The manifestation of the world is something in which the evolving consciousness will increasingly participate. To a mental consciousness there is a significant difference between what the world is and what it should be. To a supramental consciousness, the world is at every moment what it should be. None of the scientific or technological shenanigans of our mental consciousness will cause the world to be what it should be. Only by the evolution of a supramental consciousness can the world become what it should be, and this not only to those who are conscious in the supramental way but also to those who remain conscious in the mental or a submental way.
This is what Sri Aurobindo came to reveal to humanity ,and the importance of Psychic Being to this journey /process.
Splendid essay. Although I must say, the closing quotation sounds rather close to what is described above as Shankara's 'illusionist' philosophy, doesn't it?
Thanks Jonathan. In response to your question I give you the 1961 quote in full:
"When one comes out of that consciousness and enters the Truth-Consciousness, one is incredulous that such things as suffering, misery and death can exist; it’s amazing, in the sense that (when one is truly on the other side) ... one doesn’t understand how all this can be happening. And, although this state of consciousness is habitually associated with the experience of the unreality of the world as we know it, Sri Aurobindo tells us that this perception of the world’s unreality need not exist for the supramental consciousness: only Falsehood is unreal, not the world. And this is most interesting – the world has its own reality, independent of Falsehood."
Here again, to appreciate your continued efforts not allowing “sleeping monsters lie”, not for a day, not for a forthright. The monster is evil, it is deep and mysterious, but as Borges reminded us, at the same time is white and beautiful, like Moby-Dick.
“And one may wonder too that generations of scholars have left such an ultimate submission of reason to unaccountable decisions unchallenged. Perhaps both Kant and his successors instinctively preferred to let such sleeping monsters lie, for fear that, once awakened, they might destroy their fundamental conception of knowledge. For, once you face up to the ubiquitous controlling position of unformalizable mental skills, you do meet difficulties for the justification of knowledge that cannot be disposed of within the framework of rationalism.”
(Michael Polanyi, “The Unaccountable Element is Science”, Knowing and Being, p. 106)
Schrödinger was right when he said that the original and the mirror image are identical. But they are identical not because they have form, they are identical because they do not have it. The problem, which as stated is derived from a linguistic misrepresentation, stems from the fact that (generically speaking) we in the West tend to identify the concrete, the original, with that which has shape, that which bears extensive relations. What we can only re-present is not concrete, is entirely abstract. Whitehead understood this misplaced fallacy better than anyone (probably not better than The Mother, I might adventure to say). That which is knowable to us moves in the opposite direction, it lies in the “absolute near side”. The fruits of scientific knowledge, magnificent as they are, end up in one point and one point only: “We got hold of the entirely abstract, and we triumphed”. That’s the ultimate price. The concrete remains not only untouched, but tragically disregarded. Jung panicked at this ominous perspective, Kierkegaard suffered for it; and their fears have been entirely justified.
Btw, what that “tertium quid” shows us, that platonic “triton genos” which accounts for the existence of distinct experiences, if anything, is that the One is entirely active, in a sense it is pure activity and nothing less.
The manifestation of the world is something in which the evolving consciousness will increasingly participate. To a mental consciousness there is a significant difference between what the world is and what it should be. To a supramental consciousness, the world is at every moment what it should be. None of the scientific or technological shenanigans of our mental consciousness will cause the world to be what it should be. Only by the evolution of a supramental consciousness can the world become what it should be, and this not only to those who are conscious in the supramental way but also to those who remain conscious in the mental or a submental way.
This is what Sri Aurobindo came to reveal to humanity ,and the importance of Psychic Being to this journey /process.
Thanks Ulrich for your Clarity.
Michael
Splendid essay. Although I must say, the closing quotation sounds rather close to what is described above as Shankara's 'illusionist' philosophy, doesn't it?
Thanks Jonathan. In response to your question I give you the 1961 quote in full:
"When one comes out of that consciousness and enters the Truth-Consciousness, one is incredulous that such things as suffering, misery and death can exist; it’s amazing, in the sense that (when one is truly on the other side) ... one doesn’t understand how all this can be happening. And, although this state of consciousness is habitually associated with the experience of the unreality of the world as we know it, Sri Aurobindo tells us that this perception of the world’s unreality need not exist for the supramental consciousness: only Falsehood is unreal, not the world. And this is most interesting – the world has its own reality, independent of Falsehood."
Thank you for the response. A very deep essay indeed!
Brilliant! Thank you!
Here again, to appreciate your continued efforts not allowing “sleeping monsters lie”, not for a day, not for a forthright. The monster is evil, it is deep and mysterious, but as Borges reminded us, at the same time is white and beautiful, like Moby-Dick.
“And one may wonder too that generations of scholars have left such an ultimate submission of reason to unaccountable decisions unchallenged. Perhaps both Kant and his successors instinctively preferred to let such sleeping monsters lie, for fear that, once awakened, they might destroy their fundamental conception of knowledge. For, once you face up to the ubiquitous controlling position of unformalizable mental skills, you do meet difficulties for the justification of knowledge that cannot be disposed of within the framework of rationalism.”
(Michael Polanyi, “The Unaccountable Element is Science”, Knowing and Being, p. 106)
Schrödinger was right when he said that the original and the mirror image are identical. But they are identical not because they have form, they are identical because they do not have it. The problem, which as stated is derived from a linguistic misrepresentation, stems from the fact that (generically speaking) we in the West tend to identify the concrete, the original, with that which has shape, that which bears extensive relations. What we can only re-present is not concrete, is entirely abstract. Whitehead understood this misplaced fallacy better than anyone (probably not better than The Mother, I might adventure to say). That which is knowable to us moves in the opposite direction, it lies in the “absolute near side”. The fruits of scientific knowledge, magnificent as they are, end up in one point and one point only: “We got hold of the entirely abstract, and we triumphed”. That’s the ultimate price. The concrete remains not only untouched, but tragically disregarded. Jung panicked at this ominous perspective, Kierkegaard suffered for it; and their fears have been entirely justified.
Btw, what that “tertium quid” shows us, that platonic “triton genos” which accounts for the existence of distinct experiences, if anything, is that the One is entirely active, in a sense it is pure activity and nothing less.