The Subconscious, the Subliminal and the Superconscious Influence on Our External Lives

When we are focused on our external being, we tend not to recognise that forces unseen actually not only impact how and what we perceive, understand, and respond to impressions and pressures, but actually very much define who we believe we are. There are forces that are subconscient to our external awareness which send up suggestions, thoughts, impulses, drives, habits, and instincts that drive our action. There are also forces superconscient to our external awareness that help us see, and grow beyond the limits of our physical-vital-mental existence. If we look carefully at the sources or seeds of our external reactions, we can begin to trace back much of the way we act to specific vital or mental patterns that human beings have brought forward from animal nature. The very way we respond to pressure, the ‘fight or flight’ response, the ‘pecking order’ response all come from an earlier stage of evolution and remain active in our existing lives. Even our evolved mental life is very much conditioned by past habits of human thought, as well as by social conditioning, education, and interactions we have as we experience our human childhood. It becomes difficult to determine what is ‘unique’ within us other than the specific assemblage of these pre-existing and trained responses that are packaged to represent a specific external personality.

There are also many elements which are subliminal which act without our conscious attention. Many of the metabolic functions, for instance, are not controlled by our conscious thought and will, but take place at a level that is not easily perceptible by our waking mind.

At a certain point, we also find that as individuals grow and evolve, as they optimize the powers of body, life and mind, they experience what can only be named a ‘calling’ to another focus and life-direction. They begin to reorient their actions and thoughts towards this higher calling, a response to the pressure coming from regions of awareness superconscient to our normal human range of perception.

Sri Aurobindo writes: “The subconscious is the evolutionary basis in us, it is not the whole of our hidden nature, nor is it the whole origin of what we are. But things can rise from the subconscient and take shape in the conscious parts and much of our smaller vital and physical instincts, movements, habits, character-forms has this source.”

“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.”

Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 5, Physical Consciousness — Subconscient — Sleep and Dream — Illness, pg. 88

The Action of the Superconscient in Our External Lives

Just as forces and vibrations act upon us that vibrate below our normal human level of perceptive range, and bring in much of the past, subconscient, dark and ignorant reactions that drive much of our human life, so also there are forces and vibrations that enter us from above our perceptible range, which have their source and origin in what we may call the ‘superconscient’ levels. Because they are outside our immediate range of perception, they mostly enter us unseen and unknown, what many would call ‘subliminally’ and from there they work to influence and express themselves as possible through our external being and personality. Sri Aurobindo points out that the action here works through the chakras, the subtle energy centers that channel the various forces at work in the being into the external life. To the extent that we are capable of opening to the energetic action of the respective chakras, the powers and forces that enter and collect there can have a direct influence on our lives.

It is from the higher superconscient ranges that those things we name inspiration, intuition, revelation, vision and creative insights occur. While we receive them without conscious awareness, we express them as much as possible and treat them as our own creative actions, when in fact they are the result of our receptivity to and ability to channel forces stemming from these higher ranges of consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo notes: “… from there … come all the greater aspirations, ideals, strivings towards a better self and better humanity without which man would be only a thinking animal — as also most of the art, poetry, philosophy, thirst for knowledge which relieve, if they do not yet dispel, the ignorance.”

“The role of the superconscient has been to evolve slowly the spiritual man out of the mental half-animal.”

“Even in Europe the existence of something behind the surface is now very frequently admitted, but its nature is mistaken and it is called subconscient or subliminal, while really it is very conscious in its own way and not subliminal but only behind the veil. It is, according to our psychology, connected with the small outer personality by certain centres of consciousness of which we become aware by yoga. Only a little of the inner being escapes through these centres into the outer life, but that little is the best part of ourselves and responsible for our art, poetry, philosophy, ideals, religious aspirations, efforts at knowledge and perfection.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch. 2 Hidden Forces Within, pg. 43

The Subliminal Level of Consciousness and Our Waking State

What we actively perceive and pay attention to with our waking consciousness is a very small portion of the entire pattern of energetic forces we are constantly subjected to, and which act upon us, unseen and unrecognised. Whether it is physical radiation, vital forces, or mental thought-forms, or the spiritual forces of the higher planes of consciousness, there is an energetic impact that impinges upon our being, and helps to create and influence the way we respond on the most superficial levels of the external consciousness.

