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Sri Aurobindo: The inner being is the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical with the psychic behind them. The [] higher being is used to denote the conscious self on planes higher than the ordinary human consciousness. Do you not know that the inner being means the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical with the psychic behind as the inmost?
Sri Aurobindo: How can there be one centre for all that? The inner being cannot be “located” above, it can only join with the above, penetrate it and be penetrated by it.
Sri Aurobindo: If it were located above, then there would be no inner being. The inner being has its own time which is sometimes slower, sometimes faster than the physical. The word Antaratma is very vaguely used like the word soul in English — so used, it covers all the inner being, inner mind, inner vital, inner physical even, as well as the inmost being, the psychic.
Sri Aurobindo: Our inner being is in touch with the universal mind, life, matter, a part of all that, but by that very fact it cannot be in possession of liberation and peace. You are thinking probably of the Atman and confusing it with the inner being. I did not mean by the inner being the psychic or inmost being.
Sri Aurobindo: It is the psychic being that feels love, bhakti and union with the Mother. I was speaking of the inner mental, inner vital, inner physical; in order to reach the hidden seat of the psychic one has ﬁrst to pass through these things. When one leaves the outer consciousness and goes inside, it is here that one enters — some or most entering into the inner vital ﬁrst, others into the inner mental or inner physical; the emotional vital is the most direct road, for the seat of the psychic is just behind the emotional in the heart centre. It is absolutely necessary for our purpose that one should become conscious in these inner regions, for if they are not awake, then the psychic being has no proper and sufﬁcient instrumentation for its activities; it has then only the outer mind, outer vital and body for its means and these are too small and narrow and obscure. You as yet have been able only to enter the outskirts of the inner vital and are still insufﬁciently conscious there.
Sri Aurobindo: By becoming more conscious there and going deeper one can reach the psychic — the safe refuge,, of which you speak, and you will not be disturbed by the confused visions and experiences of the inner vital outskirts. The psychic stands behind the inner mind, inner vital and inner physical and supports them all — they are the inner, this the inmost being.
Sri Aurobindo: I do not know what you mean by its [] being “around” the psychic. It is obviously nearer to the psychic than the outer mind, vital or physical, but that does not ensure its being open to the psychic only and not to other universal forces. The psychic can have peace behind it — but the inner mind, vital and physical are not necessarily silent — they are full of movements. It is the higher consciousness that has a basis of peace. The psychic being is described in the Upanishads as no bigger than the size of one’s thumb!
Sri Aurobindo: That of course is a symbolic image. For usually when one sees anybody’s psychic being in a form, it is bigger than that. As for the inner being, one feels it big because the true mental or the true vital or even the true physical being is much wider in consciousness than the external consciousness which is limited by the body. If the external parts seem to occupy the whole consciousness, it is when one comes down into the physical and feels all the activities of Nature playing in it — even the mental and vital movements are then felt through the physical and not as things of a separate plane. But when one lives in the inner being then one is aware of a consciousness which begins to spread into the universal and the external is only a surface movement thrown up by the universal forces.
Sri Aurobindo: The outer being is a means of expression only, not one’s self. One must not identify with it, for what it expresses is a personality formed by the old ignorant Nature. If not identiﬁed, one can change it so as to express the true inner personality of the Light.
Sri Aurobindo: They [] are small, but not unimportant in spite of their apparent insigniﬁcance — because they are a necessary passage of transmission between the soul and the outer world. You take the outer waking consciousness as if it were the real person or being and conclude that if it is not this but something else that has the realisation or abides in the realisation, then no one has it — for there is no one here except this waking consciousness. That is the very error by which the ignorance lasts and cannot be got rid of. The very ﬁrst step in getting out of the ignorance is to accept the fact that this outer consciousness is not one’s soul, not oneself, not the real person, but only a temporary formation on the surface for the purposes of the surface play.
Sri Aurobindo: The soul, the person is within, not on the surface — the outer personality is the person only in the ﬁrst sense of the Latin word which meant originally a mask. The true being may be realised in one or both of two aspects — the Self or Atman and the soul or, psychic being or . The difference is that one is felt as universal, the other as individual supporting the mind, life and body. When one ﬁrst realises the Atman one feels it separate from all things, existing in itself and detached, and it is to this realisation that the image of the dry coconut fruit may apply. When one realises the psychic being, it is not like that; for this brings the sense of union with the Divine and dependence upon it and sole consecration to the Divine alone and the power to change the nature and discover the true mental, the true vital, the true physical being in oneself.
Sri Aurobindo: Both realisations are necessary for this Yoga. The “I” or the little ego is constituted by Nature and is at once a mental, vital and physical formation meant to aid in centralising and individualising the outer consciousness and action. When the true being is discovered, the utility of the ego is over and this formation has to disappear — the true being is felt in its place. The psychic is the true being here — the ego is simply a mental, vital, physical formation of the mobile consciousness in Nature which is wrongly taken for our true being so long as the psychic is veiled and the consciousness is in the Ignorance.
Sri Aurobindo: As to the change of nature, the ﬁrst step is to become conscious and separate from the old surface nature. For this rajasic vital nature is a surface creation of Prakriti, it is not the true being; however persistent it seems, it is only a temporary combination of vital movements. Behind is the true mental and vital being supported by the psychic — this true being is calm, wide, peaceful.
Sri Aurobindo: By drawing back and becoming separate one creates the possibility of living in the peace of this inner Purusha no longer identiﬁed with the surface Prakriti. Afterwards it will be much easier to change, by the force of the psychic perception and the Peace and Power and Light from above, the surface being. The outward disturbances cannot touch the true being. If one is in the true being, they are not felt as belonging to oneself, but as outside or surface movements which leave one unmoved and unidentiﬁed with them.
