... cognitive methods of Nature. The first way of knowing in its purest form is illustrated in the surface mind only by our direct awareness of our own essential existence: it is a knowledge empty of any other content than the pure fact of self and being; of nothing else in the world has our surface mind the same kind of awareness. But in the knowledge of the structure and movements of our subjective... becomings and powers of Knowledge, but also with greater becomings and powers of the Ignorance. But the subliminal being has also a larger direct contact with the world; it is not confined like the surface Mind to the interpretation of sense-images and sense-vibrations supplemented by the mental and vital intuition and the reason. There is indeed an inner sense in the subliminal nature, a subtle sense... of our subliminal being; but the results cannot be conclusive or sufficiently ample because they are sought for by methods of inquiry and experiment and standards of proof proper to the surface mind and its system of knowledge by indirect contact. Under these conditions they can be investigated only in so far as they are able to manifest in that mind to which they are exceptional, abnormal ...
... those bringings he knows, he can retain and utilise only so much as his surface mind-sense attends to and consciously remembers; but there is a larger subliminal consciousness within him which is not thus limited. That consciousness senses what has not been sensed by the surface mind and its organs and knows what the surface mind has not Page 55 learned by its acquisitive thought. That in... to it; it keeps all its wealth in an inexhaustible store of memory, akṣitaṁ śravaḥ . The surface mind may pay no attention, still the sub-conscious mind attends, receives, treasures up with an infallible accuracy. The illiterate servant-girl hears daily her master reciting Hebrew in his study; the surface mind pays no attention to the unintelligible gibberish, but the subconscious mind hears, remembers... insect knows the anatomy of the beetle it intends to immobilise and make food for its young and it directs the sting accordingly, as unerringly as the most skilful surgeon, provided the mere limited surface mind with its groping and faltering nervous action does not get in the way and falsify the inner knowledge or the inner will-force. These examples point us to truths which western psychology, hampered ...
... those bringings he knows, he can retain and utilise only so much as his surface mind-sense attends to and consciously remembers; but there is a larger subliminal consciousness within him which is not thus limited. That consciousness senses what has not been sensed by the surface mind and its organs and knows what the surface mind has not learned by its acquisitive thought. That in Page 291 ... it; it keeps all its wealth in an inexhaustible store of memory, akṣitam śravaḥ. The surface mind may pay no attention, still the subconscious mind attends, receives, treasures up with an infallible accuracy. The illiterate servant-girl hears daily her master reciting Hebrew in his study; the surface mind pays no attention to the unintelligible gibberish, but the subconscious mind hears, remembers... knows the anatomy of the beetle it intends to immobilise and make food for its young and it directs its sting accordingly, as unerringly as the most skilful surgeon, provided the mere limited surface mind with its groping and faltering nervous action does not get in the way and falsify the inner knowledge or the inner will-force. These examples point us to the truths which western psychology ...
... respect also they stand with the brain-mind over against the subliminal. If we call the subliminal the inner mind and take it to pass beyond the physical formula, the rest is the outer or surface mind and the physical formula covers the whole of it in one way or another. Broadly speaking, what is not subliminal is the physical mind. Likewise the physical vital, broadly speaking, is all... ous or subliminal to us". Clearly, the corporeal mentality is all that we normally know as Mind in ourselves, including "most of the larger, deeper and more forceful dynamic action of our surface mind" as well as "the pure thinker in us", the immediate origin of both of which Sri Aurobindo in this context traces to the subliminal. In Chapter XI of Part II of The Life Divine 4 he says:... whether acting in itself or turned upon its object, which arrives more swiftly at knowledge, more swiftly at effectivity of will, more deeply at understanding and satisfaction of impulse. Our surface mind is hardly a true mentality, so involved, bound, hampered, conditioned is it by the body and bodily life and the limitations of the nerve-system and the physical organs. But the subliminal ...
... divine Ananda. This rapture, the Platonic divine possession and enthusiasm, is born not of mental, but of soul experience, and the more the surface mind gets into the way, the more this divine passion is weakened and diluted by a less potent spirit. The surface mind Page 260 is powerfully attracted by the stir of the outward passion and excitement, the stress of immediate thought, life and... fused harmonies and assured stamp of the perfect way of spiritual creation. There is a profound intrinsic delight and beauty in all things and behind all experience whatever face it wears to the surface mind, which makes it to a spirit housed within us other than its first appearance, makes it, that is to say, no longer a thing exciting mental interest, pain, pleasure, but rather a revelation of the ...
... the planes of the spiritual mind, the first and lowest of them; it is above the normal mental level. Inner mind is that which lies behind the surface mind (our ordinary mentality) and can only be directly experienced (apart from its vrittis in the surface mind such as philosophy, poetry, idealism Page 85 etc.) by sadhana, by breaking down the habit of being on the surface and by going deeper... mind is not the higher mind; it is more in touch with the universal forces and more open to the higher consciousness and capable of an immensely deeper and larger range of action than the outer or surface mind—but it is of the same essential nature. The higher consciousness is that above the or dinary mind and different from it in its workings; it ranges from higher mind through illumined mind, intuition ...
... then there is a release.... Letters on Yoga, p. 995 The subliminal self stands behind and supports the whole superficial man; it has in it a larger and more efficient mind behind the surface mind, a larger and more powerful vital behind the surface vital, a subtler and freer physical consciousness behind the surface bodily existence. And above them it opens to higher superconscient as... whether acting in itself or turned upon its object, which arrives more swiftly at knowledge, more swiftly at effectivity of will, more deeply at understanding and satisfaction of impulse. Our surface mind is hardly a true mentality, so involved, bound, hampered, conditioned is it by the body and bodily life and the limitations of the nerve-system and the physical organs. But the subliminal self... life in us to the universal force of the cosmic Life, the subliminal physicality in us to the universal force-formation of Cosmic Matter; 1 the thick walls which divide from these things our surface mind, life, body and which Nature has to pierce with so much trouble, so imperfectly and by so many skilful-clumsy physical devices, are there, in the subliminal, only a rarefied medium at once of ...
... and beauty and to a refined purity of being. In fact, however, there is a double soul or psychic term in us, as every other cosmic principle in us is also double. For we have two minds, one the surface mind of our expressed evolutionary ego, the superficial mentality created by us in our emergence out of Matter, another a subliminal mind which is not hampered by our actual mental life and its strict... subliminal life in us to the universal force of the cosmic Life, the subliminal physicality in us to the universal force-formation of cosmic Matter; the thick walls which divide from these things our surface mind, life, body and which Nature has to pierce with so much trouble, so imperfectly and by so many skilful-clumsy physical devices, are there, in the subliminal, only a rarefied medium at once of separation... something that is yet subliminally active. For, as we now know by psychological observation and experiment that the subliminal mind receives and remembers all those touches of things which the surface mind ignores, so also we shall find that the subliminal soul responds to the rasa , or essence in experience, of these things which the surface desire-soul rejects by distaste and refusal or ignores ...
... consciousness,—is another necessary condition for the supramental change. It would be chimerical to hope that the supreme Truth-consciousness can establish itself in the narrow formulation of our surface mind and heart and life, however turned towards spirituality. All the inner centres must have burst open and released into action their capacities; the psychic entity must be unveiled and in control... foundation on the black rock of the Inconscience. An indispensable step towards overcoming this difficulty is the opening up of the inner being and its centres of action; for there the task that the surface mind could not achieve begins to be more possible. The inner mind, the inner life-consciousness and life-mind, the subtle-physical consciousness and its subtle-physical mentality, once liberated into... there must be added a vast horizontal expansion of the consciousness into some totality of the Spirit. At the least, the inner being must already have replaced by its deeper and wider awareness the surface mind and its limited outlook and learned to live in a large universality; for otherwise the overmind view of things and the overmind dynamism will have no room to move in and effectuate its dynamic ...
... express themselves without your intending it. What the surface mind thinks and intends is one thing and what is behind the thoughts and actions is another thing. A man's surface mind shapes its own idea of oneself and one's nature in an entire self-ignorance. The first thing one has to do to get rid of this ignorance is to draw back from the surface mind and get into contact with the psychic which does not ...
... The Double Soul There is a double soul or psychic term in us, as every other cosmic principle in us is also double. For we have two minds, one the surface mind of our expressed evolutionary ego, the superficial mentality created by us in our emergence out of Matter, another a subliminal mind which is not hampered by our actual mental life and its strict... subliminal life in us to the universal force of the cosmic Life, the subliminal physicality in us to the universal force-formation of cosmic Matter; the thick walls which divide from these things our surface mind, life, body and which Nature has to pierce with so much trouble, so imperfectly and by so many skilful-clumsy physical devices, are there, in the subliminal, only a rarefied medium at once of separation ...
... In the psychic transformation there are three main elements: (1) the opening of the occult inner mind, inner vital, inner physical, so that one becomes aware of all that lies behind the surface mind, life and body — (2) the opening of the psychic being or soul by which it comes forward and governs the mind, life and body turning all to the Divine — (3) the opening of the whole lower being to... consciousness — is another necessary condition for the supramental change. It would be chimerical to hope that the supreme Truth-Consciousness can establish itself in the narrow formulation of our surface mind and heart and life, however turned towards spirituality. All the inner centres must have burst open and released into action their capacities; the psychic entity must be unveiled and in control ...
