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Appreciating Knowledge Not Based in Mental Processes · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Knowledge in the minds of most people is mental knowledge.
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  We are trained to use our minds to read, to observe, to analyze,
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  to compare, to remember and to correlate.
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  We learn the skills of mental logic and honour those who
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  advanced in mental capabilities. We practice argument and debate
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  and declare winners as those who are able to present the better
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  argument. We know when there is a stream
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  of thought in our minds that tells us what we know.
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  Rene Descartes famously declared I think therefore I am.
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  Man is the mental being, the current peak of the evolution of
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  consciousness, able to use his mind to rearrange the physical
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  world and control the animal world.
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  We are, however, beginning to understand and appreciate that
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  there are other forms and types of knowing that we have
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  suppressed and undervalued. As the mental form of knowing
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  gained its ascendancy and proved its value in the building of our
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  external world and our own success in that world, people
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  are beginning to explore emotional intelligence, vital
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  reactions that occur without mental thought, even physical
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  knowledge based in body consciousness.
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  Each of these forms of knowing are unique and based in the
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  capacities of that level of consciousness.
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  The mind, even while we consider it the peak of our current
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  development, is clearly neither perfect nor is it absolute or
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  precise in its power of knowing. We are beginning to understand
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  and explore other powers that go beyond those of the body, the
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  life force and the mind, powers that originate at levels above
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  the mental level. Intuition, inspiration are
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  forcing us to reconsider the role that the mind has to play
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  in our future development. The psychic, being directly
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  connected to the spirit and the truth of existence, has its own
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  way of knowing what Triorobindo defines as a form of knowledge
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  by identity. In order to comprehend what the
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  soul knows, we also need to adjust our view of knowledge so
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  that we can experience, feel, intuit the truth, not simply be
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  swayed by potentially faulty or incomplete statements of logic
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  or reasoning, the mother observes.
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  Quote communications from the psychic do not come in a mental
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  form. They are not ideas or
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  reasonings. They have their own character,
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  quite distinct from the mind, something like a feeling that
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  comprehends itself and acts by its very nature.
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  The psychic is calm, quiet and luminous, understanding and
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  generous, wide and progressive. Its constant effort is to
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  understand and progress. The mind describes and explains
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  the psychic sees and understands 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 1 Meaning and nature of the
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  psychic being, page 42.