Outer Being

0.07 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
war against my whole Outer Being. And, anyway, it seems
too late now to begin at the beginning and teach myself

0.08 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
pain which welcome or repel. This makes in our Outer Being a
constant activity and noise that we are only partially aware of,

0.11 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
contradictory parts which make up the Outer Being (physical,
vital and mental).

0 1955-04-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
By continuing this daily little ant-like struggle and by having to confront the same desires, the same distractions every day, it seems to me I am wasting my energy in vain. Sri Aurobindos Yoga, which is meant to include life, is so difficult that one should come to it only after having already established the solid base of a concrete divine realization. That is why I want to ask you if I should not withdraw for a certain time, to Almora,3 for example, to Brewsters place,4 to live in solitude, silence, meditation, far away from people, work and temptations, until a beginning of Light and Realization is concretized in me. Once this solid base is acquired, it would be easier for me to resume my work and the struggle here for the true transformation of the Outer Being. But to want to transform this Outer Being without having fully illumined the inner being seems to me to be putting the cart before the horse, or at least condemning myself to a pitiless and endless battle in which the best of my forces are fruitlessly consumed.
In all sincerity, I must say that when I was at Brewsters place in Almora, I felt very near to that state in which the Light must surge forth. I quite understand the imperfection of this process, which involves fleeing from difficulties, but this would only be a stage, a strategic retreat, as it were.

0 1956-05-02, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But for this only like can know like. Only the Supramental Consciousness in an individual can perceive the Supramental acting in the earth atmosphere. Those who, for whatever reason, have developed this perception can see it. But those who are not even remotely conscious of their inner beings, who would be quite at a loss to say what their souls look like, are certainly not ready to perceive the difference in the earth atmosphere. They still have quite a way to go for that. Because, for those whose consciousness is more or less exclusively centered in the Outer Beingmental, vital and physicalthings need to have an absurd or unexpected appearance to be noticeable. And then they call it a miracle.
But we do not call a miracle the constant miracle of the forces that intervene to change circumstances and human natures and which have very far-reaching consequences, for we see only the appearance, and this appearance seems quite natural. But in truth, if you were to reflect upon the least thing that happens, you would be forced to acknowledge that it is miraculous.

0 1958-10-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
On the one hand, there is what Sri Aurobindowho, as the Avatar, represented the supreme Consciousness and Will on earthdeclared me to be, that is, the supreme universal Mother; and on the other hand, there is what I am realizing in my body through the integral sadhana.2 I could be the supreme Mother and not do any sadhana, and as a matter of fact, as long as Sri Aurobindo was in his body, it was he who did the sadhana, and I received the effects. These effects were automatically established in the Outer Being, but he was the one doing it, not II was merely the bridge between his sadhana and the world. Only when he left his body was I forced to take up the sadhana myself; not only did I have to do what I was doing beforebeing a bridge between his sadhana and the world but I had to carry on the sadhana myself. When he left, he turned over to me the responsibility for what he himself had been doing in his body, and I had to do it. So there are both these things. Sometimes one predominates, sometimes the other (I dont mean successively in time, but it depends on the moment), and they are trying to combine in a total and perfect realization: the eternal, ineffable and immutable Consciousness of the Executrice of the Supreme, and the consciousness of the Sadhak of the integral Yoga who strives in an ascending effort towards an ever increasing progression.
To this has been added a growing initiation into the supramental realization which is (I understand it well now) the perfect union of what comes from above and what comes from below, or in other words, the eternal position and the evolutionary realization.

0 1958-10-25 - to go out of your body, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I had a Danish friend, an artist, to whom this happened. He wanted me to teach him how to go out of his body. He had interesting dreams so he thought it might be worthwhile to go there consciously. I helped him to go out but it was frightful! When he dreamed, a part of his mind indeed remained conscious, active, and a kind of link remained between this active part and his Outer Being, so he remembered some of his dreams, but it was only a very partial phenomenon. To go out of your body means that you must gradually pass through ALL the states of being, if you are to do it systematically. But already in the subtle physical it was almost non-individualized, and as soon as he went a bit further, there was no longer anything! It was unformed, nonexistent.
So they sit down (they are told to interiorize, to go within themselves), and they panic!Naturally they feel that they that they are disappearing: there is nothing! There is no consciousness!

0 1960-09-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But when I did that, I saw what X wanted to do for me. As a matter of fact, I recalled that when we first met I had told him that everything was all right up to this point (Mother indicates the region above the head), but below that, in the Outer Being, I wanted to hasten the transformation, and things there were difficult to handle.
When Sri Aurobindo was here, I never bothered about all this; I was constantly up above and I did what the Gita and the traditional writings advise I left it to Natures care. In fact I left it to Sri Aurobindos care. He is making the best use of it, I would say. He will manage it, he will do with it what he wants. And I was constantly up above. And from up there I worked, leaving the instrument as it was because I knew that he would see to it.
Actually, it was very different at that time because I was not even aware of any resistance or any difficulty in the Outer Being; it was automatic, the work was done automatically. Later on, when I had to do both thingswhat he had been doing as well as what I was doingit became rather complicated and I realized there were many what we could call gapsthings which had to be worked out, transformed, set right before the total work could be done without hindrance. So then I began. And several times I thought how unfortunate it was that I had never studied or pursued certain ancient Indian disciplines. Because, for example, when Sri Aurobindo and I were working to bring down the supramental forces, a descent from the mental plane to the vital plane, he was always telling me that everything I did (when we meditated together, when we worked)all my movements, all my gestures, all my postures, all my reactionswas absolutely tantric, as if I had pursued a tantric discipline. But it was spontaneous, it did not correspond to any knowledge, any idea, any will, nothing, and I thought it was like that simply because, as He knew, naturally I followed.
Later on, when Sri Aurobindo left his body, I said to myself, If only I knew what he had known, it would be easier! So when Swami and later X came, I thought, I am going to take advantage of this opportunity. I had written to Swami that I was working on transforming the cells of the body and that I had noticed the work was going faster with Xs influence. So it was understood that X would help when he came thats how things began, and this idea has remained with X. But I have raced on I dont wait. Ive raced on, Ive gone like wildfire. And now the situation is reversed. What I wanted to find out, I found out. I experienced what I wanted to experience, but he is still He is very kind, actually, he wants really to help me. So, when I identified with him the other day during our meditation, I realized that he wanted to give silence, control and perfect peace to the physical mind. My own trick, if you will, is to have as little relationship with the physical mind as possible, to go up above and stay therethis (Mother indicates her forehead), silent, motionless, turned upwards, while That (gesture above the head) sees, acts, knows, decidesall is done from there. Only there can you feel at ease.

0 1961-12-20, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Well, I saw him. I experienced what were at once symbolic visions and spiritual FACTS: absolutely decisive spiritual experiences and facts of meeting and having a united perception of the Work to be accomplished. And in these visions I did something I had never done physically: I prostrated before him in the Hindu manner. All this without any comprehension in the little brain (I mean I really didnt know what I was doing or how I was doing itnothing at all). I did it, and at the same time the Outer Being was asking, What is all this?!
I wrote the vision down (or perhaps that was later on) but I never spoke of it to anyone (one doesnt talk about such things, naturally). But my impression was that it was premonitory, that one day something like it would happen. And it remained in the background of the consciousness, not active, but constantly present.

0 1966-01-26, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The trouble is that the Outer Being finds it hard to forget its habit of regarding material things as true, real, concrete: This is concrete, you touch it, see it, feel it.
Its beginning to come.

0 1966-06-25, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I was awake, taking my walkmy japa-walk. You came and spoke to me, you even asked me (laughing), Did you see Sri Aurobindo this night? So I told you all kinds of things, but I also told you, No, I wont have anything left to tell you this morning! And here I am, telling you everything. Nothing sensational last night. It was a night of great rest. So thats what I can tell you, thats all. But it was amusing, and I said, Oh, you are so conscious you come and talk to me! But then you werent conscious! Which means that this [Satprems Outer Being] isnt conscious, but the other was: you came and talked to me.
Im not conscious at all.

0 1967-12-06, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Total means VERTICALLY in all the states of being from the most material to the most subtle. Integral means HORIZONTALLY in all the various and often contradictory parts that make up the Outer Being (physical, vital and mental).
***

0 1973-03-14, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I will tell you my old mantra. It keeps the Outer Being very tranquil: OM, Namo, Bhagavateh. Three words.
To me they meant:

0 1973-03-17, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So I ask myself, What? And externally I see but one solution: externally I repeat OM Namo Bhagavateh. Constantly thats for the Outer Being. And inside (gesture, hands open in immobile contemplation)
(silence)

02.01 - Metaphysical Thought and the Supreme Truth, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is the spiritual way, the road that leads beyond the intellectual levels, the passage from the Outer Being to the inmost Self, which has been lost by the over-intellectuality of the mind of Europe.
In the extracts you have sent me from Bradley and Joachim, it is still the intellect thinking about what is beyond itself and coming to an intellectual, a reasoned speculative conclusion about it. It is not dynamic for the change which it attempts to describe. If these writers were expressing in mental terms some realisation, even mental, some intuitive experience of this "Other than Thought", then one ready for it might feel it through the veil of the language they use and himself draw near to the same experience. Or if, having reached the intellectual conclusion, they had passed on to the spiritual realisation, finding the way or following one already found, then in pursuing their thought, one might be preparing oneself for the same transition. But there is nothing of the kind in all this strenuous thinking. It remains in the domain of the intellect and in that domain it is no doubt admirable; but it does not become dynamic for spiritual experience.

02.02 - The Kingdom of Subtle Matter, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This little Outer Being's vast support
Parted from vision by earth's solid fence,

03.03 - The Inner Being and the Outer Being, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
object:03.03 - The Inner Being and the Outer Being
class:chapter
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The Outer Being is a means of expression only, not one's self. One must not identify with it, for what it expresses is a personality formed by the old ignorant Nature. If not identified, one can change it so as to express the true inner personality of the Light.
The individual is not limited to the physical body - it is only the external consciousness which feels like that. As soon as one gets over this feeling of limitation, one can feel first the inner consciousness which is connected with the body but does not belong to it, afterwards the planes of consciousness above the body - also a consciousness surrounding the body, but part of oneself, part of the individual being, through which one is in contact with the cosmic forces and with other beings. This last is what I have called the environmental consciousness.

07.26 - Offering and Surrender, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In the beginning you make a general surrender or submission, in principle, as it were: it is in your inner being. It must be brought forth gradually in the Outer Being, carried out in all the details of life. That is how difficulties arise. You have made your offering, you say, even you have worked at it for a long time, worked hard, given much time and much will; suddenly you find, upsetting your calculations, something different happening, you have not succeeded in something. So there is a revolt, a turning back and so on. But what you have to do is to renew your offering, reaffirm your adhesion. When the adhesion is complete, when there is the spontaneous acceptance of the Divine Will in everything, in every manner of happening, then comes the surrender, the perfect obedience which is calm, tranquil, at peace in either case, whether things happen in this way or that.
You ask if you cannot make a mistake unwittingly, do a wrong even if you do not want to. It is not likely. If you are sincere to the core, you are always conscious and you cannot be taken unawares. It is some form or degree of insincerity that veils your sense of right and wrong, makes you unconscious, as it were. Your discrimination is clouded, because you wish things to happen in a way, or do not wish them to happen in another way. On the other hand, if you are straight, if you are indifferent to either way and await only the Divine's will, you will always immediately perceive if there is or likely to be a wrong movement in you; you know it intimately in a very precise manner, for you are ready to rectify it.

