Soul - its nature, mission and evolution. Psychic being - its role, function and action, its growth and development through Sadhana, the afterlife and rebirth..
Integral Yoga
Soul: its nature, mission and evolution. Selections from the Works of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. We give the name 'psychic' to the psychological centre of our being, the seat within us of the highest truth of our existence, that which can know this truth and set it in movement. It is therefore of capital importance to become conscious of its presence in us, to concentrate on this presence until it becomes a living fact for us and we can identify ourselves with it. - The Mother.
THEME/S
(After a pause) Did you refer to the dictionary to find out whether Chaitya Purusha can mean the psychic being, the soul?
Disciple: I did, but the word is not given there in that sense; it only carries the sense of Chaitya of the Buddhists and the Jains.
Sri Aurobindo: That is quite another meaning. But what about this one?
Disciple: But you have yourself used it in the Arya at two places.
Sri Aurobindo: How is that? Where?
Disciple: In The Synthesis of Yoga, in the fourth chapter about the Four Aids; you have mentioned there Chaitya Guru, the inner guide.
Disciple: In Vaishnavite literature it means the portion — Amsha — of the Divine which guides a man. It is called Chaitya Guru.
Sri Aurobindo: I wanted to know if the word has a fixed connotation. If it has not, then one can use the word Chaitya Purusha for the psychic being. It has the advantage of carrying both the functions of the psychic being: it is the direct portion of the Divine in the human and it is also the being that is behind the Chitta.
From Conversations Recorded by A.B. Purani
1) The soul and the psychic being are practically the same, except that even in things which have not developed a psychic being, there is still a spark of the Divine which can be called the soul. The psychic being is called in Sanskrit the Purusha in the heart or the Chaitya Purusha. (The psychic being is the soul developing in the evolution.)
Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: Classification of the Parts of the Being
As for the Purusha it is there on all planes; there is a mental Purusha, manomaya, leader of the life and body, as the Upanishad puts it, a vital, a physical Purusha; there is the psychic being or Chaitya Purusha which supports and carries all these as it were. One may say that these are projections of the Jivatman put there to uphold Prakriti on the various levels of the being. The Upanishad speaks also of a supramental and a Bliss Purusha, and if the supramental and the Bliss Nature were organised in the evolution on earth we could become aware of them upholding the movements here.
Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: The Jivatman in the Integral Yoga
The heart is the centre of the being and commands the rest, as the psychic being or chaitya purusha is there. It is only in that sense that all flows from it, for it is the psychic being who each time creates a new mind, vital and body for himself.
Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: The System of the Chakras
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