... ess within behind the surface one in which we can become aware of the real self and of a larger, deeper truth of nature, can realise the self and liberate and transform the nature. To quiet the surface mind and begin to live within is the object of this concentration. Of this true consciousness other than the superficial there are two main centres, one in the heart (not the physical heart, but the... path far more easy and safe than if one begins the other way. Page 6 That other way is the concentration in the head, in the mental centre. This, if it brings about the silence of the surface mind, opens up an inner, larger, deeper mind within which is more capable of receiving spiritual experience and spiritual knowledge. But once concentrated here one must open the silent mental consciousness ...
... conscious mental will; it rejects often enough what our conscious will accepts and accepts what our conscious will rejects. For while this secret One knows all and every whole and each detail, our surface mind knows only a little part of things. Our will is conscious in the mind, and what it knows, it knows by the thought only; the divine Will is superconscious to us because it is in its essence supra-mental... cannot be arrived at immediately and without any previous stages. At first we have to learn to bear the shocks of the world with the central part of our being untouched and silent, even when the surface mind, heart, Page 103 life are strongly shaken; unmoved there on the bedrock of our life, we must separate the soul watching behind or immune deep within from these outer workings of our ...
... s, difficult but well within our capacity, by which we can have access to the superior gradations of our conscious existence. There is first a movement inward by which, instead of living in our surface mind, we break the wall between our external and our now subliminal self; this can be brought about by a gradual effort and discipline or by a vehement transition, sometimes a forceful involuntary rupture... an inner mind, an inner life, an inner subtle-physical entity which is much larger in its potentialities, more plastic, more powerful, more capable of a manifold knowledge and dynamism than our surface mind, life or body; especially, it is capable of a direct communication with the universal forces, movements, objects of the cosmos, a direct feeling and opening to them, a direct action on them and ...
... waking experiences; it is supposed to be resting, suspended or in abeyance; but that is a superficial view of the matter. What is in abeyance is the waking activities, what is at rest is the surface mind and the normal conscious action of the bodily part of us; but the inner consciousness is not suspended, it enters into new inner activities, only a part of which, a part happening or recorded in... maintained in sleep, thus near the surface, an obscure subconscious element which is a receptacle or passage for our dream experiences and itself also a dream builder.”² When we sleep, our surface mind, which is mostly busy with the sense objects and the reactions produced by their impacts on us, falls into abeyance and our consciousness recedes into the recondite ranges of our or universal being ...
... the results [of the study of psychic phenomena] cannot be conclusive or sufficiently ample because they are sought for by methods of inquiry and experiment and standards of proof proper to the surface mind and its system of knowledge by indirect contact. Under these conditions they can be investigated only in so far as they are able to manifest in that mind to which they are exceptional, abnormal... mastery of the human spirit beyond the ordinary operations of mind, the ordinary operations of life, the ordinary operations of our physical existence. In the spiritual domain which is occult to the surface mind in so far as it passes beyond normal and enters into supernormal experience, there is possible not only the discovery of the self and spirit, but the discovery of the uplifting, informing and ...
... rest of the being from the psychic or by its coming into the front. A disclosure from within or a descent from above, these are the two sovereign ways of the Yoga-siddhi. An effort of the external surface mind or Page 110 emotions, a Tapasya of some kind may seem to build up some of these things, but the results are usually uncertain and fragmentary, compared to the result of the two radical... fundamental Page 120 truth is self-determination of the cosmos and in it secret self-determination of the individual. The difficulty arises from the fact that we live in the surface mind of ignorance, do not know what is going on behind and see only the phenomenal process of Nature. There the apparent fact is an overwhelming determinism of Nature and as our surface consciousness ...
... which this flux and these structures appear, or a Superconscience beyond all idea of self or existence. But this view of the universe is only true of the appearance of things when we regard our surface mind as the whole of consciousness; as a description of the working of that Mind it is valid: there, undoubtedly, all looks like a flux and a construction by an impermanent Consciousness. But this cannot... mastery of the human spirit beyond the ordinary operations of mind, the ordinary operations of life, the ordinary operations of our physical existence. In the spiritual domain, which is occult to the surface mind in so far as it passes beyond normal and enters into supernormal experience, there is possible not only the discovery of the self and spirit, but the discovery of the uplifting, informing and guiding ...
... being, whether acting in itself or turned upon its object, which arrives more swiftly at knowledge, more swiftly at effectivity of will, more deeply at understanding and satisfaction of impulse. Our surface mind is hardly a true mentality, so involved, bound, hampered, conditioned is it by the body and bodily life and the limitations of the nerve-system and the physical organs. But the subliminal self has... this unconsciousness of our highest as of our inmost self, is our first, our capital ignorance. We exist superficially by a becoming in Time; but here again out of that becoming in Time the surface mind, which we call ourselves, is ignorant of all the long past and the long future, aware only of the little life which it remembers and not of all even of that; for much of it is lost to its observation ...
... personality may remain as one element among Page 848 many, one personality among many personalities of the same Person, but in the background, in the subliminal behind the veil of the surface mind and life and body, contributing from there whatever is needed of itself to the new formation; but it will not itself be the whole formation or build anew the old unchanged type of nature. It may... old mind and life that have been dissolved and exist no more. There is, no doubt, the subliminal being which may remember, since it does not suffer from the disabilities of the surface; but the surface mind is cut off from the subliminal memory which alone might retain some clear recollection or distinct impression of past lives. This separation is necessary because the new personality has to be built ...
... consciousness within behind the surface one in which we can become aware of the real Self and of a larger deeper truth of nature, can realise the Self and liberate and transform the nature. To quiet the surface mind and begin to live within is the object of this concentration. Of this true consciousness other than the superficial there are two main centres, one in the heart (not the physical heart, but the... the spiritual path far more easy and safe than if one begins the other way. That other way is the concentration in the head, in the mental centre. This, if it brings about the silence of the surface mind, opens up an inner, larger, deeper mind within which is more capable of receiving spiritual experience and spiritual knowledge. But once concentrated here one must open the silent mental consciousness ...
... consciousness within behind the surface one in which we can become aware of the real Self and of a larger deeper truth of nature, can realise the Self and liberate and transform the nature. To quiet the surface mind and begin to live within is the object of this concentration. Of this true consciousness other than the superficial there are two main centres, one in the heart (not the physical heart, but the... spiritual path far more easy and safe than if one begins the other way. That other way is the concentration in the head, in the mental centre. This, if it brings about the silence of the surface mind, opens up an inner, larger, deeper mind within which is more capable of receiving spiritual experience and spiritual knowledge. But once concentrated here one must open the silent mental consciousness ...
... was "no good" these capacities were not "evident",—they become evident only when they appear. Moreover, what is meant by latency—where do these things lie in their latency? If you say in the surface mind, then show me how their secret existence can be discovered while they are still latent. Otherwise how can we affirm an undiscoverable latency? If you say it is in the subliminal, I answer that the... latent. It does so also if you admit that the unevident can be made evident. By latency we mean what is not evident, that is, not on the surface, but somewhere behind or below. If it is in the surface mind, it is no longer latent, because one can say with some certitude that such faculties exist, though not quite developed yet—that is, neither latent nor fully evident. Evidently not there on the ...
... s within behind the surface one in which we can become aware of the real Self and of a larger deeper truth of nature, can realise the Self and liberate and transform the nature. To quiet the surface mind and begin to live within is the object of this concentration. Of this true consciousness other than the superficial there are two main centres, one in the heart (not the physical heart, but the... spiritual path far more easy and safe than if one begins the other way. That other way is the concentration in the head, in the mental centre. This, if it brings about the silence of the surface mind, opens up an inner, larger, deeper mind within which is more capable of receiving spiritual experience and spiritual knowledge. But once concentrated here one must open the silent mental con ...
... seems well nigh impossible. If the consciousness has to be busy with the remembrance, the attention will get divided and the work will not be properly done. It is because people live in the surface mind and are identified with it. When one lives more inwardly, it is only the surface consciousness that is occupied and one stands behind it in another which is silent and self-offered. 4 May 1933 ...
... first of all, to face, see in its complete extent and conquer. A complete will to surrender in the mind is the first condition, but not by itself sufficient. The trouble lies deeper than the surface mind and you have to find it out where it is and extirpate it. It is only when this has been done, that the help given you (and it was always there till now) can bear fruit in the true spiritual and ...
... time to time been giving you intuitions and turning you towards the Truth. But it could not come forward and lead your life because you have too much suppressed your emotional nature, dried up your surface mind and choked up with much rubbish the psychic fire. If once it can awaken entirely and come in front, it can transform the dynamic mental, the vital and the physical mind and through them make you ...
