In the Mother's Light

The Human Body

No part of the psycho-physical organism of man has been more misunderstood and mishandled than the body. Either it has been unduly coddled and cossetted, and its coarse demands and pleasures inordinately indulged, or a severe asceticism has ridden rough-shod over it, denying even its elementary need and depressing or damaging its motor powers. Man's dealing with his body has usually swung between these two ignorant extremes, and it is only in rare individual cases that it has been able to strike a balance and steer a middle course. And even this balance has been a rather poor and precarious makeshift, there being always an unsuspected disproportion or a wrong stress on the part of the mind or the life forces illegitimately interfering with the natural working of the body. Never has man awakened to the spiritual potentialities of his body and the role it is meant to play in his terrestrial perfection. Never has he faced its defects and difficulties with a searching empathy and a patient, dispassionate courage, and directed the powers of his soul or the supreme Force of the Spirit to effect its radical conversion and transfiguration. Even Plato who gave so great an importance to physical culture, speaks with an undisguised disparagement of the body which, in his view, is "the source of endless trouble to us by reason of the mere requirement of food, and is liable also to diseases which overtake and impede us in the search after true being; it fills us full of loves, and lusts, and fears, and fancies of all kinds, and endless foolery, and in fact, as men say, takes away from us all power of thinking at all.... It has proved to us by experience that if we would have true knowledge of anything, we must be quit of the body." The Stoics gave an added impetus to the mortification of the flesh, and the Neo-Pythagorians carried on the tradition with an un- abated zeal. Nor did Christianity improve upon this pagan attitude, rather its later development tended to put a premium on the contempt and chastisement of the body, culminating Sometimes in a positive self-torture, In India the whole post-

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Upanishadic period of philosophical thought and spiritual practice has been marked by a growing and glorified aversion to the body, and even Hathayoga, which concerns itself with the body and its health and longevity, does so with the ulterior motive of the soul's release from the material bondage into the freedom and peace of the pure spiritual existence, and not for any spiritual conquest and perfection of the body itself. Even the great eight siddhis or supernatural powers are regarded as incidental to a certain line of spiritual advance, and not as an achievement in themselves, so far as the body is concerned.

Thanks to the prevailing pragmatism of the modern age, the body has come to claim its rightful place in the hierarchy of our natural instruments and assume, in spite of the materialists, a teleological importance and significance. An expansion, enrichment and enlightenment of life is one of the two most insistent demands of the modern mind—the other being the unity of human life—and for the fulfilment of this demand, what is essential is a physical frame capable of holding the heightened powers of life and responding to its varied urges towards self-development and creative self-expression. The studied neglect and high disdain of the traditional religious outlook are being replaced by an earnest plumbing of the physical possibilities of the human body, and though science is leading in this endeavour, resurgent spirituality is trying to catch up with it and investing the endeavour with a deeper significance, and lifting it from the domain of the merely physical to that of the boundless supraphysical.

And yet the inmost secret of the body has not been discovered and its hidden springs have not been touched. Beyond all the accumulated knowledge of physiology and anatomy, beyond the momentous discoveries of biology, anthropology and psychology, beyond even the horizons of neo-spiritual aspiration and vision, there waits a great mystery to be revealed, the crux of the physical birth of man to be resolved. What is the body? What is its proper function and destiny ? What is the right way of dealing with it ? What is the secret of its mastery and transformation ? These are some of the questions we shall

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briefly consider here in the light of the Mother's teachings.

The body is the material form of the self-manifesting Spirit. In its fundamental essence, it is the substance of the Spirit itself, luminous and immortal, but in its phenomenal formation in the inconscience of Matter, it undergoes such a modification as to belie its eternal essence and become dense and mutable and perishable. Density, insensibility and inertia are the gift of its inconscient origin, and mutability and mortality the condition of its evolution in the Ignorance. When the soul evolves, its triple nature of mind, life and body also evolves with it. This evolution is a progressive refinement, purification, widening and deepening of the emergent consciousness and the realisation of its potential capacities for instrumental action. The mind, because it is the subtlest and most elastic and plastic of the three instruments, evolves with a greater celerity and ease than the other two; the body takes the longest time and offers the most obstinate resistance. But it, too, is an instrument, a very important instrument at that, in our earthly existence; in fact, it is the base and pedestal upon which we stand for our spiritual growth and fulfilment. Therefore it has neither to be repressed nor pampered, but patiently and properly trained and perfected. That it is capable of an infinite perfection is attested by two facts : first, the ascending scale of its development in evolution and, second, the existence of its sustaining, subtle counterpart behind, which is wider, ampler, lighter, plastic and transparent. When we study the ascending scale, we find that the most dense, inert and rigid material form (body) is the stone, in which the indwelling consciousness is imprisoned and shrouded in its corporeal tenement. A creeper or a plant is a less dense body of the evolving soul,—the delicacy, suppleness, grace and adaptability of the form betray the awaking Inhabitant. The body of an animal is more free and flexible, mobile and mutable, and capable of expressing something of its inner movements. The human body is a distinct improvement upon the body of the animal, and its architectonic harmony and beauty are fully approved by the gods, says one of the Upanishads. It can reflect and reproduce, to a remarkable extent, the stuff, colour

