Author’s note: This is not a deliberately thought-out essay but a detailed account of a personal experience. I will recount something that actually happened to me when I was studying for my course on The Philosophy of Evolution of Consciousness and continues to spread its wings.

I had just come to the end of a slow, two-week, meditative reading of Sri Aurobindo’s answers on Consciousness, A. S. Dalal’s description of the parts of being and Nolini-da’s detailed essay on the process of creation. Every page and line had stirred me with the joy of discovery; every new idea had urged me to feel and experience; every line had managed to sink deep within; but this block of the course was unlike the others; something strange had happened. The readings and taking in had bypassed the mind, there was no attempt to understand or make sense. It was an easy flowing in and out with alien faculties at work, hidden sensing and strange resonance.

I had never before faced the consciousness matter so squarely. It was always seen in context of something else or through the personal outlook for a personal end; never for its own sake. That consciousness was the fundamental and only reality was a huge revelation. That all our fragmented and disjointed living was actually a varied expression of one single consciousness was a fantastic finding. That every cell and every moment of life and world is but a play and formulation of consciousness in its triple status of truth, existence and bliss was a momentous arrival. It made complete sense like it had never before! The puzzle was being formed so beautifully; piece by piece everything was falling in place! All paradox and contradiction had receded in the understanding of consciousness. And it was a simple understanding, without effort of mind. It came naturally and easily in spite of my limitations. It changed the way I saw the world.

The faint beginnings

As I sat back and gazed out of my window far into the ocean trying to assimilate all this, I became witness to my gaze, to my body, to my thoughts, to the inextricable interconnectedness of these different parts of what I call me, to the expanse and fluidity of the ocean waters, to the thinness of the skies and the sensation of wind on my skin. I stayed a while with this sensing and this aloofness. Slowly all name and form started to pale, all attribute and description began to fade; even solidity melted with ease into something fine and unassuming, something subtle and unsubstantial. For a brief moment I lost the insistence and habit of my sense of I. For a brief instant all separateness was lifted up, all appeared many formulations of one fluid substance, the slightly varied arrangement of one single reality.

Something was being unveiled! Something in me was sensing the is-ness of things, without any other compulsion. It was a strange discovery, almost unreal! All else was still. There was only a gentle quivering of something; It was Consciousness I think; the only reality around me, without name, without form, without quality! It became impossible to perceive anything else.

Suddenly I heard a voice calling me and when I turned to look I didn’t see the person as I would have on any other day; I only felt the gentle impact of another movement of the same consciousness. It was unusual. I was disinterested, unmoved, and barely present to the purpose of the voice. There was a quiet sense of freedom and an easy sense of sameness. When I found that this new perception was receding I did try to hold on to it for it was intensely liberating and even in its unassuming way immensely enjoyable; Then I realized that it only receded inside of me, not outside. It was not lost, it had only shifted. For nothing had changed and yet all was new!

Strange happenings

I saw the subconscious throwing things at me and I accepted it all as part of a game without being too moved; I felt I was in the grand amusement park of consciousness where everything operated mechanically by a secret program. I saw the pulls and pushes of the vital in myself and others as the natural game of consciousness in life. It was almost like living in a fantasy land—the effortless recognition of the play of consciousness, the clear perception of the many modes of consciousness, the many constructions of the One consciousness, the many densities of the same consciousness. Everything was happening in the old way but the effect was starkly different because the perception had changed, the understanding was altered sufficiently and convincingly enough. The impact of external life was softened and the station was shifted. It was incredible! Just like a new Harry Potter adventure!

Then the gap between reality, habit and fantasy became obvious. The swing from inside to outside became apparent. Separateness and Oneness became two sides of the same coin. I felt the power to be able to choose where I want to stand, how I want to perceive, what I want to align with. I felt the compulsions of my body and my emotions, I felt too their true origin and their purpose. The conflict was resolved in my mind, it had yet to become a working reality for the other parts.

I resume writing this essay after 2 weeks. Much has transpired since then, since that intense experience of consciousness. An avalanche of events and doings had swept my days. I was no more immersed in the readings. But something of that experience had continued through all this enormous movement. First I was disappointed for the experience had dissipated. The peak had descended. I thought the magic was over. But soon I realized that nothing was lost, that it had only moved to the next phase, that this was precisely the way in which everything moves—in cycles of ups and downs. It was the dual process of “sublimation and integration” that Nolini da talks about so beautifully! I think I experienced the two key processes of consciousness and creation that characterize the advance. I was overjoyed!

