Changes

=Introduction= If you have the philosophic mind, you will ask yourself: "What do I call ‘myself'? Is it my body? - it changes all the time, it is never the same thing. Is it my feelings? - they change so often. Is it my thoughts? - they are built and destroyed continuously. That is not myself. Where is the self? What is Unifying One’s Beingit that gives me this sense of continuity?=" If you continue sincerely, you go back a few years. The problem becomes more and more perplexing. You continue to observe, you tell yourself: "It is my memory." But even if one loses one's memory, one would be oneself. If one sincerely continues this profound search, there comes a moment when everything disappears and one single thing exists, that is the Divine, the divine Presence. Everything disappears, dissolves, everything melts away like butter in the sunlight.... When one has made this discovery, one becomes aware that one was nothing but a bundle of habits. It is always that which does not know the Divine and is not conscious of the Divine which speaks. In everyone there are these hundreds and hundreds of "selves" who speak and in hundreds of completely different ways - "selves" unconscious, changing, fluid. The self which speaks today is not the same as yesterday's; and if you look further, the self has disappeared. There is only one who remains. That is the Divine. It is the only one that may be seen always the same. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/8-april-1953#p23</ref>

The ordinary human being is conscious only in his physical being, and only in relatively rare moments is he conscious of his mind, just a little more frequently of his vital, but all this is mixed up in his consciousness, so much so that he would be quite unable to say, "This movement comes from the mind, this from the vital, this from the physical." This already asks for a considerable development in order to be able to distinguish within oneself the source of the different movements one has and . And it is so mixed that even when one tries, at the beginning it is very difficult to classify and separate one thing from another.

''Q:Are A.'' Yes. The composition is completely different, otherwise everybody would be the same. There are not two beings with an identical combination; between the different parts of the being and the composition of these forces parts the proportion is different for in each person?''individual. There are people, primitive men, people like the yet undeveloped races or the degenerated ones whose combinations are fairly simple; they are still complicated, but comparatively simple. And there are people absolutely at the top of the human ladder, the elite of humanity; their combinations become so complicated that a very special discernment is needed to find the relations between all these things.

''A:'' Yes. The composition is completely different, otherwise everybody would be the same. There are not two beings with an identical combination; between the different parts of the being and the composition of these parts the proportion is different in each individual. There are people, primitive men, people like the yet undeveloped races or the degenerated ones whose combinations are fairly simple; they are still complicated, but comparatively simple. And there are people absolutely at the top of the human ladder, the elite of humanity; their combinations become so complicated that a very special discernment is needed to find the relations between all these things.There are beings who carry in themselves thousands of different personalities, and then each one has its own rhythm and alternation, and there is a kind of combination; sometimes there are inner conflicts, and there is a play of activities which are rhythmic and with alternations of certain parts which come to the front and then go back and again come to the front. But when one takes all that, it makes such complicated combinations that some people truly find it difficult to understand what is going on in themselves; and yet these are the ones most capable of a complete, coordinated, conscious, organised action; but their organisation is infinitely more complicated than that of primitive or undeveloped men who have two or three impulses and four or five ideas, and who can arrange all this very easily in themselves and seem to be very co-ordinated and logical because there is not very much to organise. But there are people truly like a multitude, and so that gives them a plasticity, a fluidity of action and an extraordinary complexity of perception, and these people are capable of understanding a considerable number of things, as though they had at their disposal a veritable army which they move according to circumstance and need; and all this is inside them. So when these people, with the help of yoga, the discipline of yoga, succeed in centralising all these beings around the central light of the divine Presence, they become powerful entities, precisely because of their complexity. So long as this is not organised they often give the impression of an incoherence, they are almost incomprehensible, one can't manage to understand why they are like that, they are so complex. But when they have organised all these beings, that is, put each one in its place around the divine centre, then truly they are terrific, for they have the capacity of understanding almost everything and doing almost everything because of the multitude of entities they contain, of which they are constituted. And the nearer one is to the summit of the ladder, the more is it like that, and consequently the more difficult is it to organise one's being; because when you have about a dozen elements, you can quickly compass and organise them, but when you have thousands of them, it is difficult.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/22-june-1955#p16,p17,p18</ref>

An "entity" is a personality or an individuality. There are many such "personalities" in each one of us. If these personalities agree and are complementary with one another, they make up a human being, a rich and complex "person". But that is not what usually happens. These personalities do not agree with one another. For example, one of them might wish to make some progress, to become more and more perfect, to get a deeper knowledge of things, to realise more and more, to proceed towards the perfection of the being, while another one may simply want to have fun and enjoy itself as much as it can; one day it will do this, the next day something else, etc. If the personalities do not agree, this person's life will be incoherent, and that is not unusual: in fact, these cases are very common.... ...A person may have a great many personalities within him—ten or twenty, for example—and each one has its own destiny. In the physical world, an individuality means a human body; so, in a human body there are many individualities, each one with its own destiny. What happens then? Conflicts, friction, inner disorder created by these individualities which are unable to get on with one another. The strongest one gets the upper hand; it is not only dominant over the others but curbs them to stop them from rebelling. So, in the end, the unlucky ones, the repressed ones, go to sleep. They bide their time, and when that time comes, they suddenly jump up and turn everything upside down. If that happens very often, that person's life will be a very disorderly one. He will take up one thing today and go on with another tomorrow and so on.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/30-december-1950#p11</ref> =Importance of Harmonizing One’s Being=Men do not know themselves and have not learned to distinguish the different parts of their being; for these are usually lumped together by them as mind, because it is through a mentalist mentalised perception and understanding that they know or feel them; therefore they do not understand their own states and actions, or, if at all, then only on the surface. It is part of the foundation of yoga to become conscious of the great complexity of our nature, see the different forces that move it and get over it a control of directing knowledge. We are composed of many parts each of which contributes something to the total movement of our consciousness, our thought, will, sensation, feeling, action, but we do not see the origination or the course of these impulsions; we are aware only of their confused and pell-mell results on the surface upon which we can at best impose nothing better than a precarious shifting order. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-parts-of-the-being#p1</ref>

... man is not made up of one piece but of many pieces and each part of him has a personality of its own. That is a thing which people yet have not sufficiently realised - the psychologists have begun to glimpse it, but recognise only when there is a marked case of double or multiple personality. But all men are like that, in reality. The aim should be in Yoga to develop (if one has it not already) a strong central being and harmonise under it all the rest, changing what has to be changed. If this central being is the psychic, there is no great difficulty. If it is the mental being, ''manomayaḥ puruṣaḥ prāṇa-śarīra-netā'', then it is more difficult—unless the mental being can learn to be always in contact with and aided by the greater Will and Power of the Divine.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-parts-of-the-being#p7</ref> <center>~</center>''Q.You say that it is necessary to establish "homogeneity in our being”?'' ''A.'' Don't you know what a homogeneous thing is, made up of all similar parts? That means the whole being must be under the same influence, same consciousness, same tendency, same will. We are formed of all kinds of different pieces. They become active one after another. According to the part that is active, one is quite another person, becomes almost another personality. For instance, one had an aspiration at first, felt that everything existed only for the Divine, then something happens, somebody comes along, one has to do something, and everything disappears. One tries to recall the experience, not even the memory of the experience remains. One is completely under another influence, one wonders how this could have happened. There are examples of double, triple, quadruple personalities, altogether unconscious of themselves.... But it is not about this I am speaking; I am speaking about something which has happened to all of you: you have had an experience, and for some time you have felt, understood that this experience was the only thing that was important, that had an absolute value - half an hour later you try to recall it, it is like a smoke that vanishes. The experience has disappeared. And yet half an hour ago it was there and so powerful.... It is because one is made of all kinds of different things. The body is like a bag with pebbles and pearls all mixed up, and it is only the bag which keeps all that together. This is not a homogeneous, uniform consciousness but a heterogeneous one.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/1-april-1953#p5,p7</ref>

