What is infrarational in Sri Aurobindo’s terminology? In our today’s society, what are the infrarational elements? The new-age movement seems to have absorbed some spiritual intuitions but their expression is distorted. Are these infrarational in some way🤔? What’s the best solution to develop in the upward route from an infrarational position? I work in a scientific research background and a lot of confusions arise from within science itself and how most scientists/researchers explore the reality. The scientific method itself seems to have been diluted and an approval of masses are enough to establish the status quo. It’s not the same everywhere, but it is hard to fight this tendency in the current times.

I truly want to aspire to grow upwards from infrarational elements in myself. In a way, can aspirations replace reason or a better reason (not mere intellect) emerge out of aspirations?

Infrarational is primarily the vital animal, the physical and sense driven as well as the entire subconscious life of man. It also includes those elements that usurp the reason to justify its own demands and desire. In other words there are two movements of Reason itself. One that is subservient to the senses assuming that the senses report correctly and thereby falsifying our judgments. In yogic terminology it is called as manas, or the sense-mind often taken for the true intellect.  The second is the true or pure movement of Reason that may start with the first sensory data but does not confine itself to it. It looks deeper to find what the senses miss which yet is evident to an intuitive sense. This is the higher intellect or buddhi. 

Take for example how a spontaneous order is created in material universe through laws and processes emerging randomly. Look at the instincts that drive the animal and evolution of mankind itself. None of this would seem convincing to the higher Reason through a random process. But to probe further one has to start with the assumption that the consciousness that makes us seek and know is not a mere byproduct of creation but a fundamental Reality inherent in existence. Then the perspective changes and we discover new possibilities. 

In the field of medicine it would mean healing through shift of consciousness, a thing doable and researchable. So too one can try to study if a shift of consciousness can alter the behavior even of material objects and phenomenon (not the constitution but the effect). But for this one has to differentiate the lesser movement of Reason that is totally dependent upon the senses and hence assumes the material reality and the material experience as the only true thing and discards all other data, for example dreams and subtle feelings, intuitions as flawed. The higher Reason does not make these assumptions and goes behind the appearances to study the deeper play of forces. 

Affectionately,

Alok Da