Chapter Two   The Sankhya-Yoga System   Purusha   Purusha is the conscious Being who supports all the action of Nature. There is no fixed place, but as the central being he usually stands above the adhar —he becomes also the mental, vital, physical, psychic being.   *   The word being is used with all kinds of significances —it is a very imprecise word and can embrace everything. Purusha has a precise significance. It is the Soul or Spirit side of the being as opposed to the Nature side.   *   There is one Purusha —its action is according to the position and need of the consciousness at the time. It is

Chapter Four   The Higher Planes of Mind   The Higher Planes and Higher Consciousness   The higher planes are the higher mind, illumined, intuitive, over mind, supermind. The psychic, mind, vital, physical belong to the ordinary manifestation.   *   The planes and the body are not the same. Above the head are seen all the planes from the overmind down to the higher mind, but this is only a correlation in the consciousness —not an actual location in space.   *   The spiritual mind is a mind which, in its fullness, is aware of the Self, reflecting the Divine, seeing and understanding the nature of the Self and its relations with t

 Chapter Three   The Psychic Being   The Psychic and the Divine   They [the psychic being and the Divine Presence in the heart] are quite different things. The psychic being is one's own individual soul-being. It is not the Divine, though it has come from the Divine and develops towards the Divine.   *   It [the psychic] is constantly in contact with the immanent Divine —the Divine secret in the individual.   *   It is the psychic that is in direct relation with the transcendent Divine and leads the nature upwards towards the Supreme.   *   The Divine is always in the inner heart and does not leave it.

Chapter Three   Brahman   The Impersonal Brahman   You speak of the Impersonal as if it were a Person. The Impersonal is not He, it is It. How can an It guide or help? The Impersonal Brahman is inactive, aloof, indifferent, not concerned with what happens in the universe. Buddha's Permanent is the same.   *   There is no thought in the pure Impersonal, it is silent —but it is true that divine Truth can manifest in the background of the silence. This is of course the truth of things up to the Overmind.   The Inactive Brahman and the Active Brahman   The inactive Brahman and the active personal Brahman are two a

Section Two   The Cosmos:   Terms from Indian Systems     Chapter One   The Upanishadic and Puranic Systems   Virat   Virat is the outer manifestation and if we take all that as Brahman without knowing what is behind the manifestation we shall fall into the intellectual error of Pantheism, not realising that the Divine is more than this outer manifestation and cannot be known by it alone. In the vital we may fall into the error of accepting what is dark and imperfect on the same terms as that which makes for the light and divine perfection. There may be many other consequent errors also.   Visva or Virat, Hiranyag

Chapter Four   Social Duties and the Divine   Family, Society, Country and the Divine   Family, society, country are a larger ego —they are not the Divine. One can work for them and say that one is working for the Divine only if one is conscious of the Divine Adesh to act for that purpose or of the Divine Force working within one. Otherwise it is only an idea of the mind identifying country etc. with the Divine.   *   I suppose each man makes or tries to make his own organisation of life out of the mass of possibilities the forces present to him. Self (physical self) and family are the building most make —to earn, to create a family an

Section Two   The Supramental Descent and Transformation     Chapter One   The Descent of the Supermind   Inevitability of the Descent   The descent of the supramental is an inevitable necessity in the logic of things and is therefore sure. It is because people do not understand what the supermind is or realise the significance of the emergence of consciousness in a world of "inconscient" Matter that they are unable to realise this inevitability. I suppose a matter-of-fact observer if there had been one at the time of the unrelieved reign of inanimate Matter in the earth's beginning would have criticised any prom

Chapter Two   Spiritual Evolution and the Supramental   Human History and Spiritual Evolution   There have been times when the seeking for spiritual attainment was, at least in certain civilisations, more intense and widespread than now or rather than it has been in the world in general during the past few centuries. For now the curve seems to be the beginning of a new turn of seeking which takes its start from what was achieved in the past and projects itself towards a greater future. But always, even in the age of the Vedas or in Egypt, the spiritual achievement or the occult knowledge was confined to a few; it was not spread in the whole mass of huma

Chapter Two   The Jivatman in Other Indian Systems   The Jivatman in Other Schools   The word Jiva has two meanings in the Sanskritic tongues —"living creature"1 and the spirit individualised and upholding the living being in its evolution from birth to birth. In the latter sense the full term is Jivatma —the Atman, spirit or eternal self of the living being. It is spoken of figuratively by the Gita as "an eternal portion of the Divine" —but the word fragmentation (used by you) is too strong, it could be applicable to the forms, but not to the spirit in them. Moreover the multiple Divine is an eternal reality antecedent to the creation here.

Chapter Five   The Lower Nature or Lower Hemisphere   The Higher Nature and the Lower Nature   The lower nature is called lower because it is unenlightened —it can't be enlightened and changed by ignoring it, the higher has to be brought there. So one must speak of both, not of the higher alone.   *   But why do you suppose that you alone are made of the lower nature? Every earthly being is so made. The higher nature is there but behind and above. It has to be brought forward from the inner being or brought down from above constantly and persistently till the lower is changed.   The Three Planes of the Lower Hemisphere