The Power of the Psychic Being

0:02 When most people think of power, it is within the context of some overt ability to accomplish something in the setting of the external world within which we live and act. This may be political power, economic power, physical power, moral power, the power to persuade, the power of an idea, the power of motivation, whether through speech, writing, or through some other medium. It may be the power to uplift and inspire, such as the power of art or music that touches something in the being. Because the psychic being works from behind the scenes and through influence and guidance of the body, life, mind complex, it is hard to define exactly what power the psychic has, and this is the thrust of a question posed to the mother by a disciple.

1:03 The power of the psychic being, though subtle and unable to be defined by our external definitions of power, is a causative power. Its role is not the direct implementation of any particular line of action in the world, but to create the sole circumstances and guide the responses for the soul's development and use of its external capacities in the service of the divine manifestation to which the psychic being, through its direct relation to the divine, is connected. The Titeria Upanishad makes the point that the gross external being is the result of the more subtle planes and powers that create them, the subtlest of which is the element of Ananda, Part of the triune ultimate reality of Satchidananda, the power that sets everything in motion and orders the framework and development of the universal creation, is the ultimate, if often unrecognized, power.

2:11 This is not just true in a universal sense, but even in the life and development of the individual. When the soul has an opportunity to direct, guide, or impel the individual along a certain line of development, the disciple asks has the psychic any power? The mother answers quote power. It is usually the psychic which guides the being. One knows nothing about it because one is not conscious of it, but usually it is that which guides the being. If one is very attentive, one becomes aware of it, but the majority of men haven't the least idea of it.

2:57 For instance, when they have decided in their outer ignorance to do something, and instead of their being able to do it, all the circumstances are so organized that they do something else, they start shouting, storming, flying into a Rage Against fate. Saying that depends on what they believe, their beliefs that nature is wicked, or their destiny baleful, or God unjust, or no matter what, it depends on what they believe, while most of the time it is just the very circumstance which was most favourable for their inner development. And naturally, if you ask the psychic to help you to fashion a pleasant life for yourself, to earn money, have children, who will be the pride of the family, etcetera. Well, the psychic will not help you, but it will create for you all the circumstances necessary to awaken something in you, so that the need of union with the divine may be born in your consciousness.

4:03 At times you have made fine plans and if they had succeeded, you would have been more or less encrusted in your outer ignorance, your stupid little ambition and your aimless activity. Whilst if you receive a good shock and the post you coveted is denied to you, the plan you made is shattered and you find yourself completely thwarted. Then sometimes this opposition opens to you a door on something truer and deeper, and when you are a little awake and look back, if you are in the least sincere, you say, ah, it wasn't I who was right. It was nature, or the divine grace or my psychic being who did it.

4:59 It is the psychic being which organized that. End Quote Reference Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Chapter 2. Hidden Forces within pages 51 to 52.