Psychologists have formulated general principles of perceptual organisation and studied how humans perceive the world. The physical world of forms is a three-dimensional space that we perceive through a two-dimensional retina. It is believed that this is possible not only because of innate spatial ability but also because spatial perception improves with maturation and can be significantly modified by experience.
Fourth-Dimensional Perspective
However, Sri Aurobindo, with his yogic experience, explained how a transformation of our senses can result in a fourth-dimen-sional perspective. This leap from the three-dimen-sional perceptual field of psychologists to the four-dimensional field of mystics, underscores the importance of expanding our repertoire of perceptual knowledge. Sri Aurobindo described that with the envisaged transformation of the physical sense, two successive movements are expected to occur:
a. At first, the phenomenon of neuro-physiological perception would be infused with a subtle, ‘psychical’ perspective not dependent on neural pathways but directly perceived by an action of consciousness. As a consequence, the normal neurophysiological sensory perception that provides material inputs about the perceived objects could also be trained to supply the non-material qualities of the perceived objects, viz., their hidden qualities, their auras, their place in the universal gestalt, and how they express the unity of all that we see.
b. Secondly, this new enriched perceptual phenomenon (‘psycho-physical power of vision’), that carries both subtle and gross perspectives intertwined with each other, would be further infused by the spiritual power of ‘pure sense’ derived from a very high Supramental consciousness 1. “All sense and sensation become full of the divine light, the divine power and intensity of experience, a divine joy, the delight of the Brahman. And even that which is now to us discordant and jars on the senses takes its place in the universal concord of the universal movement, reveals its rasa, meaning, design and, by delight in its intention in the divine consciousness and its manifestation of its law and Dharma, its harmony with the total self, its place in the manifestation of the divine being, becomes beautiful and happy to the soul experience. All sensation becomes Ananda 2.”
Perception psychologists have shown how we perceive the world around us. It would be interesting to see how the mystics perceive the world and how they came to describe Reality in terms of Absolute Existence (Reality has been perceived at the height of mystical experience as a triune of Sachchidaananda — Existence, Consciousness, Bliss). A study of the mystical perception of existence would throw new light on our knowledge of perceptual processes.
A Study in Mystical Experience
The Mystic’s Perception of Existence
When we talk of perceiving Existence we ordinarily conceive of:
a. forms perceived by our senses,
b. distribution of such forms in space, and
c. durability of forms in relation to Time.
Sri Aurobindo described:
‘”Forms are manifestations, not arbitrary inventions out of nothing; for line and colour, mass and design which are the essentials of forms carry always in them a significance, are, it might be said, secret values and significances of an unseen reality made visible; it is for that reason that figure, line, hue, mass, composition can embody what would be otherwise unseen, can convey what would be otherwise occult to the sense. Form may be said to be the innate body, the inevitable self-revelation of the formless, and this is true not only of external shapes, but of the unseen formations of mind and life which we seize only by our thought and those sensible forms of which only the subtle grasp of the inner consciousness can become aware 3.”
Thus, while to the physical scientist, forms’ are material and range from sub-atomic particles to cells, to the psychologist, forms can also be subtle’ and include emotions’, behaviours’, cognitive schemata’, to which the metapsychologist would also add the halo’ of Kirlian photography or the aura’ of Praannic Therapy. Like material forms that occupy material space, these subtle forms can also occupy subtle spaces (viz., the concepts of personal space’ and `body buffer-zone’ in psychology, and the ‘expansion and contraction’ of auras as reported by healers working with energy fields).
The Link Between Subtle and Gross Forms
If forms can be either grossly material or subtle in appearance, is there a link between the two? Mystics in the Indian tradition bridged the gap by positing a cosmic energy that takes form in both gross and subtle realms. “ALL phenomenal existence resolves itself into Force, into a movement of energy that assumes more or less material, more or less gross or subtle forms for self-presentation to its own experience 4.” In essence, “the principle of things is a formative movement of energies, all forms are born of meeting and mutual adaptation between unshaped forces, all sensation and action is a response of something in a form of Force to the contacts of other forms of Force 5.”
De-linking from ‘Form’
After resolving all gross material and subtle, non-material forms to energy-states, ancient Indian mystics delinked their perception from the forms’ and identified with the energy’ component. The result was the discovery that “...essential Matter is a thing non-existent to the senses and only, like the Pradhana of the Sankhyas, as conceptual form of substance; and in fact the point is increasingly reached where only an arbitrary distinction in thought divides form of substance from form of energy 6.”
Delinking from ‘Energy’
It is surprising how this ancient equation between material’ forms and energy’ forms resembles modern scientific thinking. But the ancient Indian thinkers did not stop there. After delinking their perception from forms’, they also de-linked their perception from the energy’ component. The result was the experience of `Existence’ in an absolute sense as an X which is indefinable, infinite, timeless, spaceless, conceived either in a positive sense as an Absolute Being or in a negative sense as a Non-Being which is something beyond our positive conception. Sri Aurobindo explained the metapsychology of the experiential contact with the Absolute:
“It cannot be summed up in any quantity or quantities; it cannot be composed of any quality or combination of qualities. It is not an aggregate of forms or a formal substratum of forms. If all forms, quantities, qualities were to disappear, this would remain. Existence without quantity, without form is not only conceivable, but it is the one thing we can conceive behind these phenomena. Necessarily, when we say it is without them, we mean that it exceeds them, that it is something into which they pass in such a way as to cease to be what we call form, quality, quantity and out of which they emerge as form, quality and quantity in the movement. They do not pass away into one form, one quality, one quantity which is the basis of all the rest, - for there is none such, — but into something which cannot be defined by any of these terms 7.”
When existence is considered in such an absolute poise, Time and Space seem to disappear. Actually, Time and Space can also be perceived as categories of our consciousness, conditions under which we arrange our perception of phenomenon 8.
Unity and Multiplicity
It follows, therefore, that when mystics talk about the unity of existence, it is not meant that all the multiple forms of existence can be reduced to the terms of an irreducible element or a substratum of forms. Rather, it would indicate that all forms disappear into something that exceeds all forms and from which there can be a re-emergence of forms. This ethereal something’ is a unity in essence which mystical experience finds to be represented in the Self’ — the immortal essence of the mortal being. Spiritual experience describes three aspects of the one Existence:
1. “Self in us becoming all existences” — this is "the basis of our oneness with all";
2. “Self containing all existences” — this is "the basis of our oneness in difference"; and
3. “Self inhabiting all (forms)” — this is "the basis of our individuality in the universal 9."
In other words, both te oneness and the multiplicity exist together. To the ordinary human experience, this is difficult to comprehend because individuals are phenomenally a particular form of consciousness, subject to Time and Space and can only be in our surface consciousness one thing at a time, one poise of being, one aggregate of experience. But Consciousness per se in its pristine or Integral poise is “not so particularised, nor so limited; it can be many things at a time and can take more than one enduring poise for all times 10.”
Naturally, this mystical perspective of Existence is contradictory to the trend in physical science to trace all events to a single point in time (viz., the Big Bang). ‘All end and beginning presuppose something beyond the end or beginning. An absolute end, an absolute beginning, is not only a contradiction in terms, but a contradiction of the essence of things, a violence, a fiction. Infinity imposes itself upon the appearances of the finite by its ineffable self-existence 11.
The difficulty of the physical scientists can be resolved if one accepts the spiritual perception that the priority of the oneness to the multiplicity is “a priority not in time but in relation to consciousness....12”
In the Aurobindonian perspective, Time and Space are not properties of Matter but extensions of consciousness: Time can be regarded as consciousness in action working in Eternity, and Space as consciousness being in self-extension 13.
Oneness in Essence
The Absolute Existence is neither a summation nor a substratum of forms, qualities, quantities and movements, but an X into which all these pass and from which they again emerge. Hence, it must be equally present in all existences, not mathematically, but in essence. In fact, nothing is unimportant to that boundless Movement. “Science reveals to us how minute is the care, how cunning the device, how intense the absorption it bestows upon the smallest of its works even as on the largest 14.” The Absolute indivisible Existence or Brahman dwells in all as if divided and distributed. The consciousness of this Absolute Existence is indivisible and is present not as an equal part of itself, but in its whole self at one and the same time in the solar system as well as in the ant-hill:
“It is the illusion of size, of quantity that induces us to look on the one as great, the other as petty. If we look, on the contrary, not at mass of quantity but force of quality, we shall say that the ant is greater than the solar system it inhabits and man greater than all inanimate Nature put together. But this again is the illusion of quality. When we go behind and examine only the intensity of the movement of which quality and quantity are aspects, we realize that this Brahman dwells equally in all existences. Equally partaken of by all in its being, we are tempted to say, equally distributed to all in its energy. But this too is an illusion of quantity. Brahman dwells in all, indivisible, yet as if divided and distributed. If we look again with an observing perception not dominated by intellectual concepts, but informed by intuition and culminating in knowledge by identity, we shall see that the consciousness of this infinite Energy is other than our mental consciousness, that it is indivisible and gives, not an equal part of itself, but its whole self at one and the same time to the solar system and to the ant-hill. To Brahman there are no whole and parts, but each thing is all itself and benefits by the whole of Brahman. Quality and quantity differ; the self is equal. The form and manner and result of the force of action vary infinitely, but the eternal, primal, infinite energy is the same in all. The force of strength that goes to make the strong man is no whit greater than the force of weakness that goes to make the weak. The energy spent is as great in repression as in expression, in negation as in affirmation, in silence as in sound 15.”
