international journal of humanities, social science \u0026 education [june, 2014]

Individual Self: as envisioned by SriAurobindo

Prof. Debashri Banerjee

Designation: Assistant Professor & H.O.D.,

Department: Philosophy,

College: Chatra R.P. College, W.B.

Contact No: (0)9051633690; (0)9748465434

Email Id: banerjeedebashri1982@rediffmail.com

banlopa@gmail.com

Abstract:

The concept of Individual Self is very complex innature. In this article we want to focus on SriAurobindo’s notion of Individual Self. Whether self isequal to body or mind or ego? Different Indian andWestern psychological theories accept no differencebetween self with body, mind or ego. However, according

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to Sri Aurobindo, self is neither of them. Self standsfor Psychic Being or Chaitya Purusha to him.

Keywords:

Sri Aurobindo, Individual Self/Jivatman, Psychology,Religion, Vedas.

Individual Self: as envisioned by SriAurobindo

Prof. Debashri Banerjee

Self is a very relevant concept that we want to discusshere. It is prevalent everywhere either in Indian or inWestern psychological thoughts. However there exists apopular misconception that India had no cultivation ofpsychology. It was wrongly thought that India wasreluctant to use psychology as a separate study. Butthis presumption is certainly not true. It is certainlytrue that psychology in India as elsewhere was not a

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separate science, but was centred on religion andphilosophy; and, so, psychology was intimatelyconnected with all of the above. Perhaps the intimaterelation of psychology with that of religion andphilosophy in India is the main cause of thismisconception. Hence we are falsely guided to thinkthat there was no such practice of psychology in India.On the contrary, in India, the culture of psychologycould be discovered even in the ancient eras. It has arich tradition of psychological studies from the timeof the Vedas and Upanishads.

The Vedas speak of ‘knowledge’, ‘consciousness’, ‘will’,‘thought’, ‘understanding’ etc by using several wordslike Dhi, Manas, Buddhi, Chetana, Ritam, Satyam, Vipra,Chitti, Mati, Achitti etc. Rig Veda speaks of ‘Dyawa Prithivi’i.e. Heaven and Earth, symbolizing the mental andphysical planes of consciousness. It also mentions of‘Antariksha’ i.e. the immediate vital plane between Earthand Heaven – the physical and mental. Here we couldalso discover the three summits of the mind – ‘TriniRochana’. In I, 50.10 sukta of the Vedas we got to knowabout the ascent of the human soul from plane to plane;from Darkness to Light.1 In IV, 2-12, again the Vedic

1 “Beholding on high the Light beyond the Darkness, higher still we saw theGod among the Gods, we reached the Sun, the highest Light.” [I, 50.10 sukta ofVedas]. However in this context we can discover its similarity with that ofSri Aurobindo. In his opinion, Sachchidananda is the supreme spirit of all.Hence we can say that Sun of the Vedas = Sachchidananda of Sri Aurobindo.

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seer or Rishi says ‘The knower must distinguish betweenconsciousness and unconsciousness’ –

Chittimachittim Chinavad Vi Vidwan

The Upanishads differentiate between various mentalstates of human beings and it was quite similar withthat of Western psychology.

1. Jagrat – Waking State; 2.Swapna – Dream State; 3.Sushupti – Deep-sleep State; 4.Turiya – Somewhat Inexplicable State [Often known as

Hallucinated state].

Again, in the Upanishads, various levels of humanconsciousness are also briefly mentioned.

1.Annamaya – the Physical; 2.Pranamaya – the Vital;3.Manomaya – the Mental;4.Vijnanamaya – the Supramental5.Anandamaya – the Level of Bliss.2

2 Here also we could discover the similarity of Upanishadic views with that ofSri Aurobindo. According to him, the levels of consciousness is as follows –

a) Matter or Physical; b) Life or Vital;c) Mind or Mental;d) Supermind or Supramental; e) Sachchidananda or Divine Existence – Consciousness-force – Bliss i.e.

Sat-Chit-Ananda.

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From this high note let us try to formulate SriAurobindo’s notion of individual self. In this regardwe have to deal with several significant questionsregarding the true nature of human soul or self –

1.Does self stand for Body?2.Does self stand for Mind?3.Does self stand for Ego?4.Or, is it something else?

