... darkness, again and again, cover the being and even when the physico-vital is opened the elements of ignorance come up from the lower levels of the physical being. To deal with them is a work of great patience. The physico-vital and the physical being do not accept the Higher Law and persist. They justify their persistence and their play by intellectual and other justifications and thus they try... the physical being, so that the supreme calm and universality will be there in all its fullness from top to bottom. If this cannot be done then the first condition of transformation is not fulfilled. Second thing we have to know and remember is that nothing is perfectly done unless all is perfectly done. It is not sufficient to open the Mind and the Vital Being and leave the Physical being to... changed it is not sufficient for our purpose. Because the whole range of the Vital Being cannot be done unless the Physical Being also is opened and changed, for the divine Vital cannot realize itself in an unfitting environmental life. And it is not enough for the inner Physical Being to be changed if the external man is not transformed. In this process of yoga there is a whole totality and each ...
... instead of the chasm in between there is a constant aspiration of the heart towards the truth above. The light must descend into these lower centres so as to transform the emotional and vital and physical being as well as the mental thought and will. The utility of the psychic experiences and knowledge of the invisible worlds as of other Yogic experiences is not to be measured by our narrow human notions... experiences belong to are quite indispensible. For it is only through psychic opening that the supramental can fully descend and with a strong and concrete grasp transform the mental, vital and physical being. This is the present condition and its value. For the future if he wishes to accept my Yoga, the conditions are steady resolve and aspiration towards the truth. I am bringing down a calm passivity... predominantly mental or mentalised intuitive and afterwards mentalised supramental. It is slow in action but sure and safe, only there is often a difficulty of opening up the separate psychic vital and physical being to the illumination and change. The second by itself is rapid, sensitive, full of extraordinary and striking experiences but apt in the absence of psychic or occult powers to be chaotic, uneven ...
... instead of the chasm in between there is a constant aspiration of the heart towards the truth above. The light must descend into these lower centres so as to transform the emotional and vital and physical being as well as the mental thought and will. Page 336 The utility of psychic experiences and knowledge of the invisible worlds as of other yogic experiences is not to be measured by our... experiences belong is quite indispensable. For it is only through the psychic opening that the supramental can fully descend with a strong and concrete grasp and transform the mental, vital and physical being. This is the present condition and its value. For the future if he wishes to accept my yoga the conditions are a steady resolve and aspiration towards the truth I am bringing down, a calm passivity... tly mental or mentalised intuitive and afterwards mentalised supramental. It is slow in action but sure and safe, only there is often a difficulty of opening up the separate psychic, vital and physical being to the illumination and change. Page 340 The second by itself is rapid, sensitive, full of extraordinary and striking experiences but apt in the absence of psychic or occult powers ...
... instead of the chasm in between there is a constant aspiration of the heart towards the truth above. The light must descend into these lower centres so as to transform the emotional and vital and physical being as well as the mental thought and will. The utility of the psychic experiences and knowledge of the invisible worlds as of other Yogic experiences is not to be measured by our narrow human notions... these experiences belong are quite indispensable. For it is only through psychic opening that the supramental can fully descend and with a strong and concrete grasp transform the mental, vital and physical being. This is the present condition and its value. For the future if he wishes to accept my Yoga, the conditions are steady resolve and aspiration towards the truth. I am bringing down a calm passivity... predominantly mental or mentalised intuitive and afterwards mentalised supramental. It is slow in action but sure and safe, only there is often a difficulty of opening up the separate psychic vital and physical being to the illumination and change. The second by itself is rapid, sensitive, full of extraordinary and striking experiences but apt in the absence of psychic or occult powers to be chaotic, uneven ...
... that an emotion... obviously it is an emotion. But usually, it comes from one thing: the physical being has a not very conscious but very intense longing for a contact with the psychic life. It feels poor, destitute, isolated and abandoned when it is not in contact with the psychic being. Not one physical being in a million is aware of this. But this kind of impression of being lost, left hanging, without... inner dimension. But it is in that region, the region somewhat behind the solar plexus, it is there that one finds it most easily. The psychic being is in the fourth dimension as related to our physical being. You have asked what is the discipline to be followed in order to convert the mental seeking into a living spiritual experience. The first necessity is the practice of concentration of... the heart centre, if one can do it, is the more desirable. The other side of discipline is with regard to the activities of the nature, of the mind, of the life-self or vital, of the physical being. Here the principle is to accord the nature with the inner realisation so that one may not be divided into two discordant parts. There are here several disciplines or processes possible. One is ...
... some power and pretend to be a great Avatar. ( After a pause ) It is easy to fall in this yoga, but it is very difficult to reclimb. Disciple : Was his fall due to some weakness in the physical being ? Sri Aurobindo : He had made his body weak in the non co-operation movement by resorting to ascetic practices. But his weakness was not more than what other people have got. His chief defects... pure spiritual emotion. The psychic being open directly to the Higher Truth and it is that which can receive it here. Disciple : Is it that the psychic being governs man's mental vital and physical being ? Sri Aurobindo : Yes. But in ordinary men the psychic does not govern most of his actions. They are dictated mostly by outside influences. Disciple : You said when speaking about... cannot get to the Supermind like that. The psychic being opens to the Higher Truth, but it is not That, it receives the Truth. The psychic being is what is "behind" the mental and the vital and the physical being, but not "above". Disciple : What is the difference between the psychic and spiritual being ? Sri Aurobindo : You can't speak of the spiritual being except, of course, the being of ...
... become conscious of the physical being? Mankind, nearly all of mankind, is conscious only of the physical being. With education, the number of men who are conscious of their vital and mind is increasing. As for the human beings who are conscious of their psychic being, they are relatively few. If you mean, "How does one awaken the consciousness of the physical being?", that is precisely the... the cells that enters other combinations. 5 June 1968 Page 342 When the will of the physical being abdicates without reason, is it without any physical reason or without any reason at all? The physical consciousness is conscious only physically; the will of the physical being can abdicate without any reason of which it is aware. What causes the physical being's disgust with... is the self-interest of a cell! Does the decentralisation occur all at once or by degrees? Everything does not disperse all at once; it takes a long time. The central will of the physical being abdicates its will to hold all the cells together. That is the first phenomenon. It accepts dissolution for one reason or another. One of the strongest reasons is the sense of an irreparable d ...
... individual through every action of life done as an oblation to the Divine, and the bringing down of the Light-Force of the Vijnanamaya Purusha into the physical being. The Vijnanashakti or supramental Force descends and suffuses the physical being and awakens and activates the divine consciousness that is submerged in it. Purification can be done by the enlightened human intelligence, but it is only... is, as always, on the physical being of man and its radical change, so that the spiritual wealth may be poured out in terms of material facts. Those who have read the Mother's Prayers and Meditations know how, practically through the whole book of over 350 Prayers, the recurring theme is the same : the transformation of Matter, the transmutation of the physical being of man. But this is not... proneness, to suffering and a sharp sense of egoistic separation have been the invariable stamp of it and a constant goad to a resort to absorbed contemplation or trance. Truth is not known in the physical being, because it is gross and dense; peace cannot dwell securely in it, because it is turbid and restless; the soul's limpid joy cannot flow out of it, because it is choked with the fungus of pleasures ...
... No purification of the physical being can be complete unless it deals effectively and radically with the subconscient and the inconscient; for, as I have already said, the roots of our physical being lie in them, and most of the habits, tendencies and impulses of our nature derive from them, and are fed and fortified by their force of inertia. If our physical being is irresponsive to any higher... On Yoga—II. Page 284 The purification of the physical being at its subconscient and inconscient roots will eliminate most of the causes of illness, decay and decrepitude, and make for health and longevity and a general vigour and expressional efficiency in the outer personality. But a transformation of the physical being will go immeasurably much farther—it will bring about a radical... of the very basic principles of its working. A complete immunity from disease and decay, and even from death, will be the eventual result of the supramental transformation of the physical being. The physical being is the facade of the self-manifesting Spirit, and, as such, its purification and transformation are of the utmost importance in the manifestational Yoga of Sri Aurobindo; for, without ...
... individual through every action of life done as an oblation to the Divine, and the bringing down of the Light-Force of the Vijnanamaya Purusha into the physical being. The Vijnanashakti or supramental Force descends and suffuses the physical being and awakens and activates the divine consciousness that is submerged in it. Purification can be done by the enlightened human intelligence, but it is... is, as always, on the physical being of man and its radical change, so that the spiritual wealth may be poured out in terms of material facts. Those who have read the Mother's "Prayers and Meditations" know how, practically through the whole book of over 350 Prayers, the recurring theme is the same: the transformation of Matter, the transmutation of the physical being of man. But this is... sharp sense of egoistic Page 23 separation have been the invariable stamp of it and a constant goad to a resort to absorbed contemplation or trance. Truth is not known in the physical being, because it is gross and dense; peace cannot dwell securely in it, because it is turbid and restless; the soul's limpid joy cannot flow out of it, because it is choked with the fungus of pleasures ...
... to establish a sincere demand in the nervous and the physical being ? Sri Aurobindo : Generally the physical is not insincere. In fact, it is sincere, but very obscure, conservative, slow to change, it is inert and dull. In the nervous being the return to Ignorance comes because of the memory of the past, or because of the physical being throwing up its impurities, or the vital being throwing... whole mould of life. We want to gain the Supramental state in human evolution as the next higher step from the Mind. Now that there are signs of its coming we must try to bring it down into the physical being. It is comparatively easy to ascend to the Supermind. But, then, those who go up generally go away from life. Humanity is the only field of manifestation and all gains must be brought to that... its impurities upon it. Therefore, in dealing with! the nervous impurities you have to see from where they come. If the vital being is sincere then the return in the nervous being comes from the physical being. 941926 The question of drinking and the use of narcotics by Sadhaks cropped up today at the evening table. Disciple : Those Sadhaks who drink, or take narcotics, do they ...
... because the Truth-consciousness acts automatically and produces its natural results. The suggestions that create illness or unhealthy conditions of the physical being come usually through the subconscient—for a great part of the physical being, the most material part, is subconscient, i.e. to say, it has an obscure consciousness of its own but so obscure and shut up in itself that the mind does not... heavily on the body because the opposing forces find it more difficult than before to upset the mind or vital directly, so they fall on the physical in the hope that that will do the trick, the physical being more vulnerable. But the sensibility of the body to attacks is no proof of incapacity, just as a finer sensibility of the mind or vital to attacks was no proof—it can in due time be overcome. As... the attention of these malevolent powers and they immediately want to prove that they can still disturb the body. Simply when they come, reject them. Page 562 The nervous (vital-physical) being supports the body—if it is calm and strong and solid, then the body is well supported and can withstand illness and weakness or, if illness comes, it will bear and more easily get rid of it. If ...
... case also your nervous (vital physical) being is exceedingly conscious and sensitive and anything wrong in the atmosphere affects it more than it would most of the others. Page 402 It was certainly not because the Mother was different to you from other days or pushed you to a distance, but because you came rather shut up in that part of your physical being which is still shrinking from... its influence and take part in it, the fundamental difficulty would disappear; and that is what must happen. But the real difficulty is in the physical and external being—and it is this that the physical being is a creature of habit, of formed character, that is to say of a mass of accustomed movements. As your nature has been full of rajasic egoism, not only in this but in many past lives, it is the... physical, then if inertia comes it is itself something quiet and unaggressive, not bringing such disturbances. But to get rid of inertia altogether a strong dynamic calm is needed. If the physical being has felt and assimilated the silence and peace, then inertia ought not to rise up. Page 394 There is always more chance of inertia at night because of the large part taken by the ...
... the physical being. The infinite consciousness, Mother Aditi (which is termed Para Prakriti or Shakti in later systems of yoga) intervenes, and she brings her sons with her, the cosmic gods or the divine Powers of the supreme Deva. The physical being is visited by the greatness of the infinite planes above; by the descent of the power of the great godheads, the limitations of the 'physical being are... are broken; the light of the infinite planes which reigns above enters into lower levels of being right up to physical being; the physical being opens out to the Light and is upheld in its new wideness by the action of Aditi, supreme power of the infinite consciousness. We may take another example of the idea of immortality which is expressed in the 28 th hymn to Agni in the V th Mandala of... restoring them to youth and vigour. 51 The Ribhus pervade heaven with their workings; they bring divine consciousness and increase the divine mentality. 52 They give to the mental being and the physical being fresh and young and immortal movement. 53 From the house of the Sun, which is the home of the Truth, they bring with them perfection; they fashion the straight path of the truth in contrast to ...
... offer each of the movements to Her in an inner sense." I know this full well. But, my friend, this is a surrender of the physical being through the mind; and I think this not enough in our Yoga. The surrender must be, not only in an inner sense, but direct by the physical being through an- outer action. This will be an outer action, or even the initiation of an outer action, in Page 27 ... Her for a guidance in the forming of your decision will throw open the windows of your physical being and make it possible for Her Force to enter into it. Each time you refer something, even the most outward, to the Mother, not bothering about whether She has time to attend to it or not, you open your physical being to Her and let Her transform it. There is no question here of Her knowing everything... and accepting every movement of inner offering. It is, rather, the question of opening every part, even every cell of your physical being to Her Light and Force and Love. If I feel like seeing Her, I write to Her. If I feel like asking Her whether I should do a particular thing or not, I write to Her. She may refuse me an interview ; She may not tell me outwardly whether I should do the particular ...
... itself for a yet higher mental and spiritual development. But even so, in the physical being which still determines the greater part of our waking self, we act without definite consciousness of the worlds or planes which are the sources of our action. We are aware indeed of the life-plane and mind-plane of the physical being, but not of the life-plane and mind-plane proper or of the superior and larger... are, used by it for its relations with the Page 462 material world. A certain remoteness from physical being and then a superiority to it; a vivid sense of the body being a mere instrument or shell and easily detachable; an extraordinary effectivity of our desires on our physical being and life-environment; a great sense of power and ease in manipulating and directing the vital energy of... in material Nature; it pervades the body, actuates obscurely its movements and is the whole basis of its experiences; it informs all things even that are not mentally conscious. But in man this physical being has become vitalised and mentalised; it has received something of the law and capacities of the vital and mental being and nature. But its possession of them is derivative, superimposed, as it ...
... have taken possession of the field, must be the master of the house. Then, later, things can be arranged. There is only one way for the outer being. Let us take the physical being—the physical being, the poor little physical being, the outer being, which knows nothing, can do nothing by itself. Well, for it there is only one way of allowing the psychic being to manifest: with the candid warmth of... is expressed by the divine Grace. Psychic life in the universe is a work of the divine Grace. Psychic growth is a work of the divine Grace and the ultimate power of the psychic being over the physical-being will also be a result of the divine Grace. And the mind, if it wants to be at all useful, has only to remain very quiet, as quiet as it can, because if it meddles in it, it is sure to spoil everything... mind, the vital and the physical. One of them may be skipped but surely not the last, otherwise one is no longer conscious of anything at all. The ordinary human being is conscious only in his physical being, and only in relatively rare moments is he conscious of his mind, just a little more frequently of his vital, but all this is mixed up in his consciousness, so much so that he would be quite unable ...
... rather stupid, those questions ( Mother hands papers to Satprem ). Page 266 "How does one become conscious of the physical being?" See that, the physical being! It's senseless! You answer: "The near totality of humanity is conscious ONLY of the physical being. Through education, the number of people conscious of their vital and mind goes on increasing. As for the human beings conscious... naturally, for the whole education of the consciousness from the standpoint of character, it's yoga. Another question: "Does the central will of the physical being have a particular center in the body?" The psychic being? The physical being. Physical! It's senseless!... It's the brain, that's all. Here it's more interesting: "Can one have the experience of death without dying... of their psychic being, their number is relatively minimal." They're a bit... they're very ignorant, these children. If at least they asked, "How does one awaken the consciousness of the physical being?" Oh yes, that has a meaning! We could tell them: If that's what you mean, it's precisely the goal of physical education. And teaching is an attempt to replace the Consciousness with... ( laughing ...
... vehicle of receiving the supermind. Sri Aurobindo also points out that the reception of the supermind resulted in the breaking of the limits of the physical being and its opening out to supramental light. It was this attainment of the wideness of the physical being which the Vedic Rishis termed as the attainment of the state of immortality. According to Sri Aurobindo, although this was a very high attainment... the Mother, what is aimed at by the evolutionary force in the human species is the accomplishment of fixing of the supramental consciousness in the physical being and not merely of attainment of the universalisation or vastness of the physical being. In this connection, the following statements of the Mother, in an answer to a question of a disciple (Satprem), are both pertinent and important: ... immortality is not merely concerned with liberation but also with perfection, although the ideal of perfection envisaged by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother is quite new. The Vedic attainment where the physical being becomes widened or universalized on the visitation of the supermind as also the victorious battles of the Vedic Rishis with the opposing subconscient forces, — these achievements have remained ...
... subliminal consciousness, higher consciousness, and the subconsciousness. The inner or subliminal consciousness, which is the central domain of occultism, consists of the awareness of the subtle physical being, inner vital being and inner mental being, as also the awareness of what is cognized by these inner beings. It is recognized that it is always difficult for surface consciousness to open up to... and even of conceptions. According to occult knowledge, there is in the inner realms of consciousness, a larger inner mental being, a larger inner vital being, even a larger inner subtle physical being distinguishable from surface body consciousness. Occultists in different traditions have developed varieties of methods by which one can enter into inner consciousness. If one succeeds in entering... y. One discovers in oneself, the inner being that secretly thinks and perceives, the vital being that secretly feels and acts upon life through oneself, Page 19 and also the subtle physical being that secretly receives and responds to the context of things through one's body and its organs. In the subliminal being one can find the means of 'directly distinguishing between what rises from ...
... long course of organic evolution, has made it possible that man manifest the powers and potentialities of mind and thus truly become Man. But who can affirm that the human body and man's physical being are in their actuality already an unalloyed boon and his physical organization a picture of perfection? For, are we not too poignantly aware of the grossness and limitation of our present physical... corporeal, because of the particular type of structure and organic instrumentation that imposes its restrictions on the dynamism of man's higher nature. The human body even at its best brings "to the physical being...a bondage to the material instruments, to the brain and heart and senses,...to the bodily mechanism and its needs and obligations, to the imperative need of food and the preoccupation with... drive to rise beyond the pull of earth and follow the heavenlier intuitions of its psychic parts, the heart's ideal and the soul's yearnings. On the mind the body imposes the boundaries of the physical being and the physical life and the sense of the sole complete reality of physical things with the rest as a sort of brilliant fireworks of the imagination, of lights and glories that can only have ...
... consciousness one sees them as separate, discovers their distinction and can with the aid of this knowledge analyse their surface mixtures." 4 Another equally important concept is that of the physical being, which is considered not merely as the gross body, but as something that has a distinct consciousness of its own which is different from that of mind and vital, though interfused with mental and... partly related to the physical consciousness, for the force of habit is derived from the inertia and mechanical responsiveness of physical consciousness. As Sri Aurobindo explains: "In the physical being the power of past impressions is very great, because it is by the process of repeated impressions that consciousness was made to manifest in matter - and also by the habitual reactions of consciousness... till the habit, the inner habit revealing itself in the outward act, is broken. It is like a machine which once set in motion repeats the same movement." 25 Page 104 The part of the physical being which is intermixed with the vital is called the vital-physical. It is the part of the being that governs reactions of the nerves. As the nerves are involved in all psychological disturbances and ...
... action of a central divine spark. But the day an external being (physical, mental, vital) enters into direct and constant contact with the psychic being, one may say in the same way that the physical being of this person is organised by the central divine consciousness. The Mother Questions and Answers (1950 - 1951): 24 February 1951 The soul or psychic is immutable only in the sense that... being is the being which presides over the different births one after the other but is itself unborn, for it does not descend into the being but is above it—it holds together the mental, vital and physical being and all the various parts of the personality and it controls the life either through the mental being and the mental thought and will or through the psychic, whichever may happen to be most in... the soul in its essence and the psychic being. Behind each and all there is the soul which is the spark of the Divine—none could exist without that. But it is quite possible to have a vital and physical being supported by such a soul essence but without a clearly evolved psychic being behind it… The inner being composed of the inner mental, inner vital, inner physical,—but that is not the psychic ...
... to light. But here, this boy asks about the link between the cell and the central will of the physical being. Physical, yes. But what you've just drawn is the cellular central will. But it's the correspondence between the two. It was to show me how the central will of the physical being was connected to or acted on the cells. He showed me a cell which was like the representation... ... then, they didn't understand anything. And here are their new questions: ( Mother holds out a letter to Satprem ) Regarding your last reply, here are our questions: "When the will of the physical being abdicates 'for no reason,' is it for no PHYSICAL reason, or for no reason of any sort?" What did I tell them? Yes, regarding leaving one's body, you said, "There are innumerable reasons... physically, that expresses itself as a refusal to exert oneself against the deterioration that stems from time. And the last question: "Where does the link between the central will of the physical being and the cells take place? How is it made?" ( long silence ) The cells have an internal constitution or structure that corresponds to the structure of the universe. So the connection is made ...
... powers of darkness again and again cover up the being and even when the physico-vital is opened the elements of ignorance come up from the lower levels of the physical being. This is a work of great patience. The physico-vital and the physical being do not accept the higher Law and persist. They justify their persistence and their play by intellectual and other justifications and thus try to deceive the... modem systems of Yoga which call themselves Yogic. It is the union of the "Earth" of the Veda and Purana with the divine Principle, an earth which is said to be above our earth, that is to say, the physical being and consciousness of which the world and the body are only images. But the modern Yogas hardly recognise the possibility of a material union with the Divine. ² 31 December 1915 This letter... and in order to realize Him we have to grow conscious of our own true personality. You must know your own inner being. This Personality is not the inner mental, the inner vital and the inner physical being and its consciousness as is many times wrongly described, but it is your true Being which is in direct communication with the Highest. Man grows by gradual growth in nature and each has to realize ...
... animal into the Driver of the herds; let all thyself be Krishna." Oh! that is an image. The animal—that's all the instincts of the physical being, the needs of the physical being and all the habits, all the impulses, all the movements of the physical being, the need for food, the Page 377 need for sleep, the need for activity, indeed all that constitutes the animal part of the being... gives the image of Krishna, whom he describes as the Driver of the herds, which is only an image; this means that it is the divine Consciousness which takes possession of all the activities of the physical being and directs and guides all those activities, all its needs, which controls and governs all the movements of the physical animal in man. Sri Aurobindo uses what could be called Indian mythology ...
... mental being—and operate through our as yet imperfect mental instruments to give this life force a conscious orientation and a conscious method. Life normally finds its own centre in our vital and physical being, in its cravings and its needs, in its demand for persistence, growth, expansion, enjoyment, in its reachings after all kinds of power and possession and activity and splendour and largeness. The... general aim of the preceding chapters,—but it is necessary to state it now more succinctly and precisely. We see that at first sight man seems to be a double nature, an animal nature of the vital and physical being which lives according to its instincts, impulses, desires, its automatic orientation and method, and with that a half-divine nature of the self-conscious intellectual, ethical, aesthetic, intelligently... shift upward what we have called the implicit will central to his life, the force and assured faith inherent in its main power of action. His central will of life is still situated in his vital and physical being, its drift is towards vital and physical enjoyment, enlightened indeed and checked to a certain extent in its impulses by the higher powers, but enlightened only and very partially, not transformed ...
... of his mentality, fill with its luminous and honey-sweet satisfactions the atmosphere of his vital existence, transform into its vastness and plenitude by the power of the Sun the earth of his physical being, create everywhere the divine Dawn. Then are established in man the seasons of the Truth, the divine workings, called sometimes the Aryan workings; the law of the Truth seizes and guides his... he shall uncreate and make us free from the sin. For he is the creator of the Right, he is the creator who creates the Truth. That Truth he shall create in a great wideness and force of our physical being, in a rich abundance of our mental and by its undiminishable vastness he shall uphold all the worlds of our existence. Thus in the working of Savitri whose creation is the Truth and of Mitra and... either a non-perception of right and truth in the mind or a non-seizing of it in the will, or an inability of the life instincts and desires to follow after it, or the sheer inefficiency of the physical being to rise to the greatness of the divine law. Vasishtha cries to mighty Varuna in a passionate litany, "It is from poverty of the will that we have gone contrary to thee, O pure and puissant One; ...
... world up to the highest Beatitude. Of that beatitude Soma is the representative deity. The wine of his ecstasy is concealed in the growths of earth, in the waters of existence; even here in our physical being are his immortalising juices and they have to be pressed out and offered to all the gods; for in that strength these shall increase and conquer. Each of these primary deities has others associated... the daughter of Light, drinkers of honey, bringers of perfect satisfactions, healers of maim and malady they occupy our parts of knowledge and parts of action and prepare our mental, vital and physical being for an easy and victorious ascension. Indra, the Divine Mind, as the shaper of mental forms has for his assistants, his artisans, the Ribhus, human powers who by the work of sacrifice and their... our triple being; and more besides. The development of all these godheads is necessary to our perfection. And that perfection must be attained on all our levels,—in the wideness of earth, our physical being and consciousness; in the full force of vital speed and action and enjoyment and nervous vibration, typified as the Horse which must be brought forward to upbear our endeavour; in the perfect gladness ...
... the life of the body. For freedom and not a skilful subjection is the true means of mastery. A free, not a compulsory acceptance of the conditions, the enlarged and sublimated conditions of our physical being, is the high human ideal. But beyond this intellectual mentality is the divine. The mental life thus evolving in man is not, indeed, a Page 12 common possession. In actual appearance... European intellect, the protagonist of this tendency, with material Nature and the externalities of existence is a necessary part of the effort. It seeks to prepare a sufficient basis in man's physical being and vital energies and in his material environment for his full mental possibilities. By the spread of education, by the advance of the backward races, by the elevation of depressed classes, by... development of a higher life and of more powerful faculties which are yet to manifest and to take possession of the lower instrument, just as mind itself has so taken possession of the body that the physical being no longer lives only for its own satisfaction but provides the foundation and the materials for a superior activity. The assertion of a higher than the mental life is the whole foundation of ...
... happiness and love to withdraw for no reason. No, nothing withdraws; it is the physical being which is unable, by nature, to hold the joy and love for very long, unless it is completely governed by the psychic. It is only after getting up that my condition changes. Yes, it is particularly at night that the physical being falls into obscurity and unconsciousness. I don't understand why, just... Divine? One can hardly say that the Divine expresses himself through a voice , but rather by imparting a certain state of consciousness. When can the physical Purusha awaken and control the physical being? When the Light has descended into the physical consciousness. Can't the love and peace that come from above get distorted when they enter the mind and vital? Indeed they very often... is meant by intellectual faith. Faith is a trust without reasoning. It is not intellectual but mental —the mental being has a faith and the vital being too can have its faith as well as the physical being. As for the psychic being, its faith is natural and spontaneous—faith is the very essence of the psychic being. 18 October 1935 There are supposed to be two kinds of faith: simple, blind ...
... pointer to the type of working tried in those months? There is a significant letter of 18 October 1934: ...if the Mother were bring out the Divine Personalities and Powers into her body and physical being as she was doing for several months without break some years ago, the brightest period in the history of the Ashram, things would be much more easy and all these dangerous attacks that now take... Supermind in his body before 1938 but it had not penetrated his body-substance anywhere: it was a presence in the body inasmuch as it had settled within his embodied mental and vital and even subtle-physical being. His letters testify to individual "perfection" or "transformation" having been sufficiently achieved up to the subtle-physical level,² but they repeatedly admit that the Supermind had not entered... long since the physical mind has changed" - and explains: "The physical mind is the mind of the physical personality formed by the body but it is not the mind of Matter: it is the mind of the physical being." In differentiating what she has been working upon at the moment she goes so far as to state: "You cannot even call it the bodily mind - it is the mind of the cells...." Then we learn from ...
... Our subliminal self is not, like our surface physical being, an outcome of the energy of the Inconscient; it is a meeting-place of the consciousness that emerges from below by evolution and the consciousness that has descended from above for involution. There is in it an inner mind, an inner vital being of ourselves, an inner or subtle-physical being larger than our outer being and nature. This... part of us that we have characterised as intraconscient and circumconscient... includes the large action of an inner intelligence and inner sense-mind, of an inner vital, even of an inner subtle-physical being which upholds and embraces our waking consciousness, which is not brought to the front, which is subliminal, in the modern phrase. But when we can enter and explore this hidden self, we find... of our own inner mental or psychic self and plastic to its thoughts, suggestions, influences or even cast it or its active image in influence into their subjective, even into their vital and physical being to work there as a helping or moulding or dominating power and presence. The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 847 Page 83 × ...
... that the human being has many parts and planes and that each one of them has its own thrust of development, and these thrusts are far from being homogenous or harmonious with one another. The physical being is often in conflict with the vital pursuits, and when the vital ambitions and attractions impose upon the physical body their own burden, the physical often revolts or collapses. The demands... can be made between capacities of personality and values that personality seeks to pursue, embody and fulfil. Thus, each aspect of our being has its corresponding values: the values that the physical being seeks are those of health and harmony of physical beauty; the values of the development of the vital being at its highest are courage and heroism; the values of the mental being are those of clarity... of the One and the knowledge of manifestation constitute the integral knowledge. It is further affirmed that there are four terms of manifestation, the manifestation of Matter of which our own physical being is but a symbolic knot; the second is the manifestation of Life, of which our own individual vital being is but a symbolic knot; the third is the manifestation of the mind, of which our own individual ...
... 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... 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 spir... and Death. Faced with this almost insuperable difficulty of physical trans- Page 302 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, ...
... 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 Page 56 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... Guidance from Sri Aurobindo - Volume 1 The Physical Being 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... 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 Page 59 entered into my physical nature ...
... ng integrality of his realisation, is a global synthesis of all the concepts of the past crowned with his distinctive gospel of the constant, dynamic union and communion with the Divine in the physical being of man. This original contribution of his to the ideal of the divine Union opens up an infinite vista of spiritual perfection and explains and justifies the soul's descent into human birth. ... Spirit in finite, living and ¹ Letters of Sri Aurobindo, Vol. IV. Page 342 thinking Matter. That which most impedes the attainment of this integral union is the dense physical being of man, en- trenched in its obscurity and inert conservatism, and reluctant to open or respond to the higher light. Most initiates of Eternity have, therefore, sought to enjoy the transporting... to the present, by way of redemption, is a modicum of purification and illumination, but not a radical conversion and transfiguration; and without a total conversion and transfiguration of the physical being, the outer personality, it is impossible to have an integral and uninterrupted union with the Divine in active life—the surface self will either lie quiescent and sterile while the soul is entranced ...
... Mother in Her individual poise is closest and easiest of access to our physical being, whose transformation and conversion is the most important condition Page 99 of supramental manifestation. In the Integral Yoga no spiritual experience counts for much unless it is translated into the terms of the physical being, and rivetted and revealed in the outer nature and action. The Mother's... either the status of a , masterful universality or of a featureless infinity in the Transcendent; but a divine fulfilment in the terrestrial existence by the transfiguration of even the surface physical being of man, and a conquest and conversion of Matter itself is a consummation which demands something more than these two clear-cut poises of the Mother—- another and more directly and concretely dynamic... is proposed for thee to realise."¹ Even so far back as 1915, the Mother knew, not only in the depths of Her being, where She has been fully awake ever since Her early childhood, but in the outer physical being, that "Thy will is that from the heart of this heavy and obscure Matter I must let loose the volcano of Thy Love and Light. It is Thy will that, breaking all old conventions of language, there ...