In the ordinary human experience, it is very difficult to overcome the illusions of quality and quantity. This is because we believe that we are the centre of existence. ”This is the sign of the original ignorance which is the root of the ego, that it can only think with itself as centre as if it were the All, and of that which is not itself accepts only so much as it is mentally disposed to acknowledge or as it is forced to recognise by the shocks of its environment 16.” Yet, though the Absolute Existence surpasses our ego or any ego or a “collectivity of egos”, Sri Aurobindo cautioned that it would also be “an act of ignorance” to form “too positive an idea of our own insignificance” for it would blind us to the great facts of the universe 17.
Stability and Movement
Just as the Absolute Existence is beyond unity and multiplicity, it is also beyond stability and movement 18. The ordinary view of Existence shows that it is a continual progression of movement. There is an objective movement in space and a subjective movement in time. Even though one can perceive, albeit with difficulty and some degree of fancy, a psychological extension beyond a conceptual space, it is much more difficult to go behind the movement of succession and change in Time. The movement in Time continually increases, as it includes all the past successions in a present that represents itself as the beginning of all future successions. The `present’ always eludes us, for it perishes before it is born 19.
There is, however, a spiritual experience which shows that behind the Movement, there is “a great timeless, spaceless Stability, sthaannu, which is immutable, inexhaustible and unexpended, not acting though containing all this action, not energy, but pure existence 20.” In fact, Sri Aurobindo pointed out, “The very conception of movement carries with it the potentiality of repose... the very idea of energy in action carries with it the idea of energy abstaining from action; and an absolute energy not in action is simply and purely absolute existence 21.”
The pure existence is a fundamental reality, but the movement, the energy, is also equally a reality. Stability and movement are only our psychological representations of the Absolute, just like unity and multiplicity. “The Absolute is beyond stability and movement as it is beyond unity and multiplicity. But it takes its eternal poise in the one and the stable and whirls round itself infinitely, inconceivably, securely in the moving and multitudinous 22.”
Perception and Time
We live in a time-bound existence, whereas mystics have described it as possible to come into experiential contact with the timeless eternity. Ordinarily, both states cannot be experienced together unless one attains a supra-cognitive, Supramental consciousness where both are “co-existent and concurrent status and movement of the same truth of the Infinite 23.” This state cannot be attained by the present cognitive status of the human mind unless it is transformed by the Supramental influence. An untransformed mentality can, however, train itself to get “lost in the trance of Samadhi or else…diffused in an Infinite where there is perhaps a sense of supra-physical space, a vastness, a boundless extension of consciousness, but no time self, time movement or time order 24.” However, during the trance in Samaadhi, one gets diffused in the Timeless Infinite at the cost of losing contact with the finite in time, which one regains after emerging from the state of trance. A simultaneous and concurrent experience of both the time-bound earth play and the Timeless Reality can only be spontaneously accessible at the Integral Cognitive field of the Supermind.
The ordinary human mind, “moving in time exists, as the Buddhists saw, only in the succession of thoughts and sensations and of the external forms present to his thought and sense. His present momentary self is alone real to him, his past self is dead or vanishing or only preserved in memory, result and impression, his future self is entirely non-existent or only in process of creation or preparation of birth 25.”
The human mind has an attraction for the knowledge of the future, and as there is no ordinary access to it, it falls back on “external means, omens, sortilèges, dreams, astrology….Challenged and discredited by the sceptical reason these still persist in attracting our minds and hold their own, supported by desire and credulity and superstition, but also by the frequent though imperfect evidence we get of a certain measure of truth in their pretensions. A higher psychical knowledge shows us that in fact the world is full of many systems of correspondences and indices and that these things, however much misused by the human intelligence, can in their place and under right conditions give us real data of a supraphysical knowledge. It is evident, however, that it is only an intuitive knowledge that can discover and formulate them…not the mere use either of a traditional or a haphazard interpretation or of mechanical rule and formula, can ensure a right employment of these indices. Otherwise, handled by the surface intelligence, they are liable to be converted into a thick jungle of error 26.”
A transformed Supramental time vision will go further and hold the past, present and future, “as one movement singly and indivisibly seen even in their succession of stages…. It will therefore have the knowledge of the three times, trikaaladrrsstti, held of old to be a supreme sign of the seer and the Rishi, — not as an abnormal power, but as its normal way of time knowledge 27.” “It can receive before its sight the etheric writing, aakaassa-lipi, that keeps the record of all things past, transcribes all that is in process in the present, writes out the future 28.”
