Vital and Mental Life Forms Interact With Us in the Material World

We scour the galaxy for signs of intelligent life elsewhere. The reality is that unless an extra-terrestrial race has found a way to circumvent the constant of the speed of light, through some method of ‘folding’ space or creating “wormholes” that truncate the distance to be travelled, setting up a multi-thousand year, multi-generational starship to visit other solar systems, or possibly, finding a way to travel safely at speeds far in excess of the speed of light, it is not likely, nor feasible that such extra-terrestrial beings, residing in other planetary systems in other parts of the galaxy (or further away in other galaxies), will be able to visit us. Reports of U.F.O. phenomena should be investigated not only as to whether there has been inter-stellar travel by an extraterrestrial race, or new discoveries by humanity that lead to harnessing of powers that exhibit these forms of motion, but also, whether such things are potentially evidence of mental or vital beings manifesting the capability of solidifying vibrations into forms that can be observed and interact with our physical reality. Another point often overlooked is that consciousness may actually move faster than light and is not bound by distance! We have always been wedded in our thinking about physical beings transporting themselves in physical vehicles across galactic or inter-galactic distances; however, we may also consider that beings project consciousness and when they reach a proposed destination, they use elements they find there to build the locally needed physical bodies and vehicles!

We have found clues of other life forms right here where we are, but we largely disregard the significance of the clues we have received. We tend to disregard the fact that with the extended ability to observe microscopic levels we have indeed discovered that life exists at the single-cell level. This however is not necessarily the most significant clue we have. We now understand that there are ranges of vibration to which our senses are not accessible. As we explore further we begin to see that there are vital forces, mental forces and spiritual forces active which influence and act upon us, even though we cannot directly perceive them. Many people bring back reports of beings that interact with them through dreams , trance, out of body experiences, extraordinary experiences, near-death experiences, etc. which correlate with what we know of the energetic forces that we can identify. It is not a very big leap to accept that the forces we experience are in many cases expressions of fully conscious, intentional beings who are acting out of their own motives and self-interest, or at the very least, playing their defined role in the manifestation of the divine action in the universe.

Sri Aurobindo writes: “But the contacts do not stop here: for there is also an opening of our mind and life parts to a great range of subjective-objective experiences in which these planes present themselves no longer as extensions of subjective being and consciousness, but as worlds; for the experiences there are organised as they are in our own world, but on a different plan, with a different process and law of action and in a substance which belongs to a supraphysical Nature. This organisation includes, as on our earth, the existence of beings who have or take forms, manifest themselves or are naturally manifested in an embodying substance, but a substance other than ours, a subtle substance tangible only to subtle sense, a supraphysical form-matter. These worlds and beings may have nothing to do with ourselves and our life, they may exercise no action upon us, but often also they enter into secret communication with earth-existence, obey or embody and are the intermediaries and instruments of the cosmic powers and influences of which we have a subjective experience, or themselves act by their own initiation upon the terrestrial world’s life and motives and happenings. It is possible to receive help or guidance or harm or misguidance from these beings; it is possible even to become subject to their influence, to be possessed by their invasion or domination, to be instrumentalised by them for their good or evil purpose. At times the progress of earthly life seems to be a vast field of battle between supraphysical Forces of either character, those that strive to uplift, encourage and illumine and those that strive to deflect, depress or prevent or even shatter our upward evolution or the soul’s self-expression in the material universe. Some of these Beings, Powers or Forces are such that we think of them as divine; they are luminous, benignant or powerfully helpful: there are others that are Titanic, gigantic or demoniac, inordinate Influences, instigators or creators often of vast and formidable inner upheavals or of actions that overpass the normal human measure. There may also be an awareness of influences, presences, beings that do not seem to belong to other worlds beyond us but are here as a hidden element behind the veil in terrestrial nature. As contact with the supraphysical is possible, a contact can also take place subjective or objective, — or at least objectivised, — between our own consicousness and the consciousness of other once embodied beings who have passed into a supraphysical status in these other regions of existence. It is possible also to pass beyond a subjective contact or a subtle-sense perception and, in certain subliminal states of consicousness, to enter actually into other worlds and know something of their secrets. it is the more objective order of other-worldly experience that seized most the imagination of mankind in the past, but it was put by popular belief into a gross-objective statement which unduly assimilated these phenomena to those of the physical world with which we are familiar; for it is the normal tendency of our mind to turn everything into forms or symbols proper to its own kind and terms of experience.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch.6 Hidden Worlds and Evolutionary Forces, pp.137-139