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The Transcendent Divine, the Cosmic or Universal Plane of Consciousness and Material Existence · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  The Seer of the Titeria Upanishad identified various
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  planes of ever more subtle and powerful consciousness, with the
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  most subtle and powerful being the ultimate causative agent of
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  the denser and lower formations of matter, life, and mind.
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  If we look at the experience of the Vedic Seers, we find that
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  there are three basic terms that define stages of conscious
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  awareness. There is the lower, denser level
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  consisting of matter, life, mind.
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  There is another level that is the knowledge plane of
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  consciousness. And then there is the plane of
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  Satchitananda, Pure existence, Consciousness, BLISS, which
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  transcends the manifested universe.
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  The Knowledge level acts as an intermediary between the
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  Transcendent level and the planes of material existence.
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  Sri Aurobindo calls this level the Supramento Level, that is
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  the level beyond the action of mind.
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  This level holds the awareness of the Transcendent and the
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  ultimate will of the creative power in the universe, while
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  effectively implementing in detail the relationships and
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  forms needed to carry out that will in the external world.
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  In that sense, the knowledge level can be analogized as a
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  type of prism that receives the pure white light and breaks it
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  down into all the colors of the rainbow.
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  This brings us to the definition of the three great terms of the
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  Divine Reality, the Transcendent, the Cosmic or
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  Universal, and the Material Existence.
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  The material existence is created and caused by the action
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  of the Cosmic or Universal under the impulsion of the intention
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  of the divine will that stems from the transcendent
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  shriorobindo notes quote The cosmic divine is what is
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  concerned with the actual working out of things under the
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  present circumstances. It is the will of that cosmic
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  Divine which is manifested in each circumstance, each movement
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  of this world. The cosmic will is not to our
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  ordinary consciousness something that acts as an independent
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  power, doing whatever it chooses.
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  It works through all these beings, through the forces at
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  play in the world, and the law of these forces and their
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  results. It is only when we open
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  ourselves and get out of the ordinary consciousness that we
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  can feel it intervening as an independent power and overriding
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  the ordinary play of the forces. Then too we can see that even in
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  the play of the forces and in spite of their distortions, the
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  cosmic will is working towards the eventual realization of the
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  will of the transcendent Divine end.
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  Quote Reference Sri Auro Bindo and the Mother, The Hidden
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  Forces of Life, Chapter One, Life Through the Eyes of the
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  Yogin, page 25.