... transfiguration of the physical being of man which is Page 50 half embedded in the Subconscient and the Inconscient —a thing of obscure appetites and mechanical habits, Stubborn in its refusal to admit light and order and any higher conscious force into itself; and no individual, however great he may be, is capable of completely transforming his physical being without there being... being a considerable change and modification in the general physical being of humanity itself. Matter, like Mind and Life, is an indivisible substance, and if the manifestation of the spirit in it is the final destiny of terrestrial evolution, it has to undergo the supramental transfiguration, just as any other part of the human being; and whatever transformation takes place in it, will be the heritage... Supreme in the immobile depths of her being, she has laboured for long years and through unimaginable difficulties to extend the orbit of the union and its creative bliss down to her most outer physical being, so that from her soul to her body and its activities, all may be an uninterrupted expression of the Divine Presence and an integrated means of the fulfillment of His Will. 1 This colossal work ...
... concentration for integral transformation . 23.9.1929 Love the Victor will manifest when there will be established—through the fivefold psychological perfection , the love of the physical being for the Divine , and when, through loving consecration , there will be a complete faithfulness to the Divine. (Fivefold psychological perfection: faith, sincerity, devotion, aspiration, surrender... beginning of realisation . 9.10.1929 Only to those who have a true humility will power be given. 10.10.1929 The power of Agni will keep the aspiration flaming in the physical being . Then can be founded and established in a vital opened to Radha's influence the true supramentalised friendship with the Divine. 12.10.1929 Approach the Divine with loving gratitude... what is meant by transformation . 21.10.1929 Peace in the physical cells leads first to health and then to transformation. 22.10.1929 Advance on the way with peace in the physical being as your ground and simple sincerity as your means and, sooner or later, you are bound to reach identification with the Divine Consciousness . 23.10.1929 Surrender to the Divine ...
... the being which presides over the different births one after the other, but is itself unborn, for it does not descend into the being but is above it — it holds together the mental, vital and physical being and all the various parts of the personality and it controls the life either through the mental being and the mental thought and will or through the psychic, whichever may happen to be most... universality and transcendence, it is yet its deputy in the forms of Nature, the individual soul, caitya puruṣa, supporting mind, life and body, standing behind the mental, the vital, the subtle-physical being in us and watching and profiting by their development and experience. These other person-powers in man, these beings of his being, are also veiled in their true entity, but they put forward... soul-personality, a distinct psychic being to represent it. This psychic being remains still behind the veil in our subliminal part, like the true mental, the true vital or the true or subtle physical being within us: but, like them, it acts on the surface life by the influences and intimations it throws up upon that surface; these form part of the surface aggregate which is the conglomerate effect ...
... and inner mental came to the front in the inward-going consciousness, so this time it was the inner (subtle) physical being that manifested itself. The outer body was numb, the inner body able to move; the breathing with the name flowing in it was the breathing of this inner physical being. Mark that all three (inner mental, inner vital, inner physical) immediately they appear, show themselves to be... to go within, to enter the inner mental depths, the inner vital, the inner (subtle) physical, the psychic, to become conscious of its inmost psychic self or its inner mental, vital and subtle physical being and, it may be, to move and live in the domains, the planes, the worlds that correspond to these parts of the nature. This is what happened in your case. It is the repeated Page 97 ... be those of a born Yogin. For breathing with the name flowing in it is usually the result of a long practice of combined pranayama and japa: but to your inner physical being it comes spontaneously and at once, as if it were to the manner born. N.B. I shall answer your morning's letter in due course. But you have misunderstood my aśraddh ā which was not used in the popular (Bengali) sense ...
... present body She Page 49 was going to achieve the transformation of the entire physical being, including that of the external structure. What She has unmistakably said is: "If you want to do the work all alone, it is absolutely impossible to do it in a total way, for the entire physical being, however complete it may be, even if it is of an altogether higher quality, even if it has... marking the absence of one aim which the Mother was most bent on achieving. The Page 52 exposition principally sets out to deny that aim—namely, the transformation of the entire physical being at the present stage of evolution, in her present body itself. It is extremely improbable, if not absolutely impossible, that those who lived in close contact with the Mother from 24 November... but also when she refers to a state of consciousness which abolishes the sense of wear and tear and she speaks of it as "being established", the talk turns upon the transformation going on in her physical being, for what is "being established" is evidently in herself. It is personal and it points at the end not to failure but to a long future before "the state of spontaneous immortality" arrives. ...
... and vital worlds into terms of his physical experience magnified, prolonged, extended to a condition beyond physicality: he carries by this translation the vital joy and vital suffering of the physical being into supraphysical conditions in which they have a greater scope, fullness and endurance. These constructive environments must therefore be considered, so far as they have any supraphysical habitat... influences are native to the vital world and their hold on him would detain him for a while in their proper province: he may be kept in the grasp of that which held him in its grasp even in the physical being. Any residence of the soul in annexes or in its own constructions could be only a transitional stage of the consciousness in its passage from the physical to the supraphysical state; it must pass... powerful bindings of Karma. This is a reasonable account of the balance: but there is also to be added to the computation the fact that destiny is not simple but complex; the destiny which binds our physical being, binds it so long or in so far as a greater law does not intervene. Action belongs to the physical part of us, it is the physical outcome of our being; but behind our surface is a freer life power ...
... every spiritual consciousness above the plane of Mind but in the specific sense in which Sri Aurobindo uses it — that possesses the Knowledge and Power to effectuate the transformation of our physical being. It is the descent of Supermind from above and the emergence of involved Super-mind from behind the veil into the arena of our manifested becoming that can progressively divinise our inner existence... somehow be illumined and transfigured, there can be no prospect for any physical transformation. For, this 'dragon base' remaining as it is, the dead weight of the inconscient substratum 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 effectuate a radical transformation. Even when the higher... difficulty of physical transformation, 1 The Life Divine, pp. 960-61. 2 Ibid., p. 962. Page 264 most spiritual seekers have tended to turn away from the physical being of man with aversion or even denial, and reconciled themselves to its unalterable fate of ever remaining unregenerate and untransformed. But, evidently, this cannot be the right attitude for ...
... Manifestation is the transfiguration of the physical being of man which is half embedded in the Subconscient and the Inconscient—a thing of obscure appetites and mechanical habits, stubborn in its refusal to admit light and order and any higher conscious force into itself, and no individual, however great he may be, is capable of completely transforming his physical being without there being a considerable... change and modification in the general physical being of humanity itself. Matter, like Mind and Life, is an indivisible substance, and if the manifestation of the spirit in it is the final destiny of terrestrial evolution, it has to undergo the supramental transfiguration, just as any other part of the human being; and whatever transformation takes place in it will be the heritage of humanity at large... Supreme in the immobile depths of her being, she has laboured for long years and through unimaginable difficulties to extend the orbit of the union and its creative bliss down to her most outer physical being, so that from her soul to her body and its activities, all may be an uninterrupted expression of the Divine Page 373 Presence and an integrated means of the fulfilment of His Will ...
... Consciousness, after descending to the mental level, comes down to the vital and even Page 21 below the vital, then a transformation takes place in the nervous and even in the physical being. He asked me to join the meditation in the afternoon and also the evening sittings. This time I saw the Mother for the first time. She was standing near the staircase when Sri Aurobindo ... because it was clear to me that he had been constantly living in the Higher Consciousness. "It is true," he said, "that the Divine Consciousness has descended but it has not yet descended into the physical being. So long as that is not done the work cannot be said to be accomplished." I bowed down to him. When I got up to look at his face, I found he had already gone to the entrance of his room and... Aurobindo . It made a favourable impression and he found that the psychic being could open-though he found (on reading the photograph) that there was hardly any development of the mental being and the physical being was too weak for this Yoga. He saw him seven days later and told him that he could not give this Yoga. to him : "This "is a very difficult Yoga and it makes no less demands on the Sadhaka than ...
... Savitri, shows that man's present constitution is only a constitution which is in movement. Is man only a sum total of mind, life and body? Is man only mind plus life plus vital force plus body, physical being? That is the question, and Aswapathy says, no, these are man's instruments, the ones that the soul uses; so if man realizes, on this side of the equation, his inner entity, then the present equation... of the spirit; when the determinism of the spirit is evoked or brought into movement there is freedom, freedom even in action, not only in consciousness. So man is not only a mental, vital and physical being, but he is a spirit, a divine spark; he has a secret potentiality which can be evoked into a dynamic movement in life. So man has to start with the idea, with the concept that he is a spirit and... element enters into the cosmic constitution, pain can then be eliminated because it will not be necessary anymore. Now it is necessary because man is living only in his mind, his vital and his physical being, but when he begins to live in his inner spirit, he will not require the pressure, the drive, the goad of pain to make him feel Page 43 what is delight. Pain is indirectly ...
... integrality of his realisation, is a global synthesis of all the concepts of the past crowned with his distinctive gospel of the constant, dynamic union and communion with the Divine in the physical being of man. This original contribution of his to the ideal of the divine Union opens up an infinite vista of spiritual perfection and explains and justifies the soul's descent into human birth. ... of man; of an unblemished transcription of the infinite glories of the Spirit in finite, living and thinking Matter. That which most impedes the attainment of this integral union is the dense physical being of man, entrenched in its obscurity and inert conservatism, and reluctant to open or respond to the higher light. Most initiates of Eternity have, therefore, sought to enjoy the transporting... the present, by way of redemption, is a modicum of purification and illumination, but not a radical conversion and transfiguration; and without a total conversion and transfiguration of the physical being, the outer Page 12 personality, it is impossible to have an integral and uninterrupted union with the Divine in active life—the surface self will either lie quiescent and sterile ...
... communism dreams of bringing all mankind down to the level of the vital-physical being, and achieve there an equality which will do away with all differences and disparities of life and establish a reign of unity, both physical and mental. It is a dream which runs counter to the ideal of ancient culture, which was to raise the physical being of man, by progressive stages, towards the glories of the infinite... downs. This transitional foothold gives its distinctive character "to our consciousness. We may call a man a physical man, Page 268 if the foothold of his consciousness is in the physical being; or a vital man, if he lives predominantly in the tossing desires and ambitions and passions of his life- being or vital being. Similarly a man may be called mental or intellectual, if he lives... morass of material cares. And along with concentration and aspiration, there must be an opening to the Mother's Force, so that it may come down and effect the purification and release of the physical being from its own grossness. "The higher consciousness and its force have to work long and come again and again before they can become constant and normal in the physical nature."¹ Another very ...
... earth consciousness the vital being and also the physical being do not at all belong to the Divine, they think they belong to themselves, and the only thing that counts is their own little person; and that is why everything is like this. All the disorder in the universe is due to that. Sweet Mother, here it is written: "there is... a true physical being." What does this mean? There is a physical... organises his existence—only in what may be called the main lines, because for intervening in the details there would have to be a conscious union between the outer being, that is, the vital and physical being, and the psychic being, but usually this does not exist. So externally, in the details... for example, there was someone who in deep perplexity said to me, "Well, if it is the psychic being or ...
... single body; so that gives you the feeling that it is one single person, a single being. But there are many beings and particularly there are concentrations on different levels: just as you have a physical being, you have a vital being, you have a mental being, you have a psychic being, you have many others and all possible intermediaries. But it is a little complicated, you might not understand. Suppose... each one returns to its domain. For example, with regard to the vital being, all your different desires will be separated and each one run towards its own realisation, quite independently, for the physical being will Page 133 no longer be there to hold them together. But if you have united your consciousness with the psychic consciousness, when you die you remain conscious of your psychic being... be wasted. Now, if you live exclusively in your physical consciousness (it is difficult, for you have, after all, thoughts and feelings, but if you live exclusively in your physical, when the physical being disappears, you disappear at the same time, it is finished.... There is a spirit of the form: your form has a spirit which persists for seven days after your death. The doctors have declared that ...
... It is not so easy to become divine. There must be to whatever force or presence comes, a right interpretation and response, a right knowledge in the mind, a right preparation of the vital and physical being. But what you are feeling is an abnormal vital force and exaltation due to the impatience of your desire, and with this there come suggestions born of your desire, which you mistake for truth and... vital exaltation that made you feel your body to see if it was of supramental substance. Understand clearly that the body cannot be transformed in that way into something quite unphysical. The physical being and the body, in order to be perfected, have to go through a long preparation and gradual change. This cannot be done, if you do not come out of this mistaken vital exaltation and come down into... thinking mind, instead of perfecting and enlightening it, and have tried to replace it by artificial "inspirations and intuitions." You have developed a dislike and shrinking for the body and the physical being and its movements; and therefore you do not want to come down into the normal physical consciousness and do patiently there what is necessary for the change. You have left yourself only with a ...
... inner dimension. But it is in that region, the region somewhat behind the solar plexus, it is there that one finds it most easily. The psychic being is in the fourth dimension as related to our physical being. The Mother Questions and Answers (1954): 3 November 1954 The psychic being is in the heart centre in the middle of the chest (not in the physical heart, for all the centres are in the... There is a sort of association between the physical and the psychic and between the mental and the vital being. A mental being is very often a very vital being. A psychic being is very often a physical being. Children—just because this psychic consciousness is in front in them—live also altogether in their body. But as soon as one begins to develop the mind, the taste for association also develops... mental and vital and woman physical and psychic. There is some truth in it. But naturally it involves all possible exceptions and complications. These are arbitrary simplifications. In fact the physical being has a simplicity and even a goodwill (which is not always very enlightened, far from it), but still a simplicity and goodwill which put it in a closer relation with the psychic than the passions ...
... to Matter, to materiality of all kinds, to the call of the unregenerated earth-nature are there and constantly oppose the call of the spirit and circumscribe the climb to higher things. To the physical being it brings a bondage to the material instruments, to the brain and heart and senses, wed to materiality and materialism of all kinds, to the bodily mechanism and its needs and obligations, to the... drive to rise beyond the pull of earth and follow the heavenlier intuitions of its psychic parts, the heart's ideal and the soul's yearnings. On the mind the body imposes the boundaries of the physical being and the physical life and the sense of the sole complete reality of physical things with the rest as a sort of brilliant fireworks of the imagination, of lights and glories that can only have their... which constitute the worlds of a highest truth of existence, dynamism of tapas, glory and sweetness of bliss, the absolute essence and pitch of the all-creating Ananda. The transformation of the physical being might follow this incessant line of progression and the divine body reflect or reproduce here in a divine life on the earth something of this highest greatness and glory of the self-manifesting ...
... this lower manifestation, aparā prakṛti , this eternal portion of the Divine appears as the soul, a spark of the Divine Fire, supporting the individual evolution, supporting the mental, vital and physical being. The psychic being is the spark growing into a Fire, evolving with the growth of the consciousness. The psychic being is therefore evolutionary, not like the Jivatman, prior to the evolution. ... being is the being which presides over the different births one after the other but is itself unborn, for it does not descend into the being but is above it—it holds together the mental, vital and physical being and all the various parts of the personality and it controls the life either through the mental Page 58 being and the mental thought and will or through the psychic, whichever may happen... each plane of the consciousness. On the mental plane it is the true mental being, manomaya puruṣa , on the vital plane the true vital being, prāṇamaya puruṣa , on the physical plane the true physical being, annamaya puruṣa . Each being therefore is, so long as the Ignorance lasts, centred round his mental, vital or physical Purusha, according to the plane on which he predominantly lives, and that ...
... conscious in the Yogic sense. It is when the mind becomes quiet that the real (inner) consciousness comes out or the higher consciousness above the mind comes down. It is only then also that the inner physical being becomes active and brings an alert consciousness and an intuitive sense into the body. Also the higher thought and the inner will comes then only. The exterior being has to become aware... nature, to go within, to enter the inner mental depths, the inner vital, the inner (subtle) physical, the psychic, to become aware of its inmost psychic self or its inner mental, vital and subtle physical being and, it may be, to move and live in the domains, the planes, the worlds that correspond to these parts of the nature. It is the repeated and constant ascent of the lower consciousness that enables... because you were living on the surface altogether and the surface is all crowd and clamour. But in all men there is this silent Purusha, base of the true mental being, the true vital being, the true physical being. It was by your prayer and aspiration that the thing came, to show you in what direction you must travel in order to have the true rasa of things, for it is only when one is liberated that one ...
... you can feel there the wideness, peace, calm, silence of the Self and that can come down into the body through all the centres and there can be the working of the Force in that condition of the physical being, then the vital-physical difficulty can be faced. The effort to do it by personal tapasya can carry one to a certain point, it can throw out sex etc., Page 513 but for most it does... be met and Page 517 overcome, or at least pass without leading to indulgence in one form or another. The other possibility is the settled descent of the higher consciousness into the physical being. It is in these two ways that liberation from sex is possible. The sexual urge is something that tries to take complete hold and leave no room for inhibition or control. It has a power of... If you can exclude sex from the waking thought and consciousness, the survival in sleep will not be so important. It will mean that the sex has sunk down from the conscious mind, vital, physical being into the subconscious; from there it comes up in sleep. But if it has no support from the conscious being, it may be active for a time but its activity will afterwards diminish, become more and ...
... constantly to reject this invasion. By constant rejection, the force of recurrence finally dwindles and the individual becomes free and able to bring the higher consciousness and its movements into the physical being. The difference [ between the physical consciousness of those who are doing sadhana and those who are not ] lies in the fact that those who are doing sadhana live on the physical plane in... n of the Self above and the full descent of the higher peace into all the being down to the most physical. For your sadhana it is necessary first to establish the entire openness of the physical being and stabilise in it the descent of calm, strength, purity and joy with the feeling of the presence and working of the Mother's Force in you. It is only on that assured basis that one can become... good that all should have gone like that and the true consciousness affirmed its control in the physical. These things are indeed attacks intended to prevent the control being established in the physical being as it was in the inner parts. Wherever the physical consciousness opens, the Force can sweep out all that could trouble. Sometimes it takes a little time to overcome the resistance, but finally ...
... intervene and exercise a separative dissociated observation and control over both the dynamic self-associating part of mind and the vital or physical movement. All the observable movements of our physical being also are known and controlled by us in both these ways, the separative and the intimate; we feel the body and what it is doing intimately as part of us, but the mind is separate from it and can... and seeing these things at their source that we can get out of this obscurity and tangle. For a larger mental being is there within us, a larger inner vital being, even a larger inner subtle-physical being other than our surface body-consciousness, and by entering into this or becoming it, identifying ourselves with it, we can observe the springs of our thoughts and feelings, the sources and motives... personality. For we discover and can know the inner being that secretly thinks and perceives in us, the vital being that secretly Page 552 feels and acts upon life through us, the subtle-physical being that secretly receives and responds to the contacts of things through our body and its organs. Our surface thought, feeling, emotion is a complexity and confusion of impulsions from within and ...
... become of great importance when we consider the possible relation between the divine life and the divine mind of the perfected human soul and the very gross and seemingly undivine body or formula of physical being in which we actually dwell. That formula is the result of a certain fixed relation between sense and substance from which the material universe has started. But as this relation is not the only... evolution, and the human being could not hope to accomplish anything essentially greater than his present achievement. But this body, as ancient occult science discovered, is not the whole even of our physical being; this gross density is not all of our substance. The oldest Vedantic knowledge tells us of five degrees of our being, the material, the vital, the mental, the ideal, the spiritual or beatific and... oint. As there are behind our waking mentality vaster ranges of consciousness subconscient and superconscient to it of which we become sometimes abnormally aware, so there are behind our gross physical being other and subtler grades of substance with a finer law and a greater power which support the denser body and which can by our entering into the ranges of consciousness belonging to them be made ...
... the action of the divine life. In the gnostic or divine being, in the gnostic life, there will be a close and complete consciousness of the self of others, a consciousness of their mind, life, physical being which are felt as if they were one's own. The gnostic being will act, not out of a surface sentiment of love and sympathy or any similar feeling, but out of this close mutual consciousness, this... radical change of nature might seem to put off all the hope of humanity to a distant evolutionary future; for the transcendence of our normal human nature, a transcendence of our mental, vital and physical being, has the appearance of an endeavour too high and difficult and at present, for man as he is, impossible. Even if it were so, it would still remain the sole possibility for the transmutation of... sinks from the shining height of its aspiration to something mixed and inferior on the ordinary human level. A common spiritual life meant to express the spiritual and not the mental, vital and physical being must found and maintain itself on greater values than the mental, vital, physical values of the ordinary human society; if it is not so founded, it will be merely the normal human society with ...
... for self-experience and world-experience, for an inward action and an outward-going action, but is yet different from mind, life and body. This sense of difference from the vital actions and the physical being is very marked; for although the Purusha feels his mind to be involved in life and body, yet he is aware that even if the physical life and body were to cease or be dissolved, he would still go... much less this perfection can be attained without a very radical dealing with the present nature and the abrogation of much that seems to be the fixed law of its complex nexus of mental, vital and physical being. The law of this nexus has been created for a definite and limited end, the temporary maintenance, preservation, possession, aggrandisement, enjoyment, experience, need, action of the mental ego... , mutual interference and limitation. There is a similar mixed harmony and discord between various activities of the mind in itself, as also between activities of the life in itself and of the physical being. The whole is a sort of disorderly order, an order evolved and contrived out of a constantly surrounding and invading confusion. This is the first difficulty the Purusha has to deal with, a ...
... after the descent of the Overmind into the physical being of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother the greater aim seemed on the point of achievement. The Mother remarked in 1954 that even as far back as 1938 she used to see the Supermind appearing in Sri Aurobindo's body but what could not be done at that time was to fix it in the most outer physical being. The first fixing took place in circumstances... difficulties of the body which she attributed to the exacting incalculable experiment of what she and Sri Aurobindo called "supramentalisation" - that is, the total "divinisation" of the physical being. Right up to her ninety-third year the Mother was visibly true to her role of Divine Shakti on earth, but her best manifestation as the Ageless One was round about her eightieth year ...
... organised life among them before this date. The occasion marked the spiritual event known as the descent of the Overmind, the world of the Great Gods, the plane of Krishna-consciousness, into the physical being of Sri Aurobindo. It is named the Victory Day, for it gave him the prospect of the culminating descent of the Highest Reality, the Supermind which holds the perfect model of all that evolves here... through its brightest phase — in the sense that marvellous experiences filled every hour. The Great Gods of the Overmind were felt descending and the Mother could bring out most- markedly into her physical being something of the Page 96 powers and personalities which Sri Aurobindo speaks of as being hers: Maheshwari the vast and calm and all-controlling Knowledge, Mahakali the Truth-flashing... to be obsolete if not obstructive under present circumstances. * Psychologically, one of the most central facts of the early days was the conviction that complete divinisation of the physical being was not only an aim of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga but also a practical goal. "Supramentalisation" was clearly understood to include a complete change in the body itself. What is most significant is that ...
... by the inspired logistis. K.A is being restored to constant intensity, pervasion, slightly interrupted continuity by the sadhana tapas. The thick recurrent masses of tamas of oblivion in the physical being are being attacked and dissipated, spontaneous recurrence enforced, sahaituka Page 1132 Ananda brought into occasional activity. The mental tamas masses of oblivion, while writing etc... before simple intellectuality, is now just before the ideal level and is changing to the intuivity. This movement represents a complete mutation of the whole being into the gnostic type. Even the physical being is beginning this mutation. Forecast in the samadhi, this change is also beginning in the jagrat condition. Sparsha has now a greater freedom and variety of the more subtle touches. Half-sthula... the intuitive mentality recurs persistently and has to be idealised into the full logistis. This is especially due to the recurrent imperfection of T² and to the continuance of old states in the physical being. 25 July 1919 Yesterday's recovery was not complete except for a temporary movement. The new siddhi is still invaded by the external intuitivity, though there is no complete relapse. The ...
... suggestions which belong to these planes." 1 When these experiences of the wandering inner consciousness get transmitted to the obscure layer floating over the deep subconscience in which our physical being seems submerged for the time being and our physical mind, 1 Letters on Yoga, p. 1500. Page 198 in a state of sleep-wakefulness, receives and records and translates... the subconscient wanderings of our consciousness during the period of our body's sleep ? As we shall see a little later on, in the prevailing conditions of our untransformed body and physical being, the right way is not to suppress sleep, the great restorer of our energies, but to transform its character. And this can be done only by becoming more and more conscious in sleep itself. "If... before (Chapter III), is our concealed inner being comprising an inner mind and inner life and inner physical with the soul or psychic entity supporting them all. It "is not, like our surface physical being, an outcome of the energy of the Inconscient; it is a meeting place of the consciousness that emerges from below by evolution and the consciousness that has descended from above for involution ...
... what gives you Page 247 the sense of a single person, a single being. But there are many of them, and there are in particular concentrations on different planes: just as you have a physical being, you have a vital being, a mental being, a psychic being, and many others with all possible intermediaries.... So when you leave your body, all those beings will scatter. It's only if you are a... to its own region. With the vital being, for example, your various desires will separate and each of them will go and chase its realization quite independently, because there will no longer be a physical being to hold them together. While if you have united your consciousness to the psychic consciousness, when you die you will remain conscious of your psychic being, and the psychic being will return... money.... Now, if you live exclusively in your physical consciousness (which is difficult, because, after all, you have thoughts and feelings), if you live exclusively in your physical, when the physical being disappears, you disappear along with it, it's over.... There is a spirit of the form: your form has a spirit that lives on for seven days after your death. The doctors have declared you dead, but ...
... strain seems to me to be very poor psychology. Neither Nature nor the vast Spirit in things are so limited and one-tracked as that. Letters on Yoga, p. 1295 (c) The Outer (Surface) Physical Being ...the physiological functionings of the body help to determine the mind's psychological actions: for the body is not mere unconscious Matter: it is a structure of a secretly conscious... that aspect of it which makes some scientists now say that all is brought about by chance and there is no certitude of things but only probability. Letters on Yoga, p. 1436 In the physical being the power of past impressions is very great, because it is by the process of repeated impressions that consciousness was made to manifest in matter — and also by the habitual reactions of co... to reject this invasion. By constant rejection, the force of recurrence finally dwindles and the individual becomes free and able to bring the higher consciousness and its movements into the physical being. Letters on Yoga, pp. 1434-35 Classification It must be remembered that while this classification is indispensable for psychological self-knowledge and discipline ...
... So too what we know of the vital in us is only the outer vital, a surface activity partially expressing a larger secret vital which we can only know by going within. Equally, what we call our physical being is only a visible projection of a greater and subtler invisible physical consciousness which is much more complex, much more aware, much wider in its receptiveness, much more open and plastic... seeing these things at their source that we can get out of this obscurity and tangle. For a larger mental being is there within us, a larger inner vital being, even a larger inner subtle-physical being other than our surface body-consciousness, and by entering into this or becoming it, identifying ourselves with it, we can observe the springs of our thoughts and feelings, the sources and motives... our surface personality. For we discover and can know the inner being that secretly thinks and perceives in us, the vital being that secretly feels and acts upon life through us, the subtle-physical being that secretly receives and responds to the contacts of things through our body and its organs. Our surface thought, feeling, emotion is a complexity and confusion of impulsions from within and ...
... Page 338 In my explanation of the universe I have put forward this cardinal fact of a spiritual evolution as the meaning of our existence here. It is a series of ascents from the physical being and consciousness to the vital, the being dominated by the life-self, thence to the mental being realised in the fully developed man and thence into the perfect consciousness which is beyond... too what we know of the vital in us is only the outer vital, a surface activity partially expressing a larger secret vital which we can only know by going within. Equally, what we call our physical being is only a visible projection of a greater and subtler invisible physical consciousness which is much more complex, much more aware, much wider in its receptiveness, much more open and plastic... If the Purusha in us is passive and allows Nature to act, accepting all she imposes on him, giving a constant automatic sanction, then the soul in mind, life, body, the mental, vital, physical being in us, becomes subject to our nature, ruled by its formation, driven by its activities; that is the normal state of our ignorance. If the Purusha in us becomes aware of itself as the Witness ...
... Twelve years after the descent of the Overmind into the physical being of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother the greater aim seemed on the point of achievement. The Mother remarked in 1954 that even as far back as 1938 she used to see the Supermind appearing in Sri Aurobindo's body but what could not be done at that time was to fix it in the physical being. The first fixing took place in circumstances mind-... taken by the difficulties of the body which she attributed to the exacting incalculable experiment of what she and Sri Aurobindo called "supramentalisation"—that is, the total "divinisation" of the physical being. Right up to her ninety-third year the Mother was visibly true to her role of Divine Shakti on earth, but her best manifestation as the Ageless One was round about her eightieth year. For, ...
... formulating, by overcoming the Ignorance, the supramental being and even the bliss being. It is these states of the Purusha which are described in the Taittiriya Upanishad as annamaya purusa, the physical being, prānamaya purusa, the vital being, manomaya purusa, the mental being, vijanānamaya purusa, the supramental being, and ānandamaya purusa, the bliss being. It is the individual being that... liberation and immortality, the Gita's concept of sādharmya in connection with perfection of Karma yoga, as also the Tantrik view of siddhis or accomplishments, including those of mental, vital and physical being, we are obliged to bring out full value of the idea of perfection as distinguished from that of liberation. The Vedic yoga may be looked upon as an earliest synthesis of the psychological... the greatness and by the Great Ones, the mother Aditi with her sons came or, manifested herself for the upholding." 51 Commenting on this, Sri Aurobindo states: "That is to say, the physical being, visited by the greatness of the infinite planes above and by the power of the great godheads who reigned on those planes breaks its limits, opens out to the Light and is upheld in its new wideness ...
... the Upanishads when we see it in the conception of Being of Knwoledge, vijnanamaya Purusha, exceeding the mental, vital and physical being. But going beyond all this, Sri Aurobindo envisages the working of the supramental power not only as an influence on the Physical being, giving it abnormal faculties, but as an entrance and permeation, changing it wholly into a supramentalised physical. Sri... our ascension, we need to develop all the powers, symbolised by various godheads, so that we may attain to perfection. Perfection must be attained at all our levels, in the wideness of earth, our physical being and consciousness; in the full force of vital speed and action and enjoyment and nervous vibrations typified as the horse; in the perfect gladness of heart of emotion and a brilliant heat and clarity ...
... waking." (Letters on Yoga, p. 1481) We deliberately used the expression 'physical sleep', for, as we shall presently see, it is wrong to assume that the whole of our being sleeps when the physical being goes into dormancy. Be that as it may, the question of sleep gains an urgency in the case of the sadhakas of the Integral Yoga who strive for a progressive inwardisation of their consciousness... which belong to these planes." (Ibid. , p. 1500) When experiences of the wandering inner consciousness get transmitted to the obscure layer floating over the deep subconscience in which our physical being seems submerged for the time being, and our physical mind, in a state of sleep-wakefulness, receives and records and translates them more or less imperfectly, more or less coherently, depending... For it is well acknowledged that in the prevailing economy of the interchange of energies with the universal forces, non e of the dynamic organs of the present imperfect constitution of man ' s physical being can function in a ceaseless way without succumbing after a lap se of time to a state of utter fatigue and dullness. And the cerebral activity of man proves no exception to this genera l rule ...
