The Inner Subliminal Self

Having now referred to the Subliminal Self in our discussion of the creation of dreams, it is necessary to describe this part of our being more thoroughly, and Sri Aurobindo takes up the question. He points out that the subliminal self is not a creation out of the inconscience, but actually it is a meeting-place for the “consciousness that emerges from below by evolution and the consciousness that has descended from above for involution.”

In fact, however, “this inner existence is the concealed origin of almost all in our surface self that is not a construction of the first inconscient World-Energy or a natural developed functioning of our surface consciousness or a reaction of it to impacts from the outside universal Nature,–and even in this construction, these functionings, these reactions the subliminal takes part and exercises on them a considerable influence.”

There is within this subliminal self “an inner mind, an inner vital being of ourselves, an inner or subtle-physical being larger than our outer being and nature.”

It is this subliminal being that actually can enter the planes of the mental, vital and subtle-physical realms that are part of the universal Nature, and it is not confined to the limited body, life and mind of the individual. It therefore is larger and wider than the consciousness of our surface being, and is able to act as a conduit or channel for those larger forces and energies to shape and act within the framework of the surface being.

Sri Aurobindo also points out, in continuation of our discussion regarding the dream-consciousness, that “It is into this large realm of interior existence that our mind and vital being retire when they withdraw from the surface activities whether by sleep or inward-drawn concentration or by the inner plunge of trance.”

reference: Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Book 2, Part I, Chapter 5, The Cosmic Illusion; Mind, Dream and Hallucination, pp. 425-426