Changes

==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 all confused together. The body, for instance, has its own consciousness and acts from it, even without any conscious mental 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>

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>

There is the universal physical consciousness of Nature and there is our own which is a part of it, moved by it, 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 vital mind and the mind proper, we have a vital-physical path in us-the nervous being- as well as the vital proper; and both are largely 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==

The 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 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>

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 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 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.

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

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.

... 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>

The higher consciousness is 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>

...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>

===Intuition===

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?''

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.

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>

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 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 spirit.

The centre of the human being is psychic which is the dwelling-place of the immanent Divine. Unification means organisation and harmonisation of all parts of the being (mental, vital and physical) around this center, so that all the activities of the being may be the correct expression of the will of the Divine Presence.

<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-soul-the-psychic#p35</ref>

''Q. Sweet Mother,

One has, then, to come into conscious contact with that and learn to do so at will. The rest will follow.

<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/20-september-1969#p1-p5</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.

It is a long endeavour which may take many years—but once it is done, the unification is achieved and the path becomes easy and swift.

<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/10-may-1967#p2-p4</ref>

''Q. What is the way to establish unity and homogeneity in our being?

''Q. Mother, you said one day that before being able to identify oneself with the Divine, one must first become an individual.''

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, 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 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.

<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/22-september-1954#p32-p36</ref>

So there is a long, long, long way to go before merging one's ego in the Divine.

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 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#p37-p50</ref>

''Q. Sweet Mother, when does the ego become an instrument?''

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>

''Q. What is one to do to prepare oneself for the Yoga?''

''A'' 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 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 be conscious 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; in fact, you must, as it were, take to pieces the entire machinery of your being. Once you are conscious, it means that you can distinguish and sift things, you can see which are the forces that pull you down and which help you on. And when you know the right from the wrong, the true from the false, the divine from the undivine, you are to act strictly up to your knowledge; that is to say, resolutely reject one and accept the other. The duality will present itself at every step and at every step you will have to make your choice. You will have 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/03/7-april-1929#p10-p11</ref>

To work for your perfection, the first step is to become conscious of yourself, of the different parts of your being and their respective activities. You must learn to distinguish these different parts one from another, so that you may become clearly aware of the origin of the movements that occur in you, the many impulses, reactions and conflicting wills that drive you to action. It is an assiduous study which demands much perseverance and sincerity. For man's nature, especially his mental nature, has a spontaneous tendency to give a favourable explanation for everything he thinks, feels, says and does. It is only by observing these movements with great care, by bringing them, as it were, before the tribunal of our highest ideal, with a sincere will to submit to its judgment, that we can hope to form in ourselves a discernment that never errs. For if we truly want to progress and acquire the capacity of knowing the truth of our being, that is to say, what we are truly created for, what we can call our mission upon earth, then we must, in a very regular and constant manner, reject from us or eliminate in us whatever contradicts the truth of our existence, whatever is opposed to it. In this way, little by little, all the parts, all the elements of our being can be organised into a homogeneous whole around our psychic centre. This work of unification requires much time to be brought to some degree of perfection. Therefore, in order to accomplish it, we must arm ourselves with patience and endurance, with a determination to prolong our life as long as necessary for the success of our endeavour.

<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/the-science-of-living#p5</ref>

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. The child must be taught to observe, to note his reactions and impulses and their causes, to become a discerning witness of his desires, his movements of violence and passion, his instincts of possession and appropriation and domination and the background of vanity which supports them, together with their counterparts of weakness, discouragement, depression and despair.

<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/vital-education#p14</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. In the ordinary human condition this is not felt; men become aware of the desire only when it is there, 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 become conscious with the true consciousness; for then it becomes much easier to dismiss it than when one has to struggle with it as if it were a constituent part of oneself to be thrown out from the being. It is easier to cast off an accretion than to excise what is felt as a parcel of our substance.

<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/desire#p60</ref>