Промежуточная зона в философии Шри Ауробиндо

zone in philosophy

In Sri Aurobindo's philosophy, the Intermediate zone refers to a dangerous and misleading transitional spiritual state between the ordinary consciousness and true spiritual realisation. Similar notions can be found in mystical literature, such as "the astral plane" and "the hall of illusion." The Theosophist W. Q. Judge used the similar notion of "astral intoxication".

The Intermediate Zone is first described in a letter to a disciple in the early 1930s. It was then published in 1933 in The Riddle of this World, a small booklet that includes several essays. The letter later appeared in Letters on Yoga. More recently, a number of copies have been posted on the Internet. A shorter but similar reference to a misleading intermediate consciousness, but without the distinguishing qualifier "zone", is also found in some of the later strata of The Synthesis of Yoga which dates to the early 1940s.

Aurobindo asserted that spiritual aspirants may pass through an intermediate zone where experiences of force, inspiration, illumination, light, joy, expansion, power, and freedom from normal limits are possible. These can become associated with personal aspirations, ambitions, notions of spiritual fulfilment and yogic siddhi, and even be falsely interpreted as full spiritual realisation. One can pass through this zone, and the associated spiritual dangers, without harm by perceiving its real nature, and seeing through the misleading experiences. Those who go astray in it may end in a spiritual disaster, or may remain stuck there and adopt some half truth as the whole truth, or become an instrument of lesser powers of these transitional planes. According to Aurobindo, this happens to many sadhaks and yogis. Brunton uses several terms, such as astral plane, the intermediate zone, the hall of illusion. Once there, egoism becomes stimulated by the subtle forces they have evoked, the emotional nature becomes more sensitive and more fluid, the imaginative power becomes more active and is less restrained. If a person then falls victim to spiritual error regarding this state, the result is swollen vanity, superstitious credulity, emotions run riot, and wild imagination. Brunton considered this a major factor in explaining the human wreckage found on the spiritual path.