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and psychological vibrations of the human consciousness, work Out, as far as it lies in its power, the behests of the will and support the manifold action of an expanding mind and life. It is more conscious than the body of an animal—though its consciousness is mostly a subconsciousness,—and able to adapt itself to all sorts of conditions and contingencies. This ascending scale of perfection lends support to the belief that if man's consciousness undergoes a further change and breaks out of its present sense-moulds into the limpid infinity of the Spirit, his body may also register a considerable change, provided he wills it. The body is a material reflex of the soul, a crystallisation of its formative energy, its clay configuration. There is no gulf between it and the soul, but an ascending series of substance, linking up the crust to the core, and a correlation of creative energies. Every advance made by the soul and the mind is, therefore, sure to produce its results upon the body in some form or other, and no limit can possibly be set to this progressional parallelism. But what has weighed in favour of repression or rejection of the body is its density and inertia, its slowness to change, its instinctive recoil from the light and force of a higher poise. This dull conservatism—it is essentially a principle of conservation—can be overcome, as the evidence of morphology proves, and a radical transformation effected, not only in its instincts and impulses and desires, but even in its structure, texture, and organic functions.

The second fact¹which supports our theory of physical transformation, is the existence of the subtle or etheric body, just behind the gross body. Through the medium of this subtle body, the soul or the mind can, if it knows how to do it, influence and change the gross body to an unimaginable extent. It can purify or enlighten it, fill its nerves and tissues and veins with a subtler energy and verve, and supplement the normal limping and limited action of the outer senses by the superior working of the subtle ones. It can eliminate the causes of the body's weakness and its susceptibility to illness, and infuse into it something

¹ I take it for granted that modern advanced thought does not deny its existence,

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of its own fire, freedom and flexibility. Most of the physical attacks in the form of diseases come through the subtle physical and can be stopped there before they get at the gross, body, if one has the knowledge and perception of the operations of that sheath. Faith cure, cure by hypnotic suggestion, etc., even after due allowance has been made for the elements of chance and superstition involved in them, point to the occult presence of potent curative agencies which, once set in motion, may per- form miracles on the material plane. Indeed, except to a willful obscurantist and unseeing sceptic, miracles are not after all so miraculous as they seem at the first blush.

There are other facts as undeniable as the two referred to above, but they are far removed from the normal experience of man and the orbit of his immediate perception. It is only when his consciousness, which is now almost wholly identified with material things, rises beyond them into the large air of the Spirit-skies that a new limitless vista will open before him and he will know that he is infinitely greater than he ever imagined, and that he has the power to reveal and radiate this transcendent greatness by every part of his being, even by every pore of his body. "There is , so to say, no limit to its (the body’) growth in capacities and to its progress”, says the Mother, "provided one discovers the true method and the proper conditions. This is one of the numerous experiments which we wish to attempt in order to break the collective suggestion and show to the world that human possibilities surpass all expectations.”¹

If such are the possibilities of the human body, how is it that it suffers so much and proves such a stumbling-block to our mental and spiritual progress ? The Mother says that the mind and the life are the two "brigands' that sack and ravage the body. "The body is a marvellous instrument, it is our mind that does not know how to use it, and, instead of promoting its suppleness, its plasticity, puts into it a certain fixity arising from preconceived ideas and unfavourable suggestions.”² The mind imposes its own ideas, which are nothing but ignorant constructions,

¹ Bulletin of Physical Education.

² Prayers and Meditations of the Mother.

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upon the body, and, in its effort to compel it to subserve its own ends, disrupts the natural harmony of the physical-organism and throws it out of gear. The vital forces, in the blind fury of their desires, prey upon the body and suck up its life-blood. This combined tyranny breaks the body, deadens or destroys its springs and renders it vulnerable to all sorts of suffering.

The body has its own consciousness—though much of it is still submerged and can be evolved—its own mode and rhythm of action and its characteristic way of expressing the self-nature of the being. If patiently and intelligently trained, it can respond to most of the psychological movements of our composite personality and reproduce them in a growing beauty of poise and form. But the training must respect its autonomy and basic qualities, and not play havoc with them in order to force it into a preconceived mould. But the best results can only be obtained if the body and its evolving consciousness are steadily opened to the infinite consciousness and force of the Divine. Once united to its universal source and sustenance, it will receive a perennial flow and know no defeat or depletion.