10.03 - Life in and Through Death, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The injunction is: you must die to the world if you want the life Eternal. Even so you must die to yourself if you want the Divine. The existing life which your ego has built up is a life of ignorance, misery and decadence. Death is indeed the natural and inevitable consequence; but this is a death in ignorance and bondage, it does not lead you to liberation and freedom. The dying that liberates is a conscious, deliberate movement of intelligence and will; dying to the world means withdrawing yourself from the world and turning within. Dying to yourself means withdrawing from your egohood and turning to the self, the being that is beyond. This withdrawal is to be done constantly and consistently in all the parts of the being. The mind is to move away from its thoughts, the vital from its desires and impulses and the body from its hunger and thirst. The first result of this withdrawal is a division of the being, an inner passive part and an outer active part. The inner part becomes gradually a mere witness and the outer part a mere mechanical functioning. When the withdrawal is so complete that the Outer Being or the world has no effect upon the inner, does not raise any ripple in it by its touch or contiguity then is accomplished the real death. Then it is said the outer existence, the material life does not continue long, it comes sooner or later to a dead stop. Thus the inner being is liberated completely and is freed into the life beyond, the Divine Existence, the Brahman. It is said that when each and every seed of the various elements that compose the being, that sprouts into the luxuriant tree of material life, when each and every seed is burnt up by the heat of mounting 'tapas', the force of aspiring consciousness, then there is no more chance or possibility of an ignorant earthly life, one is then naturally born into the Life of the Eternal. That is the final, the supreme death which is laya or pralaya.
To live away from life and consequently away from death is one thing, comparatively easy; but to live in life and consequently in death is another thing, somewhat more difficult. To withdraw oneself from the field of death and retire in the immutability beyond or some form of it is what was attempted in the ancient days. But there has been side by side always a growing tendency in man to stay here in this vale of tears under the shadow of death, to live dangerously and face the Evil and conquer it here itself; for death is not a mere negation an annihilation of the reality, it is only a mask put over the reality or is its obverse. Tear off or remove the disguise, you will see the smiling radiant Godhead behind.

1.04 - The Silent Mind, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
by a rapid intervention or manifestation of Silence with an effect out of all proportion to the means used at the beginning. One commences with a method, but the work it taken up by a Grace from above, from That to which one aspires or an irruption of the infinitudes of the Spirit. It was in this last way that I myself came by the mind's absolute silence, unimaginable to me before I had its actual experience. 31 This is a most important point indeed. For we might think that these yogic experiences are all very nice and interesting, but that they are far beyond our ordinary human grasp; how could we, such as we are, ever get there? Our mistake is in judging with our present self possibilities that belong to another self. By the simple fact of setting out on the path, the yoga automatically awakens a whole range of latent faculties and invisible forces that far exceed the possibilities of our Outer Being and can do for us things that we are normally incapable of doing: One had to have the passage clear between the outer mind and something in the inner being . . . for they (the Yogic consciousness and its powers) are already there within you,32 and the best way of "clearing"
the passage is to silence the mind. We do not know who we are, and still less what we are capable of.

1.06 - On Thought, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It seems to me that we must first of all distinguish two very different kinds, or I might say qualities, of thought: thoughts in us which are the result, the fruit, as it were, of our sensations, and thoughts which, like living beings, come to usfrom where? most often we do not knowthoughts that we perceive mentally before they express themselves in our Outer Being as sensations.
If you have observed yourselves even a little, you must have noticed that the contact with what is not yourselves is established first of all through the medium of your senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, etc. The impact felt in this way, whether slight or violent, pleasant or unpleasant, arouses a feeling in youlike or dislike, attraction or repulsionwhich very quickly turns into an idea, an opinion you form about the object, whatever it may be, that has determined the contact.
--
I have just said that we always look upon ourselves with great indulgence, and I think in fact that our defects very often appear to us to be full of charm and that we justify all our weaknesses. But to tell the truth, this is because we lack self-confidence. Does this surprise you?.. Yes, I repeat, we lack confidence, not in what we are at the present moment, not in our ephemeral and ever-changing Outer Beingthis being always finds favour in our eyes but we lack confidence in what we can become through effort, we have no faith in the integral and profound transformation which will be the work of our true self, of the eternal, the divine who is in all beings, if we surrender like children to its supremely luminous and far-seeing guidance.
So let us not confuse complacency with confidence and let us return to our subject.

1.06 - The Four Powers of the Mother, #The Mother With Letters On The Mother, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
14:If you desire this transformation, put yourself in the hands of the Mother and her Powers without cavil or resistance and let her do unhindered her work within you. Three things you must have, consciousness, plasticity, unreserved surrender. For you must be conscious in your mind and soul and heart and life and the very cells of your body, aware of the Mother and her Powers and their working; for although she can and does work in you even in your obscurity and your unconscious parts and moments, it is not the same thing as when you are in an awakened and living communion with her. All your nature must be plastic to her touch, - not questioning as the self-sufficient ignorant mind questions and doubts and disputes and is the enemy of its enlightenment and change; not insisting on its own movements as the vital in man insists and persistently opposes its refractory desires and ill-will to every divine influence; not obstructing and entrenched in incapacity, inertia and tamas as man's physical consciousness obstructs and clinging to its pleasure in smallness and darkness cries out against each touch that disturbs its soulless routine or its dull sloth or its torpid slumber. The unreserved surrender of your inner and Outer Being will bring this plasticity into all the parts of your nature; consciousness will awaken everywhere in you by constant openness to the Wisdom and Light, the Force, the Harmony and Beauty, the Perfection that come flowing down from above. Even the body will awake and unite at last its consciousness subliminal no longer to the supramental superconscious Force, feel all her powers permeating from above and below and around it and thrill to a supreme Love and Ananda.
15:But be on your guard and do not try to understand and judge the Divine Mother by your little earthly mind that loves to subject even the things that are beyond it to its own norms and standards, its narrow reasonings and erring impressions, its bottomless aggressive ignorance and its petty self-confident knowledge. The human mind shut in the prison of its half-lit obscurity cannot follow the many-sided freedom of the steps of the Divine Shakti. The rapidity and complexity of her vision and action outrun its stumbling comprehension; the measures of her movement are not its measures. Bewildered by the swift alternation of her many different personalities, her making of rhythms and her breaking of rhythms, her accelerations of speed and her retardations, her varied ways of dealing with the problem of one and of another, her taking up and dropping now of this line and now of that one and her gathering of them together, it will not recognise the way of the Supreme Power when it is circling and sweeping upwards through the maze of the Ignorance to a supernal Light. Open rather your soul to her and be content to feel her with the psychic nature and see her with the psychic vision that alone make a straight response to the Truth. Then the Mother herself will enlighten by their psychic elements your mind and heart and life and physical consciousness and reveal to them too her ways and her nature.

1.1.02 - Sachchidananda, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
concealed in things so that it has to emerge out of an apparent unconsciousness and organise itself in individual life. But this is only on the surface which is all of which we are aware because we live on the surface of ourselves. This surface (the ordinary waking mind of man) is what we think to be ourselves, the whole of us, because living awake on the surface we are conscious of that only. But within, with a sort of wall of obscurity or oblivion between it and the Outer Being, there is an inner being, an inner mind, vital, physical and an inmost or psychic being of which we are not aware. We are only aware of what comes up from there to the surface and do not know its source or how it comes. By Yoga the wall is slowly broken down and we become aware of this inner and inmost being - by doing so we build up a new, a Yogic, consciousness which is able to communicate direct with the universal consciousness around and the higher spiritual above.
As the individual has a consciousness of his own, so too there is a universal consciousness, a cosmic Being, a universal

1.12 - God Departs, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
"When I had an interview with the Mother after December 5, I asked her what she had whispered to Sri Aurobindo. She replied, 'I told him, Amal is coming.' I inquired why she had to give the information. Her answer was, 'Sri Aurobindo's eyes had gone very bad. He could not see people clearly. Of course he could contact the consciousness of whoever was before him but could not recognise the Outer Being and form. The moment he heard me, he began to smile.'
"From these words I realise that the Grace was as much the Mother's as Sri Aurobindo's. For it was through the one that the other had come."

1.12 - Sleep and Dreams, #Words Of The Mother III, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sleep is the school one must pass through if one knows how to learn ones lesson there, so that the inner being may become independent of the physical form, conscious in its own right and master of its own life. There are entire parts of the being that need this immobility and semi-consciousness of the Outer Being, of the body, in order to be able to lead their own life independently.
It is another school for another result, but it is still a school.

1.2.01 - The Call and the Capacity, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Jagannath are both of them indications that he has the capacity for Yoga experience and that there is a call of the Divine on his inner being. But capacity is not enough; there must be also the will to seek after the Divine and courage and persistence in following the path. Fear is the first thing that must be thrown away and, secondly, the inertia of the Outer Being which has prevented him from responding to the call.
The Light is the light of the Divine Consciousness. The aim of this Yoga is first to come into contact with this consciousness and then to live in its light and allow the light to transform the whole nature, so that the being may live in union with the

1.3.04 - Peace, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The peace starts in the inner being - it is spiritual and psychic but it overflows the Outer Being - when it is there in the activity, it means either that the ordinary restless mind, vital, physical has been submerged by the flood of the inner peace or, at a more advanced stage, that they have been partially or wholly changed into thoughts, forces, emotions, sensations which have in their very stuff an essence of inner silence and peace.
If peace becomes permanent in the inner being, then the subnature becomes an external and superficial thing - one part of the consciousness is then free; unmoved by anything that happens, it regards the surface turmoil as something not belonging to itself. If the peace extends in the same way into the external parts also, then the whole being becomes free and the inferior nature is felt only as something moving about in the atmosphere, trying to enter but unable to do so. But this of course happens

1913 10 07p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This return after an absence of three months to the house which is consecrated to Thee, O Lord, has been the occasion of two experiences. The first is that in my Outer Being, my surface consciousness, I no longer have the least feeling of being in my own home and the owner of anything there: I am a stranger in a strange land, much more of a stranger here than in the open countryside among the trees; and I smile, now that I have learnt what l did not know, I smile at the idea of having felt myself mistress of the house, an idea I had before my departure; it was necessary for all pride to be broken, crushed, trampled down definitively so that I could at last understand, see and feel things as they are. I used to offer to Thee this dwelling, O Lord, as though it were possible that l should possess something and consequently be able to make an offering of it to Thee. All is Thine, O Lord, it is Thou who placest all things at our disposal; but how blind we are when we imagine that we can be owners of any one of these! I am a visitor here as elsewhere, as everywhere, Thy messenger and Thy servant upon earth, a stranger among men, and yet the very soul of their life, the love of their heart.
Secondly, the whole atmosphere of the house is charged with a religious solemnity; one immediately goes down into the depths; the meditations here are more in-gathered and serious; dispersion vanishes to give place to concentration; and I feel this concentration literally descending from my head and entering into my heart; and the heart seems to attain a depth more profound than the head. It is as though for three months I had been loving with my head and that now I were beginning to love with my heart; and this brings me an incomparable solemnity and sweetness of feeling.