An "entity" is The Universal Purusha dwells in all these planes in a personality or an individuality. There are many such "personalities" in certain simultaneity and builds upon each one of us. If these personalities agree and are complementary principles a world of series of worlds with one anotherits beings who live in the nature of that principle. Man, the microcosm, they make up a human has all these planes in his own being, ranged from his subconscient to his superconscient existence. By a rich developing power of yoga he can become aware of these concealed words hidden from his physical materialised mind and senses which know only the material world, and complex "person" but then he becomes aware that his material existence is not what usually happens. These personalities do not agree with one another. For example, one of them might wish to make some progress, to become more a thing apart and more perfectself-existent, to get as a material universe in which he lives is also not a deeper knowledge of thingsthing apart and self- existent, but is in constant relation to realise more the higher planes and acted on by their powers and more, to proceed towards beings. He can open up and increase the perfection action of the being, while another one may simply want to have fun these higher planes in himself and enjoy itself as much as it can; one day it will do thissome sort of participation in the life of the other worlds, the next day something else- which, etc. If for the personalities do not agreerest, this person's life will are or can be incoherenthis dwelling place, and that is not unusual: in factto say, these cases are very common...the station of his awareness…<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/1524/30the-decemberpsychology-1950of-self-perfection#p11</ref>

''Q:You say ... you have many sides to your personality or rather many personalities in you; it is indeed their discordant movements each getting in the way of the other, as happens when they are expressed through the external mind, that have stood much in the way of your sadhana. There is the vital personality which was turned towards success and enjoyment and got it and wanted to go on with it but could not get the rest of the being to follow. There is necessary the vital personality that wanted enjoyment of a deeper kind and suggested to establish "homogeneity the other that it could very well give up these unsatisfactory things if it got an equivalent in some faeryland of a higher joy. There is the psycho-vital personality that is the Vaishnava within you and wanted the Divine Krishna and bhakti and Ananda. There is the personality which is the poet and musician and a seeker of beauty through these things. There is the mental-vital personality which, when it saw the vital standing in our being”the way, insisted on a grim struggle of Tapasya, and it is no doubt that also which approves Vairagya and Nirvana. There is the physical-mental personality which is the Russellite, extrovert, doubter. There is another mental-emotional personality all whose ideas are for belief in the Divine, yoga, bhakti, Guruvada. There is the psychic being also which has pushed you into the sadhana and is waiting for its hour of emergence. What are you going to do with all these people?If you want Nirvana, you have either to expel them or stifle them or beat them into coma. All authorities assure us that the exclusive Nirvana business is a most difficult job (''duhkham dehavadbhih'', says the Gita), and your own attempt at pressing the others was not encouraging, - according to own account it left you as dry and desperate as a sucked orange, no juice left anywhere. If the desert is your way to the promised land, that does not matter.

''A:'' Don't you know Well, if it is not then there is another way - it is what a homogeneous thing iswe call the integration, made up the harmonisation of all similar parts? the being. That means cannot be done from outside, it cannot be done by the whole mind and vital being must - they are sure to bungle their affair. It can be under done only from within by the same influencesoul, same consciousnessthe Spirit which is the centraliser, same tendency, same willitself the centre of these radii. We are formed In all of all kinds them there is a truth that can harmonise with the true truth of different piecesthe others. They become active one after another. According to For there is a truth in Nirvana - Nirvana is nothing but the peace and freedom of the part that is activeSpirit which can exist in itself, one is quite another personbe there world or no world, becomes almost another personalityworld-order or world-disorder. For instance, one had an aspiration at first, felt that everything existed only Bhakti and the heart's call for the Divine, then something happens, somebody comes along, one has to do something, have a truth - it is the truth of the divine Love and everything disappearsAnanda. One tries to recall The will for Tapasya hasi in it a truth - it is the experience, not even the memory truth of the experience remainsSpirit's mastery over its members. One The musician and poet stand for a truth, it is completely under another influence, one wonders how this could have happened. There are examples the truth of double, triple, quadruple personalities, altogether unconscious the expression of themselvesthe Spirit through beauty.... But it There is not about this I am speaking; I am speaking about something which has happened to all of youa truth behind the mental affirmer: you have had an experience, and for some time you have felteven there is a truth behind mental doubter, understood that this experience was the only thing that was importantRussellian, that had an absolute value though far behind him- half an hour later you try to recall it, it is like a smoke that vanishesthe truth of the denial of false forms. The experience has disappeared. And yet half an hour ago it was Even behind the two vital personalities there and so powerful.... It is because one is made a truth, the truth of all kinds the possession of different thingsthe inner and outer worlds not by the ego but by the Divine. The body That is like a bag with pebbles the harmonisation for which our yoga stands - but it cannot be achieved by any outward arrangement, it can only be achieved by going inside and pearls all mixed uplooking, willing and acting from the psychic and it from the spiritual centre. For the truth of the being is only there and the bag which keeps all that together. This secret of Harmony also is not a homogeneous, uniform consciousness but a heterogeneous onethere.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0529/1the-apriladwaita-1953of-shankaracharya#p5,p7p22-p24</ref>

 Each plane of our being- mentalbeing—mental, vital, physical -has physical—has its own consciousness, separate though interconnected and interacting; but you are out of to our outer mind and sense, in our waking experience,they are all confused together…There is the universal physical together. The body, for instance, has its own consciousness and acts from it, even without any conscious mental will of Nature our own or even against that will, and there is our own which is a part of itsurface mind knows very little about this body consciousness, moved by feels itonly in an imperfect way, sees only its results and used by has the central bank for greatest difficulty in finding out their causes. It is part of the support Yoga to become aware of this separate consciousness of its expression in the physical world and for a direct dealing with all these external objects body, to see and feel its movements and the forces. This physical consciousness-plane receives that act upon it from the other planes their powers inside or outside and influences to learn how to control and makes formations of them direct it even in its own provincemost hidden and (to us) subconscient processes. Therefore But the body consciousness itself is only part of the individualised physical consciousness in us which we have a gather and build out of the secretly conscious forces of universal physical mind as well as a vital mind and Nature. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the mind proper, we have a vital-physical path in us-consciousness#p5</ref><center>~</center>By the “Physical” I mean the physical consciousness, the nervous beingmost ordinary outward- as well as going consciousness, the vital proper; and both are largely conditioned normal consciousness of most human beings, which sets such great store by comfort, good food, good clothes, happy relationships, etc., instead of aspiring for the gross material bodily part which is almost entirely the subconscient to our experiencehigher things. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2803/aspiration-in-the-physical-consciousnessfor-the-divines-love#p5,p6p1</ref>

The body... has its own There is the universal physical consciousness and acts from it, even without any mental will of its own or even against that will, Nature and there is our surface mind knows very little about this body-consciousnessown which is a part of it, feels moved by it only in an imperfect way, sees only its results and has used by the greatest difficulty in finding out their causes. It is part of yoga to become aware of central bank for the separate consciousness support of its expression in the body, to see physical world and for a direct dealing with all these external objects and feel its movements and the forces that act upon it . This physical consciousness-plane receives from inside or outside the other planes their powers and to learn how to control influences and direct it even makes formations of them in its most hidden own province. Therefore we have a physical mind as well as a vital mind and (to the mind proper, we have a vital-physical path in us) subconscient processes. But -the bodynervous being-consciousness itself is only as well as the vital proper; and both are largely conditioned by the gross material bodily part of the individualized physical consciousness in which we gather and build out of is almost entirely the secretly conscious forces of universal physical Naturesubconscient to our experience. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-physical-consciousness#p5,p6</ref>

