Out of the Sevenfold Ignorance towards the Sevenfold Knowledge Garry Jacobs 1

Involution creates a Seven-fold Ignorance Original Ignorance of the Absolute Cosmic Ignorance of the unity of God and Nature Temporal Ignorance of our eternal existence Egoistic Ignorance of our oneness with others Psychological Ignorance of the entire fullness of our being Constitutional Ignorance of our surface mind, life, body Practical Ignorance of truth and right action in the world 2

Process of Creation by Involution By Self-conception, Supermind projects Brahman as an object to its own subjective self-experience By Self-limitation, Mind divides the One into God & Nature, Consciousness & Force, Time & Timeless, Finite & Infinite By Self-absorption, Consciousness becomes involved in Force as energetic movements of Life and immobile forms of Matter Ego separates our surface consciousness from the Self in the depths and from other selves Ignorance separates us from the entirety and integrality of knowledge 3

Process of Evolution is by Ascent and Integration Evolution raises the Force of Consciousness in the manifest being to the greater intensity of what is still unmanifest Evolution is by a heightening, widening, integration Values change as we ascend to each new level Integral transformation to manifest Spirit in Life is the aim of Being in Nature Evolution is growth out of 7-fold ignorance into integral Knowledge 4

Indian Spiritual Tradition Starts from the surface in one of the parts of being and tries to reach the spirit It moves to the subtle inner mind – Purusha – and from there to the Superconscient It regards the individual as temporary It regards the world as ephemeral or irredeemable It regards the ego for as creator and rejects the world as incorrigible falsehood, suffering or Maya 5

Tradition starts from Mind and accepts as real separation and division into Absolute and the Relative Immutable Brahman and mutable Brahman Transcendent and Universal Matter and Spirit Life and Spirit God and Nature 6

Constitutional Ignorance 7

First step toward humanity’s progress This preoccupation with matter and life is a necessary first step Outgrowing vital materialism is essential for true happiness and fullness of being Growth into full mental being is first transitional move to freedom and perfection 8

Becoming mental beings Rising in the scale of mind opens the possibility of a higher, wider existence, consciousness, force, happiness & delight Mind is liberated from tyranny of physical and life We acquire greater knowledge & control over our physical-vital existence Life and body become obedient to higher will, ethical perception and aesthetic intelligence Our parts acquire higher values Mother should be more real to us than property & social approval 9

Mind is not enough Surface mental knowledge of physical universe is imperfect guide Even truths of physical things cannot be entirely known We cannot know or make the right use of material existence Mind serves the vital and physical Mind lacks the power to purify and transform life 10

We must go beyond and within We must heighten and widen our consciousness universally and infinitely We must infuse, transform and integralize our natural being with the Being, Consciousness and Delight of Spirit 11

Overcoming Constitutional Ignorance We can heighted and widen our natural being and integrate it with higher spiritual principles We can rise above mental intelligence to discover higher principles, powers, ranges, instruments beyond mind, vital, physical We can go within to discover ourselves as Soul or Spirit using mind, life and body as field for experience Then we can possess the true constitution of our being 12

Psychological Ignorance Conquest of Constitutional Ignorance cannot be complete without conquest of Psychological Ignorance Psychological Ignorance is a limitation of self-knowledge to surface conscient waking self Behind the surface is a vast subliminal existence and energy of our secret being 13

Surface consciousness is bound, hedged in, encircled Ego divides us from not self Limitation of the senses prevents wider knowledge Identification with the body limits us in space and time Identification with a class, position, role, social identity Limitation of our beliefs, attitudes and values 14

Subliminal Being Subconscient Intraconscient Circumconscient Superconscient 15

Subconscient Subconscient is below the mind & conscious life – inferior and obscure Subconscient is Inconscience in process of becoming conscious Purely physical – bodily functions and life processes Vital elements – unmentalized impulses, urges Submerged sense-mind – more operative in the animal and plant Memory of past impressions beneath the surface arising in dreams Everything rejected from the surface Subconscious is reverse of the surface Subconscious supports all in us that refuses to change 16

Changing the subconscious Changing the subconscious is indispensable for higher life and integral transformation of the nature Subconscious cannot be changed by a descent alone Descent would plunge us into dull trance or sleep awareness and control of it are very important Gaining awareness and control of it are very important Mind can be aware and control only by – ascending to superconscient looking down from the heights transforming the depths by the higher consciousness 17

