This looks like the typical separation of Purusha from Prakriti itself, the Sankhya method. I consider this to be the most important step in sadhana. How does one do that? Any practical tips? Just keep on watching yourself with detachment and persevere. Will that help?
Here is the letter if you like to read:
“When my consciousness keeps itself separate from reading or talking, it cannot understand what is being said or read. That only means that you cannot separate yourself from your mental consciousness in its activity. Naturally, if you take your mental consciousness off the reading, you can’t understand what is being read, for it is with the mental consciousness that one understands. You have not to make the mental consciousness separate from the reading, but yourself separate from the mental consciousness. You have to be the Witness watching it reading or writing or talking, just as you watch the body acting or moving.”
[Guidance from Sri Aurobindo: https://sri-aurobindo.co.in/workings/sa/nagin_doshi/vol_3_e.htm]
Yes, it is the first important step among many firsts. It is to watch one’s thoughts and feelings, will and impulses, without judging them. Next, accept or refuse and offer them to Her.
It comes as we grow in detachment and understand how limited the mind itself is. All our ideas, opinions, theories and systems are so incomplete and limited, all seen in an unsubstantial light. Then the mind automatically turns upwards in a seeking for the greater truth that exceeds it. The contact with this greater consciousness, either through the heart or through the upward turning of the mind, makes it quiet and the inner consciousness separates from the outer.
At first, it is an inner mind watching over the outer. But later, the consciousness deepens and the inner mind, itself is seen as an instrument. A subtle thin layer of the ego then replaces the mental ego with which we are identified. Then this too drops as the sense of self is identified with the psychic being.
Detachment with thoughts and ideas and opening above in aspiration for a greater Light is the main process.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
