SUPRAMENTAL DESCENT - 7

By Kiara Windrider
January 14, 2020

“The secret lies in matter. The supreme height touches the most material matter. All the splendours one can experience by going up, by getting out, by leaving, are nothing! They’re nothing, they don’t have that concrete reality. They seem vague compared to HERE. That is truly why the world has been created. It’s in terrestrial matter, on Earth that the supreme becomes perfect.”

-- The Mother

While earlier yogic traditions have an emphasis on transcending or even escaping the material realms, the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother is about accessing the highest levels of spiritual consciousness while at the same time remaining fully present in the physical body, opening to the sky so we can bring to earth this supramental force of new creation.

There is still a subtle duality inherent within many spiritual traditions where spirit and matter are seen as separate from each other, and spiritual life is conceived as somehow superior or more important than physical embodiment. In integral yoga, we understand that matter is simply an extension of spirit, and that these polarities are both equally important to experience and achieve.

We must develop roots as well as wings. Our connection with the Earth and with matter represents our relationship with Shakti, the Great Mother, whereas our connection with the Heavens and Primordial Consciousness represents the realm of Shiva. Matter is evolving upwards while Spirit is involving downwards. The great dance of Shiva continues, bridging these two worlds to shape the future evolution of mind, life and matter.

Integral yoga is not about personal transcendence but about offering ourselves as vehicles for divine embodiment. It is not about leaving behind the wheel of birth and rebirth, but consciously entering into hidden realms of Nature to make manifest the glory of God. We aspire to the highest levels of Cosmic Mind so we can bring this down into the Mind of the Cells.

We cannot do this while identified with the personal self. In my practice as a psychotherapist, I quickly became aware that our tendency to focus on healing the personal self, valuable as this may, can often become somewhat narcissistic. We become obsessed with our woundedness. We treat the personal self as if it is something real in itself, and therefore continue to create new layers within the proverbial onion so we can continue to heal them.

At a certain point we must come to the realisation that we have healed enough. The personal self cannot be healed, it can only be dissolved. When we let go the idea of a personal self, we enter the transpersonal realm as explorers of consciousness, offering ourselves in service to humanity and the earth.

This is when a spring of divine grace gets activated. The mind of the cells is altogether different from the rational mind. We find that as we access levels of the mind beyond the rational, we also begin to penetrate the mind of the cells. Our sense of separation, and consequent layers of pain and trauma, are held within subconscious worlds of density and matter. As we achieve an identity with higher levels of the mind, superconscious energies penetrate these layers of density, and alchemically transform generations of trauma and pain.

Just as there is a hidden force within the atom that can lead to unimaginable destruction, so there is a sleeping force within our cells that can awaken enormous potentials for life. This is a road that has not been travelled much. As the Mother said, “Nobody has gone there, nobody has done that. It is a beginning, a universal beginning. So, it is an absolutely unexpected and unpredictable adventure. There are people who love adventure. It is these I call, and I tell them this, I invite you to the great adventure.”

It is the ultimate adventure, not in some dimension or galaxy far away, but right here within our cells, right here upon this earth!

SUPRAMENTAL DESCENT - 8

By Kiara Windrider
January 17, 2020

“A few shall see what some yet understand

God shall grow up while the wise men talk and sleep

For man shall not know the coming till its hour

And belief shall be not till the work is done

The world is preparing for a big change

And the responsibility to bring this about lies with us

Whether we like it or not

The frontiers of ignorance shall recede

More and more souls shall enter into light...

A divine force shall flow through tissue and cell

And take charge of breath and speech and act

And all the thoughts shall be a glow of suns

And every feeling a celestial thrill...

Nature shall live to manifest the secrets of God

Spirit shall take up the human play

And earth life become the life divine”

-- Sri Aurobindo

There are times we need assurance that we will make it through these precipitous times, that there is a divine force shaping our evolution and destiny.  And sometimes we go about pitying ourselves, as the Ojibways remind us, when all the time we are being carried on great big winds across the sky.

We send out prayers for this wind to carry us towards safety. But what if this wind is not outside of us? What if we ourselves are this wind, and we ourselves are the sky? We have a responsibility to step into the shadows of a dying world, and whether we like it or not, shape our own evolutionary destiny.

We have been like children, pleading for a divine power to help us in times of trouble, to rescue us from the consequences of our own mindless insanity. But this doesn’t work so well anymore. As God grows up, we are being called to look into the mirror, and see our own face. We are called to take responsibility for our creations, shape this world, and manifest the secrets of God in everything we do and feel and touch.

