The Harmonisation of Opposites
The sources describe a profound “solution” to the inherent contradictions experienced in human thought and action, particularly addressing the limitations of exclusive beliefs and ineffective eclecticism. This solution is presented as a movement towards a higher consciousness that embraces and harmonises seemingly opposite truths.1
The Problem: Exclusive Faiths vs. Eclectic Muddle
The problem is framed as a constant contradiction between two errors.2
- Exclusivism of Influence: This is characterised as an error of “shrinking” and “limitation,” similar to all “exclusive faiths” when practised on the mental level.3 Such faiths insist that their truth is the sole truth, rejecting others as inferior or false.4 Sri Aurobindo notes that “intellectual dogma and cult-egoism stand in the way” of embracing all “God-visions”.5 This narrowness can reduce philosophy to sterile disputes and infect religion with dogmatism and intolerance.6 It often leads to conflict and the suppression or destruction of differing views.7
- Eclecticism Without Effect or Force: This error involves making a “sort of muddle with everything, with all ideas”.8 While mentally it “doesn’t matter,” it is “serious” on the level of transformation, implying a lack of effective power or coherent direction.9 This approach accepts many ideas but fails to integrate them into a dynamic, transformative force.10 It might lead to a “patchwork solution” that lacks depth or permanence.11
The Solution: Beyond Mental Contradictions through Higher Consciousness
The “problem has been solved” in a specific state of consciousness, which is “possible in the body’s cells and in the body consciousness, also in the psychic consciousness” and “very, very clearly perceptible and is lived quite spontaneously” in the physical cells. In this state, one “receive[s] only from on high, and you spread it”.14 This indicates a direct, spontaneous, and transformative reception of truth from a higher source.
This solution transcends the limitations of the mind, which is described as a “creator of differential contradictions”.15 In the “supramental consciousness,” these problems do not arise because the “way of experience of the mental Ignorance is abolished,” and the basis of all things is an “indefeasible unity”16 In this state, whatever is expressed cannot diminish or contradict this essential unity.17 The supramental consciousness does not raise issues like the incompatibility between transcendent and cosmic states, or between the Personal and Impersonal, or the One and the Many.
Key aspects of this transformative synthesis include:
- Acceptance of All Viewpoints as Aspects of a Single Truth: Instead of rigidly affirming one idea as the sole truth, true synthesis recognizes that “all sincere human aspirations are acceptable, whatever diversity or even apparent contradiction there may be in their forms”.18 The “sense of the ‘superiority of intelligence’ fell away completely” when observing how even the most primitive beliefs express a true aspiration.19 All philosophical theories, religious beliefs, and ideas, even the most contradictory, appear “marvellously true and quite indispensable” when viewed from a higher “gnostic” state of consciousness.20 Every idea contains “a little of the truth or one aspect of the truth,” but “no idea is absolutely true in itself”.21 This is because “Truth is an infinitely complex reality”.22
- A “Conscious Light” that Organises and Unifies: This higher consciousness does not merely accept all ideas on the same plane, which would lead to muddle. Instead, it “raises them up towards … something that’s no longer a thought, no longer a mentally formulated thing, but a light, a conscious light that organises and unifies”.23 This light reveals the “truth behind all opinions, the knowledge concealed within the error”.24 It is a “higher understanding” that replaces disapprobation.25
- Unity in Diversity: The truth is “not in separation nor in uniformity” but in “unity manifesting through diversity”.26 The perfection of integral Yoga comes when each person can follow their “own path of Yoga,” expressing their nature’s “free self-adaptation in its relations with the Supreme”.27 This means that while each individual’s path or expression may differ, it is still part of the same underlying truth.28 The integral knowledge of Brahman is a consciousness that possesses both the One and the Many together, and “the exclusive pursuit of either closes the vision to one side of the truth of the omnipresent Reality”.29
- Reconciliation of Opposites: In the higher consciousness, “all these things are no longer contradictory or exclusive. They all become complementary”.30 For example, the apparent opposition between suffering and Ananda (bliss) resolves into a “totality containing all, but instead of containing all as elements confronting one another, it is a harmony of all, an equilibrium of all”.31 Even what we call “evil” has its “indispensable place in the whole” and will not be felt as evil when conscious of the Unity.32 This involves accepting things as part of oneself and “offering them up” to the light, rather than suppressing or rejecting them.33 This allows for the “fusion, the identification of the two” seemingly opposite states, like the fragility and eternity of form, which constitutes the true consciousness and supreme Power.34
