Changes

= Importance of What is Self-Observation =

<div style="color:#000000;">There are four necessities of man's self-expansion if he is not to remain this being We have in all functionings of the surface ignorance seeking obscurely after mentality four elements, the truth object of things and collecting and systematising fragments and sections mental consciousness, the act of knowledgemental consciousness, the small limited occasion and halfthe subject. In the self-competent creature experience of the cosmic Force which he now self-observing inner being, the object is in his phenomenal nature. He must know himself and discover and utilise all his potentialities: but to know himself and always some state or movement or wave of the world completely he must go behind his own and its exteriorconscious being, anger, he must dive deep below his own mental surface and the physical surface of Nature. This he can only do by knowing his inner mentalgrief or other emotion, hunger or other vitalcraving, physical and psychic being and its powers and movements and the universal laws and processes impulse or inner life reaction or some form of sensation, perception or thought activity. The act is some kind of the occult Mind mental observation and Life which stand behind the material front conceptual valuation of the universe….But this knowledge must be something more than a creed movement or wave or else a mystic revelation; his thinking mind must mental sensation of it in which observation and valuation may be able to accept it, to correlate it with the principle of things involved and the observed truth of the universe: this is the work of philosophyeven lost, and —so that in this act the field of mental person may either separate the truth of act and the spirit it can only be done object by a spiritual philosophy, whether intellectual in its method distinguishing perception or intuitiveconfuse them together indistinguishably. </div><div style="color:#000000;">(The Mother, 18 June 1958)</div><div style="color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0921/18memory-ego-juneand-1958self-experience#p3p5</ref></u></div>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The Upanishad tells us that 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 Self-existent has so set the doors train of ideas, the soul that they turn outwards and most men look outward into the appearances logic of things; only the rare soul that ideas, it is ripe for a calm thought and steady wisdom turns its eye inward, sees not altogether the Self and attains to immortality. To this turning same power of the eye inward psychological self-observation as when you look at a friend doing athletics and </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">analysis see whether he is a great and effective introductionmaking his movements correctly or not. We can look into That is, the inward capacity of ourselves more easily than we can look into the inward of things external to us because attention is there, in things outside usboth cases, we are but it works in a different field. It can't be said that it is one part of the first place embarrassed by being observing the form and secondly we have no natural previous experience of that in them which is other than their physical substance….psychological self-knowledge others; it is only the experience faculty of the modes observation developing in each part of the Selfbeing—that is, it is not the realisation faculty of the Self in its pure beingconcentration and attention.</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2306/the27-status-ofjanuary-knowledge1954#p7p34</ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>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.~</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/self-consecration#p17</refcenter>

= What This sensational thought-mind which is based upon sense, memory, association, first ideas and resultant generalisations or secondary ideas, is common to Observe =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>

<div style="color:#000000;">There are many voices, and The ordinary mind knows itself only as an ego with all are not divine; this may be only a voice the movements of desire. All that keeps one faithful to the Truth nature in a jumble and insists on peace, purityidentifying itself with these movements, devotionthinks "I am doing this, feeling that, sinceritythinking, a spiritual change in joy or in sorrow etc." The first beginning of real self-knowledge is when you feel yourself separate from the nature can be listened to with profit; the rest must be observed with discrimination in you and its movements and not followed blindly. Keep the fire then you see that there are many parts of aspiration burningyour being, but avoid all impatient hastemany personalities each acting on its own behalf and in its own way.</div> <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/3028/innerthe-voicespsychic-and-indicationbeing#p84</ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The idea of the three essential modes of Nature is a creation of the ancient Indian thinkers '''Active and its truth is not at once obvious, because it was the result of long psychological experiment and profound internal experience. Therefore without a long inner experience, without intimate self-observation and intuitive perception of the Nature-forces it is difficult to grasp accurately or firmly utilise. Still certain broad indications may help the seeker on the Way of Works to understand, analyse and control by his assent or refusal the </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">combinations of his own nature. These modes are termed in the Indian books qualities, guṇas, and are given the names sattva, rajas, tamas. Sattwa is the force of equilibrium and translates in quality as good and harmony and happiness and light; rajas is the force of kinesis and translates in quality as struggle and effort, passion and action; tamas is the force of inconscience and inertia and translates in quality as obscurity and incapacity and inaction. Ordinarily used for psychological self-analysis, these distinctions are valid also in physical Nature. Each thing and every existence in the lower Prakriti contains them and its process and dynamic form are the result of the interaction of these qualitative powers.</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-three-modes-of-nature#p2</ref>Passive Observation'''

= Process Your consciousness becomes a screen or mirror; but this is when you are in a state of Selfcontemplation, 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. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/30-Observation =june-1929#p7</ref>

<div style="color:#000000;">You project yourself on the screen and then observe and see all that '''Observation 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....".</div>Not Discernment'''

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">(The Mother ,29 July 1953)</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/29-july-1953#p47</ref></u></span> <div style="color:#000000;">But you For the capacity of observation must begin when very small, and consciously, very consciously; you must begin not be confused with a see of observation of all the movements in yourself, capacity 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 discernment. Discernment is contagion from outside or something that arises from within yourselfan intellectual capacity. A very profound study of all the movements in oneself is necessary in order to succeed simply in crystallising Something like a being who is a little consciousjudgment already enters into it, a little conscious.</div><div style=what we call "color:#000000;">(The Mother,22 September 1954)</div><div style=discrimination"color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/22-september-1954#p43</ref></u></div> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">It is not a physical retirement that is needed, but an inner detachment from you can distinguish between the mental formations origin of one thing and vital desires. To find the real self above of another, and within and live in that, not in the mind's conceptions or the vital's reactions. These must be observed and looked at not as one's own but as movements reciprocal value of a surface ignorant naturethese things.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/interactions-with-others-and-the-practice-of-yoga#p111</ref></u></span> = Conditions for Self-Observation = == Quiet Mind == <div style="color:#000000;">It is only when we follow the yogic process of quieting the mind itself But that ought to be founded on a profounder result of our self-correct observation becomes possible.</div><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/indeterminates-cosmic-determinations-and-the-indeterminable#p12</ref></u></span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">It is in the quiet mind that the true The power of observation and knowledge comecomes first, discernment follows.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2903/quiet-and30-calm#p40</ref></u></span> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">A quiet mind does not mean that there will be no thoughts or mental movements at all, but that these will be on 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.</span><span style="backgroundjune-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/peace1929#p10p7</ref></u></span>

<div style="color:#000000;">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 =What to distinguishing these nuances, you can discern exactly what it is.</div><div styleObserve ="color:#000000;">(The Mother,20 October 1954)</div><div style="color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/20-october-1954#p46</ref></u></div>

<div style="color:#000000;">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.You must be able If you do not take care to silence your head absolutely distinguish, it makes a kind of soup, all that together. So it is indistinct and be completely detached, not difficult to have (for examplediscover. But if you observe yourself, when after some time you are looking for the solution of a problem)see certain things, not you feel them to have already be there, like that, as though they were in your head the solution that seems skin; for some other things you feel you would have to go within yourself to find out from where they come; for other things, you right have to go still further inside, or the best or most profitable. That must not be there. You must become absolutely like otherwise you have to rise up a blank paper, with nothing on little: itcomes from unconsciousness. And there are others; then you proceed in that waymust go very deep, with a very sincere aspiration deep to know the truth, without assuming beforehand that it will be like this or like that; because otherwise you will see only your own formationfind out from where they come. The very first condition This is that the head must keep completely silent during the time one is observingjust a beginning. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/10-june-1953#p31</divref>

