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Consciousness and Awareness Articles
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- is there a solution to the Israel/Palestine Problem? - by Submitted on Oct 13, 2023 from santosh krinskyis there a solution to the Israel/Palestine Problem? There is so much history and so much hatred built up. Acts of overt terrorism, including attacks on civilian targets, women, children, etc. are not justifable. The Israelis righfully point out that they have a right to defend themselves, ...
Views: 366 - The Role and Importance of the Ego - by Submitted on Oct 12, 2023 from santosh krinskyIf we view the development of the ego through the lens of the evolution of consciousness, we can see the importance that this evolutionary step plays. The process of individuation opens up the potentiality of new, complex interactions, creative development and faster evolutionary change. The ...
Views: 305 - To Become Conscious of the Source of Our Thoughts, Feelings, and Actions - by Submitted on Oct 11, 2023 from santosh krinskyAs we are primarily based in our ego-consciousness, we tend to accept that ideas we have, feelings we have, emotions we express, needs and desires we seek after, are all what make up ourselves, our personality, our persistent individuality. We identify with a specific religion, political ...
Views: 267 - The Ego Was the Helper, the Ego is the Bar - by Submitted on Oct 10, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe spiritual seeker invariably hears, repeated constantly, the requirement to overcome the ego and find his true Self. The Self is one with the Divine and shares the divine consciousness, knowledge and impetus to action. The ego, which anchors the sense of a separate and distinct individuality, ...
Views: 268 - The Surface Vital, Mental and Physical Being and the True Vital, Mental and Physical Being - by Submitted on Oct 09, 2023 from santosh krinskyA frequently mentioned method in the practice of the integral yoga is the separation of the Witness Consciousness from the Nature (Purusha and Prakriti). This separation allows the seeker to recognise the surface consciousness, the play of body, life and mind based in the ego-sense as separate ...
Views: 284 - Confusion About the Reality of the Atman and the Ego - by Submitted on Oct 08, 2023 from santosh krinskyWe frequently allow our mental process and the limitations of language to create confusion within ourselves. The mind’s primary capacities involve fragmentation and classification; thus, we identify different aspects, parts, beings, roles, events and treat them as separate and distinct from one ...
Views: 290 - Confusion About the Reality of the Atman and the Ego - by Submitted on Oct 08, 2023 from santosh krinskyWe frequently allow our mental process and the limitations of language to create confusion within ourselves. The mind’s primary capacities involve fragmentation and classification; thus, we identify different aspects, parts, beings, roles, events and treat them as separate and distinct from one ...
Views: 272 - The Ego Experience and the Experience of the Jivatman - by Submitted on Oct 07, 2023 from santosh krinskyWhen we observe the standpoint we inhabit closely, we find that we tend to identify ourselves as a distinct ‘person’ or ‘personality’ with specific traits, habits, relationships and viewpoints about ‘who we are’ and ‘what we do’. This is the ego-personality and we tend to try to associate ...
Views: 241 - The Realisation of the Self and the Realisation of the Psychic Being and the Individual Ego-Consciousness - by Submitted on Oct 06, 2023 from santosh krinskyWe generally live, most of the time, within a framework of the ego-consciousness. We look at and experience our lives from this standpoint, and it places limitations on our understanding and our response to circumstances. Those who are called to yoga and spiritual development practices in ...
Views: 239 - Transformation of Human Nature Requires the Action of the Psychic Being Connected to the Higher Consciousness - by Submitted on Oct 05, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe external life and its conditions tend to fixate the attention for most people to such a degree, that they are overwhelmed by the needs of the body, the impositions of the life-energy and the force of desire, and the focus and attention of the mind. Just trying to keep up with all the ...
Views: 279 - When the Psychic Being Comes Forward to Direct the External Nature - by Submitted on Oct 04, 2023 from santosh krinskyThere is a considerable difference in effective results from the psychic being having an influence, essentially from ‘behind’ the surface nature, on the actions of the life in the external world, and what Sri Aurobindo and the Mother designate as the psychic being ‘coming forward’. Until the ...
Views: 253 - Time Perspective on Achieving Spiritual Realisations and Change of Human Nature - by Submitted on Oct 03, 2023 from santosh krinskyLife is so short! When one wants to accomplish something extraordinary or difficult, it takes considerable time and focus. If we reflect however, that the first 16 years or more are formative years and are focused on physical growth, development of vital powers of action, and cultivating the ...
