Inner being
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The Inner Being in Sri Aurobindo's integral yoga and integral psychology is the wider and more plastic subliminal faculty of one's being, that lies behind the narrow surface consciousness.
As with many esotericists, along with Jungian and Transpersonal psychologists, Sri Aurobindo speaks of larger and deeper potentials of human nature, which can be contacted through spiritual discipline and higher states of consciousness. This Inner Being includes the inner realms or aspects of the physical, vital, and mental being, which here have a larger, subtler, freer consciousness than in the small outer mental, vital, and physical nature of everyday consciousness and experience, and its realisation is essential for any higher spiritual realisation. The Inner Being is also transitional between the surface or Outer Being and the Psychic Being, which is also for this reason known as the "Innermost Being". Outer, Inner, and Innermost Being form a "concentric" sequence or hierarchy, which is a counterpart to the "vertical" hierarchy of Physical, Vital, and Mental.
There are always two different consciousnesses in the human being, one outward in which he ordinarily lives, the other inward and concealed of which he knows nothing. When one does sadhana, the inner consciousness begins to open and one is able to go inside and have all kinds of experiences there. As the sadhana progresses, one begins to live more and more in this inner being and the outer becomes more and more superficial. At first the inner consciousness seems to be the dream and the outer the waking reality. Afterwards the inner consciousness becomes the reality and the outer is felt by many as a dream or delusion, or else as something superficial and external. The inner consciousness begins to be a place of deep peace, light, happiness, love, closeness to the Divine or the presence of the Divine, the Mother. One is then aware of two consciousnesses, the inner one and the outer which has to be changed into its counterpart and instrument-that also must become full of peace, light, union with the Divine. At present you are moving between the two and in this period all the feelings you have are quite natural. You must not be at all anxious about that, but wait for the full development of the inner consciousness in which you will be able to live.
— 3rd ed. 1971, in Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, 307
Reference
- Sri Aurobindo, (1971), Letters on Yoga, Vol 1, 1972, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry