Thinking About the Noosphere: Sri Aurobindo, The Overmind,

Supermind and the Descent of the Supramental

A basic premise of the Noosphere II Project of the Galactic Research Institute is that the
noosphere represents a major evolutionary alteration of human consciousness. This is a
shift from atomized individual consciousness to the consciousness of a vast single entity,
what might be referred to as the collective telepathic field of planet Earth. Given this
premise, a fundamental purpose of the Noosphere II Project is to identify the qualities of
the new evolutionary consciousness and to identify antecedents for this consciousness in
the principles and methods of earlier schools of thought and experimental thinkers. In
general, the elaboration of mystical contemplation of every kind, the definitions and
explorations of cosmic consciousness, and the techniques of yoga and meditation are all
considered as providing clues as to the nature of the forthcoming evolutionary shift, the
noosphere.

When we talk about this shift, the advent of the noosphere, Earth’s mental sheathe or
envelope, it is often spoken of as something imminent or inevitable due to various factors
of Earth’s evolution and biogeochemical mutations. Thus, we speak of this change as the
biosphere-noosphere transition. We can elaborate upon the biosphere-noosphere
transition as the mutation of the life system of planet Earth into its next evolutionary
stage, the more purely mental level of planetary consciousness. But how are we really to
think about the noosphere, a planetary mind, something far beyond each of our little
minds? How can we grasp a consciousness greater than the highest consciousness which
we can experience? How do we, as humans in our individualized consciousness, make
the leap to planetary consciousness? What does it mean, the planetarization of
consciousness?

If we read Teilhard de Chardin or Vernadsky, the noosphere appears to be something that

is imminent and toward which our biological and terrestrial evolution is inevitably
advancing us. But this may not be the only way to think about it. We might also think of
the noosphere as an increase in synchronicity, and as a participation in a divine descent.
The very emergence of the word “noosphere” into the vocabulary of world thought
occurred in a synchronic nexus of events indicating that the planetary moment was ripe
for the appearance of a complex new thought form, noosphere. In other words, the
noosphere needed to make itself conscious at this time, and, partaking of synchronicity as
a fundamental aspect of its nature, it manifest itself in a multiple synchronic manner - a
chronotopology - at a given moment. As we shall see, the notion of the noosphere as an
aspect of a divine descent of consciousness was part of this chronotopology or nexus of
events. This chronotopology occurring in the Gregorian year 1926, includes the
following:

First of all, it was in this year, 1926, that a scientist from Marxist Russia, Vladimir
Vernadsky, a French Jesuit paleontologist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and a Parisian
philosopher and student of noted thinker, Henri Bergson, Jules le Roi, were brought
together in Paris, France, to coin the word “noosphere”. They needed a word to define the
next critical phase toward which the evolution of the biosphere was tending, a phase in
which the factors of consciousness would predominate over biological factors to create a
greater synthesis of life - hence, noosphere, Earth’s mental sheathe.

It was in this very same year that South African statesman and philosopher, Jan Smuts,
published his book Holism and Human Evolution, the earliest exposition of the principle
of holistic philosophy by which life and evolution are defined in terms of a synthesis of
whole systems rather than as an analysis of ever more minute parts. While Smuts’ book
does not refer to the noosphere as such, it could be stated that without the principle of
holism, it is difficult to think about the noosphere. By its very nature the noosphere is a
whole system predicated by the holistic perception and philosophy which further states
that evolution moves in the direction of greater, all-encompassing whole systems which
of necessity embrace an increasingly greater consciousness as well. As the thinking layer
of the planet, the noosphere can only reflect the holistic nature of the planet as a whole
system.

Then on November 3, 1926, occurred the death of the French psychomathematician,

Charles Henry. Just before he passed away, Henry published a little treatise entitled, “The
Post-mortem Survival of consciousness,” anticipating a transcendence of consciousness
into a greater whole. Two years before, in 1924. Henry had published the Generalization
of the Theory of Radiation, in which he posited the existence of a “psychone,” a “psychic
atom” consisting of three mutually coexisting fields. Each of these fields is defined by a
resonator: an electromagnetic resonator, a gravitational resonator, and a biopsychic
resonator. This is also known as the resonant field model, and is applicable to a
description of a planetary system. As such it is not unrelated to the principle of the
noosphere, which could be defined as the conscious evolutionary unfolding of the
biopsychic resonator. Looking ahead to the future, in his “Post-mortem Survival of
Consciousness,” Henry declared, “Death is only a physiochemical change. It is only after
death that I shall truly begin to amuse myself.”

It was on November 24, 1926, exactly three weeks after Henry’s higher consciousness
transition, that the Indian philosopher and mystic, Sri Aurobindo experienced what is
called “The Day of Siddhi” (day of victory): The descent of Krishna, an unprecedented
descent of overmental consciousness, into the physical. From that point he retired into a
concentrated sadhana - spiritual practice. This event completed a strategic year for the
expression of the possibilities of a more expanded evolutionary consciousness for
humanity. In fact, we could say that having been theoretically construed and placed into
the world consciousness, the noosphere experienced its divine descent and for the first
time precipitated itself as “overmental consciousness” into a human form through Sri
Aurobindo. All advances in human consciousness must first be manifest in a living
human form, else there would be no way really of knowing what is to come. This
expresses the principle of the avatar, a descent of a particular principle into human form
so it may be exemplified to humanity at large.

It matters not that Aurobindo seems to not have been familiar with the word noosphere.
He died, December 5, 1950. At that time Vernadsky’s work, most of it in Russian, had
been translated into English but little, and mostly in American scholarly journals, so most
likely it would never have found its way to Aurobindo’s retreat on an ashram in South
India, At the same time, Teilhard de Chardin’s work was not published until after his
death in 1955, so there is no way Aurobindo could have known about the word
noosphere. Nonetheless, through the “descent of the overmental” which altered his life
irrevocably, and his profuse descriptions of consciousness, most specifically of the
Supermind, the role of the Overmind, and the principle of supramental descent,
Aurobindo gives us some of the best accounts of the noosphere from the higher point of
view of the evolution of consciousness. This is a perspective that few other thinkers have
been able to provide systematically.

