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Para Prakriti

The supreme Nature, Para Prakriti, concealed behind it is the very nature of the Divine—a supreme Consciousness-Force which manifests the multiple Divine as the Many. These Many are in themselves eternal selves of the Supreme in his supreme Nature, Para Prakriti. The lower Nature, Apara Prakriti, is this external objective and superficial subjective apparent Nature which manifests all these minds, lives and bodies.

Parabrahman

The only true truth is the supracosmic; or, in any case, the Absolute, the Parabrahman is the origin and goal of all existence, all else is an interlude without any abiding significance.

Parabrahman is the Absolute, & because It is the Absolute, it cannot be reduced into terms of knowledge. You can know the Infinite in a way, but you cannot know the Absolute.

Parabrahman, the absolute, transcendental, eternal reality is unknowable to human reason;

Of Him[Parabrahman] Vedanta itself can only speak in two great trilogies, subjective and objective, Sacchidanandam, Existence, Consciousness, Bliss; Satyam Jnanam Anantam, Truth, Knowledge, Infinity.

Paramatman

The supreme Self; the Absolute; Supreme Universal Self

[Paramatman is] the supreme spirit who ensouls the forms and movements of the universe.

Patala

Patala simply means the subconscient below the Earth—the Earth being the conscious physical plane.

Patala under the earth, Hell under Patala, these are Asuric worlds... they are the worlds of gloom and suffering in the nether depths of our own being. A world is not a place with hills, trees and stones, but a condition of the Jivatman.

Patience

Patience: the capacity to wait steadily for the Realisation to come.

Peace

Peace carries with it a sense of settled and harmonious rest and deliverance.

A deep quietude where no disturbance can come - a quietude with a sense of established security and release.

Peace is more positive than calm—there can be a negative calm which is merely an absence of disturbance or trouble, but peace is always something positive bringing not merely a release as calm does but a certain happiness or Ananda of itself.

Personal Relation

A personal relation is formed when there is an exclusive looking to each other. The rule about personal relation in this yoga is this : (I) All personal relations to disappear in the single relation between the sādhaka and the Divine; (2) All personal (psychic-spiritual) relations to proceed from the Divine Mother, determined by her to be part of this single relation with the Divine Mother.

Philosophy

Intellectual expression of the Truth.[...] a means of expressing this greater discovery and as much of its contents as can at all be expressed in mental terms to those who still live in the mental intelligence.

Physical

By the gross physical is meant the earthly and bodily physical - as experienced by the outward sense-mind and senses. But this is not the whole of Matter. There is a subtle physical also with a subtler consciousness in it which can, for instance, go to a distance from the body and yet feel and be aware of things in a not merely mental or vital way.

Physical Change

The transformation to which we aspire is too vast and complex to come at one stroke; it must be allowed to come by stages. The physical change is the last of these stages and is itself a progressive process. The physical change itself can only be brought about by a descent of the greater supramental consciousness into the cells of the body. Till then at least the body and its supporting energies have to be maintained in part by the ordinary means, food, sleep, etc.

The physical changes slowly always—its nature is habit—so it is only by constant descents [of calmness, purity, light and strength] that gradually its substance gets changed and it becomes accustomed to the higher condition.

The consciousness [higher] that is always there in the body is tamasic and obscure and the greater part of it is subconscient. If it opens then there will be an increasing union with the higher consciousness and it will be able to share the experiences and the developments in the mind and vital.

Physical Exercise

It is very necessary to keep off tamas. Physical tamas in its roots can be removed only by the descent and the transformation, but physical exercise and regular activity of the body can always prevent a tamasic condition from prevailing in the body.

Physical Fatigue

It may come from receiving more than the physical is ready to assimilate. It may be due to the passivity taking the form of inertia ; inertia brings the consciousness down towards the ordinary physical level which is soon fatigued and prone to tamas. It may be due to mere overstrain of the body - not giving it enough sleep or repose.