1914 04 20p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
After having hoped so much, after having believed that my Outer Being was at last to become an instrument adapted to Thy purpose, after feeling hopeful that I would at last be delivered from this obscure and cumbersome self, I feel I am as far from the goal as before, as ignorant, as egoistic as I was before this great expectation. And the path stretches out once again, interminable across the fields of inconscience. The sublime door has closed again and I find myself still on the threshold of the sanctuary without being able to enter within. But I have learnt to look at everything with a smile and a tranquil heart. I ask only this of Thee, O my divine Master, not to let me make any mistakes; even if the instrument is still condemned for a time to unconsciousness, grant that it may let itself be guided faithfully and docilely by Thy divine law.
I bow to Thee, O Lord, with a deep and pure devotion. Oh! Be the sovereign Master of all hearts.

1914 05 26p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
On the surface is the storm, the sea is in turmoil, waves clash and leap one on another and break with a mighty uproar. But all the time, under this water in fury, are vast smiling expanses, peaceful and motionless. They look upon the surface agitation as an indispensable act; for matter has to be vigorously churned if it is to become capable of manifesting entirely the divine light. Behind the troubled appearance, behind the struggle and anguish of the conflict, the consciousness remains firm at its post; observing all the movements of the Outer Being, it intervenes only to rectify direction and position, so as not to allow the play to become too dramatic. This intervention is now firm and a little severe, now ironical, a call to order or a mockery, full always of a strong, gentle, peaceful and smiling benevolence.
In the silence I beheld Thy infinite and eternal Beatitude.

1916 12 30p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I feel, I see my soul living deep within my being, and my soul sees Thee, recognises Thee and loves Thee in all things, in everything that is; it is fully conscious of this, and as the Outer Being is surrendered to it, it too is conscious; the mind knows and never forgets; the purified vital being no longer has any attractions and repulsions, and more and more does it taste of the joy of Thy Presence in all things and always. But the heart seems to have fallen asleep in a slumber of exhaustion, and the soul no longer finds sufficient activity within it to respond fully to its impulsion. Why? Was it so poor that the struggle could thus wear it out, or so deeply wounded that it has become quite stiff? And yet it would like to answer the inner call; it wants this with a faith and ardour which have never wavered; but it is like an old man smiling benevolently at the games of youth but unable to take part in them. And yet it is full of joy and confidence, it overflows with gratitude for all the treasures of affection which Nature has so generously lavished upon it; it would like, in exchange for these precious gifts, to pour out in inexhaustible streams the golden wine of tenderness which restores and fortifies, enlivens and consoles, the true wine of life for human beings. It would like to and tries but how poor is what it does beside what it dreams of doing, how mediocre what it is able to do beside what it hopes, for it hopes always. It knows that Thy call is never heard in vain, and it has no doubt it can one day realise the splendours of which Thou hast given it a glimpse.
Who will open these closed flood-gates?

1929-04-14 - Dangers of Yoga - Two paths, tapasya and surrender - Impulses, desires and Yoga - Difficulties - Unification around the psychic being - Ambition, undoing of many Yogis - Powers, misuse and right use of - How to recognise the Divine Will - Accept things that come from Divine - Vital devotion - Need of strong body and nerves - Inner being, invariable, #Questions And Answers 1929-1931, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the depths of your consciousness is the psychic being, the temple of the Divine within you. This is the centre round which should come about the unification of all these divergent parts, all these contradictory movements of your being. Once you have got the consciousness of the psychic being and its aspiration, these doubts and difficulties can be destroyed. It takes more or less time, but you will surely succeed in the end. Once you have turned to the Divine, saying, I want to be yours, and the Divine has said, Yes, the whole world cannot keep you from it. When the central being has made its surrender, the chief difficulty has disappeared. The Outer Being is like a crust. In ordinary people the crust is so hard and thick that they are not conscious of the Divine within them. If once, even for a moment only, the inner being has said, I am here and I am yours, then it is as though a bridge has been built and little by little the crust becomes thinner and thinner until the two parts are wholly joined and the inner and the outer become one.
Ambition has been the undoing of many Yogis. That canker can hide long. Many people start on the Path without any sense of it. But when they get powers, their ambition rises up, all the more violently because it had not been thrown out in the beginning.

1929-06-16 - Illness and Yoga - Subtle body (nervous envelope) - Fear and illness, #Questions And Answers 1929-1931, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the ordinary life of man a progressive dislocation is the rule. The mental and the vital beings of man follow as best they can the movement of the universal forces, and the stream of the worlds inner transformation and evolution carries them a certain way; but the body bound to the law of the most material nature, moves very slowly. After some years, seventy or eighty, a hundred or two hundred, and that is perhaps the maximum, thedislocation is so serious that the Outer Being falls to pieces. The divergence between the demand and the answer, the increasing inability and irresponsiveness of the body, brings about the phenomenon of death. By Yoga the inner transformation that is in slow constant process in the creation is rendered more intense and rapid, but the pace of the outer transformation remains almost the same as in ordinary life. As a result, the disharmony between the inner and the Outer Being in one who is doing Yoga tends to be all the greater, unless precautions are taken and a protection secured that will help the body to follow the inner march as closely as possible. Even then it is the very nature of the body to hold you back. It is for this reason that to many we are obliged to say, Do not pull, do not hurry; you must give your body time to follow. Some have to be kept back even for years and not allowed to do much or progress far. Sometimes, to avoid the disequilibrium becomes impossible; and then you have a disturbance which varies according to the nature of the resistance and the measure of the care you have taken or your negligence. This too is the reason why each time that there is a strong movement of progress, it is almost invariably followed by a period of immobility, which seems to those who are not warned a spell of dullness and stagnation and discouragement in which all progress is stopped, and they think anxiously, What is the matter? Am I losing time? Nothing is being done. But the truth is that it is the time needed for assimilation; a pause is made for the body to open itself more and become receptive and approach nearer to the level attained by the inner consciousness. The parents have been walking too far ahead; they must halt so that the child left behind may run up and catch them by the hand; only then can they start again on the journey together.
Each spot of the body is symbolical of an inner movement; there is there a world of subtle correspondences. But this is a long and complex subject and we cannot enter into its details just now. The particular place in the body affected by an illness is an index to the nature of the inner disharmony that has taken place. It points to the origin, it is a sign of the cause of the ailment. It reveals too the nature of the resistance that prevents the whole being from advancing at the same high speed. It indicates the treatment and the cure. If one could perfectly understand where the mistake is, find out what has been unreceptive, open that part and put the force and the light there, it would be possible to re-establish in a moment the harmony that has been disturbed and the illness would immediately go.

1951-02-08 - Unifying the being - ideas of good and bad - Miracles - determinism - Supreme Will - Distinguishing the voice of the Divine, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The Outer Being is like a crust. In ordinary people the crust is so hard and thick that they are not conscious of the Divine within them. If once, even for a moment only, the inner being has said, I am here and I am yours, then it is as though a bridge has been built and little by little the crust becomes thinner and thinner until the two parts are wholly joined and the inner and the outer become one.
Questions and Answers 1929 (14 April)

1951-03-05 - Disasters- the forces of Nature - Story of the charity Bazar - Liberation and law - Dealing with the mind and vital- methods, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But you must take great care to apply at each stage, as perfectly as possible, what you have gained or learnt. If you remain in an indrawn state of consciousness and do not apply materially the inner progress, a time will certainly come when you will not be able to move at all, for your Outer Being, unchanged, will be like a fetter pulling you back and hindering you from advancing. So, the most important point (what everybody says but only a few do) is to put into practice what you know. With that you have a good chance of succeeding, and with perseverance you will certainly get there.
You must never get discouraged when you find yourself before a wall, never say, Oh! What shall I do? It is still there. In this way the difficulty will still be there and still there and still there, till the very end. It is only when you reach the goal that everything will suddenly crumble down.

1951-04-02 - Causes of accidents - Little entities, helpful or mischievous- incidents, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You have said: By Yoga the inner transformation that is in slow constant process in the creation is rendered more intense and rapid, but the pace of the outer transformation remains almost the same as in ordinary life. As a result, the disharmony between the inner and the Outer Being in one who is doing Yoga tends to be all the greater, unless precautions are taken.
Questions and Answers 1929 (16 June)

1951-04-28 - Personal effort - tamas, laziness - Static and dynamic power - Stupidity - psychic and intelligence - Philosophies- different languages - Theories of Creation - Surrender of ones being and ones work, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is one part of the being which is not at all conscious of being a part of the Divine. The whole of the Outer Being is convinced that it is something separate, independent and related only to itself. This part of the being must necessarily make a personal effort. It cant be told, The Divine does the sadhana for you, for it would never do anything, it would never be changed. When one speaks with somebody, one should use his language,1 shouldnt one?
What is physical tamas?
--
At the time of publication of this talk, Mother made the following remark: "This is not true. This is not true for it is too categorical. One must not use the language of the Outer Being, for its language is altogether false, but things must be said in a form in which it can understand them that is different. But to say things exactly takes a very long time; that is why Sri Aurobindo always used long sentences and what appeared to be long explanations. These are not explanations: they are meant for saying the thing with precision."
Sri Aurobindo, The Mother, p. 7.

