Indra Sen's Correspondence with The Mother

7 March 1947

I would like to know whether the psychic being is not absolutely a witness like the Purusha of the Sankhya system. It is relatively inactive when it is not developed, isn't it? All this is not very clear to me.

It is not at all a question of theory, and the traditional notions of philosophy do not apply to something as true and living as the psychic being. Just as two physical existences do not resemble each other, two psychic existences do not resemble each other either—there are as many different psychic lives as there are beings. But in most human beings who are not conscious of their psychic being and whose actions are not guided by it, the psychic presence is like that of a witness, more or less conscious, more or less awake, which does not intervene in the course of outer events.

7 March 1947