Unlike Teilhard de Chardin and Vernadsky, who were more concerned with the
biological and biogeochemical aspects of our evolution into the noosphere, Aurobindo
was a philosopher mystic whose primary interest was in defining the future evolution
from the standpoint of a comprehensive system of evolving states of consciousness.
Because his focus was on the evolution of the human Mind of Ignorance into the
supermental realms, accompanied by a simultaneous descent of the Divine
Consciousness, his definitions of the next stages of consciousness are as vivid and
descriptive of the actual nature of the noosphere as a state of consciousness as any that
exist. For this reason a brief survey of Sri Aurobindo’s thoughts on this issue are most
helpful to us at this step of the journey as we approach the noosphere’s imminence.

Whereas Teilhard de Chardin and Vernadsky saw the noosphere - the planetary mind - as
an imminent possibility resulting from inevitable tendencies in biological evolution, for
Aurobindo the Overmind - his term most closely approximating the notion of the
noosphere - is as much a matter of the descent of the Divine as it is a matter of the rising
or aspiring upward of the spirit trapped, as it were, in the lowest stages of material
involution. But, as is implicit in Vernadsky’s term for the next geological era, the
psychozoic - the psychic spiritualization of life - Aurobindo also foresaw a
spiritualization and transformation of matter totally inseparable from the liberation of the
spirit into Divine Consciousness. Because of his Catholic training, Teilhard de Chardin as
well viewed the noosphere in a spiritualized context, but as a more Christlike form of a
descent of divine consciousness. The systematic elaboration of the structure of cosmic
consciousness as a vast arena in which the evolution of matter itself is considered as an
aspect of the involution and evolution of the soul by the medium of Divine
Consciousness is characteristic of the thought of Aurobindo, the breadth of which is
really not equaled by any other thinker since his passing in 1950.

Even in this brief study, we can only give the merest hints of the vastness of his thought,
and in focusing on but one aspect of his detailed elaboration of consciousness we only
mean to suggest from that in what way he anticipated the nature of noospheric
consciousness. As we shall see, it is in Aurobindo’s definition of the Overmind that we
have what we could say is his term for the noosphere. But his perception of the Overmind
is set within a highly structured description of the nature of consciousness, mind,
Supermind, and Divine Consciousness. For that reason, however, it also defines the
noosphere from a far more spiritual perspective than even Teilhard de Chardin, and it
may be that this description of the noosphere is most necessary as an antidote to the final
desacralized nature of historical materialism which now inundates the world with its
violence and triviality.

To understand better the conception of the Overmind as Noosphere, it is wise to consider

Sri Aurobindo’s perception of the nature of consciousness. While brought up on
traditional Hindu and Vedic thought, the thrust of Aurobindo’s originality was to not be
satisfied with the notion of the Absolute as a static phenomenon. His critique of
traditional thought was that the yogas or meditation systems did not admit of the
possibility of a radical, evolutionary transformation of human consciousness, but rather
rest with a state of nirvanic bliss or quietism, beyond which there is no motion. Hence,
arose his pursuit of the experience of consciousness as an evolutionary momentum
toward a higher supermental condition, which, at the same time, would be experienced as
a supramental descent. Aurobindo’s perspective is unique and can be seen as that of a
radical evolutionary transformationalist. This is not surprising considering Aurobindo’s
early life.

Born August 15, 1872 (Blue Self-existing Storm), in his early youth Aurobindo was an
activist for Indian independence. He was aware of the modern trends of thought, but even
more, he was aware that the ferment of the contemporary world was actually a sign of an
evolutionary movement toward a new transhistorical state of being and consciousness.
Interestingly, India attained Independence on Aurobindo’s 75th birthday, August 15,
1947.
As he was to write later in his life: “Man is a transitional being; he is not final. For in
man and high beyond him ascend the radiant degrees that climb to a divine
supermanhood. There lies our destiny and the liberating key to our aspiring but troubled
and limited mundane existence.” (Essential Aurobindo, p.54) The “divine
supermanhood” we can now say is the quality of life and consciousness as lived by the
noosphere, while the ascent by “radiant degrees” is the fulfillment of a realization of the
relation of the biopsychic to the electromagnetic fields of the Earth in helping to foster a
psychoatmospheric trigger event for noospheric consciousness.

One of the founders of the Indian Nationalist Party, Aurobindo had been quite a radical
and was arrested twice, once in 1907, and again in 1908. It was during his second jail
term in Alipore that he began to seriously study the Bhagavad Gita and practice yoga.
From here his life was to take a new turn. It was in Alipore jail that Aurobindo
experienced the first transformation when his self-awareness gave way to the presence of
a divine force. From here his studies, meditation and sadhana enriched him
incomparably. In 1914 he met the Mother, Mira Richard. This was a truly transformative
encounter, for Mira was to become Aurobindo’s chief disciple and coworker. In 1920,
she returned to live with him the rest of his life in Pondicherry. It is to the Mother that the
great visionary community of Auroville owes its existence.