<span style="backgroundFor a larger mental being is there within us, a larger inner vital being, even a larger inner subtle-physical being other than our surface body-color:transparent;color:#000000;">To silence the mind consciousness, and by entering into this or becoming it is not enough to throw back each thought as , identifying ourselves with it comes, 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 only be a subordinate movement. One must get back from all thought know the inner being that secretly thinks and be separate from itperceives in us, a silent consciousness observing the thoughts if they comevital being that secretly feels and acts upon life through us, but not oneself thinking or </span><span style="backgroundthe subtle-color:transparent;color:#000000;">identified with physical being that secretly receives and responds to the thoughts. Thoughts must be felt as outside contacts of things altogetherthrough our body and its organs. It Our surface thought, feeling, emotion is then easier to reject thoughts or let them pass without their disturbing 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 quietude separate sources of our mental, our vital and our physical energisms and can see clearly the pure operations, the minddistinct powers, the composing elements of each and their interplay in a clear light of self-vision.</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/3121/interactionsknowledge-withby-othersidentity-and-the-practice-ofseparative-yogaknowledge#p99p12</ref>

<div style="color:#000000;">Have you never felt this? As though you were a little behind or above things, and were looking at them taking place but were not doing anything yourself? Witness means an observer, someone who looks on and does not act himself. So, when the mind is very quiet, one can withdraw a little in this way from circumstances and look at things as though he were a witness, a spectator, and not participating in the action himself. This gives you a great detachment, a great quietude, and also a very precise see of the value of things, because it cuts the attachment to action. When you know how to do this with yourself, when you can withdraw and watch yourself acting, you learn many things about yourself. When you are all mixed up and take part in the action, you do not observe yourself acting, you don't know what you are like. But when you draw back and look at yourself, you can perceive many imperfections which you wouldn't have seen otherwise.</div>'Dreams'''

<span style="background-color:transparentNow 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;color:#000000;">(The Mother,13 October 1954)</span>things happen there and they govern your waking consciousness. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0603/1321-octoberapril-19541929#p2p6</ref>

<div style="color:#000000;">It has been seen that is a most effective way tremendous field of purification observation—there is for the mental Purusha no end to draw back, to stand as the passive witness and observe and know himself and the workings of Nature discoveries you can make in the lower, the normal being; but this your dreams. But there is one important point: you must be combinednot go to sleep when you are very tired, for perfectionif you do, you fall into a sort of unconsciousness in which dreams do whatever they like with a will 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 raise the purified nature into the higher spiritual beingsleep. When And for that is done, the Purusha is no longer only a witness, but also the master of his prakriti, īśvarayou must know how to rest.</div><div style="color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2415/the-action-of1-thefebruary-divine-shakti1951#p7p14</ref></u></div>

<div style="color:#000000;"center>The witness Purusha in the mind observes that the inadequacy of his effort, all the inadequacy in fact of man's life and nature arises from the separation and the consequent struggle, want of knowledge, want of harmony, want of oneness. It is essential for him to grow out of separative individuality, to universalise himself, to make himself one with the universe. This unification can be done only through the soul by making our soul of mind one with the universal Mind, our soul of life one with the universal Life-soul, our soul of body one with the universal soul of physical Nature.~</div><div style="color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-perfection-of-the-mental-being#p15</ref></u></divcenter>

== Being Sincere As the inner consciousness grows by sadhana, these dream experiences increase in number, clearness, coherence, accuracy and Impartial ==after some growth of experience and consciousness, we can, if we observe, come to understand them and their significance to our inner life. Even we can by training become so conscious as to follow our own passage, usually veiled to our awareness and memory, through many realms and the process of the return to the waking state. At a certain pitch of this inner wakefulness this kind of sleep, a sleep of experiences, can replace the ordinary subconscient slumber. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/three-experiences-of-the-inner-being#p6</ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:[[#000000;">(The Mother ,12 November 1952)</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/12-november-1952#p6</ref></u></span>top|Back to Contents]]

== Being Vigilant =Why is Self-Observation Important? =

<div style="color...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:#000000;">One 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 be quietonly do by knowing his inner mental, happyvital, cheerful without physical and psychic being all that in a light or shallow way—and and its powers and movements and the universal laws and processes of the happiness need not bring any vital reaction. All that you need to do is to be observant occult Mind and vigilant,—watchful so that you may not give assent to wrong movements or Life which stand behind the return material front of the old feelings, darkness, confusion etcuniverse. .. Not fear, but vigilance. If you remain vigilantBut this knowledge must be something more than a creed or a mystic revelation; his thinking mind must be able to accept it, then to correlate it with the increase principle of things and the observed truth of the universe: this is the Force upholding you, a power work of self-control will comephilosophy, a power to see and reject in the field of the wrong turn or truth of the wrong reaction when spirit it comescan only be done by a spiritual philosophy, whether intellectual in its method or intuitive. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/18-june-1958#p3</divref>

<refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/fear#p12~</refcenter>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">But 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 have only to observe yourselvesaction.It is an assiduous study which demands much perseverance and sincerity.. you can observe yourselfFor man's nature, especially his mental nature, catch yourself at least has a hundred times spontaneous tendency to give a dayfavourable 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 mind which decides everythingsincere will to submit to its judgment, knows everythingthat 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, judges everythingthat is to say, knows very well what is goodwe are truly created for, what badwe can call our mission upon earth, what is truethen we must, in a very regular and constant manner, what falsereject from us or eliminate in us whatever contradicts the truth of our existence, what whatever is rightopposed to it... And also how one should actIn this way, little by little, what this person should have doneall the parts, how 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 resolve that problemsome degree of perfection.... All men knowTherefore, you see... If they were at the head of governmentsin order to accomplish it, for instancewe must arm ourselves with patience and endurance, they would know very well how with a determination to manage everything! But people don't listen to themprolong our life as long as necessary for the success of our endeavour... that's all!</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">(The Mother,21 July 1954)</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0612/21the-science-julyof-1954living#p40p5</ref></u></span>

<div style="color:#000000;">For that you must observe yourself very, very attentively, and … if there is anything in you each element which produces something like a small intense vibrationcomes with its ignorance, then you may be sure that there lies a desire. For exampleits unconsciousness, you sayits egoism, "This food is necessary for me"—you believeput before the will to change and one remains awake, compares, observes, you imaginestudies and slowly acts, you think that you need such becomes infinitely interesting, one makes marvellous and such a thing and you find quite unexpected discoveries. One finds in oneself lots of small hidden folds, little things one had not seen at the necessary means to obtain the thing. To know if it is beginning; one undertakes a need or a desiresort of inner chase, you must look at yourself very closely goes hunting into small dark corners and ask yourself, tells oneself: "What will happen if , I was like that! This was there in me, I cannot get the am harbouring this little thing?" Then if the immediate answer is—sometimes so sordid, "Ohso mean, so nasty. And once it will be very bad"has been discovered, you may be sure that how wonderful! One puts the light upon it and it is a matter of desire. It is the same for everything. For every problem disappears and you draw back, look at yourself and ask, "Let us see, am I going to no longer have the thing?" If at that moment something in those reactions which made you jumps up with joyso sad before, when you may be certain there is a desire. On the other hand, if something tells youused to say, "Oh, ! I am not going to shall never get it", and you feel very depressed, then again it is a desirethere. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/19-april-1951#p14</divref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>(The Mother, 25 January 1951)~</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/25-january-1951#p3</refcenter>

<div style="color:#000000;">But a time comes when instead of doing things automaticallyThe true and ultimate, impelled by a consciousness and force as distinguished from the immediate or intermediate importance of which one is quite unaware—a time comes when one can observe what goes on in oneselfour observing, study one's movementsreasoning, find their causesinquiring, judging intelligence is that it prepares the human being for the right reception and at the same time begin to exercise right action of a control first over what goes on within us, then on the influence cast on us Light from outside above which makes us act, must progressively replace in him the obscure light from below that guides the beginning altogether unconsciously animal. ...Man can bring an enlightened will, an enlightened thought and almost involuntarily, but gradually enlightened emotions to the difficult work of his self-development; he can more and more consciously; subject to these more conscious and reflecting guides the will inferior function of desire. In proportion as he can wake up thus master and react. Then at that momentenlighten his lower self, the moment there he is a conscious will capable of reacting, one may say, "I have become consciousman and no longer an animal." This does not mean that it is When he can begin to replace desire altogether by a total still greater enlightened thought and sight and perfect consciousnesswill in touch with the Infinite, it means that it is consciously subject to a beginning: for examplediviner will than his own, when one is able linked 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, more universal and to controltranscendent knowledge, stop, annul those one doesn't approve ofhe 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</divref>

