Emergence of the Psychic

Introduction

One of the most inspiring and ennobling concepts in the spiritual lore of the world is that of the psychic being. It provides a major key for understanding the significance and process of the evolution of consciousness, and offers a potent tool for the transformation of consciousness. The concept of the psychic thus ranks among the outstanding contributions made by yogic experience to psychological thought and spiritual practice.

What is the Psychic?

Sri Aurobindo, who uses the term "psychic" for what is popularly and often vaguely called the soul, distinguishes between the psychic principle, which is present in all things and creatures, and the psychic personality which is characteristic of the human state of development. The psychic principle, also referred to variously as psychic essence, psychic existence, soul element, soul-spark, psychic entity or the psyche, is a non-individualised portion of the Divine Consciousness that descends into the evolution "to support the evolution of the individual out of the Ignorance into the Light".¹ It is "the nucleus pregnant with divine possibilities that supports this lower triple manifestation of mind, life and body."² In the course of evolution, the psychic principle

1. Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, SABCL Vol. 22, p. 295.
2. Ibid., p. 288.

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develops in the human being a psychic personality or soul individuality which is called the psychic being. Whereas the psychic principle is immutable and fundamentally always the same, the psychic being is progressive; it grows from life to life, using mind, vital and body as its instruments.³

"The psychic being at its origin is only a spark of the divine consciousness and it is through successive lives that it builds up a conscious individuality. It is a progress similar to that of a growing child. It is a thing in the making. For a long time, in most human beings the psychic is a being in the making. It is not a fully individualised, fully conscious being and master of itself and it needs all its rebirths, one after another, in order to build itself and become fully conscious." (p. 63)

The term "soul" as used in this book generally refers to the non-individualised psychic essence, but sometimes also to the soul individuality or psychic being. Similarly "the psychic" usually means the psychic being but sometimes refers to the psychic essence.

The significance of the psychic being in the evolution of consciousness lies in the fact that the psychic being is "a projection of the divine Consciousness into Matter to awaken Matter out of its inertia so that it takes the path back to the Divine." (p. 11)

3. Mind is generally regarded as the characteristic feature which distinguishes the human being from the animal. But a more salient characteristic distinguishing the human being from the animal is the possession of the psychic being.

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The psychic is the psychological centre of our being because it is the inmost part of our being, supporting all other parts—mental, vital, physical. Though in theory the psychic is the true master of the being who puts forth and uses the instruments of mind, life and body, in actuality in most human beings the psychic is entirely veiled and overshadowed by its mental, vital and physical instruments. The outer consciousness of the human being "lives amongst all the external noises and movements in what it sees, what it does, what it says, instead of looking within, into the depths of the being and listening to the inner inspirations" (p. 42). So the psychic being remains behind the outer consciousness as a "secret witness", "a secluded King in a screened chamber", and only a

"constitutional ruler who allows his ministers to rule for him, delegates to them his empire, silently assents to their decisions and only now and then puts in a word which they can at any moment override and act otherwise." (p. 81)

"For the psychic part within is there to support the natural evolution, and the first natural evolution must be the development of body, life and mind, successively, and these must act each in its own kind or together in their ill-assorted partnership in order to grow and have experience and evolve. The soul gathers the essence of all our mental, vital and bodily experience and assimilates it for the farther evolution of our existence in Nature; but this action is occult and not obtruded on the surface." (p. 3)

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In most human beings, generally the actual governor or leader who drives one is the vital, for

"man usually lives in his vital and the body is its instrument and the mind its counsellor and minister (except for the few mental men who live mostly for the things of the mind, but even they are in subjection to the vital in their ordinary movements)." (p. 88)

Because of the fact that the psychic is veiled by and identified with its instruments, most human beings are almost totally unconscious of their psychic being.

"In the ordinary life there's not one person in a million who has a conscious contact with his psychic being, even momentarily. The psychic being may work from within, but so invisibly and unconsciously for the outer being that it is as though it did not exist. And in most cases, the immense majority, almost the totality of cases, it's as though it were asleep, not at all active, in a kind of tor-por." (p. 48)

Therefore, in most human beings the psychic being acts as an unconscious influence rather than as a conscious Presence.