Following his meeting with the Mother, Aurobindo experienced a great creative outburst,
and immediately after their first meeting much of his original synthesizing, critical and
systematic philosophy of Divine Consciousness and Integral Yoga was written, including
the Life Divine and A Synthesis of Yoga, as well as Essays on the Gita, The Secret of the
Veda, The ideal of Human Unity and the Human Cycle. This massive body of work was
written between 1914-21, when he was between the ages of 44 and 51. If one
contemplates, much less gives serious study to just The Life Divine and a Synthesis of
Yoga, one will see what a masterful synthesist of human thought Aurobindo was. Though
based on the Gita and the Vedas, his thinking transcends altogether the limitations of any
tradition. The patriot of Indian independence had become a thorough evolutionary
universalist. As he wrote in the Human Cycle:

“The coming of a spiritual age must be preceded by appearance of an increasing number

of individuals who are no longer satisfied with the normal intellectual, vital, and
psychical existence of man, but perceive that a greater evolution is the real goal of
humanity and attempt to effect it in themselves, to lead others to it, and to make it the
recognized goal of the race. In proportion as they succeed and the degree to which they
carry this evolution, the yet unrealized potentiality which they represent will become the
actual possibility of the future.”

Essential Aurobindo, p. xii

Of course, the greatest exemplar of this process was Sri Aurobindo himself. The very
principle of evolutionary transformation upon which the coming of the noosphere is
predicated is at the heart of Aurobindo’s perceptions and life-experience.
"There must first be the psychic change, the conversion of our whole present nature into a
soul-instrumentation; on that or along with that there must be the spiritual change, the
descent of a higher Light, Knowledge, Power, Force, Bliss into the whole being, even
into the darkness of our subconscience; last there must supervene the supramental
transmutation - there must take place as the crowning movement the ascent into the
supermind and transforming descent of the supramental Consciousness into our entire
being and nature."

Srinivas Iyenegar, p. 696, Life of Aurobindo, 1972

This presents an accurate description of both the type of personal transformation

necessary to realize the potential of noospheric consciousness, as well as the actual nature
of the shift into the noosphere itself as a supramental transmutation which is a
simultaneous ascent into the supermind and a transforming descent of the supramental
Consciousness. In other words, from the human perspective, the noosphere represents the
attainment of the supermind, a singular state of mind and consciousness where the
individual and the personal have been totally subsumed into the workings of a higher
mind - a superhuman mind. This is a mind and consciousness beyond what can be
conceived of if we limit ourselves to descriptions and conceptualizations of
consciousness that remain centered on individual self-realization.

It was precisely this kind of transmutation that occurred in the second transformation of
Sri Aurobindo’s consciousness, the descent of the Overmind which occurred on
November 24, (3 Dog) 1926. This was the first such descent into human form of the
Overmind, which was accomplished on the Day of Siddhi (supernatural power), and
hence also known as the day of spiritual victory. Sri Aurobindo announced the third
transformation of consciousness immediately after the descent of the Overmind. This
third transformation, he explained, would be a supramental transformation, the descent of
the Supermind, which, he declared just before his death, would occur through the Mother.
On February 29, 1956, the Mother confirmed that this descent had occurred through her.

The fullest manifestation of the Supermind is through the expression the Mother gave to
the conception of Auroville, February 29, 1968. Here is a fully intentional international
community where the noospheric design of transcendent human consciousness can
experiment and flourish without inhibition or allegiance to any religion or state
sanctioned custom, such as marriage. The only prerequisite is a belief in the Divine
Consciousness toward which humanity aspires, more often than not, despite itself. “The
time of religions is over. We have entered the age of universal spirituality, of spiritual
experience in its initial purity” (“The Teaching of Sri Aurobindo,” p. 62). Through the
efforts of the Mother, Auroville was able to flourish as the laboratory of human evolution
free of conventional social morality.

"There is therefore no reason to put a limit to evolutionary possibility by taking our

present organization or status of existence as final. The animal is a laboratory in which
Nature has worked out man; man may very well be a laboratory in which she wills to
work out superman, to disclose the soul as a divine being, to evolve the divine nature."
 XXVII p.380, Quoted in Essential Aurobindo, p. 45

If such is nature’s design for man, then the noosphere as the Overmind will be no less
divine in its nature and place in the supernatural evolutionary scheme of things. What the
vision of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother project on to the notion of a noosphere is that it
represents a necessary stage in the universalization of humanity toward the One, and at
the same time becomes a meeting ground for the supramental descent of the Supermind
itself.

Before going into a more systematic understanding of Sri Aurobindo’s terminology and
understanding of consciousness and divine evolution, let us hear him speak on the nature
of universalization, for if the noosphere is anything it is the universalization of
consciousness, dissolving all barriers that now cause such a painful sense of separation,
conflict and disease in the human race.

"The ordinary man lives in his own personal consciousness knowing things through his
mind and senses as they are touched by a word which is outside him, outside his
consciousness. When the consciousness subtilizes, it begins to come into contact with
things in a much more direct way, not only with their forms and outer impacts but with
what is inside them, but still the range may be small. But the consciousness can also
widen and begin to be first in direct contact with a universe of range of things in the
world, then to contain them as it were - as it is said to see the world in oneself - and to be
in a way identified with it. To see all things in the self and the self in all things - to be
aware of one being everywhere, aware directly of the different planes, their forces, their
beings - that is universalization."

XXII p.317, quoted in Essential Aurobindo, p. 54

This description defines the stages that move from the personal egoic consciousness
where everything is directed outwardly or comprehended only as something coming from
outside, as it were; thence comes a shift toward a consideration of the inner meaning of
things; and then finally to that great mutation in the consciousness where the distinction
between the ego and the other, the subject and the object are erased, and the perceptions
become cosmically enlarged as “one being everywhere.”

