1.16 - The Season of Truth

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object:1.16 - The Season of Truth
book class:On the Way to Supermanhood
author class:Satprem
subject class:Integral Yoga
class:chapter

16. The Season of Truth

There still remains the irritating secret of the transition between the body of light and this body of darkness, that body of truth and this mortal body. We have spoken of transfusion or perhaps reabsorption of one into the other, and also of transmutation of one by the other. But these are words that hide our ignorance. How will this husk, as She who continued Sri Aurobindo's work used to call it (and who dared the perilous adventure, the last great saltus of material evolution), be opened, give way to that long-nurtured flower of fire? How will that new material substance the substance of the new world make its appearance, materialize? For it is already there; it will not fall from the sky. It is already radiating for those who have the truth-vision. It has been built, condensed, by the flame of aspiration of a few bodies. It almost seems as if a mere nothing would be enough to bring it out into the open, visible and tangible to all but we do not know what that nothing is, that impalpable veil, that ultimate screen, or what will make it fall. It is nothing, really, scarcely a husk, and behind, throbbing and vibrating, is the new world, so intense, radiant and warm, with such a swift rhythm and vivid light, so much more vivid and true than the earth's present light that one really wonders how living in this old callous, narrow, thick and awkward substance is still possible, and that the entire life as it is does seem like an old dried-up husk, thin and flat and colorless, a sort of caricature of the real life, a two-dimensional image of another material world full of depths and vibrancy, of superimposed and fused meanings, of real life, real joy, real movement. Here, outside, there are only little puppets of being moving about, passing figures in a shadow dance, lit up by something else, cast by something else, which is the life of their shadow, the light of their night, the sacred meaning of their futile little gesture, the real body of their pale silhouette. And yet, it is a material world, absolutely material, not some glorious fiction, not a hallucination with eyes closed, not a vague area of little saints. It is there. It is like real matter, Sri Aurobindo used to say. It is knocking at our doors, seeking to exist for our eyes and in our bodies, hammering away at the world, as if the great eternal Image were trying to enter the small one, the true world to enter this caricature which is coming to grief on all sides, the Truth of matter to enter this false and illusory coating as though the illusion were actually on this side, in this false look at matter, this false mental structure which prevents us from seeing things as they are. For they already are, as the fullness of the moon already is, only hidden to our shadow vision.

This solidity of the shadow, this effectiveness of the illusion, is probably the little nothing that stands in the way. Could the caterpillar have prevented itself from seeing a linear world, so concrete and objective for it, so incomplete and subjective for us? Our earth is not complete; our life is not complete; our matter itself is not complete. It is knocking, knocking to become one and full. It could well be that the whole falsehood of the earth lies in its false look, which results in a false life, a false action, a false being that is not, that cries out to be, that knocks and knocks on our doors and on the doors of the world. And yet, this husk does exist it suffers, it dies. It is not an illusion, even if, behind, lies the light of its shadow, the source of its gesture, the real face of its mask. What prevents the connection?... Perhaps simply something in the old substance that still takes itself for its shadow instead of taking itself for its sun perhaps is it only a matter of a conversion of our material consciousness, of its total and integral changeover from the small shadow to the great Person? A changeover which is like a death, a swing into such a radical otherness that it amounts to a disintegration of the old fellow. An instantaneous death-resurrection? A sudden other view, a plunge into Life true life which abolishes or unrealizes the old shadow?

The whole course, the simple course, is perhaps only to notice what is already there and to learn to trust.

