Opening remarks
What is being described through this Canto is the seer-yogi Aswapati’s glimpse of the Supermind even as he stands on the borders of the Overmind plane. It is the meeting point of the Overmind plane and the Supermind. First he discovers here the Law of Truth, the Wisdom that works in creation and operates in everything according to the secret Truth and Its unfolding in each.
Knowledge of the Gods
All that the Gods have learned is there self-known.
Gods are the various powers and aspects of the one Divine. In the Overmind realms and below they begin to function as distinct entities but in the Supermind they are gathered into Oneness. Though the domain of the Gods belongs to the Overmind proper, their impulse to action and the light of Truth that they carry originates in the Supermind.
The Sacred Law
There in a hidden chamber closed and mute
Are kept the record graphs of the cosmic scribe,
And there the tables of the sacred Law,
There is the Book of Being’s index page;
The text and glossary of the Vedic truth
Are there; the rhythms and metres of the stars
Significant of the movements of our fate:
The symbol powers of number and of form,
And the secret code of the history of the world
And Nature’s correspondence with the soul
Are written in the mystic heart of Life.
The Law of Truth, Ritam, proceeds from the Supermind. It moves and fulfills each thing according to its own dharma. So also the secret of the Vedas received by the Rishis through Rays of Intuition are to be found in its original plenitude in the Supermind. It is because of the presence of the Supermind involved in creation that the stars keep their measure, and numbers and forms follow their pre-determined order. The past, present and the future are no more divided there but appear as a single continuous stream of Time interconnected with the whole.
The Spirit’s room of memories
In the glow of the spirit’s room of memories (p 75 begins)
He could recover the luminous marginal notes
Dotting with light the crabbed ambiguous scroll,
Rescue the preamble and the saving clause
Of the dark Agreement by which all is ruled
That rises from material Nature’s sleep
To clothe the Everlasting in new shapes.
There one finds the Truth-Vision that Guides the world even in its blindness and darkness. Thence one discovers the real inner sense of all the events, even the most seemingly terrible, and how they have ked the evolutionary march of history, from one step to another. There one discovers the unity behind all things and events and sees how everything, even the most terrible leads us to the Lord.
Inseparable contraries
He could re-read now and interpret new
Its strange symbol letters, scattered abstruse signs,
Resolve its oracle and its paradox,
Its riddling phrases and its blindfold terms,
The deep oxymoron of its truth’s repliques,
And recognise as a just necessity
Its hard conditions for the mighty work,—
Nature’s impossible Herculean toil
Only her warlock-wisecraft could enforce,
Its law of the opposition of the gods,
Its list of inseparable contraries.
The mystery of life, its play of dualities and the paradoxes that afflict us, the contrary forces that act upon us, are all resolved when we discover the Supramental Truth and are moved by it. Then the riddle of life is solved, the magic and occult powers through which Nature acts are clearly seen. The Wisdom working in the heart of creation leading us through everything is laid bare and understood. Then one discovers that all contraries are simply different aspects of the One Truth working everywhere and in everything.
The mystery of God’s covenant with the Night
The dumb great Mother in her cosmic trance
Exploiting for creation’s joy and pain
Infinity’s sanction to the birth of form,
Accepts indomitably to execute
The will to know in an inconscient world,
The will to live under a reign of death,
The thirst for rapture in a heart of flesh,
And works out through the appearance of a soul
By a miraculous birth in plasm and gas
The mystery of God’s covenant with the Night.
Material Nature builds forms for the habitation of her Lord. These forms are limited and imperfect. But within it is the soul that aspires for Truth and Light and Delight and Immortality. Eventually this aspiration begins to mould the forms itself bringing Light into darkness. It is for this that the Divine who is Infinite takes a finite form and accepts the burden of flesh and plunges into the Darkness. This brings perfect Peace as one discovers the utter Unity even behind what we call as Divine and the Undivine.
Opening verse of the tragedy of Time
Once more was heard in the still cosmic Mind
The Eternal’s promise to his labouring Force
Inducing the world-passion to begin,
The cry of birth into mortality
And the opening verse of the tragedy of Time.
Thus, the Seer-yogi Aswapati discovered the secret of Creation and its mystic Origin as well the great Promise of deliverance, of redemption by the touch of Grace. As creation ventured into the fields of Time and Space through a process of self-limitation, there was born also the possibility of suffering and pain. But behind each limited finite there stands the Infinite secretly supporting it. The sense of tragedy that afflicts us is because we are unable to see behind the limited appearances and the surfaces of life. But deep within there is always the smile of the Eternal.
The Wisdom working in Ignorance
Out of the depths the world’s buried secret rose;
He read the original ukase kept back
In the locked archives of the spirit’s crypt,
And saw the signature and fiery seal (p 76 begins)
Of Wisdom on the dim Power’s hooded work
Who builds in Ignorance the steps of Light.
Ignorance is a mask that wisdom uses to lead the soul back to the Light. It is not an absence of Knowledge but a partial Knowledge because the whole is held back. This is so because the journey is progressive, step by step, and all the events and circumstances are so arranged as to lead us swiftly to our Goal. This secret one discovers only when one enters the very depths of Creation of ascend beyond the limits of earthly mind. Then one knows the original Purpose of all that transpires here and in the beyond.
The sleeping deity
A sleeping deity opened deathless eyes:
He saw the unshaped thought in soulless forms,
Knew Matter pregnant with spiritual sense,
Mind dare the study of the Unknowable,
Life its gestation of the Golden Child.
The sleeping deity is the Divine hidden in the Inconscient. He presses from within the depths of Matter leading to a progressive emergence of life and mind and will eventually lead to the Supramental creation upon earth.
The riddle grows plain
In the light flooding thought’s blank vacancy,
Interpreting the universe by soul signs
He read from within the text of the without:
The riddle grew plain and lost its catch obscure.
The riddle of life, its secret meaning and purpose can only be understood by going within and identifying with the core of creation. As the mind grows still and the light from Above begins to illumine its chambers, we can then see these hidden depths and know the great Purpose behind creation.
A larger lustre
A larger lustre lit the mighty page.
The mighty page is creation itself on which the Divine script is written through the forms and forces that move it. But to know its truth we need the Supramental illumination.
A purpose mingled with the whims of Time
A purpose mingled with the whims of Time,
A meaning met the stumbling pace of Chance
And Fate revealed a chain of seeing Will;
A conscious wideness filled the old dumb Space.
With this New Vision, Seer-Yogi Aswapati discovered the great Purpose behind Creation fulfilling Itself through what we in our Ignorance call Fate and chance. This seemingly ‘unconscious’ Space is then seen as an outer manifestation or the external body of a Conscious, limitless Vast.
Omniscience supreme
In the Void he saw throned the Omniscience supreme.
The mystic Nihil is not a blank void but teeming with the Infinity of God. When our consciousness becomes empty of its contents, emptied of all movements, then we still discover the Omniscient Being, the Supreme who was always there as the secret Lord and Master of all creation. This Truth is revealed to us as draw close to the Supermind.
Closing remarks
Thus we see here Sri Aurobindo laying down the foundations of the Supramental Yoga that grants to the seeking soul the grand reconciliation between God and World, Soul and Nature, Spirit and Matter.
