Appreciating Knowledge Not Based in Mental Processes

0:01 Knowledge in the minds of most people is mental knowledge. We are trained to use our minds to read, to observe, to analyze, to compare, to remember and to correlate. We learn the skills of mental logic and honour those who advanced in mental capabilities. We practice argument and debate and declare winners as those who are able to present the better argument. We know when there is a stream of thought in our minds that tells us what we know. Rene Descartes famously declared I think therefore I am. Man is the mental being, the current peak of the evolution of consciousness, able to use his mind to rearrange the physical world and control the animal world.

0:53 We are, however, beginning to understand and appreciate that there are other forms and types of knowing that we have suppressed and undervalued. As the mental form of knowing gained its ascendancy and proved its value in the building of our external world and our own success in that world, people are beginning to explore emotional intelligence, vital reactions that occur without mental thought, even physical knowledge based in body consciousness. Each of these forms of knowing are unique and based in the capacities of that level of consciousness.

1:34 The mind, even while we consider it the peak of our current development, is clearly neither perfect nor is it absolute or precise in its power of knowing. We are beginning to understand and explore other powers that go beyond those of the body, the life force and the mind, powers that originate at levels above the mental level. Intuition, inspiration are forcing us to reconsider the role that the mind has to play in our future development. The psychic, being directly connected to the spirit and the truth of existence, has its own way of knowing what Triorobindo defines as a form of knowledge by identity. In order to comprehend what the soul knows, we also need to adjust our view of knowledge so that we can experience, feel, intuit the truth, not simply be swayed by potentially faulty or incomplete statements of logic or reasoning, the mother observes.

2:44 Quote communications from the psychic do not come in a mental form. They are not ideas or reasonings. They have their own character, quite distinct from the mind, something like a feeling that comprehends itself and acts by its very nature. The psychic is calm, quiet and luminous, understanding and generous, wide and progressive. Its constant effort is to understand and progress. The mind describes and explains the psychic sees and understands End Quote Reference Sri aurobindo and the Mother The psychic being soul, its nature, mission and evolution Section 1 Meaning and nature of the psychic being, page 42.