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The Jivatman, spark-soul and psychic being are
three different forms of the same reality and they must not be mixed
up together, as that confuses the clearness of the inner experience.
The Jivatman or spirit, as it is usually called
in English,-is self-existent above the manifested or instrumental
being -it is superior to birth and death, always the same, the individual
Self or Atman. It is the eternal true being of the individual.
The soul is a spark of the Divine which is not seated
above the manifested being, but comes down into the manifestation
to support its evolution in the material world. It is at first an
undifferentiated power of the Divine Consciousness containing all
possibilities which have not yet taken form, but to which it is
the function of evolution to give form. This spark is there in all
living beings from the lowest to the highest.
The psychic being is formed by the soul in its
evolution. It supports the mind, vital, body, grows by their experiences,
carries the nature from life to life. It is the psychic or caitya
purusa. At first it is veiled by mind, vital and body, but as
it grows, it becomes capable of coming forward and dominating the
mind, life and body; in the ordinary man it depends on them for
expression and is not able to take them up and freely use them.
The life of the being is animal or human and not divine. When the
psychic being can by sadhana become dominant and freely use its
instruments, then the impulse towards the Divine becomes complete
and the transformation of mind, vital and body, not merely their
liberation, becomes possible.
The Self of Atman being free and superior to birth
and death, the experience of the Jivatman and its unity with the
supreme or universal Self brings the sense of liberation, it is
this which is necessary for the supreme spiritual deliverance: but
for the transformation of the life and nature the awakening of the
psychic being and its rule over the nature are indispensable.
The psychic being realises
its oneness with the true being, the Jivatman, but it does not change
into it.
The bindu seen above may be a symbolic way of
seeing the Jivatman, the portion of the Divine; the aspiration there
would naturally be for the opening of the higher consciousness so
that the being may dwell there and not in the Ignorance. The Jivatman
is already one with the Divine in reality, but what is needed is
that the rest of the consciousness should realise it.
The aspiration of the psychic being is for the opening
of the whole lower nature, mind, vital, body to the Divine, for
the love and union with Divine, for its presence and power within
the heart, for the transformation of the mind, life and body by
the descent of the higher consciousness into this instrumental being
and nature.
Both aspirations are essential and indispensable for
the fullness of this yoga. When the psychic imposes its aspiration
on the mind, vital and body, then they too aspire and this is what
was felt as the aspiration from the level of the lower being. The
aspiration felt above is that of the Jivatman for the higher consciousness
with its realisation of the One to manifest in the being. Therefore
both aspirations help each other. The seeking of the lower being
is necessarily at first intermittent and oppressed by the ordinary
consciousness. It has, by sadhana, to become clear, constant, strong
and enduring.
SRI AUROBINDO
In the experience of yoga the self
or being is in essence one with the Divine or at least it is a portion
of the Divine and has all the divine potentialities. But in manifestation
it takes two aspects, the Purusha and Prakriti, conscious being
and Nature. In Nature here the Divine is veiled, and the individual
being is subjected to Nature which acts here as the lower Prakriti,
a force of Ignorance, Avidya. The Purusha in itself is divine, but
exteriorised in the ignorance of Nature it is the individual apparent
being imperfect with her imperfection. Thus the soul or psychic
essence, which is the Purusha entering into the evolution and supporting
it, carries in itself all the divine potentialities; but the individual
psychic being which it puts forth as its representative assumes
the imperfection of Nature and evolves in it till it has recovered
its full psychic essence and united itself with the Self above of
which the soul is the individual projection in the evolution. This
duality in the being on all its planes -for it is true in different
ways not only of the Self and the psychic but of the mental, vital
and physical Purushas has to be grasped and accepted before the
experiences of the yoga can be fully understood.
The Being is one throughout, but on each plane of Nature,
it is represented by a form of itself which is proper to that plane,
the mental Purusha in the mental plane, the vital Purusha in the
vital, the physical Purusha in the physical. The Taittiriya Upanishad
speaks of two other planes of the being, the Knowledge or Truth
plane and the Ananda plane, each with its Purusha, but although
influences may come down from them, these are superconscient to
the human mind and their nature is not yet organised here.
SRI AUROBINDO
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