Sri Aurobindo: The true inner being — the true mental, the true vital, the true physical represent each on its plane and answer to the central being, but the whole of the nature and especially the outer nature does not nor the ordinary mental, vital or physical personality. The psychic being is the central being for the purposes of the evolution — it grows and develops; but there is a central being above of which the mind is not aware which presides unseen over the existence and of which the psychic being is the representative in the manifested nature. It is what is called the Jivatman. The true being mental, vital or subtle physical has always the greater qualities of its plane — it is the Purusha and like the psychic, though in another way, the projection of the Divine, therefore in connection with the Higher Consciousness and reﬂects something of it, though it is not altogether that — it is also in tune with the cosmic Truth.
Sri Aurobindo: The condition you describe is the true consciousness, psychic and spiritual, which will become the base of the sadhana. If it is only for a brief time that it comes, it is always so at the beginning of its coming, but afterwards it ﬁxes and becomes a pervading basis. It is a sign of the psychic opening and when the psychic fully opens and inspires the mind and heart, the love you wish to have will undoubtedly be there. Aspire and persevere and all will come with the growing consciousness. The consciousness that is aware of the Divine and the Truth and does not look at things from the ego [] — it is wide and calm and strong and aspires to union and surrender — it is many things besides, but this is the essential.
Sri Aurobindo: It [] is the true Yogic consciousness in which one feels the oneness and lives in it, not touched by the outer being and its inferior movements, but looking on them with a smile at their ignorance and smallness. It will become much more possible to deal with these outer things if that separateness is maintained always. Living in the true consciousness is living in a consciousness in which one is spiritually in union with the Divine in one way or another. But it does not follow that by so living one will have the complete, exact and infallible truth about all ideas, all things and all persons.
Sri Aurobindo: It is the true consciousness growing within that gives the power []. As it grows, these vital forces get more and more externalised and foreign to the nature. It is only by the power of past habit that they rise.
Sri Aurobindo: This [] was the true consciousness that must establish itself, but before it can establish itself it must come down below the head and take full possession of the navel and two lower centres and pervade the body down to the feet and even below. Once established, it holds the ego-forces outside or, even if they come, whether in rajasic or tamasic obstructive form, keeps the inner being totally detached and unmoved all the time by their environmental presence. The consciousness of the mind, life, body in each person is ordinarily shut up in itself; it is narrow, not wide, sees itself as the centre of everything, judges all things according to its own impressions — it does not know anything as it really is.
Sri Aurobindo: But when by Yoga one begins to open to the true consciousness, then this barrier begins to break down. One feels the mind grow wider, even in the end the physical consciousness grows wider and wider, until you feel all things in yourself, yourself one with all things. You then become one with the Mother’s universal Consciousness. That is why you feel the mind becoming wide. But also there is much above the human mind and it is this which you feel like a world above your head.
Sri Aurobindo: All these are the ordinary experiences of our Yoga. It is only a beginning. But in order that it may go on developing, you must become more and more quiet, more and more able to hold whatever comes without getting too eager and excited. Peace and calmness are the ﬁrst thing, and with it wideness — in the peace you can bear whatever love or Ananda comes, whatever strength comes or whatever knowledge. To feel quietude, peace, the force working to be conscious; the unconscious condition comes only by confusion and admitting wrong suggestions and restlessness; if you reject these things, the true consciousness will grow in you.
Sri Aurobindo: Naturally, the consciousness you have now is nothing to what you will have hereafter when it has grown; but it has to begin in this way and increase by quietude. You cannot have the full complete consciousness now and it is no use repining and doubting because it is not complete or fully established as yet; that fretting only delays and hinders. Open yourself; remain quiet; let it grow.
Sri Aurobindo: There is no insincerity in asking me again and again for the right condition — the feeling of connection and the true consciousness and the psychic state. It is most important that you should have them and become able to keep them. It is indeed the one thing needful for you. They [] are quite different things. The psychic being is one’s own individual soul-being.
Sri Aurobindo: It is not the Divine, though it has come from the Divine and develops towards the Divine. It
Sri Aurobindo: [ ] is constantly in contact with the immanent Divine — the Divine secret in the individual.
Sri Aurobindo: It is the psychic that is in direct relation with the transcendent Divine and leads the nature upwards towards the Supreme. The Divine is always in the inner heart and does not leave it.
Sri Aurobindo: The psychic is not, by deﬁnition, that part [] which is in direct touch with the supramental plane, — although, once the connection with the supramental is made, it gives to it the readiest response. The psychic part of us is something that comes direct from the Divine and is in touch with the Divine. In its origin it is the nucleus pregnant with divine possibilities that supports this lower triple manifestation of mind, life and body. There is this divine element in all living beings, but it stands hidden behind the ordinary consciousness, is not at ﬁrst developed and, even when developed, is not always or often in the front ; it expresses itself, so far as the imperfection of the instruments allows, by their means and under their limitations.
Sri Aurobindo: It grows in the consciousness by Godward experience, gaining strength every time there is a higher movement in us, and, ﬁnally, by the accumulation of these deeper and higher movements there is developed a psychic individuality, — that which we call usually the psychic being. It is always this psychic being that is the real, though often the secret cause of man’s turning to the spiritual life and his greatest help in it. It is therefore that which we have to bring from behind to the front in the Yoga. The word “soul”, as also the word “psychic”, is used very vaguely and in many different senses in the English language. More often than not in ordinary parlance no clear distinction is made between mind and soul and often there is an even more serious confusion, for the vital being of desire — the false soul or desire-soul — is intended by the words “soul” and “psychic” and not the true soul, the psychic being.