Physical Mind

That part of the mind which is concerned with the physical things only ; it depends on the sense-mind, sees only objects, external actions, draws its ideas from the data given by external things, infers from them only and knows no other Truth until it is enlightened from above. The true thinking mind does not belong to the physical, it is a separate power.

Physical Opening

The opening of the physical and subconscient always takes a long time as it is a thing of habits and constant repetitions of the old movements, obscure and stiff and not plastic, yielding only little by little. The physical mind can be more easily opened and converted than the rest, but the vital physical and material physical are obstinate. The old things are always recurring there without reason and by force of habit. Much of the vital physical and most of the material are in the subconscience or dependent on it. It needs a strong and sustained action to progress there.

The physical opening needs a great quietude which replaces the tamasic inertia of body nature by a true peace.

Planes

We mean by planes of consciousness, planes of existence a general settled poise or world of relations between Purusha and Prakriti, between the Soul and Nature. For anything that we can call world is and can be nothing else than the working out of a general relation which a universal existence has created or established between itself, or let us say its eternal fact or potentiality and the powers of its becoming. That existence in its relations with and its experience of the becoming is what we call soul or Purusha, individual soul in the individual, universal soul in the cosmos; the principle and the powers of the becoming are what we call Nature or Prakriti.

There is a vital plane (self-existent) above the material universe which we see; there is a mental plane (self-existent) above the vital and material. These three together,—mental, vital, physical,—are called the triple universe of the lower hemisphere. They have been established in the earth-consciousness by evolution—but they exist in themselves before the evolution, above the earth-consciousness and the material plane to which the earth belongs. The higher planes are the higher mind, illumined, intuitive, over mind, supermind.

Each plane is a world in itself, with its own movements, forces, beings, types, forms existing as if for its and their own sake, under its own laws, for its own manifestation without apparent regard for other members of the great series.

If we regard the gradation of worlds or planes as a whole, we see them as a great connected complex movement; the higher precipitate their influences on the lower, the lower react to the higher and develop or manifest in themselves within their own formula something that corresponds to the superior power and its action. The material world has evolved life in obedience to a pressure from the vital plane, mind in obedience to a pressure from the mental plane. It is now trying to evolve supermind in obedience to a pressure from the supramental plane. Each plane of consciousness contains the others in itself in principle. In the physical consciousness there is a physical mind, a vital force and action which we call the vital physical, and the physical proper or material.

Pisacha

beings of the lower vital planes, who are in opposition to the Gods. They manifest more or less in the physico-vital.

Possession

The first attempt of the possessing entity is to separate the person from his psychic and it is that that creates the struggle.

The vital beings (possessing men) take a delight in struggle and suffering and disorder ; it is their natural atmosphere. They want besides to get the taste of the physical world without being under the obligation of taking on birth and developing the psychic being and evolving towards the Divine. They wish to remain what they are and yet amuse themselves with the physical world and physical body.

Powers for Realisation

Strength, if it is spiritual, is a power for spiritual realisation; a greater power is sincerity; the greatest power of all is Grace.

Prajnana

The apprehending Truth-consciousness; the apprehending movement of the Truth-consciousness; apprehensive consciousness . Prajnana is the consciousness that cognizes all things as objects confronting its observation; in the divine mind it is knowledge regarding things as their source, possessor and witness.

Prakāśa

Clear radiance ; enlightenment ; modified mental light.

Prakrti

Prakṛti is only the executive or working force; the Power behind the Prakṛti is Shakti. It is the Chit-Shakti in manifestation : that is the spiritual consciousness.

Prakṛti or Nature is the outer or executive side of Shakti or Conscious-Force which forms and moves the worlds. This outer side appears here to be mechanical, a play of the forces, guṇas, etc. Behind it is the living Consciousness and Force of the Divine, the divine Shakti. The Prakṛti is divided into the lower and the higher : the lower is the Prakṛti of the Ignorance, the Prakṛti of mind, life and matter separated in consciousness from the Divine ; the higher is the Divine Prakṛti of Sachchidananda with its manifesting power of Supermind, always aware of the Divine and free from Ignorance and its consequences.

