1

The Integral Structure of Consciousness in the Rig Veda (10.191).

The fundamental issue which has to be addressed in approaching the concept of

terrestrial evolution is whether the knowledge of the past is relevant for our modern
understanding of evolutionary processes or it is only an outdated view which is to be
rectified by scientific approach. In The History of Indian Philosophy S. Radhakrishnan in
the section on the Veda commented upon Sri Aurobindo’s evolutionary theory that it was a
very interesting view but we cannot accept it, for we believe in progress, and Sri
Aurobindo in his works presented the whole development in reverse, as it were, starting
from the luminous beginnings and ending with the loss of the spiritual values, similar to
the ancient Indian theories of yugas.
I think there is a profound misunderstanding of Sri Aurobindo and his evolutionary theory
visible in this comment. Sri Aurobindo writes in the Secret of the Veda about this idea of a
rapid human evolution, which is intensely supported by modern sciences:
This modern theory is in accord with the received idea of a rapid human evolution
from the quite recent savage; it is supported by an imposing apparatus of critical
research and upheld by a number of Sciences, unhappily still young and still
largely conjectural in their methods and shifting in their results,—Comparative
Philology, Comparative Mythology and the Science of Comparative Religion.
The idea that the whole development of human race is a recent phenomenon cannot
answer the questions of profound complexity of human consciousness. Sri Aurobindo
points out that this development took place many times in the past, in many cycles, of
which the human species are the result. So how do we reconcile these two views?
Sri Aurobindo says in The Life Divine that this “terrestrial evolutionary working of Nature
from Matter to Mind and beyond it has a double process: (1) an outward visible process of
physical evolution with birth as its machinery - each evolved form of body housing its own
evolved power of consciousness is maintained and kept in continuity by heredity; and
simultaneously (2) an invisible process of soul evolution with rebirth (as its “machinery”)
into ascending grades of form and consciousness.” 22
22
The Life Divine, p. 825. Sri Aurobindo describes the evolution in a letter to a disciple (Letters
on Yoga, p.44):
“The world is a manifestation of the Real and therefore is itself real. The reality is the infinite and
eternal Divine, infinite and eternal Being, Consciousness-Force and Bliss. This Divine by his
power has created the world or rather manifested it in his own infinite Being. But here in the
material world or at its basis he has hidden himself in what seem to be his opposites, Non-Being,
Inconscience and Insentience. This is what we nowadays call the Inconscient which seems to
have created the material universe by its inconscient Energy, but this is only an appearance, for
we find in the end that all the dispositions of the world can only have been arranged by the
working of a supreme secret Intelligence. The Being which is hidden in what seems to be an
inconscient void emerges in the world first in Matter, then in Life, then in Mind and finally as the
Spirit. The apparently inconscient Energy which creates is in fact the Consciousness-Force of the
Divine and its aspect of consciousness, secret in Matter, begins to emerge in Life, finds
something more of itself in Mind and finds its true self in a spiritual consciousness and finally a
supramental Consciousness through which we become aware of the Reality, enter into it and
unite ourselves with it. This is what we call evolution which is an evolution of Consciousness and
an evolution of the Spirit in things and only outwardly an evolution of species. Thus also, the
delight of existence emerges from the original insentience, first in the contrary forms of pleasure
and pain, and then has to find itself in the bliss of the Spirit or, as it is called in the Upanishads,
the bliss of the Brahman. That is the central idea in the explanation of the universe put forward
in The Life Divine.”
 2

These two create a double process of evolution: of the body and the soul. Thus we have
two different frameworks: (1) as the evolution of the physical body (including vital and
mind) and (2) that of the soul (including mind and vital). In accordance with the view we
hold the whole approach to the evolution and the psychology of social development will
be defined. The scientific materialistic paradigm of the evolutionists of the 20 th century
maintains the development of species as the evolution of physicality: body with its more
subtle components (deriving consciousness from its material instruments). It is a very
young science. There is another more ancient science of the mystics starting from the
Vedic times which views the development in terms of the soul’s engagement, where the
soul is the major factor of evolutionary development and the mutation of Nature is only
the result, which they called the Sacrifice.
These two frameworks are based on two different approaches to evolution. One is viewing
the development in linear terms, for the mutation of Nature is to be uninterrupted for a
change to take place in the body, where the transition is maintained by heredity (genes),
that’s what the evolutionists generally call ‘evolution’. The other one (of the soul) sees the
development to be in cycles, for the incarnation of the soul in the body is always
interrupted, being regulated by birth, growth and death. These cycles of the soul’s
engagement with the body are fourfold: birth and childhood, teenage, adult and old age
and death. On the bigger scale of social development they are presented in similar terms
of satya, treta, dvapara and kali yuga. Thus, the very psychology of individual
development reflects a view of social development in some way. As the four seasons of a
year are defined by a position of a Sun towards the earth, thus the four varnas of the
social order: Brahmanas, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras can be also seen as those
reflecting similar cycle of the subjective involvement of the Soul in the world, introducing
the same evolutionary movement with regard to the social structure.