Sri Aurobindo: The psychic being is quite different from the mind or vital; it stands behind them where they meet in the heart. Its central place is there, but behind the heart rather than in the heart; for what men call usually the heart is the seat of emotion, and human emotions are mentalvital impulses, not ordinarily psychic in their nature. This mostly secret power behind, other than the mind and the life-force, is the true soul, the psychic being in us. The power of the psychic, however, can act upon the mind and vital and body, purifying thought and perception and emotion (which then becomes psychic feeling) and sensation and action and everything else in us and preparing them to be divine movements. The psychic being may be described in Indian language as the Purusha in the heart or the; but the inner or secret heart must be understood,, not the outer vital-emotional centre.
Sri Aurobindo: It is the true psychic entity (distinguished from the vital desire-mind) — the psyche — spoken of on the page of the to which you make reference. The psychic is the soul, the divine spark animating matter and life and mind and as it grows it takes form and expresses itself through these three touching them to beauty and ﬁneness — it works even before humanity in the lower creation leading it up towards the human, in humanity it works more freely though still under a mass of ignorance and weakness and coarseness and hardness leading it up towards the Divine. In Yoga it becomes conscious of its aim and turns inward to the Divine. It sees behind and above it — that is the difference.
Sri Aurobindo: The psychic is the spark of the Divine involved here in the individual existence. It grows and evolves in the form of the psychic being — so obviously it cannot have already the powers of the Divine. Only its presence makes it possible for the individual to open to the Divine and grow towards the Divine Consciousness and when it acts it is always in the sense of the Light and the Truth and with the push towards the Divine. The Spirit is the consciousness above mind, the Atman or self, which is always in oneness with the Divine — a spiritual consciousness is one which is always in unity or at least in contact with the Divine.
Sri Aurobindo: The psychic is a spark come from the Divine which is there in all things and as the individual evolves it grows in him and manifests as the psychic being, the soul seeking always for the Divine and the Truth and answering to the Divine and the Truth whenever and wherever it meets it. All contact with the Divine through the essential substance of the consciousness is spiritual and it is that consciousness in the essential substance — what is called self — that is the spiritual consciousness. The soul or psychic being is a spark of the Divine that grows and evolves through successive lives and leads the rest towards the Divine. The spirit or self is the same always. The self feels always its unity with the Divine and is always the same.
Sri Aurobindo: The soul is a portion of the Divine that comes down into the evolution and evolves a psychic being more and more developed through experiences of successive lives until it is ready for the divine realisation here. There is no distinction between the Self and the spirit. The psychic is the soul that develops in the evolution — the spirit is the Self that is not affected by the evolution, it is above it — only it is covered or concealed by the activity of mind, vital and body. The removal of this covering is the release of the spirit — and it is removed when there is a full and wide spiritual silence. The soul in evolution is only a power for the evolution, it
Sri Aurobindo: contains everything in potentiality; but that can only be worked out by the psychic being. It is quite different from the condition of the self. There is a difference between the psychic and the self.
Sri Aurobindo: The self is the Atman above which is one in all, remains always wide, free, pure, untouched by the action of life in its ignorance. Its nature is peace, freedom, light, wideness, Ananda. The psychic ( ) is the individual being which comes down into life and travels from birth to birth and feels the experiences and grows by them till it is able to join itself with the free Atman above. The psychic being is concealed in the depths behind the heartcentre.
Sri Aurobindo: The Self has no separate place — it is everywhere. Your self and the self of all beings is the same. Love, joy and happiness come from the psychic. The Self gives peace or a universal Ananda.
Sri Aurobindo: The Jiva is realised as the individual Self, Atman, the central being above the Nature, calm, untouched by the movements of Nature but supporting their evolution though not involved in it. Through this realisation silence, freedom, wideness, mastery, purity, a sense of universality in the individual as one centre of this divine universality become the normal experience. The psychic is realised as the Purusha behind the heart. It is not universalised like the Jivatman, but is the individual soul supporting from its place behind the heart-centre the mental, vital, physical, psychic evolution of the being in Nature. Its realisation brings Bhakti, self-giving, surrender, turning of all the movements Godward, discrimination and choice of all that belongs to the Divine Truth, Good, Beauty, rejection of all that is false, evil, ugly, discordant, union through love and sympathy with all existence, openness to the Truth of the Self and the Divine.
Sri Aurobindo: The psychic is a spark of the Divine — but I do not know that it can be called a portion of the Jivatma — it is the same put forward in a different way. The of which you speak is not the psychic being, but the soul or spark of the Divine which supports each existence; the psychic being is usually seen in form as a Purusha.
Sri Aurobindo: The psychic being is the soul or spark of the Divine developing a form of itself in the evolution which travels from life to life. The Jivatma and the soul are the same, but in two different statuses. The Jivatma is the Ansha of the Divine standing above the consciousness as the individual self and unchanged by the evolution — the soul is the same descended into the evolution and developing its consciousness from life to life until in the opening of knowledge the psychic being realises its oneness with the self above. The ego is quite different — it is a creation of Prakriti and part of Prakriti, which centralises the thoughts, desires, passions etc. of the nature and is involved in them entirely. The ego is not a real and eternal existence, but only a formation of Nature.
Sri Aurobindo: It has to disappear by the coming of knowledge and be replaced by the true psychic and spiritual self. The psychic is the soul in evolution; the Atman is the self above the evolution. There is always a part of the mind, of the vital, of the body which is or can be inﬂuenced by the psychic; they can be called the psychic-mental, the psychic-vital, the psychic-physical.
Sri Aurobindo: According to the personality or the degree of evolution of each person, this part can be small or large, weak or strong, covered up and inactive or prominent and in action. When it acts the movements of the mind, vital or physical accept the psychic motives or aims, partake of the nature of the psychic or follow its aims but with a modiﬁcation in the manner which belongs to the mind, vital or physical. The psychic-vital seeks after the Divine, but it has a demand in its self-giving, desire, vital eagerness the psychic has not, for the psychic has instead pure self-giving, aspiration, intensity of psychic ﬁre. The psychic-vital is subject to pain and suffering, which there is not in the psychic. Atma is not the same as psychic — Atma is the self which is one in all, calm, wide, ever at peace, always free.