<div style="color:#000000;">(The Mother, 28 November 1956)</div>How to Observe Oneself? =

<div style="colorBut you must begin when very small, and consciously, very consciously; you must begin with a sense of observation of all the movements in yourself, of their relation with others, of—precisely, of your degree of independence, real individuality, of knowing where impulses come from, where other movements come from:#0066cc;"><u>whether it is contagion from outside or something that arises from within yourself. A very profound study of all the movements in oneself is necessary in order to succeed simply in crystallising a being who is a little conscious, a little conscious. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0806/2822-novemberseptember-19561954#p19p43</ref></u></div>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>As a general rule, with a few very rare exceptions, men are content to observe more or less accurately everything that happens around them, and sometimes within themselves, and to classify all these observations according to one superficial system of logic or another. And they call this organisation, these systems, "knowledge". It has never occurred to them, they have not even begun to perceive that all the things they see, touch, feel, experience, are false appearances and not reality itself.~</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-7#p3</ref></u></spancenter>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">It If one begins to find out, to understand what a feeling is and what a thought is evident , and how it works, then one can already go quite far on the path with that our state . One must at the same time observe how his feelings and thoughts have an action on the surface body, what the reciprocity is. And then, there is another exercise which consists in looking into oneself for what is persistent, what is indeed a state of knowledgelasting, so far as it goessomething which makes one say "I", but a limited knowledge enveloped and invaded by ignorance andwhich is not the body. For obviously, to a when one was very large extentsmall, by reason of its limitationand then when each year one grows up, if one takes fairly long distances, itself for example a kind distance of ignoranceabout ten years, they are very different "I"s from what one was when as small as this (gesture), at best a mixed knowledge-ignorance. It could not be otherwise since our awareness of the world and then what one is born of a separative and surface observation with only an indirect means of cognition at its disposalnow; our knowledge of ourselvesit is difficult to say that it is the same person, though more directyou see. If one takes only this, still there is stultified by its restriction to something which has the surface feeling of our always beingthe same person. So one must reflect, seek, try to understand what it is. This indeed can lead you far on the path. Then if one also studies the relation between these different things—between thoughts, by an ignorance of our true selffeelings, their action on the true sources of our naturebody, the true motive-forces reciprocal action of our </span><span style=the body on these things—and also what it is that says "background-color:transparent;color:#000000;I">action. It permanently, what it is quite evident that we know ourselves with only can trace a superficial knowledge,—the sources curve in the movement of our consciousness and thought are a mystery; the true nature of our mindbeing, emotionsif one seeks carefully enough, sensations is a mystery; our cause of being it leads you quite far. Naturally if one seeks far enough and our end of beingwith enough persistence, one reaches 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-knowledgepsychic.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2107/knowledge-by-identity-and9-separativemarch-knowledge1955#p7p23</ref></u></span>

<div style="color:#000000;"center>One 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.~</div><div style="color:#000000;">(The Mother , 20 June 1956)</div><div style="color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/20-june-1956#p49</ref></u></divcenter>

