Parts of being

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Letters on Yoga - I
“The Parts of the Being”

Letters on Yoga I - The Parts of the Being.jpg
PDF (3 pages)


(Mother:) “But you have never noticed that it is different? For example, your physical consciousness or your subtle physical consciousness, your vital consciousness or the consciousness of your higher or lower vital, your psychic consciousness, your mental consciousness, each one is completely different! …
          Well, it’s something one must learn to distinguish, one’s states of consciousness, because otherwise one lives in a perpetual confusion.
         In fact, it is the first step on the path, it is the beginning of the thread, if one doesn’t hold on to the end of the thread, one is lost on the way. This is only to hold the end of the thread.”[1]


“First of all, to begin with, one must know, understand and distinguish the different parts of one's being – the sensations, the impulses and the vibrations, the thoughts, the formations, the mixed ideas, the quasi-moral or benign developments – all these things that touch you, you must distinguish them and know from where each one comes, what is its role, and if it helps in your development; or if it is harmful, then you must reject it. In fact, to take each thing at its actual value.”[2]


(Sri Aurobindo:) “It is a mistake to think that we live physically only or only with the outer mind and life. We are all the time living and acting on other planes of consciousness, meeting others there and acting upon them, and what we do and feel and think there, the forces we gather, the results we prepare have an incalculable importance and effect, unknown to us, upon our outer life.”[3]


“Over each grade of our being a power of the Spirit presides; we have within us and discover when we go deep enough inwards a mind-self, a life-self, a physical self; there is a being of mind, a mental Purusha, expressing something of itself on our surface in the thoughts, perceptions, activities of our mind nature, a being of life which expresses something of itself in the impulses, feelings, sensations, desires, external life activities of our vital nature, a physical being, a being of the body which expresses something of itself in the instincts, habits, formulated activities of our physical nature. These beings or part selves of the self in us are powers of the Spirit and therefore not limited by their temporary expression, for what is thus formulated is only a fragment of its possibilities; but the expression creates a temporary mental, vital or physical personality which grows and develops even as the psychic being or soul personality grows and develops within us. Each has its own distinct nature, its influence, its action on the whole of us; but on our surface all these influences and all this action, as they come up, mingle and create an aggregate surface being which is a composite, an amalgam of them all, an outer persistent and yet shifting and mobile formation for the purposes of this life and its limited experience.
         But this aggregate is, because of its composition, a heterogeneous compound, not a single harmonious and homogeneous whole. This is the reason why there is a constant confusion and even a conflict in our members which our mental reason and will are moved to control and harmonise and have often much difficulty in creating out of their confusion or conflict some kind of order and guidance; even so, ordinarily, we drift too much or are driven by the stream of our nature and act from whatever in it comes uppermost at the time and seizes the instruments of thought and action”[4]


“Interchange of forces between persons is very common. Whenever two people meet, the interchange goes on. In that way one contracts a disease from another without any infection by germs. A disciple here was very conscious of what he was receiving from others, but he didn't care to think about what he was passing on to them!
      Even without meeting, there can be mutual effects. Even thought has power for good and evil. Bad thoughts may affect others. That's why Buddha used to emphasise right thinking.”[5]


(Mother:) “A human being, a fully developed human individuality is very much like one of those stupendous orchestras which has hundreds and hundreds of players. It is obviously very difficult to control and conduct them but the result can be marvellous.”[6]





  1. Questions and Answers 1955, p.131
  2. Blessings of the Grace: Conversations with the Mother Recollected by Mona Sarkar and Some of Her Written Answers, p.146
  3. Letters on Yoga - III, p.217
  4. The Life Divine, p.929, “The Triple Transformation”
  5. Talks with Sri Aurobindo, p.44, 20 December 1938
  6. Questions and Answers 1957-1958, p.402


See also

External links