Sri Aurobindo: The psychic being is the soul within that experiences life and develops with evolving mind and life and body. The psychic does not suffer like the vital or body, it has not pain or anguish or despair; but it has a psychic sorrow which is different from these things. It has a kind of quiet sweet sadness of yearning which it feels when things go against the Divine, when the obscurity and obstacles are too heavy, when the mind, vital and physical follow after other things, when evil and falsehood and darkness seem to be too strong for the Light. It does not despair, but feels that these things ought not to be and the psychic yearning for it to be otherwise becomes so intense that it is felt as if something akin to sadness .
Sri Aurobindo: As for the psychic not being in front, that cannot be brought about all at once; the other parts of the being must be prepared for the change and the veil between must become thinner and thinner. It is for that experiences come and there is the working on the inner mind and vital and physical as well as on the outer nature. What do you mean by a personal vital? What people call personality is a formation. There is no unchangeable vital personality.
Sri Aurobindo: There is a Presence called the Purusha, something projected by the Self or Atman, which supports on each plane the formation of the personalities on that plane, but the Purusha is not a personality and it has no name or form. But it is best for you not to speculate too much about these subtle things at present; you have not sufﬁcient experience to grasp correctly the complexity of the truth. The one thing you are concerned with is that you have a soul, a psychic being, which stands for your centre of existence, a part of the Divine. Become aware of that and put all your mental, vital and physical nature in relation to it, in order that they may become puriﬁed, harmonised, divinised, and the supramental being and nature may descend and be manifested in you — for until this is done, this conscious linking and relation with the psychic centre, there can be no supramental descent. The European mind, for the most part, has never been able to go beyond the formula of soul + body — usually including mind in soul and everything except body in mind.
Sri Aurobindo: Some occultists make a distinction between spirit, soul and body. At the same time there must be some vague feeling that soul and mind are not quite the same thing, for there is the phrase “This man has no soul”, or “he is a soul” meaning he has something in him beyond a mere mind and body. But all that is very vague. There is no clear distinction between mind and soul and none between mind and vital and often the vital is taken for the soul. Psychic is ordinarily used in the sense of anything relating to the inner movements of the consciousness or anything phenomenal in the psychology; in this case I have made a special use of it, relating it to the Greek word psyche meaning soul; but ordinarily people make no distinction between the soul and the mental-vital consciousness; for them it is all the same.
Sri Aurobindo: “Psychic” in the sense in which it is used commonly by people has no deﬁnite meaning — it is applied to anything non-physical or supraphysical. In the language of our Yoga it refers always to the inner soul. Therefore the use of the words “psychic significance” is incorrect here.
Sri Aurobindo: One can say “occult signiﬁcance” or “symbolic signiﬁcance” or “inner signiﬁcance”. “Psychic significance” we can say only of experiences belonging to the psychic as opposed to the mental, vital and physical planes. It appears the Maharshi at the time supposed that by the psychic being I meant the enlightened ego! But people do not understand what I mean by the psychic being, because the word psychic has been used in English to mean anything of the inner mental, inner vital or inner physical or anything abnormal or occult or even the more subtle movements of the outer being, all in a jumble — also occult phenomena are often called psychic. The distinction between these different parts of the being is unknown.
Sri Aurobindo: Even in India the old knowledge of the Upanishads in which they are distinguished has been lost. The Jivatman, psychic being ( ), the, the are all confused together. The is the soul, the portion of the Divine that is at the inmost basis of the evolving individual and supports the mind and life and body which are the instrumental parts of nature through which it tries to grow from the material Inconscience towards the divine Light and Immortality which are its proper being. The limitations of its instruments impose upon it an acceptance of the lower movements and a compromise between soul and nature which retard this movement even while it gets its means of advance from that interchange.
Sri Aurobindo: The psychic being is the soul-form or soul-personality developing through this evolution and passing from life to life till all is ready for the higher evolution beyond the Ignorance. The psychic being is the Soul, the Purusha in the secret heart supporting by its presence the action of the mind, life and body. The vital is the Pranamaya Purusha spoken of in the Taittiriya Upanishad — the being behind the Force of Life; in its outer form in the Ignorance it generates the desire soul which governs most men and which they mistake often for the real soul. The Atma is the Self or Spirit that remains above, pure and stainless, unaffected by the stains of life, by desire and ego and ignorance.
Sri Aurobindo: It is realised as the true being of the individual, but also more widely as the in all and as the Self of the cosmos; it has also a self-existence above the individual and cosmos and it is then called the Paramatma, the supreme Divine Being. This distinction has nothing to do with the distinction between the psychic and the vital; the vital being is not what is known as the Atma. The vital as the desire-soul and desire-nature controls the consciousness to a large extent in most men because men are governed by desire. But even in the surface human nature the proper ruler of the consciousness is the mental being, the of the Upanishad. The psychic inﬂuences the consciousness from behind, but one has to go out of the ordinary consciousness into the inmost being to ﬁnd it and make it the ruler of the consciousness as it should be.
Sri Aurobindo: To do that is one of the principal aims of the Yoga. The vital should be an instrument of the consciousness, not its ruler. The vital being is not the I — the ego is mental, vital, physical. Ego implies the identiﬁcation of our existence with outer self, the ignorance of our true self above and our psychic being within us. In a certain sense the various Purushas or beings in us, psychic, mental, vital, physical, are projections of the Atma, but that gets its full truth only when we get into our inner being and know the inner truth of ourselves.