== Ignorance == <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">As the surface mental entity moving from moment to moment, not observing his essential self but only his relation to his experiences of the Time-movement, in that movement keeping the future from himself in what appears to be a blank of Ignorance and non-existence but It is an unrealised fullness, grasping knowledge and experience of being in the present, putting it away in the past which again appears to be a blank of Ignorance and non-existence partly lighted, partly saved and stored up by memory, he puts on the aspect of a thing fleeting and uncertain seizing 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 Time.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/memory-self-consciousness-and-the-ignorance#p15</ref></u></span> == Observing Invisible Forces == <div style="color:#000000;">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 physical retirement 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.</div> <div style="color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/brahman-purusha-ishwara-maya-prakriti-shakti#p7</ref></u></div> = Personality and Self-Observation = == Three Guna’s and Self-Observation == <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">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 thingsneeded, but waits unmoved for the intimations of a higher Will and the intuitions of a greater luminous knowledge.</span> <div style="color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-three-modes-of-nature#p13</ref></u></div> = Parts and Planes of the Being = <div style="color:#000000;">Have you ever practised distinguishing what comes from your mind, what comes from your vital, what comes from your physical?... For it is mixed up; it is mixed up in the outward appearance. If you do not take care to distinguish, it makes a kind of soup, all that together. So it is indistinct and difficult to discover. But if you observe yourself, after some time you see certain things, you feel them to be there, like that, as though they were in your skin; for some other things you feel you would have to go within yourself to find out from where they come; for other things, you have to go still further inside, or otherwise you have to rise up a little: it comes from unconsciousness. And there are others; then you must go very deep, very deep to find out from where they come. This is just a beginning.</div> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">(The Mother , 10 June 1953)</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/10-june-1953#p31</ref></u></span> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">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 </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">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 inner detachment 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.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/the-science-of-living#p5</ref></u></span> <div style="color:#000000;">….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 formations and see whether he is making his movements correctly or not. That is, the capacity of attention is there in both cases, but it works in a different field. It can't be said that it is one part of the being observing the others; it is the faculty of observation developing in each part of the being—that is, the faculty of concentration and attention. For the capacity of observation must not be confused with the capacity of discernment. Discernment is an intellectual capacity. Something like a judgment already enters into it, what we call "discrimination": you can distinguish between the origin of one thing and of another, and the reciprocal value of these things. But that ought to be founded on a correct observation. The power of observation comes first, discernment follows.</div> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">(The Mother, 27 January 1954)</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/27-january-1954#p34</ref></u></span> <div style="color:#000000;">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 personalitydesires. 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 To 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 real self-vision.</div><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/knowledge-by-identity-and-separative-knowledge#p12</ref>  <div style="color:#000000;">There is a state of being experienced in Yoga in which we become a double consciousness, one on the surface, small, active, ignorant, swayed by thoughts and feelings, grief and joy and all kinds of reactions, the other within calm, vast, equal, observing the surface being with an immovable detachment or indulgence or, it may be, acting upon its agitation to quiet, enlarge, transform it. So too we can rise to a consciousness above and observe the various parts of our being, inner and outer, mental, vital and physical and the subconscient below all, and act upon one or other or the whole from that higher status. It is possible also to go down from that height or from any height into any of these lower states and take its limited light or its obscurity as our place of working while the rest that we are is either temporarily put away or put behind or else kept as a field of reference from which we can get support, sanction or light and influence or as a status into which we can ascend or recede and from it observe the inferior movements. Or we can plunge into trance, get within ourselves and be conscious there while all outward things are excluded; or we can go beyond even this inner awareness and lose ourselves in some deeper other consciousness or some high superconscience. There is also a pervading equal consciousness into which we can enter and see all ourselves with one enveloping glance or omnipresent awareness one and indivisible.</div><div style="color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/brahman-purusha-ishwara-maya-prakriti-shakti#p23</ref></u></div> == Witness and Parts of Being == <div style="color:#000000;">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 live 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.</div> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">(The Mother, 22 March 1951)</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/22-march-1951#p6</ref></u></span> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Sometimes there is no relation among these different witnesses—there ought to be, but it is not always there. But if there is in the being a will to become perfect, the relation is established quite quickly; one can refer to another and finally, if there is a sufficient sincerity, sufficient concentration, 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 mind, more 's conceptions or less enlightened, in a little closer contact with the inner being, which observes and judges.</span> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">(The Mother, 22 March 1951)</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/22-march-1951#p7</ref></u></span> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">A man with a very developed introspective mind often identifies himself with the witness part of his mind and observes his own thoughts and studies their nature. That is a beginning which makes it easy for the full detachment to come. For others it is less easy, but it can be done by all.</span><ref>http://incarnatewordvital's reactions.in/cwsa/30/inner-detachment-and-the-witness-attitude#p</ref>  <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">You have to become conscious—that is to say, there These must be something in you which is not carried away by thoughts observed and feelings, but looks looked 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.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/inner-detachment-and-the-witness-attitude#p25</ref></u></span> == Psychic Being == <div style="color:#000000;">...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.</div><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">(The Mother, 29 June 1955)</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/29-june-1955#p28</ref></u></span> <div style="color:#000000;">The ordinary mind knows itself only as an ego with all the movements of the nature in a jumble and, identifying itself with these movements, thinks "I am doing this, feeling that, thinking, in joy or in sorrow etc." The first beginning of real self-knowledge is when you feel yourself separate from the nature in you and its movements and then you see that there are many parts of your being, many personalities each acting on its own behalf and in its own way. The two different beings you feel are—one, the psychic being which draws you towards the Mother, the other the external being mostly vital which draws you outward and downwards towards the play of the lower nature. There is also in you behind the mind the being who observes, the witness Purusha, who can stand detached from the play of the nature, observing it and able to choose.</div><div style="color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-psychic-being#p84</ref></u></div> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The actions are of importance only as expressing what is in the nature. You have to be conscious of whatever in your actions is not in harmony with the Yoga and to get rid of it. But for that what is needed is your own consciousness, the psychic, observing from within and throwing off what is seen to be undesirable.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/work-and-yoga#p45</ref></u></span> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The mental being within watches, observes and passes judgment on all that happens in you. The psychic does not watch and observe in this way like a witness, but it feels and knows spontaneously in a much more direct and luminous way by the very purity of its own nature and the divine instinct within it, and so, whenever it comes to the front it reveals at once what are the right and what the wrong movements in your nature.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-jivatman-in-the-integral-yoga#p40</ref></u></span> == Mind and Self-Observation == <div style="color:#000000;">Gradually, as the action is prolonged and the outer being begins to assimilate this action, there awakens a capacity of observation, first in the mental consciousness, and a kind of objectivisation occurs: something in the mind looks on, observes and translates in its own way. This is what you call understanding, and this is what gives you the impression (smiling) that you are having an experience. But that is already considerably diminished in comparison with the experience itself, it is a transcription adapted to your mental, vital and physical dimension, that is, something that is shrunken, hardened—and it gives you at the same time the impression that it is growing clearer; that is to say, it has become as limited as your understanding.</div> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">(The Mother, 31 October 1956)</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/31-october-1956#p19</ref></u></span> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">...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. </span> <div style="color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/memory-ego-and-self-experience#p5</ref></u></div> <div style="color:#000000;">So the man of real merit or the more civilised man has a whole mental construction to which he must conform in order to be in harmony with the ideal of the environment in which he lives. But someone who does not conform at least to the smallest part of this construction would be considered a savage and would be thrown out of the society immediately. In fact, people who are criminals or half-mad are those who obey their impulses without any mental control. There isn't a single person among you who gives way without control to all the impulses that get hold of him. You have only to observe yourselves living, you spend your time saying, "No, this I can't do", or "This I can", or in restraining one movement or encouraging another. This is mental control.</div> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">(The Mother , 15 September 1954)</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/15-september-1954#p9</ref></u></span> == Vital and Self-Observation == <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">What happens usually is that something touches the vital, often without one's knowing it, and brings up the old ordinary or external consciousness in such a way that the inner mind gets covered up and all the old thoughts and feelings return for a time. It is the physical mind that becomes active and gives its assent. If the whole mind remains quiet and detached observing the vital movement, own but not giving its assent, then to reject it becomes more easy. This established quietude and detachment of the mind marks always a great </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">step forward made in the sadhana.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-vital-and-other-levels-of-being#p45</ref></u></span>  <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">After each crisis there is something gained, if there has been a victory and rejection. The gain is to externalise the vital disturbance, so that even if it returns it will be felt so much an outside force that the observing consciousness (mental, higher vital) cannot be disturbed. If you keep that, it will be an immense advance.</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/wrong-movements-of-the-vital#p68</ref>  == Physical and Self-Observation == <div style="color:#000000;">One can prepare the body through a series of observations, studies, understandings,by showing it examples, making it understand things as one makes a child understand them, either by observing its own movements―but 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.</div><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">(The Mother, 4 July 1956)</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/4-july-1956#p15</ref></u></span> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">If it is an inert tamasic passivity subject to any influence and unable to react, then it is subjection to Nature. If it is a sattwic passivity of the Witness observing and understanding the movements of Nature, then it is an intermediate condition, often necessary for knowledge. If it is a luminous passivity open to the Divine, shut to all other influences, then it is not subjection to Nature but surrender to the Divinesurface ignorant nature.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/difficultiesinteractions-ofwith-the-physical-nature#p24</ref></u></span> <span style="backgroundothers-color:transparent;color:#000000;">For the giddiness, it may be that in concentration you go partly out of your body; then, if you get up and move before the whole consciousness has come back, there is just such a giddiness as you describe. You can observe in future and see whether it is not this that happens. One has to be careful not to move after deep concentration or trance, till there is the full consciousness in the body.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/difficulties-of-the-physical-nature#p59</ref></u></span> = Consciousness and Selfpractice-Observation = <div style="color:#000000;">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.</div> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">(The Mother, 30 June 1929)</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/30-june-1929yoga#p7p111</ref>

<div style="color:#000000;">HoweverWhen we are in contact with the Divine or in contact with an inner knowledge and vision, if one observes things we begin to see all the circumstances of our life in a little deeply, one perceives that there is progress, that things become better new light and better, though apparently can observe how they do not improve. And for a all tended without our knowing it towards the growth of our being and consciousness seated a little higher, it is quite evident that all evil—at least what towards the work we call evil—all falsehoodhad to do, all towards some development that is contrary had to be made,—not only what seemed good, fortunate or successful but the Truthstruggles, all sufferingfailures, difficulties, all opposition is the result of a disequilibrium. I believe that one who is habituated to seeing things from this higher plane sees immediately that it is like thatupheavals. </div><div style="color:#000000;">(The Mother , 8 January 1951)</div><div style="color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0429/8the-januarydivine-1951grace-and-guidance#p13p33</ref></u></div>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">There are two centres or parts of the consciousness—one is a witness, sākṣī, and observes, the other consciousness is active and it is this active consciousness that you felt going down deep into the vital being. If your mind had not become active, you would have known where it went and what it went there to experience or do. When there is an experience, you should not begin to think about it, for that is of no use at all and it only stops the experience—you should remain silent, observe and let it go on to its end.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/suggestions-for-dealing-with-experiences#p8</ref></u></span>By Vigilance ==

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>At a certain stage of the sadhana, in the beginning (or near it) of the more intense experiences, it sometimes happens that there is the intense realisation of some aspect of the Divine, a sort of communion with it, and that is seen everywhere and all as that. It is a transitory phase and afterwards one gets the larger experience of the Divine in all its aspects and beyond all aspects. Throughout the experience there should be one part of the being that observes and understands—for sometimes ignorant sadhaks are carried away by their experience and stop short there or fall into extravagance. It must be taken as an experience through which you are passing.~</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/suggestions-for-dealing-with-experiences#p10</ref></u></spancenter>

= Thoughts and SelfBut you have only to observe yourselves... you can observe yourself, catch yourself at least a hundred times a day, with a mind which decides everything, knows everything, judges everything, knows very well what is good, what bad, what is true, what false, what is right... And also how one should act, what this person should have done, how to resolve that problem.... All men know, you see... If they were at the head of governments, for instance, they would know very well how to manage everything! But people don't listen to them... that's all! <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/21-Observation =july-1954#p40</ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>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.~</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/three-experiences-of-the-inner-being#p3</refcenter>

