Spiritual Health

The Triple Transformation

For those who undertake the path of personal transformation (i.e. yoga), Sri Aurobindo, the Indian seer describes three successive phases of this transformation -- the psychic, the spiritual, and the supramental.
In the first phase of the Triple Transformation one moves from the outer surface consciousness to the inner consciousness; the inner mind, the subliminal within, until one reaches the personal soul, i.e. inner psychic consciousness. At the psychic one has withdrawn from the ego consciousness, one is able to understand and control the limitations of one's physical, vital, and mental being, and one is put in touch with the cosmic, universal forces and truths. This is the Psychic transformation.

At a further phase one rises higher in one's being toward higher planes of mind, including Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, and Intuitive Mind. It is an opening to the presence above, an elevation of one's lower consciousness to the higher, and the descent of the higher into the lower. This is the Spiritual transformation, beyond the Psychic transformation.

Beyond that still is the Supramental transformation, where one rises to the level of Supermind, for a radical transformation of the being out of the ignorance that is the foundation of our nature, and into a new functioning that transcends beyond the mental, vital, and physical. One can become the Supramental being. The Triple Transformation are these three types that would happen in succession.

Below we describe the various levels of spiritual mind that one ascends as one makes the Spiritual transformation:

(The items in quotations below are taken from the chapter "Ascent towards Supermind" from the book The Life Divine by Sri Aurobindo:)

Higher Mind

Perception of object outside by thought/silence

Whereas the mind understands through the thinking process, the higher mind understands and "thinks" in silence without thoughts, where the thought, understanding appears from within the framework of silence.

"Our first decisive step out of our human intelligence, our normal mentality, is an ascent into a higher Mind, a mind no longer of mingled light and obscurity or half-light, but a large clarity of the Spirit. Its basic substance is a unitarian sense of being with a powerful multiple dynamisation capable of the formation of a multitude of aspects of knowledge, ways of action, forms and significances of becoming, of all of which there is a spontaneous inherent knowledge.

..it's special character, its activity of consciousness are dominated by Thought; it is a luminous thought-mind, a mind of Spirit-born conceptual knowledge. An all-awareness emerging from the original identity, carrying the truths the identity held in itself, conceiving swiftly, victoriously, multitudinously, formulating and by self-power of the Idea effectually realizing its conceptions, is the character of this greater mind of knowledge... it is indeed, the spiritual parent of our conceptive mental ideation..

...its most characteristic movement is a mass ideation, a system or totality of truth-seeing at a single view; the relations of idea with idea, of truth with truth are not established by logic but ore-exist and emerge already self-seen in the integral whole."

Illumined Mind

Perception of object outside by Light

"The greater Force is that of the Illumined Mind., a Mind no longer of higher Thought, but of spiritual light. Here the clarity of the spiritual intelligence, its tranquil delight, gives place or subordinates itself to an intense luster, a splendor and illumination of Spirit; a play of lightnings of spiritual truth and power breaks from above into the consciousness and adds to the calm and wide enlightenment and the vast descent of peace which characterize or accompany the action of the larger conceptual-spiritual principle, a fiery ardor of realization and a rapturous ecstasy of knowledge. A downpour of inwardly visible light very usually envelops the action.

... There is also in this descent the arrival of a greater dynamic, a golden drive, a luminous "enthusiasms" of inner force and power which replaces the comparatively slow and deliberate process of the Higher Mind by a swift, sometimes a vehement, almost a violent impetus of rapid transformation.

The Illumined Mind does not work primarily by thought but by vision.

The Illumined Mind does not work primarily by thought but by vision. It is Mind no longer of higher thought[/silence], but of spiritual light, an illumination of Spirit; a play of lightnings of spiritual truth and power breaks from above into the consciousness and adds to the calm and wide enlightenment and the vast descent of peace which characterize or accompany the action of the larger conceptual-spiritual principle, a fiery ardor of realization and a rapturous ecstasy of knowledge. A downpour of inwardly visible light very usually envelops the action. One gains the consciousness if the seer.

...the consciousness if the seer, is a greater power for knowledge than the consciousness of the thinker. The perceptual power of the inner sight is greater and more direct than the perceptual power of thought; it is a spiritual sense that seizes something of the substance of Truth...

...As the Higher Mind brings a greater consciousness into the being through the spiritual idea and its power of truth, so the Illumined Mind brings in a still greater consciousness through a Truth-sight and Truth-light and its seeing and seizing power... it illuminates the thought-mind with a direct inner vision and inspiration, brings a spiritual sight into the heart and a spiritual light and energy into its feelings and emotion, imparts to the life force a spiritual urge, a truth inspiration that dynamises the action and exalts the life-movements; it infuses into the sense a direct and total power of spiritual sensation..."

Intuitive Mind

Direct perception of object outside

Intuitive mind directly perceives the object, and does not need the medium even of light.

"Intuition is a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by identity [Truth Consciousness, Supramental Consciousness]... It is when the consciousness of the subject meets the consciousness in the object, penetrates it and sees, feels or vibrates with the truth of what it contacts, that the intuition leaps out like a spark or a lightning-flash from the shock of the meeting; or when the consciousness, ... looks into itself and feels directly and intimately the truth or the truths that are there or so contacts the hidden forces behind appearances, then there is the outbreak of an intuitive light."

Overmind

Overmind is a plane of consciousness beyond the planes of spiritual mind. It carries in itself a first, direct, masterful cognition of cosmic truth of the Divine. Overmind is the highest of the planes below the Supermind. It is a sort of a delegation from the Supermind. Overmind experience connects us to the the Divine, the Absolute, Satchitananda, but it does so in recognition of its separative aspects of the Divine and the All, rather than the inherent Unity as experienced in the Supermind. Through the Overmind we recognize the original cosmic power which is the Divine, from which the creation and its Ignorance is made possible. Whereas the Supermind is the total truth-consciousness, the Overmind draws down the truths separately and gives them the separate activity. Therefore, in the Overmind there isn't the essential, total, perfectly harmonizing and knowledge forever harmonious of the Supermind.

Beyond the spiritual transformation is the supramental transformation when the evolving soul leaves entirely the triplicity of body, life and mind, and begins to bring about whole new functionings in the human being, perhaps even creating a new being beyond the human.

NOTES ON THE SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION

As we open to what is above us, there is further a higher transformation which intervenes and takes up from the psychic change.

The Ascent -- There is ascent to the ranges of spiritual mind to overmind to supermind. This is an opening to what is above us.

These movements (the movement through the triple transformation) are all in essence an action of the Conscious-Force in its urge toward a higher self-manifestation for our existence.

The Descent -- There is then a descent essential for the permanent ascension upward in these planes; a descent of Spirit or its powers. A light touches the lower being, the mind, life, and body; a presence or power or stream of knowledge pours in waves or currents, or there is a flood of bliss of ecstasy. Such experiences repeat until they become normal.

The New Spiritual Status-- A Knowledge above descends constantly, manifesting in the mind's silence. There are also intuitions and inspirations, revelations of a greater sight, higher truths and wisdom. As a result a new consciousness begins to form; a mind of a high wide self-existence thinking, or an illumined, or intuitive or Overmental consciousness with new forces of thought or sight, and a greater power of direct spiritual realization.