Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / Other Domains and Worlds Exist Beyond the Limits of Our Waking Awareness

Transcript

Other Domains and Worlds Exist Beyond the Limits of Our Waking Awareness · Sri Aurobindo Studies

• 0:01
  When we reflect deeply on the development of life and mind out
• 0:06
  of matter, it becomes clear that they are not able to manifest in
• 0:10
  matter if they do not already exist in their own right and in
• 0:15
  their own domain. Seers and Mystics have described
• 0:19
  vital worlds. Tayar de Chardin described a
• 0:24
  mental sphere, which he called the Nuosphere, which encompassed
• 0:28
  the mental force in its own right.
• 0:31
  Similar to the ionosphere or the biosphere, the newosphere
• 0:37
  created a range of its own vibratory level within which the
• 0:41
  actions of mentality could take place.
• 0:45
  For those who undertake the inner exploration, these worlds
• 0:49
  tend to open up and become perceptible, if not to the outer
• 0:54
  senses, then to the more subtle senses that are available.
• 0:59
  Either to the mind through direct perception, through the
• 1:03
  touches on the nervous or vital envelope that are felt but not
• 1:07
  clearly seen, and through states such as dream or trance where
• 1:14
  the outer waking consciousness recedes and other experiences
• 1:19
  can then occur. CG Jung's work made it clear
• 1:23
  that there is a domain where archetypal images reside and
• 1:27
  that provides these images to those who escape the blindered
• 1:32
  confines of the outer waking consciousness.
• 1:36
  He called this the collective unconscious as it was
• 1:40
  experienced by our being outside the normal waking state.
• 1:45
  We can appreciate this possibility when we reflect on
• 1:49
  the fact that when we live in the external world during the
• 1:51
  day with the sun shining upon our lives, we lose sight of the
• 1:57
  vast universal creation that abides outside our solar system.
• 2:03
  But when the sun recedes with the advent of night, we have the
• 2:07
  opportunity, if we turn our gaze upward, to see a portion of the
• 2:12
  vast range of universal existence that far exceeds our
• 2:17
  planetary existence. The waking mental consciousness,
• 2:23
  fixated on the impulses provided by the external senses, does not
• 2:28
  attend to the vast field of consciousness that exists beyond
• 2:31
  its normal frame. Only when it withdraws and one
• 2:36
  becomes receptive to other experiences does the awareness
• 2:40
  of these other domains arise and begin to reach our notice
• 2:45
  through some means or other. As we see in our waking
• 2:50
  experience, the vital or mental domains are populated with
• 2:55
  beings who have their own agenda, their own force, and who
• 2:59
  may be either benign or malignant in relation to our
• 3:03
  experience of them. Care must be taken when
• 3:07
  exploring or interacting with these subtler domains as we tend
• 3:12
  not to understand what it is we are truly seeing and relating to
• 3:17
  our own vibratory pattern and receptivity tends to condition
• 3:22
  much of what we come into contact with.
• 3:25
  So to the extent we harbor desires, lusts, ambitions,
• 3:31
  greed, et cetera, or aspiration, goodwill, compassion, et cetera,
• 3:39
  we attract just those forces to us who vibrate on a similar
• 3:43
  level, Shiorobindo notes quote. The physical is not the only
• 3:50
  world. There are others that we become
• 3:53
  aware of through dream records, through the subtle senses,
• 3:57
  through influences and contacts, through imagination, intuition
• 4:02
  and vision. There are worlds of a larger,
• 4:05
  subtler life than ours, vital worlds, worlds in which mind
• 4:09
  builds its own forms and figures, mental worlds, psychic
• 4:14
  worlds which are the soul's home, others above with which we
• 4:18
  have little contact. In each of us there is a mental
• 4:23
  plane of consciousness, a psychic, a vital, a subtle
• 4:28
  physical, as well as the gross physical and material plane.
• 4:33
  The same planes are repeated in the consciousness of general
• 4:36
  nature. It is when we enter or contact
• 4:40
  these other planes that we come into connection with the world's
• 4:43
  above the physical. In sleep we leave the physical
• 4:48
  body, only a subcontinent residue remaining, and enter all
• 4:53
  planes and all sorts of worlds. In each we see scenes, meet
• 4:59
  beings, share in happenings, come across formations,
• 5:03
  influences, suggestions which belong to these planes.
• 5:09
  Even when we are awake, part of us moves in these planes, but
• 5:14
  their activity goes on behind the veil.
• 5:17
  Our waking minds are not aware of it.
• 5:20
  Dreams are often only incoherent constructions of our
• 5:24
  subcontinent, but others are records, often much mixed and
• 5:29
  distorted, or transcripts of experiences in these supra
• 5:34
  physical planes. When we do sadhna, this kind of
• 5:39
  dream becomes very common. Then subconscious dreams cease
• 5:43
  to predominate. The forces and beings of the
• 5:47
  vital world have a great influence on human beings.
• 5:51
  The vital world is on one side a world of beauty.
• 5:54
  The poet, artist, musician are in close contact with it.
• 5:59
  It is also a world of powers and passions, lusts and desires.
• 6:05
  Our own lusts and desires and passions and ambitions can put
• 6:10
  us into connection with the vital worlds and their forces
• 6:13
  and beings. It is again a world of things
• 6:17
  dark, dangerous and horrible. Nightmares, like exes, are
• 6:23
  contacts with this side of the vital plane.
• 6:26
  Its influences are also the source of much in men that is
• 6:30
  demoniac, dirty, cruel and base. End Quote reference Sri
• 6:37
  Aurobindo and the Mother, The hidden Forces of Life, Chapter
• 6:41
  6. Hidden Worlds and Evolutionary
• 6:44
  Forces, pages 141 to 142.