Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Yoga

2. Integral Yoga and Other Paths

Fragment ID: 123

The supramental is something in which the basis is absolute calm and however intense a Divine Love there is in it, it does not disturb the calm but increases its depth. Chaitanya’s experience was not that of supermind, but of Love and Ananda brought from above into the vital – the response of the vital is an extreme passion and exultation of Godward love and Ananda the result of which are these vikāras. Chaitanya claimed this supremacy for the Radha experience because Ananda is higher than the experiences of the spiritual mind, Ananda being, according to the Upanishads, the supreme plane of experience. But this is a logical conclusion which cannot be accepted wholly – one must pass through the supermind to arrive to the highest Ananda, and in the supermind there is an unification and harmonisation of all the divine Powers (Knowledge etc, as well as Love and Ananda). Different sadhaks emphasise one aspect or other as the highest, but it is this union of all that must be the true basis of the highest realisation and experience.