…three are aspects of the one Existence. The first is based upon that self-knowledge which, in our human realisation of the Divine, the Upanishad describes as the Self in us becoming all existences; the second on that which is described as seeing all existences in the Self; the third on that which is described as seeing the Self in all existences. The Self becoming all existences is the basis of our oneness with all; the Self containing all existences is the basis of our oneness in difference; the Self inhabiting all is the basis of our individuality in the universal.1
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The Atman is one in all, is not born, does not evolve or change.2
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To live in the consciousness of the Atman is to live in the calm, unity and peace that is above things and separate from the world even when pervading it.3
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The Self or Atman is inactive, Nature (Prakriti) or Shakti acts. When the Self is realised it is first an infinite existence, wideness, silence, freedom, peace that is felt — that is called Atman or Self. When action takes place, it is according to the realisation either felt as forces of Nature working in that wideness, as the Divine Shakti working or as the cosmic Divine or various powers of him working. It is not felt that the Self is acting.4
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The Self is essentially universal; the individualised self is only the universal experienced from an individual centre. If what you have realised is not felt to be one in all, then it is not the “Atman”; possibly it is the central being not yet revealing its universal aspect as Atman.5
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What is the Atman itself but an eternal and fundamental way of looking at things, the essentiality of all being in itself unknowable, neti, neti [not this, not this].6
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…according to our philosophy, all things are forms of an essentially unknowable existence which reveals them as forms of knowledge to the essential awareness in its Self, its Atman or Spirit, the Chit in the Sat.7
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A trinity of transcendent existence, self-awareness and self-delight is, indeed, the metaphysical description of the supreme Atman, the self-formulation, to our awakened knowledge, of the Unknowable whether conceived as a pure Impersonality or as a cosmic Personality manifesting the universe.8
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It [the self] is being, not a being. By self is meant the conscious essential existence, one in all.9
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Everything acts in the self. The whole play of Nature takes place in the self, in the Divine. The self contains the universe.10
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God or Para Purusha [Supreme being] is Parabrahman unmanifest & inexpressible turned towards a certain kind of manifestation or expression, of which the two eternal terms are Atman and Jagati, Self and Universe. Atman becomes in self-symbol all existences in the universe; so too, the universe when known, resolves all its symbols into Atman.11
~ Sri Aurobindo
References:
- CWSA Vol. 21-22, The Life Divine, P: 166
2. CWSA Vol. 28, Letters on Yoga-1, P: 30
3. CWSA Vol. 28, Letters on Yoga-1, P: 32
4. CWSA Vol. 28, Letters on Yoga-1, P: 32
5. CWSA Vol. 28, Letters on Yoga-1, P: 31
6. CWSA Vol. 12, Essays Divine and Human, P: 40-41
7. CWSA Vol. 12, Essays Divine and Human, P: 33
8. CWSA Vol. 23-24, The Synthesis of Yoga, P: 17
9. CWSA Vol. 28, Letters on Yoga-1, P: 30
10.CWSA Vol. 28, Letters on Yoga-1, P: 30
11.CWSA Vol. 12, Essays Divine and Human, P: 107
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