The Practice of the Integral Yoga

XXII

Sadhana of the Vital

Our last chapter dealt with the sadhana of the Mind. The present one has for its subject matter the sadhana of the Vital.

A thoroughgoing discussion of the place, importance and conversion of the vital in the sadhana of the Integral Yoga is very essential. For the vital, as it is in its pre sent nature, acts mostly as a drag on the upward aspiration of the sadhaka. It appears at times completely incorrigible in nature. What is still more unsettling is the fact that not only does the vital remain itself impure and unregenerate, it constantly invades the functioning of the mind, the heart, and the body consciousness of man making them in their turbid and resistant. it becomes thus absolutely necessary that the sadhaka success fully tackle the problem of his vital part, sooner or later, sooner the better. In the word s of Sri Aurobindo:

"... the vital is there and always pressing on the mind and heart , disturbing and endangering the sadhana and it cannot be left to itself for too long. The ego and desires of the vital , its disturbances and upheavals have to be dealt with and if not at once expelled , at least dominated and prepared for a gradual if not a rapid modification, change, illumination." (Letters on Yoga, p. 1626)

But what is this vital, what are its specific characteristics , and its role in sadhana? The vital is that part of our complex human nature that contain s in itself all the effective potency for action ; all our dynamic urges, bubbling enthusiasm and the intensity of passions have their seat there. Again, the vital is that field of our being in which the potential thoughts and ideas of our mind give up their static disposition, get transformed into dynamic will, and become ready for their actual realisation in fact.

Such is the primary character of the vital, and this specific character through its multifarious self-manifestation rouses in the vital fie ld the fury of all kind s of desires and emotions, vanity and

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self-importance, possessive tendency, the spirit of defiance and revolt, and finally an urge to destruction.

For, because of its dynamic propensity the vital is always in movement but, depending on the special situation and circumstance, this dynamic play may be oriented to the East or to the West, may shoot upward to heaven or nosedive downward to hell. The vital is equally capable of creating and destroying. It may light up an ardent fire of aspiration in the heart of the sadhaka but with equal alacrity it may throw there the dampening rag of depression and inertia. And the sadhaka is very much troubled because of this dual tendency of the vital.

In fact, "desire" is the basic manifestation of the vital. Now, this desire is not of a uniform kind. It may take various forms higher or lower, glorious or ignoble, and may widely vary in quality from the sublime to the lowly. Now, the vital is constantly penetrating and influencing, and if possible corrupting, all other parts of our being with this dark miasma of desire. This action seems to be continuous and all-englobing. In Sri Aurobindo' s words:

"The Prana is everywhere in us supporting not only the action of our body, but of our sense-mind, our emotional mind, our thought-mind; and bringing its own law or Dharma in to all these, it confuses, it limits, it throws into discord their right action and creates that impurity of misplacement and that tangled confusion which is the whole evil of our psychological existence. In that confusion one law seems to reign, the law of desire." (The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 335)

A relevant question may arise at this point in the readers' mind: Are there any specific psychological signs and symptoms by which the sadhaka may come to know that he is at any particular moment mainly dominated by his vital being? Let Sri Aurobindo answer this question:

"In others it is the vital self, the being of life, who dominates and rules the mind, the will, the action; then is created the vital man, concerned with self-affirmation, self-aggrandisement, life-

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enlargement, satisfaction of ambition and passion and impulse and desire, the claims of his ego, domination, power, excitement, battle and struggle, inner and outer adventure: all these are incidental or subordinated to this movement and building and expression of the vital ego." (The Life Divine, p. 898)

Now for most men in their normal functioning this 'vital ego' is the master of the house, grha-pati: everything else in the being and nature moves at its sole behest. But, alas, its moods are unpredictable. No one knows for sure not even the gods what queer sudden turn the vital will take at any given moment, 'devāh not jānanti kuto manusyāh?'

