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Consciousness
as Energy 1 A LIVE wire – through
which an electric current, say of several thousand volts, is passing – looks
quite innocent, motionless, inactive, almost inert. The appearance, needless to
say, is deceptive. Even so the still life of a Yogin. Action does not
consist merely in mechanical motion visible to the eye: intra-atomic movements
that are subtle, invisible, hard to detect even by the most sensitive
instruments, possess a tremendous potency, even to unimaginable degrees.
Likewise in man, the extent of muscular flexions does not give the measure or
potential of his activity. One cannot say that the first-line infantryman who
rushes and charges, shoots, bayonets, kills and is killed is more active and
dynamic than the general who sits quiet behind in a cabin and merely sends out
orders. Vivekananda wandered about the whole of What is
this spiritual or Yogic Energy? Ordinary people, people with a modern mind,
would concede at the most that there are two kinds of activity: (1) real
activity – physical action, work, labour with muscle and nerve, and (2) passive
activity – activity of mind and thought. According to the pragmatic standard
especial, if not entire, importance is given
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first category; the other category, "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought", is held at a discount. The thoughtful
people are philosophers at the most, they are ineffectual angels in this
workaday world of ours. We need upon earth people of sterner stuff, dynamic
people who are not thought-bound, but know how to apply and execute their
ideas, whatever they may be. Lenin was great, not because he had revolutionary
ideas, but because he gave a muscular frame to them. Such people alone are the
pragmatic, dynamic, useful category of humanity. The others are, according to
the more radical leftist view, merely parasitic, and according to a more
generous liberal view, chiefly decorative elements in human society.
Mind-energy can draw dream pictures, beautiful perhaps, but inane; it is only
muscular energy that gives a living and material body – a local habitation and
a name – to what otherwise would be airy nothing. Energy,
however, is not merely either muscular (physical) or cerebral. There are
energies subtler than thought and yet more dynamic than the muscle (or the
electric pile). One such, for example, is vital energy, although orthodox bio-chemists
do not believe in any kind of vitalism that is something more than mere
physico-chemical reaction. Indeed, this is the energy that counts in life; for
it is this that brings about what we call success in the world. A man with push
and go, as it is termed, is nothing but a person with abundant vital energy.
But even of this energy there are gradations. It can be deep, controlled,
organised or it can be hectic, effusive, confused: the latter kind expresses
and spends itself often in mere external, nervous and muscular movements.
Those, however, who are known as great men of action are precisely they who are
endowed with life energy of the first kind. The Yogi –
the Hatha Yogi, the Raja Yogi, the Tantrik – seeks consciously to master this
life energy, to possess and use it as he wills. The Yogi, the true Yogi, aims
at a higher quality, a deeper potentiality of the life energy: it may be called
the Inner Life Energy. This inner life energy is in a line with, is one with
the universal life energy; therefore it is said when one possesses and controls
this power one has command over the universal power. All other energies – visible,
tangible, concretised and canalised – are particular formations and
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mother energy. Even the mo", physical and material energies
– mechanical, electrical, nervous, etc. -are all derivatives
and lesser potentials of this fount and origin. The mastery of the inner vital
energy is the whole secret of what is known as occultism, even magic, black or
white, spell and other allied powers or miracles. The eight siddhis well
known to the Yogis are the natural results of this mastery. With such a mastery
the Yogi controls and guides his own destiny; he can also in the same way
control and guide the destiny of others, even of peoples and humanity at large.
That is the deeper meaning the great phrase of the Gita – lokasamgraha – carries.
Indeed, great souls are precisely they who move with the upward current of
Nature, in and through whom Nature works out vast changes, prepares the steps
of evolution in the world and humanity. But what
again is this universal vital energy? This also is an instrument, not the
ultimate agent. After all, vital energy is blind by itself; it moves
instinctively or intuitively, as Bergson would say; it does not know
consciously beforehand the next step it is going to take. Consciousness then is
the secret. This is "the power behind the throne", it is this to
which the Upanishad refers in its analysis of the ultimate dynamics of things
as the life of Life, pranasva pranah. It is the
aim of all Yoga, spiritual discipline, finally to arrive at this consciousness,
this supreme reality which is behind all existence, which is the source and the
substance of all. It is in this Consciousness that the whole creation is rolled
up and it is from this that it is rolled out. Only there are some paths of
spiritual discipline that prefer and follow the movement of in-rolling and
others that seek the one of out-rolling: the former is the path of nivrtti, the
latter that of pravrtti. Thus
consciousness is not merely a status of being, but also a force of becoming.
