Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume I - Part 2
I did not mean by the inner being the psychic or inmost being. It is the psychic being that feels love, bhakti and union with the 
Mother. I was speaking of the inner mental, inner vital, inner physical; in order to reach the hidden seat of the psychic one has first to pass through these things. When one leaves the outer consciousness and goes inside, it is here that one enters – some or most entering into the inner vital first, others into the inner mental or inner physical; the emotional vital is the most direct road, for the seat of the psychic is just behind the emotional in the heart centre. It is absolutely necessary for our purpose that one should become conscious in these inner regions, for if they are not awake, then the psychic being has no proper and sufficient instrumentation for its activities; it has then only the outer mind, outer vital and body for its means and these are too small and narrow and obscure. You as yet have been able only to enter the outskirts of the inner vital and are still insufficiently conscious there. By becoming more conscious there and going deeper one can reach the psychic – the safe refuge, nirāpad sthāna, of which you speak, and you will not be disturbed by the confused visions and experiences of the inner vital outskirts.