I remember the first time I was in Egypt, staying in a little guesthouse in Giza, gazing directly over to the Sphinx from my bedroom window. I had been exploring the idea that all the Egyptians gods and goddesses represented archetypes in the human psyche, and that our job was to awaken and honour them all. It was an exciting concept, and initiated a dialogue with all the great ones, starting with Nut and Geb, and Thoth and Osiris, Isis and Nepthys and Horus.

But then I ran into a problem. What do I do with Set, the god who represents war and violence and evil, and later became known as Satan in the Christian tradition? Was it safe to go looking for him? What did he have to teach me? Which part of me did he represent?

When I finally asked him to come through, the message I received was quite different from what I expected. I was surprised to encounter an energy that was stern, but at the same time wise and compassionate. He told me that to the extent we were unwilling to look at our own shadows, we had been projecting all our hatreds and fears and despair and grief onto each other, and ultimately to an external embodiment of this collective energy, which he personified.

It was time, he said, to grow up as a species, take back our projections, and set him free. It was also time to set each other free, and to embrace what has been buried and suppressed within ourselves. As we acknowledge and embrace our shadows, these shadows become doorways to our most forgotten light. This is the need of the hour, and this is the secret of alchemy.

Sri Aurobindo referred to this collective darkness as the Inconscient. As we bring supramental light into the Inconscient energies imprinted within our psyches, our true work begins. God awakens within us, and within matter itself!

SUPRAMENTAL DESCENT - 9

By Kiara Windrider
January 18, 2020

“I was on a huge boat which was a symbolic representation of the place where people who are destined for the supramental life are trained. The boat itself was made of a supramental substance. The light was a mixture of gold and red, forming a uniform substance of a luminous orange. The atmosphere was full of joy, calm, order; everything went on regularly and in silence. On the boat the nature of objects was not the one we know on earth, for instance, clothes were not made of cloth and what looked like cloth was not manufactured, it formed a part of the body, it was made of the same substance which took different forms. Life created its own forms.”

--The Mother

I remember being fascinated by stories of ancient Avalon, how the priestesses knew how to part the mists and enter a magical isle where the land was green and the goddess still reigned. A close friend of mine recently had a dream where the earth had become devastated, but there were some people who had found a bridge leading to a beautiful new world. She expected that I would be there but couldn’t find me. Finally, as the bridge collapsed, I showed up somehow, swimming across the chasm that separated these worlds.

There are legends of ferrymen taking people across rivers in the underworld, and stories of ancient travellers suddenly appearing in unknown places. There are tunnels that lead to other dimensions, and yogis that have mastered the art of travelling in etheric vehicles of consciousness. Many who have died and returned, describe moving through a vortex into realms of light and joy, before being told it is not their time yet, and re-entering their physical bodies.

The supramental world that the Mother describes here seems to have a life of its own. It exists already in a dimension that is parallel to ours, and entering closer. There comes a moment in time when these two dimensions merge, and we collectively enter a new vibrational frequency where the physical world steps out from behind its veil of Inconscience, and experiences itself as ‘true matter’.

Every mother understands that birth is often accompanied by an intensity of pressure and pain. We are going through this now as deep layers of inconscience are penetrated. But the actual moment of birth can be gentle, and unexpectedly joyful. It is like waking from a bad dream and entering the morning sunlight.

Does everyone collectively enter this supramental world in the moment of Gaia’s rebirth? This is a good question, and the answer is not very clear.  There are those who are born for these times, who have not felt much at home in the world or in their bodies, strangers in a strange land. Many of these will feel a soul resonance with these words and know that this is the destiny they are born for. There are those also who need to continue their evolution through the illusion of separation and suffering, and they will find appropriate worlds where this can continue as well.

This is the same experience we have when we die to our physical bodies. The Yogis speak of ‘bardos’ or ’lokas’, worlds and dimensions that appear very real to our subtle senses, where we can continue to have the experiences we need in order to grow. however, these bardos are not fixed, and we can travel back and forth as we are ready. It is the same in our journey of evolution.

All possibilities exist as fields of electrical potential, and all creation is a dance between magnetic fields and electrical potentials. As we near a time of geomagnetic reversal, these potentials can be made manifest, not as a single reality but many, even as many bardos can exist simultaneously in worlds beyond the physical. A supramental world can be made manifest at the same time as a nuclear wasteland, and we choose what we need to experience.

From an evolutionary perspective, individual stories are not important. What matters is that we evolve as a species and as a planet. In the supramental realms, we are there already.

