Canto Eleven. The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind
Aswapati now leaves the limits of the labouring little mind and enters into a wider and more luminous domain. Here he experiences a change in the functioning of the mind and its means of knowing and understanding. This realm is also called as the spiritual mind or simply the spiritual realm. Many mistake it for the highest reality and stop here. The action and workings of this realm or realms of a greater Mind are being described here.
Beyond the limits of rational mind, p. 260
Opening Remarks
Aswapati steps into a new domain that operates very differently from the little mind and its triple stair. Instead of working out things from below, this mind seems to look upon things from above with a better and completer view.
Labouring power
There ceased the limits of the labouring Power.
The human mind labours to construct knowledge from the data of the senses. It must put together all the scattered pieces of information received through the reporting agencies to find out truth. It is a tremendous labour indeed at the end of which there is still no certainty.
Being and creation cease not
But being and creation cease not there.
Being at the apex of earthly creation right now human beings naturally feel that they are the highest and the best. But consciousness climbs further and there are ranges beyond the reach of human mind that are waiting to be explored.
Thought is a passage to infinity
For Thought transcends the circles of mortal mind,
It is greater than its earthly instrument:
The godhead crammed into mind’s narrow space
Escapes on every side into some vast
That is a passage to infinity.
Thought is a vehicle for the mind to climb beyond its present limits and move towards infinity. We believe that thought is limited to human beings. But Thought exists as a primal etheric vibration and takes mind forms in humanity. But human thought is not its last limit. As we climb further and grow in consciousness new and higher thought-forms begin to express through our mind until we find that the mind-space is too limited, our brain too imperfect an instrument to receive, hold and express a greater, higher and integral thought that is closer to Reality.
Spirit’s field
It moves eternal in the spirit’s field,
A runner towards the far spiritual light,
A child and servant of the spirit’s force.
Thought originates in the spiritual field as a subtle vibration and runs towards the summits. It serves as an intermediary and representative of the Spirit from which it is born.
Nameless peak
But mind too falls back from a nameless peak.
His being stretched beyond the sight of Thought.
But Truth is beyond all conceptions and thoughts we may have of IT. It escapes the human intelligence and the highest and widest and greatest reach of mind cannot comprehend IT.
Eternal and unmade
For the spirit is eternal and unmade
And not by thinking was its greatness born,
And not by thinking can its knowledge come.
Though Thought is born from the Spirit’s energy, yet the Spirit Itself transcends Thought. It is formless in essence and self-aware, existing in Its own Light. It needs not the help of thought to discover and know Itself. It is eternal and self-existent beyond the reach of thought.
It knows itself
It knows itself and in itself it lives,
It moves where no thought is nor any form.
The Spirit knows Itself not by thought but by Its own Light. It dwells by Its own Force. Thought gives form to IT but the Truth of Spirit is beyond form.
The finite and the Infinite
Its feet are steadied upon finite things,
Its wings can dare to cross the Infinite.
The Spirit is everywhere. Earth is Its feet and Its head, Its Force crosses the highest heavens and reaches towards Infinity.
Closing Remarks
Sri Aurobindo introduces us to this realm of Thought that becomes a mediating link between the human mind as it is now organised and the Transcendent, the Light and Power of the Spirit beyond all thought and conception.