1951-05-05 - Needs and desires - Discernment - sincerity and true perception - Mantra and its effects - Object in action- to serve - relying only on the Divine, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
One does not have the discernment because one does not care to have it! Listen, I dont think there is a single instance in which one does not find within oneself something very clear, but you must sincerely want to knowwe always come back to the same thingyou must sincerely want it. The first condition is not to begin thinking about the subject and building all sorts of ideas: opposing ideas, possibilities, and entering into a formidable mental activity. First of all, you must put the problem as though you were putting it to someone else, then keep silent, remain like that, immobile. And then, after a little while you will see that at least three different things may happen, sometimes more. Take the case of an intellectual, one who acts in accordance with the indications of his head. He has put the problem and he waits. Well, if he is indeed attentive, he will notice that there is (the chronological order is not absolute, it may come in a different order) at first (what is most prominent in an intellectual) a certain idea: If I do that in this way, it will be all right; it must be like that, that is to say, a mental construction. A second thing which is a kind of impulse: That will have to be done. That is good, it must be done. Then a third which does not make any noise at all, does not try to impose itself on the others, but has the tranquillity of a certitudenot very active, not giving a shock, not pushing to action, but something that knows and is very quiet, very still. This will not contradict the others, will not come and say, No, thats wrong; it says simply, See, it is like this, thats all, and then it does not insist. The majority of men are not silent enough or attentive enough to be aware of it, for it makes no noise. But I assure you it is there in everybody and if one is truly sincere and succeeds in being truly quiet, one will become aware of it. The thinking part begins to argue, But after all, this thing will have this consequence and that thing will have that consequence, and if one does this and this, and that and its noise begins again. The other (the vital) will say, Yes, it must be done like that, it must be done, you dont understand, it must, it is indispensable. There! Then you will know. And according to your nature you will choose either the vital impulse or the mental leading, but very seldom do you say quite calmly, Good, it is this I am going to do, whatever happens, and even if you dont like it very much. But it is always there. I am sure that it is there even in the murderer before he kills, you understand, but his Outer Being makes such a lot of noise that it never even occurs to him to listen. But it is always there, always there. In every circumstance, there is in the depth of every being, just this little (one cant call it voice, for it makes no sound) this little indication of the divine Grace, and sometimes to obey it requires a tremendous effort, for all the rest of the being opposes it violently, one part with the conviction that what it thinks is true, another with all the power, the strength of its desire. But dont tell me that one cant know, for that is not true. One can know. But one does not always know what is necessary, and sometimes, if one knows what is to be done, well, one finds some excuse or other for not doing it. One tells oneself, Oh! I am not so sure, after all, of this inner indication; it does not assert itself with sufficient force for me to trust it. But if you were quite indifferent, that is, if you had no desire, either mental or vital or physical desire, you would know with certainty that it is that which must be done and nothing else. What comes and gets in the way is preferencepreferences and desires. Every day one may have hundreds and hundreds of examples. When people begin to say, Truly I dont know what to do, it always means that they have a preference. But as here in the Ashram they know there is something else and as at times they have been a little attentive, they have a vague sensation that it is not quite that: It is not quite that, I dont feel quite at ease. Besides, you were saying a while ago that it is the result which gives you the indication; it has even been said (it has been written in books) that one judges the divine Will by the results! All that succeeds has been willed by the Divine; all that doesnt, well, He has not willed it! This is yet again one of those stupidities big as a mountain. It is a mental simplification of the problem, which is quite comic. Thats not it. If one can have an indication (in proportion to ones sincerity), it is uneasiness, a little uneasinessnot a great uneasiness, just a little uneasiness.
Here, you know, you have another means, quite simple (I dont know why you do not use it, because it is quite elementary); you imagine I am in front of you and then ask yourself, Would I do this before Mother, without difficulty, without any effort, without something holding me back? That will never deceive you. If you are sincere you will know immediately. That would stop many people on the verge of folly.

1953-12-16, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh! the truth of our existencenot just the Truth. The truth of the being, that is, the central raison detre of an existence. It is that, indeed, which organises circumstances so that the truth of the being may be expressed or the superficial Outer Being be led to turn round within notfind any support outside, for instance, and turn within to have a support; it finds the psychic support.
The body has a wonderful capacity of adaptation and endurance. It is fit to do so many more things than one can usually imagine. If instead of the ignorant and despotic masters that govern it, it is ruled by the central truth of the being, one will be surprised at what it is capable of doing. Calm and quiet, strong and poised, it will at every minute put forth the effort that is demanded of it, for it will have learnt to find rest in action, to recuperate through contact with the universal forces the energies it spends consciously and use-fully.

1954-12-15 - Many witnesses inside oneself - Children in the Ashram - Trance and the waking consciousness - Ascetic methods - Education, spontaneous effort - Spiritual experience, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And naturally! Because if in order to have a meditation or a relation with the inner world, you are obliged to enter into samadhi, your waking consciousness always remain what it is, without ever changing. That's what I said in other words, you see, when I said that people have a higher consciousness only in very deep meditation. When they come out of their meditation they are no better than they were before. All their defects are there which come back as soon as they come back into their waking consciousness; and they never make any progress because they do not establish a relation between their deeper consciousness, the truth of their being, and their Outer Being. You see, they take off their Outer Being as though they were taking off a cloak, and they put it in a corner: "Come now, don't trouble me, keep quiet. You are a nuisance." And then they enter into contemplation, their meditation, into their deep experience; and then they come back, put on the cloak which of course has not changed-which perhaps is dirtier still than before-and they remain exactly as they were without any meditation.
If you want the Outer Being to change, it is while remaining conscious of it that you should have the other experiences; and you must not lose contact with your ordinary outer consciousness if you want it to profit by the experience. There are many people... I knew people like that, who used to meditate for hours, almost all the time... they spent their time meditating, and then if by chance... if someone disturbed them in their meditation, if they had to do something, they flew into a rage, a fury, they abused everybody, they became more intolerable than if they had never meditated, than any ordinary person. This happened because they neglected making their Outer Being participate in their deeper life. They cut themselves into two, so there is a portion inside which progresses and a portion outside which becomes worse and worse, because it is completely neglected.
Mother, for self-mastery are not the ascetic methods useful sometimes?

1955-02-09 - Desire is contagious - Primitive form of love - the artists delight - Psychic need, mind as an instrument - How the psychic being expresses itself - Distinguishing the parts of ones being - The psychic guides - Illness - Mothers vision, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is only one way for the Outer Being. Let us take the physical being the physical being, the poor little physical being, the Outer Being, which knows nothing, can do nothing by itself. Well, for it there is only one way of allowing the psychic being to manifest: with the candid warmth of a child (Mother speaks very softly) to aspire, pray, ask, want with all its strength, without reasoning or trying to understand. One cant imagine how great an obstruction reasoning and this effort to understand put in the experience. At the moment when you are on the point of reaching a state in which something will happen, some vibration will be changed in the consciousness of the being you are all tense in an aspiration and have succeeded in fastening your aspiration, and you are standing there awaiting the answer, if this wretched mind begins to stir and to wonder, What is happening, and whats going to happen, when is it going to happen, how is it going to happen, and why is it like that, and in what order will things manifest? it is all over, you may get up and sweep out your room, you are not fit for anything else.
Sweet Mother, can the psychic express itself without the mind, the vital and the physical?

1955-03-02 - Right spirit, aspiration and desire - Sleep and yogic repose, how to sleep - Remembering dreams - Concentration and outer activity - Mother opens the door inside everyone - Sleep, a school for inner knowledge - Source of energy, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sleep can be a very active means of concentration and inner knowledge. Sleep is the school one has to go through, if one knows how to learn his lesson there, so that the inner being may be independent of the physical form, conscious in itself and master of its own life. There are entire parts of the being which need this immobility and semi-consciousness of the Outer Being, of the body, in order to be able to live their own life, independently.
Only, people dont know, they sleep because they sleep, as they eat, as they liveby a kind of instinct, a semi-conscious impulse. They dont even ask themselves the question. You are asking the question now: Why does one sleep? But there are millions and millions of beings who sleep without ever having asked themselves the question why one sleeps. They sleep because they feel sleepy, they eat because they are hungry, and they do foolish things because their instincts push them, without thinking, without reasoning; but for those who know, sleep is a school, an excellent school for something other than the school of waking hours.

1955-06-15 - Dynamic realisation, transformation - The negative and positive side of experience - The image of the dry coconut fruit - Purusha, Prakriti, the Divine Mother - The Truth-Creation - Pralaya - We are in a transitional period, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is the realisation which is expressed in action. There is a realisation in inaction like that of those who enter into contemplations from which they dont come out, and who dont move; and then there is a dynamic realisation which transforms all your action, all your movements, all your way of being, your character. In the first case ones Outer Being remains the same, nothing changes, and usually it destroys all possibility of action, one can no longer do anything, one remains seated In the second case, it changes everything, your character, your way of being, your way of acting, all your actions and even your surroundings, and finally all your existence, your total being: this is dynamic realisation, with the transformation of the body as its culmination.
Some people try to transform their body before even having transformed their intelligence, and this produces a complete displacement, it unbalances them totally. One must first transform his thought, all his mind, all his mental activity, organise it with higher knowledge; and at the same time one must transform his character, all the movements of the vital, all impulses, all reactions. And finally, when these two things are done, in any case up to a certain point, one can begin to think of transforming the cells of his body, but not begin at the end; one must begin at the beginning.

1955-06-29 - The true vital and true physical - Time and Space - The psychics memory of former lives - The psychic organises ones life - The psychics knowledge and direction, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes. Absolutely unconsciously for the individual, most of the time; but it is the psychic which organises his existenceonly in what may be called the main lines, because for intervening in the details there would have to be a conscious union between the Outer Being, that is, the vital and physical being, and the psychic being, but usually this does not exist. So externally, in the details for example, there was someone who in deep perplexity said to me, Well, if it is the psychic being or rather the Divine in the psychic who directs our life, is it He who decides the number of pieces of sugar I put in my tea-cup? That was the question, verbatim. So the answer had to be, No, because it is not a detailed intervention of this kind.
It is as when you push your fist into a heap of iron filings or saw-dust, all the infinitesimal little elements of the iron filings or saw-dust are organised to take on the form of your fist, but they do not do this either deliberately or consciously. It is through the work of the consciousness which pushes that this kind of thing happens. There is no decision that each element is going to be exactly in this place, like that; it is the effect of the energy which has pushed the fist that organises the elements. But thats how it is. There is the psychic consciousness at work in life, organising all the circumstances of your life but not with a deliberate choice of the details; and in fact very few things are deliberate and conscious in the organisation of the physical life of human beings. Most of the time thats what happens. If you ask someone, Why have you done this?Thats how it happened. It is always like that: Thats how it happened. At least seventy-five times out of a hundred. Only, one is so used to going, moving, and doing things like that that one doesnt even notice it. But if one begins to observe himself, he sees that it is true. There are very few things which were the result of a clear and willed decision, very few, only what one considers important things, and even here there is a wide margin. The amount of inconscience thats mixed with the physical consciousness is tremendous, but because we are used to it we do not notice it. But as soon as you begin to analyse, look, study, you are terrified. How many times you are just faced with a question. You see, you do things automatically, by habit, perhaps sometimes by choice sometimes, but suddenly you find yourself facing an absolutely insignificant detail: Should I do this or should I do that? Simply this. You can take very small things like you are in the course of eating, and you ask yourself, Should I continue eating or should I stop? How many times can you take a motivated and conscious decision? And you suddenly realise, Why, I know nothing about it, and I dont know; I can do this, I can do that; I can do that and that and that. But what will choose in me? Unless you have mental constructions. But then if you have mental constructions ruling your life, you dont even ask yourself these questions, you live like an automaton, in a habitual routine you have made for yourself. But its not just once, it happens a thousand times daily.

1955-08-17 - Vertical ascent and horizontal opening - Liberation of the psychic being - Images for discovery of the psychic being - Sadhana to contact the psychic being, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Because one has the feelingthis is a feeling one very often has in the beginning of the sadhana that the psychic being is as though shut up in a kind of hard shell, a prison, and that this is what prevents it from manifesting outwardly and entering into a conscious and constant relation with the outer consciousness, the Outer Being. One has altogether the feeling that it is as though enclosed in a box or in a prison with walls which must be broken or a door which must be forced in order to be able to enter. So naturally if one can break the walls, open the door, it liberates the psychic being which was shut in and which can now manifest externally. All these are images. But each person, naturally, has his own personal image, his personal method, with small modifications.
Some of these images are very common to all those who have had the experience. For example, when one goes down into the depths of ones being to find the psychic right at the bottom of ones consciousness, there is this image of descending into a deep well, going down deeper and deeper, descending, and it is as though one were truly sinking into a well.
--
In the ordinary life theres not one person in a million who has a conscious contact with his psychic being, even momentarily. The psychic being may work from within, but so invisibly and unconsciously for the Outer Being that it is as though it did not exist. And in most cases, the immense majority, almost the totality of cases, its as though it were asleep, not at all active, in a kind of torpor.
It is only with the sadhana and a very persistent effort that one succeeds in having a conscious contact with his psychic being. Naturally, it is possible that there are exceptional cases but this is truly exceptional, and they are so few that they could be countedwhere the psychic being is an entirely formed, liberated being, master of itself, which has chosen to return to earth in a human body in order to do its work. And in this case, even if the person doesnt do the sadhana consciously, it is possible that the psychic being is powerful enough to establish a more or less conscious relation. But these cases are, so to say, unique and are exceptions which confirm the rule.

1956-05-02 - Threefold union - Manifestation of the Supramental - Profiting from the Divine - Recognition of the Supramental Force - Ascent, descent, manifestation, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But for that Only the like can know the like, only the supramental Consciousness in an individual can perceive this Supermind acting in the earth-atmosphere. Those who, for some reason or other, have developed this perception, can see it. But those who are not even conscious of an inner beingjust slightly within and who would be quite at a loss to say what their soul is like, these certainly are not ready to perceive the difference in the earth-atmosphere. They still have a long way to go for that. Because, for those whose consciousness is more or less exclusively centred in the Outer Beingmental, vital and physicalthings need to take on an absurd and unexpected appearance for them to be able to recognise them. Then they call them miracles.
But the constant miracle of the intervention of forces which changes circumstances and characters and has a very widespread result, this they do not call a miracle, for only the mere appearance is seen and this seems quite natural. But, truly speaking, if you were to reflect upon the least little thing that happens, you would be obliged to acknowledge that it is miraculous.

1956-10-31 - Manifestation of divine love - Deformation of Love by human consciousness - Experience and expression of experience, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Gradually, as the action is prolonged and the Outer Being begins to assimilate this action, there awakens a capacity of observation, first in the mental consciousness, and a kind of objectivisation occurs: something in the mind looks on, observes and translates in its own way. This is what you call understanding, and this is what gives you the impression (smiling) that you are having an experience. But that is already considerably diminished in comparison with the experience itself, it is a transcription adapted to your mental, vital and physical dimension, that is, something that is shrunken, hardened and it gives you at the same time the impression that it is growing clearer; that is to say, it has become as limited as your understanding.
That is a phenomenon which always occurs even in the best cases. I am not speaking of those instances where this power of experience is absorbed by the unconsciousness of your being and expressed by a more and more unconscious movement; I am speaking of the case in which your mind is clear, your aspiration clear, and where you have already advanced quite considerably on the path. And even when your mind begins to be transformed, when it is used to receiving this Light, when it can be penetrated by it, is sufficiently receptive to absorb it, the moment it wants to express it in a way understandable to the human consciousness I dont mean the ordinary consciousness but even the enlightened human consciousness the moment it wants to formulate, to make it precise and understandable, it reduces, diminishes, limitsit attenuates, weakens, blurs the experience, even granting that it is pure enough not to falsify it. For if, anywhere in the being, in the mind or the vital, there is some insincerity which is tolerated, well, then the experience is completely falsified and deformed. But I am speaking of the best instances, where the being is sincere, under control, and where it functions most favourably: the formulation in words which are understandable by the human mind is necessarily, inevitably, a restriction, a diminution of the power of action of the experience. When you can tell yourself clearly and consciously: This and that and the other happened, when you can describe the phenomenon comprehensibly, it has already lost some of its power of action, its intensity, its truth and force. But this does not mean that the intensity, the power of action and the force were not therethey were there, and probably in the best cases the utmost effect of the experience is produced before you begin to give it a comprehensible form.

1956-11-21 - Knowings and Knowledge - Reason, summit of mans mental activities - Willings and the true will - Personal effort - First step to have knowledge - Relativity of medical knowledge - Mental gymnastics make the mind supple, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
True knowledge acting in the Outer Being gives true power.
This seems to be an explanation, the real explanation of that very familiar saying which is not understood in its essence but expresses a truth: Where theres a will, theres a way, to will is to have the power. It is quite obvious that this does not refer to willings, that is, to the more or less incoherent expression of desires but to the true will expressing a true knowledge; for this true will carries in itself the force of truth which gives poweran invincible power. And so, when one expresses willings, to be able to apply them in life and make them effective, some effort must come init is through personal effort that one progresses, and it is through effort that one imposes ones willings upon life to make it yield to their demands but when they are no longer willings, when it is the true will expressing the true knowledge, effort is no longer required, for the power is omnipotent.

1958-10-22 - Spiritual life - reversal of consciousness - Helping others, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
An imitation of spiritual life may delude people who still live in the mind, but those who have realised this reversal of consciousness in themselves, whose relation with the Outer Being is completely different, cannot be deceived and cannot make a mistake.
It is these people the mental being does not understand. So long as one is in the mental consciousness, even the highest, and sees the spiritual life from outside, one judges with ones mental faculties, with the habit of seeking, erring, correcting, progressing, and seeking once again; and one thinks that those who are in the spiritual life suffer from the same incapacity, but that is a very gross mistake!

1f.lovecraft - The Whisperer in Darkness, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
by the man who had claimed to be a spy of the Outer Beings and had
later killed himself. It was easy to deduce that this man must have
--
The Outer Beings are perhaps the most marvellous organic things in
or beyond all space and timemembers of a cosmos-wide race of which

2.05 - The Cosmic Illusion; Mind, Dream and Hallucination, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There is in it an inner mind, an inner vital being of ourselves, an inner or subtle-physical being larger than our Outer Being and nature. This inner existence is the concealed origin of almost all in our surface self that is not a construction of the first inconscient World-Energy or a natural developed functioning of our surface consciousness or a reaction of it to impacts from the outside universal Nature, - and even in this construction, these functionings, these reactions the subliminal takes part and exercises on them a considerable influence. There is here a consciousness which has a power of direct contact with the universal unlike the mostly indirect contacts which our surface being maintains with the universe through the sense-mind and the senses. There are here inner senses, a subliminal sight, touch, hearing; but these subtle senses are rather channels of the inner being's direct consciousness of things than its informants: the subliminal is not dependent on its senses for its knowledge, they only give a form to its direct experience of objects; they do not, so much as in waking mind, convey forms of objects for the mind's documentation or as the starting-point or basis for an indirect constructive experience. The subliminal has the right of entry into the mental and vital and subtle-physical planes of the universal consciousness, it is not confined to the material plane and the physical world; it possesses means of communication with the worlds of being which the descent towards involution created in its passage and with all corresponding planes or worlds that may have arisen or been constructed to serve the purpose of the re-ascent from Inconscience to Superconscience.
It is into this large realm of interior existence that our mind and vital being retire when they withdraw from the surface activities

2.10 - Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
act of knowledge by identity belong to the higher hemisphere of existence: this knowledge by direct contact is the main character of the highest supraphysical mental planes of consciousness, those to which our surface being is closed in by a wall of ignorance; in a diminished and more separative form it is a property of the lesser supraphysical planes of mind; it is or can be an element in all that is supraphysical. It is the main instrumentation of our subliminal self, its central means of awareness; for the subliminal self or inner being is a projection from these higher planes to meet the subconscience and it inherits the character of consciousness of its planes of origin with which it is intimately associated and in touch by kinship. In our Outer Being we are children of the Inconscience; our inner being makes us inheritors of the higher heights of mind and life and spirit: the more we open inwards, go inwards, live inwards, receive from within, the more we draw away from subjection to our inconscient origin and move towards all which is now superconscient to our ignorance.
Ignorance becomes complete with the entire separation of being from being: the direct contact of consciousness with consciousness is then entirely veiled or heavily overlaid, even though it still goes on within our subliminal parts, just as there is also, though wholly concealed and not directly operative, the underlying secret identity and oneness. There is on the surface a complete separateness, a division into self and not-self; there is the necessity of dealing with the not-self, but no direct means of knowing it or mastering it. Nature then creates indirect means, a contact by physical organs of sense, a penetration of outside impacts through the nerve currents, a reaction of mind and its co-ordinations acting as an aid and supplement to the activity of the physical organs, - all of them methods of an indirect knowledge; for the consciousness is forced to rely on these instruments and cannot act directly on the object. To these means is added a reason, intelligence and intuition which seize on the communications thus indirectly brought to them, put all in order and utilise their data to get as much knowledge and mastery and possession of the not-self or as much partial unity

2.1.2 - The Vital and Other Levels of Being, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There is a stage in the transformation when the Power is pressing on the Outer Being, especially the vital, and bringing down the higher consciousness. But the natural movements of the vital (anger, restlessness and impatience) are frequently breaking out and disturbing the work. Do not be shaken by that but remain as separate as possible from these movements and let the Force work.
***
--
Your difficulty in getting rid of the aboriginal in your nature will remain so long as you try to change your vital part by the sole or main strength of your mind and mental will, calling in at most an indefinite and impersonal divine Power to aid you. It is an old difficulty which has never been radically solved in life itself because it has never been met in the true way. In many ways of Yoga it does not so supremely matter because the aim is not a transformed life but withdrawal from life. When that is the object of an endeavour, it may be sufficient to keep the vital down by a mental and moral compulsion, or else it may be stilled and kept lying in a kind of sleep and quiescence. There are some even who allow it to run and exhaust itself if it can while its possessor professes to be untouched and unconcerned by it; for it is only old Nature running on by a past impetus and will drop off with the fall of the body. When none of these solutions can be attained, the sadhaka sometimes simply leads a double inner life, divided between his spiritual experiences and his vital weaknesses to the end, making the most of his better part, making as little as may be of the Outer Being. But none of these methods will do for our purpose. If you want a true mastery and transformation of the vital movements, it can be done only on condition you allow your psychic being, the soul in you, to awake fully, to establish its rule and, opening all to the permanent touch of the divine Shakti, impose its own way of pure devotion, whole-hearted aspiration and complete uncompromising urge to all that is divine on the mind and heart and vital nature. There is no other way and it is no use hankering after a more comfortable path. Nnya panth vidyateyanya.
***

2.1.4 - The Lower Vital Being, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The condition [for the change of the lower vital] is that you must bring the sadhana into your physical consciousness and live for the sadhana and the Divine only. You must give up positively the bad habits that still persist and never resume those that have ceased or been interrupted. Inner experiences are helpful to the mind and higher vital for change, but for the lower vital and the Outer Being a sadhana of self-discipline is indispensable. The external actions and the spirit in them must changeyour external thoughts and actions must be for the Divine only. There must be self-restraint, entire truthfulness, a constant thought of the Divine in all you do. This is the way for the change of the lower vital. By your constant self-dedication and self-discipline the Force will be brought down into the external being and the change made.
At present you have to go back, but this can very well be done outside. When it is done, then you will be truly ready for the complete spiritual life.

