The Practice of the Integral Yoga

XXIII

SADHANA OF THE BODY:

PHYSICAL TRANSFORMATION IN

THE INTEGRAL YOGA

The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo has for its goal not merely the spiritual liberation of a few isolated individuals from the shackles of phenomenal Ignorance but the establishment of a truly divine life upon earth itself, ihaiva. But since Matter is the foundation of all evolutionary efflorescence of life here upon the terrestrial plane, our physical body assumes a supreme importance in the total scheme of our spiritual achievement. A full play of divine life demands as its essential prerequisite a totally transformed physical body which will, as a supple and flawless and transparent instrument, respond fully to each and every call of the self-manifesting Spirit. As Sri Aurobindo has pointed out:

"At present the notation of the body and the physical conscious ness has a very large determining power on the music made by this human harp of God; the notes we get from the spirit, from the psychic soul, from the greater life behind our physical life cannot come in freely, cannot develop their high, powerful and proper strain. This condition must be reversed; the body and the physical consciousness must develop the habit of admitting and shaping themselves to these higher strains and not they, but the nobler parts of the nature must determine the music of our life and being." (The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 702)

Thus, a divine transformation of our physical sheath, annamaya kosa, becomes an indispensable concomitant of a veritable divine living in the physical world. But in the actually elaborated status of consciousness of man the mental being, this transformation cannot be achieved nor even initiated on the plane of the physical body. It will then be like putting the cart before the horse. For, where is the necessary lever of transformation or the potent agent, to effectuate this desired change? We should not forget that in reality

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whatever may be the appearance to the contrary — it is always consciousness and consciousness alone that is the prime determinant. So, before we can at all expect any divine transformation of Our physical existence, we must have first to acquire a divine consciousness within and effectuate a total transformation of our inner Purusha part. Then and then only can the question of the liberation of our Prakriti (Nature) part and the divine transformation of our bodily instrument acquire some practical relevance, not before. In the forthright words of the Mother: "You must begin from within. I have said a hundred times, you must begin from ' above. You must purify the higher region and then purify the lower." Sri Aurobindo has warned us on his part:

"The transformation to which we aspire is too vast and complex to come at one stroke; it must be allowed to come by stages. The physical change is the last of these stages and is itself a progressive process. The inner transformation cannot be brought about by physical means either of a positive or a negative nature. On the contrary, the physical change itself can only be brought about by a descent of the greater supramental consciousness into the cells of the body." (Letters on Yoga)

Yes, it should be carefully noted, it is the 'supramental consciousness' — understood not in the sense of any and every spiritual consciousness above the plane of mind but in the specific sense in which Sri Aurobindo uses it — which alone possesses the required knowledge and power to effectuate the transformation of our physical being.

In fact, it is the combined action of the descent of Supermind prom above and the emergence of the involved Supermind from behind the veil into the arena of our overtly manifested becoming, that alone can progressively divinise first the totality of our inner ezistence and, then, proceed to the divinisation of our physical body itself which will be the summit achievement of the evolutionary elaboration of terrestrial life. No other spiritual conscious-ness or power short of this Supermind, this divine Gnosis and the Truth-Consciousness of Sachchidananda, possesses this effective

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power of integral transformation. And that is why a subjective spiritual liberation of our inner being and an inner change of con sciousness alone, — although that remains as the essential precondition for any attempt at physical transformation, — cannot be, as a general rule, sufficient by itself.

But why is it so? Why have the states of the spiritual con-sciousness attained so far by the Yogis or men of spirit in different climes and times failed to mould the physical existence in the image of divinity? What are the basic difficulties that render this task of physical transformation impossible of realisation?

To have a proper grasp of this intractable problem we must first take note of a few cardinal points concerning the process of transformation in general:

1.In order that a particular part of our complex total existence can be transformed, it is absolutely essential that the part itself seek for this desired transformation. It has to grow self-aware of the necessity for the change and at the same time acquire the requisite capacity to bear the transfiguring touch when it comes.

