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The Soul, the Psychic Being and the External Nature · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Why do we not immediately recognize the existence and
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  centrality of the soul? We tend to set our standpoint in
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  the external consciousness, which is directed outwards and
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  which is constantly receiving sense impressions and pressures
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  impinging on our body, life, mind, complex.
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  The sense organs, nervous system, and brain are wired to
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  respond to impressions from these external forces, and are
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  not either directed toward nor tuned to perceive the subtle
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  energetic action of the inner being and the soul, the inmost
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  being. Similarly, the external senses
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  do not directly perceive the superconscient spiritual
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  energies that impinge upon us, and thus may try to deny that
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  they exist. It is very simple, however, to
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  recognize the error of this conclusion.
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  Just because we cannot perceive something directly with our mind
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  and senses, it does not mean that the those things do not
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  exist. We do not perceive gravity,
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  radiation, or electricity with our senses directly, but we are
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  clearly able to recognize the effects of these forces.
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  We also cannot perceive and measure directly the impulses
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  that we call love, physical attraction, mutual chemistry, or
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  the mechanisms that help create these things, such as the
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  secretion of pheromones. When we turn our view inwards
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  and quiet the promptings of the external senses and the physical
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  mind, we can begin to experience and appreciate more directly and
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  consistently the inner physical, the inner vital, the inner
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  mental, and the inner soul aspects of our being.
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  With Tapasya, we can understand the causative role that the ever
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  more subtle aspects of our existence plays upon the more
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  gross external aspects of the being.
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  The soul or psychic being is the subtle and central causative
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  link between the spiritual existence and our external
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  being. We can certainly appreciate the
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  effect of the soul, even if we cannot measure it with our
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  external senses. Shriorobindo defines the forces
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  that constitute the soul, forces that we can appreciate in their
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  expression. Forces of truth, forces of
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  beauty, forces of harmony, all stem from the action of the
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  soul. The more influence it has on the
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  external being, the more we tend to align our appreciation and
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  action to resonate to these forces of coherence and
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  harmonious development, and the more we tend to reject and
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  eliminate those forces that bring forth disharmony, chaos,
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  and falsehood. Sriorobindo writes, Quote At the
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  beginning, the soul and Nature, the psychic entity whose
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  unfolding is the first step towards a spiritual change, is
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  an entirely veiled part of us, although it is that by which we
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  exist and persist as individual beings in nature, the other
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  parts of our natural composition are not only mutable but
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  perishable. But the psychic entity in US
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  persists and is fundamentally the same always.
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  It contains all essential possibilities of our
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  manifestation, but is not constituted by them.
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  It is not limited by what it manifests, not contained by the
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  incomplete forms of the manifestation, not tarnished by
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  the imperfections and impurities, the defects and
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  deprivations of the surface being.
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  It is an ever pure flame of the divinity in things, and nothing
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  that comes to it. Nothing that enters into our
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  experience can pollute its purity or extinguish the flame.
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  This spiritual stuff is Immaculate and luminous, and
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  because it is perfectly luminous, it is immediately,
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  intimately directly aware of truth of being and truth of
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  nature. It is deeply conscious of truth
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  and good and beauty, because truth and good and beauty are
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  akin to its own native character forms of something that is
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  inherent in its own substance. It is aware also of all that
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  contradicts these things, of all that deviates from its own
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  native character of falsehood and evil and the ugly and the
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  unseemly. But it does not become these
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  things, nor is it touched or changed by these opposites of
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  itself, which so powerfully affect its outer instrumentation
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  of mind, life and body. For the soul, the permanent
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  being in US puts forth and uses mind, life and body as its
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  instruments, undergoes the envelopment of their conditions.
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  But it is other and greater than its members.
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  End Quote Reference Shriorobindo and the Mother, The Hidden
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  Forces of Life, Chapter 2. Hidden Forces within pages 43 to
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  44.