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A Soul Using the External Instrumentation of Body, Life and Mind · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  How do we see and interpret who and what we are?
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  Most people identify with the physical body.
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  The body is their essential being.
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  In many cases, they build up the body, work to create an image
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  that they project to others. They judge themselves and others
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  based on the form and presence they develop for the body,
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  whether it is a beautiful body, a fit body or a trained body.
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  Bodybuilding, dieting, beauty treatments, makeup, expensive
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  clothes, rare food and drinks all represent a focus on the
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  body as the central aspect of the life.
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  This also works in the other direction.
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  When people try to achieve the idealized version that their
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  society demands but are unable to meet the criteria, they may
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  fall into a form of depression and actually undertake actions
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  which undermine the ideal bodily development in their culture.
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  Others identify with the vital force they project.
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  They may seek power, wealth, sex.
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  They may measure themselves according to their vital status
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  and position in society. In many cases, they flaunt their
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  wealth or wield their power to seem like they are at the head
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  of the pecking order in the society.
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  By whatever means that society tends to judge vital position.
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  Those who have setbacks may identify themselves as a victim
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  and wear that badge as their claim to being noticed.
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  Still others identify with their mental powers.
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  They focus on their high IQ, outstanding test scores, or
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  specialized skills they have developed in math, science,
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  technology, or other fields that require strong mental
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  capacities. They rate themselves highly in
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  comparison to others who have not focused on this particular
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  form of development. Those who cannot succeed as well
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  may tend to internalize the failure and fixate on their
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  shortcomings. Whether an individual focuses on
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  one or more of these aspects, the external ego personality
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  takes on a persona related to this outward person.
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  This external focus tends to consume the attention.
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  Few are those who recognize that they are not a body with a soul,
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  but rather a soul using a body. Ramana Maharshi, the sage of
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  Arunachala, famously asked the seeker to raise the question
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  within himself, Who am I? With the sense that eventually
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  the seeker would come to realize that he is not the body, not the
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  life force, not the mind and not the ego personality, but rather
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  is an immortal being identified with the Divine through the
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  soul, hidden deep within. The Bhagwad Gita states quote.
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  The Lord, O Arjuna, is seated in the heart of all beings, turning
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  all beings mounted upon a machine by his Maya.
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  End Quote Reference Bhagwad Gita and its Message, translated by
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  Sri Aurobindo, Chapter 18, verse 61.
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  When the seeker shifts his standpoint from the external to
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  the internal, he can begin to consciously hear the voice of
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  the soul and accept its guidance.
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  In the meantime, the soul waits patiently as the external
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  instruments develop and mature, preparing themselves to
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  eventually become powerful and conscious instruments for the
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  soul's purpose in the creation, Sriorabhindu observes.
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  Quote If the psychic entity had been from the beginning unveiled
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  and known to its ministers, not a secluded king in a screen
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  chamber, the human evolution would have been a rapid soul out
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  flowering, not the difficult checkered and disfigured
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  development it now is. But the veil is thick, and we
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  know not the secret light within us, the light in the hidden
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  crypt of the hearts innermost sanctuary.
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  Intimations rise to our surface from the psyche, but our mind
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  does not detect their source. It takes them for its own
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  activities, because before even they come to the surface, they
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  are clothed in mental substance. Thus ignorant of their
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  authority, it follows or does not follow them according to its
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  bent or turn at the moment. If the mind obeys the urge of
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  the vital ego, then there is little chance of the psyche at
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  all controlling the nature or manifesting in us something of
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  its secret spiritual stuff and native movement.
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  Or if the mind is overconfident to act in its own smaller light,
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  attached to its own judgement, will and action of knowledge,
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  then also the soul will remain veiled and quiescent and wait
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  for the mind's farther evolution.
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  For the psychic part within us is there to support the natural
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  evolution. And the first natural evolution
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  must be the development of body, life and mind successively, and
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  these must act each in its own kind or together in their I'll
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  assorted partnership in order to grow and have experience and
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  evolve. The soul gathers the essence of
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  all our mental, vital and bodily experience and assimilates it
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  for the farther evolution of our existence in nature.
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  But this action is a cult and not obtruded on the surface.
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  In the early material and vital stages of the evolution of
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  being. There is indeed no consciousness
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  of soul. There are psychic activities,
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  but the instrumentation, the form of these activities, are
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  vital and physical or mental when the mind is active.
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  For even the mind, so long as it is primitive or is developed but
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  still too external, does not recognize their deeper
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  character. It is easy to regard ourselves
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  as physical beings or beings of life, or mental beings using
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  life and body, and to ignore the existence of the soul
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  altogether. For the only definite idea that
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  we have of the soul is a something that has survived the
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  death of our bodies. But what this is we do not know,
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  because even if we are conscious sometimes of its presence, we
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  are not normally conscious of its distinct reality, nor do we
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  feel clearly its direct action in our nature.
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  End Quote. Reference Sri Aurobindo and the
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  Mother. The psychic being soul, its
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  nature, mission and evolution. Section 2.
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  Role, function and Action of the Psychic.
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  Pages 51 to 52.