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Read Summary of '''[[Self Observation Summary|Self Observation]]'''
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= Importance of What is Self-Observation =
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">There are four necessities of man's self-expansion if he is not to remain this being We have in all functionings of the surface ignorance seeking obscurely after mentality four elements, the truth object of things and collecting and systematising fragments and sections mental consciousness, the act of knowledgemental consciousness, the small limited occasion and halfthe subject. In the self-competent creature experience of the cosmic Force which he now self-observing inner being, the object is in his phenomenal nature. He must know himself and discover and utilise all his potentialities: but to know himself and always some state or movement or wave of the world completely he must go behind his own and its exteriorconscious being, anger, he must dive deep below his own mental surface and the physical surface of Nature. This he can only do by knowing his inner mentalgrief or other emotion, hunger or other vitalcraving, physical and psychic being and its powers and movements and the universal laws and processes impulse or inner life reaction or some form of sensation, perception or thought activity. The act is some kind of the occult Mind mental observation and Life which stand behind the material front conceptual valuation of the universe….But this knowledge must be something more than a creed movement or wave or else a mystic revelation; his thinking mind must mental sensation of it in which observation and valuation may be able to accept it, to correlate it with the principle of things involved and the observed truth of the universe: this is the work of philosophyeven lost, and —so that in this act the field of mental person may either separate the truth of act and the spirit it can only be done object by a spiritual philosophy, whether intellectual in its method distinguishing perception or intuitiveconfuse them together indistinguishably. (The Mother, 18 June 1958) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0921/18memory-juneego-1958and-self-experience#p3p5</ref></span>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>The Upanishad tells us that the Self-existent has so set the doors of the soul that they turn outwards and most men look outward into the appearances of things; only the rare soul that is ripe for a calm thought and steady wisdom turns its eye inward, sees the Self and attains to immortality. To this turning of the eye inward psychological self-observation and ~</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">analysis is a great and effective introduction. We can look into the inward of ourselves more easily than we can look into the inward of things external to us because there, in things outside us, we are in the first place embarrassed by the form and secondly we have no natural previous experience of that in them which is other than their physical substance….psychological self-knowledge is only the experience of the modes of the Self, it is not the realisation of the Self in its pure being. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-status-of-knowledge#p7</ref></spancenter>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The true and ultimateYou may have a mental power of observation, as distinguished from the immediate or intermediate importance a vital power of our observingobservation, reasoninga physical power of observation. When you observe ideas, inquiringfor instance, judging intelligence is that it prepares the human being for train of ideas, the right reception and right action logic of a Light from above which must progressively replace in him the obscure light from below that guides the animal..Man can bring an enlightened willideas, an enlightened thought and enlightened emotions to it is not altogether the difficult work same power of his self-development; he can more observation as when you look at a friend doing athletics and more subject to these more conscious and reflecting guides the inferior function of desire. In proportion as see whether he can thus master and enlighten is making his lower selfmovements correctly or not. That is, he the capacity of attention is man and no longer an animal. When he can begin to replace desire altogether by a still greater enlightened thought and sight and will there in touch with the Infiniteboth cases, consciously subject to but it works in a diviner will than his own, linked to a more universal and transcendent knowledge, he has commenced different field. It can't be said that it is one part of the ascent towards being observing the supermanothers; he it is the faculty of observation developing in each part of the being—that is on his upward march towards , the Divinefaculty of concentration and attention. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2306/self27-january-consecration1954#p17p34</ref></span>
= What to Observe =<center>~</center>
== Many voices ==This sensational thought-mind which is based upon sense, memory, association, first ideas and resultant generalisations or secondary ideas, is common to all developed animal life and mentality….The intelligence and will of the animal are involved in the sense-mind and therefore altogether governed by it and carried on its stream of sensations, sense-perceptions, impulses; it is instinctive. Man is able to use a reason and will, a self-observing, thinking and all-observing, an intelligently willing mind which is no longer involved in the sense-mind, but acts from above and behind it in its own right, with a certain separateness and freedom. He is reflective, has a certain relative freedom of intelligent will. He has liberated in himself and has formed into a separate power the buddhi. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/purification-intelligence-and-will#p4</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>There are many voices, and all are not divine; this may be only a voice of desire. All that keeps one faithful to the Truth and insists on peace, purity, devotion, sincerity, a spiritual change of the nature can be listened to with profit; the rest must be observed with discrimination and not followed blindly. Keep the fire of aspiration burning, but avoid all impatient haste. ~</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/inner-voices-and-indication</refcenter>
== The three Guna’s ==ordinary mind knows itself only as an ego with all the movements of the nature in a jumble and, identifying itself with these movements, thinks "I am doing this, feeling that, thinking, in joy or in sorrow etc." The first beginning of real self-knowledge is when you feel yourself separate from the nature in you and its movements and then you see that there are many parts of your being, many personalities each acting on its own behalf and in its own way. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-psychic-being#p84</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>The idea of the three essential modes of Nature is a creation of the ancient Indian thinkers and its truth is not at once obvious, because it was the result of long psychological experiment and profound internal experience. Therefore without a long inner experience, without intimate self-observation and intuitive perception of the Nature-forces it is difficult to grasp accurately or firmly utilise. Still certain broad indications may help the seeker on the Way of Works to understand, analyse and control by his assent or refusal the ~</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">combinations of his own nature. These modes are termed in the Indian books qualities, guṇas, and are given the names sattva, rajas, tamas. Sattwa is the force of equilibrium and translates in quality as good and harmony and happiness and light; rajas is the force of kinesis and translates in quality as struggle and effort, passion and action; tamas is the force of inconscience and inertia and translates in quality as obscurity and incapacity and inaction. Ordinarily used for psychological self-analysis, these distinctions are valid also in physical Nature. Each thing and every existence in the lower Prakriti contains them and its process and dynamic form are the result of the interaction of these qualitative powers.</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-three-modes-of-nature#p2</refcenter>
= Process of Self-'''Active and Passive Observation ='''
<span style="background-color:transparentYour consciousness becomes a screen or mirror;color:#000000;">You project yourself on the screen and then observe and see all that but this is moving there and how it moves and what happens. You make a little diagram, it becomes so interesting then. And then, after a while, when you are quite accustomed to seeing, you can go one step further and take in a decision. Or even a still greater step: you organise—arrange, take up all that, put each thing in its placestate of contemplation, organise in such a way that mere observer; when you begin to have a straight movement with an inner meaning. And then you become conscious of your direction and are able to say: "Very wellactive, it will be thus; my life will develop in that way, because that is the logic of my beinglike a searchlight. Now, I You have arranged all that within meonly to turn it on, each thing has been put if you want to see luminously and examine penetratingly anything in its any place, and so naturally a central orientation is forming. I am following this orientation. One step more and I know what will happen to me for I myself am deciding it....". (The Mother, 29 July 1953) </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0503/2930-julyjune-19531929#p47p7</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">But you must begin when very small, and consciously, very consciously; you must begin with a see of observation of all the movements in yourself, of their relation with others, of—precisely, of your degree of independence, real individuality, of knowing where impulses come from, where other movements come from: whether it '''Observation is contagion from outside or something that arises from within yourself. A very profound study of all the movements in oneself is necessary in order to succeed simply in crystallising a being who is a little conscious, a little conscious. (The Mother, 22 September 1954) </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/22-september-1954#p43</ref>Not Discernment'''
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">It is For the capacity of observation must not a physical retirement that be confused with the capacity of discernment. Discernment is needed, but an inner detachment from the mental formations and vital desiresintellectual capacity. To find Something like a judgment already enters into it, what we call "discrimination": you can distinguish between the real self above origin of one thing and within of another, and live in that, not in the mind's conceptions or the vital's reactionsreciprocal value of these things. These must But that ought to be observed and looked at not as one's own but as movements founded on a correct observation. The power of a surface ignorant natureobservation comes first, discernment follows. </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/3103/interactions-with-others-and30-the-practice-ofjune-yoga1929#p111p7</ref>
= Conditions for Self-Observation =What to Observe ==
== Quiet Mind ==One can prepare the body through a series of observations, studies, understandings,by showing it examples, making it understand things as one makes a child understand them, either by observing its own movements―but generally, in this, one is comparatively blind!―or by observing those of others. And in a more general way, this preparation will be based on recognised studies, on clear facts. Like this, for instance: that a certain number of persons, placed in exactly similar circumstances, experience, each one of them, very different effects. One may go even further: in a given set of definite circumstances, there is a certain number of particular, definite individuals, in apparently quite identical conditions, and for some the effects are catastrophic, while others escape without any harm. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/4-july-1956#p15</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">It is only when we follow the yogic process of quieting the mind itself that a profounder result '''Parts of our self-observation becomes possible. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/indeterminates-cosmic-determinations-and-the-indeterminable#p12</ref></span>Being '''
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000Have you ever practised distinguishing what comes from your mind, what comes from your vital, what comes from your physical?... For it is mixed up;">It it is mixed up in the quiet mind outward appearance. If you do not take care to distinguish, it makes a kind of soup, all that the true observation together. So it is indistinct and knowledge difficult to discover. But if you observe yourself, after some time you see certain things, you feel them to be there, like that, as though they were in your skin; for some other things you feel you would have to go within yourself to find out from where they come; for other things, you have to go still further inside, or otherwise you have to rise up a little: it comes from unconsciousness. And there are others; then you must go very deep, very deep to find out from where they come. This is just a beginning. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2905/quiet10-andjune-calm1953#p40p31</ref></span>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">A quiet mind does not mean that there will be no thoughts or mental movements at all, but that these will be on '''Observing the surface and you will feel your true being within separate from them, observing but not carried away, able to watch and judge them and reject all that has to be rejected and to accept and keep to all that is true consciousness and true experience. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/peace#p10</ref></span>Inner Being'''
<span style="backgroundFor a larger mental being is there within us, a larger inner vital being, even a larger inner subtle-physical being other than our surface body-color:transparent;color:#000000;">But if you remain very quietconsciousness, and by entering into this or becoming it, only if you observe—as though you were silently looking at somethingidentifying ourselves with it, you understand—then you will begin seeing more preciselywe can observe the springs of our thoughts and feelings, the sources and little by little distinguishing between different categories motives of thingsour action, the operative energies that build up our surface personality. You will be able For we discover and can know the inner being that secretly thinks and perceives in us, the vital being that secretly feels and acts upon life through us, the subtle-physical being that secretly receives and responds to know what one thing is the contacts of things through our body and what another etcits organs.Our surface thought, feeling, whether it comes emotion is a complexity and confusion of impulsions from you or within and impacts from outsideus; our reason, whether our organising intelligence can impose on it is on a material plane or on another plane. All this is learnt through a very quiet observation, quiet only an imperfect order: but very sharphere within we find the separate sources of our mental, you understand; because there are very tiny shadesour vital and our physical energisms and can see clearly the pure operations, very tiny, between different thingsthe distinct powers, the composing elements of each and when you get used to distinguishing these nuances, you can discern exactly what it istheir interplay in a clear light of self-vision. (The Mother, 20 October 1954) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0621/20knowledge-by-identity-and-octoberseparative-1954knowledge#p46p12</ref></span>
== Silence =='''The Three Modes of Nature'''
