Book Two: The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds

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.

There are ranges of consciousness beyond our thinking mind that remain unreached for now. But with our further evolution we are destined to reach these presently unreachable heights.

It is not some adverse power that has driven us out of our heavenly home. It is out of our own choice that we have landed here to build perfection upon earth with base material and transient things.

In our secret self we too belong to this world that exists on the heights of luminous mentality. Our strivings are an effort to reach out to the realms from where we descended.

Beyond our struggling human mind there exists an Ideal world of Truth and Light where grief and error have no place. The beings of this world exist in a self-luminous light and perfect sight. These are the high Heavens of the Mind.

In Canto XI Sri Aurobindo introduces us to the realm of spiritual mind or simply the spiritual realm. Many mistake it for the highest reality and stop here. The action and workings of this realm are being described here.