Our main difficulty in understanding the mystic’s perception arises from our identification of Reality with our ordinary sensory perception. Sri Aurobindo comments that this association is merely the regularity of a dominant habit 29. If we could understand how the mystical perception surpasses our ordinary perceptual processes, we would be able to enrich our knowledge of perception psychology.
Sri Aurobindo elaborated:
“It is necessary to distinguish between the essential Reality, the phenomenal reality dependent upon it and arising out of it, and the restricted and often misleading experience or notion of either that is created by our sense-experience and our reason. To our sense the earth is flat and, for most immediate practical purposes, within a limit, we have to follow the sense reality and deal with the flatness as if it were a fact; but in true phenomenal reality the flatness of the earth is unreal, and Science seeking for the truth of the phenomenal reality in things has to treat it as approximately round. In a host of details Science contradicts the evidence of the senses as to the real truth of phenomena; but, still, we have to accept the cadre provided by our senses because the practical relations with things which they impose on us have validity as an effect of reality and cannot be disregarded. Our reason, relying on the senses and exceeding them, constructs its own canons or notions of the real and unreal, but these canons vary according to the standpoint taken by the reasoning observer. The physical scientist probing into phenomena erects formulas and standards based on the objective and phenomenal reality and its processes: to his view mind may appear as a subjective result of Matter and self and spirit as unreal; at any rate he has to act as if matter and energy alone existed and mind were only an observer of an independent physical reality which is unaffected by any mental processes*or any presence or intervention of a cosmic Intelligence. The psychologist, probing independently into mind consciousness and mind unconsciousness, discovers another domain of realities, subjective in its character, which has its own law and process; to him, Mind may even come to appear as the key of the real, Matter as only a field for mind, and spirit apart from mind as something unreal. But there is a further probing which brings up the truth of self and spirit and establishes a greater order of the real in which there is a reversal of our view both of the subjective mind realities and objective physical realities so that they are seen as things phenomenal, secondary, dependent upon the truth of self and the realities of the spirit. In this deeper search into things mind and matter begin to wear the appearance of lesser order of the real and may easily come to appear unreal 30.”
The following footnote was added by Sri Aurobindo, “This position has been shaken by the theory of Relativity, but it must hold as a pragmatic basis for experiment and affirmation of the scientific fact.”
Mystical Perception in the Absence of the Object of Perception
There can be a perception of an object in the absence of an external object from a non-embodied poise in consciousness. The classical instances of extrasensory perception described in parapsychology involve the subliminal senses of the inner being, which convey information to the manas, or sixth sense, for cognitive processing. Scientific exploration tries to understand how information is transmitted from one space-time to another. The Multiphasic Model of precognition tries to analyse this phenomenon through entropic processes 31. However, entropy is a property of matter and is supposed to measure randomness in a system. If we accept that Reality is not only material but also non-material, and if we acknowledge that there is a Divine Will that puts all things in their proper perspective, it is difficult to explain the workings of the subtle senses through the model of physics. There have also been attempts to understand extra-sensory perception (ESP) through electromagnetic radiation emitted by subjects undergoing paranormal experiences, ostensibly because this was the only predictable scientific source that could be involved. However, no abnormal electromagnetic signals were detected during ESP phenomena 32. Instead of trying to interpret everything from the plane of material reality, a consideration of the non-material poise of consciousness would enrich understanding of extrasensory perception.
Mystical probing demonstrates that while ordinary paranormal phenomena exhibited by subjects can be executed through the subliminal senses in the inner being, there can also be subtle perceptions from yet higher zones of consciousness. Thus, it can be hypothesised that the Supramental sense or sense in its purity that subserves the creative Supramental Consciousness, which holds the archetypal idea or image of the object, can through the inner or subliminal senses grasp the transcript of the object in the subtle-physical. This is possible because any object that manifests has impressionistic antecedents in the subtle-physical. The manas or sixth sense that connects the gross and the subtle worlds, or in other words, objectivity and subjectivity, can then convey the message to the surface cognition. Of course, in cases where the extrasensory perception that arises in the inner being is also the subtle-physical transcript that is acted upon. In instances where the origin of the extrasensory perception is in the Supramental Consciousness and mediated by the Supramental sense, the knowledge achieved is total, veridical, perfect and decisive. In instances where extrasensory perception arises within the inner being, the knowledge gained is partial and may be distorted by influences in the cosmic consciousness. It is through the supramental route that The Mother could actually explore the LSD phenomenon without physically consuming LSD and give a vivid description of how it works, which is now being corroborated by scientific research.