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">It The idea of the three essential modes of Nature is really an inner silence that a creation of the ancient Indian thinkers and its truth is needed—a something silent within that looks not at outer talk once obvious, because it was the result of long psychological experiment and action but feels profound internal experience. Therefore without a long inner experience, without intimate self-observation and intuitive perception of the Nature-forces it is difficult to grasp accurately or firmly utilise. Still certain broad indications may help the seeker on the Way of Works to understand, analyse and control by his assent or refusal the combinations of his own nature. These modes are termed in the Indian books qualities, guṇas, and are given the names sattva, rajas, tamas. Sattwa is the force of equilibrium and translates in quality as something superficialgood and harmony and happiness and light; rajas is the force of kinesis and translates in quality as struggle and effort, not passion and action; tamas is the force of inconscience and inertia and translates in quality as itself obscurity and is quite indifferent incapacity and untouched by itinaction. Ordinarily used for psychological self-analysis, these distinctions are valid also in physical Nature. It can bring forces to support speech Each thing and action or it can stop every existence in the lower Prakriti contains them by withdrawal or it can let them go on and observe without being involved or movedits process and dynamic form are the result of the interaction of these qualitative powers. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/3123/speechthe-andthree-modes-of-yoganature#p76p2</ref></span>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">...You must be able to silence your head absolutely and be completely detached, not to have (for example, when you are looking for the solution of a problem), not to have already in your head the solution that seems to you right or the best or most profitable. That must not be there. You must become absolutely like a blank paper, with nothing on it. And you proceed in that way, with a very sincere aspiration to know the truth, without assuming beforehand that it will be like this or like that; because otherwise you will see only your own formation. The very first condition is that the head must keep completely silent during the time one is observing. (The Mother , 30 September 1953) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/30-september-1953#p13</ref></span>'''Dreams'''
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">To silence Now the mind it is not enough procedure to throw back each thought as it comes, that can only be a subordinate movementdeal with dreams and the dreamland. First become conscious—conscious of your dreams. One must get back from all thought Observe the relation between them and be separate from it, a silent consciousness observing the thoughts if they comehappenings of your waking hours. If you remember your night, but not oneself thinking or identified with the thoughts. Thoughts must you will be felt as outside things altogether. It is then easier able to reject thoughts or let them pass without their disturbing trace back very often the quietude condition of your day to the mindcondition of your night. In sleep some action or other is always going on in your mental or vital or other plane; things happen there and they govern your waking consciousness. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/3103/interactions-with-others21-andapril-the-practice-of-yoga1929#p99p6</ref></span>
= Right Attitude for Self-Observation =<center>~</center>
== Witness Attitude ==It is a tremendous field of observation—there is no end to the discoveries you can make in your dreams. But there is one important point: you must not go to sleep when you are very tired, for if you do, you fall into a sort of unconsciousness in which dreams do whatever they like with you, and you have no reaction. Just as I said that you should not eat without having taken rest, I would advise everyone to rest before going to sleep. And for that, you must know how to rest. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/1-february-1951#p14</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Have you never felt this? As though you were a little behind or above things, and were looking at them taking place but were not doing anything yourself? Witness means an observer, someone who looks on and does not act himself. So, when the mind is very quiet, one can withdraw a little in this way from circumstances and look at things as though he were a witness, a spectator, and not participating in the action himself. This gives you a great detachment, a great quietude, and also a very precise see of the value of things, because it cuts the attachment to action. When you know how to do this with yourself, when you can withdraw and watch yourself acting, you learn many things about yourself. When you are all mixed up and take part in the action, you do not observe yourself acting, you don't know what you are like. But when you draw back and look at yourself, you can perceive many imperfections which you wouldn't have seen otherwise. (The Mother,13 October 1954) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/13-october-1954#p2</refcenter>~</spancenter>
As the inner consciousness grows by sadhana, these dream experiences increase in number, clearness, coherence, accuracy and after some growth of experience and consciousness, we can, if we observe, come to understand them and their significance to our inner life. Even we can by training become so conscious as to follow our own passage, usually veiled to our awareness and memory, through many realms and the process of the return to the waking state. At a certain pitch of this inner wakefulness this kind of sleep, a sleep of experiences, can replace the ordinary subconscient slumber. <span style="backgroundref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/three-experiences-of-the-inner-color:transparent;color:being#000000;"p6</ref>It has been seen that a most effective way   [[#top|Back to Contents]] = Why is Self-Observation Important? = ...if he [man] is not to remain this being of purification is for the mental Purusha to draw backsurface ignorance seeking obscurely after the truth of things and collecting and systematising fragments and sections of knowledge, to stand as the passive witness small limited and observe half-competent creature of the cosmic Force which he now is in his phenomenal nature. He must know himself and discover and utilise all his potentialities: but to know himself and the workings world completely he must go behind his own and its exterior, he must dive deep below his own mental surface and the physical surface of Nature in . This he can only do by knowing his inner mental, vital, physical and psychic being and its powers and movements and the universal laws and processes of the occult Mind and Life which stand behind the lower, material front of the normal beinguniverse. ...But this knowledge must be something more than a creed or a mystic revelation; but this his thinking mind must be combined, for perfectionable to accept it, to correlate it with a will to raise the purified nature into principle of things and the observed truth of the higher spiritual being. When that universe: this is donethe work of philosophy, and in the field of the truth of the Purusha is no longer spirit it can only be done by a witnessspiritual philosophy, but also the master of his prakriti, īśvarawhether intellectual in its method or intuitive. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2409/the-action-of-the18-divinejune-shakti1958#p7p3</ref> <center>~</spancenter>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The witness Purusha in To work for your perfection, the first step is to become conscious of yourself, of the mind observes different parts of your being and their respective activities. You must learn to distinguish these different parts one from another, so that you may become clearly aware of the inadequacy origin of his effortthe movements that occur in you, all the inadequacy in fact of many impulses, reactions and conflicting wills that drive you to action. It is an assiduous study which demands much perseverance and sincerity. For man's life and nature arises from the separation , especially his mental nature, has a spontaneous tendency to give a favourable explanation for everything he thinks, feels, says and does. It is only by observing these movements with great care, by bringing them, as it were, before the consequent struggletribunal of our highest ideal, with a sincere will to submit to its judgment, that we can hope to form in ourselves a discernment that never errs. For if we truly want to progress and acquire the capacity of knowledge, want knowing the truth of harmonyour being, want of oneness. It that is essential to say, what we are truly created for him to grow out , what we can call our mission upon earth, then we must, in a very regular and constant manner, reject from us or eliminate in us whatever contradicts the truth of separative individualityour existence, whatever is opposed to universalise himselfit. In this way, little by little, all the parts, to make himself one with all the universeelements of our being can be organised into a homogeneous whole around our psychic centre. This work of unification can requires much time to be done only through the soul by making our soul brought to some degree of mind one perfection. Therefore, in order to accomplish it, we must arm ourselves with the universal Mindpatience and endurance, with a determination to prolong our soul of life one with as long as necessary for the universal Life-soul, success of our soul of body one with the universal soul of physical Natureendeavour. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2412/the-perfectionscience-of-the-mental-beingliving#p15p5</ref></span>
== Being Sincere and Impartial ==<center>~</center>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">For that you must be absolutely sincere and impartial. You must observe yourself as … if you were observing and criticising a third person. You must not start each element which comes with an idea that this its ignorance, its unconsciousness, its egoism, is your life's missionput before the will to change and one remains awake, compares, this is your particular capacityobserves, studies and slowly acts, this you are to do or that you are to dobecomes infinitely interesting, one makes marvellous and quite unexpected discoveries. One finds in this lies your talent or geniusoneself lots of small hidden folds, etc. That will carry you away from the right track. It is little things one had not seen at the liking or disliking beginning; one undertakes a sort of your external beinginner chase, your mental or vital or physical choice that determines the true line of your growth. Nor should you take up the opposite attitude goes hunting into small dark corners and saytells oneself: "What, "I am good for nothing was like that! This was there in this matterme, I am useless in that one; harbouring this little thing"—sometimes so sordid, so mean, so nasty. And once it has been discovered, how wonderful! One puts the light upon it is not for me." Neither vanity and arrogance nor self-depreciation it disappears and false modesty should move you. As I saidno longer have those reactions which made you so sad before, when you must be absolutely impartial and unconcernedused to say, "Oh! I shall never get there. You should be like a mirror that reflects the truth and does not judge. (The Mother ,12 November 1952) </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/1504/1219-novemberapril-19521951#p6p14</ref>
== Being Vigilant ==<center>~</center>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">One can be quiet, happy, cheerful without being all If you had that in a light or shallow way—and observation (from the happiness need inner spiritual, not bring any vital reaction. All that the outer intellectual and ethical viewpoint), then it would be comparatively easy for you need to do is get out of your difficulties; for instance you would find at once where this irrational impulse to be observant flee away came from and vigilantit would not have any hold upon you. Of course,—watchful so all that you may not give assent can only be done to wrong movements or the return of the old feelings, darkness, confusion etc. Not fear, but vigilance. If best effect when you remain vigilant, then with stand back from the increase play of your nature and become the Witness-Control or the Force upholding Spectator-Actor Manager. But that is what happens when you, a power take this kind of self-control will come, a power to see and reject the wrong turn or the wrong reaction when it comesseeing posture. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/fearmental-difficulties-and-the-need-of-quietude#p12p23</ref></span>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">But you have only to observe yourselves... you can observe yourself, catch yourself at least a hundred times a day, with a mind which decides everything, knows everything, judges everything, knows very well what is good, what bad, what is true, what false, what is right... And also how one should act, what this person should have done, how to resolve that problem.... All men know, you see... If they were at the head of governments, for instance, they would know very well how to manage everything! But people don't listen to them... that's all! (The Mother,21 July 1954) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/21-july-1954#p40</refcenter>~</spancenter>
== Becoming Aware The true and ultimate, as distinguished from the immediate or intermediate importance of Desire ==our observing, reasoning, inquiring, judging intelligence is that it prepares the human being for the right reception and right action of a Light from above which must progressively replace in him the obscure light from below that guides the animal. ...Man can bring an enlightened will, an enlightened thought and enlightened emotions to the difficult work of his self-development; he can more and more subject to these more conscious and reflecting guides the inferior function of desire. In proportion as he can thus master and enlighten his lower self, he is man and no longer an animal. When he can begin to replace desire altogether by a still greater enlightened thought and sight and will in touch with the Infinite, consciously subject to a diviner will than his own, linked to a more universal and transcendent knowledge, he has commenced the ascent towards the superman; he is on his upward march towards the Divine.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/self-consecration#p17</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">For that you must observe yourself very, very attentively, and if there is anything in you which produces something like a small intense vibration, then you may be sure that there lies a desire. For example, you say, "This food is necessary for me"—you believe, you imagine, you think that you need such and such a thing and you find the necessary means How to obtain the thing. To know if it is a need or a desire, you must look at yourself very closely and ask yourself, "What will happen if I cannot get the thingObserve Oneself?" Then if the immediate answer is, "Oh, it will be very bad", you may be sure that it is a matter of desire. It is the same for everything. For every problem you draw back, look at yourself and ask, "Let us see, am I going to have the thing?" If at that moment something in you jumps up with joy, you may be certain there is a desire. On the other hand, if something tells you, "Oh, I am not going to get it", and you feel very depressed, then again it is a desire. (The Mother, 25 January 1951) </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/25-january-1951#p3</ref>=
== Becoming Conscious ==But you must begin when very small, and consciously, very consciously; you must begin with a sense of observation of all the movements in yourself, of their relation with others, of—precisely, of your degree of independence, real individuality, of knowing where impulses come from, where other movements come from: whether it is contagion from outside or something that arises from within yourself. A very profound study of all the movements in oneself is necessary in order to succeed simply in crystallising a being who is a little conscious, a little conscious. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/22-september-1954#p43</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>But a time comes when instead of doing things automatically, impelled by a consciousness and force of which one is quite unaware—a time comes when one can observe what goes on in oneself, study one's movements, find their causes, and at the same time begin to exercise a control first over what goes on within us, then on the influence cast on us from outside which makes us act, in the beginning altogether unconsciously and almost involuntarily, but gradually more and more consciously; and the will can wake up and react. Then at that moment, the moment there is a conscious will capable of reacting, one may say, "I have become conscious." This does not mean that it is a total and perfect consciousness, it means that it is a beginning: for example, when one is able to observe all the reactions in one's being and to have a certain control over them, to let those one approves of have play, and to control, stop, annul those one doesn't approve of. (The Mother, 28 November 1956) ~</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/28-november-1956#p19</refcenter>