- Transcendence of Mental Logic: The mind’s logic, which insists on clear distinctions and mutually exclusive propositions, cannot grasp this higher truth.35 The Divine, being Absolute, is not subject to logic.36 The “logic of the Infinite” is the very “logic of being itself” where contraries are complementaries and find their interrelation.37 This requires reason to become “plastic enough to look at all sides, all aspects and seek through them for that in which they are one”.38
This “synthesis of the systems” is the aim of the Integral Yoga, which seeks to unify disparate Yogic methods and principles.39 It is not a blind combination or successive practice, but a “central principle common to all” that includes and utilises their particular principles.40 It requires reconciling deliberate knowledge with unquestioning faith, the gentle soul of love with the formidable need of power, and fusing the passivity of transcendent calm with the activity of the divine helper.41
The goal is to move towards a “new expression” that comes from the mixing of diverse elements, like Eastern and Western cultures, which currently create confusion but will eventually lead to a new harmony.42 This requires a “definitive cure of exclusivism” in humanity, advocating for “this AND that, and this too and that too, and everything at the same time”.43 It aims to build a “center where all contraries can be united”.44
The eventual outcome is a transformation of human nature where consciousness becomes integrated and unified, healing the “split, limited and separative existence”.45 This leads to a state where “all contradictions are cancelled or fused into each other in a higher light of seeing and being, in a unified self-knowledge and world-knowledge”.46 In such a “gnostic consciousness,” there is no conflict of good and evil, as all action becomes the “automatic self-expression of that truth”.47 This is not an artificial construct but a “spontaneous dynamism and a harmonised process of the spirit”.48
The ultimate vision is a world where unity, mutuality, and harmony are the inescapable law of collective life, with a richness of diversity in the self-expression of oneness.49 This is the ideal solution for human unity, moving beyond mechanical arrangements and towards a “true psychological unity” based on a “free grouping and not that of some abstract or practical rule”.50 Such a transformation would mean an evolution from a basis of Ignorance to a basis of Knowledge, where pain and falsehood diminish, and life becomes a “harmonious development from stage to stage”.51
- Narendra Gehlaut (India)
Footnotes:
1. This solution transcends the limitations of the mind, which creates contradictions. In the "supramental consciousness," these problems do not arise because the basis of all things is an "indefeasible unity." This state is described as being "possible in the body's cells and in the body consciousness... you receive only from on high, and you spread it."
In the mind which is a creator of differential contradictions there is supposed to be a perpetual incompatibility between the transcendent and the cosmic states of the Divine.... The supramental consciousness, on the other hand, does not raise these problems, for there the way of experience of the mental Ignorance is abolished and the basis of all things is an indefeasible unity—whatever expression is there cannot diminish or contradict this unity. (Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II: Bhakti Yoga and Vaishnavism)
So it's the solution to these two errors that constantly contradict each other: the error of shrinking, of an exclusivism of influence (which, when practised on the mental level, becomes a limitation, a smallness, like all exclusive faiths); or else eclecticism without effect or force, which makes a sort of muddle with everything, with all ideas (mentally it doesn't matter, but on the level of the transformation, it's serious). So for these two opposites the problem has been solved. (The Mother, Mother's Agenda: December 6, 1967)
2. So it's the solution to these two errors that constantly contradict each other: the error of shrinking, of an exclusivism of influence (which, when practised on the mental level, becomes a limitation, a smallness, like all exclusive faiths); or else eclecticism without effect or force, which makes a sort of muddle with everything, with all ideas (mentally it doesn't matter, but on the level of the transformation, it's serious). (The Mother, Mother's Agenda: December 6, 1967)
3. So it's the solution to these two errors that constantly contradict each other: the error of shrinking, of an exclusivism of influence (which, when practised on the mental level, becomes a limitation, a smallness, like all exclusive faiths); or else eclecticism without effect or force, which makes a sort of muddle with everything, with all ideas.... (The Mother, Mother's Agenda: December 6, 1967)
4. Exclusive approaches to truth create division and conflict. In our separative consciousness, different religions and philosophies exist as opposites, each claiming to be the truth and taxing others with error. This impulse to refute or destroy others is a hallmark of the Ignorance. In contrast, an overmental intelligence would allow all to live as necessary to the whole. This narrowness also infects religion with dogmatism and intolerance.