In the opening chapter to the Secret of the Veda: The Problem and Its Solution Sri
Aurobindo addresses this issue by commenting on the validity of the Vedic knowledge:

“Is there at all or is there still a secret of the Veda?

According to current conceptions the heart of that ancient mystery has been
plucked out and revealed to the gaze of all, or rather no real secret ever existed.
The hymns of the Veda are the sacrificial compositions of a primitive and still
barbarous race written around a system of ceremonial and propitiatory rites,
addressed to personified Powers of Nature and replete with a confused mass of
half-formed myth and crude astronomical allegories yet in the making. Only in the
later hymns do we perceive the first appearance of deeper psychological and moral
ideas—borrowed, some think, from the hostile Dravidians, the “robbers” and
“Veda-haters” freely cursed in the hymns themselves,—and, however acquired, the
first seed of the later Vedantic speculations. This modern theory is in accord with
the received idea of a rapid human evolution from the quite recent savage; it is
supported by an imposing apparatus of critical research and upheld by a number
of Sciences, unhappily still young and still largely conjectural in their methods and
shifting in their results,—Comparative Philology, Comparative Mythology and the
Science of Comparative Religion.
It is my object in these chapters to suggest a new view of the ancient problem. I
do not propose to use a negative and destructive method directed against the
 3

received solutions, but simply to present, positively and constructively, a larger

and, in some sort, a complementary hypothesis built upon broader foundations,—a
hypothesis which, in addition, may shed light on one or two important problems in
the history of ancient thought and cult left very insufficiently solved by the
ordinary theories.”

“…we possess in its entirety the traditional interpretation of the Indian scholar
Sayana and we have in our own day the interpretation constructed after an
immense labour of comparison and conjecture by modern European scholarship.
Both of them present one characteristic in common, the extraordinary incoherence
and poverty of sense which their results stamp upon the ancient hymns.
The separate lines can be given, whether naturally or by force of conjecture, a
good sense or a sense that hangs together; the diction that results, if garish in
style, if loaded with otiose and decorative epithets, if developing extraordinarily
little of meaning in an amazing mass of gaudy figure and verbiage, can be made to
run into intelligible sentences; but when we come to read the hymns as a whole
we seem to be in the presence of men who, unlike the early writers of other races,
were incapable of coherent and natural expression or of connected thought.
Except in the briefer and simpler hymns, the language tends to be either obscure
or artificial; the thoughts are either unconnected or have to be forced and beaten
by the interpreter into a whole. The scholar in dealing with his text is obliged to
substitute for interpretation a process almost of fabrication. We feel that he is not
so much revealing the sense as hammering and forging rebellious material into
some sort of shape and consistency.”

“Yet these obscure and barbarous compositions have had the most splendid good
fortune in all literary history. They have been the reputed source not only of some
of the world's richest and profoundest religions, but of some of its subtlest
metaphysical philosophies. In the fixed tradition of thousands of years they have
been revered as the origin and standard of all that can be held as authoritative and
true in Brahmana and Upanishad, in Tantra and Purana, in the doctrines of great
philosophical schools and in the teachings of famous saints and sages. The name
borne by them was Veda, the knowledge,—the received name for the highest
spiritual truth of which the human mind is capable. But if we accept the current
interpretations, whether Sayana's or the modern theory, the whole of this sublime
and sacred reputation is a colossal fiction. The hymns are, on the contrary, nothing
more than the naive superstitious fancies of untaught and materialistic barbarians
concerned only with the most external gains and enjoyments and ignorant of all
but the most elementary moral notions or religious aspirations. Nor do occasional
passages, quite out of harmony with their general spirit, destroy this total
impression. The true foundation or starting-point of the later religions and
philosophies is the Upanishads, which have then to be conceived as a revolt of
philosophical and speculative minds against the ritualistic materialism of the Vedas.
But this conception, supported by misleading European parallels, really explains
nothing. Such profound and ultimate thoughts, such systems of subtle and
elaborate psychology as are found in the substance of the Upanishads, do not
spring out of a previous void. The human mind in its progress marches from
knowledge to knowledge, or it renews and enlarges previous knowledge that has
 4