VitalThe vital...is a thing of desires,impulses, force-pushes, emotions, sensations, seekings after life- fulfillment, possession and enjoyment; these are its functions and its nature;- it is that part of us which seeks after life and its movements for their own sake and it does not want to leave hold of them if they bring it suffering as well as or more than pleasure; it is capable luxuriating in tears and suffering as part of the drama of life. What then is there a common between the thinking Intelligence and the vital and why should the latter obey the mind not follow its own nature? The disobedience is perfectly normal instead of being, as Augustine suggests, unintelligible.Of course, man can establish a mental control over his vital and in so far as he does it he is a man- because the thinking mind is a nobler and more enlightened entity and consciousness than the vital and ought, therefore, to rule and, the mental wale is strong, can rule. But this rule is precarious, incomplete and held only by much self-discipline. For if the mind Is more enlightened, the vital is nearer to the earth, more intense, vehement, more directly able to touch the body. There is also too a vital mind which lives by imagination, thoughts of desire, will to act and enjoy from its own impulse and this is able to seize on the reason itself and make it its auxiliary and its justifying counsel and supplier of pleas and excuses. There is also the sheer force of Desire in man which is the vital’s principal support and strong enough to sweep off the reason, as the Gita says, “like a boat on stormy waters”. ..<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-mind#p29</ref> <center>~</center>Most people live in the vital. That means they live in their desires, sensations, emotional feelings, vital imaginations and see and experience and judge everything from that point of view. It is the vital that moves them, the mind being at its service, not its master. In Yoga also many people do sadhana from that plane and their experience is full of vital visions, formations, experiences of all kinds, but there is no mental clarity or order, neither do they rise above the mind. It is only the minority of men who live in the mind or in the psychic or try to live in the spiritual plane.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-nature-of-the-vital#p3</ref>

In the ordinary life people accept the vital movements, anger, desire, greed, sex, etc. as natural, allowable and legitimate things, part of the human nature. Only so far as society discourages them or insists to keep them within fixed limits or subject to a decent restraint or measure, people try to control them so as to conform to the social standard of morality or rule of conduct. Here, on the contrary, as in all spiritual life, the conquest and complete mastery of these things is demanded.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/morality-and-yoga#p6</ref>

The “Mind” in the ordinary use of the word covers indiscriminately the whole consciousness, for man is a mental being and mentalises everything; but in the language of this yoga Yoga the words “mind” mind and “mental” mental are used to connote specially the part of the nature which has to do with cognition and intelligence, with ideas, with mental or thought perceptions, the reaction of thought to things, with the truly mental movements and formations, mental vision and will, etc., that are a part of his intelligence. The vital has to be carefully distinguished from the mind, even though it has a mind element transfused into it; the vital is the Life-nature made up of desires, sensations, feelings, passions, energies of action, will of desire, reactions of the desire-soul in man and all of that play of possessive and other related instincts, anger, fear, greed, lust etc., that belong to this field of nature. Mind and vital are mixed up on the surface of the consciousness, but they are quite separate forces in themselves and as soon as one gets behind the ordinary surface consciousness one sees them as separate, discovers their distinction and can with the aid of this knowledge analyse their surface mixtures. It is quite possible and even usual during a time shorter or longer, sometimes very long, for the mind to accept the Divine or the yogic ideal while the vital is unconvinced and unsurrendered and goes obstinately on its way of desire, passion and attraction to the ordinary life. Their division or their conflict is the cause of most of the more acute difficulties of the sadhana<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-mind#p1</ref>

...the true role of the mind is the formation and organisation of action. The mind has a formative and organising power, and it is that which puts the different elements of inspiration in order, for action, for organizing action. And if it would only confine itself to that role, receiving inspirations-whether from above of from mystic center of the soul- and simply formulating the plan of action- in broad outline or in minute detail, for the smallest things of life or the greatest terrestrial organizations- it would amply fulfil its function. It is not an instrument of knowledge. But it can use knowledge for action, to organize action. It is an instrument of organization and formation, very powerful and very capable when it is well developed. One can feel this very clearly when one wants to organize one’s life, for instance- to put the different elements in their place in one’s existence. There is a certain intellectual faculty which immediately puts each thing in its place and makes a plan and organizes. And it is not a knowledge that comes from the mind, it is a knowledge which comes, as i said, from the mystic depths of the soul or from a higher consciousness, and the mind concentrates it in the physical world and organizes it to give a basis of action to the higher consciousness. One has this experience very clearly when one wants to organize one’s life. Then, there is another use. When one is in contact with one’s reason, with the rational center of the intellect, the pure reason, it is a powerful control over all vital impulses. All that comes from the vital world can be very firmly controlled by it and used in a disciplined and organized action. But it must be at the service of something else- not work for its own satisfaction. These are the two uses of the mind; it is a controlling force, an instrument of control, and it is a power of organization. That is its true place. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/20-june-1956#p19,p20-,p21,p22,p23,p24,p25</ref>

''Q:. What does "subconscient" mean, exactly?''

''A:.''Subconscient? It is what is half conscious, you see. And we say "sub", because that means "below" the consciousness. It is something more obscure than the consciousness, but which, at the same time, is like a lower substratum supporting the consciousness. It is like those stores from which one would draw out something quite unformed, a formless substance which could be translated into forms or translated into actions or translated into impulses or even into feelings. But it is like those stores containing a considerable number of fairly mixed things, not very distinct, but which would be very rich in possibilities; only they would have to be drawn out into the light and organised, classified, put into shape so as to give them a value.  So long as they are there, it is a mass, a mixture, certainly subconscient, that is to say, half-conscious, semi-conscious, in which everything is muddled up. It lacks organisation and classification. It is the characteristic of consciousness to organise and classify... classification, putting into order, arranging logically... there are varieties of logic, but still, some logic, a beginning of logic. There are higher and higher kinds of logic, more and more superior. But even preliminary logic is the first work of the consciousness.  But consciousness is plunged - plunged as though by its roots- into this domain, and draws up as it would draw up sap: it constantly pumps this subconscient which it has to transform into something organised. That is why we spend our time re-doing the same work. If we had a small limited amount of consciousness which was our own, as some people imagine it, like a small bag full of consciousness, you know, which is one's own consciousness, well, when you have put it in good order and organised it well, your work will be done, and you can be quiet. But it is not at all like that, it is not at all like that.  Even as there are elements of consciousness which escape and evaporate, which spread out, there is this constant nising, as from a deep ground, of something that asks to be made conscious. And your work has to be perpetually re done. But one can - if one is careful and attentive- instead of re-doing exactly the same thing each time, one can redo it with a little progress. Then the movement is not rectilinear, but a movement which goes like this... you see (''gesture of spiral movement''). One seems at times to be going back, but that's in order to go farther and farther forward. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/15-september-1954#p17-p21</ref>

... in its actual cosmic manifestation the Supreme, being the Infinite and not bound by any limitation, can manifest in Itself, in its consciousness of innumerable possibilities something that seems to be the opposite of itself, something in which there can be Darkness, Inconscience, Inertia, Insensibility, Disharmony and Disintegration. It is this that we see at the basis of the material world and speak of nowadays as the Inconscient - the Inconscient Ocean of the Rigveda in which the One was hidden and arose in the form of this universe- or, as it is sometimes called, the non-being, Asat. The Ignorance which is the characteristic of our mind and life is the result of this origin in the Inconscience. Moreover, in the evolution out of inconscient existence there rise up naturally powers and beings which are interested in the maintenance of all negations of the Divine, error and unconsciousness, pain, suffering, obscurity, death, weakness, illness, disharmony, evil. Hence the perversion of the manifestation here, its inability to reveal the true essence of the Divine. Yet in this very base of this evolution all that is divine is there involved and pressing to evolve, Light, Consciousness, Power, Perfection, Beauty, Love. For in the Inconscient itself and behind the perversions of the Ignorance the Divine Consciousness lies concealed and works and must more and more appear, throwing off in the end its disguises. That is why it is said that the world is called to express the Divine.

