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Recognising the Emergence of the Soul in Our Being · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  There are many things in the world which we know exist, not
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  because we can directly perceive them, but because we can
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  experience their effects. Thus we cannot see gravity, but
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  we know it exists. We cannot see radiation, but
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  again we know it exists. As we continue to develop powers
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  of the vital and mental planes, we begin to recognize that there
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  are many pressures of feelings, of emotions, of thought, of
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  willpower, which are not perceptible directly, but which
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  we understand by their impact upon us.
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  Each more advanced level of the evolutionary development brings
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  us to more and more subtle levels of understanding, thus
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  making it possible for us to intuit and know these more
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  subtle energies. We come then to the experience
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  of the soul. Those who live entirely on the
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  external level of their being, primarily in the physical and
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  vital consciousness, are unable to appreciate the existence of
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  the soul. This is, however, not a
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  conclusion that the soul does not exist.
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  Rather, it is a declaration of the limitations of the ability
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  of those individuals at that stage in their development to
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  relate to this soul experience. Just as someone fully engaged at
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  the physical level will rarely have the ability to appreciate
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  and understand complex forms of reasoning, logic, mathematics,
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  statistical analysis, scientific thinking, et cetera, we find
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  that certain capacities develop only when the being is ready.
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  We can see individuals mature either through the normal
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  process of growth or through an inner readiness that reorients
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  the being towards the mental or spiritual realms of experience
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  and thereby begin to understand, appreciate, and recognize the
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  influence of the soul and actually be able to encourage
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  its action and ability to direct the external instruments of
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  body, life, and mind. Sri Aurobindo outlines the way
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  the soul begins to assert its influence over the outer being
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  and how we can recognize that influence before we have the
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  direct contact and experience of the soul in its own native form.
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  Sri Aurobindo notes Quote As the evolution proceeds, nature
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  begins slowly and tentatively to manifest our occult parts.
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  She leads us to look more and more within ourselves, or sets
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  out to initiate more clearly recognizable intimations and
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  formations of them on the surface.
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  The soul in us, the psychic principle, has already begun to
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  take secret form. It puts forward and develops a
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  soul personality, a distinct psychic being to represent it.
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  This psychic being remains still behind the veil in our
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  subliminal part, like the true mental, the true vital, or the
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  true or subtle physical being within us.
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  But like them, it acts on the surface life by the influences
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  and intimations it throws up upon that surface.
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  These form part of the surface aggregate, which is the
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  conglomerate effect of the inner influences and upsurging the
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  visible formation and superstructure which we
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  ordinarily experience and think of as ourselves.
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  On this ignorant surface we become dimly aware of something
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  that can be called a soul, as distinct from mind, life, or
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  body. We feel it not only as our
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  mental idea or vague instinct of ourselves, but as a sensible
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  influence in our life and character and action, a certain
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  sensitive feeling for all that is true and good and beautiful,
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  fine and pure and noble, a response to it, a demand for it,
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  a pressure on mind and life to accept and formulate it.
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  In our thought, feelings, conduct, character is the most
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  usually recognized, the most general and characteristic,
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  though not the sole sign of this influence of the psyche, of the
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  man who has not this element in him, or does not respond at all
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  to this urge. We say that he has no soul, for
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  it is this influence that we can most easily recognize as a finer
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  or even a diviner part in US and the most powerful for the slow
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  turning towards some aid at perfection in our nature.
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  End Quote Preference, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The
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  Hidden Forces of Life, Chapter 2 Hidden Forces within pages 46 to
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  47.