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<p class="paracenter"><b>Section Two </b>
</p>
<br>
<hr>
<p class="paracenter"><b>VIII
</b>
</p>
<p class="paracenter"></p>
<p class="paracenter"><b>CONSCIOUSNESS AS FREEDOM </b>
</p>
<p class="paracenter"></p>
<p class="para"> 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 you.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> In the lower creation it is 
always a play of divergent forces 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.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> 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. 
<br>
</p><p class="pageno">Page-35</p>
<hr>
<br>
<p class="para">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 of 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 is not fully operative because man is not fully con­scious, he is 
only partially so. His mind is conscious and has developed into intelligence (a 
little strayed into in-tellectuaUty); 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.</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> 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 
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
<br>
</p><p class="pageno">Page-36</p>
<hr>
<br>
<p class="para">secures the strength also to act up to the directions of that 
light.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> 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.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> 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 must know how to take in that light beyond the mind and 
bathe in its liberating influence.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> 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
</p>
<p class="pageno">Page-37</p>
<hr>
<br>
<p class="para">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.</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> 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.<br></p><p class="pageno">Page-38</p>
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