Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

His Life and Attempts to Write about It
On His Published Prose Writings

Passages from Bases of Yoga [4]

You write in Bases of Yoga, “The whole principle of this Yoga is to give oneself entirely to the Divine alone... and to bring down into ourselves... all the transcendent light... and Ananda of the supramental Divine....” And then, “It is only after becoming one with the supramental Divine ...” and also, “It is only the bringing down of the supramental Light, Power and Bliss ...” [pp. 70 – 72]. These passages indicate that it is possible for the Jiva to rise up into and bring down the supramental consciousness. But in the Arya you define the supermind as the truth-will of Sachchidananda. How could any human being except one who has come for the divine manifestation reach or bring down the supermind? This is something for the Divine alone.

It is the very principle of this Yoga that only by the supramentalisation of the consciousness which means rising above mind to supermind and the descent of the supermind into the nature can the final transformation be made. So if nobody can rise above mind to supermind or obtain the descent of the supermind, then logically this Yoga becomes impossible. Every being is in essence one with the Divine and in his individual being a portion of the Divine, so there is no insuperable bar to his becoming supramental. It is no doubt impossible for the human nature being mental in its basis to overcome the Ignorance and rise to or obtain the descent of the Supermind by its own unaided effort, but by surrender to the Divine it can be done. One brings it down into the earth Nature through his own consciousness and so opens the way for the others, but the change has to be repeated in each consciousness to become individually effective.

29 July 1936