= Limitations You project yourself on the screen and then observe and see all that is moving there and how it moves and what happens. You make a little diagram, it becomes so interesting then. And then, after a while, when you are quite accustomed to seeing, you can go one step further and take a decision. Or even a still greater step: you organise—arrange, take up all that, put each thing in its place, organise in such a way that you begin to have a straight movement with an inner meaning. And then you become conscious of Selfyour direction and are able to say: "Very well, it will be thus; my life will develop in that way, because that is the logic of my being. Now, I have arranged all that within me, each thing has been put in its place, and so naturally a central orientation is forming. I am following this orientation. One step more and I know what will happen to me for I myself am deciding it....". <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/29-july-Observation =1953#p47</ref>
== Surface Level Observation ==<center>~</center>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">As If one begins to find out, to understand what a feeling is and what a general rulethought is, and how it works, then one can already go quite far on the path with a few very rare exceptionsthat. One must at the same time observe how his feelings and thoughts have an action on the body, what the reciprocity is. And then, there is another exercise which consists in looking into oneself for what is persistent, what is lasting, men are content to observe more or less accurately everything that happens around themsomething which makes one say "I", and sometimes within themselveswhich is not the body. For obviously, when one was very small, and to classify all these observations according to then when each year one grows up, if one superficial system takes fairly long distances, for example a distance of logic or another. And about ten years, they call are very different "I"s from what one was when as small as this organisation(gesture), these systemsand then what one is now; it is difficult to say that it is the same person, "knowledge"you see. It If one takes only this, still there is something which has never occurred the feeling of always being the same person. So one must reflect, seek, try to themunderstand what it is. This indeed can lead you far on the path. Then if one also studies the relation between these different things—between thoughts, feelings, they have not even begun to perceive that all their action on the things they seebody, touchthe reciprocal action of the body on these things—and also what it is that says "I" permanently, feelwhat it is that can trace a curve in the movement of the being, experienceif one seeks carefully enough, are false appearances it leads you quite far. Naturally if one seeks far enough and not reality itselfwith enough persistence, one reaches the psychic. </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/1007/aphorism9-march-71955#p3p23</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>It is evident that our state on the surface is indeed a state of knowledge, so far as it goes, but a limited knowledge enveloped and invaded by ignorance and, to a very large extent, by reason of its limitation, itself a kind of ignorance, at best a mixed knowledge-ignorance. It could not be otherwise since our awareness of the world is born of a separative and surface observation with only an indirect means of cognition at its disposal; our knowledge of ourselves, though more direct, is stultified by its restriction to the surface of our being, by an ignorance of our true self, the true sources of our nature, the true motive-forces of our action. It is quite evident that we know ourselves with only a superficial knowledge,—the sources of our consciousness and thought are a mystery; the true nature of our mind, emotions, sensations is a mystery; our cause of being and our end of being, the significance of our life and its activities are a mystery: this could not be if we had a real self-knowledge and a real world-knowledge. ~</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/knowledge-by-identity-and-separative-knowledge#p7</refcenter>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">One throws oneself out all It is not a physical retirement that is needed, but an inner detachment from the time; all mental formations and vital desires. To find the time one lives, as it were, outside oneselfreal self above and within and live in that, not in such a superficial sensation that it is almost the mind's conceptions or the vital's reactions. These must be observed and looked at not as though one were outside oneself. As soon 's own but as one wants even to observe oneself movements of a little, control oneself a little, simply know what is happening, one is always obliged to draw back or pull towards oneself, to pull inwards something which is constantly like that, on the surfaceignorant nature. And it is this surface thing which meets all external contacts, puts you in touch with similar vibrations coming from others. That happens almost outside you. (The Mother , 20 June 1956) </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0831/20interactions-with-others-and-the-practice-juneof-1956yoga#p49p111</ref>
== Ignorance ==<center>~</center>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">As the surface mental entity moving from moment to moment, not observing his essential self but only his relation to his experiences of the Time-movement, When we are in that movement keeping contact with the future from himself Divine or in what appears to be a blank of Ignorance and non-existence but is contact with an unrealised fullness, grasping inner knowledge and experience of being in the presentvision, putting it away in the past which again appears we begin to be a blank of Ignorance and non-existence partly lighted, partly saved and stored up by memory, he puts on see all the aspect circumstances of our life in a thing fleeting new light and uncertain seizing can observe how they all tended without stability upon things fleeting our knowing it towards the growth of our being and uncertain. But in realityconsciousness, towards the work we shall findhad to do, towards some development that had to be made, he is always the same Eternal who is for ever stable and self-possessed in His supramental knowledge and —not only what he seizes on is also for ever stable and eternal; for it is himself that he is mentally experiencing in seemed good, fortunate or successful but the succession of Timestruggles, failures, difficulties, upheavals. </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2129/memorythe-selfdivine-consciousnessgrace-and-the-ignoranceguidance#p15p33</ref>
== Observing Invisible Forces By Vigilance ==
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">If we observe a happeningOne can be quiet, happy, we judge and explain it from the result and from cheerful without being all that in a glimpse of its most external constituents, circumstances light or causes; but each happening is shallow way—and the outcome of a complex nexus of forces which we happiness need not bring any vital reaction. All that you need to do not is to be observant and cannot observevigilant, because all forces are to us invisible,—but they are —watchful so that you may not invisible give assent to wrong movements or the spiritual vision return of the Infinite: some old feelings, darkness, confusion etc. Not fear, but vigilance. If you remain vigilant, then with the increase of them are actualities working to produce or occasion the Force upholding you, a new actualitypower of self-control will come, some are possibles that are near a power to the pre-existent actuals see and in a way included in their aggregate; but there can intervene always new possibilities that suddenly become dynamic potentials and add themselves to reject the nexus, and behind all are imperatives wrong turn or an imperative which these possibilities are labouring to actualisethe wrong reaction when it comes. </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2131/brahman-purusha-ishwara-maya-prakriti-shaktifear#p7p12</ref>
= Personality and Self-Observation =<center>~</center>
== Three Guna’s and SelfBut you have only to observe yourselves... you can observe yourself, catch yourself at least a hundred times a day, with a mind which decides everything, knows everything, judges everything, knows very well what is good, what bad, what is true, what false, what is right... And also how one should act, what this person should have done, how to resolve that problem.... All men know, you see... If they were at the head of governments, for instance, they would know very well how to manage everything! But people don't listen to them... that's all! <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/21-Observation ==july-1954#p40</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>In this progression the first step is a certain detached superiority to the three modes of Nature. The soul is inwardly separated and free from the lower Prakriti, not involved in its coils, indifferent and glad above it. Nature continues to act in the triple round of her ancient habits,—desire, grief and joy attack the heart, the instruments fall into inaction and obscurity and weariness, light and peace come back into the heart and mind and body; but the soul stands unchanged and untouched by these changes. Observing and unmoved by the grief and desire of the lower members, smiling at their joys and their strainings, regarding and unoverpowered by the failing and the darknesses of the thought and the wildness or the weaknesses of the heart and nerves, uncompelled and unattached to the mind's illuminations and its relief and sense of ease or of power in the return of light and gladness, it throws itself into none of these things, but waits unmoved for the intimations of a higher Will and the intuitions of a greater luminous knowledge. ~</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-three-modes-of-nature#p13</refcenter>
= Parts But a time comes when instead of doing things automatically, impelled by a consciousness and Planes force of which one is quite unaware—a time comes when one can observe what goes on in oneself, study one's movements, find their causes, and at the Being =same time begin to exercise a control first over what goes on within us, then on the influence cast on us from outside which makes us act, in the beginning altogether unconsciously and almost involuntarily, but gradually more and more consciously; and the will can wake up and react. Then at that moment, the moment there is a conscious will capable of reacting, one may say, "I have become conscious." This does not mean that it is a total and perfect consciousness, it means that it is a beginning: for example, when one is able to observe all the reactions in one's being and to have a certain control over them, to let those one approves of have play, and to control, stop, annul those one doesn't approve of. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/28-november-1956#p19</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>Have you ever practised distinguishing what comes from your mind, what comes from your vital, what comes from your physical?... For it is mixed up; it is mixed up in the outward appearance. If you do not take care to distinguish, it makes a kind of soup, all that together. So it is indistinct and difficult to discover. But if you observe yourself, after some time you see certain things, you feel them to be there, like that, as though they were in your skin; for some other things you feel you would have to go within yourself to find out from where they come; for other things, you have to go still further inside, or otherwise you have to rise up a little: it comes from unconsciousness. And there are others; then you must go very deep, very deep to find out from where they come. This is just a beginning. (The Mother, 10 June 1953) ~</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/10-june-1953#p31</refcenter>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">To work for Take one hour of your perfectionlife, the first step is to become conscious of yourself, of the different parts of your being and their respective activities. You must learn to distinguish these different parts one from another, so that you may become clearly aware of the origin of the movements that occur in you, the many impulses, reactions and conflicting wills that drive you to action. It which is an assiduous study which demands much perseverance and sincerity. For man's nature, especially his mental nature, has a spontaneous tendency to give a favourable explanation most convenient for everything he thinksyou, feels, says and does. It is only by observing these movements with great care, by bringing them, as it were, before the tribunal of our highest ideal, with a sincere will to submit to its judgment, during that we can hope to form in ourselves a discernment that never errs. For if we truly want to progress time observe yourself closely and acquire the capacity of knowing the truth of our being, that is to say, what we are truly created for, what we can call our mission upon earth, then we must, in a very regular and constant manner, reject from us or eliminate in us whatever contradicts the truth of our existence, whatever is opposed to it. In this way, little by little, all the parts, all the elements of our being can be organised into a homogeneous whole around our psychic centre. This work of unification requires much time to be brought to some degree of perfection. Therefore, in order to accomplish it, we must arm ourselves with patience and endurance, with a determination to prolong our life as long as necessary for only the success of our endeavourabsolutely indispensable words. </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/1203/the-science-of-livinganger#p5p15</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">….You may have = By Developing a mental power of observation, a vital power of observation, a physical power of observation. When you observe ideas, for instance, the train of ideas, the logic of the ideas, it is not altogether the same power of observation as when you look at a friend doing athletics and see whether he is making his movements correctly or not. That is, the capacity of attention is there in both cases, but it works in a different field. It can't be said that it is one part of the being observing the others; it is the faculty of observation developing in each part of the being—that is, the faculty of concentration and attention. For the capacity of observation must not be confused with the capacity of discernment. Discernment is an intellectual capacity. Something like a judgment already enters into it, what we call "discrimination": you can distinguish between the origin of one thing and of another, and the reciprocal value of these things. But that ought to be founded on a correct observation. The power of observation comes first, discernment follows. (The Mother, 27 January 1954) </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/27-january-1954#p34</ref>Quiet Mind ==
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">For a larger mental being It is there within us, a larger inner vital being, even a larger inner subtle-physical being other than our surface body-consciousness, and by entering into this or becoming it, identifying ourselves with it, only when we can observe follow the springs yogic process of our thoughts and feelings, quieting the sources and motives of our action, the operative energies that build up our surface personality. For we discover and can know the inner being that secretly thinks and perceives in us, the vital being that secretly feels and acts upon life through us, the subtle-physical being mind itself that secretly receives and responds to the contacts of things through our body and its organs. Our surface thought, feeling, emotion is a complexity and confusion of impulsions from within and impacts from outside us; our reason, our organising intelligence can impose on it only an imperfect order: but here within we find the separate sources profounder result of our mental, our vital and our physical energisms and can see clearly the pure operations, the distinct powers, the composing elements of each and their interplay in a clear light of self-visionobservation becomes possible. </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/knowledgeindeterminates-bycosmic-identitydeterminations-and-separativethe-knowledgeindeterminable#p12</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>There is a state of being experienced in Yoga in which we become a double consciousness, one on the surface, small, active, ignorant, swayed by thoughts and feelings, grief and joy and all kinds of reactions, the other within calm, vast, equal, observing the surface being with an immovable detachment or indulgence or, it may be, acting upon its agitation to quiet, enlarge, transform it. So too we can rise to a consciousness above and observe the various parts of our being, inner and outer, mental, vital and physical and the subconscient below all, and act upon one or other or the whole from that higher status. It is possible also to go down from that height or from any height into any of these lower states and take its limited light or its obscurity as our place of working while the rest that we are is either temporarily put away or put behind or else kept as a field of reference from which we can get support, sanction or light and influence or as a status into which we can ascend or recede and from it observe the inferior movements. Or we can plunge into trance, get within ourselves and be conscious there while all outward things are excluded; or we can go beyond even this inner awareness and lose ourselves in some deeper other consciousness or some high superconscience. There is also a pervading equal consciousness into which we can enter and see all ourselves with one enveloping glance or omnipresent awareness one and indivisible. ~</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/brahman-purusha-ishwara-maya-prakriti-shakti#p23</refcenter>
