First among men
This knowledge first he had of time-born men.
Though there are many secrets to which mystics become a privy, what is going to be revealed to us is the great Secret of a progressive manifestation of the Divine in man.
Where the wings of Glory brood
Admitted through a curtain of bright mind
That hangs between our thoughts and absolute sight,
He found the occult cave, the mystic door
Near to the well of vision in the soul,
And entered where the Wings of Glory brood
In the silent space where all is for ever known.
The highest reach of human consciousness even in its spiritual stirrings is upto the spiritual mind and its luminous ranges strating from the higher mind and reaching upto the Overmind. Though mystics often regard it as the spiritual realm but Sri Aurobindo refers to these higher ranges as the Spiritual Mind since there is still some division here. One cannot find here the utter and total synthesis, the grand reconciliation between Matter and Spirit, God and World that Aswapati seeks. The Integral Truth is missing here though there are flashes and revealing glimpses of It. A brilliant curtain still hangs here and Truth is seen through the filtered Rays of the Supramental Sun. We cannot enter beyond this Overmind region and remain conscious. One can at best plunge into it and be done with life and birth and death. But then, a return after the plunge is impossible. It is this that the seer and yogi Aswapati now glimpses through a mystic door hidden in the soul. It is the realm of Truth, the Home where the Glory of glories shines in its own luminous Splendour.
Beyond Matter and Mind
Indifferent to doubt and to belief,
Avid of the naked real’s single shock
He shore the cord of mind that ties the earth-heart
And cast away the yoke of Matter’s law.
It is not possible to enter the Supramental realms as long as one is attached to forms and formulas of the Mind. Even the highest that the mind can conceive is a limitation, so also one must be freed from the rigid chain of Matter that holds us firmly in its grip.
The body’s rules and the Spirit’s powers
The body’s rules bound not the spirit’s powers:
When life had stopped its beats, death broke not in;
He dared to live when breath and thought were still.
Freedom from the so-called laws of the body (which are nothing but habits and patterns of physical nature), is a necessary requirement for this further ascension. Aswapati has achieved such a complete mastery over his body that it does not automatically follow the law of Death when the breath and heart-beat stopped. This is perfect immobility, even within the body, that is a pre-condition to the Supramental ascension.
The magic place
Thus could he step into that magic place
Which few can even glimpse with hurried glance
Lifted for a moment from mind’s laboured works
And the poverty of Nature’s earthly sight.
These are the conditions for going beyond the limiting circle of earth-nature, – a perfect stillness and immobility as well as wideness. Thus Aswapati could enter into the borderland that divides the two hemispheres of existence. He takes his station in the Overmind which is a shining porch of the Supramental doors opening upon the infinite Truth.
Closing remarks
The Overmind is in fact the leaping board for plunge into the Glories of the Spirit and Truth’s native Home.