2.A higher consciousness acting from above and imposing its influence on any lower part of the being, without the latter's self-conscious and willing collaboration, may indeed modify to some extent the prevailing nature and working of this lower part, but can never altogether transform it. Here is a relevant note of warning uttered by Sri Aurobindo:

"If the work were done from above, from some spiritual height, there might be a sublimation or uplifting or the creation of a new structure compelled by the sheer force of the influence from above: but this change might not be accepted as native to itself by the lower being; it would not be a total growth, an integral evolution, but a partial and imposed formation... a creation from outside the normal nature, by imposition upon it, it could be durable in its entirety only as long as there was a maintenance of the creating influence." (The Life Divine, pp. 915-16)

3. To effectuate the transformation the higher Power and Con-

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sciousness has thus to descend into the lower part and dynamically act therein, seeking to awaken in the process the consenting participation of the latter.

But unavoidably this meeting of the higher and the lower has a reciprocal two-way consequence. While the higher tries to transfigure the lower with its own law of nature, svadhamza, it itself is at the same time modified and diluted, its light obscured and its effectivity curtailed by the counteraction of the lower. To quote Sri Aurobindo on this point:

"A descent of consciousness into the lower levels is... necessary, but in this way also it is difficult to work out the full power of the higher principle; there is a modification, dilution, diminution which keeps up an imperfection and limitation in the results: the light of a greater knowledge comes down but gets blurred and modified, its significance misinterpreted or its truth mixed with mental and vital error, or the force, the power to fulfil itself is not commensurate with its light.... A mutilated power, a partial effect or hampered movement is the consequence." (Ibid ., p. 916)

4. Now, this capacity on the part of the higher principle to modify and change the lower without at the same time itself undergoing some dilution or mixture, depends on its essential intrinsic potency. So, "it is not likely that it will be able to bring about an entire transformation if it is not itself the original Principle of Existence, if it is only derivative, an instrumental power and not the first puissance." (Ibid., p. 704)

Now, if we consider the problem of physical transformation in the light of the above four points, we can very well understand why this problem has defied any solution till this day. First of all,our body itself possesses a subconscient conscience of its own which clings with an obstinate fidelity to its past habits and modes of functioning and automatically and invariably offers a dogged opposition to all that seeks to alter its nature. And this is so because the process of evolution upon earth has started from an inconscient base and all that has emerged and developed after

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wards has had to appear as a superstructure upon the unchanged foundation of Inconscience.

Thus, even in man who has been so far the summit product of evolutionary becoming, the substance of the normal being is moulded out of this fundamental Inconscience. "Our ignorance is-a growth of knowledge in a substance of being which is nescient; the consciousness it develops, the knowledge it establishes are always dogged, penetrated, enveloped by this nescience.... the nescience invades or encompasses or even swallows up and absorbs into its oblivious darkness all that enters into it; it compels the descending light to compromise with the lesser light it enters there is a mixture, a diminution and dilution of itself, a diminution, a modification, an incomplete authenticity of its truth and power." (Ibid., pp. 960-61)

It thus follows that, unless this 'blind Ananke of the Inconscience' be somehow illumined and transmuted, there can be no prospect for any physical transformation. For, this 'dragon base' remaining, as it is now, the dead weight and the inconscient sub-stratum of our physical being, the inexorable downward pull towards the original Inertia and Nescience will infructify the action of any intervening Force that seeks to effect a radical transformation. Even the higher spiritual-mental powers such as those whom Sri Aurobindo has named the Higher Mind, the Illumined Mind, the Intuitive Mind and the Overmind, and their intensities, entering into the substance of this inconscient foundation, undergo this inescapable disability and fail to annul the disparity between the consciousness that comes in and its force of dynamic effectuation

Thus, whatever be the degree or status of the subjective spiritual illumination of the sadhaka, this substance of Inconscience constituting his body and physical nature cannot but circumscribe and diminish "the sovereignty and freedom and dynamism of the Spirit with its own force of adjustment by limitation, demarcation by incapacity, foundation of energy on the repose of an origin Inertia." (Ibid., p. 962) And as a consequence the human body re mains subject to the established and apparently permanent laws of Darkness and Incapacity and Death.

Faced with this almost insuperable difficulty of physical trans-

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formation, most spiritual seekers of the past have tended to turn away from the physical being of man with an attitude of avers ion or even downright denial , and reconciled themselves to its supposedly unalterable fate of ever remaining unregenerate and untransformed. But, evidently, this cannot be the right attitude for the sadhaka of the Integral Yoga. Since a divine transformation of all the parts of our existence including its most material foundation and functioning is the goal envisaged by Sri Aurobindo 's Yoga of Integral Transformation, we must now see k for the clu e that can resolve the age -old deadlock and open the portals to the transfiguration of our physical being and nature.

