Habitual Responses and the Process of Auto-Suggestion Arising from the Action of the Subconscious Level

There is a complex interaction between the external mind-life-body complex and the subconscious level of our existence. As we experience various things in our lives, including illness, accidents or various circumstances, our mind tries to build a pattern of recognition and develops a memory. These things then fall into the subconscious level where they remain until a similar situation, circumstance, time-frame, cycle occurs to trigger that memory and that recognised pattern. This then becomes conscious to our waking awareness as something of an ‘auto-suggestion’ that makes us aware of the pattern and pre-conditions our mind to accept the situation due to the habitual pattern that we have now recognised.

We therefore tend to accept, as a sort of fate or destiny, that certain things will reoccur at particular times of the year, for instance. Seasonal illnesses or allergic reactions are strengthened through this subconscious reinforcement of the suggestion, as the pathway and acceptance of the vibration opens up under this pressure.

This patterning and auto-suggestion works not only for things such as illnesses or allergies, but for all kinds of responses, such as a recognised propensity for courtship and mating in the spring, a type of ‘hibernation’ effect in cold regions during the winter, the habit of mid-day rest in tropical climates, and the effect of physical training regimens to create habitual patterns of response, without active mental intervention, to specific types of situations, such as athletic competitions or within the framework of a military training and deployment. This type of auto-suggestion also creates built in patterns of fear or anxiety in certain situations, and creates deep-rooted prejudice that results in actions and motivations that may be seen as misogynistic or racist in nature.

A disciple asks: “Mother, there are people who suffer from certain illnesses year after year, we know. Now, if we observe this illness, we see that it comes at a particular time of the year and this goes on the next year also, and it is like that. But the time is fixed. Then what is the reason, and how can one get rid of this?”

The Mother responds: “There could be many reasons. It depends on the person you ask. If you ask an astrologer he will tell you, ‘It is the stars, when the stars come into the same position, the same conditions recur.” Well, this is not so wrong. It can be like that. It can also be the individual’s reaction to certain types of climate, you see, or to the sun’s position; or it may be quite simply a bad habit. That’s all. (Laughter).“

“And if one forms… If by chance it has happened to you twice consecutively, then you form… you have a good formation, you see, which remains like that (gesture) in the subconscient, without showing itself — if you don’t observe it! And then, just when the time draws near, quite gently it pushes up from within and tells you, ‘Take care, the time is coming, the time is coming, the time is coming!’ So naturally, that comes along too. Usually these things are like that.”

“But almost everything that happens in the physical is like that. The first time it may be quite simply a concurrence of circumstances; then, the mind intervenes and makes a construction. Now, if one accepts the construction, one is sure that it functions with clockwork precision. But even if one says, ‘Oh, nonsense, it is only an idea!’ and does this (gesture), still the idea, instead of going away, enters inside, into the subconscient, simply the subconscious mind, and there it remains quietly. And then, when the time comes to manifest itself, from inside, like this, it makes a kind of … as though it were tickling the memory a little, nothing more than that, just that. If it rubs the memory just a little, like that, then suddenly one day you remember: ‘Why, last year, at this time I was ill.’ And crash! There it is, it has entered. It has entered the zone of the active consciousness, and a few days later the thing happens.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch. 2 Hidden Forces Within, pp. 37-38

Understanding the Action of the Subconscient

The field of psychology in the West has developed over the last couple of centuries with a focus on the influence of the subconscious levels on our external lives, fixating on trauma, past events and their effect on the way we respond to circumstances in our lives. This has led to techniques such as psychotherapy, dream interpretation, regression therapy, and hypnosis as mechanisms to unlock the subconscious realm to gain an understanding of what lies hidden there.

