Page 9 - NAMAH-Jan-2025
P. 9
Editorial
Expanding the Mind
Beyond the embodied mind the outer mind mediated through the brain,
which serves the ordinary psycho-social
The embodied mind, which has a separative space of human interactions. The psychology
view of the universe, is actually an indivi- implicit in the integral vision of Sri Aurobindo
dualised formation of the universal mind refer to insights that get initiated in the pure
which itself is a multi-layered plane of psychological space of the inner or subliminal
consciousness. The individual mind is mind that stands behind the outer mind,
not, as mistakenly considered, the brain but supporting and surpassing it. The outer mind
it needs the brain for its expression. There are has to be made absolutely silent so that one
however several gradations of consciousness has access to the inner mind. There are ascetic
beyond and above the level of the mind-brain disciplines which prefer to silence the mind
interaction. Sri Aurobindo has explained that in order to negate all cognitive activity to
there is a subliminal or inner mind behind the arrive at a Nihil or zero. However, in Sri
separative mentality of the outer mind that Aurobindo’s paradigm, the mind has to be
extends to the universal mind or the cosmic made silent so that it is free from habitual
consciousness. He has also described higher thinking, an essential requisite for being able
levels above the ordinary mind dealing with to manifest higher supra-rational cognitive
supra-cognitive (or meta-cognitive matrices). matrices.
The Inner Mind The Mother reaffirmed that the real progress
of the world has been executed not through
Terms like manas, aham, ahankaara, citta, restless activity but by standing outside the
popular in the phraseology of traditional action in silence and in quietness, for it is only
Indian yoga, usually refer to attributes of then that the forces that change the world
9