Changes

=Becoming an IndividualIntroduction=

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 it 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'Q:Mothers memory, one would be oneself. If one sincerely continues this profound search, you said there comes a moment when everything disappears and one day single thing exists, that before being able to identify oneself with is the Divine, the divine Presence. Everything disappears, dissolves, everything melts away like butter in the sunlight.... When one has made this discovery, one must first become an individualbecomes 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>

... as Being is one yet multiple, so also the same law prevails in ourselves and our members; the Spirit, the Purusha is one but it adapts itself to the formations of Nature. Over each grade of our being a power of the Spirit presides; we have within us and discover when we go deep enough inwards a mind-self, a life-self, a physical self; there is a being of mind, a mental Purusha, expressing something of itself on our surface in the thoughts, perceptions, activities of our mind-nature, a being of life which expresses something of itself in the impulses, feelings, sensations, desires, external life-activities of our vital nature, a physical being, a being of the body which expresses something of itself in the instincts, habits, formulated activities of our physical nature. These beings or part selves of the self in us are powers of the Spirit and therefore not limited by their temporary expression, for what is thus formulated is only a fragment of its possibilities; but the expression creates a temporary mental, vital or physical personality which grows and develops even as the psychic being or soul personality grows and develops within us. Each has its own distinct nature, its influence, its action on the whole of us; but on our surface all these influences and all this action, as they come up, mingle and create an aggregate surface being which is a composite, an amalgam of them all, an outer persistent and yet shifting and mobile formation for the purposes of this life and its limited experience. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/the-triple-transformation#p8</ref> =Our Manifold Being= 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 it is so mixed that even when one tries, at the beginning it is very difficult to classify and separate one thing from another. It is as when one works with colours, takes three or four or five different colours and puts them in the same water and beats them up together, it makes a grey, indistinct and incomprehensible mixture, you see, and one can't say which is red, which blue, which green, which yellow; it is something dirty, lots of colours mixed. So first of all one must do this little work of separating the red, blue, yellow, green - putting them like this, each in its corner. It is not at all easy. I have met people who used to think themselves extremely intelligent, by the way, who thought they knew a lot, and when I spoke to them about the different parts of the being they looked at me like this (''gesture'') and asked me, "But what are you speaking about?" They did not understand at all. I am speaking of people who have the reputation of being intelligent. They don't understand at all. For them it is just the consciousness; it is the consciousness - "It is my consciousness" and then there is the neighbour's consciousness; and again there are things which do not have any consciousness. And then I asked them whether animals had a consciousness; so they began to scratch their head and said, "Perhaps it is we who put our consciousness in the animal when we look at it," like that…<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/9-february-1955#p28,p29,p30</ref><center>~</center>''Q. Sweet Mother, here it is written: “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.” Are these forces different for each person?'' ''A:.'' esYes. The composition is completely different, wellotherwise 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, itis difficult.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/22-june-1955#p16,p17, exactlyp18</ref><center>~</center>An "entity" is a personality or an individuality. You 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 period perfection of becoming 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 individualindividuality 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. And He will take up one thing today and go on with another tomorrow and so long 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 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><center>~</center>... 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 period 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 becoming 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 individualaspiration 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, wellnot even the memory of the experience remains. One is completely under another influence, one must wait until 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 period passesexperience 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 isnot a homogeneous, uniform consciousness but a heterogeneous one.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/1-april-1953#p5, till p7</ref><center>~</center>The Universal Purusha dwells in all these planes in a certain simultaneity and builds upon each of these principles a world of series of worlds with its beings who live in the nature of that principle. Man, the microcosm, has all these planes in his own being, ranged from his subconscient to his superconscient existence. By a 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 then he becomes aware that his material existence is not a thing apart and self-existent, as a material universe in which he lives is also not a thing apart and self- existent, but is in constant relation to the higher planes and acted on by their powers and beings. He can open up and increase the action of these higher planes in himself and enjoy some sort of participation in the life of the other worlds,- which, for the rest, are or can be his dwelling place, that is to say, the station of his awareness…<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-psychology-of-self-perfection#p11</ref><center>~</center>... you have become 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 the vital personality that wanted enjoyment of a deeper kind and suggested to the other that it could very well give up these unsatisfactory things if it got an equivalent in some faeryland of a conscious individualhigher joy. There is the psycho-vital personality that is the Vaishnava within you and wanted the Divine Krishna and bhakti and Ananda. PerfectlyThere is the personality which is the poet and musician and a seeker of beauty through these things. It There is the mental-vital personality which, when it saw the vital standing in the way, insisted on a grim struggle of Tapasya, and it is no doubt thatalso 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. Mother 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 said 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. Well, if it is not then there is another way - it is what we call the integration, the harmonisation of the being. That cannot be done from outside, it cannot be done by the mind and vital being - they are very fewsure to bungle their affair. It can be done only from within by the soul, the Spirit which is the centraliser, itself the centre of these radii. In all of them there is a truth that can harmonise with the true truth of the others. For there is a truth in Nirvana - Nirvana is nothing but the peace and freedom of the Spirit which can exist in itself, be there world or no world, one world-order or world-disorder. Bhakti and the heart's call for the Divine have a truth - it is the truth of the divine Love and Ananda. The will for Tapasya hasi in it a truth - it is the truth of the Spirit's mastery over its members. The musician and poet stand for a truth, it is the truth of the expression of the Spirit through beauty. There is a truth behind the mental affirmer: even there is a truth behind mental doubter, the Russellian, though far behind him- the truth of the denial of false forms. Even behind the two vital personalities there is a million perhapstruth, the truth of the possession of the inner and outer worlds not by the ego but by the Divine. That is 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 looking, who willing and acting from the psychic and from the spiritual centre. For the truth of the being is there and the secret of Harmony also is there.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-adwaita-of-shankaracharya#p22-p24</ref> =Planes and Parts of the Being===The Physical==Each plane of our being—mental, vital, physical—has its own consciousness, separate though interconnected and interacting; but to our outer mind and sense, in our waking experience, they are really all confused together. The body, for instance, has its own consciousness and acts from it, even without any consciousmental will of our own or even against that will, and our surface mind knows very little about this body consciousness, feels it only in an imperfect way, sees only its results and has the greatest difficulty in finding out their causes.It is part of the Yoga to become aware of this separate consciousness of the body, to see and feel its movements and the forces that act upon it from inside or outside and to learn how to control and direct it even in its most hidden and (to us) subconscient processes. But the body consciousness itself is only part of the individualised physical consciousness in us which we gather and build out of the secretly conscious forces of universal physical Nature. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-physical-consciousness#p5</ref><center>~</center>By the “Physical” I mean the physical consciousness, the most ordinary outward-going consciousness, the 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 higher things. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/aspiration-in-the-physical-for-the-divines-love#p1</ref>

''Q:MotherThere is the universal physical consciousness of Nature and there is our own which is a part of it, you said there are very fewmoved by it, one and used by the central bank for the support of its expression in the physical world and for a direct dealing with all these external objects and movements and forces. This physical consciousness-plane receives from the other planes their powers and influences and makes formations of them in its own province. Therefore we have a physical mind as well as a million perhapsvital mind and the mind proper, who we have a vital-physical path in us-the nervous being- as well as the vital proper; and both are really consciouslargely conditioned by the gross material bodily part which is almost entirely the subconscient to our experience.<ref>https://incarnateword.''in/cwsa/28/the-physical-consciousness#p5,p6</ref> ==The Vital==

''A:'' OhThe vital...is a thing of desires,impulses, if you take humanity at largeforce-pushes, certainly! And the great mass of mankind will never become individualsemotions, it will always be an amorphous masssensations, all intermingledseekings after life fulfillment, like possession and enjoyment; these are its functions and its nature;- it is that (''gesture'')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. To become an individual What then is what Sri Aurobindo calls becoming truly there a mental mancommon 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. WellOf course, if you have read The Human Cycle, you will see that already man can establish a mental control over his vital and in so far as he does it he is not so easy to become a truly mental man who thinks by himself, - because the thinking mind is free from all outer influencesa nobler and more enlightened entity and consciousness than the vital and ought, who has an individualitytherefore, who existsto rule and, has his reality; even that the mental wale is not so easy but by a kind of Gracestrong, it can happen that before becoming an individualrule. But this rule is precarious, incomplete and held only by much self-discipline. For if someone has within himself an aspirationthe mind Is more enlightened, if he feels the need vital is nearer to awaken the earth, more intense, vehement, more directly able to something touch the body. There is too a vital mind which would want morelives by imagination, want something betterthoughts 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 feels how very small it is the vital’s principal support and strong enough to be an individualsweep off the reason, as the Gita says, something which really seeks beyond “like a boat on stormy waters”...<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-mind#p29</ref> <center>~</center>Most people live in the ordinary limitsvital. That means they live in their desires, wellsensations, even before becoming an individualemotional feelings, vital imaginations and see and experience and judge everything from that point of view. It is the vital that moves them, he may suddenly have 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 a contact with his psychic which opens all the doors for him. They close again laterkinds, but once there is no mental clarity or order, neither do they have opened you never forget it. The remembrance remains very vividly; and this helpsrise above the mind. It should happen is only the minority of men who live in the mind or in the psychic or try to you herelive in the spiritual plane. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0631/22the-nature-of-septemberthe-1954vital#p32-p36p3</ref>