<div style="color:#000000;">It But a time comes when instead of doing things automatically, impelled by a consciousness and force of which one is only graduallyquite unaware—a time comes when one can observe what goes on in oneself, study one's movements, very slowlyfind their causes, through and at the movements of life and a more or less careful and thorough education that you same time begin to have sensations exercise a control first over what goes on within us, then on the influence cast on us from outside which are personal to youmakes us act, feelings in the beginning altogether unconsciously and ideas which are personal to you. An individualised mind is something extremely rarealmost involuntarily, which comes only after a long educationbut gradually more and more consciously; otherwise it is a kind of thought-current passing through your brain and then through another's the will can wake up and then through react. Then at that moment, the moment there is a multitude conscious will capable of other brainsreacting, and all this one may say, "I have become conscious." This does not mean that it is in perpetual movement a total and has no individuality. One thinks what others are thinkingperfect consciousness, others think what still others are thinking, and everybody thinks like it means that in it is a great mixturebeginning: for example, because these are currents, vibrations of thought passing from when one is able to another. If you look at yourself attentively, you will very quickly become aware that very few thoughts observe all the reactions in you are personal. Where do you draw one's being and to have a certain control over them from?—From what you have heard, from what you to let those one approves of have read, what you have been taughtplay, and how many of these thoughts you have are the result of your own experienceto control, your own reflectionstop, your purely personal observation?—Not manyannul those one doesn't approve of. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/28-november-1956#p19</divref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>(The Mother, 20 February 1957)~</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/20-february-1957#p6</ref></u></spancenter>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">To observe Take one hour of your thoughtslife, you must first of all separate yourself from them. In the ordinary state, the ordinary man does not distinguish himself from his thoughts. He does not even know that he thinks. He thinks by habit. And if he one which is asked all of a sudden, "What are most convenient for you thinking of?", he knows nothing about it. That is to and during that time observe yourself closely and say, ninety-five times out of a hundred he will answer, "I do not know." There is a complete identification between only the movement of thought and the consciousness of the beingabsolutely indispensable words.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/conjugate-versesanger#p12p15</ref></u></span>

<div style="color:#000000;">...when undesirable thoughts come, if you look at them, observe them, if you take pleasure in following them in their movements, they will never stop coming. It is the same thing when you have undesirable feelings or sensation: if you pay attention to them, concentrate on them or even look at them with = By Developing a certain indulgence, they will never stop. But if you absolutely refuse to receive and express them, after some time they stop. You must be patient and very persistent.</div>Quiet Mind ==

<span style="backgroundIt is only when we follow the yogic process of quieting the mind itself that a profounder result of our self-color:transparent;color:#000000;">(The Mother , 22 September 1954)</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u>observation becomes possible. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0621/22indeterminates-septembercosmic-1954determinations-and-the-indeterminable#p19p12</ref></u></span>

<div style="color:#000000;">Most people—and A quiet mind does not only those who are uneducated mean that there will be no thoughts or mental movements at all, but even that these will be on the well-read—can have the most contradictorysurface and you will feel your true being within separate from them, the most opposite ideas in their heads without even being aware of the contradictions….And if you observe yourselfobserving but not carried away, you will see able to watch and judge them and reject all that you have many ideas which ought has to be linked by a sequence of intermediate ideas which are the result of a considerable widening of the thought if they are not rejected and to accept and keep to coexist in an absurd wayall that is true consciousness and true experience.</div><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">(The Mother, 20 February 1957)</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0929/20-february-1957peace#p8p10</ref>

<div style="colorThere are four movements which are usually consecutive, but which in the end may be simultaneous:#000000;">The error comes from thinking that your to observe one's thoughts is the first, to watch over one's thoughts is the second, to control one's thoughts are your own is the third and that you are their maker and if you donto master one't create s thoughts (iis the fourth.e. think)To observe, to watch over, there will be none. A little observation ought to show that you are not manufacturing your own thoughtscontrol, but rather thoughts occur to master. <ref>http://incarnateword.in you./cwm/03/conjugate-verses#p7</divref>

<div style="color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/thought-and-knowledge#p3</ref></ucenter>~</divcenter>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">When one practises Yoga and observes What happens usually is that something touches the thoughtsvital, often without one sees that they come from outside's knowing it, from universal Nature, from and brings up the mental, vital old ordinary 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 external consciousness in such a way that the inner mind free gets covered up and quiet all the old thoughts and open only to feelings return for a time. It is the divine light, force, knowledge physical mind that becomes active and the presence of the Divine…gives its assent.Aspire, get into contact with If the Light whole mind remains quiet and detached observing the true Forcevital movement, reassert your will but not giving its assent, then to reject these suggestions it becomes more easy. This established quietude and voices. Do not take interest detachment of the mind marks always a great step forward made in these voices, keep the mind quietsadhana.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/thoughtthe-vital-and-knowledgeother-levels-of-being#p5p45</ref></u></span>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">This sensational thought-mind which is based upon senseBut if you remain very quiet, memoryonly if you observe—as though you were silently looking at something, associationyou understand—then you will begin seeing more precisely, first ideas and resultant generalisations or secondary ideas, little by little distinguishing between different categories of things. You will be able to know what one thing is common to all developed animal life and mentality…what another etc.The intelligence and will of the animal are involved in the sense-mind and therefore altogether governed by , whether it and carried on its stream of sensations, sense-perceptionscomes from you or from outside, impulses; whether it is instinctiveon a material plane or on another plane. Man All this is able to use learnt through a reason and willvery quiet observation, quiet but very sharp, a self-observingyou understand; because there are very tiny shades, thinking and all-observingvery tiny, an intelligently willing mind which is no longer involved in the sense-mindbetween different things, but acts from above and behind when you get used to distinguishing these nuances, you can discern exactly what 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.</spanref>[http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2406/purification-intelligence20-andoctober-will1954#p4 http:p46<//incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/purification-intelligence-and-will#p4]ref>

<div style="color:#000000;">….But it It is through sensations really an inner silence 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 thisneeded—a something silent within that looks at outer talk and action but feels it as something superficial, not as instruments of observation, control itself and is quite indifferent and knowledgeuntouched by it. If one is sufficiently developed, one It can bring forces to support speech and action or it can know the nature of things through sight; through the see of smell one may also know the value, the different nature of things; stop them by touch one withdrawal or it can recognise thingslet them go on and observe without being involved or moved. It is a question of education; that is, one must work for it<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/speech-and-yoga#p76</divref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>(The Mother , 31 March 1954)~</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/31-march-1954#p13</u></spancenter>

= Education You must be able to silence your head absolutely and Selfbe completely detached, not to have (for example, when you are looking for the solution of a problem), not to have already in your head the solution that seems to you right or the best or most profitable. That must not be there. You must become absolutely like a blank paper, with nothing on it. And you proceed in that way, with a very sincere aspiration to know the truth, without assuming beforehand that it will be like this or like that; because otherwise you will see only your own formation. The very first condition is that the head must keep completely silent during the time one is observing. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/30-Observation =september-1953#p13</ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>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 ~</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">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.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/vital-education#p6</u></spancenter>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">.To silence the mind it is not enough to throw back each thought as it comes, that can only be a subordinate movement.The child One must get back from all thought and be taught to observeseparate from it, to note his reactions and impulses and their causes, to become a discerning witness of his desiressilent consciousness observing the thoughts if they come, his movements of violence and passion, his instincts of possession and appropriation and domination and but not oneself thinking or identified with the background of vanity which supports thoughts. Thoughts must be felt as outside things altogether. It is then easier to reject thoughts or let them, together with pass without their counterparts disturbing the quietude of weakness, discouragement, depression and despairthe mind.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><uref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/1231/vitalinteractions-with-others-and-the-practice-of-educationyoga#p14</u>p99</spanref>

