Page 25 - NAMAH-Jul-2022

Consciousness: An Expanding Experiential Construct

Dr. Soumitra Basu

Abstract
Sri Aurobindo’s vision of Consciousness is simultaneously pluri-dimensional and integral and it
integrates the scientific and mystical paradigms though they are based on different standpoints.
By validating the Individual as much as the Transcendent and by providing a comprehensive
structural map of the Being that traverses both the heights and depths of Consciousness, a
foundation for a futuristic psychology is being laid.

of consciousness which cannot usually
be discernible in perceptual-cognitive-
ratiocinative terms.

Thus consciousness becomes an expanding
experiential construct whose range increases
as one traverses deeper and higher levels
of Reality. As one progressively unravels
newer spiritual experiences, one gains unique
mystical and even occult insights. An integral
paradigm of consciousness cannot reject one
mode of experience in favour of another.
It is customary for neurosciences to define Rather, different modes of experience have
consciousness as “a primary element in to be integrated along different levels of a
experience that cannot be defined in terms of spectral perspective.
anything else (1).” The term “experience”
in science usually refers to our ordinary The first question that arises when we attempt
sensory, perceptual and cognitive experience. to integrate different modes of experience
However, mystical and spiritual disciplines is, do they refer to the same thing? Thus
have developed supra-physical and supra- mysticism deals with consciousness per se
rational modes of experience that reveal aspects as a subjective experience that may or may

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