5 - Discourses on Tantra Volume Two

Chapter 1 Sádhaná (3)

The Course of Physical and Psychic Development (1)

The more that unit beings advance towards the Supreme Being, the more their physical and psychic bodies (which are made of Macrocosmic stuff) advance from crude to subtle. In the first phase of Macrocosmic imagination, the Cognitive Faculty moves from subtle to crude. One atom or particle comes in closer proximity to another atom or particle. The name of this process is saiṋcara. And when these particles begin to drift away from each other or become powdered down, thus going beyond the scope of sense perception, it is called the process of pratisaiṋcara. When an object becomes more condensed it should be understood that the Macrocosmic mind-stuff is decreasing its inter-molecular gaps. This causes an object to gradually come within the periphery of sense perception. When there comes to be a high degree of diversity in the structure of the condensed object, it requires a self-activated psychic factor for its preservation, maintenance and destruction. This psychic entity (the mind) is created as a result of clash due to inter-molecular proximity. Thus it can be said that mind emerges as a result of clash within the material structure. But it must not be forgotten that matter is nothing but a condensed state of Macrocosmic mind-stuff. What we call matter is not crude matter as such, but a metamorphosed form of Consciousness.

The unit mind finds its expression through clash. This process of clash causes the psychic atoms to get powdered down and expanded to such a degree that the mind expands into the universe, transcending the limits of the small “I”. This continous unfoldment and expansion of the mind through constant clash and cohesion is brought about mainly by Prakrti. The unit mind finds natural problems which it must solve, such as procuring food, finding accommodation, and rearing children – not to mention simply staying alive. The more difficult these obstacles are, the more scope the mind gets to unfold. The struggle to overcome obstacles is the primary factor in the development of the mind.

But there is also a secondary factor, and that is the influence of a more-developed mind on a less-developed mind. Domestic animals such as dogs and cats get ample scope for accelerated development due to their contact with the human mind. The company of human beings often accelerates their progress more than do the natural forces which present them with obstacles to overcome. So if a dog’s mind can develop into a monkey’s mind, and a monkey’s mind into a human mind, in the normal course of evolution, then a dog that is in constant contact with a human being may experience a tremendous intellectual growth and be reborn as a human being, bypassing the stage of a monkey. Such galloping changes do take place in the process of animate evolution; and comparatively undeveloped creatures, if advantaged with human contact, can establish themselves in human form in a shorter period than can comparatively developed creatures deprived of human contact.

When a microcosm reaches a stage of expanded consciousness, having made considerable psychic progress due to natural clashes or due to contact with more-developed minds, and is able to control the psychic propensities as opposed to being subservient to them, it is called manuśya [human being]. The term manuśya, or mánuśa, means “mind-preponderant being”.