All that is to take form and be active, whether in the grossest, the material
mode or in the most subtle, the ideative mode is originally a seed, a stress, a
point of concentration of this consciousness. The Yogi becomes potentially
all-powerful, because he is one with the All-Power, the Mother Consciousness.
The perfect spiritual man not merely dwells with or is close to the Divine (salokya),
he is not merely made in the image of the Divine (sarupya), and
again
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merely unified and one with the Divine (sayujya) but what. is most
marvellous, he has the same nature, that is to say, he has the same powers and
capacities as the Divine (sadharmya). The
dynamic becoming, becoming a power and personality of the omnipotent Divine, is
a secret well known to the Yogis and mystics. Only it has not been worked out
in all its implications, not given the full value and importance rightfully
due to it. The reason is that although the principle was discovered and
admitted, the proper key had not been found that could release and manipulate
the Energy at its highest potential and largest amplitude. Because the major
tendency in the spiritual man till now has been rather to follow the path of nivrtti
than the path of pravrtti, this latter path being more or less
identified with the path of Ignorance. But there is a higher line of pravrtti
which means the manifestation of the Divine, not merely the expression of
the inferior Nature. 2
The force
of consciousness is not simply the force an idea or thought may have. The
distinction between the two is not usually understood. In reality, however,
thought or idea is a form of energy-action in the mind and mind is only one
field or grade – not the most dynamic nor direct or immediate – among many for
the play of consciousness, as I have already said. Mind energy, life energy,
physical or material energy are various forms and stages in the expression of
consciousness energy (Chit-Tapas). The nature and function of consciousness-energy
we may elucidate and understand in another way, by following a different line
of its modus vivendi. Consciousness
has a fourfold potential. The first is the normal consciousness, which is
predominantly mental; it is the sphere comprising movements of which man is
usually and habitually aware. It is what the Upanishad names Jagrat or
jagaritasthana and characterises as bahihprajña: it is
the waking state and has cognition only of external things. In other words, the
consciousness here is wholly objectivised, externalised – “extrovert": it
is also a strongly individualised formation, the
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is hedged in, isolated and contoured by a protective ring, as it were, of a
characteristically separative personality; it is a surface formation, a web
made out of day-to-day sensations and thoughts, perceptions and memories,
impressions and associations. It is a system of outward actions and reactions
against or in the midst of one's actual environment. The second potential is
that of the Inner Consciousness: its characteristic is that the consciousness
here is no longer trenchantly separative and individual, narrowly and rigidly
egoistic. It feels and sees itself as part of or one with the world
consciousness. It looks upon its individuality as only a wave of the universal
movement. It is also sometimes called the subliminal consciousness; for it
plays below or behind the normal surface range of consciousness. It is made up
of the residuary powers of the normal consciousness, the abiding vibrations and
stresses that settle down and remain in the background and are not immediately
required or utilised for life purposes: also it contacts directly energies and
movements that well out of the universal life. The phenomena of clairvoyance
and clairaudience, the knowledge of the past and the future and of other worlds
and persons and beings, certain more dynamic movements such as distant
influence and guidance and controlling without any external means, well known
in all yogic disciplines, are various manifestations of the power of this Inner
Consciousness. But there is not only an outward and an inner consciousness;
there is also a deeper or nether consciousness. This is the great field that
has been and is being explored by modern psychologists. It is called the
subconscious, sometimes also the unconscious: but really it should be named the
inconscient, for it is not altogether devoid of consciousness, but is conscious
in its own way – the consciousness is involved or lost within itself or lies
buried. It comprises those movements and impulsions, inclinations and
dispositions that have no rational basis, on the contrary, have an irrational
basis; they are not acquired or developed by the individual in his normal
course of life experience, they are ingrained, lie imbedded in man's nature and
are native to his original biological and physical make-up. As the human embryo
recapitulates in the womb the whole history of man's animal evolution, even so
the normal man, even the most
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and apparently the farthest from his ancient moorings and sources, enshrines in
his cells, in a miraculously living manner, the memory of vast geological
epochs, the great struggles and convulsions through which earth and its inhabitants
have passed, the basic urges of the crude life force, its hopes, fears,
desires, hungers that constitute the rudimental and aboriginal consciousness,