However, though covered over and dominated by mind, vital and physical, the psychic fire is never extinguished by them, for the psychic being is the eternal self "that carries the consciousness from life to life" (p. 16). It is the true and persistent individual whereas our normal self made up of

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mind, vital and body is only a passing shadow of the true individual.

Nor is the psychic being tarnished by the defects and impurities of the mental, the vital and the physical. For

"It is an ever-pure flame of the divinity in things and nothing that comes to it, nothing that enters into our experience can pollute its purity or extinguish the flame. This spiritual stuff is immaculate and luminous and, because it is perfectly luminous, it is immediately, intimately, directly aware of truth of being and truth of nature; it is deeply conscious of truth and good and beauty because truth and good and beauty are akin to its own native character, forms of something that is inherent in its own substance." (p. 2)

What gets mixed with and contaminated by the mental, vital and physical defects is not the psychic being itself but the action of the psychic being as it comes up from the depths to the surface of the being. It is only as the psychic being emerges more and more in front that it gets clear of the distorting mental, vital and physical mixture.

Influence of the Psychic

Though the psychic in most human beings is entirely veiled so that one is conscious of oneself only as a mental, vital and physical being, there is always an unconscious influence of the psychic even in ordinary life.

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"A certain sensitive feeling for all that is true and good and beautiful, fine and pure and noble, a response to it, a demand for it, a pressure on mind and life to accept and formulate it in our thought, feelings, conduct, character is the most usually recognised, the most general and char-acteristic, though not the sole sign of this influence of the psyche. Of the man who has not this element in him or does not respond at all to this urge, we say that he has no soul." (p. 30)

"Wherever...there is a spontaneous admiration for the true, the beautiful, the noble, there is something divine expressed. You should know for certain that it is the psy-chic being, the soul in you with which your physical con-sciousness comes in contact when your heart leaps out to worship and admire what you feel to be of a divine origin." (p. 21)

Another sign of the influence of the psychic which can be more readily recognised in human life is the aspiration and will for progress, for the psychic is the seat and source of all aspiration for progress.

"Fundamentally, without this kind of inner will of the psychic being, I believe human beings would be quite dismal, dull, they would have an altogether animal life. Every gleam of aspiration is always the expression of a psychic influence. Without the presence of the psychic, without the psychic influence, there would never be any sense of progress or any will for progress." (p. 34)

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Faith⁴, too, indicates the influence of the psychic. Like aspiration, faith comes from the psychic being, though it may manifest itself in the mind, the vital or even the physical. Similarly, qualities such as goodwill, generosity, love, gratitude and the like, which take one out of one's egoistic self, spring from and express the influence of the psychic.

The soul element in the psychic influence cannot be easily distinguished when it manifests in our mind, vital or physical because when the psychic influence comes up to the surface, an action of the inner being (inner mind, inner vital, inner physical) mixes with and

"distorts or diminishes its self-expression, even causes it to deviate and stumble or stains it with the impurity, smallness and error of mind and life and body; ...a for-mation of consciousness is accordingly made which is a mixture of the psychic influence and its intimations jum-bled with mental ideas and opinions, vital desires and urges, habitual physical tendencies." (p. 31)

Therefore the mind does not generally recognise the deeper nature of the influences which come from the soul;

"our mind does not detect their source; it takes them for its own activities because, before even they come to the surface, they are clothed in mental substance: thus igno-rant of their authority, it follows or does not follow them according to its bent or turn at the moment." (pp. 2-3)

4. From the viewpoint of yoga, true faith is not a mental belief but a dynamic intuitive conviction in the soul about something for which there is no outward proof.

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Thus, though the psychic always exerts an influence on our mental, vital and physical being, the influence is almost always hidden, and is not seen or felt.

The psychic exerts an unconscious influence even on the outer circumstances of life, for it is the psychic which guides a human by organising the outer life.

