Canto XI: The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind

Sri Aurobindo in his own characteristic way shows to us the greatness of these gods and the beings I contact with them and yet he also reveals their limitations. Each has its own place and station and working in this vast and complex creation. But the ultimate secret, the last secret is not found here.

The Divine is Infinite but in the spiritual Mind His Freedom is fixed into formulas and rules through which He acts. Layer by layer Sri Aurobindo is revealing to us the Divine Working in this lower triplicity of creation where truth is being worked out through ignorance, error and Chance.

Above the higher Mind are regions of the Illumined Mind with its beings. If the higher Mind is like a steady sunshine, the illumined mind is a space where the beings themselves carry the light in their eyes.

The gods of these realms arrange the cosmic and individual events based on the Idea from Above that impels them to move and act. This is a vivid description of the Higher Mind which is the birthplace of ideologies and religions.

Sri Aurobindo reveals to us about the play of higher forces that fix the grooves of destiny for the individual and the collective march of mankind.

Sri Aurobindo describes here the action of the form-makers, the source of their inspiration and the distortion that truth undergoes in the process.

These are the radiant gods who are masters of Thought in those realms above the human mind. They cast their influence upon earth bringing our thoughts a step closer to the Ultimate Mystery.

The realms that climb beyond the human mind are also arranged hierarchically in a series of three. They are notably the Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuitive Mind. Beyond is the Overmind region which is the borderline between the lower and the higher hemisphere.

There are a number of luminous planes of knowledge that climb beyond our ordinary human mind. Thus Sri Aurobindo gives us a brief glimpse of the stairway of Thought and Mind-worlds climbing towards the Home of the Absolute Spirit, the Perfect Truth that is one with Delight.