Sri Aurobindo

Wilber's View

Aurobindo is Wilber's chosen Eastern counterpart to Plotinus — "the greatest synthesizer of the philosophies and psychologies of India," presented in a dedicated figure (9-1, "The Great Holarchy according to Plotinus and Aurobindo") laying the two holarchies side by side to show, in Wilber's words, that "the greatest synthesizers of the West and the East are in such fundamental agreement." Wherever Wilber cites Plotinus as evidence for a claim about the [[great-chain-of-being|Great Chain of Being]] — that development is a matter of direct contemplative disclosure rather than speculative metaphysics, that each higher level "envelops" without erasing its predecessors, that Ascent and Descent are both necessary movements of Spirit — Aurobindo is invoked as independent Eastern confirmation of the same structure. Aurobindo also supplies Wilber's "classic description" of vision-logic itself (a "mass ideation, a system or totality of truth-seeing at a single view"), and his emphasis on the "descent of the supermind" — Spirit coming down to pull consciousness up, so that compassion for all beings is then expressed from that realization rather than merely sought — is one of Wilber's main textual anchors for the necessity of pairing Ascent and Descent rather than choosing one. On the single point of priority Wilber is careful to be scrupulous: he credits Schelling, not Aurobindo, with being first (by a century) to reach the "evolutionary Nonduality" synthesis credit usually goes to Aurobindo for — without in any way diminishing what he calls Aurobindo's "magnificent contributions."

In Sex, Ecology, Spirituality

For comparison, I have included the developmental holarchy as given by Sri Aurobindo, generally regarded as the greatest synthesizer of the philosophies and psychologies of India… That the greatest synthesizers of the West and the East are in such fundamental agreement is, I think, no real surprise.

— Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, ch. 9

Aurobindo gave the classic description of vision-logic, which "can freely express itself in single ideas, but its most characteristic movement is a mass ideation, a system or totality of truth-seeing at a single view; the relations of idea with idea, of truth with truth, self-seen in the integral whole."

— Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, ch. 5

As only one example, Aurobindo: "The spiritual transformation culminates in a permanent ascension from the lower consciousness to the higher consciousness, followed by an effective permanent descent of the higher nature into the lower."

— Aurobindo, quoted in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, ch. 10

And not just in the West is Agape stressed. Many tantric and yogic schools—Aurobindo's for example—put prime emphasis on "the descent of the supermind," the agape of the supermind that "comes down" in order to pull us up to an identity with it, so that we then express that agape or compassion for all beings now "in" us.

— Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, ch. 9

Credit for this type of developmental synthesis often goes to Aurobindo; without in any way detracting from Aurobindo's magnificent contributions, the pioneering credit belongs to Schelling, and by a century.

— Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, ch. 14

In Integral Psychology

Integral Psychology gives Aurobindo his own dedicated profile among the "modern pioneers," including a rare direct critique alongside the praise.

Aurobindo (1872–1950) was India's greatest modern philosopher-sage, and the magnitude of his achievements is hard to convey convincingly. — Integral Psychology, ch. 7

His "integral yoga" is a concerted effort to unite and integrate the ascending (evolutionary) and descending (involutionary) currents in human beings, thus uniting otherworldly and this-worldly, transcendent and immanent, spirit and matter. — Integral Psychology, ch. 7

Aurobindo's overall model of consciousness consists basically of three systems: (1) the surface/outer/frontal consciousness (typically gross state), consisting of physical, vital, and mental levels of consciousness; (2) a deeper/psychic/soul system "behind" the frontal in each of its levels (inner physical, inner vital, inner mental, and innermost psychic or soul; typically subtle state); and (3) the vertical ascending/descending systems stretching both above the mind (higher mind, illumined mind, intuitive mind, overmind, supermind; including causal/nondual) and below the mind (the subconscient and inconscient)—all nested in Sat-Chit-Ananda, or pure nondual Spirit. — Integral Psychology, ch. 7

…greatest shortcoming is a shortcoming faced by all theorists, namely, the unavailability of the important discoveries made since his time. Aurobindo was most concerned with the transformations of consciousness (Upper Left) and the correlative changes in the material body (Upper Right). Although he had many important insights on the social and political system, he did not seem to grasp the actual interrelations of cultural, social, intentional, and behavioral, nor did his analysis at any point proceed on the level of intersubjectivity (Lower Left) and interobjectivity (Lower Right). He did not, that is, fully assimilate the differentiations of modernity. — Integral Psychology, ch. 7

See Also

• Chart 2: Basic Structures in Other Systems — Aurobindo's terms for the basic-structures spine, used across several charts
• plotinus — the Western counterpart Wilber pairs Aurobindo with throughout, most explicitly in figure 9-1
• great-chain-of-being — the structure Plotinus and Aurobindo's holarchies are offered as independent confirmations of
• eros-and-agape / ascent-and-descent — the two-movements-of-Spirit framework Aurobindo's "descent of the supermind" is cited to support
• vision-logic — the concept page whose "classic description," per Wilber, is Aurobindo's
• The Psychic, Subtle, Causal, and Nondual — Wilber's Eastern parallel figure for the nondual breakthrough, alongside Ramana Maharshi