Sublimation and integration

The two weeks of living externally in the thick of action and work had served me the perfect opportunity for the sublimation to integrate and take up more and more of me into its fold. The experience of consciousness had three practical and principal effects on my living. First, I did not feel myself as a separate entity as solidly as I felt before. Second, thinking, feeling and bodily existence were more in harmony, less in conflict. Third, I saw my daily living and work as the playground of something else, as the field of another Power, using me and my life as agents for its work. The most astonishing result of it was that my defenses were lowered to a bare minimum; something I had never thought was possible. Someone said something against me and it did not have an effect on me. Well, maybe some tiniest reaction did arise as a reflex but vanished equally fast. My perception of things was altered remarkably. I saw things more as they are and not as I was used to looking at them with my personal preferences. My decision making was faster and more efficient because I was not evaluating or judging or weighing anything. Even the rational process had quickened for it was not bogged down by egoistic choice.

The other unusual thing was that nothing was more or less, better or worse; nothing was appalling and nothing too exciting. I wondered if this was going to stay! Or was I going to be thrown right back into the old way, the old process of a divided living. The swing continued for a while but each time the rise was surer and higher and each time the low point was shorter and lighter. There was no anxiety when the curve was downward and no excitement when it surged up. Even in my own small and limited way there was the distinct recognition of the process of the evolution of consciousness—its rhythm and its pace, its pattern and its direction, its purpose and its method in everything that happened.

The effects of integration

The body felt lighter and less dense, though I weighed the same. Hunger was less insistent and craving was reduced. I could manage with less food and less sleep. I had more energy and I felt a unique and quiet sense of wellness. The situations that usually made me unwell and threw me out of balance didn’t affect me so much any more. It was as if the body had gone on a standby mode, withdrawing from its active and insistent mode into a quiet laissez faire mode, waiting patiently to leap back into its habitual working or perhaps enjoying the gentle takeover of some greater governance.

The emotional being too had withdrawn into some inner cocoon. Exhausted by its own demands and circlings, it lay passive for a while, glad to be resting in the hands of another power. It was a strange experience to be in the midst of quiet emotions, fewer reactions, and joyful constancy! Sometimes there was even an upsurge of an intense and equal love in me, not directed towards anyone or anything but just for its own sake and pouring out on anything that came my way. I wonder if consciousness is also love!

Mind too was feeling the effects of the consciousness experience. Unburdened by the weight of emotional preference, it was free to exercise its own direct sensing, its own intuitive knowing. It became eager to know another Will.

I could feel the understanding of consciousness which began with the course readings was now deepening into sensing and further into being, into knowing and into joy. And finally it was beginning to shape the way I thought, acted, worked, felt and breathed; slept, ate and spoke.

Relationships lost the old demands and expectations. Disagreement did not affect me so much. Even people who didn’t know what I was going through felt the change and responded to it unknowingly.
There was another wonderful process that accompanied the consciousness experience. It was the strange faith that “All problems of existence are essentially problems of harmony.” This sentence from the first chapter of The Life Divine had a huge impact on me. Whenever I was faced with a problem I found myself thinking about this and wondering how it could apply.

Let me share an instance. It was my first breakthrough. Once I had an argument with my servant who was quite a malicious one. (Servants in Bombay are not like the docile ammas in Pondicherry but like tough men from Bihar.) He refused to keep quiet when we were eating. He would continue to engage in trivial talk and amusements even after being told several times. We would have to bear all that noise during our meals. On that particular day I got angry and I told him firmly that he must stop this right away. He replied agitatedly and rashly that his voice was naturally loud and that he couldn’t do anything about it. I became furious and was in a fix as to what to tell him next. Suddenly I remembered the words, “all problems are essentially problems of harmony.” I distanced myself from the scene, went to my room and in solitude struggled to take one moment off to invoke that Harmony that was trying to manifest here in this situation. It was a mighty effort as I was completely in the grip of this clinching emotion of frustration. It was impossible to find even a semblance of harmony or purpose, mind was shut and emotions were enraged. But then something happened in spite of myself. That one moment of sincere call, that tiny instance of sure faith in the certitude of Sri Aurobindo’s statement did something miraculous. Something poured down into me. In a single instant I was inundated by a kind of clear knowing of what my attitude should be and the harmony to be achieved; a distinct feeling of wellness overcame me. I found that the knowing had several components to it:

