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		<b><font face="Times New Roman"><i>Consciousness as Energy</i> </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">A LIVE wire—through which an electric current, say of several
thousand volts, is passing—looks quite innocent, motionless,
inactive, almost inert. The appearance, needless to say, is
deceptive. Even so the <i>still life</i> of a Yogin. Action does not
consist merely in mechanical motion visible to the eye: intra-atomic movements that are subtle, invisible, hard to detect
even by the most sensitive instruments, possess a tremendous potency, even to unimaginable degrees. Likewise in
man, the extent of muscular flexions does not give the measure
or potential of his activity. One cannot say that the first-line
infantryman who rushes and charges, shoots, bayonets, kills
and is killed is more active and dynamic than the general who
sits quiet behind in a cabin and merely sends out orders.
Vivekananda wandered about the whole of India, crossed the
seas, traversed continents, undertook whirlwind campaigns—talking, debating, lecturing: it was a life superbly' rich in
muscular movements. By his side, Ramakrishna would appear quite tame—inactive, 
&quot;introvert&quot;: fewer physical displacements or muscular exercises marked his life. And yet, ask
anyone who is in touch with the inner life of these great souls,
he will tell you, Vivekananda is only a spark from the mighty
and concentrated Energy that Ramakrishna was. </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; What is this spiritual or Yogic Energy? Ordinary people,
people with a modern mind, would concede at the most that
there are two kinds of activity: (1) real activity—physical
action, work, labour with muscle and nerve, and (2) passive
activity—activity of mind and thought. According to the
pragmatic standard especial, if not entire, importance is given </font>

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Page 59<hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">the the first category; the other category, &quot;sicklied over with
the pale cast of thought&quot;, is held at a discount. The <i>thoughtful
</i>people are philosophers at the most, they are ineffectual
angels in this workaday world of ours. We need upon earth
people of sterner stuff, dynamic people who are not thought
bound, but know how to apply and execute their ideas,
whatever they may be. Lenin was great, not because he had
revolutionary ideas, but because he gave a muscular frame<b> 
</b>to<b> 
</b>them. Such people alone are the pragmatic, dynamic, useful
category of humanity. The others are, according to the more
radical leftist view, merely parasitic, and according to a more
generous liberal view, chiefly decorative elements in human
society. Mind-energy can draw dream pictures, beautiful
perhaps, but inane; it is only muscular energy that gives a
living and material body—a local habitation and a name—
to what otherwise would be airy nothing.&nbsp; </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Energy, however, is not merely either muscular (physical)
or cerebral. There are energies subtler than thought and yet
more dynamic than the muscle (or the electric pile). One
such, for example, is vital energy, although orthodox biochemists do not believe in any kind of vitalism that is something more than mere physico-chemical reaction. Indeed, this
is the energy that counts in life; for it is this that brings about
what we call success in the world. A man with push and go,
as it is termed, is nothing but a person with abundant vital
energy. But even of this energy there are gradations. It can be
deep, controlled, organised or it can be hectic, effusive,
confused: the latter kind expresses and spends itself often in
mere external, nervous and muscular movements. Those,
however, who are known as great men of action are precisely
they who are endowed with life energy of the first kind. </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Yogi—the Hatha Yogi, the Raja Yogi, the Tantrik—seeks consciously to master this life energy, to possess and
use it as he wills. The Yogi, the true Yogi, aims at a higher
quality, a deeper potentiality of the life energy: it may be
called the Inner Life Energy. This inner life energy is in a line
with, is one with the universal life energy; therefore it is said
when one possesses and controls this power one has command
over the universal power. All other energies—visible, tangible,
concretised and canalised—are particular formations and </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">Page 60</font><hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">embodiments of this mother energy. Even the most physical
and material energies—mechanical, electrical, nervous, etc.—
.—are all derivatives and lesser potentials of this fount and
origin. The mastery of the inner vital energy is the whole
secret of what is known as occultism, even magic, black or
white, spell and other allied powers or miracles. The eight <i>siddhis</i> well known to the Yogis are the natural results of this
mastery. With such a mastery the Yogi controls and guides<br>
his own destiny; he can also in the same way control and guide
the destiny of others, even of peoples and humanity at large.
That is the deeper meaning the great phrase of the Gita— <i>lokasamgraha—</i>carries. Indeed, great souls are precisely they
who move with the upward current of Nature, in and through
whom Nature works out vast changes, prepares the steps of
evolution in the world and humanity. </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But what again is this universal vital energy? This also is
an instrument, not the ultimate agent. After all, vital energy
is blind by itself; it moves instinctively or intuitively, as
Bergson would say; it does not know consciously beforehand
the next step it is going to take. Consciousness&nbsp; then is the
secret. This is &quot;the power behind the throne&quot;, it is this to which
the Upanishad refers in its analysis of the ultimate dynamics of
things as the life of Life, <i>pranasya pranah.</i> </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It is the aim of all Yoga, spiritual discipline, finally<b> 
</b>to<b> 
</b>arrive at this consciousness, this supreme reality which is
behind all existence, which is the source and the substance of
all. It is in this Consciousness that the whole creation is rolled
up and it is from this that it is rolled out. Only there are some paths of 
spiritual discipline that prefer and follow the movement of in-rolling and others that seek the one of out-rolling:&nbsp; the former is the path of <i>nivrtti,</i> the latter that <i>of pravrtti.</i> </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Thus consciousness is not merely a status of being, but also
a force of becoming. All that is to take form and be active,
whether in the grossest, the material mode or in the most
subtle, the ideative mode is originally a seed, a stress, a point
of concentration of this consciousness. The Yogi becomes
potentially all-powerful, because he is one with the All-Power,
the Mother Consciousness. The perfect spiritual man not
merely dwells with or is close to the Divine <i>{salokya),</i> he is not
merely made in the image of the Divine <i>(sarupya),</i> and again </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">Page 61</font><hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">he is riot merely unified and one with the Divine 
<i>(sayujya)</i> but
what is most marvellous, he has the same nature, that is to
say, he has the same powers and capacities as the Divine <i>(sadharmya).</i> </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The dynamic becoming, becoming a power and personality
of the omnipotent Divine, is a secret well known to the Yogis
and mystics. Only it has not been worked out in all its implications, not given the full value and importance rightfully
due to it. The reason is that although the principle was discovered and admitted, the proper key had not been found
that could release and manipulate the Energy at its highest
potential and largest amplitude. Because the major tendency
in the spiritual man till now has been rather to follow the
path of <i>nivrtti</i> than the path of <i>pravrtti,</i> this latter path being
more or less identified with the path of Ignorance. But there
is a higher line <i>of pravrtti</i> which means the manifestation of
the Divine, not merely the expression of the inferior Nature. </font>
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<b>
<font face="Times New Roman">2</font></b><p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="center">
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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The force of .consciousness is not simply the force an idea or
thought may have. The distinction between the two is not
usually understood. In reality, however, thought or idea is a
form of energy-action in the mind and mind is only one field
or grade—not the most dynamic nor direct or immediate—among many for the play of consciousness, as I have already
said. Mind energy, life energy, physical or material energy are
various forms and stages in the expression of consciousness-
energy (Chit-Tapas). The nature and function of consciousness-energy we may elucidate and understand in another way,
by following a different line of its <i>modus vivendi.</i> </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Consciousness has a fourfold potential. The first is the
normal consciousness, which is predominantly mental; it is
the sphere comprising movements of which man is usually and
habitually aware. It is what the Upanishad names <i>jagrat or
jagaritasthana</i> and characterises as <i>bahihprajna:</i> it is the waking
state and has cognition only of external things. In other words,
the consciousness here is wholly objectivised, externalised—
&quot;extrovert&quot;: it is also a strongly individualised formation, the </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">Page 62</font><hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">consciousness is hedged in, isolated and contoured by a
protective ring, as it were, of a characteristically separative
personality; it is a surface formation, a web made out of day-
to-day sensations and thoughts, perceptions and memories,
impressions and associations. It is a system of outward actions and reactions 
against or in the midst of one's actual environment. The second potential is that of the Inner Consciousness: its characteristic is that the consciousness here is no longer
trenchantly separative and individual, narrowly and rigidly
egoistic. It feels and sees itself as part of or one with the world
consciousness. It looks upon its individuality as only a wave
of the universal movement. It is also sometimes called the
subliminal consciousness; for it plays below or behind the
normal surface range of consciousness. It is made up of the
residuary powers of the normal consciousness, the abiding
vibrations and stresses that settle down and remain in the
background and are not immediately required or utilised for
life purposes: also it contacts directly energies and movements
that well out of the universal life. The phenomena of clairvoyance and clairaudience, the knowledge of the past and
the future and of other worlds and persons and beings, certain
more dynamic movements such as distant influence and
guidance and controlling without any external means, well
known in all yogic disciplines, are various manifestations of
the power of this Inner Consciousness. But there is not only
an outward and an inner consciousness; there is also a deeper
or nether consciousness. This is the great field that has been
and is being explored by modern psychologists. It is called
the subconscious, sometimes also the unconscious: but really
it should be named the inconscient, for it is not altogether&nbsp;
devoid of consciousness, but is conscious in its own way—the
consciousness is involved or lost within itself or lies buried. It
comprises those movements and impulsions, inclinations and
