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Our Surface Personality Is Only a Small Representation of Our Complete and True Being · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  We construct a personality that we present to the world and
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  organize our expression and actions around this chosen
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  construct. In doing so, we pick and choose
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  elements that are present in our conscious mind, heart, life,
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  force, and physical body, and create for ourselves the ego
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  personality that seemingly ties all of this together into what
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  we know as ourselves. In some cases, we consciously
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  mislead ourselves and others by omitting thoughts, motives,
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  drives, and reactions that are occurring through active
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  suppression or through simple avoidance.
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  In other cases, we simply are not paying attention to all of
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  the influences, forces, and powers that are moving us to act
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  out of the impulsions that we are receiving.
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  When we are placed under some kind of pressure, some of these
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  deeper motivations and drives exhibit themselves, and we don't
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  realize that these were there all the time, waiting for the
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  opportunity to sprout up and manifest.
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  Similarly, others may express shock and consternation about
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  how these responses are so out of character.
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  It is as if we have adopted a stage persona for our external
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  life and the real person remains hidden deep within, Shriorobindo
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  observes, Quote. We are not only what we know of
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  ourselves, but an immense more which we do not know.
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  Our momentary personality is only a bubble on the ocean of
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  our existence. What we know of ourselves, our
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  present conscious existence, is only a representative formation,
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  A superficial activity, a changing external result of a
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  vast mass of concealed existence.
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  Our visible life and the actions of that life are no more than a
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  series of significant expressions, but that which it
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  tries to express is not on the surface.
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  Our existence is something much larger than this apparent
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  frontal being which we suppose ourselves to be and which we
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  offer to the world around us. This frontal and external being
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  is a confused amalgam of mind formations, life movements,
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  physical functionings, of which even an exhaustive analysis into
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  its component parts and machinery fails to reveal the
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  whole secret. It is only when we go behind,
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  below, above, into the hidden stretches of our being that we
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  can know it. The most thorough and acute
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  surface scrutiny and manipulation cannot give us the
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  true understanding or the completely effective control of
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  our life, its purposes, its activities.
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  That inability, indeed, is the cause of the failure of reason,
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  morality, and every other surface action to control and
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  deliver and perfect the life of the human race.
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  For below even our most obscure physical consciousness is a
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  subconscious being, in which, as in a covering and supporting
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  soil, are all manner of hidden seeds that sprout up
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  unaccountably to us on our surface, and into which we are
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  constantly throwing fresh seeds that prolong our past and will
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  influence our future. A subconscious being, obscure,
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  small in its motions, capriciously and almost
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  fantastically sub, rational, but of immense potency for the
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  earth, life again, behind our mind, our life, our conscious,
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  physical. There is a large subliminal
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  consciousness there, inner mental, inner vital, inner more
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  subtle physical reaches, supported by an inmost psychic
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  existence which is the connecting soul of all the rest.
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  And in these hidden reaches too lie a mass of numerous pre
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  existent personalities which supply the material.
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  The motive forces the impulsions of our developing surface
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  existence. 4 In each one of us here there may be 1 central
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  person, but also a multitude of subordinate personalities
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  created by the past history of its manifestation, or by
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  expressions of it on these inner planes which support its present
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  play in this external material cosmos.
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  And while on our surface, we are cut off from all around us,
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  except through an exterior mind and sense contact which delivers
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  but little of us to our world, or of our world to us.
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  In these inner reaches, the barrier between US and the rest
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  of existence is thin and easily broken.
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  There we can feel at once not merely infer from their results,
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  but feel directly the action of the secret world forces, mind
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  forces, life forces, subtle physical forces that constitute
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  universal and individual existence.
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  We shall even be able, if we will but train ourselves to it,
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  to lay our hands on these world forces that throw themselves on
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  us or around us, and more and more to control, or at least
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  strongly modify their action on us and others.
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  Their formations, their very movements, yet again above our
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  human mind, are still greater reaches super conscient to it,
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  and from there secretly descend influences, powers, touches
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  which are the original determinants of things here, and
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  if they were called down in their fullness, could altogether
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  alter the whole, make an economy of life in the material
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  universe. End Quote Reference Sri
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  Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Chapter
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  2, Hidden Forces within pages 33 to 35.