Now to better understand Sri Aurobindo’s contribution to our understanding of the nature
of the noosphere as a state or condition of evolving consciousness - the Overmind - let us
turn to a brief review of his systematization of consciousness and the “Life Divine.”
What is significant is that through Sri Aurobindo’s systematic rendering of the nature and
evolution of consciousness from Matter and the Mind of Ignorance to supreme Divine
supramental consciousness, the noosphere (Overmind) is placed within the context of an
evolving spirituality, rather than just as the conclusion to and transformation of a
biogeochemical process - which it also is. This the key point of this brief review. In this
regard, future studies should be made more closely aligning Sri Aurobindo’s evolutionary
schema with the Law of Time and the evolution of time as consciousness as the
supramental descent initiating the biosphere-noosphere transition.
At the simplest and most synthesizing level, Aurobindo speaks of the “Sevenfold Chord
of Being.” It is interesting, in light of the Law of Time, that Sri Aurobindo is obedient to
the principle of the power of seven which corresponds to the ratio of the primal
cosmological fracture in Eternity, and hence is at the root of all cosmic manifestation. An
evocation of this primal cosmic fracture in Eternity, the source of the universal drama of
the soul in its involution into and evolution out of matter, echoing as well as the primacy
of the number seven in its relation to time is reflected in the following passage from the
Rig Veda:

In the ignorance of my mind, I ask these steps of the Gods that are set within. The all-
knowing Gods have taken the Infant of a year and they have woven about him seven
threads.

The power of seven extends to the number of chapters in both volumes of The Life
Divine. Each volume contains 28 chapters, and each volume has one chapter devoted to
the power of Seven. “The Sevenfold Chord of Being,” Chapter XXVII of Volume One
(Life Divine, pp. 262-270), and “Out of the Sevenfold Ignorance to the Sevenfold
Knowledge,” Chapter XIX of Volume II (Life Divine, pp, 726-741). Regarding the
numerology of the two chapters, while 27 represents the power of the Nine Lords of
Time, the “Sevenfold” of Chapter XIX (nineteen) - show the two prime numbers (7 and
19) underlying the mathematical code of the Law of Time matrix, the 260-unit
Tzolkin/Harmonic Module. *(See: Arguelles, 19 = 260, The Law of Time and the Holy
Quran, unpublished manuscript, Foundation for the Law of Time Archives)

Sri Aurobindo’s conception of the Sevenfold Chord of Being corresponds to the

fundamental formulation [Link]. That is within the Sevenfold Chord of Being, the
principle of the four is at the center between two triune principles: A higher, purely
divine level, Being, Consciousness and Bliss (corresponding to the Vedic-Hindu concept
- Sat-Chit-Ananda), and a purely lower physical sensory plane triad, Matter-Energy-Life.
This principle of the four and seven is again reflected in the Rig Veda where it is written,
“He found the vast Thought with seven heads that is born of the Truth; he created some
fourth world and became universal ...” While the lower triad may be said to have an
ascending principle, the higher possesses a descending power. The upper descending
trinity would correspond to the primal telepathic quantum - telepathy being supramental -
and the lower, ascending triad to the sensory quantum. Between the two is the catalytic
middle fourth term, the Supermind. Closely related to the Supermind is the Overmind
(noosphere), which could be said to be the Supermind operative on a finite plane of
existence.
With the Sevenfold Chord of being as a kind of armature, we may construct a synthesis
of Sri Aurobindo’s vast conceptualization of consciousness. (See graphic: Thinking
about the Noosphere) Starting at the top of this graphic rendering, above everything else,
is the All-existing Truth-Force or Divine Consciousness. Although Sri Aurobindo speaks
of God, in some ways that term is too static for the dynamic perception evolved through
Sri Aurobindo’s soul. Thus, the phrase “Divine Consciousness,” is Sri Aurobindo's
preferred term for the Supreme Absolute. As an all unifying transcendental cosmic
principle, Divine Consciousness is thoroughly supramental, another term used often by
Sri Aurobindo. Supramental means “beyond the mind.” That is, there is consciousness
dependent upon the mind, and then there is consciousness beyond the mind. For Sri
Aurobindo, what we commonly think of as mind is fundamentally a function of ignorance
or the lower physical plane of existence. It is the realm where error and illusion work
themselves out. What all of Matter, Energy and Life aspire to is the supermental, the
egoless higher mind. This aspiration or movement toward the supermental is an
inevitable but mostly unconscious process, the trial-and-error of samsaric existence.

As the supramental principle the Divine Consciousness is the “Mind of God,”

coextensive with the higher dimensional as well as the lower dimensional cosmic
universe. Its nature is Sat-Chit-Ananda - “Being-Consciousness-Bliss.” These are the
qualities that pervade the universe supramentally. This is the realm of Pure Spirit. But, as
in Ibn-al-Arabi's theophanic vision, the Pure Spirit of Sat-Chit Ananda cannot be satisfied
until it has descended and completely spiritualized the lower realm of existence. The
fulfillment of the spiritualization of the lower realms by the principle of Sat-Chit-Ananda
is concordant with the final realization of the aspiration of the soul of the lower realms in
the complete fulfillment of its impulse toward perfection. This is the human aspiration
accompanied by divine revelation known everywhere in every form of spirituality that
has ever existed.

To attain its ends the upper trinity factors into existence an intermediary state of
consciousness, Supermind. All Mind ultimately is Supermind, but to complete its descent
into matter - involution of the spirit - Supermind must then become mere mind or the
Mind of Ignorance. But before this occurs and also independent of it, Supermind is the
“Creator” of all that is visible or sensible in the manifest realm. That is because
Supermind is a function of the self-existent ocean of knowledge which is the result of the
self-illumination of the Divine Consciousness. This ocean of knowledge is the origin of
revelatory Gnosis and of all gnostic consciousness, the higher superpersonal realm of
consciousness of the evolved being who has is entered into the Overmind or Noosphere.
The gnostic type as the mystical personality has always been at the forefront of things.

"It is possible indeed that it is the mystic or the incipient occultist who was everywhere
the creator of religion and imposed his secret discoveries in the form of belief, myth and
practice on mass human mind; for it is always the individual who receives the intuitions
of Nature and takes the step forward dragging or drawing the rest of humanity behind
him."

