Spiritual Growth Is Characterised by Inward Experience and Maturation of the Being

0:00 The spiritual development of the individual seeker is not something that can be measured or defined in terms of the intellect or understood by specific results as sought by the vital nature, nor can it be certified by various physical attainments, capacities that exceed the normal status of the external being. These outward results belong to the external being, the development of the mind, the emotions, the vital nature, the physical body. Through training, discipline and ongoing effort, these things can show their development in concrete ways.

0:42 The development of the spiritual capacities is, however, not always easily visible and certainly not quantifiable by our normal yardsticks that we apply to the external capacities. Yoga, the process by which the spiritual seeker consciously and systematically cultivates the spiritual growth of the being, takes place inwardly, silently, and in many cases incrementally over time. Spiritual capacity is evidenced by a wideness and inclusiveness, by the development of understanding that is not exclusive or dogmatic. Of an emotional being that is embracing without being possessive.

1:29 By a vital being that is powerful in action but not self-centered or acquisitive for individual possession. By a physical being which grows in the strength of bearing the force of the spiritual consciousness without breaking down and spilling it. The inner spiritual being which Fioro Bindo calls the psychic being, is characterized not by its outward achievements but by its focus on and turning of the nature and its actions towards the divine. It develops aspiration, consecration and self giving as the process of its development. The growth of the inner flame, the Mystic fire, is the sign of the psychic beings increasing influence on the being, Fioro Bindo notes quote at a certain stage in the Yoga, when the mind is sufficiently quieted and no longer supports itself at every step on the sufficiency of its mental certitudes. When the vital has been steadied and subdued, and is no longer constantly insistent on its own rash will, demand and desire. When the physical has been sufficiently altered not to bury altogether the inner flame under the mass of its outwardness, obscurity, or inertia, an inmost being hidden within and felt only in its rare influences, is

3:02 able to come forward and illumine the rest, and take up the lead of the sadhna. Its character is A1 pointed orientation towards the Divine, or the highest 1 pointed and yet plastic in action and movement. It does not create a rigidity of direction like the one pointed intellect, or a bigotry of the regnant idea or impulse like the one pointed vital force. It is at every moment and with a supple sureness that it points the way to the truth, automatically distinguishes the right from the false, extricates the Divine or godward movement from the clinging mixture of the undivine.

3:47 Its action is like a Searchlight showing up all that has to be changed in the nature. It has in it a flame of will, insisting on perfection, on an alchemic transmutation of all the inner and outer existence. It sees the divine essence everywhere, but rejects the mere mask and the disguising figure. It insists on truth, on will and strength and mastery, on joy and love and beauty, but on a truth of abiding knowledge that surpasses the mere practical momentary truth of the ignorance on an inward joy, and not on mere vital pleasure.

4:31 For it prefers rather a purifying suffering and sorrow to degrading satisfactions. On love winged upward and not tied to the stake of egoistic craving, or with its feet sunk in the mire. On beauty restored to its priesthood of interpretation of the Eternal, on strength and will and mastery as instruments not of the ego but of the Spirit. Its will is for the divinization of life, the expression through it of a higher truth, its dedication to the Divine and the Eternal. End Quote. Reference. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, the Psychic being soul, its nature, Mission and evolution. Section 1.

5:19 Meaning and Nature of the Psychic Being, pages 33 to 34.