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Read Summary of '''[[Self Observation Summary|Self Observation]]'''
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= What is Self-Observation =
 
We have in all functionings of the mentality four elements, the object of mental consciousness, the act of mental consciousness, the occasion and the subject. In the self-experience of the self-observing inner being, the object is always some state or movement or wave of 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 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 indistinguishably. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/memory-ego-and-self-experience#p5</ref>
 
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= What You may have 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 Selfnot 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. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/27-january-Observation =1954#p34</ref> <center>~</center>
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>
...if he [man] is not to remain this being of the surface ignorance seeking obscurely after the truth of things and collecting and systematising fragments and sections of knowledge, the small limited and 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 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. 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 material front of the universe….But this knowledge must be something more than a creed or a mystic revelation; his thinking mind must be able to accept it, to correlate it with the principle of things and the observed truth of the universe: this is the work of philosophy, and in the field of the truth of the spirit it can only be done by a spiritual philosophy, whether intellectual in its method or intuitive. (The Mother, 18 June 1958) <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/18-june-1958#p3~</refcenter>
==What to Observe ==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. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-psychic-being#p84</ref> <center>~</center> '''Active and Passive Observation'''
Your consciousness becomes a screen or mirror; but this is when you are in a state of contemplation, a mere observer; when you are active, it is like a searchlight. You have only to turn it on, if you want to see luminously and examine penetratingly anything in any place. (The Mother, 30 June 1929) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/30-june-1929#p7</ref>
'''Parts of the Being Observation is Not Discernment'''
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 capacity of observation must not take care to distinguish, it makes a kind be confused with the capacity of soup, all that togetherdiscernment. So it Discernment is indistinct and difficult to discoveran intellectual capacity. But if you observe yourselfSomething like a judgment already enters into it, after some time what we call "discrimination": you see certain thingscan distinguish between the origin of one thing and of another, 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 and the reciprocal value of these 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 But that ought to find out from where they come. This is just be founded on a beginningcorrect observation. (The Motherpower of observation comes first, 10 June 1953) discernment follows. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0503/1030-june-19531929#p31p7</ref>
….You may have 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 ==What to be founded on a correct observation. The power of observation comes first, discernment follows. (The Mother, 27 January 1954) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/27-january-1954#p34</ref>Observe ==
...We have in all functionings One can prepare the body through a series of the mentality four elementsobservations, studies, understandings, the object of mental consciousnessby showing it examples, the act of mental consciousnessmaking it understand things as one makes a child understand them, the occasion and the subject. In the self-experience of the self-either by observing inner beingits own movements―but generally, in this, the object one is always some state or movement or wave comparatively blind!―or by observing those of the conscious beingothers. And in a more general way, this preparation will be based on recognised studies, on clear facts. Like this, angerfor instance: that a certain number of persons, grief or other emotionplaced in exactly similar circumstances, hunger or other vital cravingexperience, impulse or inner life reaction or some form each one of sensationthem, perception or thought activityvery different effects. The act One may go even further: in a given set of definite circumstances, there is some kind of mental observation and conceptual valuation of this movement or wave or else a mental sensation certain number of it particular, definite individuals, in which observation and valuation may be involved and even lostapparently quite identical conditions,—so that in this act the mental person may either separate the act and for some the object by a distinguishing perception or confuse them together indistinguishablyeffects are catastrophic, while others escape without any harm. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2108/memory4-egojuly-and-self-experience1956#p5p15</ref>
For 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-consciousness, and by entering into this or becoming it, identifying ourselves with it, we can observe the springs of our thoughts and feelings, 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 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 '''Parts 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-vision. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/knowledge-by-identity-and-separative-knowledge#p12</ref>Being '''
One can prepare the body through a series of observationsHave you ever practised distinguishing what comes from your mind, studieswhat comes from your vital, understandings,by showing what comes from your physical?... For it is mixed up; it examplesis mixed up in the outward appearance. If you do not take care to distinguish, making it understand things as one makes a child understand themkind of soup, either by observing its own movements―but generally, in this, one all that together. So it is comparatively blind!―or by observing those of othersindistinct and difficult to discover. And in a more general wayBut if you observe yourself, after some time you see certain things, this preparation will you feel them to be based on recognised studiesthere, on clear facts. Like this, for instance: like that a certain number of persons, placed as though they were in exactly similar circumstancesyour skin; for some other things you feel you would have to go within yourself to find out from where they come; for other things, experienceyou have to go still further inside, each one of themor otherwise you have to rise up a little: it comes from unconsciousness. And there are others; then you must go very deep, very different effectsdeep to find out from where they come. One may go even further: in a given set of definite circumstances, there This is just a certain number of particular, definite individuals, in apparently quite identical conditions, and for some the effects are catastrophic, while others escape without any harmbeginning. (The Mother, 4 July 1956) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0805/410-julyjune-19561953#p15p31</ref>
One can prepare '''Observing 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. (The Mother, 4 July 1956) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/4-july-1956#p15</ref>Inner Being'''
For 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-consciousness, and by entering into this or becoming it, identifying ourselves with it, we can observe the springs of our thoughts and feelings, 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 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 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-vision. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/knowledge-by-identity-and-separative-knowledge#p12</ref>
'''The Three Modes of Nature'''
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 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. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-three-modes-of-nature#p2</ref>
'''Dreams'''
 
Now the procedure 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 night, you will be able to trace back very often the condition of your day to the condition 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/cwm/03/21-april-1929#p6</ref>
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[[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#top|Back to Contents]]p14</ref>
= Why - Self-Observation =<center>~</center>
