Understanding Psychic and Soul In Their Deepest and Original Sense

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The English language leaves a
lot of room for confusion simply

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because terminology tends to be
imprecise, inexact, or vague.

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The issue is made even more
difficult because, particularly

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in the West, there is very
little understanding of the vast

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field of consciousness, the
various planes and parts of the

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being, and their interactions
with one another.

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It is compounded by the use of
language to join together vastly

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different things simply because
they are not recognized in their

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true place or significance.
The term psychic has been used

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to lump together all types of
diverse phenomena.

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Originally the root came out of
the Greek and eventually Latin

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term psyche, which translates in
the original sense as soul or

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spirit or animating force.
Over time, the term took on

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additional connotations,
including mind and even ghost as

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representing the spirit of a
deceased individual.

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The scriptural texts of the
Bible reference the use of the

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term as soul or spirit.
The loosening of the meaning

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seems to have started in the
1300s.

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In the early 1900s it formally
took on the additional meaning

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in certain circles of mind.
The study of psychology thus

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became the study of the mind
rather than the deeper sense of

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the study of the soul.
In the modern world we throw

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around the word psychic to cover
a cult phenomena, fortune

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telling, and anything else which
cannot be explained easily by

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our very much blinded view about
the powers that operate in our

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lives.
The understanding of soul has

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also changed from its original
sense of the spirit that

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animates life, the spirit, to
one that is conflated with our

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desires in the external being.
Thus, we speak of soulful

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expressions, which generally
represent the expression of deep

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desires or emotions, rather than
being necessarily related to the

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deepest animating spirit behind
the desires.

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We have soul mates, we eat soul
food, and we listen to soul

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music.
While there may have been a link

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to the deepest spiritual
seekings in the origination of

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the use of these terms, they
have acquired a much more

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general sense in today's
environment.

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With this vast mass of
confusion, it is easy for an

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individual who takes up the
practice of yoga to be somewhat

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disoriented or misled.
Srioro Bindo worked to codify

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the use of the terminology and
went back to the original root

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meanings to help the spiritual
seeker cut through all the

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levels of confused understanding
brought in by this wide range of

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disparate phenomena lumped
within the meaning of these

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terms, Sriorobindu observes.
Quote I mean by the psychic the

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inmost soul being, and the soul
nature.

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This is not the sense in which
the word is used in ordinary

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parlance, or rather, if it is so
used, it is with great vagueness

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and much misprision of the true
nature of this soul, and it is

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given a wide extension of
meaning which carries it far

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beyond that province.
All phenomena of an abnormal or

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supernormal, psychological or an
occult character are dub

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psychic.
If a man has a double

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personality changing from one to
another.

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If an apparition of a dying man,
something of his mere vital

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sheath, or else a thought form
of him, appears and talks

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through the room of his
wondering friend.

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If a poltergeist kicks up an
unseemly row in a house, all

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that is classed under psychic
phenomena and regarded as a fit

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object for psychic research,
though these things have nothing

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whatever to do with the psychic.
Again, much in yoga itself is

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merely A cult, phenomena of the
unseen, vital or mental or

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subtle.
Physical planes, visions,

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symbols, all that mixed, often
perturbed, often shadowy, often

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illusory range of experiences
which belong to this intervening

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country between the soul and its
superficial instruments, or

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rather to its outermost fringes.
All the chaos of the

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intermediate zone is summed up
as psychic and considered as an

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inferior and dubious province of
spiritual discovery.

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Again, there is a constant
confusion between the mentalized

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desire soul, which is a creation
of the vital urge in man, of his

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life force seeking for its
fulfilment, and the true soul,

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which is a spark of the divine
fire, a portion of the divine.

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Because the soul, the psychic
being, uses the mind and the

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vital as well as the body as
instruments for growth and

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experience, it is itself looked
at as if it were some amalgam or

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some substratum of mind and
life.

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But in yoga, if we accept all
those chaotic mass as soul stuff

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or soul movement, we shall enter
into a confusion without an

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issue, all that belongs only to
the coverings of the soul.

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The soul itself is an inner
divinity greater than mind or

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life or body.
It is something that, once it is

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released from obscuration by its
instruments, at once creates a

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direct contact with the Divine
and with the self and spirit.

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End Quote Reference Sri
Aurobindo and the Mother The

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psychic being, soul, its nature,
Mission and evolution Section 1

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Meaning and Nature of the
Psychic Being pages 3 to 4.