== Witness A quiet mind does not mean that there will be no thoughts or mental movements at all, but that these will be on the surface and Parts of Being ==you will feel your true being within separate from them, observing but not carried away, able to watch and judge them and reject all that has to be rejected and to accept and keep to all that is true consciousness and true experience. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/peace#p10</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>It is difficult to say generally what is conscious; but naturally, if something observes, it is always the "witness" element in this part—in each part of the being there is something which is a "witness", which looks on. There is even a physical witness which can get very much in the way; for instance, if it watches you playing, this can paralyse you considerably. There is also a vital witness which looks at you, sees your desires and enjoys highly all that happens; it acts also as a brake. There is the mental witness which judges ideas, which says, "This idea contradicts this other", and which arranges everything. Then there is the great psychic Witness, who is the inner divinity. (The Mother, 22 March 1951) ~</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/22-march-1951#p6</refcenter>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Sometimes there is no relation among these different witnesses—there ought to beThere are four movements which are usually consecutive, but it is not always there. But if there is which in the being a will end may be simultaneous: to become perfectobserve one's thoughts is the first, the relation is established quite quickly; to watch over one can refer to another and finally, if there 's thoughts is a sufficient sincerity, sufficient concentrationthe second, you come to control one's thoughts is the supreme inner Witness who can judge all things. But generally it may be said that it third and to master one's thoughts is always a part of the mindfourth. To observe, more or less enlightenedto watch over, in a little closer contact with the inner beingto control, which observes and judgesto master. (The Mother, 22 March 1951) </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0403/22-marchconjugate-1951verses#p7</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">A man with a very developed introspective mind often identifies himself with the witness part of his mind and observes his own thoughts and studies their nature. That is a beginning which makes it easy for the full detachment to come. For others it is less easy, but it can be done by all. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/inner-detachment-and-the-witness-attitude#p</refcenter>~</spancenter>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">You have to become conscious—that What happens usually is to saythat something touches the vital, often without one's knowing it, there must be something and brings up the old ordinary or external consciousness in you which is not carried away by such a way that the inner mind gets covered up and all the old thoughts and feelingsreturn for a time. It is the physical mind that becomes active and gives its assent. If the whole mind remains quiet and detached observing the vital movement, but looks at them and observes how they work and how they affect younot giving its assent, then to reject it becomes more easy. The part that observes This established quietude and knows is called detachment of the Witness sākṣī in man. It is mind marks always possible to develop this a great step forward made in oneselfthe sadhana. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/3031/innerthe-detachmentvital-and-theother-levels-witnessof-attitudebeing#p25p45</ref></span>
== Psychic Being ==<center>~</center>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">...behind there is the psychic which supports the developmentBut if you remain very quiet, only if you observe—as though you were silently looking at something, you understand—then you will begin seeing more precisely, the growth of the being and gives this continuity little by little distinguishing between different categories of consciousness, makes things. You will be able to know what one feel that he thing is the same being even while being absolutely different, absolutely differentand what another etc. If later one observes himself sufficiently, he can see that the things he understood and could do at that time are things which seem to him absolutely inconceivable nowwhether it comes from you or from outside, and that he could never do whether it is on a similar thing because he material plane or on another plane. All this is no longer that person at all. And yetlearnt through a very quiet observation, quiet but very sharp, you understand; because within there was the psychic consciousness which is immortalare very tiny shades, very tiny, between different things, and when you get used to distinguishing these nuances, one has the feeling that you can discern exactly what it is always the same being which was there and continues to be there and will continue to be there with more or less progressive and more or less conscious changes. (The Mother, 29 June 1955) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0706/2920-juneoctober-19551954#p28p46</ref></span>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The ordinary mind knows itself only as an ego with all the movements of the nature in a jumble and, identifying itself with these movements, thinks "I am doing this, feeling that, thinking, in joy or in sorrow etc." The first beginning of real self-knowledge is when you feel yourself separate from the nature in you and its movements and then you see that there are many parts of your being, many personalities each acting on its own behalf and in its own way. The two different beings you feel are—one, the psychic being which draws you towards the Mother, the other the external being mostly vital which draws you outward and downwards towards the play of the lower nature. There is also in you behind the mind the being who observes, the witness Purusha, who can stand detached from the play of the nature, observing it and able to choose. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-psychic-being#p84</refcenter>~</spancenter>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The actions are of importance only as expressing what It is in the nature. You have to be conscious of whatever in your actions really an inner silence that is not in harmony with the Yoga needed—a something silent within that looks at outer talk and to get rid of action but feels it. But for that what is needed is your own consciousnessas something superficial, the psychic, observing from within not as itself and throwing off what is seen quite indifferent and untouched by it. It can bring forces to be undesirablesupport speech and action or it can stop them by withdrawal or it can let them go on and observe without being involved or moved. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2931/workspeech-and-yoga#p45p76</ref></span>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The mental being within watches, observes and passes judgment on all that happens in you. The psychic does not watch and observe in this way like a witness, but it feels and knows spontaneously in a much more direct and luminous way by the very purity of its own nature and the divine instinct within it, and so, whenever it comes to the front it reveals at once what are the right and what the wrong movements in your nature. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-jivatman-in-the-integral-yoga#p40</refcenter>~</spancenter>
== Mind You must be able to silence your head absolutely and Selfbe completely detached, not to have (for example, when you are looking for the solution of a problem), not to have already in your head the solution that seems to you right or the best or most profitable. That must not be there. You must become absolutely like a blank paper, with nothing on it. And you proceed in that way, with a very sincere aspiration to know the truth, without assuming beforehand that it will be like this or like that; because otherwise you will see only your own formation. The very first condition is that the head must keep completely silent during the time one is observing. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/30-Observation ==september-1953#p13</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Gradually, as the action is prolonged and the outer being begins to assimilate this action, there awakens a capacity of observation, first in the mental consciousness, and a kind of objectivisation occurs: something in the mind looks on, observes and translates in its own way. This is what you call understanding, and this is what gives you the impression (smiling) that you are having an experience. But that is already considerably diminished in comparison with the experience itself, it is a transcription adapted to your mental, vital and physical dimension, that is, something that is shrunken, hardened—and it gives you at the same time the impression that it is growing clearer; that is to say, it has become as limited as your understanding. (The Mother, 31 October 1956) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/31-october-1956#p19</refcenter>~</spancenter>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">..To silence the mind it is not enough to throw back each thought as it comes, that can only be a subordinate movement.We have in One must get back from all functionings of the mentality four elementsthought and be separate from it, the object of mental a silent consciousness, observing the act of mental consciousnessthoughts if they come, but not oneself thinking or identified with the occasion and the subjectthoughts. Thoughts must be felt as outside things altogether. In the self-experience of the self-observing inner being, the object It is always some state then easier to reject thoughts or movement or wave of let them pass without their disturbing the conscious being, anger, grief or other emotion, hunger or other vital craving, impulse or inner life reaction or some form of sensation, perception or thought activity. The act is some kind of mental observation and conceptual valuation of this movement or wave or else a mental sensation quietude of it in which observation and valuation may be involved and even lost,—so that in this act the mental person may either separate the act and the object by a distinguishing perception or confuse them together indistinguishablymind. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2131/memoryinteractions-with-egoothers-and-selfthe-experiencepractice-of-yoga#p5p99</ref></span>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">So = By Developing the man of real merit or the more civilised man has a whole mental construction to which he must conform in order to be in harmony with the ideal of the environment in which he lives. But someone who does not conform at least to the smallest part of this construction would be considered a savage and would be thrown out of the society immediately. In fact, people who are criminals or half-mad are those who obey their impulses without any mental control. There isn't a single person among you who gives way without control to all the impulses that get hold of him. You have only to observe yourselves living, you spend your time saying, "No, this I can't do", or "This I can", or in restraining one movement or encouraging another. This is mental control. (The Mother, 15 September 1954) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/15-september-1954#p9</ref></span>Witness Attitude ==
== Vital Have you never felt this? As though you were a little behind or above things, and Selfwere looking at them taking place but were not doing anything yourself? Witness means an observer, someone who looks on and does not act himself. So, when the mind is very quiet, one can withdraw a little in this way from circumstances and look at things as though he were a witness, a spectator, and not participating in the action himself. This gives you a great detachment, a great quietude, and also a very precise sense of the value of things, because it cuts the attachment to action. When you know how to do this with yourself, when you can withdraw and watch yourself acting, you learn many things about yourself. When you are all mixed up and take part in the action, you do not observe yourself acting, you don't know what you are like. But when you draw back and look at yourself, you can perceive many imperfections which you wouldn't have seen otherwise. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/13-october-Observation ==1954#p2</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>What happens usually is that something touches the vital, often without one's knowing it, and brings up the old ordinary or external consciousness in such a way that the inner mind gets covered up and all the old thoughts and feelings return for a time. It is the physical mind that becomes active and gives its assent. If the whole mind remains quiet and detached observing the vital movement, but not giving its assent, then to reject it becomes more easy. This established quietude and detachment of the mind marks always a great ~</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">step forward made in the sadhana. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-vital-and-other-levels-of-being#p45</ref></spancenter>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">After each crisis there is something gained, if there has been A man with a victory very developed introspective mind often identifies himself with the witness part of his mind and rejectionobserves his own thoughts and studies their nature. The gain That is to externalise the vital disturbance, so that even if it returns a beginning which makes it will be felt so much an outside force that easy for the observing consciousness (mental, higher vital) cannot be disturbedfull detachment to come. If you keep thatFor others it is less easy, but it will can be an immense advancedone by all. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/3130/wronginner-movementsdetachment-ofand-the-vitalwitness-attitude#p68p</ref></span>
== Physical and Self-Observation ==<center>~</center>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">One can prepare the body through a series of observations, studies, understandings,by showing it examples, making it understand things as one makes a child understand them, either by observing its own movements―but generallyYou have to become conscious—that is to say, there must be something in this, one you which is comparatively blind!―or not carried away by observing those of others. And in a more general waythoughts and feelings, this preparation will be based on recognised studies, on clear factsbut looks at them and observes how they work and how they affect you. Like this, for instance: The part that a certain number of persons, placed observes and knows is called the Witness sākṣī in exactly similar circumstances, experience, each one of them, very different effectsman. One may go even further: in a given set of definite circumstances, there It is a certain number of particular, definite individuals, always possible to develop this in apparently quite identical conditions, and for some the effects are catastrophic, while others escape without any harmoneself. (The Mother, 4 July 1956) </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0830/4inner-detachment-and-the-julywitness-1956attitude#p15p25</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">If it is an inert tamasic passivity subject to any influence = By Sincerity and unable to react, then it is subjection to Nature. If it is a sattwic passivity of the Witness observing and understanding the movements of Nature, then it is an intermediate condition, often necessary for knowledge. If it is a luminous passivity open to the Divine, shut to all other influences, then it is not subjection to Nature but surrender to the Divine. </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/difficulties-of-the-physical-nature#p24</ref>Impartiality ==
