A Podcast Featuring Sri Aurobindo Studies
May 18, 2023

The Necessity of a Reversal of Consciousness for Living the Spiritual Life

The Necessity of a Reversal of Consciousness for Living the Spiritual Life
The Necessity of a Reversal of Consciousness for Living the Spiritual Life
Sri Aurobindo Studies
The Necessity of a Reversal of Consciousness for Living the Spiritual Life

reference: Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Growing Within: The Psychology of Inner Development, Chapter IX Reversal of Consciousness: The New Birth, pp. 165-166 This is also available as a blog post: https://sriaurobindostudies.wordpress.com/2023/05/16/the-necessity-of-a-reversal-of-consciousness-for-living-the-spiritual-life/


0:01 Whether we described it as a shift of standpoint or a reversal of Consciousness, it is an essential turning point in the development of a spiritual life. That the individual adjust both his focus and his interpretation of the life experience to conform. Not with the outer view on the surface which is immersed in family enjoyment, work and organization of the outer life. But with an interview that sees the deeper purpose of life and the Oneness of the entire creation that develops, according to the designs of the Divine rather than from some standpoint of satisfaction of the individual ego personality, this shift or reversal moves, the Consciousness in words makes it more reflective and connects it to the larger Universal awareness. The mother observes quote to live the spiritual life. A reversal of Consciousness is needed to live. The spiritual life, is to open to another world within oneself. It is to reverse one's Consciousness, as it were the ordinary human consciousness.

1:18 Even in the most developed, even in Man of great talent and great realization is a movement, turned outwards. All the energies are directed It's the whole Consciousness is spread outwards, and if anything is turned inwards, it is very little, very rare, very fragmentary, it happens only under the pressure of very special circumstances. Violent shocks, the shocks life gives precisely with the intention of slightly reversing this movement of exterior ization of the consciousness. But all who have lived, a spiritual life have had the same experience, all of a sudden, something in there being has been reversed, so to speak has been turned suddenly and sometimes completely inwards and also at the same time upwards from within upwards.

2:17 But it is not an external above, it is within deep, something other than the height, as they are physically conceived. Something has literally been turned over. There has been a decisive experience and the standpoint in life the way of looking at life. the attitude one takes in relation to it has suddenly changed and in some cases quite definitively irrevocably so long as one is in the mental Consciousness, even the highest and sees the spiritual life from outside one judges with one's mental, faculties with the habit of seeking airing correcting progressing and seeking once again and one thinks that those who are are in the spiritual life suffer from the same incapacity, but that is a very gross mistake. When the reversal of the being has taken place. All that is finished.

3:19 When no longer seeks. One sees one no longer deduces. One knows when no longer gropes, one walk straight to the goal and quote, reference SRI aurobindo in the mother growing within the Psychology of inner development, chapter 9 reversal of Consciousness. The new birth Pages, 165 to 166,