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The Continuum of Consciousness and the Interactions of the Various Wave-Forms · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  We recognize the electromagnetic spectrum, the color spectrum,
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  the sound wave spectrum, and others each as representing A
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  continuum of waveforms with varying characteristics.
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  There are shorter, more intense waves and longer wave
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  frequencies. Some conduct tremendous amounts
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  of physical heat, such as infrared frequencies.
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  While others, such as ultraviolet have longer
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  waveforms, there is a range within each spectrum that we can
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  perceive with our senses, and there are ranges both below and
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  above the vibratory levels we can pick up that represent
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  extensions of those Spectra. Some beings respond to ranges
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  different from those that the human being can respond to.
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  Which includes dogs who can perceive sounds in far higher
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  ranges than we find audible. Similarly, there is a continuum
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  of consciousness. The range of consciousness
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  within which we respond and act as human beings is not the
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  entirety of the range. There are levels below and above
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  those we can experience normally.
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  In some cases we can become aware of extended ranges below
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  or above, but in many cases we only become aware of the effects
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  they produce without direct perception of the waveforms of
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  the consciousness themselves. At a certain point we can
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  recognize that even what appears to be inanimate matter has an
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  involved consciousness, as we understand from the study of
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  physics. When varying waves interact with
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  one another, they can either accentuate the action or disrupt
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  the action to a greater or lesser degree.
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  Thus, as different levels of consciousness generate their
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  characteristic waveforms, we find that in some cases there is
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  an enhanced power of understanding and coordinated
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  action, while in other cases things can be confused or
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  chaotic. Shriorobindo notes quote As we
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  progress and awaken to the soul in us and things, we shall
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  realize that there is a consciousness also in the plant,
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  in the metal, in the atom, in electricity, in everything that
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  belongs to physical nature. We shall find even that it is
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  not really in all respects a lower or more limited mode than
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  the mental. On the contrary, it is in many
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  inanimate forms more intense, rapid, poignant, the less
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  evolved towards the surface. But this also this consciousness
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  of vital and physical nature is, compared with chit, a lower, and
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  therefore a limited, form, mode and movement.
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  These lower modes of consciousness are the conscious
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  stuff of inferior planes in one indivisible existence.
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  In ourselves also there is in our subconscious being an action
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  which is precisely that of the inanimate physical nature,
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  whence has been constituted the basis of our physical being,
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  another which is that of plant life, and another which is that
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  of the lower animal creation around us.
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  All these are so much dominated and conditioned by the thinking
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  and reasoning conscious being in us.
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  That we have no real awareness of these lower planes.
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  We are unable to perceive in their own terms what these parts
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  of us are doing, and receive it very imperfectly in the terms
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  and values of the thinking and reasoning mind.
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  Still, we know well enough that there is an animal in us, as
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  well as that which is characteristically human,
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  something which is a creature of conscious instinct and impulse.
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  Not reflective or rational, as well as that which turns back in
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  thought and will on its experience, meets it from above
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  with the light and force of a higher plane, and to some degree
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  controls, uses and modifies it. But the animal in man is only
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  the head of our subhuman being. Below it there is much that is
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  also sub animal and merely vital.
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  Much that acts by an instinct or an impulse of which the
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  constituting consciousness is withdrawn behind the surface,
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  below the sub animal being there is at a further depth the
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  subvital. When we advance in that ultra
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  normal self knowledge and experience which yoga brings
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  with it, we become aware. That the body too, has a
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  consciousness of its own. It has habits, impulses,
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  instincts, and inert yet effective will, which differs
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  from that of the rest of our being, and can resist it and
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  condition its effectiveness. Much of the struggle in our
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  being is due to this composite existence and the interaction of
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  these varied and heterogeneous planes on each other.
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  For man here is the result of an evolution, and contains in
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  himself the whole of that evolution, up from the merely
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  physical and subvital conscious being to the mental creature
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  which at the top he is. But this evolution is really a
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  manifestation, and just as we have in us these subnormal
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  selves and subhuman planes, so are there in us above our mental
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  being. Supernormal and Superhuman
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  Plains. End Quote Reference Sriorobindo
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  and the Mother Are Many Selves. Practical Yogic Psychology
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  Chapter 2 Plains and Parts of the Being, pages 13 to 14.