The world abounds with scriptures sacred and profane... To these the many minds of a half-ripe knowledge or no knowledge at all attach themselves with exclusiveness and passion and will have it that this or the other book is alone the eternal Word of God and all others are either impostures or at best imperfectly inspired, that this or that philosophy is the last word of the reasoning intellect and other systems are either errors.... (Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita: Our Demand and Need from the Gita)
In our separative consciousness... these things exist as opposites; each claims to be the truth and taxes the others with error and falsehood, each feels impelled to refute or destroy the others in order that itself alone may be the Truth and live.... (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine - I: Supermind, Mind and the Overmind Maya)
5. It is not in the mental consciousness that these things can be harmonised and synthesised. For this it is necessary to rise above and find the idea behind the thought... Instead of taking these religions in their outward forms which are precisely dogmas and intellectual conceptions, if we take them in their spirit, in the principle they represent, there is no difficulty in unifying them. They are simply different aspects of human progress which complete each other perfectly well and should be united with many others yet to form a more total and more complete progress.... (The Mother, Questions and Answers (1957 - 1958): 3 April 1957)
6. The truth of the spirit is a truth of being and consciousness and not a truth of thought: mental ideas can only represent or formulate some facet, some mind-translated principle or power of it or enumerate its aspects, but to know it one has to grow into it and be it; without that growing and being there can be no true spiritual knowledge... religion has been invaded by this misprision and infected with credal dogmatism, bigotry and intolerance. (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine - II: The Evolution of the Spiritual Man)
7. In our separative consciousness, imperfectly visited by glimpses of catholicity and universality, these things exist as opposites; each claims to be the truth and taxes the others with error and falsehood, each feels impelled to refute or destroy the others in order that itself alone may be the Truth and live: at best, each must claim to be superior, admit all others only as inferior truth-expressions. An overmental Intelligence would refuse to entertain this conception or this drift to exclusiveness for a moment; it would allow all to live as necessary to the whole or put each in its place in the whole or assign to each its field of realisation or of endeavour. (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine - I: Supermind, Mind and the Overmind Maya)
8. ...eclecticism without effect or force, which makes a sort of muddle with everything, with all ideas (mentally it doesn't matter, but on the level of the transformation, it's serious). (The Mother, Mother's Agenda: December 6, 1967)
9. So it's the solution to these two errors that constantly contradict each other... eclecticism without effect or force, which makes a sort of muddle with everything, with all ideas (mentally it doesn't matter, but on the level of the transformation, it's serious). (The Mother, Mother's Agenda: December 6, 1967)
10. True synthesis reconciles and unifies, avoiding both sectarian exclusion and a confusing muddle. The language of the Gita reflects a "wide, undulating, encircling movement of ideas which is the manifestation of a vast synthetic mind and a rich synthetic experience." In contrast, a simple eclecticism can lead to a "muddle of everything," which lacks transformative force. A true synthesis requires finding a central principle to unite disparate schools of thought, which is difficult as they are often confirmed in "mutual opposition."