Sri Aurobindo: On the surface in the Ignorance, it is the mental, vital, physical Prakriti that acts and the Purusha is disﬁgured, as it were, in the action of Prakriti. It is not our true mental being, our true vital being, our true physical being even that we are aware of; these remain behind, veiled and silent. It is the mental, vital, physical ego that we take for our being until we get knowledge. The psychic being in the old systems was spoken of as the Purusha in the heart (the secret heart —) which corresponds very well to what we deﬁne as the psychic being behind the heart centre.
Sri Aurobindo: It was also this that went out from the body at death and persisted — which again corresponds to our teaching that it is this which goes out and returns, linking new life to former life. Also we say that the psychic is the divine portion within us — so too the Purusha in the heart is described as Ishwara of the individual nature in some places. The word soul is very vaguely used in English — as it often refers to the whole non-physical consciousness including even the vital with all its desires and passions. That is why the word psychic being has to be used so as to distinguish this divine portion from the instrumental parts of the nature.
Sri Aurobindo: I do not know what is exactly meant by this phrase. It is too vague and limited for a description of the psychic. Antahkarana usually means the mind and vital as opposed to the body — the body being the outer instrument and the inner instrument of the soul. By psychic I mean something different from a puriﬁed mind and vital. A puriﬁed mind and vital are the result of the action of the awakened and liberated psychic being but it is not itself the psychic.
Sri Aurobindo: Again it depends on what is meant by Ahambhava. But the psychic is not a “bhava”; it is a being, a Purusha. Ahambhava is a formation of Prakriti, it is not a being or a Purusha. Ahambhava can disappear and yet the Purusha will be there.
Sri Aurobindo: By liberated psychic being, I mean that it is no longer obliged to express itself under the conditions of the obscure and ignorant instruments, from behind a veil, but is able to come forward, control and change the action of mind and vital and body. Puriﬁed and perfected are not epithets that can properly be applied to the psychic — the psychic is always pure and has no positive imperfection. The thing that has to be perfected is its control over the instruments. If it is perhaps sometimes spoken of as puriﬁed or perfected, what must be meant is the psychic action in the mind, vital and physical instruments. A puriﬁed inner being does not mean a puriﬁed psychic, but a puriﬁed inner mental, vital and physical.
Sri Aurobindo: The epithets I used for the psychic were “awakened and liberated”. Spiritual individuality is rather a vague term and might be variously interpreted. I have written about the psychic being that the psychic is the soul or spark of the Divine Fire supporting the individual evolution on the earth and the psychic being is the soul-consciousness developing itself or rather its manifestation from life to life with the mind, vital and body as its instruments until all is ready for the union with the Divine. I don’t know that I can add anything to that.
Sri Aurobindo: The mental being spoken of by the Upanishad is not part of the mental nervous physical composite — it is the , the mental being leader of the life and body. It could not be so described if it were part of the composite. Nor can the composite or part of it be the Purusha, — for the composite is composed of Prakriti. It is described as by the Upanishad because the psychic being is behind the veil and man being the mental being in the life and body lives in his mind and not in his psychic, so to him the is the leader of the life and body, — of the psychic behind supporting the whole he is not aware or dimly aware in his best moments. The psychic is represented in man by the Prime Minister, the, itself being a mild constitutional king; it is the to whom Prakriti refers for assent to her actions.
Sri Aurobindo: But still the statement of the Upanishad gives only the apparent truth of the matter, valid for man and the human stage only — for in the animal it would be rather the that is the, leader of mind and body. Purusha Prakriti is the Kshara Purusha — standing back from it is the Akshara Purusha. Ego-sense and Purusha are two quite different things — ego-sense is a mechanism of Prakriti, Purusha is the conscious being. The psychic being evolves, so it is not the immutable.
Sri Aurobindo: The psychic being is especially the soul of the individual evolving in the manifestation the individual Prakriti and taking part in the evolution. It is that spark of the Divine Fire that grows behind the mind, vital and physical as the psychic being until it is able to transform the Prakriti of Ignorance into a Prakriti of Knowledge. These things are not in the Gita, but we cannot limit our knowledge by the points in the Gita. A distinction has to be made between the soul in its essence and the psychic being. Behind each and all there is the soul which is the spark of the Divine — none could exist without that.
Sri Aurobindo: But it is quite possible to have a vital and physical being supported by such a soul essence but without a clearly evolved psychic being behind it. There is indeed an inner being composed of the inner mental, inner vital, inner physical, — but that is not the psychic being. The psychic is the inmost being of all and quite distinct from these. The word psychic is indeed used in English to indicate anything that is other or deeper than the external mind, life and body or it indicates sometimes anything occult or supraphysical; but that is a use which brings confusion and error and we have almost entirely to discard it. The psychic being is veiled by the surface movements and expresses itself as best it can through the three outer instruments which are more governed by the outer forces than by the inner being or the psychic entity.
Sri Aurobindo: But that does not mean that they are entirely isolated from the soul. The soul is in the body in the same way as the mind or vital — but the body is not this gross physical body only, but the subtle body also. When the gross body falls away, the vital and mental sheaths of the body still remain as the soul’s vehicle till these too dissolve. The soul of a plant or an animal is not dormant — only its means of expression are less developed than those of a human being. There is much that is psychic in the plant, much that is psychic in the animal.
Sri Aurobindo: The plant has only the vital-physical elements evolved in its form; the consciousness behind the form of the plant has no developed or organised mentality capable of expressing itself, — the animal takes a step farther; it has a vital mind and some extent of self-expression, but its consciousness is limited, its mentality limited, its experiences are limited; the psychic essence too puts forward to represent it a less developed consciousness and experience than is possible in man. All the same, animals have a soul and can respond very readily to the psychic in man. The “ghost” of a man is of course not his soul. It is either the man appearing in his vital body or it is a fragment of his vital structure that is seized on by some force or being of the vital world for its own purpose. For normally the vital being with its personality exists after the dissolution of the physical body for some time only; afterwards it passes away into the vital plane where it remains till the vital sheath dissolves.