... place is deep inside behind the heart-centre. Many people feel at times the call for the Mother going on from there. It comes more easily in sleep or in a half-waking condition because then the surface mind is not active so that what is going on within in the inner being can manifest itself. 29 October 1934 When I spoke of "loneliness", I meant that some part of the being feels that although ...
... cannot be done at once or in a short time or by any rapid or miraculous transformation. Many steps have to be taken by the seeker before the supramental descent is possible. Man lives mostly in his surface mind, life and body but there is an inner being within him with greater possibilities to which he has to awake—for it is only a very restricted influence from it that he receives now and that pushes ...
... opening to him, and if something is determined by the power of the channel, more is determined by the inherent and intrinsic attitude of the receiving consciousness, an element that comes out in the surface mind as simple trust or direct unconditional self-giving, and once that is there, the essential things can be gained even from one who seems to others than the disciple an inferior spiritual source and ...
... memory of the One to whom you offer it. This is only a first process; for when you can have constantly the feeling of a calm being within concentrated in the sense of the Divine Presence while the surface mind does the work, or when you can begin to feel always that it is the Mother's force that is doing the work and you are only a channel or an instrument, then in place of memory there will have begun ...
... thing—for the fundamental truth is self-determination, a self-determination of the cosmos and in it a secret self-determination of the individual. The difficulty arises from the fact that we live in the surface mind of ignorance, do not know what is going on behind and see only the phenomenal process of Nature. There the apparent fact is an overwhelming determinism of Nature and as our surface consciousness ...
... and social life; literally, that which one lays hold of and which holds things together. Higher Mind — see under spiritualised mind. inner mind — that which lies behind the surface mind (our ordinary mentality); this inner or subliminal mind senses directly all the things of the mind-plane, is open to the action of a world of mental forces, and can feel their influences which act ...
... remains submerged and obscurely at work below our conscious nature. This obscure activity extends to a hidden and hooded mental substratum into which past impressions and all that is rejected from the surface mind sink and remain there dormant and can surge up in sleep or in any absence of the mind, taking dream forms, forms of mechanical mind-action or suggestion, forms of automatic vital reaction or impulse ...
... It is not indispensable to be an ascetic—it is enough if one can learn to live within in the inner being instead of on the surface, discover the soul or true individuality which is veiled by the surface mind and life forces and open the being to the superconscient Reality. But in this one cannot succeed unless one is wholly sincere and one-pointed in the effort. As to the second question, participation ...
... outer action such as talking—because these things are associated with the ordinary mental consciousness and still need it to be done. At a later stage it will be possible to do these things with the surface mind only while the new consciousness remains intact and is either found there immediately as soon as the surface occupation ceases or else remains even during the occupation upholding the surface action ...
... is towards the summits. We have then to return to the pursuit of an ancient secret which man, as a race, has seen only obscurely and followed after lamely, has indeed understood only with his surface mind and not in its heart of meaning,—and yet in following it lies his social no less than his individual salvation,—the ideal of the kingdom of God, the secret of the reign of the Spirit over mind and ...
... this Delight also must be represented in us by a cosmic principle corresponding to it in the apparent existence. It is the soul or psychic being.—As there is a subliminal luminous mind behind our surface mind, a subliminal life behind our mortal life, a subliminal wider corporeality behind our gross body, so we have a double soul, the superficial desire-soul and the true psychic entity.—The superficial ...
... have some foundation for their opinions. It is an exceedingly fine poem and quite perfect in its expression of the underlying idea or rather psychic perception of an occult truth hidden from the surface mind. I don't see anything fanciful in it or discern what is according to Amal fancy and what genuine imagination—if you look at it with the surface intellect the whole thing is a mere fancy or else ...
... all confused together. The body, for instance, has its own consciousness and acts from it, even without any conscious Page 201 mental will of our own or even against that will, and our surface mind knows very little about this body consciousness, feels it only in an imperfect way, sees only its results and has the greatest difficulty in finding out their causes. It is part of the Yoga to become ...
... beginning. The inner silence and peace have first to be established. Page 233 The consciousness from which these experiences come [ such as the division of the mind into an active surface mind and a silent inner mind ] is always there pressing to bring them in. The reason why they don't come in freely or stay is the activity of the mind and vital always rushing about, thinking this, wanting ...
... has tended to create an excessive rationalisation, a discrediting and condemnation of most of the occult elements which seek to establish a communication with what is invisible, a reliance on the surface mind as the sufficient vehicle of the spiritual endeavour; a certain dryness and a narrowness and paucity of the spiritual life have been a frequent consequence. Moreover, the intellect having denied ...
... remains submerged and obscurely at work below our conscious nature. This obscure activity extends to a hidden and hooded mental substratum into which past impressions and all that is rejected from the surface mind sink and remain there dormant and can surge up in sleep or in any absence of the mind, taking dream forms, forms of mechanical mind action or suggestion, forms of automatic vital reaction or impulse ...
... subliminal to us, which knows itself as more than the body and is capable of a less materialised action. To this we owe immediately most of the larger, deeper and more forceful dynamic action of our surface mind; this, when we become conscious of it or of its impress on us, is our first idea or our first realisation of a soul or inner being, Purusha. 1 But this life mentality also, though it may ...
... self-experience an important power linking together past and present experiences, past and present personality, preventing chaos and dissociation and assuring the continuity of the stream in the surface mind. Still even here we must not exaggerate the function of memory or ascribe to it that part of the operations of consciousness which really belongs to the activity of other power-aspects of the mental ...
... bliss of being, of which the Scripture says that, if this were not, none could for a moment breathe or live. And this spiritual bliss is here also in our hearts. It is hidden in from the toil of the surface mind which catches only at weak and flawed translations of it into various mental, vital and physical forms of the joy of existence. But if the mind has once grown sufficiently subtle and pure in its ...
... the help of its inner life-idea. The inner life-idea is the key to a nation's psychology and is more tenacious than the outer form. If it is great and intense and the body is strong enough and the surface-mind plastic and adaptive without being loose or unstable, then the collective being can keep unimpaired through vicissitudes, even rise phoenix like out of an apparent perishing and one cycle will evolve ...
... within itself, of knowing itself, of knowing the secret things, powers, forces which are behind itself and behind the works of a surface external Nature, still she has been most careful to organise a surface Mind dealing with surface and external things and an organisation of personality which is superficial and not the whole of ourselves, a wave only of the ocean of our hidden being, our secret reality ...
... but the subtle physical, the nervous, the vital or the psychic centre. The poem he quotes from Blake is certainly not nonsense, but it has no positive and exact meaning for the intellect or the surface mind; it expresses certain things that are true and real, not nonsense but a deeper sense which we feel powerfully with a great stirring of some inner emotion, but any attempt at exact intellectual ...
... mind is not the higher mind; it is more in touch with the universal forces and more open to the higher consciousness and capable of an immensely deeper and larger range of action than the outer or surface mind - but it is of the same essential nature. The higher consciousness is that above the ordinary mind and different from it in its workings; it ranges from higher mind through illumined mind, intuition ...
... the help of its inner life-idea. The inner life-idea is the key to a nation's psychology and is more tenacious than the outer form. If it is great and intense and the body is strong enough and the surface mind plastic and adaptive without being loose or unstable, then the collective being can keep unimpaired through vicissitudes, even rise phoenix-like out of an apparent perishing and one cycle will evolve ...
... there must be added a vast horizontal expansion of the consciousness into some totality of the Spirit. At the least, the inner being must already have replaced by its deeper and wider awareness the surface mind and its limited outlook and learned to live in a large universality; for otherwise the overmind view of things and the overmind dynamism will have no room to move in and effectuate its dynamic ...
... The true sense of the guidance becomes clearer when we can go deep within and see from there more intimately the play of the forces and receive intimations of the Will behind them. The surface mind can get only an imperfect glimpse. When we are in contact with the Divine or in contact with an inner knowledge and vision,we begin to see all the circumstances of our life in a new light and ...
... Roy's side as well as on Sri Aurobindo's, there works a deep intensity without which the book would not be the important document that it is. Roy, the Krishna-haunted soul caught in the fretful surface mind, is burning in his heart of hearts to see in Sri Aurobindo the complete Avatar and in the Mother the Avatar's creative spiritual counterpart: short of that seeing, his life lacks real fruition. ...
... superficial assessment to suppose that our consciousness remains in total abeyance during the period of our physical sleep. "What is in abeyance is the waking activities, what is at rest is the surface mind and the normal conscious action of the bodily part of us." 1 But the inner consciousness is not in the least negatived or suspended. As a matter of fact what happens in sleep is that our co ...
... intuitive satisfaction arrives only with the line Wordsworth actually penned. There "sleep" assumes the centre. We are face to face with a state of in-drawn consciousness, what seems a blank to the surface mind but is really a new dimension of being. Now it is the presence, the power, of "sleep" that has fields of its own: "sleep" is now a plane, a hidden world, a mysterious existence. Modern psychology ...
... in spite of their apparent insignificance — because they are a necessary passage of transmission between the soul and the outer world. Letters on Yoga, pp. 311-12 (a) The Outer (Surface) Mind Mind and Consciousness ...in ourselves consciousness seems to be identical with Mind; in any case Mind is so dominant a factor of our being that to examine its fundamental ...
