The Power of the Inconscient and Subconscient Levels in Our Lives

Our physical bodies operate complex functions without active oversight or intervention of the mind. We are essentially in the dark as our organs function, as our immune system automatically responds to pressures, as breathing, brain function and much more go on absent our supervision or control, for the most part. It is true that certain functions can be affected when we turn conscious attention to them, but even this level of intervention is limited and rare. We remain very much at the mercy of the physical systems that operate, the habits, instincts and reactive processes that govern our physical lives. We also are generally unaware of how illness enters our system and what, if anything, we can do about it internally. We actually utilize the power of the subconscient when we train our bodies to respond through what is called ‘muscle memory’. In fact, the intervention of conscious thought in such a process can be disastrous, as was noted by a world-class gymnast who withdrew from a recent Olympic competition when she indicated that her mental process was interfering with the body’s trained capacities, which led to potential catastrophic results were she to continue in that state.

On the level of the life force, we do not generally perceive either the direct active influences pressuring our response on a day to day basis, nor the many stored up actions which get triggered by specific scents, sights, sounds, events or locations. Much of what we do is based on encapsulated responses stored deep in our memory and only accessible to us for the most part when a triggering event occurs. It was this level of triggered responses and suppressed energies that influenced the psychological profile of individuals that interested Freud and led to his development of his theories of psychotherapy. C.G. Jung went further to identify a collective unconscious where vital forms, beings and archetypes were accessible to all human beings, and to a great degree governed the way we respond to situations.

Similarly, on the mental level, we capture through our senses tremendous amounts of data, most of which does not rise to our conscious awareness. It does however impinge upon our mental process and influence decisions we make. We receive subtle influences from our surroundings, from our family, friends, peers, teachers and the society at large and its mores and ways of looking at and evaluating things. Much of our decision-making process is in fact guided, directed or controlled by forces about which we tend to have little or no awareness.

Sri Aurobindo observes: “A superficial observation of our waking consciousness shows us that of a great part of our individual being and becoming we are quite ignorant; it is to us the Inconscient, just as much as the life of the plant, the metal, the earth, the elements. But if we carry our knowledge farther, pushing psychological experiment and observation beyond their normal bounds, we find how vast is the sphere of this supposed Inconscient or this subconscient in our total existence, — the subconscient, so seeming and so called by us because it is a concealed consciousness, — and what a small and fragmentary portion of our being is covered by our waking self-awareness. We arrive at the knowledge that our waking mind and ego are only a superimposition upon a submerged, a subliminal self, — for so that self appears to us, — or, more accurately, an inner being, with a much vaster capacity of experience; our mind and ego are like the crown and dome of a temple jutting out from the waves while the great body of the building is submerged under the surface of the waters.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch. 2 Hidden Forces Within, pp. 29-30