2.17 - December 1938, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: To detach oneself from all these things. To think as if all these things belong to the Outer Being, or someone else. As one goes on doing this the Purusha gradually withdraws its sanction from the Prakriti and Prakriti loosens its hold over nature till a spiritual control takes place. But if one associates oneself with the Prakriti then the Purusha becomes a slave to it. Rejection, of course, is the stronger way. One has to reject these things before they enter, as I did the thoughts. It is more powerful and the result also is quick.
There is also a mental control; but there too it is the nature of Mind trying to control the nature of the Vital. It has only a temporary and partial control. The thing is rather suppressed within and can come out at any opportunity.

2.2.01 - The Outer Being and the Inner Being, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
object:2.2.01 - The Outer Being and the Inner Being
class:chapter
--
The Outer Being
and the Inner Being
--
of the psychic. All forces can play there. It is the Outer Being
that is fixed in a certain character, certain tendencies, certain
--
If the inner being does not manifest or act, the Outer Being will
never get transformed.
--
or overpowering [of the Outer Being] by inertia or depression
or other fundamental difficulties. The rest can be done progressively and quietly, including the coming down of the Force. The
--
The Outer Being and Consciousness
The Outer Being is a means of expression only, not one's self. One
must not identify with it, for what it expresses is a personality

2.2.01 - Work and Yoga, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Yes, obviously, that is one great utility of work that it tests the nature and puts the sadhak in front of the defects of his Outer Being which might otherwise escape him.
***

2.2.02 - The True Being and the True Consciousness, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
not touched by the Outer Being and its inferior movements, but
looking on them with a smile at their ignorance and smallness. It

2.2.03 - The Psychic Being, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It appears the Maharshi at the time supposed that by the psychic being I meant the enlightened ego! But people do not understand what I mean by the psychic being, because the word psychic has been used in English to mean anything of the inner mental, inner vital or inner physical or anything abnormal or occult or even the more subtle movements of the Outer Being, all in a jumble - also occult phenomena are often called psychic. The distinction between these different parts of the being is unknown. Even in India the old knowledge of the Upanishads in which they are distinguished has been lost. The Jivatman, psychic being (purus.o antaratma), the manomaya purus.a, the pran.amaya purus.a are all confused together.
The antaratman is the soul, the portion of the Divine that is at the inmost basis of the evolving individual and supports the mind and life and body which are the instrumental parts of nature through which it tries to grow from the material Inconscience towards the divine Light and Immortality which are its proper being. The limitations of its instruments impose upon it an acceptance of the lower movements and a compromise between soul and nature which retard this movement even while it gets its means of advance from that interchange. The psychic being is the soul-form or soul-personality developing through this evolution and passing from life to life till all is ready for the higher evolution beyond the Ignorance.

2.21 - 1940, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: That changes last because the Outer Being is the last to change; it does not mean that there has been no progress or experience within.
Disciple: In Ramana Maharshi's Ashram one feels at once the peace, etc.

2.2.2 - Sorrow and Suffering, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
For the rest, apart from this circumstance, you need change nothing in the inward aim and concentration of your will and endeavour on the one thing to be done the entire self-giving and self-dedication of your inner and Outer Being to the Divine alone. If you can adopt firmly the right inward attitude, it may even be easier than by an outward rule for your main guidance.
***

2.2.3 - Depression and Despondency, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The Outer Being does not care for the sadhana unless it gets something by it which is to it pleasant or gratifying or satisfyingdepression therefore comes easy to it.
***

2.24 - Gnosis and Ananda, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The life-soul and life-consciousness in man, pranamaya purusa, can in the same way directly reflect and enter into the self of Sachchidananda by a large and splendid and blissful reflection of the Soul in universal Life or by losing its separate sense of life and existence in the vast Self within or without it. The result is either a profound state of sheer self-oblivion or else an action driven irresponsibly by the life nature, an exalted enthusiasm of self-abandonment to the great world-energy in its vitalistic dance. The Outer Being lives in a God-possessed frenzy careless of itself and the world, inmattavat, or with an entire disregard whether of the conventions and proprieties of fitting human action or of the harmony and rhythms of a greater Truth. It acts as the unbound vital being, pisacavat, the divine maniac or else the divine demoniac. Here too there is no mastery or supreme sublimation of nature. There is only a joyful static possession by the Self within us and an unregulated dynamic possession by the physical and the vital Nature without us.
The mind-soul and mind-consciousness in man, manomaya purusa, can in the same direct way reflect and enter into Sachchidananda by a reflection of the Soul as it mirrors itself in the nature of pure universal mind luminous, unwalled, happy, plastic, illimitable, or by absorption in the vast free unconditioned uncentred Self within it and without it. The result is either an immobile cessation of all mind and action or a desire-free unbound action watched by the unparticipating inner Witness. The mental being becomes the eremite soul alone in the world and careless of all human ties or the secret soul that lives in a rapturous God-nearness or felicitous identity and in joyful relations of pure love and ecstasy towards all creatures. The mental being may even realise the Self in all three planes together. Then

2.26 - The Ascent towards Supermind, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This law of Nature's procedure brings in the necessity of a gradation in the last transitional process, a climbing of degrees, an unfolding of higher and higher states that lead us from the spiritualised mind to supermind, - a steep passage that could not be accomplished otherwise. There are above us, we have seen, successive states, levels or graded powers of being overtopping our normal mind, hidden in our own superconscient parts, higher ranges of Mind, degrees of spiritual consciousness and experience; without them there would be no links, no helpful intervening spaces to make the immense ascension possible. It is indeed from these higher sources that the secret spiritual Power acts upon the being and by its pressure brings about the psychic transformation or the spiritual change; but in the early stages of our growth this action is not apparent, it remains occult and unseizable. At first what is necessary is that the pure touch of the spiritual force must intervene in mental nature: that awakening pressure must stamp itself upon mind and heart and life and give them their upward orientation; a subtle light or a great transmuting power must purify, refine and uplift their motions and suffuse them with a higher consciousness that does not belong to their own normal capacity and character. This can be done from within by an invisible action through the psychic entity and the psychic personality; a consciously felt descent from above is not indispensable. The presence of the spirit is there in every living being, on every level, in all things, and because it is there, the experience of Sachchidananda, of the pure spiritual existence and consciousness, of the delight of a divine presence, closeness, contact can be acquired through the mind or the heart or the life-sense or even through the physical consciousness; if the inner doors are flung sufficiently open, the light from the sanctuary can suffuse the nearest and the farthest chambers of the Outer Being. The necessary turn or change can also be brought about by an occult descent of the spiritual force from above, in which the influx, the influence, the spiritual consequence is felt, but the higher source is unknown and the actual feeling of a descent is not there. A consciousness so touched may be so much uplifted that the being turns to an immediate union with the Self or with the Divine by departure from the evolution and, if that is sanctioned, no question of graduality or steps or method intervenes, the rupture with Nature can be decisive: for the law of departure, once it is made possible, is not or need not be the same as the law of the evolutionary transformation and perfection; it is or can be a leap, a breaking out of bonds rapid or immediate, - the spiritual evasion is secured and its only remaining sanction is the destined fall of the body. But if the transformation of earth life is intended, the first touch of spiritualisation must be followed by an awakening to the higher sources and energies, a seeking for them and an enlargement and heightening of the being into their characteristic status and a conversion of the consciousness to their greater law and dynamic nature. This change must go step by step, till the stair of the ascension is transcended and there is an emergence to those greatest wide-open spaces of which the Veda speaks, the native spaces of a consciousness which is supremely luminous and infinite.
For here there is the same process of evolution as in the rest of the movement of Nature; there is a heightening and widening of the consciousness, an ascent to a new level and a taking up of the lower levels, an assumption and new integration of the existence by a superior power of Being which imposes its own way of action and its character and force of substanceenergy on as much as it can reach of the previously evolved parts of nature. The demand for integration becomes at this highest stage of Nature's workings a point of cardinal importance. In the lower grades of the ascension the new assumption, the integration into a higher principle of consciousness, remains incomplete: the mind cannot wholly mentalise life and matter; there are considerable parts of the life being and the body which remain in the realm of the submental and the subconscient or inconscient. This is one serious obstacle to the mind's endeavour towards the perfection of the nature; for the continued share of the submental, the subconscient and inconscient in the government of the activities, by bringing in another law than that of the mental being, enables the conscious vital and the physical consciousness also to reject the law laid upon them by the mind and to follow their own impulses and instincts in defiance of the mental reason and the rational will of the developed intelligence.

2.27 - The Gnostic Being, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
An evolution of gnostic consciousness brings with it a transformation of our world-consciousness and world-action: for it takes up into the new power of awareness not only the inner existence but our Outer Being and our world-being; there is a remaking of both, an integration of them in the sense and power of the spiritual existence. There must come upon us in the change at once a reversal and rejection of our present way of existence and a fulfilment of its inner trend and tendency. For we stand The Gnostic Being now between these two terms, an outer world of Life and Matter that has made us and a remaking of the world by ourselves in the sense of the evolving Spirit. Our present way of living is at once a subjection to Life-Force and Matter and a struggle with Life and Matter. In its first appearance an outer existence creates by our reactions to it an inner or mental existence; if we shape ourselves at all, it is in most men less by the conscious pressure of a free soul or intelligence from within than by a response to our environment and the world-Nature acting upon us: but what we move towards in the development of our conscious being is an inner existence creating by its knowledge and power its own outer form of living and self-expressive environment of living. In the gnostic nature this movement will have consummated itself; the nature of living will be an accomplished inner existence whose light and power will take perfect body in the outer life.
The gnostic being will take up the world of Life and Matter, but he will turn and adapt it to his own truth and purpose of existence; he will mould life itself into his own spiritual image, and this he will be able to do because he has the secret of a spiritual creation and is in communion and oneness with the Creator within him. This will be first effective in the shaping of his own inner and outer individual existence, but the same power and principle will operate in any common gnostic life; the relations of gnostic being with gnostic being will be the expression of their one gnostic self and supernature shaping into a significant power and form of itself the whole common existence.

2.3.01 - Concentration and Meditation, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Concentration is necessary. By dhyana you awake the inner being; by concentration in life, in work, in the outer consciousness you make the Outer Being also fit to receive the Divine Light and Force.
It is in the waking consciousness that all has to be realised. But that cannot be done without a full preparation in the inner being and it is this preparation that is being done for you in dhyana.
--
The more the psychic spreads in the Outer Being, the more all these things [the mechanical activities of the subconscious mind] fall quiet. That is the best way. Direct efforts to still the mind are a difficult method.

Surface Thoughts and Imaginations

That [a state in which the Outer Being responds to surface thoughts while the inner being is "engrossed in meditation"] is not called meditation - it is a divided state of consciousness.
Unless the consciousness is really engrossed and the surface thoughts are only things that come across and touch and pass, it can hardly be called meditation (dhyana). I don't see how the inner being can be "engrossed" while thoughts and imaginations of another kind are rampaging about in the consciousness.

