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The Evolution, Growth and Maturation Process of the Psychic Being and the Possibility of a Psychic Transformation of the Being · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Everywhere we look in nature, we see a similar process.
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  A seed sprouts and a tiny seedling struggles to grow and
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  survive. Eventually it grows, matures and
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  comes into its adult strength. The animal Kingdom has a similar
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  reality. The newborn animal has to
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  develop its body, its vital strength, and whatever mental
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  capacities it is intended to have over time, through embedded
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  processes which we call instincts, through experience
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  and through education. In some cases, this occurs in
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  one lifetime, yet we see an evolving process that takes
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  place across many lifetimes, stretching across millennia.
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  It is useful to reflect on this process as we consider the
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  mechanism and process that provides meaning to this
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  development. If human life is restricted to 1
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  brief lifetime, then very little significance in the universal
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  creation can be attributed to any individual life.
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  We might assign significance to the human race as it grows and
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  matures through the action of individuals as they contribute
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  to the larger human story. It even this seems to lack
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  ultimate significance if there is not also a mechanism for some
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  process that provides continuity across numerous successive
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  lifetimes. Srioro Bindo has provided an
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  extensive review of the various options in Rebirth and karma, in
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  addition to the detail he provides in The Life Divine in
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  chapters devoted specifically to this subject.
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  The mechanism that provides meaning and continuity is the
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  process of rebirth. The soul puts forth the psychic
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  being, which begins as more or less a newborn seed of the
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  spirit in each individual and then grows, matures and evolves,
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  gaining strength and experience to eventually be able to not
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  only influence the external body, life and mind, but gain
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  mastery over them and turn them to the larger purposes of the
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  divine creation. Sri Robindu observes quote.
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  Moreover, the psychic being, the sole personality in US, does not
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  emerge full grown and luminous. It evolves, passes through a
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  slow development and formation. Its figure of being may be at
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  first indistinct, and may afterwards remain for a long
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  time weak and undeveloped, not impure but imperfect, For it
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  rests its formation, its dynamic self, building on the power of
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  soul that has been actually and more or less successfully
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  against the resistance of the ignorance, and in conscience put
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  forth in the evolution upon the surface.
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  Its appearance is the sign of a sole emergence in nature, and if
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  that emergence is as yet small and defective, the psychic
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  personality also will be stunted or feeble.
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  It is too, by the obscurity of our consciousness, separated
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  from its inner reality, in imperfect communication with its
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  own source in the depths of the being.
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  For the road is as yet I'll built, easily obstructed, the
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  wires often cut or crowded with communications of another kind,
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  and proceeding from another origin.
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  Its power to impress what it receives upon the outer
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  instruments is also imperfect in its penury.
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  It has for most things to rely on these instruments, and it
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  forms its push to expression and action on their data, and not
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  solely on the unerring perceptions of the psychic
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  entity. In these conditions it cannot
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  prevent the true psychic light from being diminished or
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  distorted in the mind into a mere idea or opinion, the
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  psychic feeling in the heart into a fallible emotion or mere
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  sentiment. The psychic will to action in
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  the life parts into a blind vital enthusiasm or a fervid
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  excitement. It even accepts these
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  mistranslations for want of something better, and tries to
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  fulfill itself through them. For it is part of the work of
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  the soul to influence mind and heart and vital being and turn
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  their ideas, feelings, enthusiasms, dynamisms in the
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  direction of what is divine and luminous.
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  But this has to be done at first, imperfectly, slowly and
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  with a mixture. As the psychic personality grows
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  stronger, it begins to increase its communion with the psychic
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  entity behind it and improve its communications with the surface.
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  It can transmit its intimations to the mind and heart and life
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  with a greater purity and force, for it is more able to exercise
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  a strong control and react against false mixtures.
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  Now more and more it makes itself distinctly felt as a
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  power in the nature. But Even so, this evolution
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  would be slow and long if left solely to the difficult
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  automatic action of the evolutionary energy.
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  It is only when man awakes to the knowledge of the soul and
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  feels a need to bring it to the front and make it the master of
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  his life in action, that a quicker conscious method of
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  evolution intervenes and a psychic transformation becomes
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  possible. End Quote Reference Sri
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  Aurobindo and the Mother, the psychic being soul, its nature,
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  mission and evolution. Section 2.
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  Role, function and Action of the Psychic.
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  Pages 54 to 56.