Sri Aurobindo: Next one passes in the mental sheath, to some mental world; but ﬁnally the soul leaves its mental sheath also and goes to its place of rest. If the mental is strongly developed, then the mental being can remain and so also can the strongly developed vital, provided they are organised by and centred around the true psychic being — they then share the immortality of the psychic. But ordinarily this does not happen; there is a dissolution of the mental and vital as well as the physical parts and the soul in rebirth assumes a new mind, life and body and not, as is often supposed, a replica of its old nature-self. Such a repetition would be meaningless and useless and would defeat the purpose of rebirth which is a progression of the nature by experience, an evolutionary growth of the soul in nature towards its self-ﬁnding. At the same time the soul preserves the impression of what was essential in its past lives and personalities and the new birth and personality are a balance between this past and the soul’s need for its future.
Sri Aurobindo: A distinction has to be made between the soul in its essence and the psychic being. Behind each and all there is the soul which is the spark of the Divine — none could exist without that. But it is quite possible to have a vital and physical being without a clearly evolved psychic being behind it.
Sri Aurobindo: Still, one cannot make general statements that no aboriginal has a soul or there is no display of soul anywhere. The inner being is composed of the inner mental, inner vital, inner physical, — but that is not the psychic being. The psychic is the inmost being and quite distinct from these. The word psychic is indeed used in English to indicate anything that is other or deeper than the external mind, life and body, anything occult or supraphysical, but that is a use which brings confusion and error and we entirely discard it when we speak or write about Yoga.
Sri Aurobindo: In ordinary parlance we may sometimes use the word psychic in the looser popular sense or in poetry, which is not bound to intellectual accuracy, we may speak of the soul sometimes in the ordinary and more external sense or in the sense of the true psyche. The psychic being is veiled by the surface movements and expresses itself as best it can through these outer instruments which are more governed by the outer forces than by the inner inﬂuences of the psychic. But that does not mean that they are entirely isolated from the soul. The soul is in the body in the same way as the mind or vital — but the body it occupies is not this gross physical frame only, but the subtle body also. When the gross sheath falls away, the vital and mental sheaths of the body still remain as the soul’s vehicle till these too dissolve.
Sri Aurobindo: The soul of a plant or an animal is not altogether dormant — only its means of expression are less developed than those of a human being. There is much that is psychic in the plant, much that is psychic in the animal. The plant has only the vitalphysical evolved in its form, so it cannot express itself; the animal has a vital mind and can, but its consciousness is limited and its experiences are limited, so the psychic essence has a less developed consciousness and experience than is present or at least possible in man. All the same, animals have a soul and can respond very readily to the psychic in man. The ghost is of course not the soul.
Sri Aurobindo: It is either the man appearing in his vital body or it is a fragment of his vital that is seized on by some vital force or being. The vital part of us normally exists after the dissolution of the body for some time and passes away into the vital plane where it remains till the vital sheath dissolves. Afterwards it passes, if it is mentally evolved, in the mental sheath to some mental world and ﬁnally the psychic leaves its mental sheath also and goes to its place of rest. If the mental is strongly developed, then the mental part of us can remain; so also can the vital, provided they are organised by and centred around the true psychic being — for they then share the immortality of the psychic. Otherwise the psychic draws mind and life into itself and enters into an internatal quiescence.
Sri Aurobindo: There is the divine spark from the beginning, the soul, in all things, but it takes a long time and a long evolution for it to arrive at a conscious expression and form of manifested being — what we call the psychic being. The soul is described as a spark of the Divine Fire in life and matter, that is an image.
Sri Aurobindo: It has not been described as a spark of consciousness. There is mental, vital, physical consciousness — different from the psychic. The psychic being and consciousness are not identical. When the soul or “spark of the Divine Fire” begins to develop a psychic individuality, that psychic individuality is called the psychic being. The soul or spark is there before the development of an organised vital and mind.
Sri Aurobindo: The soul is something of the Divine that descends into the evolution as a divine Principle within it to support the evolution of the individual out of the Ignorance into the Light. It develops in the course of the evolution a psychic individual or soul individuality which grows from life to life, using the evolving mind, vital and body as its instruments. It is the soul that is immortal while the rest disintegrates; it passes from life to life carrying its experience in essence and the continuity of the evolution of the individual. It is the whole consciousness, mental, vital, physical also, that has to rise and join the higher consciousness and, once the joining is made, the higher has to descend into them. The psychic is behind all that and supports it.
Sri Aurobindo: The soul is always pure, but the knowledge and force in it are involved and come out only as the psychic being evolves and grows stronger. The psychic being is the soul evolving in the course of birth and rebirth and the soul is a portion of the Divine — but with the soul there is always the veiled Divine.
Sri Aurobindo: The psychic being is the developing soul consciousness manifested for the created being as it evolves. At ﬁrst, the soul is something essential behind the veil, not developed in front. In front there is only the body, life, mind. In the evolution the soul consciousness develops more and more in the created being until it is so developed that it can come entirely in front and govern mind, life and body.
Sri Aurobindo: The difference [] is one of evolution. The psychic being is more developed in some, but the soul-principle is the same in all.
Sri Aurobindo: The soul and the psychic are the same — only as there is a vital being supported by the vital and expressing itself through it, so there is a growing psychic being supported on the psychic and expressing itself through the soul-nature. But, hang it all, the psychic is part of the human nature or of ordinary nature, — it has been there even before the human began.
Sri Aurobindo: Formed souls enter only into formed organisms — in the protoplasm etc. it is only the spark of the Divine that is there, not the formed soul. As there is in us a mind which one does not see in form but is aware of and as there is at the same time a mental being which one can see in form, so there is a soul and a psychic being. The soul is the same always, the psychic being is what it develops in the evolution.