The language of the Gita, the structure of thought, the combination and balancing of ideas belong neither to the temper of a sectarian teacher nor to the spirit of a rigorous analytical dialectics cutting off one angle of the truth to exclude all the others; but rather there is a wide, undulating, encircling movement of ideas which is the manifestation of a vast synthetic mind and a rich synthetic experience. (Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita: Our Demand and Need from the Gita)
By the very nature of the principal Yogic schools, each covering in its operations a part of the complex human integer and attempting to bring out its highest possibilities, it will appear that a synthesis of all of them largely conceived and applied might well result in an integral Yoga. But they are so disparate in their tendencies, so highly specialised and elaborated in their forms, so long confirmed in the mutual opposition of their ideas and methods that we do not easily find how we can arrive at their right union. (Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Synthesis of the Systems)
11. The human mind often reconciles opposing ideas through a "patchwork and compromise" rather than a true harmony. Such attempts are described as a "patchwork solution" that lacks permanence because they fail to address the underlying consciousness.
Mankind thinks naturally in extremes or else reconciles by a patchwork and compromise... Oftenest it makes an incongruous patchwork rather than a harmony. The human mind is strong and swift in analysis; it synthesises with labour and imperfectly and does not feel at home in its syntheses. (Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga: Conservation and Progress)
All human history has been a question of change of consciousness, and Huxley says that the change can come only by spirituality. Hitherto people have worked on the principle of opposition and indifference. That can only make a patchwork solution. (Sri Aurobindo, from a conversation on 26 May 1940, in Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo)
12. Both exclusive faith and unforced eclecticism represent imbalances. A divorce between reason and faith impoverishes human life, leading to a "negative and destructive critical spirit" on one side, and a sentimental faith "founded on dreams" on the other. True spiritual knowledge requires a balance that transcends credal dogmatism and intolerance.
The peculiar character of our age is the divorce that has been pronounced between reason and faith, the logical mind and the intuitive heart... their divorce has created exaggerated tendencies which impoverish human life by their mutual exclusiveness, on the one side a negative and destructive critical spirit, on the other an imaginative sentiment which opposes pure instinct and a faith founded on dreams to the sterile fanaticism of the intellect. (Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga: The Needed Synthesis)
13. The human intellect is naturally driven to analysis and division, making it clumsy when attempting to combine and harmonise different ideas. It tends to create "an incongruous patchwork rather than a harmony." When faced with fundamental principles like Spirit and Matter, the mind goes to the two extremes before it can return fruitfully to the whole.
The intellect is driven, having before it this multiplicity of elemental principles, to seek unity by reducing all ruthlessly to the terms of one... It must, therefore, go to the two extremes before it can return fruitfully upon the whole. (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine - I: The Two Negations: The Materialist Denial)
The human mind is strong and swift in analysis; it synthesises with labour and imperfectly and does not feel at home in its syntheses. It divides, opposes and, placed between the oppositions it creates, becomes an eager partisan of one side or another.... (Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga: Conservation and Progress)
14. The state I've just described is possible in the body's cells and in the body consciousness, also in the psychic consciousness. Physically, in the body's cells, it's very, very clearly perceptible and is lived quite spontaneously: you receive only from on high, and you spread it. (The Mother, Mother's Agenda: December 6, 1967)
15. In the mind which is a creator of differential contradictions there is supposed to be a perpetual incompatibility between the transcendent and the cosmic states of the Divine—as also between the Personal and Impersonal, the One and the Many. (Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II: Bhakti Yoga and Vaishnavism)
16. The supramental consciousness, on the other hand, does not raise these problems, for there the way of experience of the mental Ignorance is abolished and the basis of all things is an indefeasible unity—whatever expression is there cannot diminish or contradict this unity (which is essential and not numerical) but lives in it and by it, never losing the hold on the supracosmic Reality which it expresses. (Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II: Bhakti Yoga and Vaishnavism)
