Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / Objective Versus Subjective Knowledge in the Realms of Psychic Experience

Transcript

Objective Versus Subjective Knowledge in the Realms of Psychic Experience · Sri Aurobindo Studies

• 0:01
  Perhaps one of the biggest hurdles the Western mind needs
• 0:04
  to overcome in addressing the subtle powers of consciousness
• 0:08
  that either already are or will be coming forward as the next
• 0:12
  phase of evolution continues to work itself out, is the conflict
• 0:17
  between the drum beat of objectivity as the watchword of
• 0:21
  science and reliable observation, and the need for an
• 0:26
  inner, necessarily subjective exploration of consciousness and
• 0:31
  its actions, which are not independently verifiable and
• 0:35
  reproducible along the lines that science believes is the
• 0:40
  only accurate way to understand and measure phenomena.
• 0:45
  This dogma of objectivity, however, has been shaken by the
• 0:48
  development of quantum mechanics and the principles that indicate
• 0:53
  that the fact of observation impacts the results.
• 0:58
  Thus, the observer, the outer observer, is every much a part
• 1:04
  of the observation and thus cannot escape that subjective
• 1:09
  influence on the results. It must also be recognized that
• 1:15
  even objective results are subject to skewing by the way
• 1:18
  results data is plotted and analyzed.
• 1:22
  Sometimes results wind up confirming preconceived ideas or
• 1:27
  biases of the researcher due to the way the study is conducted
• 1:31
  or the data is compiled. We see scientific studies being
• 1:36
  challenged and even withdrawn despite the emphasis on
• 1:41
  objectivity. If we cannot apply the mental
• 1:45
  rules that work in the external physical world to our analysis
• 1:49
  of inner experience and consciousness, we still need to
• 1:53
  be able to distinguish between experiences and powers that are
• 1:58
  actually occurring and those that either intentionally or
• 2:02
  unintentionally are false, misleading, or outright
• 2:07
  deceptive. In The Life Divine, Sriorobindo
• 2:12
  notes the various ways of knowing and obtaining of
• 2:15
  knowledge and those that rely on the external model of separation
• 2:20
  of knower from the object of knowledge and the process of
• 2:23
  knowing. In other words, the objective
• 2:27
  formation of knowing are less complete and accurate than the
• 2:32
  development of knowledge by identity through a merging of
• 2:36
  the field of consciousness of the knower, the object and the
• 2:41
  process of knowing. The question arises how to
• 2:45
  distinguish then whether the knowledge so obtained through
• 2:48
  identity is real and reliable or not.
• 2:53
  The first point to be made is that for someone experiencing
• 2:56
  this oneness of consciousness, there is absolutely no question
• 3:01
  of its veracity. The second point is that as more
• 3:05
  and more people have such experiences, these experiences
• 3:09
  can be correlated to verify how closely they align with one
• 3:13
  another. While this cannot be the
• 3:16
  ultimate arbiter of truth or falsehood of the experience, it
• 3:21
  is clear that if a particular formation tends to reoccur many
• 3:25
  times for different people not connected to one another in any
• 3:29
  direct way, that it lends credence to the validity.
• 3:35
  For example, a researcher into near death experience in the UK,
• 3:39
  Doctor Peter Fenwick, and his wife Elizabeth, investigated
• 3:44
  over 300 near death experiences, which they recounted in the book
• 3:48
  The Truth in the Light. They wound up reviewing over
• 3:52
  2000 letters describing the near death experience of different
• 3:56
  individuals and found that high percentages recounted very
• 4:00
  similar occurrences and reactions, some correlating over
• 4:05
  72% of the time. Trior Ovindo briefly described
• 4:11
  some of the most common experiences people have related
• 4:13
  as they begin to move into inner space.
• 4:18
  One of these has been described numerous times as what is
• 4:21
  commonly known as the Akashic record.
• 4:25
  Some people describe it as a library with all manner of
• 4:28
  information, others as a series of scrolls that are stacked up.
• 4:34
  These are clearly transcriptions of what is taking place in the
• 4:37
  experience that we try to make sense of with our external
• 4:41
  minds. Some people simply see visual
• 4:45
  representations of people and events which they bring back
• 4:49
  with them, some relating to the past, some to the present or the
• 4:54
  future. In some cases they actually wind
• 4:59
  up recognizing people in the future they have seen during
• 5:02
  their visit to the Akashic record.
• 5:06
  Sri Robindo observes quote. A completer opening of the
• 5:11
  psychical consciousness leads us far beyond this faculty of
• 5:14
  vision by images and admits us not indeed to a new time
• 5:19
  consciousness, but to many ways of the triple time knowledge.
• 5:24
  The subliminal or psychic self can bring back or project itself
• 5:28
  into past states of consciousness and experience and
• 5:32
  anticipate, or even though this is less common, strongly project
• 5:37
  itself into future states of consciousness and experience.
• 5:42
  It does this by a temporary entering into or identification
• 5:47
  of its being or its power of experiencing knowledge with
• 5:51
  either permanences or representations of the past and
• 5:55
  the future that are maintained in an eternal time consciousness
• 6:00
  behind our mentality, or thrown up by the eternity of Super Mind
• 6:04
  into an indivisible continuity of time vision.
• 6:10
  Or it may receive the impress of these things and construct a
• 6:13
  transcriptive experience of them in the subtle ether of psychical
• 6:18
  being. Or it may call up the past
• 6:21
  subconscious memory, where it is always latent, and give it in
• 6:26
  itself a living form and a kind of renewed memorative existence.
• 6:32
  And equally it may call up from the depths of latency, where it
• 6:37
  is already shaped in the being and similarly form to itself and
• 6:43
  experience the future. It may be a kind of psychical
• 6:47
  thought vision or soul intuition, not the same thing as
• 6:52
  the subtler and less concrete thought vision of the luminous
• 6:56
  intuitive intelligence. Foresee or foreknow the future
• 7:02
  or flash this sole intuition into the past that has gone
• 7:05
  behind the veil and recover it for present knowledge.
• 7:11
  It can develop a symbolic seeing which conveys the past and the
• 7:14
  future through a vision of the powers and significances that
• 7:18
  belong to super physical planes but are powerful for creation in
• 7:23
  the material universe. It can feel the intention of the
• 7:27
  divine, the mind of the gods, all things in their signs and
• 7:32
  indices that descend upon the soul and determine the complex
• 7:37
  movement of forces. It can feel too the movement of
• 7:42
  forces that represent or respond to the pressure, as it can
• 7:46
  perceive the presence and the action of the beings of the
• 7:51
  mental, vital or other worlds who concern themselves with our
• 7:56
  lives. It can gather on all hands all
• 8:00
  kinds of indications of happenings in past, present and
• 8:04
  future. Time.
• 8:05
  It can receive before its sight the etheric writing Akasha Lippi
• 8:11
  that keeps the record of all things past, transcribes all
• 8:15
  that is in process in the present, writes out the future.
• 8:20
  End Quote. Reference Sri Rabindu and the
• 8:24
  Mother Powers within, Chapter 19.
• 8:28
  Occult Powers of the Subliminal Pages, 1:45 to 1:46.