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The Psychic Being and the Process of Rebirth Provide the Basis for a Real Purpose and Meaning in Life · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Humanity has grappled with finding a meaning and purpose to
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  life since time immemorial. We ask ourselves, why have we
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  been born? Is there a meaning to life?
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  What are we here to do? Is life simply about acquiring
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  wealth, status, power and creating offspring?
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  Is there anything else that acts as the true motive and purpose
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  of living? As long as we remain bound
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  within the confines of the body, life, mind complex, our external
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  being and personality, we cannot understand that there is any
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  higher purpose to life in the life Divine.
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  Sri Orovindo describes what he calls the materialist denial,
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  which is the essence of a fixation on the external life to
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  the exclusion of any deeper purpose.
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  The significance of our lives is intimately tied up with the
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  growth and development of the psychic being, the sole entity
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  that participates in the manifestation and survives the
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  process of birth, death and rebirth.
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  Many people challenge the idea of rebirth.
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  In his book Rebirth and Karma, Sri Aurobindo explores the
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  various objections, alternatives, and substantial
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  factual and experiential basis for the existence of rebirth and
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  its role in the evolution of the psychic being across multiple
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  incarnations. He further explores this subject
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  in various chapters of The Life Divine.
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  Essentially, the meaning of our lives is bound up with the
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  process of the soul's participation in the divine
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  manifestation, the evolutionary process of development as the
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  divine process unfolds, and the corresponding growth and
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  development of the mature psychic being as the soul
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  participates in the process across multiple lifetimes.
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  Sri Aurobindo writes quote it is necessary to understand clearly
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  the difference between the evolving soul psychic being and
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  the pure Atman self or spirit. The pure self is unborn, does
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  not pass through death or birth, is independent of birth or body,
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  mind or life, or this manifested nature.
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  It is not bound by these things, not limited, not affected, even
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  though it assumes and supports them.
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  The soul, On the contrary, is something that comes down into
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  birth and passes through death, although it does not itself die,
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  for it is immortal from one state to another, from the earth
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  plane to other planes and back again to the earth existence.
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  It goes on with this progression from life to life through an
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  evolution which leads it up to the human state and evolves
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  through it all a being of itself, which we call the
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  psychic being, that supports the evolution and develops a
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  physical, a vital, a mental human consciousness as its
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  instruments of world experience and of a disguised, imperfect
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  but growing self-expression. All this it does from behind a
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  veil, showing something of its divine self only in so far as
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  the imperfection of the instrumental being will allow
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  it. But a time comes when it is able
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  to prepare to come out from behind the veil, to take command
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  and turn all the instrumental nature towards a divine
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  fulfillment. This is the beginning of the
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  true spiritual life. The soul is able now to make
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  itself ready for a higher evolution of manifested
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  consciousness than the mental human.
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  It can pass from the mental to the spiritual and through
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  degrees of the spiritual to the supermental state.
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  Till then there is no reason why it should cease from birth.
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  It cannot in fact do so. If, having reached the spiritual
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  state, it wills to pass out of the terrestrial manifestation,
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  it may indeed do so. But there is also a possible a
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  higher manifestation in the knowledge and not in the
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  ignorance. End Quote.
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  Reference Srioro Bindu and the Mother, The psychic being, soul,
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  its nature, Mission and evolution.
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  Section 1. Meaning and Nature of the
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  Psychic Being, pages 12 to 13.