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<div class=Section1>

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<b>
<span
lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;
layout-grid-mode:line'><font size="4">Lines of the Descent of Consciousness</font><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>

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11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>1<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:27.0pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>T</span><span lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>HE</span><span
lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:
line'> world has been created by a descent of consciousness; it maintains
itself, it proceeds and develops through a series of descents. In fact,
creation itself is a descent, the first and original one, the descent of the
supreme Reality into Matter and as Matter. The supreme Reality – the fount and
origin of things and even that which is beyond – although essentially something
absolute, indescribable, ineffable, indeterminable, has been, for purposes of
the human understanding, signalised as a triune entity of Existence,
Consciousness and Bliss. That is to say, first of all, it is, it exists always
and for ever –<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&nbsp; </span>invariably, in unbroken
continuity; secondly, it exists not unconsciously, but consciously, in and as
full consciousness; thirdly, it exists in delight-through delight and for and
as delight; it has no other reason for existence but the pleasure and joy of
simply existing. This primal, this original truth or reality transcends
creation and is beyond and antecedent to it. What then is creation, what is its
nature and character? Strange to say, it is the very opposite of the primal
reality. First of all, it is not really existent: its existence is only another
name for non-existence, as, in its phenomenal constitution, it is variable,
ephemeral, transient and fragmentary or even seems made, as it were, of the
stuff of dream. Secondly, it is not conscious; on the contrary, it is
unconsciousness. And lastly it is not delight; there is an original
insensibility and much undelight, grief and sorrow. That is the actual physical
creation; or so, at least, it appears to be. How is this paradox to be
explained? What is the significance of this riddle?<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Descent is the master-key that
unravels the mystery – that <span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></span>
<span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>
<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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<span lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Page – 32<o:p></o:p></span></p>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>is to say, the descent of the delightful conscious
existence as the material world. But why this descent at all? What was the
necessity? What was the purpose? The why of a thing is always difficult, if not
impossible, to gauge. But we shall try to understand the <i>how</i> of the
phenomenon, and in so doing perhaps we may get at the why of it also. At
present let us content ourselves by saying that such was His will <i>– La sua
voluntade</i> – such was His wish – <i>sa aicchat</i>. For once perhaps instead
of saying, &quot;Let there be light&quot;, He (or something in Him) must have
said, &quot;Let there be darkness&quot;, and there was Darkness.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>But the point is, this darkness
did not come all on a sudden but arrived gradually through a developing process
– we do not refer to physical time here but something antecedent, something
parallel to it in another dimension. Let us see how it all came about.<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; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>The absolute in its triple or
triune status (not in its supreme being but as we see it prior to
manifestation) is in essence and principle an infinity and unity. Indeed, it is
<i>the </i>infinite unity, and its fundamental character is a supreme and utter
equality – <i>samam brahma</i>. It is then a status or <i>statis</i>, that is
to say, a state of perfectly stable equilibrium in which there is no movement
of difference or distinction, no ripple of high and low or ebb and flow, no
mark of quantity or quality. It is a stilled sea of self-identity, a vast
limitless or pure consciousness brooding in trance and immobility. And yet in
the bosom of this ineffable and inviolable equality, in the very hush and lull
there lies secreted an urge, a pressure, a possibility towards activity,
variation and even an eventual inequality. For the presence and possibility of
dynamism is posited by the very infinity of the Infinite, since without it, the
Infinite would be incapable of motion, expression and fulfilment of its Force.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>There is thus inherent in the
vast inalienable equality of the absolute Reality, a Force which can bring out
centres of pressure, nuclei of dynamism, nodes of modulation. It is precisely
round these centres of precipitation that the original and basic unity
crystallises itself and weaves a pattern of harmonious multiplicity.
Consciousness, by self-pressure, – <i>tapas taptvÄ </i>– turns its even and
undifferentiated pristine equanimity into ripples and swirls, eddies and
vortices of delight, matrices of creative activity. Thus the One becomes </span></p>
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line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;
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<span lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Page-33<o:p></o:p></span></p>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Many by a process of self-concentration and
self-limitation.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>At the very outset when and where
the Many has come out into manifestation in the One here – also it must be
remembered that we are using a temporal figure in respect of an extra-temporal
fact – there and then is formed a characteristic range of reality which is a
perfect equation of the one and the many: that is to say, the one in becoming
many still remains the same immaculate one in and through the many, and
likewise the many in spite of its manifoldness-and because of the special
quality of the manifoldness-still continues to be the one in the uttermost
degree. It is the world of fundamental realities. Sri Aurobindo names it the
Supermind or Gnosis. It is something higher than but distantly akin to Plato's
world of Ideas or Noumena (<i>ideai, nooumena</i>) or to what Plotinus calls
the first divine emanation (<i>nous</i>)<i>.</i> These archetypal realities are
realities of the Spirit, Idea-forces, truth-energies, the root
consciousness-forms, <i>ŗta cit</i>, in Vedic terminology. They are
seed-truths, the original mother-truths in the Divine Consciousness. They
comprise the fundamental essential many aspects and formulations of an infinite
Infinity. At this stage these do not come into clash or conflict, for here each
contains all and the All contains each one in absolute unity and essential
identity. Each individual formation is united with and partakes of the nature
of the one supreme Reality. Although difference is born here, separation is not
yet come. Variety is there, but not discord, individuality is there, not
egoism. This is the first step of Descent, the earliest one-not, we must remind
ourselves again, historically but psychologically and logically-the descent of
the Transcendent into the Cosmic as the vast and varied Supermind – <i>citrah</i>
<i>praketo ajanista vibhwÄ </i>– of the Absolute into the relational manifestation
