Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

12. Experiences of the Inner and the Cosmic Consciousness

Fragment ID: 2199

You are too physically matter of fact. Besides you are quite ignorant of occult things. The vital is part of what European psychologists sometimes call the subliminal, and the subliminal, as everybody ought to know, can do things the physical cannot do – e.g. solve a problem in a few minutes over which the physical has spent days in vain etc. etc.

What is the use of the same things happening on both planes? It would be superfluous and otiose. The vital plane is a field where things can be done which for some reason or other can’t be done now on the physical.

There are of course hundreds of varieties of things in the vital as it is a much richer and more plastic field of consciousness than the physical, and all are not of equal validity and value. I am speaking above of the things that are valid. By the way, without this vital plane there would be no art, poetry or literature – these things come through the vital before they can manifest here.