Western psychology has notably failed to expend much effort on understanding levels that are superconscient, or, circumconscient. Sri Aurobindo has included these planes or levels in his more comprehensive review of human psychology. Without an understanding of these additional segments of our existence, it is virtually impossible to truly resolve the issues that arise through a deep examination of the subconscient areas, and thus, such examinations as Western psychology have undertaken have revealed a number of dangers for the individuals involved, who get labeled as having certain ‘conditions’ and who create a surface personality around the existence of those conditions and act to actually strengthen and embed them further rather than find ways to resolve them and move forward freely without them. Thus, few people ever succeed in going beyond the need for therapy in the currently understood methods and techniques of psychological practice. Without the active intervention of the forces active at the superconscient levels, such a review of the subconscient acts primarily as a stirring up and awakening of those forces that lie hidden there.

Sri Aurobindo writes: “The subconscient is a concealed and unexpressed inarticulate consciousness which works below all our conscious physical activities. Just as what we call the superconscient is really a higher consciousness above from which things descend into the being, so the subconscient is below the body-consciousness and things come up into the physical, the vital and the mind-nature from there.”

“Just as the higher consciousness is superconscient to us and supports all our spiritual possibilities and nature, so the subconscient is the basis of our material being and supports all that comes up in the physical nature.”

“Men are not ordinarily conscious of either of these planes of their own being, but by sadhana they can become aware.”

“The subconscient retains the impressions of all our past experiences of life and they can come up from there in dream forms: most dreams in ordinary sleep are formations made from subconscient impressions.”

“The habit of strong recurrence of the same things in our physical consciousness, so that it is difficult to get rid of its habits, is largely due to a subconscient support. The subconscient is full of irrational habits.”

“When things are rejected from all other parts of the nature, they go either into the environmental consciousness around us through which we communicate with others and with universal Nature and try to return from there or they sink into the subconscient and can come up from there even after lying long quiescent so that we think they are gone.”

“When something is erased from the subconscient so completely that it leaves no seed and thrown out of the circumconscient so completely that it can return no more, then only can we be sure that we have finished with it for ever.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch. 2 Hidden Forces Within, pp. 36-37

The Nature of the Subconscient Level of Consciousness in Man

European culture takes credit for ‘discoveries’ that it makes despite the fact that societies in other parts of the world have long known about these things. Thus, Europeans ‘discovered’ America while disregarding the fact that it was already populated with numerous tribes of indigenous people, and had been visited by Scandanavian Vikings much earlier than the European “discovery”.

Similarly, European psychological researchers have, over the last 100-200 years ‘discovered’ the existence of a subconscious level that is the storehouse of memories, traumas, experiences, etc. which can trigger habits, complexes, traumatic reactions, or unexpected uprisings or outbursts of feelings, emotions, or responses that were outside the awareness or control of the conscious mind. An entire science of Western psychology has arisen, with key proponents, such as Freud, fixating on the role of embedded complexes in developing the personality and life experience of individuals, and the ability of dreams to provide clues to what is taking place in this subconscious realm. C.G. Jung went further by showing that certain archetypal experiences were actually part of a ‘collective unconscious’ that could arise across numerous individuals under a variety of circumstances. Some researchers began to experiment with ideas such as operant conditioning, or Pavlovian conditioning by attempting to ‘train’ or ‘influence’ the subconscious elements of the being to respond automatically to certain externally generated stimuli, and more recently many have touted the idea that through the use of subliminal suggestions, sleep induction of information, and the power of affirmations substantial changes can be effected in the subconscious level and thus, lead to powerful results for the external life and personality.

All of these things, however, have long been known and described in one form or another in ancient cultures that have focused on tapping into the expanded ranges of consciousness outside the conscious waking level that we utilize as we operate in the external world. In particular, various yogic disciplines have developed forms of this knowledge and put much of it into practice. Sri Aurobindo, in particular, codified this into a clearly defined overview of the various levels of consciousness in man, and he has described the subconscious level and its action at some length.

