Conscious of the Cosmos

Aurobindo Ghosh explained the different types of human minds: between the upper and lower hemispheres, there was a link plane, the ‘supermind’. This was not, as the name might suggest, a higher activity of mind. It was a different power altogether, as different from mind as mind is from life, and life is from matter. Between supermind and the lower levels, there is an intermediate plane of ‘superconscient cosmic mind’, the ‘overmind’. The mental being in me became a free intelligence, a universal mind, not limited to the narrow circle of personal thought as a labourer in a thought factory, but as a receiver of knowledge from all the hundred realms of being and free to choose what it willed in this thought empire. The Srimad Bhagavatam says that when the mind is steady in divine contemplation, it expresses sattwa overcoming rajas and tamas. No more is there feverish hankering after worldliness. Tranquillity comes to a heart that is no longer stirred by desires, as stillness to a fire when no more fuel is added. Krishna tells Arjuna that one who has good mind is dear to Him. He adds, “Controlling all the senses, confining the mind in the heart, drawing the ‘prana’ into the head, occupied in the practice of concentration, uttering the one-syllabled “Om” — the Brahmn, and meditating on Me — he who so departs, leaving the body, attains the supreme goal.” To gain steady wisdom, Krishna advises casting away of all desires of the mind, satisfied in the Self alone by the Self. You become free from affection, fear and wrath.

Source: Economic Times, 9/01/2019