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The Power of the Spiritual Consciousness Is Needed to Overcome the Limitations of the Mental Approach to Existence · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  As the mental consciousness awakens, particularly if there's
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  an influence coming from the psychic being or from the
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  spiritual planes pressing down on the mental being, we become
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  aware of virtually endless problems, issues, difficulties,
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  imbalances, disharmonies, and outright conflicts in the world
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  and how we interact with each other and our environment.
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  Those with a positive attitude and energy naturally want to do
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  something to help straighten this out.
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  They try many things. This is how humanity comes up
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  with solutions based on technology or economic system
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  adjustments, scientific advancements that are supposed
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  to solve some issue or other political systems, religious
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  doctrines or sociological improvements, as well as
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  enhancements in education, lawmaking, et cetera.
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  Eventually competing ideas are held by competing factions and a
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  form of gridlock occurs and nothing can be done.
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  When we become frustrated at slow progress, we try
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  authoritarian rule. This has its own serious
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  drawbacks, with a reliance on one sided short term solutions
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  provided generally more focused on keeping the authoritarians in
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  power than on actually solving any of humanity's issues.
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  And thus we struggle, suffer and face ever increasing
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  dislocations, disharmonies, obstacles and existential
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  threats. This process occurs due to the
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  limitations of the mental power and its intermixture with the
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  vital force based in desire and the actual difficulties of
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  managing physical nature. The natural forces that tend to
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  bring about balance in the physical environment and then as
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  the vital force evolves in the interaction between the physical
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  and vital, are disrupted with the evolution of mind.
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  Which by nature has a somewhat linear approach to things and
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  does not see or take into account all the myriad aspects
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  that go into making a comprehensive and complete
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  understanding that can act to create a New Balance and a new
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  harmony. Each mental intervention is
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  intended to bring a progress, and it generally does in One
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  Direction or another, but it also has a wide variety of
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  unintended consequences. Once the developed mental
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  consciousness becomes aware of this dynamic, it begins to
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  realize that the solution does not lie in mental planning or
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  processes, but in the evolution and development of a next stage
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  of consciousness in the evolutionary scale.
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  A stage which can comprehend the entirety of the issues and
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  forces at work and which can know the harmonious balance that
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  needs to be achieved and maintained.
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  This is then the place where the spiritual consciousness as
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  manifested in what tree or a window and the Mother call the
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  Super mental consciousness comes into play.
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  The spiritual consciousness does not rely on mental argument, but
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  on the force of its consciousness in and of itself
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  in creating an atmosphere and spiritual pressure that helps
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  all beings respond in effective and harmonious ways.
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  The Mother observes quote, and as soon as one is turned towards
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  the spiritual life and reality, one touches the Infinite, the
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  eternal, and there can no longer be any question of a greater or
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  smaller number of capacities or possibilities.
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  It is the mental conception of spiritual life which may say
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  that one has more or less capacity to live spiritually,
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  but this is not at all an adequate statement.
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  What may be said is that one is more or less ready for the
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  decisive and total reversal. In reality.
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  It is the mental capacity to withdraw from ordinary
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  activities and to set out in search of the spiritual life
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  which can be measured. But so long as one is in the
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  mental field, in this state as it were, on this plane of
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  consciousness, 1 can't do much for others, either for life in
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  general or for particular individuals, because one doesn't
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  have the certitude oneself, 1 doesn't have the definitive
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  experience. The consciousness has not been
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  established in the spiritual world.
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  And all that can be said is that they are mental activities which
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  have their good and bad sides, but not much power, and in any
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  case not this power of spiritual contagion, which is the only
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  true effective power. The only thing that is truly
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  effective is the possibility of transferring to others, the
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  state of consciousness in which one lives oneself.
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  But this power cannot be invented, 1 cannot imitate it,
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  cannot seem to have it. It only comes spontaneously when
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  one is established in that state oneself, when one lives within
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  it and not when one is trying to live within it, when one is
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  there. And that is why all those who
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  truly have a spiritual life cannot be deceived.
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  An imitation of spiritual life may delude people who still live
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  in the mind, but those who have realized this reversal of
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  consciousness in themselves, whose relation with the outer
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  being is completely different, cannot be deceived and cannot
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  make a mistake. End Quote.
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  Reference Sri Orovindo and the Mother Powers Within, Chapter
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  22, Spirit, pages 167 to 168.