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Are We There Yet? · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  We tend to start our conscious spiritual quest from the
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  external standpoint of our ego, personality and the mental,
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  vital and physical complex we have developed during our lives.
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  Something has opened up within us that causes us to begin the
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  process. As we begin to have various
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  experiences that go outside our normal frame of reference, we
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  identify them as soul experiences.
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  We find that life begins to present us with coincidences,
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  chance meetings that we no longer interpret as pure chance,
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  synergies, and what appear to be in some cases, extraordinary
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  openings to new insights, powers, awareness, or visions
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  and voices. We may have revelatory dreams.
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  We may enter into states of spiritual trance.
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  We we may suddenly feel an uprush of emotions that support
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  our aspiration, consecration, self giving, and present us with
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  a widening into a form of universal or cosmic
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  consciousness. Many believe that these
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  experiences indicate that they have shifted to the standpoint
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  of the soul, the psychic being. For the most part, however,
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  these experiences are very much mixed with our mental, vital and
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  physical aspects of being and represent not a definitive shift
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  to the sole standpoint, but a recognition of the influence
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  that the psychic being has on the external being.
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  At a certain point, however, as the experiences withdraw for a
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  time or difficulties arise, the seeker begins to question and
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  ask whether he is truly shifted to the standpoint of the psychic
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  being. As the mother points out, if you
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  have to ask, then you are not there yet.
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  We tend to be impatient and expect easy solutions, fast
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  responses and instant results. Thus our predilection towards
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  jumping to the conclusion after receiving the first signs and
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  touches of the psychic consciousness.
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  This impatient reigns despite the long history and recitation
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  of realized souls about the complex issues and the time it
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  takes to work through all the knots, limitations,
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  obstructions, obscurities and deformations of the external
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  nature to truly shift the standpoint to that of the soul.
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  The experiences are important and valuable as they point the
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  way and provide us encouragement.
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  They can and should be welcomed when they come.
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  They should not be a cause of any complacency or slacking off
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  of the spiritual focus. A disciple asks Sweet Mother,
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  here Sri Aurobindo has said, if the inmost soul is awakened, if
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  there is a new birth out of the mere mental, vital and physical
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  into the psychic consciousness, then this yoga can be done.
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  Why has he said the inmost soul? Is there a superficial soul?
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  The Mother responds quote. It is because this inmost soul
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  that is the central psychic being, influences the
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  superficial parts of the consciousness, superficial in
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  comparison with it, mental parts, vital parts, the purest
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  mind, the highest vital, the emotive being.
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  The soul influences them, influences them to an extent
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  where one has the impression of entering into contact with it
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  through these parts of the being.
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  So people take these parts for the soul, and that is why he
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  says the inmost soul, that is the central soul, the real soul.
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  For very often when one touches certain parts of the mind which
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  are under the psychic influence and full of light and the joy of
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  that light, or when one touches certain very pure and very high
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  parts of the emotive being, which has the most generous,
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  most unselfish emotions, one also has the impression of being
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  in contact with one's soul. But this is not the true soul.
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  It is not the soul in its very essence.
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  These are parts of the being under its influence and
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  manifesting something of it. So very often people enter into
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  contact with these parts and this gives them illuminations,
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  great joy, revelations, and they feel they have found their soul.
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  But it is only the part of the being under its influence, one
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  part or another. For exactly what happens is that
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  one touches these things, has experiences, and then it gets
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  veiled, and one wonders how is it that I touched my soul and
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  now have fallen back into this state of ignorance and in
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  conscience. But that's because one had not
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  touched one's soul. One had touched those parts of
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  the being which are under the influence of the soul and
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  manifest something of it, but are not it.
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  I have already said many times that when 1 enters consciously
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  into contact with one's soul and the union is established, it is
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  over. It can no longer be undone.
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  It is something permanent, constant, which resists
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  everything and which at any moment whatever, if referred to,
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  can be found, whereas the other things one can have very fine
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  experiences. And then it gets veiled again
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  and one tells oneself, How does that happen?
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  I saw my soul and now I don't find it anymore.
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  It was not the soul one had seen.
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  And these things are very beautiful and give you very
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  impressive experiences. But this is not the contact with
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  the psychic being itself. The contact with the psychic
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  being is definitive. And it is about this that I say
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  when people ask, do I have a contact with my psychic being?
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  Your question itself proves that you don't have it.
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  End Quote. Reference Srioro Bindu and the
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  Mother, the psychic being soul, its nature, Mission and
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  evolution. Section 1.
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  Meaning and Nature of the Psychic Being, pages 22 to 23.