RE: Egoic & Divine Mind

[Guest guest]

Namaste, Vis & RainboLily.

 

Vis:

>The real question is what is the "egoic" mind versus the "divine" mind?

>Although certain descriptors can be given to these concepts, how does

>one experience these minds?

 

RainboLily:

> . . . egoic mind is "I" but when the "I" disappears and

>surrenders then touching some piece perhaps of Divine.

>

>Divine perhaps being like a holographic sculpture, where I may be fortunate

>enough to see one ray of light shining off the crystalline surface but

>certainly

>it is beyond my mind to see the whole.

>

>Anyone else with thoughts please respond, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

 

OK. How I often think of this sort of draws from Aurobindo,

depth psychology (mainly Jungian) and phenomenology. I think

it is compatible with certain forms of Advaita Vedanta, and I

think is fully compatible with Aurobindo's philosophy.

 

I see 'egoic mind' as a sustained formation of consciousness

which comes into being in a broader field of consciousness

which Jungians tend to call "psyche" and which phenomenologists

might call "transcendental ego" or "transcendental imagination"

(where 'transcendental' has no ontological connotations but

means transcendental to the ego structure). Phenomenologists

often call 'egoic mind' the empirical ego.

 

The empirical ego and the world it finds itself in come into

formation in tandem, simultaneously. The empirical ego and

its life-world, or observed world, is a duality which emerges

within the psyche or transcendental imagination. This duality

is surrounded by imaginative processes and formations which

support it and modify it, and which are affected by the activity

of the ego/life-world duality. The imaginative realm outside

the ego/life-world is often called the unconscious.

>From the perspective of yoga, vedanta or other mystical views,

the ego/life-world and the surrounding psyche are all formations

within Divine Mind or Brahman. There is therefore a sense in

which the empirical ego is always experiencing the Divine Mind,

it just isn't always recognizing that it is experiencing the

Divine Mind. Or as Vedantic wisdom puts it: 'Thou Art That',

whether you know it or not.

 

There are apparently many ways of bringing the empirical ego

into recognition of its intimacy with the Divine Mind. RainboLily

has mentioned some of them; one might also add poetry, music,

loving others, etc. As Aurobindo said: All life is yoga.

 

What some traditions call awakening or enlightenment is basically,

according to this view, a way of breaking open the empirical ego

to the broader life in which it lives, moves and has its being,

so that it feels its oneness with the Divine Mind and uncovers

its real self.

 

Namaste,

-- Max

 

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