While the mind does not generally recognise the consciousness of the body, it remains true that the body has its own ability to respond to circumstances. For those who have a highly developed mental or vital being, these powers frequently override the natural responsiveness of the body. When we ... Views: 390
There is a conservative bias in earthly existence that seeks to preserve established ways of life as a means of providing an element of stability. This principle helps to avoid the chaotic implications of unrestricted change, thereby providing a basis and a certain amount of certainty. This ... Views: 421
The body has its own consciousness and much of its operation takes place without active mental intervention. However, there is also a serious interaction that takes place so that the mental power can influence, guide, train, direct and otherwise gain at least some control over certain aspects of ... Views: 422
If we reflect on how many actions or operations of the physical body take place without our mental intervention, it becomes clear that the body has its own highly developed, and essential, form of consciousness that operates independently of the mind. One common example is widely experienced. An ... Views: 434
An accident avoided. An individual related the following incident. He was driving with a passenger through Yellowstone National Park in the USA some years ago during the summer season in a van late in the afternoon. He had a sense or feeling of an impending accident involving a bison, although ... Views: 482
For most people, acute illness is an event of the body, which is subject to attack by various malign types of germs, bacteria and viruses. We tend to envision the body as a battlefield and the attacking germs aggressively target the cells and organs and the body fights back with an immune ... Views: 513
There are many ideas about the causes of illness, as well as ways to prevent or cure illness. In the West, the prevalent idea is related to what may be called the “germ invasion” theory, namely, that illness is caused by specific physical ‘germs’ (bacteria or viruses) which invade and overpower ... Views: 568
For those people who only treat as ‘real’ things they can directly perceive with the physical sense organs, the aura is considered to be some kind of fantasy of imagination. The aura, a vital sheath or envelope that extends beyond the boundaries of the physical body, has therefore long been the ... Views: 586
When we observe the nerves and their role in our actions, we see that they carry vital sensations within a physical frame to connect our senses and responses to external pressures to the brain, and then, carry impulses back to the organs of action. Most people do not recognise the essential role ... Views: 397
When a particular power of consciousness is intended to participate in the evolution in the external world, it utilizes the physical body as the foundation or anchor of its action. This fixes its action in the world, while at the same time, imposes limits on the power due to the watering-down ... Views: 422
While each power of consciousness, physical, vital, mental (and others) operates in its native mode and strength in its own plane or sphere of action, it projects itself into the world we inhabit by tying itself to the foundation of the basic physical principle. This involves a ‘watering down’ ... Views: 429
We recognise the electro-magnetic spectrum, the color spectrum, the sound wave spectrum and others, each as representing a continuum of wave forms with varying characteristics. There are shorter, more intense waves and longer wave frequencies. Some conduct tremendous amounts of physical heat, ... Views: 394
We have a strong bias in favor of accepting things that we can perceive with our physical senses, and we tend to disbelieve or discount anything that is not directly, physically available to our experience. Yet if we reflect on the totality of our life experience, it becomes clear that there are ... Views: 448
We see pattens repeating from the macro-level to the micro-level. The study of fractals shows us that there are indeed certain patterns and relationships that repeat themselves in every smaller configurations as we drill down toward the micro-level. The macrocosm and the microcosm reflect the ... Views: 437
We reflect on the evolution of consciousness, how Life evolves out of Matter and Mind evolves out of Life in Matter. Nothing can evolve that has not been previously involved, just as a tree can develop out of an acorn, because the genetic coding is 'involved' in that seed and under the proper ... Views: 427
In the Taittiriya Upanishad, the seeker discovers, through intensive tapasya that there are multiple layers, or sheaths, of consciousness that make up the human being. His seeking first discovers the material body, or ‘food sheath’. As he continues he recognises the vital body, or ‘prana ... Views: 419
The evolution of consciousness involves an increasing level of complexity as successive levels of consciousness are layered and then interact with each other, with each layer attempting to not only express its own native way of seeing and acting, but also needing to accommodate the demands and ... Views: 416
One of the things that spiritual seekers experience is that regardless of how strong the central aspiration of the soul happens to be within them, they experience fluctuations based on the various parts of the external nature coming to the front and asserting their own priorities. This leads to ... Views: 452
It is practically a universal experience among religious and spiritual seekers, and even among people who are simply developing some kind of an inner life, that they have an aspiration, a desire to consecrate themselves to some goal, principle or idea, and yet, they struggle with opposing ... Views: 429
A spiritual seeker identifies with his aspiration and the focus and actions that come about as a result of that aspiration. It may be acts of prayer, acts of giving, acts of consecration, acts of meditation, or dedicated works. During the moments that he is engaged in these acts, he feels like ... Views: 446
As long as an individual is locked within a framework of understanding, he is unable to truly recognise or exceed the limits of that framework. The ego-consciousness is such a frame of awareness. It creates the sense of a separate individual, apart and having his own autonomy in ... Views: 449
As the seeker attempts to follow a spiritual path, he frequently finds that he struggles with old habits, desires, feelings, cravings, emotions and ideas. He believes these are part of ‘who he is’ and he thus cannot find a way to overcome them, In some cases, he is deeply attached to some of ... Views: 385
Almost everyone has the experience, from time to time, of acting out a different personality. We may say that someone “got out of bed on the wrong side this morning” when we see a normally cheerful and upbeat individual responding in a totally uncharacteristic way. We chalk this up to some mood ... Views: 459
Most people look at what they consider to be their personality in a very simple and straightforward manner. The mixture of ideas, thought-process, emotional responses, vital reactions, desires and physical needs and cravings is simply ‘who they are’. When they conclude that something needs to ... Views: 432
When an individual takes up the spiritual path, there is considerable focus on the idea that the life of the external world is an ‘illusion’ and needs to be abandoned in order to achieve spiritual liberation. He sees that a focus on the external personality, its needs, desires, satisfactions, ... Views: 428
As long as we remain rooted in the awareness of mind-life-body, we see the world and our existence as a fragmented collection of separate objects, beings and forces and we act as if we are separate and distinct from everything else. The spiritual transformation of consciousness involves a shift ... Views: 426
In The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo describes at some length what he calls ‘the refusal of the ascetic’. This refusal is caused by the focus on the attainment of the Supreme by disregarding or even eliminating the relationship of the seeker to the life of the external world and society. He eschews ... Views: 471
In our mental view of the world, we see everything separated and fragmented, and we identify separate objects, beings and forces as interacting with one another. We can intellectually conceive of the concept that all these separate entities and forces are part of a coordinated and combined ... Views: 411
Within the framework of our mind and the experience of our vital existence, we are inculcated in the belief that everything is subject to duality, good and bad, happy and unhappy, light and dark. We cannot generally conceive of an existence that is not subject to these pairs of opposites. We ... Views: 482
There are further levels of consciousness beyond the intuition. The next superior level, as Sri Aurobindo has defined it, is that of the ‘overmind’. The overmind involves at least a partial shift of standpoint as it sees and understands the greater oneness and unity and factors that knowledge ... Views: 425
The popular idea about intuition is tied to some kind of unexplainable process of "knowing" that people go through. If it is purely based in the type of extrapolation from past experience, or some sense that drives the decision without careful and logical analysis, it is still based in the ... Views: 585
When we study the functioning of the mind, we see that the essential nature is one that can receive sense perceptions, analyze, organize and then subject the objects so developed to a process of reasoning using systematic application of rules of logic. We can also see a process of recall of ... Views: 448
If we reflect for a moment on the shift from one evolutionary principle of consciousness to another, we can see a shift of standpoint as well as a difference in the mechanism of operation. Those beings who are primarily based in the vital nature tend to react based on principles of fear and ... Views: 431