We have already seen that a mere static possession of the domain s of the spirit in our inner and higher consciousness is not sufficient for the physical transformation; for that to be made feasible there must come about a dynamic descent of the higher consciousness in to our physical nature and, at the same time or subsequent to it, a luminous awakening from with in evoked in the very bosom of the body-consciousness itself.

Now, it so happens that it is only the supramental Force, the original and final self-determining Truth-Force of the self-existent Infinite, that possesses the necessary potency to entirely overcome the iron hold of the basal Inconscience . For only the Supermind can descend into the subterranean reaches of our existence without losing in any way its full dynamic power of action. To the dark negating Necessity of the Inconscience, Supermind opposes a supremely imperative luminous spiritual Necessity that is irresistible in its power of effectuation.

Hence it follows that if there is to be an entire transformation even of our physical material existence, Supermind or divine Gnosis must have to directly intervene in our earth-nature and overtly act therein. Now, from the point of view of terrestrial evolution , this supramental intervention will take the form of a twofold process. First, when the evolutionary nature is found ready and receptive, there will occur 'a supramental inflow from above, the descent of agnostic being into the nature', and, secondly, 'an emergence of the concealed supramental force from below'. "...the influx and

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the unveiling between them will remove... the nature of the Ignorance. The rule of the Inconscient will disappear; for the Inconscience will be changed by the outburst of the greater seen! Consciousness within it,... into what it always was in reality, a sea of the secret Superconscience." (Ibid., p. 968)

As a result of this transmutation of the inconscient foundation of our physically embodied existence, Spirit will become the sovereign occupant of form, our bodily existence will transcend the present law of death, division and mutual devouring, the material substance itself will be transfigured and spiritualised and our body will become the body divine that will "reflect or reproduce here in a divine life on the earth something of [the] highest greatness and glory of the self-manifesting Spirit." (Sri Aurobindo, The Supra-mental Manifestaion upon Earth, 1952 edition, p. 74)

Indeed, no limit need be or can be put to evolutionary possibilities. Actuality never exhausts the sum of possibilities. We are reminded here of the beautiful saying of Sri Aurobindo in his Thoughts and Aphorisms:

"Impossibility is only a sum of greater unrealised possibles. It veils an advanced stage and a yet unaccomplished journey." (p. 6)

Evolutionary Nature brushes aside all our preconceived notions of plausibility and proceeds always to conquer ever-new terrains of achievement. In the words of the Mother, "All things (not only those that are conceivable at the moment, but all those that are for the moment inconceivable), all are not only possible, but will be realised." (Bulletin, Vol. XIII, No. 3, p. 51)

But an apparently valid question may be raised at this point whether the process of evolution is still continuing, particularly as far as the form-evolution is concerned. We envisage that the divine body to appear in the course of the future evolution of man will have a different structure and a new type of 'physiological' functioning and acquire hitherto unrealised evolutionary capabilities. But has not the process of organic evolution stopped long since? And in that case cannot we emphatically declare that the

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human body with its foibles and good points, its chemistry and physiology, has already acquired a well -set unalterable disposition ? And if so, the present structure and habitual responses of the human body must be deemed to be permanent and binding and incapable of any further alteration and amelioration. After all the disbeliever would so declare - the body is the product of inconscient physical energy and the con sciousness that seems to dwell in it is only a derivative outcome of the operation of this energy . Does it not follow then that once the evolutionary process has come to a stop, there is no further scope for any adaptive improvement and our body sys tem is destined to remain bound down to its present form and functioning? How can one then envisage any physical transformation through the process of the Integral Yoga?

But this train of reasoning is altogether fallacious. For, the implied assumptions and hence the so-called 'conclusions' are only half-truths and has it not been well said that "half-truth is its own Nemesis" ? As a matter of fact , doubts and misgivings of the above kind arise from a superficial con sideration of the truth of things, which again is due to the thought' s concentrating on the appearance alone and missing thereby what lies behind the frontal process. But what then is the real truth after all?

A deeper inquiry reveals to us that :

l. The true foundation is above while the branchings are downward, ūrdhavudhna nicīna -śakha (Rig-Veda) , urdhamūlo 'vākśakha (Gita). Consciousness is not an epiphenomenon of the functioning of Matter; it is on the contrary Matter itself that is a derivative and a phenomenon of Energy. And this Energy that is secretly and universally operative behind all manifestation is not with out a Being possessing it and a Consciousness providing it: the Energy is indeed in its essential nature the Consciousness-Force, cit-śakti, cittapas, of Sachchidananda, the Existence-Consciousness-Bliss absolute, whose other name is Divine Reality.

2. Thus our body is not mere unconscious Matter: it is a structure of a secretly conscious Energy that has taken form in it. And consciousness that "seems to be a result is, - in its reality, though

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not in its form, — the origin; the effect is in the essence pre-existent to the appparent cause, the principle of the emergent activity precedent to its present field of action." (The Life Divine, p. 853)

3.That the embodied soul is at present so much dependent upon the bodily and nervous life, that the physiological functioning of the body governs and determines the reactions of the subjective being, is thus seen to be only a minor and secondary truth. The major and primary truth is that Consciousness is the real and original determinant of our bodily life; it can, if it so wills and under proper conditions, transmit its commands to the bodily instrument and govern its reactions "even to the overriding of its normal law or conditions of action..." (Ibid., p. 306)

4.That the body and not the indwelling consciousness appears at present to be the primary determinant is only a provisional evolutionary arrangement. For in the involutionary self-shrouding of Consciousness, the principle of Matter represents the nethermost stage of the descent, in which the absorbed Energy is totally oblivious of its origin and real self, and supports the physical existence in a somnambulist action. Thus in our body, "the outer force and figure of being, what we might call the formal or form existence as distinguished from the immanent or secretly governing consciousness, is lost in the physical action, is so absorbed into it as to be fixed in a stereotyped self-oblivion unaware of what it is and what it is doing." (Ibid., p. 711)

5.But behind the outer veil of material inconscience and the iron-grip of physico-chemical determinism, a secret involved consciousness, cosmic and infinite, is always at work in our body. And without this supporting greater consciousness-force that is 'awake in all that sleeps', yaesa suptesu jānanti, our physical system itself would have no power of action, nor any organising coherence of all.

6.Now, the whole nisus of the evolutionary process is to bring out to the front the totality of this involved Consciousness and make that the overt master even over our outer existence and nature.

It follows, therefore, that the evolutionary emergence upon earth cannot stop short with man and mental consciousness. For Mind is no more than an intermediate power of consciousness,

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limited in vision and limping in action.

Now, evolution being an inverse movement to involution, "what is an ultimate and last derivation in the involution is the first to appear in the evolution; what was original and primal in the involution is in the evolution the last and supreme emergence." (Ibid., p. 853) Thus, Spirit being the original involutionary element and factor must represent a finale evolutionary emergence here in earthly manifestation. The evolutionary progression is thus bound to continue in the very nature of things till Supermind, the original Creative medium of the Divine, and the triune glory of Sachchidananda with its absolute Existence-Consciousness-Bliss, stand evolved and active in the material universe.

7.But what will be the fundamental mechanism of this coming phase of evolution? The old evolutionary procedure relied so far on a prior form-evolution as to be the essential factor in the eventual effectuation of a resultant change of consciousness manifesting in the form. But what is noteworthy is that with the advent of man, the mental being, in the field of evolution, this old procedure has been completely superseded. Indeed, as Sri Aurobindo pas

"... in man a reversal is possible, indeed inevitable; for it is through his consciousness, through its transmutation and no longer through a new bodily organism as a first instrumentation that the evolution can and must be effected.... it is no longer-the change of body that must precede the change of consciousness; the consciousness itself by its mutation will necessitate and operate whatever mutation is needed for the body." (Ibid., p. 844)

8.With the ultimate emergence of Supermind in evolution, will come about the discovery of all the hidden truths and powers of the now concealed Spirit; and the right dynamisation of the higher knowledge will establish the Spirit's total mastery over all its fields of operation. Matter in general and the body in particular will then be obedient and flawless instruments of the Spirit and plainly move to fulfil without any let or hindrance all die demands made upon them.

