We see the world from the individual standpoint and place ourselves at the center of it. We believe we originate the thoughts, feelings, emotions and responses we give. This, however, is very much the illusion of the ego-sense.
Consider that for the longest time, human beings believed that the sun rotated around the earth. Our language encompasses this belief even today when we talk about ‘sunrise’ and ‘sunset’. This geocentric viewpoint was eventually replaced by what is called a heliocentric viewpoint, namely, that the earth rotates and also transits around the sun, thus creating the illusion of sunrise and sunset. The first people in the West who recognised and publicised these facts were ostracised, excommunicated from the church, and otherwise pressured to recant their views. Eventually, they were found to have been justified in their beliefs and even those who earlier opposed this, recognised that the geocentric view of life on earth was inaccurate.
Similarly, we live and act with what we may call the egocentric view of our lives, although in a similar way we are individual instances of the universal manifestation and for the most part carry out the ideas, impulses and direction of that universal, with minor adjustments due to the individual receiving the impulse having his own unique set of experiences. The Isha Upanishad proclaims this in the very first verse: “All this is for habitation by the Lord, whatsoever is individual universe of movement in the universal motion.”
Each person is always being inundated with these universal forces, mental forces, vital forces, physical forces, energies that span the entire spectrum, both perceptible and imperceptible. Based on the stage of development and the focus of the receiving individual, certain forces then tend to predominate in him, which creates his individuality, but not his separateness from the universal creation.
Change is thus not under the full control of the individual. As certain forces work within him, and various chakras are activated, he turns his attention and focus to one thing or another, and eventually, if he turns to spiritual growth, he becomes aware of the limitations of the habitual patterns operative as part of earlier stages of the evolutionary process. To be sure, the old embedded habits and instincts are intended to ensure stability and continuity of the creation and to make sure that each next step has a solid foundation and is not simply a vast mistake which will lead to harm or destruction. The conservative principle has its role to play. At the same time, through a process of opening to new forces, and beginning to express them, a slow change begins to manifest for the individual and in the society as it responds to the new direction, similar to the adoption of the heliocentric model and the consequent move away from the geocentric model of earth and its position. Eventually we may begin to recognise that even the heliocentric model, correct in its own limited sphere, will have to give way to a larger view that puts the solar system into its right place in the galaxy, the galaxy into its right place in the universe, etc. etc. Human development mirrors, in a certain way, As new forces and new understandings come into play, both the necessity and the manner of instituting changes to human nature, more or less, the mutation that adapts, modifies or overturns previously fixed ways of response, become real to us.
Sri Aurobindo observes: “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. That is why our nature can be changed in spite of Vivekananda’s saying and Horace’s adage and in spite of the conservative resistance of the subconscient, but it is a difficult job because the master mode of Nature is this obstinate repetition and recurrence.”
Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 5, Physical Consciousness — Subconscient — Sleep and Dream — Illness, pp. 88-89
Sri Aurobindo Studies 