as VidyÄsakti (Gnosis).<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoBodyTextIndent style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;
mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>The next steps, farther down or
away, arrive when the drive towards differentiation and multiplication gathers
momentum becomes accentuated, and separation and isolation increase in degree
and emphasis. The lines of individuation fall more and more apart from each
other, tending to form closed circles, each confining more and more exclusively
to itself, stressing its own particular and special value and function, in
contradistinction to or even against other lines. Thus<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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<span lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Page-34</span><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'><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; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>the descent or fall from the Supermind leads, in
the first instance, to the creation or appearance of the Overmind. It is the
level of consciousness where the perfect balance of the One and the Many is
disturbed and the emphasis begins to be laid on the many. The source of
incompatibility between the two just starts here as if Many is not – One and
One is not Many. It is the beginning of Ignorance, Avidya, Maya. Still in the
higher hemisphere of the Overmind, the sense of unity is yet maintained, although
there is no longer the sense of absolute identity of the two; they are
experienced as complementaries, both form a harmony, a harmony as of different
and distinct but conjoint notes. The Many has come forward, yet the unity is
also there supporting it-the unity is an immanent godhead, controlling the
patent reality of the Many. It is in the lower hemisphere of the Overmind that
unity is thrown into the background half-submerged, flickering, and the
principle of multiplicity comes forward with all insistence. Division and
rivalry are the characteristic marks of its organisation. Yet the unity does
not disappear altogether, only it remains very much inactive, like a sleeping
partner. It is not directly perceived and envisaged, not immediately felt but
is evoked as reminiscence. The Supermind, then, is the first crystallisation of
the Infinite into individual centres, in the Overmind these centres at the
outset become more exclusively individualised and then jealously self-centred.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>The next step of Descent is the
Mind where the original unity and identity and harmony are disrupted to a yet
greater degree, almost completely. The self-delimitation of consciousness –
which is proper to the Supermind and even to the Overmind, at least in its
higher domains – gives way to self-limitation, to intolerant egoism and
solipsism. The consciousness withdraws from its high and wide sweep, narrows
down to introvert orbits. The sense of unity in the mind is, at most, a thing
of idealism and imagination; it is an abstract notion, a supposition and a
deduction. Here we enter into the very arcana of Maya, the rightful possession
of Ignorance. The individualities here have become totally isolated and
independent and mutually conflicting lines of movement. Hence the natural incapacity
of mind, as it is said, to comprehend more than one object simultaneously. The
Super<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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<span lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Page-35<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoBodyTextIndent style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>mind and, less absolutely, the Overmind have a global
and integral outlook: they can take in each one in its purview all at once the
total assemblage of things, they differentiate but do not divide-the Supermind
not at all, the Over mind not categorically. The Mind has not this synthetic
view, it proceeds analytically. It observes its object by division, taking the
parts piecemeal, dismantling them, separating them, and attending to each one
at a time. And when it observes it fixes itself on one point, withdrawing its
attention from all the rest. If it bas to arrive at a synthesis, it can only do
so by collating, aggregating and summing. Mental consciousness is thus narrowly
one pointed: and in narrowing itself, being farther away from the source it
becomes obscurer, more and more outward gazing </span><span lang=EN-GB
style='font-size:9.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>(</span><i><span lang=EN-GB
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>parÄ</span><span
lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Lucida Console";mso-bidi-font-family:
"Lucida Console";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>&ntilde;</span><span lang=EN-GB
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>ci</span></i><span lang=EN-GB
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'> <i>khÄni</i>) and
superficial. The One Absolute in its downward march towards multiplicity, fragmentation
and partiality loses also gradually its subtlety, its suppleness, its
refinement, becomes more and more obtuse, crude, rigid and dense.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Between the Overmind and the
Mind proper, varying according to the degree of immixture of the two, according
to the degree of descent and of emergence of one and the other respectively,
there are several levels of consciousness of which three main ones have been
named and described by Sri Aurobindo. The first one nearest to the Overmind and
the least contaminated by the Mind is pure Intuition; next, the intermediary
one is called the Illumined Mind, and last comes the Higher Mind. They are all
powers of the Overmind functioning in the Mind. The higher ranges are always
more direct, intense, synthetic, dynamic than the lower ones where
consciousness is slower, duller, more uncertain, more disintegrated. The lower
the consciousness descends the more veiled it becomes, losing more and more the
directness, the sureness, the intensity and force and the synthetic unity native
to the highest ranges of our consciousness and being.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>A further descent into obscurity
occurs when consciousness passes from Mind to Life. Darkness is almost visible
here: there is a greater withdrawal on the part of each unit from its
surrounding reality, a narrower concentration upon one's own separative
existence-shades of the prison-house have gathered close around. The light,
already dulled and faint in<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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line-height:150%;mso-pagination: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 lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Page-36<o:p></o:p></span></p>

</div>

<p class=MsoBodyTextIndent style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:
line'>the mind, has become a lurid glare here. Passion has arisen and desire
and hunger and battle and combat.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Here also in the vital three
ranges can be distinguished the lower becoming more and more turbid and
turbulent and fierce or more and more self-centred and selfish. These levels
can best be seen by their impact on our vital being and formations there. The
first, the highest one, the meeting or confluence of the Mind and the Vital is
the Heart, the centre of emotion, the knot of the external or instrumental
vehicle, of the frontal consciousness, behind which is born and hides the true
individualised consciousness, the psyche. The mid-region is the Higher Vital
consisting of larger (egoistic) dynamisms, such as high ambition, great
enterprise, heroic courage, capacity for work, adventure, masterfulness, also
such movements as sweeping violences, mighty hungers, and intense arrogances.
