The Unified Field of All Consciousness and Existence

A powerful technique for inner growth and understanding is to sit quietly and simply observe one’s thoughts and feelings as they arise. Then, trace back any of them to where and how it arose. What triggered it? Where did it come from? Initially it is difficult to successfully carry out this practice as the next thought comes along and we tend to jump to that one; however, with time and patience, one can begin to isolate any specific thought or feeling and track it backwards. Invariably one finds that something from outside triggered it, even if it seems to arise from inside oneself. Some incident, some observation, some suggestion raises a response, a vibration within oneself, that takes that specific form.

We tend to think of ourselves as separate and isolated from everyone and everything else. That is the essence of the ego-perspective. In reality however, the ego-perspective is simply a device for creating a multiple of standpoints and nexus connections to carry out the intention of the manifesting consciousness. The sense of separation is essentially an illusion. The process of the mind enhances this through its use of a power of analysis, the fragmentation into separate parts the unity of experience so that it can act upon specific details. This power of fragmentation is a power device, but it must be seen purely as a device and not a definition of the unified field that is the reality of our existence.

The Mother writes: “When the Buddha wanted to make his disciples understand these things, he used to tell them: every time you send out a vibration, a desire for example, the desire for some particular thing, your desire starts circulating from one person to another, from one to another across the universe and will go right round and come back to you. And as it is not only one thing but a world of things, and as you are not the only transmitting centre — all individuals are transmitting centres — it is such a confusion that you lose your bearings in there. But these vibrations move about in a single, absolutely identical field; it is only the complication and interception of the vibrations which give you the impression of something independent or separate.”

“But there’s nothing separate or independent; there is only one Substance, one Force, one Consciousness, one Will, which moves in countless ways of being.”

“And it is so complicated that one is no longer aware of it, but if one steps back and follows the movement, no matter which line of movement, one can see very clearly that the vibrations propagate themselves, one following another, one following another, one following another, and that in fact there is only one unity — unity of Substance, unity of Consciousness, unity of Will. And that is the only reality. Outwardly there is a kind of illusion: the illusion of separation and the illusion of difference.”

[Disciple asks]: Desires and all those things also?

“This is not personal. Not at all personal. And that is very easy to find out; of all things this is the easiest to discern, because ninety times out of a hundred it comes to you from someone else or from a certain circumstance or a set of circumstances, or from a vibration coming from another person or several other people. It is very easy to discern, it is the first thing one can discern: it is a vibration which suddenly awakens something similar in you. You know, something makes an impact on you, and this impact brings up a response, as when you play a note. Well, this vibration of desire comes and strikes you in a certain way and you respond.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch.8 Life — A Mass of Vibrations, pp. 181-182