17. The supramental consciousness... does not raise these problems, for there the way of experience of the mental Ignorance is abolished and the basis of all things is an indefeasible unity—whatever expression is there cannot diminish or contradict this unity... (Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II: Bhakti Yoga and Vaishnavism)
18. To the Divine Vision, all sincere human aspirations are acceptable, whatever diversity or even apparent contradiction there may be in their forms. (The Mother, On Thoughts and Aphorisms: Aphorism - 473)
19. What's odd, too, is that this conviction, this certitude is necessarily expressed in altogether different actions according to the person: it's the SAME THING taking on different colorations in the aspiration of different consciousnesses... All those conceptions came before me one after another, from the seemingly most primitive and most ignorant to the most scientific—and they were all (smiling) on the same plane of incomprehension... but ALL had the same RIGHT to express the true aspiration that was behind. And it was miraculous! ... And then the sense of the "superiority of intelligence" fell away completely, instantly. (The Mother, Mother's Agenda: October 10, 1964)
20. From a higher, "gnostic" state of consciousness, one can see all theories, beliefs, and ideas simultaneously—even contradictory ones like Buddhist and Vedantic philosophies—and perceive how each is "marvellously true and quite indispensable." In this state, one is free from the mental habit of choosing one preferred idea and building a "fortress" around it, because one understands that the mind is incapable of resolving ultimate questions and that all its constructions are limited.
There is a state of consciousness which may be called "gnostic", in which you are able to see at the same time all the theories, all the beliefs, all the ideas men have expressed in their highest consciousness... and in that state, not only do you put each thing in its place, but everything appears to you marvellously true and quite indispensable in order to be able to understand anything at all about anything whatsoever. (The Mother, Questions and Answers (1950 - 1951): 26 February 1951)
21. For sectarianism becomes impossible when one knows that any formulated thought is only one way of saying something which eludes all expression. Every idea contains a little of the truth or one aspect of the truth. But no idea is absolutely true in itself. (The Mother, On Education: The Four Austerities and the Four Liberations)
22. Truth is an infinitely complex reality and he has the best chance of arriving nearest to it who most recognises but is not daunted by its infinite complexity. We must look at the whole thought-tangle, fact, emotion, idea, truth beyond idea, conclusion, contradiction, modification, ideal, practice, possibility, impossibility... and keeping the soul calm and the eye clear in this mighty flux and gurge of the world, seek everywhere for some word of harmony... (Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine and Human: Philosophy)
23. ...an acceptance of all thoughts, all formulae, raising them up towards ... something that's no longer a thought, no longer a mentally formulated thing, but a light, a conscious light that organises and unifies. But if you take them all on the same plane ... You can accept everything, but everything as one viewpoint—one among innumerable viewpoints on "something" that cannot be expressed in words, because as soon as you put words on it, it becomes a formula, and the formula takes the power away. (The Mother, Mother's Agenda: December 6, 1967)
24. The positive equality will accept all three of them to start with as movements of a self-manifestation which evolves out of ignorance through the partial or distorted knowledge which is the cause of error to true knowledge... it will accept the tangled skein of truth and error, but attach itself to no opinion, rather seeking for the element of truth behind all opinions, the knowledge concealed within the error,—for all error is a disfiguration of some misunderstood fragments of truth and draws its vitality from that and not from its misapprehension.... (Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - II: The Way of Equality)
25. ...the resistance is diminished in the proportion as we can diminish in us our sense of disapprobation; if we can replace this sense of disapprobation by a higher understanding, then we succeed. It is much more easy. (The Mother, Notes on the Way: 13 December 1969)
26. The truth is neither in separation nor in uniformity. The truth is in unity manifesting through diversity. (The Mother, Words of the Mother - II: Truth Is above Mind)
27. The perfection of the integral Yoga will come when each man is able to follow his own path of Yoga, pursuing the development of his own nature in its upsurging towards that which transcends the nature. For freedom is the final law and the last consummation. (Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids)
28. The higher consciousness recognizes that the same essential truth can manifest in different ways according to the person. All spiritual theories and even primitive beliefs can be seen as having an equal right to express the same underlying aspiration. The perfection of Yoga is achieved not through a uniform path, but when each individual can freely follow their own nature's development towards the Supreme.
...it's the SAME THING taking on different colorations in the aspiration of different consciousnesses... ALL had the same RIGHT to express the true aspiration that was behind. (The Mother, Mother's Agenda: October 10, 1964)
...the perfection of the integral Yoga will come when each man is able to follow his own path of Yoga, pursuing the development of his own nature in its upsurging towards that which transcends the nature. For freedom is the final law and the last consummation. (Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Four Aids)
29. The integral knowledge of Brahman is a consciousness in possession of both together, and the exclusive pursuit of either closes the vision to one side of the truth of the omnipresent Reality. The possession of the Being who is beyond all becomings, brings to us freedom from the bonds of attachment and ignorance in the cosmic existence and brings by that freedom a free possession of the Becoming and of the cosmic existence. (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine - II: Reality and the Integral Knowledge)
30. In the supramental consciousness all these things are no longer contradictory or exclusive. They all become complementary. It is only the mental form which divides. What this mental form represents should be united to what all the other mental forms represent in order to make a harmonious whole. (The Mother, Questions and Answers (1957 - 1958): 3 April 1957)
31. The true state—which it seems impossible to formulate in words for the moment, but which was lived and felt—is a totality containing all, but instead of containing all as elements confronting one another, it is a harmony of all, an equilibrium of all. (The Mother, Notes on the Way: 16 March 1968)
32. And evil, what we call evil, has its indispensable place in the whole. It will not be felt as evil the moment one becomes conscious of That—necessarily. (The Mother, Notes on the Way: 19 November 1969)
33. Instead of driving it underground, it is to be offered. It is to place the thing, the movement itself, to project it into the light.... The first thing—the very first thing to realise is that it is the weakness of our consciousness that makes this division and that there is a Consciousness... in which what we call "evil" is as much necessary as what we call "good", and that if we can project our sensation—or our activity or our perception—into that Light, that will bring the cure. (The Mother, Notes on the Way: 13 December 1969)
34. So if you translate it into ordinary words: the extreme fragility (more than fragility) of the form, and the eternity of the form. And the Truth is not just the union, but the fusion, the identification of the two. ...It's the union of the two states that constitutes the true consciousness; the union of the two ("union" still implies division), the identification of the two states is what constitutes the true consciousness. Then you get the sensation that it's this consciousness which is the supreme Power. (The Mother, Mother's Agenda: March 16, 1968)
35. The finite reason, based on a law of contradictions, cannot grasp the nature of the Infinite. The Isha Upanishad, for example, repeatedly tramples on this law, finding harmony in opposites: "the oneness of the universe in motion and the immobile Purusha, enjoyment of all by renunciation of all, eternal liberation by full action...." The mind, by its habit of thinking in oppositions, creates an unbridgeable gulf between the Absolute and the relative, leading to an intellectual impasse. The supramental reason, however, sees these contraries as interrelated expressions of one reality.