There is an inner as well as an outer consciousness all through our being, upon all its levels. The ordinary man is aware only of his surface self and quite unaware of all that is concealed by the surface. And yet what is on the surface, what we know or think we know of ourselves and even believe that that is all we are, is only a small part of our being and by far the larger part of us is below the surface. Or, more accurately, it is behind the frontal consciousness, behind the veil, occult and known only by an occult knowledge. Modern psychology and psychic science have begun to perceive this truth just a little. Materialistic psychology calls this hidden part the Inconscient, although practically admitting that it is far greater, more powerful and profound than the surface conscious self, - very much as the Upanishads called the superconscient in us the Sleep-self, although this Sleep-self is said to be an infinitely greater Intelligence, omniscient, omnipotent, Prajna, the Ishwara. Psychic science calls this hidden consciousness the subliminal self, and here too it is seen that this subliminal self has more powers, more knowledge, a freer field of movement than the smaller self that is on the surface and then only too can we hope to be directly aware of the Divine in us and directly in touch with the Divine Light and the Divine Force. Otherwise we can feel But the Divine only through external signs and external results and truth is that all this that is behind, this sea of which our waking consciousness is only a difficult and uncertain way and wave or series of waves, cannot be described by any one term, for it is very occasional and inconstantcomplex. Part of it is subconscient, lower than our waking consciousness, part of it is on a level with it but behind and much larger than it leads only to belief : part is above and not superconscient to knowledgeus. What we call our mind is only an outer mind, a surface mental action, instrumental for the partial expression of a larger mind behind of which we are not to the direct consciousness ordinarily aware and awareness can only know by going inside ourselves. So too what we know of the constant presence. <ref>https://incarnateword.vital in/cwsa/28/us is only the-outer vital, a surface activity partially expressing a larger secret vital which we can only know by going within. Equally, what we call our physical being is only a visible projection of a greater and subtler invisible physical-consciousness#p11</ref>which is much more complex, much more aware, much wider in its receptiveness, much more open and plastic and free.

... there is a superconscient (something above our present consciousness) above the head from which the higher consciousness comes down into the body.... <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-subconscient-and-the-integral-yoga#p19</ref><center>~</center>

<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/experiences-on-the-higher-planes#p13</ref>

I mean by the Higher Mind a first plane of spiritual [consciousness ] where one becomes constantly and closely aware of the Self, the One everywhere and knows and sees things habitually with that awareness; but it is still very much on the mind level although highly spiritual in its essential substance; and its instrumentation is through an elevated thought power and comprehensive mental sight - not sight—not illumined by any of the intenser upper lights but as if in a large strong and clear daylight. It acts as an intermediate state between the Truth-Light above and the human mind; communicating the higher knowledge in a form that the Mind intensified, broadened, made spiritually supple, can receive without being blinded or dazzled by a Truth beyond it. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/27/higher-mind-and-poetic-intelligence#p1</ref> 

...greater Force [than that of the Higher Mind] is that of the Illumined Mind, a Mind no longer of higher Thought, but of spiritual light. Here the clarity of the spiritual intelligence, its tranquil daylight, gives place or subordinates itself to an intense lustre, a splendour and illumination of the Spirit: a play of lightnings of spiritual truth and power breaks from above into the consciousness and adds to the calm and wide enlightenment and the vast descent of peace which characterise or accompany the action of the larger conceptual-spiritual principle, a fiery ardour of realisation and a rapturous ecstasy of knowledge. A downpour of inwardly visible Light very usually envelops this action; for it must be noted that, contrary to our ordinary conceptions, light is not primarily a material creation and the sense or vision of light accompanying the inner illumination is not merely a subjective visual image or a symbolic phenomenon: light is primarily a spiritual manifestation of the Divine Reality illuminative and creative; material light is a subsequent representation or conversion of it into Matter for the purposes of the material Energy. There is also in this descent the arrival of a greater dynamic, a golden drive, a luminous "enthousiasmos” of inner force and power which replaces the comparatively slow and deliberate process of the Higher Mind by a swift, sometimes a vehement, almost a violent impetus of rapid transformation.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/the-ascent-towards-supermind#p26</ref>

The thought of the intuitive mind proceeds wholly by four powers that shape the form of the truth, an intuition that suggests its idea, an intuition that discriminates, an inspiration that brings in its word and something of its greater substance and a revelation that shapes to the sight its very face and body of reality. These things are not the same as certain movements of the ordinary mental intelligence that look analogous and are easily mistaken for the true intuition in our first inexperience. The suggestive intuition is not the same thing as the intellectual insight of a quick intelligence or the intuitive discrimination as the rapid judgment of the reasoning intellect; the intuitive inspiration is not the same as the inspired action of the imaginative intelligence, nor the intuitive revelation as the strong light of a purely mental close seizing and experience.  It would perhaps be accurate to say that these latter activities are mental representations of the higher movements, attempts of the ordinary mind to do the same things or the best possible imitations the intellect can offer of the functionings of the higher nature. The true intuitions differ from these effective but insufficient counterfeits in their substance of light, their operation, their method of knowledge. The intellectual rapidities are dependent on awakenings of the basic mental ignorance to mental figures and representations of truth that may be quite valid in their own field and for their own purpose but are not necessarily and by their very nature reliable. They are dependent for their emergence on the suggestions given by mental and sense data or on the accumulation of past mental knowledge. They search for the truth as a thing outside, an object to be found and looked at and stored as an acquisition and, when found, scrutinise its surfaces, suggestions or aspects. This scrutiny can never give a quite complete and adequate truth idea. However positive they may seem at the time, they may at any moment have to be passed over, rejected and found inconsistent with fresh knowledge.  The intuitive knowledge on the contrary, however limited it may be in its field or application, is within that scope sure with an immediate, a durable and especially a self-existent certitude. It may take for starting-point or rather for a thing to light up and disclose in its true sense the data of mind and sense or else fire a train of past thought and knowledge to new meanings and issues, but it is dependent on nothing but itself and may leap out of its own field of lustres, independent of previous suggestion or data, and this kind of action becomes progressively more common and adds itself to the other to initiate new depths and ranges of knowledge. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-gradations-of-the-supermind#p4,p5-,p6</ref>

Above the mind there are several levels of consciousness conscious being, among which the really divine world is what is Sri Aurobindo has called the Supermind, the world of the Truth but . But in between is what he has distinguished as the Overmind, the world of the cosmic Gods. Now it is this Overmind that has up to the present governed our world: it is the highest that man has been able to attain in illumined consciousness. It has been taken for the Supreme Divine and all those who have reached it have never for a moment doubted that they have touched the true Spirit. For, its splendours are so great to the ordinary human consciousness that it is absolutely dazzled into believing that here at last is the crowning reality. And yet the fact is that the Overmind is far below the true Divine. It is not the authentic home of the Truth. It is only the domain of the ''formateurs'', all those creative powers and deities to whom men have bowed down since the beginning of history. And the reason why the true Divine has not manifested and transformed the earth-nature is precisely that the Overmind has been mistaken for the Supermind. The cosmic Gods do not wholly live in the Truth-Consciousness: they are only in touch with it and represent, each of them, an aspect of its glories.  No doubt, the Supermind has also acted in the history of the world but always through the Overmind. It is the direct descent of the Supramental Consciousness and Power that alone can utterly re-create life in terms of the Spirit. For, in the Overmind there is already the play of possibilities which marks the beginning of this lower triple world of Mind, Life and Matter in which we have our existence. And whenever there is this play and not the spontaneous and infallible working of the innate Truth of the Spirit, there is the seed of distortion and ignorance. Not that the Overmind is a field of ignorance; but it is the borderline between the Higher and the Lower, for, the play of possibilities, of separate even if not yet divided choice, is likely to lead to deviation from the Truth of things.  The Overmind, therefore, does not and cannot possess the power to transform humanity into divine nature. For that, the Supramental is the sole effective agent. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/supermind-and-overmind#p2,p3-,p4</ref>

