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The Evolution of the Psychic Being Across Innumerable Lifetimes · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  There is considerable confusion about the concept of rebirth and
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  the development and growth of the psychic being across
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  multiple lifetimes. Popular imagination has it that
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  the same individual personality is reborn and that under certain
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  circumstances past lives can be identified and recalled.
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  Then they can find their soulmate and re establish the
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  relationships of the past. There is a strong desire to
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  survive after death in some recognizable manner.
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  Christians find this in an eventual resurrection to heaven
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  to rejoin one's loved ones there.
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  The ancient Greeks had legends where the shades of people who
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  had died went to various holding places in the underworld.
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  The story of Orpheus and Eurydice had Orpheus use his
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  musical skills to charm Hades and Persephone into allowing him
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  to take his wife Eurydice back to the living as long as he
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  followed the condition of not looking back.
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  He failed the test, but the message is clear that somehow a
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  departed soul can return and resume its life in the world
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  with its existing personality. The Romans adopted a similar
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  view, and Virgil in the Aeneid had the Trojan hero Eneus enter
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  the underworld and speak to his departed father.
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  Dante and the Divine Comedy described various circles of
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  Hell, and the poet Virgil, acting as his guide, showed him
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  the fate of numerous individuals who had committed certain
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  heinous deeds and who maintained their individual personality
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  during their stay in Hell. A region called Purgatory
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  contained souls that were capable of redemption, and
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  finally, he described Paradise, where the innocent souls and
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  redeemed were able to reside in bliss.
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  Souls that were intended to be reborn were first bathed in the
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  waters of the river Lethe, which wiped out the memory of the past
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  lifetime. There are instances and
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  circumstances that indicate that it is possible, but not probable
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  or widespread, that a memory of past incarnations can be brought
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  forward into the current lifetime.
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  In the Bhagwad Gita, Sri Krishna tells Arjuna that while he
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  recalls his past incarnations, Arjuna does not.
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  Sri Krishna as an avatar was able to transcend the usual
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  circumstances of human birth. Arjuna as a human being, did
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  not. The Tibetan Buddhist tradition
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  has studied the question of rebirth and determined that
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  certain realized souls could take conscious birth to continue
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  a lineage. They brought with them in their
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  new incarnation an affinity for specific items used in the prior
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  incarnation in order to be recognized, as well as a line of
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  development that allowed for the continuance of the work of the
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  prior incarnations without necessarily carrying the entire
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  burden of details of the lives of past incarnations into the
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  current life. Under normal circumstances, the
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  psychic being, as it develops and matures, brings forward from
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  past lifetimes the essence of the experience, not the
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  individual personality or specific memories or
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  relationships. The Greeks had it right to the
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  extent that the process removes the specific details and
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  memories of past lifetimes, which otherwise would tie down
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  and limit the soul's experience and development.
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  A disciple asks what exactly is the solar psychic being and what
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  is meant by the evolution of the psychic being?
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  What is its relation to the Supreme?
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  The Mother responds quote. The soul and the psychic being
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  are not exactly the same thing, although their essence is the
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  same. The soul is the divine spark
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  that dwells at the centre of each being.
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  It is identical with its divine origin.
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  It is the divine in man. The psychic being is formed
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  progressively around this divine centre, the soul and the course
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  of its innumerable lives in the terrestrial evolution, until the
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  time comes when the psychic being, fully formed and wholly
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  awakened, becomes the conscious sheath of the soul around which
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  it is formed and thus identified with the Divine.
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  It becomes His perfect instrument in the world.
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  End Quote Reference Srioro Bindo and the Mother the psychic being
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  soul, its nature, mission and evolution Section 1 Meaning and
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  Nature of the Psychic being Page 8.