The physical seat of this movement is, as perhaps the <i>Tantras</i> would say,
the domain ranging between the heart and the navel. Lower down ranges the Lower
Vital which consists of small desires, petty hankerings, blind cravings-all
urges and impulses that are more or less linked up with the body and move to
gross physical satisfactions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>But always the Consciousness is
driving towards a yet greater disintegration and fragmentation, obscuration and
condensation of self-oblivion. The last step in the process of transmutation or
involution is Matter where consciousness has wiped itself out or buried itself
within so completely and thoroughly that it has become in its outward form
totally dark, dense, hard, pulverised into mutually exclusive grains. The
supreme luminous Will of Consciousness in its gradual descent and self –
obliteration finally ends in a rigid process of mere mechanised drive.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>This is, so far then, the original
and primal line of descent. It is the line down which the absolute Reality, the
absolute Consciousness and the absolute Delight have turned into unreality and
unconsciousness and un delight. But it is not all loss and debit. There is a
credit side too. For it is only in this way, viz, by the manifestation of utter
Ignorance, that the supreme Absolute has become concrete, the Formless has
entered into form, the Bodiless has found a body: what was originally an
indeterminate equal Infinity of pure conscious<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:12.45pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;
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<span lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Page-37<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>ness, has become determinate and dynamic in the
individual multiplicity of corporeal consciousness. What is the sense in all
that, what is the gain or upshot? We shall presently see.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>When consciousness has reached
the farthest limit of its opposite, when it has reduced itself to absolutely
unconscious and mechanical atoms of Matter, when the highest has descended into
and become the lowest, then, by the very force of its downward drive, it has
swung round and begun to mount up again. As it could not proceed farther on the
downward gradient, having reached the extreme and ultimate limit of
inconscience, consciousness had to turn round, as it were, by the very pressure
of its inner impetus. First, then, there is a descent, a gradual involution, a
veiling and closing up; next, an ascent, a gradual evolution, unfoldment and
expression. We now see, however, that the last limit at the bottom – Matter –
although appearing to be unconscious, is really not so: it is inconscient. That
is to say, it holds consciousness secreted and involved within itself; it is,
indeed, a special formulation of consciousness. It is the exclusive
concentration of consciousness upon single points in itself: it is
consciousness throwing itself out in scattered units and, by reason of
separative identification with them and absorption into them, losing itself,
forgetting itself in an absolute fixation of attention. The phenomenon is very
similar to what happens when in the ordinary consciousness a worker, while
doing a work, becomes so engrossed in it that he loses consciousness of
himself, identifies himself with the work and in fact becomes the work, the
visible resultant being a mechanical execution.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Now this imprisoned
consciousness in Matter forces Matter to be conscious again when driven on the
upward gradient. This tension creates a fire, as it were, in the heart of
Matter, a mighty combustion and whorl in the core of things, of which the
blazing sun is an image and a symbol. All this pressure and heat and concussion
and explosion mean a mighty struggle in Matter to' give birth to that which is
within. Consciousness that is latent must be made patent; it must reveal itself
in Matter and through Matter, making Matter its vehicle and embodiment. This is
the mystery of the birth of Life, the first sprouting of consciousness in
Matter. Life is half-awakened consciousness, consciousness yet in a dream
state. Its earliest<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></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:12.45pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination: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 lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Page-38<o:p></o:p></span></p>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>and most rudimentary manifestation is embodied in
the plant or vegetable world. The submerged consciousness strives to come still
further up, to express itself to a greater degree and in a clearer mode, to
become more free and plastic in its movements; hence the appearance of the
animal as the next higher formulation. Here consciousness delivers itself as a
psyche, a rudimentary one, no doubt, a being of feeling and sensation, and
elementary mentality playing in a field of vitalised Matter. Even then it is
not satisfied with itself, it asks for a still more free and clear articulation:
it is not satisfied, for it has not yet found its own level. Hence after the
animal, arrives man with a full-fledged Mind, with intelligence and
self-consciousness and capacity for self-determination.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Thus we see that evolution, the
unfolding of consciousness follows exactly the line of its involution, only the
other way round: the mounting consciousness re-ascends step by step the same
gradient, retraces the same path along which it had descended. The descending
steps are broadly speaking (I) Existence – Consciousness – Bliss, (2) Supermind
and its secondary form Overmind, (3) Mind – (i) mind proper and (ii) the
intermediary psyche, (4) Life, (5) Matter. The ascending consciousness starting
from Matter rises into Life, passes on through Life and Psyche into Mind,
driving towards the Supermind and Schchidananda. At the present stage of
evolution, consciousness has arrived at the higher levels of Mind; it is now
striving to cross it altogether and enter the Overmind and the Supermind. It
will not rest content until it arrives at the organisation in and through the
Supermind: for that is the drive and purpose of Nature in the next cycle of
evolution.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Physical Science speaks of
irreversibility and entropy in Nature's process. That is to say, it is stated that
Nature is rushing down and running down: she is falling irrevocably from a
higher to an ever lower potential of energy. The machine that Nature is, is
driven by energy made available by a break-up of parts and particles
constituting its substance. This katabolic process cannot be stopped or
retraced; it can end only when the break-up ceases at dead equilibrium. You
cannot lead the river up the channel to its source, it moves inevitably,
unceasingly towards the sea in which it exhausts itself and finds its last
repose and-extinction. But whatever<o:p></o:p></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:12.45pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination: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 lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Page-39<o:p></o:p></span></p>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>physical Science may say, the science of the
spirit declares emphatically that Nature's process is reversible, that a
growing entropy can be checked and countermanded: in other words, Nature's
downward current resulting in a continual loss of energy and a break-up of
substance is not the only process of her activity. This aspect is more than
counterbalanced by another one of upward drive and building up, of
re-energisation and re-integration. Indeed, evolution, as we have explained it,
is nothing but such a process of synthesis and new creation.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Evolution, which means the
return movement of consciousness, consists, in its apparent and outward aspect,
of two processes, or rather two parallel lines in a single process. First,
there is the line of sublimation, that is to say, the lower purifies and
modifies itself into the higher; the denser, the obscurer, the baser mode of
consciousness is led into and becomes the finer, the clearer, the nobler mode.
