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		<b><font face="Times New Roman"><i>Consciousness as Freedom</i></font></b></p>
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<font face="Times New Roman">CONSCIOUSNESS is liberty, unconsciousness is slavery. When
you are unconscious you are a prey to all kinds of forces and
beings outside yourself and over which you have no control.
You are a plaything in the hands of any power or influence
that seeks to possess you and when you are in such a state it
is the undesirable powers that seek and secure hospitality in
you. It is only when you become conscious that you begin
to react to the outside forces that try to control you or utilise</font>

<font face="Times New Roman">you.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In the lower creation it is always a play of divergent forces</font>&nbsp;
<font face="Times New Roman">and the individual being is only a field, a passive field for the
play of cosmic or collective forces. It is in man, with the
awakening of an individual consciousness in him, that a
movement of self-assertion, of willed reaction has started in
nature, that is to say, one is no more content with playing the
role of a slave executing helplessly what is demanded of him
by an external agent but is now making his own terms and
propositions. That is how man is man because he is creating
his own self and his own environment.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Consciousness, however, is not mere consciousness, that is to
say, awareness; it is also power, power for organisation and
execution. It is unconsciousness that is or invariably leads to
disorderliness, disorganisation and confusion. It is the light
of consciousness that brings order out of chaos, gives an organised direction to forces moving at random and with no purpose. Man has started organising his life since he acquired the
light of consciousness. He has been doing the yoga pf the
intelligent will (Gita's <i>buddhi-yoga)</i> since his advent upon earth.
But even in man this force of light, the energy of consciousness</font>

<font face="Times New Roman">not fully operative- because man is not fully conscious, he is</font>

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&nbsp;<font face="Times New Roman">only partially so. His mind is conscious and has developed into
intelligence (a little strayed into intellectuality); but there are
large domains in him that are wholly unconscious, that is to
say, move in mechanical rounds, a passive slave of external
impacts. I am referring to his vital being and his physical being.
Even like the mind these too must admit into themselves the
light of the consciousness in order to free themselves from the
influence of other external forces and attain the sense of their
own truth and self-fulfilment.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Indeed each part, even each constituent element of our
being has an individuality of its own, a personal being and
consciousness. And it is because it is not aware of that inner
reality, because it has fallen unconscious, therefore it has
entered into this life of bondage and slavery and mechanical
existence. When life becomes conscious, the life-energy becomes luminous, the vital being gradually gains self-control and
self-direction. Instead of being moved about by irresponsible<br>
and irrepressible desires and impulses it attains a clarity as to
what it should desire and what it should effectuate; and along
with that light secures the strength also to act up to the directions of that light.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The body too similarly can be filled with light and light-energy; instead of being wholly at the mercy of the physical
environment, the natural conditions around or even subject
to its own innate or atavistic suggestions, it can be aware of
its true reality, its inner nature, its higher potentialities.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I have spoken of the light in the mind, the consciousness
that has awakened there and has organised its activities as
an autonomous unit. But we must not forget that it is only
partially so. The autonomy is very limited, for a good part of
the human mind is far from being conscious, there is a part
half-conscious and a part almost wholly unconscious. This
hemisphere so to say is under the influence of the vital and
the physical being with their unconscious and ill-organised
influence. The true light comes from elsewhere, the mind in
so far as it receives the light becomes conscious and proportionately autonomous. The light is always the spiritual light,
the consciousness of the spirit which is above and beyond mind.
Not only the mind but the vital too, and the physical too in
order to be consciously organised and free and autonomous</font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">must know how to take in that light beyond the mind and
bathe in its liberating influence.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In fact, education means precisely this instilling of the
consciousness into the part that is sought to be educated.
Usually the thing is done in a different way which is wrong,
at least an inefficient way. By education we usually mean
exercising, that is teaching some exercises mostly of memory
on some subject in which one seeks education. It is more or
less an exercise of mechanical repetition. Whether it is of the
mind or of the body the procedure is the same. As the muscles
of the body are sought to be strengthened and developed
through repetitive exercises, the mental faculties too are put
under a training that consists of similar repetitive exercises. To store the 
mind with as many kinds of information as possible, hammer all ingredients of knowledge into the brain
cells learning by rote as it is termed, this is what education
normally means; but as I said, it is consciousness that is to be
evoked in the mind and it is not done by mere mechanical
exercises. Even the body does not reach its true perfection
unless the exercises are attended with consciousness, awareness,
a play of light into the movements of the body, into the limbs
that participate in the play of the exercises. Naturally the vital
does not need any exercise for its development, it is naturally <i>exercised,</i> much exercised. It has to be not <i>exercised</i> but <i>exorcised,
</i>that is to say, purified and controlled. And that means the
introduction of the pure light of consciousness into it.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I have laid stress on <i>consciousness,</i> but consciousness has
three facets or steps. The first is simple consciousness, the
next is self-consciousness and the last supra-consciousness. First you become 
conscious of a thing, next you become conscious that you are conscious of the thing, last something else
is conscious in and through your consciousness.</font>

		<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="center">Page 201<hr>
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