A Definition of Supramantal Yoga
"The supramental Yoga is a path of integral seeking of the Divine by which all that we are is in the end liberated out of the Ignorance and its undivine formations into a truth beyond the Mind, a truth not only of highest spiritual status but of a dynamic spiritual self-manifestation in the universe. … The aim of the ordinary Yoga is to liberate the soul from Nature or, perhaps sometimes, to liberate the soul in Nature.
"Our aim is to liberate both soul and nature into the Divine. Our aim is to pass from the Ignorance into the Divine Light, from death into Immortality, from Desire into self-existent Bliss, from limited human-animal consciousness into all-consciousness and God-consciousness, from the ignorant seeking of Mind into the self-existent knowledge of Supermind, from obscure half animal life into luminous God-force, from the material consciousness.. ‒ Sri Aurobindo [See "7 drafts on Supramental Yoga"
"Our endeavour has been to discover what is the reality and significance of our existence as conscious beings in the material universe and in what direction and how far that significance once discovered leads us, to what human or divine future....
"But consciousness as it is, life as it is cannot be the whole secret; for both are very clearly something unfinished and still in process.
"The destiny of evolving consciousness must be, then, to become perfect in its awareness, entirely aware of self and all-aware.... It is this to which we have given the name of Supermind or Gnosis. ‒ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Book 2, Ch. 28 (1940 edition)
"Life, not a remote silent or high-uplifted ecstatic Beyond-Life alone, is the field of our Yoga. The transformation of our superficial, narrow and fragmentary human way of thinking, seeing, feeling and being into a deep and wide spiritual consciousness and an integrated inner and outer existence and of our ordinary human living into the divine way of life must be its central purpose. The means towards this supreme end is a self-giving of all our nature to the Divine....
"The aim set before our Yoga is nothing less than to hasten this supreme object of our existence here. It is this new birth that we make our aim: a growth into a divine consciousness is the whole meaning of our Yoga, an integral conversion to divinity not only of the soul but of all the parts of our Nature." ‒ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, CWSA, Vol. 23-24, pp. 89-90
"This Self that we are has finally to become to our self-consciousness entirely one with all existences in spite of its exceeding them.... This unity embracing all mind, life and matter in the light of a supramental Truth and the pulse of a spiritual Bliss will be to us our internal fulfilment of the Divine in a complete cosmic consciousness. ..But since we must embrace all this in the double term of the Being and the Becoming, the knowledge that we shall possess must be complete and integral. It must not stop with the realisation of the pure Self and Spirit, but include also all those modes of the Spirit by which it supports, develops and throws itself out into its cosmic manifestation. Self-knowledge and world-knowledge must be made one in the all-ensphering knowledge of the Brahman." ‒ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, CWSA, Vols 23-24, pp. 372-73
''The supramental Yoga is a path of integral seeking of the Divine by which all that we are is in the end liberated out of the Ignorance and its undivine formations into a truth beyond the Mind, a truth not only of highest spiritual status but of a dynamic spiritual self-manifestation in the universe.' ‒ Sri Aurobindo
from "The Supramental Manifestation" (Thea, 2015)
"This is the third stage of the transformative process Sri Aurobindo set on its way in 1872, when he took birth on Earth as the 9th Avatar of Vishnu. Its first two stages were carried out as a joint mission by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, his co-worker in the Yoga. Ostensibly the focus during those early first two stages was to lay the foundations for what came to be known as the Integral Yoga. The newness this added to the vast array of yogic disciplines in India was precisely its integral character. But this was in service of a higher purpose.
"As I have pointed out many times, almost the entire focus during those decades was to reverse the direction of the quest assumed by all yogas approximately after the time of the Buddha. It was a joint mission to turn the tide – a tide virtually with the power of a tsunami – in that all the great realisers over the past 2000 years, barring very few, had opted for an escape out of the material dimension so as not to face the challenges posed by a creation in matter which appeared insurmountable given the totality of circumstances at that stage of the evolution of the species. To bring about this shift the collaboration of the Mother was essential; without it his mission could not have succeeded." LINK TO THEA'S FULL MESSAGE
Durga with her Lion vahana.
