The Supramentalised State Kheper Home Sri Aurobindo and the Mother Home
An excellent book that summarises the whole extraordinary account of Spramentalised transformation is The Mind of the Cells, by Mirra's chief disciple and confidante, Satprem. Unfortunately this book, invaluable for bringing together under relevant headings the Mother's own accounts of her experiences, is also padded with Satprem's comments, which at time are inanely Darwinistic (or rather pseudo-Darwinistic); as if this spectacular transformation of existence were no more significant than the evolution or appearance of any of the innumerable life-forms to grace this planet - such as the first amphibian or first hominid.
Perhaps we should not judge Satprem too harshly for this reductionism; he is after all only expressing the inconceivable in terms of the current mythology of his day, just as the founders of Zoroastrianism and Christianity explained similiar phenomenon in the terms of the mythology of their day: miraculous intervention by an external supernatural deity. Both explanations are absurd, because they rely on limited human understanding to try to express or define the Infinite. But the Infinite, the Supreme, can only really be expressed or defined on its own terms.
And if we still do insist on pigeon-holing it, at least we should use the more sophisticated metaphysics of occult cosmologies, rather than those of religion or materialistic science. Here I have tried to let the experience speak for itself as much as possible, and only drawn parallels with theologies or metaphysical systems when they are obvious.
And if we still do insist on pigeon-holing it, at least we should use the more sophisticated metaphysics of occult cosmologies, rather than those of religion or materialistic science. Here I have tried to let the experience speak for itself as much as possible, and only drawn parallels with theologies or metaphysical systems when they are obvious.
The Mother referred to this other state of being not only as "the Supermind' but also more poetically or intuitively as "the divine state", "the all-powerful state", or someties just "love" or "that" [Satprem p.32]
As understood by Satprem (here he seems to be on the ball):
"Physical laws are not as we think, physical illness and death are not as we think and feel them. All our sensations and perceptions of the physical world are false....Leaving the false perception doesn't lead to Nirvana or to heaven or to death; it leads to the true physical reality, true matter...as it is. To another life in matter."
[Satprem, The Mind of the Cells, p.104]
While as early as 1930 Mirra said:
"The real change in consciousness will be the one that changes the PHYSICAL conditions of the world and makes it an entirely new creation"
[quoted in Satprem The Mind of the Cells, p.112]
As Satprem explained, this "other" world was no longer "other", but rather it was our own, but seen and lived differently. The Mother used different terminology in struggling to describe the new state of existence; originally it was "the subtle physical", then "the true physical", "true matter", "the other state in matter". [p.164] But perhaps the most bizarre thing of all (at least to mundane consciousness) about this new state there is no longer the dichotomy between life and death that so characterises our present existence. I confess that I am unable to make sense of this, but I present it anyway, if only because of the strange parallel with the Zoroastrian and later Judaeo-Christian idea of immortality as a sort of bodily resurrection or transcendence of death. This is in contrast to the dualistic and spiritualistic idea of the body dying and the soul or spirit continuing in some aetherial heaven or spirit-realm. As the Mother explained in 1962:
"I spent at least two hours in a world...the subtle physical, where the living and the dead are side by side without feeling the difference!...There were...what We call "living people", and what WE call "dead people": they were there together, moved together, played together. And all that was in a lovely light, quiet, very pleasant indeed..."
[The Mind of the Cells p.168]
Ponders Satprem:
"who are these "living people" strolling about and socialising with the "daed"?....We have hardly heard any living person describe his physical wanderings with "dead people". Does it mean that, without our knowledge, a part of our being already communicates with that world...,where laws are not the same, where "death" is not the same, but which is nonetheless a physical world according to Mother's experience? Could it be that our body knows better than we do?"
And indeed,
"Could there be a place in physical, material consciousness - let's say the next earthly consciousness - where life and death change in nature? That would really mean a new state on earth: not life as we know it nor death as we know it."
[Satprem, The Mind of the Cells, p.170] The consensus between the religious (Zoroastrian-Judaeo-Christian) idea of the future Divine world as the overcoming of death, with what is presented here raises the question: did the great founders of these religions, such as Zoroaster and Jesus, glimpse or have an insight into this process, but this knowledge was then distorted by their followers, who tried to make it into a sort of physical immortality of the self-centered ego and a denial of spiritual worlds (e.g. modern fundamentalist Protestantism)?
It seems that this universal self appears as a universal body; and a universal body that has a constant restoring or healing task. Here again we look to the record of the Mother:
"I am conscious of my body, but I don't mean this (Mother touches her body): I am conscious of THE body - it could be anyone's body! I am conscious of these vibrations of disorder, which come most often in the form of suggestions of disorder: a suggestion of hemorrage for example....The battle begins to be fought...between what we can call "the will to hemorrage" and the reaction of the cells of the body....But suddenly, the body is seized with a very strong determination and proclaims an order, an immediately the effect begins to be felt and everything returns gradually to normal. All this happens in the material consciousness. My body ahas all the physical sensations except the (actual) hemorrage....A few days later, I receive a letter from someone, and in the letter is the whole story: the attack, the hemorrhage, and suddenly the being is seized with an overpowering determination and hears the words - the very words uttered HERE. In the end he is cured, saved. In the end he is cured, saved....And so I began to realise that my body is everywhere! You see, it is not just a matter of these cells: they are cells in, who knows how many, perhaps hundreds or thousands of people...It is THE body..."
