THE OVERSELF

Materialistic thought and material ambitions have focused modern concern on the play of the Maya of Nature, to the exclusion of the player which is spirit. It is not enough to see only our dim reflection in our worldly works or increased information about the universe. For this easily becomes the sin of Narcissus, man's self-fascination, if we are too little aware of how little we know of the mysterious causes of life, history and creation in its endlessly-varied vastness. Pride in the mind and its works is a large part of the 'civilised' ego. The seer of all this outward display, the human subject, can at best only catch an oblique glimpse of his own reality in the sensory or physical world, as in a mirror dimly.

However much one tries, though, the subject cannot become an object, even though it may appear partly objective when reflected upon in memory. Its very nature is to be always ahead of the objective world, never able to sink down and become part of its fixed existence. This 'transcendence' is what makes each one of us who we are and allows us as observing subjects mentally to range time and space at will and spiritually to reach beyond them. This is to what the term 'inner reality' points. From our incarnate human viewpoint, limited and conditioned though it be, we have the possibility both of focusing our energies outwards onto the world of action and objective discoveries and inwards towards contemplation of the spirit and its source, the Overself. Experience indicates that, if we neglect the one, it will be at the cost of the whole. A balance must be maintained between worldly activities and spiritual practices so that the one can inform the other.

There is a deeper source of 'reality', which does not always work directly through nature or the physical universe as we know it. This fourth influence is consciousness as the medium of our higher nature (called by some the Overself). This is a source of influence on events which works both through indirect means (via both external nature and the human environment) and directly through inner impulse (egs. conscience and intuition). This also comes to expression in experienced direct responses of divinity to the deserving soul, the seeker, the devotee or the mystic. This fourth influence also doubtless covers at least part of what has variously been named intuition or various para-normal abilities.

The mind evidently transcends the body, in whatever way this is achieved. In some very important sense, it is independent physical limitations, even while being influenced by them. It is associated with consciousness... which has an apparently unlimited reach in what we can perhaps best characterise as 'inner space and time'. The mind is made up of thoughts and doubts. But the mind that is associated with the Divine Atma transcends the body. Ordinary thought processes can be transcended under certain conditions and a greater independence of mind from matter can be experienced in which consciousness goes beyond thinking states altogether.

THE 'I' SEES THE COSMOS

The human's strivings to know himself succeed only through becoming what he truly is. The end of this quest is not some worldly achievement but inner fruits of self-realisation, knowledge of true selfhood alone giving equanimity and peace of mind. The Overself is attained by the proper alliance of both devotional faith and reason (i.e both bhakthi and jnani).

Book-learned theories that 'map' the inner landscape may be helpful in some ways, such as for those whose education has overlooked or denied the 'inner', but it cannot be a substitute for self-discovery. Nor is inner reality to be 'found' by mere mental investigation nor by introspective navel-gazing. The practice of inwardness in and through daily doings is the action that chiefly advances us, as our own experience can confirm for us when we are able to subject it to honest analysis.

According to Vedanta, the three fundamental desires of all human beings (to live, know and experience joy) are the worldly reflections of an unrealised inner reality indicated by the triple name Satchitananda, which means 'Being-Knowledge-Bliss'. This is the true and pure human nature that itself is the source - obscured by the mind's attachments from all but realised beings - itself the creative Overself or Divinity that energises the individual soul and its seemingly-autonomous desires. For example, thoughts of suicide arise only in a mind that, being frustrated in knowing and having joy, is out of balance, confusedly unaware of its own fundamental desire for existence urging for life to continue (i.e. the instinct of self-preservation or survival).

The mind has been compared to a weave of interwoven threads of perception, thought and memory. However, these do not constitute the sense of identity, the 'I am' experience, which underlies or is is rooted in consciousness. The individual is inwardly aware of having identity - or rather of being the 'I' that is usually referred to as the self. What is this 'I' that persists through all changes of the body and mind?

SELFLESSNESS - EGOLESS SELF

No analytical definition will suffice to express the full essential nature of the inner self or changeless identity. It has been given many names at different times. No major culture in history has lacked terms for it and a system of ideas concerning it.

Once the senses and mind are sufficiently under control, the ego (i.e the sense of 'me' and 'mine') is also reduced. The hypothesis as to how the mind integrates is that an entity (here called the Overself ) does this, itself coming to expression to a lesser or greater degree, depending upon mental evolution and personal development.

It is surely 'self-control' at the higher 'impersonal' (or supra-personal) level, which is known from so/called transcendental or mystical extasis. There appears to be progressive opening of the mind and that aspect of it sometimes identified as 'the heart', offering further refinement of the senses and intellect, gradual growth of insight into experience and understanding of others and the place (or meaningful purpose) of things in the whole.

