The Ascent towards Supermind, Part II, Chapter XXVI - The Ascent towards Supermind 205

Take for example the experience of fragrance of a flower, the fragrance of the flower does not pervade only the flower itself, it also spreads out. It’s a very small example, very small experience. Where you find a quality which seems to be located in one place and yet spreading out from its location. From this analogy you can understand, what omnipresence is. If something can spread out a little, it can spread out also all over, it is in this way that we are enabled to understand omnipresence because of certain experiences which we have in our lower consciousness in a scattered manner, in a small manner.

Let us take an example which are more difficult, − Shakti, the divine Shakti is the power of five faculties as we have seen last time, I have spoken of Mahati or Bharati, the faculty of Ila, the faculty of Swaraswati, faculty of Sarma and the faculty of Daksha. These faculties I have spoken of last time and said that the Veda had described these faculties. The Bharati is the faculty of wideness, Ila is the faculty of revelation, Saraswati is the faculty of inspiration, Sarma is the faculty of intuition, Daksha is the faculty of discrimination. Shakti has got all these faculties and when you come into touch with that Shakti these faculties begin to blossom into in our consciousness. Shakti flowing into our consciousness, we transcend the sattva, rajas and tamas and begin to have these faculties developing. If somebody asks the question, what is revelation, what is inspiration, and what is intuition, what is discrimination, really speaking all this is very difficult to explain, − to see the invisible is revelation. Our experience is only to see what is visible but to see the invisible is revelation, to hear the inaudible is inspiration, to touch the untouchable is intuition and to discriminate automatically all the relations of universe, which are not even tangibly understood by us is discrimination and the supreme vastness is Bharati or Mahti. So, if you describe simply in themselves, they very difficult to understand. But because the four or five faculties are also present to some extent in a scattered manner in our mental consciousness, we can strive to understand and we can have some image of them.

Let us see for example, if the closed eyes are opened then the world, you don’t fabricate the world, the world is revealed without your manufacturing. You just open your eyes and the world is revealed, it is as simple as that. If you don’t have the eyes, nothing is revealed in the way the eyes can reveal. But eyes are faculty that the moment you open the eye the whole world is revealed. Similarly, now we can understand that there is a faculty of revelation, such that what is normally invisible that invisible can be seen so effortlessly, so easily, as our eyes can see the world, as soon as you open.

This is a distant image but we can try to understand that when Veda speaks of revelation and we say that the Rishis were drishthas. What is the drishti, that drishti is revelatory. When we say that Veda is shruti that which is heard, it is just like our ear hearing and if you really inquire that what is hearing, what is the nature of hearing, it also reveals the world but in the different way. It does not reveal the world in the same way in which eyes reveal the world. It’s a different quality of its experience. So inspiration is of that kind – just as hearing is different from sight – drishti and shruti have difference between the two, although both of them reveal. But this revelation by the ear has a different quality, which you can’t describe unless you experience, what is hearing and a deaf person can never understand, what is hearing. Just as blind man cannot understand what is the colour, what is light. But because we have hearing, we can have some distant idea as to what kind of hearing it will be and we can be quite sure, it is also a hearing actually, this hearing and that hearing are fundamentally similar experiences, – you really hear. Only you don’t hear through these ears but you hear, there is sound, which is heard. How do I know my own joy in my heart, how do I know that I am joyous? It is because there is something in me, which can touch my own joy by myself. Nobody needs to intervene. It’s a touch experience; experience of my own joy is my touch experience. I touch my joy and I know it is joy. That kind of touch is what is called intuition. I know, what is called intuition is that you touch the thing directly without any intermediate. When the subject and the object penetrate into each other that penetration gives rise to intuitive light, intuitive knowledge.

Discrimination is also experienced by our mind. This is our normal experience. You hear a lecture in which ideas are scattered, you hear another lecture in which all ideas are related to each other and you can experience this difference. You have two experiences, a lecture in which ideas are scattered and the lecture in which all ideas are related to each other. How do you know this that this is scattered and this is related? There is a faculty in you, which has a capacity of relating idea with idea, with thing with thing. So that you can distinguish between a sound abra ca dabra, which has no meaning and other sounds which have meaning. How do you know this? It is an inherent capacity of the mind to relate idea with idea, and thing with thing. This is the special quality of mind consciousness by which we call ourselves mental. This capacity of idea with idea and thing with thing, this capacity is the specialty of mind consciousness. If you don’t have this you are not mental, you can be animal. Animals are not able to relate idea with idea, or thing with thing, except in some cases rudiments are there even in the animals. A dog for example can relate the ringing of the bell and coming of the food. When the bell rings, it can expect the food to come and saliva can begin to flow. This is possible to this extent. The relationship is possible, so rudimentary; relating idea with idea is even present in the animal consciousness but doesn’t go beyond, in what we call, mind in human beings.