Sri Aurobindo notes: “… we mean by the subconscient that quite submerged part of our being in which there is no wakingly conscious and coherent thought, will or feeling or organized reaction, but which yet receives obscurely the impressions of all things and stores them up in itself and from it too all sorts of stimuli, of persistent habitual movements, crudely repeated or disguised in strange forms can surge up into dream or into the waking nature. For if these impressions rise up most in dream in an incoherent and disorganized manner, they can also and do rise up into our waking consciousness as a mechanical repetition of old thoughts, old mental, vital and physical habits or an obscure stimulus to sensations, actions, emotions which do not originate in or from our conscious thought or will and are even often opposed to its perceptions, choice or dictates. In the subconscient there is an obscure mind full of obstinate Sanskaras, impressions, associations, fixed notions, habitual reactions formed by our past, an obscure vital full of the seeds of habitual desires, sensations and nervous reactions, a most obscure material which governs much that has to do with the condition of the body. It is largely responsible for our illnesses; chronic or repeated illnesses are indeed mainly due to the subconscient and its obstinate memory and habit of repetition of whatever has impressed itself upon the body-consciousness. But this subconscient must be clearly distinguished from the subliminal parts of our being such as the inner or subtle physical consciousness, the inner vital or inner mental; for these are not at all obscure or incoherent or ill-organized, but only veiled from our surface consciousness. Our surface constantly receives something, inner touches, communications or influences, from these sources but does not know for the most part whence they come.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch. 2 Hidden Forces Within, pp. 35-36

Our Surface Personality Is Only a Small Representation of Our Complete and True Being

We construct a personality that we present to the world and organize our expression and actions around this chosen construct. In doing so, we pick and choose elements that are present in our conscious mind, heart, life-force and physical body and create for ourselves the ego-personality that seemingly ties all of this together into what we know as ourselves. In some cases, we consciously mislead ourselves and others by omitting thoughts, motives, drives, and reactions that are occurring, through active suppression or through simple avoidance. In other cases, we simply are not paying attention to all of the influences, forces and powers that are moving us to act out the impulsions that are received by us. When we are placed under some kind of pressure, some of these deeper motivations and drives exhibit themselves, and we don’t realise that these were there, all the time, waiting for the opportunity to sprout up and manifest. Similarly, others may express shock and consternation about how these responses are so “out of character”. It is as if we have adopted a “stage persona” for our external life, and the real person remains hidden deep within.

Sri Aurobindo observes: “We are not only what we know of ourselves but an immense more which we do not know; our momentary personality is only a bubble on the ocean of our existence.”

“… what we know of ourselves, our present conscious existence, is only a representative formation, a superficial activity, a changing external result of a vast mass of concealed existence. Our visible life and the actions of that life are no more than a series of significant expressions, but that which it tries to express is not on the surface; our existence is something much larger than this apparent frontal being which we suppose ourselves to be and which we offer to the world around us. This frontal and external being is a confused amalgam of mind-formations, life-movements, physical functionings of which even an exhaustive analysis into its component parts and machinery fails to reveal the whole secret. It is only when we go behind, below, above into the hidden stretches of our being that we can know it; the most thorough and acute surface scrutiny and manipulation cannot give us the true understanding or the completely effective control of our life, its purposes, its activities; that inability indeed is the cause of the failure of reason, morality and every other surface action to control and deliver and perfect the life of the human race. For below even our most obscure physical consciousness is a subconscious being in which as in a covering and supporting soil are all manner of hidden seeds that sprout up, unaccountably to us, on our surface and into which we are constantly throwing fresh seeds that prolong our past and will influence our future, — a subconscious being, obscure, small in its motions, capriciously and almost fantastically subrational, but of immense potency for the earth-life. Again, behind our mind, our life, our conscious physical there is a large subliminal consciousness, — there are inner mental, inner vital, inner more subtle physical reaches supported by an inmost psychic existence which is the connecting soul of all the rest; and in these hidden reaches too lie a mass of numerous pre-existent personalities which supply the material, the motive-forces, the impulsions of our developing surface existence. For in each one of us here there may be one central person, but also a multitude of subordinate personalities created by the past history of its manifestation or by expressions of it on these inner planes which support its present play in this external material cosmos. And while on our surface we are cut off from all around us except through an exterior mind and sense-contact which delivers but little of us to our world or of our world to us, in these inner reaches the barrier between us and the rest of existence is thin and easily broken; there we can feel at once — not merely infer from their results, but feel directly — the action of the secret world-forces, mind-forces, life-forces, subtle physical forces that constitute universal and individual existence; we shall even be able, if we will but train ourselves to it, to lay our hands on these world-forces that throw themselves on us or around us and more and more to control or at least strongly modify their action on us and others, their formations, their very movements. Yet again above our human mind are still greater reaches superconscient to it and from there secretly descend influences, powers, touches which are the original determinants of things here and, if they were called down in their fullness, could altogether alter the whole make and economy of life in the material universe.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch. 2 Hidden Forces Within, pp. 33-35