If the mood of the vital gets deranged, for whatever reasons, it, may lead to many serious and vicious consequences appearing in the sadhana-life of the aspirant. Here is a short illustrative list of these possible evil results:

(i) The sadhaka may suffer from a misplaced sense of apparently causeless sorrow and grievance; (ii) an attitude of constant complaining may seize the sadhaka' s heart; (iii) the slightest hindering to what one wants engenders a sense of rancour and injured innocence; (iv) a proneness to psychological aggressiveness at the slightest provocation may govern the sadhaka' s reactions; (v) any obstacle placed on the path of fulfilment of a desire disturbs the composure of the sadhaka 's heart: if he is strong and robust, he becomes violent; and if he feels himself weak and incapable, he is filled with depression and melancholy; (vi) the aspirant is pricked by an expectation of praise from others; if sufficient recognition of one's self-claimed worth is not forthcoming, the heart becomes morose and challenging; (vii) the sadhaka becomes ready to make a mountain out of a mole-hill, to raise a storm in a tea-cup, and turn everything into a dramatic exaggerations; (viii) the sadhaka' s vital feels a morbid pleasure in all that is perverse and a peculiar fascination for sorrow and suffering; (ix) forms a misalliance with the hostile forces that are opposed to the sadhaka' s progress in sadhana; (x) calls back again and again into the being all those weaknesses of nature which have been chased away from the sadhaka' s consciousness after a prolonged painstaking effort;

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(xi) deprives the sadhana-life of its natural charm and sweetness and turns it into the dryness of an arid desert ; (xii) ado pts an attitude of noncooperation towards the upward aspiration and tapasya of the aspirant.

But this is just a small list: the misdemeanours of the disturbed vital are simply legion. But we should not forget that this is one side of the vital being. The vital is not solely and exclusively negative in character. It possesses a very helpful positive side too. The problem is that, a strong dynamism being its essential virtue, the vital may equally take two distinctly different mutually opposed orientations depending on whether it is being rightly guided or not.

It follows then that what is expected of the sadhaka of the Integral Yoga is not the starving and the stunning of the vital into inaction but the constant turning of its dynamism towards the realisation of 'satyam, śivam, sundaram', of the True, the Good, the Beautiful. The vital is not evil in its very nature. What it always keeks is some sort of delight but normally it has no discriminating power as to wherein to find that delight.-And there lies the crux of the problem. As Sri Aurobindo has expressed:

"In all that is developed by the life-force there is developed at the same time a secret delight somewhere in the being, a delight in good and a delight in evil, a delight in truth and a delight in falsehood, a delight in life and an attraction to death, a delight in pleasure and a delight in pain, in one's own suffering and the suffering of others, but also in one's own joy and happiness and good and the joy and happiness and good of others. For the force of life-affirmation affirms alike the good and the evil:... it takes up altruism as it takes up egoism, sacrifices itself as well as destroys others; and in all its acts there is the same passion for life-affirmation, the same force of action and fulfilment." (The Life Divine, p. 623)

The Mother also has on her part spoken on many different occasions about the protean behaviour of man's vital being. The following passage is an adapted version of what she said in one of per class talks of 1953:

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"... this vital is a curious creature. It is a being of passion, enthusiasm and naturally of desire;... it is quite capable of getting enthusiastic over something beautiful, of admiring, sensing anything greater and nobler than itself. And if really anything very beautiful occurs in the being, if there is a movement having an exceptional value, well, it may get enthusiastic and it is capable of giving itself with complete devotion — with a generosity that is not found ... in the mental domain nor in the physical. It has that fullness in action that comes precisely from its capacity to get nthused and throw itself wholly without reserve into what it does ... when the vital is enthused over something, it is no longer a reasonable being but a warrior; it is wholly in its action and can perform exceptional things because it does not calculate, does not reason, does not say 'One must take precautions, one must not do this , must not do that.' It is not prudent, it flares up... it gives itself totally. Therefore, it can do magnificent things if it is guided in theright way." (M C W, Vol. 5, pp. 255-56).

This is on the positive side. But the Mother warns too about the whims of the vital being. She says:

"... this vital, if you place it in a bad environment, it will imitate the bad environment and do bad things with violence and to an extreme degree.... It follows its passion and enthusiasm. When it has desires, its desires are violent, arbitrary, and it does not at all take into account the good or bad of others; it doesn't care the least bit. But when it gives itself to something beautiful, it does not calculate either, it will give itself entirely without knowing whether it will do good or harm to it. It is a very precious instrument." (Ibid., pp. 256-57)

The Mother further adds specifying another characteristic of the vital being:

"There is only one thing the vital abhors; it is a dull life, monotonous, grey, tasteless, spiritless. Faced with that, it goes to sleep, falls into inertia. It likes extremely violent things,... it can be ex-

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tremely wicked, extremely cruel, extremely generous, extremely good and extremely heroic. It always goes to extremes and can be one side or the other, yes, as the current flows." (Ibid., p. 256)

But the difficulty is that in its current unconverted disposition man's vital is often inclined to what is evil and false; it shrinks from light and is enamoured of darkness. And it is because of this downward inclination that the sadhaka of the spiritual path meets so much difficulty in the vital part of his being . When the aspirant would ardently like to soar in the blue expanse of the sky on the wings of his aspiration, it is the gravitational pull of the vital that drags him down to the flat trivialities of earth .