Views: 241 - The Purpose and Significance of Life Becomes Clear as the Individual Contacts the Psychic Being - by Submitted on Oct 02, 2023 from santosh krinskyMost people do not understand why it is they are alive, what it is they are here to do in the world. Many simply think that ‘eat, drink and be merry’ is the sum of their purpose; in other words, they do not recognise a life purpose or mission in that sense, and just want to find a way to enjoy ...
Views: 240 - The Supramental Consciousness Is Key To Transcending the Limitations of Mind, Life and Matter - by Submitted on Oct 01, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe mental, vital and physical levels of consciousness are fundamentally limited by their basis in division and fragmentation. They see and categorize their understanding in a way that emphasizes the separateness of the forces at work and the consequences. This makes it impossible to understand ...
Views: 294 - The Psychic Being and the Evolutionary Principle in Earthly Life - by Submitted on Oct 01, 2023 from santosh krinskyThere are certain beings that occupy specific positions in the hierarchy of consciousness, who inhabit specific planes with a specific define role in the creation. These are essentially ‘static’ beings as they do not ‘evolve’. It is commonly held that, on the contrary, the evolutionary principle ...
Views: 289 - The Individual Soul and the Divine - by Submitted on Sep 30, 2023 from santosh krinskyWe remain so fixated on the external surface being, that we fail to recognise the divinity within us. Just as we go through our daily lives in the light of the day and do not attend to our world’s connection to the vast galaxies and universe of which our world is a part, so also we do not ...
Views: 238 - Distinguishing Vital Movements from the Expression of the Psychic Being - by Submitted on Sep 29, 2023 from santosh krinskyIt is not easy for most people to distinguish vital responses such as feelings or emotions from the true expression of the psychic being within them. This is primarily due to the fact that just about everyone bases themselves in the external surface being. We see this confusion when people see ...
Views: 281 - The Influence of the Soul on the External Nature or the Direct Relationship with the Soul in the Deepest Inner Being - by Submitted on Sep 28, 2023 from santosh krinskyIt is common for an individual to take some kind of illumination of the mind, or some strong positive emotion in the heart, for instance, as a sign of their contact with the soul. Yet in many, if not most, cases the contact is with a mental or vital movement tinged with the influence of the ...
Views: 239 - Shifting from Focus on the Desire-Soul to the True Soul - by Submitted on Sep 27, 2023 from santosh krinskyAs human beings live primarily in the external consciousness on the surface of the being, their experience of existence is centred around and focused on the body, life-force and mind. They do not generally see nor recognise the true soul deep behind the surface, and they see the coming and going ...
Views: 278 - The Action of the Psychic Being Independent of and in Relation to the External Being - by Submitted on Sep 26, 2023 from santosh krinskyEach level of consciousness acts on its own native level independent of any single individual person or embodiment. There is a subtle physical plane, a vital plane, a mental plane, and various spiritual planes beyond that characterize and represent further levels of the evolution of ...
Views: 260 - The Soul and the Psychic Being - by Submitted on Sep 25, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe soul is a portion of the Divine specifically detailed to each individual being that is created as part of the universal manifestation. The soul develops the inmost being, the psychic being, through lifetimes of experience. This psychic being grows, matures and transitions through birth and ...
Views: 264 - The Soul Provides the Continuity of Consciousness from Life to Life - by Submitted on Sep 24, 2023 from santosh krinskyWithin a particular lifetime we experience a sense of continuity of being, which we normally attribute to the ego-personality. The sense of ego helps us identify with the body, life and mind we currently inhabit and utilize. This ego-sense is held together by the force of memory and by an ...
Views: 279 - The Soul, the Evolution of Consciousness Through Time and the Soul’s Development from Life to Life - by Submitted on Sep 23, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe questions of what happens to us after we die, whether we are reborn, and if so, in what form or manner have occupied human beings from time immemorial. What is the purpose of life and what are we, as conscious individuals, supposed to do with the life we are living? The Tibetan Book of ...
Views: 252 - The True Soul and the Desire Soul - by Submitted on Sep 22, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe confusion about the soul is pervasive at virtually every level of our being. Sri Aurobindo identifies what he calls the ‘desire soul’ which is a formation of the vital being, living on the surface of the consciousness and seeking gratification of desires for the external being. The amalgam ...
Views: 284 - The Nature and Role of the Soul - by Submitted on Sep 21, 2023 from santosh krinskyMuch of the confusion about the nature and action of the soul, the psychic being in man, is due to the loose and varied way the terms are thrown around in everyday parlance. We have ‘soul food’ and ‘soul mates’. We treat the soul as the seat of morality. At the same time, soul is used to ...
