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Transitioning from the View of a Body With a Soul, to a Soul With a Body · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  The primary standpoint for most people is that they are a
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  physical body endowed with life, mind and potentially in their
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  minds, a soul. Everything starts from the
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  primacy of the body and its centrality in their view of
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  their lives. This makes the purpose of life
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  one of survival and procreation, with vital enjoyments and mental
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  preoccupations as possible ways to enjoy the sojourn in the
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  body. For a relatively small
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  percentage of people there comes a call to a spiritual awakening.
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  For these individuals, the urge of the soul asserts itself to
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  begin to examine the meaning of life, the significance of their
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  specific life, and eventually there comes about a reversal of
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  consciousness where the body is no longer the centre and cause,
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  but rather is taken up and occupied by the soul.
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  The image of an individual changing his clothes then comes
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  into the picture as a metaphor for the soul taking up a body
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  and using it for the soul's purpose, then discarding it and
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  moving to another body and life suitable for the next stage of
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  the soul's growth. We wonder how and why such an
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  urge arises. This is where we can get
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  intimations of pressure from the native domains of life, mind and
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  spirit to grow and develop the latent powers that have involved
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  in the material world. As the spiritual force gains
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  more ascendancy, the individual finds that he may lose interest
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  in the external life and its activities and potential
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  rewards, and he begins to explore his inner life and being
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  in a very intense way. He may feel that the outer life
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  is something of an illusion or a distraction, or simply a prior
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  focus that is no longer relevant to the deeper concerns that
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  arise. It is not a matter of
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  intellectual thought, but rather this seeking is something that
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  goes much deeper, touches an aspiration for something more,
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  some meaning, some relevance, some answers to the puzzle that
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  is our existence, whether we call it a seeking for God or a
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  seeking for our true self, or we call it a seeking for liberation
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  from the outer life. Just as a child grows and leaves
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  behind his preoccupations and his toys of his youth, so the
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  human individual, as he grows inwardly, leaves behind the
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  vital and mental preoccupations that demanded his focus prior to
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  that awakening soul aspiration. This then begins his larger
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  existence based on the centrality of his soul and his
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  entire viewpoint about life, its purpose and significance and his
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  role in the world undergoes a radical shift of focus.
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  Sri Aurobindo observes. Quote.
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  A secret, continuous action of the higher powers and principles
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  from their own planes upon terrestrial being and nature,
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  through the subliminal self, which is itself a projection
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  from those planes into the world born of the inconscience, must
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  have an effect and a significance.
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  Its first effect has been the liberation of life and mind out
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  of matter. Its last effect has been to
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  assist the emergence of a spiritual consciousness, a
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  spiritual will and spiritual sense of existence in the
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  terrestrial beings, so that he is no longer preoccupied solely
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  with his outermost life or with that and mental pursuits and
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  interests, but has learned to look within, to discover his
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  inner being, his spiritual self, to aspire to overpass earth and
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  her limitations. As he grows more and more
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  inward, his boundaries, mental, vital, spiritual, begin to
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  broaden. The bonds that held life, mind,
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  soul, to their first limitations loosen or snap.
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  And man, the mental being, begins to have a glimpse of a
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  larger Kingdom of self and world, closed to the first earth
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  life. No doubt, so long as he lives
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  mainly on his surface, he can only build a sort of
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  superstructure, ideal and imaginative and ideative, upon
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  the ground of his normal narrow existence.
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  But if he makes the inward movement which his own highest
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  vision has held up before him as his greatest spiritual
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  necessity, then he will find there in his inner being a
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  larger consciousness, a larger life.
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  An action from within and an action from above can overcome
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  the predominance of the material formula, diminish and finally
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  put an end to the power of the in conscience, reverse the order
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  of the consciousness, substitute the spirit for matter as his
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  conscious foundation of being, and liberate its higher power to
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  their complete and characteristic expression in the
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  life of the soul embodied in nature.
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  End Quote Reference Shriorobindo and the Mother, The Hidden
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  Forces of Life, Chapter 6 Hidden Worlds and Evolutionary Forces,
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  pages 147 to 148.