been obscured and overlaid, or it seizes on old imperfect clues and is led by them
to new discoveries. The thought of the Upanishads supposes great origins anterior
to itself, and these in the ordinary theories are lacking.” 1

So, if there was knowledge in the Veda which Upanishads refer to as the highest and
ultimate in its quality and scope, how come that this does not correspond with the
scientific paradigm of evolutionary development?

The whole approach to the historicity of social development in Ancient India is based on
different perception of Time; it was seen to be working in cycles rather than in a linear
way. The ages or yugas were seen to be arranged in descending order, starting from the
Satya Yuga, the Golden Age of Truth, and ending with Kali Yuga, the Iron Age, where the
collective Truth is no more supported by the society but by the individuals. This
phenomenon was seen as repetitive in cycles where the pulsation of Time worked out on
a bigger scale the evolutionary processes, called Manvantaras, repeating its movement,
starting from the age of Truth to the decline of Truth at the end of the Kali Yuga. Such an
approach to Time defined a particular perception of historicity in India, which was
supported by its own Metaphysics and Psychology. It implied a rhythmic and repetitive
engagement with the world by the Group-soul. It can be explained as follows. At the
beginning the vision, the Universal Soul or a Group-Soul has and brings into the world, is
the strongest and clearest, where the memory of its resolution to enlighten the world is
still intact with its life energy. The longer the soul stays the more it has to take into itself
the elements of the world, which were not foreseen, as it were, not included into the
scope of work it had envisioned in the first place, for the Inconscient is also infinite. At the
end of its engagement, in the Kali Yuga, having exhausted all the possibilities of its
original commitment, the Group-Soul takes all the new elements which emerged from the
Inconscient into account, while working out the elements it came to engage itself with,
and makes a new resolution and commitment, a new leap, as it were, starting again a
new Satya Yuga.
So historicity was seen in terms of series of sacrificial events, where the Soul was to take
onto itself the impossibilities of the Inconscient and work them out for its own
Manifestation. Thus we have a double process of evolution: 1) the evolution of Nature,
where the development of the instruments of knowledge: mind, life and body takes place,
which is maintained by heredity, and 2) the evolution of the soul, which is done by
reincarnation; thus both the soul and the world are constantly growing.
The vision of the yugas does not therefore contradict the notion of a constant progress,
for every time the Group Soul re-engages itself with the world the letter progresses on the
evolutionary scale.
So from the point of view of the Soul there is a constant reformulation of the task and
reengagement with the world, and from the point of view of the world there is a constant
adaptation to the needs of the Soul, which we call ‘progress’, ‘growth’ or ‘mutation’.
So the historicity in Ancient India was seen from the point of view of the Soul rather than
that of the world, which explains its ‘indefinite character’. Every time the group Soul
engages with the world it starts a new Manvantara. Every Manvantara has a new Veda at
the beginning, a new plan of action, as it were, with a new set of Rishis, as the
involutionary beings who bring this knowledge down to the world. The Veda is the
1
Volume: 10 [SABCL] (The Secret of the Veda), Pages: 1-3
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knowledge of the Soul’s Vision, of the Soul’s commitment for a particular period of time,
to work out the impossibilities of the Inconscient in a particular fashion, with regard to the
Soul’s manifestation in time.

Now if we combine these two paradigms of the constant mutation in Nature, on the one
hand, and the constant revisiting of Nature by the Soul, on the other, we will get a more
complex paradigm. In The Human Cycle Sri Aurobindo introduces this new paradigm of
the Psychology of Social Development in terms of different ages which he calls, after
Lamprecht, Symbolic, Typal, Conventional, Individualist and Subjective. 2 In this paradigm
we can clearly see the movement towards the individualization of consciousness, bringing
forward the innermost subjective truth into manifestation. So the Truth which was seen
by the group Soul is eventually worked out on the individual scale till the end of the cycle.
Similarly the movement of the group Soul and its universal varṇas is to be worked out
within every separate individual, where the individual at the end is to become
chaturvarnya, consisting of four major qualities of the Universal Purusha.

