The Psychic Being: Its Special Role Manifesting the Divine Presence in Matter

Humanity has long had the feeling that it represents something special and unique in the universal creation. Major religions have creation stories that emphasize this uniqueness, with God creating man in his own image and finding that it was good. Many people believe that humanity is the only self-aware, sentient being in the entire universe. While they bolster this claim with the claim that our search for sentient life elsewhere has come up empty, it is clear that we can neither perceive all the beings that exist in our own world, nor that we have been able to explore the vast universe at distances that require time far beyond our short human lifetimes to reach. Stories from ancient texts tell of the unique opportunity of a human birth while acknowledging the existence of other sentient beings, some with knowledge and powers far exceeding those we possess.

In our review of the world we can observe, and the beings that inhabit earth, we accentuate the predominant role that humanity plays, to shore up our role as the leading species on the planet. We tend to believe that advanced mental capacities are what make us unique. Yet these same mental capacities have serious limitations and lead to unintended consequences that threaten the destruction of not only all of humanity, but possibly of the entire world.

In the Kena Upanishad, the powers of Matter, Life and Mind, embodied in the beings known as Agni, Vayu and Indra, are shown their limitations by a power that far exceeds them. Eventually the mental power concludes there is a further consciousness that transcends them all.

It is the direct link to this higher consciousness that actually represents the true uniqueness of the human being. In the Christian religion, Jesus was born into the human world as the ‘son of God’. He carries the Divinity into human life. Looked at in more general terms, the psychic being represents the element in each human being that brings into the human being the spark, the direct connection to the Divine.

The ancient texts make it clear that other beings, including highly conscious and powerful beings, do not carry this specific divine connection. They are static beings that do not evolve or develop beyond the limits of their own role and capacities. The psychic being in man provides the mechanism for development, growth and evolution. Beings that desire to participate in this process are compelled therefore to take a human birth.

A disciple asks: “What is the work of the psychic being?”

The Mother answers: “What is the work of the psychic being? You want it to have some work? What do you want to say exactly? What is its function? Ah! very well. One could put it this way, that is like an electric wire that connects the generator with the lamp. Now, if someone has understood, let him explain what I said!”

“What is the generator and what the lamp?” (Laughter)

“Ah, there we are! So, what is the generator and what the lamp? That is exactly it. What is the generator and what the lamp? Or rather, who is the generator and who is the lamp?”

“The generator is the Divine and the lamp is the body.”

“It is the body, it is the visible being. So, that is its function. This means that if there were no psychic in Matter, it would not be able to have any direct contact with the Divine. And it is happily due to this psychic presence in Matter that the contact between Matter and the Divine can be direct and all human beings can be told, ‘You carry the Divine within you, and you have only to enter within yourself and you will find Him.’ It is something very particular to the human being or rather to the inhabitants of the earth. In the human being the psychic becomes more conscious, more formed, more conscious and more independent also. It is individualised in human beings. But it is a speciality of the earth. It is a direct infusion, special and redeeming, in the most inconscient and obscure Matter, so that it might once again awake through stages to the divine Consciousness, the divine Presence and finally to the Divine Himself. It is the presence of the psychic which makes man an exceptional being — I don’t like to tell him this very much, because already he thinks too much of himself; he has such a high opinion of himself that it is not necessary to encourage him! But still, this is a fact — so much so that there are beings of other domains of the universe, those called by some people demigoods and even gods, beings, for instance, of what Sri Aurobindo calls the Overmind, who are very eager to take a physical body on earth to have the experience of the psychic, for they don’t have it. These beings certainly have many qualities that men don’t, but they lack this divine presence which is altogether exceptional and exists only on the earth and nowhere else. All these inhabitants of the higher worlds, the Higher Mind, Overmind and other regions have no psychic being. Of course, the beings of the vital worlds don’t have it either. But these latter don’t regret it, they don’t want it. There are only those very rare ones, quite exceptional, who want to be converted, and for this they act without delay, they immediately take a physical body. The others don’t want it; it is something which binds them and constrains them to a rule they do not want.”

“But it is a fact, so I am obliged to state that this is how it is, that it is an exceptional quality of the human being to carry within himself the psychic and, truly speaking, he does not take full advantage from it. He does not seem to consider this quality as something very, very desirable, from the way he treats this presence — exactly that! He prefers to it the ideas of his mind, prefers the desires of his vital being and the habits of his physical.”

reference: Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Psychic Being — Soul: Its Nature, Mission and Evolution, Section 2 Role, Function and Action of the Psychic, pp. 47-49