SUPRAMENTAL DESCENT - 10

By Kiara Windrider
January 19, 2020

“People sleep, they forget... but if we could remember... that we are at an exceptional hour, a unique time, that we have this immense good fortune, this invaluable privilege of being present at the birth of a new world, we could easily get rid of everything that impedes and hinders our progress. So the most important thing is to remember this fact, even when one doesn’t have the tangible experience, to have the certainty of it ... that we are witnessing the birth of a new world. We can participate in it, we can become this new world. And truly, when one has such a marvellous opportunity, one should be ready to give up everything for its sake.”

--The Mother

How can we participate in birthing this new world? The supramental has its own power of intelligence as it descends from above. We must simultaneously do our part here to anchor it from below. We must attune to this supramental force, and then get out of the way. It is a process of active surrender.

Active surrender is a bit of a paradox. As we purify the ego, it become clear and strong enough to hold this supramental force. Purifying the ego is not about suppressing or getting rid of the ego, but rather shifting our attention from the personal self to the universal self. We are not just a drop of water returning to the sea, but the entire sea reflected in the drop, and pouring back in through each individual drop. Our job is simply to widen our sense of identity and become the ocean. The ocean can then take over and do whatever is needed to bring the supramental down to earth.

As our sense of identity widens, we open to higher frequencies of light. Our hearts learn to open more fully, our bodies and nervous system begin to integrate these powerful unitive energies, and our mind becomes like a clear mountain lake, capable of reflecting the fullness of an infinite sky.

Once we initiate the process of surrender, a triple transformation begins to take place, involving the psychic, spiritual and supramental faculties. Lower expressions of soul, mind and body begin to reach up, join and integrate with higher aspects of our divine self.

In the first phase, we move our awareness from surface consciousness to inner consciousness until we are able to access the ‘psychic being’, the active part of the soul that evolves together with the personality from lifetime to lifetime. We learn to understand and control our desires and passions, widening our attention from the narrow world of personal self to the larger work of planetary awakening. We experience a keen aspiration to accomplish the evolutionary task we are given. This is what Sri Aurobindo calls the ‘psychic transformation’.

In the second phase, we start moving towards higher planes of the mind, including the higher mind, the illumined mind and the intuitive mind. As we open to the presence of a higher light, a force of divine will and intuitive knowing begins to take hold of our rational faculties, and begins to make its way through. This is the ‘spiritual transformation’.

In the third phase, there is the ‘supramental transformation’. As we reach through the overmind to the supermind, we experience the radical transformation of our essential human nature, initiating the birth of a new biological species. As Truth-Consciousness gradually anchors into the mind of the cells, biological limits are transcended, and infinite new possibilities begin to manifest within the field of matter. We experience the power to alchemically transform the world.

We are not separate from Gaia. As the supramental energies descend, our own evolution progresses towards ‘homo luminous’, a species capable of experiencing and manifesting all the creativity, wisdom and power of the Infinite Self within our physical bodies. Simultaneously, planetary evolution progresses towards ‘Gaia Luminous’, where the consciousness within matter becomes plastic enough to respond directly to the creative power of Primordial Spirit.

This is the integral, or ‘supramental yoga’, we are being invited to practice at this time. “All is gold and gold and gold,” spoke the Mother, “a torrent of golden light pouring down in an uninterrupted flow and bringing with it the consciousness of the gods... a sunlit path in which difficulties lose all reality. Such is the path open before us if we choose to take it.”

SUPRAMENTAL  DESCENT - 11

By Kiara Windrider
January 20, 2020

“A change of consciousness is the major fact of the next evolutionary transformation, and the consciousness itself, by its own mutation, will impose and effect any necessary mutation of the body.”

-- Sri Aurobindo

We tend to look at mutations as if they were something accidental, driven by a blind force of chance, a wild experiment where the outcome is likely to be bizarre and uncertain. And yet we have in its natural state a profoundly intricate and amazingly beautiful web of life where every species has its own unique and inter-dependent place. How is this possible if there isn’t an underlying intelligence directing and shaping this process?

We also tend to look at mutations as if they need an external agent, some form of radiation perhaps, or else long eons of time, to break up existing models of DNA and initiate something new. But what if the driving force behind mutations isn’t something external to nature but a hidden force within nature itself, striving for diversity and self-perfection, which can very quickly create new forms of life when the conditions are right?

Bruce Lipton refers to a ‘biology of belief’, the idea that our intentions and beliefs can shape our internal environment, and ultimately our genetic codes. But is this merely referring to the rational mind? There is a Mind within nature, a consciousness which I call Gaia, which is capable of orchestrating this feat. What Sri Aurobindo makes clear is that humans have the capacity to holographically link with the hidden powers of nature in order to consciously access and shape this evolutionary transformation.