There was another great philosopher of 20 th century Jean Gebser, who in his book The
Ever-Present Origin in a parallel way proposed his own theory for the understanding of
Social Development with regard to the five major structures of consciousness, which he
called: Archaic, Magic, Mythical, Mental and Integral. Gebser viewed it as linear
development, he did not know much about India that time. What is interesting about
Gebser is that at the end of his life he recognized the occult influence by Sri Aurobindo on
his work. We can clearly see in his thoughts the pattern of thinking similar to Sri
Aurobindo and Ancient Indian perception of historicity.

The study of The Human Cycle, The Ever-Present Origin and The Secret of the Veda led
me to an unexpected discovery that the Veda itself belongs to the Integral structure of
consciousness, reflecting the psychological development completed by the group Soul and
its individuals from the previous cycle of time, and projected into the future development
of mankind, its social and individual components.

Part II

The Rig Veda represents an unusual combination of highly sophisticated language, which
is very rich and conceptually well elaborated, much richer grammatically than the
language of the Classical Sanskrit literature, and the ideas, which can be identified as
those from all different structures of consciousness (using Gebser’s terms). It has a magic
component in it (the symbols of Nature) and the prayers of the pure mythical character of
religious structure and at the same time highly developed concepts and visions of the
intuitive mentality.
It is nearly impossible to make out what structure of consciousness it should really belong
to. It seems to contain all the elements in it. So if the Rig Veda belongs to the Symbolic
age, according to Sri Aurobindo, the beginning of our historical period, how come it has all
2
Volume: 25 [CWSA] (The Human Cycle), Page: 6
The theorist, Lamprecht, basing himself on European and particularly on German history, supposed that
human society progresses through certain distinct psychological stages which he terms respectively
symbolic, typal and conventional, individualist and subjective. This development forms, then, a sort of
psychological cycle through which a nation or a civilisation is bound to proceed.
 6

the structures already expressed in it? Let us have a brief look into the structures of
consciousness as they are presented by Gebser.

The Magic structure of consciousness, according to Gebser, is the consciousness of

Nature; body, life and mind constitute this profound structure of consciousness, which is
seen always outside man, as it were, which man is only a part of. Gebser calls it one-
dimensional structure, which can be defined psychologically as ‘there is only what is’. It is
based on one being and all are its parts, moving and living within it.

The Mythical structure of consciousness seemed to appear later, according to Gebser,

as a memory of one’s origin, introducing the self-awareness or the consciousness of the
soul, which thus wants to return to its origin, disregarding the magic structure and its
concerns of oneness. It denies it, and is always past-oriented, as it were, two-dimensional
in its character. It is totally different in character from the magic structure; it finds its
consciousness within itself and not without. It brings into a play the Word, as the
expression of the heart, psyche. It creates a Myth, a story of creation and its return to its
Origin. It is in a constant contradiction with the Nature and especially its lower parts and
their cravings. It introduces a higher and purer love of the Heart to the Divine, Beauty,
Beloved, in opposition to the sensual pleasure of the magic structure (sexual love of the
body). It disregards all the major concerns of the magic structure, such as comforts and
bodily pleasures, tribal togetherness, sexual enjoyment, magic powers, taboos, etc. etc. It
introduces other concerns of the Soul and its self-finding, creating the ascetic approach to
life, individualistic approach to the Truth, austerity, monastery, away from life and its
powers. The compromise between the two today is reflected in social and religious laws as
separate domains in the society. The mythical structure is based on the Myth, the Word,
the Scripture.

This compromise between two structures led to the emergence of the next one: the
Mental structure. In the mental structure of consciousness all that was denied in the
magic structure by the Soul re-emerges again in a new way, as it were, as an objective
reality. It is again seen in opposition to the concerns of the Soul. The mental structure
comes into being as the scientific objective view on Nature. The fight between the Church
and the scientific materialism is a vivid example of the last millennia. Materialism is the
most aggressive and clear form of Science, introducing Nature and its consciousness again
as the only way of life, but now in the opposition to the Soul and its Myth. It reestablishes
the reality of Nature in a new fashion, in the objective way. It is depicted by Gebser as
three-dimensional in its character. It perceives the world as objective reality, regardless to
the subjective reality of the soul or magic oneness. This structure is based on thinking,
theory, science, as an approach to knowledge. It also uses the perception of the Mythical
psyche in a new objective setting and direction, creating an ego-centric perception of a
separate being: as a conqueror of the world.

So these three structures psychologically can be described as follows:

1) The world is me, there is no other me;
2) I am different from the world, I have my own Origin, to which I must return;
3) I am objectively existing, egoistic and natural being, different from others.
 7

All of these now have to be reconciled in the transparency of the next Integral
structure, they all have to find their new position and validity in the complexity of the
integral consciousness. For in the integral structure of consciousness all these must be
present and functional, but in a different more comprehensive and complex unity.
According to Gebser, the mutation of Nature through the evolution of consciousness takes
place only once. We start with archaic and end with integral structure. But according to
the Vedic tradition this process took place many times. This movement within all the
structures was known as Manvantaras, the periods of Manu, who was the founder of Men,
Mental Being, or the Group Soul. Each Manvantara has four mahāyugas, great periods of
time with many subdivisions, yugas within it. Each period of time is ending with the critical
structure of Kali Yuga, and breaks into another period starting with Satya Yuga again. In
every Manvantara a particular Veda is brought down by the seven Rishis, involutionary
beings, for mankind to follow. The Knowledge of the Veda is about the commitment the
Mankind takes and is always the same but is fashioned for every period of time:
Manvantara in a different way, accommodating the changes in the evolution and
projecting new possibilities for the conquest of Nature by the Soul. In this sense the Veda
is to be seen as the product of the previous Manvantara and therefore integral in its
structure, incorporating all the psychological approaches to reality:
1) magic, mythical and mental,
2) the action, the word (myth) and the thought,
3) the body, the heart and the mind.
This can be clearly seen in the hymns, which are at once magic, mythical and highly
mental in their character.
The last Hymn of the Rig Veda 10.191, which is the message of the whole scripture,
speaks clearly and openly about these three structures, suggesting their integration.

sam gacchadhvaṃ saṃ vadadhvaṃ saṃ vo manāṃsi jānatām

devā bhāgaṃ yathā pūrve saṃjānānā upāsate 10.191.02

Sam gacchadhvaṃ, meet together (magic structure), sam vadadhvaṃ, speak together
(mythical structure), sam vo manāṃsi jānatām, may your thoughts know together (mental
structure), devā bhāgaṃ yathā pūrve saṃjānānā upāsate, as the first gods who set
together agreeing about the portion of the work/sacrifice they should take part in the
creation. Here we can clearly see this integral approach of the Veda to all possible
structures of consciousness: action, word and mind, or, as it is spoken in the last verse of
this hymn: will, heart and mind, ākūti, hṛdayāni, manaḥ.

samānī va ākūtiḥ samānā hṛdayāni vaḥ

samānam astu vo mano yathā vaḥ susahāsati 10.191.04

“May your Will in the body be uniting, may your Aspirations of the Heart be uniting, and
may your Mind be uniting, as [it should be] in your common well being together.”

This integral character of the Veda is the foundation of all Indian Civilisation. And because
it is integral in its character it creates more possibilities for seeming deviations or rather
explorations of different varieties in manifestation without clashing them with one
another. The integral character of the Veda defined the whole way of thinking in the later
religious and scientific literature; the Upanishads and the Gita have therefore similar
 8

integral approach, as for instance in the Gita: Karma, Bhakti and Jñāna approaches to
knowledge, so in the Taittirīya Upaniṣad: Śikṣā Vallī, Brahmānanda Vallī, Bhṛgu Vallī, etc.
etc.

