The Individual Soul and the Divine

We remain so fixated on the exte
al 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 consciously connect our soul with its divine being. We may separate a drop of water from the ocean, but that does not make it different from the ocean in its essence and nature. The soul is a “drop” of the Divine particularized to each individual being in the creation, but remains, nevertheless, divine in its essence and nature. There is an illusion of separation due to the fixation we have on the surface manifestation, but in reality the soul is at all times connected to and part of the larger divine existence.

The Mother notes: “The soul is that which comes out of the Divine without ever leaving Him and goes back to Him without ever ceasing from manifestation. … The soul is the Divine made individual without ceasing to be divine. In the soul the individual and the Divine are ete
ally one.”

“Thus to find one’s soul is to be united with the Divine. … It can therefore be said that the role of the soul is to make of man a true being.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 2, Planes and Parts of the Being, pp. 93-94