... and Matter in particular. Some of these views have led to a downright disparagement and 1 The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth, p. 43. Page 31 denial of the physical being of man: some others recognise the importance of the body, even at times its essentiality and perfectibility, but not here upon earth in an earthly embodiment but elsewhere on some supraterrestrial... divine manhood. For Supermind alone possesses the Knowledge and Power to effectuate a total and 1 The Life Divine, p. 231. Page 49 entire transformation of our physical being. But what is the nature of this Supermind ? and what is its potency of action? The Supermind is the self-existent self-effulgent plenary Truth-Consciousness of the Divine Nature, far... emergence." 2 The new evolution will effectuate even for 1 The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth, pp. 9-10. 2 The Life Divine, p. 985. Page 50 the physical being of man as for his mind and life, the triple process of spiritualisation, perfection and utter fulfilment. As a result all the obscurities, frailties and limitations of the physical system of man ...
... have turned man into the summit product of evolution so far. But are we not at the same time poignantly aware that in many of its basic features and dispositions the human body and man's physical being are not a whit better than any other animal body or existence? The grossness and limitations of our present physical 1 Sri Aurobindo on Himself, pp. 99, 109. 2 Letters... obscurities and ambiguities will be radically transcended and the transfigured human body will shine in the glories of a 'pure and spiritualised physical existence'. "The transformation of the physical being might follow [an] incessant line of progression and the divine body reflect or reproduce here in a divine life on the earth something of [the] highest greatness and glory of the self-manifesting... begun to use its direct influence." 2 Now, this process of supramental transformation of the inner being and consciousness of man is bound to have its effect and repercussion on his physical being and system as well. The ascent of the individual from the physical-mental to the supramental consciousness must inevitably open out the possibility of a corresponding ascension in the grades ...
... Nazism was, in fact, the emergence of barbarism, a terrible threat to the advancement of culture and to the work of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. It signalled even a possibility of an attack on the physical being of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Indeed, this possibility became a concrete event when Sri Aurobindo himself sustained an accident; he slipped and fractured his right leg above the knee. This was... which constitute the worlds of a highest truth of existence, dynamism of Tapas, glory and sweetness of bliss, the absolute essence and pitch of the all-creating Ananda. The transformation of the physical being might follow this incessant line of progression and the divine body reflect or reproduce here in a divine life on the earth something of this highest greatness and glory of the self-manifesting... had been told about it and relieved in it, but it didn't have the experience in such a concrete, total and absolute manner that it can't be forgotten for a single second. At that moment, the physical being and the individual, personal body had the experience once and for all. The body always used to let itself be carried along. It was one in consciousness with Sri Aurobindo presence, and depended ...
... constantly to reject this invasion. By constant rejection, the force of recurrence finally dwindles and the individual becomes free and able to bring the higher consciousness and its movements into the physical being." 1 22-1-1937 THE NEGATION BY THE PHYSICAL Why is there such a mad revolt in the lower Prakriti? No one has put any pressure... you are not struggling what are you doing? Letting it come in freely? But that is tamasic. Your letters express a helpless struggle and outcry. Why all this suffering of the physical being on the way to the Divine? It is the nature of the sadhana. The forces of the Ignorance are a perversion of the earth-nature and the adverse Powers make use of them. They do not give... they have no connection with my personal volition. It is a well-known experience — when even the body consciousness feels only the self-existence. Till lately my physical being was all void — as the emptiness had entered there too. But now the Mother's Force seems to have begun to occupy it. Very good. Page 27 My lower vital ...
... cannot be sure whether that was due to something in the very material constitution of the body itself. The Power that he pulled into himself was too much for the physical mind and the nerves. His physical being also is very weak. When the higher Power descended upon it, it broke down. Disciple : Could he have been saved if he had been here ? Sri Aurobindo : Well, that depends. But I could... the success invariably comes. 4-2-1926 The subject this evening was the ideal of a "perfect body" which would be "incorruptible". Sri Aurobindo : The ideal is all right. But the physical being is not at all satisfactory – and one can't, get over it by ignoring facts. Disciple : Mahatma Gandhi .in his autobiography refers to many experiments with the body : He holds that the... if the body, the vital and the mind were so cut off from each other as not to have any mutual reaction is not true. So the physical can react on the vital being. Disciple : But the physical being in us is not as conscious as the vital or the mental being. Sri Aurobindo : The physical may be said to be more inconscient than the other parts, but that would not prevent it from exerting ...
... l and the physical being. This chakra that surrounds the pituitary gland is the centroids of the "Mind of Light" in our body, the point where the mind and the body meet and become one. A Note It seems there is a new centre at the base of the hind brain. The pituitary gland is also situated here. As its proper functioning brings harmony and balance in the physical being and gives perfect... Thus perfect control and mastery over this centre may bring physical immortality. Sri Aurobindo has spoken of "Mind of Light" that will serve as the liaison between the supermind and the physical being. Perhaps this centre is the seat of the "Mind of Light" in the body. 17.1.1955 (3) A Remark Question : Today, as I was coming to you, someone told me "Why do you people ...
... automatic as in our physical personality. Though it is stronger and more dominant and perverse in the vital, more subtly pervasive and masterful in the mind, the ego has an uncanny density in the physical being, which is almost impervious to the influence of any higher light, short of the highest, the Supramental. In a global Overmental experience, there does take place a complete universalisation... all action to the Divine with a persistence as dogged, as uncompromising and as relentless as that of the physical ego itself. The attitude of surrender and offering has to be rubbed into the physical being till it oozes down into the subconscient and becomes permanently fixed there. In the inertia of Matter lies the hidden power of tenacious retention; and if the attitude of offering is once stamped... is indispensable if the ego is to be wiped out of the physical consciousness and the Divine made the sole master of it. But the final victory and the absolute divine possession of the whole physical being will come, as we have already indicated, by the descent of the supramental Force which will unloose all the knots of the ego and steep the whole being in a living sense of the Infinite. In the ...
... regards as irrational, false or inexplicable. But there are different orders of the reality and the conceptions, measures, standards suitable to one need not be applicable to another order. Our physical being is built first upon an aggregate of infinitesimals, electrons, atoms, molecules, cells; but the law of action of these infinitesimals does not explain all the physical workings even of the human... embodied being. If the Purusha in us is passive and allows Nature to act, accepting all she imposes on him, giving a constant automatic sanction, then the soul in mind, life, body, the mental, vital, physical being in us, becomes subject to our nature, ruled by its formation, driven by its activities; that is the normal state of our ignorance. If the Purusha in us becomes aware of itself as the Witness and... takes a poise of its being proper to that gradation; in Mind-Nature it becomes the mental being, Page 365 in Life-Nature it becomes the vital being, in nature of Matter it becomes the physical being, in supermind it becomes the Being of Knowledge; in the supreme spiritual status it becomes the Being of Bliss and pure Existence. In us, in the embodied individual, it stands behind all as the ...
... opportunity or a predisposition of which vital invasion takes advantage. It is especially the physical consciousness and physico-vital which contain the germs or materials of this predisposition. The physical being is always changing its constituents and in each period of seven years a complete change is effected. If the symptoms of this predisposition in the nature are detected and wise influence and training... so opened that the body can hold and retain the consciousness and power. I notice that at the time you had it the body also expressed it. This is sign that the capacity is already there in your physical being. The calm and strength will descend from above, what you have to do is to open yourself and receive and at the same time, reject all the movements of the lower nature which prevent it from remaining... true power and the true knowledge, of course the superior power will itself reveal to you and remove all obstacles in your nature. But the condition is that not only your mental but your vital and physical being must open and surrender to it and refuse to surrender themselves to other powers and forces. As you yourself experienced at that time, this greater consciousness will of itself bring the development ...
... consciousness, their workings there—the realisation of the divine or spiritual love, the perception of one's own psychic being, the discovery of one's own true mental being, true vital being, true physical being, the realisation of the overmind or the supramental consciousness, the clear perception of the relation of all these things to our present inferior nature and their action on it to change that... centre and liberates fully the psychic and emotional being, then into the navel and other vital centres and liberates the inner vital, then into the Muladhara and below and liberates the inner physical being. It works at the same time for perfection as well as liberation; it takes up the who) nature part by part and deals with it, rejecting what has to be rejected, sublimating what has to be sublimated... the divine had to do with the intermediate period between before it is done. What I meant was that if the Mother were able to bring out the Divine Personalities and Powers into her body and physical being, as she was doing for several months without break some years ago, the brightest period in the history of the Ashram, things would be much more easy and all these Dangerous attacks that now take ...
... Ignorance, it is the mental, vital, physical Prakriti that acts and the Purusha is disfigured, as it were, in the action of Prakriti. It is not our true mental being, our true vital being, our true physical being even that we are aware of; these remain behind, Page 111 veiled and silent. It is the mental, vital, physical ego that we take for our being until we get knowledge. The psychic... the soul in its essence and the psychic being. Behind each and all there is the soul which is the spark of the Divine—none could exist without that. But it is quite possible to have a vital and physical being supported by such a soul essence but without a clearly evolved psychic being behind it. There is indeed an inner being composed of the inner mental, inner vital, inner physical,—but that is... the soul in its essence and the psychic being. Behind each and all there is the soul which is the spark of the Divine—none could exist without that. But it is quite possible to have a vital and physical being without a clearly evolved psychic being behind it. Still, one cannot make general statements that no aboriginal has a soul or there is no display of soul anywhere. The inner being is composed ...
... much difficulty in getting rid of the discord or disparateness between the ideal supramentality and the mental transmitting instruments, the mind channel, the heart, the sense, the nervous and the physical being. The supramental reason can do the first and a fairly ample, though not the entire work of this transformation. The supramental reason is of the nature of a spiritual, direct, self-luminous... d as a real power and substance of the Sat, the Chit, the Ananda of the Ishwara. All the spiritualised sensation and emotion are experienced as pure moulds of the consciousness and Ananda. The physical being itself is experienced as a conscious form and the vital being as an outpouring of the power and possession of the life of the spirit. The action of the supermind in the development is to manifest... aloof from us; he knows, lives in, identifies himself with all and yet is not subjugated by the reactions or limited in his knowledge, power and Ananda by the limitations of the mind and life and physical being in the universe. Page 824 ...
... intelligence, will and reason, a heightening and ordering of power and capacity in the nature, a nobler ethical, a richer aesthetic, a finer emotional, a much healthier and better-governed vital and physical being. Sometimes one element is stressed, almost to the exclusion of the rest; sometimes, in wider and more well-balanced minds, the whole harmony is envisaged as a total perfection. A change of education... the mundane ideal of perfection, while at the same time it goes too beyond the loftier, intenser, but much narrower religious formula. The mundane ideal regards man always as a mental, vital and physical being and it aims at a human perfection well within these limits, a perfection of mind, life and body, an expansion and refinement of the intellect and knowledge, of the will and power, of ethical character... working of the divine power, our aesthetic into a plenary reception and a creative enjoyment of divine beauty, not excluding even in Page 621 the end a divine conversion of the vital and physical being. It regards all the previous life as an involuntary and unconscious or half-conscious preparatory growing towards this change and Yoga as the voluntary and conscious effort and realisation of the ...
... a soul personality, a distinct psychic being to represent it. This psychic being remains still behind the veil in our subliminal part, like the true mental, the true vital or the true or subtle physical being within us: but, like them, it acts on the surface life by the influences and intimations it throws up upon that surface; these form part of the surface aggregate which is the conglomerate effect... perceptions, activities of our mind nature, a being of life which expresses something of itself in the impulses, feelings, sensations, desires, external life activities of our vital nature, a physical being, a being of the body which expresses something of itself in the instincts, habits, formulated activities of our physical nature. These beings or part selves of the self in us are powers of the... standing back from the body and its demands and activities and entering into a silence of the physical consciousness watching the action of its energy, it is possible to become aware, a true and pure physical being, the Purusha. So too, by standing back from all these activities of nature successively or together, it becomes possible to realise one's inner being as the silent impersonal self, the witness ...
... body to certain attitudes of immobility, and prāṇāyāma , the regulated direction and arrestation by exercises of breathing of the vital currents of energy in the body. The physical being is the instrument; but the physical being is made up of two elements, the physical and the vital, the body which is the apparent instrument and the basis, and the life energy, prāṇa , which is the power and the real... subjection to pain and limitation and of self-mastery, of death and of immortality. The body is not to the Hathayogin a mere mass of living matter, but a mystic bridge between the spiritual and the physical being; one has even seen an ingenious exegete of the Hathayogic discipline explain the Vedantic symbol OM as a figure of this mystic human body. Although, however, he speaks always of the physical body ...
... Philosophy and Yoga Mind Nature and Law of Karma Man is not after all in the essence of his manhood or in the inner reality of his soul a vital and physical being raised to a certain power of mental will and intelligence. If that were so, the creed that makes our existence a manifestation of aWill to life, a Life Force moved by no other object than its own... energy of the mental nature, appear almost as by-products and at any rate things secondary that can always be postponed and made subordinate to the needs and demands of the mentalised vital and physical being. But the finer and more developed mind in humanity has always turned towards an opposite self-seeing, inclined to regard this as the most characteristic and valuable element of our being and been... establish a control over the life forces he embodies or uses, and one condition of that mastery is a necessary self-control, a restraint, an order, a discipline imposed on his mental, vital and physical being. The animal life is automatically subjected to certain measures; it is the field of an instinctive vital Dharma. Man, liberated from these automatic checks by the free play of his mind, has to ...
... a predisposition of which the vital invasion takes advantage. It is especially the physical consciousness and the physico-vital which contain the germs or materials of this predisposition. The physical being is always changing its constituents and in each period of seven years a complete change is effected. If the symptoms of this predisposition in the nature are detected and a wise influence and training... opened that the body can hold and retain the consciousness and power. I notice that at the time you had it the body also expressed it. This is a sign that the capacity is already there in your physical being. The calm and strength will descend from above, what you have to do is to open yourself and receive it and at the same time reject all the movements of the lower nature which prevent it from remaining... power and the true knowledge. Of course the superior power will itself reveal to you and remove all the obstacles in your nature. But the condition is that not only your mental but your vital and physical being must open and surrender to it and refuse to surrender themselves to other powers and forces. As you yourself experienced at that time, this greater consciousness will of itself bring the development ...
... body and Page 52 tries to find ways of satisfying it. This is practically impossible, for, with a very few exceptions, the more it is given, the more it demands. Besides, the physical being is ignorant and blind; it is full of false notions, preconceived ideas, prejudices and preferences. Indeed, it cannot deal effectively with the body. Only the psychic consciousness has the knowledge... attitude of those who want to practise Sri Aurobindo's integral yoga is quite different. When they have found their psychic being and are united with it, they ask it to turn its gaze towards the physical being in order to act on it with the knowledge that comes from the contact with the Divine, and to transform the body so that it may be able to receive and manifest the divine consciousness and harmony... and guards you. 65 * ... the day an external being (physical, mental, vital) enters into direct and constant contact with the psychic being, one may say in the same way that the physical being of this person is organised by the central divine consciousness. The moment you put yourself in contact with it, submit yourself Page 58 to it, you are organised by it, by the ...
... is the being which presides over the different births one after the other, but is itself unborn, for it does not descend into the being but is above it — it holds together the mental, vital and physical being and all the various parts of the personality and it controls the life either through the mental being and the mental thought and will or through the psychic, whichever may happen to be most in... through. That is to say, the help is reciprocal. The psychic, when it has an influence on the outer life, brings to it light, order and quietude and the joy of the divine contact. But also the physical being, the body-consciousness, if it is identified with the psychic consciousness, and through that learns what kind of experience the psychic being wants to have, it can help it to have these experiences... has something to do there and it chooses freely to return. But till then, till this liberation, it is compelled to return to have all the experiences it needs. Well, if it happens that once the physical being is developed and conscious enough and has enough goodwill to be able to become fully aware of the psychic being, it can then and there create all the circumstances, the outer experiences necessary ...
... brings the sense of union with the Divine and dependence upon it and sole consecration to the Divine alone and the power to change the nature and discover the true mental, the true vital, the true physical being in oneself. Both realisations are necessary for this Yoga. The “I“ or the little ego is constituted by Nature and is at once a mental, vital and physical formation meant to aid in centralising... Ignorance, it is the mental, vital, physical Prakriti that acts and the Purusha is disfigured, as it were, in the action of Prakriti. It is not our true mental being, our true vital being, our true physical being even that we are aware of; these remain behind, veiled and silent. It is the mental, vital, physical ego that we take for our being until we get knowledge. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga -... it is an instrumental Force for all divine realisations. It is the true vital being that has become awake and come in front within you. In the same way there is too a true mental being, a true physical being. When these are manifest, then you are aware of a double existence in you; that behind is always calm and strong, that on the surface alone is troubled and obscure. But if the true being behind ...
... this lower manifestation, aparā prakṛti , this eternal portion of the divine appears as the soul, a spark of the Divine Fire, supporting the individual evolution, supporting the mental, vital and physical being. The psychic being is the spark growing into a Fire, evolving with the growth of the consciousness. The psychic being is therefore evolutionary, not like the Jivatman prior to the evolution. ... being is the being which presides over the different births one after the other, but is itself unborn, for it does not descend into the being but is above it—it holds together the mental, vital and physical being and all the various parts of the personality and it controls the life either through the mental being and the mental thought and will or through the psychic, whichever may happen to be most in... each plane of the consciousness. On the mental plane it is the true mental being, manomaya puruṣa , on the vital plane the true vital being, prāṇamaya puruṣa , on the physical plane the true physical being, annamaya puruṣa . Each being, therefore is, so long as the Ignorance lasts, centred round his mental, vital or physical Purusha, according to the plane on which he predominantly lives, and that ...
... pleasure and the obscuration it entails, by over-indulgence in asceticism and the disintegration it causes. It is much more difficult to achieve the harmonious and progressive development of one's physical being in calm and simplicity than to ill-treat it to the point of Page 49 annihilation. It is much more difficult to live soberly and with- out desire than to deprive the body of its ind... origin and effect of the various vital vibrations in order to know whether they are favourable to harmony, beauty and good health or whether they are harmful to the balance and progress of the physical being and the vital. Moreover, the senses should be used as instruments to approach and study the physical and vital worlds in all their complexity; in this way they will take their true place in the... there will be no limit to your realisation." Page 63 Nevertheless, even the Divine, when incarnate on earth, is subject to the same law of progress. His instrument of manifestation the physical being he has assumed, should be in a constant state of progress, and the law of his personal self-expression is in a way linked to the general law of earthly progress. Thus even the embodied god cannot ...
... the power of increasing the size and weight of the body etc. Laghima is a similar power of lightness, that is to say of freedom from all pressure or weighing down in the mental, pranic or physical being. By Laghima it is possible to get rid of weariness and exhaustion and to overcome gravitation. It is the basis of Utthapana. Anima is the power of freeing the atoms of subtle or gross matter... because it is behind the threshold of our outer consciousness. It includes the large action of the inner mind, inner Intelligence and inner sense-mind, of an inner vital, and of an inner subtle-physical being which upholds and embraces our waking consciousness but which is not brought to the front. Our subliminal being is not, like our surface being, an outcome of the energy of the Inconscient.... universal knowledge, in. the supreme as the self-existent bliss and universal delight of being. And all this experience will be in all parts of his being. In the words of Sri Aurobindo: His physical being will be one with all material Nature, his vital being with the life of the universe, his mind with the cosmic mind, his spiritual knowledge and will with the divine knowledge and will both in ...
... spiritual consciousness above the plane of Mind but in the specific sense in which Sri Aurobindo uses it -that alone possesses the Knowledge and Power to effectuate the transformation of our physical being. It is the descent of Super-mind from above and the emergence of involved Supermind from behind the veil into the arena of our manifested becoming, that can progressively divinise our inner ... somehow be illumined and transfigured, there can be no prospect for any physical transformation. For this 'dragon base' remaining as it is now, the dead weight of the inconscient substratum 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 effectuate a radical transformation. Even the higher... inexorable laws of Darkness and Incapacity and Death. Faced with this almost insuperable difficulty of physical transformation, most spiritual seekers have tended to turn away from the physical being of man with aversion or even total denial, and reconciled themselves to its supposedly unalterable fate of ever remaining unregenerate and untransformed. But, evidently, this cannot be the right ...
... reflection and reasoning. But deeper psychological explorations indicate that behind what we experience as our physical being, vital being and mental being, there are, as the Upanishads point out, inner sheaths supported by a kind of self-consciousness which sustains and nourishes the inner physical being, the Page 17 inner vital being and the inner mental being. The data of self-consciousness... apology to them for all the deficiencies that they find in our present effort. In our research team, we have no specialists; but all the members are deeply interested in promoting education of the physical being and we are all keen to study the role that the human body can play in the development of integral personality. Above all, we are all students of Evolution and are devoted to the study of the p ...
... attain even physical immortality. What Sri Aurobindo has called the "Mind of Light" will be able to work out with the intervention of this chakra the conjunction of the Supramental and the physical being. This chakra that surrounds the pituitary gland is the centroid of the "Mind of Light" in our body, the point where the mind and the body meet and become one.' Dada wrote a brief note... note: 17.1.55 It seems there is a new centre at the base of the hind brain. The pituitary gland is also situated here. As its proper functioning brings harmony and balance in the physical being and gives perfect co-ordination of the different muscles of the body (both voluntary and involuntary) so if one has got perfect control over this centre and can make the gland work according to... Thus perfect control and mastery over this centre may bring physical immortality. Sri Aurobindo has spoken of 'Mind of Light' that will serve as the liaison between the supermind and the physical being. Perhaps this centre is the seat of the 'Mind of Light' in the body. * Dada was sitting that day as if lost in thought. Very quiet. Then Chandranath asked very gently: ...
... third to the fourth status. The second difficulty is this formula of our mind and life and body separated from universal life. Man as mind, life and body, or man the mental, the vital, and the physical being, is separated from the universal. First, he does not know himself fully. He is not conscious Page 210 of the whole range of his being. Second, he is cut off from the universal... mental Puru-sha, it does not run parallel to the will of the mental Purusha. The nature force operating in mind has another way of operating, very different. There is mental, vital, and physical Page 212 being—mental nature, vital nature, physical nature, and the purusha in each,—mental purusha, vital purusha, and the physical purusha means the subjective self. There is always a division... mental being in man is not his true being. Mind is his instrument. The true human being is- not the life-being or the vital-being in man. The true human being is not the body or force at work in the physical being. The true human being is a psychic being which uses mind, life and body as its instruments and is itself a projection of the delight of Satchidananda. You find a dichotomy even in his psychic being ...
... need of a clear individual " I" to dispose variously the centralising stress. Wherever the stress is put, the " I " attaches itself to that, so that one thinks of oneself as a mental being or physical being or whatever it may be. The consciousness in me can dispose its stress in this way or the other way; it may go down into the physical and work there in the physical nature keeping all the rest... So" too what we know of the vital in us is only the outer vital, a surface activity partially expressing a larger secret vital which we can only know by going within. Equally, what we call our physical being is only a visible projection of a greater and subtler invisible physical consciousness which is much more complex, much more aware, much wider in its receptiveness, much more open and plastic... ³Ibid, P. 221 4 Ibid, P. 222 5 Ibid, P. 226 6 Ibid, P. 231 7 Ibid, P. 275 Page 154 exist without that. But it is quite possible to have a vital and physical being without a clearly evolved psychic being behind it. Still, one cannot make general statements that no aboriginal has a soul or there is no display of soul anywhere. "8 " The inner being is ...
... 1912. ² ibid., March 13, 1913. Page 142 baffles its comprehension. Most of the Prayers, especially the later ones, are a kaleidoscope of a difficult perfectioning of the physical being of the Mother, without which the union of her longing could not be realised. This physical transformation is a revolutionary conception, extremely intricate and arduous in its process, involving... Light, Falsehood into Truth, and suffering into Ananda, there is no possibility of any individual, however spiritually great he may be, achieving a complete conversion and transformation of his physical being. It is this universal work that has engaged the whole of the Mother's attention and labour, because it is the work which the Divine has entrusted to her. It is, in fact, the mission, of her life... human abyss. ” ¹ Not union with the Divine in the soul alone, not in the soul, mind and heart alone, but a union, a constant, dynamic, honey- dripping, life-transforming union even in the physical being, even in the cells of the body—a complete and creative union between the Summit and the Base—has been the labour of the Mother, not for herself alone, but for mankind. Man will one day ...
... one keeps what you call the hygienic laws – one has a chance, a better chance, of escape from diseases. We set up these hygienic laws because people do not know the needs of the physical being. If you allow the physical being to be unhampered by vital desires, or mental ideas, it would choose the the thing it needs. Disciple : It is a sort of instinct... animals have it in a greater degree than man. Sri Aurobindo : You may call it an instinct but when you become conscious, it is more than an instinct, it is the true consciousness in the physical being. The animals may have it more than man, but it is not complex because the animal has to rely on food which is not secure and so when it finds it is hungry, it does not Page 270 ...
... l perfection , the love of the physical being for the Page 323 Divine - and when, through loving consecration , there will be a complete faithfulness to the Divine. (24.9.1929) Only to those who have a true humility will power be given. (10.10.1929) The power of Agni will keep the aspiration flaming in the physical being. Then can be founded and established... Tranquil is she and wonderful, great and calm for ever .... " This was the first time I realised that when the Mother wants she can put forth the Divine Presence and Power completely into the physical being and manifest it. .. here before me was indeed a superhuman being without any veils. 2 It is necessary we should remember the fact of this Presence, however much it may have been often ...
... intellectual, volitional., dynamic, ethical, aesthetic, sensational, vital and physical being."¹ THE HEIGHTENING OF THE CAPACITIES OF THE INSTRUMENTS Let us take the body first. We do not know, we do not even care to inquire, what incalculable powers slumber in the depths of our physical being, and what potentialities are involved in its relation with the subtle and the... greatness of sustaining force"; bala is "an abounding strength, energy and puissance of out- going and managing force"; laghutā, "a lightness, swift- ness and adaptability of the nervous and physical being",. and dhāranā-sāmarthya, "a holding and responsive power in the whole physical machine and its driving springs." The body will be filled with the majesty and might of the spiritual force ...
... and, even, the precise accountant becomes very like an unconscionable hundred per cent usurer. Perhaps it may be said that beyond earth it is the soul that suffers—for purification, and here the physical being—as a concession to the forces of life and the symmetry of things: but still it is the soul that thus pays double in its subtle experience and in its physical incarnation. The strands of our... boomerang and cycles back towards the will that has cast it on the world. The stone we hurl rashly against the universal Life is cast back at us and may crush, maim or injure our own mental and physical being. But this mechanical rebound is not the whole principle of Karma. Nor is Karma wholly a mixed ethical-hedonistic order Page 372 in its total significance, for there are involved other ...
... stood wide for them by the greatness and by the Great Ones, the mother Aditi with her sons came (or, manifested herself) for the upholding" (I.72.9). 1 That Page 199 is to say, the physical being visited by the greatness of the infinite planes above and by the power of the great godheads who reign on those planes breaks its limits, opens out to the Light and is upheld in its new wideness... Truth and the Immortality, that Swar called also the great heaven, bṛhat dyauḥ , is the plane of the Truth above the ordinary heaven and earth which can be no other than the ordinary mental and physical being; that the path of the great heaven, the path of the Truth created by the Angirases and followed by the hound Sarama is the path to the Immortality, amṛtatvāya gātum ; that the vision ( ketu ) ...
... and it is not pleasant; then when you draw back from that, you recoil from that contact with circumstances or things; well, the first impression is of drawing back inside into your physical being itself, a physical being which is there, which presses, so to say, on the outer form in order to create a new form. This is what makes children grow up, it is a kind of inner thing which pushes, pushes for ...
... There is a sort of association between the physical and the psychic and between the mental and the vital being. A mental being is very often a very vital being. A psychic being is very often a physical being. Children—just because this psychic consciousness is in front in them—live also altogether in their body. But as soon as one begins to develop the mind, the taste for association also develops... is mental and vital and woman physical and psychic. There is some truth in it. But naturally it involves all possible exception and complication. These are arbitrary simplification. In fact the physical being has a simplicity and even a goodwill (which is not always very enlightened, far from it), but still a simplicity and goodwill which put it in a closer relation with the psychic than the passion ...
... through. That is to say, the help is reciprocal. The psychic, when it has an influence on the outer life, brings to it light, order and quietude and the joy of the divine contact. But also the physical being, the body-consciousness—if it is identified with the psychic consciousness, and through that learns what kind of experience the psychic being wants to have—can help it to have Page 447 ... has something to do there and it chooses freely to return. But till then, till this liberation, it is compelled to return to have all the experiences it needs. Well, if it happens that once the physical being is developed and conscious enough and has enough goodwill to be able to become fully aware of the psychic being, it can then and there create all the circumstances, the outer experiences necessary ...
... that an emotion... obviously it is an emotion. But usually, it comes from one thing: the physical being has a not very conscious but very intense longing for a contact with the psychic life. It feels poor, destitute, isolated and abandoned when it is not in contact with the psychic being. Not one physical being in a million is aware of this. But this kind of impression of being lost, left hanging, without ...
... the right way. It is very good that you are learning to use the Force. 27 August 1934 Every time I receive the Mother's touch at Pranam, I feel a sense of strong nourishment, even in the physical being. When she presses her fingers on the opening point of the spinal cord at the top of my head, I feel something subtle coming in which makes my inner being overflow with joy. This sense of nourishment... when I am unwell and weak, it completely dominates with its sense of joy and security. As you suffer from ill-health, Mother presses the nourishment of the divine strength and health into your physical being, renewing its substance with that. 4 November 1934 If we want the Mother to help someone outside with her Force, but we give her wrong information, does the help she sends miss its mark ...
... obscuration they cause, by the abuses of asceticism and the disintegration they bring about. It is much more difficult to secure a harmonious and progressive growth in calmness and simplicity in one's physical being than to ill-treat it to the point of reducing it to nothing. It is much more difficult to live soberly and without desire than to deprive the body of nourishment and clean habits so indispensable... to your realisation." Page 150 Nevertheless, even the Divine when he incarnates upon earth is subject to the same law of progress. The instrument for his manifestation, the physical being with which he clothes himself, should be in a state of constant progress and the law governing his personal self-expression is in a way linked with the general law of earth's progress, Thus even ...
... a soul personality, a distinct psychic being to represent it. This psychic being remains still behind the veil in our subliminal part, like the true mental, the true vital or the true or subtle physical being within us: but, like them, it acts on the surface life by the influences and intimations it throws up upon that surface; these form part of the surface aggregate which is the conglomerate effect... organises his existence—only in what may be called the main lines, because for intervening in the details there would have to be a conscious union between the outer being, that is, the vital and physical being, and the psychic being, but usually this does not exist. So externally, in the details… for example, there was someone who in deep perplexity said to me, “Well, if it is the psychic being or rather ...
... Forces of Life Forces of Illness and Accident The suggestions that create illness or unhealthy conditions of the physical being come usually through the subconscient—for a great part of the physical being, the most material part, is subconscient, i.e. to say, it has an obscure consciousness of its own but so obscure and shut up in itself that the mind does not ...
... action of a central divine spark. But the day an external being (physical, mental, vital) enters into direct and constant contact with the psychic being, one may say in the same way that the physical being of this person is organised by the central divine consciousness. The moment you put yourself in contact with it, submit yourself to it, you are organised by it, by the central divine consciousness;... previous lives from the monkey Page 147 onwards, with a mass of details, you may be sure that he is a humbug! You spoke of the "chance" of a psychic being meeting what will be its physical being. No, I said "accident"; an accident is not a chance. In life there is always a conflict between opposing forces, and the result of this conflict is not always foreseen except when one is ...
