Summary and Analysis

Book Two concerns the speech made by the Trojan Antenor in response to Achilles’ offer. Let us take a quick look at what he represents:
He is the symbol of the illumined, spiritualised higher mind, still largely based on reason, before the seeker had achieved mental silence. In other words, he is the symbol of an ancient realisation. Being a head of state, he was a man of power, and therefore the representative of a yoga that imposed mastery from above, not transformation. He accuses the Trojans of having gone down the wrong path, of having abandoned the fundamentals of the spiritual quest: while it should lead to union in the spirit, it did not mean abandoning yoga in life. What led to the founding of Troy was a yoga that did not separate matter from spirit. He accuses the Trojans of following a direction that develops the spiritual ego and of pursuing the quest for love that is distorted by enslaving religions. He states loud and clear that the overmind (the gods) are waiting for a complete annihilation of the ego once mastery of the external nature has been achieved (For the gods seek a nation, one that can conquer itself after having conquered the world). However, this spiritualised higher mind does not propose to definitively accept the Achaean position, i.e., to seek further liberation in the vital and in the body, convinced that this leads nowhere, that liberation from nature is not possible.

At the beginning of Book Two, the supramental Light of Truth - the sun Helios - acknowledges the great achievements of humanity over the past millennia in its quest for the Divine in spirit. But it also knows that the forms of the past must be shattered so that new paths can be opened through a complete refoundation of spirituality. The realisations in the higher mind and the illumined mind achieved at this stage of Yoga cannot allow the seeker to perceive this, because the inner vision or psychic perception of the right path of evolution has been obscured by the spiritual forces which ensure that nothing is left behind and that all movement continues to its fulfilment (Laocoon is “Apollo’s seer obscured by fate”). Sri Aurobindo confirms this in The Divine Life: “It is, moreover, the nature and claim of any Force in the manifestation to be, to survive, to effectuate itself wherever possible and as long as possible, and it is therefore that in a world of Ignorance all is achieved not only through a complexus but through a collision and struggle and intermixture of Forces.� 6

Sri Aurobindo then lists the high realisations embodied by the Trojan senators and the royal lineage. Then Deiphobos, “he who destroys fear”, speaks. He is one of the sons of Priam and Hecuba, the royal couple of Troy. Since the death of Hector, their eldest son, he has been regarded as the leader of the Trojans. Although he does not clearly state in his speech whether he is for or against the continuation of the war, he embodies the ‘courage’ that has made many realisations possible. This part of the seeker fears not only the loss of realisation on the planes of the higher and illumined mind, but also all the breakthroughs made on the higher planes of the intuitive and overmind. Deiphobos once again states the message of Achilles, this time in greater detail: Nothing can stop the forward march of the forces that govern the world of forms and the evolutionary cycles they impose. This prompts the seeker to strive for a deepened purification within the depths of the vital (Achilles), which in the seeker supports the goals and practices of yoga that have enabled the vast realisations in the spirit, to renounce the separation of spirit/matter to move towards greater freedom and to expand by integrating wider forms of spirituality.

At this final stage of the inner struggle, the seeker is still ready to find a compromise in a spirituality which, while recognising the need for purification with a view to greater liberation, would retain the practices and achievements of the past by integrating all forms of spirituality. Achilles therefore asked the Trojan chiefs to unite Asia with Greece, returning Helen and giving up a great deal of wealth. Asia joins with Greece, one world from the frozen rivers Trod by the hooves of the Scythian to farthest undulant Ganges.7 The seeker is aware that there is no turning back, for this part of his being (Achilles) has committed himself to the Divine to accomplish his task of purification, whatever the cost. He knows inwardly that victory over the forces still obstructing the great reversal is certain.

It is then that Ant�nor speaks. Being the most knowledgeable of the Trojan orators, he represents not only “the highest intelligence” with the ability to convince, a spiritualised higher mind, but also an accomplishment in the yoga of divine work for he was a great warrior. He symbolises the realisation that Sri Aurobindo describes in his commentary on Canto XVIII of the Gita, as formulated by Philippe B. Saint-Hilaire (Pavitra) (p. 331): �Arriving to the sattvic form of the inner individual swadharma, and the work towards which this swadharma leads us on our life paths, is a preliminary condition to perfection.�

The seeker knows that what expresses itself in him is not only intellectual wisdom and high thought, but also a mind in which the intuition that expresses the truths of the spirit worlds already plays an important role (‘he utters the words which the gods have inspired him with’). It represents a certain irruption of light into the higher mind, hence the term spiritualised higher mind.

This Sattvic wisdom of discernment and the search for balance has long guided yoga, bringing many experiences and realisations. But the acquisition of mental silence and psychic transformation have relegated it to the background. This discernment, however, perceives that the ‘vision’ or �intuitive� perception of right evolution has become obscured and is leading to a gradual loss of the previous realisations of the yoga of the liberation of the mind (Antenor accuses Laocoon of ruining Troy).

Then he tells us that the worlds of the spirit await a man (a group of men or even humanity) who can totally overcome his ego, i.e. the consciousness of being separate, right down to the depths of the vital and the body. Indeed, mastery of the external being imposed from above is a first necessity (this is the phase of liberation of the spirit). But it is then necessary to be able to annihilate the ego in perfect humility and total surrender to the divine (For they [the gods] seek a nation, one that can conquer itself after having conquered the world, but they find none.) It is only on this condition that man will be able to integrate the forces of the overmind without faltering, i.e., integrate the opposite and complementary forces of the overmind, the opposite extremes (’none has been able to hold all the gods in his bosom unstaggered’). After giving a brief description of the progression of the illumined mind, Sri Aurobindo expresses what is for him an indisputable evolutionary truth, namely that Truth must be incarnated in humanity before Love can manifest itself there (Antenor respects Aeneas as a man, but not in relation to the assembly). He then insisted on the fact that at the beginning of this phase, all the quests and the most advanced Yogas worked together, which is no longer the case. He reminds us that yoga must be done with what is available to us in everyday life, in the smallest details, and not in some escape to the heights of the mind.

This ancient wisdom, which has proved its worth and is well anchored in the incarnation, therefore urges the rest of the being to turn away from experiences in the mind alone and, armed with courage and discernment, with patience and sustained attention, to work with what everyday life offers in the smallest details. It maintains that it is also in incarnation that the work must be done, and not in the pursuit of the heights of the spirit alone, to which they are incited by a capacity for vision that is “darkened” because it is veiled by evolution (Laocoon).

Twice already, he says, the overmind has given the seeker the opportunity to redirect the yoga in the right direction, but in vain. The yoga of purification of the depths cannot be rejected by the yoga of spirit and love. In his evolution, man is a product of matter and not a mere creation of the spirit. Like the ants, he must work to purify his being down to the very depths of his bodily nature and down to the smallest detail. Only absolute faith in the Divine, total and unconditional endurance, and consecration, can enable a progression beyond the present miserable human unconsciousness and obtain an illumination of the different parts of the being. Antenor concludes by saying that trials never last indefinitely, and however unbearable they may be, they are always followed by resurrections. This is not the first “night” that the seeker has faced. After enduring the previous “night of the spirit”, he had won the “luminous silence”. If he knows how to wait for the evolutionary movement of consciousness to do its work of purification, he can be sure that the yoga of love associated with union in spirit will once again become the essential movement of evolution. This illumined (spiritualised) higher mind, therefore, maintains that the path represented by Troy�the path of the primacy of love, as it has developed in its aims and practices�is the only valid one. This is with a view to perfecting present-day man, and not by following an aspiration for greater freedom with the aim of liberating Nature.