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">For the giddinessthat you must be absolutely sincere and impartial. You must observe yourself as if you were observing and criticising a third person. You must not start with an idea that this is your life's mission, this is your particular capacity, it may be this you are to do or that you are to do, in concentration this lies your talent or genius, etc. That will carry you go partly out away from the right track. It is not the liking or disliking of your body; thenexternal being, if your mental or vital or physical choice that determines the true line of your growth. Nor should you get take up the opposite attitude and move before the whole consciousness has come backsay, "I am good for nothing in this matter, there is just such a giddiness as you describe. You can observe I am useless in future and see whether that one; it is not this that happensfor me. One has to be careful not to " Neither vanity and arrogance nor self-depreciation and false modesty should move after deep concentration or tranceyou. As I said, till there is you must be absolutely impartial and unconcerned. You should be like a mirror that reflects the full consciousness in the bodytruth and does not judge. </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/3115/difficulties-of12-the-physicalnovember-nature1952#p59p6</ref>
= Consciousness and Self-Observation =<center>~</center>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Your consciousness becomes If you observe yourself, you will see that as soon as you do something which disturbs you a screen or mirror; but this is when little, the mind immediately gives you are in a state favourable reason to justify yourself—this mind is capable of contemplation, a mere observer; when you are active, gilding everything. In these conditions it is like a searchlightdifficult to know oneself. You have only One must be absolutely sincere to be able to turn do it on, if you want and to see luminously and examine penetratingly anything in any placeclearly into all the little falsehoods of the mental being. (The Mother, 30 June 1929) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0304/3015-junejanuary-19291951#p7p3</ref></span>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">However, if one observes things a little deeply, one perceives that there is progress, that things become better and better, though apparently they do not improve. And for a consciousness seated a little higher, it is quite evident that all evil—at least what we call evil—all falsehood, all that is contrary to the Truth, all suffering, all opposition is the result =By Becoming Aware of a disequilibrium. I believe that one who is habituated to seeing things from this higher plane sees immediately that it is like that. (The Mother , 8 January 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/8-january-1951#p13</ref></span>Desire ==
<span style=For that you must observe yourself very, very attentively, and if there is anything in you which produces something like a small intense vibration, then you may be sure that there lies a desire. For example, you say, "background-color:transparent;color:#000000;This food is necessary for me">There are two centres or parts of —you believe, you imagine, you think that you need such and such a thing and you find the necessary means to obtain the consciousness—one thing. To know if it is a witness, sākṣīneed or a desire, you must look at yourself very closely and observesask yourself, "What will happen if I cannot get the thing?" Then if the other consciousness immediate answer is active and , "Oh, it will be very bad", you may be sure that it is this active consciousness that a matter of desire. It is the same for everything. For every problem you felt draw back, look at yourself and ask, "Let us see, am I going down deep into to have the vital being. thing?" If your mind had not become activeat that moment something in you jumps up with joy, you would have known where it went and what it went may be certain there to experience or dois a desire. When there is an experienceOn the other hand, if something tells you should , "Oh, I am not begin going to think about get it", for that is of no use at all and it only stops the experience—you should remain silentyou feel very depressed, observe and let then again it go on to its endis a desire. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/3004/suggestions25-for-dealing-withjanuary-experiences1951#p8p3</ref></span>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">At a certain stage of the sadhana, in the beginning (or near it) of the more intense experiences, it sometimes happens that there is the intense realisation of some aspect of the Divine, a sort of communion with it, and that is seen everywhere and all as that. It is a transitory phase and afterwards one gets the larger experience of the Divine in all its aspects and beyond all aspects. Throughout the experience there should be one part of the being that observes and understands—for sometimes ignorant sadhaks are carried away by their experience and stop short there or fall into extravagance. It must be taken as an experience through which you are passing. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/suggestions-for-dealing-with-experiences#p10</refcenter>~</spancenter>
= Thoughts and SelfIf you observe yourself attentively, you will see that before acting you need an inner impetus, something which pushes you. In the ordinary man this impetus is generally desire. This desire ought to be replaced by a clear, precise, constant vision of the Truth. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/21-Observation =december-1950#p7</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Thoughts are not the essence of mind-being, they are only an activity of mental nature; if that activity ceases, what appears then as a thought-free existence that manifests in its place is not a blank or void but something very real, substantial, concrete we may say—a mental being that extends itself widely and can be its own field =By Education of existence silent or active as well as the Witness, Knower, Master of that field and its action. Some feel it first as a void, but that is because their observation is untrained and insufficient and loss of activity gives them the sense of blank; an emptiness there is, but it is an emptiness of the ordinary activities, not a blank of existence. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/three-experiences-of-the-inner-being#p3</ref></span>Senses==
<span style="background-colorBut it is through sensations that you learn:transparent;color:#000000;">It is only graduallyby seeing, observing, hearing. Classes develop your sensations, very slowlystudies develop your sensations, the mind receives things through sensations. By the education of the movements senses the growth of life and a more or less careful and thorough one's general education that is aided; if you begin learn to have sensations which are personal see well, exactly, precisely; if you learn to hear well; if you, feelings and ideas which are personal learn through touch to know the nature of things; if you. An individualised mind is something extremely rare, which comes only after a long education; otherwise it is a kind learn through the see of thought-current passing through your brain and then through another's and then through smell to distinguish between different odours—all these are a multitude powerful means of other brainseducation. In fact, and all they should be used for this is in perpetual movement and has no individuality. One thinks what others are thinking, others think what still others are thinkingas instruments of observation, control and everybody thinks like that in a great mixture, because these are currents, vibrations of thought passing from one to anotherknowledge. If you look at yourself attentivelyone is sufficiently developed, you will very quickly become aware that very few thoughts in you are personal. Where do you draw them from?—From what you have heard, from what you have read, what you have been taught, and how many one can know the nature of these thoughts you have are things through sight; through the result see of your own experiencesmell one may also know the value, your own reflectionthe different nature of things; by touch one can recognise things. It is a question of education; that is, your purely personal observation?—Not manyone must work for it. (The Mother, 20 February 1957) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0906/2031-februarymarch-19571954#p6p13</ref></span>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">To observe your thoughts, you must first of all separate yourself from them. In the ordinary state, the ordinary man does not distinguish himself from his thoughts. He does not even know that he thinks. He thinks by habit. And if he is asked all of a sudden, "What are you thinking of?", he knows nothing about it. That is to say, ninety-five times out of a hundred he will answer, "I do not know." There is a complete identification between the movement of thought and the consciousness of the being. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/conjugate-verses#p12</refcenter>~</spancenter>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">...when undesirable thoughts comeThe child must be taught to observe, if you look at themto note his reactions and impulses and their causes, observe themto become a discerning witness of his desires, if you take pleasure in following them in their his movementsof violence and passion, they will never stop coming. It is his instincts of possession and appropriation and domination and the same thing when you have undesirable feelings or sensation: if you pay attention to background of vanity which supports them, concentrate on them or even look at them together with a certain indulgencetheir counterparts of weakness, they will never stop. But if you absolutely refuse to receive and express themdiscouragement, after some time they stop. You must be patient depression and very persistentdespair. (The Mother , 22 September 1954) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0612/22-septembervital-1954education#p19p14</ref></span>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Most people—and not only those who are uneducated but even the well-read—can have the most contradictory, the most opposite ideas in their heads without even being aware of the contradictions….And if you observe yourself, you will see that you have many ideas which ought to be linked by a sequence of intermediate ideas which are the result of a considerable widening of the thought if they are not to coexist in an absurd way. (The Mother, 20 February 1957) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/20-february-1957#p8</refcenter>~</spancenter>
<span style="backgroundThe indispensable starting-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The error comes from thinking point is a detailed and discerning observation of the character to be transformed. In most cases, that your thoughts are your own itself is a difficult and often a very baffling task. But there is one fact which the old traditions knew and which can serve as the clue in the labyrinth of inner discovery. It is that you everyone possesses in a large measure, and the exceptional individual in an increasing degree of precision, two opposite tendencies of character, in almost equal proportions, which are their maker like the light and if you don't create thoughts (ithe shadow of the same thing.e. think)Thus someone who has the capacity of being exceptionally generous will suddenly find an obstinate avarice rising up in his nature, there the courageous man will be nonea coward in some part of his being and the good man will suddenly have wicked impulses. A little observation ought In this way life seems to endow everyone not only with the possibility of expressing an ideal, but also with contrary elements representing in a concrete manner the battle he has to wage and the victory he has to win for the realisation to show become possible. Consequently, all life is an education pursued more or less consciously, more or less willingly. In certain cases this education will encourage the movements that express the light, in others, on the contrary, those that you express the shadow. If the circumstances and the environment are not manufacturing your own thoughtsfavourable, the light will grow at the expense of the shadow; otherwise the opposite will happen. And in this way the individual's character will crystallise according to the whims of Nature and the determinisms of material and vital life, but rather thoughts occur unless a higher element comes in in youtime, a conscious will which, refusing to allow Nature to follow her whimsical ways, will replace them by a logical and clear-sighted discipline. This conscious will is what we mean by a rational method of education. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/3112/thoughtvital-and-knowledgeeducation#p3p6</ref></span>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">When one practises Yoga and observes the thoughts, one sees that they come from outside, from universal Nature, from the mental, vital or subtle physical worlds etc. The proper thing is then = How to stand back from these thoughts, voices or suggestions, to reject them or else control them, to make the mind free and quiet and open only to the divine light, force, knowledge and the presence of the Divine….Aspire, get into contact with the Light and the true Force, reassert your will to reject these suggestions and voices. Do not take interest in these voices, keep the mind quiet. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/thought-and-knowledge#p5</ref></span>Observe Thoughts==
= Sense The error comes from thinking that your thoughts are your own and Self Observation =that you are their maker and if you don't create thoughts (i.e. think), there will be none. A little observation ought to show that you are not manufacturing your own thoughts, but rather thoughts occur in you. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/thought-and-knowledge#p3</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">This sensational thought-mind which is based upon sense, memory, association, first ideas and resultant generalisations or secondary ideas, is common to all developed animal life and mentality….The intelligence and will of the animal are involved in the sense-mind and therefore altogether governed by it and carried on its stream of sensations, sense-perceptions, impulses; it is instinctive. Man is able to use a reason and will, a self-observing, thinking and all-observing, an intelligently willing mind which is no longer involved in the sense-mind, but acts from above and behind it in its own right, with a certain separateness and freedom. He is reflective, has a certain relative freedom of intelligent will. He has liberated in himself and has formed into a separate power the buddhi. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/purification-intelligence-and-will#p4</refcenter>~</spancenter>
<span style="backgroundThoughts are not the essence of mind-color:transparentbeing, they are only an activity of mental nature;color:#000000;">….But it is through sensations if that you learn: by seeingactivity ceases, observingwhat appears then as a thought-free existence that manifests in its place is not a blank or void but something very real, hearing. Classes develop your sensationssubstantial, studies develop your sensations, the mind receives things through sensations. By the education concrete we may say—a mental being that extends itself widely and can be its own field of existence silent or active as well as the senses the growth of one's general education is aided; if you learn to see wellWitness, exactlyKnower, precisely; if you learn to hear well; if you learn through touch to know the nature Master of things; if you learn through the see of smell to distinguish between different odours—all these are that field and its action. Some feel it first as a powerful means of education. In factvoid, they should be used for this, as instruments of but that is because their observation, control is untrained and insufficient and knowledge. If one is sufficiently developed, one can know loss of activity gives them the nature sense of things through sightblank; through the see an emptiness there is, but it is an emptiness of smell one may also know the valueordinary activities, the different nature of things; by touch one can recognise things. It is not a question blank of education; that is, one must work for itexistence. (The Mother , 31 March 1954) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0630/31three-marchexperiences-1954of-the-inner-being#p13p3</ref></span>