= Results of Self-Observation = By Developing the Witness Attitude ==

<div style="color:#000000;">If you observe yourself attentively, you will see that before acting you need an inner impetus, something 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 pushes youmakes it easy for the full detachment to come. In the ordinary man this impetus For others it is generally desire. This desire ought to less easy, but it can be replaced done by a clear, precise, constant vision of all. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/inner-detachment-and-the Truth.-witness-attitude#p</divref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>(The Mother , 21 December 1950)~</spancenter>[http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/21-december-1950#p7 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/21-december-1950#p7]

<div style="color:#000000;">If you observe yourself, you will see that as soon as you do something which disturbs you a little, the mind immediately gives you a favourable reason to justify yourself—this mind is capable of gilding everything. In these conditions it is difficult to know oneself. One must be absolutely sincere to be able to do it = By Sincerity and to see clearly into all the little falsehoods of the mental being.</div>Impartiality ==

<span style=For that you must be absolutely sincere and impartial. You must observe yourself as if you were observing and criticising a third person. You must not start 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 your growth. Nor should you take up the opposite attitude and say, "background-color:transparent;color:#000000I am good for nothing in this matter, I am useless in that one;it is not for me.">(The MotherNeither vanity and arrogance nor self-depreciation and false modesty should move you. As I said, 15 January 1951)you must be absolutely impartial and unconcerned. You should be like a mirror that reflects the truth and does not judge. </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><uref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0415/1512-januarynovember-19511952#p3</u>p6</spanref>

<div style="color:#000000;"center>… 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.~</divcenter>

If you observe yourself, you will see that as soon as you do something which disturbs you a little, the mind immediately gives you a favourable reason to justify yourself—this mind is capable of gilding everything. In these conditions it is difficult to know oneself. One must be absolutely sincere to be able to do it and to see clearly into all the little falsehoods of the mental being. <div style="colorref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/15-january-1951#000000;">(The Mother, 19 April 1951)p3</divref>

<div style="color:#0066cc;"><u>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/19-april-1951#p14</u></div>=By Becoming Aware of Desire ==

== Danger If you observe yourself attentively, you will see that before acting you need an inner impetus, something which pushes you. In the ordinary man this impetus is generally desire. This desire ought to be replaced by a clear, precise, constant vision of the Ego ==Truth. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/21-december-1950#p7</ref>

<div style="color:#000000;">But to begin with, how many times, if one thinks, if one quite simply observes oneself, does one catch oneself saying, "It is I!" And, then, one congratulates oneself sometimes, one says, "After all I can do something, I am capable!" I am going further: how many people would be capable of doing anything at all if simply deprived =By Education 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.</div>Senses==

<span style="background-colorBut it is through sensations that you learn:transparentby 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;color:#000000if 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;">(The Mother through the see of smell one may also know the value,5 April 1951)</span><span style="background-color:transparentthe different nature of things;color:#0066ccby touch one can recognise things. It is a question of education;">that is, one must work for it. <uref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0406/531-aprilmarch-19511954#p14</u>p13</spanref>

<div style="color:#000000;"center>...if you do your tapasya, all the time observing yourself doing it and telling yourself, "Am I making any progress, is this going to be better, am I going to succeed?", then it is your ego, you know, which becomes more and more enormous and occupies the whole place, and there is no room for anything else. ~</divcenter>

The child must be taught to observe, to note his reactions and impulses and their causes, to become a discerning witness of his desires, his movements of violence and passion, his instincts of possession and appropriation and domination and the background of vanity which supports them, together with their counterparts of weakness, discouragement, depression and despair. <div style="colorref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/vital-education#000000;">(The Mother , 26 April 1951)p14</divref>

[http:<center>~<//incarnateword.in/cwm/04/26-april-1951#p35 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/26-april-1951#p35]center>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Do not be over-eager for experience,—for experiences you can always get, having once broken the barrier between the physical mind and the subtle planes. What you have = How 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.</span>[http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-danger-of-the-ego-and-the-need-of-purification#p14 http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-danger-of-the-ego-and-the-need-of-purification#p14]Observe Thoughts==

== <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>Escape attitude~</spancenter> ==

<div style="color:#000000Thoughts are not the essence of mind-being, they are only an activity of mental nature;">Constantly man rushes into external action if that activity ceases, what appears then as a thought-free existence that manifests in order its place is not to have time to observe himself a blank or void but something very real, substantial, concrete we may say—a mental being that extends itself widely and how he lives. For him this is expressed by can be its own field of existence silent or active as well as the desire to escape from boredom. IndeedWitness, for some people it is much more tiresome to remain quiet—seatedKnower, or to be stillMaster of that field and its action. So for them Some feel it represents an escape from boredom: to make first as a lot of noise, to commit many stupiditiesvoid, but that is because their observation is untrained and insufficient and become terribly restlessloss of activity gives them the sense of blank; an emptiness there is, but it is their way an emptiness of escaping boredom. And when they sit quietly and look at themselvesthe ordinary activities, they are borednot a blank of existence. Perhaps because they are boring<ref>http://incarnateword. That's very likely. The more boring one is, in/cwsa/30/three-experiences-of-the more one is bored. Very interesting people usually are not bored.-inner-being#p3</divref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>(The Mother , 26 January 1955)~</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/26-january-1955#p14</u></spancenter>

== Focusing on It is only gradually, very slowly, through the Negative ==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>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>To be always observing faults and wrong movements brings depression and discourages the faith. Turn your eyes more to the coming Light and less to any immediate darkness. Faith, cheerfulness, confidence in the ultimate victory are the things that help,—they make the progress easier and swifter.~</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/steps-towards-overcoming-difficulties#p28</u></spancenter>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">It is a subtle law of When one practises Yoga and observes the action of consciousness thoughts, one sees that if you stress difficulties—you have they come from outside, from universal Nature, from the mental, vital or subtle physical worlds etc. The proper thing is then to observe themstand back from these thoughts, of coursevoices or suggestions, but not stress to reject them or else control them, they will quite sufficiently do that for themselves—the difficulties tend to stick or even increase; on make the contrary, if you put your whole stress on faith mind free and aspiration quiet and concentrate steadily on what you aspire open only tothe divine light, force, that will sooner or later tend towards realisationknowledge and the presence of the Divine. ... It is this change of stressAspire, a change in get into contact with the poise Light and attitude of the mindtrue Force, that reassert your will be to reject these suggestions and voices. Do not take interest in these voices, keep the more helpful processmind quiet.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><uref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/dealing-with-depressionthought-and-despondencyknowledge#p22</u>p5</spanref>

<div style="color:#000000;">It is difficult to observe the difference between the action of the hostile Force and the pressure of the lower Nature because it is the latter that the Force takes hold of for its purpose. But there is Difficulties in the Force a suggestive character, a conscious arrangement of the attack so as to upset or destroy the sadhana which there is not in the ordinary movement of the lower Nature—for that only comes to satisfy itself and then ceases.</div>Self-Observation=

<div style="color:#0066cc;"><u>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/=Danger of the-hostile-forces-and-the-difficulties-of-yoga#p35</u></div>Ego==

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>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.~</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/mental-difficulties-and-the-need-of-quietude#p23</u></spancenter>

= Other fields of Self...if you do your tapasya, all the time observing yourself doing it and telling yourself, "Am I making any progress, is this going to be better, am I going to succeed?", then it is your ego, you know, which becomes more and more enormous and occupies the whole place, and there is no room for anything else. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/26-Observation =april-1951#p35</ref>

