Self Improvement Site
On The Internet! Take the Self Improvement Tour
On The Internet! Take the Self Improvement Tour
Self Knowledge Articles
We are currently looking for an Official SelfGrowth.com Guide to "Self Knowledge". If you have expertise in Self Knowledge and your own website and/or product for this topic, please review this form for complete details. The Official Guide Position is part of our Premium Placement Package
- The Cure for Inner Loneliness - by Submitted on Feb 28, 2022 from santosh krinskyHuman beings are social animals, and they crave contact and relationship with others. Modern society has broken or weakened many of the links that formerly brought people together, including the nuclear and extended family, and tight-knit communities where people socialized and interacted with ...
Views: 678 - The Cure for the Spiritual Aspirant for Doubt, Guilt, Feelings of Unsuitability and Despair - by Submitted on Oct 28, 2025 from santosh krinskyAs long as we base ourselves in the individual personal identity, what we term the ‘ego-consciousness’ we are subject to mistakes, failures, indiscretions, and other situations where we do not meet our own internal concept of what we ‘should’ do. Most of this is based on the background and ...
Views: 95 - The Cycle of Development in Nature and the Focus of Attention - by Submitted on Apr 06, 2024 from santosh krinskyWe observe everywhere that Nature has a development cycle, with focus of attention on what needs to take place at each stage of that cycle, rather than simply jumping ahead to an 'end result' of the development. Thus, we see that plants undergo a stage of sprouting from seed, and the first focus ...
Views: 337 - The Cycles and Causes of Recurring Difficulties in Relation to Spiritual Development and Progress - by Submitted on Aug 24, 2025 from santosh krinskyIt is a limitation of our normal mental mode of understanding that we do not tend to take into account the impact of time and the cyclical nature of development. We expect things to move in a straight line. We expect progress to be continuous and in a single direction. When we overcome a ...
Views: 124 - The Cycles of Social Development and the Swing Away from a One-Sided Focus on Materialism - by Submitted on Mar 07, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe do not usually recognise or appreciate how much influence our environment, our surroundings, the society we live in, the customs and life-ways of that social system impact what we think about, how we focus our attention and what we do with our lives. The Mother puts this also into the process ...
Views: 171 - The Darkness and the Light Within Each Individual - by Submitted on Sep 28, 2022 from santosh krinskyAncient Chinese philosophy enunciated the concept of yin and yang, which represent the opposites that together form a whole, and which are constantly interacting with one another dynamically. The classical image shows a black spot in a white background and a white spot in a black background, ...
Views: 496 - The Day and Night of the Vedic Mystics - by Submitted on Mar 26, 2023 from santosh krinskyHowever much we try, we find that we cannot constantly and consistently hold onto any particular focus of concentration, emotional state, mood or feeling for an extended period of time. The constant action of the 3 Gunas cycles us through periods of light and darkness, action and inaction, ...
Views: 465 - The Deeper Meaning of Will-Power - by Submitted on Oct 08, 2024 from santosh krinskyWe speak generally about exercising will-power, particularly when it relates to overcoming an impulsion or attempting to achieve some particular result. We may want to overcome an addiction, or follow a particular diet and we struggle to carry out our resolve. We make ‘new year’s resolutions’ to ...
Views: 250 - The Desire Soul, the True Soul and the Knowledge of the Heart - by Submitted on Apr 09, 2026 from santosh krinskySri Aurobindo points out that man, the mental being, is actually a transitional being. The development of the mental powers represents quite a considerable leap from the pure vital powers and rudimentary mind found in the animal kingdom. Nevertheless, even a cursory examination shows us that the ...
Views: 23 - The Desire-Soul and the Life and Death of the Body - by Submitted on Jul 20, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe vital desire-soul animates the external being. When it enters the physical frame, we say that there is life in the body. When it departs, we say that the person has died. This is distinguishable from the true soul, the psychic being, which is not dependent on either the life or death of a ...
Views: 426 - The Development and Progression of the Supramental Force in Human Activity - by Submitted on Jul 16, 2024 from santosh krinskyThe imposition of the external world on our mind and senses is so powerful that we don’t pay attention to the vast universe of galaxies and stars. In former times, before the world was widely illuminated by lighting at night, there was at least some opportunity for people to be outside at night, ...
Views: 301 - The Development of Individuality Within the Human Race - by Submitted on Dec 04, 2023 from santosh krinskyIn various parts of the world, homes and buildings have a clear ‘identity’, through shape, color, size, layout of the rooms, functionality, and location. In other places we see vast tracts of virtually identical houses or apartments in rows, with the same size, shape, color and layout. Someone ...
