Mental Knowledge Compared to Psychic Knowledge

Each plane of consciousness has its own way of ‘knowing’. Mental knowledge comes through a process of observation, classification, comparison, categorization, analysis and a decision based on this process through a comparison to past circumstances, events or experiences. Mental knowledge is limited by this framework and frequently makes inaccurate judgments due to limited knowledge or incorrect assessment, in many cases due to trained-in biases and prejudices.

The psychic being, on the other hand, does not utilise this type of cumbersome and linear process of step by step analysis to come to its understanding and knowledge. Due to its direct connection to the Divine, it possesses an unerring ability to instantly separate truth from falsehood. Any perception, any vital motive, any mental idea, when passed to the soul, yields an instant vibrational pattern for an interpretation that either represents a truth, a partial truth or a falsehood.

We speak of a ‘gut instinct’. But instinct is very much made up of reactions of the external nature to patterns, subliminally received in many cases, that correspond to some prior event, some internalised understanding, training or vital response, or reactions embedded through the long history of the evolution of consciousness.

The soul’s knowledge is not quite the same as a ‘gut instinct’. Rather, it is a form of ‘knowledge by identity, where the truth of the Spirit is either confirmed in the impinging vibrational pattern, or else, a variance is experienced. The purity of the soul is able to distinguish purity or impurity in the energy received. The soul’s knowledge provides an instant sense, while it does not attempt to go into all of the details and analysis of the mental being which strives, in its turn, to achieve knowledge, through a process of increasing detail and complexity. Each type of knowledge has its uses and its place. For the spiritual seeker, developing the ability to hear the voice of the soul is an essential power for progress in the spiritual growth and development, as it alone can provide real guidance to the spiritual aspirant about the ultimate direction and decision to take.

Sri Aurobindo writes: “The mental being within watches, observes and passes judgment on all that happens in you. The psychic does not watch and observe in this way like a witness, but it feels and knows spontaneously in a much more direct and luminous way, by the very purity of its own nature and the divine instinct within it, and so, whenever it comes to the front it reveals at once what are the right and what the wrong movements in your nature.”

reference: Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Psychic Being — Soul: Its Nature, Mission and Evolution, Section 1 Meaning and Nature of the Psychic Being, pg. 42