QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 

 

1929

 

 CONTENTS 

 

PRE CONTENT

 

Publisher's Note

 

 

 

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

 

1930 - 31

 

The Ordinary Life and the True Soul

Vital conversion-Memory of Past Lives

Knowledge of the Scientist and the Yogi

Surrender, Self-offering and Consecration

Resurrection

Knowledge of the Scientist and the Yogi

Renunciation

Reincarnation-Memory of Past Lives

Chance

Aspiration in the Physical for the Divine's Love

Psychic Presence and Psychic Being-Real Origin of Race Superiority

Different Kinds of Space and Time-Fearlessness on the Vital Plane

Aspiration in Plants

Faith

Knowledge by Unity with Divine - The Divine Will in the World

Union with the Divine Consciousness and Will

Power of Right Attitude

Supermind and Overmind

Endurance-the Vital's Hunger for Praise-Signs of the Converted Vital

Power of Imagination

True Humility-Supramental Plasticity - Spiritual Rebirth

Victory over Falsehood

Selfless Admiration

The Supramental Realisation

Difficulties in Yoga

Stepping Back

The Supramental Descent

 

On the Dhammapada

 

 

APPENDIX

Appendix

 

The Supramental Realisation                   

 

In order to know what the Supramental Realisation will be like, the first step, the first condition is to know what the supramental consciousness is. All those who have been, in one way or another, in contact with it have had some glimpse of the realisation to be. But those who have not, can yet aspire for that realisation, just as they can aspire to get the supramental knowledge. True knowledge means awareness by identity: once you get in touch with the supramental world, you can say something about its descent, but not before. What you can say before is that there will be a new creation upon earth; this you say through faith, since the exact character of it escapes you. And if you are called upon to define realisation, you may declare that, individually speaking, it means the transformation of your ordinary human consciousness into the divine and supramental.

The consciousness is like a ladder: at each great epoch there has been one great being capable of adding one more step to the ladder and reaching a place where the ordinary consciousness had never been. It is possible to attain a high level and get completely out of the material consciousness; but then one does not retain the ladder, whereas the great achievement of the great epochs of the universe has been the capacity to add one more step to the ladder without losing contact with the material, the capacity to reach the Highest and at the same time connect the top with the bottom instead of letting a kind of emptiness cut off all connection between the different planes. To go up and down and join the top to the bottom is the whole secret of realisation, and that is the work of the Avatar. Each time he adds one more step to the ladder there is a new creation upon earth.... The step which is being added now Sri Aurobindo has called the Supramental; as a result of it, the consciousness will be able to enter the supramental world and yet retain its personal form, its individualisation and then come down to establish  

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here a new creation. Certainly this is not the last, for there are farther ranges of being; but now we are at work to bring down the supramental, to effect a reorganisation of the world, to bring the world back to the true divine order. It is essentially a creation of order, a putting of everything in its true place; and the chief spirit or force, the Shakti active at present is Mahasaraswati, the Goddess of perfect organisation.

The work of achieving a continuity which permits one to go up and down and bring into the material what is above, is done inside the consciousness. He who is meant to do it, the Avatar, even if he were shut up in a prison and saw nobody and never moved out, still would he do the work, because it is a work in the consciousness, a work of connection between the Supermind and the material being. He does not need to be recognised, he need have no outward power in order to be able to establish this conscious connection. Once, however, the connection is made, it must have its effect in the outward world in the form of a new creation, beginning with a model town and ending with a perfect world.    

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