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- The Knowledge Based in the Mystic Heart - by Submitted on Apr 09, 2026 from santosh krinskyMan, the mental being. The mental capacities that are associated with the human species are considered to be our unique trait, distinguishing humanity from the rest of the animal kingdom. We drive this narrative with a focus on training and developing the mind in our schools. We believe that ...
Views: 1 - The Vital Desire-Soul and the True Soul - by Submitted on Apr 08, 2026 from santosh krinskyWe generally confuse the vital nature with the soul. We look at the external life of the body and recognise that when the life-force departs, the body dies and the lifetime and personality associated with that existence comes to an end. Some scientists decided that they could identify the ...
Views: 2 - The Dual Levels of Body, Life, Mind and Soul — the External Formations and the Inner, Subliminal and Subtler Level That Links to the Universal and Causative Being - by Submitted on Apr 07, 2026 from santosh krinskyThe framework of the physical body and the limitations of the interface between the body, the life-force and the mental powers of the external being circumscribes our awareness and our ability to perceive the forces at work that shape our existence. We can experience, under various ...
Views: 3 - Are We There Yet? - by Submitted on Apr 05, 2026 from santosh krinskyWe tend to start our conscious spiritual quest from the external standpoint of our ego-personality and the mental, vital and physical complex we have developed during our lives. Something has opened up within us that causes us to begin the process. As we begin to have various experiences that go ...
Views: 5 - The Voice of the Soul — Distinguishing the Aspiration of the Psychic Being - by Submitted on Apr 04, 2026 from santosh krinskyMost 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 Aurobindo describes the human aspiration as ...
Views: 6 - The Psychic Being and Its Interface with the Mental, Vital and Physical Parts of the Being - by Submitted on Apr 03, 2026 from santosh krinskyThe physical being, the vital being and the mental being each have their own characteristic mode of action, habits and predilections. They also have created over time an interface that modfiies the native action of each to accept some amount of influence and control by the other elements. Thus, ...
Views: 5 - Two Key Forms of Aspiration in the Spiritual Seeking - by Submitted on Apr 02, 2026 from santosh krinskyThe Yoga of Knowledge focuses on the realization of the Self, the consciousness above which is free from the illusions of the external life that most people lead. The Yoga of Devotion focuses on the realisation of the psychic being which turns the being and the sense towards the Divine. The ...
Views: 5 - Liberation from Illusion and the Transformation of Life - by Submitted on Apr 01, 2026 from santosh krinskyThere is a long history of spiritual aspirants seeking liberation from what they come to perceive as the illusion of life in the world. It is a signal experience when the individual awakens to the apparent unreality, the transitory nature of the external life, and the seemingly meaningless ...
Views: 5 - The Soul and the Psychic Being - by Submitted on Mar 31, 2026 from santosh krinskyThere is a type of cell in the body which is called a ‘stem cell’. The stem cell does not have a direct operational function; rather it is undifferentiated and capable of being activated to become any type of functional cell for any part of the body. Without pushing the example too far, the soul ...
Views: 6 - The Triple Aspects of the Divine Presence - by Submitted on Mar 30, 2026 from santosh krinskyIn order to carry out the complex creation, the Supreme Divine Consciousness has ‘distributed’ the awareness through a series of steps. The first step is the development of the Jivatman, the Divine Presence that does not involve itself directly in the individual beings of the manifestation, but ...
Views: 7 - The Refraction of the Unified Supreme Consciousness Into the Various Levels and Forms of the Manifested Creation - by Submitted on Mar 29, 2026 from santosh krinskyThe Supreme Consciousness refracts itself into sub-spheres of awareness depending on the level of the creation that needs that awareness. Thus, the unified Supreme Consciousness, known as Sat-Chit-Ananda, creates apparent separate forms at the Knowledge level, the supramental consciousness, ...
Views: 9 - Occult Knowledge or Perceptions Originate in the Inner Mental, Vital or Physical, not the Psychic Being - by Submitted on Mar 29, 2026 from santosh krinskyPeople get intimations, intuitions, ‘gut instincts’, or simply a feeling about something, maybe a form of uneasiness, or a sense of expectation, or some pressure, or new thought process or emotional reaction. Sometimes these things occur during the waking state, but often they come as elements ...
Views: 9 - Being and Becoming and the Soul and the Psychic Being - by Submitted on Mar 29, 2026 from santosh krinskyWhen we gaze into space at night, we see stars unimaginably distant from us. We also can experience. if we suspend our thinking mind and vital desire-soul and physical demands temporarily, a sense of the timeless, the immutable, unchanging Reality that exceeds our ability to embrace and ...
