A Podcast Featuring Sri Aurobindo Studies
July 9, 2023

Interaction of the Powers of Consciousness in the Material World

Interaction of the Powers of Consciousness in the Material World
Interaction of the Powers of Consciousness in the Material World
Sri Aurobindo Studies
Interaction of the Powers of Consciousness in the Material World

reference:

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 2, Planes and Parts of the Being, pp. 14-15


This episode is also available as a blog post at https://sriaurobindostudies.wordpress.com/2023/07/07/interaction-of-the-powers-of-consciousness-in-the-material-world/

0:01 While each power of consciousness, physical, vital, mental, and others operates in its native mode, and strength in its own plane or sphere of action, IT projects itself into the world we inhabit by tying itself to the foundation of the basic physical principle. This involves A watering down of the native action of the power and question. While also creating a mixing effect so that each level of consciousness is not only attenuated but also forced to interact with the other principles and thereby develop a hybrid action, Sriorabindo writes Quote Each plane of our being, mental, vital, physical, has its own consciousness, separate though interconnected and interacting.

0:58 But to our outer mind and sense in our waking experience, they are all confused together. There is the universal physical consciousness of nature, and there is our own, which is a part of it, moved by it and used by the central being for the support of its expression in the physical world, and for a direct dealing with all these external objects and movements and forces. This physical consciousness plane receives from the other planes their powers and influences, and makes formations of them in its own province.

1:39 Therefore we have a physical mind as well as a vital mind and the mind proper. We have a vital physical part in us, the nervous being, as well as the vital proper, and both are largely conditioned. By the gross material bodily part, which is almost entirely subconscient to our experience. End Quote reference Sriorobindo and the Mother Our Many Selves, Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 2, Planes and Parts of the Being, pages 14 to 15.