Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

5. Planes and Parts of the Being

Fragment ID: 540

It is good that you were able to overcome the difficulty and have a good meditation. Your observation that the difficulty is only in the head and throat and mainly in the latter is very significant. These are the mental centres and it is evident therefore that the difficulty comes from the physical mind. The higher part of the mind belongs to the thinking mind proper, the buddhi, that which understands and observes and guides; the throat is the centre of the externalising mind, that which deals with outer and physical things and responds to them. Its activity is always one of the chief difficulties of the sadhana. If it is quiet it is easier, as you have seen, for the whole being to be quiet.

The last of the four experiences, that of the being within arranged in layers one into the other like the steps of a ladder is also very significant and very true. It is so that the inner consciousness is arranged. There are five main divisions of this ladder. At the top above the head are layers (or as we call them planes) of which we are not conscious and which become conscious to us only by sadhana – those above the human mind – that is the higher consciousness. Below from the crown of the head to the throat are the layers (they are many of them) of the mind, the three principal being one at the top of the head communicating with the higher consciousness, another between the eye-brows where is the thought, sight and will, a third in the throat which is the externalising mind. A second division is from the shoulders to the navel, these are the layers of the higher vital presided over by the heart centre where is the emotional being with the psychic hidden behind it. From the navel downwards is the rest of the vital being containing several layers. From the bottom of the spine downward are the layers of the physical consciousness proper, the material, and below the feet is the subconscient which has also many levels.

The experience of the splitting of the forehead from the middle and the pouring out of light signified the opening of the centre of sight, will and vision there. When this opens, there is the opening of the inner mind consciousness through which the light of the higher can pour out – here it is the Mother’s white light that was pouring out through the opening.

The lights you saw were the many lights (powers, forces, full of light) of the higher consciousness, the Truth-consciousness or divine consciousness. Their pouring down was preceded and made possible by the appearance of the moon, the spiritual light. It is when the spiritual light is there that the presence of the Mother is revealed and her action brings down the powers of the Truth, the Divine and she gives them to the sadhak.