Unifying One's Being Summary

Read more about Unifying One's Being from the works of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo.

Our Manifold Being

The ordinary human being is conscious only in his physical being, and only in relatively rare moments is he conscious of his mind, just a little more frequently of his vital, but all this is mixed up in his consciousness, so much so that he would be quite unable to say, "This movement comes from the mind, this from the vital, this from the physical." It is as when one works with colours, takes three or four or five different colours and puts them in the same water and beats them up together, it makes a grey, indistinct and incomprehensible mixture, you see, and one can't say which is red, which blue, which green, which yellow; it is something dirty, lots of colours mixed. So first of all one must do this little work of separating the red, blue, yellow, green - putting them like this, each in its corner. It is not at all easy.

Importance of Harmonizing One’s Being

Man is not made up of one piece but of many pieces and each part of him has a personality of its own.The aim should be in Yoga to develop (if one has it not already) a strong central being and harmonise under it all the rest, changing what has to be changed. If this central being is the psychic, there is no great difficulty.

Man, the microcosm, has all these planes in his own being, ranged from his subconscient to his superconscient existence. By a developing power of yoga he can become aware of these concealed words hidden from his physical materialised mind and senses which know only the material world, and then he becomes aware that his material existence is not a thing apart and self-existent, as a material universe in which he lives is also not a thing apart and self- existent, but is in constant relation to the higher planes and acted on by their powers and beings. He can open up and increase the action of these higher planes in himself and enjoy some sort of participation in the life of the other worlds,- which, for the rest, are or can be his dwelling place, that is to say, the station of his awareness…

There are many parts to one’s being, so first let's look at the various parts in us.

Planes and Parts of the Being

The Physical

Each plane of our being- mental, vital, physical -has its own consciousness. By the “Physical” I mean the physical consciousness, the most ordinary outward-going consciousness, the normal consciousness of most human beings. There is the universal physical consciousness of Nature and there is our own which is a part of it, moved by it, and used by the central bank for the support of its expression in the physical world .

The Vital

Vital is a thing of desires,impulses, force-pushes, emotions, sensations, seekings after life- fulfillment, possession and enjoyment.

The Mental

The “Mind” in the ordinary use of the word covers indiscriminately the whole consciousness, for man is a mental being and mentalises everything; it has to do with cognition and intelligence, with ideas, with mental or thought perceptions, the reaction of thought to things.

Soul and Psychic Being

The soul is a spark of the Divine which is not seated above the manifested being, but comes down into the manifestation to support its evolution in the material world. It is at first an undifferentiated power of the Divine Consciousness containing all possibilities which have not yet taken form, but to which it is the function of evolution to give form. The psychic being is formed by the soul in its evolution. It supports the mind, vital, body, grows by their experiences, carries the nature from life to life. It is the psychic or caitya purusa. At first it is veiled by mind, vital and body, but as it grows, it becomes capable of coming forward and dominating the mind, life and body.

Now let us explore how we can integrate the various parts in us.

How to Organise, Harmonise, Unify the Being?

The centre of the human being is psychic which is the dwelling-place of the immanent Divine. Unification means organisation and harmonisation of all parts of the being (mental, vital and physical) around this center, so that all the activities of the being may be the correct expression of the will of the Divine Presence.

The first step is to find, deep within oneself, behind the desires and impulses, a luminous consciousness which is always present and manifests the physical being... One has, then, to come into conscious contact with that and learn to do so at will. The rest will

Becoming an Individual

First one must become a conscious, well-knit, individualised being, who can hear anything, read anything, see anything without changing. He receives from outside only what he wants to receive. And for this to become a coordinated, coherent, logical thought a long thorough work is necessary. And then, the best of the business is that when you have succeeded in making a beautiful, well-formed, very strong, very powerful mental construction, the first thing you will be told is, “You must break this so that you can unite with the Divine!" But so long as you haven't made it, you cannot unite with the Divine because you have nothing to give to the Divine except a mass of things which are not yourself! One must first exist in order to be able to give oneself.

Becoming Conscious

To work for your perfection, the first step is to become conscious of yourself, of the different parts of your being and their respective activities. You must learn to distinguish these different parts one from another, so that you may become clearly aware of the origin of the movements that occur in you, the many impulses, reactions and conflicting wills that drive you to action... In this way, little by little, all the parts, all the elements of our being can be organised into a homogeneous whole around our psychic centre.

In conclusion, to become a whole, we first need to become a well-knit individualised being who receives from outside only what he wants to receive, then become conscious of the different parts of the being and their respective activities, finally find within ourselves a luminous consciousness around which we can organise, harmonise and unify.

Finally as Sri Aurobindo affirms that it cannot be done from the outside, by the mind or the vital; it can only be done from within the soul.

Curated by Prakash

Read more about Unifying One's Being from the works of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo.