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Consciousness as Freedom CONSCIOUSNESS is liberty, unconsciousness is slavery. When you are unconscious
you are a prey to all kinds of forces and beings outside yourself and over
which you have no control. You are a plaything in the hands of any power or
influence that seeks to possess you and when you are in such a state it is the
undesirable powers that seek and secure hospitality in you. It is only when you
become conscious that you begin to react to the outside forces that try to
control you or utilise you. In the lower creation it is always a play of
divergent forces and the individual being is only a field, a passive field for
the play of cosmic or collective forces. It is in man, with the awakening of an
individual consciousness in him, that a movement of self-assertion, of willed
reaction has started in nature, that is to say, one is no more content with
playing the role of a slave executing helplessly what is demanded of him by an
external agent but is now making his own terms and propositions. That is how
man is man because he is creating his own self and his own environment. Consciousness, however, is not mere
consciousness, that is to say, awareness; it is also power, power for
organisation and execution. It is unconsciousness that is or invariably leads
to disorderliness, disorganisation and confusion. It is the light of consciousness
that brings order out of chaos, gives an organised direction to forces moving
at random and with no purpose. Man has started organising his life since he
acquired the light of consciousness. He has been doing the yoga of the
intelligent will (Gita's buddhi-yoga) since his advent upon earth. But
even in man this force of light, the energy of consciousness is not fully
operative because man is not fully conscious, he is
Page – 198 only partially so. His mind is conscious and
has developed into intelligence (a little strayed into intellectuality); but
there are large domains in him that are wholly unconscious, that is to say,
move in mechanical rounds, a passive slave of external impacts. I am referring
to his vital being and his physical being. Even like the mind these too must
admit into themselves the light of the consciousness in order to free
themselves from the influence of other external forces and attain the sense of
their own truth and self-fulfilment. Indeed each part, even each constituent
element of our being has an individuality of its own, a personal being and
consciousness. And it is because it is not aware of that inner reality, because
it has fallen unconscious, therefore it has entered into this life of bondage
and slavery and mechanical existence. When life becomes conscious, the
life-energy becomes luminous, the vital being gradually gains self-control and
self-direction. Instead of being moved about by irresponsible and irrepressible
desires and impulses it attains a clarity as to what it should desire and what
it should effectuate; and along with that light secures the strength also to
act up to the directions of that light. The body too similarly can be filled with
light and light-energy; instead of being wholly at the mercy of the physical
environment, the natural conditions around or even subject to its own innate or
atavistic suggestions, it can be aware of its true reality, its inner nature,
its higher potentialities. I have spoken of the light in the mind, the
consciousness that has awakened there and has organised its activities as an
autonomous unit. But we must not forget that it is only partially so. The
autonomy is very limited, for a- good part of the human mind is far from being
conscious, there is a part half-conscious and a part almost wholly unconscious.
This hemisphere so to say is under the influence of the vital and the physical
being with their unconscious and ill-organised influence. The true light comes
from elsewhere, the mind in so far as it receives the light becomes conscious
and proportionately autonomous. The light is always the spiritual light, the
consciousness of the spirit which is above and beyond mind. Not only the mind
but the vital too, and the physical too in order to be consciously organised
and free and autonomous
Page – 199 must know how to take in that light beyond the mind and bathe in its
liberating influence. In fact, education means precisely this
instilling of the consciousness into the part that is sought to be educated. Usually
the thing is done in a different way which is wrong, at least an inefficient
way. By education we usually mean exercising, that is teaching some exercises
mostly of memory on some subject in which one seeks education. It is more or
less an exercise of mechanical repetition. Whether it is of the mind or of the
body the procedure is the same. As the muscles of the body are sought to be
strengthened and developed through repetitive exercises, the mental faculties
too are put under a training that consists of similar repetitive exercises. To
store the mind with as many kinds of information as possible, hammer all
ingredients of knowledge into the brain cells-learning by rote as it is termed,
this is what education normally means; but as I said, it is consciousness that
is to be evoked in the mind and it is not done by mere mechanical exercises.
Even the body does not reach its true perfection unless the exercises are
attended with consciousness, awareness, a play of light into the movements of
the body, into the limbs that participate in the play of the exercises.
Naturally the vital does not need any exercise for its development, it is
naturally exercised, much exercised. It has to be not exercised but exorcised, that
is to say, purified and controlled. And that means the introduction of the pure
light of consciousness into it. I have laid stress on consciousness, but consciousness has three facets or steps.
The first is simple consciousness, the next is self-consciousness and the last
supra-consciousness. First you become conscious of a thing, next you become conscious
that you are conscious of the thing, last something else is conscious in and
through your consciousness.
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