Views: 8 - The Potentiality of the Soul — the Actuality of the Psychic Being - by Submitted on Mar 29, 2026 from santosh krinskyA seed, in its essence, contains all the potentiality that eventually turns into a full grown tree. It is useful to reflect on this when we look at the position of the soul in relation to the psychic being. The soul is like that seed to the extent that it has all the potential of the Divine ...
Views: 8 - The Jiva, the Soul and the Psychic Being — the Interface Between the Divine Standpoint and the Human Standpoint - by Submitted on Mar 29, 2026 from santosh krinskyThe Knowledge plane, which Sri Aurobindo terms the “supramental consciousness” is the level where the unity of the Supreme consciousness is ‘refracted’ to create the apparent multiplicity of the manifested universe. This level holds both the Oneness and the Multiplicity with a consciousness that ...
Views: 9 - The Higher Nature and the Lower Nature Seen from the Divine Standpoint and the Human Standpoint - by Submitted on Mar 24, 2026 from santosh krinskyEvolution of forms is the machinery for the manifestation of the universe. Evolution of consciousness provides the significance and inner direction. Similarly, we can look at the lower Nature, apra prakriti, as the mechanism and para prakriti, the higher Nature as the cause and conscious creator ...
Views: 7 - The Soul, the Psychic Being and the Evolution of Consciousness - by Submitted on Mar 23, 2026 from santosh krinskyIn his text On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin outlined the evolution of life-forms on earth. He observed many species and posited that they all developed from a common ancestral past, having undergone substantial changes, mutations, that supported the success of those forms and ...
Views: 8 - The Higher Nature, the Lower Nature and the Role of the Jivatman - by Submitted on Mar 22, 2026 from santosh krinskyThe Bhagavad Gita describes the lower nature and the higher nature. The lower nature is the external manifestation of forms, matter, life-energy, mind, that together constitute the creation and all the multiplicity of formations that together represent the external world. This can be seen as a ...
Views: 8 - Jivatman and Psychic Being - by Submitted on Mar 21, 2026 from santosh krinskySpiritual seekers have differing affinities and capacities from which they begin their conscious spiritual focus. Some of them take up the seeking for the Self, the Jivatman, with liberation from the illusion of the external world and its temptations as a primary objective. They practice Jnana ...
Views: 8 - The Psychic Being and the Process of Rebirth Provide the Basis for a Real Purpose and Meaning in Life - by Submitted on Mar 20, 2026 from santosh krinskyHumanity has grappled with finding a meaning and purpose to life since time immemorial. We ask ourselves, why have we been born? Is there a meaning to life? What are we here to do? Is life simply about acquiring wealth, status, power and creating offspring? Is there anything else that acts as ...
Views: 10 - The Witness and the Nature: Purusha and Prakriti - by Submitted on Mar 19, 2026 from santosh krinskyWhen 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 ...
Views: 10 - Ghosts, Vital Formations and the After Death Experience - by Submitted on Mar 18, 2026 from santosh krinskyThe Taittiriya Upanishad describes the process of departure of the soul from an embodiment in the world: “The Spirit who is here in a man and the Spirit who is there in the Sun, it is one Spirit and there is no other. He who knoweth this, when he hath gone away from this world, passeth to this ...
Views: 10 - The Soul Exists in All Living Beings - by Submitted on Mar 17, 2026 from santosh krinskyWe frequently mistake the development of the external form as representing the state of the soul. In human beings, this often takes the form of assigning worth or status based on education, race, social position within the societal hierarchy, wealth or positions of power. None of these things, ...
Views: 11 - Distinguishing Soul from Vital Being - by Submitted on Mar 16, 2026 from santosh krinskyThe lack of experience and recognition of the action of the soul makes it difficult for most people to understand the reality of the soul. For this reason, people tend to confuse the true soul with the vital soul of desire, which Sri Aurobindo calls the ‘desire-soul’. This is an expression of ...
Views: 13 - The Soul and the Evolutionary Nature of the Psychic Being - by Submitted on Mar 16, 2026 from santosh krinskyA seed contains the entire genetic code from which the external form, energetic capacity and mental abilities of a living being develop. It can be seen as the most concentrated form of that being, a form that nevertheless has the capacity, through time, of manifesting a physical form, a vital ...
Views: 12 - The Evolution of the Psychic Being Across Innumerable Lifetimes - by Submitted on Mar 14, 2026 from santosh krinskyThere is considerable confusion about the concept of rebirth and the development and growth of the psychic being across multiple lifetimes. Popular imagination has it that the same individual personality is reborn, and that under certain circumstances, past lives can be identified and recalled. ...