Life Divine, p. 869

In its ascent the creative individual is drawn always by the Supermind and, through that
aspiration, receives “the intuition of nature” from the vast bank of self-existent
knowledge which informs the Supermind and which is made available through the
Overmind (noosphere) to the finite creature struggling to Return to the Divine Source.
This Supermind is the Source of all realities, the universal cosmic mind, the ground of all
consciousness, the alaya or storehouse consciousness, tathagatagarbha, the womb of the
Buddhas. It is this Supermind that perceives the perceiver who is deep in meditative
samadhi.

The Supermind is what is channeled, as it were, as Overmind (noosphere) on the finite

planetary plane of existence, at least on those planets capable of attaining a synthesis of
Matter, Energy and Life. For it is only through the attainment of the stage of the
Overmind (noosphere) that the ascent to Supermind can be realized. For the Overmind is
the resultant descent of the Supermind, and what goes down in consciousness must come
back up. The Overmind as noosphere is then that fully intermediate state of
consciousness, accommodating at the correct moment the ascent of the Spirit struggling
upward through the Mind of Ignorance.

As we know from our investigations, the noosphere, the supernatural Overmind of Earth,
provides a matrix for the reformulation of all realities. This reformulation on the finite
plane takes the form of the psi bank, a coded structure of possibilities of thought and
being registered as a whole number pattern 2080. This number is critical because it is
coded by the number of the DNA codons, 64, and the number of the Law of Time
frequency matrix, 260 (1+2+3+ ...+ 64 = 2080; 2080 = 8 x 260; 8 x 8 = 64, the magic
square of which has a pulse of 260 that is, all rows add up to 260. 260 = 13x20 fourth
dimensional timing matrix).(See: Arguelles, Earth Ascending, 1984, 1996)

It is through the full realization of the single mind that unifies this matrix, that the
noosphere- Overmind attains its enlightenment, making possible the full ascent back into
Supermind. However, to attain this state is not simply a matter of evolving into it.

"The transition to Supermind through Overmind is a passage from nature as we know it

into Supernature. it is by that very fact impossible for any effort of the mere Mind to
achieve; our unaided personal aspiration and endeavor cannot reach it; our effort belongs
to the inferior power of nature; a power of the ignorance cannot achieve by its own
strength or characteristic or available methods what is beyond its domain or Nature."

Life Divine, p.921

This returns us to the question raised at the beginning of this set of reflections: “How can
we grasp a consciousness greater than the highest consciousness which we can
experience? How do we, as humans, in our individualized consciousness make the leap to
planetary consciousness?” For if anything, the attainment of the noosphere represents an
ascent of consciousness, a liberation from a lower evolutionary state of consciousness to
a more all encompassing and unifying higher state.

All the previous ascensions have been effectuated by a secret Consciousness-Force

operating first in the Inconscience and then in the Ignorance: it has worked by an
emergence of its involved powers to the surface, powers concealed behind the veil and
superior to the past formulations of Nature, but even so there is needed a pressure of the
same superior powers already formulated in their full natural force on their own planes;
these superior planes create their own foundation in our subliminal parts and from there
are able to influence the evolutionary process on the surface. Overmind and Supermind
are also involved and occult in earth-nature ...

"In order that the involved principles of Overmind and Supermind should emerge from
their veiled secrecy, the being and powers of the Superconscience must descend into us
and uplift us and formulate themselves in our being and powers; this descent is a sine qua
non of the transition and transformation." ibid.

This movement of the Superconscience into the plane of the Mind of Ignorance in 1926,
is precisely what brought the noosphere from the previously occulted realms into
formations accessible in the subliminal inner consciousness of humanity. The actual
descent of the Overmind, not just as the concept “noosphere” but as a full embodiment
within a single human, then occurred within Sri Aurobindo. It takes but a single match to
start a fire whose light can be seen for a thousand miles. In actuality the movement of the
superior pressures from higher planes of existence has always been active within the
dormant condition of the human race. This is the meaning of revelatory gnosis, the
impulses not just of nature but of Supernature which have guided all religious, spiritual,
mystical and, indeed, even scientific perceptions of humanity as it has struggled and
toiled in its long night of unconscious testing.

Following the descent of the Supermind into the Mother in 1956, the third
Transformation, and the subsequent founding of Auroville, in 1968, the quickening of the
noosphere was inevitable. Already in 1955, Teilhard de Chardin’s Phenomenon of Man
appeared (English edition, 1959), placing the concept of the noosphere into the
consciousness of a small awakening minority of humans. In Russia, too, following
Vernadsky's death in 1945, the noosphere slowly gained greater currency in scientific and
philosophical circles. With the work of Oliver Reiser, Cosmic Humanism, 1966, and
Dane Rudhyar, Planetarization of Consciousness, 1970, the way was cleared for a
beginning comprehension of a higher planetary consciousness - the Overmind as the next
inevitable step in the ascent toward the Supermind.

In 1969 occurred an event that finally placed the Earth as a whole system in the mind and
consciousness of humanity as a whole, and that was the view of Earth from outer space
beamed live on the television. This collectively perceived image would make the
possibility of the next step something realizable and tangible at last. But this next step
would of necessity involve the psychic transformation of a few more individuals to act as
the ignition of a collective psychic transformation of at least a critical minority of the
human race. This also defines one of the goals of the Noosphere II Project.

Now it becomes possible to speak of the Overmind as the noosphere, but the Overmind as
both the stepping down of and the stepping up back into the Supermind. As such the
Overmind is the “representative” of the Supermind, formulated as single mind or plane of
consciousness. We can think of the Overmind-noosphere as the One Mind of planet
Earth, of which we are the entities intended to animate it. But first we need to dissolve
our separatist fictions so that we can be the One mind that we actually already are. In this
way the Overmind constitutes the Upper Planetary hemisphere of Consciousness, the
Lower planetary hemisphere of consciousness being the Mind of Ignorance.

