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Planes
of the Being
Each
plane of our being — mental, vital, physical — has its own
consciousness, separate though interconnected and interacting;
but to our outer mind and sense, in our waking experience,
they are all confused together. The body, for instance, has
its own consciousness and acts from it, even without any mental
will of our own or even against that will, and our surface
mind knows very little about this body-consciousness, feels
it only in an imperfect way, sees only its results and has
the greatest difficulty in finding out their causes. It is
part of the yoga to become aware of this separate consciousness
of the body, to see and feel its movements and the forces
that act upon it from inside or outside and to learn how to
control and direct it even in its most hidden and (to us)
subconscient processes. But the body consciousness itself
is only part of the individualised physical consciousness
in us which we gather and build out of the secretly conscious
forces of universal physical Nature.
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 being for the support of its expression in the
physical world and for a direct dealing with all these external
objects and movements and forces. This physical-consciousness
plane receives from the other planes their powers and influences
and makes formations of them in its own province. Therefore
we have a physical mind as well as a vital mind and the mind
proper; we have a vital-physical part in us — the nervous
being — as well as the vital proper; and both are largely
conditioned by the gross material bodily part which is almost
entirely subconscient to our experience.
The
physical mind is that which is fixed on physical objects and
happenings, sees and understands these only, and deals with
them according to their own nature, but can with difficulty
respond to the higher forces. Left to itself, it is sceptical
of the existence of supraphysical things, of which it has
no direct experience and to which it can find no clue; even
when it has spiritual experiences, it forgets them easily,
loses the impression and result and finds it difficult to
believe. To enlighten the physical mind by the consciousness
of the higher spiritual and supramental planes is one object
of this yoga, just as to enlighten it by the power of the
higher vital and higher mental elements of the being is the
greatest part of human self-development, civilization and
culture.
The
vital physical, on the other hand, is the vehicle of the nervous
responses of our physical nature; it is the field and the
instrument of the smaller sensations, desires, reactions of
all kinds to the impacts of the outer physical and gross material
life. This vital physical part (supported by the lowest part
of the vital proper) is therefore the agent of most of the
lesser movements of our external life; its habitual reactions
and obstinate pettinesses are the chief stumbling-block in
the way of transformation of the outer consciousness by the
yoga. It is also largely responsible for most of the suffering
and disease of mind or body to which the physical being is
subject in Nature.
As
to the gross material part, it is not necessary to specify
its place, for that is obvious; but it must be remembered
that this too has a consciousness of its own, the obscure
consciousness proper to the limbs, cells, tissues, glands,
organs. To make this obscurity luminous and directly instrumental
to the higher planes and to the divine movement is what we
mean in our yoga by making the body conscious, — that
is to say, full of a true, awake and responsive awareness
instead of its own obscure, limited half-subconscience.
-
Sri Aurobindo
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