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<title>The Triple Cord *</title>

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<p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0"><b style='mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal'><span style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><font size="4">The Triple Cord *</font><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<div class=Section1>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></i></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>SUNAHSHEPA, the human
creature, says the Vedic Rishi, is bound to the stake with three cords: one on
the top, the second in the middle and the third below. Sunahshepa cries out to
God Varuna to be freed from the triple bondage. The God is pleased and cuts the
topmost cord and throws it upward, he cuts the middle cord and throws it on
either side, he cuts the downmost cord and throws it downward. Thus Sunahshepa
is freed through the Grace of King Varuna.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.75pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>The
three cords are the three limitations of being and consciousness in the normal
human creature. There is a wall or barrier up in the mind which shuts out the
higher levels of consciousness that are beyond the mind – the worlds of vision
and revelation, of the Truth and the Vast. The middle knot shuts out the world
around and abroad and limits the being to the ego, prevents the individual
person from communicating with the Universal Being and Consciousness. It is the
well known knot of the <i>heart – hrdayagranthi – the </i>crux and kernel of
the egoistic consciousness. It centres the whole being on itself, limits it to
itself, does not let it go out of itself to belong to the world-being. It is
also the pull that prevents the being from diving down into its true
personality, the psychic, and finding its union with the inner Divine. This
egocentred knot has to be cut through and the thread to be scattered into the
infinity of the deepest and of the widest being. The last barrier at the base
of the human consciousness is the hard crust of the physical and the material
being. It is closed to the regions behind, the occult sources of all external
movements. This too</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.75pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.75pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'><span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&nbsp;</span>* A greater
force than the earthly held his limbs,<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-line-height-alt:7.65pt;mso-pagination:none;
mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Unwound the triple cord of mind and
freed –<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:7.65pt;
mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:94.8pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Sri
Aurobindo: <i>Savitri </i>1.5</span></p>
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solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:1.05in;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
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<span style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page
– 318<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>has to be
pulled down and thrown into the gulfs of non-existence – primal Prakriti, out
of which they are born – so that the subliminal ranges of consciousness emerge
and manifest themselves.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>God
Varuna is invoked because he is the Lord of the Vast Consciousness, he it is
that opens out the passage and leads the human being into worlds of the Vast,
the Truth – Ritam, Brihat – from mortality to immortality.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.0pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>In
other words, as we know, the mind, the life and the body form the triple cord
of the human being and hedge it within the frame of its normal, narrow,
uncertain, fumbling existence; and each of these three constituent parts of
human nature has to be delivered from its own particular limitations and
released into the broader reality.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.75pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>These
threefold limitations are repeated in each of the statuses of being or
consciousness. Thus the mind has a mental being, a vital being and a physical
being. So the mind has mental limitations and vital limitations and also physical limitations.
The mind's mental limitations are its notions and concepts, constructed ideas
and fabricated comprehensions. The mind bound by its reasoning faculties, its
deductive system, its syllogistic scheme, all that scaffolding has to go if the
new light is to penetrate and illumine it with the new consciousness. The mind
has also a vital element, when it moves according to its inspiration, as it is
called sometimes, but it is only an ignorant inspiration, it is only another
name for &quot;mood,&quot; for fancy. True inspiration is not a blind mental
rush but something clear and steady and yet forceful and self­poised. Again,
the mind has its physical element too: the physical mind is the mind controlled
by the senses, the impressions of the senses; its structure is patterned according
to the impact of the physical and material objects. A clear, free physical mind
embodies the pattern of the movements of the higher consciousness, not of the
sense-dominated consciousness.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.25pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Even
like the mind, the vital too has its threefold knots according to the three
elements that constitute it. First, there is a mind in the vital, it is called
mental-vital, there is a vital in the vital, it is the vital proper, and there
is a physical vital. The mental-vital means the field of sentiment and feeling and
emotion, the vital proper is the field of passion, the intensity<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;mso-pagination:none;
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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 319<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>and even ferocity of its
urge, and finally, the physical vital, which is the field of outward impulsion
and drive, the push towards physical act and execution. Last, the physical too
has the same threefold knots, first in the mental physical, second in the vital
physical and thirdly in the physical physical, that is, the physical proper.
The mind in the physical is the purely brain operation, the primitive original
percepts that brain-cells emanate. The vital in the physical means the record
of the nerves, more or less that are sensations. Lastly, the physical physical
means the most mechanical, the inertial reactions of matter.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.75pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>All
these triplicities have a familiar norm in the ordinary nature. And human
consciousness is made up of them, in various formations and modulations.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>These
gradations are the various statuses of consciousness which the human being
assumes in its relation with the world reality. In other words, they are the
instruments through which human consciousness comes in contact with the
universe. They are as it were windows upon the world through which contact is
made and relation established with the objects of experience. But usually in
the normal consciousness these windows are made a casement with bars and nets
or even blinds over it which narrow and blur and even block the view. They are
made into cords, as the Upanishad says, that blind and bind and stifle the
consciousness. The cords have to be cut away, thrown out. As windows they have
to be thrown wide open, open not merely outward towards the external object or
reality but also inwardly to the realities, the worlds that lie within and
above and beyond<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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<span style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page
– 320<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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