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The Voice of the Soul -- Distinguishing the Aspiration of the Psychic Being · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Most people have their spiritual motivation filtered through
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  their external personality. If the mind is their predominant
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  part, then it may take a mental turn.
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  If the vital, then a vital turn. If the physical, a physical turn
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  in the life Divine. Sri Robindo describes the human
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  aspiration as grounded in the seeking for God, light, freedom
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  and immortality. The pure expression of the soul,
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  the psychic being, is turned always towards the Divine.
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  We hear many voices in our inner dialogue.
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  Sometimes it is the voice of the mental being and it tries to
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  develop ideas, concepts and a logical framework in its seeking
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  for knowledge. Sometimes it is the voice of the
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  vital desire soul, which wants to acquire power, wealth, sex,
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  fame and dominion. Sometimes it is the voice of the
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  physical body, setting forth its needs, its comforts, and its
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  demands. We are habituated to hear these
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  voices and respond to them. Thus we frequently fail to heed
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  the quiet voice of the soul, which does not insist or demand,
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  but which simply aspires. We may mistake the mental or
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  vital voice for the voice of the soul when they have been
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  influenced by the psychic being, and turn at least partially
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  towards the Divine. These represent steps along the
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  way. As the wise sage often says, any
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  door which opens to the Divine should be accepted as a starting
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  point or an intermediate step along the way, until such time
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  as the soul can directly express its deepest aspirations and gain
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  the adherents and support of the external being in all its parts.
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  Sriorobindo writes quote. People mean different things
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  when they speak of the soul. Sometimes it is what I have
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  called in the Aria the desire soul, that is the vital with its
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  mixed aspirations, desires hungers of all kinds, good and
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  bad, its emotions finer and grosser, or sensational urges
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  crossed by the mind's idealizings and psychic
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  stresses. But sometimes it is also the
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  mind and vital under the stress of a psychic urge.
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  The psychic, so long as it is veiled, must express itself
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  through the mind and vital, and its aspirations are mixed and
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  coloured there by the vital and mental stuff.
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  Thus the veiled psychic urge may express itself in the mind by a
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  hunger in the thought for the knowledge of the Divine, what
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  the Europeans call the intellectual love of God in the
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  vital. It may express itself as a
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  hunger or a hankering after the Divine.
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  It can bring much suffering because of the nature of the
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  vital, its unquiet passions, desires, ardors, troubled
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  emotions, cloudings, depressions, despairs.
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  Nevertheless, all cannot approach, at least cannot at
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  once approach the Divine in the pure psychic way.
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  The mental and vital approaches are often necessary beginnings
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  and better from the spiritual point of view than
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  unsensitiveness to the Divine. It is in both cases a call of
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  the soul, the soul's urge. It only takes a form or color
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  due to the stress of the mind or vital nature and quote reference
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  Sri aurobindo and the Mother the psychic being soul, its nature,
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  mission and evolution. Section 1.
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  Meaning and Nature of the Psychic Being, pages 21 to 22.