Evolutionary Beings and Static Typal Beings in the Universal Manifestation

As with many words in the English language, the word soul has various nuanced meanings as Sri Aurobindo explains. English as a very fluid language can at times be very imprecise in this way. This, however, is just one of the issues Sri Aurobindo takes up here in the citation below.

One very interesting aspect is the implication that the evolutionary process takes place on earth in an earthly body, and that beings that inhabit other realms, including various gods and demons, as we term them, are ‘typal’ beings that are not subject to evolution in their native realms; rather, if they at some point determine that they want to participate in the evolutionary process, they need to take birth in the world and undergo the processes that pertain here.

Typal beings exist in their own native worlds and act within the framework of those worlds. They tend to be static and do not change over time. Depending on their ability to communicate into our world, they may influence action here, and even manifest some form here in order to do that, including through what is called ‘possession’ of a living being. We may understand the concept from the unrelated world of video games which use NPC’s (non-player characters) to influence the action and direction of the game. Those NPC’s do not undergo the kind of changes that the players experience. Similarly, whether we term them gods, angels, demons, Asuras, Rakshasas or vital beings of some sort we can experience their impact while they remain unchanged in their character and nature in our own world and lives.

The unique difference between an evolutionary being and a non-evolutionary being turns out to be the existence of the soul, and the development of the soul-individuality in the form of the psychic being which carries the evolutionary growth from life to life as universal manifestation unfolds and develops.

Sri Aurobindo writes: “The word soul has various meanings according to the context; it may mean the Purusha supporting the formation of Prakriti, which we call a being, though the proper word would be rather a becoming; it may mean, on the other hand, specifically the psychic being in an evolutionary creature like man; it may mean the spark of the Divine which has been put into Matter by the descent of the Divine into the material world and which upholds all evolving formations here. There is and can be no psychic being in a non-evolutionary creature like the Asura; there can be none in a god who does not need one for his existence. But what the god has is a Purusha and a Prakriti or Energy of nature of that Purusha. If any being of the typal worlds wants to evolve, he has to come down to earn and take a human body and accept to share in the evolution. It is because they do not want to do this that the vital beings try to possess men so that they may enjoy the materialities of physical life without having the burden of the evolution or the process of conversion in which it culminates.”

reference: Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Psychic Being — Soul: Its Nature, Mission and Evolution, Section 1 Meaning and Nature of the Psychic Being, pp. 7-8