Page 40 - NAMAH-Jul-2018

Namah Vol. 26, Issue 2, 15th July 2018

dissolution through time immemorial. If one experimental and structural self (10)” in
can get uplifted by the positive universal consonance with the Zeitgeist or Time-Spirit
rhythms of the cosmic consciousness, one born from an interaction with the Etman (or
can also run the risk of succumbing to the the true being or Person) and Nature. In that
giant negative forces that have equal right way, the Etman or the real Person precedes
to exist. At a certain optimal point of the the universal ‘I’, the ‘sense of being’ as well
quest for Truth, one needs to align with the as the ego. He clarifies that to get to this truth,
Transcendent ‘I’ too. The Transcendent, the one has “to recoil from the egoistic forms of
Universal and the Individual are different activity and get rid of the sense of an “I” that
poises of the same Reality and unless they are acts(11).”
simultaneously experienced, the wholeness
of Reality is missed. Implications in psychology

Deeper to the inner being is the soul space As one shifts the domain of self from the outer
which harbours the inmost being. It is a ego-linked ‘I’ to the ‘sense of being’ in the
fourth-dimensional space aligned on one inner being which becomes the universal
hand with the Transcendence and on the other ‘I’, one simultaneously shifts from the chaos
hand with the Universal and the Individual. and disharmony in the surface personality
Sri Aurobindo describes two poises of the to a harmonious poise of well-being. The
Spirit in this space. There is the unborn poise axiom that ‘I think therefore I am’ is a product
of the Etman which supports the manifestation of the mental ego in the outer being. The
and thus holds both the dimensions of outer being is itself chaotic as the ego that
personality and impersonality. It is the poise holds it is skewed in nature. So the ‘I’ who
of infinity and eternity and beyond the ambit asserts oneself as the harbinger of existence is
of linear time and circumscribed space. There susceptible to the fluctuations of mood rising
is also a projection of the Etman within the from the vital nature and is not immune from
manifestation as the evolving poise of the the diseases of the body. The ‘I’ of Descartes
soul which Sri Aurobindo named as the diminishes in stature as one shifts to the
Psychic Being. It is the centre of integration sense of being in the inner realms that is
of the personality and harbinger of peace, connected with the cosmic consciousness.
love, beauty, harmony and unalloyed Bliss It becomes irrelevant when one reaches the
beyond the dualities of human nature. soul-space where actually the axiom ‘I am
therefore I think, I feel, I do’ becomes a higher
Swami Rama explains that the Etman already experiential construct. The Etman alone, in
exists and is the source of all of one’s knowledge the simultaneous poise of personality and
(8). It is the basis of knowing rather than an impersonality, can proclaim ‘I Am’.
object to be known, the basis of existence
rather than an object of perusal. It is aligned In other words, if Descartes’ notion of ‘I’
with the transcendent poise of Reality. Sri arises from the mental ego, it is a phenomenal
Aurobindo explains that our outer personality representation in the surface being and can be
is “a temporary constructed personality, not surpassed by a deeper ‘I’, which is a fundamental
the true immortal Person (9)”, a “passing Self, Being, Person or Purussa and who is essentially

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