Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume III - Part 2
The vision of the higher planes or the idea of what they are can be had long before the transformation. If that were not possible, how could the transformation take place – the lower 
nature cannot change of itself, it changes by the growing vision, perception, descent of the higher consciousness belonging to the higher planes? It is through aspiration, through an increasing opening that these visions and perceptions begin to come – the realisation comes afterwards.