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Becoming Aware of the Soul and Its Action on Our External Being · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  We cannot see electricity, but we can see its action through
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  the effects it brings about. Many things occur which we
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  cannot identify with our senses directly, but which we can
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  interpret based on results. In a similar way, while we
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  cannot specifically identify the soul per SE, we can identify its
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  impact in our lives as it gains a stronger presence within us.
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  For the spiritual seeker, a retrospective back across the
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  life and how we reacted at various stages of life can help
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  us understand the pattern of the soul's emergence and action.
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  There may be modest indications, or there may be more significant
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  reactions. In some cases, the seeker can
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  see a change in the way he responds to other beings.
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  Many seekers describe an earlier fear and destructive impulse
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  relating to the presence of bees in their surrounding.
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  Much of this is a surface trained response, although in
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  some cases it is a result of traumatic experience of painful
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  bee stings earlier in life. As they grow in their spiritual
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  awareness, however, there is a frequent growth of appreciation
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  and understanding for bees and other beings on the planet, and
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  they gain both respect and a caring attitude towards them.
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  If the seeker looks back and compares the earlier reactions
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  of the external surface being and the present response
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  pattern, he can see that something has intervened to
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  change his mind, his vital reactions, and even his physical
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  comfort level. Other indications also occur.
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  Shifting sensibilities regarding how other people are treated,
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  what is important in one's life, and a focus on surrounding
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  oneself with people and circumstances that build
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  harmony, beauty, and goodwill in one's life are subtle signs of a
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  new influence. Some people take up a vegetarian
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  or vegan diet as their sensibilities adjust to a new
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  reality. For others, the change can be
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  more abrupt, less subtle. Some people report a serious
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  traumatic event, perhaps even a near death experience, that
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  triggers them to look at their lives and activities and
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  priorities in an entirely new one.
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  One of the more extreme conversions was reported by
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  Danny and Brinkley in his book Saved by the Light.
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  He was struck by lightning, declared clinically dead, and
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  then somehow return to life, but with an entirely new mission in
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  life. He went from being a
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  professional sniper to starting a new organization, Compassion
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  in Action CIA to support Hospice patients.
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  Many report a turn towards spirituality.
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  They undergo extreme changes in their careers, focus and
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  activities and take up yoga, meditation, mindfulness
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  practices, devotional activities, or various forms of
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  compassionate action such as feeding the hungry or healing
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  the sick in a total change from their prior life priorities,
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  Shrioravindo notes quote. As the evolution proceeds,
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  nature begins slowly and tentatively to manifest our
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  occult parts. She leads us to look more and
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  more within ourselves, or sets out to initiate more clearly
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  recognizable intimations and formations of them on the
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  surface. The soul in us, the psychic
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  principle, has already begun to take secret form.
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  It puts forward and develops a soul personality, a distinct
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  psychic being, to represent it. This psychic being remains still
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  behind the veil in our subliminal part, like the true
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  mental, the true vital, or the true or subtle physical being
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  within us. But like them, it acts on the
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  surface life by the influences and intimations it throws up
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  upon that surface. These form part of the surface
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  aggregate, which is the conglomerate effect of the inner
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  influences and upsurgings, the visible formation and
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  superstructure which we ordinarily experience and think
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  of as ourselves. On this ignorant surface we
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  become dimly aware of something that can be called a soul, as
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  distinct from mind, life, or body.
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  We find it not only as our mental idea or vague instinct of
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  ourselves, but as a sensible influence in our life and
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  character and action, a certain sensitive feeling for all that
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  is true and good and beautiful, fine and pure and noble, A
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  response to it, a demand for it, a pressure on mind and life to
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  accept and formulate it. In our thought, feelings,
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  conduct, character is the most usually recognized, the most
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  general and characteristic, though not the sole sign of this
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  influence of the psyche, of the man who has not this element in
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  him or does not respond at all to this urge.
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  We say that he has no soul. For it is this influence that we
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  can most easily recognize as a finer or even a diviner part in
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  US, and the most powerful for the slow turning towards some
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  aim at perfection in our nature. 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 2.
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  Role, function and Action of the Psychic.
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  Pages 52 to 53.