Views: 308 - The Nature and Action of the Psychic Being and the Inner Mental, Inner Vital and Inner Physical Beings - by Submitted on Sep 20, 2023 from santosh krinskyConfusion about the spiritual being and the psychic being is not the only source of misunderstanding about the source of inspirations, feelings, and thoughts that arise as the individual shifts away from exclusive focus on the surface external being and begins to gain experience of the inner ...
Views: 268 - The Jivatman, the Soul and the Evolutionary Process Through Birth and Death - by Submitted on Sep 19, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe soul makes choices along the way and in so doing, it builds up the psychic being as it grows, evolves and passes through a series of births and deaths of the physical existence. The Jivatman represents the Divine Consciousness presiding over each individual formation within the manifestation ...
Views: 311 - The Soul, the Psychic Being and the Evolution of Consciousness - by Submitted on Sep 18, 2023 from santosh krinskyMost people live their lives centered around the ego-personality and the external life. Their focus and actions are based in the needs, desires and gratifications that are put up by the body, the vital life-energy and the mind. They do not have a conscious relationship with the soul or the most ...
Views: 268 - The Soul and the Jivatman - by Submitted on Sep 17, 2023 from santosh krinskyAs the seeker proceeds in the path of yoga, it is important that he not misinterpret or misunderstand what he experiences or what the source of the experience may be. Most people confuse the terms Self, Spirit, and soul so that they really cannot appreciate the difference aspects or ...
Views: 293 - The Inner Subliminal Self - by Submitted on Sep 16, 2023 from santosh krinskyHaving now referred to the Subliminal Self in our discussion of the creation of dreams, it is necessary to describe this part of our being more thoroughly, and Sri Aurobindo takes up the question. He points out that the subliminal self is not a creation out of the inconscience, but actually it ...
Views: 303 - Accessing the Inner Subliminal Consciousness - by Submitted on Sep 16, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe Upanishads describe 4 states of consciousness, the waking, the dream, the sleep and the state beyond these 3. Sri Aurobindo points out that these are meant to symbolically represent the state of awareness in the outer world (waking), the state of awareness in the subliminal world (dream), ...
Views: 348 - The Self of the Physical, the Vital, the Mental and the Jivatman - by Submitted on Sep 16, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe Taittiriya Upanishad describes a series of planes or sheathes that are ever more subtle, with the outermost sheath being the physical being, and then the vital sheath and the mental sheath, which makes up our ordinary human existence. Each of these sheaths are connected to a plane of ...
Views: 268 - The Self: Transcendent, Universal and Individual - by Submitted on Sep 15, 2023 from santosh krinskyIn order to distinguish standpoint and nexus of attention, we refer to the Divine Being as either Transcendent, i.e. exceeding the entire manifested universe and containing both the manifest and unmanifest aspects; Universal, i.e. the consciousness that maintains awareness of the universal ...
Views: 296 - The Self, the Spirit, the Soul, the Terrestrial Evolution and the Supreme Divine Being - by Submitted on Sep 14, 2023 from santosh krinskyAs an individual begins to consciously try to understand the yogic path and connect with his soul and discover his true self, and then find and consciously participate in the spiritual purpose of the divine manifestation, he is confronted with a number of different terms and elements that need ...
Views: 246 - The Evolutionary Process of the Manifestation of the Supramental Consciousness - by Submitted on Sep 13, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe gradations of consciousness beyond the human level represent levels of awareness and power that far exceed anything that we can appreciate from the purely human mental level. In the Taittiriya Upanishad, there is a “calculus” of gradations of bliss. “Let there be a young man, excellent and ...
Views: 251 - The Nature and Action of the Overmind Gradation of Consciousness - by Submitted on Sep 12, 2023 from santosh krinskyIn the Kena Upanishad, the various gods Agni, Vayu and Indra each are confronted by the Supreme and asked to use their utmost power to destroy what was presented before them. They each failed as their power was insufficient to meet the force of the Supreme. Indra eventually discovered that there ...
Views: 310 - The Nature and Action of the Intuitive Mind - by Submitted on Sep 11, 2023 from santosh krinskyWhen we generally consider the idea of intuition, we look at some ‘gut feeling’ we may have, or some quick certainty we have about a certain situation and call that ‘intuition’. If we examine the common notions of intuition carefully, we find that in some cases they are embedded responses to ...
