The Relation and Difference between Paramatma, Jivatma and Psychic Being (Chaitya Purusha)

Question: What is the difference and relation between paramatma, jivatma and psychic being?

Answer:

Paramatma is the Supreme Soul, or the Divine Being, the Infinite ocean of Love and Light and Peace and Bliss, the Omniscient, Omnipotent Reality behind all things, the stable unchanging immutable and eternal Truth that upholds the ever changing flux and flow of creation and nature.

The Jivatma is a drop of this ocean, a seed of this Divine Being, a portion of His eternal Reality. However a little of this seed enters the play to blossom into the full tree of divinity to bear the divine flowers and fruits that would nourish earth. This portion of the Jivatma that descends into the play to evolve into its full divine possibility through the experiences of life after life becomes the psychic being when it grows to its fullness. Before that it is just a little spark of Light lost and covered with the mud of earth-nature.

Thus the Jivatma is composed to two elements. One that is always with the Divine and knows itself thus as a child and portion of the Lord. This, in Sri Aurobindo’s terminology is the Central being. It contains the original blueprint of its ultimate destiny in terms of what and which aspect of the Divine it is destined to manifest and express. For this purposes it projects a little of it into the play of Time and Space. This little seed or droplet identifies with earth and forgets its divine origin and must struggle and grow and discover and bring out its inherent divine possibility. This is the psychic being or the chaitya purusha.