Soumitra Basu
Pondicherry

Ordinarily we think with words -- a reason why language, discourse, dialogue all become linked with cognition. The consciousness paradigm demonstrates that other ways of thinking are possible. Thus one can think with Ideas. This makes it possible to put the same idea in many kinds of words in many languages. At a higher level of consciousness one can think with Experience. One can go deeper and express the same experience with many kinds of ideas. An experience can also be Wordless and Thoughtless which later can get translated as a kind of idea. Sri Aurobindo has shown that this sort of experiential thinking can be methodically cultivated so that there can be an evolution in cognitive consciousness. While one line of cognitive experience leads to a non-being-beyond or a zero or an X that surpasses our cognition, Sri Aurobindo shows that there is an opposite line of cognitive evolution, which connects the superconscious with the ordinary consciousness. This is a spiritual mind-range that presents a gradation of ascent. These gradations are a series of sublimations of consciousness, which are named as: a) Higher mind, b) Illumined mind, c) Intuition, d) Overmind, and e) Supermind. In this paper, these five gradations of consciousness are outlined in detail. The human being has to progress through an evolutionary consciousness. If the highest level of consciousness manifests, not only the cognitive capacity but also the human body, emotions, and sensations will undergo transmutation; enabling the appearance of higher models of man.

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