... or mental sense; it is a sense of the physical world, but there are other senses than the five that we usually have at our disposal—there are many others. Actually, for the physical being—note that I say the physical being—to be fully developed, it must have twelve senses. It is one of these senses which gives you the kind of perception I was speaking of. You cannot say that it is taste, smell, hearing ...
... very often, for the vital is an adventurous being), the physical obeys, it obeys the impulse, the inner order; then it consents to the change, the novelty, but it is an effort for it. But for the physical being and physical consciousness to be ready to receive the divine impulsion, they must be extremely plastic, because the vital uses coercion, it imposes its will, and the poor body has but to obey,... while the Divine just shows the light, gives the consciousness, and so one must obey consciously and willingly—it is a question of collaboration, it is no longer a question of coercion. The physical being and physical consciousness must be very plastic to be able to lend themselves to all the necessary changes, so as to be of one kind one day and another the next, and so on. Sri Aurobindo speaks ...
... through many lives, there is always a progress. Each experience it had in one of its physical lifetimes helps it to make some progress. But it is the psychic being which always progresses. The physical being, in the state in which it is at present—well, having reached a certain point of ascent, it comes down again. There are elements which may not come down again grossly; but still it does come down... completely free from all degeneration if it continues to develop normally. So these always make progress so long as they remain co-ordinated and under the influence of the psychic. It is only the physical being which grows and decomposes. But this comes from its lack of plasticity and receptivity and by its very nature; it is not inevitable. Therefore there is room to think that at a given moment, as ...
... soul-personality, a distinct psychic being to represent it. This psychic being remains still behind the veil in our subliminal part, like the true mental, the true vital or the true or subtle physical being within us: but, like them, it acts on the surface life by the influences and intimations it throws up upon that surface; these form part of the surface aggregate which is the conglomerate effect... organises his existence — only in what may be called the main lines, because for intervening in the details there would have to be a conscious union between the outer being, that is, the vital and physical being, and the psychic being, but usually this does not exist. So externally, in the details... for example, there was someone who in deep perplexity said to me, "Well, if it is the psychic being or ...
... with so many dull and lower aims, must feel all its urges and instincts exalted and irradiated and become a glorious counterpart of the supramental superlife above. The physical consciousness and physical being, the body Page 69 itself must reach a perfection in all that it is and does which now we can hardly conceive. It may even in the end be suffuused with a light and beauty and bliss... general Gtness, as an instrument for all the activities which may be demanded from it by the mind and the will, by the life-energy or by the dynamic perceptions, impulses and instincts of our subtle physical being which is an unrecognised but very important element and agent in our nature. Health and strength are the first condi- tions for the natural perfection of the body, not only muscular strength and ...
... almost exclusively on the body and tries to find ways of satisfying it. This is practically impossible, for, with a very few exceptions, the more it is given, the more it demands. Besides, the physical being is ignorant and blind; it is full of false notions, preconceived ideas, prejudices and preferences. Indeed, it cannot deal effectively with the body. Only the psychic consciousness has the knowledge... those who want to practise Sri Aurobindo's integral yoga is quite different. When they have found their psychic being and are united with it, they ask it to turn its gaze towards the physical Page 46 being in order to act on it with the knowledge that comes from the contact with the Divine, and to transform the body so that it may be able to receive and manifest the divine consciousness ...
... begin with the heart centre, if one can do it, is the more desirable. The other side of discipline is with regard to the activities of the nature, of the mind, of the life-self or vital, of the physical being. Here the principle is to accord the nature with the inner realisation so that one may not be divided into two discordant parts. There are here several disciplines or processes possible. One is... ons, brings the right mental and vital movements and reshapes the physical consciousness also. Another method Page 7 is to stand back detached from the movements of the mind, life, physical being, to regard their activities as only a habitual formation of general Nature in the individual imposed on us by past workings, not as any part of our real being; in proportion as one succeeds in ...
... form of a clear and potent physical Science: it has proceeded by the discovery of the laws of the physical universe and the economic and sociological conditions of human life as determined by the physical being of man, his environment, his evolutionary history, his physical and vital, his individual and collective need. But after a time it must become apparent that the knowledge of the physical world... appear that man is a mental as well as a physical and vital being and even much more essentially mental than physical or vital. Even though his psychology is strongly affected and limited by his physical being and environment, it is not at its roots determined by them, but constantly reacts, subtly determines their action, effects even their new-shaping by the force of his psychological demand on life ...
... There is only this difference that the group-soul is much more complex because it has Page 35 a great number of partly self-conscious mental individuals for the constituents of its physical being instead of an association of merely vital subconscious cells. At first, for this very reason, it seems more crude, primitive and artificial in the forms it takes; for it has a more difficult task... body ever changing, yet always the same like that of the individual man, we are on the way to a truly subjective communal consciousness. For then we have some chance of realising that even the physical being of the society is a subjective power, not a mere objective existence. Much more is it in its inner self a great corporate soul with all the possibilities and dangers of the soul-life. The objective ...
... chief stumbling-block in the way of the transformation of the outer consciousness by the Yoga. It is also largely responsible for most of the suffering and disease of mind or body to which the physical being is subject in Nature. As to the gross material part it is not necessary to specify its place, for that is obvious, but it must be remembered that this too has a consciousness of its own, the... So too what we know of the vital in us is only the outer vital, a surface activity partially expressing a larger secret vital which we can only know by going within. Equally, what we call our physical being is only a visible projection of a greater and subtler invisible physical consciousness which is much more complex, much more aware, much wider in its receptiveness, much more open and plastic and ...
... universal forces of Nature. We can take a purely external view and say that consciousness is the result of a mass of reactions to the impact of outward physical things on the brain and nerves of a physical being. In this case consciousness is a sort of effective hallucination—there is no real and permanent consciousness but only a subjective impression created by a constant activity of reactions. As a... no need of a clear individual "I" to dispose the stress,—it can do that of itself; wherever the stress is put the "I" attaches itself to that, so that one thinks of oneself as a mental being or physical being or whatever it may be. The consciousness in me can be utterly free of any sense of an individual "I" and yet dispose its stress in this way or the other way—it may go down into the physical and ...
... except in a few—until one connects them together in the course of the sadhana. The exterior being is the physical which is connected in an ignorant way with the physical universe. It is this physical being which has developed an external mind and vital. The inner mind and vital are on the contrary in direct contact with the universal mental and vital and their forces; the inner subtle physical can... symbolic image. For usually when one sees anybody's psychic being in a form, it is bigger than that. As for the inner being, one feels it big because the true mental or the true vital or even the true physical being is much wider in consciousness than the external consciousness which is limited by the body. If the external parts seem to occupy the whole consciousness, it is when one comes down into the physical ...
... thought you meant that this was your own experience. So I put the question, as the experience of the quiet mind is one that can easily be broken by the invasions of the vital or the inertia of the physical being. The experience of the deeper freedom and calm which belongs to the self remains, but it can be covered up by the lower consciousness. That [ thoughts about others ] can be only a temporary... Ascent and Descent The ascent of the consciousness in the lower centres into the higher and the descent of the higher powers and the white light indicates a farther preparation of the vital and physical being and its forces by spiritualisation of the centres. All these are different actions of the Force on the adhar with the one intention of opening it up from above and below and horizontally ...
... Light and Force and the Mother's presence a dynamic action of sadhana is constantly maintained which steadily pushes out the movements of the ignorance and substitutes even in the lower vital and physical being the movements of the inner and higher nature. There is then no struggle any longer, but an automatic growth of the divine elements and fading out of the undivine. The devotion of the heart and... develops a single-pointed will towards that alone. But also every sadhak is faced with two elements in him, the inner being which wants the Divine and the sadhana and the outer mainly vital and physical being which does not want them but remains attached to the things of the ordinary life. The mind is sometimes led by one, sometimes by the other. One of the most important things he has to do, therefore ...
... towards absolute knowledge or a pure impersonality of the will or an ecstasy of divine love and absolute delight,—and even through an absorbing concentration of the psychical and the vital and physical being,—the soul turns towards the Supreme and that on each part of our self and nature and consciousness there can come a call and irresistible attraction of the Divine. Indeed, an uplift of all these... certain that we do pay very usually for our errors, for stupidity, for ignorance of the right way of action, for any ignoring or misapplication of the laws that govern our psychical, vital and physical being; it is certain that knowledge is a power for life efficiency and success. Intelligence pays its way in the material world, guards itself against vital and physical suffering, secures its vital ...
... immortality. It destroys the enemy, the assailants, the powers of evil, enriches the soul with all they try to withhold, gives the triple peace and the triple fulfilment of the mental, vital and physical being and, labouring in the light of the supramental Truth, leads beyond, creating in us the world of immortal felicity.] त्वामग्ने वसुपतिं वसूनामभि प्र मन्दे अध्वरेषु राजन् । त्वया वजं वाजयन्तो... sacrifice to the supramental. × The peace, joy and full satisfaction in the mental, vital and physical being. × Not only the physical body, but the vital and mental sheaths, all the embodied states or forms ...
... supramental action conducted by the force and fulfilling the character of a diviner energy, some fairly complete transformation must be effected in this outward character of the bodily nature. The physical being of man has always been felt by the seekers of perfection to be a great impediment and it has been the habit to turn from it with contempt, denial or aversion and a desire to suppress altogether... presence of a greatness of sustaining force, an abounding strength, energy and Page 731 puissance of outgoing and managing force, a lightness, swiftness and adaptability of the nervous and physical being, a holding and responsive power in the whole physical machine and its driving springs 1 of which it is now even at its strongest and best incapable. This energy will not be in its essence ...
... delight of a divine existence. It will lift into that light and force and convert into their own highest sense our whole intellectual, volitional, dynamic, ethical, aesthetic, sensational, vital and physical being. It has the power also of overcoming physical limitations and developing a more perfect and divinely instrumental body. Its light opens up the fields of the superconscient and darts its rays and... the play of his universal and infinite energy, all knowledge and conscious experience as the out-flowing of that consciousness, and all in the terms of that Page 696 one Ananda. His physical being will be one with all material Nature, his vital being with the life of the universe, his mind with the cosmic mind, his spiritual knowledge and will with the divine knowledge and will both in itself ...
... with conscious energy, capable of much more powerful perceptions, capacities, sense-activities than any that the gross atomic elements of earth-matter can offer. Man too has in himself behind his physical being, subliminal to it, unseen and unknown, but very close to it and forming with it the most naturally active part of his existence, this vital soul, this vital nature and this vital body; a whole... their easy self-expression and from there throw their influences and formations on our outer life. In proportion as the power of this vital plane manifests itself in man and takes hold of his physical being, this son of Page 468 earth becomes a vehicle of the life energy, forceful in his desires, vehement in his passions and emotions, intensely dynamic in his action, more and more the ...
... in the utilisation of Matter. As a result of this new relation between the Spirit and the body, the gnostic evolution will effectuate the spiritualisation, perfection and fulfilment of the physical being; it will do for the body as for the mind and life. Apart from the obscurity, frailties and limitations, which this change will overcome, the body-consciousness is a patient servant and can be in... harmonise with itself all the forces of existence that surround and press upon the body. It is the incompleteness and weakness of the Consciousness Force manifested in the mental, vital and physical being, its inability to receive or refuse at will, or, receiving, to assimilate or harmonise the contacts of the universal Energy cast upon it, that is the cause of pain and suffering. In the material ...
... spiritual reality behind and within the life force and the life spirit and of all its spiritual as well as its mental and purely vital truth and significance. The supermind in its descent into the physical being awakens, if not already wakened by previous yogic sadhana, the consciousness—veiled or obscure in most of us—which supports and forms there the vital sheath, the prāṇa koṣa . When this is awakened... aware of our own inner mental or psychic self and plastic to its thoughts, suggestions, influences or even cast it or its active image in influence into their subjective, even into their vital and physical being to work there as a helping or moulding or dominating power and presence. All these powers of the psychic consciousness need have and often have no more than a mental utility and significance ...
... all of itself. Thus the realisation in December, 1950, was an invasion of a part of the physical being by Supermind in its entirety - and, Page 131 through that part's organic relation with the rest, the spearhead of an invasion of the entire physical being. It started the bodily nucleus of the supramental race and also laid the foundation of all that ...
... the supramental physical operation of Nature. There is too a plane of physical spirit power or infinite physical Being-Consciousness-Force-Bliss proper to the spiritual physical operations of Nature. It is only when we have discovered and separated these planes of Nature and of our physical being and analysed the synthesis of their contributions to the whole play that we shall discover how the evolution ...
... tendency of separation, but not capable of effecting real separation. All its movements are a practical result of selective experience and selective action which is based on a phenomenon of separate physical being. Body is separated from other bodies by intervention of universal matter, but both of the separate bodies are one with the indivisible intervening matter, therefore not separate in reality,... materials with general human nature and with his type, race, class, nation, but yet possessed of its own principle of particular individuation. It is this which reigns in his mentality, vital being, physical being and stamps itself upon them, but in itself it is neither mental, vital nor physical, but proceeds from a secret principle superior to all these; mind, life and body are only means and values of ...
... severe test under which formerly it always failed. In addition it successfully maintained its strong and long continuity throughout samadhi, even in sushupti of the mind, the vijnana observing the physical being within the consciousness, not as a form without. Also in samadhi the double concentration was easily and successfully sustained. Ideality has begun to take possession of the samadhi with a sort... the mind stuff and psychic prana so that the mind rejects all exhaustion, weariness, depression of force etc. When this extends to the prana upholding the body, that is primary utthapana in the physical being. Secondary utthapana is elimination of these reactions from the body so that the limbs and the whole body can take and maintain any position or begin and continue any movement for any length of ...
... contains the Ishwara seeing. Seventh Chatusthaya. Suddhi is practically complete except for the body and the vijnana; essential mukti complete, but not the mukti of the Nature, as in the physical being and its most physical mentality, recurrence of tamas and something of rajas and sattwa are still visible. Bhukti is almost complete. These completenesses are fundamental, not a completeness of... cause of pejoration of the disease being turned by this means into a cause of amelioration and strengthening of the eye and its sight, (3) on every layer of the consciousness to the most obscure physical being brought up into the light and penetrated and possessed by the light of the ideality. During these two days it gained successively all but the most physical flesh layer. The disease was left with ...
... subtly calls forth and nurtures the inner being, the psychic and the spiritual in the child. Perfection of the mind, the emotional being and character of the student, as well as of the physical being, are the legitimate aims of Integral Education - the study of subjects becomes a means towards perfection, rather than an end or the only way to a successful life. Thus, a teacher endeavours to... only necessity for an integral education teacher is to live these aims and ideals in her own life, to be an initiate in the path of perfection (no B.Ed, offers this unfortunately). The physical being and its training holds a very important place in Integral Education as the body is acknowledged as the adhara, the base for all other activity. (Even to progress spiritually one needs a sound body ...
... remember. Rijuta was here, there just in front of me, and I saw her psychic being, dominating her by so much (gesture indicating about twenty centimeters), taller. It was the very first time. Her physical being was small and her psychic being was that much bigger. And it was an unsexed being, neither man nor woman. Then I said to myself (possibly it’s always so, I do not know, but here I noticed it very... in their divine glory. K.D. Sethna, for instance, writes: ‘Psychologically, one of the most central facts of the early days [of the Ashram] was the conviction that complete divinization of the physical being was not only an aim of Sri Aurobindo’s yoga but also a practical goal. “Supramentalization” was clearly understood to include a complete change in the body itself. What is most significant is that ...
... tall—what has happened?... It is the new being. I tell you, since the 12th [of April] there is.... When is it going to manifest in the physical? I don't know. It is a subtle-physical being—not a vital but a subtle-physical being, and I am tall and strong. Tell her she's not the only one who sees me this way—many do. When I see myself at night, that's how I see myself. Perhaps... well, this ( Mother ...
... e times in a hundred, I have already EXPERIENCED the thing, and what I am told makes me say, "Ah, it's so and so." I have already experienced it as being part of my physical being ( gesture in the distance ), an immense physical being, you know, immense and without precise form. And it's this precision and this division that are... (what should I say?)... are they the obstacle or the cause (probably ...
... that acts in this knowledge, while the psychic being supports this action and helps to transform the physical and vital planes. Mirra acts directly on the psychic and on the emotional vital and physical being through the illumined psychic consciousness while the illumined intuitions of the supramental being give her the necessary knowledge to act on the right lines and at the right moment. Her force... marvellous and exceptional privilege." Evidently, the Mother was pulling us beyond the disciples' devoted urge to make overmuch of the annually returning single day on which the Guru's physical being had been born. With a natural modesty and an impersonal insight her emphasis fell more on the entry into time of the larger non-individual reality of the everlasting inner Divine within that ...
... 1926 there was the descent of the Overmind into his physical being as well as the Mother's. Although the Supermind had been already present in the body by 1938 Page 223 in the sense that it had descended into the embodied complex of mental, vital and subtle-physical beings, it descended in 1938 into the outer physical being for the first time. What could not be done then was ...
... life of the body. For freedom and not a skilful subjection is the true means of mastery. A free, not a compulsory acceptance of the conditions, the enlarged and sublimated conditions of our physical being, is the high human ideal. The mental life thus evolving in man is not, indeed, a common possession. In actual appearance it would seem as if it were only developed to the fullest in i... thought and intelligent determination. His use of them no more makes him a developed mental being than the daily movement to and from his place of business makes the average Londoner a developed physical being or his quotidian contributions to the economic life of the country make the bank-clerk a developed economic man. He is not mentally active, but mentally reactive, —a very different matter ...
... the physicalised mind or the physicalised life-force turned supramental would not render Sri Aurobindo and the Mother unapproachable or any sadhana impossible to do. As long as some part of the physical being—namely, the material constitution of the body—remained unsupramentalised, a point of contact with Sri Aurobindo and with the Mother would be there for people, and the two Gurus' sadhana of this... their bodies. Looking back from a latter time (October 18,1934) he Page 143 writes: "...if the Mother were able to bring out the Divine Personalities and Powers into her body and physical being as she was doing for several months without break some years ago, the brightest period in the history of the Ashram, things would be much more easy and all these dangerous attacks that now take ...
... being. If the Purusha in us is passive and allows Nature to act, accepting all she imposes on him, giving a constant automatic sanction, then the soul in mind, life, body, the mental, vital, physical being in us, becomes subject to our nature, ruled by its formation, driven by its activities; that is the normal state of our ignorance. If the Purusha in us becomes aware of itself as the Witness... it is the mental, vital, physical Prakriti that acts and the Purusha is disfigured, as it were, in the action of the Prakriti. It is not our true mental being, our true vital being, our true physical being even that we are aware of; these remain behind, veiled and silent. It is the mental, vital, physical ego that we take for our being until we get knowledge. Letters on Yoga, p. 300 ...
... being stages of development, 17-19 Philistine, the (the sensational man), 275-78 Physical mind, see under Mind Physical vital, see under Vital (being), the Physical (being, outer, surface), the, 67-71, 337 vital-physical, 64 Prajna, 23, 209, 215, 297 Prakriti, 86, 384 higher and lower, 106 See also Nature; Purusha and Prakriti... functions of, 64 higher vital, 63 lower vital, 63, 63-64 and mind distinguished, 339-40 outer (surface), 62-67 physical vital, 66 Vital mind, see under Physical (being), the Vivekananda, 38 Waking-State (jāgrat), 206-09 Washburn, Ken, 371, 392, 398 Yoga, 123 based on experience, 184, 198 experiences of, testing, 188-90 ...
... being, including the physical. It says, in effect, that in the highest stage of being, in the state of immortality, the physical being is visited by the greatness of the infinite planes and by the power of the great godheads who reign on those planes. At that stage, the physical being exceeds-its limits, opens out to the Light, and is upheld in its new wideness by infinite consciousness (mother Aditi) ...
... and the honey ascend out of the Subconscient Ocean upwards and they seek the Superconscient Ocean above. That upper ocean sends downwards its rivers of the light, truth and bliss even into our physical being. Thus, in the ocean of physical Nature, the Vedic poets sing the hymn of our spiritual ascension. The science and practice of that spiritual ascension is the secret science of the Veda or of... Great Ones, the mother Aditi with her sons came (or manifested herself) for the upholding" (RV 1.72.9). Commenting on this statement of Parashara, Sri Aurobindo states: "That is to say, the physical being visited by the greatness of the infinite planes above and by the power of the great godheads who reign on those planes breaks its limits, opens out to the Light and is upheld in its new wideness ...
... the survival of the physical body. The physical being could only endure, if by some means its physical causes of decay and destruction could be overcome and at the same time it could be made so plastic and progressive in its structure and its functioning that it would answer to each change demanded of it by the progress of the inner Person. The physical being must be able to keep the pace with the ...
... sons came (or, manifested herself) for the upholding' (1.72.9). The meaning of these cryptic verses is that the physical being is visited by the greatness of the infinite planes above and by the power of the great godheads who reign on those planes. This breaks the limits of the physical being, which opens out to the Light and is upheld in its new wideness by the infinite Consciousness, mother Aditi, ...
... and Upanishadic concept of immortality, Gitā's concept of sādharmya in connection with the perfection of Karmayoga, and the Tantric view of siddhis including those of mental, vital and physical being, we are obliged to bring out full value of the idea of perfection as distinguished from that of liberation. The Vedic Yoga may be looked upon as an earliest synthesis of the psychological... Ones, the Mother Aditi with Page 46 her sons came (or, manifested herself) for the upholding.'* (Rgveda 1.72.9). Commenting on this, Sri Aurobindo states: 'That is to say, the physical being visited by the greatness of the infinite planes above and by the power of the great godheads who reigned on those planes breaks its limits, opens out to the Light and is upheld in its new wideness ...
... Upanishadic concept of immortality, Gita's concept of sadharmya in connection with the perfection of Karma-yoga, and the Tantric view of siddhis including those of mental, vital and physical being, we are obliged to bring out the full value of the idea of perfection as distinguished from that of liberation. The Vedic Yoga may be looked upon as an earliest synthesis of the psychological... the Great Ones, the Mother Aditi with her sons came (or manifested herself) for the upholdings." 1 Page 294 Commenting on this, Sri Aurobindo states: That is to say, the physical being visited by the greatness of the infinite planes above and by the power of the great godheads who reigned on those planes breaks its limit, opens out to the Light and is upheld in its new wideness ...
... small insignificant speck of cloud he had noticed in the early stage could, from the perimeter of his consciousness, slowly, almost craftily, enlarge, envelope and take possession of the whole physical being. He asked himself, "How could this Adversary gain such an unbelievable dominance against the puissant action of Sri Aurobindo's force? He had cured himself once, what happened afterwards? Did he... broad smile, "Ah, it is finished?" Then only he allowed the Adversary who had been held at bay to leap with fury and Sri Aurobindo plunged deeper within, snapping as it were, the last link of his physical being with the need of earth-matter. It was the memorable 4th December, the date written for ever in letters of gold. Sri Aurobindo had totally emerged Page 21 from the depth and expressed ...
... because you were living on the surface altogether, and the surface is all crowd and clamour. But in all men there is this silent Purusha, base of the true mental being, the true vital being, the true physical being. It was by your prayer and aspiration that the thing came, to show you in what direction you must travel in order to have the true rasa of things, for it is only when one is liberated that one... because I made some intentional movements in order to test the strength of the vision? Maybe. The consciousness was probably nearer to the gross physical which is less responsive than the inner physical being. Mother, it seemed by your looks at pranam that you didn't approve of some of my movements. Is it true? No. It was probably some idea of your own that put that appearance on the Mother's ...
... formed out of an inner mind, an inner vital and an inner physical, renewed and reshaped. We can show our love for her, requite the debt that we owe to her Grace, by admitting her Presence into our physical being and allowing her to do the work she has undertaken to do. 2 For us now it is time to make amends for the lapses of the past—there were lapses, indeed, grievous lapses. So long as... gesture of bravado and gallantry, many answered: "Yes we are." But we were not in fact. The task then for us and for the world is to make ourselves ready, that is to say, to make our physical being and consciousness free of the old reactions, instilling into them the consciousness that she is, and with which she still embraces us, so that when the next call comes, although the call is always ...
... NIRODBARAN: In her sleep X had an interesting experience of the action of the higher, and the lower forces on her body in connection with her haemorrhage. The lower forces wanted to make the physical being accept the suggestion that the bleeding should start again and the higher forces repelled the suggestion. DR. MANILAL: How can it be explained, Sir? (Laughter) SRI AUROBINDO: No explanation... explanation is required. It is a fact. Usually ordinary people get suggestions of illness from the subconscious in their sleep or dreams. They don't know it and get the disease. Moreover, the physical being is habituated to these things and easily accepts the suggestions; the vital being too. But if the inner consciousness is awake, the suggestions can't act. DR. MANILAL: I don't accept suggestions, Sir ...
... controls the lowest vibrations: jealousy, Page 49 envy, desire, greed, anger. (4) The Physical and the Subconscient, 46 with a center at the base of the spine, which controls our physical being and sexual impulses; this center also opens up to the subconscious regions farther below. Generally, in a "normal" man, these centers are asleep or closed, or they only let through whatever... realization, and nothing of the goal will be achieved. Moreover, emphasized the Mother, if you want to do the work in a solitary way, you absolutely cannot do it in a total way, because every physical being, however complete he may be, even if he is of an altogether superior nature, even if he was made for an altogether special Work, is only partial and limited. He embodies only one truth, one law ...
... letter describing the experience, calls it 'the union of the "Earth" of the Veda and Purana with the divine Principle, an earth which is said to be above Page 852 our earth, i.e., the physical being and consciousness of which the world and the body are only images.' 1916 Feb-Mar 'Thou hast told me... to burn all my bridges and cast myself headlong into the Unknown....' - Feb 28... join. - Aug 15-Nov 24 Begins to take charge of the Ashram as gradually Sri Aurobindo withdraws. - Nov 24 Siddhi Day: Descent of Sri Krishna, the Overmind Godhead, into Sri Aurobindo's physical being. The 'birth' of the Ashram with about twenty-four sadhaks. The sadhana here, declared Sri Aurobindo, is to grow 'into a divine life in the Mother's consciousness'. Sri Aurobindo 'soon retired ...
... therefore very important, even the outer attitude." What is the meaning of "outer aspiration" and "outer attitude"? What is the best outer attitude? Unless one practises Yoga in the physical being (outer being), it remains ignorant and even its aspiration is ignorant and so also is its goodwill; all its movements are ignorant and so they distort and disfigure the Divine Presence. That... rid of the habitual feeling that I own the material things that belong to me? If you belong entirely and totally to the Divine, then all that belongs to you, all that forms part of your physical being, belongs to the Divine. 16.5.1967 Sometimes I think that the Agni You have kindled in me will burn everything that separates me from You. What should I do to contribute to its fulfillment ...
... into the full consciousness and possession of its spiritual reality and its nature also would have to be lifted out of the consciousness and power of consciousness proper to a mental, vital and physical being in to the greater consciousness and greater power of being and the larger and freer life of the spirit. It would not lose these former veils but they would no longer be veils or imperfect expressions... right condition and action, even a kind of unexpressed occult knowledge in the constitution of its cells and tissues which may one day become conscious and contribute to the transformation of the physical being. An awakening must come in the earth-nature and in the earth-consciousness which will be, if not the actual beginning, at least the effective preparation and the first steps of its evolution towards ...
... approximately terrestrial scale. Mother and Sri Aurobindo had seen this clearly, too: If you want to do the work in a solitary way, it is absolutely impossible to do it in a total way, because every physical being, however complete he may be, is only partial and limited; he represents but one law in the world. It may be a very complex law, but it is only one law. ... 12 And Mother did not place herself... process takes such a long time. You must establish the higher Consciousness IN EVERY ATOM OF THE BODY, otherwise what happens is that something escapes your view in the hidden depth of the lower physical being which is known to the hostile forces and then they can attack through that weak point. They can create a combination of circumstances which would give rise to the thing not worked out and before ...
... not recapture them later, and each remembered somewhat differently. In 1921, Sri Aurobindo had told Purani that, although the Divine Consciousness had descended, it had not yet penetrated the physical being; 1 it was precisely this that took place on 24 November 1926. In Sri Aurobindo's words: It was the descent of Krishna into the physical. Krishna is not the supramental Light.... called it "the brightest period in the history of the Ashram" when, using the power of the Overmind, the Mother was able to bring out the Divine Personalities and Powers into her body and physical being for several months: In those days when the Mother was either receiving the Sadhaks for meditation or otherwise working and concentrating· all night and day without sleep and with very ...
... expression of the love and delight the being feels in its contacts with Reality, inner and outer. Their business is not to dictate or direct the thought of the mind or the actions of the vital-physical being. If they did, they would Page 258 give rise to a dharma-śankara, a confusion of the essential functions of the members of the being, which should act in a perfect autonomy in... right course of action. But the psychic emotions only contribute their characteristic warmth and throb to the thought and judgement of the buddhi, and a thrill and glow to the movements of the physical being. The choice of thought and action must lie with the buddhi, and later on in the sâdhanâ, with the supramental Truth-Consciousness, possessing and perfecting the whole nature, but never with the ...
... ordinarily offer to the Divine when we turn towards Him is not always of the purest kind in the beginning. Its nature depends upon the part of our being from which it proceeds. It may be our physical being turning unintelligently, mechanically, inertly, under the dull drive of a secret impulsion, towards the Divine. Our love then takes a physical form—merely external, ritualistic or ceremonial—and... the psychic being, once it is awakened and comes to the front of our nature. Our mind may have its egoistic intellectual gratifications, our vital may have the satisfaction of its desires, our physical being may have its material pleasures and comforts to pursue, but the soul in us has nothing but a one-pointed tension towards the Divine, and a consuming passion for a union and communion with Him. ...
... "Our subliminal self is not, like our surface physical being, an outcome of the energy of the Inconscient, it is a meeting place of the consciousness that emerges from below by evolution and the consciousness that has descended from above for involution. There is in it an inner mind, an inner vital being of ourselves, an inner or subtle-physical being larger than our outer being and nature. This inner ...
... anything. When I am told that someone is ill, at least ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I have already experienced the thing, I have already experienced it as being part of my physical being, an immense physical being, you know, immense and without a precise form. So… 9 And I told her: “Well, it means that the consciousness of the WHOLE must change. It is always the same problem: once the whole ...
... divine Light to come down and give impulsion to all the activities of the mind. In this Yoga also, we want to bring down that divine Sun to govern, not only the mind, but the vital and the physical being also.... It is the capacity to bear the Light that constitutes the fitness for this Yoga. 50 And on one occasion, observing a spider frantically making web after web to catch insects, Sri... instruments of the Truth. That is a big enough work.... 52 On 13 July, he said that, for bringing down any higher spiritual force (especially the Supermind) into the earth-plane and the physical being, one had to sit down to it and call it down and hold it, and not prematurely rush into inconsequential action. "Therefore I say," he added, "it would be foolish to expect me to go to the Bengal ...
... with so many dull and lower aims, must feel all its urges and instincts exalted and irradiated and become a glorious counterpart of the supramental super-life above. The physical consciousness and physical being, the body itself must reach a perfection in all that it is and does which now we can hardly conceive. It may even in the end be suffused with a light and beauty and bliss from the Beyond and the... general fitness as an instrument for all the activities which may be demanded from it by the mind and the will, by the life-energy or by the dynamic perceptions, impulses and instincts of our subtle physical being which is an unrecognised but very important element and agent in our nature. Health and strength are the first conditions for the natural perfection of the body, not only muscular strength and ...