Within the Overmind-noosphere all contradictions coexist and are harmonically resolved.
Because it really is just one mind as of a single entity, a unitary being, there is a
maximum unity. This is only logical because Earth itself is living unitary system. All
subsystems of Earth cooperate as one grand synthesizing order. There are not two minds
or two biospheres, but only One. And as One single mind, when it is fully conscious, as
the representative of Supermind, the Overmind will experience full cosmic
consciousness.

Finally, in order to understand even more clearly the necessity of the role the Overmind
has to play in our continuing evolution toward the Divine Source, it is important to
consider the bottommost stage of the spectrum of consciousness, the lower Planetary
Hemisphere or the Mind of Ignorance. This is the realm of what we usually refer to as
Mind but as Sri Aurobindo makes clear, this mind is really the playground of Maya as
illusion, and hence is actually the Mind of Ignorance. Here what predominates is the
struggle of mind subdivided into separatist egos which create the various dualistic
fictions or thought layers of nationalism, tribalism, religious sectarianism, and conflicting
ideological and political world views of every kind. Here we experience Consciousness
atomized into six billion units of egoic selfhood, a maximum disunity of mind, a total
experience of the MANY as opposed to the distinct experience of the ONE.

Of these six billion, there are many who strive for the One, a return to the source. This is
so, because, as has already been observed, it is really the mystics who are the forerunners
of every major change in consciousness - and among six billion there are many closet
mystics. Nonetheless, virtually all of the literature that exists regarding human aspiration
toward enlightenment, liberation, realization of the Godhead, is written in a language that
must begin with the Mind of ignorance, as if working one’s way out of a paper bag, the
paper bag of the Mind of ignorance. All enlightened views see ignorance as an
enmeshment in illusion, the play of Maya. If it were not for this Mind of Ignorance
arising from the ocean of the cosmic unconscious, there would be no techniques and
methods for penetrating the veil and glimpsing the light on the other side. This veil marks
the Threshold of Light which separates the Upper Hemisphere of the Overmind from
Lower Hemisphere of the Mind of Ignorance.

Within the context of the lower triad, the Mind of Ignorance is the characteristic of Life
as it proceeds upward from Matter and Energy, remembering but dimly its origins and
point of return. So over the eons its mystics develop methods and techniques for
penetrating the veil of illusion, of defining the source and how to attain unity with it once
again. The highest of these teachings would declare that this unity was never even lost.
For what is one can never be separated from itself. The main point, however, is that these
teachings exist to assist the human not to merely escape, for that is really impossible, but
instead to realize that he/she is a link in an evolutionary chain of consciousness.
Therefore, what is important is defining and preparing for the next stage in the evolution
of consciousness.

To this end meditation and yoga techniques - raj yoga, karma yoga, Tibetan yoga,
shamatha vipassana meditation, zen and dzogchen, tantric practices and the various forms
of meditative theophanic prayer - dhikr, remembrance of God - all exist merely to point
us toward the Supermind. We are, as Aurobindo puts it, only a transitional being.
Enlightenment is not the last stop of human potential, it is but the waking up from the
ignorance to our true nature. But that is only on an individual level. There is no such
thing as ultimate enlightenment like some absolute rest stop on the freeway of evolution,
because we are all in flux whether we are enlightened or not. That is why the Dalai Lama
is a peripatetic globe-trotter. In reality, the next stop is the Overmind, which in planetary
terms, is the advent of the noosphere. In the noosphere you don’t have to free Tibet,
because Tibet will already be free.

Through the singular efforts of people like Vernadsky, de Chardin, Reiser and Rudhyar,
the territory has been sighted. Through the instruments of people like Sri Aurobindo and
the Mother, the actuality of the next stage of conscious evolution has been experientially
embodied. The discovery of the Law of Time further defines the approaching moment of
the ascent into the Overmind-noosphere, and the next simultaneous descent of the
Supramental. This Supramental descent is actually the full range of the synchronic order
as the “map” of the territory of the Overmind. The synchronic order describes and makes
available the entire range of the possibilities of all realities on Earth as they are all
connected in time.

Here again, in his vast and comprehensive survey of the reaches of consciousness beyond
our limited individual range, Sri Aurobindo has prefigured the discovery of the Law of
Time. The very last chapter of his monumental Synthesis of Yoga is entitled “Towards the
Supramental Time Vision.” In the opening paragraph to this chapter, Sri Aurobindo states
the primal polarity regarding the nature of time, a perception which is also synthesized
into the Law of Time:

"All being, consciousness, knowledge moves, secretly for our present surface awareness,
openly when we rise beyond it, to the spiritual and supramental ranges, between two
states and powers of existence, that of the timeless Infinite and that of the infinite
deploying in itself and organizing all things in time. These two states are opposed to and
incompatible with each other only for our mental logic with its constant embarrassed
stumbling around a false conception of contradictions and a confronting of eternal
opposites. In reality, as we find when we see things with a knowledge founded on the
supramental identity and vision and think with the great, profound and flexible logic
proper to that knowledge, the two are only coexistent and concurrent status and
movement of the same truth of the Infinite. The timeless Infinite holds in itself, in its
eternal truth of being, beyond this manifestation, all that it manifests in Time. Its time
consciousness too is itself infinite and maintains in itself at once a vision of totalities and
of particularities, of mobile succession or moment sight and of total stabilizing vision or
abiding whole sight what appears to us as the past of things, their present and their
future."

Synthesis of Yoga p. 853.

Just such a perception is necessary if we are to understand the principle and nature of the
psi bank as the time consciousness regulator of the infinite possibilities occurring in the
noosphere or Overmind. For as the dynamism of the evolutionary stages move through
their various mutations and permutations both of form and consciousness, the psi bank
which regulates these changes remains constant in its 2080-unit structure, nonetheless
maintaining a “whole sight” of what appears to us as the past, present and future of
things. Such a description of the two polarities of time as coexistent in some sense
summarizes the nature of the Overmind or noospheric consciousness. For as the stepping
down of the Supermind into a finite planetary plane there must be an orderly manner in
which all of the possible realities comprehended by the Supermind may be coordinated
within the Overmind (function of the psi bank), while simultaneously holding all
possibilities in an instantaneity of timelessness.

