intended to do it later on, but had not the time to finish the remaining articles.Sri Aurobindo
Letters on Yoga
5. Planes and Parts of the Being
Fragment ID: 376
See largest or earliest found fragment here
Sri Aurobindo — Unknown addressee
December 24, 1935
The mental being spoken of by the Upanishad is not part of the mental nervous physical composite – it is the manomayaḥ puruṣaḥ prāṇa-śarīra-netā, the mental being leader of the life and body. It could not be so described if it were part of the composite. Nor can the composite or part of it be the Purusha,– for the composite is composed of Prakriti. It is described as manomaya by the Upanishads because the psychic being is behind the veil and man being the mental being in the life and body lives in his mind and not in his psychic, so to him the manomaya puruṣa is the leader of the life and body,– of the psychic behind supporting the whole he is not aware or dimly aware in his best moments. The psychic is represented in man by the Prime Minister, the manomaya, itself being a mild constitutional king; it is the manomaya to whom Prakriti refers for assent to her actions. But still the statement of the Upanishads gives only the apparent truth of the matter, valid for man and the human stage only – for in the animal it would be rather the prāṇamaya puruṣa that is the netā, leader of mind and body. It is one reason why I have not yet allowed the publication of Rebirth and Karma1 because this had to be corrected and the deeper truth put in its place. I had intended to do it later on, but had not the time to finish the remaining articles.
1 An incomplete series of articles first published in the Arya intermittently during 1915 – 21 and subsequently reprinted without completion in book-form under the title The Problem of Rebirth (February 1952).
Current publication:
Sri Aurobindo. Letters on Yoga // SABCL.- Volume 22. (≈ 28 vol. of CWSA).- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1971.- 502 p.
Other publications: