{"id":2643,"date":"2013-07-13T01:42:57","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:42:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2643"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:42:57","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:42:57","slug":"11-classification-of-the-parts-of-the-being-vol-28-letters-on-yoga-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/28-letters-on-yoga-i\/11-classification-of-the-parts-of-the-being-vol-28-letters-on-yoga-i","title":{"rendered":"-11_Classification of the Parts of the Being.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n\tChapter Two <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tClassification
\n <\/font><\/b> <\/p>\n

\n\tof the Parts of the Being
\n <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tDifferent Categories in Different Systems <\/font>
\n\t<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1. The soul and the psychic being are practically the same, except that even in things which have not developed a psychic
\nbeing, there is still a spark of the Divine which can be called the soul. The psychic being is called in Sanskrit the Purusha in
\nthe heart or the Chaitya Purusha. (The psychic being is the soul developing in the evolution.) <\/p>\n

2. The distinction between Purusha and Prakriti is according to the Sankhya System
\n\u2014the Purusha is the silent witness
\nconsciousness which observes the actions of Prakriti \u2014Prakriti is the force of Nature which one feels as doing all the actions,
\nwhen one gets rid of the sense of the ego as doer. Then there is the realisation of these two entities. This is quite different from
\nthe psychic being. It is felt in the mind, vital, physical \u2014most easily in the mind where the mental being (Purusha) is seated and controls the others (manomayạ
\nPurusạ prāṇa-śarīra-netā<\/i>). <\/p>\n

3. Prajna, Taijasa etc. are a different classification and have to do, not with the different parts of the being, but with three
\ndifferent states (waking, dream, sleep \u2014gross, subtle, causal). <\/p>\n

I think one ought not to try to relate these different things
\nto each other \u2014as that may lead to confusion. They belong to different categories
\n\t\u2014and to a different order of experiences. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tThe Concentric and Vertical Systems
\n\t<\/a> <\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I do not think exact correlations can always be traced between
\none system of spiritual and occult knowledge and another. All deal with the same material, but there are differences of stand
\npoint, differences of view-range, a divergence in the mental idea   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t<p align="left" style="line-height: 150%; 83<\/i> <\/p>\n

of what is seen and experienced, disparate pragmatic purposes and therefore a difference in the paths surveyed, cut out or
\nfollowed; the systems vary each constructs its own schema and technique. <\/p>\n

In the ancient Indian system there is only one triune supernal, Sachchidananda. Or if you speak of the upper hemisphere as
\nthe supernal, there are three, Sat plane, Chit plane and Ananda plane. The Supermind could be added as a fourth, as it draws
\nupon the other three and belongs to the upper hemisphere. The Indian systems did not distinguish between two quite different
\npowers and levels of consciousness, one which we can call Overmind and the other the true Supermind or Divine Gnosis. That
\nis the reason why they got confused about Maya (OvermindForce or Vidya-Avidya) and took it for the supreme creative
\npower. In so stopping short at what was still a half-light they lost the secret of transformation
\n\u2014even though the Vaishnava
\nand Tantra Yogas groped to find it again and were sometimes on the verge of success. For the rest, this, I think, has been the
\nstumbling-block of all attempts at the discovery of the dynamic divine Truth; I know of none that has not imagined, as soon
\nas it felt the Overmind lustres descending, that this was the true illumination, the gnosis,
\n\u2014with the result that they either
\nstopped short there and could get no farther, or else concluded that this too was only Maya or Lila and that the one thing to do
\nwas to get beyond it into some immovable and inactive Silence of the Supreme. <\/p>\n

Perhaps, what may be meant by supernals [in
\na text submitted by the correspondent<\/i>] is rather the three
\nfundamentals<\/i>
\nof the present manifestation. In the Indian system, these are Ishwara, Shakti and Jiva, or else Sachchidananda, Maya and
\nJiva. But in our system which seeks to go beyond the present manifestation, these could very well be taken for granted and,
\nlooked at from the point of view of the planes of consciousness, the three highest
\n\u2014Ananda (with Sat and Chit resting upon it),
\nSupermind and Overmind \u2014might be called the three Supernals. Overmind stands at the top of the lower hemisphere, and you
\nhave to pass through and beyond Overmind if you would reach  <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\n

\n

Supermind, while still above and beyond Supermind are the worlds of Sachchidananda. <\/p>\n

You speak of the gulf below the Overmind. But is there a gulf
\n\u2014or any other gulf than human unconsciousness? In all the
\nseries of the planes or grades of consciousness there is nowhere any real gulf, always there are connecting gradations and one
\ncan ascend from step to step. Between the Overmind and the human mind there are a number of more and more luminous
\ngradations; but, as these are superconscient to human mind (except one or two of the lowest of which it gets some direct
\ntouches), it is apt to regard them as a superior Inconscience. So one of the Upanishads speaks of the Ishwara consciousness
\nas susupta<\/i>, deep Sleep, because it is only in Samadhi that man
\nusually enters into it, so long as he does not try to turn his waking consciousness into a higher state. <\/p>\n

There are in fact two systems simultaneously active in the organisation of the being and its parts;
\n\u2014one is concentric, a
\nseries of rings or sheaths with the psychic at the centre; another is vertical, an ascension and descent, like a flight of steps, a
\nseries of superimposed planes with the Supermind-Overmind as the crucial nodus of the transition beyond the human into the
\nDivine. For this transition, if it is to be at the same time a transformation, there is only one way, one path. First, there must be
\na conversion inwards, a going within to find the inmost psychic being and bring it out to the front, disclosing at the same time the
\ninner mind, inner vital, inner physical parts of the nature. Next, there must be an ascension, a series of conversions upwards and
\na turning down to convert the lower parts. When one has made the inward conversion, one psychicises the whole lower nature
\nso as to make it ready for the divine change. Going upwards, one passes beyond the human mind and at each stage of the
\nascent there is a conversion into a new consciousness and an infusion of this new consciousness into the whole of the nature.
\nThus rising beyond intellect through illuminated higher mind to the intuitive consciousness, we begin to look at everything not
\nfrom the intellect range or through intellect as an instrument, but from a greater intuitive height and through an intuitivised
\n   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t<p align="left" style="line-height: 150%; 85<\/i> <\/p>\n

will, feeling, emotion, sensation and physical contact. So, proceeding from intuition to a greater overmind height, there is a
\nnew conversion and we look at and experience everything from the overmind consciousness and through a mind, heart, vital and
\nbody surcharged with the overmind thought, sight, will, feeling, sensation, play of force and contact. But the last conversion is the
\nsupramental, for once there, once the nature is supramentalised, we are beyond the Ignorance and conversion of consciousness is
\nno longer needed, though a farther divine progression, even an infinite development is still possible. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

The inner consciousness means the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical and behind them the psychic which is their inmost being. But the inner mind is not the higher mind; it is more in
\ntouch with the universal forces and more open to the higher consciousness and capable of an immensely deeper and larger range
\nof action than the outer or surface mind \u2014but it is of the same essential nature. The higher consciousness is that above the or
\ndinary mind and different from it in its workings; it ranges from higher mind through illumined mind, intuition and overmind up
\nto the border line of the supramental. <\/p>\n

If the psychic were liberated, free to act in its own way,
\nthere would not be all this stumbling in the Ignorance. But the psychic is covered up by the ignorant mind, vital and physical
\nand compelled to act through them according to the law of the Ignorance. If it is liberated from this covering, then it can
\nact according to its own nature with a free aspiration, a direct contact with the higher consciousness and a power to change
\nthe ignorant nature. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Higher Mind is one of the planes of the spiritual mind, the first and lowest of them; it is above the normal mental level. Inner
\nmind is that which lies behind the surface mind (our ordinary mentality) and can only be directly experienced (apart from its
\nvrittis in the surface mind such as philosophy, poetry, idealism  <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage <\/font>\u2013 85<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

etc.) by sadhana, by breaking down the habit of being on the surface and by going deeper within. <\/p>\n

Larger mind is a general term to cover the realms of mind which become our field whether by going within or widening
\ninto the cosmic consciousness. <\/p>\n

The true mental being is not the same as the inner mental
\n\t\u2014true mental, true vital, true physical being means the Purusha of that level freed from the error and ignorant thought and will
\nof the lower Prakriti and directly open to the knowledge and guidance from above. <\/p>\n

Higher vital usually refers to the vital mind and emotive being as opposed to the middle vital which has its seat in the
\nnavel and is dynamic, sensational and passionate and the lower which is made up of the smaller movements of human life-desire
\nand life-reactions.   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

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