In the Rig Veda, there is a legend about a cave of the Panis which Sri Aurobindo has explained as a description of how the subconscient captures and holds the higher divine Light and encloses it away in the darkness. The illumined mind and the higher powers of awareness break open this subconscient level and free the light from that encompassing darkness. In The Secret of the Veda, Sri Aurobindo describes the meaning of Indra, Sarama, the ‘cows’, representing the rays of Light, the battle of Light against the Darkness, and the significance of freeing these ray-cows from the subconscient. With this context we can then appreciate the need for the spiritual aspirant to bring down the Light to transform the subconscient and overcome the powers that reside there and pull down the consciousness toward darkness and dullness.
Forces and directions no longer accepted by the conscious waking mind may still act through vital acceptance. When the vital no longer accepts these forces they go down into the physical and the subconscient where they are embedded and ready to spring up whenever something triggers their release, potentially overpowering the conscious mind and focused vital nature if the uprising is extremely intense and abrupt.
The seeds described by Sri Aurobindo represent the potential, the latent tendencies, the embedded or encapsulated force that can be triggered by some circumstance, perception, sensation, event or person. Until these seeds are removed or sterilized they can sprout up just about any time. Once they are neutralized, one way or the other, the subconscient is cleared and the forces that had a foothold in the external nature through the subconscient are relegated to the environmental consciousness and if pushed away from there, they reside in general nature, waiting to act upon any who remain receptive to them.
Sri Aurobindo writes: “You do not realise how much of the ordinary natural being lives in the subconscient physical. It is there that habitual movements, mental and vital, are stored and from there they come up into the waking mind. Driven out of the upper consciousness, it is in this cavern of the Panis that they take refuge. No longer allowed to emerge freely in the waking state, they come up in sleep as dreams. It is when they are cleared out of the subconscient, their very seeds killed by the enlightening of these hidden layers, that they cease for good. As your consciousness deepens inwardly and the higher light comes down into those inferior covered parts, the things that now recur in this way will disappear.”
Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 5, Physical Consciousness — Subconscient — Sleep and Dream — Illness, pg. 91
Sri Aurobindo Studies 