the atavism that links the man of today not only to his primitive ancestry but
even to the plant world – even perhaps to the mineral world – out of which his
body cells have issued and evolved. Legends and fairy tales, mythologies and
fables are a rationalised pattern and picture of the vibrations and urges that
moved the original consciousness. It was a collective – a racial – and an
aboriginal consciousness. The same lies chromosomic, one can almost say, in the constitution
of the individual man of today. This region of the unconscious (or the
inconscient) is a veritable field of force: it lies at the root of all surface
dynamisms. The surface consciousness, jagrat, is a very small
portion of the whole, it is only the tip of the pyramid or an iceberg, the
major portion lies submerged beyond our normal view. In reflex movements, in
sudden unthinking outbursts, in dreams and day-dreams, this undercurrent is
silhouetted and made visible and recognisable. Even otherwise, they exercise a
profound influence upon all our conscious movements. This underground consciousness
is the repository of the most dark and unenlightened elements that grew and
flourished in the slime of man's original habitat. They are small, ugly,
violent, anti-social, chaotic forces, their names are cruelty, lust, hunger,
blind selfishness. Nowhere else than in this domain can the great Upanishadic
truth find its fullest application – Hunger that is Death. But this
is the seamy side of Nature, there is also a sunny side. If there is a nadir,
there must be a corresponding zenith. In the Vedic image, if man is born of the
Dark Mother, he is also a child of the White Mother (krsna and
sveti). Or again, if Earth is our mother, the Heaven is our father
– dyaur me pita mata prthivi iyam. In other words,
consciousness extends not in depth alone, but in height also – it is vertically
extended, infinite both ways. As there is a subconsciousness or unconsciousness,
so also there is at the other end superconsciousness.
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superconsciousness is the true origin of creation, although the apparent and
objective creation starts with and is based upon Unconsciousness. All norms and
archetypes belong to the superconsciousness; for the sake of material creation
they are thrown down or cast as seed into the Unconscious and in this process
they undergo a change, a deformation and aberration. All the major themes of
dream myths and prehistoric legends which the psychologists claim to have found
imbedded in man's subconscient consciousness are in fact echoes and mirages of
great spiritual – superconscient realities reflected here below. The theme of
the Hero of the Dual Mother (Dark and Fair), of Creation and Sacrifice, these
are, according to Jung, dramatisations of some fundamental movements and urges
in the dark subconscient nature. lung, however, throws a luminous suggestion in
characterising the nature of this vast complex. The general sense, Jung says;
is that of a movement forward, of a difficult journey, of a pull backward and
downward, of yawning abysses that call, .of a light that beckons. It is an
effort, a travail of what lies imbedded and suppressed to come out into the
open, into the normal consciousness and thus release an unhealthy tension,
restore a balance in the individual's system. Modern psychology lays great
stress upon the integration of personality. Most .of the ills that human nature
suffers from, they say, are due to this division or schism in it, a suppressed
subconsciousness and an expressed consciousness seeking to express a negation
of that subconsciousness. Modern psychology teaches that one should dive into
the nether regions and face squarely whatever elements are there, help these to
follow their natural bent to come up and see the light of the day. Only thus
there can be established a unitary movement, an even consistency and an
equilibrium throughout the entire consciousness and being. So far so good. But two things are to be taken note of. First of all, the resolution of the normal conflict in man's consciousness, the integration of his personality, is not wholly practicable within the scope of the present nature and the field of the actual forces at play. That can give only a shadow .of the true resolution and integration. A conscious envisaging of the conflcting forces, a calm survey of the submerged or side-tracked libidos in their true nature, a voluntary acceptance,
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of
these dark elements as a part of normal human nature, does not automatically
make for their sublimation and purification or transformation. The thing is
possible only through another force and on another level, by the intervention
and interfusion precisely of the superconsciousness. And here comes the second
point to note. For it is this superconsciousness towards which all the strife
and struggle of the under-consciousness are turned and directed. The yearning
and urge in the subconsciousness to move forward, to escape outside into the
light does not refer merely to the march towards normal awareness and
consciousness: it has a deeper direction and a higher aim – it seeks that of
which it is an aberration and a deformation, the very origin and source, the
height from which it fell. This
superconsciousness has a special mode of its quintessential energy which is
omnipotent in action, immediate in effectivity. It is pure as the purest
incandescent solar light and embodies the concentrated force of consciousness.
