The Psychic Being Carries the Essence of the Soul’s Experience from Life to Life

We tend to look at things through the standpoint of the exte
al physical being, the body, life and mind with which we identify. From this standpoint we treat the soul as something that we need to search for, if we even acknowledge the existence of the soul, and as something secondary to and therefore less important than the goals we set for ourselves to live and enjoy the exte
al life. Few are those individuals who look at things differently and see the soul as the primary controller and driver of our lives, and the exte
al activities as secondary and subordinate to the soul’s intention.

We wonder about the meaning of life. From the exte
al standpoint, it is difficult to determine why it is we have to be born, grow, struggle through our lives and then die, if there is nothing more. If we shift to the standpoint of the soul, however, we can see that there is a progressive manifestation in which we are participants that extends far beyond the time-frame of a single lifetime. The Bhagavad Gita explains: “The embodied soul casts away old and takes up new bodies as a man changes worn-out raiment for new. [Sri Aurobindo, Bhagavad Gita and Its Message, Ch. 2, V. 22]

Sri Aurobindo comments on Chapter 18, Verse 47 of the Gita when he states: “The Jiva is in self-expression a portion of the supreme Spirit, he is in his personality that Power; he brings out in an individual existence the potentialities of the Soul of the universe. This Jiva itself is spirit and not the natural ego; the spirit and not the form of ego is our reality and inner soul principle. … The spiritual Nature which has become this multiple personality in the universe, … is the basic stuff of our existence: all the rest is lower derivation and outer formation from a highest hidden activity of the spirit.” [Bhagavad Gita and Its Message, Ch. 18, pg 269]

Sri Aurobindo notes: “What is meant in the terminology of the yoga by the psychic is the soul element in the nature, the pure psyche or divine nucleus which stands behind mind, life and body (it is not the ego) but of which we are only dimly aware. It is a portion of the Divine and permanent from life to life, taking the experience of life through its outer instruments. As this experience grows it manifests a developing psychic personality which insisting always on the good, true and beautiful, finally becomes ready and strong enough to turn the nature towards the Divine. It can then come entirely forward, breaking through the mental, vital and physical screen, govern the instincts and transform the nature. Nature no longer imposes itself on the soul, but the soul, the Purusha, imposes its dictates on the nature.”

reference: Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Psychic Being — Soul: Its Nature, MIssion and Evolution, Section 1 Meaning and Nature of the Psychic Being, pg. 4