… if each element which comes with its ignoranceAs the inner consciousness grows by sadhana, these dream experiences increase in number, its unconsciousnessclearness, its egoismcoherence, is put before the will to change accuracy and after some growth of experience and one remains awakeconsciousness, compareswe can, observesif we observe, studies come to understand them and slowly actstheir significance to our inner life. Even we can by training become so conscious as to follow our own passage, that becomes infinitely interestingusually veiled to our awareness and memory, one makes marvellous through many realms and quite unexpected discoveries. One finds in oneself lots the process of small hidden folds, little things one had not seen at the beginning; one undertakes return to the waking state. At a sort certain pitch of this inner chase, goes hunting into small dark corners and tells oneself: "What, I was like that! This was there in me, I am harbouring wakefulness this little thing"—sometimes so sordidkind of sleep, so mean, so nasty. And once it has been discovereda sleep of experiences, how wonderful! One puts can replace the light upon it and it disappears and you no longer have those reactions which made you so sad before, when you used to say, "Oh! I shall never get thereordinary subconscient slumber. (The Mother, 19 April 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0430/19three-aprilexperiences-of-the-inner-1951being#p14p6</ref>
To work for your perfection, 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 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 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 tribunal 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 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 the success of our endeavour. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/the-science-of-living#p5</ref>
The true and ultimate, as distinguished from the immediate or intermediate importance of 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 [[#top|Back 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>Contents]]
= How to Observe Oneself Why is Self-Observation Important? =
But you must begin when very ...if he [man] is not to remain this being of the surface ignorance seeking obscurely after the truth of things and collecting and systematising fragments and sections of knowledge, the small, limited and consciously, very consciously; you half-competent creature of the cosmic Force which he now is in his phenomenal nature. He must begin with a sense of observation of know himself and discover and utilise all his potentialities: but to know himself and the movements in yourselfworld completely he must go behind his own and its exterior, he must dive deep below his own mental surface and the physical surface of their relation with othersNature. This he can only do by knowing his inner mental, of—preciselyvital, physical and psychic being and its powers and movements and the universal laws and processes of your degree the occult Mind and Life which stand behind the material front of independence, real individualitythe universe. ...But this knowledge must be something more than a creed or a mystic revelation; his thinking mind must be able to accept it, to correlate it with the principle of things and the observed truth of knowing where impulses come from, where other movements come fromthe universe: whether it this is contagion from outside or something that arises from within yourself. A very profound study the work of philosophy, and in the field of the truth of all the movements in oneself is necessary in order to succeed simply in crystallising a being who is spirit it can only be done by a little consciousspiritual philosophy, a little consciouswhether intellectual in its method or intuitive. (The Mother, 22 September 1954) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0609/2218-septemberjune-19541958#p43p3</ref>
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 your 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....". (The Mother, 29 July 1953) <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/29-july-1953#p47~</refcenter>
It To work for your perfection, the first step is not a physical retirement 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 is neededan assiduous study which demands much perseverance and sincerity. For man's nature, but an inner detachment from the especially his mental formations nature, has a spontaneous tendency to give a favourable explanation for everything he thinks, feels, says and vital desiresdoes. To find It is only by observing these movements with great care, by bringing them, as it were, before the real self above tribunal 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 within 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 live constant manner, reject from us or eliminate in thatus whatever contradicts the truth of our existence, whatever is opposed to it. In this way, little by little, not in all the mind's conceptions or parts, all the vital's reactionselements 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. These Therefore, in order to accomplish it, we must be observed arm ourselves with patience and looked at not endurance, with a determination to prolong our life as one's own but long as movements necessary for the success of a surface ignorant natureour endeavour. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/3112/interactions-with-others-and-the-practicescience-of-yogaliving#p111p5</ref> <center>~</center>
== By Vigilance ==… if each element which comes with its ignorance, its unconsciousness, its egoism, is put before the will to change and one remains awake, compares, observes, studies and slowly acts, that becomes infinitely interesting, one makes marvellous and quite unexpected discoveries. One finds in oneself lots of small hidden folds, little things one had not seen at the beginning; one undertakes a sort of inner chase, goes hunting into small dark corners and tells oneself: "What, I was like that! This was there in me, I am 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 and it disappears and you no longer have those reactions which made you so sad before, when you used to say, "Oh! I shall never get there. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/19-april-1951#p14</ref>
One can be quiet, happy, cheerful without being all that in a light or shallow way—and the happiness need not bring any vital reaction. All that you need to do is to be observant and vigilant,—watchful so that you may not give assent to wrong movements or the return of the old feelings, darkness, confusion etc. Not fear, but vigilance. If you remain vigilant, then with the increase of the Force upholding you, a power of self-control will come, a power to see and reject the wrong turn or the wrong reaction when it comes. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/fear#p12~</refcenter>
But If you had that observation (from the inner spiritual, not the outer intellectual and ethical viewpoint), then it would be comparatively easy for you have only to observe yourselves... get out of your difficulties; for instance you can observe yourself, catch yourself would find 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..once where this irrational impulse to flee away came from and it would not have any hold upon you. And also how one should actOf course, what this person should have all that can only be done, how to resolve that problem.... All men know, the best effect when you see... If they were at stand back from the head play of governments, for instance, they would know very well how to manage everything! your nature and become the Witness-Control or the Spectator-Actor Manager. But people don't listen to them..that is what happens when you take this kind of self-seeing posture. that's all! (The Mother, 21 July 1954) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0631/21mental-difficulties-and-the-julyneed-of-1954quietude#p40p23</ref>
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) <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/28-november-1956#p19~</refcenter>
The true and ultimate, as distinguished from the immediate or intermediate importance of 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>
== By Developing a Quiet Mind =How to Observe Oneself? =
It is only But you must begin when we follow very small, and consciously, very consciously; you must begin with a sense of observation of all the yogic process 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 quieting all the mind itself that movements in oneself is necessary in order to succeed simply in crystallising a being who is a little conscious, a profounder result of our self-observation becomes possiblelittle conscious. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2106/indeterminates-cosmic22-determinations-and-theseptember-indeterminable1954#p12p43</ref>
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 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. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/peace#p10~</refcenter>
What You project yourself on the screen and then observe and see all that is moving there and how it moves and what happens usually is that something touches the vital. You make a little diagram, often without one's knowing itbecomes so interesting then. And then, after a while, when you are quite accustomed to seeing, you can go one step further and brings take a decision. Or even a still greater step: you organise—arrange, take up the old ordinary or external consciousness all that, put each thing in its place, organise in such a way that the you begin to have a straight movement with an inner mind gets covered up meaning. And then you become conscious of your 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 the old thoughts that within me, each thing has been put in its place, and feelings return for so naturally a timecentral orientation is forming. It is the physical mind that becomes active and gives its assentI am following this orientation. If the whole mind remains quiet One step more and detached observing the vital movement, but not giving its assent, then I know what will happen to reject me for I myself am deciding it becomes more easy. This established quietude and detachment of the mind marks always a great step forward made in the sadhana...". <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/3105/the29-vitaljuly-and-other-levels-of-being1953#p45p47</ref>
