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		<b>
		<font face="Times New Roman"><i>Lines of the Descent of Consciousness</i> </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">The&nbsp; world has been created by a descent of consciousness; it maintains itself, it proceeds and develops through a series
of descents. In fact, creation itself is a descent, the first and
original one, the descent of the supreme Reality into Matter
and as Matter. The supreme Reality—the fount and origin
of things and even that which is beyond—although essentially
something absolute, indescribable, ineffable, indeterminable,
has been, for purposes of the human understanding, signalised
as a triune entity of Existence, Consciousness and Bliss. That
is to say, first of all, it is, it exists always and for ever—invariably, in unbroken continuity; secondly, it exists not unconsciously, but consciously, in and as full consciousness; thirdly, it exists in delight—through delight and for and as
delight; it has no other reason for existence but the pleasure
and joy of simply existing. This primal, this original truth or
reality transcends creation and is beyond and antecedent to it.
What then is creation, what is its nature and character?
Strange to say, it is the very opposite of the primal reality.
First of all, it is not really existent: its existence is only another
name for non-existence, as, in its phenomenal constitution,
it is variable, ephemeral, transient and fragmentary or even
seems made, as it were, of the stuff of dream. Secondly, it is
not conscious; on the contrary, it is unconsciousness. And lastly
it is not delight; there is an original insensibility and much
undelight, grief and sorrow. That is the actual physical
creation; or so, at least, it appears to be. How is this paradox
to be explained? What is the significance of this riddle ?&nbsp;</font><p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Descent is the master-key that unravels the mystery—that
</font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">is to say, the descent of the delightful conscious existence as
the material world. But why this descent at all? What was the
necessity ? What was the purpose ? The <i>why</i> of a thing is always
difficult, if not impossible, to gauge. But we shall try to understand the <i>how</i> of the phenomenon, and in so doing perhaps we
may get at the why of it also. At present let us content ourselves by saying that such was His will—<i>la sua voluntade—</i>such was His wish—<i>sa aicchat.</i> For once perhaps instead of
saying, &quot;Let there be light&quot;, He (or something in Him) must
have said, &quot;Let there be darkness&quot;, and there was Darkness.&nbsp;</font><p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But the point is, this darkness did not come all on a sudden
but arrived gradually through a developing process—we do
not refer to physical time here but something antecedent,
something parallel to it in another dimension. Let us see how
it all came about. </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The absolute in its triple or triune status (not in its supreme
being but as we see it prior to manifestation) is in essence and
principle an infinity and unity. Indeed, it is <i>the</i> infinite unity,
and its fundamental character is a supreme and utter equality
—<i>samam brahma.</i> It is then a <i>status</i> or <i>statis,</i> that is to say, a 
state of perfectly stable equilibrium in which there is ho movement of difference or distinction, no ripple of high and low
or ebb and flow, no mark of quantity or quality. It is a stilled
sea of self-identity, a vast limitless or pure consciousness brooding in trance and immobility. And yet in the bosom of this
ineffable and inviolable equality, in the 'very hush and lull
there lies secreted an urge, a pressure, a possibility towards
activity, variation and even an eventual inequality. For the
presence and possibility of dynamism is posited by the very
infinity of the Infinite, since without it, the Infinite would be
incapable of motion, expression and fulfilment of its Force. </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; There is thus inherent in the vast inalienable equality of
the absolute Reality, a Force which can bring out centres of pressure, nuclei of 
dynamism, nodes of modulation. It is precisely round these centres of precipitation that the original
and basic unity crystallises itself and weaves a pattern of
harmonious multiplicity. Consciousness, by self-pressure,— <i>tapas taptva—</i>turns its even and undifferentiated pristine
equanimity into ripples and swirls, eddies and vortices of
delight, matrices of creative activity. Thus the One becomes </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">Page 32 </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">Many by a process of self-concentration and self-limitation.&nbsp;</font><p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; At the very outset when and where the Many has come 
out into manifestation in the One—here also it must be remembered that we are using a temporal figure in respect of
an extra-temporal fact—there and then is formed a characteristic range of reality which is a perfect equation of the one
and the many: that is to say, the one in becoming many still
remains the same immaculate one in and through the many,
and likewise the many in spite of its manifoldness—and because of the special 
quality of the manifoldness—still continues to be the one in the uttermost degree. It is the world of
fundamental realities. Sri Aurobindo names it the Supermind
or Gnosis. It is something higher than but distantly akin to
Plato's world of Ideas or Noumena <i>(ideai, nooumena)</i> or to
what Plotinus calls the first divine emanation <i>(nous).</i> These
archetypal realities are realities of the Spirit, Idea-forces,
truth-energies, the root consciousness-forms, <i>rta cit,</i> in Vedic
terminology. They are seed-truths, the original mother-truths
in the Divine Consciousness. They comprise the fundamental
essential many aspects and formulations of an infinite Infinity. At this stage these do not come into clash or conflict, for here
each contains all and the All contains each one in absolute
unity and essential identity. Each individual formation is
united with and partakes of the nature of the one supreme
Reality. Although difference is born here, separation is not
yet come. Variety is there, but not discord, individuality is
there, not egoism. This is the first step of Descent, the earliest
one—not, we must remind ourselves again, historically but
psychologically and logically—the descent of the Transcendent
into the Cosmic as the vast and varied Supermind—<i>citrah
praketo ajanista vibhwa—</i>of the Absolute into the relational
manifestation as <i>Vidyasakti</i> (Gnosis). </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The next steps, farther down or away, arrive when the
drive towards differentiation and multiplication gathers
momentum becomes accentuated, and separation and isolation
increase in degree and emphasis. The lines of individuation
fall more and more apart from each other, tending to form
closed circles, each confining more and more exclusively to
itself, stressing its own particular and special value and function, in contradistinction to or even against other lines. Thus </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">the descent or fall from the Supermind leads, in the first
instance, to the creation or appearance of the Overmind. It is
the level of consciousness where the perfect balance of the
One and the Many is disturbed and the emphasis begins to be
laid on the many. The source of incompatibility between the
two just starts here as if Many is not-One and One is not-
Many. It is the beginning of Ignorance, Avidya, Maya. Still
in the higher hemisphere of the Overmind, the sense of unity
is yet maintained, although there is no longer the sense of absolute identity of 
the two; they are experienced as complementaries, both form a harmony, a harmony as of different
and distinct but conjoint notes. The Many has come forward,
yet the unity is also there supporting it—the unity is an
immanent godhead, controlling the patent reality of the Many.
It is in the lower hemisphere of the Overmind that unity is
thrown into the background half-submerged, nickering, and
the principle of multiplicity comes forward with all insistence. Division and 
rivalry are the characteristic marks of its organisation. Yet the unity does not disappear altogether, only it
remains very much inactive, like a sleeping partner. It is not
directly perceived and envisaged, not immediately felt but is
evoked as a reminiscence. The Supermind, then, is the first
crystallisation of the Infinite into individual centres, in the
Overmind these centres at the outset become more exclusively
individualised and then jealously self-centred. </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The next step of Descent is the Mind where the original
unity and identity and harmony are disrupted to a yet greater degree, almost 
completely. The self-delimitation' of consciousness—which is proper to the Supermind and even to
the Overmind, at least in its higher domains—gives way to self-limitation, to 
intolerant egoism and solipsism. The consciousness withdraws from its high and wide sweep, narrows
down to introvert orbits. The sense of unity in the mind is, at
most, a thing of idealism and imagination; it is an abstract
notion, a supposition and a deduction. Here we enter into
the very arcana of Maya, the rightful possession of Ignorance.
The individualities here have become totally isolated and
independent and mutually conflicting lines of movement. Hence the natural 
incapacity of mind, as it is said, to comprehend more than one object simultaneously. The Supermind </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">and, less absolutely, the Overmind have a global and
integral outlook: they can take in each one in its purview all
at once the total assemblage of things, they differentiate but
do not divide—the Supermind not at all, the Overmind not
categorically. The Mind has not this synthetic view, it proceeds
analytically. It observes its object by division, taking the parts
piecemeal, dismantling them, separating them, attending to
each one at a time. And when it observes it fixes itself on one
point, withdrawing its attention from all the rest. If it has to
arrive at a synthesis, it can only do so by collating, aggregating <i>:</i> and summing. Menta} consciousness is thus narrowly one-
pointed: and in narrowing itself, being farther away from
the source it becomes obscurer, more and more outward
gazing <i>[parafici khani)</i> and superficial. The One Absolute in
its downward march towards multiplicity, fragmentation and
partiality loses also gradually its subtlety, its suppleness, its
refinement, becomes more and more obtuse, crude, rigid and
dense. </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Between the Overmind and the Mind proper, varying
according to the degree of immixture of the two, according
to the degree of descent and of emergence of one and the other
respectively, there are several levels of consciousness of which
three main ones have been named and described by Sri
Aurobindo. The first one nearest to the Overmind and the
least contaminated by the Mind is pure Intuition; next, the
intermediary one is called the Illumined Mind, and last
comes the Higher Mind. They are all powers of the Overmind
functioning in the Mind. The higher ranges are always more
direct, intense, synthetic, dynamic than the lower ones where
consciousness is slower, duller, more uncertain, more disintegrated. The lower the consciousness descends the more veiled
it becomes, losing more and more the directness, the sureness,
the intensity and force and the synthetic unity native to the
highest ranges of our consciousness and being. </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; A further descent into obscurity occurs when consciousness
passes from Mind to Life. Darkness is almost visible here:&nbsp; there is a greater withdrawal on the part of each unit from its
surrounding reality, a narrower concentration upon one's
own separative existence—shades of the prison-house have
gathered close around. The light, already dulled and faint in </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">the mind, has become a lurid glare here. Passion has arisen
and desire and hunger and battle and combat. </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Here also in the vital three ranges can be distinguished—
the lower becoming more and more turbid and turbulent and
fierce or more and more self-centred and selfish. These levels can. best be seen 
by their impact on our vital being and formations there. The first, the highest 
one, the meeting or confluence of the Mind and the Vital is the Heart, the centre of
emotion, the knot of the external or instrumental vehicle, of
the frontal consciousness, behind which is born and hides the
true individualised consciousness, the psyche. The mid-region
is the Higher Vital consisting of larger (egoistic) dynamisms,
such as high ambition, great enterprise, heroic courage, capacity for work, 
adventure, masterfulness, also such movements as sweeping violences, mighty hungers, intense arrogances. The physical seat of this movement is, as perhaps the
<i>Tantras</i> would say, the domain ranging between the heart
and the navel. Lower down ranges the Lower Vital which
consists of small desires, petty hankerings, blind cravings—all
urges and impulses that are more or less linked up with the
&quot; body and move to gross physical satisfactions. </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But always the Consciousness is driving towards a yet
greater disintegration and fragmentation, obscuration and
condensation of self-oblivion. The last step in the process of
transmutation or involution is Matter where consciousness
has wiped itself out or buried itself within so completely and
thoroughly that it has become in its outward form totally dark,
dense, hard, pulverised into mutually exclusive grains. The
supreme luminous Will of Consciousness in its gradual descent
and self-obliteration finally ends in a rigid process of mere
mechanised drive. </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This is, so far then, the original and primal line of descent. It is the line down which the absolute Reality, the absolute
Consciousness and the absolute Delight have turned into unreality and unconsciousness and undelight. But it is not all
loss and debit. There is a credit side too. For it is only in this
way, viz, by the manifestation of utter Ignorance, that the
supreme Absolute has become concrete, the Formless has
entered into form, the Bodiless has found a body: what was
originally<b> </b> an indeterminate equal Infinity of pure consciousness, </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">has become determinate and dynamic in the individual
multiplicity of corporeal consciousness. What is the sense in
all that, what is the gain or upshot ? We shall presently see.&nbsp;</font><p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; When consciousness has reached the farthest limit of its
opposite, when it has reduced itself to absolutely unconscious and mechanical 
atoms of Matter, when the highest has descended into and become the lowest, then, by the very force
of its downward drive, it has swung round and begun to mount
up again. As it could not proceed farther on the downward
gradient, having reached the extreme and ultimate limit of inconscience, consciousness had to turn round, as it were, by
the very pressure of its inner impetus. First, then, there is a
descent, a gradual involution, a veiling and closing up; next,
an ascent, a gradual evolution, unfoldment and expression.
We now see, however, that the last limit at the bottom—Matter—although appearing to be unconscious, is really not
so: it is inconscient. That is to say, it holds consciousness
secreted and involved within itself; it is, indeed, a special
formulation of consciousness. It is the exclusive concentration
of consciousness upon single points in itself: it is consciousness
throwing itself out in scattered units and, by reason of separative
identification with them and absorption into them, losing
itself, forgetting itself in an absolute fixation of attention. The
phenomenon is very similar to what happens when in the
ordinary consciousness a worker, while doing a work, becomes
so engrossed in it that he loses consciousness of himself, identifies
himself with the work and in fact becomes the work, the visible
resultant being a mechanical execution. </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Now this imprisoned consciousness in Matter forces Matter
to be conscious again when driven on the upward gradient.
This tension creates a fire, as it were, in the heart of Matter, a
mighty combustion and whorl in the core of things, of which
the blazing sun is an image and a symbol. All this pressure and
heat and concussion and explosion mean a mighty struggle in
Matter to give birth to that which is within. Consciousness
that is latent must be made patent; it must reveal itself in
Matter and through Matter, making Matter its vehicle and
embodiment. This is the mystery of the birth of Life, the first
sprouting of consciousness in Matter. Life is half-awakened
consciousness, consciousness yet in a dream state. Its earliest </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">and most rudimentary manifestation is embodied in the plant
or vegetable world. The submerged consciousness strives to
come still further up, to express itself to a greater degree and
in a clearer mode, to become more free and plastic in its
movements; hence the appearance of the animal as the next
higher formulation. Here consciousness delivers itself as a
psyche, a rudimentary one, no doubt, a being of feeling and
sensation, and elementary mentality playing in a field of
vitalised Matter. Even then it is not satisfied with itself, it
asks for a still more free and clear articulation: it is not satisfied,
for it has not yet found its own level. Hence after the animal,
arrives man with a full-fledged Mind, with intelligence and
self-consciousness and capacity for self-determination. </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Thus we see that evolution, the unfolding of consciousness
follows exactly the line of its involution, only the other way
round: the mounting consciousness re-ascends step by step the
same gradient, retraces the same path along which it had
descended. The descending steps are broadly speaking (1)
Existence-Consciousness-Bliss, (2) Supermind and its secondary
form Overmind, (3) Mind—<i>(i)</i> mind proper and <i>(ii)</i> the
intermediary psyche, (4) Life, (5) Matter. The ascending
consciousness starting from Matter rises into Life; passes on
through Life and Psyche into Mind, driving towards the
Supermind and Schchidananda. At the present stage of evolution, consciousness has arrived at the higher levels of Mind; it
is now striving to cross it altogether and enter the Overmind
and the Supermind. It will not rest content until it arrives
at the organisation in and through the Supermind: for that
is the drive and purpose of Nature in the next cycle of evolution. </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Physical Science speaks of irreversibility and entropy in
Nature's process. That is to say, it is stated that Nature is
rushing down and running down: she is falling irrevocably
from a higher to an ever lower potential of energy. The
machine that Nature is, is driven by energy made available
by a break-up of parts and particles constituting its substance.
This katabolic process cannot be stopped or retraced; it can
end only when the break-up ceases at dead equilibrium. You
cannot lead the river up the channel to its source, it moves
inevitably, unceasingly towards the sea in which it exhausts
itself and finds its last repose and—extinction.<b> </b> But whatever </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">physical Science may say, the science of the spirit declares emphatically that Nature's process is reversible, that a growing
entropy can be checked and countermanded: in other words,
Nature's downward current resulting in a continual loss of
energy and a break-up of substance is not the only process of
her activity. This aspect is more than counterbalanced by
another one of upward drive and building up, of re-energisation
and re-integration. Indeed, evolution, as we have explained it,
is nothing but such a process of synthesis and new creation.</font><p align=justify style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Evolution, which means the return movement of consciousness, consists, in its apparent and outward aspect, of two
processes, or rather two parallel lines in a single process.
First, there is the line of sublimation, that is to say, the lower
purifies and modifies itself into the higher; the denser, the
obscurer, the baser mode of consciousness is led into and
becomes the finer, the clearer, the nobler mode. Thus it is that
Matter rises into Life, Life into Psyche and Mind, Mind into
Overmind and Supermind. Now this sublimation is not
simply a process of refinement or elimination, something in
the nature of our old Indian <i>nivrtti</i> or <i>pratyahara,</i> or what
Plotinus called <i>epistrophe</i> (a turning back, withdrawal or re-absorption) : it includes and is attended by the process of
integration also. That is to say, as the lower rises into the
higher, the lower does not cease to exist thereby, it exists but
lifted up into the higher, infused and modified by the higher.
Thus when Matter yields Life, Matter is not destroyed: it
means Life has appeared in Matter and exists in and through
Matter and Matter thereby has attained a new mode and
constitution, for it is no longer merely a bundle of chemical or
mechanical reactions, it is instinct with life, it has become
organic matter. Even so, when Life arrives at Mind, it is not
dissolved into Mind but both Life and Matter are taken up by
the mental stuff, life becomes dynamic sentience and Matter is
transformed into the grey substance of the brain. Matter thus
has passed through a first transformation in Life and a second
transformation in Mind; it awaits other transformations on
other levels beyond Mind. Likewise, Life has passed through
a first transformation in Mind and there are stages in this
transformation. In the plant. Life is in its original pristine
mode; in the animal, it has become sentient and centralised </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">round a rudimentary desire-soul; in man, life-force is taken up&nbsp;by the higher mind and intelligence giving birth to idealism
and ambition, dynamisms of a forward-looking purposive will.
</font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; We have, till now, spoken of the evolution of consciousness&nbsp;as a movement of ascension, consisting of a double process<b> </b> of&nbsp; sublimation and integration. But ascension itself is only one
line of a yet another larger double process. For along with the
visible movement of ascent, there is a hidden movement of
descent. The ascent represents the pressure from below, the force of buoyancy 
exerted by the involved and secreted consciousness. But the mere drive from below is not sufficient all
by itself to bring out or establish the higher status. The higher
status itself has to descend in order to be manifest. The urge
from below is an aspiration, a yearning to move ever upward
and forward; but the precise goal, the status to be arrived at
is not given there. The more or less vague and groping surge
from below is canalised, it assumes a definite figure and
shape, assumes a local habitation and a name when the higher
descends at the crucial moment, takes the lower at its peak-
tide and fixes upon it its own norm and form. We have said
that all the levels of consciousness have been created—loosened&nbsp; out—by a first Descent; but in the line of the first. Descent
the only level that stands in front at the outset is Matter, all
the other levels are created no doubt but remain invisible in
the background, behind the gross veil of Matter. Each status
stands confined, as it were, to its own region and bides its
time when each will be summoned to concretise itself in
Matter. Thus Life was already there on the plane of Life even when it did not manifest itself in Matter, when mere Matter,
dead Matter was the only apparent reality on the material
plane. When Matter was stirred and churned sufficiently so
as to reach a certain tension and saturation, when it was
raised to a certain degree of maturity, as it were, then Life
appeared: Life appeared, not because that was the inevitable
and unavoidable result of the churning, but because Life
descended from its own level to the level of Matter and took
Matter up in its embrace. The churning, the development in
Matter was only the occasion, the condition precedent. For,
however much one may shake or churn Matter, whatever
change one may create in it by a shuffling and reshuffling of </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">its elements, one can never produce Life by that alone. A
new and unforeseen factor makes its appearance, precisely
because it comes from elsewhere. It is true all the planes are
imbedded, submerged, involved in the complex of Matter; but, in point of fact, all planes are involved in every other
plane. The appearance or manifestation of a new plane is
certainly prepared, made ready to the last—the last but one
—degree by the urge of the inner, the latent mode of consciousness that is to be; still the actualization, the bursting forth 
happens only when the thing that has to manifest itself descends, the actual form and pattern can be imprinted and
established by that alone. Thus, again, when Life attains a
certain level of growth and maturity, a certain tension and
orientation—a definite vector, so to say, in the mathematical
language—when it has, for example, sufficiently organised
itself as a vehicle of the psychic element of consciousness, then. it buds forth 
into Mind, but only when the Mind has descended upon it and into it. As in the previous stage, here also-
Life cannot produce Mind, cannot develop into Mind by any
amount of mechanical or chemical operations within itself, by&nbsp;
any amount of permutation and combination or commutation.
and culture of its constituent elements, unless it is seized on. by Mind itself. 
After the Mind, the next higher grade of consciousness shall come by the same method and process, viz,
first by an uplifting of the mental consciousness—a certain.
widening and deepening and katharsis of the mental consciousness—and then by a descent, gradual or sudden, of the level
or levels that lie above it.&nbsp;</font><p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This, then, is the nature of creation and its process. First,.
there is an Involution, a gradual foreshortening—a disintegration and concretisation, an exclusive concentration and self-oblivion of consciousness by which the various levels of diminishing consciousness are brought forth from the plenary
light of the one supreme Spirit, all the levels down to the
complete eclipse in the unconsciousness of the multiple and
disintegrate Matter. Next, there is an Evolution, that is to
say, embodiment in Matter of all these successive states, appearing one by one from the downmost to the topmost; Matter incarnates, all other states contribute to the incarnation&nbsp; </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">Page 41</font><hr align="justify">

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">and uphold it, the higher always transforming the
lower in a new degree of consciousness. </font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Creation, the universe in its activity, is thus not simply a
meaningless play, a pointless fancy. It has a purpose, an end,
a goal, a fulfilment, and it follows naturally a definite pattern
of process. The goal is the concretisation, the materialisation
(which includes, of course, vitalisation and mentalisation) of the Spirit and 
the spiritual values. It means the establishment of divine names and forms in terrestrial individuals
leading a divine life, individually and collectively here below. </font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; We have so far spoken of two lines of descent. But in either
case the descent was of a general and impersonal character.
Consciousness was considered as a mere force, movement or
quality. There is another aspect, however, in which the
descent is of a particular and personal character and consciousness is not force or status only but conscious being or Person. </font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The various movements or forces of consciousness that
play in the various fields or levels of creation are not merely
states or degrees and magnitudes, currents and streams of
consciousness: they are also personalities with definite forms
and figures—not physical indeed, yet very definite even when
subtle and fluidic. Thus the supreme Reality, which is usually
described as the perfect status of Existence-Consciousness-Bliss, is not merely a principle but a personality. It is the
Supreme Person with his triune nature (Purushottama). It is
the Divine as the supreme Knower and Doer or Creator and
Lover. The creation in or from that status of consciousness is
not simply a play or result of the force of consciousness, it is
even more truly the embodiment of a conscious Will; it is the
will of the Divine Father executed by the Divine Mother. </font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Now, as the Reality along with its consciousness, in the
downward involutionary course towards materialisation, has
been gradually disintegrating itself, multiplying itself, becoming more and more obscure and dense in separated and isolated
units, even so the Person too has been following a parallel
course of disintegration and multiplication and obscuration </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">Page 42</font><hr align="justify">

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">and isolation-At the origin lies, as we have said, the Perfect
Person, the Supreme Person, in his dual aspect of being and
nature, appearing as the supreme <i>purusa</i> and the supreme <i>prakrti,</i> our Father and our Mother in the highest heaven. </font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Next is the domain of the Supermind with which the
<i>manifestation</i> of the Divine starts. We have said it is the world
of typal realities, of the first seed-realities, where the<b> </b> One and
the Many are united and fused in each other, where the
absolute unity of the Supreme maintains itself in undiminished
magnitude and expresses and formulates itself perfectly in and
through the original multiplicity. Here take birth the first
personalities, absolute truth-forms of the Divine. Here are the
highest gods, the direct formations of the Divine himself.
Here are the Four Powers and Personalities of <i>iswara</i> whom
Sri Aurobindo has named after the Vaishnava terminology: (z) Mahavira, embodying the Brahmin quality of Knowledge
and Light and wide Consciousness, (n) Balarama, embodying
the Kshatriya quality of Force and intense dynamism, (w)
Pradyumna, embodying the quality of love and beauty—the
Vaishya virtue of mutuality and harmony and solidarity, and <i>(iv)</i> Aniruddha, embodying the Sudra quality of competent
service, of organisation and execution in detail. Corresponding with these Four 
there are the other Four Powers and Personalities of the Divine Mother—<i>Iswari:</i> (i) Maheshwari, (ii) Mahakali, (iii) Mahalakshmi and
<i>(iv}</i> Mahasaraswati. Next
in the downward gradient comes the Overmind where the
individualised powers and personalities of the Divine tend to
become self-sufficient and self-regarding; their absolute unity
is loosened and the lines of multiplicity begin to be more
independent of each other, each aiming at a special fulfilment
of its own. Still the veil that is being drawn over the unity is
yet transparent which continues to be sufficiently dynamic.
This is the abode of the gods, the true and high gods: it is these
that the Vedic Rishis appear to have envisaged and sought
after. The all gods <i>(visve devah)</i> were indeed acknowledged'
to be but different names and forms of one supreme godhead <i>(devah):</i> it is the one god, says Rishi Dirghatamas, who is
called multifariously whether as Agni or Yama or Matariswan;&nbsp; it is the one god, again, who is described as having a thousand
heads and a thousand feet. And yet they are separate entities, </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">Page 43</font><hr align="justify">

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">each has his own distinct and distinctive character and attribute, each demands a characteristic way of approach and
worship. The tendency towards an exclusive stress is already
at work on this level and it is the perception of this truth that
lies behind the term <i>henotheism</i> used by European scholars
to describe the Vedic Religion. </font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The next stage of devolution is the Mind proper. There or
perhaps even before, on the lower reaches of the Overmind,
the gods have become all quite separate,—self-centred, each
bounded in his own particular sphere and horizon. The
Overmind gods—the true gods—are creators in a world of
balanced or harmoniously held difference; they are powers
that fashion each a special fulfilment, enhancing one another
at the same time <i>(parasparam bhavayanta).</i> Between the Over-mind and the Mind there is a class of lesser gods—they
have been called <i>formateurs;</i> they do not create in the strict
sense of the term, they give form to what the anterior gods have created and 
projected. These form-makers that consolidate the encasement, fix definitely the image, have most
probably been envisaged in the Indian <i>dhydnamurtis.</i> But in
the Mind the gods become still more fixed and rigid, &quot;stereotyped&quot;; the mental gods inspire exclusive systems, extreme
and abstract generalisations, theories and principles and formulae that, even when they seek to force and englobe all in
their cast-iron mould, can hardly understand or tolerate each
other. </font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Mind is the birth-place of absolute division and exclusivism
—it is the &quot;own home&quot; of egoism. Egoism is that ignorant
mode—a twist or knot of consciousness which cuts up the
universal unity into disparate and antagonistic units: it creates
isolated, mutually exclusive whorls in the harmonious rhythm
and vast commonalty of the one consciousness or conscious
existence. The Sankhya speaks of the principle of ego coming
or appearing after the principle of vastness <i>[mahat).</i> The Vast
'is the region above the Mind, where the unitary consciousness is still intact; with the appearance of the Mind has also
appeared an intolerant self-engrossed individualism that
culminates, as its extreme and violent expression, in the <i>asura—</i>Asura, the mentalised vital being. </font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Asura or the Titan stands where consciousness descends </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">Page 44</font><hr align="justify">

		<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">from the Mind into the Vital or Life-Force. He is 
the personification of ambition and authority and arrogance, he is
the intolerant and absolute self-seeker—he is Daitya, the son
of division. The Asura belongs to what we call the Higher
Vital; but lower down in the Mid Vital, made wholly of
unmixed life impulses, appear beings that are still less luminous,
less controlled, more passionate, vehement and. violent in
their self-regarding appetite. They are the Rakshasas. If the
Asura is perverse power, the Rakshasa is insatiate hunger. </font>
		<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; All the ancient legends about a principle—and a personality
—of Denial and Ignorance, of an Everlasting Nay—refer to
this fact of a descending consciousness, a Fall. The Vedantic <i>mayd,</i> spoken of sometimes as the Dark Mother, seems to be
the personification of the lower Overmind, Jehovah and Satan
of the Hebrews, Olympians and Titans of the Greeks, Ahriman
and Ahura Mazda of old Iran, the sons of Diti and Aditi the
Indian Puranas speak of, are powers and personalities of consciousness when it has descended entirely into the mind and
the vital where the division is complete. These lower reaches
have completely lost the unitary consciousness; still there are
beings even here that have succeeded in maintaining it as a
memory or an aspiration, although in a general way&nbsp; the
living reality of the oneness is absent. It is significant that the
term <i>asura</i> which came to mean in classical and mythological
ages <i>a</i> + <i>sura,</i> not-god, the Titan, had originally a different
connotation and etymology, <i>asu + ra,</i> one having force or
strength, and was used as a general attribute of all the gods.
The degradation in the sense of the word is a pointer to the
spiritual Fall: Satan was once Lucifer, the bringer or bearer
of light. We may mention in this connection that these beings
of which we are speaking, dwelling in unseen worlds, are of
two broad categories—(1) beings that are native to each plane
and immutably confined and bound to that plane, and (2)
those that extend their existence through many or all planes
and assume on each plane the norm and form appropriate to
that plane. But this is a problem of individual destiny with
which we are not concerned at present. </font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; We were speaking of the descent into the Vital, the domain
of dynamism, desire and hunger. The Vital is also the field of
some strong creative Powers who follow, or are in secret </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">Page 45</font><hr align="justify">

		<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">contact with the line of unitary consciousness, who are open
to influences from a deeper or higher or subtler consciousness.
Along with the demons there is also a line of <i>daimona,</i> guardian
angels, in the hierarchy of vital beings. Much of what is known
as aesthetic or artistic creation derives its spirit from this
sphere. Many of the gods of beauty and delight are denizens
of this heaven. Gandharvas and Kinnaras are here, Dionysus
and even Apollo perhaps (at least in their mythological
aspect—in their occult reality they properly belong to the
Overmind which is the own home of the gods), many of the
angels, seraphs and cherubs dwell here. In fact, the mythological heaven for the most part can be located in this region. </font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; All this is comprised within what we term the Higher 
or the Middle Vital. In the lower vital, we have said, consciousness has become still more circumscribed, dark, ignorantly
obstinate, disparately disintegrated. It is the seed-bed of lust
and cruelty, of all that is small and petty and low and mean,
all that is dirt and filth.<b> </b> It is here that we place the <i>pisacas,
</i>djinns, ghouls and ghosts, and vampires, beings who possess
the &quot;possessed&quot;. </font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Further down in the scale where life-force touches Matter,
where Life is about to precipitate as Matter, appear beings of&nbsp;
a still lower order, of smaller dimensions and magnitudes—
imps, elfs, pixies, goblins, gnomes, fairies or dryads and naiads.
There are even creatures or entities so close to Matter that
they come into being and pass away with the building up and
breaking of a definite pattern of material organisation. This
individualisation of consciousness as beings or persons seems
to disappear altogether when we enter the strictly material
plane. There is here only an agglomeration of uniform dead
particles. </font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; We have thus far followed the course of the break-up of
Personality, from the original one supreme Person, through
a continuous process of multiplication and disintegration, of
parcellation and crystallisation into more and more small self-centred units, until we reach the final pulverisation as purely
material physico-chemical atoms. Now with the reversal of consciousness, in its 
return movement, we have again a process of growth and building up of individuality and personality,
with the awakening and ascension of consciousness from level </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;page 46</font><hr align="justify">

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">to level on the physical plane and in the material embodiment,
there occurs too an evolution of the personal aspect of the
reality. </font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; We say that at the lowest level of involution, in Matter,.
where consciousness has zero magnitude, there is no personality
or individuality. It is all a mechanical play of clashing particles
that constantly fly apart or come together according to the
force or the resultant of forces that act upon them. An individuality means a bounded form as its basis of reaction and a
form that tends to persist and grow by assimilation; it means
a centre of a definite manner and pattern of reaction. Individuality, in its literal sense, designates that which cannot be
divided <i>(in+ dividus).</i> Division is only another name for death
for the particular entity. Even in the case of cell-division or
self-division of some lower organisms, in the first instance the
original living entity disappears and, secondly, the succeeding
entities, created by division, always re-form themselves again
into integral wholes. A material particle, on the other hand, is
divisible <i>ad infinitum.</i> We have been able to divide even an
atom (which means also <i>that which cannot be divided)</i> to such
an extent as to reduce it to a mere charge of energy, nay, we
have sublimated it to a geometrical point. Individualisation
starts with the coming of life. It is a ganglion of life-force
round which a particular system of action and reaction weaves.
itself. The characteristic of individuality is that each one is
unique, each relates itself to others and to the environment
in its own way, each expresses itself, puts forth its energy,
receives impacts from outside in a manner that distinguishes.
it from others. It is true this character of individuality is not
very pronounced in the earlier or rudimentary forms of life.
Still it is there: it grows and develops slowly along the ladder
of evolution. Only in the higher animals it attains a clear and
definite norm and form. </font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In man something else or something more happens. For
man is not merely an individual, he is also a personality. He
is the outcome of a twofold growth and revelation. He has
outgrown the vital and climbed into Mind, and he has dived
into the Heart and touched his inner soul, his true psychic
centre. It is this soul that is the source of his personality. </font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The formulation or revelation of the Psyche marks another </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">Page 47</font><hr align="justify">

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">line of what we have been describing as the Descent 
of Consciousness. The phenomenon of individualisation has at its
back the phenomenon of the growth of the Psyche. It is
originally a spark or nucleus of consciousness thrown into
Matter that starts growing and organising itself behind the
veil, in and through the movements and activities of the
apparent vehicle consisting of the triple nexus of Body (Matter)
and Life and Mind. The extreme root of the psychic growth
extends perhaps right into the body, consciousness of Matter,
but its real physical basis and tenement is found only with the
growth and formation of the physical heart. And yet the psychic
individuality behind the animal organisation is very rudimentary. All that can be said is that it is there, <i>in potentia,</i> it
exists, it is simple <i>being:</i> it has not started <i>becoming.</i> This is
man's especiality: in him the psychic begins to be dynamic,
to be organised and to organise, it is a psychic personality
that he possesses. Now this flowering of the psychic personality is due to an especial Descent, the descent of a Person
from another level of consciousness. That Person (or Super-
person) is the <i>jivatman,</i> the Individual Self, the central being
of each individual formation. The Jivas are centres of multiplicity thrown up in the bosom of the infinite Consciousness:&nbsp; it is the supreme Consciousness eddying in unit formations
to serve as the basis for the play of manifestation. They are
'not within the frame of manifestation (as the typal formations
in the Supermind are), they are above or beyond or beside it
and stand there eternally and invariably in and as part and
parcel of the one supreme Reality—Sachchidananda. But the
Jivatman from its own status casts its projection, representation, delegated formulation—&quot;emanation,&quot; in the phraseology of the neo-Platonists—into the manifestation of the triple
complex of mind, life and body, that is to say, into the human
vehicle, and thus stands behind as the psychic personality
or the soul. This soul, we have seen, is a developing, organising
focus of consciousness growing from below and comes to its
own in the human being: or we can put it the other way, that
is to say, when it comes to its own, then the human being
appears. And it has come to its own precisely by a descent of
its own self from above, in the same manner as with the other
descents already described. Now, this &quot;coming to its own&quot; </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">Page 48</font><hr align="justify">

		<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">means that it begins henceforth to exercise its royal power, its
natural and inherent divine right, viz, of consciously and
directly controlling and organising its terrestrial kingdom
which is the body and life and mind. The exercise of conscious
directive will, supported and illumined by a self-consciousness,
that occurs with the advent of the Mind is a function of the
Purusha, the self-conscious being, in the Mind; but this selfconscious being has been able to come up, manifest itself and
be active, because of pressure of the underlying psychic personality that has formed here. </font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Thus we have three characteristics of the human personality
accruing from the psychic consciousness that supports and
inspires it:—(1) self-consciousness: an animal acts, feels and
even knows, but man knows that he acts, knows that he feels,
knows even that he knows. This phenomenon of consciousness
turning round upon itself is the hallmark of the human being; (2) a conscious will holding together and harmonising, 
fashioning and integrating the whole external nature evolved till
now; (3) a purposive drive, a deliberate and voluntary orientation towards a 
higher and ever higher status of individualisation and personalisation,—not only a horizontal movement
seeking to embrace and organise the normal, the already
attained level of consciousness, but also a vertical movement
seeking to raise the level, attain altogether a new poise of higher organisation. </font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; These characters, it is true, are not clear and pronounced,
do not lie in front, at the beginning of the human personality.
The normal human person has his psyche very much behind;&nbsp; but it is still there as <i>antaryamin,</i> as the secret Inner Controller.
And whatever the vagaries of the outer instruments or their
slavery to the mode of Ignorance, in and through all that, it is
this Inner Guide that holds the reins and drives upward in
the end. </font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Thus naturally there appear gradations of the human
personality; as the consciousness in the human being rises
higher and higher, the psychic centre organises a higher and
higher—a richer, wider, deeper—personality. The first great
conversion, the first turning of the human personality to a
new mode of life and living, that is to say, living even externally
according to the inner truth and reality, the first attempt at a </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">Page 49</font><hr align="justify">

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">conscious harmonisation of the psychic consciousness with its
surface agents and vehicles, is what is known as spiritual
initiation. This may happen and it does happen even when
man lives in his normal mental consciousness. But there is the
possibility of growth and evolution and transformation of
personality in higher and higher spiritual degrees through the
upper reaches of the higher Mind, the varying degrees of the
Overmind and finally the Supermind. These are the spheres,
the fields, even the continents of the personality, but the stuff,
the substance of the personality, the inner nucleus of consciousness-force is formed, first, by the flaming aspiration, the
upward drive within the, developing and increasing psychic
being itself, and secondly, by the descent, to a greater and
greater degree, of the original Being from which it emanated.
The final coalescence of the fully and integrally developed
psychic being with the supreme splendour of its very source,
the Jivatman, occurs in the Supermind. When this happens
the supramental personality becomes incarnate in the physical
body: Matter in the material plane is transformed into a
radiant substance made of pure consciousness, the human
personality becomes a living form of the Divine. Thus the
wheel comes full circle: creation returns to the point from
which it started but with an added significance, a new fulfilment. </font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The mystery of rebirth in the evolution of the 
human personality is nothing but the mystery of the developing psyche.
