Canto XI: The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind

Man tries to limit the Divine according to his conceptions and experience but the Divine always exceeds all that we can ever think, conceive, understand or experience Him.

The Divine Mother, out of her infinite Grace leans down towards creation and even consents to limit herself sacrificing her infinity so that man can be pulled up towards the Eternal and the Infinite.

The powers of the Greater Mind not only grant a deeper wisdom but also change the heart into a dwelling place for the Divine Mother’s aspects and powers.

This realm of bright gods who inspire our thoughts from the heights have their station here, in this Kingdom of the Greater Mind. Still it is the Mind and hence the ultimate reconciliation cannot be found here.

Passing beyond the limits of human mind of reason there are the higher levels of mind climbing further through zones of increasing luminosity. Yet a limit comes, a border that the mind cannot cross. Here its wisdom stops.

The spirit’s truth is hidden behind appearances. It needs an inward turn and an intuitive eye to discover it.

This Divine Presence hidden in the depths of creation, working even in the depths of the Inconscience is the hope for all things. The seed-idea has already been sown in the soil of nature and with passage of time it must bear fruits and flowers and disclose the divinity that is latent within it.

With his characteristic humour Sri Aurobindo reveals to us how we may be misled into the illusion of absolute Knowledge as we climb up the stairways of the Spirit. A last step remains even at the highest reaches of the Mind.

Sri Aurobindo in his own characteristic way shows to us the greatness of these gods and the beings I contact with them and yet he also reveals their limitations. Each has its own place and station and working in this vast and complex creation. But the ultimate secret, the last secret is not found here.

The Divine is Infinite but in the spiritual Mind His Freedom is fixed into formulas and rules through which He acts. Layer by layer Sri Aurobindo is revealing to us the Divine Working in this lower triplicity of creation where truth is being worked out through ignorance, error and Chance.

Above the higher Mind are regions of the Illumined Mind with its beings. If the higher Mind is like a steady sunshine, the illumined mind is a space where the beings themselves carry the light in their eyes.

The gods of these realms arrange the cosmic and individual events based on the Idea from Above that impels them to move and act. This is a vivid description of the Higher Mind which is the birthplace of ideologies and religions.

Sri Aurobindo reveals to us about the play of higher forces that fix the grooves of destiny for the individual and the collective march of mankind.

Sri Aurobindo describes here the action of the form-makers, the source of their inspiration and the distortion that truth undergoes in the process.

These are the radiant gods who are masters of Thought in those realms above the human mind. They cast their influence upon earth bringing our thoughts a step closer to the Ultimate Mystery.

The realms that climb beyond the human mind are also arranged hierarchically in a series of three. They are notably the Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuitive Mind. Beyond is the Overmind region which is the borderline between the lower and the higher hemisphere.

There are a number of luminous planes of knowledge that climb beyond our ordinary human mind. Thus Sri Aurobindo gives us a brief glimpse of the stairway of Thought and Mind-worlds climbing towards the Home of the Absolute Spirit, the Perfect Truth that is one with Delight.