''Q. Here it is written: “It is very unwise for anyone to claim prematurely to have possession of the supermind or even to have a taste of it.” [Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga] What is a foretaste of the supermind? '' ''A.'' It is still more unwise to imagine that one has it. That's it. Yes, because some people, as soon as they find a phrase in a book, in a teaching, immediately imagine that they have realised that. So, when Sri Aurobindo began speaking about the supermind-- in what he was writing - everyone wrote to him: "I have seen the supramental Light, I had an experience of the supermind!” Now, it is better to keep the word “supermind” for a later time. For the moment let us not speak about it.  Somewhere he has written a very detailed description of all the mental functions accessible to man. Well, when we read this, we say that merely to traverse the mental domain to its highest limit there are so many stages which have not yet been crossed that truly we don't need to speak about the supermind for the time being.  When he speaks of the higher ranges of the mind, one becomes aware that one very rarely lives in these places. It is very rare for one to be in this state of consciousness. On the contrary it is in what he calls the altogether ordinary mind, the mind of the ordinary man, that we live. And to the ordinary consciousness the reason seems to belong to a very high region; and the reason for him is one of the average faculties of the human mind. There are mental regions very much higher than that, which he has described in detail. And it is quite certain that those correspondents, if they had...Suddenly they said that they were having wonderful supramental experiences, because one is rarely in these regions which lie beyond the reason, which are regions of direct perception, intuition and other faculties of intuition of the same kind, which go far beyond the reason; and these are still mental regions, they have nothing of the supramental. ...it is in the mind itself, without coming out of the mind, that there are all these regions which are almost inaccessible for most human beings.

''A:''It is still more unwise to imagine that one has it. That's it. ... Before reaching the extreme limit of the mind, there are so many regions and mental activities which are not at all accessible to most human beings. And even for those who can reach them, they are not regions where they constantly live. They must make an effort of concentration to get there and they don't always arrive. There are regions which Sri Aurobindo has described which only very rare individuals can reach, and still he speaks of them as mental regions. He does not use for them the word supramental. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/24-november-1954#p27-p28,p29,p30,p31,p32,p33,p34,p35,p36,p37</ref>

There is no distinction between the Self and the spirit. The psychic is the soul that develops in the evolution - the spirit is the Self that is not affected by the evolution, it is above it - only it is covered or concealed by the activity of mind, vitality vital and the body. The removal of this covering is the release of the spirit - and it is removed when there is a full and wide spiritual silence. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-psychic-being#p18</ref>

The self, Atman is in its nature either transcendent or universal (Paramatma, Atma). When ; when it individualises and becomes a central being, it is then the Jivatman. The Jivatman feels his oneness with the universal but at the same time his central separateness as a portion of the Divine. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-jivatman-in-the-integral-yoga#p2</ref>

 The Jivatman or spirit, as it is usually called in English, is self-existent above the manifested or instrumental being-it is superior to birth and death, always the same, the individual Self or Atman''atman''. It is the eternal true being of the individual. The soul is a spark of the Divine which is not seated above the manifested being, but comes down into the manifestation to support its evolution in the material world. It is at first an undifferentiated power of the Divine Consciousness containing all possibilities which have not yet taken form, but to which it is the function of evolution to give form. This spark is there in all living beings from the lowest to the highest.  The psychic being is formed by the soul in its evolution. It supports the mind, vital, body, grows by their experiences, carries the nature from life to life. It is the psychic or ''caitya purusa''. At first it is veiled by mind, vital and body, but as it grows, it becomes capable of coming forward and dominating the mind, life and body; in the ordinary man it depends on them for expression and is not able to take them up and freely use them. The life of the being is animal or human and not divine. When the psychic being can by sadhana become dominant and freely use its instruments, then the impulse towards the Divine becomes complete and the transformation of mind, vital and body, not merely their liberation, becomes possible.  The Self or Atman being free and superior to birth and death, the experience of the Jivatman and its unity with the Supreme or universal Self brings the sense of liberation, it is this which is necessary for the supreme spiritual deliverance: but for the transformation of the life and nature the awakening of the psychic being and its rule over the nature are indispensable.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/35/jivatman-spark-soul-and-psychic-being#p1-p5</ref><center>~</center>The psychic being is organised ''around'' the divine spark. The divine spark is one, universal, the same everywhere and in everything, one and infinite, of the same kind in all. You cannot say that it is a being - it is ''the being'', if you like, but not ''a'' being. Naturally, if you go back to the origin, you may say that there is only one soul, for the origin of all souls is the same, as the origin of the whole universe is the same, as the origin of the entire creation is the same. But the psychic being is an individual, personal being with its own experience, its own development, its own growth, its own organisation; only, this organisation is the product of the action of a central divine spark.  But the day an external being (physical, mental, vital) enters into direct and constant contact with the psychic being, one may say in the same way that the ''physical'' being of this person is organised by the central divine consciousness. ...<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/24-february-1951#p7,p8</ref>

The soul or psyche is immutable only in the sense that it contains all the possibilities of the Divine within it, but it has to evolve them and in its evolution it assumes the form of a developing psychic individual evolving in the manifestation of the individual Prakriti and taking part in the evolution. It is the spark of the Divine Fire that grows behind the mind, vital and physical by means of the psychic being until it is organised around able to transform the Prakriti of Ignorance into a Prakriti of knowledge. This evolving psychic being is not therefore at any time all that the soul or essential psychic existence bears within it; it temporalises and individualises what is eternal in potentiality, transcendent in essence, in this projection of the divine sparkspirit.  The divine spark central being is the being which presides over the different births oneafter the other, universalbut is itself unborn, for it does not descend into the being but is above it — it holds together the mental, vital and physical being and all the various parts of the personality and it controls the life either through the same everywhere mental being and the mental thought and will or through the psychic, whichever may happen to be most in everythingfront or most powerful in nature. If it does not exercise its control, one then the consciousness is in great disorder and infinite, part of the same kind personality acts for itself so that there is no coherence in allthe thought, feeling or action. You cannot say that  The psychic is not above but behind - its seat is behind the heart, its power is not knowledge but an essential or spiritual feeling — it is has the clearest sense of the Truth and a being - sort of inherent perception of it which is ''of the nature soul-perception and soul-feeling. It is our inmost being''and supports all the others, if you likemental, vital, physical, but it is also much veiled by them and has to act upon them as an influence rather than by its sovereign right of direct action; its direct action becomes normal and preponderant only at a high stage of development or by yoga. It is not a ''the psychic being''. Naturallywhich, you feel, if gives you go back the intuitions of things to be or warns you against the originresults of certain actions; that is some part of the inner being, sometimes the inner mental, you sometimes the inner vital, sometimes, it may say be, the inner or subtle physical Purusha. The inner being — inner mind, inner vital, inner or subtle physical — knows much that there is only one soulunknown to the outer mind, the outer vital, the outer physical, for it is in a more direct contact with the secret forces of Nature. The psychic is the origin inmost being of all souls ; a perception of truth which is inherent in the deepest substance of the consciousness, a sense of the good, true, beautiful, the Divine, is its privilege. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the same-jivatman-in-the-integral-yoga#p18, as p19,p20</ref> =How to Organise, Harmonise, Unify the origin Being?= The centre of the whole universe human being is psychic which is the samedwelling-place of the immanent Divine. Unification means organisation and harmonisation of all parts of the being (mental, as vital and physical) around this center, so that all the activities of the being may be the origin correct expression of the entire creation is will of the sameDivine Presence. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/0414/24the-februarysoul-the-1951psychic#p8p35</ref>