So there 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 Mental== 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 the words mind and 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 longtime shorter or longer, sometimes very long, 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><center>~</center>...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 go before merging 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 oneis 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> ==The Subconscient==  's ego '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 Divineconsciousness. Merge 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 ego 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 Divine! But firstsame thing each time, one canredo it with a little progress. Then the movement is not rectilinear, but a movement which goes like this... you see (''gesture of spiral movement''t merge one). One seems at times to be going back, but that's ego in order to go farther and farther forward.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/15-september-1954#p17-p21</ref> ==The Inconscient==  ... 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 before becoming completely individualized. “What <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/spiritual-evolution-and-the-supramental#p28</ref>==The Subliminal - The Inner Being==  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. But the truth is that all this that is behind, this sea of which our waking consciousness is only a wave or series of waves, cannot be described by any one term, for it is very complex. 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: part is above and superconscient to us. 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 ordinarily aware and can only know by going inside ourselves. So too what we know of the vital in us is only the outer vital, a surface activity partially expressing a larger secret vital which we can I only know by going within. Equally, what we call my mind?our physical being is only a visible projection of a greater and subtler invisible physical consciousness which is much more complex, much more aware, much wider in its receptiveness, much more open and plastic and free.  If you understand and experience this truth, then only you will be able to realise what is meant by the inner mental, the inner vital, the inner physical consciousness. But it must be noted that this term "inner" is used in two different senses. Sometimes it denotes the consciousness behind the veil of the outer being, the mental or "What vital or physical within, which is in direct touch with the universal mind, the universal life forces, the universal physical forces. Sometimes, on the other hand, we mean an inmost mental, vital, physical more specifically called the true mind, the true vital, the true physical consciousness which is nearer to the soul and can most easily and directly respond to the Divine Light and Power. There is no real yoga possible, still less any integral yoga, if we do not go back from the outer self and become aware of all this inner being and inner nature. For then alone can we break the limitations of the ignorant external self which receives consciously only the outer touches and knows things indirectly through the outer mind and senses, and become directly aware of the universal consciousness and the universal forces that play through us and around us. 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 the Divine only through external signs and external results and that is a difficult and uncertain way and very occasional and inconstant, and it leads only to belief and not to knowledge, not to the direct consciousness and awareness of the constant presence. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-physical-consciousness#p10,p11</ref>==The Superconscient==  ... 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>The higher consciousness is my that above the ordinary mind?" and different from it in its workings; it ranges from higher mind through illumined mind, intuition and overmind up to the border line of the supramental.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/experiences-on-the-higher-planes#p13</ref> ===Higher Mind===  I mean by the Higher Mind a first plane of spiritual [consciousness] where one becomes constantly and closely aware of the Self, the One needs years 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 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>===Illumined Mind===  ...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 attentiveusually 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> ===Intuition===  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 carefulface 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 reasonablenature 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, very coherent workp5, organisationp6</ref> ===Overmind===  Above the mind there are several levels of conscious being, selectionamong which the really divine world is what Sri Aurobindo has called the Supermind, constructionthe world of the Truth. 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 order 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 succeed simply 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 formingterms of the Spirit. For, ohin the Overmind there is already the play of possibilities which marks the beginning of this lower triple world of Mind, simply Life and Matter in which we have our existence. And whenever there is this little thingplay 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> ===Supermind=== ''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 onehas it. That's own way 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 thinkingthe supermind! One believes ” 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 his own way written a very detailed description of thinkingall the mental functions accessible to man. Not at allWell, 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 depends totally upon 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 people 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.  ... 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#p28,p29,p30,p31,p32,p33,p34,p35,p36,p37</ref> ==Atman - Self-Spirit==  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, 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> ==Jivatman - Central Being==  The self, Atman is in its nature either transcendent or universal (Paramatma, Atma); 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> ==Soul and Psychic Being==  The Jivatman, spark-soul and psychic being are three different forms of the same reality and they must not be mixed up together, as that confuses the clearness of the inner experience. The Jivatman or spirit, as it is usually called in English, is self-existent above the books he has read manifested or instrumental being-it is superior to birth and death, always the same, the individual Self or on ''atman''. It is the eternal true being of the individual.  The soul is a spark of the mood he Divine which is not seated above the manifested being, but comes down into the manifestation to support its evolution inthe material world. It depends also on whether you is at first an undifferentiated power of the Divine Consciousness containing all possibilities which have a good 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 bad digestion''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 whether you are shut them for expression and is not able to take them up in a room without proper ventilation 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 whether you 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 in the open airindispensable. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0635/28jivatman-spark-soul-and-julypsychic-1954being#p38p1-p50p5</ref>