... into the full consciousness and possession of its spiritual reality, and its nature also would have to be lifted out of the consciousness and power of consciousness proper to a mental, vital and physical being into the greater consciousness and greater power of being and the larger and freer life of the spirit. It would not lose these former veils but they would no longer be veils or imperfect expressions... right condition and action, even a kind of unexpressed occult knowledge in the constitution of its cells and tissues which may one day become conscious and contribute to the transformation of the physical being. An awakening must come in the earth-nature and in the earth-consciousness which will be, if not the actual beginning, at least the effective preparation and the first steps of its evolution towards ...
... realised on the mental plane. One need not go to the Supermind at all. 3) First the whole physical being must be opened up; the Supermind must come and change the whole being from top to bottom: supramentalise it; then you get into the Supermind when you have the absolute truth. 4) Capacity of the physical being to extend depends upon our becoming conscious, and upon the plasticity of matter. Its capacity ...
... that which it seeks.... 66 The personal effort in Sri Aurobindo's yoga is a triple labor of aspiration, rejection, and surrender. Aspiration is a call of the mind, the heart, and the physical being for Peace, Light, Force, and spiritual realization. Rejection is a refusal of the ignorant movements of one's mental, vital, and physical nature that stand in the way of spiritual realization,... the darkness and distortions of the lower nature and to put itself resolutely or vehemently on the side of the divine Light. The mental energies, the heart's emotions, the vital desires, the very physical being have to be compelled into the right attitude or trained to admit and answer to the right influences. It is only then, only when this has been truly done, that the surrender of the lower to ...
... realised on the mental plane. One need not go to the Supermind at all. 3) First the whole physical being must be opened up; the Supermind must come and change the whole being from top to bottom; supramentalise it; then you get into the Supermind when you have the absolute truth. 4) Capacity of the physical being to extend depends upon our becoming conscious, and upon the plasticity of matter. Its capacity ...
... ourselves also there is in our subconscious being an action which is precisely that of the "inanimate" physical Nature whence has been constituted the Page 330 basis of our physical being, another which is that of plant-life, and another which is that of the lower animal creation around us. All these are so much dominated and conditioned by the thinking and reasoning cons... philosophical thinking. For we know that there is something in us which is conscious when we sleep, when we are stunned or drugged or in a swoon, in all apparently unconscious states of our physical being. Not only so, but we may now be sure that the old thinkers were right when they declared that even in our waking state what we call then our consciousness is only a small selection from our ...
... a spiritual urge, a truth inspiration that dynamises the action and exalts the life-movements; it infuses into the sense a direct and total power of spiritual sensation so that our vital and physical being can contact and meet concretely, quite as intensely as the mind and emotion can conceive and perceive and feel, the Divine in all things; it throws on the physical mind a transforming light... one indivisible existence. In ourselves also there is in our subconscious being an action which is precisely that of the "inanimate" physical Nature whence has been constituted the basis of our physical being, another which is that of plant-life, and another which is that of the lower animal creation around us. All these are so much dominated and conditioned by the thinking and reasoning conscious-being ...
... existence moves and finds in them its totality. The Life Divine, p.223 ...he [man] is aware only of a small part of his own being: his surface mentality, his surface life, his surface physical being is all that he knows and he does not know even all of that; below is the occult surge of his subconscious and subliminal mind, his subconscious and his subliminal life impulses, his subconscious... perceptions, activities of our mind-nature, a being of life which expresses something of itself in the impulses, feelings, sensations, desires, external life-activities of our vital nature, a physical being, a being of the body which expresses something of itself in the instincts, habits, formulated activities of our physical nature. These beings or part selves of the self in us are powers of the ...
... subliminal self is not, like our surface physical being, an outcome of the energy of the Inconscient; it is Page 39 a meeting-place of the consciousness that emerges from below by evolution and the consciousness that has descended from above for involution. There is in it an inner mind, an inner vital being of ourselves, an inner or subtle-physical being larger than our outer being and nature ...
... remains irreversible. On 8 October the Mother again talks about the overman, ‘what we call the overman [ le surhomme ], namely the being born in the human way and which tries to transform its physical being which it has got by its common human birth.’ Will there be such intermediary forms? ‘There will certainly be an innumerable quantity of partial realizations … There will be a considerable number... built. For this the Mother had remained upon Earth and she worked on it with all her might, with all her Power. It turned out that her work, especially because it increasingly concerned her physical being — her body and its cells — now demanded her withdrawal too from the active outward life she had been leading all these years. She gave her last talk at the Playground on 26 November 1958; on 7 ...
... to me that when the Higher Consciousness, after descending to the mental level, comes down to the Vital and even below the Vital, then a transformation takes place in the nervous and even in the physical being.’ 17 T.V. Kapali Shastry has a similar story. He had first seen Sri Aurobindo in 1917 and found a great change when he saw him again in 1923. ‘He found Sri Aurobindo completely changed... humankind and the world. The reason for this necessity was that one person can be cosmically expanded in his or her consciousness and even in his or her vital being, but not physically, as the physical being is materially limited to the body and the cells it contains. The Mother’s ‘very first question’ originated certainly from the same consideration. She realized, as did Sri Aurobindo, that it was ...
... to have promised or given us even a remote hint that in the immediate present, at the present stage of evolution, in Her present body, She Was going to achieve the transformation of the entire physical being, including that of the external structure.’ 18 The inevitable conclusion from all this is that the conviction that the Mother had to or would transform her physical body was one of the ‘Ashram... became immortal, just like their Gurus! K.D. Sethna recollects: ‘Psychologically, one of the most central facts of the early days [of the Ashram] was the conviction that complete divinisation of the physical being was not only an aim of Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga but also a practical goal. “Supramentalisation” was clearly understood to include a complete change in the body itself. What is most significant is that ...
... Our subliminal self is not, like our surface physical being, an outcome of the energy of the Inconscient; it is a meeting-place of the consciousness that emerges from below by evolution and the consciousness that has descended from above for involution. There is in it an inner mind, an inner vital being of ourselves, an inner or subtle-physical being larger than our outer being and nature. This inner ...
... with the higher Power; he merges them in the divine Will and its transcendent and universal Force. He finds it thenceforward presiding over the necessary transformation of his mental, vital and physical being with an impartial wisdom and provident effectivity of which the eager and interested ego is not capable. It is when this identification and this self-merging are complete that the divine centre... the darkness and distortions of the lower nature and to put itself resolutely or vehemently on the side of the divine Light. The mental energies, the heart's emotions, the vital desires, the very physical being have to be compelled into the right attitude or trained to admit and answer to the right influences. It is only then, only when this has been truly done, that the surrender of the lower to the ...
... predominantly sattwic in its nature. It is an enlightened enjoyment principally by the perceptive, aesthetic and emotive mind, secondarily only Page 655 by the sensational, nervous and physical being, but all subject to the clear government of the buddhi, to a right reason, a right will, a right reception of the life impacts, a right order, a right feeling of the truth, law, ideal sense, beauty... thing with difficulty limited, insatiable, irregular, a busy creator of disorder and disease. Moreover, the psychical prana leans on the physical life, limits itself by the nervous force of the physical being, limits thereby the operations of the mind and becomes the link of its dependence on the body and its subjection to fatigue, incapacity, disease, disorder, insanity, the pettiness, the precariousness ...
... nce, it is yet its deputy in the forms of Nature, the individual soul, Page 238 caitya puruṣa , supporting mind, life and body, standing behind . the mental, the vital, the subtle-physical being in us and watching and profiting by their development and experience. These other person-powers in man, these beings of his being, are also veiled in their true entity, but they put forward temporary... the true psychic. It is used still more loosely of psychological and other phenomena of an abnormal or supernormal character which are really connected with the inner mind, inner vital, subtle physical being subliminal in us and are not at all direct operations of the psyche. Even such phenomena as materialisation and dematerialisation are included, though, if established, they evidently are not s ...
... ss and Force in man in his present status of mind and life are principally three. First, he is aware only of a small part of his own being: his surface mentality, his surface life, his surface physical being is all that he knows and he does not know even all of that; below is the occult surge of his subconscious and his subliminal mind, his subconscious and his subliminal life-impulses, his subconscious... that fundamental division within between force of Nature and the conscious being which is the original cause of this incapacity. Not only is there a division between the mental, the vital and the physical being, but each of them is also divided against itself. The capacity of the body is less than the capacity of the instinctive soul or conscious being, the physical Purusha within it, the capacity of ...
... normal and carried so far that there will be a kind of division between the mind and the body and the former will observe and experience the hunger, thirst, pain, fatigue, depression, etc. of the physical being as if they were experiences of some other person with whom it has so close a rapport as to be aware of all that is going on within him. This division is a great means, a great step towards mastery;... of the body comes in fact by the conquest of the physical life-energy. Along with the attachment to the body and its works the attachment to life in the body is overcome. For when we feel the physical being to be not ourselves, but only a dress or an instrument, the repulsion to the death of the body which is so strong and vehement an instinct of the vital man must necessarily weaken and can be thrown ...
... all parts of the body & that a certain amount of primary utthapana can be temporarily Page 526 affirmed; but tertiary utthapana has been unable to emerge out of the pranic into the physical being & the other forms have been successfully attacked & thrown back into a state of weakness & arrested working. Arogya after reaching a certain point labours without making any definite general advance... it, as before, the wall of Vala shutting out the light, still less the veil of Vritra preventing the activities. Anima Agni is now manifesting in all the seven planes of consciousness of the physical being with a reference back to the mental plane. Persist in the will for perfection; give no consent to an imperfect fullness. Ananda. The persistence of ahaituka tivra increased greatly ...
... minutes, 2 minutes & 5 minutes, two of them for correcting proofs. Entire absence of pranic enthusiasm, void of mahima, absence of force in laghima; great defect of anima in the whole back. The physical being is depressed & discouraged in the matter of utthapana. Asiddhi The struggle in the Ananda resulted in an entire denial of Kamananda all the morning. There was also a violent, persistent... to disturb it. Momentary physical disturbance still comes, but is held by the Chit-Tapas & immediately rectified. Page 726 It is allowed to recur in order that the displeasure of the physical being may be turned into the pleasure of a contact forcibly endured. Brahman The Jnanam Brahma is now as strong as the Sarvam was previously & all beings are seen as personalities of that ...
... do not yet see to what the orders correspond. You must remember that the physical has to bear the impact of the others. Therefore, however obscure they may be, thirty is not too much for the physical being. The two orders on each plane must be the right hand and the left hand powers. The right hand are those who open upward so as to admit the influences from above and shape them for the being;... beings offer a strong resistance to any change, unless it confines itself to the higher activities. In proportion as a great change of mental thought for instance tries to affect the vital and physical being, the opposition becomes strong and is usually obstinate. It is sometimes rapidly overborne, sometimes can only be obtained 7 by a slow process of transformation in the sanskaras of the physical ...
... cosmic action. For consciousness is not simple or homogeneous, it is septuple. That is to say, it constitutes itself into seven forms or grades of conscious activity descending from pure Being to physical being. Their interplay creates the worlds, determines all activities, constitutes all becomings. Page 27 Brahman is always the continent of this play or this working. Brahman self-extended... this extension Brahman represents Itself as formative Nature, the universal Mother of things, who appears to us, first, as Matter, called Prithivi, the Earth-Principle. Brahman in Matter or physical being represents Itself as the universal Life-Power, Matarishwan, which moves there as a dynamic energy, Prana, and presides effectively over all arrangement and formation. Universal Life establishes ...
... least the framework for a harmonious explanation of all the complex elements of the problem. The scientific idea starts from physical being and makes the psychical a result and circumstance of body; this other evolutionary idea starts from soul and sees in the physical being an instrumentation for the awakening to itself of a spirit absorbed in the universe of Matter. Page 284 ...
... Grace and in the divine element within you, psychic and spiritual, that through these the nature will be transformed and the ego replaced by the true person and the animal by the true vital and physical being become fit instruments of the Divine Mother. Yes, these experiences [ of the smallness of the egoistic person ] always come when one is opening into the wideness of the cosmic consciousness... do not behave in this way. Page 250 × The correspondent asked whether egoism remains, at least in the physical being, as long as the body remains.—Ed. × Your present attitude to your poetry and painting is one ...
... Sadhana on the Level of the Physical Letters on Yoga - IV Chapter II Levels of the Physical Being The Physical Consciousness A certain inertia, tendency to sleep, indolence, unwillingness or inability to be strong for work or spiritual effort for long at a time, is in the nature of the human physical consciousness. When one goes down into the physical... in the body as elsewhere, then they can be reduced and dispelled by the same process as that which removes the wrong habits of the mind and vital. Care for the Body No need to despise the physical being—it is part of the intended manifestation. The body is meant to be an instrument of the Divine and a means of sadhana and a temple for the Mother's presence. It has to be purified, no despised ...
... disapproval of something wrong in the sadhak. It is very often merely a sign of absorption or inner concentration. On this occasion Mother was putting a question to your soul. 31 July 1933 The physical being feels the need of the Mother's smile when it meets her look. Is it a kind of desire? Yes. There has to be no disturbance when it does not come (knowing that its absence is not a sign of displeasure... is again the kind of suggestion that comes in from the surrounding physical Ignorance. Things like these last so obstinately because they have become habits or recurrent feelings in the external physical being; they will disappear when the external being becomes filled with the Mother's light. 30 May 1935 The Mother has been always specially careful in your case not to show displeasure or censure ...
... fundamentally and patiently purified, and made plastic and capable of receiving what is beyond the constructions of the mind, the desires of the body and the habits of the physical consciousness and physical being. His most obvious obstacle, one of which he has not in the least got rid of up to now, is a strongly Rajasic vital ego for which his mind finds justifications and covers. There is nothing more... what one does not know and all vain idea of being higher than one's own actual spiritual stature. Over against the vital rajasic ego there is a great coarseness and heaviness of tamas in the physical being and an absence of psychic and spiritual refinement. That must be eliminated or else it will stand always in the way of a true and complete change in the vital being and the mind. Unless these ...
... it is an instrumental Force for all divine realisations. It is the true vital being that has become awake and come in front within you. In the same way there is too a true mental being, a true physical being. When these are manifest, then you are aware of a double existence in you: that behind is always calm and strong, that on the surface alone is troubled and obscure. But if the true being behind... lower manifestation, apar ā prakrti, this eternal portion of the Divine appears as the soul, a spark of the Divine Fire, supporting the individual evolution, supporting the mental, vital and physical being. The psychic being is the spark growing into a Fire, evolving with the growth of the consciousness. The psychic being is therefore evolutionary, not like the Jivatman prior to the evolution. ...
... with the' lower Prakriti and its mechanism of forces. Prakriti here is a mechanism only which has been put forth for the working of the evolutionary ignorance. As the ignorant mental, vital or physical being is not itself the Divine, although it comes from the Divine - so the mechanism of Prakriti is not the Divine Mother. No doubt something of her is there in and behind this mechanism maintaining... brings the sense of union with the Divine and dependence upon It and sole consecration to the Divine alone and the power to change the nature and discover the true mental, the true vital, the true physical being in oneself. Both realisations are necessary for this Yoga. The "I" or the little ego is constituted by Nature and is at once a mental, vital and physical formation meant to aid in centralising ...
... through many lives, there is always a progress. Each experience it had in one of its physical lifetimes helps it to make some progress. But it is the psychic being which always progresses. The physical being, in the state in which it is at present—well, having reached a certain point of ascent, it comes down again. There are elements which may not come down again grossly; but still it does come down... completely free from all degeneration if it continues to develop normally. So these always make progress so long as they remain co-ordinated and under the influence of the psychic. It is only the physical being which grows and decomposes. Page 420 But this comes from its lack of plasticity and receptivity and by its very nature; it is not inevitable. Therefore there is room to think that at ...
... this person will have grouped around his central psychic being a fully developed and organised mind, an absolutely surrendered and collaborating vital and an obedient, docile and supple physical being. This physical being, as it is fully developed, will have a subtle body—what Sri Aurobindo calls the "true physical"—which will infinitely surpass the limits of its body and have enough suppleness, plasticity ...
... are in such a physical, mental, and vital condition that they are liable to catch an illness, even without drinking water, I assure you! Their whole being is a constant disharmony, their whole physical being. I do not mean inwardly, they are perhaps all right there but those who are all right resist everything. And I have seen just the contrary. I have seen in this country, here, village people... there are two things you have to do when you have discovered the disorder, big or small—the disharmony. Firstly, we said that this disharmony creates a kind of tremor and a lack of peace in the physical being, in the body. It is a kind of fever. Even if it is not a fever in general, there is localised fever; there are people who get restless. So the first thing to do is to quieten oneself, bring peace ...
... psychic sight. You may have a sufficiently close relation with your psychic being to remember what it has seen, to be conscious of what it saw, but it is not your physical being which sees, it is your psychic being. It is not your physical being seeing in a different way, it is your psychic which sees. Mother, here it is written: "The intensity of divine Love never creates a disturbance anywhere in ...
... necessary, or work if it thinks that is needed; and in any case it is free to do as it wants, what it wants, and to go to the regions to which it wants to go. But the parts belonging to the present physical being, that is, the mind, vital and physical, are in a complete repose and a kind of immobility, due to which the hours of sleep do not need to be so long. One can cut short the number of hours of sleep... knows how to do it even to the last detail, one risks doing stupid things. In any case one thing you can do in all security is, before going to sleep, to concentrate, relax all tension in the physical being, try... that is, in the body try so that the body lies like a soft rag on the bed, that it is no longer something with twitchings and cramps; to relax it completely as though it were a kind of ...
... vital and physical mixture. Influence of the Psychic Though the psychic in most human beings is entirely veiled so that one is conscious of oneself only as a mental, vital and physical being, there is always an unconscious influence of the psychic even in ordinary life. xix "A certain sensitive feeling for all that is true and good and beautiful, fine and pure... for which there is no outward proof. xxi according to its bent or turn at the moment." (pp. 2-3) Thus, though the psychic always exerts an influence on our mental, vital and physical being, the influence is almost always hidden, and is not seen or felt. The psychic exerts an unconscious influence even on the outer circumstances of life, for it is the psychic which guides a ...
... or mental sense; it is a sense of the physical world, but there are other senses than the five that we usually have at our disposal—there are many others. In fact, for the physical being—note that I say the physical being—to be fully developed, it must have twelve senses. It is one of these senses which gives you the kind of perception I was speaking of. You cannot say that it is taste, smell, hearing ...
... —bliss, delight, beatitude, spiritual ecstasy; the essential principle of delight: a self-delight which is the very nature of the transcendent and infinite existence. annamaya puruṣa —the physical being. antarātman —inner self; soul. aparārdha —the lower half (of world existence); the lower hemisphere. A separation, acute in practice though unreal in essence, divides the total being... s that executes and formalises what we see. The one we call Soul, the other Nature." (Sri Aurobindo); see also* Purusha. prāṇamaya puruṣa —soul in life; the (true) vital being. the physical (being) —not the body alone, but the whole physical mind, vital, material nature. physical mind —See under mind . physical vital —the part of the vital that is turned entirely upon physical ...
... universality and transcendence, it is yet its deputy in the forms of Nature, the individual soul, caitya puruṣa , supporting mind, life and body, standing behind the mental, the vital, the subtle-physical being in us and watching and profiting by their development and experience. These other person-powers in man, these beings of his being, are also veiled in their true entity, but they put forward temporary... the true psychic. It is used still more loosely of psychological and other phenomena of an abnormal or supernormal character which are really connected with the inner mind, inner vital, subtle physical being subliminal in us and are not at all direct operations of the psyche. Even such phenomena as materialisation and dematerialisation are included, though, if established, they evidently are not s ...
... it your way of perceiving that has changed? Yes, altogether—altogether. It is very strange.... Actually, all this time has been utilised for developing the consciousness of the physical being. And this physical being ( Mother touches her body ) seems really to have been prepared for another consciousness, because there are things... its reactions are altogether different, its attitude is different ...
... begin with the heart centre, if one can do it, is the more desirable. The other side of discipline is with regard to the activities of the nature, of the mind, of the life-self or vital, of the physical being. Here the principle is to accord the nature with the inner realisation so that one may not be divided into two discordant parts. There are here several disciplines or processes possible. One is... removes all imperfections, brings the right mental and vital movements and reshapes the physical consciousness also. Another method is to stand back detached from the movements of the mind, life, physical being, to regard their activities as only a habitual formation of general Nature in the individual imposed on us by past workings, not as any part of our real being; in proportion as one succeeds in ...
... which manifested through an action of the Power. And then, the action of the Power.... I was conscious ("I" was conscious—where was I? I don't know; the cube represented my physical being: I had been TOLD it was my physical being), and I was watching it without being situated—I myself had no precise place but could see and understand the whole thing. And I could discern all the action being done through ...
... has changed? Your way of perceiving things? Yes, completely—completely. It's very strange.... Basically, all that time was used to develop the consciousness of the physical being. It really seems as if this physical being ( Mother touches her body ) had been prepared for another consciousness, because for certain things... its reactions are entirely different, its attitude is different. I went ...
... or the day before (I forget), R. was here, just in front of me, kneeling, and I saw her psychic being towering above by this much ( gesture about eight inches ), taller. It's the first time. Her physical being was short, and the psychic being was tall, like this. And it was a sexless being: neither man nor woman. So I said to myself (it may be always that way, I don't know, but at that time I noticed... was neither male Page 245 nor female, that had features of both combined. And it was taller than her, it exceeded her on every side by about this much ( gesture extending beyond the physical being by about eight inches ). She was here, and it was like this ( gesture ). Its color was... this color that, if it became very material, would be Auroville's color [orange]. It was softer, as if ...
... not exist." If you attend closely to the words "thirst for perfection" you will seize Sri Aurobindo's view. Can our thirst be for perfection if the cry of the physical being is left without an answer from God? Our physical being has its innate demand for joy, for luminous effectivity, for healthy perpetuation. These demands are summed up in the agelong quest for the elixir vitae. Can ...
... sons came (or, manifested herself) for the upholding" (1.72.9). The meaning of these cryptic verses is that the physical being is visited by the greatness of the infinite planes above and by the power of the great godheads who reign on those planes. This breaks the limits of the physical being, which opens out to the Light and is upheld in its new wideness by the infinite Consciousness, mother Aditi, ...
... with so many dull and lower aims, must feel all its urges and instincts exalted and irradiated and become a glorious counterpart of the supramental super-life above. The physical consciousness and physical being, the body itself must reach a perfection in all that it is and does which now we can hardly conceive. It may even in the end be suffused with a light and beauty and bliss from the Beyond and the... general fitness, as an instrument for all the activities which may be demanded from it by the mind and the will, by the life-energy or by the dynamic perceptions, impulses and instincts of our subtle physical being which is an unrecognized but very important element and agent in our nature. Health and strength are the first conditions for the natural perfection of the body, not only muscular strength and ...
... International Centre of Education, Vol. XIX, No. 1, p. 75. 3 The Ramayana. 4 The Mahabharata, Adiparva, 14.50. 5 Genesis, 3.24. Page 409 "The physical being could only endure, if by some means its physical causes of decay and disruption could be overcome 1 and at the same time it could be made so plastic and progressive in its structure and its... world of mutual devouring," 3 will be abrogated and our earthly and mortal existence will flower into the immortal Life Divine. For, in the divinely transfigured bodily existence, the physical being of man would be "made so plastic and progressive in its structure and its functioning that it would answer to each change demanded of it by the progress of the inner Person; it...[would then] ...
... reflection and reasoning. But deeper psychological explorations indicate that behind what we experience as our physical being, vital being and mental being, there are as the Upanishads point out, inner sheaths supported by a kind of self-consciousness which sustains and nourishes the inner physical being, the inner vital being and the inner mental being. The data of self-consciousness further reveal to us ...
... experienced as the true eternal individual or individual soul or individual self. Pointing out that the true individual is nothing of the kind that obtains as individualized mental, vital, and physical being separate from all other beings and incapable of unity with them by its very ego-sense, Sri Aurobindo states that by the true individual is meant "a conscious power of being of the Eternal, always... embodied being. If the Purusha in us is passive and allows Nature to act, accepting all she imposes on him, giving a constant automatic sanction, then the soul in mind, life, body, the mental, vital, physical being in us, becomes subject to our nature, ruled by its formation, driven by its activities; that is the normal state of our ignorance. If the Purusha in us becomes aware of itself as the Witness and ...
... power of increasing the size and the weight of the body, etc. Laghim ā is a similar power of lightness, that is to say, of freedom from all pressure or weighing down in the mental, vital, or physical being. Laghim ā is the basis of the power to overcome gravitation and thus it is the basis of utth ā pana. Anim ā is the power of freeing the atoms of subtle or gross matter from their ordinary... body, life and mind. It is the caitya purusha, which is realised more and more distinguished from manomaya purusha, prānamaya purusha, and annamaya purusha (mental being, vital being and physical being). The experience of the caitya purusha is a major experience of Karma yoga,, since through that experience the entire process of Karma yoga begins to be guided by direct intuition that distinguishes ...
... projection of her Force which works in my external nature. That was what was needed — on one side the dwelling in the Mother, on the other the consciousness of her Force working in the physical being. My actions are beginning to be felt (not merely thought to be) as being performed by her Force while I remain merged in her consciousness. It is very good. That... prominent, withdrew in a deep passivity; the outer being was then left to itself without any dynamic control. When this happened the inertia tried to take advantage by rising up. If the physical being has felt and assimilated the silence and peace, then inertia ought not to rise up. Why do I feel today that I should keep myself plunged in this rich and deep intoxication and ...
... ); but there are large domains in him that are wholly unconscious, that is to say, move in mechanical rounds, a passive slave of external impacts. I am referring to his vital being and his physical being. Even like the mind these too must admit into themselves the light of the consciousness in order to free themselves from the influence of other external forces and attain the sense of their own... part of the human mind is far from being conscious, there is a part half-conscious and a part almost wholly unconscious. This hemisphere so to say is under the influence of the vital and the physical being with their unconscious and ill-organised influence. The true light comes from elsewhere, the mind in so far as it receives the light becomes conscious and proportionately autonomous. The light ...
... lity); but there are large domains in him that are wholly unconscious, that is to say, move in mechanical rounds, a passive slave of external impacts. I am referring to his vital being and his physical being. Even like the mind these too must admit into themselves the light of the consciousness in order to free themselves from the influence of other external forces and attain the sense of their own... good part of the human mind is far from being conscious, there is a part half-conscious and a part almost wholly unconscious. This hemisphere so to say is under the influence of the vital and the physical being with their unconscious and ill-organised influence. The true light comes from elsewhere, the mind in so far as it receives the light becomes conscious and proportionately autonomous. The light ...
... formed out of an inner mind, an inner vital and an inner physical, renewed and reshaped. We can show our love for her, requite the debt that we owe to her Grace by admitting her Presence into our physical being and allowing her to do the work she has undertaken to do. (2) For us now it is time to make amends for the lapses of the past – there were lapses, indeed, grievous... a gesture of bravado and gallantry, many answered "yes, we are." But we were not in fact. The task then for us and for the world is to make ourselves ready, that is to say, make our physical being and consciousness "If only mankind consented to be spiritualised." Page 90 free of the old reactions, instilling into them the consciousness ...
... because it is behind the threshold of our outer consciousness. It includes the large action of the inner mind, inner Intelligence and inner sense-mind, of an inner vital, and of an inner subtle-physical being which upholds and embraces our waking consciousness but is not brought to the front. Our subliminal being is not, like our surface being, an outcome of the energy of the Inconscient. It is... universal knowledge, in the supreme as the self- existent bliss and universal delight of being. And all this experience will be in all parts of his being. In the words of Sri Aurobindo: 'His physical being will be one with all material Nature, his vital being with the life of the universe, his mind with the cosmic mind, his spiritual knowledge and will with the divine knowledge and will both in itself ...
... with the heart centre, if one can do it, is the more desirable. The other side of discipline is with regard to the activities of the nature, of the mind, of the life-self or vital, of the physical being. Here the principle is to accord the nature with the inner realisation so that one may not be divided into two discordant parts. There are here several disciplines or processes possible Page... removes all imperfections, brings the right mental and vital movements and reshapes the physical consciousness also. Another method is to stand back detached from the movements of the mind, life, physical being, to regard their activities as only a habitual formation of general Nature in the individual imposed on us by past workings; not as any part of our real being; in proportion as one succeeds ...
... aims, must feel all its urges and instincts exalted and irradiated and become a Page 126 glorious counterpart of the supramental super-life above. The physical consciousness and physical being, the body itself must reach a perfection in all that it is and does which now we can hardly conceive. It may even in the end be suffused with a light and beauty and bliss from the Beyond and the... general fitness, as an instrument for all the activities which may be demanded from it by the mind and the will, by the life-energy or by the dynamic perceptions, impulses and instincts of our subtle physical being which is an unrecognised but very important element and agent in our nature. Health and strength are the first conditions for the natural perfection of the body, not only muscular strength and ...
... when the Higher Consciousness, descends from the Page 296 mental level to the vital and even below the vital, then a transformation takes place in the nervous and even in the physical being. He asked me to join the meditation in the afternoon and also the evening sittings. This time I saw the Mother for the first time. She was standing near the staircase when Sri Aurobindo was... because it was clear to me that he had been constantly living in the Higher Consciousness. "It is true," he said, "that the Divine Consciousness has descended but it has not yet descended into the physical being. So long as that is not done the work cannot be said to be accomplished." I bowed down to him. When I got up to look at his face, I found he had already gone to the entrance of his room and ...
... "All external circumstances have changed," she wrote in her diary on 19th April, which makes it impossible for work on the physical plane to be done as ardently desired. What has happened? The physical being, far from accomplishing the transformation, is only seized with dull impassivity, The constructing mind has recognised its mistake and surrendered to the Divine Will. The vital is both contained... systems of Yoga which call themselves Vedic. It is the union of the "Earth" of the Veda and Purana with the divine Principle, an earth which is said to be above our earth, that is to say, the physical being and consciousness of which the world and the body are only images. But the modern Yogas hardly recognise the possibility of a material union with the Divine. 25 What was remarkable and ...
... in this knowledge, while the psychic being supports this action and helps to transform the physical and the vital plane. Mina acts directly on the psychic being and on the emotional vital and physical being through the illumined psychic consciousness, while the illumined intuitions of the supramental being give her the necessary knowledge to act on the right lines and at the right moment. Her force... ... The second thing we have to know and remember is that nothing is perfectly done unless all is perfectly done. It is not sufficient to open the mind and the vital being and leave the physical being to its obscurity. ... The third thing to remember is that if all is to be changed and done then there must be complete surrender. ... ... on one side no lack of resolution and zeal for ...
... to me that when the Higher Consciousness, after descending to the mental level, comes down to the vital and even below the vital, then a transformation takes place in the nervous and even in the physical being. 29 Likewise, T. V. Kapali Sastry too, who had first seen Sri Aurobindo in 1917, found a great change when he had darshan again in 1923: " ... he found Sri Aurobindo completely changed in his... g question to Sri Aurobindo, "What are you waiting for?", the answer came in measured accents: It is true that the Divine Consciousness has descended but it has not yet descended into the physical being. So long as that work is not done the work cannot be said to be accomplished. 36 Even this buoyed up Purani as he records: I felt a great elation when I boarded the train: for, here was ...