dispositions that have no rational basis, on the contrary, have
an irrational basis; they are not acquired or developed by the
individual in his normal course of life experience, they are
ingrained, lie imbedded in man's nature and are native to his
original biological and physical make-up. As the human
embryo recapitulates in the womb the whole history of man's
animal evolution, even so the normal man, even the most </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">Page 63</font><hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">civilised and apparently the farthest from his ancient moorings
and sources, enshrines in his cells, in a miraculously living
manner, the memory of vast geological epochs, the great
struggles and convulsions through which earth and its inhabitants have passed, the basic urges of the crude life force,
its hopes, fears, desires, hungers that constitute the rudimental
and aboriginal consciousness, the atavism that links the man
of today not only to his primitive ancestry but even to the
plant world—even perhaps to the mineral world—out of
which his body cells have issued and evolved. Legends and
fairy tales, mythologies and fables are a rationalised pattern
and picture of the vibrations and urges that moved the original
consciousness. It was a collective—a racial—and an aboriginal
consciousness. The same lies <i>chromosomic,</i> one can almost say,
in the constitution of the individual man of today. This region
of the unconscious (or the inconscient) is a veritable field of
force: it lies at the root of all surface dynamisms. The surface
consciousness, <i>jagrat,</i> is a very small portion of the whole, it is
only the tip of the pyramid or an iceberg, the major portion
lies submerged beyond our normal view. In reflex movements,
in sudden unthinking outbursts, in dreams and day-dreams, this undercurrent is 
silhouetted and made visible and recognisable. Even otherwise, they exercise a profound influence 
upon all our conscious movements. This underground consciousness is the repository of the most dark and unenlightened
elements that grew and flourished in the slime of man's
original habitat. They are small, ugly, violent, anti-social,
chaotic forces, their names are cruelty, lust, hunger, blind
selfishness. Nowhere else than in this domain can the great
Upanishadic truth find its fullest application—Hunger that
is Death. </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But this is the seamy side of Nature, there is also a sunny
side. If there is a nadir, there must be a corresponding zenith.
In the Vedic image, if man is born of the Dark Mother, he is
also a child of the White Mother <i>(krsna</i> and <i>sveti)</i>, Or again,
if Earth is our mother, the Heaven is our father—<i>dyaur me
pita mata prthivi iyam.</i> In other words, consciousness extends
not in depth alone, but in height also—it is vertically extended,
infinite both ways. As there is a subconsciousness or unconsciousness, so also there is at the other end superconsciousness. </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">Page 64</font><hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">Now this superconsciousness is the true origin of creation,
although the apparent and objective, creation starts with and
is based upon Unconsciousness. All norms and archetypes
belong to the superconsciousness; for the sake of material
creation they are thrown down or cast as seed into the Unconscious and in this process they undergo a change, a deformation and aberration. All the major themes of dream myths
and prehistoric legends which the psychologists claim to have
found imbedded in man's subconscient consciousness are in
fact echoes and mirages of great spiritual—superconscient—realities reflected here below. The theme of the Hero of the
Dual Mother (Dark and Fair), of Creation and Sacrifice,
these are, according to Jung, dramatisations of some fundamental movements and urges in the dark subconscient nature.
Jung, however, throws a luminous suggestion in characterising
the nature of this vast complex. The general sense, Jung says,
is that of a movement forward, of a difficult journey, of a
pull backward and downward, of yawning abysses that call,
of a light that beckons. It is an effort, a travail of what lies
imbedded and suppressed to come out into the open, into the
normal consciousness and thus release an unhealthy tension,
restore a balance in the individual's system. Modern psychology lays great stress upon the integration of personality. Most
of the ills that human nature suffers from, they say, are due to
this division or schism in it, a suppressed subconsciousness and
an expressed consciousness seeking to express a negation of
that subconsciousness. Modern psychology teaches that one
should dive into the nether regions and face squarely whatever
elements are there, help these to follow their natural bent to
come up and <i>see</i> the light of the day. Only thus there can be
established 'a unitary movement, an even consistency and an
equilibrium throughout the entire consciousness and being. </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; So far so good. But two things are to be taken note of.
First of all, the resolution of the normal conflict in man's
consciousness, the integration of his personality, is not wholly
practicable within the scope of the present nature and the
field of the actual forces at play. That can give only a shadow
of the true resolution and integration. A conscious envisaging
of the conflicting forces, a calm survey of the submerged or
side-tracked <i>libidos</i> in their true nature, a voluntary acceptance&nbsp; </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">Page 65</font><hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">of these dark elements as a part of normal human
nature, does not automatically make for their sublimation
and purification or transformation. The thing is possible only through another 
force and on another level, by the intervention and interfusion precisely of the superconsciousness.
And here comes the second point to note. For it is this super-
consciousness towards which all the strife and struggle of the
under-consciousness are turned and directed. The yearning
and urge in the subconsciousness to move forward, to escape
outside into the light does not refer merely to the march towards
normal awareness and consciousness: it has a deeper direction
and a higher aim—it seeks that of which it is an aberration
and a deformation, the very origin and source, the height
from which it fell. </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This superconsciousness has a special mode of its quintessential energy which is omnipotent in action, immediate in
effectivity. It is pure as the purest incandescent solar light and
embodies the concentrated force of consciousness. It is the
original creative vibration of the absolute or supreme Being.