Sri Aurobindo defines the Veda as the source of all India stands for: “At the root of all that
we Hindus have done, thought and said through these many thousands of years, behind
all we are and seek to be, there lies concealed, the fount of our philosophies, the bedrock
of our religions, the kernel of our thought, the explanation of our ethics and society, the
summary of our civilization, a small body of speech, Veda.”
 9

RV 10.191
ṛṣi: samvanana; devatā: 1 agni, 2-4 saṃjñāna; chanda: anuṣṭup, 3 triṣṭup

s<-s/m! #d! yu?vse v&;/Ú! A¶e/ ivña?Ny! A/yR Aa ,

#/¦s! p/de sm! #?Xyse/ s nae/ vsU/Ny! Aa -?r . 10-191-01
s< g?CDXv</ s< v?dXv</ s< vae/ mna<?is jantam! ,
de/va -a/g< ywa/ pUvˆR? s~jana/na %/pas?te . 10-191-02
s/ma/nae mÙ>/ sim?it> sma/nI s?ma/nm! mn>? s/h ic/Äm! @?;am! ,
s/ma/nm! mÙ?m! A/i- m?Ùye v> sma/nen? vae h/iv;a? juhaeim . 10-191-03
s/ma/nI v/ Aakª?it> sma/na ùd?yain v> ,
s/ma/nm! A?Stu vae/ mnae/ ywa? v>/ sus/has?it . 10-191-04

Analysis of RV 10.191

s<-s/m! #d! yu?vse v&;/Ú! A¶e/ ivña?Ny! A/yR Aa ,

#/¦s! p/de sm! #?Xyse/ s nae/ vsU/Ny! Aa -?r . 10-191-01

sáṃ-sam íd yuvase vr̥ṣann ágne víśvāni aryá ā́

iḷás padé sám idhyase sá no vásūni ā́ bhara 10.191.01

1. THOU, mighty Agni, gatherest up all that is precious for thy friend.
Bring us all treasures as thou art enkindled in libation's place3

Interpretation:
“O Lord, vṛṣan, O Flame Divine, agne, unite all in the absolute unity, saṃ sam id yuvase
viśvāni, for the Aryan, arya ā, [who aspires towards it]!
You are totally kindled in the place of the Truth, iḻaspade sam idhyase, bring to us our
luminous treasures, sa no vasūni ā bhara!”

s< g?CDXv</ s< v?dXv</ s< vae/ mna<?is jantam! ,

de/va -a/g< ywa/ pUvˆR? s~jana/na %/pas?te . 10-191-02

sáṃ gacchadhvaṃ sáṃ vadadhvaṃ sáṃ vo mánāṃsi jānatām

devā́ bhāgáṃ yáthā pū́rve saṃjānānā́ upā́sate 10.191.02

2 Assemble, speak together: let your minds be all of one accord,

As ancient Gods unanimous sit down to their appointed share.

Interpretation:
“Together you go, sam gacchadhvam, together you speak, saṃ vadadhvam, and
together you realize your thoughts, saṃ vo manāṃsi jānatām, as the first gods assumed
their share [in this creation], devā bhāgam yathā purve, set fully agreeing with each
other together, saṃjānānā upāsate.”

3
Griffith’s translation.
 10

s/ma/nae mÙ>/ sim?it> sma/nI s?ma/nm! mn>? s/h ic/Äm! @?;am! ,

s/ma/nm! mÙ?m! A/i- m?Ùye v> sma/nen? vae h/iv;a? juhaeim . 10-191-03

samānó mántraḥ sámitiḥ samānī́ samānám mánaḥ sahá cittám eṣām

samānám mántram abhí mantraye vaḥ samānéna vo havíṣā juhomi 10.191.03

3 The place is common, common the assembly, common the mind, so be their thought united.
A common purpose do I lay before you, and worship with your general oblation.      

Interpretation:
“Uniting is their Word, Uniting is their Gathering, Uniting is their Mind of these [gods]
who have one Consciousness.
It is this Uniting Word that I speak to you [now], it is with this Uniting Offering of yours
that I offer!”

s/ma/nI v/ Aakª?it> sma/na ùd?yain v> ,

s/ma/nm! A?Stu vae/ mnae/ ywa? v>/ sus/has?it . 10-191-04

samānī́ va ā́kūtiḥ samānā́ hŕ̥dayāni vaḥ

samānám astu vo máno yáthā vaḥ súsahā́sati 10.191.04

4 One and the same be your resolve, and be your minds of one accord.
United be the thoughts of all that all may happily agree.

Interpretation:
“May your Will in the body be uniting, may your Aspirations of the Heart be uniting, and
may your Mind be uniting, as in your common well being together.”