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What Happens to Progress at the Mental, Vital and Physical Levels When the Psychic Being Departs? · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  The psychic being assimilates the essence of the experience of
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  a lifetime, then leaves behind the body, life force and mind of
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  that lifetime, and moves on into other lives, other experiences.
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  However, a substantial effort has been made by the psychic
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  being to enhance and develop the mind, life and body while it
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  inhabited a particular external form.
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  Is that effort simply discarded and wasted when the psychic
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  being moves on? Or is there some mechanism to
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  preserve that development and progress so that it does not
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  need to be repeated from the beginning in each successive,
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  relatively short time frame of an individual life?
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  When the soul takes on a new birth, it is obviously born into
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  a society that has already dealt with and assimilated to some
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  degree the progress of the past. We see in all fields of human
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  endeavour that the present generation has its foundation in
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  what has gone before and can thereby develop from that point
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  forward. To that extent, therefore, any
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  soul taking birth in the present time will have the benefit of
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  the past developments that have taken place to the extent they
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  have been incorporated either subtly or overtly into the human
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  experience, or at least to the extent they reside in the
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  physical, vital or mental domains that make up the earth
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  life interactions. The general development, what
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  may be called the texturing, of the external consciousness, is
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  therefore available to the soul even if it does not bring with
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  it specific and identifiable progress from a past lifetime.
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  The formations that were developed by a specific
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  concentration of a psychic being in a particular lifetime may be
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  so precisely crafted as to stay with the psychic being as it
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  traverses death and new birth. Or they may be situated in the
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  geosphere, biosphere, or nuosphere of the world, and thus
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  be available not only to that specific psychic being on
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  rebirth, but to any others who can resonate and pick up the
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  force of those formations. In that sense it is not a
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  possession of the ego personality but a general
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  capacity entered into the earth life in its multi generational
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  development and progression. The mother clarifies another
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  aspect of this in her response to a disciple raising these
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  issues. A disciple asks if it is not the
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  mind, vital or physical, which takes birth again but only the
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  psychic being, then the vital or mental progress made before is
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  of no value in another life. The mother answers quote it
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  happens only to the extent the progress of these parts has
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  brought them close to the psychic, that is, to the extent
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  the progress lies in putting all the parts of the being
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  successively under the psychic influence.
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  For all that is under the psychic influence and identified
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  with the psychic continues, and it is that alone which
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  continues. But if the psychic is made the
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  center of 1's life and consciousness, and if the whole
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  being is organized around it, the whole being passes under the
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  psychic influence, becomes unit, united with it, and can continue
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  if it is necessary for it to continue.
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  Indeed, if the physical body could be given the same
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  movement, the same movements of progress, and the same capacity
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  to ascend that the psychic being has, well, it wouldn't be
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  necessary for it to decompose. But that indeed is the
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  difficulty. And only that which is in
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  contact with the psychic lasts, and only what can last can
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  remember, for the rest disappears, is again dissolved
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  into small pieces and utilized elsewhere.
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  As the body is dissolved again to dust and used elsewhere, it
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  goes back to the earth. Plants use the soil.
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  Men eat the plants. It is in this way that it goes
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  on, and then it returns to the earth and begins again.
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  That's the way nature progresses.
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  In order to progress, she makes a heap of forms.
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  Then when that seems no longer important or necessary to her,
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  she demolishes them, takes up all the elements again, chemical
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  or other, and reconstitute something else.
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  And so it goes on, changing all the time, coming and going.
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  And she finds that very good, for she sees very far.
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  Her work extends over centuries, and a small human life is
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  nothing, just a breath in eternity.
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  So she takes up shapes, she takes a certain time, it's fun
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  for her. She finds it very good.
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  And then when it is no longer so good, she demolishes it.
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  She takes up, mixes everything, begins another form, make
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  something else. And so perhaps with this
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  process, which is evidently very slow, finally the whole matter
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  progresses. It is possible always in this
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  way, intermingling, breaking up, remixing, breaking up again.
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  Essentially, it is as though one made a heap of small objects and
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  then destroyed them, remade something from the dust, remade
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  other toys and again broke them and remade others out of that.
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  Each time 1 adds something so that it mixes well, and then one
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  day perhaps all that will produce something.
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  In any case, she is in no hurry. And when we are in a hurry, she
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  says, why are you in such a haste?
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  It is sure to happen one day. You don't need to worry, it will
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  surely come. Weep quietly then we tell her,
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  But it is not I who am waiting. Ah, that's because you call I
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  that thing which comes and goes away.
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  If you were to call consciousness, the one eternal
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  and divine consciousness, if you were to call that I, then you
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  would see everything. You would be present at
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  everything. Nobody prevents you from doing
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  it. It is only because you identify
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  yourself with this, indicating the body.
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  You have only to stop identifying yourself with that.
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  End Quote Reference Srioro Bindu and the Mother, the psychic
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  being soul, its nature, Mission and evolution.
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  Section 3. Growth and Development of the
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  Psychic, pages 87 to 89.