2.3.03 - The Mother's Presence, #The Mother With Letters On The Mother, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Consciousness and the Mother's Presence. Imperfections may remain in the Outer Being, but they do not trouble the inner being and can be got rid of quietly.
The Mother's Presence

2.3.04 - The Mother's Force, #The Mother With Letters On The Mother, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
First the Mother organises the inner parts of the being; then she begins to work on the Outer Being. Does this mean that when the inner parts are brought under control, then she begins to work on the physical nature?
It is the usual course, but some work is always being done in the inner parts at all times, because they are interdependent.

2.3.05 - Sadhana through Work for the Mother, #The Mother With Letters On The Mother, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
During mental activities my Outer Being never remembers the
Mother. Please show me the way to remain conscious of her in the midst of intellectual pursuits.

2.3.08 - The Mother's Help in Difficulties, #The Mother With Letters On The Mother, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The change of the old habitual movements of the nature cannot be done in a single stroke; the inner consciousness has to grow in such a way that finally it occupies the Outer Being also and renders these things impossible. What I have written to you about these things and the attitude to be taken is the knowledge that we have and the truth of the human nature and of sadhana confirmed by our and by all spiritual experience. It is your Outer Being that has these reactions and not your inner nature. You have only to trust in the Mother and follow what I say and these difficulties will be worked out of the Outer Being and return no more; but patience is necessary because it takes time, not in you alone, but in all. Do not allow such thoughts as the idea "what is the use of spiritual experiences, since my nature is not changed" etc., for these are thoughts of the mind's ignorance. Recover the attitude and the resolution that you had taken and were developing. Keep the will and the faith and in quietude and patience let the Mother work all out in you.
26 March 1936
--
Whatever difficulties still remain, be sure that they will be surmounted. There is no need for the Outer Being to be nervous - the Mother's Force and the devotion within you will be sufficient to overcome all that stands in the way.
Difficulties and the Mother's Grace

2.3.08 - The Physical Consciousness, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
If you understand and experience this truth, then only you will be able to realise what is meant by the inner mental, the inner vital, the inner physical consciousness. But it must be noted that this term "inner" is used in two different senses. Sometimes it denotes the consciousness behind the veil of the Outer Being, the mental or vital or physical within, which is in direct touch with the universal mind, the universal life forces, the universal physical forces. Sometimes, on the other hand, we mean an inmost mental, vital, physical, more specifically called the true mind, the true vital, the true physical consciousness which is nearest to the soul and can most easily and directly respond to the Divine Light and Power. There is no real Yoga possible, still less any integral Yoga, if we do not go back from the outer self and become aware of all this inner being and inner nature.
For then alone can we break the limitations of the ignorant external self which receives consciously only the outer touches and knows things indirectly through the outer mind and senses, and become directly aware of the universal consciousness and the universal forces that play through us and around us. And

2.4.01 - Divine Love, Psychic Love and Human Love, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The Outer Being has to learn to love in the psychic way without ego. If it loves in the egoistic vital way, then it only creates difficulties for itself and for the sadhana and for the Mother.
***

3.03 - The Godward Emotions, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This relation of the divine fatherhood and the closer relation with the Divine as the Mother Soul of the universe have their springs in another early religious motive. One type of the Bhakta, says the Gita, is the devotee who comes to the Divine as the giver of his wants, the giver of his good, the satisfier of the needs of his inner and his Outer Being. "I bring to my Bhakta", says the Lord, "his getting and his having of good, yogaksemam vahamyaham." The life of man is a life of wants and needs and therefore of desires, not only in his physical and vital, but in his mental and spiritual being. When he becomes conscious of a greater Power governing the world, he approaches it through prayer for the fulfilment of his needs, for help in his rough journey, for protection and aid in his struggle. Whatever crudities there may be in the ordinary religious approach to God by prayer, and there are many, especially that attitude which imagines the Divine as if capable of being propitiated, bribed, flattered into acquiescence or indulgence by praise, entreaty and gifts and has often little regard to the spirit in which he is approached, still this way of turning to the Divine is an essential movement of our religious being and reposes on a universal truth.
The efficacy of prayer is often doubted and prayer itself supposed to be a thing irrational and necessarily superfluous and ineffective. It is true that the universal will executes always its aim and cannot be deflected by egoistic propitiation and entreaty, it is true of the Transcendent who expresses himself in the universal order that, being omniscient, his larger knowledge must foresee the thing to be done and it does not need direction or stimulation by human thought and that the individual's desires are not and cannot be in any world-order the true determining factor. But neither is that order or the execution of the universal will altogether effected by mechanical Law, but by powers and forces of which for human life at least, human will, aspiration and faith are not among the least important. Prayer is only a particular form given to that will, aspiration and faith. Its forms are very often crude and not only childlike, which is in itself no defect, but childish; but still it has a real power and significance. Its power and sense is to put the will, aspiration and faith of man into touch with the divine Will as that of a conscious Being with whom we can enter into conscious and living relations. For our will and aspiration can act either by our own strength and endeavour, which can no doubt be made a thing great and effective whether for lower or higher purposes, -and there are plenty of disciplines which put it forward as the one force to be used, -- or it can act in dependence upon and with subordination to the divine or the universal Will. And this latter way, again, may either look upon that Will as responsive indeed to our aspiration, but almost mechanically, by a sort of law of energy, or at any rate quite impersonally, or else it may look upon it as responding consciously to the divine aspiration and faith of the human soul and consciously bringing to it the help, the guidance, the protection and fruition demanded, yogaksemam vahamyaham.

3.1.2 - Levels of the Physical Being, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The cravings once belonged to the vital physical, but when there is a sufficient force of peace in the being, then they go out and the vital physical is free and under the influence of the quietude. The forces of disturbance do not belong any longer to the personality, but although they have gone out, they wait in the atmosphere and, if they get a chance, try to come back and resume hold of the exterior being so as either to break or, if they can no longer do that, cover up the inner peace. Because the physical vital has been accustomed to respond to them for a time willingly, now unwillingly, they are still able to make it answer to their vibrations. The peace and clarity must acquire such a force that they will remain even if these forces come back then there will be the phenomenon of the inner peace remaining undisturbed in the inner being even while the outer is superficially disturbed. This is a well-marked stage in the progress. Afterwards a force can be brought down strong enough to fill the Outer Being also with so strong a peace and clarity that the disturbances can no longer enter there. One may feel them still sometimes in the atmosphere but is no longer touched by them at all.
***

3.1.3 - Difficulties of the Physical Being, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is the instinctive (not mental) will in the Outer Being that is blind the inner mind knows and understands and when it comes out it enlightens the rest so that all is clear. But the Outer Being readmits the darkness and confusion through a wrong movement of the vital or through an inert acceptance of the obscurity of the ignorant physical consciousness and the knowledge gets darkened over. But it is there and has only to come out again. The physical consciousness is constitutionally ignorantit may be made to understand, but it goes on forgetting and feeling as if it had never knowntill the Force and Light finally get hold of it and then it forgets no more.
***

3.3.3 - Specific Illnesses, Ailments and Other Physical Problems, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The inertia is there because there was always in your Outer Being a great force of tamas and it is this that is being used by the resistance. There was also a deficiency of steady will-power in the outer mind which makes it more difficult for the Force to come down than for the Knowledge. When you are entirely open the Force can act on the sciatica and it lessens or disappears, but with the consciousness blocked by the inertia these difficulties come in the way.
***

3.4.1.05 - Fiction-Writing and Sadhana, #Letters On Poetry And Art, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
That is when one is already in a steady stream of spiritual experience, living partly at least in an inner realisation, while the rest of the being is not yet in it. Writing a novel means then going out of the inner state of experience and stimulating the rest of the nature. If the writing is something in harmony with the inner consciousness, then there would be no necessity for one to stop. On the other hand if one has attained the full consciousness in both the inner and the outer nature then also one could write anything one is moved by that consciousness to write, whatever it might be. In certain cases this rule may not hold. One may be strong enough to do all kinds of outward things without affecting the inner state of experience. But ordinarily this can be done freely only in the earlier stages before one is drawn inwards and kept there or in the later stages when one is fully conscious spiritually in the Outer Being also. It is simply a question of spiritual tactics not a hard and fast rule for all in all states and stages.
Why did Sahana find it necessary to stop?

3.4.1 - The Subconscient and the Integral Yoga, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The Subconscient, the Inner Being and the Outer Being
In our Yoga we mean by the subconscient that quite submerged part of our being in which there is no wakingly conscious and coherent thought, will or feeling or organised reaction, but which yet receives obscurely the impressions of all things and stores them up in itself and from it too all sorts of stimuli, of persistent habitual movements, crudely repeated or disguised in strange forms can surge up into dream or into the waking nature. For if these impressions rise up most in dream in an incoherent and disorganised manner, they can also and do rise up into our waking consciousness as a mechanical repetition of old thoughts, old mental, vital and physical habits or an obscure stimulus to sensations, actions, emotions which do not originate in or from our conscious thought or will and are even often opposed to its perceptions, choice or dictates. In the subconscient there is an obscure mind full of obstinate sanskaras, impressions, associations, fixed notions, habitual reactions formed by our past, an obscure vital full of the seeds of habitual desires, sensations and nervous reactions, a most obscure material which governs much that has to do with the condition of the body. It is largely responsible for our illnesses; chronic or repeated illnesses are indeed mainly due to the subconscient and its obstinate memory and habit of repetition of whatever has impressed itself upon the body consciousness. But this subconscient must be clearly distinguished from the subliminal parts of our being such as the inner or subtle physical consciousness, the inner vital or inner mental; for these are not at all obscure or incoherent or illorganised, but only veiled from our surface consciousness. Our surface constantly receives something, inner touches, communications or influences, from these sources but does not know for the most part whence they come.
--
The inner being does not depend on the subconscient, but the outer has depended on it for thousands of lives that is why the Outer Being and physical consciousnesss habit of response to the subconscient can be a formidable obstacle to the progress of the sadhana and is so with most. It keeps up the repetition of the old movements, is always pulling down the consciousness and opposing the continuity of the ascent and bringing the old nature or else the tamas (non-illumination and non-activity) across the descent. It is only if you live wholly and dynamically in the inner being and feel the outer as a quite superficial thing that you can get rid of the obstruction or minimise it until the transformation of the Outer Being can be made complete.
***

40.01 - November 24, 1926, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
We have left that stage far enough behind us now. We have in. fact reached the opposite end perhaps. We have taken a plunge outwards, identified ourselves with the Outer Being - a tendency against which the Upanishad has used a word of warning: paraci khani vyatrant, our senses have a natural pull towards the outer things. But this too was necessary and still is. We form part of the world, we are united with it and inseparable. We are an image of the entire world, its symbol and representative. We have to share in its work and suffer its deeds. Even Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have not spared themselves this, but that is another matter. Whatever changes we succeed in effectuating in ourselves here will initiate similar changes all the world over. Therefore, not to become wholly externalised, - a tendency which is uppermost here in our collective life today, - but to keep the path open for the inner sadhana, this should be our endeavour. We have to harmonise the two extremes, for not to disjoin but to unite, that is Yoga.
***