But this unyielding husk, this old illusory matter everywhere under our feet, continues to exist, at least for others. Its prevailing perception is the criterion of objectivity, what we call the world as it is. Is it conceivable that a handful of more advanced beings, of pioneers of the new world, will live in that true way, that true body (invisible to others), while others will continue living and seeing in the old shadow, stumbling along and suffering and dying with it, until they too become capable of effecting the ultimate conversion and entering the new world which will become the prevailing objectivity yet on this earth and in this matter, but seen with the true look? The old husk would fall off when everyone is capable of seeing with the same look when everyone, thrust into a more advanced season, would see the tree in bloom rather than the old pod?... The tree is in bloom because the season has come. Perhaps we must wait till men realize that the season has come and that all the flowers are there, on the beautiful tree they are indeed there, except for those who dawdle in winter when spring is breaking out all over. The supramental consciousness, the supramental rhythm, is actually an extraordinarily swift rhythm the present earth seems immobile and stagnant compared to that rhythm and maybe that simple acceleration is what makes all the difference, what brings out the orange sweetness of the supramental radiation, its warm and vivid depths, its light earth, the way the acceleration of the galaxies turns the stars red or purple depending on their direction. How could this new vision, as concrete as that of all the Himalayas put together, even more concrete because it discloses all the innermost depths of the Himalayas and their living peace, their solid eternity, not radically change the whole life of humanity, at least for those who can see, and gradually everybody, as radically as man's perception changed the world as perceived by the caterpillar?... For, ultimately, this new vision does not abolish the world; it reveals it as it is (and this supramental as it is is also capable of growing with future ages where is the end?). It is not true that matter suddenly becomes different by some miraculous and transmuting stroke it becomes (for our eyes) what it always was. It ceases to be this winding and steep caterpillar trail to level out into its sun-drenched prairies, which extend farther and farther with our look. True matter, supramental matter, was forever awaiting our true look only like recognizes like. The divine season is waiting for us on earth, if we consent to recognize this Like of which we are now only a semblance. And the whole problem of the transmutation arises again: Is it a transmutation of matter or a transmutation of vision? Doubtless it is both, but the change of vision is what triggers the change of matter; the change in vision is what permits a new manipulation of matter, as our human eyes have enabled a new manipulation of the world. And this change of matter seems possible only if humanity as a whole, or a sufficiently effective proportion of the great earthly body because we are a single body, we always forget consents to brea the the new air, to soak up that sap, to stop believing in its phantoms and fears and old mental impossibilities. And we can believe we can even see that this change of vision is contagious. There is contagion of Truth, an irrepressible spreading of Truth. It is Truth that is breaking our molds and our human consciousnesses and our law and our systems and our countries under its invisible golden pressure the world is under a solar spell, which is shaking our age and throwing it into panic by its influx of vigor, and the Truth of a few will force all the rest to change, as simply and inevitably as the first touch of spring spreads from branch to branch and bursts out from bud to bud.

The secrets are simple, we have said, and we wonder if that difficult transmutation, that complex alchemy, those thick manuals and mysterious initiations, those educated austerities and spiritual exercises, those meditations and retreats and tortured breathing, that whole labor of the spirit are not actually the labor of the mind trying to make it difficult, tremendously difficult, so it can inflate itself further, and then glory in untying the enormous knot it had itself tied. If things are too simple, it does not believe in them, because it has nothing to do because it yearns to do, at all costs. That is its food and livelihood its ego's livelihood. But that mental inflation and pontification may hide from us an utter simplicity, a supreme facility, a supreme nondoing that is the art of doing well. We have had to do and do again, tramp around the trails of the mind to individualize a fragment of that formidable, immense Consciousness-Force, that universal Energy-Harmony, to make it self-conscious, as it were, in one form and in billions of forms. But has not the time come, at the end of the little flame's long journey, to break the mold that helped us to grow and rediscover the totality of Consciousness and Energy and Harmony in one small center of being, a little point of matter, in one clear little note, and to let That do, That change our eyes, That permeate our tissues, That widen our substance to let a supreme Child who runs over the great prairies of the world play in us and for us, if we want, because he is us? This difficult transmutation may not be so difficult after all. It must be as simple as truth, simple as a smile, simple as a child at play. Perhaps everything hinges simply on whether we wish to take the path of difficulty the path of the mind desperately inflating itself to try to blow itself up to the size of the universe, the path of the buts and whys and hows and all the implacable laws that choke us time and again in our mental straitjacket or the path of an unknown little something stealing through the air, sparkling in the air, winking at every street corner and every encounter, in everything, all the trifles of the day, as though carrying us along in an indescribable golden wake in which everything is easy and simple and miraculous we are right in the midst of the miracle! We are in the full supramental season. It is knocking at all our closed windows, at our countries, our hearts, our crumbling systems, our shaky laws, our faltering wisdoms, in our thousands of ills that keep coming out, our thousands of little lies abandoning the skiff in distress it is softly slipping its golden skiff beneath the old specious appearances, it is growing its unexpected buds beneath the old rags, awaiting a tiny little crack to spring out into the open, a tiny little call. The transmutation is not difficult; it is all there, already done, only waiting for us to open our eyes to the unreality of misery and falsehood and death and our impotence to the unreality of the mind and the laws of the mind. It is waiting for our radical saltus into that future of truth, our mass uprising against the old cage, our general strike against the Machine. Oh! let us leave it to the elders, the old elders of the old world, the old believers in misery and suffering and the bomb and the gospel and the millions of gospels that struggle for a share of the world, to run their old squeaky machine for a few more days, to quarrel over borders, argue over reforms of the rot, debate agreements of disagreement, stockpile bombs and false knowledge and libraries and museums, preach good and evil, preach the friend and the enemy, preach country and no-country, build more and more machines and supermachines and rockets to the moon and misery for every pocketbook let us leave to them the last convulsions of the falsehood, the last cries of the rot, we who do not care about countries, borders, machines and all that walled-in future, we who believe in a light and inexpressible something that is pounding at the doors of the world and pounding in our hearts, in a completely new future, completely clear and vibrant and marvelous, without borders, without laws, without gospels, beyond all their possibilities and impossibilities, their good and evil, their small countries and small thoughts we who believe in Truth, in the supreme beauty of Truth, the supreme joy of Truth, the supreme power of Truth. We are the sons of a more marvelous Future which is already there, which will spring out into the open by our cry of trust, sweeping away all the old machinery like an unreal dream, a nightmare of the mind, an old windbag filled with only as much air as we still consent to lend it. The transmutation has to be done in our hearts, the last revolution to be carried out, the supramental revolution of the human species as others had launched the human revolution among the apes its great rebellion against the Machine, its general strike against mental knowledge, mental power and mental fabrications against the mental prison its mass defection from the old groove of pain, and its calling out for what has to be, its simple cry for truth amidst the rubble of the mental age: the truth, the truth, the truth, and nothing but the truth.