= Education and Self-Observation =<center>~</center>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The indispensable starting-point It is only gradually, very slowly, through the movements of life and a detailed more or less careful and discerning observation of the character thorough education that you begin to have sensations which are personal to be transformed. In most casesyou, that itself is a difficult feelings and often a very baffling taskideas which are personal to you. But there An individualised mind is one fact something extremely rare, which the old traditions knew and which can serve as the clue in the labyrinth of inner discovery. It comes only after a long education; otherwise it is that everyone possesses in a large measure, kind of thought-current passing through your brain and the exceptional individual in an increasing degree of precision, two opposite tendencies of character, in almost equal proportions, which are like the light then through another's and the shadow then through a multitude of the same thing. Thus someone who has the capacity of being exceptionally generous will suddenly find an obstinate avarice rising up in his natureother brains, the courageous man will be a coward in some part of his being and the good man will suddenly have wicked impulses. In all this way life seems to endow everyone not only with the possibility of expressing an ideal, but also with contrary elements representing is in a concrete manner the battle he has to wage perpetual movement and the victory he has to win for the realisation to become possibleno individuality. ConsequentlyOne thinks what others are thinking, all life is an education pursued more or less consciouslyothers think what still others are thinking, more or less willingly. In certain cases this education will encourage the movements and everybody thinks like that express the light, in othersa great mixture, on the contrarybecause these are currents, those that express the shadowvibrations of thought passing from one to another. If the circumstances and the environment are favourableyou look at yourself attentively, the light you will grow at the expense of the shadow; otherwise the opposite will happenvery quickly become aware that very few thoughts in you are personal. And in this way the individual's character will crystallise according to the whims Where do you draw them from?—From what you have heard, from what you have read, what you have been taught, and how many of Nature and these thoughts you have are the determinisms result of material and vital life, unless a higher element comes in in timeyour own experience, a conscious will whichyour own reflection, refusing to allow Nature to follow her whimsical ways, will replace them by a logical and clear-sighted disciplineyour purely personal observation?—Not many. This conscious will is what we mean by a rational method of education. </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/1209/vital20-educationfebruary-1957#p6</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>..The child must be taught to observe, to note his reactions and impulses and their causes, to become a discerning witness of his desires, his movements of violence and passion, his instincts of possession and appropriation and domination and the background of vanity which supports them, together with their counterparts of weakness, discouragement, depression and despair. ~</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/vital-education#p14</refcenter>
= Results When one practises Yoga and observes the thoughts, one sees that they come from outside, from universal Nature, from the mental, vital or subtle physical worlds etc. The proper thing is then to stand back from these thoughts, voices or suggestions, to reject them or else control them, to make the mind free and quiet and open only to the divine light, force, knowledge and the presence of Selfthe Divine. ...Aspire, get into contact with the Light and the true Force, reassert your will to reject these suggestions and voices. Do not take interest in these voices, keep the mind quiet. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/thought-Observation =and-knowledge#p5</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">If you observe yourself attentively, you will see that before acting you need an inner impetus, something which pushes you. In the ordinary man this impetus is generally desire. This desire ought to be replaced by a clear, precise, constant vision of the Truth. (The Mother, 21 December 1950) </span><ref>http://incarnateword.Difficulties in/cwm/04/21Self-december-1950#p7</ref>Observation=
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">If you observe yourself, you will see that as soon as you do something which disturbs you a little, the mind immediately gives you a favourable reason to justify yourself—this mind is capable =Danger of gilding everything. In these conditions it is difficult to know oneself. One must be absolutely sincere to be able to do it and to see clearly into all the little falsehoods of the mental being. (The Mother, 15 January 1951) </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/15-january-1951#p3</ref>Ego==
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">… if each element which comes But to begin with its ignorance, its unconsciousnesshow many times, its egoismif one thinks, is put before the will to change and if one remains awakequite simply observes oneself, comparesdoes one catch oneself saying, observes, studies and slowly acts"It is I!" And, that becomes infinitely interestingthen, one makes marvellous and quite unexpected discoveries. One finds in congratulates oneself lots of small hidden foldssometimes, little things one had not seen says, "After all I can do something, I am capable!" I am going further: how many people would be capable of doing anything at all if simply deprived of the beginning; one undertakes a sort pleasure of inner chasebeing able to tell themselves, goes hunting into small dark corners and tells oneself: "WhatI have done this, I was like have realised that! This was there in me, I am harbouring have made a progress, how well I played this little thinggame"—sometimes so sordid? How many people would be able to sincerely do something if this pleasure were taken away? I have known individuals whose mind was much more developed than the rest of the being, they had understood very well (almost too well); they sat down to meditate and all their energy was gone, all vitality evaporated into a kind of peace, not unpleasant, but very still. There is no more need to do anything, so meanno longer any need to move, so nastyone dreams. ... And once Under a tree, arms crossed, one leaves the Divine to do everything for oneself, including feeding you if you need it has been discovered. This is perhaps very well, how wonderful! One puts but this shows that the instrument is not ready; it is not really at the service of the light upon Divine, it is at the service of the ego, and when the ego is taken away, it disappears and you no does nothing any longer have those reactions which made you . Therefore, so sad before, when long as one lives in the ego this illusion is necessary to make you used act; it is necessary to saykeep up action until one is completely transformed or, in any case, "Oh! I shall never get theretill the true consciousness is established. (The Mother, 19 5 April 1951) </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/195-april-1951#p14</ref>
= Difficulties during Self-Observation =<center>~</center>
== Danger of ...if you do your tapasya, all the Ego time observing yourself doing it and telling yourself, "Am I making any progress, is this going to be better, am I going to succeed?", then it is your ego, you know, which becomes more and more enormous and occupies the whole place, and there is no room for anything else. ==<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/26-april-1951#p35</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">But to begin with, how many times, if one thinks, if one quite simply observes oneself, does one catch oneself saying, "It is I!" And, then, one congratulates oneself sometimes, one says, "After all I can do something, I am capable!" I am going further: how many people would be capable of doing anything at all if simply deprived of the pleasure of being able to tell themselves, "I have done this, I have realised that, I have made a progress, how well I played this game"? How many people would be able to sincerely do something if this pleasure were taken away? I have known individuals whose mind was much more developed than the rest of the being, they had understood very well (almost too well); they sat down to meditate and all their energy was gone, all vitality evaporated into a kind of peace, not unpleasant, but very still. There is no more need to do anything, no longer any need to move, one dreams.... Under a tree, arms crossed, one leaves the Divine to do everything for oneself, including feeding you if you need it. This is perhaps very well, but this shows that the instrument is not ready; it is not really at the service of the Divine, it is at the service of the ego, and when the ego is taken away, it does nothing any longer. Therefore, so long as one lives in the ego this illusion is necessary to make you act; it is necessary to keep up action until one is completely transformed or, in any case, till the true consciousness is established. (The Mother ,5 April 1951) </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/5-april-1951#p14</ref>= Escape attitude ==
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">.Constantly man rushes into external action in order not to have time to observe himself and how he lives.For him this is expressed by the desire to escape from boredom.if you do your tapasyaIndeed, all the time observing yourself doing for some people it and telling yourselfis much more tiresome to remain quiet—seated, "Am I making any progress, is this going or to be betterstill. So for them it represents an escape from boredom: to make a lot of noise, am I going to succeed?"commit many stupidities, then and become terribly restless; it is your egotheir way of escaping boredom. And when they sit quietly and look at themselves, you knowthey are bored. Perhaps because they are boring. That's very likely. The more boring one is, which becomes the more and more enormous and occupies the whole place, and there one is no room for anything elsebored. Very interesting people usually are not bored. (The Mother, 26 April 1951) </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0407/26-apriljanuary-19511955#p35p14</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Do not be over-eager for experience,—for experiences you can always get, having once broken the barrier between the physical mind and the subtle planes. What you have to aspire for most is the improved quality of the recipient consciousness in you—discrimination in the mind, the unattached impersonal Witness look =Focusing on all that goes on in you and around you, purity in the vital, calm equanimity, enduring patience, absence of pride and the sense of greatness—and more especially, the development of the psychic being in you—surrender, self-giving, psychic humility, devotion... a sufficient foundation and a consciousness always self-observant, vigilant and growing in these things is indispensable—for perfect purification is the basis of the perfect siddhi. </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-danger-of-the-ego-and-the-need-of-purification#p14</ref>Negative==
== To be always observing faults and wrong movements brings depression and discourages the faith. Turn your eyes more to the coming Light and less to any immediate darkness. Faith, cheerfulness, confidence in the ultimate victory are the things that help,—they make the progress easier and swifter. <span style="backgroundref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/steps-towards-overcoming-color:transparent;color:difficulties#000000;">Escape attitudep28</spanref> ==
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>Constantly man rushes into external action in order not to have time to observe himself and how he lives. For him this is expressed by the desire to escape from boredom. Indeed, for some people it is much more tiresome to remain quiet—seated, or to be still. So for them it represents an escape from boredom: to make a lot of noise, to commit many stupidities, and become terribly restless; it is their way of escaping boredom. And when they sit quietly and look at themselves, they are bored. Perhaps because they are boring. That's very likely. The more boring one is, the more one is bored. Very interesting people usually are not bored. (The Mother, 26 January 1955) ~</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/26-january-1955#p14</refcenter>
== Focusing What you have to aspire for most is the improved quality of the recipient consciousness in you—discrimination in the mind, the unattached impersonal Witness look on all that goes on in you and around you, purity in the vital, calm equanimity, enduring patience, absence of pride and the sense of greatness—and more especially, the development of the psychic being in you—surrender, self-giving, psychic humility, devotion... a sufficient foundation and a consciousness always self-observant, vigilant and growing in these things is indispensable—for perfect purification is the basis of the perfect siddhi. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-danger-of-the-ego-and-the Negative ==-need-of-purification#p14</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>To be always observing faults and wrong movements brings depression and discourages the faith. Turn your eyes more to the coming Light and less to any immediate darkness. Faith, cheerfulness, confidence in the ultimate victory are the things that help,—they make the progress easier and swifter. ~</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/steps-towards-overcoming-difficulties#p28</refcenter>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">It To become conscious of what is to be changed in the nature is a subtle law of the action of consciousness that if you stress difficulties—you have to first step towards changing it. But one must observe them, of course, but not stress them, they will quite sufficiently these things without being despondent or thinking "it is hopeless" or "I cannot change". You do right to be confident that for themselves—the difficulties tend to stick or even increase; on the contrary, change will come. For nothing is impossible in the nature if the psychic being is awake and leading you put your whole stress on faith with the Mother's consciousness and aspiration force behind it and concentrate steadily on what working in you aspire to, that will sooner or later tend towards realisation. It This is this change of stress, a change in the poise and attitude of the mind, now happening. Be sure that all will be the more helpful processdone. </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/dealing-with-depressionspeech-and-despondencyyoga#p22p53</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>It is difficult to observe the difference between the action of the hostile Force and the pressure of the lower Nature because it is the latter that the Force takes hold of for its purpose. But there is in the Force a suggestive character, a conscious arrangement of the attack so as to upset or destroy the sadhana which there is not in the ordinary movement of the lower Nature—for that only comes to satisfy itself and then ceases. ~</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-hostile-forces-and-the-difficulties-of-yoga#p35</refcenter>
== Overcoming  difficulty ==Despair and despondency are always wrong. If you make a mistake, quietly observe it and correct the tendency next time. Even if the mistake recurs often, you have only to persevere quietly—remembering that nature cannot be changed in a day. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/depression-and-despondency#p67</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">If you had that observation (from the inner spiritual, not the outer intellectual and ethical viewpoint), then it would be comparatively easy for you to get out of your difficulties; for instance you would find at once where this irrational impulse to flee away came from and it would not have any hold upon you. Of course, all that can only be done to the best effect when you stand back from the play of your nature and become the Witness-Control or the Spectator-Actor Manager. But that is what happens when you take this kind of self-seeing posture. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/mental-difficulties-and-the-need-of-quietude#p23</refcenter>~</spancenter>
= Other fields It is a subtle law of Selfthe action of consciousness that if you stress difficulties—you have to observe them, of course, but not stress them, they will quite sufficiently do that for themselves—the difficulties tend to stick or even increase; on the contrary, if you put your whole stress on faith and aspiration and concentrate steadily on what you aspire to, that will sooner or later tend towards realisation. It is this change of stress, a change in the poise and attitude of the mind, that will be the more helpful process. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/dealing-with-depression-and-Observation =despondency#p22</ref>
==Surface Level Observation==
As a general rule, with a few very rare exceptions, men are content to observe more or less accurately everything that happens around them, and sometimes within themselves, and to classify all these observations according to one superficial system of logic or another. And they call this organisation, these systems, "knowledge". It has never occurred to them, they have not even begun to perceive that all the things they see, touch, feel, experience, are false appearances and not reality itself.
== Meditation ==[Based on Aphorism 7—What men call knowledge is the reasoned acceptance of false appearances. Wisdom looks behind the veil and sees. Reason divides, fixes details and contrasts them; Wisdom unifies, marries contrasts in a single harmony].<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-7#p3</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>... when one comes out of meditation, some time later—usually not immediately—from within the being something new emerges in the consciousness: a new understanding, a new appreciation of things, a new attitude in life—in short, a new way of being. This may be fugitive, but at that moment, if one observes it, one finds that something has taken one step forward on the path of understanding or transformation. It may be an illumination, an understanding truer or closer to the truth, or a power of transformation which helps you to achieve a psychological progress or a widening of the consciousness or a greater control over your movements, over the activities of the being. (The Mother , 5 June 1957) ~</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/5-june-1957#p20</refcenter>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The mind It is evident that our state on the surface is always in activityindeed a state of knowledge, but we do not observe fully what so far as it is doinggoes, but allow ourselves a limited knowledge enveloped and invaded by ignorance and, to a very large extent, by reason of its limitation, itself a kind of ignorance, at best a mixed knowledge-ignorance. It could not be carried away in otherwise since our awareness of the stream world is born of continual thinking. When we try a separative and surface observation with only an indirect means of cognition at its disposal; our knowledge of ourselves, though more direct, is stultified by its restriction to concentratethe surface of our being, this stream by an ignorance of our true self, the true sources of our nature, the true motive-moved mechanical thinking becomes prominent to forces of our observationaction. It is quite evident that we know ourselves with only a superficial knowledge,—the sources of our consciousness and thought are a mystery; the first normal obstacle (the other true nature of our mind, emotions, sensations is sleep during meditation) to a mystery; our cause of being and our end of being, the effort towards Yogasignificance of our life and its activities are a mystery: this could not be if we had a real self-knowledge and a real world-knowledge. </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2921/concentrationknowledge-by-identity-and-meditationseparative-knowledge#p30p7</ref>
== Dreams ==<center>~</center>
<span style="background-color:transparentOne throws oneself out all the time;color:#000000;">Now all the procedure time one lives, as it were, outside oneself, in such a superficial sensation that it is almost as though one were outside oneself. As soon as one wants even to deal with dreams and the dreamland. First become conscious—conscious of your dreams. Observe the relation between them and the happenings of your waking hours. If you remember your nightobserve oneself a little, control oneself a little, simply know what is happening, you will be able one is always obliged to trace draw back very often the condition of your day or pull towards oneself, to pull inwards something which is constantly like that, on the condition of your nightsurface. In sleep some action or other And it is always going on this surface thing which meets all external contacts, puts you in your mental or vital or other plane; things happen there and they govern your waking consciousnesstouch with similar vibrations coming from others. That happens almost outside you. (The Mother, 21 April 1929)</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0308/2120-apriljune-19291956#p6p49</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">It is a tremendous field of observation—there is no end to the discoveries you can make in your dreams. But there is one important point: you must not go to sleep when you are very tired, for if you do, you fall into a sort of unconsciousness in which dreams do whatever they like with you, and you have no reaction. Just as I said that you should not eat without having taken rest, I would advise everyone to rest before going to sleep. And for that, you must know how to rest. (The Mother , 1 February 1951) </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/1-february-1951#p14</ref>=Observing Invisible Forces==
<span style="backgroundIf we observe a happening, we judge and explain it from the result and from a glimpse of its most external constituents, circumstances or causes; but each happening is the outcome of a complex nexus of forces which we do not and cannot observe, because all forces are to us invisible,—but they are not invisible to the spiritual vision of the Infinite: some of them are actualities working to produce or occasion a new actuality, some are possibles that are near to the pre-color:transparentexistent actuals and in a way included in their aggregate;colorbut there can intervene always new possibilities that suddenly become dynamic potentials and add themselves to the nexus, and behind all are imperatives or an imperative which these possibilities are labouring to actualise. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/brahman-purusha-ishwara-maya-prakriti-shakti#000000;"p7</ref>As  = Self Observation - Exploring Realms of Consciousness= Man is a type among many types so constructed, one pattern among the multitude of patterns in the manifestation in Matter. He is the most complex that has been created, the inner richest in content of consciousness grows and the curious ingeniousness of his building; he is the head of the earthly creation, but he does not exceed it…. If there is a perfection to which he has to arrive, it must be a perfection in his own kind, within his own law of being,—the full play of it, but by sadhanaobservation of its mode and measure, these dream experiences increase in numbernot by transcendence. To exceed himself, clearnessto grow into the superman, coherenceto put on the nature and capacities of a god would be a contradiction of his self-law, accuracy impracticable and impossible. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/man-and after some -the-evolution#p8</ref> <center>~</center> ...behind there is the psychic which supports the development, the growth of experience the being and gives this continuity of consciousness, we makes one feel that he is the same being even while being absolutely different, absolutely different. If later one observes himself sufficiently, he cansee that the things he understood and could do at that time are things which seem to him absolutely inconceivable now, if we observeand that he could never do a similar thing because he is no longer that person at all. And yet, because within there was the psychic consciousness which is immortal, come one has the feeling that it is always the same being which was there and continues to understand them be there and their significance will continue to our inner lifebe there with more or less progressive and more or less conscious changes. <ref>http://incarnateword. Even in/cwm/07/29-june-1955#p28</ref> <center>~</center> There is a state of being experienced in Yoga in which we can become a double consciousness, one on the surface, small, active, ignorant, swayed by training become so conscious as thoughts and feelings, grief and joy and all kinds of reactions, the other within calm, vast, equal, observing the surface being with an immovable detachment or indulgence or, it may be, acting upon its agitation to follow our own passagequiet, enlarge, usually veiled transform it. So too we can rise to a consciousness above and observe the various parts of our awareness being, inner and memoryouter, through many realms mental, vital and physical and the process of subconscient below all, and act upon one or other or the return whole from that higher status. It is possible also to go down from that height or from any height into any of these lower states and take its limited light or its obscurity as our place of working while the waking state. At rest that we are is either temporarily put away or put behind or else kept as a certain pitch field of reference from which we can get support, sanction or light and influence or as a status into which we can ascend or recede and from it observe the inferior movements. Or we can plunge into trance, get within ourselves and be conscious there while all outward things are excluded; or we can go beyond even this inner wakefulness awareness and lose ourselves in some deeper other consciousness or some high superconscience. There is also a pervading equal consciousness into which we can enter and see all ourselves with one enveloping glance or omnipresent awareness one and indivisible. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/brahman-purusha-ishwara-maya-prakriti-shakti#p23</ref> <center>~</center> In this kind progression the first step is a certain detached superiority to the three modes of Nature. The soul is inwardly separated and free from the lower Prakriti, not involved in its coils, indifferent and glad above it. Nature continues to act in the triple round of her ancient habits,—desire, grief and joy attack the heart, the instruments fall into inaction and obscurity and weariness, light and peace come back into the heart and mind and body; but the soul stands unchanged and untouched by these changes. Observing and unmoved by the grief and desire of the lower members, smiling at their joys and their strainings, regarding and unoverpowered by the failing and the darknesses of the thought and the wildness or the weaknesses of the heart and nerves, uncompelled and unattached to the mind's illuminations and its relief and sense of ease or of power in the return of sleeplight and gladness, a sleep it throws itself into none of experiencesthese things, can replace but waits unmoved for the intimations of a higher Will and the ordinary subconscient slumberintuitions of a greater luminous knowledge. </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/3023/the-three-experiencesmodes-of-nature#p13</ref> <center>~</center> "The Shakti, the power of the Infinite and the Eternal descends within us, works, breaks up our present psychological formations, shatters every wall, widens, liberates... she frees the consciousness from confinement in the body; it can go out in trance or sleep or even waking and enter into worlds or other regions of this world and act there or carry back its experience. It spreads out, feeling the body only as a small part of itself, and begins to contain what before contained it; it achieves the cosmic consciousness and extends itself to be commensurate with the universe. It begins to know inwardly and directly and not merely by external observation and contact the forces at play in the world, feels their movement, distinguishes their functioning and can operate immediately upon them as the scientist operates upon physical forces, accept their action and results in our mind, life, body or reject them or modify, change, reshape, create immense new powers and movements in place of the old small functionings of the nature. We begin to perceive the working of theforces of universal Mind and to know how our thoughts are created by that working...." <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/7-innernovember-being1956#p6p1</ref> <center>~</center>
= Things It is thus by an integralisation of our divided being that the Divine Shakti in the Yoga will proceed to Remember =its object; for liberation, perfection, mastery are dependent on this integralisation, since the little wave on the surface cannot control its own movement, much less have any true control over the vast life around it...It begins to know inwardly and directly and not merely by external observation and contact the forces at play in the world, feels their movement, distinguishes their functioning and can operate immediately upon them as the scientist operates upon physical forces, accept their action and results in our mind, life, body or reject them or modify, change, reshape, create immense new powers and movements in place of the old small functionings of the nature. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-ascent-of-the-sacrifice-ii#p29</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">If one begins =How to find out, to understand what a feeling is and what a thought is, and how it works, then one can already go quite far on the path with that. One must at the same time observe how his feelings and thoughts have an action on the body, what the reciprocity is. And then, there is another exercise which consists be in looking into oneself for what is persistent, what is lasting, something which makes one say "I", and which is not the body. For obviously, when one was very small, and then when each year one grows up, if one takes fairly long distances, for example a distance of about ten years, they are very different "I"s from what one was when as small as this (gesture), and then what one is now; it is difficult to say that it is the same person, you see. If one takes only this, still there is something which has the feeling of always being the same person. So one must reflect, seek, try to understand what it is. This indeed can lead you far on the path. Then if one also studies the relation between these different things—between thoughts, feelings, their action on the body, the reciprocal action of the body on these things—and also what it is that says "I" permanently, what it is that can trace a curve in the movement of the being, if one seeks carefully enough, it leads you quite far. Naturally if one seeks far enough and with enough persistence, one reaches the psychic. (The Mother, 9 March 1955) </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/9-march-1955#p23</ref>Witness State?==
= Yogic Experience =It is difficult to say generally what is conscious; but naturally, if something observes, it is always the "witness" element in this part—in each part of the being there is something which is a "witness", which looks on. There is even a physical witness which can get very much in the way; for instance, if it watches you playing, this can paralyse you considerably. There is also a vital witness which looks at you, sees your desires and enjoys highly all that happens; it acts also as a brake. There is the mental witness which judges ideas, which says, "This idea contradicts this other", and which arranges everything. Then there is the great psychic Witness, who is the inner divinity. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/22-march-1951#p6</ref>
== Divine as Observer ==<center>~</center>