In each The psychic being is organised ''around'' the divine spark. The divine spark is one, I believeuniversal, it happens the same everywhere and in a different way. It may happen suddenlyeverything, one and infinite, of the same kind in all. You cannot say that it is a being - it is ''the space of being'', if you like, but not ''a moment'' being. Naturally, by a kind of inner reversal; it may take years; it may take centuriesif you go back to the origin, it you may take several lives. For each one say that there is a moment when it happens when he only one soul, for the origin of all souls is ready and I think he is ready when he is completely formed. The purpose of existence the same, as the origin of the ego whole universe is the formation same, as the origin of the individualentire creation is the same. When 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 ready the ego can disappear. But before that it does not disappear because it still has some work to doproduct of the action of a central divine spark. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/9-november-1955#p19-p22</ref>

"To know oneself The central being is the being which presides over the different births one after the other, but 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 mental being and the mental thought and will or through the psychic, whichever may happen to be most in front or most powerful in nature. If it does not exercise its control oneself", then the consciousness is in great disorder and part of the personality acts for itself so that there is no coherence in the thought, feeling or action. - The Mother

This means to be conscious of one's inner truthThe psychic is not above but behind - its seat is behind the heart, conscious its power is not knowledge but an essential or spiritual feeling — it has the clearest sense of the different parts Truth and a sort of one's inherent perception of it which is of the nature soul-perception and soul-feeling. It is our inmost being and their respective functions. You must know why you do thissupports all the others, why you do that; you must know your thoughts, know your feelingsmental, all your activitiesvital, all your movementsphysical, what you are capable of, etc. And to know oneself is not enough: this knowledge must bring a conscious control. To know oneself perfectly but it is also much veiled by them and has to control oneself perfectly.But there must be act upon them as an aspiration influence rather than by its sovereign right of direct action; its direct action becomes normal and preponderant only at every momenta high stage of development or by yoga. It is never too early to beginnot the psychic being which, never too late to continue. That is, even when you are quite youngfeel, gives you can begin the intuitions of things to study yourself and know yourself and gradually to control yourself. There are people who can let out vibrations like this and others respond without knowing why. Everything be or warns you against the results of certain actions; that is like thatsome part of the inner being, from sometimes the smallest to inner mental, sometimes the biggest things. To inner vital, sometimes, it may be individualised in a collectivity, one must be absolutely conscious of oneselfthe inner or subtle physical Purusha. And of which self? - the Self which is above all intermixtureThe inner being — inner mind, inner vital, inner or subtle physical — knows much that isunknown to the outer mind, the outer vital, what I call the Truth outer physical, for it is in a more direct contact with the secret forces of your beingNature. And as long as you are not conscious of The psychic is the Truth of your inmost 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 perception of truth which act constantly on individual thought. It is thus that graduallyinherent in the deepest substance of the consciousness, slowlya sense of the good, with perseverancetrue, first of all with great care and much attentionbeautiful, one becomes consciousthe Divine, learns to know oneself and then to become master of oneselfis its privilege. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0428/13the-jivatman-in-the-januaryintegral-1951yoga#p18-p28,p19,p20</ref>

==How does One Prepareto Organise, Harmonise, Unify the Being?==

To be conscious, first The centre of the human being is psychic which is the dwelling-place of the immanent Divine. Unification means organisation and harmonisation of all. We are conscious parts of only an insignificant portion the being (mental, vital and physical) around this center, so that all the activities of our the being; for may be the correct expression of the will of the most part we are unconsciousDivine Presence.<ref>https://incarnateword. It in/cwm/14/the-soul-the-psychic#p35</ref><center>~</center>''Q. Sweet Mother,  How can one unify one's being?'' ''A.'' The first step is this unconsciousness that keeps us down to our unregenerate nature find, deep within oneself, behind the desires and prevents change impulses, a luminous consciousness which is always present and transformation in itmanifests the physical being. It is through unconsciousness that  Ordinarily, one becomes aware of the undivine forces enter into us and make us their slaves. You are to be conscious presence of yourself, you must awake this consciousness only when one has to your nature and movements, you must know why and how you do things face some danger or feel an unexpected event or think them; you must understand your motives and impulsesa great sorrow.  One has, the forces, hidden and apparentthen, to come into conscious contact with that move you; You will have to be patient and persistent and vigilant-"sleepless”, as the adepts say; you must always refuse learn to give any chance whatsoever to the undivine against the divinedo so at will. The rest will follow. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/0316/720-aprilseptember-19291969#p10p1-p11p5</ref>

