Page 15 - NAMAH-Apr-2018

Namah An integral exploration of the benefits of meditation

population (3). upon a higher or lower substance, potency,
intensity of vibrations of the being, of its self-
The implications of these findings are remarkable, awareness, of its delight of existence, of its force
as one envisions the rapid transformative of existence. Consciousness, as we descend the
power potentially contained in meditative scale, becomes more and more diminished and
practices. The social fibre of humanity can in diluted, — dense indeed by its coarser crudity,
essence evolve from egocentric self-concerns but while that crudity of consistence compacts
to greater altruistic concern, from a narrow the stuff of Ignorance, it admits less and less
self-care to a universal care for self, others the substance of light; it becomes thin in pure
and all sentient beings including the planet substance of consciousness and reduced in
and the cosmos. power of consciousness, thin in light, thin and
weak in capacity of delight; it has to resort to a
9. Entry to higher levels of consciousness grosser thickness of its diminished stuff and to
a strenuous output of its obscurer force to arrive
According to the ancient yogic tradition, at anything, but this strenuousness of effort and
the greatest achievement of this precious labour is a sign not of strength but of weakness.
human life is to bring about a positive self- As we ascend, on the contrary, a finer but far
transformation and to arrive and reside in stronger and more truly and spiritually concrete
higher and higher states of consciousness. In substance emerges, a greater luminosity and
order to enter these realms, we must create a potent stuff of consciousness, a subtler, sweeter,
fertile ground and foundation and eliminate purer and more powerfully ecstatic energy of
those conditions that keep us enmeshed in delight (4).”
lower levels of being. One prerequisite for
entering these states is to still the mind. The This is a particularly evocative immersion
ocean offers a vivid analogy: we cannot see the in Sri Aurobindo’s hierarchical spiritual
beauty of the coral if the waters are agitated, evolutionary model. An analogy can be made
or if we are fixated on the seaweed. to a ladder vertically positioned, each rung
becoming expansively more or less receptive
Perhaps no one has delved more deeply to either light or darkness. Indeed, one’s
in depicting the transformative powers perception is augmented and enriched as
and levels of ourmental, spiritual and one’s consciousness ascends, approaching
transpersonal evolution than Sri Aurobindo. higher truth, so that what began as a mere
According to his spiritual discovery, man is a glint becomes a deluge of radiance as one
transitional being who is still evolving. There climbs. As one’s consciousness descends, the
are higher and higher ranges of consciousness all-pervading brightness is choked, unable to
that will begin to manifest in due process of penetrate through and one finds oneself in
time. He reveals: progressively denser, darker, more ignorant
“Each stage of this ascent is therefore a general, states of being, lacking exuberance, increasingly
if not a total, conversion of the being into a new in a struggle to simply exist.
light and power of a greater existence.
According to Sri Aurobindo, the spiritual
“The gradation itself depends fundamentally man in his most evolved form is a gnostic

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