Sri Aurobindo : corresp.
THEME/S
The Year 1933
Can I not command my body to cut down its sleep to two or three hours only? I have heard that many Yogis are able to minimise their sleep.
It is not possible to do at once what you like with the body. If the body is told to sleep only 2 or 3 hours, it may follow if the will is strong enough — but afterwards it may get exceedingly strained and even break down for want of needed rest. The yogis who minimise their sleep succeed only after a long tapasya in which they learn how to control the forces of Nature governing the body.
How is one to get out of one's limited physical personality?
Getting out means the consciousness widening so that one does not feel oneself any longer as shut up in the body or identified with the body and with the ordinary personality.
The Peace is not of the nature of inertia, but the inertia of tamas is a degradation of peace or rest as rajas is a degradation of divine Force. So when the physical is invited to peace and cannot receive it, it
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brings up inertia instead.
Does the mental tamas remain till one realises the supermind?
No. The mental tamas need not remain—the physical can only disappear altogether by the supra-mental descent.
Does not the whole nature get transformed only when the Supramental descends?
Yes—but there is a preliminary transformation in which the tamas can be greatly reduced or remain in the most material or be changed in its character.
Tamas cannot of itself turn into Peace. One has to bring down Peace from above.
What would be the activity of the transformed mechanical mind?
It would be no longer mechanical, but a basis of permanent illumination in the body consciousness.
Some friend said: "One feels the inner touch gone because one may not be quite ready to retain the Divine's pressure. Probably it might be the Divine Himself who takes it away, for our physical body may get fatigued by the constant working." Is this a fact?
Yes, the ordinary physical consciousness is not able to hold the contact and it does get tired — also it cannot assimilate much at a time. But it is not always the Divine who takes away the pressure; the lower consciousness itself loses it or gives it up.
Why is the physical mind so much open to the vital suggestions and forces?
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The physical depends on the vital, at every step— it could not do anything without the help of the vital— so it is quite natural that it should receive its suggestions.
What makes the physical so weak that it can't do without the vital's help?
The physical is not weak, it is inert, because inertia is its principle — it is meant to be an instrument.
If our vital is a projection from the vital world itself, why does it feel everything new and strange when it enters there during night?
The vital does not feel anything strange there. It is the physical consciousness that feels strange when it gets the transcript of the experience.
The year 1934
It is not necessary to have committed anything— the obstacles of vital and physical Nature are sufficient to bring a pause. One has to remain quiet during the pause and not allow vital disappointment and depression.
The true passivity does not lead to inactivity — but the physical may wrongly take the pressure of passivity for an invitation to inaction.
Is the inertia due to the pressure of the Force?
The pressure of the Force never produces inertia. It is a resistance or non-response in the physical that produces it.
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"You" are not the body. It is perfectly possible for the body to be strained without the mind or vital knowing or feeling it. The result appears only afterwards.
It is more often the physical that lowers like that without cause. In the vital it is only when there is a general feeling of want of interest in the sadhana because the sadhana is concerned with things it does not understand or seek for or else because it is not bringing results rapidly or brilliantly or for some other similar reason.
The body needs rest, if it is given the needed rest, it can be taught to recover quickly— if forced it quickly becomes tamasic.
Cannot the vital aspirations drive out the mental or physical tamas by their intensity?
For the time being only. It must be a higher power that will take them away permanently.
When there is intensity in the vital it always brings down a lot of energy. What does the intensity in the physical give?
Solidity or stability.
You wrote: "Get rid of the tamas of the physical which makes it painful." I am not aware of this tamas specially during the meditation when the spine and the body ache.
That you don't feel it does not prove that it is not there. You had better become conscious of the tamas if you are not. By tamas I mean the inertia of the physical being which resists the Power and so causes
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the aching of the spine and the body. Why should the spine and body ache if there were no physical resistance?
THE MOTHER'S FORCE ON THE PHYSICAL BEING
During the present extrovert state when I try to concentrate for a silent receptivity it creates a pain in the forehead and particularly between the eyebrows. Why so?
Resistance in the physical stuff to the activity of the inner will and vision centre.