... When the Higher Consciousness, after descending to the mental level, comes down to the vital and even below the vital, then a great transformation takes place in the nervous and even in the physical being. 2 Sri Aurobindo’s complexion had taken on a different color. He who had a rather dark skin, “like that of an ordinary Bengali,” Purani, that old disciple, remarks, “I found his cheeks wore... Aurobindo): How can it descend? The nearer it comes, the greater becomes the resistance to it. (Disciple): Have you realised the Supermind? (Sri Aurobindo): I know what the Supermind is. And the physical being has flashes and glimpses of it.... I am not satisfied with only a part of the Supermind in the physical consciousness. I want to bring down the whole mass of it, pure, and that is an extremely ...
... CHAPTER XVIII KARMA YOGA AND ITS INDISPENSABILITY PART II THE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF KARMAYOGA KARMAYOGA consists in offering all the movements of our physical being, particularly the works done by our body, to the omnipresent Master of our being. Its primary rule, as the Gitâ insists, is the renunciation of all desire for the fruit of our action, and all ... for some work, there should always be a quiet and intent concentration on the Divine Mother, and an openness and receptivity to Her inspiration and guidance. Such openness alone can change our physical being, foster the growth of the higher conscious- ness in it, heighten the powers and faculties of our nature, awaken those that are dormant, and transform the whole ¹ Compare the Gitâ's ideal ...
... attacks fall heavily on the body because the opposing forces find it more difficult than before to upset the mind or vital so they fall on the physical in the hope that that will do the trick, the physical being more vulnerable. But the sensibility of the body to attacks is no proof of incapacity, just as the former sensibility of the mind or vital to attacks was no proof —it can be in due time overcome... quite apart from any special interest in X, the whole movement is wrong in itself, — the very habit of eager curiosity in these matters; it is closely affiliated to the sex interest in the small physical being — so discard it altogether and make these layers entirely clear and pure. No date I do not at all understand why you should think that the Mother was displeased with you for any ...
... consciousness. Page 19 HATHAYOGA Hathayoga is founded on the truth that the human body is not "a mass of living matter, but a mystic bridge between the spiritual and the physical being".¹ It houses powers and energies which, once properly quickened and marshalled, can achieve the release of the human mind' and the soul from the cramping hold of Matter. The very body, which... worship. A living and constant self-consecration in action and an uncompromising rejection of egoistic desires is the He- most effective method of Karmayoga. As most men live in their vital-physical being, predominantly concerned with the satisfaction of their desires and wants, the practice of Karmayoga is usually attended with rapid and remarkable results in the general purification of the ...
... Nature of the universal self and spirit. Always she has distinguished and cultivated in him a mental, an intellectual, an ethical, dynamic and practical, an aesthetic and hedonistic, a vital and physical being, but all these have been seen as powers of a soul that manifests through them and grows with their growth, and yet they are not all the soul, because at the summit of its ascent it arises to something ...
... one piece and evolution were only a raising of the degrees of a single power. For there are many strands, many degrees, many forms of energy of Nature. There is in the world of birth an energy of physical being and nature, arising out of the physical an energy of vital being and nature, arising out of the vital an energy of mental being and nature, arising out of the mental an energy of spiritual or ...
... possession of our complete divine consciousness delivered from all falsehood by the free descent of the truth, gives us the secure possession of the world of Swar and the enjoyment of mental and physical being lifted into the godhead above darkness, falsehood and death by the in-streaming of our divine elements. This victory is won in twelve periods of the upward journey, represented by the revolution ...
... is perfected and made firm like a well-shaped pillar to support the vast Truth of the higher or immortal life that is now made manifest and the largeness of that Truth is lodged here in all the physical being. The delivery of the pregnant contents of the hill, parvatasya garbhaḥ , the illuminations constituting the seven-headed thought, ṛtasya dhītiḥ , which come forth in answer to the inspired word ...
... Greek ponos , labour) and we may perhaps regard the Panis as the powers that preside over those ordinary unillumined sense-activities of life whose immediate root is in the dark subconscient physical being and not in the divine mind. The whole struggle of man is to replace this action by the luminous working of mind and life which comes from above through the mental existence. Whoever thus aspires ...
... is not bound by any mode of nature or action, nor consists, as our personality consists, of a sum of qualities, modes of nature, characteristic operations of the mental, moral, emotional, vital, physical being, but is the source of all modes and qualities, capable of developing any he wills in whatever way and to whatever degree he wills; he is the infinite being of which they are ways of becoming, the ...
... and support in a rationalised knowledge and a rationalised way of life? An ordered knowledge of the powers, forces, possibilities of physical Nature and of the psychology of man as a mental and physical being is then the only true science. An ordered use of that knowledge for a progressive social efficiency and well-being, which will make his brief existence more efficient, more tolerable, more comfortable ...
... of philosophical thinking. For we know that there is something in us which is conscious when we sleep, when we are stunned or drugged or in a swoon, in all apparently unconscious states of our physical being. Not only so, but we may now be sure that the old thinkers were right when they declared that even in our waking state what we call then our consciousness is only a small selection from our entire ...
... mode of Thy manifestation. If struggle there is, it is so gentle and easy that it can hardly be given the name. But how small is this heart to contain so great a love! and how weak this vital and physical being to carry the power to distribute it! Thus Thou hast placed me on the threshold of the marvellous Way, but will my feet have the strength to advance upon it? ... But Thou repliest to me that my ...
... Prayers and Meditations October 12, 1914 It was their sorrow and suffering which the physical being was feeling, Lord. When will ignorance dissolve? When will pain cease? O Lord, grant that each element of the universe may become conscious of its principle of being and, without disappearing, be transformed; may the veils of egoistic blindness which hide ...
... mode of Thy manifestation. If struggle there is, it is so gentle and easy that it can hardly be given the name. But how small is this heart to contain so great a love! and how weak this vital and physical being to carry the power to distribute it! Thus Thou hast placed me on the threshold of the marvellous Way, but will my feet have the strength to advance upon it?... But Thou repliest to me that my movement ...
... Questions and Answers 1929-1931 ( 28 April 1929 ) What do you call "the other side"? We speak of the other side of the veil, the other side of existence. It is being no longer in the physical: being in the vital, for example, or in the conscious part of the vital. One becomes conscious of two sides and so knows what is happening. There are people who go out of their body methodically to have ...
... to have another kind of experience. For what I saw in this man was a formation belonging to an earthly plane, it was mental-vital; and as Beethoven had disciplined his whole mental, vital and physical being around his musical capacity, that had remained in form, it was a living thing, and had incarnated in that man, just as it was, but not necessarily Beethoven's psychic being. In his former life ...
... body remaining healthy—it is not impossible but it is much rarer, for the body depends a great deal on the state of the mind. The mind (I have written it there in the book) is the master of the physical being. And I have said the latter was a very docile and obedient servant. Only one doesn't know how to use one's mind, rather the opposite. Not only does one not know how to use it, but one uses it ill—as ...
... very clearly. And you must be very humble; that is, be willing not to play a great part in all this story. The misfortune is that usually either the vital being or the mental being or even the physical being is very anxious to play a part, very anxious. So it swells up, takes up a lot of place, covers the rest; and it covers it so well that one can't even become aware of the presence of the divine ...
... dissolved, goes to pieces, scattered here and there, the Page 32 individuality exists no longer. Now, how often in the physical life does the psychic being take part consciously in what the physical being does?... I am not speaking of people who do yoga and are a little disciplined; I am speaking of average people who have a psychic capacity in the sense that their psychic is already sufficiently ...
... No other dreams? (The first child) Sweet Mother, you did not give the explanation of my dream. There is no explanation, my child. You saw something of which you are not conscious in your physical being, that's all. The Forces are always there, full of tender affection, love, help, of... but one is not aware of this because one lives in too narrow, too small a consciousness. There is no need of ...
... and the divine had to do with the intermediate period between before it is down. What I meant was that if the Mother were able to bring out the Divine Personalities and Powers into her body and physical being, as she was doing for several months without break some years ago, the brightest period in the history of the Asram, things would be much more easy and all these dangerous attacks that now take ...
... systems of Yoga which call themselves [Vedic] 3 . It is the union of the "Earth" of the Veda and Purana with the divine Principle, an earth which is said to be above our earth, that is to say, the physical being and consciousness of which this world and the body are only images. But the modern Yogas hardly recognise the possibility of a material union with the Divine. 31 December 1915 [7] ...
... About the birthdays. There is a rhythm (one among many) in the play of the world-forces which is connected with the sun and planets. That makes the birthday a day of possible renewal when the physical being is likely more plastic. It is for this reason that Mother sees people on their birthdays. 18 May 1934 I don't see why people in general exalt their birthdays. Of Page 524 course ...
... even a Brahmacharin. The Yoga I am practising has not the ghost of a connection with Sannyasa. It is a Yoga meant for life & life only. Its object is perfection of the moral condition & mental & physical being along with the possession of certain powers—the truth of which I have been establishing by continuous practical experiment,—with the object of carrying out a certain mission in life which God has ...
... organises his existence—only in what may be called the main lines, because for intervening in the details there would have to be a conscious union between the outer being, that is, the vital being and physical being, and the psychic being, but usually this does not exist. So externally, in the details... for example, there was someone who in deep perplexity said to me, "Well, if it is the psychic being or ...
... trying to keep you outside instead of allowing you to go and remain within. That is why I have been trying to persuade you to go within and not live in these outside ideas and reactions of the physical being which prevent sadhana and only give trouble. It is not a fact that the Mother wants you to be a puppet of X . Of the two questions that have arisen, in one, as to the vital relation which entered ...
... Sweet Mother, how can one unify one’s being? The first step is to find, deep within oneself, behind the desires and impulses, a luminous consciousness which is always present and manifests the physical being. Ordinarily, one becomes aware of the presence of this consciousness only when one has to face some danger or an unexpected event or a great sorrow. One has, then, to come into conscious ...
... each plane of the consciousness. On the mental plane it is the true mental being, manomaya puruṣa , on the vital plane the true vital being, prāṇamaya puruṣa , on the physical plane the true physical being, annamaya puruṣa . Each being therefore is, so long as the Ignorance lasts, centred round his mental, vital or physical Purusha, according to the plane on which he predominantly lives, and that ...
... becomes possible when one rises above the mind and lives there governing all from above. Even in the psychic transformation one can rise above by a sort of going above of the mental, vital, physical being and a return, but one does not yet live above in the summit Page 99 consciousness where overmind has its seat with the other planes that are above the human Mind. The ...
... powerful bindings of Karma. This is a reasonable account of the balance: but there is also to be added to the computation the fact that destiny is not simple but complex; the destiny which binds our physical being, binds it so long or in so far as a greater law does not intervene. Action belongs to the physical part of us, it is the physical outcome of our being; but behind our surface is a freer life power ...
... of all bein g, but of being as we know it, extinction of ego, desire and egoistic action and mentality). Page 124 Overmind — see under spiritualised mind. the physical (being) — not the body alone, but the whole physical mind, vital, material nature, physical mind — see under mind. Prakriti — Nature; Nature-Force. "Existence is composed of Prakriti ...
... radical change of nature might seem to put off all the hope of humanity to a distant evolutionary future; for the transcendence of our normal human nature, a transcendence of our mental, vital and physical being, has the appearance of an endeavour too high and difficult and at present, for man as he is, impossible. Even if it were so, it would still remain the sole possibility for the transmutation of ...
... The result is the fallacy of a rigid break between Aryan and Dravidian races, languages, civilizations, even deities (Shiva is Dravidian, Vishnu is Aryan!). India, maimed in her spirit and her physical being, has also been maimed in her past. We await a broader, bolder and un blinkered scholarship, which will neither ignore the elements supplied by archaeology, nor close its eyes to what has been for ...
... modern systems of Yoga which call themselves Vedic. It is the union of the "Earth" of the Veda and Purana with the divine Principle, an earth which is said to be above our earth, that is to say, the physical being and consciousness of which the world and the body are only images. But the modern Yogas hardly recognise the possibility of a material union with the Divine ...
... s have changed, giving a flat lie to the dream of the ideal which sought expression even in material activities. The hour has not yet come for joyful realisations in outer physical things. The physical being is plunged once again into the dull, monotonous night from which it wanted to withdraw too hastily; and Thy realised will, O Lord of Truth, has come to tell the constructing mind: "You don't think ...
... deaths of the body and all the vicissitudes of the vital-mental evolution. Without this transfiguring touch, you always go about in fear; with it, you gradually develop the power to make even your physical being plastic without losing its individuality. Even now, it is not entirely rigid, it is able to feel the conscious movements of others by a sort of sympathy which translates itself into nervous reactions ...
... manifests. Let us take the instruments: there is the mental being which produces thoughts, the emotional being which produces feeling, the vital being which produces the power of action and the physical being that acts. The man of genius may use anything at all and make something beautiful because he has genius; but give this genius a perfect instrument and he will make something wonderful. Take ...
... inner consciousness in them is stronger, more developed than the other consciousness (I do not speak here of "transformed" beings, for in them one can visualise a state of things in which even the physical being is above suffering; we are speaking of men as they are at present). If your consciousness is seated in a place where these external things do not exist, then it may be said that you do not bear ...
... quiet", then the experience can continue. When the vital begins to say, "I want lots and lots, more and more", you say, "Quiet, quiet, don't move, calm yourself, don't get excited." Or when the physical being, "Oh! I shall be crushed...."—"A little endurance, if you please; you are a coward, you don't know how to stand the test." If you manage to do this in time, with the necessary calmness, with the ...
... result of very long efforts to become conscious of oneself, of Nature, and to master this Nature and draw the best possible advantage from it. We were saying a while ago that the training of the physical being consists in preparing an instrument so that the Divine may manifest Himself. A civilisation prepares an instrument so that the Divine may manifest in that instrument. The more slowly, carefully ...
... and Ananda and separates it from the excitement of the mind's ardours and the blind enthusiasm of the misleading life-force. But all things that are true at their core in mind and life and the physical being it extricates and takes with it in the journey till they stand on the heights, new in spirit and sublime in figure." Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, SABCL, Vol. 20, pp. 155-57 ...
... mentally, acting and living in the mental world quite consciously and with similar relations—for the mental world is in relation with the mental being, as the physical world is in relation with the physical being—and so on, progressively and by a regular discipline. I knew a woman who had been trained in this way, who had quite remarkable personal faculties, who was conscious in all her states of being ...
... for all those who do it, it is like this, it is as Sri Aurobindo has described it here. And if one wants to do the thing in a solitary way, it is absolutely impossible to do it totally. For every physical being, however complete he may be, is only partial and limited; he Page 409 represents only one law in the world; it can be a very complex law, but it is only one law; what is called in India ...
... to choose one of the three paths first in order to be able to combine them all later. The path of knowledge is the well-known path of Raja Yoga, in which one practises detachment from one's physical being, saying, "I am not the body", then detachment from one's sensations, "I am not my sensations", then from one's feelings, saying, "I am not my feelings", and so on. One detaches oneself from thought ...
... total mixture with all things from outside, and that there is almost no individualisation, that is, specialisation which makes you a different being. You are moved—a kind of form which is your physical being is moved—by all the common universal forces, vital forces or mental forces, which go through your form and put it in motion. So that is the universal being. And all that you have wrested ...
... but he thirsts also for the experiences of a restless mind and a troubled heart. Enjoyment is to his mind a fever, calm an inertia and a monotony. " Man is in love with the limitations of his physical being, yet he would have also the freedom of his infinite mind and his immortal soul. " And in these contrasts something in him finds a curious attraction; they constitute for his mental being the ...
... people understand this, and generally those who are against this outer discipline of sports, this concentration on the material realisation, are people who completely lack control over their physical being. And to realise the integral yoga of Sri Aurobindo the control of one's body is a first indispensable step. Those who despise physical activities are people who won't be able to take a single ...
... origin and effect of the various vital vibrations in order to know whether they are favourable to harmony, beauty and good health or whether they are harmful to the balance and progress of the physical being and the vital. Moreover, the senses should be used as instruments to approach and study the physical and vital worlds in all their complexity; in this way they will take their true place in the ...
... material mind and the physical mind? The physical mind is the mind of the physical personality formed by the body. It grows with the body, but it is not the mind of Matter: it is the mind of the physical being. For example, it is this physical mind which gives the character—the bodily character, the physical character—and which is in a large measure formed by atavism and by education. All this is called ...
... that alone never fails. Perhaps one day I shall find the favourable conditions and the necessary help for the achievement of the supreme realisation, the transformation and divinisation of the physical being which will change the world into a blessed place full of harmony and light, peace and beauty. ( The Clairvoyant, more and more deeply moved, remains silent, her hands clasped as if in prayer ...
... invitation to the Kundalini to awake or for the lower consciousness to rise and meet the higher. The disturbing factor came with the feeling of discomfort in the heart due to some resistance in the physical being which is very often felt and can be overcome by the working of the Force itself and the fear that came afterwards in the seats of the vital Nature, heart, navel etc. But that was no part of the ...
... and in one or two passages of the Upanishads, but in the Upanishads it is there only in seed in the conception of the being of knowledge, vijñānamaya puruṣa , exceeding the mental, vital and physical being; in the Rig Veda the idea is there but in Page 444 principle only, it is not developed and even the principle of it has disappeared from the Hindu tradition. It is these things among ...
... 7) Evolution. In my explanation of the universe I have put forward this cardinal fact of a spiritual evolution as the meaning of our existence here. It is a series of ascents from the physical being and consciousness to the vital, the being dominated by the life-self, thence to the mental being realised in the fully developed man and thence into the perfect consciousness which is beyond the ...
... consciousness, their workings there, the realisation of the divine or spiritual love, the perception of one's own psychic being, the discovery of one's own true mental being, true vital being, true physical being, the realisation of the overmind or the supramental consciousness, the clear perception of the relation of all these things to our present inferior nature and their action on it to change that ...
... rational and practical soundness, useful adaptation, just mechanism and seeks to build up a well-ordered, well-informed and efficient human life. Both take it that man is partly a mental, partly a physical being with the mentalised physical life for his field and reason for his highest attribute and his highest possibility. But if we follow to the end the new vistas opened by the most advanced tendencies ...
... thought and intelligent determination. His use of them no more makes him a developed mental being than the daily movement to and from his place of business makes the average Londoner a developed physical being or his quotidian contributions to the economic life of the country make the bank-clerk a developed Page 88 economic man. He is not mentally active, but mentally reactive,—a very different ...
... principle of individualism is the liberty of the human being regarded as a separate existence to develop himself and fulfil his life, satisfy his mental tendencies, emotional and vital needs and physical being according to his own desire governed by his reason; it admits no other limit to this right and this liberty except the obligation to respect the same individual liberty and right in others. The ...
... spirit, and man however hedged in his present capacity, the first being in Nature in whom that power begins to be consciently self-creative in the front of the action, in this outer chamber of physical being, there set to work and bring out by an increasingly self-conscious evolution what he can of all its human significance or its divine possibility? That is the clear conclusion we must arrive at ...
... brings the sense of union with the Divine and dependence upon it and sole consecration to the Divine alone and the power to change the nature and discover the true mental, the true vital, the true physical being in oneself. Both realisations are necessary for this Yoga. The "I" or the little ego is constituted by Nature and is at once a mental, vital and physical formation meant to aid in centralising ...
... (8) The Jivatman has its representative power in the individual nature here; this power is the Purusha upholding the Prakriti—centrally in the psychic, more instrumentally in the mind, vital and physical being and nature. It is therefore possible to regard these or any of them as if they were the Jiva here. All the same I am obliged to make a distinction not only for clear thinking but because of the ...
... realms of mind which become our field whether by going within or widening into the cosmic consciousness. The true mental being is not the same as the inner mental—true mental, true vital, true physical being means the Purusha of that level freed from the error and ignorant thought and will of the lower Prakriti and directly open to the knowledge and guidance from above. Higher vital usually refers ...
... afterwards the movements of the old crises repeated themselves mechanically without producing asamata. Crisis continual throughout the afternoon. Samata suffered, but only in the prana of the physical being with an occasional reaction in its mind. Towards evening promise of the foundation of the first assertion made yesterday. The vangmaya and script firmly established in their constant ...
... divesting it of all rajasic elements. The only tamas left is the physical and the asraddha of the Adesha, the latter the result of insufficient prakasha, the former of the imperfect conquest of the physical being by the vijnanam. The manifestation of the Kalibhava, harmonising the bala, raudra (karali) & shiva Kali, has perfected the second chatusthaya in all but intensity. The remnants of general asraddha ...
... Divine is there also inside you. Open your eyes and look and look till the veil is rent and you see Him—or Her. The change noted by X evidently indicates a great progress in the vital and physical being. There is nothing spiritually wrong in being glad and cheerful, on the contrary it is the right thing. As for struggles and aspiration, struggles are really not indispensable to progress and there ...
... purified, controlled and transformed. That will take place fully when the thinking mind becomes fully conscious and when the psychic comes forward and leads and governs both it and the vital and physical being. Your thinking mind is becoming more and more conscious; that is shown by what you write, for the perceptions there expressed are quite clear-seeing and correct and show an increasingly right ...
... low. I have not said that to reach the overmind is impossible; I have only said that it is difficult. Difficulty is not a reason why the things should not be done. It is not easy for a physical being to reach the highest truth because his consciousness is something ignorant that has emerged out of the material inconscience and is very much tied to and hampered by the obscurity of its origin—in ...
... unborn Self above, the Atman of the Upanishads, for that is differently experienced through the silence of the thinking mind, but the inner being, the psychic supporting the inner mental, vital, physical being, of which I have spoken. A time must come for every seeker of complete self-knowledge when he is thus aware of living in two worlds, two consciousnesses at the same time, two parts of the same ...
... psychic being in you that heard the call and followed after it. Page 156 It is, I suppose, the image of Sri Krishna as Lord of the divine Love and Ananda—and his flute calls the physical being to awake out of the attachments of the physical world and turn to that Love and Ananda. Krishna with Radha is the symbol of the Divine Love. The flute is the call of the Divine Love; the ...
... vivid, significant, coherent and full of interest. But as the dream consciousness in sleep develops, the outgoing part can increase its hold, and either manipulate the terms supplied to it from the physical being so as to express directly and vividly or else in significant symbols its own characteristic consciousness and experience or else it can impose its own terms, figures, scenes with more or less ...
... Mother with the lower Prakriti and its mechanism of forces. Prakriti here is a mechanism only which has been put forth for the working of the evolutionary Ignorance. As the ignorant mental, vital or physical being is not itself the Divine, although it comes from the Divine—so the mechanism of Prakriti is not the Divine Mother. No doubt something of her is there in and behind this mechanism maintaining it ...
... therefore be, before the soul is attracted back towards terrestrial existence, an interval in which it assimilates its terrestrial experiences in order to be able to constitute a new vital and physical being upon earth. During this interval it must dwell in states or worlds beyond and these may be favourable or unfavourable to its future development. They are favourable in proportion as the light of ...
... extended universality of our being there is the rich felicity and the creation of the godhead. The divine workings are impaired and restricted by the gods in the ordinary life of the vital and the physical being, but when Mitra and Varuna uphold in us the luminous worlds in which each of these finds its truth and power, they become complete and firm for ever.] त्री रोचना वरुण त्रीँरुत द्यून्त्रीणि ...
... each plane, in each body or house, Agni establishes these ecstasies. × The mother is Earth, our physical being; the other world is the supramental existence; the vital and emotional being is the world in between. Agni manifests in all of these simultaneously. ...
... evolution possible. Evolutionary Nature in her first awakening of man to a rudimentary spiritual consciousness must begin with a vague sense of the Infinite and the Invisible surrounding the physical being, a sense of the limitation and impotence of human mind and will and of something greater than himself concealed in the world, of Potencies beneficent or maleficent which determine the results of ...
... and Ananda and separates it from the excitement of the mind's ardours and the blind enthusiasms of the misleading life-force. But all things that are true at their core in mind and life and the physical being it extricates and takes with it in the journey till they stand on the heights, new in spirit and sublime in figure. Page 167 And yet even the leading of the inmost psychic being is ...
... more potent and much more valuable element in the constitution of our being. It includes the large action of an inner intelligence and inner sense-mind, of an inner vital, even of an inner subtle-physical being which upholds and embraces our waking consciousness, which is not brought to the front, which is subliminal, in the modern phrase. But when we can enter and explore this hidden self, we find that ...
... other selves except by the outward indications they give of their existence, indications of communicated thought, speech, action, result of actions, or subtler indications—not felt directly by the physical being—of vital impact and relation. Equally is it ignorant of itself; for it knows of its self only through a movement in Page 180 Time and a succession of lives in which it has used its ...
... For this change he must make conscient in him that power of spirit and supermind which is now superconscient to our mentality. But that cannot work in him so long as his present mental, vital, physical being is not liberated from its actual inferior working. This purification is the first necessity. In other words, purification must not be understood in any limited sense of a selection of certain ...
... equality of Sachchidananda. It is an equality of the infinite being which is self-existent, an equality of the eternal spirit, but it will mould into its own mould the mind, heart, will, life, physical being. It is an equality of the infinite spiritual consciousness which will contain and base the blissful flowing and satisfied waves of a Page 707 divine knowledge. It is an equality of ...
... natural being. They have indeed their strongest relative hold in the three different members of it, mind, life and body. Tamas, the principle of inertia, is strongest in material nature and in our physical being. The action of this principle is of two kinds, inertia of force and inertia of knowledge. Whatever is predominantly governed by Tamas, tends in its force to a sluggish inaction and immobility or ...
... infinity secret but still present here, or by losing its separate sense of substance and existence in the Self within or without it. The result is a glorified sleep of the physical mind in which the physical being forgets itself in a kind of conscious Nirvana or else moves about like a thing inert in the hands of Nature, jaḍavat , like a leaf in the wind, or otherwise a state of pure happy and free irr ...
... the cosmos. The Yogin is able to feel his body one with all bodies, to be aware of and even to participate in their affections; he can feel constantly the unity of all Matter and be aware of his physical being as only a movement in its movement. 3 Still more is it possible for him to feel constantly and normally the whole sea of the infinite life as his true vital existence and his own life as only ...
... infinite consciousness and will, infinite bliss and the infinite comprehensive and self-effective knowledge of supermind, four divine principles; to the latter belong mental being, vital being, physical being, three human principles. In their apparent nature the two are opposed; each is the reverse of the other. The divine is infinite and immortal being; the human is life limited in time and scope and ...
... not in the least.... which would mean that Sri Aurobindo had SEEN the thing—did he see it, or did he experience it? I don't know... And that's what he regards as the supramentalization of the physical being. Do you remember that in Savitri ? I'll read it again. Towards the end Have you seen that healer's letter? Yes, and I was struck by one thing: the impression of a natural ...
... ly and disclosed the Overmind Godhead as a help towards the Supermind even though it may be a sublime danger if dwelt in too concentratedly. Hence his designation of the descent of it into his physical being on 24 November 1926 as "siddhi" (fulfilment) and yet his "No" to the Mother some nine months later when she was ready to precipitate the Overmind creation on earth. Page 177 ...
... used to make short trips. And one of them was for the darshan of November 24, 1950. It was reported that Sri Aurobindo was not keeping well. I knew that he had complete control of the physical being. So whatever illness might be his would be something which he had consented to for some inscrutable purpose - had consented to and yet would fight against in order to work out some paradoxical ...
... one form or another, openly concordant or apparently divided. We have thus in the realm of evolutionary existence a mental being facing mental Nature, a vital being fronting vital Nature, a physical being opposite physical Nature: these beings are experienced by us according as our consciousness assumes a mental or vital or physical poise. And all of them are representative of the true psychic ...
... Good in the kingdom of man. But once we accept the process of evolution within a Platonic cosmology we have not only to think of a divine counterpart to the whole triple strain of mental-vital-physical being: we have also to think of a divine mentality, a divine vitality and even a divine physicality as forming the covert nature of the Platonic "chaos" and unfolding on earth in answer to their counterpart ...
... desired, for "deep in my dreams" is too far to be easily understood with "You hide..." The final verse carries the dominant motif a step further by transferring the spirit's thrill to the very physical being: body and soul seem to fuse in one illimitable sensation of light, as if the entire cosmos were unfolding its secret to the individual. Clouds become soft serenities in him and the rain a gorgeous ...
... night rupa in samadhi accompanied by shabda, sparsha and shabda speech. Shabda speech also in antardarshi. Until now night brought back the consciousness to a lower level, but this habit of the physical being is now being attacked; it is not yet overcome, but the force of the habit is diminished. Roga also recurred at night, but this time it was attacked with great force by the gnostic tapas and ov ...
... break in for a time and possess the surface. There is still a persistence of vague relics which are being steadily idealised out of existence. This is due to persistence of tamas element in the physical being and is part of laxity or physical depression. It is disappearing in proportion as the ideal Shakti fixes itself in the true vijnana. The chief defect is in insufficient force of hasya and ananda ...
... logistis is now successfully occupying the whole range of the T² siddhi; the element of recurrent lower ideality or idealised mentality is approaching the minimum. The extension of Tapas in the physical being proceeds with the working of getting rid of the apravritti of mere prakashamaya ҫamas; the acquiescence in asiddhi mechanically recurs, but is no longer accepted by the Shakti Strong united ...
... impression is pain, though ananda immediately intervenes and takes possession. In subsequent effects pain mingles, but the tendency is for ananda to prevail. The general receptive attitude of the physical being is anandamaya and this is rapidly prevailing. The intelligence has not only lost, but renounced its right to judge; but it is still involuntarily the recipient in the lower mental system and ...
... also for the experiences of a restless mind and a troubled heart. Enjoyment is to his mind a fever, calm an inertia and a monotony. Page 204 Man is in love with the limitations of his physical being, yet he would have also the freedom of his infinite mind and his immortal soul. And in these contrasts something in him finds a curious attraction; they constitute for his mental being the artistry ...
... return awaits the self-embodying human soul and is the crown of its long endeavour. But here again, what is it that brings about this connection of a spiritual being and higher mental nature and a physical being and lower animal nature? what necessitates this taking up of the lower life by the spirit which here becomes man? It would seem surely that there must have been some previous connection; the possessing ...
... hair turned darker—I noticed that. He was about... about ten, maybe. You see, it was total trust. He was very quiet, looking at you and looking at you... with total trust. But it wasn't the physical being. Yes, I understand. ( silence ) It's night in France at this time? Now it must be.... It's the early hours of the morning, it must be five or six o'clock in the morning. Do you ...
... had been told about it and believed in it, but it didn't have the experience in such a concrete, total and absolute manner that it can't be forgotten for a single second. At that moment, the physical being and the individual, personal body had the experience once and for all. The body always used to let itself be carried along. It was one in consciousness with Sri Aurobindo's presence, and depended ...
... with a profound cleverness the stupidity of so-called wise men where the manifestation of the Divine such as Sri Aurobindo has in mind is concerned, a manifestation ultimately transforming the physical being itself. The wise men will chatter away, discussing the pros and cons of the Life Divine in the integral Aurobindonian sense. I shall not be surprised if some of them, who may be married and harried ...
... division in the being is an insincerity. 9) The greatest insincerity is to carve an abyss between one's body and the truth of one's being. 10) When an abyss separates the true being from the physical being, Nature immediately fills it with all the hostile suggestions, of which the most deadly is fear and the most pernicious, doubt. I wrote that before reading Sri Aurobindo's aphorism on 'the ...
... which constitute the worlds of a highest truth of existence, dynamism of Tapas, glory and sweetness of bliss, the absolute essence and pitch of the all-creating Ananda. The transformation of the physical being might follow this incessant line of progression and the divine body reflect or reproduce here in a divine life on the earth something of this highest greatness and glory of the self-manifesting ...
