Our Many Selves

Jivatman - Central Being

The self, Atman, is in its nature either transcendent or universal (Paramatma, Atma); when it individualises and becomes a central being, it is then the Jivatman. The Jivatman feels his oneness with the universal but at the same time his central separateness as a portion of the Divine.

Sri Aurobindo
Letters on Yoga - I: The Jivatman in the Integral Yoga

The phrase “central being” in our Yoga is usually applied to the portion of the Divine in us which supports all the rest and survives through death and birth. This central being has two forms—above, it is the Jivatman, our true being, of which we become aware when the higher self-knowledge comes,—below, it is the psychic being which stands behind mind, body and life. The Jivatman is above the manifestation in life and presides over it; the psychic being stands behind the manifestation in life and supports it.

Sri Aurobindo
Letters on Yoga - I: The Jivatman in the Integral Yoga

The central being—the Jivatman which is not born nor evolves, but presides over the individual birth and evolution—puts forward a representative of himself on each plane of the consciousness. On the mental plane it is the true mental being, manomaya puruṣa, on the vital plane the true vital being, prāṇamaya puruṣa, on the physical plane the true physical being, annamaya puruṣa. Each being therefore is, so long as the Ignorance lasts, centred round his mental, vital or physical Purusha, according to the plane on which he predominantly lives, and that is to him his central being. But the true representative all the time is concealed behind the mind, vital and physical—it is the psychic, our inmost being.

Sri Aurobindo
Letters on Yoga - I: The Jivatman in the Integral Yoga

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.

Sri Aurobindo
Letters on Yoga - I: The True Being and the True Consciousness

The Jivatman is for me the Unborn who presides over the individual being and its developments, associated with it but above it and them and who by the very nature of his existence knows himself as universal and transcendent no less than individual and feels the Divine to be his origin, the truth of his being, the master of his nature, the very stuff of his existence.

Sri Aurobindo
Letters on Yoga - I: The Jivatman in Other Indian Systems

By Jivatma we mean the individual self. Essentially it is one self with all others, but in the multiplicity of the Divine it is the individual self, an individual centre of the universe—and it sees everything in itself or itself in everything or both together according to its state of consciousness and point of view.

Sri Aurobindo
Letters on Yoga - I: The Jivatman in the Integral Yoga