From the Editor's desk

This issue of the Newsletter brings to a culmination months of dwelling on different planes of our existence. There are vistas in us that elude our touch and feel and mental perception. Yet, if we can reverse the way we see things; if we can direct our gaze more and more inwards than outwards, we have been promised of access into these worlds. When we embark on true adventures, the end is not shown us, neither is the path charted. Every moment opens up its own world, its own aroma, texture, a unique experience. We embark on these adventures with gusto and a never-say-die spirit. We cling onto an unexplainable certitude that something, something special will emerge, something that means a self-exceeding. The same or perhaps a more intense experience must besiege us when we embark on an inner adventure, an adventure of discovery that only we alone can fathom, understand, feel and an experience which, unfortunately, loses half its intensity the moment we attempt to code in our conventional languages.

It appears that the mind (since we are essentially mental creatures) is able to grasp all that fits its own structure, its own mould or pattern. It can go a distance more, if it wants, to alter its patterns slightly, its mould, to accommodate alien suggestions, observations and perceptions. But there is a lid placed above, it appears. Life beyond that lid must be totally, absolutely different. One does not know enough. This realization necessarily brings in quietude. There must be some hope. There is, they say.

The region in question is that of Sachchidananda, a region over and above the plane of the Supermind or Supramental. How would one perceive this region, while housed within this small frame of mind?

Having reached this point, one is compelled to turn to luminous words of practitioners in the adventure of consciousness.

The region of Sachchidananda is itself made of three planes – Existence-Consciousness-Bliss – states which flow one into the other without any separation, we are told. In appreciating, at least mentally, to some small degree the principle of Sachchidananda, reference has been made to a compilation by P.B. Saint Hilaire (1962), ‘The Future Evolution of Man’, especially from the notes compiled by him, explaining terms Sri Aurobindo used in his major texts, such as ‘The Life Divine’, ‘The Human Cycle’ and ‘The Synthesis of Yoga’.

Of the planes of Sachchidananda, Saint Hilaire writes, “The three superior planes of this universe are called the planes of Sachchidananda. They form the universal and fundamental states of the spiritual Reality in which the unity of the Divine Existence, the power of the Divine Consciousness, the bliss of the Divine Delight of existence are put in front. They are far above the reach of normal human consciousness and experience.”

Sachchidananda is the One, the highest spiritual perception of That which is tri-natured: Existence-Consciousness-Bliss (in Sanskrit, Sat-Chit-Ananda) and hence, that One, That, is known as Sachchidananda. Nothing more can be said than to perhaps awaken a deep, hidden urge to know That which is said to be the essence of all existence, in the experience of those who have indeed, tasted Existence-Consciousness-Bliss.