... life is a repulsive muddle of ugliness and jarring barbarisms, by some high law of his spirit, though at present he is egoistic, material, unspiritual, engrossed by the needs and desires of his physical being. If a civilisation has not any of these aims, it can hardly at all be said to have a culture and certainly in no sense a great and noble culture 2 . * The concept of Progress in ...
... death-giver". In a free translation Sri Aurobindo's "slayer, smiter" would serve the end of removing the 'human' shade from the verses. The non-human, the demoniac, bent on destroying the Aryan's physical being, is always conceivable in such cases. The exoteric humanizing view is not compelling. The plus and minus in Parpola's thesis We have come to the end of our discussion of Parpola's ...
... Sri Aurobindo and the Mother call the Supermind, the creative Truth-Consciousness, which has never been brought into play in its direct form. The Supermind can divinise the mental and vital and physical being of man and bring about a collective spiritual life on the basis of an inner unity and take up all the fields of activity and give them a divine value, direction and fulfilment. Thus ...
... life-force a spiritual urge, a truth inspiration that dynamises the action and exalts the life-movements; it infuses into the sense a direct and total power of spiritual sensation so that our vital and physical being can contact and meet concretely, quite as intensely as the mind and emotion can conceive and perceive and feel, the Divine in all things; it throws on the physical mind a transforming light that ...
... being to develop during the sadhana. The visions also show in general for man, as seen and experienced in particular by Champaklal, the existence and aspects of the Divine in relation to man. As a physical being man may be seen as a child of God. (Champaklal saw his Father and Mother in Sri Aurobindo and the Mother respectively.) This is the first aspect, whereby according to the devotee's attitude, need ...
... principle of individualism is the liberty of the human being regarded as a separate existence to develop himself and fulfil his life, satisfy his mental tendencies, emotional and vital needs and physical being according to his own desire governed by his reason; it admits no other limit to this right and this liberty except the obligation to respect the same individual liberty and right in others … In ...
... selection could not explain the phenomena and capabilities of the human brain, which was why Wallace distanced himself from Darwin, as we have seen earlier. Wallace argued that man is not just a physical being, not just an animal, but “a duality, consisting of an organized spiritual form … with glorious qualities which raise us so immeasurably above our fellow animals.” 51 His view was “that there ...
... dimension, an internal dimension. But it is somewhere thereabouts, somewhere behind the solar plexus; that is where one finds it most easily. The psychic being is in a fourth dimension outside our physical being.’ 29 It is felt by us as if it were in the heart, and this is how it is spoken about metaphorically: ‘The true secret soul in us burns in the temple of the inmost heart,’ writes Sri Aurobindo; ...
... principle of individualism is the liberty of the human being regarded as a separate existence to develop himself and fulfill his life, satisfy his mental tendencies, emotional and vital needs and physical being according to his own desire, governed by his reason; it admits no other limit to this right and this liberty except the obligation to respect the same individual liberty and right in others.’ ...
... is the being which presides over the different births one after the other, but is itself unborn, for it does not descend into the being but is above it – it holds together the mental, vital and physical being and all the various parts of the personality and it controls the life either through the mental being and the mental thought and will or through the psychic [antaratman], whichever may happen ...
... change alone can make it possible that death would no more be inevitable." 1 But since, due to reasons that we shall presently explore, this progressive change of the body and the physical being of man, responding fully to the demands made upon it by the divine Inhabitant in His infinitely progressive self-becoming, could not be so far effectuated, death has been put forward and made ...
... the material universe. That cannot be unless the body too undergoes a transformation, unless its action and functioning attain to a supreme capacity" 1 and "the physical consciousness, and physical being, the body itself...be suffused with a light and beauty and bliss from the Beyond and the life divine assume a body divine." 2 Elsewhere Sri Aurobindo sounds a note of warning: "It is ...
... ess. Sleep in its Recuperative Role In the prevailing economy of the interchange of energies with the universal forces, in the present imperfect constitution of man's physical being, none of its dynamic organs can function in a ceaseless way without succumbing after a lapse of time to a state of utter fatigue and dullness. Thus "every activity occasions an exhaustion ...
... presently see, the situation is not so desperate as it appears at first sight, for we shall meet with the paradox that whereas our waking state is in fact a state of sleep, the sleep of our physical being opens the doors to a greater waking. And therein lies the most important function of sleep with normally untapped and undreamt-of possibilities. 1 Savitri, Book II, Canto V, p. 154 ...
... of France. Mirra’s illness, which had started when the Kamo Maru entered the Mediterranean, now became serious. ‘The hour has not yet come for joyful realizations in outer physical things. The physical being is plunged once again into the dull, monotonous night from which it wanted to withdraw too hastily … The body, despite its indisputable goodwill, is so profoundly shaken that it cannot manage to ...
... asking the divine Light to come down and give impulsion to all the activities of the mind. In this Yoga also, we want to bring down the divine Sun to govern not only the mind but the vital and physical being also. It is a very difficult effort. All cannot bear the Light of the Sun when it comes down. Gayatri chooses the Divine Light of the Truth asking it to come down and govern the mind. It is the ...
... this), four things the disciple needs (I have just translated it). I knew this, of course, but the passage is especially timely now—particularly after that last experience, which is a jolt for a physical being. The fourth thing is wonderful. The first three we know: equality, peace and (a hard one) a spiritual ease in all circumstances . He added the word "spiritual" so people wouldn't think only of ...
... All division in the being is an insincerity. The greatest insincerity is to dig an abyss between your body and the truth of your being. When an abyss separates the true being from the physical being, Nature fills it up immediately with all kinds of adverse suggestions, the most formidable of which is fear, and the most pernicious, doubt. Allow nothing anywhere to deny the truth of your ...
... the joy of being is the best expression of gratitude towards the Divine. 16 June 1941 The Divine is present in the very atoms of our body. 22 May 1954 Page 359 The physical being itself can be the seat of perfect existence, knowledge and bliss. 29 May 1954 For the body, to know means to be able to do. In fact the body knows only what it can do. 23 June 1954 ...
... her. For you must never forget that the outer person is only the form and symbol of an eternal Reality, and through the physical appearance, it is to this higher Reality that you must turn. The physical being cannot become truly expressive of the eternal Reality until it is completely transformed by the supramental manifestation. And until then, it is through it that you must find the Truth. 22 ...
... 4 June 1934 We are always unconscious of the real inner cause of our actions and movements. Yes, the movements of the being are always very complex. 5 June 1934 My physical being thirsts for Your love; do not delay, Mother. You know that the child will not listen to reason, he only wants to remain on his Mother's breast. You know very well that I am always with you ...
... letter ) It's not very exciting, but anyway! ( Mother laughs, and Satprem reads ) "Is the will to progress sufficient to prevent the deterioration that stems from time? How can the physical being prevent this deterioration?" That's just what the body's transformation is about! It's when the physical cells become not only conscious, but RECEPTIVE to the true Consciousness-Force, that ...
... Mother’s Agenda 1968 November 16, 1968 It's the physical being educated. When the vital and the mind are there, they use the physical as an instrument for their will and whims—usually it has no independent life. So then, in the space of a few days, a few weeks, it has been educated all over again. It remembered all the ...
... past the extinction of our sun. But the divinisation which Sri Aurobindo and the Mother hold out as the culminating hope in the time to come brings a transformation of the very stuff of man's physical being and implies certain powers: total plasticity, adaptability, invulnerability, plus immunity from disease, stoppage of the ageing process, freedom from the stroke of death. Along with this transformation ...
... and art: Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuition, Overmind. A fifth and highest plane, which he named Supermind and whose realisation above on its own peaks and ultimate descent below into the physical being are the aim of his own "Integral Yoga", was regarded by him as not having directly manifested yet. The absence cannot help being regretted of what would have been a unique expository and ...
... true Compassion of divine Love comes and you see all those things that look so horrible, so abnormal, so absurd, that great pain over all beings and even over things... Then there was born in this physical being the aspiration to relieve, to cure, to make all that disappear. There is something in Love in its Origin that is constantly expressed by the intervention of the Grace; a force, a sweetness, something ...
... objective way the Falsehood that has to be removed (transformed or removed). At first, I took them as adverse attacks, but now I see they are "states of falsehood" to which certain elements in the physical being are linked (at the time, I thought, "I am brought into contact with that because of the correspondence in me," and I worked on that level—but it's another way of seeing the same thing). And it ...
... contrast with this material mind? The physical mind is the mind of the physical personality formed by the body. It grows with the body, but it isn't the mind of Matter: it is the mind of the physical being. For instance, it is the mind that makes one's character: the bodily, physical character, which is in large part formed by atavism and education. What is called “physical mind” is all that. Yes ...
... with its natural stress on material reality, it does make one inexorable demand: material results - that is, observable crucial consequences of every theory and increase in the possibilities of physical being and action. All this does not mean that a number of scientists are not materialists. What we have called the materialistic approach tends easily to induce in less careful minds a dogmatic ...
... distinguish Sri Aurobindo's life. In 1914 he met the Page 13 Mother and started the Arya. 1926 marked what is called the descent of the Overmind Consciousness into his physical being and into the Mother's. The Ashram too was officially started — under the Mother. Next, 1938 is the year — 12 years later — in which it seems a decisive step was taken to draw the Supermind into ...
... forces. Tranquil is she and wonderful, great and calm for ever...." This was the first time I realised that when the Mother wants she can put forth the Divine Presence and Power completely into the physical being and manifest it. My wife Sehra has seen light coming out of the Mother's whole body and, as it were, assimilating the physical substance or else getting assimilated into it and making it radiant ...
... the end to an earth-exceeding Within or a world-forgetting Beyond. All spiritual insight in the past has said that it is chimerical to hope for a mind all-knowing, a life-force all-effecting, a physical being which is perpetually young, immune to disease, free from death. Alone the Mother and Sri Aurobindo have proclaimed: Earth's winged chimeras are Truth's steeds in Heaven, The impossible ...
... Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, SABCL. Vol. 24, p. 1398. × The physical being made up of the physical consciousness and the body. × Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, SABCL ...
... grip of the mind-consciousness, at last found a voice of its own and cried out its "naked primal need" for the divine joy, the divine light. In one poem after another this yearning of the physical being identified itself with the poet's quest for a Veilless Word which is itself a symbol of the yogi's longing for the Sole Reality. In fact the yogi and the poet in Amal Kiran are inseparable ...
... natural being. They have indeed their strongest relative hold in the three different members of it, mind, life and body. Tamas, the principle of inertia, is strongest in material nature and in our physical being. The action of this principle is of two kinds, inertia of force and inertia of knowledge. Whatever is predominantly governed by Tamas, tends in its force to a sluggish inaction and immobility ...
... so many dull and lower aims, must feel all its urges and instincts exalted and irradiated and become a glorious counterpart of the supramental super-life above. The physical consciousness and physical being, the body itself must reach a perfection in all that it is and does which now we can hardly conceive. It may even in the end be suffused with a light and beauty and bliss from the Beyond and ...
... easier to acquire by the waking consciousness and to turn into the normal experience, powers, mental status of the waking life. The subtle mind which is normally eclipsed by the insistence of the physical being, Page 217 becomes powerful even in the waking state, until even there the enlarging man is able to live in his several subtle bodies as well as in his physical body, to be aware ...
... this state ... the Purusha is passive and allows Nature to act, accepting all she imposes on him, giving a constant automatic sanction ... the soul in mind, life, body, the mental, vital, physical being in us, becomes subject to our nature, ruled by its formation, driven by its activities; that is the normal state of our ignorance." 11 This state in which the Purusha is driven by the modes ...
... bindings of Karma. This is a reasonable account of the balance: but there is also to be added to the computation the fact that destiny is not simple but complex; the destiny which binds our physical being, binds it so long or in so far as a greater law does not intervene... behind our surface is a freer Life-power, a freer Mind-power which has another energy and can create another destiny and bring ...
... strongly on your soul like an almost irresistible attraction. This is what happened in 58.. To conclude, "an easy and pleasant life" can only satisfy the outer being; but what answers in the physical being to the soul's influence need; for its flowering a life more in conformity with the soul's needs and "languishes" when it cannot find it. 3 December 1959 The Mother ...
... (Correspondence with Champaklal) Champaklal's Correspondence with The Mother 2 July 1931 Champaklal, The offering of your physical being will perfect your skill in works. Your skill in works will make perfect your physical offering. 2 July 1931 ...
... I suppose; but that is not concrete. Again, scientists talk about electricity which is, it seems, an energy, a force in action and it seems that everything has been done by this energy, my own physical being is constituted by it and it is at the base of all my mental and life energies. But that is not concrete to me. I never felt my being constituted by electricity, I cannot feel it working out my ...
... immortal." (1.2) To use the terms of the Taittiriya Upanishad, the first process is to perfect the faculties and activities of the annamaya kosha, pranamaya kosha and manomaya kosha, — of the physical being, vital being and mental being, — Page 25 and proceed to develop and perfect the faculties of Vijnāna Purusha and the Ānandamaya Purusha; this will lead us to the knowledge of ...
... the Soul into superconscient heights; the middle cord of the vital being parts both ways and all ways, and the constrained life breaks out into a happy breadth of existence; the lower cord of the Physical being collapses downward taking with it the alloy of our bodily consciousness and being to disappear and De dissolved in the stuff below the human ocean of consciousness in the Inconcient. Freedom from ...
... Individual and Collective Perfectibility The third characteristic of the ancient conception of education was its emphasis on harmonisation of different aspects of personality so that the physical being of the individual is made a strong base for sustaining the growth and perfection of the vital, mental and higher aspects of personality. The Taittiriya Upanishad speaks of five sheaths in the ...
... the inner light or inner voice Page 34 of the mystic... It is the individual soul, caitya purusa, supporting mind, life and body, standing behind the mental, the vital, the subtle-physical being in us and watching and profiting by their development and experience... It is this secret psychic entity which is the true original Conscience in us deeper than the constructed and conventional ...
... with the question of the values that they seek. Values are the ultimate ends that personality seeks to embody express and fulfil. Corresponding to each capacity, there are; specific values. Our physical being seeks the value of health and strength; our vital being seeks the value of harmony and heroism; our rational Acuity seeks the value of truth and universality; our moral will seeks the good and ...
... As Parashara points out: आ ये विश्बा स्वपत्यानि तस्थुः । कृण्वानासो अमृतत्वाय गातुम् । । महना महदभिः पृथिवी वि तस्थे । माता पुत्रैरदितिध्यासे वेः । । RV.I. 72.9. The physical being visited by the greatness of the infinite planes above and by the power of the great godheads who reign on those planes breaks its limits, opens out to the Light and is upheld in its new wideness ...
... there. He am I." 53 Or else, to use the terms of the Taittiriya Upanishad, we may perfect the faculties and activities of the annamaya purusha, pranamaya purusha, and manomaya purusha, the physical being, vital being and mental being, develop the operations and faculties of the vijnanamaya purusha and anandamaya purusha, and come to know the law in the universe of the Truth and of the Bliss, and ...
... increasing the size (Mahinia) and weight of the body (Garima), etc. Laghima is a similar power of lightness that results in the freedom from all pressure or weighing down in the mental, pranic or physical being. Laghima is the basis ofutthapana or levitation. That demonstrates the power of overcoming gravitation. Anima is the power of freeing the atoms of subtle or gross matter from their ordinary limitations ...
... consciousness. Sri Aurobindo points out that there is something in us which is conscious when we sleep, when we are stunned or drugged or in a swoon, which are all apparently unconscious states of our physical being. He also points out that even in our waking state what we call our consciousness is only a small selection from our entire conscious being. Sri Aurobindo refers to phenomena of a vaster system ...
... quality and action as the play of his universal and infinite energy, all knowledge and conscious experience as the out flowing of that consciousness, and all in the terms of that one Ananda. His physical being will be one with all material Nature, his vital being with the life of the universe, his mind with the cosmic mind, his spiritual knowledge and will with the divine knowledge and will both in itself ...
... life and is able to conduct a journey. When the psychic being leaves the body on the death of the body, it carries three elements with it, namely, the mental being, the vital being and the subtle physical being which were developed in the body during its life. The departing soul at the time of death chooses what it will work out in the next birth and determines the character and condition of the new ...
... being of mind and life constituted by the past and continuing into the present and future; but the basis of physical existence, the material body, could not be preserved even by this change. The physical being could only endure, if by some means its physical causes of decay and disruption could be overcome and at the same time it could be made so plastic and progressive in its structure and its functioning ...
... obscuration they cause, by the abuses of asceticism and the disintegration they bring about. It is much more difficult to secure a harmonious and progressive growth in calmness and simplicity in one's physical being than to ill-treat it to the point of reducing it to nothing. It is much more difficult to live soberly and without desire than to deprive the body of nourishment and clean habits so indispensable ...
... All Yogic systems maintain that the human body is subordinate to the spirit and that the human body can be rightly dealt with only when we can reach out beyond the limitations of our physical being. In some extreme systems of Yoga, the body tends to be neglected and it is even declared that the body is an obstacle to conquest of the Spirit. In the integral systems of Yoga, body is looked ...
... handicap led them to a deeper discovery of themselves and the world, in effect, and to some extent a blessing in disguise. In a book centred around the question of proper education of the physical being, we thought it was important to contemplate on the les sons that can be drawn from dealing with human physical disabilities. They tell about the strength of the spirit in man, they tell about the ...
... is merely a tool in the hands of cosmic energies. His nature is too complex for him to grapple with it. In his apparent manifestation he seems to himself to be a multiperson. He has in him a physical being, a life-being, a mental being, all apparently seeking for their separate fulfilment. He is actuated by numberless forces, each of Page 220 them straining after its separate ...
... too, was extremely difficult. As Mother explained much later: You know that I had taken on the conversion of the Lord of Falsehood: I tried to do it through an emanation incarnated in a physical being [Richard], and the greatest effort was made during those four years in Japan. The four years were coming to an end with an absolute inner certainty that there was nothing to be done—that it ...
... seek to do so basing themselves on their own personal experience. Therefore, it becomes incumbent upon us, if we would like to establish the validity of a possible divine transformation of our physical being and consciousness, to take note of these contrary findings, accept them at their face value and then clearly point out how these well-authenticated deficiencies can be rectified and remedied ...
... objective way the Falsehood that has to be removed (transformed or removed). At first, I took them as adverse attacks, but now I see they are 'states of falsehood' to which certain elements in the physical being are linked (at the time, I thought, 'I am brought into contact with that because of the correspondence in me,' and I worked on that level—but it's another way of seeing the same thing). And ...
... the action of the divine Shakti in its ādhāra; "if it is found that the vital being of the sadhaka is whirling in the vortex of its greeds and desires; "if it is found that the physical being of the sadhaka has mortgaged itself to the inert movements and habits that normally activate it, and because of that is unwilling to admit within itself any action of the divine Light and Force; ...
... Is our normal sleep such that the physical consciousness can go inside and reply to the higher pressure? No. But when the pressure gives a tendency to insideness (samadhi), the physical being, not being accustomed to go inside except in the way of sleep, translates this into a sense of sleepiness. I thought our sleep brought us down into the depths of the subconscient ...
... his divine right." It is now our part of the bargain that we have to fulfil. We can "requite the debt we owe to her Grace, we can show our love to her by admitting her Presence into our physical being and allowing her to do the work she has undertaken to do." "A mutual debt binds man to the Supreme: His nature we must put on as he put ours; We are sons of God and must be even as he: ...
... Mother had come to Pondicherry from France. We can understand that when Sri Aurobindo wrote those letters the full ideal whose realisation consisted in the Supermind's taking possession of the physical being itself had not been formulated. But by 1918 the Arya, Page 31 expressing this ideal, had already run for over four years, the Mother had begun co-operating with Sri Aurobindo and, though ...
... to me that when the Higher Consciousness, after descending to the mental level, comes down to the vital and even below the vital, then a transformation takes place in the nervous and even in the physical being....' I shall now turn to an incident, or rather a series of incidents, which took place towards the end of 1921 in what later came to be called the 'Guest House'. In describing the events I ...
... word vulgar is only used for coarse and crude expressions of the sensual, trivial or ugly. But it does not seem to me that it should naturally be taken = breast, but indicate the whole vital and physical being regarded as a vessel or jar which can be filled with honey or water or poison. Nothing vulgar in that. Why not send that surrealist poem? I would very much like to see what is spiritual surrealism ...
... and silence have remained above and have never come down? If you have felt them below, they must have come below. But it is evident that they are not perfectly established in the inner physical being - otherwise there would be the complete separateness there. Is it not true that inertia is still so strong because there is no peace in the inner physical? If there were full ...
... Prakriti." Yes, that much at least everybody who has felt the inner consciousness should be able to do. Your attitude is all right. It is only in some part of the external physical being that the difficulties seem to weigh too much. The resistance is still there. It is directed against the Divine. The suggestions are its weapons. Does all that mean I am doing ...
... If you attach no value to the suggestions then, there may be the inertia still, but not this. Since the sadhana is obscured and seems stopped by the inertia how could my physical being have peace and force? Only by the obstruction being penetrated or dismissed either by the inner will or by the Consciousness from above. It is only today that ...
... sensations have turned into a calm spiritual power and an unalloyed delight. And that plane too has a body of its own. But it is absolutely free from disease, decay and death that we find in the physical being. To leave aside the laws of body, life and mind and rise into the highest spiritual nature is called Yoga. But don't think, in doing Yoga you shall have to do away with this body, life and mind ...
... The cosmos is not a mere machine, all a Law and an unalterable Process; there is a Spirit behind it all, which is the Process as well as the Power that regulates it. "The destiny which binds our physical being", writes Sri Aurobindo, "binds it so long or in so far as a greater law does not intervene. Action belongs to the physical part of us, it is the physical outcome of our being; but behind our surface ...
... and organisation of the mind, the life and the body. So the individualisation and growth of the soul means a growth and individualisation of the mental being, the vital being and also of the physical being. Normally the purpose of intellectual culture is the growth and individualisation of the mind, the purpose of moral culture is the growth and individualisation of the vital being and the true purpose ...
... between the disparate parts. And such a state or period is quite necessary which is a period of assimilation of what one has learnt, of harmonisation of all the limbs. With regard to their physical being, men live in a formidable ignorance. How many of you know the exact quantity of food and the kind of food the body requires? Yes, simply this, how much to take and when to take? You do not know ...
... released into the broader reality. These threefold limitations are repeated in each of the statuses of being or consciousness. Thus the mind has a mental being, a vital being and a physical being. So the mind has mental limitations and vital limitations and also physical limitations. The mind's mental limitations are its notions and concepts, constructed ideas and fabricated comprehensions ...
... very quiet, without making any movement and concentrate a little, you will be able to remember the dreams that you had immediately before: the communication between the physical and the subtle physical being close, you would be able to remember easily enough. Now if you begin from the beginning what happens is something like this. As you fall into sleep, the body becomes quiet and the vital too ...
... Nature of the universal self and spirit. Always she has distinguished and cultivated in him a mental, an intellectual, an ethical, dynamic and practical, an aesthetic and hedonistic, a vital and physical being, but all these have been seen as powers of a soul that manifests through them and grows with their growth, and yet they are not all the soul, because at the summit of its ascent it arises to ...
... Integral progress - this is the aim of life. It helps to keep one young; both inwardly and outwardly. 9. Ananda is our prime mover. It is the rejuvenator and must saturate our whole physical being. 10. Love which is the source of Joy, is pure and desireless. It gives freely without any demand or bargain. Hatred and jealousy, which destroy the body, have no part in love. 11. Each ...
... as a controlling agent, but really it is a form of vital energy. You can say it is the kinetic vital energy, It can produce a physical effect if it is strong enough and can lay hold on the vital-physical being. It is really the vital-physical that lays hold on the material object and deals with it. Disciple : One can understand a case in which there is intervention of another physical mind, say ...
... ready for expression, some parts are so hidden that they may not come out in this life. It is the object of yoga to harmonies the different parts in the mental being, in the vital being and the physical being. Then the whole is to be given a harmonious expression; and for that the external personality has to be got over and changed. Some of the elements may remain but they must be transformed. ...
... up any time-then one can get rid of desires or at least quiet them down. In the Nirvanic experience you don't feel yourself as particularly, anybody, nor are you exactly nobody. Either your physical being, the normal body, is felt as a point or spot in Infinity or you feel yourself as part of the Universal. The body is felt inside you and not you inside the body. SATYENDRA: According to traditional ...
... spiritual love should be sanctified by vital and physical action. They are part of divine love. NIRODBARAN: In woman, people say, a moment comes when she surrenders everything to the beloved. The physical being is a part of that surrender. SRI AUROBINDO: That is the attitude of submission of the female to the male. Real surrender is a different thing, more psychic in character. NIRODBARAN: In a ...
... always safe. SATYENDRA: Does it mean that people living in Bombay or Calcutta don't get help? SRI AUROBINDO: It is not like that. An aura is something that projects itself from the vital and physical being; those who are open can feel it and be influenced by it. DR. MANILAL: When I come for the Mother's interview or even stay here I feel something everywhere, while at Baroda I don't get that peace ...
... very quiet, without making any movement and concentrate a little, you will be able to remember the dreams that you had immediately before: the communication between the physical and the subtle physical being close, you would be able to re-member easily enough. Now if you begin from the beginning what happens is something like this. As you fall into sleep, the body becomes quiet and the vital too goes ...
... there are many other planes superimposed' one upon another, each having its own special consciousness and power, its own laws of being and action. Obviously we all know apart from the material or physical being there is the vital being, the Page 218 life-force and there is the mental being, the mind-force. And there are many other levels like these. A miracle happens, that is to say ...
... ceaseless refuelling has to be done by a ceaseless self-offering of all movements, especially all the automatic reactions of the physical that form the roots of the material existence. The whole physical being if it is to embody a new life in a new organisation must concentrate at one point within itself and find or found there the Fire, the dynamic Divine Will in its most concrete reality – the body's ...
... limitations and released into the broader reality. These threefold limitations are repeated in each of the statuses of being or consciousness. Thus the mind has a mental being, a vital being and a physical being. So the mind has mental limitations and vital limitations and also physical limitations. The mind's mental limitations are its notions and concepts, constructed ideas and fabricated comprehensions ...
... 8.Integral progress - this is the aim of life. It helps to keep one young; both inwardly and outwardly. 9.Ananda is our prime mover. It is the rejuvenator and must saturate our whole physical being. 10.Love which is the source of Joy, is pure and desire less. It gives freely without any demand or bargain. Hatred and jealousy, which destroy the body, have no part in Love. 11.Each ...
... ected planes of consciousness. And Man himself: isn't he a composite entity - so far as the evolutionary scene is concerned - made up of a psychic being, a mental being, a vital being and a physical being? And men differ widely, in the degree of their self-awakening, in the energy of their faculties, in their assumption of responsibility. A simple law will not therefore cover all cases: In ...
... he did - including his withdrawal from his body - must have had a close connection with that fundamental objective. Even in 1938, the Mother used to see the Supermind descending into the outer physical being of Sri Aurobindo, but it couldn't be fixed here for good. In the series of articles that he contributed to the Bulletin during 1949-50, he spoke of the Mind of Light, a limited or delegated power ...
... creator enjoys the delight while creating and imparts the same to others. The capacity of aesthetic enjoyment is limited at present by man's nature, i.e. by his mental, emotional, vital and physical being. Man has been using the material of his experience from these fields for aesthetic enjoyment. Now and then, some sparks from some unknown higher regions have illumined his experience with a light ...
... May, 1939 A letter from a disciple received on the 29th April written to co-disciple here spoke of his experience at Tiruannamalai. He mentioned in his letter that the resistance in his physical being was broken by the spiritual experience he had there. In the evening a disciple asked Sri Aurobindo: "What Page 226 do you think of his saying that the resistance in the ...
... most outstanding feature of the action of the Supermind is its masterfully radical dealing with our physical nature. It will annul the sway of the Inconscience and the Ignorance under which our physical being labours at present, saturate the nerves, tissues and cells of our body with its own light, and quicken it with its Page 436 own force. Our body will cease to be the gross, inert ...
... no justification for continuing, if it can- not be a manifesting channel of Light. But the purification, preparation, and perfection of nature is a long and laborious process, ranging from the physical being to its subtler and subtest parts and planes; and it is only when this process is complete, that is to say, when one can "manifest Thee on all the planes, in all the states of the being," that the ...
... Sincerity means to lift all our movements towards the Divine. Disciple : That fear of falling ill by keeping awake, is it not a mental fear? Sri Aurobindo : The thing is, the physical being has got a limit. The vital being can feel the energy, peace, etc. but Page 52 the physical cannot be taxed beyond its capacity. That is what happened to many Sadhaks here. They ...
... higher Force, an incipient sense of liberation in the nature-parts, and a more ready and effective response to the demands of Spirit. A greater and freer play of intuition in the mind, life and the physical being; a sensitive perception of and participation in the working of the universal Nature; an increasing impersonal serenity and flexibility; and a steadier drive of the spiritual force, are some of ...
... initiate and carry on all action, is the sovereign Yogic way. Each movement of the body,—walking, speaking, reading, eating, working, playing,—has to be severally offered, so that no energy of the physical being may remain entangled in the desires and preferences of the ego, but all are surrendered to and controlled by the Mother. "When you can thus gather all your movements into the One Life, then you ...
... outwitted". Page 76 "The forests of the flesh" and the "shuddering scenery" of dreams permits some part of our being to suffer "unmasked agony"; and when the thick curtain of the physical being is removed, one stands face to face with his inner personalities—"real selves" which have lost all the charm which the external being had got. Man contains, like 'Jekil and Hyde' even contradictory ...
... surrender, let me be the representative of the whole earth, so that, united with my consciousness, she may give herself to Thee without reserve.” ¹ "It was their pain and suffering that my physical being was feeling, O Lord.”² The Mother's role of an intermediary presupposes, on the one hand, a complete identification of her whole being with the integral Divine, who is at once transcendent ...
... derivative of divine Love, human love is dwarfed and distorted in the ignorance of man's nature. It is infected with desire, clouded by mental ideas, and darkened and weighed down by the dross of the physical being. It has become an inconstant, hectic hunger, clamouring for possession and exclusive enjoyment; giving, but only to receive; insisting on its demands and receding, if there is no requital. It ...
... Purusha and the Divine Mother have themselves come down on to the lap of Mother earth. The Mother prostrated Herself before Sri Aurobindo when She first saw Him. Very spontaneously She laid Her physical being at His Feet by offering all of Herself, mind, body and life. With this gesture, the Mother taught us that day how humanity should offer itself at the feet of the Divine. The Mother told Nirod-da ...
... “And once you start that way, it is done, you have to go right through to the end. “If you want to do the work all alone, it is absolutely impossible to do it in a total way, for the entire physical being, however complete it may be, even if it is of an altogether higher quality, even if it had been created for a very special work, can never be but partial and limited. It represents only one truth ...
... all. Then the narrowness is lost in the universal love, the vital restricted being returns equal shock to the whole universal contact, and then it becomes capable of universal delight. Even the physical being has to know the One with the indivisible force that is All, and individual nature has to reproduce the nature of the original creative Divine Delight, the nature of the Satchidananda, which is ...
... been a tremendous change, noted Mother after the days of horror in 1970 and 1971, but I can’t say anything about it 23 But the whole body has changed drastically. It really seems as if this physical being had been prepared for another consciousness, because for certain things ... its reactions are entirely different, its attitude is different. I went through a period of total indifference in which ...
