CHAPTER III The Two Negations II. THE REFUSAL OF THE ASCETIC All this is the Brahman; this Self is the Brahman and the Self is fourfold. Beyond relation, featureless, unthinkable, in which all is still. Mandukya Upanishad.¹ AND still there is a beyond. For on the other side of the cosmic consciousness there is, attainable to us, a consciousness yet more transcendent,—transcendent not only of the ego, but of the Cosmos itself,—against which the universe seems to stand out like a petty picture against an immeasurable background. That supports the universal activity,—or perhaps only tolerates it; It embraces Li

BOOK ONE OMNIPRESENT REALITY AND THE UNIVERSE CHAPTER I The Human Aspiration She follows to the goal of those that are passing on beyond, she is the first in the eternal succession of the dawns that are coming, —Usha widens bringing out that which lives, awakening someone who was dead.... What is her scope when she harmonises with the dawns that shone out before and those that now must shine? She desires the ancient mornings and fulfils their light; projecting forwards her illumination she enters into communion with the rest that are to come. Kutsa Angirasa—Rig Veda.¹ Threefold are those supreme births of this divine force that is in

BOOK II PART ONE CHAPTER I Indeterminates, Cosmic Determinations and the Indeterminable The Unseen with whom there can be no pragmatic relations, unseizable, featureless, unthinkable, undesignable by name, whose substance is the certitude of One Self, in whom world- existence is stilled, who is all peace and bliss — that is the Self, that is what must be known. Mandukya Upanishad.1 One sees it as a mystery or one speaks of it or hears of it as a mystery, but none knows it. Gita.2 When men seek after the Immutable, the Indeterminable, the Unmanifest, the All-Pervading, the Unthinkable, th

CHAPTER IX Memory, Ego and Self-Experience Here this God, the Mind, in its dream experiences again and again what once was experienced, what has been seen and what has not been seen, what has been heard and what has not been heard; what has been experienced and what has not been experienced, what is and what is not, all it sees, it is all and sees. Prasna Upanishad. 1 To dwell in our true being is liberation; the sense of ego is a fall from the truth of our being. Mahopanishad. 2 One in many births, a single ocean holder of all streams of movement, sees our hearts. Rig Veda. 3 THE direct self-consci

CHAPTER XIV The Origin and Remedy of Falsehood, Error, Wrong and Evil The Lord accepts the sin and the virtue of none; because knowledge is veiled by Ignorance, mortal men are deluded. Gita.1 They live according to another idea of self than the reality, deluded, attached, expressing a falsehood,—as if by an enchantment they see the false as the true. Maitrayani Upanishad.2 They live and move in the Ignorance and go round and round, battered and stumbling, like blind men led by one who is blind. Mundaka Upanishad.3 One whose intelligence has attained to Unity, casts away from him both sin a

CHAPTER XVIII Mind and Supermind He discovered that Mind was the Brahman. Taittiriya Upanishad.¹ Indivisible, but as if divided in beings. Gita.² THE conception which we have so far been striving to form is that of the essence only of the supramental life which the divine soul possesses securely in the being of Sachchidananda, but which the human soul has to manifest in this body of Sachchidananda formed here into the mould of a mental and physical living. But so far as we have been able yet to envisage this supramental existence, it does not seem to have any connection or correspondence with life as we know it, life active between the tw

CHAPTER III The Eternal and the Individual He and I. Isha Upanishad.1 It is an eternal portion of Me that has become the living being in a world of living beings.... The eye of knowledge sees the Lord abiding in the body and enjoying and going forth from it. Gita 2 Two birds beautiful of wing, friends and comrades, cling to a common tree, and one eats the sweet fruit, the other regards him and eats not.... Where winged souls cry the discoveries of know- ledge over their portion of immortality, there the Lord of all, the Guardian of the World took possession of me, he the Wise, me the ignorant. Rig Veda.3 T

CHAPTER XXIII The Double Soul in Man The Purusha, the inner Self, no larger than the size of a man'sthumb. Katha Upanishad.¹ Swetaswatara Upanishad.² He who knows this Self who is the eater of the honey of existenceand the lord of what is and shall be, has thenceforward noshrinking. Katha Upanishad.³ Whence shall he have grief, how shall he be deluded who seeseverywhere the Oneness? Isha Upanishad.4 He who has found the bliss of the Eternal has no fear from any quarter. Taittiriya Upanishad.5 The first status of Life we found to be characterised by a dumb inconscient drive or urge, a force of some involved will in

CHAPTER XXII The Problem of Life This it is that is called the universal Life. Taittiriya Upanishad.¹ The Lord is seated in the heart of all beings turning all beings mounted upon a machine by his Maya. Gita.² He who knows the Truth, the Knowledge, the Infinity that is Brahman shall enjoy with the all-wise Brahman all objects of desire. Taittiriya Upanishad.³ LIFE is, we have seen, the putting forth, under certain cosmic circumstances, of a Conscious-Force which is in its own nature infinite, absolute, untrammelled, inalienably possessed of its own unity and bliss, the Conscious-Force of Sachchidananda. The centra