What is the Role of the Spirit?

People are always asking about the difference between spirituality and religion, as well as the difference between the mind and the spirit. The term ‘spirit’ has been used in so many different ways and contexts, that it is hard to comprehend exactly what is meant by it. When ‘spiritual awakening’ is discussed, many people have no idea what that actually is.

Sri Aurobindo has pointed out that spirituality is not a form of mental activity or power, that it is also not an emotional power, or a vital or physical power. It is something ‘other than’ all of the normal activities of body, life and mind. The Mother addressed this question with a very simple, yet elegant response about the nature and role of spirit.

A disciple asks: “What is the role of the spirit?

The Mother responds: “One might say that it is both the conscious intermediary between the Supreme and the manifestation, and the meeting-place of the manifestation with the Supreme.”

“Spirit is capable of understanding and communicating with the highest Godhead and at the same time it is the purest, one might say the least distorted intermediary of the highest Godhead in the outermost manifestation. It is spirit which, with the help of the soul, turns the consciousness towards the Highest, the Divine, and it is in the spirit that the consciousness can begin to understand the Divine.”

“It might be said that what is called ‘spirit’ is the atmosphere brought into the material world by the Grace so that it may awaken to the consciousness of its origin and aspire to return to it. It is indeed a kind of atmosphere which liberates, opens the doors, sets the consciousness free. This is what enables the realisation of the truth and gives aspiration its full power of accomplishment.”

“From a higher standpoint, this could be put in another way: it is this action, this luminous and liberating influence that is known as ‘spirit’. All that opens to us the road to the supreme realities, pulls us out from the mud of the Ignorance in which we are stuck, opens the doors to us, shows us the path, leads us to where we have to go — this is what man has called ‘spirit.’ It is the atmosphere created by the Divine Grace in the universe to save it from the darkness into which it has fallen.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter XXII Spirit, pp. 163-164