In Western philosophy there is a law called the law of contradiction, according to which opposites mutually exclude each other... The Seer-Rishi of the Upanishad at each step tramples on that law and in each sloka announces its invalidity; he finds in the secret heart of the opposites the place for the reconciliation and harmony of their contradiction. (Sri Aurobindo, Writings in Bengali and Sanskrit: The Isha Upanishad-II)
We readily go on, led by the mind's habit of oppositions, of thinking by distinctions and pairs of contraries... Our own existence and the existence of the universe become not only a mystery, but logically inconceivable... by attempting to arrive at an explanation by means of intellectual reasoning, we have only befogged ourselves by the delusion of our own uncompromising logic. (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine - I: The Eternal and the Individual)
36. Parabrahman being Absolute is not subject to logic, for logic applies only to the determinate. We talk confusion if we say that the Absolute cannot manifest the determinate & therefore the universe is false or non-existent. The very nature of the Absolute is that we do not know what it is or is not, what it can do or cannot do; we have no reason to suppose that there is anything it cannot do or that its Absoluteness is limited by any kind of impotency. (Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine and Human: Parabrahman, Mukti & Human Thought-Systems)
37. The logic of infinite Existence is other than our intellectual logic. It reconciles in its great primal facts of being what to our mental view, concerned as it is with words and ideas derived from secondary facts, are irreconcilable contraries. What our mind sees as contraries may be to the infinite consciousness not contraries but complementaries. To understand truly the world-process of the Infinite... the consciousness must pass beyond this finite reason... to a larger reason and spiritual sense in touch with the consciousness of the Infinite and responsive to the logic of the Infinite which is the very logic of being itself and arises inevitably from its self-operation of its own realities.... (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine - I: Reality and the Cosmic Illusion)
38. It is not indeed possible, so long as we are compelled to use reason as our main support, for it to abdicate altogether in favour of an undeveloped or half-organised intuition; but it is imperative on us in a consideration of the Infinite and its being and action to enforce on our reason an utmost plasticity and open it to an awareness of the larger states and possibilities of that which we are striving to consider. It will not do to apply our limited and limiting conclusions to That which is illimitable... The reason must become plastic enough to look at all sides, all aspects and seek through them for that in which they are one. (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine - I: Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti)
39. The Integral Yoga aims at a synthesis of all Yogic schools, which is difficult because they are "so disparate in their tendencies... so long confirmed in the mutual opposition of their ideas and methods." A true synthesis is not an "undiscriminating combination in block," which would be a confusion, but the discovery of a "central principle common to all" and a "central dynamic force." It requires a profound harmonization of inner opposites, such as knowledge and faith, love and power, and passivity and activity.
By the very nature of the principal Yogic schools... it will appear that a synthesis of all of them largely conceived and applied might well result in an integral Yoga. But they are so disparate in their tendencies... that we do not easily find how we can arrive at their right union. (Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Synthesis of the Systems)
He has to harmonise deliberate knowledge with unquestioning faith; he must conciliate the gentle soul of love with the formidable need of power; the passivity of the soul that lives content in transcendent calm has to be fused with the activity of the divine helper and the divine warrior. (Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: Self-Consecration)
40. The synthesis we propose cannot, then, be arrived at either by combination in mass or by successive practice. It must therefore be effected by neglecting the forms and outsides of the Yogic disciplines and seizing rather on some central principle common to all which will include and utilise in the right place and proportion their particular principles, and on some central dynamic force which is the common secret of their divergent methods and capable therefore of organising a natural selection and combination of their varied energies and different utilities. (Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Synthesis of the Systems)
41. Nor is the seeker of the integral fulfilment permitted to solve too arbitrarily even the conflict of his own inner members. He has to harmonise deliberate knowledge with unquestioning faith; he must conciliate the gentle soul of love with the formidable need of power; the passivity of the soul that lives content in transcendent calm has to be fused with the activity of the divine helper and the divine warrior. (Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga - I: Self-Consecration)
42. The intermixing of different cultures, such as East and West, initially creates confusion but will eventually lead to a "new expression." This reconciliation is a key aspect of the spiritual path, where the ascent of the soul to the Spirit is complemented by the descent of the Spirit into the world, allowing Spirit to embrace Matter.
