The Three Poises of the Supermind

Aurobindo posits three different poises of the Supermind.The Supermind is capable of existing in all three poises simultaneously.

"We, human beings, are phenomenally a particular form of consciousness, subject to Time and Space, and can only be, in our surface consciousness which is all we know of ourselves, one thing at a time, one formation, one poise of being, one aggregate of experience; and that one thing is for us the truth of ourselves which we acknowledge; all the rest is either not true or no longer true, because it has disappeared into the past out of our ken, or not yet true, because it is waiting in the future and not yet in our ken. But the Divine Consciousness is not so particularised, nor so limited; it can be many things at a time and take more than one enduring poise even for all time. We find that in the principle of supermind itself it has three such general poises or sessions of its world-founding consciousness. The first founds the inalienable unity of things, the second modifies that unity so as to support the manifestation of the Many in One and One in Many; the third further modifies it so as to support the evolution of a diversified individuality which, by the action of Ignorance, becomes in us at a lower level the illusion of the separate ego."

The Life Divine (10th ed.), , p.146

He then goes on to state :

"Obviously, these three poises would be only different ways of dealing with the same Truth; the Truth of existence enjoyed would be the same, the way of enjoying it or rather the poise of the soul in enjoying it would be different. The delight, the Ananda would vary, but would abide always within the status of the Truth-Consciousness and involve no lapse into the Falsehood and the Ignorance. For the secondary and tertiary supermind would only develop and apply in the terms of the divine multiplicity what the primary supermind had held in the terms of the divine unity. We cannot stamp any of these three poises with the stigma of falsehood and illusion."

The Life Divine (10th ed.), , p.148

Also :

Sri Aurobindo associates each of three poises with each of the three main vedantic philosophies (the Advaita Vedanta or NonDualism of Shankara, the Visishtadvaita or qualkified Nondualism (theistic monism) of Ramanuja, and the Dvaita or theistic dualism of Madhva) which are each seen as a valid but partial understanding, and that it is-

"...only when our human mentality lays an exclusive emphasis on one side of spiritual experience, affirms that to be the sole eternal truth and states it in the terms of our all-dividing mental logic that the necessity for mutually destructive schools of philosophy arises."

The Life Divine (10th ed.), , p.149

Sri Aurobindo explains-

"...emphasising the sole truth of the unitarian consciousness [the First Poise], we observe the play of the divine unity, erroneously rendered by our mentality into the terms of real difference..[so that it is considered]...the play itself is an illusion. Or, emphasising the play of the One in the Many [the Second Poise], we declare a qualified unity and regard the individual soul as a soul-form of the Supreme, but would...deny altogether the experience of a pure consciousness in an unqualified oneness. Or, again, emphasising the play of difference, we assert that the Supreme and the human soul are eternally different and reject the validity of an experience which exceeds and seems to abolish that difference. But ...we see that there is a truth behind all these affirmations, but at the same time an excess which leads to an ill-founded negation."

The Life Divine (10th ed.), , p.149



To be fair Madhvas also accept the validity of Advaita and Vishistaadvaita as lower and limited truths.Thus for example scientific materialism is considered the lowest elucidation of the universal truth.Above that we have Buddhism, the result of a greater exploration to find out what lies behind the phenomenal universe.Buddhists on the basis of their yogic experience conclude that all this is shunyata , a vast emptiness , out of which this whole universe has emerged.Over and above the buddhist experience is the Advaitic experience.Here the world is seen as a mere play , a shadow of the omnipresent Brahman and to merge into this brahman is salvation.Rising higher above this we come across the VA experience of the world as the body of the Brahman , the world is the body of and related to the Brahman and therefore real too.In this experience the One Vishnu has become Many and manifests as the universe and the Many universes become One in the body of the Brahman.The highest realisation is that of Madhva in which the individual soul comes into prominence as the servitor of the Lord existing in a real universe which is insentient and the material cause of the world around us.Nevertheless this universe and the individual soul is supported by the Omnipresent Vishnu who is responsible for their being and becoming.

Thus the three poises are accepted by Madhvas as equaly valid , the third poise being the highest realisation , a realisation that does not negate but exceeds the experience of A and VA.

The mutually destructive schools of thought necome necessary because the A and VA have indulged in "an excess which leads to an ill-founded negation" and therefore hold themselves to be the final truths.It then becomes necessary for the tattvavaadin to denounce them , especially when they are presented in an intellectual format.

Many advaitins however posit a different relationship between the three schools of thought with dualism occupying the lowest levels and then we get to VA and finally to Advaita.

Aurobindo has made it clear that the third poise corresponding to the dualism of Madhva is not the dualism brought out by the ignorance of the lower selves , but rather the highest of the divine experiences in the following paragraph.

He further elaborates on the Third Poise :

"A third poise of the supermind would be attained if the supporting concentration were no longer to stand at the back, as it were, of the movement, inhabiting it with a certain superiority to it and so following and enjoying, but were to project itself into the movement and to be in a way involved in it. Here, the character of the play would be altered, but only in so far as the individual Divine would so predominantly make the play of relations with the universal and with its other forms the practical field of its conscious experience that the realisation of utter unity with them would be only a supreme accompaniment and constant culmination of all experience; but in the higher poise unity would be the dominant and fundamental experience and variation would be only a play of the unity. This tertiary poise would be therefore that of a sort of fundamental blissful dualism in unity -- no longer unity qualified by a subordinate dualism -- between the individual Divine and its universal source, with all the consequences that would accrue from the maintenance and operation of such a dualism.

It may be said that the first consequence would be a lapse into the ignorance of Avidya which takes the Many for the real fact of existence and views the One only as a cosmic sum of the Many. But there would not necessarily be any such lapse. For the individual Divine would still be conscious of itself as the result of the One and of its power of conscious self-creation, that is to say, of its multiple self-concentration conceived so as to govern and enjoy manifoldly its manifold existence in the extension of Time and Space; this true spiritual individual would not arrogate to itself an independent or separate existence. It would only affirm the truth of the differentiating movement along with the truth of the stable unity, regarding them as the upper and lower poles of the same truth, the foundation and culmination of the same divine play; and it would insist on the joy of the differentiation as necessary to the fullness of the joy of the unity."

The Life Divine (10th ed.), , pp.147-8