Prakṛti is the Force that acts. A Force may be in action or in quiescence, but when it rests, it is as much a Force as when it acts. The guṇas are an action of the Force, they are in the Force itself.

It [Prakriti] divides itself into an inner Force that is free from its action (free from rajas, tamas etc.) and the outer Prakriti which it is using and changing.

Prana

Life-force; vital;

In the noblest type of physical evolution, Prana manifests itself in five distinct vital powers, to which the names, Prana, Samana, Vyana, Apana and Udana have been given by the ancient writers. Prana, the vital force par excellence has its seat in the upper part of the body and conducts all mental operations, the indrawing and the outdrawing of the breath and the induction of food.

The movement of the prana is from the top of the body to the navel, apana from Muladhara to the navel. Prana and apana meet together near the navel and create samana. The movement of vyana is in the whole body. While samana creates bhuta from the foods, vyana distributes it into the body. The movement of udana is from the navel to the head. Its work is to carry the virya (tejas) to the head. The movement of udana is different to the Yogin. Then its movement is from the Muladhara (from where it carries the virya to the crown of the head and turns it into1 ojas) to the crown of the head.

Prāṇāyāma

Regulated direction and arrestation by exercises of breathing of the vital currents of energy in the body ; control of the breath or vital force ; Yogic exercise of the control of the vital forces.

Prāṇāyāma is a very powerful thing but if done haphazardly it may lead to the raising of obstructions and even in extreme cases illness in the body.

Prayer

Prayer is only a particular form given to [human] that will, aspiration and faith. Its forms are very often crude and not only childlike, which is in itself no defect, but childish ; but still it has a real power and significance. Its power and sense is to put the will, aspiration and faith of man into touch with the divine Will as that of a conscious Being with whom we can enter into conscious and living relations.

Not prayer insisting on immediate fulfilment, but prayer that is itself a communion of the mind and heart with the Divine and can have the joy and satisfaction of itself, trusting for fulfilment by the Divine in his own time.

Presence

The sense and perception of the Divine as a Being, felt as present in one’s existence and consciousness or in relation with it.

Progress

Progress is the very heart of the significance of human life, for it means our evolution into greater and richer being.

Progress consists not in rejecting beauty and delight, but in rising from the lower to the higher, the less complete to the more complete beauty and delight.

The harmony of the inner and outer man which is the true meaning of civilisation and the efficient condition of a true progress.

Protection

When we are in close contact with the Divine, a protection can come in which helps or directly guides or moves us; it does not throw aside all difficulties, sufferings or dangers, but it carries us through them and out of them—except where for a special purpose there is need of the opposite.

Psychic

The psychic is the soul or spark of the Divine Fire supporting the individual evolution on the earth and the psychic being is the soul-consciousness developing itself or rather its manifestation from life to life with the mind, vital and body as its instruments until all is ready for the union with the Divine.

The psychic is the Divine element in the individual being and its characteristic power is to turn everything towards the Divine, to bring a fire of purification, aspiration, devotion, true light of discernment, feeling, will, action which transforms by degrees the whole nature. Quietude, peace and silence in the heart and therefore in the vital part of the being are necessary to reach the psychic, to plunge in it, for the perturbations of the vital nature, desire, emotion turned ego-wards or world-wards are the main part of the screen that hides the soul from the nature.

Psychic Awakening

Psychic awakening means the conscious action of the psychic from behind. When it comes to the front, it invades the mind and vital and body and psychicises their movement. It comes best by aspiration and an unquestioning and entire turning and surrender to the Mother. But also it sometimes comes of itself when the ādhāra is ready.

