The Witness and the Nature: Purusha and Prakriti

0:00 When we take the time to observe our own internal process, we can very quickly become aware of a part of the being that is able to observe and monitor thoughts and impulses that run through the mental space. Many paths of awareness, such as Raja Yoga and mindfulness training teach us how to reach this observational standpoint. As it is limited to the mental aspect of our being. We may understand this to be the mental witness, the mental Purusha, observing the mental nature, mental prakruti. There's a similar experience we can develop as we begin to monitor our feelings, impulsions, emotions, this time at the vital level, the vital Purusha. With sufficient practice, we may also begin to find ways to take stock of our physical being and its responses and reactions and become aware of the physical purusha. Although much of the action of the physical body is actually accomplished relatively automatically, with a speed and precision that baffles our attempts to consciously monitor these things, we may, however, become aware of the body consciousness through its responses to situations and events.

1:24 Some find that there are actual physical senses beyond the five we generally recognize that are physical knowings, such as gauging the weight of an object one holds in one's hands, or the directional orientation, or a sense of balance, or even the sense of a potential danger that is not seen with the mental or vital sense but acts directly upon the body. There is yet another aspect of the consciousness of the witness which is not tied to the mental, the vital, or the physical levels of our external being. This aspect is the witness at the level of the soul, the psychic being, which links the individual to the divine presence and which observes and eventually works to master the functioning of the body, the life force and the mind. Sri Rubindo notes quote In the experience of Yoga, the self or being is in essence one with the divine, or at least it is a portion of the divine and has all the divine potentialities. But in manifestation it takes 2 aspects, the Purusha and Prakriti, conscious being and Nature. In nature.

2:48 Here the Divine is veiled and the individual being is subjected to nature, which acts here as the lower property of force of ignorance of Vidya. The Purusha in itself is Divine, but exteriorized in the ignorance of nature. It is the individual apparent being imperfect with her imperfection. Thus the soul or psychic essence, which is the Purusha, entering into the evolution and supporting it, carries in itself all the divine potentialities. But the individual psychic being, which it puts forth as its representative, assumes the imperfection of Nature and evolves in it till it has recovered its full psychic essence and united itself with the Self, above of which the soul is the individual projection in the evolution.

3:44 This duality and the Being on all its planes, for it is true in different ways, not only of the self and the psychic, but of the mental, vital and physical purushas has to be grasped and accepted before the experiences of the Yoga can be fully understood. The Being is 1 throughout, but on each plane of nature it is represented by a form of itself which is proper to that plane, the mental Perusha in the mental plane, the vital Perusha in the vital, the physical Perusha in the physical, the Titeria. Upanishad speaks of two other planes of the being, the Knowledge or Truth plane and the Ananda plane, each with its Perusha.

4:34 But although influences may come down from them, these are super conscient to the human mind and their nature is not yet organized here. End Quote. Reference Srioro Bindu and the Mother, the psychic being soul, its nature, mission and evolution. Section 1. Meaning and Nature of the Psychic Being, pages 11 to 12.