He lived in the mystic space where thought is born
And will is nursed by an ethereal Power
And fed on the white milk of the Eternal’s strengths
Till it grows into the likeness of a god.
In the Witness’s occult rooms with mind-built walls
On hidden interiors, lurking passages
Opened the windows of the inner sight.
He owned the house of undivided Time.
Sri Aurobindo
Savitri, Book I, Canto III, page 28.
It is only by virtue of the inner consciousness that the outer can awaken to the Divine Influence at all — it receives the inner urge even when it is not aware whence it comes.
*
They [the inner mind and vital] exercise an influence and send out their powers or suggestions which the outer sometimes carries out as best it can, sometimes does not follow. How much they work on the outer depends on how far the individual has an inner life. E.g. the poet, musician, artist, thinker, live much from within — men of genius and those who try to live according to an ideal also. But there are plenty of people who have very little inner life and are governed entirely by the forces of Nature.
*
As one gathers experience from life to life, mental or vital, the inner mind and vital also develop according to the use made of our experiences and the extent to which they are utilised for the growth of the being.
*
You are mistaken in thinking that your external being alone is like that. Hardly anybody has the external being of a Yogi — it is the inner being that has the Yogic turn — the external has to be converted and transformed.
*
If the inner being does not manifest or act, the outer being will never get transformed.
*
If the inner being is safe, then there is no longer any struggle or overpowering [of the outer being] by inertia or depression or other fundamental difficulties. The rest can be done progressively and quietly, including the coming down of the Force. The outer being becomes merely a machinery or an instrumentation to be set right. It is not so easy to be entirely mukta in the inner being.
*
When the inner being once thoroughly establishes its separateness, even oceans of inertia cannot prevent it from keeping it. It is the first thing to be done in order to have a secure basis in the Yoga, to establish thoroughly this separateness. It comes most usually when the peace is thoroughly fixed in all inner parts, that the separateness also becomes fixed and permanent.
Sri Aurobindo,
Letters on Yoga I, CWSA volume 28, pages 91 – 92.