Psychic Being

Psychic being is quite different from the mind or vital ; it stands behind them where they meet in the heart. Its central place is there, but behind the heart rather than in the heart; for what men call usually the heart is the seat of emotion, and human emotions are mental-vital impulses, not ordinarily psychic in their nature. This mostly secret power behind, other than the mind and the life-force, is the true soul, the psychic being in us. The power of the psychic, however, can act upon the mind and vital and body, purifying thought and perception and emotion (which then becomes psychic feeling) and sensation and action and everything else in us and preparing them to be divine movements. The psychic being may he described in Indian language as the Purusha in the heart or the Chaitya Purusha, but the inner or secret heart must be understood, hṛdaye guhāyām, not the outer vital-emotional centre. The supramental change can take place only if the psychic is awake and is made the chief support of the descending supramental power.

The psychic being is the developing soul consciousness manifested for the created being as it evolves. At first, the soul is something essential behind the veil, not developed in front. In front there is only the body, life, mind. In the evolution the soul consciousness develops more and more in the created being until it is so developed that it can come entirely in front and govern mind, life and body.

The psychic being is the soul evolving in the course of birth and rebirth and the soul is a portion of the Divine—but with the soul there is always the veiled Divine.

Psychic Powers

The range of the psychic consciousness and its experiences is almost illimitable and the variety and complexity of its phenomena almost infinite. The first and most prominent is the activity of the psychic senses of which the sight is the most developed ordinarily and the first to manifest itself with any largeness when the veil of the absorption in the surface consciousness which prevents the inner vision is broken. But all the physical senses have their corresponding powers in the psychical being, there is a psychical hearing, touch, smell, taste : indeed the physical senses are themselves in reality only a projection of the inner sense into a limited and externalised operation in and through and upon the phenomena of gross matter. The psychical sight receives characteristically the images that are formed in the subtle matter of the mental or psychical ether, cittākāśa. These may be transcriptions there or impresses of physical things, persons, scenes, happenings, whatever is, was or will be or may be in the physical universe. These images are very variously seen and under all kinds of conditions ; in samādhi or in the waking state, and in the latter with the bodily eyes closed or open, projected on or into a physical object or medium or seen as if materialised in the physical atmosphere or only in a psychical ether revealing itself through this grosser physical atmosphere ; seen through the physical eyes themselves as a secondary instrument and as if under the conditions of the physical vision or by the psychical vision alone and independently of the relations of our ordinary sight to space. The real agent is always the psychical sight and the power indicates that the consciousness is more or less awake, intermittently or nor· m ally and more or less perfectly, in the psychical body. It is possible to see in this way the transcriptions or impressions of things at any distance beyond the range of the physical vision or the images of the past or the future.

Besides these transcriptions or impresses the psychical vision receives thought images and other forms created by constant activity of consciousness in ourselves or in other human beings, and these may be according to the character of the activity, images of truth or falsehood or else mixed things, partly true, partly false, and may be too either mere shells and representations or images inspired with a temporary life and consciousness and, it may be, carrying in them in one way or another some kind of beneficent or maleficent action or some willed or unwilled effectiveness on our minds or vital being or through them even on the body. These transcriptions, impresses, thought images, life images, projections of the consciousness may also be representations or creations not of the physical world, but of vital, psychic or mental worlds beyond us, seen in our own minds or projected from other than human beings. And as there is this psychical vision of which some of the more external and ordinary manifestations are well enough known by the name of clairvoyance, so there is a psychical ḥearing and psychical touch, taste, smell - clairaudience, clairsentience are the more external manifestations,- with precisely the same range each in its own kind, the same fields and manner and conditions and varieties of their phenomena. These and other phenomena create an indirect, a representative range of psychical experience ; but the psychical sense has also the power of putting us in a more direct communication with earthly or supra-terrestrial beings through their psychical selves or their psychical bodies or even with things, for things also have a psychical reality and souls or presences supporting them which can communicate with our psychical consciousness. The most notable of these more powerful but rarer phenomena are those which attend the power of exterioration of our consciousness for various kinds of action otherwise and elsewhere than in the physical body, communication in the psychical body or some emanation or reproduction of it, oftenest, though by no means necessarily, during sleep or trance and the setting up of relations or communication by various means with the denizens of another plane of existence.