Views: 14 - Evolutionary Beings and Static Typal Beings in the Universal Manifestation - by Submitted on Mar 13, 2026 from santosh krinskyAs with many words in the English language, the word soul has various nuanced meanings as Sri Aurobindo explains. English as a very fluid language can at times be very imprecise in this way. This, however, is just one of the issues Sri Aurobindo takes up here in the citation below. One very ...
Views: 15 - Distinguishing Psychic Experience from Occult or Abnormal Experience - by Submitted on Mar 12, 2026 from santosh krinskyHow does one distinguish between psychic experience, as defined by Sri Aurobindo, as soul experiences, from the vast array of experiences that occur on the mental or vital planes that have been called ‘psychic’ phenomena? Once one has the clue about the different parts of the being and their ...
Views: 17 - The Soul, the Psychic Being, Is the Element That Makes the Divine Force Conscious for the External Being - by Submitted on Mar 11, 2026 from santosh krinskyThe soul, the psychic being, is a portion of the Divine that resides deep within. For most people, who are living in the surface consciousness primarily, the existence of the soul is a question mark, if they think about it at all. As we grow and face life’s challenges, however, we may begin to ...
Views: 19 - Resurrecting the Ancient Knowledge of the Various Planes and Parts of the Being - by Submitted on Mar 11, 2026 from santosh krinskyIn the Kena Upanishad, the powers of the physical plane, the vital plane and the mental plane all believe they are predominant and can wield their power to achieve whatever they want. These powers are embodied in the form of Agni on the physical plane, Vayu on the vital plane and Indra on the ...
Views: 17 - The Psychic Being Carries the Essence of the Soul’s Experience from Life to Life - by Submitted on Mar 09, 2026 from santosh krinskyWe tend to look at things through the standpoint of the external physical being, the body, life and mind with which we identify. From this standpoint we treat the soul as something that we need to search for, if we even acknowledge the existence of the soul, and as something secondary to and ...
Views: 18 - If the world is an illusion meant to be transcended, why does it exist at all? - by Submitted on Mar 09, 2026 from Dada BhagwanTo answer your question, let’s study the following words of Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan, an Enlightened being, very carefully. He says: “This puzzle has come about on its own, governed by the laws of science. I am telling you that this world is run only by Scientific Circumstantial Evidences. In ...
Views: 19 - Understanding Psychic and Soul In Their Deepest and Original Sense - by Submitted on Mar 08, 2026 from santosh krinskyThe English language leaves a lot of room for confusion, simply because terminology tends to be imprecise, inexact, or vague. The issue is made even more difficult because, particularly in the West, there is very little understanding of the vast field of consciousness, the various planes and ...
Views: 19 - A Deeper Meaning to Our Existence - by Submitted on Mar 07, 2026 from santosh krinskyWhat if the life we lead is not our true purpose on earth? What if there is more to our existence than the daily round that we carry out, day after day, year after year, changing only the external trappings and specific activities, but falling into a similar groove regardless? How many of us ...
Views: 21 - Understanding the Terminology in Sri Aurobindo’s Use of the Words ‘Soul’ and ‘Psychic’ - by Submitted on Mar 06, 2026 from santosh krinskySri Aurobindo’s use of the terms ‘soul’ and ‘psychic’ started out with the common usage of the time, but as his work developed, he determined it was best to create a more precise terminology than was commonly in use. In order to appreciate the nuances involved and follow along with the central ...
Views: 20 - The Soul and the Psychic Being - by Submitted on Mar 05, 2026 from santosh krinskyIn his poem Savitri, Sri Aurobindo provides imagery to describe the nature and role of the soul, and the significance of the psychic being hidden deep within, carrying our human experience and human life to its eventual fulfillment. Sri Aurobindo writes: "But since she knows the toil of mind ...
Views: 21 - The Psychic Being — Soul: Its Nature, Mission and Evolution Introduction - by Submitted on Mar 04, 2026 from santosh krinskyThere is considerable confusion about the nature of the soul. A sizable portion of humanity denies the existence of the soul, while another segment of humanity reduces its ‘value’ below that of material possessions and outward satisfactions. The ego-personality, bound up in the actions and ...
Views: 20 - Srimad Bhagavatam - by Submitted on Mar 04, 2026 from juliana foleyHow Srimad Bhagavatam Guides Daily Spiritual Living In the modern world, people often search for meaning, balance, and inner peace while navigating the pressures of daily life. Many struggle to find guidance that goes beyond temporary solutions and touches the deeper aspects of human ...