Three Occult Sources of Our Action

Human beings have a limited range of perception with boundaries both above and below the vibrational thresholds that we can consciously receive. We know of various animals that can perceive things in ranges above, or below, the human levels of perception with respect to sound, light, scent, etc., and we are aware that the spectrum of vibrations far exceeds our limited range and is not limited solely to sense perceptions. What we do not generally acknowledge is that vibrational patterns that take place above or below our perceptive range actually can, and do, influence our existence, our thoughts, emotions, feelings, and physical responses to circumstances, although we will acknowledge that at the physical level, UV or infra-red waves can harm our physical bodies, provoke growth of cancerous cells, or cause blindness.

Sri Aurobindo refers to three occult sources that impact us. These are sources other than those we directly perceive and acknowledge with our senses. These can be vibrations in the electro-magnetic spectrum, or vibrations from forces active at those levels as their native realms with consciousness, intention and will. Superconscient refers to those vibrational patterns and forces that take place at a higher vibration than what we can perceive. Subliminal implies forces that are within our normal range, but do not gain sufficient notice either through our own inattention, the filtering process our brains use to limit ‘extraneous’ information, or through insufficient force of the vibration to create an active perception. The “all or nothing” phenomenon in our eyes is such a situation. Photons of light may be impinging on our visual sense, but until a certain quanta of photons are active we do not perceive the action of the light as the senses are not yet ‘triggered’ to acknowledge them. Once the sufficient impulse is received, we suddenly acknowledge the presence of the light. Subconscient refers to those things that vibrate below our level of perception. Much of the long-standing habitual and instinctive reactions comes from this subconscious level.

The flow of forces throughout the universal creation are constantly working upon, impacting and influencing us and as we become habituated to specific vibrational patterns, set ourselves up to acknowledge them, receive them and respond to them, we create habits or grooves of behaviour that we identify as our personality, as ‘who we are’ and as what sets us apart from others with a unique individuality. This habituation process also tends to further limit our ability to recognise and experience vibrational patterns that fall outside of our habitual range, even if they happen to fit generally within our human perceptive range.

Sri Aurobindo writes: “There are three occult sources of our action — the superconscient, the subliminal, the subconscient, but of none of them are we in control or even aware. What we are aware of is the surface being which is only an instrumental arrangement. The source of all is the general Nature, — universal Nature individualising itself in each person; for this general Nature deposits certain habits of movement, personality, character, faculties, dispositions, tendencies in us, and that, whether formed now or before our birth, is what we usually call ourselves. A good deal of this is in habitual movement and use in our known conscious parts on the surface, a great deal more is concealed in the other unknown three which are below or behind the surface.”

“But what we are on the surface is being constantly set in motion, changed, developed or repeated by the waves of the general Nature coming in on us either directly or else indirectly through others, through circumstances, through various agencies or channels. Some of this flows straight into the conscious parts and acts there, but our mind ignores its source, appropriates it and regards all that as its own; a part comes secretly into the subconscient or sinks into it and waits for an opportunity of rising up into the conscious surface; a good deal goes into the subliminal and may at any time come out — or may not, may rather rest there as unused matter. Part passes through and is rejected, thrown back or thrown out or spilt into the universal sea. Our nature is a constant activity of forces supplied to us out of which (or rather out of a small amount of it) we make what we will or can. What we make seems fixed and formed for good, but in reality it is all a play of forces, a flux, nothing fixed or stable; the appearance of stability is given by constant repetition and recurrence of the same vibrations and formations.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch. 2 Hidden Forces Within, pp. 32-33

The Inner Being Far Exceeds the Limits of the Surface Personality

In order to function in the outer world, we wind up filtering out most of the input that comes our way, such that only a very small percentage of what we perceive or experience actually comes into our waking awareness. The rest is captured and held somewhere in what we call the subconscious level of our being, to come forth only under circumstances that trigger the awareness, or with prodding under the influence of techniques such as hypnotism, or various forms of regression therapy that take us back into circumstances and events and let the mind examine the observations of the event from a new angle. Without such a filtering process, we would have a tremendous amount of data to process and we would be functionally paralyzed into inaction. The filtering process is one that is refined as we focus our attention on various interests or outcomes and target data that will aid us in achieving the desired result. This does not imply, however, that the rest of the input is ineffective and has no impact on the direction, response and actions we take; rather, that we consciously only pay attention to certain key factors while the others influence us unseen and unnoted.

While we focus our attention on the external world and our ‘waking self’, there is much more to existence and the significance of each being, than just that external interaction. The inner being has a much wider range and scope of action than the limited and filtered life of the surface personality.

Sri Aurobindo notes: “This concealed self and consciousness is our real or whole being, of which the outer is a part and a phenomenon, a selective formation for a surface use. We perceive only a small number of the contacts of things which impinge upon us; the inner being perceives all that enters or touches us and our environment. We perceive only a part of the workings of our life and being; the inner being perceives so much that we might almost suppose that nothing escapes its view. We remember only a small selection from our perceptions, and of these even we keep a great part in the store-room where we cannot always lay our hand upon what we need; the inner being retains everything that it has ever received and has it always ready to hand. We can form into co-ordinated understanding and knowledge only so much of our perceptions and memories as our trained intelligence and mental capacity can grasp in their sense and appreciate in their relations: the intelligence of the inner being needs no training, but preserves the accurate form and relations of all its perceptions and memories and, — though this is a proposition which may be considered doubtful or difficult to concede in its fullness, — can grasp immediately, when it does not possess already, their significance. And its perceptions are not confined, as are ordinarily those of the waking mind, to the scanty gleanings of the physical senses, but extend far beyond and use, as telepathic phenomena of many kinds bear witness, a subtle sense the limits of which are too wide to be easily fixed. The relations between the surface will or impulsion and the subliminal urge, mistakenly described as unconscious or subconscious, have not been properly studied except in regard to unusual and unorganised manifestations and to certain morbidly abnormal phenomena of the diseased human mind; but if we pursue our observation far enough, we shall find that the cognition and will or impulsive force of the inner being really stand behind the whole conscious becoming; the latter represents only that part of its secret endeavour and achievement which rises successfully to the surface of our life. To know our inner being is the first step towards a real self-knowledge.”

“If we undertake this self-discovery and enlarge our knowledge of the subliminal self, so conceiving it as to include in it our lower subconscient and upper superconscient ends, we shall discover that it is really this which provides the whole material of our apparent being and that our perceptions, our memories, our effectuations of will and intelligence are only a selection from its perceptions, memories, activities and relations of will and intelligence; our very ego is only a minor and superficial formulation of its self-consciousness and self-experience. It is, as it were, the urgent sea out of which the waves of our conscious becoming arise.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch. 2 Hidden Forces Within, pp. 30-31

The Power of the Inconscient and Subconscient Levels in Our Lives

Our physical bodies operate complex functions without active oversight or intervention of the mind. We are essentially in the dark as our organs function, as our immune system automatically responds to pressures, as breathing, brain function and much more go on absent our supervision or control, for the most part. It is true that certain functions can be affected when we turn conscious attention to them, but even this level of intervention is limited and rare. We remain very much at the mercy of the physical systems that operate, the habits, instincts and reactive processes that govern our physical lives. We also are generally unaware of how illness enters our system and what, if anything, we can do about it internally. We actually utilize the power of the subconscient when we train our bodies to respond through what is called ‘muscle memory’. In fact, the intervention of conscious thought in such a process can be disastrous, as was noted by a world-class gymnast who withdrew from a recent Olympic competition when she indicated that her mental process was interfering with the body’s trained capacities, which led to potential catastrophic results were she to continue in that state.

On the level of the life force, we do not generally perceive either the direct active influences pressuring our response on a day to day basis, nor the many stored up actions which get triggered by specific scents, sights, sounds, events or locations. Much of what we do is based on encapsulated responses stored deep in our memory and only accessible to us for the most part when a triggering event occurs. It was this level of triggered responses and suppressed energies that influenced the psychological profile of individuals that interested Freud and led to his development of his theories of psychotherapy. C.G. Jung went further to identify a collective unconscious where vital forms, beings and archetypes were accessible to all human beings, and to a great degree governed the way we respond to situations.

Similarly, on the mental level, we capture through our senses tremendous amounts of data, most of which does not rise to our conscious awareness. It does however impinge upon our mental process and influence decisions we make. We receive subtle influences from our surroundings, from our family, friends, peers, teachers and the society at large and its mores and ways of looking at and evaluating things. Much of our decision-making process is in fact guided, directed or controlled by forces about which we tend to have little or no awareness.

Sri Aurobindo observes: “A superficial observation of our waking consciousness shows us that of a great part of our individual being and becoming we are quite ignorant; it is to us the Inconscient, just as much as the life of the plant, the metal, the earth, the elements. But if we carry our knowledge farther, pushing psychological experiment and observation beyond their normal bounds, we find how vast is the sphere of this supposed Inconscient or this subconscient in our total existence, — the subconscient, so seeming and so called by us because it is a concealed consciousness, — and what a small and fragmentary portion of our being is covered by our waking self-awareness. We arrive at the knowledge that our waking mind and ego are only a superimposition upon a submerged, a subliminal self, — for so that self appears to us, — or, more accurately, an inner being, with a much vaster capacity of experience; our mind and ego are like the crown and dome of a temple jutting out from the waves while the great body of the building is submerged under the surface of the waters.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch. 2 Hidden Forces Within, pp. 29-30

The Expanded Field of Consciousness Beyond the External Awareness

Consider that we remove ourselves from active participation in the external world and its activities for some 30% of our lifetimes while we are asleep. Sleep provides the physical body-life-mind complex with the opportunity to undertake basic ‘maintenance’, repair the body, soothe the life energies and refresh the brain function. What happens to our consciousness during sleep?

Consider further that we are constantly receiving and sending out electrical signals, impulses, and vibrational patterns that we are not consciously attending to, but which nevertheless create their own effects within us and on the world around us.

Reflect on the fact that there are experiences we have at various times when our external consciousness is withdrawn, such as experiential dreams where we are meeting individuals, going to places and taking actions that are not based in our waking lives; or in near death experiences, or in out of body experiences including phenomena such as astral travel. It becomes clear that our consciousness is functioning on other planes and in other circumstances during the times it is not actively participating in the external world of our waking state.

Many have reported seeing and meeting teachers and gurus, and receiving profound insights while their physical being was asleep. They return from these experiences with inner growth, new levels of knowledge and use the sleep state as a field for progress in their yogic endeavour.

We also know that we process things on multiple different levels at the same time. People who are questioned about events under the technique of hypnosis are able to describe specific details that their waking processing did not grasp. We filter out much of what occurs to make our waking lives more ‘efficient’, but it is nevertheless received and stored at a subliminal level and available, under the right circumstances to be brought to conscious awareness.

Yogis shift their awareness, through a state of yogic trance, such that it is said that day for the ordinary man is night for the yogi; and day for the yogi is night for the ordinary man. This indicates that there are other states of awareness available to human beings than that of the surface waking consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo writes: “It is a mistake to think that we live physically only, with the outer mind and life. We are all the time living and acting on other planes of consciousness, meeting others there and acting upon them, and what we do and feel and think there, the forces we gather, the results we prepare have an incalculable importance and effect, unknown to us, upon our outer life. Not all of it comes through, and what comes through takes another form in the physical — though sometimes there is an exact correspondence; but this little is at the basis of our outward existence. All that we become and do and bear in the physical life is prepared behind the veil within us. It is therefore of immense importance for a yoga which aims at the transformation of life to grow conscious of what goes on within these domains, to be master there and be able to feel, know and deal with the secret forces that determine our destiny and our internal and external growth or decline.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch. 2 Hidden Forces Within, pg.29