In the spiritual history of mankind over the last few thousand years, many a device and stratagem have been presented by the Yogis and mystics to gain mastery over this turbulent vital but all have been in vain: the vital has had the last laugh. And the frustrated sadhakas have bemoaned their inescapable earth-bound fate with their flying wings clipped to futility.

Herein lies the genesis of the almost universal attitude of fear and hatred that the traditional ascetic spirituality maintains towards the vital. Its only advice is: "Starve the vital; shun its free playas far as practicable, and prepare yourself or an escapist post-mortem immergence in the Spirit."

But we have already affirmed many a time in course of this book that this sort of escapist spirituality is not the character of the Integral Yoga. We aim at the founding and manifestation of divine life here upon earth itself in the embodied existence of man; and in this task the happy and unquestioning collaboration of the vital is altogether essential. For, no siddhi worth the name is possible in our sadhana without the active help of two things which are intrinsic to the vital. These two attributes are: (i) a robust all-conquering strength of will; and (ii) an indomitable elan to engage oneself in the adventure of the unknown, defying all odds and difficulties ofthe Path.

Hence arises the necessity of making the requisite sadhana for effecting the luminous conversion of the vital and making its pure and flawless functioning a necessary part of the spiritualisation of

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our nature. The following section deals with a brief outline of this sadhana of the vital.

Sadhana of the Vital

Let us start from the very beginning, from where we are now in the present unregenerate functioning of our vital. This sadhana has many stages; not that all these stages are arranged here with the precision of a mathematical sequence. In other words it is not that a particular stage will necessarily follow the previous one or that it cannot appear at all till the sadhana of the just precedingstage is entirely completed. The sadhana-life of an aspirant in the Integral Yoga is a life of the unexpected. And which foolhardy person would dare dictate to the Divine Shakti when her Grace should act or should not and how much and in which fashion, in the life of a particular sadhaka? So the succession of the stages as indicated below need not be taken too literally: they are just broad indications of the different facets of the sadhana.

The sadhana of the vital has five principal programme-elements. These are as follows:

(i) The control and purification of the vital; (ii) the self-consecration of the vital; (iii) its liberation and conversion; (iv) a full collaboration of the vital in the sadhana-effort of the sadhaka; and (v) spiritual transformation of the vital being.

But even before the sadhaka seriously undertakes the sadhana of the vital, he should, as a preliminary measure, equip himself with an ardent aspiration for the conquest of the vital, build up a solid foundation of patience and perseverance, and possess an indomitable will not to give up the sadhana till the final victory is won. The sadhaka should also see to it that his vital itself, instead of remaining a noncollaborating opponent as at present, develops a zeal for being a pure and perfect instrument for the Spirit's manifestation.

After these preliminary virtues are acquired, the sadhaka proceeds to the execution of the following nine stages of the sadhana of the vital.

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First Step: The sadhaka' s psychological field presents at every moment the aspect of a crowded arena where all sorts of forces and urges, — desires and drives and impulses, — are jostling together demanding their separate manifestations in action and reaction. Various thoughts, feelings and imaginations too mingle with them.

Now all these coalesce together to form a psychological resultant which then impels the sadhaka to think, feel and act in a particular way. Before succumbing to this push of the resultant the sadhaka should seek first to observe carefully his inner field, disengage the contribution of the vital in this medley, and determine with a clear insight what his vital is driving at at that juncture and why. A perfunctory superficial observation may not yield the desired result. The sadhaka has to step back, withdraw inward and cast his searching gaze from there. Sri Aurobindo has spoken about the beneficial results of this psychological exercise in these words:

"But when one goes inside..., we find the sources of all this Surface action and there the parts of our being are quite separate and clearly distinct from each other. We feel them indeed as different beings in us, and just as two people in a joint action can do, they too are seen to observe, criticise, help or oppose and restrain each other; it is as if we were a group-being, each member of the group with its separate place and function, and all directed by a central being who is sometimes in front above the others, some-times behind the scenes." (Letters on Yoga, pp. 1019-20)