The soul or psyche is immutable only in the sense that it contains all the possibilities of the Divine within it, but it has to evolve them and in its evolution it assumes the form of a developing psychic individual evolving in the manifestation of the individual Prakriti and taking part in the evolution''Q. It is the spark of the Divine Fire that grows behind the mindSweet Mother, vital and physical by means of the psychic  How can one unify one's being until it is able to transform the Prakriti of Ignorance into a Prakriti of knowledge?'' ''A. '' The inner being — inner mind, inner vital, inner or subtle physical — knows much that first step is unknown to the outer mindfind, the outer vitaldeep within oneself, behind the outer physicaldesires and impulses, for it is in a more direct contact with the secret forces of Nature. The psychic luminous consciousness which is always present and manifests the inmost physical being .  Ordinarily, one becomes aware of all; a perception of truth which is inherent in the deepest substance presence of the this consciousness, only when one has to face some danger or an unexpected event or a sense of the good, true, beautiful, the Divine, is its privilegegreat sorrow. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-jivatman-in-the-integral-yoga#p19-p20</ref>

''Q:MotherTo do this, you said one day that before being able each thought, each feeling, each sensation, each impulse, each reaction, as it manifests, must be presented in the consciousness to identify oneself with the Divinecentral being or its aspiration. What is in accord is accepted; what is not in accord is refused, one must first become an individualrejected or transformed.''

''A:'' es, well, that's It is a long endeavour which may take many years—but once itis done, exactly. You are in the period of becoming an individual. And so long as one unification is in this period of becoming an individual, well, one must wait until this period passes, that is, till you have become a conscious individualachieved and the path becomes easy and swift. Perfectly. It is that<ref>https://incarnateword. Mother, you said there are very few, one in a million perhaps, who are really conscious./cwm/16/10-may-1967#p2-p4</ref>

''Q:Mother. What is the way to establish unity and homogeneity in our being?  ''A.'' Keep the will firm. Treat the recalcitrant parts as disobedient children. Act upon them constantly and patiently. Convince them of their error.  In the depths of your consciousness is the psychic being, the temple of the Divine within you. This is the centre round which should come about the unification of all these divergent parts, all these contradictory movements of your being. Once you have got the consciousness of the psychic being and its aspiration, these doubts and difficulties can be destroyed. It takes more or less time, but you will surely succeed in the end. Once you have turned to the Divine, saying, "I want to be yours”, and the Divine has said there , “Yes”, the whole world cannot keep you from it. When the central being has made its surrender, the chief difficulty has disappeared. The outer being is like a crust. In ordinary people the crust is so hard and thick that they are very fewnot conscious of the Divine within them. If once, one in even for a million perhapsmoment only, the inner being has said, "I am here and I am yours", who then it is as though a bridge has been built and little by little the crust becomes thinner and thinner until the two parts are really consciouswholly joined and the inner and the outer become one.<ref>https://incarnateword.''in/cwm/03/14-april-1929#p10-p12</ref>

==Becoming an Individual== ''Q. Mother, you said one day that before being able to identify oneself with the Divine, one must first become an individual.'' ''A:.'' Yes, well, that's it, exactly. You are in the period of becoming an individual. And so long as one is in this period of becoming an individual, well, one must wait until this period passes, that is, till you have become a conscious individual. Perfectly. It is that. <center>~</center>''Mother, you said there are very few, one in a million perhaps, who are really conscious.'' Oh, if you take humanity at large, certainly! And the great mass of mankind will never become individuals, it will always be an amorphous mass, all intermingled, like that (''gesture''). To become an individual is what Sri Aurobindo calls becoming truly a mental man. Well, if you have read ''The Human Cycle'', you will see that already it is not so easy to become a truly mental man who thinks by himself, is free from all outer influences, who has an individuality, who exists, has his reality; , even that is not so easy but .  But, by a kind of Grace, it can happen that before becoming bed ing an individual, if someone has within himself an aspiration, if he feels the need to awaken to something which would want more, want something better, which feels how how very small it is to be an individual, something which really seeks beyond the ordinary limits, well, even before becoming an individual, he may suddenly have the experience of a contact with his psychic which opens all the doors for him. They close again later, but once they have opened you never forget it. The remembrance remains very vividly; and this helps. It should happen to you here. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/22-september-1954#p32-p36</ref>

 Merge one's ego in the Divine! But first, one can't merge one's ego in the Divine before becoming completely individualized. Do you know what it means to be ''completely'' individualised? Capable of resisting all outer influences?  Some days ago I received a letter from someone who told me that he was very hesitant about reading books of ordinary literature, for example, novels or dramas, because his nature had an almost insuperable tendency to receive imprints of the characters in these books and to begin living the feelings and thoughts of these characters, the nature of these persons. There are many more people than one would think who are like that. They read a book and while they are reading it they feel within themselves all kinds of emotions, thoughts, desires, intentions, plans even ideals. They are simply just absorbed in the reading of the book. They are not even aware of it, because at least ninety-nine parts of an individual's character are made of soft butter - inedible of course... but on which if one presses one's thumb, an imprint is made.  Now, everything is a “thumb”: an expressed thought, a sentence read , an object looked at, an observation of what someone else does, and of one's neighbour's will. And all these wills... you know, when one sees them they are all there, like this intermingled (''Mother intercrosses her fingers''), each one trying to get the uppermost and causing a kind of perpetual conflict within, outside.... It goes in and out of people like that, you see, like electric currents. One is not at all aware of all this, and it is a perpetual conflict of all the wills which are trying to express themselves; and the strongest one will succeed. But as there are many of these and as one has to fight alone against a great number, it is not easy.  So one is tossed like a cork on the waves of the sea.... One day one wants this, the next day one wants that, at one moment one is pushed from this side, at another from that, now one lifts one's face to the sky (''Mother makes the movement''), now one is sunk deep in a hole. And so this is the existence one has!  First one must become a conscious, well-knit, ''individualised being'', who exists in himself, by himself, independently Of all his surroundings, who can hear anything, read anything, see anything without changing. He receives from outside only what he wants to receive; he automatically refuses all that is not in conformity with his plan and nothing can leave an imprint on him unless he agrees to receive the imprint. One begins to become an individuality! When one is an individuality, one can make an offering of it.  For, unless one possesses something, one cannot give it. First, one must be, and then afterwards one can give oneself. ''So long as one does not exist, one can give nothing.'' And for the separative ego to disappear, as you say, one must be able to give oneself entirely, totally without reservation. And to be able to give oneself, one must first exist. And to exist one must be individualised.  If your body were not made in the rigid form it is - for it is terribly rigid, isn't it? -- well, if all that were not so fixed, if you had no skin, here, like this, solid, if externally you were the reflection of what you are in the vital and mental fields, it would be worse than being a jelly-fish! Everything would fuse into everything else, like this.... Oh, what a mess it would be! That is why it was at first necessary to give a very rigid form. Afterwards we complain about it. We say, “The physical is fixed, it is a nuisance; it lacks plasticity, it lacks suppleness, it hasn't that fluidity which can enable us to merge into the Divine.” But this was absolutely necessary, for without this... if you simply went out of your body (most of you can't do it because the vital being is hardly more individualised than the physical), if you came out of your body and went into the vital world, you would see that all things there intermingle, they are mixed, they divide; all kinds of vibrations, currents of forces come and go, struggle, try to destroy one another, take possession of each other, absorb each other, throw each other out... and so it goes on! But it is very difficult to find a real personality in all this. These are forces, movements, desires, vibrations.  There are individualities, there are personalities! But these are powers. People who are individualised in that world are either heroes or devils!  And now, in the mind... (''Silence'') If only you become conscious of your physical mind in itself... Some people have called it a public square, because everything comes there, goes across, passes, comes back.... All ideas go there, they enter at one place, leave by another, some are here, some there, and it is a public square, not very well organised, for usually ideas meet and knock into one another, there are accidents of all kinds. But then one becomes aware:'' “What can I call my mind?" or "What is my mind?" '' One needs years of very attentive, very careful, very reasonable, very coherent work, organisation, selection, construction, in order to succeed simply in forming, oh, simply this little thing, ''one's own way of thinking! ''  One believes he has his own way of thinking. Not at all. It depends totally upon the people one speaks with or the books he has read or on the mood he is in. It depends also on whether you have a good or bad digestion, it depends on whether you are shut up in a room without proper ventilation or whether you are in the open air; it depends on whether you have a beautiful landscape before you; it depends on whether there is sunshine or rain! You are not aware of it, but you think all kinds of things, completely different according to a heap of things which have nothing to do with you!  And for this to become a coordinated, coherent, logical thought a long thorough work is necessary. And then, the best of the business is that when you have succeeded in making a beautiful, well-formed, very strong, very powerful mental construction, the first thing you will be told is, “You must break this so that you can unite with the Divine!" But so long as you haven't made it, you cannot unite with the Divine because you have nothing to give to the Divine except a mass of things which are not yourself! ''One must first exist in order to be able to give oneself. '' <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/28-july-1954#p38p37-p50</ref>

