Opening Remarks
It is the action of Divine Shakti that grants us freedom from Ignorance. But once the soul has attained its fundamental freedom from Ignorance, a new working starts on Nature itself. The yoga begins to part from the traditional yoga where mukti, or liberation of the soul, is deemed sufficient. Or perhaps we may say that it begins to include in its scope the yoga of the Vedic seers who were beginning to experience some of these changes as they went further in their search for Truth and Immortality.
A single sun
Already in him was seen that task of Power:
Life made its home on the high tops of self;
His soul, mind, heart became a single sun;
Only life’s lower reaches remained dim.
There is at first a glad uplifting of life, a shift to a new and higher level from which it begins to operate now. The mind and heart too are touched and uplifted by the workings of the New Consciousness. Our nature begins to share the glow and glory of the Soul until all in us becomes organized and aligned to the Divine. Only life’s lower ranges continue to remain tied to their habitual movements.
The inner Witness’s moveless peace
But there too, in the uncertain shadow of life,
There was a labour and a fiery breath;
The ambiguous cowled celestial puissance worked
Watched by the inner Witness’s moveless peace.
Here too (in life’s lower reaches) the Light comes and starts its workings hidden in the cover of darkness. The Witness Soul in us begins to see a new working taking place even in the nether parts. Yet this intense working does not disturb its native Peace that has now grown natural to it.
Rain from the all-powerful Mystery above
Even on the struggling Nature left below
Strong periods of illumination came:
Lightnings of glory after glory burned,
Experience was a tale of blaze and fire,
Air rippled round the argosies of the Gods,
Strange riches sailed to him from the Unseen;
Splendours of insight filled the blank of thought,
Knowledge spoke to the inconscient stillnesses,
Rivers poured down of bliss and luminous force,
Visits of beauty, storm-sweeps of delight
Rained from the all-powerful Mystery above.
The initial touches of the Divine are felt as a rain of Light and Peace and Bliss from Above. There are periods of illuminations and experiences of bliss and force coming down to us as gifts of Grace. Our mind grows into revelatory sight; our heart is thrilled to the touch of a Love and Joy as it has never known before.
The eagles of Omniscience
Thence stooped the eagles of Omniscience.
The eagles of Omniscience are messengers of Light, the Power of Intuitive sight that begin to descend and awaken and enlighten us.
A dense veil was rent
A dense veil was rent, a mighty whisper heard;
Repeated in the privacy of his soul,
A wisdom-cry from rapt transcendences
Sang on the mountains of an unseen world;
The voices that an inner listening hears
Conveyed to him their prophet utterances,
And flame-wrapped outbursts of the immortal Word
And flashes of an occult revealing Light
Approached him from the unreachable Secrecy.
The hard lid of the intellect thins and vanishes as the mind grows still and the higher spiritual consciousness rains down its streams of peace and light form above. So too the veil behind the heart, that prevents us from listening to the soul, is torn under the pressure of the transforming Force.
Inspiration, revelation, intuition
An inspired Knowledge sat enthroned within
Whose seconds illumined more than reason’s years:
An ictus of revealing lustre fell
As if a pointing accent upon Truth,
And like a sky-flare showing all the ground
A swift intuitive discernment shone.
These are the three characteristic modes of higher knowledge – inspiration, revelation and intuition. It is these that begin to operate in the sadhaka as a result of the proceeding transformation. Sri Aurobindo compares here the intuitive beam to a lightning form above that, in one moment, illumines the field over which it shines. In a moment is shown to us as in a flash, what our reasoning mind tries to know by indirect means groping in the darkness with much labour and struggle.
One glance could separate the true and false
One glance could separate the true and false, (p 38 begins)
Or raise its rapid torch-fire in the dark
To check the claimants crowding through mind’s gates
Covered by the forged signatures of the gods,
Detect the magic bride in her disguise
Or scan the apparent face of thought and life.
This intuitive light, once it becomes normal and natural in its working, is like a torch-light that illumines the field of ignorance. With this light it becomes easy to discern and detect the true from the false, the authentic soul-movement that can push us even through what may seem to the practical mind an error. At the same time it cautions us against the dark intruders imitating as higher truths but leading us towards perdition and fall.
Closing remarks
Thus we see here a beautiful description of the first stages of a psychic and spiritual transformation that takes place in this yoga as a result of the workings of the Divine Power.