It is the original creative vibration of the absolute or supreme Being. Sri
Aurobindo calls this supreme form of superconscient consciousness-energy, the
Supermind. There are of course other layers and strata of superconsciousness
leading up to the super-mind which are of various potentials and embody
different degrees of spiritual power and consciousness. We have
spoken of the Inner Consciousness. But there is also, we must now point out, an
Inmost Consciousness. As the Superconsciousness is a consciousness-energy in
height, the Inmost Consciousness is a consciousness-energy in depth, the
deepest depth, beyond or behind the Inner Consciousness. If we wish to put it
geometrically, we can say, the vertical section of consciousness represents the
line from the superconsciousness to the subconscious or vice versa; the
horizontal section represents the normal waking state of consciousness; and
there is a transverse section leading from the surface first to the Inner and
finally to the Inmost. This inmost consciousness – the consciousness most
profound and secreted in the cave of the heart, guhahitam gahvarestham,
– is the consciousness of the soul, the Psychic Being, as Sri Aurobindo
calls it: it is the immortal in the mortal. It is, as has often been described,
the nucleus round which is crystallised and organised
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nature of man consisting of his mind and life and body, the centre of dynamic
energy that secretly vivifies them, gradually purifies and transforms them into
higher functions and embodiments of consciousness. As a matter of fact, it is
this inmost consciousness that serves as the link, at least as the most
powerful link, between the higher and lower forms of consciousness, between the
Superconscient and the Subsconscient or Inconscient. It takes up within itself
all the elements of consciousness that the past in its evolutionary career from
the very lowest and basic levels has acquired and elaborated, and by its
inherent pressure and secret gestation delivers what was crude and base and
unformed as the purest luminous noble substance of the perfectly organised
superconscient reality. Indeed, that is the mystic alchemy which the
philosophers experimented in the Middle Ages. In this context, the Inner
Consciousness, we may note, serves as a medium through which the action of the
Inmost (as well as that of the Uppermost) takes place. We can
picture the whole phenomenon in another way and say in the devotional language
of the Mystics that the Inmost Consciousness is the Divine Child, the
Superconscient is the Divine Father and the Inferior Consciousness is the Great
Mother (Magna Mater): the Inner and the Outer Consciousness are the
field of play and the instrument of action as well of this Divine Trinity. Man, we
thus see, is an infinitely composite being. We have referred to the four or
five major chords in him, but each one has again innumerable gradations of
vibration. Man is a bundle or dynamo of energy and this energy is nothing but
the force of consciousness. To different modes or potentials of this energy
different names are given. And what makes the thing still more complex is that
all these elements exist simultaneously and act simultaneously, although in various
degrees and stresses. They act upon each other, and severally and collectively
impress upon the nature and character of the individual being and mould and
direct his physical status and pragmatic life. A man can, however, take consciously
a definite position and status, identify himself with a particular form and
force of consciousness and build his being and life in the truth and rhythm of
that consciousness. Naturally
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and the limitation of that consciousness mark also the limits and limitation of
the disposition he can effect in his life. When it is said that the spiritual
force is not effective on the physical plane in mundane affairs – Buddha, it is
said, for example, has not been able to rid the earth or age, disease
and death (although it was not Buddha's intention to do so, his purpose was to
show a way of escape, of bypassing the ills of life, and in that he wholly
succeeded) – it only means that the right mode or potential of spiritual energy
has not been found; for that matter even the mightiest mundane forces are not
sovereignly effective in mundane affairs, otherwise the Nazi-Force would have
been ruling the world today. Still it
must be remembered that all these apparently diverse layers and degrees of
being or consciousness or energy form essentially one indivisible unity and
identity. What is called the highest and what is called the lowest are not in
reality absolutely disparate and incommensurable entities: everywhere it is the
highest that lies secreted and reigns supreme. The lowest is the highest itself
seen from the reverse side, as it were: the norms and typal truths that obtain
in the superconsciousness are also the very guiding formulas and principles in
the secret heart of the Inconscience too, only they appear externally as
deformations and caricatures of their true reality. But even here we can tap
and release the full force of a superconscient energy. A particle of dead
matter, we know today, is a mass of stilled energy, electrical and radiant in
nature; even so an apparently inconscient entity is a packet of
Superconsciousness in its highest potential of energy. The secret of releasing
this atomic energy of the Spirit is found in the Science of Yoga.
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