The Separate Ego-Consciousness and the Universal Divine Consciousness

0:02 The concept of Maya is frequently described as the world being an illusion that mystifies our senses and our minds such that we take it for real when it is not the truth of existence. We are then asked to cut through the illusion to find the actual reality, the Absolute, the consciousness that is coincident with all existence and which is not bound by any of the forms taken by this external illusory reality. The Mayavadins have indeed captured A partial truth of existence. The reality of the creation is not to be denied, but our perception of it and our interpretation of its meaning constitute the real illusion. In the 4th chapter of the Life Divine, Sri Arobinda works out the harmonizing synthesis between those who hold the world as real and spiritual endeavor to be illusory and those who hold the world as illusory and the spiritual endeavor is real. He defines this as reality, omnipresent. The entire Universal Creation is a manifestation of the Divine and its reality is based in the reality of the Divine Existence. If we look at our normal standpoint, we are rooted in the ego and we naturally experience the ego consciousness as a separate independent, self

1:36 standing reality facing the world and other independent actors in the world as being able to make free and independent choices and either harmonize or conflict with others. The alternative viewpoint is one that treats the individual as a Nexus or point of expression in the universal consciousness. An example may help us grasp this concept. We see the vast ocean before us. Someone captures some sea water in a container. The water in the ocean and the water in the container are the same, the difference between them being simply that some of that water is now within the container.

2:20 Now if we conceive of the container as a permeable membrane that allows impacts, motion, heat, cooling, salinity, etcetera from the wider ocean to affect the contained water, and similarly the water inside to migrate out under various conditions, we can get some sense of how the universal consciousness both cordons itself off into these separate standpoints and how it at the same time manifests its intention through them. Sri Aurobindo writes quote What is this divine supreme will and how can it be recognized by our by our deluded instruments and our blind prisoned intelligence.

3:07 Ordinarily we conceive of ourselves as a separate eye in the universe that governs a separate body, and mental and moral nature chooses in full liberty its own self determined actions, and is independent and therefore sole master of its works and responsible. It is not easy for the ordinary mind, the mind that is not thought nor looked deeply into its own constitution and constituents. It is difficult even for minds that have thought but have no spiritual vision and experience to imagine how there can be anything else in US truer, deeper and more powerful than this apparent I and its empire. But the very first step towards self knowledge, as towards the true knowledge of phenomena, is to get behind the apparent truth of things and find the real but masked essential and dynamic truth which their appearances cover. This ego or I is not a lasting truth, much less our essential part.

4:17 It is only a formation of nature, a mental form of thought, centralization in the perceiving and discriminating mind, a vital form of the centralization of feeling and sensation in our parts of life, a form of physical conscious reception, centralizing substance and function of substance in our bodies. All that we internally are is not ego, but consciousness, soul, or spirit. All that we externally and superficially are and do is not ego but nature. An executive cosmic force shapes us and dictates through our temperament and environment and mentality, so shaped through our individualized formulation of the cosmic energies, our actions and their results.

5:09 Truly we do not think, will, or act. But thought occurs in US, will occurs in US, impulse and act occur in us. Our ego sense gathers around itself, refers to itself, all this flow of natural activities. It is cosmic force. It is nature that forms the thought, imposes the will, imparts the impulse. Our body, mind and ego are a wave of that sea of force in action and do not govern it, but by it are governed and directed. The Sadiq in his progress towards truth and self knowledge, must come to a point where the soul opens its eyes of vision and recognizes this truth of ego and this truth of works.

6:02 He gives up the idea of a mental vital physical eye that acts or governs action. He recognizes that Prakriti force of cosmic nature following her fixed modes is in him and all things and creatures, the one and only worker. End Quote Reference Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Chapter One, Life Through the Eyes of the Yogin, pages 23 to 24.