"If one is very attentive, one becomes aware of it. For in-stance, when they have decided, in their outer ignorance, to do something, and instead of their being able to do it, all the circumstances are so organised that they do something else, they start shouting.... While most of the time it is just the very circumstance which was most favourable for their inner development.... And when you are a little awake and look back, if you are in the least sincere, you say: 'Ah! It wasn't I who was right—it was Nature or the divine Grace or my psychic being who did it.' "⁵

As the psychic being grows more and more, its action becomes stronger and as a result of its influence all events in life seem to conspire to help one advance on the path. For the psychic being

"can draw towards you things which help you, draw people, books, circumstances, all sorts of little coincidences which come to you as though brought by some benevolent will and give you an indication, a help, a support to take decisions and turn you in the right direction." (p. 38)

5. The Mother, Questions and Answers 1953, Collected Works of the Mother, Vol. 5, pp. 394-95.

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When the psychic being has reached a certain stage of its growth, it exerts also a pre-natal influence; "it decides — generally at the last minute of the life it has just finished upon earth — the conditions in which its next life will be passed" (p. 68) and what will be the field of experience in the next life. At an advanced stage of its growth the psychic has the power to influence even the formation of the body in the new life.

"When it has become an almost completely formed and already very conscious being, it presides over the forma-tion of the new body, and usually through an inner influence it chooses the elements and the substance which will form its body in such a way that the body is adapted to the needs of its new experience." (p. 71)

In the case of persons who have reached such an advanced stage, the "psychic being watches over their formation before their birth, even before they are in the womb of their mother."⁶

Contact with the Psychic

Contact with the psychic, like the influence of the psychic, is at first unconscious. An unconscious contact with one's

6. The Mother, Questions and Answers '50-'51, Collected Works of the Mother, Vol. 4, p. 140.

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psychic being may begin at the moment an infant utters its first cry, but conscious contact with the psychic usually develops only through sadhana, by learning to turn the consciousness within and learning to live within instead of being absorbed in the ordinary surface consciousness. At first and for a long time the contact is only occasional and momentary, followed by lapses into the ordinary consciousness. With the growth of consciousness, the contacts with the psychic become more and more frequent and last longer.

Very often what one comes in contact with is not the psychic being but some part of the mind or the higher vital (emotional) being which is under the influence of the psychic.

"...people enter into contact with these parts and this gives them illuminations, great joy, revelations, and they feel they have found their soul. But it is only the part of the being under its influence, one part or another.... Ex-actly what happens is that one touches these things, has experiences, and then it gets veiled, and one wonders, 'How is it that I touched my soul and now have fallen back into this state of ignorance and inconscience!' But that's because one had not touched one's soul, one had touched those parts of the being which are under the in-fluence of the soul and manifest something of it, but are not it." (p. 46)

Such contacts with the psychic-mental or the psychic-vital are brief-lived periods which come and go.

As the psychic grows stronger with the practice of sadhana, contact with the psychic is more and more readily obtained.

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A time comes when one can obtain the contact at will.

"...as soon as one concentrates and aspires, one gets a contact. One may not have the power of keeping it all the time, but can get it at will. Then, from that moment things become very easy. When one feels a difficulty or there is a problem to be solved, when one wants to make progress or there is just a depression to conquer or an obstacle to be overcome or else simply for the joy of identification... then, at any moment whatever, one may pause, con-centrate for a while and aspire, and quite naturally the contact is established and all problems which were to be solved are solved. Simply to concentrate — to sit down and concentrate — to aspire in this way, and the contact is made, so to say, instantaneously." (pp. 43-44)

As a rule, it is only after a very long and intense sadhana that one obtains a total identification and permanent union with the psychic which brings a conscious and constant psychic contact that is never lost.

