Spiritual Realisation Is Not the Same as Supramental Transformation

The supramental transformation involves the manifestation in the world of the next stage of consciousness beyond the mental level. Just as the evolution of mind brought about enormous changes in life on earth, the evolution of supermind will have a transformative effect on all existence, on the mind, on the life force and even on the physical body. The supramental transformation involves the integration of the supermind into human life, both individually and collectively. This goal is far different than the usual goal set forth for those who practice spiritual disciplines and seek for liberation, or the attainment of Nirvana. It is of course true that to whatever extent an individual takes up the spiritual effort, changes are certain to occur in the way he deals with the circumstances in life. In many cases, this leads to a sense of detachment or even renunciation of the life-focus, in favor of a one-pointed concentration on the spiritual development. In some cases, it leads to a partial change in the way one sees, thinks, feels and acts in the circumstances of life. None of these traditional paths, however, have envisioned both the ushering in of a new evolutionary stage and its far-reaching impact on all aspects of life. That is, however, the implication of the supramental transformation.

Sri Aurobindo notes: “If spiritual and supramental were the same thing, as you say my readers imagine, then all the sages and devotees and yogis and sadhaks throughout the ages would have been supramental beings and all I have written about the supermind would be so much superfluous stuff, useless and otiose. Anybody who had spiritual experiences would then be a supramental being; the Ashram would be chock-full of supramental beings and every other Ashram in India also. Spiritual experiences can fix themselves in the inner consciousness and alter it, transform it, if you like; one can realise the Divine everywhere, the Self in all and all in the Self, the universal Shakti doing all things; one can feel merged in the Cosmic Self or full of ecstatic bhakti or Ananda. But one may and usually does still go on in the outer parts of Nature thinking with the intellect or at best the intuitive mind, willing with a mental will, feeling joy and sorrow on the vital surface, undergoing physical afflictions and suffering from the struggle of life in the body with death and disease. The change then only will be that the inner self will watch all that without getting disturbed or bewildered, with a perfect equality, taking it as an inevitable part of Nature, inevitable at least so long as one does not withdraw to the Self out of Nature. That is not the transformation I envisage. It is quite another power of knowledge, another kind of will, another luminous nature of emotion and aesthesis, another constitution of the physical consciousness that must come in by the supramental change.” Sri Aurobindo, Integral Yoga: Sri Aurobindo’s Teaching and Method of Practice, Chapter 8, The Triple Transformation: Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental, The Supramental Transformation, pp. 229-237