“But once this entry into the inner being is accomplished, the inner Self is found to be capable of an opening, an ascent upwards into things beyond our present mental level; that is the second spiritual possibility in us.” This ascent upwards is what provides the evolutionary development beyond the mind.
Sri Aurobindo describes the types of state one enters as the consciousness ascends. “The first most ordinary result is a discovery of a vast static and silent Self which we feel to be our real or our basic existence, the foundation of all else that we are.” The experience of this wide silence is so powerful that it drives all normal human thoughts, emotions, feelings and sensations out of the mind. Sri Aurobindo continues “There may be even an extinction, a Nirvana both of our active being and of the sense of self into a Reality that is indefinable and inexpressible.” Once having experienced some of these indescribable spiritual states, it becomes clear why the “refusal of the Ascetic” is so appealing, because the seeker loses all sense of the value of the world or the issues and demands of the world and he is totally caught up in this wideness and this silence that characterize the extinction of the ego personality into the higher spiritual existence.
reference: Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Chapter 28, Supermind, Mind and the Overmind Maya
Sri Aurobindo Studies 