The evolving soul

Difficulties in distinguishing the psychic presence

It is true again that it is difficult for man's mind to distinguish entirely the soul or self or any spiritual element in him from the mental and vital formation in which it makes its appearance; but that is only so long as the emergence is not complete. […] at first soul in man does not appear as something quite distinct from mind and from mentalised life; its movements are involved in the mind-movements, its operations seem to be mental and emotional activities; the mental human being is not aware of a soul in him standing back from the mind and life and body, detaching itself, seeing and controlling and moulding their action and formation: but, as the inner evolution proceeds, this is precisely what can, must and does happen, -- it is the long-delayed but inevitable next step in our evolutionary destiny.

 —Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, p. 886

But even so this evolution would be slow and long if left solely to the difficult automatic action of the evolutionary Energy; it is only when man awakes to the knowledge of the soul and feels a need to bring it to the front and make it the master of his life and action that a quicker conscious method of evolution intervenes and a psychic transformation becomes possible.

—Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, p. 929

What is the psychic being


—The Mother, MCW, Vol. 3, p. 62

The difference between the soul and the psychic being





—The Mother, MCW, Vol. 16, p. 245-46

The effect of the psychic influence

…when one touches certain parts of the mind which are under the psychic influence and full of light and the joy of that light, or when one touches certain very pure and very high parts of the emotive being which has the most generous, most unselfish emotions, one also has the impression of being in contact with one's soul. But this is not the true soul, it is not the soul in its very essence. These are parts of the being under its influence and manifesting something of it.

—The Mother, MCW, Vol. 7, p. 259

How to find the psychic being

Start living within and from within

The individual being has to ﬁnd himself, his true existence; he can only do this by going inward, by living within and from within…This movement of going inward and living inward is a difficult task to lay upon the normal consciousness of the human being; yet there is no other way of self-ﬁnding.

—Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, p. 1063

The process of psychisation

If you organise everything — your feelings, your thoughts, your impulses, etc. — around the psychic centre which is the inner light, you will see that all inner disorder will change into a luminous order.

—The Mother, MCW, Vol. 4, p. 40

The evolving soul or psychic development







-The Mother, MCW, Vol. 3, pp. 62-3

Once the being has entered into contact with the psychic, why does the psychic again hide itself?

It is not the psychic that hides itself, it is the being which returns to its ordinary consciousness!... It is difficult for it to remain at its highest. One slides down, falls back. Only, the second time the discovery is easier. And each time the road is easier until one no longer falls back.

—The Mother, MCW, Vol. 6, p. 24

Once the psychic has come to the front, can it withdraw again?


There comes a time, as I said, when this does not leave you, that is, it is in the depths of the consciousness and supports all that you do, and you never lose the contact. Then many things disappear. For instance, depression is one of these things, discontentment, revolt, fatigue, depression, all these difficulties. And if one makes it a habit to step back, as we say, in one's consciousness and see on the screen of one's psychic consciousness — see all the circumstances, all the events, all the ideas, all the knowledge, everything — at that moment one sees it and has an altogether sure guide for everything that one may do.

—The Mother, MCW, Vol. 6, pp. 33-34