To formulate the first objection ‘Is it (self) Body?’we should look towards the Indian tradition at first.In the Charvaka philosophy, soul and body were notdifferentiated. To them, there is no separate existenceof self other than body. Self-consciousness is anemergent property of the body itself. Body isperceptible, not soul. The existence of self after thedecay of body is also not permissible. When I say “I amsleeping” then this ‘I’ is nothing else but body, as‘sleep’ is used for symbolizing the rest of the body,not of the soul. Self is, in their tradition, is justbody and nothing else. Conscious human body is regardedby the Charvaka as self. Hence all kinds of soul-consciousness are the sheer manifestations of the

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bodily consciousness. Consciousness thus seems to bethe epiphenomenon of the body and has to be made up offour physical atoms, namely kshiti or earth, apa orwater, tejas or fire, and marut or air. This physicalisttheory is popularly known to be Dehatma-vada orBhutachaitanya-vada. In this respect we can discover theirstrong similarity with that of the epiphenomenalism ofthe West where mind and mental parts are considered tobe the epiphenomena of the physical components. Onlyphysical parts are apprehended to be the phenomena andthe mental components, as the inherent objects withinthe physical realm, has been known as epiphenomena.

In our common sense point of view, we can immediatelyremove this dichotomy by calling that self is consciousand body is unconscious, hence body should never standfor self. However Sri Aurobindo’s position is certainlymuch different from that. It is true that soul issupremely conscious, but body even is not at allunconscious in its inherent nature. He explained hisposition in two ways as following – first, by showingthe presence of bodily consciousness and secondly, byrejecting the idea that matter must be unconscious innature. Let us start with the first stand-point. Whenour fingers are cut, then the mind can also feel the

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pain. The reason of it, as conceived by him, is thatbody has its own consciousness though in the dormantlevel. For that reason, body can influence the mind (asshown in the above example) and also body can do manythings according to its own will, e.g. picking up aspoon or knife even when we are not conscious of it. Bythese two examples we can prove the existence of bodilyconsciousness. From the second stand-point we have toprove the existence of consciousness in matter.According to Sri Aurobindo, consciousness is afundamental thing which in the process of involutionfor fulfilling the Divine purpose of God (this Divinepurpose is due to Sachchidananda’s cosmicmanifestation) takes the form of apparently unconsciousmatter. So matter, in his theory, is nothing but adormant form of Divine consciousness. From his Life Divinewe ultimately derive this truth. Actually due to ourignorance we misunderstand the true nature of matter asinconscient. For describing matter, Sri Aurobindo usesthe term ‘sleep of consciousness’ unless ‘suspension ofconsciousness’ which is sufficient enough to prove theexistence of consciousness even in the material level.Thus even if we admit body as material in nature, wecannot call it unconsciousness at all.

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Mental Consciousness

Physical Consciousness

Vital Consciousness

Sachchidananda

Supramental Consciousness

Fig 1: The Apex System of Consciousness Structure

But the question remains the same – is soul = body ornot? Sri Aurobindo never accepted that soul issynonymous with body. Let us try to find his answerfrom the writings of A.S. Dalal who simplified SriAurobindo’s opinion in this following quotation –

‘….we have to begin with a dualism of the thing and itsshadow, Purusha and Prakriti, commonly called spiritand matter [Underlines are done by me]….He (Purusha) isthe origin of the birth of things and He is thereceptacle of the birth and it is to the Male aspect ofHimself that the word Purusha predominantly applies.The image often applied to these relations is that of

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the man casting his seed into the Woman; his duty ismerely to originate the seed and deposit it, but it isthe woman’s duty to cherish the seed, develop it, bringit forth and start it on its career of manifested life.The seed, says the Upanishad, is the self of the Male,it is spirit, and being cast into the Female, Prakriti,it becomes one with her and therefore does her no hurt;spirit takes the shaping appearance of matter and doesnot break up the appearances of matter, but developsunder their law’. 3

Here both soul and matter have some amount ofconsciousness lying inherent. But the consciousness ofsoul as Purusha is active; while consciousness remainingin matter or Prakriti is passive in nature. They arenothing but the manifestations of the same Brahman. Theactive manifestation is Purusha or soul and the passivemanifestation is Prakriti or matter. This concept ofPurusha and Prakriti has very much in common with thatof the Samkhya philosophy. Hence, in Sri Aurobindo’sview, soul cannot be synonymous with body.