Intraconscient of the Subliminal Intraconscient is still more valuable and potent than Subconscious The real power is not on the surface Inner intelligence, sense-mind, vital and subtle physical being Subliminal mediates between Inconscient and the larger planes of Life and Mind created by the involutionary descent Subliminal supports our waking consciousness &surface responses 18

Circumconscient Circumconscient is an enveloping consciousness which receives currents from universal Mind, Life and Subtle material forces We can control by penetrating the dividing wall and becoming conscious of them We become fully aware by going behind the veil of surface mind and living in the inner mind, life and inmost soul We can also rise to a higher plane of mind above the waking consciousness 19

Superconscient Superconscient & Inconscient were created by a double involution Superconscient includes the higher spiritual planes of mind, supermind and pure spiritual being Ascent beyond normal mind is necessary to reach integral self- knowledge, consciousness and being Self-transcendence involves Ascent, Widening and Integration We must rise into higher planes of Mind to become conscious in the Superconscient Destiny of man is to unite the sSubconscient with Superconscient 20

Temporal Ignorance We live from moment to moment in Time ignorant of past & future Our view is limited to the present body between a single birth and death We are ignorant of the karma of past deeds We do not know what is waiting in future births Temporal ignorance is dependent upon the constitutional ignorance – living on the surface 21

Realizing our Immortality Overcoming temporal ignorance is possible only by withdrawing from absorbing material preoccupation and to live constantly in the inner and higher planes of spiritual Mind and pure Spirit We have to live in the consciousness of our immortality We can awaken to and live consciously in both Timeless Immortality and Time Immortality Timeless Immortality –the Spirit’s timeless existence is the true immortality Time Immortality –the soul’s perpetual continuity of temporal existence and experience from life to life 22

Overcoming Egoistic Ignorance Ego is falsification of our true individuality Ego separates us from other souls & shuts us up in our individual experience Ego prevents us from living as the universal individual Ego separates us from God, our highest Self, the one Self in all existences, Divine Inhabitant within us Ego cannot survive heightening, deepening and widening of spirit True individuality remains after disappearance of ego By widening, our separate individuality becomes universal By rising into the supreme infinity and eternity, we become independent of individual and cosmic existence 23

Overcoming Cosmic Ignorance We gain knowledge of ourselves as the timeless, immutable Self possessing itself in and beyond cosmos We reunite and reconcile the One and the Many We reconcile eternal unity and eternal multiplicity We reunite soul with God We discover the Divine in the universe – basis for the Divine Play in Time 24

Overcoming the Original Ignorance Now we can approach the Absolute as the source of all circumstances and relations We can raise our existence to absolute values that converge into the Absolute 25

Overcoming the Practical Ignorance Practical Ignorance expresses as wrong-doing, suffering, error, confusion, discord and falsehood Only when the other six forms of Ignorance are transformed can perfect Knowledge replace the practical ignorance. False, imperfect values are transformed into divine values of Infinite Being, Consciousness-Force and Ananda 26

Mental vs. Supramental Knowledge Mental knowledge is knowledge of the separate parts and their surface relationship to one another Supramental Knowledge is knowledge of the whole and integration of all its aspects with one another to discover Finite as frontal appearance of the infinite Ignorance as limitation of knowledge not its opposite Formlessness as the basis for all form Oneness as the source of the Many Silence as basis for all movement Being as basis for Becoming – not its opposite Absolute as the basis for the Relative 27

Conscious Spiritual Evolution Change from mental into spiritual and supramental way of being Self-expansion out of sevenfold ignorance into sevenfold knowledge Natural completion of upward process of Nature The true spiritual individual emerges Spiritual Evolution transforms life in Ignorance into Divine Life of truth-conscious spirit Life no longer appears as a formation of things and an action of beings created by separative Ignorance 28

Sincerity Spiritual sincerity is an inner psychic status capable of receiving Grace Psychic sincerity brings one in contact with Mother’s consciousness Mental receptivity results in clarity & attracts the knowledge we seek Physical sincerity restores lost objects Body’s sincerity is receptivity that thrills in gratitude Gratitude is an emotion of the psychic being Sincerity makes gratitude possible Sincerity to Mother is to be aware of God’s intention and act on it – he tells us that intention in the book Increasing sincerity is everlasting opening 29