But 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, and little by little distinguishing between different categories of things. You will be able to know what one thing is and what another etc., whether it comes from you or from outside, whether it is on a material plane or on another plane. All this is learnt through a very quiet observation, quiet but very sharp, you understand; because there are very tiny shades, very tiny, between different things, and when you get used to distinguishing these nuances, you can discern exactly what it is. (The Mother, 20 October 1954) <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/20-october-1954#p46~</refcenter>
It If one begins to find out, to understand what a feeling is really an inner silence that and what a thought is needed—a something silent within , and how it works, then one can already go quite far on the path with that looks . One must at outer talk the same time observe how his feelings and thoughts have an action but feels it as 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, something superficialwhich 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 itself 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 quite indifferent and untouched by something which has the feeling of always being the same person. So one must reflect, seek, try to understand what itis. It This indeed can bring forces to support speech and 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 or of the body on these things—and also what it is that says "I" permanently, what it is that can stop them by withdrawal or trace a curve in the movement of the being, if one seeks carefully enough, it can let them go on leads you quite far. Naturally if one seeks far enough and observe without being involved or movedwith enough persistence, one reaches the psychic. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/3107/speech9-andmarch-yoga1955#p76p23</ref>
...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) <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/30-september-1953#p13~</refcenter>
To silence the mind it It is not enough to throw back each thought as it comesa physical retirement that is needed, that can only be a subordinate movement. One must get back but an inner detachment from all thought the mental formations and be separate from it, a silent consciousness observing vital desires. To find the thoughts if they comereal self above and within and live in that, but not oneself thinking in the mind's conceptions or identified with the thoughtsvital's reactions. Thoughts These must be felt observed and looked at not as outside things altogether. It is then easier to reject thoughts or let them pass without their disturbing the quietude one's own but as movements of the minda surface ignorant nature. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/interactions-with-others-and-the-practice-of-yoga#p99p111</ref>
== By Developing the Witness Attitude ==<center>~</center>
Have you never felt this? As though you were a little behind When we are in contact with the Divine or above things, and were looking at them taking place but were not doing anything yourself? Witness means in contact with an observer, someone who looks on inner knowledge and does not act himself. Sovision, when we begin to see all 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 of our life in the action himself. This gives you a great detachment, a great quietude, new light and also a very precise sense of can observe how they all tended without our knowing it towards the value growth of thingsour being and consciousness, because it cuts towards the attachment work we had to action. When you know how do, towards some development that had to do this with yourselfbe made, when you can withdraw and watch yourself acting—not only what seemed good, you learn many things about yourself. When you are all mixed up and take part in fortunate or successful but the actionstruggles, you do not observe yourself actingfailures, you don't know what you are like. But when you draw back and look at yourselfdifficulties, you can perceive many imperfections which you wouldn't have seen otherwiseupheavals. (The Mother, 13 October 1954) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0629/13the-divine-grace-octoberand-1954guidance#p2p33</ref>
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</ref>== By Vigilance ==
You have One can be quiet, happy, cheerful without being all that in a light or shallow way—and the happiness need not bring any vital reaction. All that you need to become conscious—that do is to saybe observant and vigilant, there must be something in —watchful so that you which is may not carried away by thoughts and give assent to wrong movements or the return of the old feelings, darkness, confusion etc. Not fear, but looks at them and observes how they work and how they affect vigilance. If you remain vigilant, then with the increase of the Force upholding you. The part that observes , a power of self-control will come, a power to see and knows is called reject the wrong turn or the Witness sākṣī in man. It is always possible to develop this in oneselfwrong reaction when it comes. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/3031/inner-detachment-and-the-witness-attitudefear#p25p12</ref>
== By Sincerity and Impartiality ==<center>~</center>
For that But you must be absolutely sincere and impartialhave only to observe yourselves.. You must . you can observe yourself as if you were observing and criticising , catch yourself at least a hundred times a third person. You must not start day, with an idea that this a mind which decides everything, knows everything, judges everything, knows very well what is your life's missiongood, what bad, this what is your particular capacitytrue, this you are to do or that you are to dowhat false, in this lies your talent or genius, etcwhat is right. That will carry you away from the right track. It is not the liking or disliking of your external being, your mental or vital or physical choice that determines the true line of your growth. Nor And also how one should you take up the opposite attitude and sayact, "I am good for nothing in what this matterperson should have done, I am useless in how to resolve that one; it is not for meproblem..." Neither vanity and arrogance nor self-depreciation and false modesty should move you. As I saidAll men know, you must be absolutely impartial and unconcernedsee... You should be like a mirror that reflects If they were at the truth and does not judgehead of governments, for instance, they would know very well how to manage everything! But people don't listen to them... (The Mother, 12 November 1952) that's all! <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/1506/1221-novemberjuly-19521954#p6p40</ref>
<center>~</center>
If you 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 yourselfwhat 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, you in the beginning altogether unconsciously and almost involuntarily, but gradually more and more consciously; and the will see can wake up and react. Then at that as soon as you do something which disturbs you a littlemoment, the mind immediately gives you moment there is a favourable reason to justify yourself—this mind is conscious will capable of gilding everythingreacting, one may say, "I have become conscious. In these conditions " This does not mean that it is a total and perfect consciousness, it means that it is difficult a beginning: for example, when one is able to know oneself. One must be absolutely sincere observe all the reactions in one's being and to be able have a certain control over them, to do it let those one approves of have play, and to see clearly into all the little falsehoods control, stop, annul those one doesn't approve of the mental being. (The Mother, 15 January 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0408/1528-januarynovember-19511956#p3p19</ref>
==By Becoming Aware of Desire ==<center>~</center>
For that you must observe yourself veryTake one hour of your life, very attentively, and if there is anything in you the one 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 most convenient for me"—you believe, you imagine, you think and during that you need such and such a thing and you find the necessary means to obtain the thing. To know if it is a need or a desire, you must look at time observe yourself very closely and ask yourself, "What will happen if I cannot get the thing?" Then if say only the immediate answer is, "Oh, it will be very bad", you may be sure that it is a matter of desireabsolutely indispensable words. 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) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0403/25-january-1951anger#p3p15</ref>
