The Progress of the Psychic Being -- Individualising While Transcending the Ego

0:00 Individuals who take up spiritual practice are generally advised that they have to overcome the ego and free themselves from its desires, ambitions, wants, or needs. As the practice advances, the seeker begins to recognize that he is not that ego personality, either as the specific person or in the larger formations of the ego, the family, the community, the nation, the religion. At the same time, we can recognize that the development of the individuality associated with what we understand to be the ego is actually part of the advancement of the evolution of consciousness.

0:47 Consciousness in matter is not differentiated. Much of the creation prior to the advent of the more highly evolved forms that incorporate a well defined mental awareness is undifferentiated as well. Progress in these levels is slow, taking place across millennia. With the advent of the individualized consciousness, we experience the opportunity for what might be seen as parallel processing, where different individuals are able to work on development from different standpoints and with different tools at their disposal, thus creating an engine of progress.

1:29 As with everything, there are benefits but also limitations. At a certain point the limitations need to be overcome. Sri Robindo described this in his aphorism quote. When we have passed beyond individualizing, then we shall be real persons. Ego was the helper. Ego is the bar. End Quote The next stage in spiritual development is to be able to utilize the differentiation, the individualization, without the limitations of being tied to the desires and wants of a specific ego formation. A disciple inquires in What does a psychic being's progress consist?

2:19 The Mother replies quote individualization, the capacity to take up all experiences and organize them around the divine centre. The aim of the psychic being is to form an individual being, individualized, personalized around the divine centre. Normally, all the experiences of the external life, unless one does yoga and becomes conscious, pass without organizing the inner being. While the psychic being organizes these experiences serially, it wants to realize a particular attitude towards the divine. Hence it looks for all favourable experiences in order to have the complete series of opportunities, so to say, which will allow it to realize this attitude towards the divine. Take someone, for example, who wants to have the experience of nobility.

3:18 A nobility which makes it impossible for you to act like an ordinary person, which infuses into you a bravery, A courage which may almost be taken for rashness, because the attitude, the experience, demands that you face danger without showing the least fear. I was telling you a while ago that I would explain to you what one could acquire by entering into the body of a king. A king is an ordinary man, isn't he? Like all others, he does not have a special consciousness, but through the necessities of his life, because he is a kind of symbol to his people, there are things he is obliged to do which he could never do if he were an ordinary man. I know this by experience, but I saw this also while looking at photographs which represented a king In actual circumstances. Something had happened which might have been an attempt on his life, but was averted.

4:20 The photograph showed the king inspecting A regiment. All of a sudden, someone had rushed forward, perhaps with a bad intention, perhaps not, for nothing had happened. In any case, the King had remained completely impassive, absolutely calm, the same smile on his lips, without moving the least from the place where he was, and he was quite within sight, an easy target for one who wanted to rush forward and hurt him. For all I know, this king was not a hero, but because he was a king, he could not take to flight. That would have been ignoble.

5:02 So he remained calm without stirring, without showing any outward fear. This is an example of what 1 can learn in the life of a king. There is also a true story about Queen Elizabeth. She had come to the last days of her life and was extremely ill. But there was trouble in the country and about questions of taxation. A group of people, merchants I believe, had formed a delegation to present a petition to her in the name of a party of the people. She lay very ill in her room, so I'll that she could hardly stand, but she got up and dressed to receive them. The lad who was attending upon her cried out. But it is impossible you will die of this. The Queen answered quietly.

5:56 We shall die afterwards. This is an example from a whole series of experiences one can have in the life of a king, and it is this which justifies the choice of the psychic being when it takes up this kind of life. It is memories of this kind which prove the authenticity of the experience. For what generally happens when people tell you about their past lives is this. In these lives there is always a progress, naturally, so they become more and more splendid people in more and more marvellous circumstances. It is wrong. Things never happen like that. The psychic being follows a certain line of existence which develops certain qualities, certain powers, etcetera.

6:43 But the psychic being always sees what it lacks and it can choose the opposite line in a future life. A negation, so to say, of this experience in order to have complementary experiences. End Quote Reference Sri Orobindo and the Mother, the psychic being soul, its nature, mission and evolution. Section 3. Growth and Development of the Psychic, pages 92 to 94.