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How to Acquire Knowledge of the Action of Vital and Mental Beings and Forces Upon our Lives · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Since we cannot easily observe vital beings or mental beings
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  operating on their respective planes to influence actions in
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  our existence, and since we maintain a skeptical attitude
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  about things which cannot be observed or measured, we find it
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  difficult to accept the existence of conscious, vital or
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  mental beings or entities who either work to aid or oppose our
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  existence, growth, and development.
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  It is also a well recognized truth that the senses and the
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  mind have a very limited frame of action, so that things that
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  occur above or below our field of perception, while still
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  existent, are not perceived or understood.
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  Thus, the sense organs and the mind are not the proper
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  instruments to explore and understand the vital and mental
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  realms outside the frame of their normal active capacity.
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  This brings us to the question of how we know what we know.
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  We trust our external senses, but it has now been decisively
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  proven that the senses, as well as our interpretation of
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  perceptions of those senses, can be faulty, misled, or outright
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  wrong. Multiple people observing the
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  same event from different angles frequently report different
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  perceptions with AI deep fakes. In today's world and with
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  programs such as Photoshop, what we believe is real is often
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  simply a manipulated or falsified version of facts.
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  Knowledge based on the external sense organs is therefore
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  subject to question in the life divine.
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  Shri Robindo describes the different ways of knowing with
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  the reliance on the outer sense organs as being incomplete due
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  to it being knowledge of what appears to be separate objects.
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  Separate of knowledge is always incomplete, inadequate, and
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  limited. If we rely solely on the
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  testimony of others, we are still subject to their
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  potentially faulty observation or interpretation.
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  To the extent that we appreciate the bona fides and intelligence
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  of individuals who have deeply immersed themselves in a
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  subject, we have a greater degree of confidence,
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  potentially, than simply relying on the random interpretations of
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  untrained individuals. Even there, we frequently ask
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  for some kind of proof or evidence, and as scientists have
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  developed the scientific method of knowledge, we expect that
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  repeated observations should be not only verifiable and
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  measurable, but also reproducible.
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  We then come to knowledge obtained through inference of an
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  effect that must have a 'cause. We treat invisible energy such
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  as radiation, electricity, et cetera, by judging the effect
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  and then developing tools to measure the force that is at
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  work. Thus we believe in invisible
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  things that can be identified through their impact and which
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  yield measurable results. All of this is preparatory to
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  the ultimate form of knowledge, which is knowledge by identity.
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  In the end, we must find a way to rely on what we experience to
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  filter out the effect of dogma, propaganda, and the influence of
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  desire or fear, or other factors which can distort the perception
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  or the interpretation. We come then to the science of
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  inner psychological study and growth.
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  Swami Vivekananda, in his Lectures on Raja Yoga, provides
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  one method for gaining knowledge inwardly, and that is to bring
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  the mind stuff to a level of stillness that we can observe
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  closely. This discipline starts with
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  gaining mastery over various psychological reactive states
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  through control of desire in any of its forms and through
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  development of a quiet, harmless and balanced seat.
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  When ripples in the mind stuff arise, we can observe where they
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  came from, what impact they are having, and what they try to do
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  within us. Thus we turn the mind itself
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  into a sensitive measuring device for the action of
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  external energies that impact us.
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  When we match up our inward experience through some process
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  such as this, with the force and its impact that is reaching us,
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  it becomes easier to develop a reliable sense of what is taking
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  place behind the scenes, so to speak.
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  When we then correlate our own experience with that of others
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  who are otherwise trusted guides or leaders, we have a higher
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  degree of certitude which we can apply to an understanding of the
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  beings and forces trying to influence us for good.
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  Or I'll It is at such a stage that we can begin to fit
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  together the pieces of the puzzle that is our incapacity to
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  grasp the fact of our consciousness and the general
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  human aspiration with the apparently inconceant nature
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  within which we exist. Sri Aurobindo writes, quote.
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  This is certain that when we go back into ourselves, very deep
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  away from the surface appearance, we find that the
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  mind, heart and sensational being of man are moved by forces
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  not under his own control, and that he can become an instrument
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  in the hands of energies of a cosmic character without knowing
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  the origin of his actions. It is by stepping back from the
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  physical surface into his inner being and subliminal
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  consciousness that he becomes directly aware of them and is
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  able to know directly and deal with their action upon him.
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  He grows aware of interventions which seek to lead him in One
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  Direction or another of suggestions and impulsions which
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  had got disguised themselves as original movements of his own
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  mind, and against which he had to battle.
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  He can realize that he is not a conscious creature, inexplicably
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  produced in an unconscious world out of a seed of inconscient
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  matter, and moving about in an obscure self ignorance, but an
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  embodied soul through whose action cosmic nature is seeking
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  to fulfill itself. The living ground of a vast
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  debate between a darkness of ignorance, out of which it
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  emerges here, and a light of knowledge which is growing
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  upwards towards an unforeseen termination.
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  The forces which seek to move him and among them the forces of
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  good and evil, present themselves as powers of
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  universal nature, but they seem to belong not only to the
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  physical universe, but to planes of life and mind beyond it.
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  End Quote Reference Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The
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  Hidden Forces of Life, Chapter 4.
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  Cosmic and Universal Forces, page 89.