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 == By Developing a clear, precise, constant vision of the Truth. (The Mother, 21 December 1950) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/21-december-1950#p7</ref>Quiet Mind ==
==By Education ==It is only when we follow the yogic process of quieting the mind itself that a profounder result of our self-observation becomes possible. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/indeterminates-cosmic-determinations-and-the-indeterminable#p12</ref>
….But it is through sensations that you learn: by seeing, observing, hearing. Classes develop your sensations, studies develop your sensations, the mind receives things through sensations. By the education of the senses the growth of one's general education is aided; if you learn to see well, exactly, precisely; if you learn to hear well; if you learn through touch to know the nature of things; if you learn through the see of smell to distinguish between different odours—all these are a powerful means of education. In fact, they should be used for this, as instruments of observation, control and knowledge. If one is sufficiently developed, one can know the nature of things through sight; through the see of smell one may also know the value, the different nature of things; by touch one can recognise things. It is a question of education; that is, one must work for it. (The Mother, 31 March 1954) <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/31-march-1954#p13~</refcenter>
..The child must A quiet mind does not mean that there will be taught to observeno thoughts or mental movements at all, to note his reactions but that these will be on the surface and impulses and their causesyou will feel your true being within separate from them, observing but not carried away, able to become a discerning witness of his desires, his movements of violence watch and passion, his instincts of possession judge them and appropriation reject all that has to be rejected and domination to accept and the background of vanity which supports them, together with their counterparts of weakness, discouragement, depression keep to all that is true consciousness and despairtrue experience. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/1229/vital-educationpeace#p14p10</ref>
The indispensable starting-point is a detailed and discerning observation of the character to be transformed. In most cases, that 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 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 like the light and the shadow of the same thing. Thus someone who has the capacity of being exceptionally generous will suddenly find an obstinate avarice rising up in his nature, the courageous man will be a coward in some part of his being and the good man will suddenly have wicked impulses. 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 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 express the shadow. If the circumstances and the environment are favourable, 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, unless a higher element comes in in time, 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. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/vital-education#p6~</refcenter>
==Limitations of SelfThere 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 one's thoughts is the fourth. To observe, to watch over, to control, to master. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/conjugate-Observation==verses#p7</ref>
'''Surface Level Observation'''<center>~</center>
As a general ruleWhat happens usually is that something touches the vital, with a few very rare exceptionsoften without one's knowing it, men are content to observe more and brings up the old ordinary or less accurately everything external consciousness in such a way that happens around them, the inner mind gets covered up and sometimes within themselves, all the old thoughts and to classify all these observations according to one superficial system of logic or another. And they call this organisation, these systems, "knowledge"feelings return for a time. It has never occurred to them, they have not even begun to perceive is the physical mind that all becomes active and gives its assent. If the whole mind remains quiet and detached observing the things they seevital movement, touchbut not giving its assent, feel, experience, are false appearances then to reject it becomes more easy. This established quietude and not reality itselfdetachment of the mind marks always a great step forward made in the sadhana. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/1031/aphorismthe-vital-and-other-levels-of-7being#p3p45</ref>
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. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/knowledge-by-identity-and-separative-knowledge#p7~</refcenter>
One throws oneself out all the time; all the time one livesBut if you remain very quiet, as it only if you observe—as though you weresilently looking at something, outside oneselfyou understand—then you will begin seeing more precisely, in such a superficial sensation that it is almost as though one were outside oneselfand little by little distinguishing between different categories of things. As soon as one wants even You will be able to observe oneself a little, control oneself a little, simply know what one thing is happeningand what another etc., one is always obliged to draw back whether it comes from you or pull towards oneselffrom outside, to pull inwards something which whether it is constantly like that, on the surfacea material plane or on another plane. And it All this is this surface thing which meets all external contactslearnt through a very quiet observation, quiet but very sharp, you understand; because there are very tiny shades, very tiny, between different things, puts and when you in touch with similar vibrations coming from others. That happens almost outside get used to distinguishing these nuances, youcan discern exactly what it is. (The Mother, 20 June 1956) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0806/20-juneoctober-19561954#p49p46</ref>
'''Ignorance'''<center>~</center>
As the surface mental entity moving from moment to momentIt is really an inner silence that is needed—a something silent within that looks at outer talk and action but feels it as something superficial, not observing his essential self but only his relation to his experiences of the Time-movement, in that movement keeping the future from himself in what appears to be a blank of Ignorance as itself and non-existence but is an unrealised fullness, grasping knowledge quite indifferent and experience of being in the present, putting untouched by it away in the past which again appears . It can bring forces to be a blank of Ignorance support speech and non-existence partly lighted, partly saved and stored up action or it can stop them by memory, he puts withdrawal or it can let them go on the aspect of a thing fleeting and uncertain seizing observe without stability upon things fleeting and uncertain. But in reality, we shall find, he is always the same Eternal who is for ever stable and self-possessed in His supramental knowledge and what he seizes on is also for ever stable and eternal; for it is himself that he is mentally experiencing in the succession of Timebeing involved or moved. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2131/memory-self-consciousnessspeech-and-the-ignoranceyoga#p15p76</ref>
'''Observing Invisible Forces'''<center>~</center>
If we observe a happening, we judge and explain it from the result You must be able to silence your head absolutely and from a glimpse of its most external constituentsbe completely detached, 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 invisiblehave (for example,—but they when you are not invisible to looking for the spiritual vision solution of the Infinite: some of them are actualities working to produce or occasion a new actualityproblem), some are possibles not to have already in your head the solution that are near seems to you right or the pre-existent actuals and in best or most profitable. That must not be there. You must become absolutely like a way included blank paper, with nothing on it. And you proceed in their aggregate; but there can intervene always new possibilities that suddenly become dynamic potentials and add themselves way, with a very sincere aspiration to know the nexustruth, and behind all are imperatives without assuming beforehand that it will be like this or an imperative which these possibilities are labouring to actualiselike 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/cwsacwm/2105/brahman-purusha-ishwara-maya30-prakritiseptember-shakti1953#p7p13</ref>
= Self Observation in context of === Personality and Self-Observation == === Three Gunas and Self-Observation === 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. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-three-modes-of-nature#p13~</refcenter>
=== Parts To silence the mind it is not enough to throw back each thought as it comes, that can only be a subordinate movement. One must get back from all thought and Planes be separate from it, a silent consciousness observing the thoughts if they come, but not oneself thinking or identified with the thoughts. Thoughts must be felt as outside things altogether. It is then easier to reject thoughts or let them pass without their disturbing the quietude of the Being === mind. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/interactions-with-others-and-the-practice-of-yoga#p99</ref>