1. The servant too is made up of the same consciousness and matter that I am made of. There is no essential difference between both of us. He has his problems of nature just as I have mine.
2. Even if he is being nasty and playing a prank he is as helpless as I am in the face of what the nature or the subconscious throws at us.
3. The disturbance in me is a pointer that I am not equal and not living within sufficiently to act from peace and knowledge. There are parts in me that are out of sync with my central and deeper being.
4. With love and understanding of Oneness I will be able to reach out to his highest and appeal to it in silence to come forth and have an effect on his being. Send out a vibration of mutuality and growth to his highest centre of consciousness as after all it is one consciousness formulated differently. And this is not just theory, it works!
5. Use this occasion to include the collectivity in my own sadhana, to take up that which is lower and less illumined along with us as we move on. Not be concerned exclusively with our own growth; to include those around us even if it means that our flight to the heights is delayed a bit.
6. To feel gratitude for those who serve us or give us in any way. To thank the universe for that comfort and act of generosity. Unless this is acknowledged sincerely within ourselves the equation remains disturbed. I must give back to the universe what it bestows upon me in my own capacity and inclination. Even if the guy serves me ill I must at least be grateful that he serves! In this way I enter another law and dynamics. I function from a larger plane, closer to the universal intent.

All this was combined into one knowing and it came in a flash. It was at once knowing and becoming!

I went right back to the kitchen where I had left him babbling in anger to tell him that next time we can close the door of the dining area to cut off the sound. To my utter dismay I found the guy standing quietly in a corner and feeling and looking like he had never before. I told him what I had to and he answered with a quiet yes. He was not bickering as he usually would have, he was not agitated and angry; he was behaving very differently!

So it was about that one instant of calling and seeking that did it! More and more I tried this in every problem, even health problems and every time the answer came in different ways; I was shown the harmony, the reconciliation that was being sought through the various problems…

The first few times it is heart rending to disconnect from the problem and the emotions that have us in their hold, but after a few honest attempts it becomes easier, it becomes a pleasant and rewarding experience.

Suddenly conflict assumes a very noble meaning. Suddenly we no more shrink from the appearance of conflict but confront it with a silent sense of welcome. With a quiet foresight of advance we face the problem with the easy courage of a warrior even if some parts of us are still tormented. And all this because something deep down has begun to love this adventure, love the Maker of this adventure more than anything else in the world!

Sri Aurobindo says,

“When we attain to knowledge or right consciousness, nothing essential in the eternal relation is changed, but only the inview and the outview from the individual centre is profoundly modified and consequently also the spirit and effect of its activity.”
(The Life Divine, p. 37)

So I don’t like it when people say that spirituality is not practical, that it is only for free time and leisure, and that it can’t earn you your living. This is false, I have experienced otherwise!

One more thing is of great interest to me in the effect of spirituality on daily living. When I read in The Life Divine that man’s essential purpose in being illumined is to give the universe the occasion to fulfil God and that only when he extends his own consciousness into the cosmic can he exceed himself, I was in awe! It was then that I took this universe business seriously and gave it a place in my being and thought. The universe or that supreme Intelligence in the world and all its workings, the Divine Mother assumed a new importance and my own individuality shrank from the forefront. That whole obsession with myself, my needs, my likes etc. reduced to a point where I would feel like doing and taking only as much as I really need for a decent living. I would think before launching into anything, “How is it useful to the universe? Will it contribute anything to the universal need? How can I turn something to the benefit of evolution, even a small gesture or a word spoken, is it in consonance with the purpose of the universe, that which I can express and fulfil through the medium of my own individuality?” Then I would feel so free and so unburdened of a lot of unnecessary weight.

In retrospect

The words of our Masters have the power to effectuate this understanding and sensing of consciousness, this transforming action of consciousness. When we read in muted aspiration, in simple surrender then a miracle happens. And I am overjoyed with a tiny glimpse of it! I know there are miracles and miracles, leaps and bigger leaps, perfection and more perfection yet to be fathomed; I know there is one waiting in this very instant. Sometimes I miss it and sometimes I catch it. It’s a fantastic adventure! It is all I can think about. It has consumed me and it continues to beckon!