Doubt and questioning are part of the physical obstruction.
The physical does not get tired of the blankness. It may feel tamasic because of its own tendency to inertia, but it does not usually object to voidness. Of course it may be the vital physical—you have only to reject it as a remnant of the old movements.
I could not understand this — "peace we must have, but not the peace of a devastated nature or a mutilated capacity incapable of unrest because it is incapable of intensity."
Not tamasic peace which is at rest because it does not aspire after anything, is too tired by suffering and misfortune etc. to care for anything.
After seeing the Mother, my flesh began to feel
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different kinds of experiences. I do not know how to express them.
Even the teeth, the most inconscient part of the body, have entered into the field of experience!
Yes, these things are felt when the Force is working.
But I wonder why the action of the Mother's Force is confined so much. All is limited up to the parts of my neck only!
It always begins like that.
You said yesterday: "These things are felt when the Force is working." Our human mind would like to argue about this point: how is it the Force begins to act on an inconscient substance like teeth before it has acted sufficiently on the conscious parts like the vital and physical?
With many these experiences are the first they get.
The Fire around the body continues. It has enveloped the being like an armour. But what is its effect in the body? — a fiery intensity in the cells and the pores. Can this be true? The mind refuses to believe it.
It can very well be true.
Just at the end of the general Meditation the submind (subconscient or mechanical mind) became very active. I fail to understand the reason of its sudden coming up like that at such a time. Usually after the Meditation most of the being is either taken up into the absolute silence of the Self or the Higher fills
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it up with its static pure existence. This keeps the submind strongly intoxicated till I fall asleep.
It is probably the physical that could not keep up with the concentration, so started the submind business.
My lower vital seems to have hindered the free opening of the psychic being. That is why I don't feel any soul-movement like love, bhakti or joy in my heart and inner vital.
I think this is the worst possible phase of the sadhana.
The uprising of the inertia and the persistence of the vital have to be fought out by constant rejection until there is the descent of the Force in such a way as to make one with the peace and silence — these being so strong that nothing will be able to touch or cover the inner being.
There is a doubt in the physical mind whether, when the mental proper and the vital are not totally quieted, the purification of the physical can begin.
Does it imagine that everything is done by sections? All the parts of the being react upon each other. The purification of the physical being is long but the mind and the vital are thoroughly and permanently cleaned.
There is a feeling of the Mother's Force having
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entered into my physical nature and now working there. Is it correct?
There is a pressure on the physical nature to admit the Force.
When the tamas and rajas are driven out, one is in a sattwic state. But if the tamas enters again into this state how can an utter quietness be maintained?
You cannot drive out rajas and tamas, you can only convert them and give the predominance to sattwa. Tamas and rajas disappear only when the higher consciousness not only comes down but controls everything down to the cells of the body. They then change into the divine rest and peace and the divine energy or Tapas,— finally sattwa also changes into divine Light. As for remaining quiet when tamas is there, there can also be a tamasic quiet.
During the general morning concentration, my human consciousness went deep into the inner being and began to aspire. There it felt the working of the Mother's Force which slowly became more and more intense. My body could not bear its pressure for a long time. So I brought my consciousness out for a rest and again took it inward; like this it went on for some time.
When the body cannot bear, one has to go slowly, doing as much as possible without disturbing it.
Almost for the whole day the previous experience of the mind's liberation went on. During the physical actvities it was not felt so vividly and exclusively. What I fail to grasp is, however, this; since it is a
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(purely) mental liberation, how is it that my flesh too feels some experience?
The flesh has a consciousness as well as the mind — all the consciousness is connected together so if the mind is freed, there is no reason why there should not be an effect on the physical also.
Let me tell you what happened during my noon nap. I was on the lap of the Mother. She had put her transforming palm on my head. With her thumb she was pressing or rather opening the Brahmic centre of my head. I began to feel as if something were received from there. Then all on a sudden there was a shifting of the consciousness into some other world. A supra-physical light was experienced in the cells of the body which was already flooded with light. The physical itself was taken up. Will you please explain this phenomenon?
There is nothing to explain. It was what you describe: At once the raising of the consciousness to a higher plane and the descent of that into the physical.