== By Developing the Witness Attitude ==
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 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-1954#p2</ref>
<center>~</center>
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</ref>
<center>~</center>
You have to become conscious—that is to say, there must be something in you which is not carried away by thoughts and feelings, but looks at them and observes how they work and how they affect you. The part that observes and knows is called the Witness sākṣī in man. It is always possible to develop this in oneself. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/inner-detachment-and-the-witness-attitude#p25</ref>
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 == By Sincerity 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. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/brahman-purusha-ishwara-maya-prakriti-shakti#p23</ref>Impartiality ==
=== Witness For that you must be absolutely sincere and Parts 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, this you are to do or that you are to do, in this lies your talent or genius, etc. That will carry you away from the right track. It is not the liking or disliking of your external being, your mental or vital or physical choice that determines the true line of Being ===your growth. Nor should you take up the opposite attitude and say, "I am good for nothing in this matter, I am useless in that one; it is not for me." Neither vanity and arrogance nor self-depreciation and false modesty should move you. As I said, you must be absolutely impartial and unconcerned. You should be like a mirror that reflects the truth and does not judge. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/12-november-1952#p6</ref>
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) <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/22-march-1951#p6~</refcenter>
Sometimes there 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 no relation among capable of gilding everything. In these different witnesses—there ought to be, but conditions it is not always theredifficult to know oneself. But if there is in the being a will One must be absolutely sincere to become perfect, the relation is established quite quickly; one can refer be able to another do it and finally, if there is a sufficient sincerity, sufficient concentration, you come to the supreme inner Witness who can judge see clearly into all things. But generally it may be said that it is always a part of the mind, more or less enlightened, in a little closer contact with falsehoods of the inner mental being, which observes and judges. (The Mother, 22 March 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/2215-marchjanuary-1951#p7p3</ref>
==By Becoming Aware of Desire ==
The witness Purusha 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 mind observes that necessary means to obtain the inadequacy of his effortthing. To know if it is a need or a desire, all the inadequacy in fact of man's life you must look at yourself very closely and nature arises from ask yourself, "What will happen if I cannot get the separation and thing?" Then if the consequent struggleimmediate answer is, want of knowledge"Oh, want of harmonyit will be very bad", want you may be sure that it is a matter of onenessdesire. It is essential the same for him to grow out of separative individualityeverything. For every problem you draw back, look at yourself and ask, to universalise himself"Let us see, am I going to make himself one have the thing?" If at that moment something in you jumps up with the universejoy, you may be certain there is a desire. This unification can be done only through On the soul by making our soul of mind one with the universal Mindother hand, if something tells you, "Oh, I am not going to get it", our soul of life one with the universal Life-souland you feel very depressed, our soul of body one with the universal soul of physical Naturethen again it is a desire. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2404/the-perfection-of-the25-mentaljanuary-being1951#p15p3</ref>
=== Psychic Being ===<center>~</center>
If you observe yourself attentively, you will see that before acting you need an inner impetus, something which pushes you...behind there is the psychic which supports the development, the growth of In the being and gives ordinary man this continuity of consciousness, makes one feel that he impetus is the same being even while being absolutely different, absolutely differentgenerally desire. If later one observes himself sufficiently, he can see that the things he understood and could do at that time are things which seem This desire ought to him absolutely inconceivable now, and that he could never do be replaced by a similar thing because he is no longer that person at all. And yetclear, because within there was the psychic consciousness which is immortalprecise, one has the feeling that it is always constant vision of 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 changesTruth. (The Mother, 29 June 1955) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0704/2921-junedecember-19551950#p28p7</ref>
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 ==By Education 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</ref>Senses==
The actions are But it is through sensations that you learn: by seeing, observing, hearing. Classes develop your sensations, studies develop your sensations, the mind receives things through sensations. By the education of the senses the growth of importance only as expressing what one's general education is in aided; if you learn to see well, exactly, precisely; if you learn to hear well; if you learn through touch to know the nature. You have to be conscious of whatever in your actions is not in harmony with things; if you learn through the Yoga and see of smell to get rid distinguish between different odours—all these are a powerful means of iteducation. But In fact, they should be used for that what this, as instruments of observation, control and knowledge. If one is needed is your own consciousnesssufficiently developed, one can know the nature of things through sight; through the see of smell one may also know the psychicvalue, observing from within and throwing off what the different nature of things; by touch one can recognise things. It is a question of education; that is seen to be undesirable, one must work for it. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2906/work31-andmarch-yoga1954#p45p13</ref>
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. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-jivatman-in-the-integral-yoga#p40~</refcenter>
== Consciousness The child must be taught to observe, to note his reactions and Selfimpulses 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. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/vital-Observation ==education#p14</ref>
<center>~</center>
However, if one observes things The indispensable starting-point is a little deeplydetailed and discerning observation of the character to be transformed. In most cases, one perceives that itself is a difficult and often a very baffling task. But there is progressone fact which the old traditions knew and which can serve as the clue in the labyrinth of inner discovery. It is that everyone possesses in a large measure, that things become better and betterthe exceptional individual in an increasing degree of precision, though apparently they do not improvetwo opposite tendencies of character, in almost equal proportions, which are like the light and the shadow of the same thing. And for Thus someone who has the capacity of being exceptionally generous will suddenly find an obstinate avarice rising up in his nature, the courageous man will be a consciousness seated coward in some part of his being and the good man will suddenly have wicked impulses. 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 little higherconcrete manner the battle he has to wage and the victory he has to win for the realisation to become possible. Consequently, it all life is quite evident an education pursued more or less consciously, more or less willingly. In certain cases this education will encourage the movements that all evil—at least what we call evil—all falsehoodexpress the light, in others, on the contrary, all those that is contrary to express the shadow. If the circumstances and the Truthenvironment are favourable, all suffering, all opposition is the result light will grow at the expense of a disequilibriumthe shadow; otherwise the opposite will happen. I believe that one who is habituated And in this way the individual's character will crystallise according to seeing things from this the whims of Nature and the determinisms of material and vital life, unless a higher plane sees immediately that it element comes in in time, 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 like thatwhat we mean by a rational method of education. (The Mother, 8 January 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0412/8-januaryvital-1951education#p13p6</ref>
== How to Observe Thoughts==
