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<p class=MsoNormal align=right style='text-align:center;line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><b
style='mso-bidi-font-weight:normal'><font size="4">Evolution of the Spiritual Consciousness</font><o:p></o:p></b></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'><i><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
15.0pt'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></i></p>

<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'><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>EVEN the Vedic Rishis used to refer to the
ancients, more ancient than they themselves. &quot;The ancients&quot;, they
said, &quot;worshipped Agni, we too the moderns in our turn worship the same
godhead&quot;. Or again, &quot;Thus spoke our forefathers&quot;; or, &quot;So
have we heard from those who have gone before us&quot; and so on.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:.25in;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'>Indeed,
the tradition in the domain of spiritual discipline seems to have been always
to realise once again what has already been realised by others, to rediscover
what has already been discovered, to re-establish ancient truths. Others have
gone before on the Path, we have only to follow. The teaching, the realisation
is handed down uninterruptedly through millenniums from Master to disciple. In
other words, the idea is that the fundamental spiritual realisation remains the
same always and everywhere: the name and the form only vary according to the
age and the surroundings. The one reality is called variously, says the Veda.
Who can say when was the first dawn! The present dawn has followed the track of
the infinite series that has gone by and is the first of<span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&nbsp; </span>the <span style='mso-bidi-font-size:7.0pt'>I </span><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt'>infinite series that is to come. So sings
Rishi Kanwa. For the </span>core of spiritual realisation is to possess the
consciousness, attain the status of the Spirit. This Spirit may be called God
by the theist or Nihil by the Negativist or Brahman (the One) by the Positivist
(spiritual). But the essential experience of a cosmic and transcendental
reality does not differ very much. ­So it is declared that there is only one
goal and aim, and there are, at the most, certain broad principles, clear
pathways which one has to follow if one is to move in the right direction,
advance smoothly and attain infallibly: but these have been well marked out,
surveyed and charted and do not admit of </p>
<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none;border:medium none;
mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 151<o:p></o:p></span></p>

</div>

<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'><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt'>serious alterations and deviations. The
spiritual aspiration is </span><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>a very
definite and unitary movement and its fulfilment is also a definite and
invariable status of the consciousness. The spiritual is a typal domain, one
may say, there is no room here for sudden unforeseen variation or growth or
evolution.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.7pt;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'><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>Is it so in fact? For, if one admits and
accepts the evolu­tionary character of human nature and consciousness, the
outlook becomes somewhat different. According to this view, human civilisation
is seen as moving through progressive stages: man at the outset was centrally
lodged in and occupied </span><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt'>with his
body consciousness, he was an <i>annamaya purusa</i></span><i><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow"'>; </span></i><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt'>then </span><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
10.0pt'>he raised himself and </span><span lang=EN-GB style='mso-bidi-font-size:
10.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>centred</span><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
10.0pt'> in the vital consciousness and so became fundamentally a <i>pranamaya
purusa; </i>next he climbed into the mental consciousness and became a <i>manomaya
purusa; </i>from that level again he has been attempting to go further beyond.
On each plane the normal life is planned according to the central character,
the law – dharma – of that plane. One can have the religious or spiritual
experience on each of these planes, representing various degrees of growth and
evolution according to the plane to which it is attached. It is therefore that
the Tantra refers to three gradations of spiritual seekers and accordingly
three types or lines of spiritual dis­cipline: the animal <i>(pasu bhava), </i>the
heroic <i>(vira bhava) </i>and the godly or divine <i>(deva bhava). </i>The
classification is not merely typal but also hierarchical and evolutionary in
character.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.7pt;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'><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>The Divine or the spiritual consciousness,
instead of being a simple unitary entity, is a vast, complex, stratified
reality. &quot;There are many chambers in my Father's mansion&quot;, says the
Bible: many chambers on many stories, one may add. Also there are different
levels or approaches that serve different seekers each with his own
starting-point, his <i>point de repaire. </i>When one speaks of union with the
Divine or of entering into the spiritual consciousness, one does not refer to
the same identical truth or reality as any other. There is a physical Divine, a
vital Divine, a mental Divine; and beyond the mind – from where one may
consider that the region of true spirit begins – there are other innumerable
modes, aspects, mani­festations of the Divine.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.7pt;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'><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>As we say, there are not only aspects of the
Divine, but</span></p>
<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none;border:medium none;
mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 152<o:p></o:p></span></p>

