Surface Mind and the Subliminal Depth
By Karmayogi
Idealist leaders of student days often meet with comments when they
enter life, “You used to have some FIRE then, now it is not there.” Age
and experience give a quiet which is mistaken for the loss of FIRE.
Marriage helps the fire to die down. Maturity is mistaken for loss of
warmth in the personality. The human mind is so constructed that his
surface is exactly the reverse of his wider, deeper, truer Mind, called
the subliminal. It is said he is compelled by his own subliminal to seek
what his surface hates or is disgusted with. It often happens with
employment and more often with marriage.
One who is an incessant talker is attracted to a silent wife or a
miserly man ardently seeks a spendthrift wife. So begins an eternal
divergence in everything he aspires for. He is often consoled by others
that marriage is made in heaven. At a ripe old age, such couples do
discover that their marital experience was a rewarding one as each was
complementary to the other. There are quiet phases in life suddenly
followed by a chain of turbulent events and vice versa. Rarely do people
understand such a phenomenon and ascribe it to destiny.
When Sardar Vallabhai Patel was enjoying a flourishing barrister’s life
in Ahmedabad, he met Mahatma Gandhiji and gave up his practice to become
Gandhiji’s political lieutenant for the rest of his life. Neither Patel
nor Gandhiji could foresee such a development in his life. Rajendra
Prasad once said, “If we have an India in which we live proudly, it is
because Sardar Patel gave it to us.” He was a bully in his early life
and was almost brutal to his opponents in the court or life outside. The
warm heart of Sardar that loved Bharat Mata as a Mother and was tenderly
solicitous to his children was known as the Iron Man of India.
Sri Aurobindo says that the very first spiritual realisation is to know
that our Surface Mind is inversely moved by the deep-seated subliminal
that knows the entire universe.