The mind of Light represents a fundamental shift in the status and standpoint of consciousness in the individual. Mind operates in a fragmented, isolated manner and is locked into its limited framework. It is thus a power based in Ignorance. The mind of Light is a power of knowledge, based in the supramental consciousness and being, and thus, is not bound by the limitations that plague the mental function.
Sri Aurobindo makes several additional points worth noting here. First is that the consciousness is not a machinery of some inanimate Nature, but the active manifesting role of the divine Being. Second, the supermind does not need to display all its knowledge at every point at all times, but can modulate and withhold behind the scenes the knowledge that underlies the current action. One can consider this to be something akin to a “step down transformer” that takes the high voltage intensity of power being transmitted and siphons off part of it to distribute it where needed and in the amounts required, so that it can become useful for a specific purpose or need. The intervening gradations between Supermind and Mind represent stages of this “step-down” process to apply just the right amounts of knowledge and power to the specific need of the specific being, circumstance and event that is at play at that moment.
Sri Aurobindo writes: “The Truth-Consciousness is not only a power of knowledge; it is a being of consciousness and knowledge, a luminous many-sided dynamis and play of the omniscient Spirit; in it there can be a spiritual feeling, a spiritual sensation, a spiritual essentiality of substance that knows and reveals, that acts and manifests in an omniscience which is one with omnipotence. In Mind this Truth-Consciousness and these workings of the Truth-Consciousness can be there and even though it limits itself in Mind and has a subordinate or an indirect working, its action can be essentially the same. There can even be a hidden immediacy which hints at the presence of something absolute and is evidence of the same omnipotence and omniscience. In the Mind of Light when it becomes full-orbed this character of the Truth reveals itself though in a garb that is transparent even when it seems to cover: for this too is a truth-consciousness and a self-power of knowledge. This too proceeds from the Supermind and depends upon it even though it is limited and subordinate. What we have called specifically the Mind of Light is indeed the last of a series of descending planes of consciousness in which the Supermind veils itself by a self-chosen limitation or modification of its self-manifesting activities, but its essential character remains the same: there is in it an action of light, of truth, of knowledge in which inconscience, ignorance and error claim no place. It proceeds from knowledge to knowledge; we have not yet crossed over the borders of the truth-conscious into ignorance. The methods also are those of a self-luminous knowing and seeing and feeling and a self-fulfilling action within its own borders; there is no need to seek for something missing, no fumbling, no hesitation: all is still a gnostic action of a gnostic power and principle. There has been a descent from full Supermind into Mind, but this Mind though a self-limited is not yet an agnostic consciousness unsure of itself or unsure of its workings; there is still a comprehending or an apprehending consciousness which goes straight to its object and does not miss its mark or have to hunt for it in the dark or in insufficient light: it sees, knows, puts its hand immediately on things of self and things of Nature. We have passed into Mind but Mind has still not broken its inherent connection with the supramental principle.”
Sri Aurobindo, The Mind of Light, Supermind and Mind of Light, pp. 93-94
Sri Aurobindo Studies 