As we evolve into the noosphere-Overmind we will inevitably discover that we are each a
divine perceiver, or as Ibn al-Arabi understood it, we will discover that our souls are the
sense organs of the Divine.

"If we regard the Powers of Reality as so many Godheads, we can say that the Overmind
(noosphere) releases a million Godheads into action, each empowered to create its own
world, each world capable of relation, communication, and interplay with the others."

Life Divine, p. 280

The Godheads are the divine potentials in each individual human. Yet all are
manifestations of but a single God. Many know this, but few have really experienced
what this means, and as a result humanity remains mired in the Mind of ignorance. The
remedy is to actually experience that each Godhead is at the same time a manifestation of
the One God or Divine Consciousness. This is analogous to the experience of time as the
Infinite Timelessness and at the same moment the organizing of everything in time by the
Infinite. This is the essence of the experience of Synchronicity, in which we apprehend a
simultaneity of the particular event, and a wholeness of being connected to a larger web
of events at the same time. Such experiences prepare us for a holistic whole body
perception in which we experience the unity even of contradictory states.

"Overmind (noospheric) consciousness is global in its cognition and can hold any number
of seemingly fundamental differences together in a reconciling vision ... To the Overmind
(noospheric) intelligence these are separable Powers of the one Existence which can
pursue their independent self-affirmation and can also unite together in their
independence and in their union of different states of consciousness and being which can
be all of them valid and all capable of coexistence.” ibid., p. 281
This is the supreme expression of world peace as a state of consciousness. Meditation
practices such as Dzogchen prepare one for this at an individual level, but for it to be a
common collective expedience mutually shared in a telepathic knowing in the moment is
another matter. That is again one of the characteristics of the noospheric mind. As we
know, one of the functions of the Law of Time is to make conscious what was
unconscious and to elevate to the forefront of human conscious activity the latent powers
of telepathy and other paranormal capacities. Sri Aurobindo, of course, in his way also
foresaw this in his comprehension of the Supramental Sense.

For when the mind is tranquilized and purified the pure psyche liberated from the
insistence of the desire soul ... there is then a pure action of true psychical consciousness
and its powers, a reception of psychical experience pure in itself ... and capable of a high
spiritualization and light. The complete power and truth, however, can come only by the
opening of the supermind and the supermentalising of the mental and psychical
expedience.

"The range of the psychic consciousness and its experiences is almost illimitable and the
variety and complexity of its phenomena almost infinite ... but the psychical sense has
also the power of putting us in a more direct communication with earthly or supra-
terrestrial beings through their psychical selves or their psychical bodies or even with
things, for things also have a psychical reality and souls or presences supporting them
which can communicate with our psychical consciousness."

Synthesis of Yoga pp. 844-45

According to the Law of Time, the freeing up and harmonization of the human energy by
being in the correct timing frequency, the universal natural 13:20 and not the artificial
12:60, will open the psyche to the field of universal telepathy. This field is the quality of
the noosphere itself, for in no other way can the planetary sphere of Earth - the Overmind
- be understood as a single-minded possibility except for its being a function of universal
telepathy, and its attendant paranormal or psychical phenomena. Indeed the noosphere as
a plane of consciousness will be as thoroughly psychic in its texture and operations as our
third-dimensional existence in this final stage of the historical cycle has been drenched in
an all-pervasive despiritualized and materialist level of consciousness. This seems to be
what is implied in Sri Aurobindo’s sense of the psychical as constituting a plane of
consciousness, “attached to and dependent on the earth plane.”

"For there is a continuous scale of the planes of consciousness, beginning with the
psychical and other belts attached to and dependent on the earth plane and proceeding
through the true independent vital and psychical worlds to the worlds of the gods and the
highest supermental and spiritual planes of existence. And these are in fact always acting
upon our subliminal selves unknown to our waking mind and with considerable effect on
our life and nature ... The awakening of the psychical consciousness enables us to
become aware of these powers, presences and influences in and around us; and while in
the impure or yet ignorant and imperfect mind this unveiled contact has its dangers, it
enables us too, if rightly used and directed, to be no longer their subject but their master
and to come into conscious and self-controlled possession of the inner secrets of our
nature. ... The awakening of the psychical consciousness liberates in us the direct use of
the mind as a sixth sense, and this power may be made constant and normal ..."

Synthesis of Yoga, pp. 846-847

The noosphere-Overmind is precisely the making constant and normal the mind as a sixth
sense. Much as we use our eyes and ears to orient ourselves, which can only give
physical sense impressions from which we must hazard emotional or psychical
information, what a great difference it will make when our mind as the psychical sense
organ will give us direct information which we must now infer, and that without much
precision. The manner in which it will alter our entire modus operandi as humans will
elevate us from the imprecision of six billion individual minds trying to figure it out, to
the monumental grandeur of a single mind properly orientating the direction of the six
billion units - or however many units actually make it to this next plane of
consciousness.

In its power of origination and in the process of its executive dynamis Overmind
(noosphere) is an organiser of many potentialities of existence, each affirming its separate
reality, but all capable of linking themselves together in many different but simultaneous
ways, a magician craftsman empowered to weave the multicolored warp and woof (See
Earth Ascending, Map 42 “Psi bank warp and Holonomic woof”) of manifestation of a
single entity in a complex universe.” Life Divine, p.282

It is the emphasis on the Overmind-noosphere being the dynamic of a single entity in a

complex universe that is most important. Such a mind, as a reflection of the Supermind,
cannot be divided against itself. Only the little minds operating within the Mind of
Ignorance can experience schizophrenia, precisely for not being able to realize their
wholeness within the guiding context of a larger comprehending mind. There is only one
ground of consciousness, and only one planetary field, hence there can ultimately be but a
single unified consciousness.