Views: 350 - The Development of the Human Being and the Transcendence of the Human Being: Personal Growth and Inner Growth Defined - by Submitted on Nov 04, 2022 from santosh krinskyPersonal growth and inner growth, the enhancement of the human being and its capabilities and the transcendence of the human being to develop a being awake and active with a new level of consciousness, are not in conflict with one another. The human being must develop to a certain degree to ...
Views: 642 - The Development of the Powers of the Body - by Submitted on Dec 25, 2023 from santosh krinskyFor the seekers who wish to depart the creation through unification with the Supreme, the body is often considered to be an obstacle, something that needs a certain amount of begrudging attention in order to allow the meditation to take place uninterruptedly. These seekers prefer to give as ...
Views: 333 - The Development of the Psychic Being - by Submitted on Nov 10, 2022 from santosh krinskyWe can identify a systematic evolution of consciousness in the external world. Life evolves out of Matter, Mind out of Life. We do not, however, thereby determine either a significance or purpose to this evolution nor any causative factors that involve mind and life into matter such that they ...
Views: 457 - The Development of the Spiritual Focus Over Time - by Submitted on Dec 02, 2022 from santosh krinskyWe tend to measure success or failure in terms of specific results we see in our relatively short, individual lifetime, based on our preconceived or societally sanctioned ideas about what constitutes success or failure. When it comes to progress in spiritual development, however, this is not ...
Views: 446 - The Development, Powers and Limits of the Mental Consciousness - by Submitted on Jan 02, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe human being consists of multiple levels of consciousness which interact with and impact one another and which, from an evolutionary standpoint, represent a consistent trend of increasing power and subtlety of the consciousness. The consciousness of the body, the physical consciousness is the ...
Views: 226 - The Difference Between Indulgence, Suppression and Rejection of the Movement of Desire - by Submitted on Jul 18, 2022 from santosh krinskyYogic practitioners have a number of different methods they have utilized to try to gain control over the movement of vital desire. The disturbances caused by desire, and the distractions that result are clearly inimical to success in the yogic sadhana. Some, like those who practice various ...
Views: 513 - The Difference Between Intuition and Intellect - by Submitted on Feb 23, 2024 from santosh krinskyThe mind gathers details from the senses, attempts to classify them according to past experience, and then tries to both judge the meaning of the situation and extrapolate how future steps will occur. This process relies on known powers of the mind, powers of analysis, powers of what is known as ...
Views: 371 - The Difference Between Living According to the Inner Truth of One’s Being or the External Ego Personality - by Submitted on Nov 06, 2024 from santosh krinskyThe Mother draws a clear distinction between the individual who is in contact with his own deepest inner truth of being, his swadharma, and the individual who does not pay attention to this deepest truth but lives what we may call a “transactional” existence focused on the aggrandisement and ...
Views: 239 - The Difference Between Psychic Emotions and Vital Emotions - by Submitted on Apr 23, 2026 from santosh krinskyMost people judge the emotional relationship based on the external vital nature. They have built in expectations, many of them conditioned by the social norms within which they are living. Media reinforces the stereotypes of what these emotions are. The ideal of romanticised love, for example, ...
Views: 13 - The Difference Between Scientific Focus and Artistic Focus - by Submitted on Oct 01, 2024 from santosh krinskyMany people hold the idea that science is ‘fact based’ and focused on the external world solely, while the artistic focus is based in the use of imagination and is not as tied to external facts. The difference, however, is not necessarily one of a lack of imagination by those with a scientific ...
Views: 268 - The Difference Between Suppression and Rejection of Desire - by Submitted on Dec 29, 2021 from santosh krinskySuppression of desire can be compared generally to the compression of a spring. The spring increases its latent energy by being compressed and eventually, when it escapes the compression stage, it responds powerfully. When desires are suppressed, they gain in strength and eventually burst forth ...
Views: 706 - The Difference Between Suppression and Removal of a Vital Reaction, Part 1 - by Submitted on May 20, 2025 from santosh krinskyAs long as we set our standpoint in the external surface consciousness, we do not have the leverage nor the tools to easily remove an embedded reaction. We tend to take steps to suppress rather than expunge the unwanted energy. This may take the form of an ascetic denial, or an avoidance of ...
Views: 140 - The Difference Between Suppression and Removal of a Vital Reaction, Part 2 - by Submitted on May 21, 2025 from santosh krinskyMost people simply “live” their lives and carry out whatever feeling, mood or impetus may be impacting them at the moment. They “become” that movement, whether it is happiness and joy, hunger, anger, ennui, fatigue, or some concentrated state of mind, etc. Their awareness, their conscious ...
