The Environmental Consciousness and the Individual

The 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 they are solely responsible for the development of the content. Disputes arise when anyone else claims an invention, or when there is similar conceptualization or arrangement of materials between a copyrighted or patented work and another source. There are also disputes about who invented something first. Alexander Graham Bell, for instance, is widely recognized as the inventor of the technology of the telephone, but apparently there was concurrently (or even somewhat earlier) a similar invention that took place in Italy. .

These things illustrate the illusion of separateness that leads us to believe we actually control and create, when a deeper examination shows us that there are universal waves of energy at different frequencies, some impacting the mental substance, some the emotions, some the feelings or perceptions, etc. Based on the receptivity of the individual, and the underlying patterns within the individual, similar waves may actually arise and lead to similar, or even identical, productions in various parts of the world. The ‘time spirit’ thus plays a role in the next phase of development as the waves land on receptive individuals wherever they are and produce their results.

For practitioners of yoga, it can be an essential experience to become aware of the impact of these waves coming in from outside. The practitioner, as he becomes conscious of the force trying to enter, may choose to accept, or reject, that force, and thereby either use the energy provided or avoid the disruption that can be caused. Quieting the mind-stuff, a basic principle in Raja Yoga, comes about through a process of not accepting and following thoughts as they arise. Sri Aurobindo actually noted that he achieved silence of the mind through a concentrated effort to reject the thoughts before they could enter and take hold within his being.

The same thing can be recognised with regard to illness of the physical body. If one is conscious of the pressure of some acute condition trying to enter and take hold, one can reject it and only feel some external pressure without experiencing the full-blown illness. If the aura is strong and without a break in it, it is easier to fend off illness, and this may actually help explain how certain medical practitioners can go fearlessly into an epidemic zone and not become ill!

Sri Aurobindo notes: “Each man has his own personal consciousness entrenched in his body and gets into touch with his surroundings only through his body and senses and the mind using the senses. … Yet all the time the universal forces are pouring into him without his knowing it. He is aware only of thoughts, feelings, etc., that rise to the surface and these he takes for his own. Really they come from outside in mind waves, vital waves, waves of feeling and sensation, etc., which take particular form in him and rise to the surface after they have got inside.”

“But they do not get into his body at once. He carries about with him an environmental consciousness (called by the Theosophists the Aura) into which they first enter. If you can become conscious of this environmental self of yours, then you can catch the thought, passion, suggestion, or force of illness and prevent it from entering into you. If things in you are thrown out, they often do not go altogether but take refuge in this environmental atmosphere and from there they try to get in again. Or they go to a distance outside but linger on the outskirts or even perhaps far off, waiting till they get an opportunity to attempt entrace.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 2, Planes and Parts of the Being, pp. 68-69