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Namah Yogic insights into human psychology

who turn away from ordinary life to the in an evolutionary hierarchy, wherein
spiritual because of disillusionment may something similar can be found in human
fall back again if the illusion once again beings.
powerfully imposes itself. But those who
have seen through the play, even though Human beings too can be seen along a
playing the game of life well, have much less spectrum of evolutionary hierarchy which we
risk of a return to the ordinary ways of life. discussed in our last article. We can look at it
as three distinct steps of nature that take place
Those who are ready for the spiritual within the human species. The first type of
awakening feel sometimes a sense of being humanity is a largely vital physical humanity
a stranger amidst everything. On one side which takes an absorbing vital interest in life
this feeling tends to create certain lack of with its life centred around food, sex and
adjustment with the world as it is today. other kinds of entertainment. Out of this there
These children think and feel very differently. arises another layer of humanity which can be
The usual aims that lure the average human termed as humanity proper since it is largely
being are not for them. They may be pushed centred round the mind and its pursuits. It
into it because of social pressures but they are lives primarily in thoughts and idealising
never fully into it. They are always dreaming emotions. This humanity masters the vital-
of an ideal world, a perfect state of things, physical man through reason. Unlike the
not necessarily from a conventional moral spontaneous vital impulses that move the
point of view but from the view of a nobler vital-physical man, a mentalised humanity
and higher ideal. On the other hand, they spontaneously refers everything to reason
tend to be comfortable alone. In fact one can and then acts. It looks for an ideal principle
almost say with certainty that if someone is of action, a justification for what it must do. It
happy being alone then one is marked for subordinates and modifies the vital impulses
the spiritual life. with the help of reason.

Three steps of humanity But a rational mental being is not the highest
possibility in man. A third humanity begins
In other words there is a higher evolution of to arise when both vital impulses and mental
humanity that awaits us. Out of the mental and moral standards begin to be subordinated
being we must emerge into spiritual beings. to something still higher, a deeper inner law
But not all are ready for this emergence which or a higher intuition that indicates the thing to
is inevitable sooner or later in everyone’s life be done. This opening of the human mind to
though it may not be in one single lifetime. an intuitive intelligence marks the emergence
The whole idea of rebirth according to of the spiritual type in man.
Indian spiritual thought is essentially an
evolutionary perspective. We generally Pathways of evolution
classify a species according to its common
biological features but even here we tend to The spiritual evolution of man can take several
find varied differentiations, creating some lines which are often categorised as the
kind of a sub-species which can be arranged different paths of yoga. Man may like to evolve

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