At a certain stage of the sadhana, in the beginning (or near it) of the more intense experiences, it sometimes happens The error comes from thinking that there is the intense realisation of some aspect of the Divine, a sort of communion with it, your thoughts are your own and that is seen everywhere you are their maker and all as thatif you don't create thoughts (i. It is a transitory phase and afterwards one gets the larger experience of the Divine in all its aspects and beyond all aspectse. Throughout the experience think), there should will be one part of the being none. A little observation ought to show that observes and understands—for sometimes ignorant sadhaks you are carried away by their experience and stop short there or fall into extravagance. It must be taken as an experience through which not manufacturing your own thoughts, but rather thoughts occur in you are passing. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/3031/suggestionsthought-for-dealing-withand-experiencesknowledge#p10p3</ref>
== Thoughts and Self-Observation ==<center>~</center>
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 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>
It is only gradually, very slowly, through the movements of life and a more or less careful and thorough education that you begin to have sensations which are personal to you, feelings and ideas which are personal to you. An individualised mind is something extremely rare, which comes only after a long education; otherwise it is a kind of thought-current passing through your brain and then through another's and then through a multitude of other brains, and all this is in perpetual movement and has no individuality. One thinks what others are thinking, others think what still others are thinking, and everybody thinks like that in a great mixture, because these are currents, vibrations of thought passing from one to another. If you look at yourself attentively, 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 of these thoughts you have are the result of your own experience, your own reflection, your purely personal observation?—Not many. (The Mother, 20 February 1957) <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/20-february-1957#p6~</refcenter>
It is only gradually, very slowly, through the movements of life and a more or less careful and thorough education that you begin to have sensations which are personal to you, feelings and ideas which are personal to you. An individualised mind is something extremely rare, which comes only after a long education; otherwise it is a kind of thought-current passing through your brain and then through another's and then through a multitude of other brains, and all this is in perpetual movement and has no individuality. One thinks what others are thinking, others think what still others are thinking, and everybody thinks like that in a great mixture, because these are currents, vibrations of thought passing from one to another. If you look at yourself attentively, 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 of these thoughts you have are the result of your own experience, your own reflection, your purely personal observation?—Not many. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/20-february-1957#p6</ref>
<center>~</center>
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 error comes proper thing is then to stand back from thinking that your these thoughts are your own , voices or suggestions, to reject them or else control them, to make the mind free and quiet and that you are their maker open only to the divine light, force, knowledge and if you don't create thoughts (ithe presence of the Divine. ..e. think)Aspire, get into contact with the Light and the true Force, there reassert your will be noneto reject these suggestions and voices. A little observation ought to show that you are Do not manufacturing your own thoughtstake interest in these voices, but rather thoughts occur in youkeep the mind quiet. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/thought-and-knowledge#p3p5</ref>
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 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 =Difficulties in these voices, keep the mind quiet. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/thought-andSelf-knowledge#p5</ref>Observation=
= Difficulties during Self-Observation =Danger of the Ego==
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) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/5-april-1951#p14</ref>
<center>~</center>
Do not be over-eager for experience,—for experiences ...if you can always getdo your tapasya, having once broken all the barrier between the physical mind time observing yourself doing it and the subtle planes. What you have telling yourself, "Am I making any progress, is this going to be better, am I going to aspire for most succeed?", then it is the improved quality of the recipient consciousness in you—discrimination in the mindyour ego, the unattached impersonal Witness look on all that goes on in you and around youknow, purity in the vital, calm equanimity, enduring patience, absence of pride which becomes more and the sense of greatness—and more especially, the development of enormous and occupies the psychic being in you—surrender, self-giving, psychic humility, devotion... a sufficient foundation and a consciousness always self-observantwhole place, vigilant and growing in these things there is indispensable—for perfect purification is the basis of the perfect siddhino room for anything else. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/3004/the-danger-of-the-ego-and-the-need26-ofapril-purification1951#p14p35</ref>
== Escape attitude ==
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) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/26-january-1955#p14</ref>
== Focusing on the 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.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/steps-towards-overcoming-difficulties#p28</ref>  <center>~</center> 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-need-of-purification#p14</ref> <center>~</center> To become conscious of what is to be changed in the nature is the first step towards changing it. But one must observe these things without being despondent or thinking "it is hopeless" or "I cannot change". You do right to be confident that the change will come. 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. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/speech-and-yoga#p53</ref> <center>~</center> 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> <center>~</center>
It is a subtle law of the 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-despondency#p22</ref>
It is difficult ==Surface Level Observation== As a general rule, with a few very rare exceptions, men are content to observe the difference between the action of the hostile Force more or less accurately everything that happens around them, and sometimes within themselves, and the pressure to classify all these observations according to one superficial system of the lower Nature because it is the latter that the Force takes hold of for its purposelogic or another. And they call this organisation, these systems, "knowledge". But there is in the Force a suggestive characterIt has never occurred to them, a conscious arrangement of the attack so as they have not even begun to upset or destroy perceive that all the sadhana which there things they see, touch, feel, experience, are false appearances and not reality itself.  [Based on Aphorism 7—What men call knowledge is not in the ordinary movement reasoned acceptance of false appearances. Wisdom looks behind the lower Nature—for that only comes to satisfy itself veil and then ceasessees. Reason divides, fixes details and contrasts them; Wisdom unifies, marries contrasts in a single harmony]. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/3110/the-hostile-forces-and-the-difficultiesaphorism-of-yoga7#p35p3</ref> <center>~</center>
== Overcoming  difficulty ==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. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/knowledge-by-identity-and-separative-knowledge#p7</ref>
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. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/mental-difficulties-and-the-need-of-quietude#p23~</refcenter>
= Other fields of SelfOne throws oneself out all the time; all the 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 observe oneself 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 surface. 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. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/20-Observation =june-1956#p49</ref>
==Observing Invisible Forces==
If 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-existent actuals and in a way included in their aggregate; but 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#p7</ref>
== Meditation =Self Observation - Exploring Realms of Consciousness=