Thus it is that Matter rises into Life, Life into Psyche and Mind, Mind into
Overmind and Supermind. Now this sublimation is not simply a process of
refinement or elimination, something in the nature of our old Indian <i>nivŗtti</i>
or <i>pratyÄhÄra</i>, or what Plotinus called <i>epistrophe</i> (a turning
back, withdrawal or reabsorption): it includes and is attended by the process
of integration also. That is to say, as the lower rises into the higher, the
lower does not cease to exist thereby, it exists but lifted up into the higher,
infused and modified by the higher. Thus when Matter yields Life, Matter is not
destroyed: it means Life has appeared in Matter and exists in and through
Matter and Matter thereby has attained a new mode and constitution, for it is
no longer merely a bundle of chemical or mechanical reactions, it is instinct
with life, it has become organic matter. Even so, when Lire arrives at Mind, it
is not dissolved into Mind but both Life and Matter are taken up by the mental
stuff, life becomes dynamic sentience and Matter is transformed into the grey
substance of the brain. Matter thus has passed through a first transformation
in Life and a second transformation in Mind; it awaits other transformations on
other levels beyond Mind. Likewise, Life has passed through a first
transformation in Mind and there are stages in this transformation. In the
plant, Life is in its original pristine mode; in the animal, it has become
sentient and centralised<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:12.45pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination: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 lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Page-40<o:p></o:p></span></p>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>round a rudimentary desire-soul; in man,
life-force is taken up by the higher mind and intelligence giving birth to
idealism .and ambition, dynamisms of a forward-looking purposive will.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>We have, till now, spoken of the
evolution of consciousness as a movement of ascension, consisting of a double
process of sublimation and integration. But ascension itself is only one line
of a yet another larger double process. For along with the visible movement of
ascent, there is a hidden movement of descent. The ascent represents the
pressure from below, the force of buoyancy exerted by the involved and secreted
consciousness. But the mere drive from below is not sufficient all by itself to
bring out or establish the higher status. The higher status itself has to
descend in order to be manifest. The urge from below is an aspiration, a
yearning to move ever upward and forward; but the precise goal, the status to
be arrived at is not given there. The more or less vague and groping surge from
below is canalised, if assumes a definite figure and shape, assumes a local
habitation and a name when the higher descends at the crucial moment, takes the
lower at its peak-tide and fixes upon it its own norm and form. We have said
that all the levels of consciousness have been created-loosened -out-by a
first Descent; but in the line of the first Descent the only level that stands
in front at the outset is Matter all the other levels are created no doubt but
remain invisible in the background, behind the gross veil of Matter. Each
status stands confined, as it were, to its own region and bides its time when
each will be summoned to concretise itself in Matter. Thus Life was already
there on the plane of Life even when it did not manifest itself in Matter, when
mere Matter, dead Matter was the only apparent reality on the material plane.
When Matter was stirred and churned sufficiently so .as to reach a certain
tension and &quot;saturation, when it was raised to a certain degree of
maturity, as it were, then Life appeared: Life appeared, not because that was
the inevitable and unavoidable result of the churning, but because Life
descended from its own level to the level of Matter and took Matter up in its
embrace. The churning, the development in Matter was only the occasion, the
condition precedent. For, however much one may shake or churn Matter, whatever
change one may create in it by a shuffling and reshuffling of<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:12.45pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination: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 lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Page-41<o:p></o:p></span></p>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>its elements, one can never produce Life by that
alone. A new and unforeseen factor makes its appearance, precisely because it
comes from elsewhere. It is true all the planes are imbedded, submerged,
involved in the complex of Matter; but, in point of fact, all planes are
involved in every other plane. The appearance or manifestation of a new plane
is certainly prepared, made ready to the last – the last but one – degree by
the urge of the inner, the latent mode of consciousness that is to be; still
the actualisation, the bursting forth happens only when the thing that has to
manifest itself descends, the actual form and pattern can be imprinted and
established by that alone. Thus, again, when Life attains a certain level of
growth and maturity, a certain tension and orientation – a definite vector, so
to say, in the mathematical language – when it has, for example, sufficiently
organised itself as a vehicle of the psychic element of consciousness, then it
buds forth into Mind, but only when the Mind has descended upon it and into it.
As in the previous stage, here also Life cannot produce Mind, cannot develop
into Mind by any amount of mechanical or chemical operations within itself, by
any amount of permutation and combination or commutation and culture of its
constituent elements, unless it is seized on by Mind itself. After the Mind,
the next higher grade of consciousness shall come by the same method and process,
viz,. first by an uplifting of the mental consciousness – a certain widening
and deepening and katharsis of the mental consciousness – and then by a
descent, gradual or sudden, of the level or levels that lie above it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>This, then, is the nature of creation
and its process. First,. there is an Involution, a gradual foreshortening-a
disintegration and concretisation, an exclusive concentration and self-oblivion
of consciousness by which the various levels of diminishing consciousness are
brought forth from the plenary light of the one supreme Spirit, all the levels
down to the complete eclipse in the unconsciousness of the multiple and
disintegrate Matter. Next, there is an Evolution, that is to say, embodiment in
Matter of all these successive states,. appearing one by one from the down most
to the topmost; Matter incarnates, all other states contribute to the incar</span><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>nation and uphold it, </span></p>

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

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:12.45pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination: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 lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Page-42</span></p>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>the higher always
transforming the lower in a new degree of consciousness.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Creation, the universe in its
activity, is thus not simply a meaningless play, a pointless fancy. It has a