''Q. Sweet Mother, when does the ego become an instrument?'' ''A.'' When it is ready to become it. ''Q. How does that happen?'' ''A.'' How does it happen?... In each one, I believe, it happens in a different way. It may happen suddenly, in the space of a moment, by a kind of inner reversal; it may take years; it may take centuries, it may take several lives. For each one there is a moment when it happens when he is ready and .  And I think he is ready when he is completely formed. The purpose of existence of the ego is the formation of the individual. When the individual is ready the ego can disappear. But before that it does not disappear because it has still has some work to do. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/9-november-1955#p18,p19-,p20,p21,p22</ref> ==Becoming Conscious== ''Q. ''To know oneself and control oneself.'' what does this mean?  ''A.'' This means to be conscious of one's inner truth, conscious of the different parts of one's being and their respective functions. You must know why you do this, why you do that; you must know your thoughts, know your feelings, all your activities, all your movements, of what you are capable, etc. And to know oneself is not enough: this knowledge must bring a conscious control. To know oneself perfectly is to control oneself perfectly.  But there must be an aspiration at every moment. It is never too early to begin, never too late to continue. That is, even when you are quite young, you can begin to study yourself and know yourself and gradually to control yourself. And even when you are what is called "old", when you are quite aged, it is not too late to make the effort to know yourself better and better and control yourself better and better. That is the Science of Living. To perfect oneself, one must first become conscious of oneself. I am sure, for instance, that the following situation has arisen many times in your life: someone asks you suddenly, "Why have you done that?" Well, the spontaneous reply is, "I don't know." If someone asks you, "What are you thinking of?" You reply, "I don't know." "Why are you tired?”- “I don't know." "Why are you happy?” - “I don't know, and so on. I can take indeed fifty people and ask them suddenly, without preparation, "Why have you done that?" and if they are not inwardly “awake”, they will all answer,”I don't know" (Of course I am not speaking here of those who have practised a discipline of self-knowledge and of following up their movements to the extreme limits; these people can, naturally, collect themselves, concentrate and give the right answer, but only after a little while). You will see that it is like that if you look well at your whole day. You say something and you don't know why you say it - it is only after the words are out of your mouth that you notice that this was not quite what you wanted to say. For instance, you go to see someone, you prepare beforehand the words you are going to speak, but once you are in front of the person in question, you say nothing or it is other words which come from your mouth. Are you able to say to what extent the atmosphere of the other person has influenced you and stopped you from saying what you had prepared? How many people can say that? They do not even observe that the person was in such or such a state and that it was because of this that they could not tell him what they had prepared. Of course, there are very obvious instances when you find people in such a bad mood that you can ask nothing of them. I am not speaking of these. I am speaking of the clear perception of reciprocal influences: what acts and reacts on your nature; it is this one does not have. For example, one becomes suddenly uneasy or happy, but how many people can say, "It is this"? And it is difficult to know, it is not at all easy. One must be quite “awake”: one must be constantly in a very attentive state of observation.

"To know oneself be in this state of attentive observation, you must have, so to say, antennae everywhere which are in constant contact with your true centre of consciousness. You register everything, you organise everything and, in this way, you cannot be taken unawares, you cannot be deceived, mistaken, and you cannot say anything other than what you wanted to say. But how many people normally live in this state? It is this I mean, precisely, when I speak of “becoming conscious”. If you want to benefit most from the conditions and control oneself''circumstances in which you find yourself, you must be fully awake: you must not be taken by surprise, you must not do things out knowing why, you must not say things without knowing why. You must be constantly awake. - The Mother

This means to be conscious of one's inner truth, conscious of the different parts of one's being and their respective functions. You must know why also understand that you do thisare not separate individualities, why you do that; you must know your thoughtslife is a constant exchange of forces, know your feelingsof consciousnesses, all your activities, all your of vibrations of movements, what you are capable of, etcall kinds. And to know oneself It is not enoughas in a crowd, you see: this knowledge must bring a conscious control. To know oneself perfectly is to control oneself perfectly.But there must be an aspiration at every momentwhen everyone pushes all go forward and when all recede, everyone recedes. It is never too early to beginthe same thing in the inner world, never too late to continuein your consciousness. That There are all the time forces and influences acting and reacting upon you, it islike a gas in the atmosphere, and unless you are quite awake, these things enter into you, even and it is only when they have gone well in and come out as if they came from you , that you become aware of them. How many times people meet those who are nervous, angry, in a bad mood, and themselves become nervous, angry, moody, just like that, without quite youngknowing why. Why is it that when you play against certain people you play very well, but when you play against others you can begin to study yourself cannot play? And those very quiet people, not at all wicked, who suddenly become furious when they are in a furious crowd! And no one knows who has started it: it is something that went past and know yourself and gradually to control yourselfswept off the consciousness. There are people who can let out vibrations like this and others respond without knowing why. Everything is like that, from the smallest to the biggest things. To be individualised in a collectivity, one must be absolutely conscious of oneself. And of which self? - the Self which is above all intermixture, that is, what I call the Truth of your being. And as long as you are not conscious of the Truth of your being, you are moved by all kinds of things, without taking any note of it at all. Collective thought, collective suggestions are a formidable influence which act constantly on individual thought. It is thus that gradually, slowly, with perseverance, first of all with great care and much attention, one becomes conscious, learns to know oneself and then to become master of oneself. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/13-january-1951#p18-p28</ref>

==How To be individualised in a collectivity, one must be absolutely conscious of oneself. And of which self? - the Self which is above all intermixture, that is, what I call the Truth of your being. And as long as you are not conscious of the Truth of your being, you are moved by all kinds of things, without taking any note of it at all. Collective thought, collective suggestions are a formidable influence which act constantly on individual thought. And what is extraordinary is that one does not notice it. One Prepare?==believes that one thinks “like that”, but in truth it is the collectivity which thinks “like that”. The mass is always inferior to the individual. Take individuals with similar qualities, of similar categories, well, when they are alone these individuals are at least two degrees better than people of the same category in a crowd. There is a mixture of obscurities, a mixture of unconsciousness, and inevitably you slip into this unconsciousness. To escape this there is but one means: to become conscious of oneself, more and more conscious and more and more attentive.