Views: 24 - Bases of Yoga: Summary and Conclusions - by Submitted on Mar 03, 2026 from santosh krinskyIn various places, Sri Aurobindo has noted that yoga is applied psychology. The practitioner of yoga is confronted by all of the instincts, habits, trained responses and reactions of human nature and is asked to address and change these in order to uplift the human being to the next stage of the ...
Views: 23 - Addressing Physical Fatigue Experienced by the Spiritual Seeker - by Submitted on Feb 25, 2026 from santosh krinskyMany paths of spiritual practice disregard the needs of the physical body as being irrelevant, distracting, or obstructive to their spiritual development. This has not always been the case. The ancient Greek culture focused on a ‘sound mind in a sound body’ as an ideal. The ancient Vedic ...
Views: 28 - Is It Sleep, Or Is It Samadhi? - by Submitted on Feb 23, 2026 from santosh krinskyWhen the consciousness moves inward, away from the awareness of the external reality, it is frequently interpreted as ‘sleep’ by those who experience it for the first time. The reason they believe it is sleep is due to a lack of communication between that inward state of consciousness and the ...
Views: 28 - The Lack of Transcription or Bridges of Consciousness Prevents Awareness of the Waking Consciousness of Experiences of Deep Sleep and Other Alternative States of Awareness - by Submitted on Feb 22, 2026 from santosh krinskyWhere does the consciousness go when we are deep asleep? Numerous reports tell us that it can go out to other planes or realms, or down into subconscious levels, or up into superconscious levels. When we awaken from sleep, we generally are unable to describe what we did during sleep or where we ...
Views: 34 - Transforming the Character Of Sleep - by Submitted on Feb 21, 2026 from santosh krinskyGiving the body the rest and recuperative time it needs, the spiritual aspirant still has to deal with the effects of what is normally a descent into a more tamasic status that can have its impacts on the waking consciousness. If we wake up tired, groggy or cloudy, we have not only not fully ...
Views: 31 - Transforming Sleep, Not Suppressing It - by Submitted on Feb 20, 2026 from santosh krinskyIn the Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna explains to Arjuna: “Verily this Yoga is not for him who eats too much or sleeps too much, even as it is not for him who gives up sleep and food, O Arjuna.” (Bhagavad Gita and Its Message, tr. by Sri Aurobindo, Ch. 6, V. 16) It is interesting to note that one of ...
Views: 32 - Symbolic Dreams - by Submitted on Feb 20, 2026 from santosh krinskySymbolic dreams are common and in many cases, similar thematic elements show up for most people. These dreams attempt to raise up from the subconscious levels some underlying need, concern, fear, or persistent issue that remains unresolved in the external life. Sigmund Freud, in his work on The ...
Views: 32 - The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of… - by Submitted on Feb 20, 2026 from santosh krinskyOnce we break out of the limitations set by Western psychologists, such as Freud, in our attempt to understand the nature of dreams, we can explore the much wider and more nuanced potential causes, triggers, images and significances of dreams. We find it hard to appreciate that there are ...
Views: 32 - Dreams and Their Significance - by Submitted on Feb 18, 2026 from santosh krinskyWestern psychology has taken a very narrow, and therefore quite inadequate, view of the nature of dreams. There are several primary ways dreams are analyzed in the West. The first is the purely mechanical structuring of dreams as a chaotic processing of ‘undigested’ residues of the observations, ...
Views: 30 - Sleep, Dream, Waking Consciousness, Self-Awareness and Spiritual Development - by Submitted on Feb 18, 2026 from santosh krinskyThe physical consciousness is the primary seat of the Guna of Tamas in the being, in general, and thus, when the waking consciousness of the mental and vital levels is in abeyance during sleep, there is a natural tendency for the tamasic energy to come forward for a time. One of the first ...
Views: 33 - The Promise of a Greater Psychology Integrating Knowledge of the Whole With Understanding of the Parts - by Submitted on Feb 18, 2026 from santosh krinskyThe Greek philosopher Plato, after deep consideration, reached the conclusion that some higher principle was real, which he called ‘Forms” or ‘Ideas’, and that the physical reality we see and experience is the result, not the cause. This concept is in consonance with the Vedic understanding. ...
Views: 38 - Sleep and Sadhana - by Submitted on Feb 15, 2026 from santosh krinskyWhat happens when we sleep? Where does the consciousness go? For most people, sleep is a blank state. We have little awareness of what goes on during sleep, except for times when we are having a dream in a state near enough to the waking state that we actually remember details from the dream. We ...
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