The Subliminal, the Subconscient, the Superconscient and the Circumconscient Forces That Impact Our Responses to Life

Our surface awareness is basically the ‘tip of the iceberg’. Most of what takes place in our being occurs outside of the range of our active external perception of the senses and mental awareness. Even the interactions with the external reality we experience represent only a small fraction of the input we are receiving from that external reality. Our range of perception and understanding is limited on all sides within a very narrow framework; while forces, factors and influences from outside this range wind up impacting us, we are simply blind to these forces and the ways in which they influence how we perceive, respond to and react to the world around us. Much of what actually moves us remains buried in subconscious memories, which can be triggered based on appropriate circumstances impinging upon us. It can be a sight, a scent, something we hear, or a location we visit that somehow triggers reactions that we had no clue were part of our being. We do not actually understand most of the impulsions that we nevertheless adopt as our own thoughts, feelings, emotions, ideas, concepts or directions.

Sri Aurobindo writes in his epic poem Savitri: a Legend and a Symbol:

“Only a little of us foresees its steps, Only a little has will and purposed pace. A vast subliminal is man’s measureless part, The dim subconscient is his cavern base.”

and “A portion of us lives in present Time, A secret mass in dim inconscience gropes; Out of the inconscient and subliminal Arisen, we live in mind’s uncertain light And strive to know and master a dubious world Whose purpose and meaning are hidden from our sight. Above us dwells a superconscient god Hidden in the mystery of his own light; Around us is a vast of ignorance Lit by the uncertain ray of human mind, Below us sleeps the Inconscient dark and mute.” [Savitri: a Legend and a Symbol, Book Seven, Canto 2]

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch. 2 Hidden Forces Within, pg.28

The Transcendent Divine, the Cosmic or Universal Plane of Consciousness and Material Existence

The seer of the Taittiriya Upanishad identified various planes of ever more subtle and powerful consciousness, with the most subtle and powerful being the ultimate causative agent of the denser and lower formations of Matter, Life and Mind. If we look at the experience of the vedic seers, we find that there are three basic terms that define stages of conscious awareness. There is the lower, denser level consisting of Matter-Life-Mind. There is another level that is the “Knowledge” plane of consciousness. And then there is the plane of Sat-Chit-Ananda, pure existence, consciousness, bliss which transcends the manifested universe. The knowledge level acts as an intermediary between the transcendent level and the planes of material existence. Sri Aurobindo calls this level the supramental level, that is, the level beyond the action of mind. This level holds the awareness of the transcendent and the ultimate will of the creative power in the universe, while effectively implementing, in detail, the relationships and forms needed to carry out that will in the external world. In that sense, the knowledge level can be analogized as a type of prism that receives the pure white light, and breaks it down into all the colors of the rainbow.

This brings us to the definition of the three great terms of the divine reality, the Transcendent, the Cosmic or Universal, and the Material existence. The material existence is created and caused by the action of the cosmic or universal under the impulsion of the intention of the divine Will that stems from the transcendent.

Sri Aurobindo notes: “The Cosmic Divine is what is concerned with the actual working out of things under the present circumstances. It is the Will of that Cosmic Divine which is manifested in each circumstance, each movement of this world.”

“The Cosmic Will is not, to our ordinary consciousness, something that acts as an independent power doing whatever it chooses; it works through all these beings, through the forces at play in the world and the law of these forces and their results — it is only when we open ourselves and get out of the ordinary consciousness that we can feel it intervening as an independent power and overriding the ordinary play of the forces.”

“Then too we can see that even in the play of the forces and in spite of their distortions the Cosmic Will is working towards the eventual realisation of the Will of the Transcendent Divine.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch. 1 Life Through the Eyes of the Yogin, pg.25