Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

08. Transformation of the Physical

Fragment ID: 3419

You are mixing up different things altogether – that is why you cannot understand. I was simply explaining the difference between the ordinary waking consciousness and the ordinary sleep consciousness, as they work in men whether sadhaks or not sadhaks – and it has nothing to do with the true self or psychic being. Sleep and waking are determined not by the true self or psychic being, but by the mind’s waking condition or activity or its cessation – when it ceases for a time, then it is the subconscious that is there on the surface and there is sleep.

That is a different matter – it is in the yogic consciousness that one feels the seat of the subconscient below the feet, but the influence of the subconscious is not confined there – it is spread in the body. In the waking state it is overpowered by the conscious thinking mind and vital and conscious physical mind, but in the sleep state it comes on the surface.