purpose, an end, a goal, a fulfilment, and it follows naturally a definite
pattern of process. The goal is the concretisation, the materialisation (which
includes, of course, vitalisation and mentalisation) of the Spirit and the
spiritual values. It means the establishment of divine names and forms in
terrestrial individuals leading a divine life, individually and collectively
here below.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:12.45pt;
mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>2</span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:12.45pt;
mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>&nbsp;</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>We have so far spoken of two
lines of descent. But in either case the descent was of a general and
impersonal character. Consciousness was considered as a mere force, movement or
quality. There is another aspect, however, in which the descent is of a
particular and personal character and consciousness is not force or status only
but conscious being or Person.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>The various movements or forces
of consciousness that play in the various fields or levels of creation are not
merely states or degrees and magnitudes, currents and streams of consciousness:
they are also personalities with definite forms and figures-not physical
indeed, yet very definite even when subtle and fluidic. Thus the supreme
Reality, which is usually described as the perfect status of Existence –
Consciousness – Bliss, is not merely a principle but a personality. It is the
Supreme Person with his triune nature (Purushottama). It is the Divine as the
supreme Knower and Doer or Creator and Lover. The creation in or from that
status of consciousness is not simply a play or result of the force of
consciousness, it is even more truly the embodiment of a conscious Will; it is
the will of the Divine Father executed by the Divine Mother.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Now, as the Reality along with
its consciousness, in the downward involutionary course towards materialisation,
has been gradually disintegrating itself, multiplying itself, becoming more and
more obscure and dense in separated and isolated. units, even so the Person too
has been following a parallel course of disintegration and multiplication and
obscuration<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></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:12.45pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination: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 lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Page-43<o:p></o:p></span></p>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:121.5pt; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>and isolation. At the origin
lies, as we have said, the Perfect Person, the Supreme Person, in his dual
aspect of being and nature, appearing as the supreme <i>puru</i></span><i><span
lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Lucida Console";mso-bidi-font-family:
"Lucida Console";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>ï ¡</span><span
lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:
line'>a</span></i><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'> and the supreme <i>prakrti</i>, our Father and
our Mother in the highest heaven.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Next is the domain of the
Supermind with which the manifestation of the Divine starts. We have said it is
the world of typal realities, of the first seed-realities, where the One and
the Many are united and fused in each other, where the absolute unity of the
Supreme maintains itself in undiminished magnitude and expresses and formulates
itself perfectly in and through the original multiplicity. Here take birth the
first personalities, absolute truth-forms of the Divine. Here are the highest
gods, the direct formations of the Divine himself. Here are the Four Powers and
Personalities of <i>iswara</i> whom Sri Aurobindo has named after the Vaishnava
terminology: (i) Mahavira, embodying the Brahmin quality of Knowledge and Light
and wide Consciousness, (ii) Balarama, embodying the Kshatriya quality of Force
and intense dynamism, (iii) Pradyumna, embodying the quality of love and beauty
– the Vaishya virtue of mutuality and harmony and solidarity, and (iv)
Aniruddha, embodying the Sudra quality of competent service, of organisation
and execution in detail. Coriesponding with these Four there are the other Four
Powers and Personalities of the Divine Mother – <i>&iacute;śwari&iacute;</i> (i) Maheshwari,
(ii) Mahakali, (iii) Mahalakshmi and (iv) Mahasaraswati. Next in the downward
gradient comes the Overmind where the individualised powers and personalities
of the Divine tend to become self-sufficient and self-regarding; their absolute
unity is loosened and the lines of multiplicity begin to be more independent of
each other, each aiming at a special fulfilment of its own. Still the veil that
is being drawn over the unity is yet transparent which continues to be
sufficiently dynamic. This is the abode of the gods, the true and high gods: it
is these that the Vedic Rishis appear to have envisaged and sought after. The
all gods (<i>viśve devÄh</i>) were indeed acknowledged to be but different
names and forms of one supreme godhead (<i>devÄ</i>) it is the one god, says
Rishi Dirghatamas, who is called multifariously whether as Agni or Yam a or
Matariswan; it is the one god, again, who is described as having a thousand
heads and a thousand feet. And yet they are separate entities,<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:12.45pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination: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 lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Page-44<o:p></o:p></span></p>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>each has his own distinct and distinctive
character and attribute, each demands a characteristic way of approach and
worship. The tendency towards an exclusive stress is already at work on this
level and it is the perception of this truth that lies behind the term
henotheism used by European scholars to describe the Vedic Religion.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>The next stage of devolution is
the Mind proper. There or perhaps even before, on the lower reaches of the
Overmind, the gods have become all quite separate,-self – centred, each bounded
in his own particular sphere and horizon. The overmind gods – the true gods –
are creators in a world of balanced or harmoniously held difference; they are
powers that fashion each a special fulfilment, enhancing one another at the
same time (<i>parasparam bhÄvayantah</i>). Between the Overmind and the Mind
there is a class of lesser gods-they have been called <i>formateurs</i>; they
do not create in the strict sense of the term, they give form to what the
anterior gods have created and projected. These form-makers that consolidate
the encasement, fix definitely the image, have most probably been envisaged in
the Indian <i>dhyÄnam&ucirc;rtis</i>. But in the Mind the gods become still more
fixed and rigid, &quot;stereotyped&quot;; the mental gods inspire exclusive
systems, extreme and abstract generalisations, theories and principles and
formulae that, even when they seek to force and englobe all in their cast-iron
mould, can hardly understand or tolerate each other.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Mind is the birth-place of
absolute division and exclusivism – it is the &quot;own home&quot; of egoism.
