The Voice of the Soul -- Distinguishing the Aspiration of the Psychic Being

0:00 Most people have their spiritual motivation filtered through their external personality. If the mind is their predominant part, then it may take a mental turn. If the vital, then a vital turn. If the physical, a physical turn in the life Divine. Sri Robindo describes the human aspiration as grounded in the seeking for God, light, freedom and immortality. The pure expression of the soul, the psychic being, is turned always towards the Divine. We hear many voices in our inner dialogue.

0:42 Sometimes it is the voice of the mental being and it tries to develop ideas, concepts and a logical framework in its seeking for knowledge. Sometimes it is the voice of the vital desire soul, which wants to acquire power, wealth, sex, fame and dominion. Sometimes it is the voice of the physical body, setting forth its needs, its comforts, and its demands. We are habituated to hear these voices and respond to them. Thus we frequently fail to heed the quiet voice of the soul, which does not insist or demand, but which simply aspires. We may mistake the mental or vital voice for the voice of the soul when they have been influenced by the psychic being, and turn at least partially towards the Divine. These represent steps along the way. As the wise sage often says, any door which opens to the Divine should be accepted as a starting point or an intermediate step along the way, until such time as the soul can directly express its deepest aspirations and gain the adherents and support of the external being in all its parts.

2:08 Sriorobindo writes quote. People mean different things when they speak of the soul. Sometimes it is what I have called in the Aria the desire soul, that is the vital with its mixed aspirations, desires hungers of all kinds, good and bad, its emotions finer and grosser, or sensational urges crossed by the mind's idealizings and psychic stresses. But sometimes it is also the mind and vital under the stress of a psychic urge. The psychic, so long as it is veiled, must express itself through the mind and vital, and its aspirations are mixed and coloured there by the vital and mental stuff.

2:55 Thus the veiled psychic urge may express itself in the mind by a hunger in the thought for the knowledge of the Divine, what the Europeans call the intellectual love of God in the vital. It may express itself as a hunger or a hankering after the Divine. It can bring much suffering because of the nature of the vital, its unquiet passions, desires, ardors, troubled emotions, cloudings, depressions, despairs. Nevertheless, all cannot approach, at least cannot at once approach the Divine in the pure psychic way. The mental and vital approaches are often necessary beginnings and better from the spiritual point of view than unsensitiveness to the Divine. It is in both cases a call of the soul, the soul's urge. It only takes a form or color due to the stress of the mind or vital nature and quote reference Sri aurobindo and the Mother the psychic being soul, its nature, mission and evolution. Section 1.

4:07 Meaning and Nature of the Psychic Being, pages 21 to 22.