We can then justifiably conclude that when we speak of the ultimate conquest over all the present disabilities of our physical

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existence, to be brought about through the process of an evolutionary transformation, we are not indulging in a child-soul's phantasy or its irrational demand for arbitrary miracles nor are we visualising any impossible chimera that goes beyond and outside all possible forces of Nature.

What we are envisaging is the control and conquest of the prevailing determinism of our bodily system by the reverse higher determinism of the supernal grades and powers of our conscious being. And there is nothing "miraculous" or "irrational" here. Indeed, as Sri Aurobindo has pointed out:

"What seems to us supernatural is in fact either a spontaneous irruption of the phenomena of other-Nature into physical Nature or... a possession of the knowledge and power of the higher orders or grades of cosmic Being and Energy and the direction of their forces and processes towards the production of effects in the physical world by seizing on possibilities of interconnection and means for a material effectuality." (The Life Divine, pp. 874-75)

But why at all these misgivings and doubts as regards the prospect of some as yet undreamt-of wonderful achievements to come from a future supramental evolution? Is not our body, even in its actuality, already a marvel product of organic evolution? We do not pause to study and contemplate its weird functioning and its intricate structure; therefore it appears to our blissful ignorance altogether self-evident, simple and natural But anyone who studies with an unbiased penetrating vision the physiology and the biochemistry of any living body cannot but be struck by the amazing ingenuity displayed by life although acting so far under the heavy lead of a crass frontal ignorance. Instances are indeed legion that go to demonstrate what has been termed by Prof. Walter Cannon 'the wisdom of the body'. Even a slight acquaintance with the organisational details of living bodies and the behaviour patterns of different creatures cannot but convince even the most casual observer that through the apparent inconscience of the workings of physico-chemical energies there must be operative all the while a conscient purposive force behind.

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The physical scientist may seek to 'explain away' all these things in terms of physical causality, bearing such ponderous names as 'adaptability', 'homoeostasis', 'feedback reactions', and what mot. But this sort of 'explanation' does not go very far. For it explains, if at all, only the phenomenal 'how' and never the intrinsic 'why'.

In conclusion we can very well affirm that it is well-nigh impossible for man's imagination to visualise the wonderful results pat will be achieved in the overt frontal plane of life, when the divine Supermind descends from above and the involved Supermind emerges from behind to take charge of the evolutionary process

This supramental change, be it noted, will involve not only human nature but man's body-structure and its organ-systems as well. For, as the Mother once pointed out, the state of spontaneous immortality for the body cannot come unless and until its structure changes into something other than what it is now. (Bulletin, February 1967, p. 75) Sri Aurobindo also is very much explicit on this point when he speaks of the emergence of the New Body, the divine Body, as a fit vehicle for the untrammelled manifestation of Sachchidananda upon earth itself. He says inter alia:

"... the evolutionary urge would proceed to a change of the organs themselves in their material working and use and diminish greatly the need of their instrumentation and even of their existence.... This might go so far that these organs might cease to be indispensable and even be felt as too obstructive: the central force might use them less and less and finally throw aside their use altogether. If that happened they might waste by atrophy, be reduced to an insignificant minimum or even disappear. The central force might substitute for them subtle organs of a very different character or, if anything material was needed, instruments that would be forms of dynamism or plastic transmitters rather than what we know as organs." (The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth, pp. 69-70)

And it is not that the body-structure and the organ-systems alone will undergo the necessary supramental transfiguration: the

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very substantial stuff of the body, although still remaining material, will be of an altogether different sort. For, corresponding to the supramental consciousness of the gnostic being there exists what Sri Aurobindo calls "supramental substance". This supramental substance alone can confer on the physical body the status of a worthy mansion for the self-manifesting Spirit. And this, "not in the sense of any attachment of obligatoryrestriction to the corporeal frame, but as an exceeding of the [present] laws of the physical body, - the conquest of death, an earthly immortality."

Let us close this essay on 'Physical Transformation' with someprophetic lines from Sri Aurobindo' s Savitri:

"The Spirit shall look out through Matter's gaze
And Matter shall reveal the Spirit's face....
The Spirit shall take up the human play,
This earthly life become the life divine."
(Bk. XI, C. 1, pp. 709, 711)

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