Just as the electro-magnetic spectrum has ranges below those that we can consciously receive and translate, as well as ranges above those we can utilize, so also consciousness has ranges below and above our limits. The ranges below our limits are called subconscient and inconscient. Those above ... Views: 423
We are conscious and aware of forces and energies that operate within a certain specified range. Anything that falls outside that range, whether above or below, remains unseen and unknown to us, even if the forces operative in those superior or inferior ranges impact our thoughts, feelings, ... Views: 404
For much of human history, spirituality has been looked upon as a contradiction of an active life in the world. The anchorite in the desert, the renunciate, the Sannyasin, the monk or nun in the cloister are held up to us as the examples of dedication to spiritual growth and purpose. All of ... Views: 363
For those who live their lives on the surface, focused on fulfillment of their external lives, desires and their ego-personality, there is generally no direct knowledge of the existence of the soul. They may accept the idea of a soul without a clear sense of what that implies or means. Or they ... Views: 404
A feeling, an emotion, a thought arises within us. Do we ‘manufacture’ these, or are we the recipients of them from elsewhere? If we manufacture them, how exactly do we do that? Where does the basis for that thought or feeling come from? What causative factors are there for a specific feeling or ... Views: 428
There are many times when people suddenly get a true ‘sense’ or a ‘feeling’ about something that is not directly perceptible to their senses. Sometimes one will feel that someone is watching or following, although the person cannot be seen or heard. There is some inner sense, with a wider and ... Views: 420
Modern-day Western psychological researchers are finding that certain portions of the brain are related to higher cognitive functions, logic, reasoning, extrapolation, imagination, projection, analysis and classification while some parts are in charge of the purely mechanical control of things ... Views: 420
Sri Aurobindo frequently describes going inward to discover the deepest inner being, the psychic being, or soul, as one way to come into contact with the truth of one’s existence and unify one’s being with the Divine. This is a way to overcome the artificial wall of separation that we set up ... Views: 415
It has been famously stated that we cannot understand the system within which we are acting until we can shift our view to a standpoint outside that frame. As long as we are immersed within any particular system or standpoint, we are locked into the viewpoint and understanding embedded within ... Views: 401
For the individual living on the surface of his being, interacting with the external world, responding to impulsions, pressures, forces and the objects of desire, his inner experience is essentially a reaction to these external pressures and an attempt to meet the desires that arise and somehow ... Views: 416
Transformation of human nature is not practical from a standpoint mired within that nature. Forces push the being in one direction or another, and the individual is under the power of the divergent drives put up by the physical, the vital and the mental being, compounded by the impact of the ... Views: 459
Yoga has historically focused on liberation of the individual soul from the illusion of the outer world. The seeker is advised to see through the transitory nature of all external rewards, undertake practices that help him to discover his true self, and once that is done, live a life, free from ... Views: 443
The purpose of attaining self-knowledge is not to create an intellectual framework and be able to learnedly expound on a subject; rather, self-knowledge implies that the seeker has a purpose behind the effort. This purpose may be to find a way to gain ‘liberation’ from the existing life, to ... Views: 465
Every language has its limitations, particularly surrounding areas of development that were not central to the people who developed and utilized that language. This makes it difficult to translate concepts that are self-evident in one language easily or effectively into another language. This ... Views: 654
The Buddhist tradition describes Manjushri as a Bodhisattva who, with his flaming sword of discrimination, cuts through illusion and falsehood to disclose the truth of existence. The power of discrimination between different powers, forces, impressions, suggestions, and their source and intent ... Views: 757
Many years ago, Sri M P Pandit suggested that a devotee write an article about the importance of precise bookkeeping and accounting while engaged in service. There was a prevailing sentiment that such ‘mental ideas’ were antithetical to the kind of absolute devotion and surrender that put ... Views: 438
In our modern world, we see the wide dissemination of yoga, primarily as a means of gaining some measure of control over the body, through the postures developed and taught under the rubric of ‘hatha yoga’. In many instances, teachers of hatha yoga have taken the step of teaching their students ... Views: 626