Among several means of replenishing the bodily energies, the Mother mentions two : "The first is to put oneself in relation with the energies accumulated in the material and earthly world and to draw freely from this inexhaustible source. These material energies are obscure and half inconscient; they encourage animality in man, but at the same time establish a kind of harmonious relation between the human body and material Nature. Those who know how to receive and use these energies generally meet with success in life and achieve whatever they undertake. But still they depend largely upon the conditions of their life and the state of their bodily health. The harmony created in them is not safe from all attack, it generally vanishes when circumstances become ad- verse. The child spontaneously receives this energy from material Nature when it throws out all its forces without measuring, gladly and freely. But in most human beings, as they grow up, this faculty is deadened because of the cares of life and the predominant place mental activities come to occupy in the consciousness,

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"Yet there is a source of energy which, once discovered, never dries up, whatever the circumstances and the physical conditions in life. It is the energy that can be described as spiritual, that which is received not from below, from the depths of inconscience, but from above, from the supreme origin of men and the universe, from the all-powerful and eternal splendours of the superconscious. It is there, everywhere around us, penetrating everything and to enter into contact with it and to receive it, it is sufficient to sincerely aspire for it, to open oneself to it in faith and confidence, so as to enlarge one's consciousness for identifying it with the universal Consciousness, ”¹

"We can easily imagine what would be the consequences of this power to draw at will and in all circumstances from the limitless source of an omnipotent energy in its luminous purity. Fatigue, exhaustion, illness, age and even death become mere obstacles on the way which a steady will is sure to surmount.”²

Speaking on the same subject of opening to the Divine Consciousness and Will, the Mother says, "As soon as physical conditions are a little difficult and there results from them some unease, if we know how to surrender completely before Thy Will, holding cheap life or death, health or illness, our integral being enters immediately into harmony with Thy law of love and life and all physical indisposition ceases, to give place to a well-being calm, deep and peaceful.³

Regarding the protection the human body affords against the attack of the vital beings, the Mother says, "The physical body acts as a protection by its grossness, by the very thing we charge against it. It is dull and insensitive, thick, rigid and hard; it is like a fortress with strong dense walls. The vital world is fluidic, there things move and mix and interpenetrate freely; it is like the waves of the sea that ceaselessly flow into each other and change and mingle. Against this fluidity of the vital world you are

¹ Bulletin of Physical Education, Vol. I. No. 3.

² ibid.

³Prayers and Meditations of the Mother,

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defenceless unless you can oppose to it a very powerful light and force from inside; otherwise it penetrates you and there is nothing to hamper its invading influence. But the body intervenes., cuts you off from the vital world and is a dam against the flood of its forces.”¹

"The human being is at home and safe in the material body; the body is his protection. There are some who are full of contempt for their bodies and think that things will be much better and easier after death without them. But in fact the body is your fortress and your shelter. While you are lodged in it the forces of the hostile world find a difficulty in getting any direct hold upon you. What are nightmares ? These are your sorties into the vital world. And what is the first thing you try to do when you are in the grip of a nightmare ? You rush back into your body and shake yourself into your normal physical consciousness. But in the world of the vital forces you are a stranger; it is an uncharted sea in which you have neither compass nor rudder.. .Directly you enter any realm of this world, its beings gather round you and want to encompass and get out of you all you have, to draw what they can and make it a food and a prey. If you have no strong light and force radiating from within you, you move there without your body as if you had no coat to protect you against a chill and bleak atmosphere, no house to shield you, even no skin covering you, your nerves exposed and bare. There are men who say, 'How unhappy I am in this body’, and think of death as an escape ! But after death you have the same vital surroundings and life. The dissolution of the body forces you out into the open spaces of the vital world. And you have no longer a defence; there is not the physical body any longer to rush back into far safety.”²

The greatest spiritual achievement has to be made here, in this material world, in this physical body. Is the body dense and inert and reluctant ? The reason is that much of it is yet sub- merged in the obscurity of the Subconscient and the Inconscient,

¹ Words of the Mother.

² ibid,

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and so it is incapable of moving forward as quickly as the rest of the being. Is it always prone to illness and suffering ? This too is due partly to its roots being in the Subconscient and the Inconscient and partly to the tyranny of the mind and the vital. An illumination and transformation of these neither regions will make the body not only fully conscious, but impervious to fatigue and illness and suffering. An immortality of the body too is not a Utopian dream, but the inevitable culmination of its progressive evolution. "The body must know and be convinced that its essence is divine,” and that "if no obstacle is put in the way of the Divine’s working”, it can be converted into its divine essence and become a radiant, potent and undecaying instrument of divine manifestation.

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