Planes of Consciousness

In the 1800’s, most modern theories of magic, which often examined the connection of sex with magick, were developed. Brilliant mystics like Madame Blavatsky and Aurobindo formed esoteric theories that were rarely understood by outsiders, and often even by insiders.

Sri Aurobindo, an Eastern mystic, was less understood than most, partly because he wrote in a heavy and pedantic style that tended to lock out understanding rather than encourage it. His most important work on magic was his cosmology, in which he outlined a strongly-detailed map of states or planes of consciousness.

Seven is a number that you’ll see reappear frequently in mystical writings: the seven spheres of the cosmos, the seven chakras, even the seven basic colors of the spectrum. Aurobindo discovered in his explorations of consciousness that there were also seven planes of consciousness, which he labeled and defined as:

• The Supreme, or Sachchidananda – the nature of pure Being, or Bliss, which can be described as nirvana, encompasses the highest plane of existence. The name is derived from Sat-Chit-Ananda, words meaning pure Being, Consciousness, and Bliss. This is separate from and in addition to the seven sections defined below.

• The Supermind, a manifestation of Sachchidananda, a transitory plane between the Absolute (higher being) and the lower mind of your physical existence. Through the Supermind, we are able to funnel power from the higher, divine overmind into existence in reality today. I.e., we are able to create magickal effects.

• The Overmind, a transitional level laid between the Supermind and the ordinary consciousness, allowing one to pass from Truth (as exposed in Sachchidananda) to Enlightenment, and ultimately to falsehood or ignorance (in which you believe your senses, not what your enlightened mind tells you).

• "Lower Hemisphere" Mind, wherein the person’s divine soul actually exists. The other forms of mind exist above and apart from your everyday thinking mind. This part of mind was divided into three different layers of consciousness, from subsistence (where do I get food?) to higher thinking. These are the physical, vital, and mental planes, and the other four are all completely transcendant planes – those reached through transcendental meditation and other methods that take you out of your body.

Aurobindo was not totally and uniquely creative in his divisions of planes of consciousness; he was, rather, standing on the shoulders of countess others. The Theosophists, founders of the Golden Dawn, believed in seven planes of consciousness; the Hindu Puranas had roughly defined seven different worlds of conscious existence. Even in many Western traditions, seven heavens and seven planes of hell were defined and related to levels of what the soul knew.

Aurobindo, however, uses some different terminology for things. The same thing that Theosophists called the Astral plane he called the Vital plane. For this reason, his work is sometimes seen as less valid.

It is not. What we must recognize is that all listing of planes of consciousness are our human attempts to define something that is beyond defining. We can talk about prana and ayurveda and astral versus physical planes, when we’re really talking about one thing: our grasp and search for the transcendental stages that allow us to touch God with our souls, an exercise we use to bring that Godhead into our own lives. Whether practicing sex magick, tantrism, or transcendental meditation, we are really only using different paths to the same goal.