For there is a continuous scale of the planes of consciousness, beginning with the psychical and other belts attached to and dependent on the earth plane and proceeding through the true independent vital and psychical worlds to the worlds of the gods and the highest supramental and spiritual planes of existence. And these are in fact always acting upon our subliminal selves unknown to our waking mind and with considerable effect on our life and nature. The physical mind is only a little part of us and there is much more considerable range of our being in which the presence, influence and powers of the other planes are active upon us and help to shape our external being and its activities.

The awakening of the psychical consciousness enables us to become aware of these powers, presences and influences in and around us ; and while in the impure or yet ignorant and imperfect mind this unveiled contact has its dangers, it enables us too, if rightly used and directed, to be no longer their subject but their master and to come into conscious and self-controlled possession of the inner secrets of our nature. The psychical consciousness reveals this interaction between the inner and the outer planes, this world and others, partly by an awareness, which may be very constant, vast and vivid, of their impacts, suggestions, communications to our inner thought and conscious being and a capacity of reaction upon them there, partly also through many kinds of symbolic, transcriptive or representative images presented to the different psychical senses. But also there is the possibility of a more direct, concretely sensible, almost material, sometimes actively material communication - a complete though temporary physical materialisation seems to be possible - with the powers, forces and beings of other worlds and planes. There may even be a complete breaking of the limits of the physical consciousness and the material existence. The awakening of the psychical consciousness liberates in us the direct use of the mind as a sixth sense, and this power may be made constant and normal. The physical consciousness can only communicate with the minds of others or know the happenings of the world around us through external means and signs and indications, and it has beyond this limited action only a vague and haphazard use of the mind’s more direct capacities, a poor range of occasional presentiments, intuitions and messages. Our minds are indeed constantly acting and acted upon by the minds of others through hidden currents of which we are not aware, but we have no knowledge or control of these agencies. The psychical consciousness, as it develops, makes us aware of the great mass of thoughts, feelings, suggestions, wills, impacts, influences of all kinds that we are receiving from others or sending to others or imbibing from and throwing into the general mind atmosphere around us. As it evolves in power, precision and clearness, we are able to trace these to their source or feel immediately their origin and transit to us and direct consciously and with an intelligent will our own messages. It becomes possible to be aware, more or less accurately and discerningly, of the activities of minds whether near to us physically or at a distance, to understand, feel or identify ourselves with their temperament, character, thoughts, feelings, reactions, whether by a psychic sense or a direct mental perception or by a very sensible and often intensely concrete reception of them into our mind or on its recording surface. At the same time, we can consciously make at least the inner selves and, if they are sufficiently sensitive, the surface minds of others aware of our own inner mental or psychic self and plastic to its thoughts, suggestions, influences or even cast it or its active image in influence into their subjective, even into their vital and physical being to work there as a helping or moulding or dominating power and presence.

Psychic World

The psychic world is a sort of Heaven of peace and beauty and harmony. It is also a place of rest for the soul between two incarnations in which it absorbs its past experiences and becomes ready for another birth.

Psychicisation

Psychisation means the change of the lower nature, bringing right vision into the mind, right impulse and feeling into the vital, right movement and habit into the physical—all turned towards the Divine, all based on love, adoration, bhakti—finally, the vision and sense of the Mother everywhere in all as well as in the heart, her Force working in the being etc., faith, consecration, surrender.