Views: 157 - The Difference Between Suppression and Self-Control of the Force of Vital Desire - by Submitted on Aug 20, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhen it comes to the question of control, rejection and mastery over the vital nature and its desires, there is considerable confusion. For the most part this confusion is caused by a lack of clear definition between the different modes of observation, response and action that the seeker can ...
Views: 137 - The Difference Between Trust and Faith - by Submitted on Jul 23, 2025 from santosh krinskyTrust is frequently built on the basis of experience. We gain trust by confirmation of a particular development or response from our interactions. Trust is thus primarily based in the mental process. Through a process that develops credibility, an individual gains trust in the action and ...
Views: 163 - The Different Processes for Change of the Vital Nature and the Psychic Being - by Submitted on Dec 08, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe vital nature, under the influence of the Guna of Rajas, tends to create drama. Struggle, disruption, aggressive responses are all a part of this vital play. One of the manifestations of this drama is to raise the temperature about any resistance, obstacle, delay etc. that the individual ...
Views: 87 - The Difficulties of Changing Human Nature and the Need for Patience and Perseverance - by Submitted on Oct 19, 2023 from santosh krinskyWhen a seeker awakens to the deformations of the body-life-mind complex, the distorted feelings, the misdirected emotions, the incomplete and misguided thoughts, the entire complex focused on and rooted in the idea of the aggrandisement of the ego-personality at the expense of everything else, ...
Views: 346 - The Difficulty and Time Required for the Transformation of the Nature - by Submitted on Nov 16, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe make ‘new year’s resolutions’ with the idea that we will start the new year with a fresh dedication to undertaking some kind of change to our lives. This may be a mental change, such as a willingness to listen and try to truly understand what others say and think rather than jumping in our ...
Views: 85 - The Difficulty in the Process Required to “Know Thyself” - by Submitted on Sep 12, 2022 from santosh krinskyThe vital nature is so deeply intertwined with the mental nature in the current state of human development, and has such a force of desire that it tries to satisfy, that, for most individuals, it is very hard to take an objective view about the thoughts, feelings, actions, reactions, emotions or ...
Views: 483 - The Direct Use of the Mind as a Sixth Sense - by Submitted on Jan 12, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe are trained to believe that the mind relies entirely on the 5 senses of perception and the 5 senses of action in order to receive data or undertake action. If the mind is cut off from the senses, we believe that it is powerless and unable to either sense, communicate or act. Spiritual science ...
Views: 234 - The Direction of the Psychic in Our Lives: Determinism Joined With Free Will - by Submitted on Apr 11, 2024 from santosh krinskyThe human mind likes to have nice, neat categories. “Either/Or”, “Black/White”. It has a hard time dealing with mixed actions or anything that partakes of various allegedly competing or conflicting principles. Thus, the debate over free will and determinism rages on, and eventually comes down to ...
Views: 310 - THE DISCIPLINE TECHNIQUES IN SCHOOL THAT SEND THE RIGHT MESSAGE - by Submitted on Mar 12, 2019 from Saurabh GuptaDiscipline in schools has dependably been a touchy point. Presumably, this is the reason it is the most maintained a strategic distance from. Be that as it may, while collaborating with guardians and understudies, the schools can't keep this subject aside. Neither would they be able to keep ...
Views: 878 - The Distinction Between Spiritual and Psychic - by Submitted on Apr 19, 2026 from santosh krinskyThe distinction between 'spiritual' and 'psychic' comes down to the experiential basis for the most part. As mental beings, we have a tendency to try to define, delineate, classify and analyze, creating fine differences and trying to then categorise based on these differences. Sri Aurobindo ...
Views: 19 - The Divine Force Active in the Practice of Yoga - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2021 from santosh krinskyWe all generally understand the concept of force at the material level. Our entire world is driven by this force as the sun energizes the planet, as the wind, the water and the power of fire in the depths of the earth create our material environment. We understand the concept of force at the ...
Views: 673 - The Divine Grace By Any Other Name… - by Submitted on Mar 12, 2023 from santosh krinskyIt is human nature to want to categorize and pigeon-hole what happens and make developments fit into definitions of our choosing. This same thing occurs when we look at openings of the spiritual nature and the development of or transformation of consciousness. Not only do we want to define and ...
Views: 424 - The Divine Intention and Will Goes Beyond the Human Ability to Conceive and Grasp It - by Submitted on Oct 19, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe try to judge situations and events from our human understanding. We do not generally see the chain of cause and effect that led to a specific circumstance, nor the impact of the result that we observe on future events. We see things from our own narrow egoistic viewpoint and judge them based ...
