The Surface Consciousness and the Subliminal Consciousness

We focus our attention and awareness on the external world in which we are active. We receive impressions, sensations, vibrations, impulsions and pressures from that world and it fixes our mind on that palpable experience of reality. This is however not the entirely of our existence nor of the greater reality.

When the sun is present during daytime, we see and consciously experience that outer world. When the sun withdraws during nighttime, we can see and become aware of the moon, other planets, stars and their solar systems, galaxies, nebulae, and black holes, etc. Our perspective widens, we see and reflect on things outside of our daily external focus and we can begin to recognise that the reality is far greater than our individual egoistic existence on this little planet, in this little solar system in a relatively small section of what we call the Milky Way galaxy, and that even this galaxy, in all its vastness, is a small portion of the entire universal creation.

What we may also reflect on is that our lives are impacted by forces outside of what we see and experience in the external world during the day! We now know, for example that the moon has a real impact on the water cycles, tides, etc. of the earth. We know that the sun itself provides the energy needed for our very existence. We may not be directly aware of the actual influence or impact of planets, star systems, galaxies on our lives, but that does not mean there is no actual impact.

If we apply this understanding to consciousness, we see that our external surface consciousness corresponds to the “daytime” we live through in the external world. When we step back from this surface consciousness, through meditation, sleep and dream, or other mechanisms or processes, we can begin to experience and see the influence of the wider realms of consciousness, the subtle physical consciousness, the wider vital and mental planes, etc. In dreams, when the control exercised by the external mind is relaxed, these subliminal levels can become perceptible to us, just as we can experience the wider universal reality when the sun withdraws for a time each day-cycle.

A disciple asks: “Sweet Mother, what does ‘the subliminal being’ mean, exactly?”

The Mother responds: “Well, it is what he [Sri Aurobindo] says, you know. It’s what is behind. I think it is what could be called the subtle physical, the subtle vital, the subtle mind. It is something that’s behind what is manifested. One can imagine that what is manifested is like a layer or like a crust or a bark; it is that which we see and with which we are in touch. And it clothes something, it clothes or expresses something which is more subtle and serves as its support.”

“When one dreams, one goes very often into his subliminal being, and there things are almost the same and yet not absolutely the same; there is a great resemblance and yet there is a difference; and usually this is greater. One has the impression of entering into something that’s vaster; and, for example, one feels that one can do more, that one knows more, one has a power and clear-sightedness which one doesn’t have in the ordinary consciousness; one has the impression while dreaming that one knows many more things than when one is awake…. when one dreams and knows a lot, for example, about the secret causes of things, about what a movement expresses… all that, one feels that one knows it. For instance, when one dreams of someone, one knows better what he thinks, what he wants, all these things, better than when one is in waking contact with him. This happens when one has entered the subliminal. Very often one dreams in the subliminal.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 2, Planes and Parts of the Being, pp. 64-65