Sri Aurobindo Institute of Indian Culture. (SAIIC) Shillong workshop, 26,Oct -7 Nov, 2006 - 16. Rebirth and Subliminal; Occult

Whatever it is we leave it there and then we go to the mental plane, our whole mind whatever activities we have got, is all left in the mental plane. Then we go to the psychic world, it is neither body, life and mind. We have a rest, psychic rest, assimilation. All the experiences that I’ve gathered I review as it were and then see what more, what further I want to do. So I wait for a time for what I want to do, what is the next step of my evolution and accordingly, I decide where to find a place which will be appropriate to my further evolution.

Now this I’m telling in a very rough manner how this choice takes place in a very subtle way. The choice is made by a very conscious soul, which has developed very much, whose karmas are very transparent and therefore, the psychic being in the psychic sleep in the psychic world, is also very awake. Many of us are asleep and much of the decisions taken are as it were in a sleep, it's a kind of an automatic process. Just as here also what next I will do, I do not know. To some extent I decide that next time I will go from here, he wants to go to Pondicherry after three days or two days. It's a decision taken by him, he will do it. But how it is going to happen he does not know, cannot decide, all the decisions he wants to take, he doesn’t know himself but there is something in his heart, in his inner being, which knows what is to be done there, much more deeply even what surface being knows, like death. Much of the decision lies in dependence upon what you have done in the past. They know the linking of your past, because all your sheaths are there, in your vital plane, mental plane, all the sheaths that are left are there, they are there, there also they develop. They don't remain static, but there also they develop. They develop through experience.

After doing all this because of what you have done in the past, what next you should evolve is a somewhat conscious choice, somewhat because of the pressure, both are together. If you reached a very high level of consciousness, you would definitely decide yourself because karma has become very thin, very transparent because you're almost freed from karma. So you can directly decide and say now I’ll take my birth here. Like the Mother says: I developed my body. She says herself in one of her talks. She says I developed my body for the kind of work that I wanted to do, required a special kind of body. That is why Sri Aurobindo said: Your body is far superior to my body. And Mother confirmed it as an objective fact. This transformation of the body of which we speak is no joke. It requires a kind of body which can bear the supramental force, the ocean of light. We get even slight light and we become imbalanced. People take a little wine and they become imbalanced; they cannot bear even a little bit of ecstasy. Whereas the supramental ananda, ‒ Anandamayi Chaitanyamayi Satyamayi Parame, if that consciousness is to house in this body what kind of body do you require? Mother’s body was no ordinary body. Even physically when you are seeing the body Mother used to keep standing for 10-12 hours at a stretch and that too giving everybody flowers etc and standing all the time. I have seen with my own eyes, at the age of eighty I have seen this feat of the Mother, so it is not an ordinary body at all; a tremendously solid body. And Mother said she had prepared the body. So all this occult phenomenon does take place.

So at the moment I was only explaining how the new body is formed, how evolution takes place and how the Darwinian Theory of evolution is incomplete. That is why Sri Aurobindo speaks of the spiritual theory of evolution. All the bodies that have come into being are not merely by heredity. It is because of the need of the soul. The soul has moved somewhat farther, so it requires a body corresponding to the soul’s development. So little by little, the bodies have developed because of the pressure of the soul because the soul has come as a tiller. Therefore the soul can decide the formation of the bodies and can develop the bodies further, and we are where we are now. So during the time of rebirth we come back with a kind of a heredity not of the physical heredity but heredity of your own past and also when you come back, these beings which are developed in the past, which are lying in the physical, subtle physical, vital, mental, not all of them come together. Something of it comes according to the need. For example, I’ve been a poet in the past, when I’m born here I don’t need poetry anymore, so it won't come back here. But if I want to be a poet and if I was a poet in the past birth, then that being can join me now at this stage.

I mean it could happen and such happenings are happening all the time. You find some individual, I will read out one experience of the Mother. Mother says that she was reading music in a Jewish temple and suddenly she saw a light. So then, a sudden lightning entered into her body. Mother said afterwards, (some would not understand) but a previous being of mine entered into my body, a previous being which was formed earlier entered into my body, because it was necessary in this body, so it came. So this is how your past karma is also of this kind. Karma is not only the tendencies and impressions, but also the formations that you have made; they also come and help you, so nothing is lost. Whatever is done now, it remains as a background on which you can take back and store up and again utilise it here. It’s a very complex way. Actually, what I am speaking is very rough, so please don't take all that I am saying as accurate scientific statements. If I want to make a scientific clear statement, it will take six, seven hours to be very precise at every point, but this is only because the question is very general. My answer is also very, very general, very rough.

I have still not defined what is occult, but I have told many things which are occult. What is occult? In Sri Aurobindo’s psychology, ‒ subtle physical, inner vital, inner mental are properly speaking, fields of the occult. Psychic being is the occultest. This is the technical meaning of the word occult. Occult starts with subtle physical, extends into vital, inner vital, inner mental and psychic being, ‒ these are occult parts. If you read Savitri, for example, there is a full canto ‒ The Search for the Soul. At first Sri Aurobindo gives Savitri’s entry into the inner kingdoms. These inner kingdoms are kingdoms of the subtle physical, inner vital, inner mental, and then she enters into her soul, and this is the journey that Sri Aurobindo describes in Savitri. This is occult but the word occult can also be used speaking of all that is secret, of which you are not aware. So subconscious is also occult, inconscient is occult, superconscious is also occult; all of which you are not aware is occult basically but technically you don’t call subconscious as occult, it is subconscient. Occult is that which is subliminal, inner physical, inner vital, inner mental and the psychic consciousness. Even psychic consciousness is called psychic proper as distinguished from occult. So occult properly speaking, is the realm of the inner physical, inner vital, inner mental. These three are subliminal states of consciousness. They are aware of you, you are not aware of them. In the subconscious even the subconscious is not aware of you, nor are you aware of it. Superconscious is also aware of you, but much more conscious. These are not so conscious where levels of consciousness are more limited. When you go to the superconscious they are more luminous, more aware of you. He who could go into subtle physical, inner vital, inner mental and many other planes of …..

The question, which you are asking now, is a new question. This question which you are asking is a new question and I will deal with it separately all right, but I want to distinguish between your question on this question: whether asuras and rakshasas can practice occultism or not? It’s a new question, so I will come to that later on, but at present I will limit only to this question. What is the difference between occultism and spirituality? Spirituality is a realm of the psychic consciousness, of the experience of the pure spirit which is one, of the universal consciousness which is above the mind right up to the supermind, all this is spiritual. And if you want to distinguish your spiritual and supernatural, you can say that spiritual is the consciousness of the universal and transcendental spirit at the level of the higher mind, illumined mind, intuitive mind and overmind, beyond that is supramental.