Sri Aurobindo: The soul is not limited by any form, but the psychic being puts out a form for its expression, just as the mental, vital and subtle physical Purushas do — that is to say, one can see or another person can see one’s psychic being in such and such a form. But this seeing is of two kinds — there is the standing characteristic form taken by this being in this life and there are symbolic forms, such as when one sees the psychic as a newborn child in the lap of the Mother. If the sadhak in question really saw his psychic in the form of a woman it can only have been a constructed appearance expressing some quality or attitude of the psychic.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, the psychic being has a form. But that does not appear from the photo []; for the psychic has not always or usually a form closely resembling that of the physical body, it is sometimes even quite different. When looking at the photo [ ] what is seen is not a form, but something of the consciousness that either is expressed in the body or comes through somehow; one perceives or feels it there through the photo. No, the intuitive self is quite different [], or rather the intuitive consciousness — that is somewhere above the mind.
Sri Aurobindo: The psychic stands behind the being — a simple and sincere devotion to the Divine, single-hearted, an immediate sense of what is right and helps towards the Truth and the Divine, an instinctive withdrawal from all that is the opposite are its most visible characteristics. What you experience is the ﬁrst condition of the Yogic consciousness and self-knowledge. The ordinary mind knows itself only as an ego with all the movements of the nature in a jumble and, identifying itself with these movements, thinks “I am doing this, feeling that, thinking, in joy or in sorrow etc.” The ﬁrst beginning of real self-knowledge is when you feel yourself separate from the nature in you and its movements and then you see that there are many parts of your being, many personalities each acting on its own behalf and in its own way. The two different beings you feel are — one, the psychic being which draws you towards the Mother, the other the external being mostly vital which draws you outward and downwards towards the play of the lower nature.
Sri Aurobindo: There is also in you behind the mind the being who observes, the witness Purusha, who can stand detached from the play of the nature, observing it and able to choose. It has to put itself always on the side of the psychic being and assent to and support its movements and to reject the downward and outward movement of the lower nature, which has to be subjected to the psychic and changed by its inﬂuence. All belongs to Nature — the soul itself acts under the conditions and by the agency of Nature. The moral of the condition you describe is not that Yoga should not be done but that you have to go on steadily healing the rift between the two parts of the being.
Sri Aurobindo: The division is very usual, almost universal in human nature, and the following of the lower impulse in spite of the contrary will in the higher parts happens to almost everybody. It is the phenomenon noted by Arjuna in his question to Krishna, “Why does one do evil, even though one wishes not to do it, as if compelled to it by force?”, and expressed sententiously by Ovid, “ ”. By constant effort and aspiration one can arrive at a turning point when the psychic asserts itself and what seems a very slight psychological change or reversal alters the whole balance of the nature. Every soul is not awake and active; nor is every soul turned directly to the Divine before practising Yoga. For a long time it seeks the Divine through men and things much more than directly.
Sri Aurobindo: In the ordinary consciousness in which the mind etc. are awakened, the psychic acts as well as it can through them, but according to the laws of the Ignorance. These things, love, compassion, kindness, bhakti, Ananda are the nature of the psychic being, because the psychic being is formed from the Divine Consciousness, it is the divine part within you.
Sri Aurobindo: But the lower parts are not yet accustomed to obey or value the inﬂuence and control of the psychic for in men the vital and physical are accustomed to act for themselves and do not care for what the soul wants. When they do care and obey the psychic, that is their conversion — they begin to put on themselves the psychic or divine nature. The psychic is the support of the individual evolution; it is connected with the universal both by direct contact and through the mind, vital and body.
Sri Aurobindo: It may be said of the psychic that it is that [ ], because the psychic is in touch with the Divine and a projection of the Divine into the lower nature. But the inner mind, vital and physical are a part of the universal and open to the dualities — only they are wider than the external mind, life and body and can receive more largely and easily the divine inﬂuence. The psychic is deep within in the inner heart-centre behind the emotional being. From there it stretches upward to form the psychic mind and below to form the psychic vital and psychic physical, but usually one is aware of these only after the mind, vital and physical are subjected and put under the psychic inﬂuence.
Sri Aurobindo: The soul and the life are two quite different powers. The soul is a spark of the Divine Spirit which supports the individual nature; mind, life, body are the instruments for the manifestation of the nature. In most men the soul is hidden and covered over by the action of the external nature; they mistake the vital being for the soul, because it is the vital which animates and moves the body. But this vital being is a thing made up of desires and executive forces good and bad; it is the desire-soul, not the true thing. It is when the true soul (psyche) comes forward and begins ﬁrst to inﬂuence and then govern the actions of the instrumental nature that man begins to overcome vital desire and grow towards a greater divine nature.
Sri Aurobindo: We are concerned with the growth of the soul out of the Ignorance, not its plunge into it. The lower nature is the nature of the Ignorance, what we seek is to grow into the nature of the Truth. How do you make out that when the soul has looked towards the Truth and is moving towards it, a pull-back by the vital and the ego towards the Ignorance is a glorious action of the soul and not a revolt of the lower nature? I suppose you are ﬂoundering about in the confusion of the idea that the “desire-soul” in the vital is the true psyche of man.
Sri Aurobindo: If you like — but that is no part of my explanation of things; I make a clear distinction between the two, so I refuse to sanctify the revolt of the lower nature by calling it the sanction of the soul. If it is the soul that wants to fail, why is there any struggle or sorrow over the business? It would be a perfectly smooth affair. The psychic being is not the fulﬁller of desires — it is the spark of the Divine in all things manifested here that grows into the psychic being and supports the evolution.