"...it [contact with the psychic being] is in the depths of the consciousness and supports all that you do, and you never lose the contact. Then many things disappear. For instance, depression is one of these things, discontent-ment, revolt, fatigue, depression, all these difficulties. And if one makes it a habit to .step back, as we say, in one's consciousness and see on the screen of one's psy-chic consciousness — see all the circumstances, all the events, all the ideas, all the knowledge, everything — at

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that moment one sees that and has an altogether sure guide for everything that one may do. But this, perforce, takes a very long time to come." (p. 44)

When one has attained a complete identification and union with the psychic, one is said to have discovered one's soul. The psychic being is said to be awakened, no longer veiled by the mental, the vital and the physical. "When the psychic being awakens, you grow conscious of your own soul; you know your self. And you no longer commit the mistake of identifying yourself with the mental or with the vital being. You do not mistake them for the soul" (p. 86). A radical change of consciousness amounting to a reversal of consciousness takes place: the ordinary consciousness, in which one identifies oneself with the mental, vital and physical, is replaced by the psychic consciousness in which one is identified with one's soul.

How can one know if one is in contact with the psychic? To a child who asked how one can know whether the psychic being is in front or not, the Mother replied:

"...doesn't one feel it? It doesn't make a difference?... (The child nods in assent.) Ah!... There is not one of you who will dare to tell me that it makes no difference when the psychic is there, when one feels better within oneself, when one is full of light, hope, goodwill, generosity, compassion for the world, and sees life as a field of action, progress, realisation. Doesn't it make a difference from the days when one is bored, grumbling, when every-thing seems ugly, unpleasant, wicked, when one loves nobody, wants to break everything, gets angry, feels ill at ease, without strength, without energy, without any joy? That makes a difference, doesn't it?" (p. 91)

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In another context, describing the state of those whose psychic is in the front of the consciousness, the Mother observes:

"Everything seems beautiful and good to them, their health improves, their consciousness grows more lumi-nous; they feel happy, peaceful and safe; they think that they have reached their utmost possibility of conscious-ness. This peace and fullness and joy given by the psy-chic contact they naturally find everywhere, in everything and everybody." (pp. 51-52)

Thus one "in whom the contact has been well established is always happy" (p. 62). When the contact with the psychic amounts to even a brief identification with the psychic, it produces "an experience that gives a very concrete joy; at the moment of identification one truly feels a very, very great joy" (p. 44).

Joy is also the hallmark of the aspiration which comes from a contact with the psychic distinguishing it from aspiration which comes from other parts of the being. In answer to the question as to why an intense aspiration is sometimes mixed with anguish and sometimes containing joy, the Mother explains:

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"As soon as the presence of the psychic consciousness is united with the aspiration, the intensity takes on quite a different character, as if it were filled with the very essence of an inexpressible joy. This joy is something that seems contained in everything else. Whatever may be the outer form of the aspiration, whatever difficulties and obstacles it may meet, this joy is there as though it filled up everything, and it carries you in spite of everything.
That is the sure sign of the psychic presence. That is to say, you have established a contact with your psychic consciousness, a more or less complete, more or less constant contact, but at that moment it is the psychic being, the psychic consciousness which fills your aspiration, gives it its true contents. And that's what is translated into joy.
When that is not there, the aspiration may come from different parts of the being; it may come mainly from the mind or mainly from the vital or even from the physical, or it may come from all the three together — it may come from all kinds of combinations."⁷

When the contact becomes constant due to a definitive identification and union with the psychic being, one has "the feeling of immortality, of having always been and being always, eternally" (pp. 61-62).

With a definitive contact one has even the memory of one's past lives.

7. The Mother, Questions and Answers 1956, Collected Works of the Mother, Vol. 8, p. 250.

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"When you enter into contact with the psychic you be-come conscious of all the lives you have lived, it keeps the absolutely living memory of all the events in which the psychic took part...." (p. 60)

And since the psychic is the Divine in the human being, when one is in constant contact with the psychic one feels "in contact with the divine Presence all the time, in all things", (p. 55)

On the other hand, when one is anxious or fearful, morose or depressed, excited or peevish, critical or complaining, or under the sway of any other egoistic state, one is clearly not in contact with the psychic at that moment.