Egoism is that ignorant mode-a twist or knot of consciousness which cuts up the
universal unity into disparate and antagonistic units: it creates isolated,
mutually exclusive whorls in the harmonious rhythm and vast commonalty of the
one consciousness or conscious existence. The Sankhya speaks of the principle
of ego coming or appearing after the principle of vastness (<i>mahat</i>). The
Vast is the region above the Mind, where the unitary consciousness is still
intact; with the appearance of the Mind has also appeared an intolerant
self-engrossed individualism that culminates, as its extreme and violent expression,
in the <i>asura </i>– Asura, the mentalised vital being.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>The Asura or the Titan stands
where consciousness descends</span><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></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;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 lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Page-45<o:p></o:p></span></p>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:ideograph-numeric ideograph-other; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>from the Mind into the Vital or Life – Force. He
is the personification of ambition and authority and arrogance, he is the intolerant
and absolute self-seeker – he is Daitya, the son of division. The Asura belongs
to what we call the Higher Vital; but lower down in the Mid Vital, made wholly
of unmixed life impulses, appear beings that are still less luminous, less
controlled, more passionate, vehement and violent in their self-regarding
appetite. They are the Rakshasas. If the Asura is perverse power, the Rakshasa
is insatiate hunger.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>All the ancient legends about a
principle-and a personality – of Denial and Ignorance, of an Everlasting Nay –
refer to this fact of a descending consciousness, a Fall. The Vedantic <i>mÄyÄ</i>,
spoken of sometimes as the Dark Mother, seems to be the personification of the
lower Overmind, Jehovah and Satan of the Hebrews, Olympians and Titans of the
Greeks, Ahriman and Ahura Mazda of old Iran, the sons of Diti and Aditi the
Indian Puranas speak of, are powers and personalities of consciousness when it
has descended entirely into the mind and the vital where the division is
complete. These lower reaches have completely lost the unitary consciousness;
still there are beings even here that have succeeded in maintaining it as a
memory or an aspiration, although in a general way the living reality of the
oneness is absent. It is significant that the term asura which came to mean in
classical and mythological ages a + sura, not – god, the Titan, had originally
a different connotation and etymology, asu + ra, one having force or strength,
and was used as a general attribute of all the gods. The degradation in the sense
of the word is a pointer to the spiritual Fall: Satan was once Lucifer, the
bringer or bearer of light. We may mention in this connection that these beings
of which we are speaking, dwelling in unseen worlds, are of two broad
categories - (l) beings that are native to each plane and immutably confined
and bound to that plane, and (2) those that extend their existence through many
or all planes and assume on each plane the norm and form appropriate to . that
plane. But this is a problem of individual destiny with which we are not
concerned at present.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>We were speaking of the descent
into the Vital, the domain of dynamism, desire and hunger. The Vital is also
the field of some strong creative Powers who follow, or are in secret<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:12.45pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Page-46</span></p>
<hr>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>contact with the line of unitary consciousness,
who are open to influences from a deeper or higher or subtler consciousness.
Along with the demons there is also a line of <i>daimona</i>, guardian angels,
in the hierarchy of vital beings. Much of what is known as aesthetic or
artistic creation derives its spirit from this sphere. Many of the gods of
beauty and delight are denizens of this heaven. Gandharvas and Kinnaras are
here, Dionysus and even Apollo perhaps (at least in their mythological
aspect-in their occult reality they properly belong to the Overmind which is
the own home of the gods), many of the angels, seraphs and cherubs dwell here.
In fact, the mythological heaven for the most part can be located in this
region.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>All this is comprised within
what we term the Higher or the Middle Vital. In the lower vital, we have said,
consciousness has become still more circumscribed, dark, ignorantly obstinate,
disparately disintegrated. It is the seed-bed of lust and cruelty, of all that
is small and petty and low and mean, all that is dirt and filth. It is here
that we place the <i>pi</i></span><i><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Lucida Console";mso-bidi-font-family:"Lucida Console";mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>ś</span><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:
12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Äcas</span></i><span
lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:
line'>, djinns, ghouls and ghosts, and vampires, beings who possess the
&quot;possessed&quot;.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Further down in the scale where
life-force touches Matter, where Life is about to precipitate as Matter, appear
beings of a still lower order, of smaller dimensions and magnitudes – Imps,
elfs, pixies, goblins, gnomes, fairies or dryads and naiads. There are even
creatures or entities so close to Matter that they come into being and pass
away with the building up and breaking of a definite pattern of material
organisation. This individualisation of consciousness as beings or persons
seems to disappear altogether when we enter the strictly material plane. There
IS here only an agglomeration of uniform dead .particles.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>We have thus far followed the
course of the break-up of Personality, from the original one supreme Person,
through a continuous process of multiplication and disintegration, of
parcellation and crystallisation into more and more small self-centred units, until
we reach the final pulverisation as purely material physico-chemical atoms. Now
with the reversal of consciousness, in its return movement, we have again a
process of growth and building up of individuality and personality, with the
awakening and ascension of consciousness from level<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></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:12.45pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination: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 lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Page-47<o:p></o:p></span></p>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>to level on the physical plane and in the material
embodiment,. there occurs too an evolution of the personal aspect of the
reality.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>We say that at the lowest level
of involution, in Matter,. where consciousness has zero magnitude, there is no
personality or individuality. It is all a mechanical play of clashing particles
that constantly fly apart or come together according to the force or the
resultant of forces that act upon them. An individuality means a bounded form
as its basis of reaction and a form that tends to persist and grow by
assimilation; it means. a centre of a definite manner and pattern of reaction.
