Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / Establishing the Psychic Being as the Central Organising Principle and Overcoming the Dominion of the Vital Nature and the External Being
Transcript
- 0:00As long as we identify ourselves with our external personality,
- 0:05the body, life, mind, complex we inhabit and project into the
- 0:09world, we are subject to the responses, reactions, and
- 0:14motivations that they express. Based on the developments of the
- 0:19entire past evolutionary history of consciousness on the planet,
- 0:23and specifically closely associated with the
- 0:27socialization we receive through family, friends, school, and the
- 0:33society at large, we internalize these things to such a degree
- 0:38that we believe we are these things.
- 0:41We remain locked within the framework of this personality
- 0:44and its relationship to its society and the world at large,
- 0:49and we thus do not even recognize that there can be, and
- 0:54indeed is another way to relate. In particular, the vital nature
- 1:00thrives in this environment as it tries to fulfill its desires,
- 1:04and its power and long history of control ensure that it will
- 1:09manipulate the mind to believe and support its assertions and
- 1:13thereby justify the old ways, the old habits, the old aims and
- 1:19methods of fulfillment of the vital strives.
- 1:24In order to transition away from this state of affairs, the
- 1:27spiritual aspirant needs to be able to first of all separate
- 1:31himself from the external nature of the body, life, mind, so that
- 1:36he can actually see the process at work and observe the vital
- 1:39impulses and how they act upon the mind.
- 1:43And then be prepared to act upon what he can now observe to
- 1:48ensure that a change takes place and that the focus is shifted
- 1:52away from the vital nature. To the psychic standpoint,
- 1:58Srioro Bindo writes quote. The one condition of getting rid
- 2:03of things inner obstacles is an absolute central sincerity in
- 2:08all the parts of the being, and that means an absolute
- 2:12insistence on the truth and nothing but the truth.
- 2:17There will then be a readiness for unsparing self criticism and
- 2:21vigilant openness to the light and uneasiness when falsehood
- 2:25comes in, which will finally purify the whole being.
- 2:30The defects mentioned are more or less common in various
- 2:34degrees in almost every sodic, though there are some who are
- 2:38not touched by them. They can be got rid of if the
- 2:42requisite sincerity is there, but if they occupy the central
- 2:47parts of the being and vitiate the attitude, then the sodic
- 2:51will give a constant open or covert support to them.
- 2:55His mind will always be ready to give disguises and
- 2:59justifications and try to elude the Searchlight of the self.
- 3:03Critical faculty and protests of the psychic being.
- 3:08That means of failure in the yoga, at least for this
- 3:13existence. End Quote Reference Sri
- 3:18Aurobindo and the Mother looking from Within, Chapter 5,
- 3:22Attitudes on the Path, page 120.