Now to formulate the second objection, whether ‘self =mind or not’, we have to concentrate on the ModernWestern psychological point of view. According to Rene

3 A.S. Dalal, A Grater Psychology: an Introduction to the Psychological Thought of Sri Aurobindo,Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 2001, p. 96-97

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Descartes, ‘I think, therefore I am’ this Cogito Ergo Sumthesis indicates towards drawing a conclusion such thatself = mind. Here the word ‘I’ stands for ‘Self’. Butthis self can never be able to think without the helpof mind. Thinking is a capacity of the mind, not ofsoul. Soul cannot think, but mind. Thinking thusindicates towards the mind. Hence ‘I think’ thisutterance could be true if and only if we accept thatself is mind.

In Kantian doctrine, we cannot understand soul withoutunderstanding the mind. Consciousness is a uniquefeature of mind. Hence, without mental consciousnessthere is no such thing as self-consciousness. We cannotexperience self-consciousness, but mentalconsciousness. For him, self-consciousness simplyimplies having experience and recognizing that as one’sown (mental consciousness). So no difference betweenself and mind could be drawn in Kant’s thesis.

However in the opinion of David Hume, we find out thatsoul is nothing but just the bundle of mental thoughts.We cannot experience any such thing like soul, but onlyour mental states. We can identify the experiences ofour childhood due to the existence of such metal statesremaining intact till now. In his book Treatise ConcerningHuman Nature he clearly argued that there is no suchthing as self even if we have strong belief in itsfavor. What we can experience is the continuous flow ofperception that replaces one another in rapidsuccession. His thesis is known as the Bundle theory of

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Mind. This can also be claimed as the No-self Theory ofHume.

When we consult the Indian tradition, then we candiscover a somewhat similar theory with that of theBundle theory of Hume is the Buddhist theory of Anatma-vada. According to them, there is no such thing as theeternal soul. The soul we see is just a mental flux andcomprises of every little bit of mental experiences.Self is nothing but a succession of several mentalstates. We cannot experience soul, but only that ofthese mental states. Hence soul stands to them nothingbut a mental phenomenon. Yogachara Buddhists orVijnanavadins made this much more explicable by refutingthe existence of everything except the mentalphenomena.

To remove this second objection from the point of viewof Sri Aurobindo, we have to prove that – first, allconsciousness is not mental, soul-consciousness remainsin the highest position; and secondly, soul is notsimilar to mind. In the first interpretation, he showsus that consciousness is not at all mental. In thehierarchy of consciousness-level, mental consciousnessis actually that type of consciousness which existswithin the range of human knowledge. Where humanknowledge exhausts is not the ultimate end. There existdifferent levels of consciousness above & below thehuman range. Actually in the supramental level,consciousness exists beyond our reach. Thisconsciousness is, in reality, depicting the

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consciousness level of the Brahman or Sachchidananda. Thesupramental consciousness is luminous or Svayamprakasain nature. Just like the Vedanta school of Indianphilosophy, Sri Aurobindo is also sure about theindescribability of this level of consciousness. Hencewhen Yajnavalkya describes that there is in reality noconsciousness in the Brahman state, Sri Aurobindoconceives it not as the non-existence, rather for thesupramental existence. In the same way, he does notadmit the Buddhist theory of Sunyavada. The supramentalstage of consciousness is certainly existent, i.e. notSunya. In his opinion, superconscient, subconscient aswell as inconscient all are relative terms.Superconscient means consciousness existing beyond thereach of mental consciousness. So soul-consciousness orsupramental consciousness has to remain in the highestposition. So it follows from the above discussion thatconsciousness is in no way mental in nature.

In the second interpretation Sri Aurobindo showed thatsoul and mind are basically two separate entities. Thusthey should not be confused together. The mind isactually the instrumental entity or consciousness whosefunction is just to think & perceive; whereas thespirit is that entity or consciousness whose objectsare objects of direct knowledge (Svayamprakasa). Thusthe spirit must not be indulged in the simple work ofthinking & perceiving. This is the first interpretationwhere both of them are considered to be two separateentities. We can also give its answer from another

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perspective. In Sri Aurobindo’s book On Education we canfind out that mind stands for Antahkarana which has fourlayers - the passive mind or Chitta i.e. the preservingmind; the proper mind or Manas i.e. the mind thatreceives thought; the intellect or Buddhi i.e. the realinstrument of thought & last, but not the least, Bodhii.e. the stage of intuiting truth & having directvision of knowledge. Now we can consider spirit asBodhi, the highest layer of mind, because in both ofthem we get direct knowledge & intuition of everything.But even if spirit really stands for Bodhi, then alsowe can think mind to be different from spirit as thewhole (i.e. the mind) must be different from the part(i.e. the spirit). In this context we can discover thesimilarity of Sri Aurobindo’s thought with that ofGestalism. The Gestalt theory also accepts the whole asa separate entity from the part because the whole hasthe unique quality named Gestalt-quality not found inits parts. So it follows that soul and mind are not atall synonymous to Sri Aurobindo.