Views: 111 - The Divine Must Always Come First for the Spiritual Seeker - by Submitted on Oct 01, 2025 from santosh krinskyFrom the time of our birth we are directed and focused on the external reality of the material world. We are trained to pay attention to that existence, to develop opportunities, and to find ways to survive and thrive. Along the way, we get successes and failures, meet with positive results and ...
Views: 97 - The Divine Nature of Beauty: an Expression of Ananda in Manifestation - by Submitted on Mar 16, 2022 from santosh krinskyWe are predisposed, through cultural habit, to see beauty in an outward form. Those who look a bit deeper warn us that ‘beauty is only skin-deep’, and that outward forms of beauty may hide inward blemishes. The essence of deception is to create the appearance of outward beauty while hiding ...
Views: 521 - The Divine Shakti in Its Various Forms - by Submitted on Dec 25, 2024 from santosh krinskyWhen we recognise that the world is an actual manifestation of the Divine, we can begin to appreciate the Divine in all things that we experience, all things that we see, all that we hear, all that we feel or touch or smell. The Divine manifests through his power, Shakti, which takes various ...
Views: 236 - The Divine Spark Resides Even in the Demonic Beings - by Submitted on Jan 27, 2024 from santosh krinskyThe earth is the locus of the evolutionary principle. It is said that when the gods themselves want to grow and evolve, they must consent to take birth on the earth. It is therefore important to understand that the beings who take birth on the earth-plane are, for the most part, taking part in ...
Views: 359 - The Dreams of Childhood Are the Realities of Mature Age - by Submitted on Sep 27, 2024 from santosh krinskyMost individuals wind up having to abandon their childhood dreams and aspirations. They follow the career path set before them by their society, their family, their teachers and their peers. Yet, in most cases, they never fully lose their deeper aspiration which surfaced in their childhood ...
Views: 338 - The Dual Levels of Body, Life, Mind and Soul — the External Formations and the Inner, Subliminal and Subtler Level That Links to the Universal and Causative Being - by Submitted on Apr 07, 2026 from santosh krinskyThe framework of the physical body and the limitations of the interface between the body, the life-force and the mental powers of the external being circumscribes our awareness and our ability to perceive the forces at work that shape our existence. We can experience, under various ...
Views: 28 - The Education and Uplifting of the Vital Nature - by Submitted on Jul 23, 2023 from santosh krinskyOne of the most confusing issues for the spiritual seeker is the ‘care and feeding’ of the vital nature. We shift from one extreme to the other in our view of how to bring it under control, for it is virtually uniformly recognised that for spiritual development, the vital nature must be ...
Views: 398 - The Effective Power of the Yogic Process in the Life-Experience of the Practitioner - by Submitted on Jul 23, 2024 from santosh krinskyRare are those individuals who can take up a practice and not see any result whatsoever, yet continue on with endless patience and persistence. We look at the example of Milarepa, the great yogi of Tibet who spent a number of years doing hard labor at the behest of his guru, Marpa, and who was ...
Views: 316 - The Effort of the Spiritual Seeker in Distinguishing the Action of the Divine Force from the Promptings of the Ego - by Submitted on Nov 08, 2025 from santosh krinskyA constant concern for spiritual aspirants is to distinguish the divine Will from their own ego-personality’s desires or ambitions. The vital nature has the uncanny ability to convince the mind that what it desires is actually something that can and should be justified, and once the mind adheres ...
Views: 102 - The Ego Experience and the Experience of the Jivatman - by Submitted on Oct 07, 2023 from santosh krinskyWhen we observe the standpoint we inhabit closely, we find that we tend to identify ourselves as a distinct ‘person’ or ‘personality’ with specific traits, habits, relationships and viewpoints about ‘who we are’ and ‘what we do’. This is the ego-personality and we tend to try to associate ...
Views: 365 - The Ego Was the Helper, the Ego is the Bar - by Submitted on Oct 10, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe spiritual seeker invariably hears, repeated constantly, the requirement to overcome the ego and find his true Self. The Self is one with the Divine and shares the divine consciousness, knowledge and impetus to action. The ego, which anchors the sense of a separate and distinct individuality, ...
Views: 394 - The Ego-Standpoint Bias — the Basis of Self-Deception - by Submitted on Jan 16, 2024 from santosh krinskyWe tend to have a more or less hidden bias in favor of our own view or position in various matters, which carries out at each level of the ego-standpoint, individual, family, community, religion, country, etc. as it expands its scope. We tend to see things from our unique viewpoint and not take ...
Views: 367