Our experiments with artificial intelligence and attempts to forge some form of alliance with a world of robots and machines falls far short of Gaia’s capacity for conscious evolution. These experiments arise from the rational level of the mind, and are therefore limited in conception and scope. But what if we are able to access the higher levels of the mind, ultimately even the supramental level, in order to merge with the consciousness of Gaia, and consciously participate in the goal of new creation?

Clive Backster was known for his ability to enter the process of natural selection and develop new strains of plants. Plants are sensitive to electrical fields, and he also demonstrated how they can ‘feel pain’ in response to negative thoughts, had preferences for certain kinds of music, and could even communicate telepathically with us, as measured with sensitive electrical equipment. Recent researchers refer to mycelium present within the roots of plants and trees that generate a sort of planetary nervous system.

I am reminded of my favourite movie, Avatar, where Pandora represents for me a supramental version of our own planet, with whom the Navi people could communicate through their access to Aywa. I am told that James Hanson spent some time in the Amazon while making the movie, and wonder if Aywa might be a veiled reference to Ayahuasca, a plant medicine which has the capacity to open doorways between worlds.

The supramental journey is about permanently creating this same pathway in consciousness. We move our awareness out to merge with Gaia and with the Cosmos, and then bring higher fields of creative consciousness down through our bodies into the heart of matter. Supramental consciousness has the power to transform reality, and shape evolution, in a way that our rational consciousness cannot. This is the secret of alchemy and self-transcendence. It requires enormous dedication and effort, but is the only way to successfully meet the enormous challenges of these times.

Each challenge is also an opportunity. We carry within ourselves everything we need to make our realization complete. Where there are thick shadows, there is also somewhere a great light. and where this light descends, deep shadows get revealed. ‘Supramental descent’ is always accompanied by a ‘supramental catastrophe’, where the harmonising power of truth-consciousness gently but powerfully transforms the shadows of the mind reflected out in the world. As supramental light descends to earth, and the soul incarnates fully, a new evolution becomes possible, not merely on a personal level but within the collective. As we mature into our divinity, this path of planetary service becomes the only path worth travelling.

SUPRAMENTAL DESCENT - 12

By Kiara Windrider

January 21, 2020

“I saw them crossing the twilight of an age

The sun eyed children of a marvellous dawn

Great creators with wide brows of calm

The massive barrier-breakers of the world

Labourers in the quarries of the gods...

The architects of immortality.

Into the fallen human sphere they came

Faces that wore the Immortal’s glory still.

Bodies made beautiful by the spirit’s light

Carrying the magic word, the mystic fire

Carrying the Dionysian cup of joy

Lips chanting an unknown anthem of the soul

Feet echoing in the corridors of Time

High priests of wisdom, sweetness, might and bliss

Discoverers of beauty’s sunlit ways...

Their tread one day shall change the suffering Earth

And justify the light on Nature’s face”

--Sri Aurobindo

This, my favourite passage from Sri Aurobindo’s epic poem, Savitri, best summarises for me the grand destiny of our human race. The ‘sun-eyed children of a marvellous dawn’ represent the first of a new species emerging upon earth, born out of the crucibles of matter, born out of spirit’s light and mystic fire, born out of life’s longing for itself.

They go by many names... but they do not much like to be labelled. Like hummingbirds, they die when trapped inside cages. They walk everywhere, have their own language, their own means of communication. They see clearly and perceive differently. They are pioneers, waving flags of freedom. Their eyes shine the light of hope, and they know why they have come.

Having seen through the illusion of separation, they are not bound by limitations we consider normal. Understanding that health transcends the mechanics of the physical body, they can heal with a look, a touch, or a thought. They know how to bend time and space. They are not dependent on food for sustenance, nor external technologies for survival. Realising that reality is more about perception than about appearances, they have learned to enter the world of their dreams, and make this real.

These children come of all ages. The have learned to connect with the elemental aspect of their being, as well as the angelic. They understand the language of the wind, the dragonflies and the stars. They are coming forward everywhere, waiting to be invited into the circle of life.

We can heal the problems of this world by means other than what we have known or understood. We can clean up our environment by understanding the secrets of matter. We can heal our hearts, bodies and minds by remembering who we are. We can reach beyond the known to reveal what is inherent within the heart of nature. In the midst of chaos and catastrophe, silent and unseen, a new earth has already been born.

The sun-eyed children are rising up in the world, more and more each passing day. They are also within you as you read these words -- as you choose your destiny, find your community, and follow the path of your heart. Like a seed in the darkness of an inconscient earth, this new species is rising up towards the sun. We remember our true face as ancient creators and wayshowers, replacing the tired human paradigm of separation, duality and fear.

Long and patiently we have been awaiting these times. We are the ones we are waiting for!