... when Man is a type among many types so constructed, one comes out pattern among the multitude of meditationpatterns in the manifestation in Matter. He is the most complex that has been created, some time later—usually not immediately—from within the being something new emerges richest in content of consciousness and the curious ingeniousness of his building; he is the consciousness: a new understandinghead of the earthly creation, but he does not exceed it…. If there is a new appreciation of thingsperfection to which he has to arrive, it must be a new attitude perfection in life—in shorthis own kind, a new way within his own law of being. This may be fugitive, but at that moment, if one observes —the full play of it, one finds that something has taken one step forward on the path but by observation of understanding or transformationits mode and measure, not by transcendence. It may be an illuminationTo exceed himself, an understanding truer or closer to grow into the truthsuperman, or a power to put on the nature and capacities of transformation which helps you to achieve a psychological progress or god would be a widening contradiction of the consciousness or a greater control over your movementshis self-law, over the activities of the beingimpracticable and impossible. (The Mother , 5 June 1957) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0922/5man-and-junethe-1957evolution#p20p8</ref>
The mind is always in activity, but we do not observe fully what it is doing, but allow ourselves to be carried away in the stream of continual thinking. When we try to concentrate, this stream of self-moved mechanical thinking becomes prominent to our observation. It is the first normal obstacle (the other is sleep during meditation) to the effort towards Yoga. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/concentration-and-meditation#p30~</refcenter>
== Dreams ==...behind there is the psychic which supports the development, the growth of the being and gives this continuity of consciousness, makes one feel that he is the same being even while being absolutely different, absolutely different. 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 now, and 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, one has the feeling that 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. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/29-june-1955#p28</ref>
Now the procedure 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 night, you will be able to trace back very often the condition of your day to the condition 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. (The Mother, 21 April 1929) <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/21-april-1929#p6~</refcenter>
It There is a tremendous field state of observation—there is no end to the discoveries you can make being experienced in Yoga in your dreams. But there is which we become a double consciousness, one important point: you must not go 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 sleep when you are very tiredquiet, for if you doenlarge, you fall into transform it. So too we can rise to a sort consciousness above and observe the various parts of unconsciousness in which dreams do whatever they like with youour being, inner and outer, mental, vital and physical and the subconscient below all, and you have no reactionact upon one or other or the whole from that higher status. Just 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 I said our place of working while the rest that you should not eat without having taken restwe are is either temporarily put away or put behind or else kept as a field of reference from which we can get support, I would advise everyone to rest before going to sleepsanction or light and influence or as a status into which we can ascend or recede and from it observe the inferior movements. And for thatOr we can plunge into trance, you must know how to restget 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. (The Mother, 1 February 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/1521/1brahman-purusha-ishwara-maya-februaryprakriti-1951shakti#p14p23</ref>
As <center>~</center> In this progression the first step is a certain detached superiority to the inner consciousness grows by sadhanathree modes of Nature. The soul is inwardly separated and free from the lower Prakriti, not involved in its coils, these dream experiences increase indifferent and glad above it. Nature continues to act in numberthe triple round of her ancient habits, clearness—desire, coherencegrief and joy attack the heart, accuracy the instruments fall into inaction and after some growth of experience obscurity and consciousness, we can, if we observeweariness, light and peace come to understand them back into the heart and mind and body; but the soul stands unchanged and their significance to our inner lifeuntouched by these changes. Even we can Observing and unmoved by training become so conscious as to follow our own passagethe grief and desire of the lower members, usually veiled to our awareness smiling at their joys and memorytheir strainings, through many realms regarding and unoverpowered by the failing and the darknesses of the thought and the process wildness or the weaknesses of the return heart and nerves, uncompelled and unattached to the waking state. At a certain pitch mind's illuminations and its relief and sense of ease or of this inner wakefulness this kind 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. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/3023/the-three-experiencesmodes-of-the-inner-beingnature#p6p13</ref>
= Things to Remember =<center>~</center>
If one begins to find out"The Shakti, 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 power of the same time observe how his feelings Infinite and thoughts have an action on the bodyEternal descends within us, what the reciprocity is. And thenworks, there is another exercise which consists in looking into oneself for what is persistentbreaks up our present psychological formations, what is lastingshatters every wall, something which makes one say "I"widens, and which is not liberates... she frees the consciousness from confinement in the body. For obviously, when one was very small, ; it can go out in trance or sleep or even waking and then when each year one grows up, if one takes fairly long distances, for example a distance enter into worlds or other regions of about ten yearsthis world and act there or carry back its experience. It spreads out, they are very different "I"s from what one was when feeling the body only as a small as this (gesture)part of itself, and then begins to contain what one is nowbefore contained it; it is difficult achieves the cosmic consciousness and extends itself to say that it is be commensurate with the same person, you seeuniverse. If one takes only this, still there is something which has It begins to know inwardly and directly and not merely by external observation and contact the feeling of always being forces at play in the same person. So one must reflectworld, seekfeels their movement, try to understand what it is. This indeed distinguishes their functioning and can lead you far on operate immediately upon them as the path. Then if one also studies the relation between these different things—between thoughts, feelingsscientist operates upon physical forces, accept their action on the and results in our mind, life, bodyor reject them or modify, change, reshape, create immense new powers and movements in place of the reciprocal action old small functionings of the body on these things—and also what it is that says "I" permanently, what it is that can trace a curve in nature. We begin to perceive the movement working of the being, if one seeks carefully enough, it leads you quite farforces of universal Mind and to know how our thoughts are created by that working... Naturally if one seeks far enough and with enough persistence, one reaches the psychic. (The Mother, 9 March 1955) " <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0708/97-marchnovember-19551956#p23p1</ref>
= Yogic Experience =<center>~</center>
== It is thus by an integralisation of our divided being that the Divine Shakti in the Yoga will proceed to 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 Observer ==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>
A hidden Power is the true Lord and overruling Observer of our acts and only he knows through all the ignorance and perversion and deformation brought ==How to be in by the ego their entire sense and ultimate purpose. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/self-surrender-in-works-the-way-of-the-gita#p6</ref>a Witness State?==
== Purusha 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 Selfenjoys 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-Observation ==1951#p6</ref>
It is ordinarily considered that the Yogin should draw away 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; and we must note farther that when the mental Purusha takes up the attitude of mere witness and observer, a tendency to silence, solitude, physical calm and bodily inaction grows upon the being. So long as this is not associated with inertia, incapacity or unwillingness to act, in a word, with the growth of the tamasic quality, all this is to the good. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-release-from-subjection-to-the-body#p7~</refcenter>
It Sometimes there is possible for the Purusha no relation among these different witnesses—there ought to use be, but it on is not always there. But if there is in the mental plane itself for being a constant self-observation, self-development, self-modificationwill to become perfect, the relation is established quite quickly; one can refer to sanctionanother and finally, rejectif there is a sufficient sincerity, altersufficient concentration, bring out new formulations you come to the supreme inner Witness who can judge all things. But generally it may be said that it is always a part of the nature and establish a calm and disinterested actionmind, a high and pure sattwic balance and rhythm of its energymore or less enlightened, in a personality perfected in little closer contact with the sattwic principleinner being, which observes and judges. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2404/the22-divinemarch-shakti1951#p9p7</ref>