Then Truth shall be.

Because it is simple as a child and responds to the least call.

And it will do all for us.

Pondicherry,
20 August 13 November 1970

References and Notes

Most quotations from Sri Aurobindo refer to the complete edition of his works in 30 volumes (the Centenary Edition) and are indicated by the volume number followed by the page. Reference is made in particular to the following volumes:

5-Collected Poems

15-The Ideal of Human Unity

17-The Hour of God

20-The Synthesis of Yoga

26-On Himself

28-Savitri

29-Savitri

1 Savitri, 28: 256.

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2 Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 28:370.

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3 Sri Aurobindo, The Hour of God, 17:1.

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4 The Synthesis of Yoga, 20:82.

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5 Sri Aurobindo, Musa Spiritus, 5:589.

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6 Sri Aurobindo, Journey's End, 5:570.

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7 This ascending path has been described in By the Body of the Earth and the higher planes of the mind have been discussed in Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness.

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8 Sri Aurobindo, A God's Labour, 5:99.

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9 Rig Veda, III.22.2.

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10 Rig Veda, I.70.2.

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11 Rig Veda, I.59.1.

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12 It was not until 1938 and the cycle of Be the that this third fire the one triggered in nuclear reactions was discovered; and it is indeed the fire of the sun, whose enormous radiant energy results from the fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium. Before then, science knew only of the first two kinds of fire: the fire in chemical reactions, when molecules are destroyed and recombined without any change in the structure of the constituent atoms, and the fire resulting from modifications in the atom's outer layers (the electrons), which are the source of all the electromagnetic phenomena. (Note compiled by P. B. Saint-Hilaire)

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13 Rig Veda, III.39.5.

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14 Katha Upanishad, V.8.

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15 Rig Veda, II.1.12.

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16 Rig Veda, I.179.1.

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17 Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, IV.5.4.

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18 Thoughts and Aphorisms, no. 383.

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19 Mundaka Upanishad, II.2.12.

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20 Swetaswatara Upanishad, IV.3.4.

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21 Chhandogya Upanishad, VI.8.7.

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22 Rig Veda, II.24.4.

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23 A geometrical design used by Tantric occultists to materialize certain forces.

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24 Rig Veda, III.7.II.

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25 Sri Aurobindo, The Life Heavens, 5:575.

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26 Sri Aurobindo, The Ideal of Human Unity, 15:558.

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27 Nirodbaran, Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo, II.112.

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28 Sri Aurobindo, A God's Labour, 5:99.

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29 Mother, Conversation of September 16, 1953.

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30 Mother, Some Words of the Mother, p. 31.

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31 Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, 26:375-76.

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32 Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 28:183.

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33 Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, 20:253.

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34 Throne (in particular for spiritual leaders).

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35 Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 29:573.

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36 Powers.

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37 Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 28:35.

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38 Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, p. 172.

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39 Sri Aurobindo, A Voice Arose, 5:117.

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40 Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 28:59.

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41 Sri Aurobindo, The Golden Light, 5:134.

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42 Rig Veda, V.1.2, V.1.9.

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43 Sri Aurobindo, The Dumb Inconscient, 5:163.

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44 A.B. Purani, Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo, II.291.

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45 Rig Veda, I.71.2.

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46 Katha Upanishad, I.I.7.

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47 Sri Aurobindo, A God's Labour, 5:101.

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48 Sri Aurobindo, The Pilgrim of the Night, 5:132.

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49 Indeed he is far more conscious of the old vital forces he is losing than of the new forces he is acquiring, which are subtler, unusual for his body, and whose workings he is not familiar with they seem to vanish in one second, by a minute shift of consciousness, and to return also in one second and refresh him, by another shift of consciousness which he does not fully understand yet. But that one little second of refreshment is inexpressibly more invigorating than hours of physical rest and seems to put everything back in order from top to bottom, like a complete renewal of the being.

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50 Thoughts and Aphorisms, no. 376.

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51 Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 28:85.

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52 Rig Veda, I.97.5, I.59.7, III.4.2., I.31.7.

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53 Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 29:531.

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54 See Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness.

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55 Does not the Rig-Veda say, in one of its striking phrases, This is he [the flame] who has the word of the truth. (I.59.7)

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56 Arthur Avalon, The Serpent Power, p. 96.

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57 Rig Veda, I.10.1.

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58 Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 28:343-44.

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