Our Many Selves (Practical Yogic Psychology)

Book Specification

Book Description

About the Book

This book is meant to bear out Sri Aurobindo’s oft-quoted statement, “Yoga is nothing but practical psychology”. Generally, yoga is viewed as made up of certain set practices and certain rules and norms pertaining to one’s outer life. In contrast to this view, Our Many Selves, compiled from the works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, presents Yoga as consisting essentially in inner psychological work aimed at the transformation of consciousness.

Preface

Yoga is generally associated with certain set practices such as postures, breathing exercises, meditation and the like. In addition, yoga is understood as consisting in certain rules and norms pertaining to aspects of one’s outer life, such as diet, habits and acts of conduct. However, as taught by Sri Aurobindo, yoga consists essentially in inner psychological work aimed at the change and transformation of consciousness. As he states: “Yoga is nothing but practical psychology'”; ” … the whole method of Yoga is psychological; it might almost be termed the consummate practice of a perfect psychological knowledge,’?

This book, meant primarily for the general spiritual seeker rather than for the practitioner of Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga, deals only with the initial and preliminary steps towards the radical change of consciousness aimed at by the Integral Yoga. These initial tasks of psychospiritual growth consist in: emerging progressively from the unconscious state in which one is more or less a fused part of the collective mass rather than an independent individual who is “a truly mental man who thinks for himself, is free from all outer influences, who has an individuality, who exists, has his reality” (p. 104); developing an increasingly greater understanding of oneself by becoming more and more conscious of one’s being in all its complexity in order to discern the springs of one’s actions arising from the different parts of one’s being so as to be able to exercise self-control and attain self-mastery; bringing harmony and order among the diverse parts of one’s being which normally are in a state of conflict and disorder; discovering one’s true self and unifying one’s being which is normally characterised by division and disunity by organising all other selves around the true self.

The reader may notice that the majority of passages in this book have been drawn from the works of the Mother because her works consist mostly of the talks she gave to the young folk of the Ashram school to whom she taught in practical terms the preliminary work of inner growth just mentioned above.

Self-understanding is the first step. As the Mother remarks:

“First learn to know yourself perfectly and then to control yourself perfectly,’?

“To perfect oneself, one must first become conscious of oneself,”?

“The distinct character of man”, states Sri Aurobindo, “is that he is a mental being”.’ Therefore man naturally starts with a mental understanding of himself. A mental self-understanding lies in being able to distinguish intellectually the many different and complex parts of one’s being. This calls for “a very long training and a long discipline of study and observation”,” to identify the respective sources of one’s thoughts, feelings, actions and moods. This means being able to give a “label” to the different parts of our make-up which constitute the many selves of our being. To many people “label” and “labelling” have a somewhat pejorative meaning, being associated with a mere mental or intellectual process, devoid of a true understanding of the thing being labelled, and often acting as an obstacle to a true understanding. However, a mental understanding is not necessarily an obstacle. On the contrary, it can be a great aid and a step towards deeper understanding. To shun all mental or intellectual understanding as mere “labelling” is to ignore the fact, stated above, that the distinct character of the human being is that of a mental being, and it is but natural for one to start with a mental understanding and gradually develop a deeper understanding. It is only rare individuals who have a deep self-understanding so as to be able to distinguish the different inner movements of their many selves without having first learnt to label them mentally. As the Mother once said to the children of the Ashram school:

” .. .if nobody has ever taught you what the psychic or the vital is, you cannot have any notion of the thing. You may say