== Meditation Focusing on the Negative==

<div style="color:#000000;">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.. when one comes out of meditationFaith, cheerfulness, some time later—usually not immediately—from within confidence in the being something new emerges in ultimate victory are the consciousness: a new understanding, a new appreciation of things, a new attitude in life—in short, a new way of being. This may be fugitive, but at that momenthelp, if one observes it, one finds that something has taken one step forward on —they make the path of understanding or transformationprogress easier and swifter. It may be an illumination, an understanding truer or closer to the truth, or a power of transformation which helps you to achieve a psychological progress or a widening of the consciousness or a greater control over your movements, over the activities of the being<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/steps-towards-overcoming-difficulties#p28</divref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>(The Mother , 5 June 1957)~</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/5-june-1957#p20</u></spancenter>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The mind What you have to aspire for most is always the improved quality of the recipient consciousness in you—discrimination in activitythe mind, but we do not observe fully what it is doingthe unattached impersonal Witness look on all that goes on in you and around you, but allow ourselves to be carried away purity in the stream vital, calm equanimity, enduring patience, absence of continual thinking. When we try to concentratepride and the sense of greatness—and more especially, this stream the development of the psychic being in you—surrender, self-moved mechanical thinking becomes prominent to our observationgiving, psychic humility, devotion... It a sufficient foundation and a consciousness always self-observant, vigilant and growing in these things is indispensable—for perfect purification is the first normal obstacle (basis of the other is sleep during meditation) to the effort towards Yogaperfect siddhi.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><uref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2930/concentrationthe-danger-of-the-ego-and-meditationthe-need-of-purification#p30</u>p14</spanref>

Now To become conscious of what is to be changed in the procedure 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 deal with dreams and be confident that the dreamlandchange will come. First become conscious—conscious of your dreams. Observe For nothing is impossible in the nature if the relation between them psychic being is awake and leading you with the happenings of your waking hoursMother's consciousness and force behind it and working in you. This is now happening. If you remember your night, you Be sure that all will be able to trace back very often the condition of your day to the condition of your nightdone. <ref>http://incarnateword. In sleep some action or other is always going on in your mental or vital or other plane; things happen there /cwsa/31/speech-and they govern your waking consciousness.-yoga#p53</ref>

== <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>(The Mother , 21 April 1929)~</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/21-april-1929#p6</refcenter>

<div style="color:#000000;"center>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.~</divcenter>

<span style="background-color:transparentIt 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;color:#000000;">(The Mother 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, 1 February 1951)</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u>that will be the more helpful process. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/1531/1dealing-februarywith-1951depression-and-despondency#p14p22</ref></u></span>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">As the inner consciousness grows by sadhana, these dream experiences increase in number, clearness, coherence, accuracy and after some growth of experience and consciousness, we can, if we observe, come to understand them and their significance to our inner life. Even we can by training become so conscious as to follow our own passage, usually veiled to our awareness and memory, through many realms and the process of the return to the waking state. At a certain pitch of this inner wakefulness this kind of sleep, a sleep of experiences, can replace the ordinary subconscient slumber.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/three-experiences-of-the-inner-being#p6</ref></u></span>Surface Level Observation==

= Things As a general rule, with a few very rare exceptions, men are content to Remember =observe more or less accurately everything that happens around them, and sometimes within themselves, and to classify all these observations according to one superficial system of logic or another. And they call this organisation, these systems, "knowledge". It has never occurred to them, they have not even begun to perceive that all the things they see, touch, feel, experience, are false appearances and not reality itself.

<div style="color:#000000;">If one begins to find out, to understand what a feeling is and what a thought [Based on Aphorism 7—What men call knowledge is, and how it works, then one can already go quite far on the path with thatreasoned acceptance of false appearances. One must at Wisdom looks behind the same time observe how his feelings and thoughts have an action on the body, what the reciprocity is. And then, there is another exercise which consists in looking into oneself for what is persistent, what is lasting, something which makes one say "I", veil and which is not the bodysees. For obviously, when one was very smallReason divides, fixes details and then when each year one grows upcontrasts them; Wisdom unifies, if one takes fairly long distances, for example marries contrasts in a distance of about ten years, they are very different "I"s from what one was when as small as this (gesture), and then what one is now; it is difficult to say that it is the same person, you seesingle harmony]. If one takes only this, still there is something which has the feeling of always being the same person<ref>http://incarnateword. So one must reflect, seek, try to understand what it is. This indeed can lead you far on the path. Then if one also studies the relation between these different things—between thoughts, feelings, their action on the body, the reciprocal action of the body on these things—and also what it is that says "I" permanently, what it is that can trace a curve in the movement of the being, if one seeks carefully enough, it leads you quite far. Naturally if one seeks far enough and with enough persistence, one reaches the psychic./cwm/10/aphorism-7#p3</divref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>(The Mother, 9 March 1955)~</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/9-march-1955#p23</u></spancenter>

<div style="color:#000000One throws oneself out all the time;">A hidden Power 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 true Lord and overruling Observer of our acts and only he knows through surface. And it is this surface thing which meets all the ignorance and perversion and deformation brought external contacts, puts you in by the ego their entire sense and ultimate purposetouch with similar vibrations coming from others. That happens almost outside you. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/20-june-1956#p49</divref>

<div style="color:#0066cc;"><u>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/self-surrender-in-works-the-way-of-the-gita#p6</u></div>=Observing Invisible Forces==

== Purusha If we observe a happening, we judge and Selfexplain 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-Observation ==shakti#p7</ref>

<div style="color:#000000;">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 Self Observation - Exploring Realms 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.</div>Consciousness=

<div style="color:#0066ccMan 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. <uref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2322/the-release-from-subjectionman-toand-the-bodyevolution#p7</u>p8</divref>

<div style="color:#000000;"center>It is possible for the Purusha to use it on the mental plane itself for a constant self-observation, self-development, self-modification, to sanction, reject, alter, bring out new formulations of the nature and establish a calm and disinterested action, a high and pure sattwic balance and rhythm of its energy, a personality perfected in the sattwic principle.~</divcenter>

...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. <div style="color:#0066cc;"><uref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2407/the29-divinejune-shakti1955#p9</u>p28</divref>

<div style="color:#000000;"center>..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.~</divcenter>

<div style="color:#0066ccThere is a state of being experienced in Yoga in which we become a double consciousness, one on the surface, small, active, ignorant, swayed by thoughts and feelings, grief and joy and all kinds of reactions, the other within calm, vast, equal, observing the surface being with an immovable detachment or indulgence or, it may be, acting upon its agitation to quiet, enlarge, transform it. So too we can rise to a consciousness above and observe the various parts of our being, inner and outer, mental, vital and physical and the subconscient below all, and act upon one or other or the whole from that higher status. It is possible also to go down from that height or from any height into any of these lower states and take its limited light or its obscurity as our place of working while the rest that we are is either temporarily put away or put behind or else kept as a field of reference from which we can get support, sanction or light and influence or as a status into which we can ascend or recede and from it observe the inferior movements. Or we can plunge into trance, get within ourselves and be conscious there while all outward things are excluded;">or we can go beyond even this inner awareness and lose ourselves in some deeper other consciousness or some high superconscience. There is also a pervading equal consciousness into which we can enter and see all ourselves with one enveloping glance or omnipresent awareness one and indivisible. <uref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2321/thebrahman-releasepurusha-fromishwara-subjectionmaya-toprakriti-the-bodyshakti#p4</u>p23</divref>

<div style="color:#000000;"center>~</center>The Purusha and Prakriti are on In this progression the mental level as in first step is a certain detached superiority to the rest three modes of our being closely joined Nature. The soul is inwardly separated and much free from the lower Prakriti, not involved in each other its coils, indifferent and we are not able glad above it. Nature continues to distinguish clearly soul and nature. But act in the purer substance 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 we can more easily discern and body; but the dual strainsoul stands unchanged and untouched by these changes. The mental Purusha is naturally able in its own native principle Observing and unmoved by the grief and desire of mind to detach itselfthe lower members, as we have seensmiling at their joys and their strainings, from regarding and unoverpowered by the failing and the workings darknesses of its Prakriti the thought and there is then a division the wildness or the weaknesses of our being between a consciousness that observes the heart and nerves, uncompelled and unattached to the mind's illuminations and can reserve its willpower relief and sense of ease or of power in the return of light and an energy full gladness, it throws itself into none of these things, but waits unmoved for the substance intimations of consciousness that takes a higher Will and the forms intuitions of a greater luminous knowledge, will and feeling. This detachment gives at its highest a certain freedom from <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the compulsion -three-modes-of the soulby its mental -nature.#p13</divref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-divine-shakti#p8</ucenter>~</spancenter>