We are made up of many different parts which have to be unified around the psychic being, if we are conscious of it or at least around the central aspiration. If this unification is not done, we carry this division within us.  To work for your perfectiondo this, each thought, each feeling, each sensation, each impulse, each reaction, as it manifests, must be presented in the consciousness to the central being or its aspiration. What is in accord is accepted; what is not in accord is refused, rejected or transformed.  It is a long endeavour which may take many years—but once it is done, the first step unification is achieved and the path becomes easy and swift. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/10-may-1967#p2-p4</ref><center>~</center>''Q. What is the way to become conscious 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 yourselfyour consciousness is the psychic being, the temple of the different 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 their respective activitiesdifficulties can be destroyed. It takes more or less time, but you will surely succeed in the end. You must learn Once you have turned to the Divine, saying, "I want to distinguish these different parts one be yours”, and the Divine has said, “Yes”, the whole world cannot keep you from anotherit. 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 not conscious of the Divine within them. If once, even for a moment only, the inner being has said, "I am here and I am yours", 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 wholly 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 may said one day that before being able to identify oneself with the Divine, one must first become clearly aware an individual.'' ''A.'' Yes, well, that's it, exactly. You are in the period of the origin becoming an individual. And so long as one is in this period of the movements becoming an individual, well, one must wait until this period passes, that is, till you have become a conscious individual. Perfectly. It is that occur . <center>~</center>''Mother, you said there are very few, one in a million perhaps, who are really conscious.'' Oh, if youtake humanity at large, certainly! And the many impulsesgreat mass of mankind will never become individuals, it will always be an amorphous mass, all intermingled, reactions and conflicting wills like that drive (''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 actionbecome 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. It  But, by a kind of Grace, it can happen that before 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 assiduous study individual, something which demands much perseverance 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 sinceritythis helps. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/1206/the22-scienceseptember-of1954#p32-living#p5p36</ref>

To become conscious So there is a long, long, long way to go before merging one's ego in the Divine.  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 various movements characters in oneself 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 be 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 does 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 indispensable startingbest of the business is that when you have succeeded in making a beautiful, well-pointformed, 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/1206/vital28-july-education1954#p14p37-p50</ref>

When one lives in the true consciousness one feels the desires outside oneself, entering from outside, from the universal lower Prakriti, into the mind and the vital parts''Q. In the ordinary human condition this is not felt; men become aware of the desire only when it is thereSweet Mother, when it has come inside and found a lodging or a habitual harbourage and so they think it is their own and a part of themselves. The first condition for getting rid of desire is, therefore, to does the ego become conscious with the true consciousness; <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/desire#p60</ref>an instrument?''

=How Can One Unify One's Being?='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 I think he is ready when he is completely formed. The centre 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 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 human 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 psychic which 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 dwellingright 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 -place 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 immanent Divineperson in question, you say nothing or it is other words which come from your mouth. Unification means organisation 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 harmonisation 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 parts easy. One must be quite “awake”: one must be constantly in a very attentive state of observation.  There are people who sleep twelve hours a day and say the rest of the being (mentaltime, vital “I am awake”! There are people who sleep twenty hours a day and physical) around the rest of the time are but half awake!  To be in this centerstate 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 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.  You must also understand that you are not separate individualities, that life is a constant exchange of forces, of consciousnesses, of vibrations of movements of all kinds. It is as in a crowd, you see: when everyone pushes all go forward and when all recede, everyone recedes. It is the same thing in the inner world, in your consciousness. There are all the time forces and influences acting and reacting upon you, it is like a gas in the atmosphere, and unless you are quite awake, these things enter into you, 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 knowing why. Why is it that when you play against certain people you play very well, but when you play against others you 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 swept off the activities 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 may be , 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 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.  Try this little exercise: at the correct expression beginning of the day, say: "I won't speak without thinking of what I say.” You believe, don't you, that you think all that you say! It is not at all true, you will see that so many times the word you do not want to say is ready to come out, and that you are compelled to make a conscious effort to stop it from coming out.  I 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 Divine Presenceintention 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!  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/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>