At first this psyche or soul is truly a being: &quot;no bigger than
the thumb&quot;—it is the hardly audible &quot;still small voice&quot;. The
experiences of life—sweet or bitter, happy or unhappy, good
or bad, howsoever they may appear to the outward eye and
perception—all the dialectics of a terrestrial existence contribute to the growth and development of the psychic consciousness. Each span of life means a special degree or mode of
growth necessitated by the inner demand and drive of the
divine Individual seated within the heart. The whole end in
view of this secret soul is to move always towards and be
united again with its Oversoul, its original and high archetype
in the Divine Consciousness: the entire course of its earthly
evolution is chalked out and patterned by the exact need of
its growth. Whatever happens in each particular life, all the </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">Page 50</font><hr align="justify">

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">currents of all the lives converge and coalesce, and serve the
psychic consciousness to swell in volume and intensity and be
one with the Divine Consciousness. Or, in a different imagery,
one can say that the multifarious experiences of various lives
are as fuel to the Inner Fire—this Psychic Agni which is just
a spark or a thin tongue at the outset of the human evolutionary course; but with the addition of fuel from life to life
this Fire flames up, indeed, becomes ultimately a conflagration
that burns and purifies the entire outer vehicle and transforms
it into radiant matter—a fit receptacle, incarnation of the
supernal Light. The mounting Fire (the consciousness-energy
secreted in the earth-bound heart of Matter) finally flares up,
discloses itself in its full amplitude and calls and attracts into
it the incandescent supramental Solar Sphere which is the
type and pattern it has to embody and express. This is the
marriage of Heaven and Earth, of which the mystics all over
the earth in all ages spoke and sang—to which the Vedic
Rishi refers when he declares: </font>

<p align=justify style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<font face="Times New Roman"><i>Dyaur me pita mata prthivi [yam?</i></font><p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The supramentalisation of the personality which means the
perfect divinisation of the personality, is yet not the final end
of Nature's march. Her path is endless, since she follows the
trail of infinity. There are still higher modes of consciousness,
or, if they cannot properly be called higher, other modes of
consciousness that lie in waiting to be brought out and placed
and established in' the front of terrestrial evolution. Only,
supramentalisation means the definite crossing over from
Ignorance, from every trace and shadow of Ignorance, into
the abiding and perennial Knowledge and Freedom. Thence-forward the course of Nature's evolution may be more of the
kind of expression than ascension; for, beyond the Supermind it is very 
difficult to speak of a higher or lower order of consciousness. Everything thereafter is in the full perfect light— the difference 
comes in the mode or manner or stress of expression. However, that is a problem with which we are not
immediately concerned.&nbsp; </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; We have spoken of four lines of Descent in the evolution </font>
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&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman" size="2">1 The Heaven is my Father and this Earth my Mother. </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">Page 51</font><hr align="justify">

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<font face="Times New Roman">and organisation of consciousness. There yet remains a fifth
line. It is <i>more</i> occult. It is really the secret of secrets, the <i>Supreme Secret.</i> It is the descent of the Divine himself. The
Divine, the supreme Person himself descends, not indirectly through emanations, 
projections, partial or lesser formulations, but directly in his own plenary self. He descends not as
a disembodied force acting as a general movement, possessing,
at the most, other objects and persons as its medium or instrument, but in an 
embodied form and in the fullness of his consciousness. The Indian word for Divine Incarnation, <i>avatara,
</i>literally means <i>he who has descended.</i> The Divine comes down&nbsp; himself as a terrestrial being, on this material plane of ours,
,in order to raise the terrestrial and material Nature to a new
status in her evolutionary course—even so He incarnated as
the Great Boar who, with his mighty tusk, lifted a solid mass
of earth from out of the waters of the Deluge. It is his purpose
to effect an ascension of consciousness, a transmutation of
being, to establish a truly New Order, a New Dharma, as it
is termed—<i>dharmasamsthapanarthaya.</i> On the human level, he
appears as a human person—for two purposes. First of all, he
shows, by example, how the ascension, the transmutation is
to be effected, how a normal human being can rise from a
lower status of consciousness to a higher one. The Divine is
therefore known as the Lord of Yoga—for Yoga is the means
and method by which one consciously uplifts oneself, unites
oneself with the Higher Reality. The embodied Divine is the
ideal and pattern: he shows the path, himself walks the path
and man can follow, if he chooses. The Biblical conception of
the Son of God—God made flesh—as the intermediary between
the human and the Divine, declaring, &quot;I am the Way and
the Goal&quot;, expresses a very similar truth. The Divine takes a
body for another—occult—reason also. It is this: Matter or
terrestrial life cannot be changed—changed radically, that
is to <i>say, transformed—</i>by the pure spiritual consciousness alone,
lying above or within; also it is not sufficient to bring about
only that much of change in terrestrial life which can be
effected by the mere spiritual force acting in a general way.
It looks as if the physical transformation which is what is
meant by an ascension or emergence in the evolutionary
gradient were possible only by a physical impact embodying </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">Page 52</font><hr align="justify">

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<font face="Times New Roman">and canalising the spiritual force: it is with his physical<b> 
</b>body<b> 
</b>that the Divine Incarnation seems to push and lift up physical
Nature to a new and higher status. </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The occult seers declare that we are today on the earth at
such a crisis of evolution. Earth and Man and man's earthly
life need to be radically transfigured. The trouble and turbulence, the chaos and confusion that are now overwhelming
this earth, indicate the acute tension before the release, the&nbsp; <i>detente</i> of a NEW MANIFESTATION. </font>
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