Is Yoga: Consciousness
    All Life Is Yoga: Consciousness
    Ebook118 pages1 hour

    All Life Is Yoga: Consciousness

    By Sri Aurobindo and The (d.i. Mira Alfassa) Mother

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    About this ebook

    The word “Consciousness” is among the most used word in both spiritual and scientific literature. At the same time it is also among the most misunderstood term. Yet Consciousness is central to everything in life. An understanding of what Consciousness is, both intellectu­ally and spiritually, is important to understand life and creation, the spiritual journey and the evolution of life itself. Given its immense importance in Sri Aurobindo’s yoga and the metaphysics of creation, this issue of ALL LIFE IS YOGA focus on this key word so that Light can be cast upon that which is actually the very source of Light!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSri Aurobindo Digital Edition
    Release dateApr 4, 2020
    ISBN9783963870484
    All Life Is Yoga: Consciousness

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      Book preview

      All Life Is Yoga - Sri Aurobindo

      Part 1

      WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS

      Sri Aurobindo

      A spiritual evolution, an evolution of consciousness in Matter in a constant developing self-formation till the form can reveal the indwelling spirit, is then the keynote, the central significant motive of the terrestrial existence. — Sri Aurobindo

      * * *

      Chapter 1

      Power of Awareness and Dynamic Energy

      Words of Sri Aurobindo

      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.

      When Yajnavalkya says there is no consciousness in the Brahman state, he is speaking of consciousness as the human being knows it. The Brahman state is that of a supreme existence supremely aware of itself, svayamprakasa, – it is Sachchidananda, Existence-Consciousness-Bliss. Even if it be spoken of as beyond that, paratparam, it does not mean that it is a state of Non-existence or Non-consciousness, but beyond even the highest spiritual substratum (the foundation above in the luminous paradox of the Rig Veda) of cosmic existence and consciousness. As it is evident from the description of Chinese Tao and the Buddhist Shunya that that is a Nothingness in which all is, so with the negation of consciousness here. Superconscient and subconscient are only relative terms; as we rise into the superconscient we see that it is a consciousness greater than the highest we yet have and therefore in our normal state inaccessible to us and, if we can go down into the subconscient, we find there a consciousness other than our own at its lowest mental limit and therefore ordinarily inaccessible to us. The Inconscient itself is only an involved state of consciousness which like the Tao or Shunya, though in a different way, contains all things suppressed within it so that under a pressure from above or within all can evolve out of it – an inert Soul with a somnambulist Force.

      The gradations of consciousness are universal states not dependent on the outlook of the subjective personality; rather the outlook of the subjective personality is determined by the grade of consciousness in which it is organised according to its typal nature or its evolutionary stage.

      It will be evident that by consciousness is meant something which is essentially the same throughout but variable in status, condition and operation, in which in some grades or conditions the activities we call consciousness can exist either in a suppressed or an unorganised or a differently organised state; while in other states some other activities may manifest which in us are suppressed, unorganised or latent or else are less perfectly manifested, less intensive, extended and powerful than in those higher grades above our highest mental limit.

      * * *

      Chapter 2

      Awareness and Force

      Words of Sri Aurobindo

      Consciousness is made up of two elements, awareness of self and things and forces and conscious power. Awareness is the first thing necessary, you have to be aware of things in the right consciousness, in the right way, seeing them in their truth; but awareness by itself is not enough. There must be a Will and a Force that make the consciousness effective. Somebody may have the full consciousness of what has to be changed, what has to go and what has to come in its place, but may be helpless to make the change. Another may have the will-force, but for want of a right awareness may be unable to apply it in the right way at the right place. The advantage of being in the psychic consciousness is that you have the right awareness and its will being in harmony with the Mother’s will, you can call in the Mother’s Force to make the change. Those who live in the mind and the vital are not so well able to do this; they are obliged to use mostly their personal effort and as the awareness and will and force of the mind and vital are divided and imperfect, the work done is imperfect and not definitive. It is only in the supermind that Awareness, Will, Force are always one movement and automatically effective.

      *

      Words of Sri Aurobindo

      If consciousness and energy are the same thing, there would be no use in having two different words for them. In that case instead of saying, I am conscious of my defects, one can say, I am energetic of my defects. If a man is running fast, you can say of him, He is running with great energy. Do you think it would mean the same if you said, He is running with great consciousness? Consciousness is that which is aware of things – energy is a force put in action which does things. Consciousness may have energy and keep it in or put it out, but that does not mean that it is only another word for energy and that it has to go out when the energy goes out and that it cannot stand back and observe the energy in action. You have plenty of inertia in you but that does not mean that you and inertia are the same and when inertia rises and swamps you it is you who rise and swamp yourself.

      * * *

      Chapter 3

      Consciousness – A Fundamental Reality

      Words of Sri Aurobindo

      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

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