To formulate the third objection, let us start with theIndian philosophical tradition. The word ‘I’ naturallydepicts the ‘ego’ or ‘aham’. However there is no strictboundary left between self and ego. In the AdvaitaVedantism, individual being i.e. jivatman and the SupremeBeing i.e. the Paramatman are not different from eachother. Then ego can be synonymous with that of self.

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This is the Parmarthika point of view. But due to theexistence of Avidya or Nescience we can distinguishourselves from the Brahman. Actually the Jiva or Ego isnothing else than the ultimate manifestation of theBrahman. [Self = Ego]

We can discover a somewhat related theory in that ofSartre. According to him, the consciousness canconceive of other objects but it cannot conceive ofother consciousnesses. Sartre in his book Transcendence ofthe Ego mentioned that the consciousness can conceive ofother egos, be it my ego, or be it the ego of anotherperson. It cannot conceive of another consciousnessinsofar as it is an enclosed, self-containedconsciousness for which the very amalgam "other" and"consciousness" is simply unthinkable. We cannot, thus,at all transcend beyond the ego. Hence it can beassumed that whenever we try to catch the self, we candiscover it as none but ego. Hence it could be presumedthat in his thesis self and ego remain synonymous innature. This is another example of using the Principleof Exclusion.

But in Sri Aurobindo’s notion self is not at allreplaceable by ego. Ego is the cause of generatingahamkara in every living creature. It is mainlyresponsible for every kind of authoritative feelingsthat gave birth of the false notion that only I am thatperson on the earth that can do it. This ahamkara,

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created by Maya, deprives the human being fromrealizing his true identity such that he is nothingelse but a mere manifestation of Brahman. While goingthrough this concept of ego or ahamkara we can find outhis enormous similarity with that of the Samkhya notionof ahamkara. However the search for our own self canprolong even if we become acquainted with ego. In thewritings of Sri Aurobindo we can get the clear pictureof our self-inquiry ‘….it (consciousness) is to observeoneself and watch oneself living, and then see whetherit is really the body which is the consciousness of thebeing, what one calls “myself”; ....and at the end of avery short time one becomes aware: “No, I am thinking,therefore ‘myself’ is different from my thoughts”. Andso, by progressive eliminations one succeeds inentering into contact with something, something whichgives you the impression of being – “Yes, that’smyself”. And this something I can move around, I canmove it from my body to my vital, to my mind, I caneven, if I am very ...very practised in moving it, Ican move it into other people, and it’s in this waythat I can identify myself with things and people. Ican with the help of my aspiration make it come out ofmy human form, rise above towards regions which are nolonger this little body at all and what it contains.”And so one begins to understand what one’sconsciousness is; and it’s after that that one can say,“Good, I shall unite with my psychic being and shallleave it there, so that it may be in harmony with the

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Divine and be able to surrender entirely to theDivine”. Or else, “If by this exercise of rising abovemy faculties of thinking and my intellect I can enter aregion of pure light, pure knowledge...” then one canput his consciousness there and live like that, in aluminous splendour which is above the physical form.’4

With the use of the word ‘luminous’ Sri Aurobindoclearly mentions that ‘I’ is actually denoting the‘self’, rather than ‘ego’. In this above way, verybeautifully in his doctrine, self is proved not to beego.

Thus the problem becomes much more complicated now. Ifself is not body, not mind, even not ego, then what isit? Does self at all exist? Will Sri Aurobindo everaccept any such notion as self? This is our fourth andfinal objection. But surprisingly it leads us towardsthe end our search as it is not only a question butalso is an answer hidden within.

In its answer Sri Aurobindo develops the concentricsystem of the individual being and our soul remains asits core or basis. The concentric system looks like theseries of rings, consisting of the outer being, theinner being and the inmost being. The outer being andthe inner being constitute our phenomenal or

4 Sri Aurobindo, Our Many Selves, compiled by A.S. Dalal, p. 163-64

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instrumental being and have three correspondingcomponents – physical, vital, mental. The inmost beinghas two parts – the divisible and the indivisible. Thedivisible part of the inmost being is divided into theinmost mental, inmost vital as well as an inmostphysical. However at the very centre of the ringsremains the Psychic Being or the Chaitya Purusha. Thisremains as the indivisible part of the inmost being.And this Psychic Being, according to Sri Aurobindo, isnothing else but self or Jivatman.

