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Becoming Conscious of the Multiple Sheaths or Planes of Our Being · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  In the Titeria Upanishad, the seeker discovers through
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  intensive tapasya that there are multiple layers or sheaths of
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  consciousness that make up the human being.
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  His seeking first discovers the material body or food sheath.
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  As he continues, he recognizes the vital body or prana sheath.
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  Next, he learns about the mind or mental sheath.
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  He continues to discover the Causal sheath and eventually the
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  bliss sheath. Each one was successively more
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  subtle than the prior one, and each one was more directly
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  capable of causing the actions of the being.
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  These sheets correspond generally to the chakras and
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  their receptivity to energies and forces.
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  That are active in the manifestation generally.
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  Thus we are greatly moved in our thoughts, feelings, actions and
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  responses by these larger forces, which remain, however
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  largely unnoticed by us as they enter through the subtle bodies
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  corresponding to each of these sheets, and we only become aware
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  of them when they are active within us.
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  And we are attending to them in the life divine triobindo
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  describes the sevenfold ignorance within which we exist.
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  We are not aware of the environmental consciousness as
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  well as superconscient, subconscient, and even what we
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  may call the inconscient levels of our existence.
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  We treat the things that we can perceive with our external
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  senses as what is real. And fail to recognize the
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  reality of all the other elements that make up our
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  existence and our relation to the larger universal
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  manifestation, Shriorobindo observes, Quote.
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  Why then are we not normally aware of so much that is behind
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  us and always pressing upon us? For the same reason that we are
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  not aware of the inner life of our neighbor, although it exists
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  as much as our own? And is constantly exercising an
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  occult influence upon us. For a great part of our thoughts
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  and feelings come into us from outside, from our fellow men,
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  both from individuals and from the collective mind of humanity.
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  And for the same reason that we are not aware of the greater
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  part of our own being, which is subconscient or subliminal to
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  our waking mind. And is always influencing and in
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  an occult manner determining our surface existence.
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  It is because we use normally only our corporeal senses and
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  live almost wholly in the body and the physical vitality and
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  the physical mind. And it is not directly through
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  these that the life world enters into relations with us, that is
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  done through other sheaths of our being.
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  So they are termed in the Upanishads other bodies, as they
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  are called in a later terminology, the mental sheath
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  or subtle body, in which our true mental being lives, and the
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  life sheath or vital body, which is more closely connected with
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  the physical or food sheath, and forms with it the gross body of
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  our complex existence. These possess powers, senses,
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  capacities. Which are always secretly acting
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  in us, are connected with and impinge upon our physical organs
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  and the plexuses of our physical life and mentality.
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  By self development we can become aware of them, possess
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  our life in them, get through them into conscious relation
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  with the life world and other worlds, and use them also for a
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  more subtle experience. And more intimate knowledge of
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  the truths, facts and happenings of even the material world
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  itself. We can by this self development
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  live more or less fully on the plains of our existence other
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  than the material which is now All in all to us.
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  End Quote reference Sriorobindo and the Mother our many selves.
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  Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter One, Our manifold being
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  pages 9 to 10.