[quoted in Satprem The Mind of the Cells, pp.51-2] Thus the body actually becomes universal, it develops a sort of cantagion with all other bodies. Explains Mirra:
"I am inundated with things coming from outside! And what a mixture! From all sides, all people, and not only here: from far, far away on earth, and sometimes far back in time...in the past, things coming from the past to be set straight....It's a constant labour....As though ne were perpetually coming down with a new disease and had to find a cure for it...."
[Satprem, p.53]
As understood by Satprem (here he seems to be on the ball):
"Physical laws are not as we think, physical illness and death are not as we think and feel them. All our sensations and perceptions of the physical world are false....Leaving the false perception doesn't lead to Nirvana or to heaven or to death; it leads to the true physical reality, true matter...as it is. To another life in matter."
[Satprem, The Mind of the Cells, p.104]
While as early as 1930 Mirra said:
"The real change in consciousness will be the one that changes the PHYSICAL conditions of the world and makes it an entirely new creation"
[quoted in Satprem The Mind of the Cells, p.112]
As Satprem explained, this "other" world was no longer "other", but rather it was our own, but seen and lived differently. The Mother used different terminology in struggling to describe the new state of existence; originally it was "the subtle physical", then "the true physical", "true matter", "the other state in matter". [p.164] But perhaps the most bizarre thing of all (at least to mundane consciousness) about this new state there is no longer the dichotomy between life and death that so characterises our present existence. I confess that I am unable to make sense of this, but I present it anyway, if only because of the strange parallel with the Zoroastrian and later Judaeo-Christian idea of immortality as a sort of bodily resurrection or transcendence of death. This is in contrast to the dualistic and spiritualistic idea of the body dying and the soul or spirit continuing in some aetherial heaven or spirit-realm. As the Mother explained in 1962:
"I spent at least two hours in a world...the subtle physical, where the living and the dead are side by side without feeling the difference!...There were...what We call "living people", and what WE call "dead people": they were there together, moved together, played together. And all that was in a lovely light, quiet, very pleasant indeed..."
[The Mind of the Cells p.168]
Ponders Satprem:
"who are these "living people" strolling about and socialising with the "daed"?....We have hardly heard any living person describe his physical wanderings with "dead people". Does it mean that, without our knowledge, a part of our being already communicates with that world...,where laws are not the same, where "death" is not the same, but which is nonetheless a physical world according to Mother's experience? Could it be that our body knows better than we do?"
And indeed,
"Could there be a place in physical, material consciousness - let's say the next earthly consciousness - where life and death change in nature? That would really mean a new state on earth: not life as we know it nor death as we know it."
[Satprem, The Mind of the Cells, p.170] The consensus between the religious (Zoroastrian-Judaeo-Christian) idea of the future Divine world as the overcoming of death, with what is presented here raises the question: did the great founders of these religions, such as Zoroaster and Jesus, glimpse or have an insight into this process, but this knowledge was then distorted by their followers, who tried to make it into a sort of physical immortality of the self-centered ego and a denial of spiritual worlds (e.g. modern fundamentalist Protestantism)?
It seems that this universal self appears as a universal body; and a universal body that has a constant restoring or healing task. Here again we look to the record of the Mother:
"I am conscious of my body, but I don't mean this (Mother touches her body): I am conscious of THE body - it could be anyone's body! I am conscious of these vibrations of disorder, which come most often in the form of suggestions of disorder: a suggestion of hemorrage for example....The battle begins to be fought...between what we can call "the will to hemorrage" and the reaction of the cells of the body....But suddenly, the body is seized with a very strong determination and proclaims an order, an immediately the effect begins to be felt and everything returns gradually to normal. All this happens in the material consciousness. My body ahas all the physical sensations except the (actual) hemorrage....A few days later, I receive a letter from someone, and in the letter is the whole story: the attack, the hemorrhage, and suddenly the being is seized with an overpowering determination and hears the words - the very words uttered HERE. In the end he is cured, saved. In the end he is cured, saved....And so I began to realise that my body is everywhere! You see, it is not just a matter of these cells: they are cells in, who knows how many, perhaps hundreds or thousands of people...It is THE body..."
[quoted in Satprem The Mind of the Cells, pp.51-2] Thus the body actually becomes universal, it develops a sort of cantagion with all other bodies. Explains Mirra:
"I am inundated with things coming from outside! And what a mixture! From all sides, all people, and not only here: from far, far away on earth, and sometimes far back in time...in the past, things coming from the past to be set straight....It's a constant labour....As though ne were perpetually coming down with a new disease and had to find a cure for it...."
[Satprem, p.53]
page by M.Alan Kazlev page uploaded 21 June 1998, last modified 6 July 2004 Kheper Home Sri Aurobindo and the Mother Home