Sri Aurobindo: It is that which survives the dissolution of the vital and physical sheaths and returns to birth again. The two feelings you have are that of two different personalities or parts in the being, one which has the feeling of service is in the vital, the other which has the feeling of the child and of the self-giving is psychic. In the progress of the sadhana these different parts or personalities get developed or transformed and harmonised with each other — all becoming parts of the ultimate perfection of the being in the Mother’s consciousness.
Sri Aurobindo: There is individuality in the psychic being but not egoism. Egoism goes when the individual unites himself with the Divine or is entirely surrendered to the Divine. It is the psychic inmost being that replaces the ego. It is through love and surrender to the Divine that the psychic being becomes strong and manifest, so that it can replace the ego.
Sri Aurobindo: There is a psychic world — a sort of Heaven of peace and beauty and harmony. It is also a place of rest for the soul between two incarnations in which it absorbs its past experiences and becomes ready for another birth. What you describe [ ] is what we mean by the psychic being in its own plane of existence, for the psychic plane is like that.
Sri Aurobindo: The psychic stands behind the rest of the being supporting it with its own purity, truth and joy. What we speak of are planes of consciousness — the physical is the lowest, above it the ordinary vital, above it the emotional (heart), above it the mental, above the mental are other planes. There is a psychic plane behind the emotional which inﬂuences all the others. The physical is not the only world; there are others that we become aware of through dream records, through the subtle senses, through inﬂuences and contacts, through imagination, intuition and vision.
Sri Aurobindo: There are worlds of a larger subtler life than ours, vital worlds; worlds in which Mind builds its own forms and ﬁgures, mental worlds; psychic worlds which are the soul’s home; others above with which we have little contact. In each of us there is a mental plane of consciousness, a psychic, a vital, a subtle physical as well as the gross physical and material plane. The same planes are situated in the consciousness of general Nature. It is when we enter or contact these other planes that we come into connection with the worlds above the physical. In sleep we leave the physical body, only a subconscient residue remaining, and enter all planes and all sorts of worlds.
Sri Aurobindo: In each we see scenes, meet beings, share in happenings, come across formations, inﬂuences, suggestions which belong to these planes. Even when we are awake, part of us moves in these planes, but their activity goes on behind the veil; our waking minds are not aware of it. Dreams are often only incoherent constructions of our subconscient, but others are records (often much mixed and distorted) or transcripts of experiences in these supraphysical planes. When we do sadhana, this kind of dream becomes very common; then subconscious dreams cease to predominate. The forces and beings of the vital world have a great inﬂuence on human beings.
Sri Aurobindo: The vital world is on one side a world of beauty, — the poet, artist, musician are in close contact with it; it is also a world of powers and passions, lusts and desires, — our own lusts and desires, and passions and ambitions can put us into connection with the vital worlds and their forces and beings. It is again a world of things dark, dangerous and horrible. Nightmares like’s are contacts with this side of the vital plane. Its inﬂuences are also the source of much in men that is demoniac, dirty, cruel and base.
Sri Aurobindo: It is good that you were able to overcome the difﬁculty and have a good meditation. Your observation that the difﬁculty is only in the head and throat and mainly in the latter is very signiﬁcant. These are the mental centres and it is evident therefore that the difﬁculty comes from the physical mind. The higher part of the mind belongs to the thinking mind proper, the buddhi, that which understands and observes and guides; the throat is the centre of the externalising mind, that which deals with outer and physical things and responds to them. Its activity is always one of the chief difﬁculties of the sadhana.
Sri Aurobindo: If it is quiet it is easier, as you have seen, for the whole being to be quiet. The last of the four experiences, that of the being within arranged in layers one under the other like the steps of a ladder, is also very signiﬁcant and very true. It is so that inner consciousness is arranged. There are ﬁve main divisions of this ladder. At the top above the head are layers (or as we call them planes) of which we are not conscious and which become conscious to us only by sadhana — those above the human mind — that is the higher consciousness.
Sri Aurobindo: Below from the crown of the head to the throat are the layers (there are many of them) of the mind, the three principal being one at the top of the head communicating with the higher consciousness, another between the eyebrows where is the thought, sight and will, a third in the throat which is the externalising mind. A second division is from the shoulders to the navel, these are the layers of the higher vital presided over by the heart centre where is the emotional being with the psychic hidden behind it. From the navel downwards is the rest of the vital being containing several layers. From the bottom of the spine downward are the layers of the physical consciousness proper, the material, and below the feet is the subconscient which has also many levels. The experience of the splitting of the forehead from the middle and the pouring out of light signiﬁed the opening of the centre of thought, will and vision there.
Sri Aurobindo: When this opens, there is the opening of the inner mind consciousness through which the light of the higher can pour out — here it is the Mother’s white light that was pouring out through the opening. The lights you saw were the many lights (powers, forces full of light) of the higher consciousness, the Truth consciousness or divine consciousness. Their pouring down was preceded and made possible by the appearance of the moon, the spiritual light. It is when the spiritual light is there that the presence of the Mother is revealed and her action brings down the powers of the Truth, the Divine and she gives them to the sadhak.
Sri Aurobindo: If we regard the gradation of worlds or planes as a whole, we see them as a great connected complex movement; the higher precipitate their inﬂuences on the lower, the lower react to the higher and develop or manifest in themselves within their own formula something that corresponds to the superior power and its action. The material world has evolved life in obedience to a pressure from the vital plane, mind in obedience to a pressure from the mental plane. It is now trying to evolve supermind in obedience to a pressure from the supramental plane. In more detail, particular forces, movements, powers, beings of a higher world can throw themselves on the lower to establish appropriate and corresponding forms which will connect them with the material domain and, as it were, reproduce or project their action here. And each thing created here has, supporting it, subtler envelopes or forms of itself which make it subsist and connect it with forces acting from above.