(a) According to Śrī Aurobindo, 'the awakening of the psychic being and its gradual prominence over all other parts of the being…

(a) Aurobindo on the psychic being and conscious evolution

For Aurobindo the psychic being (caitya puruṣa) is the soul-element, a spark of the Divine that stands behind the heart-centre, supports the individual and evolves through successive births. It differs from the surface personality, which is a mix of mind, life-force (vital) and body driven by ego and desire. At first it is veiled; in most people it acts only through glimpses of conscience, aspiration and love.

The statement means that evolution, which in nature has been unconscious (matter to life to mind), becomes conscious in humans through a first inner change. When the psychic being awakens, it comes forward and gradually takes charge of mind, vital and body. It purifies them, turns desire into aspiration, and discerns what in nature is of the Divine (The Synthesis of Yoga). This is the "psychic transformation", the base for the later "spiritual transformation", in which the higher consciousness descends, and ultimately the "supramental transformation".

Why it is the first step: without a psychic centre, ego remains the ruler, and spiritual experience risks confusion or inflation. The psychic being gives true guidance, surrender and growth in love.

Examination: the doctrine is faithful to Aurobindo's integral yoga, but the psychic being is a claim open only to inner verification, not empirical test. Evolution is also presented as having a goal, which a critic may question. Some Indian traditions see the jīva as fixed rather than evolving. In its favour, the idea gives a precise sense to personal growth and to the rebirth of a continuing soul.

(b) Śaṅkara and Rāmānuja on the status of the world

Both rest on the Upaniṣads and take Brahman as the ground of the world, but they differ on what the world is.

Śaṅkara holds that Brahman alone is real, as pure, attributeless (nirguṇa) being-consciousness. The world is mithyā: neither real nor unreal, sublated by knowledge of Brahman, like the snake on a rope. The world appears through māyā or avidyā by vivarta, apparent transformation without any change in Brahman. For everyday life it has vyāvahārika reality, and only knowledge (jñāna) removes the illusion.

Rāmānuja (Viśiṣṭādvaita) holds that the world is real. Brahman is personal (saguṇa), Viṣṇu or Nārāyaṇa, and has as its body two real principles, souls (cit) and matter (acit), which are its modes (prakāra). The world is a real transformation (pariṇāma) of Brahman through its power; all error is partial truth (sat-khyāti). He attacks Śaṅkara's māyā as unsupported, with a sevenfold objection (saptavidha-anupapatti).

Contrast: they differ in Brahman as nirguṇa or saguṇa, world as mithyā or real, vivarta or pariṇāma, and jñāna or bhakti as the primary path. Resemblance: both reject a world independent of Brahman and both take it to be grounded in Brahman.

(c) Jīva and jagat in Madhva

Madhva's Dvaita (Tattvavāda) is thorough realism and dualism. Brahman, identified with Viṣṇu, is the independent reality (svatantra); the jīva and the world are real but dependent (paratantra).

The five-fold difference (pañca-bheda) is real and eternal: between God and jīva, God and matter, jīva and jīva, jīva and matter, and matter and matter. It is stated as a basic fact of experience.

The jīva is a real, individual conscious entity, atomic in size, eternal, and dependent on Viṣṇu for existence, knowledge and action. Jīvas differ in nature and capacity (tāratamya), and their liberation never makes them one with God: the liberated jīva enjoys bliss in the presence of God, reflecting him as image (bimba-pratibimba). The way is devotion (bhakti) and grace.

The jagat is real and eternal in its stuff. God is its efficient cause (nimitta), and prakṛti is the material cause, so the world is not a transformation of Brahman. Madhva rejects māyā and mithyātva of the world in the Advaita sense.