4.1.4 - Resistances, Sufferings and Falls, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There is no invariable rule of such suffering. It is not the soul that suffers; the Self is calm and equal to all things and the only sorrow of the psychic being is the sorrow of the resistance of Nature to the Divine Will or the resistance of things and people to the call of the True, the Good and the Beautiful. What is affected by suffering is the vital nature and the body. When the soul draws towards the Divine, there may be a resistance in the mind and the common form of that is denial and doubtwhich may create mental and vital suffering. There may again be a resistance in the vital nature whose principal character is desire and the attachment to the objects of desire, and if in this field there is conflict between the soul and the vital nature, between the Divine Attraction and the pull of the Ignorance, then obviously there may be much suffering of the mind and vital parts. The physical consciousness also may offer a resistance which is usually that of a fundamental inertia, an obscurity in the very stuff of the physical, an incomprehension, an inability to respond to the higher consciousness, a habit of helplessly responding to the lower mechanically, even when it does not want to do so; both vital and physical suffering may be the consequence. There is moreover the resistance of the Universal Nature which does not want the being to escape from the Ignorance into the Light. This may take the form of a vehement insistence on the continuation of the old movements, waves of them thrown on the mind and vital and body so that old ideas, impulses, desires, feelings, responses continue even after they are thrown out and rejected, and can return like an invading army from outside, until the whole nature, given to the Divine, refuses to admit them. This is the subjective form of the universal resistance, but it may also take an objective formopposition, calumny, attacks, persecution, misfortunes of many kinds, adverse conditions and circumstances, pain, illness, assaults from men or forces. There too the possibility of suffering is evident. There are two ways to meet all thatfirst that of the Self, calm, equality, a spirit, a will, a mind, a vital, a physical consciousness that remain resolutely turned towards the Divine and unshaken by all suggestion of doubt, desire, attachment, depression, sorrow, pain, inertia. This is possible when the inner being awakens, when one becomes conscious of the Self, of the inner mind, the inner vital, the inner physical, for that can more easily attune itself to the divine Will, and then there is a division in the being as if there were two beings, one within, calm, strong, equal, unperturbed, a channel of the Divine Consciousness and Force, one without, still encroached on by the lower Nature; but then the disturbances of the latter become something superficial which are no more than an outer ripple,until these under the inner pressure fade and sink away and the Outer Being too remains calm, concentrated, unattackable. There is also the way of the psychic,when the psychic being comes out in its inherent power, its consecration, adoration, love of the Divine, self-giving, surrender and imposes these on the mind, vital and physical consciousness and compels them to turn all their movements Godward. If the psychic is strong and master throughout, then there is no or little subjective suffering and the objective cannot affect either the soul or the other parts of the consciousness the way is sunlit and a great joy and sweetness are the note of the whole sadhana. As for the outer attacks and adverse circumstances, that depends on the action of the Force transforming the relations of the being with the outer Nature; as the victory of the Force proceeds, they will be eliminated; but however long they last, they cannot impede the sadhana, for then even adverse things and happenings become a means for its advance and for the growth of the spirit.
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4.2.1.06 - Living in the Psychic, #Letters On Yoga III, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The important thing is to keep what you have and let it grow, to live always in the psychic being, your true being. The psychic will then in due time awaken and turn to the Divine all the rest of the nature, so that even the Outer Being will feel itself in touch with the Divine and moved by the Divine in all it is and feels and does.
If it is the sense of the presence that you have, then you are living in the consciousness of the psychic centre. Thinking with the mind is good because it leads towards that but it is not in itself that living in the psychic centre.

4.2.1 - The Right Attitude towards Difficulties, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A possibility in the soul or in the inner being generally remains always a possibilityat the worst, its fulfilment can be postponed, but even that only if the possessor of the possibility gives up or breaks away from the true spiritual path without probability of early returnbecause he is in chase of the magnified and distorted shadow of his own ego or for some other distortion of the nature produced by a wrong egoistic misuse of the Yoga. A mere appearance of inability or obstruction of progress in the Outer Being, a covering of the inner by the outer, even if it lasts for years, has no probative value, because that happens to a great number, perhaps to the majority of aspirants to Yoga. The reason is that they take somehow the way of raising up all the difficulties in their nature almost at the beginning and tunnelling through the mass instead of the alternative way of going ahead, slowly or swiftly, and trusting to time, Yoga and the Force Divine to clear out of them in the proper season what has to be eliminated. It is not of their own deliberate choice that they do it, something in their nature drives them. There are many here who have had or still have that long covering of the inner by the outer or separation of the inner from the outer consciousness. You yourself took that way in spite of our expostulations to you advising you to take the sunlit road, and you have not yet got out of the habit. But that does not mean that you wont get out of the tunnel and when you do you will find your inner being waiting for you on the other sidein the sun and not in the shadow. I dont think I am more patient than a guru ought to be. Anyone who is a guru at all ought to be patient, first because he knows the difficulty of human nature and, secondly, because he knows how the Yoga force works, in so many contrary ways, open or subterranean, slow or swift, volcanic or coralline,passing even from one to the other and he does not use the surface reason but the eye of inner knowledge and Yogic experience.
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--
Whatever resistance there is in the Outer Being will go, only it takes time. It is always best to take ones foundation on that certitude and remain quiet and steadfast with it in mind even when one cannot react actively against the difficulty. For the quiet passive resistance will make it pass sooner,even if one is disturbed and anxious.
Even when one cannot call in actively the Mothers Force, one must keep the reliance that it will come.

4.2.5.04 - The Psychic Consciousness and the Descent from Above, #Letters On Yoga III, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Certainly the concentration in the heart is very necessary for the full transformation. When peace is established in the heart, it is possible for the psychic being to come forward and rule the mind, life and body. The descent from above prepares the being, but unless the psychic acts fully it cannot change by itself the Outer Being, though one can have a settled inner peace, freedom, light, not disturbed by the outer movements, but the outer movements will remain. It is only the combined action of the psychic and the spiritual power that can change it.
It is by meditation, by concentration, by the constant turning or call [that aspiration and openness may be cultivated] - secondly, by the keeping of the mind and vital still for the descent of the Presence, peace, light, Ananda and for the psychic being to emerge. When the psychic being is in front, the descent constant, then the constant feeling of the Divine in you and of yourself in the Divine becomes more easy to have.

4.3.2 - Attacks by the Hostile Forces, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
They [hostile attacks on the Outer Being] are felt as suggestions, or a touch on the surface mind, vital, physical or as movements in the atmosphere (the personal or the general environmental consciousness)but for the inner being it is like gusts or storms outside. If they penetrate by chance into the house, they are immediately ejected and the doors and windows banged on themthere is nothing that accepts or tolerates them inside.
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4.4.1.03 - Both Ascent and Descent Necessary, #Letters On Yoga III, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
movement, does not by itself have any effect on the Outer Being.
It only divides the consciousness into two and its only logical
--
being, the inner outflowing into the outer, not in the Outer Being
to the exclusion of the inner.

5 - The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
of any connection with an Outer Being." Others restrict spirit
to certain psychic capacities or functions or qualities, such as the

7.01 - The Soul (the Psychic), #Words Of The Mother II, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
To conclude, an easy and pleasant life can only satisfy the Outer Being; but what answers in the physical being to the souls influence needs for its flowering a life more in conformity with the souls needs and languishes when it cannot find it.
3 December 1959
--
The Outer Being, left to itself, is not very responsible; it is most often the plaything of the forces of Nature. But the inner or higher being, the deeper consciousness, is the master and builder of our destiny. That is why it is so important to discover this sovereign consciousness and unite with it in order to put an end to all the incoherences of life and all the conflicts of Nature.
17 March 1968

Conversations with Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
The psychic being is the transmitter which receives the light and transmits it to the lower personality. It is that which remains at the back and governs the personality. The psychic being is in direct communication with the truth, which it organises and transmits to the Outer Being. The central being cannot organise the truth: it is above all evolution. It is the psychic being which develops spiritually through the different personalities.
It is then the central being which is above space and time and behind that which evolves through the successive personalities?
--
You have nothing to do. The two movements you are conscious of are movements of the same force. When it comes to the centre in the chest, it awakens the being to the truth and turns it upwards. It is the human way of establishing the communication with what is above, a straight line with the supramental truth. When the force will be established there and the central being come out, seize upon the Outer Being, it will effect the transformation. It will direct the force downwards, everywhere, and effect the change.
I am so tired of my mind.
--
All depends on how much your outer consciousness is united with the inner. When you have overcome the difficulties of your Outer Being, you will pass through a progressive initiation. I shall show you, through the eyes, all that is there in the universe . You will then see the exact place of all these things.
You must get rid of all these difficulties.
--
It is only an outer working which will be left and cast away in the process. This Outer Being is only the aggregate of what belongs to this life-time with a personality that is not your true personality.
How will it disappear?

Prayers and Meditations by Baha u llah text, #Prayers and Meditations by Baha u llah, #unset, #Zen
Attire, O my Lord, both my inner and Outer Being with the raiment of Thy favors and Thy loving-kindness. Keep me safe, then, from whatsoever may be abhorrent unto Thee, and graciously assist me and my kindred to obey Thee, and to shun whatsoever may stir up any evil or corrupt desire within me.
Thou, truly, art the Lord of all mankind, and the Possessor of this world and of the next. No God is there save Thee, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.
--
I have wakened in Thy shelter, O my God, and it becometh him that seeketh that shelter to abide within the Sanctuary of Thy protection and the Stronghold of Thy defense. Illumine my inner being, O my Lord, with the splendors of the Day-Spring of Thy Revelation, even as Thou didst illumine my Outer Being with the morning light of Thy favor.
CLIX

Tablets of Baha u llah text, #Tablets of Baha u llah, #Baha u llah, #Baha i
Were anyone to ponder in his heart that which hath, in this Revelation, streamed forth from the Pen of Glory, he would be assured that whatever this Wronged One hath affirmed He hath had no intention of establishing any position or distinction for Himself. The purpose hath rather been to attract the souls, through the sublimity of His words, unto the summit of transcendent glory and to endow them with the capacity of perceiving that which will purge and purify the peoples of the world from the strife and dissension which religious differences provoke. Unto this bear witness My heart, My Pen, My inner and My Outer Being. God grant that all men may turn unto the treasuries latent within their own beings.
O people of Bahá! The source of crafts, sciences and arts is the power of reflection. Make ye every effort that out of this ideal mine there may gleam forth such pearls of wisdom and utterance as will promote the well-being and harmony of all the kindreds of the earth.

Talks With Sri Aurobindo 1, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
belonged to the Outer Being or to someone else. As one goes on doing that,
the Purusha or Soul gradually withdraws its sanction from the Prakriti or
--
NIRODBARAN: But there should be some sign in the Outer Being. They say they
are just as angry, jealous, egoistic as other people.
SRI AUROBINDO: These things belong to the Outer Being and they are the last to
change. That doesn't mean that there is no inner progress or experience.

Talks With Sri Aurobindo 2, #Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
to be worked out in the Outer Being.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, the ultimate aim is to transform the total being and

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