..with regard to the movements and experiences of the body the mind will come to know the Purusha seated within it as, first, the witness or observer of the movements and, secondly, the knower or perceiver of the experiences. It will cease to consider in thought or feel in sensation these movements and experiences as its own but rather consider and feel them as not its own, as operations of Nature governed by the qualities of Nature and their interaction upon each other. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-release-from-subjection-to-the-body#p4~</refcenter>
The witness Purusha and Prakriti are on in the mental level as in mind observes that the rest inadequacy of our being closely joined and much involved his effort, all the inadequacy in each other fact of man's life and we are not able to distinguish clearly soul nature arises from the separation and nature. But in the purer substance consequent struggle, want of knowledge, want of harmony, want of mind we can more easily discern the dual strainoneness. The mental Purusha It is naturally able in its own native principle essential for him to grow out of mind separative individuality, to detach itselfuniversalise himself, as we have seen, from to make himself one with the universe. This unification can be done only through the workings of its Prakriti and there is then a division of soul by making our being between a consciousness that observes and can reserve its willpower and an energy full soul of mind one with the substance universal Mind, our soul of consciousness that takes life one with the forms universal Life-soul, our soul of knowledge, will and feeling. This detachment gives at its highest a certain freedom from body one with the compulsion universal soul of the soulby its mental naturephysical Nature. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-divineperfection-of-the-mental-shaktibeing#p8p15</ref>
== Shakti and Self-Observation ==<center>~</center>
"The Shakti, It is ordinarily considered that the power of Yogin should draw away from action as much as possible and especially that too much action is a hindrance because it draws off the Infinite energies outward. To a certain extent this is true; and we must note farther that when the Eternal descends within us, works, breaks mental Purusha takes 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 attitude of this world mere witness and act there or carry back its experience. It spreads outobserver, 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 tendency 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 worldsilence, feels their movementsolitude, distinguishes their functioning physical calm and can operate immediately bodily inaction grows upon them the being. So long as the scientist operates upon physical forces, accept their action and results in our mind, lifethis is not associated with inertia, body incapacity or reject them or modifyunwillingness to act, changein a word, reshape, create immense new powers and movements in place of with the old small functionings growth of the nature. We begin tamasic quality, all this is to perceive the working of the forces of universal Mind and to know how our thoughts are created by that working..good.." (The Mother, 7 November 1956) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0823/7the-release-from-subjection-novemberto-1956the-body#p1p7</ref>
It is thus by an integralisation of our divided being that the Divine Shakti in the Yoga will proceed to 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. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-ascent-of-the-sacrifice-ii#p29~</refcenter>
== Evolution 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>
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 richest in content of consciousness 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 observation of its mode and measure, not by transcendence. To exceed himself, to grow into the superman, to put on the nature and capacities of a god would be a contradiction of his self-law, impracticable and impossible. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/man-and-the-evolution#p8~</refcenter>
In ...with regard to the movements and experiences of the body the animal mind is not quite distinct from its own life-matrix and life-matter; its movements are so involved in will come to know the life movements that Purusha seated within it cannot detach itself from themas, cannot stand separate and observe them; but in man mind has become separatefirst, he can become aware the witness or observer of his mental operations as distinct from his life operations, his thought and will can disengage them selves from his sensations the movements and impulses, desires and emotional reactionssecondly, can become detached from them, observe and control them, sanction the knower or cancel their functioning: he does not as yet know perceiver of the secrets of his being well enough experiences. It will cease to be aware of himself decisively consider in thought or feel in sensation these movements and with certitude experiences as a mental being in a life its own but rather consider and bodyfeel them as not its own, but he has that impression as operations of Nature governed by the qualities of Nature and can take inwardly that positiontheir interaction upon each other. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2223/the-evolutionrelease-offrom-subjection-to-the-spiritual-manbody#p6p4</ref>
== Chitta and Self-Observation ==<center>~</center>
Chitta, The Purusha and Prakriti are on the mental level as in the basic consciousness, is largely subconscient; it has, open rest of our being closely joined and hidden, two kinds of action, one passive or receptive, the much involved in each other active or reactive and formative. As a passive power it receives all impacts, even those of which the mind is unaware or we are not able to which it is inattentive, distinguish clearly soul and it stores them nature. But in an immense reserve the purer substance of passive subconscient memory on which the mind as an active memory we can drawmore easily discern the dual strain.But ordinarily the The mental Purusha is naturally able in its own native principle of mind draws only what it had observed and understood at the timeto detach itself,—more easily what it had observed well and understood carefullyas we have seen, less easily what it had observed carelessly or ill understood; at from the same time workings of its Prakriti and there is then a division of our being between 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 observes and can reserve its willpower and an energy full of the subconscious chitta comes as it were to substance of consciousness that takes the surface or when the subliminal being in us appears on the threshold forms of knowledge, will and for feeling. This detachment gives at its highest a time plays some part in certain freedom from the outer chamber compulsion of mentality where the direct intercourse and commerce with the external world takes place and our inner dealings with ourselves develop on the surfacesoulby its mental nature. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-instruments-of-thedivine-spiritshakti#p6p8</ref>
= Practice of Self-Observation =<center>~</center>
Take one hour The actions are of importance only as expressing what is in the nature. You have to be conscious of whatever in your lifeactions is not in harmony with the Yoga and to get rid of it. But for that what is needed is your own consciousness, the one which is most convenient for youpsychic, observing from within and during that time observe yourself closely and say only the absolutely indispensable wordsthrowing off what is seen to be undesirable. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0329/anger#p15 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/angerwork-and-yoga#p15p45</ref>
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 one's thoughts is the fourth. To observe, to watch over, to control, to master. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/conjugate-verses#p7~</refcenter>
== Going Within ==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</ref>
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. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-divine-grace-and-guidance#p33</ref>
== Positive Attitude =='''Content curated by Aditi Kaul'''
To become conscious of what is to be changed in the nature is the first step towards changing it. But one must observe these things without being despondent or thinking "it is hopeless" or "I cannot change". You do right to be confident that the change will come. 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. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/speech-and-yoga#p53</ref>
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>
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= References =
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