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Universal Forces, the Aura and the Individual Consciousness · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Many people hold that the truth of existence is an either or
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  proposition. If the universal forces create
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  all of existence, then the individual is essentially an
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  illusory conception. And on the other hand, if the
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  individual is a real and separate entity, then the
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  universal is somehow denied or disproven.
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  It is, however, not necessary to go to either of these two
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  extremes in our understanding of our existence in relation to the
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  universal manifestation. Shriorobindo resolves this
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  conflict in chapter four of The Life Divine, a chapter titled
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  Reality Omnipresent. The universal is real, and each
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  individual form, formation or being is also real, being
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  constituted of, and being a Nexus of the action.
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  For the universal forces, the individual is not wholly
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  separate and independent, but is part and parcel of that
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  universal creation, dependent on it and the forces that manifest
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  for his own existence. There is a constant interchange
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  taking place between this Nexus in the form of an individual
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  being or formation, and the universal forces that are acting
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  to create the existence we experience.
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  These larger forces act upon us and condition and drive our
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  responses and actions. Because they are not obviously
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  palpable to our external senses in a direct way, we tend to know
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  them primarily through their effects.
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  There is, however, an intervening buffer that acts to
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  receive the external impacts, and this is the aura or vital
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  envelope. As a person becomes more able to
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  experience the impacts on the aura, he is able to begin to
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  have direct knowledge of the interchange that is taking place
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  and thereby work to accept, modify, or reject the action of
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  some of these forces. Sri Aurobindo writes Quote Each
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  man has his own personal consciousness entrenched in his
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  body and gets into touch with his surroundings only through
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  his body and senses and the mind using the senses.
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  Yet all the time the universal forces are pouring into him
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  without his knowing it. He is aware only of thoughts,
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  feelings, et cetera, that rise to the surface, and these he
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  takes for his own. Really They come from outside in
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  mind waves, vital waves, waves of feeling and sensation, et
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  cetera, which take particular form in him and rise to the
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  surface after they have got inside.
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  But they do not get into his body at once.
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  He carries about with him an environmental consciousness
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  called by the Theosophists, the aura into which they first
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  enter. If you can become conscious of
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  this environmental self of yours, then you can catch the
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  thought, passion, suggestion, or force of illness and prevent it
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  from entering into you. If things in you are thrown out,
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  they often do not go altogether, but take refuge in this
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  environmental atmosphere, and from there they try to get in
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  again. Or they go to a distance outside
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  but linger on the outskirts or even perhaps far off, waiting
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  till they get an opportunity to attempt entrance.
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  End Quote Reference Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The
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  Hidden Forces of Life, Chapter 4 Cosmic and Universal Forces,
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  page 82 to 83 A reader asks in what way are these thoughts?
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  Feelings not our own, are they not something that shows up as
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  ours by the way of one's life Experience Is this not memory of
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  sorts? What we do with these ingrained
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  etheric thought patterns after recognizing we are not our
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  thoughts, is within one's command response.
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  The ego personality is a temporary construction that is
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  created by and for the purposes of the universal consciousness
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  as a Nexus or point of focus for the universal action.
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  We try to identify with that ego personality and to the extent we
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  do, we see all these thoughts and feelings as our own.
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  When we emerge from the shadow of the ego personality, however,
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  we can see a vast play of forces that drive what we think, what
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  we feel and how we act. In the Bhagwad Gita, Sri Krishna
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  responds to Arjuna who falls into confusion and declares he
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  will not fight because he sees the ego play.
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  In the course of the 18 chapter, Sri Krishna reminds Arjuna that
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  all of the warriors that he believes he will be responsible
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  for killing are destined to die. And he shows Arjuna the vision
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  of the time spirit in the 11th chapter, an overwhelming vision
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  that shifts him entirely outside the ego framework.
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  It is true that we attach ourselves to specific thoughts,
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  ideas, memories and feelings while we inhabit a particular
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  formation of being. We thus take the universal
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  forces that are working and appropriate them as if they are
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  our own. That is due to our
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  identification with the ego personality.
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  When an individual shifts the standpoint away, he begins to
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  see the play of the three gunas and the movement of energies
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  that actually are the causative agents of the formed personality
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  and its associations. Sri Ramana Maharshi asked the
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  question, Who am I? At some point we can no longer
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  accept the answer that I am a specific person in a specific
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  body, living a specific life in specific associations and
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  adopting specific ideas and emotional relationships.
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  When we begin to identify with the divine element within us,
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  then we recognize that we change bodies and lives as the body
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  changes clothes. In the Tacteria Upanishad, the
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  seeker goes successively through various stages of
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  identification. Identification with the body,
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  identification with the life energy, identification with the
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  mind, identification with the causal plane of consciousness,
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  and finally identification with bliss, which is an aspect of
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  Satchidananda existence, Consciousness, Bliss.
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  Each level is successively more subtle and more abstract, but
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  has a greater reality than the temporary body life mind complex
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  we inhabit temporarily. The ego personality as a
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  temporary bubble does indeed act as if it is the doer of works
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  and the knower. Can we really say that this is
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  essentially the truth of the matter?