The great World Stair is the ladder of Consciousness. As the One Divine Consciousness lapsed towards the Inconscience by stages and by degrees it created a hierarchy of planes of consciousness that are arranged like an involutionary and evolutionary stair connecting the state of complete oblivion in obscure Matter to the Spirit in all its signless purity.
There is the world of subtle matter or true matter before it plunges into the Inconscience. Then there are the vital worlds with their heaven and hell plunging towards the subconscious and inconscient realm. Finally comes the mental worlds in their fallen and uplifted state right upto the borders or the junction between the lower hemisphere of limitation and the higher supramental.
All these worlds are described in great detail with their beings, forces, energies and powers, their impact upon earthly life and the evolution of forms to embody these levels and states of consciousness, their role in the drama of creation and influence upon human life.
Since these worlds are part of the cosmic consciousness there is described the World Soul that supports it from behind.
Having explored this stair, Aswapati enters into the House of the Spirit through the doors of the Unknowable, Brahman. He is let in by the Grace of the Divine Mother who pulls him in and reveals all the Unmanifest waiting for its hour in the folds of the Transcendent, the Supramental Divine.
Just before this canto begins, in the earlier canto we see that Ashwapati “broke into another Space and Time” (pg. 91). Is that Satchidananda? I wondering if this Great Stair is seen only from that plane.
It is the fourth dimension of existence where this stair is placed and seen. One can come into Sacchidananda in its undifferentiated unity without being aware of the World Stair. Equally one can know some of the steps of the stair, especially the mind and above as one ascends through it towards the cosmic consciousness. It is only in the Supermind where one finds the differentiated unity of Sacchidananda and with it the secret of the entire stair
Affectionately,
Alok Da