<div style="color:#000000;">"The Shakti, the power It is thus by an integralisation of our divided being that the Infinite and Divine Shakti in the Eternal descends within usYoga will proceed to its object; for liberation, worksperfection, breaks up our present psychological formationsmastery are dependent on this integralisation, shatters every wall, widens, liberates... she frees since the consciousness from confinement in little wave on the body; it can go out in trance or sleep or even waking and enter into worlds or other regions of this world and act there or carry back surface cannot control its experience. It spreads outown movement, feeling much less have any true control over the body only as a small part of itself, and begins to contain what before contained vast life around it; it achieves the cosmic consciousness and extends itself to be commensurate with the universe... It begins to know inwardly and directly and not merely by external observation and contact the forces at play in the world, feels their movement, distinguishes their functioning and can operate immediately upon them as the scientist operates upon physical forces, accept their action and results in our mind, life, body or reject them or modify, change, reshape, create immense new powers and movements in place of the old small functionings of the nature. We begin to perceive <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the working -ascent-of -the forces of universal Mind and to know how our thoughts are created by that working...."-sacrifice-ii#p29</divref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">(The Mother , 7 November 1956)</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u>http://incarnateword.How to be in/cwm/08/7-november-1956#p1</u></span>a Witness State?==

<div style="color:#000000;">It is thus by an integralisation of our divided being that the Divine Shakti in the Yoga will proceed difficult to its objectsay generally what is conscious; for liberationbut naturally, perfectionif something observes, mastery are dependent on it is always the "witness" element in this integralisationpart—in each part of the being there is something which is a "witness", since the little wave which looks on . There is even a physical witness which can get very much in the surface cannot control its own movementway; for instance, much less have any true control over the vast life around if itwatches you playing, this can paralyse you considerably...It begins to know inwardly and directly and not merely by external observation and contact the forces There is also a vital witness which looks at play in the world, feels their movementyou, distinguishes their functioning sees your desires and can operate immediately upon them enjoys highly all that happens; it acts also as a brake. There is the scientist operates upon physical forcesmental witness which judges ideas, accept their action and results in our mindwhich says, life, body or reject them or modify, change, reshape"This idea contradicts this other", create immense new powers and movements in place of which arranges everything. Then there is the old small functionings of great psychic Witness, who is the natureinner divinity. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/22-march-1951#p6</divref>

<div style="color:#0066cc;"><u>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-ascent-of-the-sacrifice-ii#p29</ucenter>~</divcenter>

<div style="color:#000000;">Man is a type among many types so constructed, one pattern among the multitude of patterns The witness Purusha in the manifestation in Matter. He is mind observes that the most complex that has been createdinadequacy of his effort, all the richest inadequacy in content fact of consciousness man's life and nature arises from the curious ingeniousness separation and the consequent struggle, want of his building; he is the head knowledge, want of the earthly creationharmony, but he does not exceed it…want of oneness. If there It is a perfection essential for him to which he has grow out of separative individuality, to arriveuniversalise himself, it must to make himself one with the universe. This unification can be a perfection in his own kinddone only through the soul by making our soul of mind one with the universal Mind, within his own law our soul of beinglife one with the universal Life-soul,—the full play our soul of it, but by observation body one with the universal soul of its mode and measure, not by transcendencephysical Nature. <ref>http://incarnateword. To exceed himself, to grow into in/cwsa/24/the superman, to put on -perfection-of-the nature and capacities of a god would be a contradiction of his self-law, impracticable and impossiblemental-being#p15</divref>

<div style="color:#0066cc;"><u>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/man-and-the-evolution#p8</ucenter>~</divcenter>

<div style="color:#000000;">In It is ordinarily considered that the animal mind is not quite distinct Yogin should draw away from its own life-matrix action as much as possible and life-matter; its movements are so involved in the life movements especially that too much action is a hindrance because it cannot detach itself from them, cannot stand separate draws off the energies outward. To a certain extent this is true; and observe them; but in man mind has become separate, he can become aware we must note farther that when the mental Purusha takes up the attitude of his mental operations as distinct from his life operations, his thought and will can disengage them selves from his sensations mere witness and impulsesobserver, desires and emotional reactionsa tendency to silence, can become detached from themsolitude, observe physical calm and control thembodily inaction grows upon the being. So long as this is not associated with inertia, sanction incapacity or cancel their functioning: he does not as yet know unwillingness to act, in a word, with the secrets growth of his being well enough the tamasic quality, all this is to be aware of himself decisively and with certitude as a mental being the good. <ref>http://incarnateword.in a life and /cwsa/23/the-release-from-subjection-to-the-body, but he has that impression and can take inwardly that position.#p7</divref>

<div style="color:#0066cc;"><u>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/the-evolution-of-the-spiritual-man#p6</ucenter>~</divcenter>

== Chitta 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>

<div style="color:#000000;"center>Chitta, the basic consciousness, is largely subconscient; it has, open and hidden, two kinds of action, one passive or receptive, the other active or reactive and formative. As a passive power it receives all impacts, even those of which the mind is unaware or to which it is inattentive, and it stores them in an immense reserve of passive subconscient memory on which the mind as an active memory can draw.But ordinarily the mind draws only what it had observed and understood at the time,—more easily what it had observed well and understood carefully, less easily what it had observed carelessly or ill understood; at the same time there is a power in consciousness to send up to the active mind for use what that mind had not at all observed or attended to or even consciously experienced. This power only acts observably in abnormal conditions, when some part of the subconscious chitta comes as it were to the surface or when the subliminal being in us appears on the threshold and for a time plays some part in the outer chamber of mentality where the direct intercourse and commerce with the external world takes place and our inner dealings with ourselves develop on the surface.~</divcenter>

...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. <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><uref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2423/the-instrumentsrelease-from-subjection-ofto-the-spiritbody#p6</u>p4</spanref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">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 actions is not in harmony with the Yoga and to get rid of it. But for that what is needed is your lifeown 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.</spanref>[http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0329/angerwork-and-yoga#p15 http:p45<//incarnateword.in/cwm/03/anger#p15]ref>

<div style="color:#000000;">There are four movements which are usually consecutiveThe 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 which it feels and knows spontaneously in a much more direct and luminous way by the end may be simultaneous: to observe one's thoughts is very purity of its own nature and the firstdivine instinct within it, and so, whenever it comes to watch over one's thoughts is the second, to control one's thoughts is front it reveals at once what are the third right and to master one's thoughts is what the fourthwrong movements in your nature. To observe, to watch over, to control, to master<ref>http://incarnateword. in/cwsa/28/the-jivatman-in-the-integral-yoga#p40</divref>

{|class="wikitable" style= Positive Attitude =="background-color: #efefff; width: 100%;"|Read Summary of '''[[Self Observation Summary|Self Observation]]'''

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">To become conscious of what is to be changed Dear reader, if you notice any error in the nature is paragraph numbers in the first step towards changing it. But one must observe these things without being despondent or thinking "it is hopeless" or "I cannot change"hyperlinks, please let us know by dropping an email at integral. You do right to be confident that the change will comeedu. For nothing is impossible in the nature if the psychic being is awake and leading you with the Mother's consciousness and force behind it and working in you. This is now happening. Be sure that all will be done.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u>http://incarnateword@gmail.in/cwsa/31/speech-and-yoga#p53</u></span>com|}

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Despair and despondency are always wrong. If you make a mistake, quietly observe it and correct the tendency next time. Even if the mistake recurs often, you have only to persevere quietly—remembering that nature cannot be changed in a day.</span><span styleReferences ="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/depression-and-despondency#p67</u></span>