... jumbled together in our common conception and parlance." 9 "The subliminal self stands behind and supports the whole superficial man; it has in it a larger and more efficient mind behind the surface mind, a larger and more powerful vital behind the surface vital, a subtler and freer physical consciousness behind the surface * It should be noted that Sri Aurobindo distinguishes between the ...
... cannot be done at once or in a short time or by any rapid or miraculous transformation. Many steps have to be taken by the seeker before the supramental descent is possible. Man lives mostly in his surface mind, life and body, but there is an inner being within him with greater possibilities to which he has to awake—for it is only a very restricted influence from it that he receives now and that pushes ...
... waking experience, they are all confused together. The body, for instance, has its own consciousness and acts from it, even without any mental will of our own or even against that will, and our surface mind knows very little about this body-consciousness, feels it only in an imperfect way, sees only its results and has the greatest difficulty in finding out their causes. 9 One of the ...
... What we then discover are the secret parts of ourselves—an inner being, a soul, an inner mind, an inner life which are more plastic, more powerful, more capable of a manifold knowledge than our surface mind, life and body. The inner parts of ourselves are capable of a direct communication with the universal forces and movements. This widening can extend itself so as to bring us in union with the ...
... wrote Savitri with the idea that the power of the word—especially the inspired and revelatory poetic word that comes from the heights or the depths and speaks to the inner being, not only to the surface mind—could help to bring about this change. The 1916 version of Savitri already shows the profoundly revolutionary spirit of Sri Aurobindo's approach to the subject of the poem. In a world governed ...
... old mind and life that have been dissolved and exist no more. There is, no doubt, the subliminal being which may remember, since it does not suffer from the disabilities of the surface; but the surface mind is cutoff from the subliminal memory which alone might retain some clear recollection or distinct impression of past lives. This separation is necessary because the new personality has to be built ...
... "fallible gaze"; "scanty fringe of sight"; "ephemeral sight"; "single window's clipped outlook"; "immediate sight"; "external sight"; "surface sight"; "time-bom eyes"; "transient eyes"; "look of surface mind"; "ignorant eyes"; etc. Here are some verses from Savitri pointedly bringing out the inherent penury of ordinary human sight: (1)"And the inconstant blink of mortal sight" (343) ...
... bay, these latter will be reduced in their action to a state as described by Sri Aurobindo below: "They [the hostile attacks on the outer being] are felt as suggestions, or a touch on the surface mind, vital, physical or as movements in the atmosphere (the personal or the general environmental consciousness) — but for the inner being it is like gusts or storms outside. If they penetrate by chance ...
... superficial assessment to suppose that our consciousness remains in total abeyance during the period of our physical sleep. "What is in abeyance is the waking activities, what is at rest is the surface mind and the normal conscious action of the bodily part of us..." (The Life Divine, p. 422) In fact, during this dormancy of our physical mind, our consciousness withdraws from its surface preoccupation ...
... evolutionary status becomes the very first consequence of such an inwardization of consciousness. For, our inner being is found to possess a dynamism and potentialities much superior to those of our surface mind and life and body. As a -matter of fact, "it is capable of a direct communication with the universal forces, movements, objects of the cosmos, a direct feeling and opening to them, a direct ...
... If the inner being did sadhana behind the surface or during the sleep, would I not know it as I do about my dreams? Not necessarily — the inner being can do many things which the surface mind does not know. People do not feel all that is going on in them — very little comes to the surface of the ordinary consciousness. If you feel emptiness, peace, and silence in ...
... with physical things or mechanical movements, what does my inner being do during that period? It may be silent or it may be occupied with its own activities which are not felt by the surface mind. This evening my consciousness was plunged into the inner depths. It aspired and received freely there. Is not even this insufficient? I mean without the inner being's coming ...
... thinking of praying to you to let me find rasa in work, when I had this experience: I felt that my mind was divided into two parts—the inner absolutely silent, not disturbed by anything; the surface mind (physical?) thinking at random of many things which were passing by like a cinema film. Previously the whole being was mixed up with all those thoughts with a resultant turmoil. But this time the ...
... 3 To Learn and to Understand IT is one thing to learn (apprendre), quite another to understand (comprendre). In learning you take in a thing by your surface mind and it is a thing that comes in from outside like a foreign body; it is put into you, almost driven and thrust into you. You do not absorb it, make it wholly your own. If you are not mindful, leave ...
... ceased and we control our consciousness. Consciousness is the only organ. 93 It is what feels, sees, and hears. Sleep and hypnosis are simply very elementary means of removing the veil of the surface mind. And this makes sense: if we are full of the noise of our desires or fears, what else can we really see or hear except the innumerably reflected images of those same desires and fears? Just as the ...
... is, as the ancients knew, a seer and not merely a maker of rhymes, not merely a jongleur, rhapsodist or troubadour, and not merely a thinker in lines and stanzas. He sees beyond the sight of the surface mind and finds the revealing word, not merely the adequate and effective, but the illumined and Page 611 illuminating, the inspired and inevitable word, which compels us to see ...
... working "concealed in the subliminal secrecies", and in the result "speech leaps, thought quivers, the heart vibrates, the will/ Answers and tissue and nerve obey the call". 69 The surface mind is thus only a puppet; mental processes and creations are but shadows and hence hardly affect the essential quality of life or the ultimate destiny of the soul. Insect, ape and man, all share a ...
... notations surging up from every side and often drowning us under their overwhelming flood." But how may this subtle serpent be rendered powerless, or even destroyed? When we have silenced the surface mind by an act of will, we find that thousands of these valueless nullities crawl out, as insects do when a rock is shifted. Through certain ascetic disciplines, perhaps, and the insulation from eternal ...
... is around us. And in ourselves let us look not only at our surfaces but at the inner and the inmost of our being and nature. This self-knowledge pursued far enough shows us a deeper than the surface mind and a deeper than the physical sense, a profounder than the outward life. It shows us also a Beyond-Mind and Beyond-Sense, a Beyond-Life; the limited passes into [the] illimitable. If there were ...
... worshipped Godhead or bow her knee to the strong reigning idols of rationalism, commercialism and economism, the successful iron gods of the West. Affected she has been, but not yet overcome. Her surface mind rather than her deeper intelligence has been obliged to admit many Western ideas, liberty, equality, democracy and others, and to reconcile them with her Vedantic Truth; but she has not been altogether ...
... Bodies of gold— A glory that can never To the eye unfold Unless a hush, intent With wondering. Hears that unearthly sweetness Goldenly ring! Sight is the surface mind, Sound the deep heart: Until you catch in the poet's Magical art The throb and thrill and throe Of this profound. The gods of unbearable beauty Are never found ...
... phenomena of experience beyond the knowledge of the outer consciousness. Sri Aurobindo 13 writes: "...the subliminal being has... a larger direct contact with the world; it is not confined like the surface Mind to the interpretation of sense-images and sense-vibrations supplemented by the mental and vital intuition and reason. There is indeed an inner sense in the subliminal nature, a subtle sense of vision ...
... time and answered all his questions. One of such questions from this person was "Can I find the Divine in this life?" He replied, "Surely, you will!" Such a great assurance came not only from his surface mind bearing no weight, but from his insight which is confident and sure. Years back, in 1991, when he had his accident after which he could not walk any more and was to be in a wheelchair ...
... subject was not greatly concerned about the results of the experiment, and was not consciously trying to make a high score." Besides, ESP is acknowledged to be a subliminal affair signalled to the surface mind. Mrs. Knight says that telepathic communication is generally held to take place at the subconscious level, and the subconscious character of precognition is indicated by her comment: "Though the ...
... must be added a vast horizontal expansion of the consciousness into some totality of the Spirit. At the least, the inner being must already have replaced by its deeper and wider awareness the surface mind and its limited outlook and learned to live in a large universality; for otherwise the overmind view of things and the overmind dynamism will have no room to move in and effectuate its dynamic ...
... is supposed to be resting, suspended or in abeyance, but that is a superficial view of the matter. What is in abeyance is the waking activities, what is at Page 232 rest is the surface mind and the normal conscious action of the bodily part of us; but the inner consciousness is not suspended, it enters into new inner activities, only a part of which, a part happening or recorded ...
... being one, we can only have some real power over so much of our existence as we are identified with by self-awareness; the rest must be governed by its own consciousness which is subliminal to our surface mind and life and body. And yet, the two being one movement and not two separate movements, the larger and more potent part of ourselves must govern and determine in the mass the smaller and less ...
... submerged and obscurely at work below our conscious nature. This obscure activity extends to a hidden and hooded mental substratum into which past impressions and all that is rejected from the surface mind sink and remain there dormant and can surge up in sleep or in any absence of the mind, taking dream forms, forms of mechanical mind-action or suggestion, forms of automatic vital reaction or impulse ...