Views: 284 - The Nature of the Illumined Mind - by Submitted on Sep 10, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe aspiring yogic practitioner starts from the basis of the normal human egoistic standpoint of the mind-life-body complex. The process and method of perception, thought, logic, analysis, classification and labeling, reasoning, understanding and implementation in action is quite well-defined ...
Views: 247 - Higher Mind Is the First Gradation of Consciousness Beyond the Normal Human Mental Level - by Submitted on Sep 09, 2023 from santosh krinskyIt is difficult to appreciate that there are gradations of consciousness, each with their own distinct characteristics, that occur outside our normal human range of perception. We tend to see separations and divisions within our limited range, while we treat anything outside that range as being ...
Views: 263 - Understanding the Existence of and Interaction With the Higher Ranges of Consciousness Above the Mind - by Submitted on Sep 08, 2023 from santosh krinskyJust as all energy operates along a spectrum of vibration from shorter wavelength to longer wavelength, and this spectrum can be perceived within certain limited ranges based on the capacity of our sense instruments (or tools we develop to extend our range of perception), so also consciousness ...
Views: 252 - Perspective on Dealing with Recurrence of Undesirable Reactions Occurring During the Attempt to Change Human Nature Through the Yogic Practice - by Submitted on Sep 07, 2023 from santosh krinskyWhen an individual takes up the practice of Yoga, he generally expects to see palpable and constant progress towards whatever he has set as his goal in that practice. When the yogic practice is focused on bringing about the next stage of the evolution of consciousness, and integrating the ...
Views: 246 - The Yogic Practitioner Confronts the Issues of Changing Human Nature - by Submitted on Sep 06, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe integral yoga does not focus on the abandonment of human life in the world. The liberation from the hold of the ego-consciousness and its fixation on the terms of success for life that the ego concentrates on, is an important preliminary step. In the end however, nothing less is envisioned ...
Views: 394 - The Two Great Impediments to Spiritual Awakening - by Submitted on Sep 06, 2023 from Maetreyii Ma NolanThere are two great impediments to spiritual life. The first is attachment to the body and the sensory experience, because when there is attachment to the physical form and the sensory experience there is engagement with the body-mind structure and the belief that you are this small person who ...
Views: 318 - The Environmental Consciousness and the Individual - by Submitted on Sep 05, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe ego-personality believes it ‘creates’ ideas, manufactures feelings, etc. It then takes pride in the accomplishment, and this becomes a source of enhancing the ego through a sense of vanity. Many systems in the world are set up to reward the creator or inventor or author, with the idea that ...
Views: 385 - Becoming Aware of the Existence of the Environmental Consciousness - by Submitted on Sep 04, 2023 from santosh krinskyWhen we see someone struggling, or when we ourselves are struggling, with some feeling, emotion, thought, idea, force of illness, or just feeling some pressure, we usually associate these with our internal experience of reality, but nevertheless, the fact that forces and influences come from ...
Views: 376 - The Subliminal Consciousness Provides the Gateway to Knowledge and Creativity - by Submitted on Sep 03, 2023 from santosh krinskyIt is typical for human beings to associate their knowledge, their artistic achievements, their skills as something they create within themselves. They tether the ego-consciousness to all such developments, believing that somehow they are unique and special in terms of the ability to create ...
Views: 256 - Gaining Access to the Subliminal Consciousness - by Submitted on Sep 02, 2023 from santosh krinskyIt is one thing to gain an intellectual understanding of the concept of the subliminal consciousness. However, this does not provide a real experience of nor true knowledge about the action, influence and impact of the subliminal consciousness on our lives. The question then arises, whether and ...
Views: 250 - The Subtle Planes Are Causative to the External Physical Reality - by Submitted on Sep 01, 2023 from santosh krinskyIn the Taittiriya Upanishad, a seeker undertakes a discipline to discover the truth of existence. He first lands upon the idea thta the material existence is the truth, as it is the basis and foundation of his existence. As he continues his concentration, however, he begins to realize that the ...
Views: 331 - The Surface Consciousness and the Subliminal Consciousness - by Submitted on Aug 31, 2023 from santosh krinskyWe 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 ...
Views: 260 - Gaining an Understanding of the Nature of the Subliminal Consciousness - by Submitted on Aug 30, 2023 from santosh krinskyWestern psychology is in its infancy as a science. It is, as is all mental knowledge, a form of ignorance, seeking and grasping for knowledge, while not actually able to see the entire picture nor understand the complexity of all the elements that go into human psychology. Thus, Freud gained a ...
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