The “all or nothing” phenomenon illustrates just one way that such subliminal action takes place. We do not see the movement of photons impinging on our visual sense until a certain quanta of photons is present to trigger “sight”. Up until that point, the photons are impinging on the sense organ, but it is not triggering our awareness. We know from a tremendous amount of research that various forms of radiation can impact our health, our sense organs, and our brains, but we do not perceive that radiation without the use of measurement tools such as geiger counter to tell us that it is there and active. Anyone who has looked at the sun during an eclipse, with their unshielded eyes, is affected by the radiation that accompanies the sun’s visible light, and this can be blinding. We can feel the focus of an individual who is staring at us or fixating their attention on us, even if we cannot actually observe this: how many times do we get the sense that someone is watching and then, when we turn around, we can see that individual! Vibrations of all forms of emotional and vital energy, unseen by us, are nevertheless received. Even if we do not acknowledge them with our waking consciousness, they are exerting pressure. Mental thought-forms can exercise a similar unseen influence. When we enter a zone where intense study or mental work is taking place, we can actually feel the atmosphere, but its effect impacts us whether we consciously acknowledge it, or not.

Sri Aurobindo observes: “Our waking state is unaware of its connection with the subliminal being, although it receives from it, — but without any knowledge of the place of origin, — the inspirations, intuitions, ideas, will-suggestions, sense-suggestions, urges to action that rise from below or from behind our limited surface existence. Sleep like trance opens the gate of the subliminal to us; for in sleep, as in trance, we retire behind the veil of the limited waking personality and it is behind this veil that the subliminal has its existence. But we receive the records of our sleep experience through dream and in dream figures and not in that condition which might be called an inner waking and which is the most accessible form of the trance state, nor through the supernormal clarities of vision and other more luminous and concrete ways of communication developed by the inner subliminal cognition when it gets into habitual or occasional conscious connection with our waking self. The subliminal, with the subconscious as an annexe of itself, — for the subconscious is also part of the behind-the-veil entity, — is the seer of inner things and of supraphysical experiences; the surface subconscious is only a transcriber. It is for this reason that the Upanishad describes the subliminal being as the Dream Self because it is normally in dreams, visions, absorbed states of inner experience that we enter into and are part of its experiences, — just as it describes the superconscient as the Sleep Self because normally all mental or sensory experiences cease when we enter this superconscience. For in the deeper trance into which the touch of the superconscient plunges our mentality, no record from it or transcript of its contents can normally reach us; it is only by an especial or an unusual development, in a supernormal condition or through a break or rift in our confined normality, that we can be on the surface conscious of the contacts or messages of the Superconscience.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch. 2 Hidden Forces Within, pp. 41-42

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 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

Understanding the Existence of and Interaction With the Higher Ranges of Consciousness Above the Mind

Just as all energy operates along a spectrum of vibration from shorter wavelength to longer wavelength, and this spectrum can be perceived within certain limited ranges based on the capacity of our sense instruments (or tools we develop to extend our range of perception), so also consciousness operates along a spectrum with different and increasing powers of consciousness active starting from the most dense, inert material consciousness, extending up through the vital levels and into the emotional and mental levels. Consciousness however does not stop at the mental level. The spectrum continues beyond. The energy centers, called ‘chakras’ are areas where certain vibrational levels of energy and consciousness are interfaced to our human mind-life-body complex. The higher mental levels of cognition take place in what are called the fifth, sixth and seventh chakras governing expression, will, and the higher powers of the reasoning intelligence. It is clear that there must be a nexus where the yet higher levels of consciousness vibrate and can be collected and channeled, and thus, there are levels above the mind where these things occur. Under various states of awareness, the seeker is actually able to interface and experience these higher realms, either in their native state through a capacity to receive the higher vibrational force, or in their impact as they exert their pressure on the lower states that are within our normal range of perception.

Just as we can identify different levels and states of awareness within the human range, so also, in the higher ranges there are gradations and levels that successively bring into action ever more powerful levels of consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo notes: “…there is a superconscient (something above our present consciousness) above the head from which the higher consciousness comes down into the body….”

“The higher consciousness is that above the ordinary mind and different from it in its workings; it ranges from higher mind through illumined mind, intuition and overmind up to the border line of the supramental.”

“In this higher consciousness there are many degrees, of which the supramental is the summit or the source.”

“There are above us… successive states, levels or graded powers of being overtopping our normal mind, hidden in our own superconscient parts, higher ranges of Mind, degrees of spiritual consciousness and experience; without them there would be no links, no helpful intervening spaces to make the immense ascension possible. It is indeed from these higher sources that the secret spiritual Power acts upon the being and by its pressure brings about the psychic transformation or the spiritual change; but in the early stages of our growth this action is not apparent, it remains occult and unseizable.”

“… from the point of view of the ascent of consciousness from our mind upwards through a rising series of dynamic powers by which it can sublimate itself, the gradation can be resolved into a stairway of four main ascents, each with its high level of fulfilment. These gradations may be summarily described as a series of sublimations of the consciousness through Higher Mind, Illumined Mind and Intuition into Overmind and beyond it; there is a succession of self-transmutations at the summit of which lies the Supermind or Divine Gnosis.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 2, Planes and Parts of the Being, pp. 71-72