... waking experience, they are all confused together. The body, for instance, has its own consciousness and acts from it, even without any mental will of our own or even against that will, and our surface mind knows very little about this body-consciousness, feels it only in an imperfect way, sees only its results and has the greatest difficulty in finding out their causes." 5 Some of the chief ...
... purpose. "The true sense of the guidance becomes clearer when we can go deep within and see from there more intimately the play of the forces and receive intimations of the Will behind them. The surface mind can only get an imperfect glimpse. When we are in contact with the Divine or in contact with an inner knowledge or vision, we begin to see all the circumstances of our life in a new light and observe ...
... Asia, Sri Aurobindo wrote: “We have then to return to the pursuit of the ancient secret which man, as a race, has seen only obscurely and followed after lamely, has indeed understood only with his surface mind and not in its heart of meaning, – and yet in following it lies his social no less than his individual salvation, – the ideal of the Kingdom of God, the secret of the reign of the Spirit over mind ...
... cause of sorrow.” 41 “We have then to return to the pursuit of an ancient secret which man, as a race, has seen only obscurely and followed after lamely, has indeed understood only with his surface mind and not in its heart of meaning, – and yet in following it lies his social no less than his individual salvation, – the ideal of the Kingdom of God, the secret of the reign of the Spirit over mind ...
... or extending at will a material process, but obviously they cannot give an account of the thing itself,” writes Sri Aurobindo, 24 and certainly not of a living organism. “… We live in the surface mind of ignorance, do not know what is going on behind and see only the phenomenal process of Nature. There the apparent fact is an overwhelming determinism of Nature and as our surface consciousness ...
... dispel and drive them away. Then try to find what it is in you that they made use of as a focus to act upon — nearly always it is some thwarted desire of the ego, often quite unacknowledged by the surface mind. "Anyway, by whatever means, stick it out, don't even think of turning back. The moment you have done it, that moment those powers, having gained their end, would leave their maya and you would ...
... who, when he finds himself helpless, instinctively turns to he-knows-not-what, is bound to feel the vague vastness of some being for whom he has no name. Your puzzlement is really of the surface mind. You have yourself spontaneously answered your own question when with your typical beauty of soul you give me a supreme compliment which I can never truly live up to. You write to me in words whose ...
... but the subtle physical, the nervous, the vital or the psychic centre. The poem he quotes from Blake is certainly not nonsense, but it has no positive and exact meaning for the intellect or the surface mind; it expresses certain things that are true and real, not nonsense but a Page 145 deeper sense which we feel powerfully with a great stirring of some inner emotion, but any attempt ...
... and to seek for a pure and authentic intuitive language, to bring forth the living truths of the inmost spiritual being, to reveal its light and vision, not in the inadequate speech of the surface mind but in the inspired and revelatory accent of Spirit itself. This attempt has not always been successful. In continental and English poetry it has not gone beyond a search for some inner meaning ...
... but the subtle physical, the nervous, the vital or the psychic centre. The poem he quotes from Blake is certainly not nonsense, but it has no positive and exact meaning for the intellect or the surface mind; it expresses certain things that are true and real, not nonsense but a deeper sense which we feel powerfully with a great stirring of some inner emotion, but any attempt at exact intellectual statement ...
... tickle the modern fancy. Page 438 I think your criticism is very much to the point. The writer is a very clever manipulator of words, but he is dressing up an idea so as to catch the surface mind—there is no sincerity and therefore no power or conviction or poetical suggestion. Such made-up stuff as The head of Satan is curled and the rest of it has no real significance and is ...
... know as much as he can of the past and try to penetrate as far as he can, however obscurely, into the future. And he has certain aids towards this endeavour of which some depend on his surface Page 890 mind, while others open to intimations from another subliminal or superconscient self which has a greater, subtler and more certain knowledge. His first aid is that of the reason proceeding ...
... its waking experiences; it is supposed to be resting, suspended or in abeyance, but that is a superficial view of the matter. What is in abeyance is the waking activities, what is at rest is the surface mind and the normal conscious action of the bodily part of us; but the inner consciousness is not suspended, it enters into new inner activities, only a part of which, a part happening or recorded in ...
... are suspended, but afterwards resume their operation, in some cases by external stimulation, but more normally by a spontaneous return to activity from within. What has really happened is that the surface mind-force has been withdrawn into subconscious mind and the surface life-force into subactive life and either the whole man has lapsed into the subconscious existence or else he has withdrawn his outer ...
... being one, we can only have some real power over so much of our existence as we are identified with by self-awareness; the rest must be governed by its own consciousness which is subliminal to our surface mind and life and body. And yet, the two being one movement and not two separate movements, the larger and more potent part of ourselves must govern and determine in the mass the smaller and less powerful; ...
... The mind seizing this fact of eternity may falsely transfer it to our own conscious being which may be nothing more than a transient phenomenon of that only true eternal. These questions our surface mind by itself has no means of solving; it can only speculate upon them endlessly and arrive at more or less well-reasoned opinions. The belief in our immortality is only a faith, the belief in our mortality ...
... Transcendence, turned to a higher Peace, permeable to a greater light, force and ecstasy, a consciousness that exceeds the small personality and surpasses the limited light and experience of the surface mind, the limited force and aspiration of the normal life consciousness, the obscure and limited responsiveness of the body. Even before the tranquillising purification of the outer nature has been ...
... is, as the ancients knew, a seer and not merely a maker of rhymes, not merely a jongleur, rhapsodist or troubadour, and not merely a thinker in lines and stanzas. He sees beyond the sight of the surface mind and finds the revealing word, not merely the adequate and effective, but the illumined and illuminating, the Page 26 inspired and inevitable word, which compels us to see also. To arrive ...
... the rest of the being from the psychic or by its coming into the front. A disclosure from within or a descent from above are the two sovereign ways of the Yoga-siddhi. An effort of the external surface mind or emotions, a tapasya of some kind may seem to build up something of these things, but the results are usually uncertain and fragmentary compared to the result of the two radical ways. That is ...
... and body. In the psychic transformation there are three main elements: (1) the opening of the occult inner mind, inner vital, inner physical, so that one becomes aware of all that lies behind the surface mind, life and body; (2) the opening of the psychic being or soul by which it comes forward and governs the mind, life and body turning all to the Divine; (3) the opening of the whole lower being to ...
... a restricted and very inferior portion of the subliminal whole. The subliminal self stands behind and supports the whole superficial man; it has in it a larger and more efficient mind behind the surface mind, a larger and more powerful vital behind the surface vital, a subtler and freer physical consciousness behind the surface bodily existence. And above them it opens to higher superconscient as well ...
... into wideness. Till it comes, keep yourself firm and do not allow these attacks to shake your basis. They [ hostile attacks on the outer being ] are felt as suggestions, or a touch on the surface mind, vital, physical or as movements in the atmosphere (the personal or the general environmental consciousness)—but for the inner being it is like gusts or storms outside. If they penetrate by chance ...
... dependent on outer circumstances, a state of equality and calm, if it cannot be at once of inner happiness, on going more and more within and looking from within outwards instead of living in the surface mind which is always at the mercy of the shocks and blows of life. It is only from that inner state that one can be stronger than life and its disturbing forces and hope to conquer. To remain quiet ...
... of the forehead between the eyebrows is the centre of the inner mind, inner will, the inner vision and when that opens one begins to see and know what is to the physical eye invisible and to the surface mind unknowable. 11 October 1935 It is an obsession from the subconscient physical bringing back habitual thoughts, "I can't call rightly—I have no real aspiration" etc.; the depression, the memory ...
... purpose. The true sense of the guidance becomes clearer when we can go deep within and see from there more intimately the play of the forces and receive intimations of the Will behind them. The surface mind can get only an imperfect glimpse. When we are in contact with the Divine or in contact with an inner knowledge and vision, we begin to see all the circumstances of our life in a new light and can ...
... vital, the universal physical or anywhere. What do you mean here by psychic vision? Inner vision means the vision with the inner seeing as opposed to outer vision, the external sight with the surface mind or the surface eyes. Psychic in the language of this Yoga is confined to the soul, the psychic being—it is not as in the ordinary language in which if you see a ghost it is called a psychic "vision": ...
... Questions and Answers (1950 - 1951): 2 April 1951 The body… has its own consciousness and acts from it, even without any conscious mental will of our own or even against that will, and our surface mind knows very little about this body consciousness, feels it only in an imperfect way, sees only its results and has the greatest difficulty in finding out their causes. It is part of the Yoga to become ...
... rest of the being from the psychic or by its coming into the front. A disclosure from within or a descent from above, these are the two sovereign ways of the Yoga-Siddhi. An effort of the external surface mind or emotions, a Tapasya of some kind may seem to build up some of these things, but the results are usually uncertain and fragmentary, compared to the result of the two radical ways. That is why ...
... our nature of which we are normally conscious is our surface or outer being consisting of the body, the (surface) vital (related to life-energy and emotions, desires, passions, etc.), and the (surface) mind (having to do with cognition, intelligence, ideas, thought perceptions, etc.). Behind this superficial consciousness there exists a far greater, deeper and more powerful consciousness in touch ...