Emergence of the Psychic

Contact with the psychic in the sense of a transient identification with it is not enough to make it the leader and governor of the being. The mind, the vital and body — which normally govern the human being — need to undergo a conversion so as to become the docile instruments of the psychic. The first necessity in order that the conversion may take place is the awakening of the psychic being. The psychic is said to be awakened when one becomes conscious of one's soul and knows the soul to be one's self, instead of identifying oneself with mind, vital and body. When the psychic being awakens, it begins to emerge or come forward and "to take hold of the rest of the being, to influence it and change it so that all may become the true expression

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of the inner soul" (p. 86). The influence of the psychic then becomes more direct and more conscious unlike the indirect and unconscious influence of the psychic in the early stages of growth. For by emergence or the coming in front of the psychic is meant that "it comes from behind the veil, its presence is felt already in the waking daily consciousness, its influence fills, dominates, transforms the mind and vital and their movements, even the physical" (p. 90).⁸ As the psychic emerges more and more

".. .it takes up its greater function as the guide and ruler of the nature. A guidance, a governance begins from within which exposes every movement to the light of Truth, repels what is false, obscure, opposed to the divine reali-sation: every region of the being, every nook and corner of it, every movement, formation, direction, inclination of thought, will, emotion, sensation, action, reaction, mo-tive, disposition, propensity, desire, habit of the conscious or subconscious physical, even the most concealed, cam-ouflaged, mute, recondite, is lighted up with the unerring psychic light, their confusions dissipated, their tangles disentangled, their obscurities, deceptions, self-decep-tions precisely indicated and removed; all is purified, set right, the whole nature harmonised, modulated in the psy-chic key, put in spiritual order." (pp. 104-105)

8. The coming in front of the psychic in the sense of its emergence should be distinguished from what the Mother has described as the psychic's being "in front" in little children. The psychic being is said to be in the front in little children in the sense that it is relatively more on the surface of the consciousness as compared to their later age when, as a result of development of the mind, the psychic being recedes behind and the mind is more in the forefront. In the state of emergence one is identified with one's psychic being and considers it as one's true being, whereas a little child, even though its psychic is relatively more in front, is identified with its vital and its body, not with its psychic being.

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Thus it is by its emergence that the psychic being "begins to prepare the upbuilding of divinity in the earthly nature." (p. 19)

Transformation

"The upbuilding of divinity in the earthly nature" as a result of the action of the psychic and the higher consciousness is what is meant by transformation. In the spiritual evolution of mankind, the goal hitherto has been the attainment of liberation from the bondage and suffering imposed by mind, life and body. Such a liberation has been sought either by discovering one's soul and thereby attaining union with the Divine, or by stilling the mind and spiritualising it "in some kind of static liberation or Nirvana" (p. vii). In either case, one lets the instruments of mind, life and body continue acting according to their ignorant nature. But the inevitable evolutionary destiny of the human being, says Sri Aurobindo, is to go beyond liberation and achieve a transformation of the mental, vital and physical nature by bringing down the divine consciousness into the lower ignorant nature so as "to transform the Prakriti of Ignorance into a Prakriti of Knowledge." (p. 4)

Sri Aurobindo speaks of three transformations: psychic,

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spiritual and supramental. Psychic transformation consists in "bringing right vision into the mind, right impulse and feeling into the vital, right movement and habit into the physical — all turned towards the Divine.. .."⁹ By spiritual transformation is meant "the descent of the higher peace, force, light, knowledge, purity, Ananda, etc. which belong to any of the higher planes"¹⁰ of mind above the ordinary mind. Supramental transformation "is a putting on of the spiritual consciousness, dynamic as well as static, in every part of the being down to the subconscient";¹¹ some of the ultimate results of the supramental transformation include "the release from subconscient ignorance and from disease, duration of life at will, and a change in the functionings of the body".¹²

Psychic transformation is the first necessity, "because it makes safe and easy the descent of the higher consciousness and the spiritual transformation without which the supramental must always remain far distant" (p. 100).

A. S. Dalal

9. Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, SABCL Vol. 23, p. 1093.
10. Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, SABCL Vol. 22, p. 106.
11. Ibid., p. 116.
12. Ibid., p. 8.

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