Supermind Quotes

“The difference between supermind and Big Mind (if we take Big Mind to mean the state experience of nondual Suchness, or turiyatita) is that Big Mind can be experienced or recognized at virtually any lower level or rung. Magic to Integral. In fact, one can be at, say, the Pluralistic stage, and experience several core characteristics of the entire sequence of state-stages (gross to subtle to causal to Witnessing to Nondual), although, of course, the entire sequence, including nondual Suchness, will be interpreted in Pluralistic terms. This is unfortunate in many ways—interpreting Dharma in merely Pluralistic terms (or Mythic terms, or Rational, and so on)—because it is so ultimately reductionistic; but it happens all the time, given the relative independence of states and structures at 1st and 2nd tier.

Supermind, on the other hand, as a basic structure-rung (conjoined with nondual Suchness) can only be experienced once all the previous junior levels have emerged and developed, and as in all structure development, stages cannot be skipped. Therefore, unlike Big Mind, supermind can only be experienced after all 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-tier junior stages have been passed through. While, as Genpo Roshi has abundantly demonstrated, Big Mind state experience is available to virtually anybody at almost any age (and will be interpreted according to the View of their current stage), supermind is an extremely rare recognition. Supermind, as the highest structure-rung to date, has access to all previous structures, all the way back to Archaic—and the Archaic itself, of course, has transcended and included, and now embraces, every major structural evolution going all the way back to the Big Bang. (A human being literally enfolds and embraces all the major transformative unfoldings of the entire Kosmic history—strings to quarks to subatomic particles to atoms to molecules to cells, all the way through the Tree of Life up to its latest evolutionary emergent, the triune brain, the most complex structure in the known natural world.) Supermind, in any given individual, is experienced as a type of “omniscience”—the supermind, since it transcends and includes all of the previous structure-rungs, and inherently is conjoined with the highest nondual Suchness state, has a full and complete knowledge of all of the potentials in that person. It literally “knows all,” at least for the individual.”
― Ken Wilber, The Fourth Turning: Imagining the Evolution of an Integral Buddhism

“The Syntellect Hypothesis which is the main focus of this book, as its title suggests, refers to a phase transition of a complex intelligent system to self-awareness of a living, conscious superorganism when intellectual synergy of its components reaches threshold complexity to become one supermind. This metamorphosis is associated with emergence of higher-order self-awareness and dimensionality of a new consciousness structure. As a bio-species merging with its advanced technology, human-machine civilization is now on the verge of the Syntellect Emergence, becoming one Global Mind.”
― Alex M. Vikoulov, The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind's Evolution

“Finally, in terms of overall spiritual intelligence—which we have been briefly tracking—on the other side of the leading edge of evolution we have 3 or 4 higher, at this point mostly potential, levels of development, including levels of spiritual intelligence. Individually, their basic strcture-rungs are referred to as para-mind, meta-mind, overmind, and supermind; collectively, they are called 3rd tier. What all 3rd-tier structures have in common is some degree of direct transpersonal identity and experience. Further, each 3rd-tier structure of consciousness is integrated, in some fashion, with a particular state of consciousness (often, para-mental with the gross, meta-mental with subtle, overmind with causal/Witnessing, and supermind with nondual, although this varies with each individual’s actual history). Previously, in 1sst and 2nd tier, structures and states were relatively independent. One could have a state center of gravity at gross and yet structurally evolve all the way to Integral without fully objectifying the gross stage (i.e., fully making it an object, fully transcending it). But beginning with the 3rd-tier para-mind, whenever you experience that structure, you also implicitly or intuitively understand or experience the gross realm as objectified, which means that state is intimately connected to the structure at this level, which gives rise, or can give rise, to expanded states such as nature mysticism (this can be experienced at earlier levels but not inherently, and is interpreted according to the Views of those lower levels; but at this level becomes an inherent potential). Likewise, because of the conjunction with the gross state, this level often carries variations of the realization that the physical world is not merely physical, but is rather psychophysical in its true nature. This can also evoke flashes of higher state presences, such as Witnessing states or even nondual. And so on with the subtle state and meta-mind; causal/Witnessing and overmind; and nondual Suchness and supermind. Those states are all “minimally” connected to those structures, in the sesne that, for example, a person at meta-mind might have already and previously moved his or her state center of gravity to subtle, but if not, the person cannot proceed beyond the meta-mind without doing so at this point. And likewise with causal/Witnessing and overmind; and nondual Suchness and supermind.”
― Ken Wilber, The Fourth Turning: Imagining the Evolution of an Integral Buddhism

“In contrast, he describes spiritual transformation as an ‘established descent of the spiritual peace, light, knowledge, power, bliss from above, the awareness of the self and the divine and of a higher cosmic consciousness and the change of the whole consciousness to that’.18 The path to spiritual transformation leads the seeker through several experiences and realizations: temporary stages of peace, calm and silence; the discovery of the Self and its experience on various planes of consciousness; and experiences on the higher planes with its different layers—Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Overmind. Not only to receive influences from these planes, but to actually live in them is, according to Sri Aurobindo, ‘a definite stage in the movement towards transformation’.19


Finally, we learn about the two main and alternating movements leading to spiritual transformation—the ascent of the lower consciousness towards the higher, and the descent of the higher, of peace, force, light and Ananda, into the lower to transform it. These and the experiences connected with them end this remarkable journey from the first opening of the inner veil to the psychic and spiritual transformation of all the planes and parts of the being, opening the gate to the essence and crown of Sri Aurobindo’s yoga: the supramental transformation.”
― Gautam Chikermane, Reading Sri Aurobindo