The Two Beings of Man: the External Self and the Inner Self

As long as we focus our attention on the surface perceptions, events and actions, we respond to the vibrations associated with those things. We may focus on our physical needs, our vital desires, our mental interests, our emotional states, or on our aesthetic and artistic sensibilities, or on simply forms of entertainment to create enjoyment of these external events and sensations. We can see quite easily that focus on one area tends to reduce or eliminate our ability to focus on another area, even in these external perceptions. This provides us the paradigm for understanding the external being and the inner being.

There is not simply a choice between which external sense perceptions we respond to. As long as we respond to one or another of these external sensations, we are, by definition, not able to focus on or take conscious cognizance of other sources of knowledge, action or even just input to our being’s general state of awareness. If we draw back from all of this external focus, we soon find that an entirely new set of perceptions arise within us, as we become aware of the workings of the wider planes of mind, life and physical consciousness, or as we find a relationship with the higher spiritual planes or the pressure exerted by the universal manifestation of which we are a part. We can become aware of connections that were not obvious to our external senses. We can become aware of the deeper purpose and significance of our present life within the wider context of the evolution of consciousness and the role of the individualized soul within this developmental framework.

Sri Aurobindo notes: “There are, we might say, two beings in us, one on the surface, our ordinary exterior mind, life body consciousness, another behind the veil, an inner mind, an inner life, an inner physical consciousness constituting another or inner self. This inner self once awake opens in its turn to our true real eternal self. It opens inwardly to the soul, called in the language of this yoga the psychic being which supports our successive births and at each birth assumes a new mind, life and body. It opens above to the Self or Spirit which is unborn and by conscious recovery of it we transcend the changing personality and achieve freedom and full mastery over our nature.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 2, Planes and Parts of the Being, pp. 63-64