Second Step: After recognising the vital element in the contused medley prevailing in the psychological field, the sadhaka has to determine what this element is seeking to achieve through the suggested action and reaction. But while trying to come to this knowledge, the aspirant has to be entirely sincere in this regard. On no account should he fall a prey to the natural temptation of painting the vital urge always in resplendent colours, making it appear licit and permissible to the mind's eye. One has to be ruthless in demasking the vital of all its camouflages and forcing it to present itself to the discerning eye of the sadhaka in its absolutely undisguised naked form. Here is the Mother's instruction as

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regards this second step of sadhana:

"To become conscious of the various movements in oneself and be aware of what one does and why one does it, is the indispensable starting-point. [One]... must be taught to observe, to note his reactions and impulses and their causes, to become a discerning witness of his desires, his movements of violence and passion, his instincts of possession and appropriation and domination and the background of vanity which supports them, together with their counterparts of weakness, discouragement, depression and despair." (M C W, Vol. 12, pp. 21-22)

Third Step: On some occasions this vital element will come with almost an irresistible urge to propel the sadhaka along a specific course of action and reaction and the aspirant becomes ready to accede to this urge. He loses all freedom of choice and prepares to offer himself as a willing tool in the hands of the propulsive vital

Here at this crucial .moment of decision intervenes the third step of sadhana of the vital, whose guiding Mantra is: "Not to manifest in action." Let us explain.

Whatever may be the fury and storm raging in the subjective consciousness of the sadhaka, he should immediately take a firm resolve that till he recovers the composure of his mind and heart and regains his inner liberty in toto, he will not act out the suggested dictate other propulsive vital. Here is what the Mother would like the sadhaka to do in this situation:

" 'Well,... I am going to try not to do it, and I shall not do it, I shall apply all my strength and I shall not do it.' Even if you have just a little success, it is much. Not a big success, but just a small success, a very partial success: you do not carry out what you yearn to do; but the yearning, the desire, the passion is still there and that produces whirls within, but outside you resist, 'I shall not do it, I shall not move; even if I have to bind myself hand and foot, I shall not do it.' It is a partial success — but it is a great victory because, due to this, next time you will be able to do a little more." (M C W, Vol. 5, p. 213-14)

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Fourth Step: After having subdued the propulsive vital for the time being, after having succeeded in not indulging in the action the reaction sought after by the vital, the sadhaka has now to turn his attention inward and build up there in his consciousness a liberated mind and a power of enlightened discrimination. This is such a mind as is a genuine seeker of the truth at any cost and a faithful adorer of the Divine's Will. On no account should this mind justify the blind impulses and appetites of the vital by supplying plausible arguments in its favour. This mind possesses detachment and is free from slavery to the vital' s promptings.

But the question is: is it possible to build up such a mind which will act the role of a detached witness even when the vital' s turmoil is still effervescing in the subjective field of the sadhaka?

Well, the stage the aspirant has reached is such that he has not indeed manifested in overt action the suggestions of the vital but he has not yet been able to extinguish the raging passions of the vital. In this piquant situation is it at all possible that the sadhaka will be able to effect in his consciousness a partial disidentification and establish the impartial outlook and attitude of a witness? Will it not be a contradiction in terms?

No, it will not be so; and therein lies a mystery of the occult functioning of the human consciousness. Sri Aurobindo has explained this phenomenon in great detail in the chapter "Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge" of The Life Divine. Here is a relevant portion of what he has said there:

"... an uprush of wrath... swallows us up so that for the moment our whole consciousness seems to be a wave of anger: other passions, love, grief, joy have the same power to seize and occupy us;... But... there is a double movement; a part of our selves be-comes... the passion, another part of us either accompanies it with a certain adherence or... falls short of identification or entire self-oblivion in the movement.

"This identification is possible, and also this simultaneous separation and partial identification, because these things are becomings of our being...; but, since they are only a small part of us, we are not bound to be identified and occupied, — we can detach ourselves,

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separate the being from its temporary becoming, observe it, control it, sanction or prevent its manifestation: we can, in this way, by an inner detachment, a mental or spiritual separateness, partially or even fundamentally liberate ourselves from the control of mind nature or vital nature over the being and assume the position of the witness, knower and ruler." (The Life Divine, p. 525)

Now the more of this disidentification and witness consciousness is established in the sadhaka' s being, the more will he be able to extend his sway over the turbulence of the vital.

Fifth Step: The sadhaka will now proceed to reason with the errant vital as if with a misguided recalcitrant child. His pleading may be somewhat as follows:

"Brother Vital, you know everything is transitory, just a passing show of the moment. Even if you gain what you are yearning after so much now, what permanent benefit will accrue out of that? For how long will you remain contented with your acquisition?' Only for a short while. After that you will surely be athirst for a new thing; and your frustration with this new thing is bound to follow sooner or later. then you will hunt after a third new thing and this alternation of expectant tension and ensuing disenchantment cannot but accompany the pursuit of all your Recessive desires. So why are you irrationally chasing the will-o'-the-wisp like a wild and irrational unbridled horse? Why don't you ponder a bit?

"Brother Vital; let me draw your attention to a second point of much more importance. Don't you see that because of your impetuosity you are sacrificing a far greater good for the sake of a paltry gain of the moment? You are losing the prospect of an eternal and infinite spiritual bliss because of your infatuation with the vain and cheap pleasure of the vanishing present. Activate your common sense, Vital; don't lose the sense of proportion.

"Brother Vital, cry halt to your reckless course; quieten your-self; choose your action and reaction keeping your future interest in view; and don't be so silly as to lay the axe on your own feet under the blind surge of a moment's passion; etc."

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Sixth Step: Along with this persistent effort at persuading the vital to come back to the right track, the sadhaka will try to apply his strong and enlightened mental will in a steady manner. And in order to make this will really powerful and effective in result, he should at the same time (i) develop in him a clear-sighted faculty of discrimination; (ii) grow into a mind of knowledge convinced of the necessity of attaining a spiritual life; (iii) enthrone in his heart an intense and unvarying love for the ideal and the Divine; and (iv) awake in his consciousness a constant aspiration for progress and perfection.

These qualities will remove the flabbiness of the sadhaka' s will-power and turn it into a really robust and potent instrument for the con version of the vita l.

Seventh Step: But this surface will-power may not be able to deliver the goods on all occasions. For the outer life-self is a very crafty opponent which is not concerned so much with knowledge as with self-affirmation, desire and ego. It attempts always to make the thinking mind its tool and servant which in its turn supports the vital' s urge to self-affirmation and justifies its deviant impulses and actions. A mere mental will will not be able to see through the game and get the upper hand over the deceitful vital. In Sri Aurobindo' s description:

"... in this vital ego there is frequently a mixture of the charlatan and mountebank, the poser and actor; it is constantly taking up a role and playing it to itself and to others as its public. An organised self-deception is thus added to an organised self-ignorance..." (The Life Divine, p. 533)

Such being the intractable problem with the vital, the sadhaka cannot rely on his (surface powers alone. He has to leave the outer domain, go deep within his consciousness, and observe these dramatic subterfuges from there at their sources. He has to contact his psychic being and allow its power and light to fall upon the self-deluded vital to bring about its radical conversion.

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Eighth Step: Life as it is normally lived is a movement of obscure desire driven or led by the impulses of a vehement but im-pure life-force. For the establishment of a veritable spiritual life this turbid life-force on the surface has to be replaced by the luminous Life-Force within which is now waiting behind the veil in our secret subliminal. This true Life-Force has to be evoked from within and made active in the habitual field of our daily action and reaction. This Life-Force, as Sri Aurobindo has pointed out, is not the same as the troubled, harassed, divided and striving surface energy with which we are familiar but "a great and radiant Divine Power, full of peace and strength and bliss..." (The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 167)

Ninth Step: This is not in its nature actually the last step coming at the end of the series. Rather, this should be the constant accompaniment of the sadhaka' s sadhana throughout the entire period of his sadhana-life. This step represents the sending up to the Divine Mother a sincere and steady prayer spontaneously rising from the heart of the aspirant and appealing to the Shakti with the candid trust of a child that, by the action of Her Grace, the importunate vital impulse that may be troubling the sadhaka at that moment, be subdued and neutralised.

Miraculous is the potency of prayer in the case of one who knows how to rightly pray. (See chapter VIII entitled "How to Call and Pray?".)

Let us close this rather long essay on the sadhana of the vital by quoting a significant passage from the Mother's writings. Being faced with the attack of a vital fury at any moment of his sadhana-life, the sadhaka should resolve:

"I shall apply all my strength and I shall not do it.... Next time you will be able to do a little more. That is to say, instead of holding all the violent passions within yourself,... you will calm them slowly at first, with difficulty. They will remain long, they will come back.... then little by little... that thins out... and you begin to learn the second attitude: 'Now I want my consciousness to be above those things. There will still be many battles but if my con-

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sciousness stands above that, ... there will come a time when these will return no longer.' And then there is a time when you feel that you are absolutely free: you do not even perceive it, and then that is all." (M C W, Vol. 5, pp. 213-14. Adapted.)

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