Today's special working seems to be on the eyes. Something definitely is going on there. A strong pressure is felt working on them.
That is when the Force is preparing the body.
It would really be interesting to know what is going on in the parts between my head and neck?
It is a preparation of the body for the mental transformation.
My body-consciousness does not resist as before.
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and allows itself to be used by me.
Evidently there has been much progress there.
When the Mother's Force tackles the physical, cannot the body allow it to work quietly as the mind and vital do?
The law of the physical is inertia, dullness, obstruction to whatever is new or not yet established.
Even when the physical throws up inertia, is it not possible to cast off dullness and sorrow brought in by the inertia and continue maintaining our normal state of happiness?
Yes, but it needs a strong poise and great vigilance. Normally it is only after one has had a taste of dullness and inertia that one recovers.
It is the physical resistance which came up in you (the vital dissatisfaction with the emptiness giving it a chance) and the physical resistance there is an obstinate inertia. Its note is "stay where you are". Probably you will have to resort to an active aspiration to get rid of the obstructive inertia.
The physical consciousness has a force of inertia which makes it always go on with its old conditions, movements, responses, habits even without sanction or any true utility in them.
It is the tendency of the physical to substitute its own inertia for the emptiness. The true emptiness is the beginning of what I call in the Arya "shama" —the rest, calm, peace of the eternal Self — which has finally to replace tamas, the physical inertia. Tamas is the
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degradation of shama, as rajas is the degradation of Tapas, the Divine Force. The physical consciousness is always trying to substitute its own inertia for the calm, peace or rest of the true consciousness, just as the vital is always trying to substitute its rajas for the true action of the Force.
At present when the descent of the Mother's Force is the only movement prominent, why do I feel an increasing weakness in the body?
Probably the material is not yet open enough to receive the Force.
In the evening I felt something descending and reaching down to the chest. Probably it was the Mother's Force.
Probably. You should establish the Force now in the form of a strong peace.
For the last three Darshans it has been noticed that the physical consciousness rises up and disturbs the free play of my consciousness just during these days.
The obstacles still in the nature very often rise up at these times. That means that they offer themselves to be overcome, — that is how you must take it.
Some say that it is not possible to fix peace in the outer physical till the supramental descent, and that there is only one man in the world who has done it up to now.
Who says that? Peace can be brought down into the physical—to its very cells. It is the active transformation
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of the physical that cannot be completely done without the supramental descent.
BODY-SENSE AND SADHANA
It is not only from the teeth that the nectar-juice (Amrita) flows. It springs from any part of the body.
During such a condition, sometimes the consciousness feels as if there does not exist a mouth or any part inside the mouth — only there is Amrita and Amrita!
That kind of non-existence of the body or of some part of it is a frequent experience in sadhana.
During the state of self-realisation very little sense remains of my body. I do not know what it does or where it lies.
That is usual. I was in that way unconscious of the body for many years.
It also happens that when the experience is of a voidness I feel the whole body to be as light as cotton-wool.
Yes, it becomes like that. In the end you feel as if you had no body but were spread out in the vast-ness of space as an infinite consciousness and exis-tence — or as if the body were only a dot in that consciousness.
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Occasionally the whole head down to the neck becomes as if unreal— no substance is felt there.
That happens when the consciousness is liberated from the body sense.
The consciousness feels as if the Pure Existence were materially descending into one, down to the neck. But how can that be?
The Pure Existence is not something abstract but substantial and concrete. Moreover it is descending into the body, so it is quite natural to feel it materially.
During the general meditation with the Mother, my consciousness rose upwards in an utter passivity. I became unaware of my body up to the neck.
It means the whole mind was liberated for a while from imprisonment in the body sense and became free in the passivity of the wider self.
During that experience I did feel the freedom from the body sense. But what about the mind sense? In a full and solid experience of this kind will there be any trace of the mind's existence?
That depends on the experience. It is usually had on the spiritual mental plane. There may be no active thinking mind, but the stuff of consciousness is still mental, even though it may be mind spiritual and liberated. Of course there may be the sense of pure spiritual existence, but that comes less easily.
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