To be conscious, first of all. We are conscious of only an insignificant portion of our being; for the most part we are unconscious. It is Try this unconsciousness that keeps us down to our unregenerate nature and prevents change and transformation in it. It is through unconsciousness that little exercise: at the undivine forces enter into us and make us their slaves. You are to be conscious beginning of yourself, you must awake to your nature and movements, you must know why and how you do things or feel or think them; you must understand your motives and impulses, the forces, hidden and apparent, that move you; You will have to be patient and persistent and vigilant-"sleepless”day, as the adepts say; you must always refuse to give any chance whatsoever to the undivine against the divine. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/7-april-1929#p10-p11</ref> <center>~</center>To work for your perfection, the first step is to become conscious "I won't speak without thinking of yourself, of the different parts of your being and their respective activitieswhat I say. ” You must learn to distinguish these different parts one from anotherbelieve, so that don't you may become clearly aware of the origin of the movements , that occur in you, the many impulses, reactions and conflicting wills think all that drive you to action. say! It is an assiduous study which demands much perseverance and sincerity. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/the-science-of-living#p5</ref><center>~</center>To become conscious of the various movements in oneself and be aware of what one does and why one does it, is the indispensable starting-point. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/vital-education#p14</ref><center>~</center>When one lives in the not at all true consciousness one feels the desires outside oneself, entering from outside, from you will see that so many times the universal lower Prakriti, into the mind and the vital parts. In the ordinary human condition this is word you do not felt; men become aware of the desire only when it want to say is thereready to come out, when it has come inside and found that you are compelled to make a lodging or a habitual harbourage and so they think conscious effort to stop it is their own and a part of themselves. The first condition for getting rid of desire is, therefore, to become conscious with the true consciousness; <ref>https://incarnatewordfrom coming out.in/cwsa/31/desire#p60</ref>

=How Can One Unify One's BeingI have known people who were very scrupulous about not telling lies, but all of a sudden, when together in a group, instead of speaking the truth they would spontaneously tell a lie; they did not have the intention of doing so, they did not think of it a minute before doing it, but it came “like that”. Why?=—because they were in the company of liars; there was an atmosphere of falsehood and they had quite simply caught the malady!

The centre of the human being It is psychic which is the dwelling-place thus that gradually, slowly, with perseverance, first of the immanent Divine. Unification means organisation all with great care and harmonisation of all parts of the being (mentalmuch attention, one becomes conscious, vital learns to know oneself and physical) around this center, so that all the activities then to become master of the being may be the correct expression of the will of the Divine Presenceoneself. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/1404/the13-souljanuary-the1951#p18-psychic#p35p28</ref>

The ''Q. What is one to do to prepare oneself for the Yoga?'' ''A'' To be conscious, first step of all. We are conscious of only an insignificant portion of our being; for the most part we are unconscious. It is this unconsciousness that keeps us down to our unregenerate nature and prevents change and transformation in it. It is through unconsciousness that the undivine forces enter into us and make us their slaves. You are to findbe conscious of yourself, deep within oneselfyou must awake to your nature and movements, behind the desires you must know why and how you do things or feel or think them; you must understand your motives and impulses, a luminous consciousness which is always present the forces, hidden and manifests apparent, that move you; in fact, you must, as it were, take to pieces the physical entire machinery of your being.OrdinarilyOnce you are conscious, it means that you can distinguish and sift things, one becomes aware of you can see which are the presence of this consciousness only forces that pull you down and which help you on. And when one has to face some danger or an unexpected event or a great sorrow. One hasyou know the right from the wrong, the true from the false, thenthe divine from the undivine, you are to act strictly up to come into conscious contact with your knowledge; that is to say, resolutely reject one and accept the other. The duality will present itself at every step and learn to do so at every step you willhave to make your choice. The rest You will followhave to be patient and persistent and vigilant—"sleepless”, as the adepts say; you must always refuse to give any chance whatever to the undivine against the divine. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/1603/207-septemberapril-19691929#p1p10-p5p11</ref>

We are made up To work for your perfection, the first step is to become conscious of yourself, of many the different parts which have of your being and their respective activities. You must learn to be unified around distinguish these different parts one from another, so that you may become clearly aware of the origin of the psychic beingmovements that occur in you, if we are conscious of it or at least around the central aspirationmany impulses, reactions and conflicting wills that drive you to action. If this unification It is not done, we carry this division within usan assiduous study which demands much perseverance and sincerity. To do thisFor man's nature, each thoughtespecially his mental nature, each feelinghas a spontaneous tendency to give a favourable explanation for everything he thinks, each sensationfeels, each impulsesays and does. It is only by observing these movements with great care, each reactionby bringing them, as it manifestswere, before the tribunal of our highest ideal, with a sincere will to submit to its judgment, must be presented that we can hope to form in ourselves a discernment that never errs. For if we truly want to progress and acquire the consciousness to capacity of knowing the central truth of our being or its aspiration. What , that is in accord is accepted; to say, what we are truly created for, what is not we can call our mission upon earth, then we must, in accord is refuseda very regular and constant manner, rejected reject from us or transformed. It eliminate in us whatever contradicts the truth of our existence, whatever is a long endeavour which may take many years - but once opposed to it is done. 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 is achieved 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 path becomes easy and swiftsuccess of our endeavour. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/1612/10the-mayscience-of-1967living#p2-p4p5</ref>

==What is the Way to Establish Unity and Homogeneity in Our Being? =For Dealing with Vital Movements===

Keep To become conscious of the will firm. Treat the recalcitrant parts as disobedient children. Act upon them constantly various movements in oneself and patiently. Convince them be aware of their error. In the depths of your consciousness what one does and why one does it, is the psychic being, the temple of the Divine within youindispensable starting-point. This is the centre round which should come about the unification of all these divergent partsThe child must be taught to observe, all these contradictory movements of your being. Once you have got the consciousness of the psychic being to note his reactions and its aspiration, these doubts impulses and difficulties can be destroyed. If oncetheir causes, even for to become a moment onlydiscerning witness of his desires, the inner being has said, "I am here his movements of violence and I am yours"passion, then it is as though a bridge has been built his instincts of possession and little by little the crust becomes thinner appropriation and thinner until the two parts are wholly joined domination and the inner background of vanity which supports them, together with their counterparts of weakness, discouragement, depression and the outer become onedespair. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/0312/14-aprilvital-1929education#p10-p12p14</ref>

... you have many sides to your personality or rather many personalities in you; it is indeed their discordant movements each getting When one lives in the way of true consciousness one feels the desires outside oneself, entering from outside, from the otheruniversal lower Prakriti, as happens when they are expressed through into the external mind, that have stood much in and the way of your sadhanavital parts. There In the ordinary human condition this is the vital personality which was turned towards success and enjoyment and got it and wanted to go on with it but could not get the rest felt; men become aware of the being to follow. For there is a truth in Nirvana - Nirvana desire only when it is nothing but the peace and freedom of the Spirit which can exist in itself, be there world or no world, world-order when it has come inside and found a lodging or world-disorder. Bhakti a habitual harbourage and the heart's call for the Divine have a truth - so they think it is the truth their own and a part of the divine Love and Anandathemselves. The will first condition for Tapasya hasi in it a truth - it is the truth getting rid of the Spirit's mastery over its members. That desire is , therefore, to become conscious with the harmonisation true consciousness; for which our yoga stands - but then it becomes much easier to dismiss it than when one has to struggle with it cannot be achieved by any outward arrangement, as if it can only were a constituent part of oneself to be achieved by going inside and looking, willing and acting thrown out from the psychic and from the spiritual centrebeing. For the truth of the being It is easier to cast off an accretion than to excise what is there and the secret felt as a parcel of Harmony also is thereour substance. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2931/the-adwaita-of-shankaracharyadesire#p22-p24p60</ref>