Fig 2: The Concentric System of Individual Being

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PsychicBeing

Outer Physical, Vital, MentalInner Physical, Vital, Mental

Inmost Physical, Vital,Mental

Now here arises a confusion regarding the nature ofthis psychic being. The term ‘psyche’ etymologicallystands for ‘mind’. But, according to Sri Aurobindo, itis not at all a mental being, rather the inmost beingof our existence. This inmost being is something thatis far beyond the realms of mind. And actually there isno other thing except soul that can stand beyond thereach of the mind in such a way. Sri Aurobindo trulyrealized that the word ‘psyche’ is used in many senses.One of them is psyche = mind. But he never uses theword ‘psyche’ in this sense. Mind, on the contrary, inhis tradition, could stand for Chitta. Chitta belongs tothe category of Buddhi, manas, Chitta, prana etc, oneamong the ordinary classification made by the Indianpsychology. Chitta covers only the psychology of theexternal being. It is one of the main functions of theexternal consciousness, and, hence, to know it weshould not go beyond the limits of our external nature.Perhaps the main reason behind the calling up of themental consciousness as an external kind ofconsciousness is that its manifestations are externaland become prominent with the help of behavior ofoneself and others. But the psychic, on the contrary,belongs to another class of Supermind, mind, life,psychic and physical. And it covers both the inner andouter nature of man. Thus for knowing it, we have to go

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beyond our external nature, and to reach to ourinternal one. So psychic being or self seems to be theinmost being to Sri Aurobindo.

But we need to know the proper location of this psychicbeing as the innermost part of an individual shouldremain within the realm of his body. This Chaitya Purushahas to reside in the heart of a body. However thisheart has to be the inner heart or the secret heart(hŗdaye guhāyaām), rather than the centre of our vital-emotional feelings and emotions. We usually call heartas the seat of emotion and human emotions are nothingelse other than the mental-vital impulses. The heartwhich deals with emotions and feelings are our externalheart, not the inner one. But we have to concentrateour attention only towards the inner heart. Self has todeal with the psychic feelings. Hence heart, in thesense of self, is not the residing-place of any mental-vital emotion at all.

Now we can draw our conclusion on the basis of ourabove discussion. The uniqueness of Sri Aurobindo’sconcept of self is truly amazing. None before him andperhaps even after him, either of the Indian traditionor of the Western one, even dare to think of self as aninner being of the individual. No one other than himconceives self as the ‘inmost being’ and gives such a

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vivid description of its workings. This inmost being orPsychic being, according to him, is the meremanifestation of the Brahman. In this way hebeautifully draws a correlation of jivatman or Psychicbeing with that of Paramatman or God. Standing farbeyond the reach of the ordinary mental consciousnessof man, the Psychic being or self is actually theindividual expression of divinity hidden within eachhuman being. And this is the true essence of his theoryconcerning individual being.

Reference

1.Dalal, A. S. (comp.), A Greater Psychology: an Introductionto the Psychological Thought of Sri Aurobindo, Sri AurobindoAshram, Pondicherry, 2001 (3rd Imp. 2008).

2.Dalal, A. S. (comp.), Our Many Selves: Practical YogicPsychology: Selections from the Works of Sri Aurobindo and TheMother, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 2001.

3.Dalal, A. S. (comp.), The Psychic Being: Soul, its Nature,Mission and Evolution: Selections from the Works of Sri Aurobindoand The Mother, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry,1989 (2nd ed. 2008).

4.James, Williams, Psychology: Briefer Course, Henry Holt &Co., New York, 1926.

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5.Purani, A. B., Sri Aurobindo: some aspects of hisvision, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, 1977.

6.Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, Sri AurobindoAshram, Pondicherry, 1919 (Third edition 1998).

7.Sri Aurobindo, The Ideal of Human Unity, SriAurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 1919 (Third edition1998).

8.Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Sri AurobindoAshram, Pondicherry, 1919 (Seventh edition 2006).

9.Sri Aurobindo and The Mother On Education, Sri AurobindoAshram, Pondicherry, 2004.

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