... Bodies of gold— A glory that can never To the eye unfold Unless a hush, intent With wondering, Hears that unearthly sweetness Goldenly ring! Sight is the surface mind, Sound the deep heart: Until you catch in the poet's Magical art The throb and thrill and throe. Of this profound, The gods of unbearable beauty Are never found ...
... physical mind takes careful note of their gait, hair or dress. I do not know what the mind means by that. But these perceptions are supported only by the mechanical and restless parts of the surface mind, while the other parts feel much disturbed by them and call them "lunatic wanderings! There is nothing harmful in such perceptions in themselves; one can observe anything, for the eyes ...
... Soul, move on in the ray of Her infallible Sun to constant Splendor. 12 - 13 Mystery Deep within us, far beyond the gaze of the surface mind, In a luminous cavern in the secret mystic heart, Sits the omnipotent supreme goddess: Our real immortal soul. The Tranquil Power O Lord, ...
... there must be added a vast horizontal expansion of the consciousness into some totality of the Spirit. At the least, the inner being must already have replaced by its deeper and wider awareness the surface mind and its limited outlook and learned to live in a large universality; for otherwise the overmind view of things and the over-mind dynamism will have no room to move in and effectuate its dynamic ...
... dynamically as well as inwardly and grow out of his still animal humanity into a divine race. (xi)For this to be effectively realisable, man must know that a)although he lives mostly in his surface mind, life and body, there is an inner being within him with greater possibilities to which he has to awake and can awake through the process of the psychological discipline of Yoga; b)he has to ...
... conscious mental will; it rejects often enough what our conscious will accepts and accepts what our conscious will rejects. For while this secret One knows all and every whole and each detail, our surface mind knows only a Utile part of things." (Ibid., p. 90) The sadhaka has to be cautious about another point; otherwise he would not be able to keep the right attitude in his sadhana; instead ...
... life, one does not notice it. For the normal functioning of this supraphysical occult sight, the conditions that have to be fulfilled are: (i) the quietening and the purification of the surface mind and vital; (ii) the opening up of the wall separating the outer mind and the inner consciousness; and, preferably, (iii) the capacity to enter freely within and dwell there at will. In this connection ...
... its waking experience; it is supposed to be resting, suspended or in abeyance, but that is a superficial view of the matter. What is in abeyance is the waking activities, what is at rest is the surface mind and the normal conscious action of the bodily part of us; but the inner consciousness is not suspended, it enters into new inner activities, only a part of which, a part happening or recorded in ...
... mental effort. This mental discipline is easy in acts of mechanical nature but not so easy in those of concentrative nature where the attention gets divided. It is because people live in the surface mind and are identified with it. When one lives more inwardly, it is only the surface consciousness that is occupied and one stands behind it in another which is silent and self-offered. What is ...
... consciousness that the Overmind ascent and descent can be made wholly possible. An important precondition is that the inner being must already have replaced by its deeper and wider awareness the surface mind and its limited outlook and learn to live in a large universality, but when one learns to live in overmental consciousness, one begins to have, Page 60 according to Sri Aurobindo ...
... TO LEARN AND TO UNDERSTAND It is one thing to learn ( apprendre) , quite another to understand (comprendre). In learning you take in a thing by your surface mind and it is a thing that comes in from outside like a foreign body; it is put into you, almost driven and forced into you. You do not absorb it, make it wholly your own. If you are not mindful, ...
... to universal delight; and then all contacts become contacts of that delight. When it opens to universal delight, it is the delight of the Satchidananda, really speaking. In the mind, there is a surface mind, the ego and so on, and the subliminal Page 215 self. In the life also, there is an outer vital personality and an inner vital being, you can say, a subliminal vital being. There ...
... great spiritual experience which came to him in the Alipore Jail completed the transformation; from the 'still centre' of detachment he passed on to the circle of purposeful commitment. So far his surface mind had attended to problems like the formulation of a programme for India's regeneration, self-development through self-help—swadeshi, national education, arbitration, etc.—and passive resistance to ...
... boarded the Japanese boat, the Kamo Maru, at Colombo, and the voyage was attended with all the uncertainties and dangers of the global War. Was she happy? was she sad? - she did not know. The surface mind was a blank for the nonce, it was as though she had been projected into a dark tunnel. Pondicherry and what that sanctified spot contained were left behind; but was all Pondicherry blotted out ...
... gross body and conditioned by its past evolution in Matter, and a s ū kṣma or subliminal life, which is larger and more flexible, and not subject to the limitations of the former;, we have a surface mind of aspiring ignorance, chained to the ego and the desires, the appetites and normal reactions of the life and the body, and dominated and deluded by the senses, and a subliminal mind, which is wider ...
... will be born of this dim travail, these shapeless or half-shaped beginnings, is no doubt already decided in the secret spirit of the age and in the subconscient mind of the people. Behind the waverings and strivings of our twilit surface minds the soul of India knows no doubt what it intends and is moving us to great fulfilments. But it is well also for us to ponder and inquire what it is the national... its appropriate forms. Especially, is the movement of literature most revelatory; for while music and art reveal perhaps more absolutely the soul of a nation, literature is the whole expression of its mind and psychology,—not only of what it is in action, or what it is in essence, but its thought, character and aspiration. Draft B In literature, as in all else, we stand in India at the opening of ...
... this way you can recall things that you knew perhaps centuries ago. It is how you remember your past lives. For, a movement of consciousness never dies out, it is only the impressions on the surface brain-mind that are fugitive. What you have learnt with this superficial instrument laboriously-only read, heard, noted, underlined-leaves no lasting mark, but what is imbibed, breathed in into the stuff... other fact that there are different states of consciousness one following another. Each state faithfully records the phenomena of that moment, whatever they Page 64 may be. Now, if your mind is calm and clear, wide and strong, you can by concentrating your consciousness on that moment bring out of it and recall in your present active state what is recorded there of your movements then;... thing that you can always call back the thing. Only you must know how to get at the point, submerged somewhere in the depths. The body, after death, dissolves, the greater part of the vital and the mind dissolves also—only a small portion that has been well organised, given a compact cohesive form endures. Such an achievement is a rare phenomenon. But it is otherwise with the consciousness. Consciousness ...
... this way you can recall things that you knew perhaps centuries ago. It is how you remember your past lives. For, a movement of consciousness never dies out, it is only the impressions on the surface brain-mind that are fugitive. What you have learnt with this superficial instrument laboriously – only read, heard, noted, underlined – leaves no lasting mark, but what is imbibed, breathed in into the... organ, there is the other fact that I there are different states of consciousness one following another. Each state faithfully records the phenomena of that moment, whatever they may be. Now, if your mind is calm and clear, wide and strong, you can by concentrating your consciousness on that moment bring out of it and recall in your present active state what is recorded there of your movements then;... thing that you can always call back the thing. Only you must know how to get at the point, submerged somewhere in the depths. The body, after death, dissolves, the greater part of the vital and the mind dissolves also – only a small portion that has been well organised, given a compact cohesive form endures. Such an achievement is a rare phenomenon. But it is otherwise with the consciousness. Consciousness ...
... mixed-up on the surface, are separate and distinct when viewed from within. Each personality represents a part of the being which has its own complex individuality and different nature, its own demands, agreeing neither with itself nor with the others. Speaking of the "perfectly normal divisibility of the different parts of the being", Sri Aurobindo states: "In the outer surface nature, mind, psychic... are identified with Prakriti (Nature). In this state of identification with Prakriti, the complex nature of our being is hidden from our view. "To the ordinary man who lives upon his own waking surface, ignorant of the self's depths and vastnesses behind the veil, his psychological existence is fairly simple. A small but clamorous company of desires, some imperative intellectual and aesthetic cravings... thought, feeling and impulse to find out the composition of our nature and the relation and interaction of these parts upon each other. But when one goes inside ... we find the sources of all this surface action and there the parts of our being are quite separate and clearly distinct from each other. We feel them indeed as different beings in us, and just as two people in a joint action can do, they ...
... and senses and the mind using the senses. Yet all the time the universal forces are pouring into him without his knowing it. He is aware only of thoughts, feelings etc. that rise to the surface and these he takes for his own. Really they come from outside in mind waves, vital waves, waves of feeling and sensation etc. which take particular forms in him and rise to the surface after they have got... we go back into ourselves very deep away from the surface appearance, we find that the mind, heart and sensational being of man are moved by forces not under his own control and that he can become an instrument in the hands of Energies of a cosmic character without knowing the origin of his actions. It is by stepping back from the physical surface into his inner being and subliminal consciousness that... passes from each to each a constant stream of mental and vital energies, and these run too in cosmic waves and currents no less than the forces of physical Nature. All this action is veiled from our surface mind’s direct sense and knowledge, but it is known and felt by the inner being, though only through a direct contact; when the being enters into the cosmic consciousness, it is still more widely, inclusively ...
... ordinary consciousness one is not aware of these things; the effects come into the surface being, but the cause and process remain unknown and unnoticed because the interchange is subtle and covert, it takes place through what is called the subconscient, but is rather a behind-consciousness covered by the surface waking mind. When one gets into a certain Yogic consciousness, one becomes very much aware... exchange is there, but they are not aware of it—because they live in the external mind (physical) and these things go on behind. Even if they feel more energetic after an interchange or depressed or tired, they would not attribute it to the talk or contact, because the interchange is unconscious, their external mind in which they live not being aware of it. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - IV:... observe the expenditure or throwing out of forces, but not the pulling or the effect on others. The idea of mental interchange is familiar though only of the superficial kind, not the silent action of mind on mind which is always going on, but the vital impacts are known only to a few occultists. If one becomes very conscious one can become aware of the forces acting in and from all around, e.g. forces of ...
... outward self-expression of others, but intimately of their inner being, their minds, their souls and that in them of which their own surface minds are not aware, then we see the real Being in them also and we see them as selves of our Self and not as mere names and forms. They become to us realities of the Eternal. Our minds are no longer subject to the delusion of trivial unworthiness or the illusion... own and by inference or derivative perception based upon their external signs of speech, action, etc., which our minds translate into the terms of our own subjectivity. When we break out from ego and physical mind into the infinity of the spirit, we still see the world and others as the mind has accustomed us to see them, as names and forms; only in our new experience of the direct and superior reality... devices by which we help the mind to assent to the direction in which the soul is moving. The cause of our world-existence is not, as our present experience induces us to believe, the ego; for the ego is only a Page 440 result and a circumstance of our mode of world-existence. It is a relation which the many-souled Purusha has set up between individualised minds and bodies, a relation of ...
... Then new ideas are born, active thought which is creative. Energy of a plastic mind does not draw back from any effort to progress. Mental plasticity: indispensable for true knowledge. In modern civilisation, men work on the surface. The mind is the surface of existence; they work on the surface and they try to find the Truth that is behind by studying more and more deeply. Whereas... The Mind Mind: Only an Instrument Mind: its true worth depends on its surrender to the Divine. Purified mind: mind ready to surrender to the Divine. Mental surrender: this happens when the mind has understood that it is only an instrument. Conversion of the mind: the mind has liberated itself from its arrogance and knows it is only an instrument. Clear mind: the... more we can see that we do not know. Quiet Mind, Calm Mind, Silent Mind Quiet mind: the best way of learning. Perfect quietness in the mind: essential condition for true progress. Quietness established in the mind: the essential condition of its transformation. You should not confuse a calm mind with a silent mind. You can calm your mind and stop its ordinary activity, but it may ...
... Spirit by forcing on them a crude identity with the summary notions of law and justice, the crude and often savagely primitive methods of reward and punishment, lure and deterrent dear to the surface human mind. There is here a more authentic and spiritual truth at the base of Nature's action and a far less mechanically calculable movement. Here is no rigid and narrow ethical law bound down to a petty... himself obliged to reject body, to silence mind, and to draw back from life. It is that urgent necessity, that inability of mind and life and body to hold and answer to the spirit that is the secret of asceticism, the philosophical justification of the illusionist, the compulsion that moves the eremite and the recluse. If on the other hand he tries to spiritualise mind and life and the body he finds in the... Infinite; it is the long and multiform way of the progression of the individual and the cosmic soul in Nature. Its complexities cannot be unravelled by our physical mind ever bound up in the superficial appearance, nor by our vital mind of desire stumbling Page 428 forward in the cloud of its own instincts and longings and rash determinations through the maze of these myriad favouring and ...
... that our body's sleep by no means connotes the sleep of our whole being nor the total abeyance of all consciousness. As a matter of fact our inner being is always awake and it is only the surface physical mind's waking activity or its cessation that determines the waking or sleep of common parlance. Thus, in ordinary sleep, when this activity ceases for a period, our physical body falls into... of our existence. The subliminal in us, as we have mentioned before (Chapter III), is our concealed inner being comprising an inner mind and inner life and inner physical with the soul or psychic entity supporting them all. It "is not, like our surface physical being, an outcome of the energy of the Inconscient; it is a meeting place of the consciousness that emerges from below by evolution... fundamental disparity between the recording surface subconscient left in the sleeping body and the deeper realms of our consciousness. Thus when we enter in sleep our subliminal mental, vital or subtle-physical, the experiences therein are for all practical purposes lost to our waking consciousness because of the absence of any active connection with the surface parts of us. "If we are still in the nearer ...
... the physical mind which engenders this routine wheel of suggestions is shut up in surface appearances and knows nothing of deeper truth or the things of Page 31 the spirit. There is plenty of "increment", but with this superficial part of the physical mind it is not likely or possible that you can see it. Your impression of the dwindling light is also an impression of this mind natural to... long time. It is easier to have a quiet mind with things that come in passing on the surface, as people pass in the street, and one is free to attend to them or not—that is to say, there develops a sort of double mind, one inner silent and concentrated when it pleases to be so, a quiet witness when it chooses to see thoughts and things,—the other meant for surface dynamism. It is probable in your case... certitude. At present there is still too much of the old physical mind for perceptions to be always right. As the Peace and Force take direct and complete possession of the physical consciousness, this will change and the consciousness develop more surely and with a greater light. To get rid of the random thoughts of the surface physical mind is not easy. It is sometimes done by a sudden miracle, as ...
... a secret cosmic consciousness and an individual consciousness manifest on the surface. The secret cosmic consciousness remains secret and subliminal to the surface individual; it organises itself on the surface by the creation of separate objects and beings. But while it organises the separate object and the body and mind of the individual being, it creates also collective powers of consciousness which... virtue of this unity, the knowledge of the universe must lead the mind of man to the same large revelation. For he cannot know Nature as Matter and Force and Life without being driven to scrutinise the relation of mental consciousness with these principles, and once he knows the real nature of mind, he must go inevitably beyond every surface appearance. He must discover the will and intelligence secret... It follows at once that the knowledge we have to arrive at is not truth of the intellect; it is not right belief, right opinions, right information about oneself and things,—that is only the surface mind's idea of knowledge. To arrive at some mental conception about God and ourselves and the world is an object good for the intellect but not large enough for the Spirit; it will not make us the conscious ...
... psychic sense or a direct mental perception or by a very sensible and often intensely concrete reception of them into our mind or on its recording surface. At the same time we can consciously make at least the inner selves and, if they are sufficiently sensitive, the surface minds of others aware of our own inner mental or psychic self and plastic to its thoughts, suggestions, influences or even cast... even of our surface consciousness is directly projected from them and without our knowing it influences our subjective experience of things. There is a range of independent vital or pranic experiences behind, subliminal to and other than the surface action of the vitalised physical consciousness. And when this opens itself or acts in any way, there are made manifest to the waking mind the phenomena... instrument, with the universal mind and psychical being. This has two results of great importance. First, the phenomena of the psychical sense and mind lose the fragmentariness and incoherence or else difficult regulation and often quite artificial order which pursues them even more Page 880 than it pursues our more normal mental activities of the surface, and they become the harmonious ...
... depend on men, on nations. Auroville is the first step towards this goal. + Feb.. 1968 * Page 18 In modern civilisation, men work on the surface. The mind is the surface of existence; they work on the surface and they try to find the Truth that is behind by studying more and more deeply. Whereas the true method is to enter into direct contact with the inner Truth, and impelled... the stand that it is only by a change of consciousness that the true basis of life can be discovered; from within outward is indeed the rule. But within does not mean some quarter inch behind the surface. One must go deep and find the soul, the self, the Divine Reality within us and only then can life become a true expression of what we can be instead of a blind and always repeated confused blur of... make an effort for transformation, to seek sincerity, it is possible. From animal to man, thousands of years were needed; today, with his mind, man can will and hasten a transformation towards a man who shall be God. This transformation by the help of the mind—by self-analysis —is a first step; afterwards, it is necessary to transform the vital impulses: that is much more difficult, and especially ...
... are closed in the ordinary consciousness or else only very slightly open on the surface. If the inner mind centre opens, then the peace etc. from above can enter easily into the mind and afterwards into the vital and both mind and vital will become quiet. Page 203 The difficulty about the two parts of the mind is one that everybody has when the tendency to go within begins. It is solved in... feature is the self-manifestation of the inner mind; for it was your inner mind that was watching, observing and criticising the vital being's psychic experience. You found this clear division in you curious, but it will no longer seem curious once you know the perfectly normal divisibility of the different parts of the being. In the outer surface nature mind, psychic, vital, physical are all jumbled together... breaking up of the small surface vital into the largeness of the true or inner vital being which can at once open to the Higher Consciousness, its power, light and Ananda. There is also begun a similar breaking of the small physical mind and sense into the wideness of the inner physical consciousness. The inner planes are always wide and open into the Universal while the outer surface parts of the being ...
... al power from so many European tongues and become multiform, complex, subtilised, armed with almost endless potentiality, ensouled with a flexible universality behind or below its Anglo-Saxon surface of mind and has in the last two centuries received a distinctly Vedantic influence — even if unlabelled as such — through Wordsworth and Shelley and AE and carried touches of the occult through Blake and... "epic" or "narrative" has been raised, I may say a few things. Why should we stick to old norms? We may pick out the essence and reject or go beyond the appearance. To me "epic" is a certain frame of mind and a certain tone of voice. The subject proper is secondary and so too is the mode of treatment or development. As for the basic subject, I see little in common between the wrath of Achilles and Man's... can be epic, I see no reason to doubt the epic character of Savitri . And why do we consider Paradise Lost and La Divina Commedia epic? Like Homer's and Virgil's works, they bring a frame of mind marked by a high seriousness, a cosmic outlook on life in general and a weaving together of many strains of knowledge. Then there is the tone of voice, which links together the utterances of various ...
... power from so many European tongues and become multiform, complex, subtilised, armed with almost endless potentiality, ensouled with a flexible universality behind or below its Anglo-Saxon surface of mind and has in the last two centuries received a distinctly Vedantic influence - even if unlabelled as -such - through Wordsworth and Shelley and A.E. and carried touches of the occult through Blake... raised, I may say a few things. Why should we stick to Page 185 old norms? We may pick out the essence and reject or go beyond the appearance. To me "epic" is a certain frame of mind and a certain tone of voice. The subject proper is secondary and so too is the mode of treatment or development. As for the basic subject, I see little in common between the wrath of Achilles and... can be epic, I see no reason to doubt the epic character of Savitri. And why do we consider Paradise Lost and La Divina Commedia epic? Like Homer's and Virgil's works, they bring a frame of mind marked by a high seriousness, a cosmic outlook on life in general and a weaving together of many strains of knowledge. Then there is the tone of voice, which links together the utterances of various ...
... precise information, we shall know more clearly now. In any case surrealism is part of an increasing attempt of the European mind to escape from the surface consciousness (in poetry as well as in painting and in thought) and grope after a deeper truth of things which is not on the surface. The Dream Consciousness as it is called—meaning not merely what we see in dreams, but the inner consciousness in which... strata nearest to the surface. Dream-consciousness is a vast world in which there are a multitude of provinces Page 426 and kingdoms, but ordinary dreamers for the most part penetrate consciously only to these first layers which belong to what may properly be called the subconscious belt. When they pass into deeper sleep regions, their recording surface dream mind becomes unconscious and... the ideas, images, symbols do not follow the line of the intellect, its logic or its intuitive connections, but are pushed out on the mind from some obscure subliminal depth or mist-hung shallow; they have connections of their own which are not those of the surface intelligence. One has to read them not with the intellect but with the solar plexus, try not to understand but feel the meaning. The surrealist ...
... gods taken generally & in their collective activity. They are described as ghritaprishthá manoyujah, richly bright of surface and yoked to mind, which immediately recalls the dhiyam ghritáchím sádhantá of the second hymn. In both passages mental activity & a rich luminosity of mind are suggested as the preliminary necessity of the sacrifice; in both we find the progression from this idea to the expression... anointed with the shining ghee is in symbol the fullness of the mind clarified & purified, continuously bright & just in its activity, without flaw or crevice, richly bright of surface & therefore receiving without distortion the messages of the ideal faculty? It is in this clear, pure & rightly ordered state of his thinking & emotional mind that man gets the first taste of the immortal life to which he... twá vahanti vahnayah Á devántsomapítaye Tán yajatr án ritávridho agne patnívatas kridhi Madhvah sujihva páyaya “Bring for the drinking of the Soma the gods, who, bright of surface, yoked to the mind, as thy bearers, bear thee along; them in their sacrificial place do thou, O Agni, make to increase in truth and join to them their female powers; O sweet-tongued, make them to drink of the ...
... ordinary consciousness one is not aware of these things; the effects come into the surface being, but the cause and process remain unknown and unnoticed because the interchange is subtle and covert, it takes place through what is called the subconscient, but is rather a behind-consciousness covered by the surface waking mind. When one gets into a certain Yogic consciousness, one becomes very much aware... confining their movements to the individual's mind or body but moving out very much like the "waves" of science and communicating themselves to anyone who can serve as a receiver. Just as people are not conscious of the material waves, so it is and still more with these mental or vital waves; but if the subtle mind and senses become active on the surface—and that is what takes place in Yoga—then the... that the way to "build a wall" against anything undesirable? It is a wall of consciousness that one has to build. Consciousness is not something abstract, it is like existence itself or ananda or mind or prana, something very concrete. If one becomes aware of the inner consciousness, one can do all sorts of things with it, send it out as a stream of force, erect a circle or wall of consciousness ...
... mental logic. Transitions that are hardly palpable on the surface? Not palpable on the surface, but palpable to a deeper vision. Or do they have no link or reason at all, and come in just as vital dreams come in? How do you say that vital dreams have no link or reason? They have their own coherence, only the physical mind cannot always get at the clue by following which the coherence... information, we shall know more clearly now. In any case, surrealism is part of an increasing attempt of the European mind to escape from the surface consciousness (in poetry as well as in painting and in thought) and grope after a deeper truth of things which is not on the surface. The Dream-Consciousness as it is called—meaning not merely what we see in dreams, but the inner consciousness in which... which are the strata nearest to the surface. Dream-consciousness is a vast world in which there are a multitude of provinces and kingdoms, but ordinary dreamers for the most part penetrate consciously only to these first layers which belong to what may properly be called the subconscious belt. When they pass into deeper sleep regions, their recording surface dream-mind becomes unconscious and no longer ...
... ordinary consciousness one is not aware of these things; the effects come into the surface being, but the cause and process remain unknown and unnoticed because the interchange is subtle and covert, it takes place through what is called the subconscient, but is rather a behind-consciousness covered by the surface waking mind. When one gets into a certain Yogic consciousness, one becomes very much aware... their movements to the individual's mind or body but moving out very much like the "waves" of science and communicating themselves to anyone who can serve as a receiver. Just as people Page 336 are not conscious of the material waves, so it is and still more with these mental or vital waves; but if the subtle mind and senses become active on the surface—and that is what takes place in Yoga—then... about on the surface—will it lead to anything? It does not look like it. It is not a physical retirement that is needed, but an inner detachment from the mental formations and vital desires. To find the real self above and within and live in that, not in the mind's conceptions or the vital's reactions. These must be observed and looked at not as one's own but as movements of a surface ignorant nature ...
... information, we shall know more clearly now. In any case surrealism is part of an increasing attempt of the European mind to escape from the surface consciousness (in poetry as well as in painting and in thought) and grope after a deeper truth of things which is not on the surface. The Dream consciousness as it is called—meaning not merely what we see in dreams, but the inner consciousness in which... dream poetry (let us call it so for the nonce) has and must always have a meaning and a coherence. But it may very well be obscure or seem meaningless to those who take their stand on the surface or "waking" mind and accept only its links and its logic. Dream poetry is usually full of images, visions, symbols, phrases that seek to strike at things too deep for the ordinary means of expression. Nirod... kingdoms, but ordinary dreamers penetrate consciously only to these layers which belong to what may properly be called sub- conscious. When they pass into sleep beyond these, the recording surface dream-mind becomes unconscious and gives no transcript of what is seen and experienced there, or else in coming back these fade away and are quite forgotten before one reaches the waking state. But when ...
... feature is the self-manifestation of the inner mind; for it was your inner mind that was watching, observing and criticising the vital being's psychic experience. You found this clear division in you curious, but it will no longer seem curious once you know the perfectly normal divisibility of the different parts of the being. In the outer surface nature, mind, psychic, vital, physical are all jumbled together... the cycle in future the moment they try to come. Never mind, what circumstances or justifications they may allege. Nothing is more dangerous than the inferences of the physical mind trying to build up conclusions upon outward appearances—they have nine chances out of ten of being false. One must learn to distrust hasty conclusions from surface appearances—is not that the first condition of true knowledge... less in the outer vital and mental which is exposed to these touches. The inmost psychic being is not oppressed by them; it stands in its own closeness to the Divine and sees the small surface movements as surface things foreign to the true being. _________________________ 1. Nolini Kanto Gupta (13 January 1889 - 7 February 1984), a revolutionary. He was arrested and tried in the Alipore Bomb ...
... improvement. To get rid of the random thoughts of the surface physical mind is not easy. It is sometimes done by a sudden miracle as in my own case, but that is rare. Some get it done by a slow process of concentration, but that may take a very long time. It is easier to have a quiet mind with things that come in passing on the surface, as people pass in the street, and one is free to attend to... ordinary surface think ing is not of that kind, there is in it more waste of energy than in anything else. It is in the thought that comes in a quiet or silent mind that there is power. 'Talk less and gain power" has essentially the same meaning. Not only a truer knowledge, but a greater power comes to one in the quietude and silence of a mind that, instead of bubbling on the surface, can go into... That all begins to be profoundly luminous, intimately intelligible. I have once before told you what I think of the ineffective peckings of certain well-intentioned scientific minds on the surface or apparent surface of the spiritual Reality behind things and I need not elaborate it here. Krishnaprem's prognostic of a greater danger coming in the new attack by the adversary against the validity ...
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