Initiation
"The guiding law of spiritual experience can only come by an opening of human consciousness to the Divine Consciousness; there must be the power to receive in us the working and command and dynamic presence of the Divine Shakti and surrender ourselves to her control; it is that surrender and that control which bring the guidance...." ‒ Sri Aurobindo
The Individual Soul creates its own circumstances that catalyze an initiation or awakening into the unified field of the Supramental Yoga. No two people are going to have the same Initiation process. It is a conspiracy of one's own life circumstances orchestrated by the soul. It is a birth process, full of labor pains, that awakens the seed or core of a Divine and Universal consciousness hidden within one's mundane existence. This birth process creates a certain reversal in one's being ‒ a point of no return (i.e. no returning to one's old base of assumptions or old view).
I have created a separate page that will discuss this issue of INITIATION into this yoga in more depth. Below, I will give a few thoughts on how to proceed with studies of the Supramental Yoga.
Where To Begin
I have built a Supramental Yoga Virtual Library or resource page with links to the writings of Sri Aurobindo, the Mother and Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet (Thea). My feeling about the question of what books to read first among the many dozens of books published by these three Supramental Avatars must come down to simply trusting which of them, and which books one's soul and psychic being gravitates towards the most. The lives and yoga of these three maha yogis must eventually (if not at first) be seen as a cohesive triadic yoga ‒ a collaborative and progressive work spanning 144 years from Sri Aurobindo's birth in 1872 to Thea's passing in 2016. However, they did not co-write anything so readers will naturally have to enter into this triad through one of their particular positions within the Supramental Yoga. I was introduced to the Sri Aurobindo's yoga via Satprem's book The Adventure of Consciousness when I was 24 (in 1993) and then I began reading of Sri Aurobindo's writings. So that was where I started. I didn't find Thea's contributions to the Supramental Yoga until 2000, seven years later. I recently read in Thea's autobiography, that her first encounter with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's joint yoga was, A Practical Guide to Integral Yoga in March of 1971, six months before Thea was called to India by the Mother (in occult fashion). So that book was part of her initiation into the yoga. She recommended this book to me in 2002 and I was grateful for the recommendation. It presents various powerful and illuminating writings of both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother which I imagine would uplift and inspire anyone wanting to learn about this particular yogic lineage and path.
"The Goal: Our goal during this Age therefore is to enlighten the masses and render them capable of seeing the Reality. We are faced with the task of eliminating the Ignorance, and this can be done only by first seeing properly. ‒ TGC, p 8
"[T]he closer we come to a full establishment of the truth-consciousness in the atmosphere of the Earth and within the hearts, minds and bodies of men, the more perfect will the harmonies [of cosmos and creation] become to our vision and our ability to consciously work with them. As the supramental force takes greater possession of mankind, the more accurate will our vision become....
"Freedom from ego brings one definitely closer to true knowledge and vision, but it is only the full divinisation or supramentalisation of the entire Earth that can truly reveal to us the harmony and therefore the precise details [of what is] to come." ‒ TGC, p. 141
I know many people who were first drawn into the Supramental Yoga via Thea's book The Gnostic Circle which lays out the cosmological (zodiacal and numerical) architecture of the Supramental Manifestation and Descent, which may be a great place for some to start, even if perhaps a bit challenging for some with no zodiacal background to digest at first, because it really gives the reader an important view of the whole Supramental play that began unfolding at the tail end of the Age of Pisces and continues to unfold in our Age of Aquarius.
Thea's Key of Time-Gnosis
The Gnostic Circle
In 2015 I wrote an article (entitled 'THE GNOSTIC CIRCLE') regarding orienting oneself within the Gnostic Circle (i.e. within one's journey in Time & Space). This Key of Gnosis is crucial for any who aspire to see and directly experience the Supramental-consciousness-force at work in our World. In addition to THE GNOSTIC CIRCLE, THE MAGICAL CAROUSEL is a good place for students to start the transformation from the LINEAR Mental consciousness towards a SPHERICAL Supramental Consciousness.