Psycho-Analysis and Yoga

There are many things in the ordinary man of which he is not conscious, because the vital hides them from the mind and gratifies them without the mind realising what is the force that is moving the action - thus things that are done under the plea of altruism, philanthropy, service etc. are largely moved by ego which hides itself behind these justifications ; in yoga the secret motive has to be pulled out from behind the veil, exposed and got rid of. Secondly, some things are suppressed in the ordinary life and remain lying in the nature, suppressed but not eliminated ; they may rise up any day or they may express themselves in various nervous forms or other disorders of the mind or vital or body without it being evident what is the real cause. This has been recently discovered by European psychologists and much emphasised, even exaggerated in a new science called psycho-analysis. Here again, in sadhana one has to become conscious of these suppressed impulses and eliminate them ; that does not mean that they have to be raised up into action but only raised up before the consciousness so as to be cleared out of the being.

Psychology

Psychology is the science of consciousness and its status and operations in Nature and, if that can be glimpsed or experienced, its status and operations beyond what we know as Nature.

A direct experiential and experimental psychology seems to be demanded if psychology is to be a science and not merely a mass of elementary and superficial generalisations with all the rest guesswork or uncertain conclusion or inference. We must see, feel, know directly what we observe; our interpretations must be capable of being sure and indubitable; we must be able to work surely on a ground of sure knowledge.

Modern psychology is an infant science, at once rash, fumbling and crude. As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mind - to take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of Nature in its narrow terms - runs riot here.

Pulling

When one is open and too eager and tries to pull down the force, experience, etc., instead of letting it descend quietly, that is called pulling.

Purification

Each time there is a purification of the outer nature, it becomes more possible for the inner being to reveal itself, to become free and to open to the higher consciousness above. When this happens several other things happen at the same time. First, one becomes aware of the silent Self above - free, wide, without limits, pure, untroubled by the mental, vital and physical movements, empty of ego and limited personality. Secondly, the Divine Power descends through this silence and freedom of the Self and begins to work in the Adhāra. Thirdly, by this working the inner parts of the being are opened and freed; you are liberated from the limitations of the ordinary personal mind, vital and physical and become aware of a wider consciousness in which you can be more capable of the needed transformation.

Purification of the heart : The turning of it wholly to the Divine, the subjection of the mind and the vital to the control of the inner being, the soul. Always, when the soul is in front, one gets the right guidance from within as to what is to be done, what avoided, what is the wrong thing or true thing in thought, feeling, action. But this inner intimation emerges in proportion as the consciousness grows more and more pure.

The most important thing for this purification of the heart is an absolute sincerity. No pretence with oneself, no concealment from the Divine, or oneself, or the Guru, a straight look at one’s movements, a straight will to make them straight.

Purity

Purity is to accept no other influence but only the influence of the Divine.

Purity is more a condition than a substance. Peace helps to purity - since in peace disturbing influences cease and the essence of purity is to respond only to the Divine Influence and not to have affinity with other movements.

The Divine Purity is that in which there is no mixture of the turbid ignorant movements of the lower nature.

The Divine Purity is a more wide and all-embracing experience than the psychic.

Purusha

An essential being supporting the play of Prakriti; Conscious Soul.

Purusha is the conscious Being who supports all the action of Nature. There is no fixed place, but as the central being he usually stands above the adhar—he becomes also the mental, vital, physical, psychic being.

There is one Purusha; its action is according to the position and need of the consciousness at the time.

Purusha is there on all the planes : there is a mental Purusha, manomaya, leader of the life and body, as the Upanishad puts it, a vital, a physical Purusha; there is the psychic being or Chaitya Purusha which supports and carries all these as it were. One may say that these are projections of the Jivatman put there to uphold Prakriti on the various levels of the being. The Upanishad speaks also of a Supramental and a Bliss Purusha, and if the Supramental and the Bliss Nature were organised in the evolution on earth, we could become aware of them upholding the movements here.

Purusha and Prakriti are separate powers of the being. It is not that Purusha = quiescence and Prakriti = action, so that when all is quiescent there is no Prakriti and when all is action there is no Purusha. When all is active, there is still the Purusha behind the active Nature and when all is quiescent, there is still the Prakriti, but the Prakriti at rest.