Individuality, in its literal sense, designates that which cannot be divided (<i>in
+ dividus</i>). Division is only another name for death for the particular
entity. Even in the case of cell-division or self-division of some lower
organisms, in the first instance the original living entity disappears and,
secondly, the succeeding: entities, created by division, always re-form
themselves again into integral wholes. A material particle, on the other hand,
is. divisible <i>ad infinitum.</i> We have been able to divide even an atom
(which means also <i>that which cannot be divided</i>) to such an extent as to
reduce it to a mere charge of energy, nay, we have sublimated it to a
geometrical point. Individualisation starts with the coming of life. It is a
ganglion of life -force round which a particular system of action and reaction
weaves itself. The characteristic of individuality is that each one is. unique,
each relates itself to others and to the environment in its own way, each
expresses itself, puts forth its energy,. receives impacts from outside in a
manner that distinguishes. it from others. It is true this character of
individuality is not very pronounced in the earlier or rudimentary forms of
life. Still it is there: it grows and develops slowly along the ladder of
evolution. Only in the higher animals it attains a clear and definite norm and
form.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>In man something else or
something more happens. For man is not merely an individual, he is also a
personality. He is the outcome of a twofold growth and revelation. He has
outgrown the vital and climbed into Mind, and he has dived into the Heart and
touched his inner soul, his true psychic centre. It is this soul that is the
source of his personality.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>The formulation or revelation of
the Psyche marks another<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in 0in 2.0pt 0in'>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:12.45pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;
padding:0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 2.0pt 0in; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Page-48<o:p></o:p></span></p>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>line of what we have been describing as the
Descent of Consciousness. The phenomenon of individualisation has at its back
the phenomenon of the growth of the Psyche. It is originally a spark or nucleus
of consciousness thrown into Matter that starts growing and organising itself
behind the veil, in and through the movements and activities of the apparent
vehicle consisting of the triple nexus of Body (Matter) and Life and Mind. The
extreme root of the psychic growth extends perhaps right into the body,
consciousness of Matter, but its real physical basis and tenement is found only
with the growth and formation of the physical heart. And yet the psychic
individuality behind the animal organisation is very rudimentary. All that can
be said is that it is there, in <i>potentia</i>, it exists, it is simple <i>being</i>:
it has not started <i>becoming</i>. This is man's speciality: in him the
psychic begins to be dynamic; to be organised and to organise, it is a psychic
personality that he possesses. Now this flowering of the psychic personality is
due to an especial Descent, the descent of a Person from another level of
consciousness. That Person (or Superperson) is the <i>j</i></span><i><span
lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:ls;mso-bidi-font-family:ls;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>ī</span><span lang=EN-GB
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>vatman,</span></i><span
lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:
line'> the Individual Self, the central being of each individual formation. The
Jivas are centres of multiplicity thrown up in the bosom of the infinite
Consciousness: it is the supreme Consciousness eddying in unit formations to
serve as the basis for the play of manifestation. They are not within the frame
of manifestation (as the typal formations in the Supermind are), they are above
or beyond or beside it and stand there eternally and invariably in and as part
and parcel of the one supreme Reality – Sachchidananda. But the Jivatman from
its own status casts its projection, representation, delegated formulation -
&quot;emanation,&quot; in the phraseology of the neo-Platonists – into the
manifestation of the triple complex of mind, life and body, that is to say,
into the human vehicle, and thus stands behind as the psychic personality or
the soul. This soul, we have seen, is a developing, organising focus of
consciousness growing from below and comes to its own in the human being: or we
can put it the other way, that is to say, when it comes to its own, then the
human being appears. And it has come to its own precisely by a descent of its
own self from above, in the same manner as with the other descents already
described. Now, this &quot;coming to its own&quot; </span>
<span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>
<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></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;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 lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Page-49<o:p></o:p></span></p>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>means that it begins henceforth to exercise its
royal power, its natural and inherent divine right, viz, of consciously and
directly controlling and organising its terrestrial kingdom which is the body
and life and mind. The exercise of conscious directive will, supported and
illumined by a self-consciousness, I that occurs with the advent of the Mind is
a function of the I Purusha, the self-conscious being, in the Mind; but this
self-conscious being has been able to come up, manifest itself and be active,
because of pressure of the underlying psychic personality that has formed here.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Thus we have three
characteristics of the human personality accruing from the psychic
consciousness that supports and inspires it: - (I) self-consciousness: an
animal acts, feels and even knows, but man knows that he acts, knows that he
feels, knows even that he knows. This phenomenon of consciousness turning round
upon itself is the hallmark of the human being; (2) a conscious will holding
together and harmonising, fashioning and integrating the whole external nature
evolved till now; (3) a purposive drive, a deliberate and voluntary orientation
towards a higher and ever higher status of individualisation and
personalisation, - not only a horizontal movement seeking to embrace and
organise the normal, the already attained level of consciousness, but also a
vertical movement seeking to raise the level, attain altogether a new poise of
higher organisation.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>These characters, it is true,
are not clear and pronounced, do not lie in front, at the beginning of the
human personality. The normal human person has his psyche very much behind; but
it is still there as <i>antaryÄmin,</i> as the secret Inner Controller. And
whatever the vagaries of the outer instruments or their slavery to the mode of
Ignorance, in and through all that, it is this Inner Guide that holds the reins
and drives upward in the end.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Thus naturally there appear gradations
of the human personality; as the consciousness in the human being rises higher
and higher, the psychic centre organises a higher and higher – a richer, wider,
deeper – personality. The first great conversion, the first turning of the
human personality to a new mode of life and living, that is to say, living even
externally according to the inner truth and reality, the first attempt at a<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></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:12.45pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination: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 lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;layout-grid-mode:line'>Page-50<a
name=sk></a><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; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>conscious
</span><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>harmonisation</span><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'> of the psychic consciousness with its surface agents and
vehicles is what is known as spiritual initiation. This may happen and it does
happen even when man lives in his normal mental consciousness. But there is the
possibility of growth and evolution and transformation of personality in higher
and a higher spiritual degree through the upper reaches of the higher Mind, the
varying degrees of the Overmind and finally the Supermind. These are the
spheres, the fields, even the continents of the personality, but the stuff, the
substance of the personality, the inner nucleus of conscious&shy;ness-force is
formed, first, by the flaming aspiration, the upward drive within the
developing and increasing psychic being itself, and secondly, by the descent,
to a greater and greater degree, of the original Being from which it emanated.