Sri Aurobindo calls this supreme form of superconscient consciousness-energy, the Supermind. There are of course other
layers and strata of superconsciousness leading up to the super-mind which are of various potentials and embody different
degrees of spiritual power and consciousness. </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; We have spoken of the Inner Consciousness. But there is
also, we must now point out, an Inmost Consciousness. As the
Superconsciousness is a consciousness-energy in height, the
Inmost Consciousness is a consciousness-energy in depth, the
deepest depth, beyond or behind the Inner Consciousness.
If we wish to put it geometrically, we can say, the vertical
section of consciousness represents the line from the super-consciousness to the subconscious or vice versa; the horizontal
section represents the normal waking state of consciousness; and there is a transverse section leading from the surface 
first to the Inner and finally to the Inmost. This inmost consciousness—the consciousness most profound and secreted in
the cave of the heart, <i>guhahitam gahvarestham,—</i>is the consciousness of the soul, the Psychic Being, as Sri Aurobindo calls it:&nbsp; 
it is the immortal in the mortal. It is, as has often been described, the nucleus round which is crystallised and organised </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">Page 66</font><hr>


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<font face="Times New Roman">the triple nature of man consisting of his mind and life and
body, the centre of dynamic energy that secretly vivifies
them, gradually purifies and transforms them into higher
functions and embodiments of consciousness. As a matter of
fact, it is this inmost consciousness that serves as the link, at
least as the most powerful link, between the higher and lower
forms of consciousness, between the Superconscient and the
Subsconscient or Inconscient. It takes up within itself all the
elements of consciousness that the past in its evolutionary
career from the very lowest and basic levels has acquired and
elaborated, and by its inherent pressure and secret gestation
delivers what was crude and base and unformed as the purest
luminous noble substance of the perfectly organised super-conscient reality. Indeed, that is the mystic alchemy which
the philosophers experimented in the Middle Ages. In this
context, the Inner Consciousness, we may note, serves as a
medium through which the action of the Inmost (as well as
that of the Uppermost) takes place. </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; We can picture the whole phenomenon in another way and
say in the devotional language of the Mystics that the Inmost
Consciousness is the Divine Child, the Superconscient is the
Divine Father and the Inferior Consciousness is the Great
Mother <i>(Magna Mater):</i> the Inner and the Outer Consciousness
are the field of play and the instrument of action as well of this
Divine Trinity. </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Man, we thus see, is an infinitely composite being. We
have referred to the four or five major chords in him, but
each one has again innumerable gradations of vibration.
Man is a bundle or dynamo of energy and this energy is
nothing but the force of consciousness. To different modes or
potentials of this energy different names are given. And what
makes the thing still more complex is that all these elements
exist simultaneously and act simultaneously, although in
various degrees and stresses. They act upon each other, and
severally and collectively impress upon the nature and character of the individual being and mould and direct his physical
status and pragmatic life. A man can, however, take consciously a definite position and status, identify himself with a
particular form and force of consciousness and build his being
and life in the truth and rhythm of that consciousness. Naturally </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">Page 67</font><hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;the limits and the limitation of that consciousness mark also
the limits and limitation of the disposition he can effect in his
life. When it is said that the spiritual force is not effective on
the physical plane in mundane affairs—Buddha, it is said,
for example, has not been able to rid the earth of age, disease
and death (although it was not Buddha's intention to do so,
his purpose was to show a way of escape, of bypassing the ills
of life, and in that he wholly succeeded)—it only means that
the right mode or potential of spiritual energy has not been
found; for that matter even the mightiest mundane forces are
not sovereignly effective in mundane affairs, otherwise the
Nazi-Force would have been ruling the world today. </font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Still it must be remembered that all these apparently
diverse layers and degrees of being or consciousness or energy
form essentially one indivisible unity and identity. What is
called the highest and what is called the lowest are not in
reality absolutely disparate and incommensurable entities:&nbsp; everywhere it is the highest that lies secreted and reigns
supreme. The lowest is the highest itself seen from the reverse
side, as it were: the norms and typal truths that obtain in the
superconsciousness are also the very guiding formulas and
principles in the secret heart of the Inconscience too, only
they appear externally as deformations and caricatures of
their true reality. But even here we can tap and release the full
force of a superconscient energy. A particle of dead matter,
we know today, is a mass of stilled energy, electrical and
radiant in nature; even so an apparently inconscient entity
is a packet of Superconsciousness in its highest potential of
energy. The secret of releasing this atomic energy of the
Spirit is found in the Science of Yoga. </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">Page 68</font><hr>

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