OUTER MAN

The outer physical man is only an instrumental personality and by himself he cannot arrive at this union with the Divine, — he can only get occasional touches, religious feelings, imperfect intimations. And even these come not from the outer consciousness but from what is within us.

Most men are, like animals, driven by the forces of Nature: whatever desires come, they fulfill them, whatever emotions come they allow them to play, whatever physical wants they have, they try to satisfy...

When people do Sadhana, there is a higher Nature that works within, the psychic and spiritual, and they have to put their nature under the influence of the psychic being and the higher spiritual self or of the Divine. Not only in the vital and the body but the mind also has to learn the Divine Truth and obey the divine rule.

The yogi arrives at a sort of division in his being in which the inner Purusha, fixed and calm, looks at the perturbations of the outer man as one looks at the passions of an unreasonable child; that once fixed, he can proceed afterwards to control the outer man also; but a complete control of the outer man needs a long and arduous tapasya.

I strove to find its hints through Beauty and Art,
But Form cannot unveil the indwelling Power;
Only it throws its symbols at our hearts.
It evoked a mood of self, invoked a sign
Of all the brooding glory hidden in sense:
I lived in the ray but faced not the Sun.