<span style="background-color:transparentSometimes there is no relation among these different witnesses—there ought to be, but it is not always there. But if there is in the being a will to become perfect, the relation is established quite quickly;color:#000000;">A hidden Power one can refer to another and finally, if there is a sufficient sincerity, sufficient concentration, you come to the true Lord and overruling Observer supreme inner Witness who can judge all things. But generally it may be said that it is always a part of our acts and only he knows through all the ignorance and perversion and deformation brought mind, more or less enlightened, in by a little closer contact with the ego their entire sense inner being, which observes and ultimate purposejudges. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2304/self-surrender-in-works-the22-waymarch-of-the-gita1951#p6p7</ref></span>
== Purusha and Self-Observation ==<center>~</center>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">It is ordinarily considered The witness Purusha in the mind observes that the Yogin should draw away inadequacy of his effort, all the inadequacy in fact of man's life and nature arises from action as much as possible and especially that too much action is a hindrance because it draws off the energies outward. To a certain extent this is true; separation and we must note farther that when the mental Purusha takes up the attitude consequent struggle, want of mere witness and observerknowledge, a tendency to silencewant of harmony, solitude, physical calm and bodily inaction grows upon the beingwant of oneness. So long as this It is not associated with inertiaessential for him to grow out of separative individuality, incapacity or unwillingness to act, in a worduniversalise himself, to make himself one with the universe. This unification can be done only through the soul by making our soul of mind one with the growth universal Mind, our soul of life one with the tamasic qualityuniversal Life-soul, all this is to our soul of body one with the gooduniversal soul of physical Nature. </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2324/the-releaseperfection-fromof-subjectionthe-tomental-the-bodybeing#p7p15</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>It is possible for the Purusha to use it on the mental plane itself for a constant self-observation, self-development, self-modification, to sanction, reject, alter, bring out new formulations of the nature and establish a calm and disinterested action, a high and pure sattwic balance and rhythm of its energy, a personality perfected in the sattwic principle. ~</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-divine-shakti#p9</refcenter>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">..with regard to It is ordinarily considered that the movements Yogin should draw away from action as much as possible and experiences of especially that too much action is a hindrance because it draws off the body the mind will come to know energies outward. To a certain extent this is true; and we must note farther that when the mental Purusha seated within it as, first, takes up the attitude of mere witness or and observer of the movements and, secondlya tendency to silence, solitude, physical calm and bodily inaction grows upon the knower being. So long as this is not associated with inertia, incapacity or perceiver of the experiences. It will cease unwillingness to consider in thought or feel act, in sensation these movements and experiences as its own but rather consider and feel them as not its owna word, as operations with the growth of Nature governed by the qualities of Nature and their interaction upon each othertamasic quality, all this is to the good. </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-release-from-subjection-to-the-body#p4p7</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>The Purusha and Prakriti are on the mental level as in the rest of our being closely joined and much involved in each other and we are not able to distinguish clearly soul and nature. But in the purer substance of mind we can more easily discern the dual strain. The mental Purusha is naturally able in its own native principle of mind to detach itself, as we have seen, from the workings of its Prakriti and there is then a division of our being between a consciousness that observes and can reserve its willpower and an energy full of the substance of consciousness that takes the forms of knowledge, will and feeling. This detachment gives at its highest a certain freedom from the compulsion of the soulby its mental nature. ~</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-divine-shakti#p8</refcenter>
== Shakti It is possible for the Purusha to use it on the mental plane itself for a constant self-observation, self-development, self-modification, to sanction, reject, alter, bring out new formulations of the nature and Selfestablish a calm and disinterested action, a high and pure sattwic balance and rhythm of its energy, a personality perfected in the sattwic principle. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-divine-Observation ==shakti#p9</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>"The Shakti, the power of the Infinite and the Eternal descends within us, works, breaks up our present psychological formations, shatters every wall, widens, liberates... she frees the consciousness from confinement in the body; it can go out in trance or sleep or even waking and enter into worlds or other regions of this world and act there or carry back its experience. It spreads out, feeling the body only as a small part of itself, and begins to contain what before contained it; it achieves the cosmic consciousness and extends itself to be commensurate with the universe. It begins to know inwardly and directly and not merely by external observation and contact the forces at play in the world, feels their movement, distinguishes their functioning and can operate immediately upon them as the scientist operates upon physical forces, accept their action and results in our mind, life, body or reject them or modify, change, reshape, create immense new powers and movements in place of the old small functionings of the nature. We begin to perceive the working of the forces of universal Mind and to know how our thoughts are created by that working...." (The Mother , 7 November 1956) ~</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/7-november-1956#p1</refcenter>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">It is thus by an integralisation ...with regard to the movements and experiences of our divided being that the Divine Shakti in body the Yoga mind will proceed come to its object; for liberation, perfectionknow the Purusha seated within it as, mastery are dependent on this integralisationfirst, since the little wave on witness or observer of the surface cannot control its own movementmovements and, secondly, much less have any true control over the vast life around it..knower or perceiver of the experiences.It begins will cease to know inwardly and directly and not merely by external observation and contact the forces at play consider in thought or feel in the world, feels their movement, distinguishes their functioning sensation these movements and can operate immediately upon them experiences as the scientist operates upon physical forces, accept their action its own but rather consider and results in our mind, life, body or reject feel them or modifyas not its own, change, reshape, create immense new powers and movements in place as operations of Nature governed by the old small functionings qualities of the natureNature and their interaction upon each other. </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-ascentrelease-offrom-subjection-to-the-sacrifice-iibody#p29p4</ref>
== Evolution and Self-Observation ==<center>~</center>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Man is a type among many types so constructed, one pattern among The Purusha and Prakriti are on the multitude of patterns mental level as in the manifestation rest of our being closely joined and much involved in Mattereach other and we are not able to distinguish clearly soul and nature. He is But in the most complex that has been created, purer substance of mind we can more easily discern the richest dual strain. The mental Purusha is naturally able in content its own native principle of consciousness and mind to detach itself, as we have seen, from the curious ingeniousness workings of his building; he is the head of the earthly creation, but he does not exceed it…. If its Prakriti and there is then a perfection to which he has to arrive, it must be a perfection in his own kind, within his own law division of our being,—the between a consciousness that observes and can reserve its willpower and an energy full play of itthe substance of consciousness that takes the forms of knowledge, but by observation of its mode will and measure, not by transcendencefeeling. To exceed himself, to grow into This detachment gives at its highest a certain freedom from the superman, to put on compulsion of the soulby its mental nature and capacities of a god would be a contradiction of his self-law, impracticable and impossible. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2224/manthe-anddivine-the-evolutionshakti#p8</ref></span>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">In the animal mind is not quite distinct from its own life-matrix and life-matter; its movements are so involved in the life movements that it cannot detach itself from them, cannot stand separate and observe them; but in man mind has become separate, he can become aware of his mental operations as distinct from his life operations, his thought and will can disengage them selves from his sensations and impulses, desires and emotional reactions, can become detached from them, observe and control them, sanction or cancel their functioning: he does not as yet know the secrets of his being well enough to be aware of himself decisively and with certitude as a mental being in a life and body, but he has that impression and can take inwardly that position. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/the-evolution-of-the-spiritual-man#p6</refcenter>~</spancenter>
== Chitta The actions are of importance only as expressing what is in the nature. You have to be conscious of whatever in your actions is not in harmony with the Yoga and to get rid of it. But for that what is needed is your own consciousness, the psychic, observing from within and throwing off what is seen to be undesirable. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/work-and Self-Observation ==yoga#p45</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>Chitta, the basic consciousness, is largely subconscient; it has, open and hidden, two kinds of action, one passive or receptive, the other active or reactive and formative. As a passive power it receives all impacts, even those of which the mind is unaware or to which it is inattentive, and it stores them in an immense reserve of passive subconscient memory on which the mind as an active memory can draw.But ordinarily the mind draws only what it had observed and understood at the time,—more easily what it had observed well and understood carefully, less easily what it had observed carelessly or ill understood; at the same time there is a power in consciousness to send up to the active mind for use what that mind had not at all observed or attended to or even consciously experienced. This power only acts observably in abnormal conditions, when some part of the subconscious chitta comes as it were to the surface or when the subliminal being in us appears on the threshold and for a time plays some part in the outer chamber of mentality where the direct intercourse and commerce with the external world takes place and our inner dealings with ourselves develop on the surface.~</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-instruments-of-the-spirit#p6</refcenter>
= Practice The mental being within watches, observes and passes judgment on all that happens in you. The psychic does not watch and observe in this way like a witness, but it feels and knows spontaneously in a much more direct and luminous way by the very purity of Selfits own nature and the divine instinct within it, and so, whenever it comes to the front it reveals at once what are the right and what the wrong movements in your nature. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-Observation =jivatman-in-the-integral-yoga#p40</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Take one hour of your life, the one which is most convenient for you, and during that time observe yourself closely and say only the absolutely indispensable words.</span>
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/anger#p15 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/anger#p15</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">There are four movements which are usually consecutive, but which in the end may be simultaneous: to observe one's thoughts is the first, to watch over one's thoughts is the second, to control one's thoughts is the third and to master oneContent curated by Aditi Kaul'''s thoughts is the fourth. To observe, to watch over, to control, to master. </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/conjugate-verses#p7</ref>
== Going Within ==
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">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 observe how they all tended without our knowing it towards the growth of our being and consciousness, towards the work we had to do, towards some development that had to be made,—not only what seemed good, fortunate or successful but the struggles, failures, difficulties, upheavals. </span>
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-divine-grace-and-guidance#p33</ref>
{|class="wikitable" style= Positive Attitude =="background-color: #efefff; width: 100%;"|Read Summary of '''[[Self Observation Summary|Self Observation]]'''
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">To become conscious of what is to be changed Dear reader, if you notice any error in the nature is paragraph numbers in the first step towards changing it. But one must observe these things without being despondent or thinking "it is hopeless" or "I cannot change"hyperlinks, please let us know by dropping an email at integral. You do right to be confident that the change will comeedu. For nothing is impossible in the nature if the psychic being is awake and leading you with the Mother's consciousness and force behind it and working in you. This is now happening. Be sure that all will be done@gmail. </span>com<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/speech-and-yoga#p53</ref>|}
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Despair and despondency are always wrong. If you make a mistake, quietly observe it and correct the tendency next time. Even if the mistake recurs often, you have only to persevere quietly—remembering that nature cannot be changed in a day. </span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/depression-and-despondency#p67</ref>References =
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