For the moment this creates a confusion, a sort of pot-pourri. But a new expression will come out of it—it is not so far from its realisation. People cannot intermix, as men today are intermixing, without its producing a reciprocal effect. (The Mother, Questions and Answers (1953): 28 October 1953)
East and West could be reconciled in the pursuit of the highest and largest ideal, Spirit embrace Matter and Matter find its own true reality and the hidden Reality in all things in the Spirit. (Sri Aurobindo, Autobiographical Notes and Other Writings of Historical Interest: A Message to America)
43. The step forward humanity must take IMMEDIATELY is a definitive cure of exclusivism. That's what is, in action, not only the symbol but also the effect of division and separation. They all say, "This and not that"—no, this AND that, and this too and that too, and everything at the same time. To be supple enough and wide enough for everything to be together. (The Mother, Mother's Agenda: January 3, 1970)
44. Now for me, things are no longer exclusive, not at all. I very clearly see the possibility of using the most opposite tendencies AT THE SAME TIME... with some slight deftness, that's all. It's not exclusive, I don't say, "Ah, no, not this!" No, no, no: everything, all of it together. That's what I want, to succeed in creating a place where all contraries can be united. (The Mother, Mother's Agenda: December 31, 1969)
45. But since the root of the difficulty is a split, limited and separative existence, this change must consist in an integration, a healing of the divided consciousness of our being, and since that division is complex and many-sided, no partial change on one side of the being can be passed off as a sufficient substitute for the integral transformation. (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine - I: The Origin and Remedy of Falsehood, Error, Wrong and Evil)
46. The gnostic consciousness is a consciousness in which all contradictions are cancelled or fused into each other in a higher light of seeing and being, in a unified self-knowledge and world-knowledge. (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine - II: The Divine Life)
47. For liberation signifies an emergence into the true spiritual nature of being where all action is the automatic self expression of that truth and there can be nothing else. In the imperfection and conflict of our members there is an effort to arrive at a right standard of conduct and to observe it; that is ethics, virtue... to do otherwise is sin... But where all is self-determined by truth of consciousness and truth of being, there can be no standard, no struggle to observe it, no virtue or merit, no sin or demerit of the nature. (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine - II: The Gnostic Being)
48. A transformation of human nature can only be achieved when the substance of the being is so steeped in the spiritual principle that all its movements are a spontaneous dynamism and a harmonised process of the spirit. (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine - II: The Ascent towards Supermind)
49. Unity is the basis of the gnostic consciousness, mutuality the natural result of its direct awareness of oneness in diversity, harmony the inevitable power of the working of its force. Unity, mutuality and harmony must therefore be the inescapable law of a common or collective gnostic life. (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine - II: The Divine Life)
50. A true and lasting human unity cannot be based on a temporary or artificial political arrangement, but must be founded on a "true psychological unity." This requires a "free grouping" of peoples, based on natural affinities and sentiments rather than on abstract, rational, or convenient systems imposed from without.
...the true reality is in this order of Nature the psychological, since the mere physical fact of political and administrative union may be nothing more than a temporary and artificial creation destined to collapse irretrievably as soon as its immediate usefulness is over.... (Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle: The Creation of the Heterogeneous Nation)
...the basic principle adopted must be a free grouping and not that of some abstract or practical rule or principle of historic tradition or actual status imposed upon the nations. (Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle: The Ideal Solution - A Free Grouping of Mankind)
51. The descent of a higher, supramental principle would not necessarily abolish the existing creation in ignorance, but would establish a new order of consciousness. It would open a way for humanity to evolve more surely from Ignorance towards Light. The creation in Ignorance would not be abolished, but would "begin to lose much of its elements of pain and falsehood and would be more a progression from lesser to higher Truth, from a lesser to a higher harmony... than the reign of chaos and struggle, of darkness and error that we now perceive."
The liberation from this pull of the Inconscience and a secured basis for a continuous divine or gnostic evolution would only be achieved by a descent of the Supermind into the terrestrial formula, bringing into it the supreme law and light and dynamis of the spirit and penetrating with it and transforming the inconscience of the material basis. (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine - II: The Ascent towards Supermind)
It is not that the creation in the Ignorance would be altogether abolished, but it would begin to lose much of its elements of pain and falsehood and would be more a progression from lesser to higher Truth, from a lesser to a higher harmony, from a lesser to a higher Light, than the reign of chaos and struggle, of darkness and error that we now perceive. (Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I: Spiritual Evolution and the Supramental)
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