When we see a map of the world or a globe, though there are many distinct parts, there is
really only one ocean from which the land masses protrude in various areas, and
ultimately there is only one land mass, here submerged, elsewhere rising above sea level.
But it is all one. The island of Ceylon as a geological feature isn’t at war with the island
of Madagascar. Each remains content in its geographical setting. They coexist in a
condition of sublime indifference. So it will be when the noosphere-Overmind as a single
entity is the conscious operating force of the next stage of the evolution of consciousness
- no parts of the mind will be feeling a need to compete with or be at war with any other
parts of the mind or its various conceptualizations.

"There is no exclusiveness ... each god knows all the gods and their place in existence;
each idea admits all other ideas and their right to be ... To the Overmind (noosphere) ...
all religions would be true as developments of the one Eternal religion, all philosophies
would be valid each in its own field as a statement of its own universe-view, all political
theories with their practice would be the legitimate working out of an Idea-Force with its
right to application and practical development in the play of energies of Nature.” Ibid., p.
283

When we contemplate such a world, or rather planetary mental field, in which the
autonomy of each psychic unit is guaranteed its right to be and manifest as it needs to,
knowing that the operating field of the whole will provide all the right buffers and
feedback, we will most certainly realize that we have entered a true age of harmony -
psychoplanetary oneness. As Sri Aurobindo comments, “An Overmind world
(noosphere) would be a world of harmony; the world of Ignorance in which we live is a
world of disharmony and struggle.” (Ibid., p.284).

Yet, within the Overmind-noosphere which embraces all and everything as

complementary polarities constituting the single whole, “The principle of separation must
also be allowed its complete course and arrive at its absolute consequences ...” (Ibid.,
p.284). In fact, it would seem that this principle of separation running its complete course
on a world scale is an exact description of our embattled world today - what Dane
Rudhyar referred to as the “civil war of man.” For it is not, as we have indicated, the
world that is in conflict, but the human in the world who is at war with himself. At the
same time this stage of the separation arriving at its “absolute consequences” is a
prerequisite for the next descent of the Supramental as the advent of the noosphere
(Overmind). For it is only when the human species is at such a point of mortal self-
wounding and self-dividing that the aspiration of the spirit must be met by the
compassionate inclination downward of the Divine Consciousness to our plane of
superphyscial ignorance. As Aurobindo has made clear, such a descent at this point in
time has already been prepared for in some mysterious occult way from deep within
ourselves, for it is we who call it forth.

"But it is only by the evolution in us of the concealed superconscient powers of Cosmic

Truth and of the reality in which they are One that the harmony and unity we strive for
can be dynamically realized in the very fibre of our being ...The Overmind (noosphere)
and Supermind, too, must in the end fulfill themselves in this apparently opposite
organization from a dark infinite ... Overmind, intuition even Supermind ... are secretly
present, occult actively with flashes of intuitive emergence in the cosmic activity of
mind, life and matter ..." Ibid., 285, 288

So we arrive at this very moment of understanding. The noosphere is a stage, a plane of

consciousness within a continuum or spectrum of consciousness in which there is
movement both ways - aspiration, for if we do not aspire, there is nothing to heed from
Above - and descent - for only by divine compassion has the soul been moved ever
upward in its journey back to Source.

"A supramental change of the whole substance of the being and therefore necessarily of
its characters, powers, movements takes place when the involved Supermind in nature
emerges to meet and join with the supramental light and power descending from
Supernature.... A supermental principle and its cosmic operation once established
permanently on its own basis, the intervening powers of Overmind (noosphere) and
spiritual Mind could found themselves securely upon it and reach their own perfection;
they would become in the earth-existence a hierarchy of states of consciousness rising out
of Mind and physical life to the supreme spiritual level. Mind and mental humanity
would remain as one step in the spiritual evolution; but other degrees above it would be
there formed and accessible by which the embodied mental being as it became ready,
could climb into the gnosis and change into an embodied supermental and spiritual
being."

Life Divine, 962-63

With such a description one can readily contemplate the function and purpose of the
noosphere as a thoroughly spiritual stage in the evolution of the individual soul into its
capacity to participate in the manifestation of a single world soul, and thence to continue
in its collective evolutionary trajectory toward the One - in what the Law of Time
describes as a “collective radiosonic mass.” In the advent of the noosphere we see the
Overmind intervention - the descent of light co-emergent with the aspiring manifestation
of the concealed Godhead within. Unimaginable to the lens of the materialist world-view,
but to those whose hearts have been opened by one of the infinite pathways of the eternal
religion of love, this is the next step. And we will take the world with us. Omega point
2012 is right before us. Let us aspire with purified heart and soul and be ready to meet the
Divine descent when it enters us.

These reflections on some aspects of the work of Sri Aurobindo within the context of the
Law of Time are written as part of the research of Noosphere II. In no way do I pretend to
have a thorough comprehension of the whole of Sri Aurobindo’s work, and if I have
distorted or mistakenly viewed any of it, the witness to the purity of my intentions is the
Supreme One. On behalf of all beings laboring in this dark hour of the passage of the
world through the shadowy depths of the Mind of Ignorance, may these reflections better
prepare and inspire us for the joyous experience that awaits us.

Director of Research, Galactic Research Institute

Foundation for the Law of Time
Kin 131, Blue Magnetic Monkey, Silio 21, Overtone Moon
Blue Crystal Storm Year(Gregorian: December 5, 2004
54th anniversary of Sri Aurobindo’s death, December 5, 1950)
A Noosphere II Project Research Paper

Main Texts Consulted: Sri Aurobindo, The Essential Aurobindo. Edited by Robert
McDermott. (Schocken Books, New York. 1973)

Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine.(Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. Tenth edition,
1977)

Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga.(Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, Sixth edition
1976)