</div>

<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'><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>there are also levels in him. The spiritual
consciousness rises tier upon tier and each spur has its own view and outlook,
rhythm and character. Now, as long as man was chiefly preoccupied with his
physico-vital or mentalised physico-vital activities, as long as the burden of
his body and life and even mind lay heavy on him and their gravitational pull
was normally very strong, almost irresistible, the spiritual impulse in him acted
generally and fundamentally as a movement of </span><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
11.0pt'>escape from them into </span><i><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Arial Narrow"'>some </span></i><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
11.0pt'>thing beyond. It was a negative </span><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
10.0pt'>movement on the whole and it was enough to dissociate, reject,
sublimate the lower status and somehow rise into something which is not that <i>(neti):
</i>the question was not important at that stage of the human consciousness
about a scientific scrutiny of the Beyond, its precise constitution and
composition.<o:p></o:p></span></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'><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>But once there is the possibility gained of a
more </span><span lang=EN-GB style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB'>normalised</span><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>, familiar and
wider reconnaissance of the Beyond, when the human being has been mentalised to
a degree and in a manner that makes it inevitable for him to overpass to a
higher status and live there habitually, then it becomes an urgent matter of
concern to know and find out where one goes exactly, on which level and in what
domain, once one is beyond. The question, it is true, engaged the attention of
the ancients too; but it was more or less an interesting inquiry, a good part
speculative and theoretical; it had not the reality and in­sistence of the need
of the hour. We have today chalked out an almost exhaustive science of the
inferior consciousness, of the lower hemisphere – of course, so far as it is
possible for such a science to be exhaustive moving in the light of the partial
and inferior consciousness. In the same way we need at the present hour a
complete and precise science of the Divine Consciousness. As there is a logic
of the finite, there is also a logic of the infinite, not merely its magic, and
that too has to be discovered and laid out.<o:p></o:p></span></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'><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>Thus, the highest and most comprehensive
description of the Divine is perhaps the formula Sat-chit-ananda. But even so,
it is a very general and, after all, an inadequate description. It has to be
filled in and supplemented by other categories as well, if one may say so. For
Sat-chit-ananda presents to us the Sat Brahman. There is also the Asat Brahman.
And again</span></p>
<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:.15in;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
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<span style='font-size:10.0pt;'><span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&nbsp;</span>Page – 153<o:p></o:p></span></p>

</div>

<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'><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>we must accept a reality which is neither Sat
nor Asat – ­<i>nasadasinno sadasit, </i>says the Veda. And as for the filling up
of the details in an otherwise almost blank and featureless infinity, Sri
Aurobindo's charting of that vast unknown – with the categories of the
Supermind and its various levels, of the Overmind and its levels too, all
forming the Divine Status and Consciousness – is a new, almost a revolutionary
re­velation, just the required science which the present world needs and
demands and for which it has been prepared through all the cycles of evolution.<o:p></o:p></span></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'><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>This means to say that with the knowledge
that is given us today, one can determine more or less definitely the altitudes
to which the various spiritual </span><span lang=EN-GB style='mso-bidi-font-size:
10.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>realisations</span><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
10.0pt'> of the past rose and one can see also the degrees or graded stages of
the evolution of the spiritual consciousness. A broad landmark can be noted here
which concerns us at the present moment. The spiritual consciousness has been
rising to higher and higher peaks and possessing them one after another. At the
present moment we are at a crisis, at a crucial crossing. The spiritual
consciousness attained till now and securely held in human possession (in man's
inner nature) is confined to the highest level of the mind with some
infiltration from the Over­mind and through that, as a springing board, a leap
into an indefinite, almost a blank Beyond. Now the time is come and the
conditions are ready for the spiritual consciousness in humanity to arrive at
the status above the Overmind to the Supermind, and make that a living reality
and build in and through that its normal consciousness.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:.15in;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'><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>A progressive revelation of higher and higher
and more integral states of the spiritual consciousness in and through the </span><span
lang=EN-GB style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>realisations</span><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'> of mystics and sages and seers – divine men ­–
of all ages, such is the process of evolution that marks the life of man upon
earth. This spiritual evolution, however, may not be obviously visible in the
external life and character of man: it has been a phenomenon more in his inner
being and consciousness, an occult phenomenon. Hence there has intervened a
veil, wall of separation between the two. The veil has not been rent precisely
because the very highest spiritual potential has not been reached and brought
into play. The call of the present age is just to do away with this<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-bottom-alt:
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<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:.15in;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
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&nbsp;</p>
<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:.15in;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
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<span style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page
– 154<o:p></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;border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt'>veil, make of human nature a unified, a streamlined
entity, a complete incarnation of the spiritual consciousness in the fullness
of its own nature at its source and origin.<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
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&nbsp;</p>
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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;'>Page – 155<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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