The final coalescence of the fully and integrally developed psychic being with
the supreme splendour of its very source, the Jivatman, occurs in the
Supermind. When this happens the supramental personality becomes incarnate in
the physical body: Matter in the material plane is transformed into a radiant
substance made of pure consciousness, the human personality becomes a living
form of the Divine. Thus the wheel comes full circle: creation returns to the
point from which it started but with an added significance, a new fulfilment.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:10.55pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>The mystery of rebirth in the evolution of the human per&shy;sonality is
nothing but the mystery of the developing psyche. At first this psyche or soul
is truly a being: &quot;no bigger than the thumb&quot; – it is the hardly
audible &quot;still small voice&quot;. The experiences of life – sweet or
bitter, happy or unhappy, good or bad, howsoever they may appear to the outward
eye and perception – all the dialectics of a terrestrial existence contri&shy;bute
to the growth and development of the psychic conscious&shy;ness. Each span of life
means a special degree or mode of growth necessitated by the inner demand and
drive of the divine Individual seated within the heart. The whole end in view
of this secret soul is to move always towards and be united again with its
Oversoul, its original and high archetype in the Divine Consciousness: the
entire course of its earthly evolution is chalked out and patterned by the
exact need of its growth. Whatever happens in each particular life, all the<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></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:10.55pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: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'>Page-51<o:p></o:p></p>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>currents
of all the lives converge and coalesce, and serve the psychic consciousness to
swell in volume and intensity and be one with the Divine Consciousness. Or, in
a different imagery, one can say that the multifarious experiences of various
lives are as fuel to the Inner Fire – this Psychic Agni which is just a spark
or a thin tongue at the outset of the human evolu&shy;tionary course; but with the
addition of fuel from life to life this Fire flames up, indeed, becomes
ultimately a conflagration that bums and purifies the entire outer vehicle and
transforms it into radiant matter – a fit receptacle, incarnation of the
supernal Light. The mounting Fire (the consciousness-energy secreted in the
earth-bound heart of Matter) finally flares up, discloses itself in its full
amplitude and calls and attracts into it the incandescent supramental Solar
Sphere which is the type and pattern it has to embody and express. This is the
marriage of Heaven and Earth, of which the mystics all over the earth in all
ages spoke and sang – to which the Vedic Rishi refers when he declares:<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Arial Narrow";mso-bidi-font-family:"Arial Narrow"'>Dyaur me </span><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow"'>pitÄ</span><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow";mso-bidi-font-family:"Arial Narrow"'>
</span><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow"'>mÄtÄ</span><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow";mso-bidi-font-family:"Arial Narrow"'>
</span><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow"'>prthiv</span><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:li;mso-bidi-font-family:li'>ī</span><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow";mso-bidi-font-family:"Arial Narrow"'>
iyam, </span><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Lucida Console";
mso-bidi-font-family:"Lucida Console"'>&sup1;</span><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Arial Narrow";mso-bidi-font-family:"Arial Narrow"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Arial Narrow";mso-bidi-font-family:"Arial Narrow"'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.7pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>The supramentalisation of the personality which means the perfect
divinisation of the personality is yet not the final end of Nature's march. Her
path is endless, since she follows the trail of infinity. There are still
higher modes of consciousness, or, if they cannot properly be called higher,
other modes of consciousness that lie in waiting to be brought out and placed
and established in the front of terrestrial evolution. Only, supramentalisation
means the definite crossing over from Ignorance, from every trace and shadow of
Ignorance, into the abiding and perennial Knowledge and Freedom. Thence&shy;forward
the course of Nature's evolution may be more of the kind of expression than
ascension; for, beyond the Supermind it is very difficult to speak of a higher
or lower order of con&shy;sciousness. Everything thereafter is in the full perfect
light - &shy; the difference comes in the mode or manner or stress of ex&shy;pression.
However, that is a problem with which we are not immediately concerned.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.7pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>We have spoken of four lines of Descent in the evolution </span></p>
		<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.7pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>&nbsp;</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.7pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span style='font-family:"Lucida Console";mso-bidi-font-family:"Lucida Console"'>
<font size="2">&sup1;</font></span><font size="2">The
Heaven is my Father and this Earth my Mother.</font><o:p><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></o:p></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:12.7pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: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'>Page-52<o:p></o:p></p>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>and
organisation of consciousness. There yet remains a fifth line. It is more
occult. It is really the secret of secrets, the </span><span style='font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow";mso-bidi-font-family:"Arial Narrow"'>Supreme </span><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Secret. It is the descent of the Divine himself. The
Divine, the supreme Person himself descends, not indirectly through emanations,
projections, partial or lesser formula&shy;tions, but directly in his own plenary
self. He descends not as a disembodied force acting as a general movement,
possessing, at the most, other objects and persons as its medium or instru&shy;ment,
but in an embodied form and in the fullness of his con&shy;sciousness. The Indian word
for Divine Incarnation, avatÄra, literally means he who has descended. The
Divine comes down himself as a terrestrial being, on this material plane of
ours, in order to raise the terrestrial and material Nature to a new status in
her evolutionary course – even so He incarnated as the Great Boar who, with his
mighty tusk, lifted a solid mass of earth from out of the waters of the Deluge.
It is his purpose to effect ascension of consciousness, a transmutation of
being, to establish a truly New Order, a New Dharma, as it is termed –
dharmasamsthÄpanÄrthÄya. On the human level, he appears as a human person – for
two purposes. First of all, he shows, by example, how the ascension, the
transmutation is to be effected, how a normal human being can rise from a lower
status of consciousness to a higher one. The Divine is therefore known as the
Lord of Yoga – for Yoga is the means and method by which one consciously
uplifts oneself, unites oneself with the Higher Reality. The embodied Divine is
the ideal and pattern: he shows the path, himself walks the path and man can
follow, if he chooses. The Biblical conception of the Son of God – God made
flesh – as the intermediary between the human and the Divine, declaring,
&quot;I am the Way and the Goal&quot;, expresses a very similar truth. The
Divine takes a body for another – occult – reason also. It is this: Matter or
terrestrial life cannot be changed – changed radically, that is to say,
transformed – by the pure spiritual consciousness alone, lying above or within;
also it is not sufficient to bring about only that much of change in
terrestrial life which can be effected by the mere spiritual force acting in a
general way. It looks as if the physical transformation which is what is meant
by an ascension or emergence in the evolutionary gradient were possible only by
a physical impact embodying</span><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></i></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;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'><i>Page-53<o:p></o:p></i></p>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>and
canalising the spiritual force: it is with his physical body that the Divine
Incarnation seems to push and lift up physical Nature to a new and higher
status.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The occult seers
declare that we are today on the earth at such a crisis of evolution. Earth and
Man and man's earthly life need to be radically transfigured. The trouble and
turbulence, the chaos and confusion that are now overwhelming this earth,
indicate the acute tension before the release, the d</span><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:li;mso-bidi-font-family:li'>&eacute;</span><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>tente of a NEW MANIFESTATION.</span><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></i></p>

<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in 0in 2.0pt 0in'>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:12.45pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;
padding:0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 2.0pt 0in; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i>Page-54<o:p></o:p></i></p>

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