Because of confused phraseology, V. Sackville-West has given two definitions of mysticism. This provides a useful 'working description' of the Overself or Atma though, due to the nature of the subject, it is necessarily most incomplete.

"... belief in the possibility of an intimate and direct union between the human spirit and the fundamental principle of the being, a union which constitutes at one and the same time a mode of existence and a method of knowledge foreign and superior to normal existence and normal knowledge:" or, alternatively, as "any interior state which, in the eyes of the subject, appears as a contact (not through the senses, but 'immediate' and 'intuitive') or as a union of the self with something greater than the self, which may be called the soul of the world, God, or the Absolute according to choice."

THE INNER VOICE?

There are countless instances of person who claim to 'receive' communications for themselves or for others, including all of humanity, through what they often call 'an inner voice'. There are any number of huge volumes of supposedly 'channelled' literature or 'automatic writing', the authenticity of which is a matter of considerable doubt in most cases. How one is to decide whether a person has 'genuine' experience of the inner voice, is simply imagining and inducing 'psychic' experience or is subject to some form of derangement or hallucination can sometimes be very important in practice. The outcome of such an issue can have health, social and other consequences for the individual concerned.

Firstly, no final certainty can be reached on this issue, unless - and at best - by the very person who receives the inner voice. Nevertheless, others must sometimes make judgements about this and there are a range of relatively 'external' factors that can - if the individual in question is known sufficiently well in persons and in behaviour generally - to enable one to make a well-founded decision for all practical purposes. In the nature of the matter, though, such judgements will always remain less than 100% certain.

One cannot actually hear the so-called 'voice of conscience', because it is not some actual little voice in one's head. Only self-deception - even like a kind of self-hypnosis - will speak to inform one with an independent-sounding voice to go ahead and do what one wants, because one has the responsibility for one's actions oneself, whether or not one wants awarely to take it on. One who wishes to resign all responsibility can even cause a form of self-hallucination where one can blame a disembodied voice for the bad and even evil and horrible acts one does in wilful ignorance of the consequences.

Behavioural or 'external' factors that demonstrate repeated unbalanced behaviour, persistent major failures in accepted duties and normal relations would, according to Vedantic science, certainly exclude the possibility of the genuine inner Voice. Likewise, the many forms of assertion of strong (defensive or offensive) ego and insistence on the recognition of claimed 'psychic' or mediumistic abilities etc. are most strong indicators of the relative 'impurity' of any inner experiences that may otherwise occur. The genuine inner voice of the Overself is entirely incompatible with ego and depends neither on intellectual abilities nor on perceptual, mental nor cognitive faculties altogether.

In certain modern religious sects, as well as in much of the 'New Age' movement, one comes across many incomplete, confused or distorted ideas of the meaning of the term 'inner voice', of the ways in which it can be 'heard'. Books supposedly conveying 'Divine Messages' through one or another person's 'inner voice' can contain both good and bad ideas, general truths and misguided falsehoods, but they are most often claimed to be valid for anyone, not only the author. This almost invariably indicates a naive enthusiasm and lack of critical self-knowledge in the authors. The authentic 'inner voice', however, is a private and personal illumination or dictate from the Overself (Paramatma) to the individual (jivatma). To believe that one is a sort of public announcement system for scriptural truth or one's psychic powers are the medium of and omniscient Divinity is always influenced by the ego.

A Western writer on such matters, Paul Brunton - who spend half a lifetime investigating the nature of such experiences, has clarified some aspects as follows:-"Revelations come from the Overself; messages are transmitted to us and they are true enough in their beginning. But personal desires seize on them instantly, change and fashion them to suit the ego. We should distinguish the theories and doctrines woven round the mystic's experience from the significant features of the experience itself. And those features are: the awareness of another and deeper life, a sacred presence within the heart, the certitude of having found the Real, the gladness and freshness which follow the sense of this discovery.

All occult and psychic powers are either extensions of man's human capacity or of his animal senses. They are still semi--materialistic, because connected with his ego or his body. All truly spiritual powers are on a far higher and quite different plane. They belong to his divine self. He cannot obtain from ordinary mystical experience alone, precise information upon such matters as the universe's evolution, God's nature, or the history of man. This is because it really does lack an intellectual content. If the voices which he hears are audible in the same way that one hears the voices of people through the ears, it is merely psychic and undesirable. If, however, it is a very strong mental impression and also very clear, then it is the mystic phenomenon known as the "Interior Word" which is on a truly spiritual plane and therefore is desirable. All occult experiences and spirit visions are mental, and not spiritual, in the sense that the mind has certain latent powers which pertain to the ego, not Overself." The Notebooks of Paul Brunton. Perspectives.(New York 1984).