... heavily on the body because the opposing forces find it more difficult than before to upset the mind and vital directly so they fall on the physical in the hope that that will do the trick, the physical being more vulnerable. But the sensibility of the body to attacks is no proof of incapacity just as a finer sensibility of the mind or vital to attacks was no proof — it can in due time be overcome. ...
... in the Mother and the surrender that goes with it, i.e. “Whatever she wills is best for me” and the vastness which you feel now, — it is the wideness of the true self of the true mental, vital, physical being also, from which such things fall like dust, for they are of no importance to it whatever.... It is the one thing to do, to get permanently into the wideness, peace and silence and let the ego ...
... be recognised by the modem systems of Yoga... It is the union of the 'Earth' of the Veda and Purana with the Divine Principle, an earth which is said to be above our earth, that is to say, the physical being and consciousness of which the world and the body are only images. But the modern Yogas hardly recognise the possibility of a material union with the Divine. In spiritual life - even ...
... Compassion of Divine Love comes and you see all those things that look so horrible, so abnormal, so absurd, that great pain over all beings and even over things.... Then there was born in this physical being the aspiration to relieve, to cure, to make all that disappear." Mother relieved the suffering, cured the illness of thousands, not necessarily living in the Ashram. "There is something in Love ...
... which we are obliged to be subjected and which we must allow to rule over us. Unfortunately this is what happens most often in life and men are certainly much more slaves than masters of their physical being. Yet it is the contrary that should be, for the truth of individual life is quite another thing. We have in us an intelligent will more or less enlightened which is the first instrument of our ...
... divine Light to come down and give impulsion to all the activities of the mind. "In this Yoga also, we want to bring down that divine Sun to govern not only the mind but the vital and the physical being also. It is a very difficult effort. All cannot bear the Light of the Sun when it comes down. Gayatri chooses the Divine Light of the Truth asking it to come down and govern the mind. It is the ...
... is even striking how closely he monitored his own body's functions, and with what minuteness. After all, he did say that "it is not sufficient to open the mind and the vital being and leave the physical being to its obscurity." If we simply look, for instance, at a few first entries in his diary of 1912, what do we find? "18.1.1912—The roga [disease or disorder] that came, is being slowly eliminated ...
... Brahmachari. The Yoga I am practising has not the ghost of a connection with Sannyasa. It is a Yoga meant for life and life only. Its object is perfection of the moral condition and mental and physical being along with the possession of certain powers, —the truth of which I have been establishing by continuous practical experiment,—with the object of carrying out a certain mission in life which God ...
... has created & to get beyond it to some new processes as yet not clearly discerned. She attacks deliberately the sound healthfulness & equilibrium of our normal type of intellectuality, morality & physical being. She is stricken also with a mania of colossalism; colossal structures, colossal combinations, colossal heights & speeds, colossal dreams & ambitions outline themselves everywhere more or less ...
... longer spilled and lost but foster and increase, avanti , mind and body of their purifier; avantyasya pavītāram āśavo . So increasing him in all delight of his mental, emotional, sensational and physical being they rise with him through the purified and blissful heart to the highest level or surface of heaven, that is, to the luminous world of Swar where the mind capable of intuition, inspiration, revelation ...
... is met by the Ashwins' triple satisfactions and by the fourth, the delight pouring from the Truth. The cleansed hands of the Sacrificer, niktahastaḥ , are possibly symbolic 7 of the purified physical being; the power comes from a fulfilled life-energy; the force of clear mental vision, vicakṣaṇa , is the sign of the truth-illumined mind. These are the conditions in mind, life and body for the o ...
... the streams of Truth, nourishing them, restoring them to youth and vigour. 6 They pervade heaven with their workings, they bring divine increase to the mentality; 7 they give to it and the physical being a fresh and young and immortal movement. 8 For from the home of the Truth they bring with them the perfection of that which is the condition of their work, the movement in the straight path ...
... strong and agile prisoner, the former is a step, however faltering, on the true path of freedom. Nevertheless, even if we could so master the laws of mind as to entirely control our vital & physical being & its environment, the end of God in man is not achieved; for we ought not only to control life & matter by mind, but mind by a higher principle. Mind can only become free by self-subjection to ...
... life is a repulsive muddle of ugliness and jarring barbarisms, by some high law of his spirit, though at present he is egoistic, material, unspiritual, engrossed by the needs and desires of his physical being. If a civilisation has not any of these aims, it can hardly at all be said to have a culture and certainly in no sense a great and noble culture. But the last of these aims, as conceived by ancient ...
... embrace and replace its lusts and discords by universal love and his restricted vital being to become equal to the whole shock of the universe upon it and capable of universal delight; his very physical being has to know itself as no separate entity but as one with and sustaining in itself the whole flow of the indivisible Force that is all things; his whole nature has to reproduce in the individual ...
... point it would be appropriate to give more precise details. One knows that Mother was the first to work for years on the illumination of the cells in such a way that not only the mental, vital and physical being, but also the most insignificant elements of the latter would become conscious of and manifest pure Being. It would seem to logically follow that, as the brain is the most awakened part of our ...
... Certainly, it is possible to suppress this activity completely and to have a total, dreamless sleep; but to be able in this way to immerse our mental being in a repose similar to the repose of our physical being, we must have achieved a perfect control over it, and this is not an easy thing to do. As a general rule, each individual has a period of the night that is more favourable for dreams... One ...
... oint. As there are behind our waking mentality vaster ranges of consciousness subconscient and superconscient to it of which we become sometimes abnormally aware, so there are behind our gross physical being other and subtler grades of substance with a finer law and greater power which support the denser body and which can by our entering into the ranges of consciousness belonging to them be made to ...
... used to make short trips. And one of them was for the darshan of November 24,1950. It was reported that Sri Aurobindo was not keeping well. I knew that he had complete control of the physical being. So whatever illness might be his would be something which he had consented to for some inscrutable purpose - had consented to and yet would fight against in order to work out some paradoxical ...
... borders of supermind proper itself where it begins to shadow out, develop, delineate expressive forms of life touched by a supreme pure Existence, consciousness bliss... The transformation of the physical being might follow this incessant line of progression Page 177 and the divine body reflect or reproduce here in a divine life on the earth something of this highest greatness ...
... disappeared Vanishing into the Void from which it came. 22 Once Death is vanquished, all the resistance, denial and refusal are also broken down. The man of sorrows who represents the physical being and all its resistance, rejection and denial is given the assurance by Savitri: One day I will return, a bringer of strength... Misery shall pass abolished from the earth; The ...
... be a great Yogin. The ideal of human life is to establish over the whole being the control of a clear, strong and rational mind and a right and rational will to master the emotional, vital and physical being, create a harmony of the whole and develop the capacities whatever they are and fulfil them in life. In the terms of Hindu thought it is to enthrone the rule of the purified and sattvikbuddhi ...
... your son is a thing of the vital parts in you, and if you are not prepared to give it up, it will inevitably clash with the demands of the Yoga and stop your progress. When you came here, your physical being was opened up, and the mental, vital and physical obstacles sufficiently worked upon to admit of this opening. This came first, because that was the strongest part of you for the purposes of Yoga ...
... and art: Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuition, Overmind. A fifth and highest plane, which he named Supermind and whose realisation above on its own peaks and ultimate descent below into the physical being are the aim of his own Integral Yoga, was regarded by him as not having directly manifested yet. The absence cannot help being regretted of what would have been a unique expository ...
... July 1931 After writing, she explained to me in English what was written in French. “O divine Master, with what ardent love I am Thy Serviteur!” Champaklal, The offering of your physical being will perfect your skill in works. Your skill in works will make perfect your physical offering. 2.7.1931 The Mother ...
... recommended for curing oneself of a bodily illness is bringing peace to the part that is ailing. She states: ... we said that this disharmony creates a kind of tremor and a lack of peace in the physical being, in the body. It is a kind of fever. Even if it is not a fever in general, there is a localised fever; there are people who get restless. So the first thing to do is to quieten oneself, bring peace ...
... Normality (normal state) 19, 114 Obsessive-compulsive neurosis 96 Ornstein, Robert 16,57 Pain 150-51 Patel, Chandra H. 151 Pavlov, I. 12 Peck, M.Scott 113fn Physical (being) (consciousness), the 86-87,93,118 and nerves 105 disturbances of 102-05 vital-physical 105 Possession see under Adverse Forces Prakriti (Nature) 132,133 ...
... is again the kind of suggestion that comes in from the surrounding physical Ignorance. Things like these last so obstinately because they have become habits or recurrent feelings in the external physical being; they will disappear when the external being becomes filled with the Mother's light. Sri Aurobindo A vital reaction means a response of the vital to the touch or pressure of an idea, ...
... Evolution In my explanation of the universe I have put forward this cardinal fact of a spiritual evolution as the meaning of our existence here. It is a series of ascents from the physical being and consciousness to the vital, the being dominated by the life-self, thence to the mental being realised in the fully developed man and thence into the perfect consciousness which is beyond ...
... Man’s being is as complex as his evolutionary position, stretched out between a long and for the most part forgotten yesterday and a boundless tomorrow. His body “is not the whole even of our physical being; this gross density is not all of our substance. The oldest Vedantic knowledge tells us of five degrees of our being, the material, the vital, the mental, the ideal, the spiritual or beatific, ...
... principle of individualism is the liberty of the human being regarded as a separate existence to develop himself and fulfil his life, satisfy his mental tendencies, emotional and vital needs and physical being according to his own desire governed by his reason; it admits no other limit to this right and this liberty except the obligation to respect the same individual liberty and right in others.” 29 ...
... announced, in the very last months of his life, the necessity of a transitional being between man and the supramental being. This announcement was the result of his own yogic realisation in his physical being. The Mother took over this work immediately after his passing, called the transitional being surhomme , “overman”, and realised the overmanhood in 1958. The whole effort was crowned with the ...
... arises from a source which is not human … The [incarnated] Divine seems to act like other people, but this is only an appearance.’ 43 About the everyday contact of the disciples with her physical being: ‘They have very little real contact with what my body really is, and with the formidable accumulation of conscious energy it represents.’ 44 The Mother had always liked to play tennis and she ...
... that when the Higher Consciousness, after descending to the mental level, comes down to the vital and even below the vital, then a transformation takes place in the nervous system and even in the physical being. He asked me to join the meditation in the afternoon and also the evening sittings. This time I saw the Mother for the first time. She was standing near the staircase when Sri Aurobindo was going ...
... is not attained and we have instead to undergo the law or fulfil a hard and difficult discipline. That law is imposed on us by the Ignorance which is the nature of all our parts; our physical being is obviously a mass of ignorance, the vital is full of ignorant desires and passions, the mind is also an instrument of Ignorance struggling towards some kind of imperfect and mostly inferior ...
... by an interchange in the material consciousness.’ 59 This peculiar ceremony was in fact an act of communion with the Mother’s being intended to enable or accelerate the transformation of the physical being of the disciples. ‘Have you not heard of divine Communion in this manner?’ asked the Mother referring to the Christian transubstantiation when somebody inquired about the meaning of the ceremony ...
... speaking of the new supramental race [i.e. superman], are you? Are you really speaking of what we here call the overman, that is: the human being born in the human way and trying to transform his physical being which he has received by his ordinary human birth?’ 2 The child’s answer is not recorded. The Mother continued: ‘There will certainly be a countless number of partial realizations. The ...
... delight as the Mother's gift through every move of hers." Now for the first time, even in my most outer awareness, I realised what she and Sri Aurobindo truly were. The whole poise of physical being experienced a change. A new life began, and I knew then that a fundamental obstacle — intellectual self-esteem — had essentially disappeared. What is of extreme interest to note is the ...
... this truth gets expressed variously. Of course, a certain central mould of soul-personality persists throughout a life-time, but it is not a rigid cast either. Always the outer mental-vital physical being is a constantly changing mixture, and according as the sun-white rainbow-shimmered soul looks out or not, the Mother responds with compliments or criticisms, while keeping always the vision ...
... has been accorded to the spiritual event of November 24,1926 which has been called by Sri Aurobindo the descent of the Krishna Consciousness, the mightily luminous Overmind-divinity, into his physical being. This descent opened the way to the descent of the Supermind, towards which Sri Aurobindo set his face when he put the Ashram in the Mother's hands after November 24 and withdrew into seclusion ...
... what we ordinarily regard as our self. The general nature we take to be our own is the ego-formation which demarcates each of us from his fellows and stamps on certain shades of mental, vital and physical being the sense that we are those shades. Then when we turn inward and realise a finer being as our own we have the impression that the ego has made the choice. And we may ask why Sri Aurobindo wants ...
... body's cells is most shaky in the sense that without a supramentalisation of the inner consciousness one can't hope to supramentalise the body. Of course, by mantra-power one may subtilise the physical being but to supramentalise it is a different cup of tea - or, to hark back to Rigvedic terminology, a different goblet of Soma, the nectar of Immortality. Your friend appears to make his followers believe ...
... in it. The outcome is that the mystical life becomes an extreme self-mortification, a castigating of the Page 114 animal all the time, a cruel asceticism which mutilates the physical being and renders the mind grandiosely masterful in a perverse way and ultimately leads to a cramming of the subconscious with suppression to such a point that there is an explosive upsurge whose ...
... November 24,1926, the Siddhi Day, the Day of Victory marking the descent of what Sri Aurobindo has called the Overmind, the Krishna Consciousness, the plane of the Great Gods, into the physical being of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. This Victory was to prepare the descent of the supreme divine dynamism that has never directly worked in the world and that Sri Aurobindo has termed the Supermind ...
... the unknown face of the future, greater possibilities than all past ones of embodied epiphany -possibilities akin to what Sri Aurobindo himself has envisioned as the divine destiny even of man's physical being by the very logic of Evolution. 14 19.6.1974 14. The Life Divine, pp. 3-7. Page 92 ...
... the day before, I don’t remember. Rijuta was here, there in front of me, and I saw her psychic being that dominated her by this much [gesture: about 20 centimeters]. It was the first time. Her physical being was small and her psychic being was that tall. And it was an asexual being, neither man nor woman. I then said to myself … “But it is the psychic being, it is this that will materialize and become ...
... 13, 1932 I have not said that to reach the overmind is impossible; I have only said that it is difficult. Difficulty is not a reason why things should not be done. It is not easy for a physical being to reach the highest truth because its consciousness is something ignorant that has emerged out of the material inconscience and is very much tied to and hampered by the obscurity of its origin—in ...
... systems are then at least coeval and coexistent with that which presents itself to us as the physical universe. We have been led to conclude that the development of life, mind and spirit in the physical being presupposes their existence; for these powers are developed here by two co-operating forces, an upward-tending force from below, an upward-drawing and downward-pressing force from above. For there ...
... not confined to the experience of the physical universe; for they based themselves on a view of self and world which already regarded a supraphysical consciousness as the primary phenomenon and physical being as only a secondary and dependent phenomenon. It was around these data Page 780 that they had to determine the nature of the eternal Reality and the origin of the phenomenal becoming ...
... to the reason to contradict it, and that taken by itself it contains a constant element of falsity. Thus when we speak of an individual we mean ordinarily an individualisation of mental, vital, physical being separate from all other beings, incapable of unity with them by its very individuality. If we go beyond these three terms of mind, life and body, and speak of the soul or individual self, we still ...
... it is an instrumental Force for all divine realisations. It is the true vital being that has become awake and come in front within you. In the same way there is too a true mental being, a true physical being. When these are manifest, then you are aware of a double existence in you; that behind is always calm and strong, that on the surface alone is troubled and obscure. But if the true being behind ...
... the Influence comes down into the head and as far as the heart. But the vital being and nature and the physical consciousness are under the influence of the lower nature. As long as the vital and physical being are not surrendered or do not on their own account call for the higher life, this struggle is likely to continue. Surrender everything, reject all other desires or interests, call on the divine ...
... a truth inspiration that dynamises the action and exalts the life movements; it infuses into the sense Page 980 a direct and total power of spiritual sensation so that our vital and physical being can contact and meet concretely, quite as intensely as the mind and emotion can conceive and perceive and feel, the Divine in all things; it throws on the physical mind a transforming light that ...
... reason, acquainted with all that he should know of the world and his past, capable of organising intelligently by that knowledge his social and economic life, ordering rightly his bodily habits and physical being, this is the conception that now governs civilised humanity. It is, in essence, a return to and a larger development of the old Hellenic ideal, with a greater stress on capacity and Page 75 ...
... submit to the suggestions of calm and strength from the higher reason and will, and gradually that calm and strength take possession of the mental and emotional, even of the sensational, vital and physical being. This brings the third power and result, the power by this endurance and mastery, this separation and rejection of the lower nature, to get rid of the normal reactions and even, if we will, to ...
... emergence of consciousness from this swoon of the Inconscience. Purusha indeed consents to assume the apparent form of itself which Prakriti constructs for it; it seems to become the Inconscient, the physical being, the vital being, the mental being: but in all these it remains still in reality itself; the light of the secret conscious Being supports and informs the action of the inconscient or emergingly ...
... even very largely identify ourselves with it, and yet most of its operations are really subconscious to our mental being; not only does the mind take no part in them but, as we suppose, our most physical being has no awareness of its own hidden operations or, by itself, of its own existence; it knows or rather feels only so much of itself as is enlightened by mind-sense and observable by intelligence ...
... their insufficient bodily signs and self-expressions. His consciousness is always falling back towards the inconscience in which a large part of it is always involved, his life towards death, his physical being towards dis-aggregation. His delight of being depends on the relations of this imperfect consciousness with its environment based upon physical sensations and the sense-mind, in other words on ...
... found no longer necessary. A free concentration of will 7 using thought merely for suggestion and the giving of light to the lower members will take its place. This Will will then insist on the physical being, the vital existence, the heart and the mind remoulding themselves in the forms of the Divine which reveal themselves out of the silent Brahman. By swifter or slower degrees according to the previous ...
... one indivisible existence. In ourselves also there is in our subconscious being an action which is precisely that of the "inanimate" physical Nature whence has been constituted the basis of our physical being, another which is that of plant-life, and another which is that of the lower animal creation around us. All these are so much dominated and conditioned by the thinking and reasoning conscious-being ...
... easier to acquire by the waking consciousness and to turn into the normal experience, powers, mental status of the waking life. The subtle mind which is normally eclipsed by the insistence of the physical being, becomes powerful even in the waking state, until even there the enlarging man is able to live in his several subtle bodies as well as in his physical body, to be aware of them and in them, to ...
... divine nature. Our intelligent mentality is to become a play of the divine knowledge-will, our mental soul-life a play of the divine love and delight, our vitality a play of the divine life, our physical being a mould of the divine substance. This God-action in us is to be realised by an opening of ourselves to the divine gnosis and divine Ananda and, in its fullness, by an ascent into and a permanent ...
... cannot feel that they are living anything except by the force of a physical action. We might apply here the Tantric gradation of sādhana , which makes the way of the paśu , the herd, the animal or physical being, the lowest stage of its discipline, and say that the purely or predominantly ceremonial adoration is the first step of this lowest part of the way. It is evident that even real religion,—and Yoga ...
... it is called the child of the earth's growths and the child of the earth and heaven; this immortal Force is produced by man with pain and difficulty from the workings of the pure mind upon the physical being. But in the divine Waters Agni is found visible and easily born in all his strength and in all his knowledge and in all his enjoyment, entirely white and pure, growing ruddy with his action as ...
... of this physical consciousness, ataḥ , who like the ancient Rishis enter into contact with the Truth-consciousness. 4 They make it their seat and home, kṣaya, okas . For in the hill of the physical being there are dug for the soul those abounding wells of sweetness which draw out of its hard rigidity the concealed Ananda; at the touch of the Truth the rivers of honey, the quick pourings of the ...
... divine Creator in the name and form of Bhaga that this human capacity for the divine and right enjoyment of all things belongs. When he is embraced by the human mind and heart and vital forces and physical being, when this divine form is received into himself by man, then the Ananda of the world manifests itself. Nothing can limit, nothing can diminish, neither god nor demon, friend nor enemy, event ...
... A Hymn of the Lords of the Plenitude [The Divine Will is invoked to complete the manifestation of the divine powers after the second state of the soul when it has passed beyond the mere physical being and is full of the perfect energy of the vital plane, for the gods have given all the life's fifty steeds of swiftness; Agni is there as the light and flame of its far-extended existence which ...
... × The larger working of consciousness and power in the being by which the rigid limitations of the ordinary mind and life and physical being are broken and man is able to experience a full inner life and open himself to communication with all the planes of his own and of the cosmic existence. ...
... that of the hidden sun. Here the two ideas are combined in another image. × Man lives in the physical being; Varuna brings the light of the gnosis into it and measures it out, that is, shapes and plans out our earth-existence in the measures of the Truth by means of the mind enlightened by the sun of ...
... × The felicity or happy wealth of the wide Truth-Consciousness manifested not only in the higher mental planes of our consciousness, but in our physical being. × The straight impulsion which the gods possess; man, moving from the ignorance to the Truth ...
... the word, the far-seer, the master of the house, the traveller. अग्निं नरो दीधितिभिररण्योर्हस्तच्युती जनयंत प्रशस्तं ৷ दूरेदृशं गृहपतिमथर्युँ ॥ अरण्योः Heaven and Earth = mind and physical being, are the two tinders हस्तच्युती The two hands are the two hands of the Sun,सवितेव बाहू दीधितिभिः दीधिति = thought, light, finger. All mean the same thing, forthe fingers are those of the ...
... into the power of increasing the size and weight of the body etc. Laghima is a similar power of lightness, that is to say of freedom from all pressure or weighing down in the mental, pranic or physical being. By Laghima it is possible to get rid of weariness and exhaustion and to overcome gravitation. It is the basis of Utthapana. Anima is the power of freeing the atoms of subtle or gross matter ...
... sunlight of the illumined mentality. But before there is the day or the continuous knowledge, the illuminations of Agni are like stars in the nocturnal heavens. Heaven is the mental as earth is the physical being; all the truth and knowledge of Agni is there, but hidden now by the darkness of night. Men know that the Light is there pervading the skies but see only by the stars which Agni has kindled as ...
... right mentality including मनीषा, right thought enlightened by the दक्ष and not only the emotional part of the मनः. The सौमनस is vast, महे, as a result of the wideness of the Rodasi, the mental and physical being, which prepares the manifestation of the vast Truth; this wideness of the Rodasi is always a feature of the ascent of the gods, Agni or Indra, in that upward progress to the plane of the Truth ...
... by the word, the far-seer, the master of the house, the traveller. अग्निं नरो दीधितिभिररण्योर्हस्तच्युती जनयंत प्रशस्तं । दूरेदृशं गृहपतिमथर्युं ॥ अरण्योः Heaven and Earth = mind and physical being, are the two tinders हस्तच्युती The two hands are the two hands of the Sun, सवितेव बाहू दीधितिभिः दीधिति = thought, light, finger. All mean the same thing, for the fingers are those ...
... and state or in their events and images, it can only be by a psychical memory awaking which will overcome the limits of the physical and resuscitate impressions other than those stamped on the physical being by physical cerebration. I doubt whether, even if we could have evidence of the physical memory of past lives or of such a psychical awakening, the theory would be considered any better proved ...
... happened by imposing polysyllables and fearful and wonderful laws of pathology, morbid heredity, eugenics and what not of loose fumbling, which touch only the draggled skirts of the lowest psycho-physical being. But here I need guidance more than anywhere else and must have the recognition of a law, the high line of a guiding order. To know the law of my moral and spiritual being is at first and last ...
... full possession of the earth his dwelling-place, to know and utilise physical Nature, enrich his environment and satisfy by the aid of a generalised intelligence his evolving mental, vital and physical being. That is not all his need, but it is a great and initial part of it and of human perfection. Its full meaning appears afterwards; for only in the beginning and in the appearance an impulse of his ...
... the might of the wisdom I declare to you of the All- Encompasser, the Inspired and Puissant One; for he stands in the middle vital world with the mind as his measuring-rule and he maps out our physical being with the Sun of knowledge. (6) Yea, this is the might of the forming wisdom of the God in his absolute vision and to that might none can do violence, that the ocean of his being is one and all ...
... used for coarse and crude expressions of the sensual, trivial or ugly. But Page 182 it does not seem to me that it should naturally be taken = breast, but indicate the whole vital and physical being regarded as a vessel or jar which can be filled with honey or water or poison. Nothing vulgar in that. 30 January 1937 Erotic Poetry An expression of the lower vital lashed to imaginative ...
... conscious. It is indeed a great thing that you can keep this calm and this unaffected witness attitude. It is always the sign of a strong inner foundation in the consciousness and that even the physical being shares in this result of the realisation. As for the "spectator" and the coils of the dragon, it is the Chino-Japanese image for the world-force extending itself in the course of the universe ...
... teeth [ in dream ] is symbolic usually of the breaking or falling off of habitual formations or sanskaras in the physical mind. Flesh The piece of flesh indicates something restless in the physical being which stands by its restlessness and excessive materiality in the way of the full flow of the Ananda. In the dream this became active and was eliminated by the pressure of the psychic. Being ...
... disturbance in talking to people comes of course because they throw their own vibrations upon you and revive your old movements. Once the true consciousness is well fixed in your Page 333 physical being, that effect need no longer happen. To discuss with others, especially when they are in a bad state, is always a mistake. It is very easy for the disturbance in them to fall upon you while ...
... fruit of eating in the sense of the phrase in the Gita. Sensitivity to Smell This [ reaction of uneasiness after smelling food ] is due to an acute consciousness and sensitiveness of the physical being, especially the vital physical. The sense of being fed by smell has become thereby very acute—the feeding by smell is a well known thing, and there is the Sanskrit proverb, ghrāṇam ardhabhojanam ...
... exercise may have contributed, of course, by its reaction on the body. Loss of Consciousness during Sleep In sleep one easily loses the consciousness of the day, because of the lapse of the physical being into the subconscient. You have to get the power to reestablish it when you wake. Sleep, because of its subconscient basis, usually brings a falling down to a lower level, unless it is a ...
... in the Mother and the surrender that goes with it, i.e. "whatever she wills is best for me", and the vastness which you feel now,—it is the wideness of the true self, of the true mental, vital, physical being also, from which such things fall off like dust, for they are of no importance to it whatever. It is the one thing to do, to get permanently into the wideness, peace and silence and let the ...
... rather the outer begins to change and become of one piece with the inner. So do not let this trouble you. When the pressure gives a tendency to insideness (samadhi), the Page 319 physical being, not being accustomed to go inside except in the way of sleep, translates this into a sense of sleepiness. It [ the tendency to fall asleep during meditation ] is a common obstacle with ...
... centre and liberates fully the psychic and emotional being, then into the navel and other vital centres and liberates the inner vital, then into the Muladhara and below and liberates the inner physical being. It works at the same time for perfection as well as liberation; it takes up the whole nature part by part and deals with it, rejecting what has to be rejected, sublimating what has to be sublimated ...
... or becomes possible when one rises above the mind and lives there governing all from above. Even in the psychic transformation one can rise above by a sort of going above of the mental, vital, physical being and a return, but one does not yet live above in the summit consciousness where Overmind has its seat with the other planes that are above the human Mind. The supramental transformation can ...
... undisturbed and call down the Force and Light from above to remove the obstacle. This must be done till the opening is permanent and complete and no covering is possible. The Subconscient and the Physical Being The subconscient difficulty is the difficulty now 1 —because the Page 597 whole struggle in the general sadhana is now there. It is in the subconscient, no longer in the vital ...
... attained and we have instead to undergo the law or fulfil a hard and difficult discipline. That law is imposed on us by the Ignorance which is the Page 685 nature of all our parts; our physical being is obviously a mass of ignorance, the vital is full of ignorant desires and passions, the mind is also an instrument of Ignorance struggling towards some kind of imperfect and mostly inferior and ...
... it is still confined to the mind proper which has only just received the gift of silence. When the new consciousness is fully formed and has taken entire possession of the vital nature and the physical being (the vital as yet is only touched or dominated by the silence, not possessed by it), then this defect will disappear. The quiet consciousness of peace you now have in the mind Page 124 ...
... this province. If you want the realisation there, it is the true nearness that you must seek, the descent and presence of the Mother in your physical consciousness, her constant inner touch in the physical being Page 162 and its activities, her will and knowledge behind all its work and thought and movement and the ever present Ananda of that presence expelling all vital and physical separateness ...
... spills and loses it; in another there is receptivity, harmony, balance and the result is a harmonious action without strain or effort. Probably the accumulated Force became more than the physical being could receive. When that happens, the right thing to do is to widen oneself (one can learn to do it by a little practice). If the consciousness is in a state of wideness, then it can receive any ...
... reaction—the body wants to translate the pressure for inner immobility into an outward immobility. There is no connection between the descent of Peace and depression. Inertia there may be if the physical being feels the pressure for quietude but turns it into mere inactivity—but that cannot be called exactly a descent—at least not a complete one, since the physical does not share in it. By the ...
... they represent, not the highest Truth. There are only three safeguards for the disciple. One is to call down first the eternal peace, calm and silence of the Divine into the mind and the vital and physical being. In that peace and silence there is a true possibility that the mental and vital formations will fall to rest and the supramental creation can have free space. The second safeguard is to remain ...
... be a great Yogin. The ideal of human life is to establish over the whole being the control of a clear, strong and rational mind and a right and rational will, to master the emotional, vital and physical being, create a harmony of the whole and develop the capacities whatever they are and fulfil them in life. In the terms of Hindu thought, it is to enthrone the rule of the purified and sattwic buddhi ...
... consequently, your aspiration and sadhana. This part of the work has been well done. Now it only remains for you to cast out this thing finally with all its effects from your mind and life and physical being so that there may be clear room for the true Person to descend and occupy all the place. Do your part and the full Power and Grace will be upon you. ...
... these crises would be met and overcome, or at least pass without leading to indulgence in one form or another. The other possibility is the settled descent of the higher consciousness into the physical being. It is in these two ways that liberation from sex is possible. 5 April 1936 You write [in the preceding letter], "you have ... never cut with it entirely." In what sense? Every time I have ...
... fully the psychic and emotional Page 204 being, then into the navel and other vital centres and liberates the inner vital, then into the Muladhara and below and liberates the inner physical being. It works at the same time for perfection as well as liberation; it takes up the whole nature part by part and deals with it, rejecting what has to be rejected, sublimating what has to be sublimated ...
... the soul in its essence and the psychic being. Behind each and all there is the soul which is the spark of the Divine—none could exist without that. But it is quite possible to have a vital and physical being without a clearly evolved psychic being behind it. Still, one cannot make general statements that no aboriginal has a soul or there is no display of soul anywhere. The inner being is composed ...
... want the realisation there, it is the true nearness that you must seek, the descent and presence of the Mother in your physical consciousness, her constant inner touch Page 86 in the physical being and its activities, her will and knowledge behind all its work and thought and movement and the ever present Ananda of that presence expelling all vital and physical separateness, craving and desire ...
... sufficient to startle you out of your sleep. During the night I am not afraid of certain things, but during the day I am afraid of them. Why? That means your vital being is older than your physical being. "There is no doubt that from many points of view our subconscient has greater knowledge than our habitual consciousness." "On Dreams" , Words of Long Ago Here I am going to correct ...
... in a hundred possible ways just to be in the sun? That is precisely the feeling of aspiration in the physical—the urge, the movement, the push towards the light. Plants have more of it in their physical being than men. Their whole life is a worship of light. Light is of course the material symbol of the Divine, and the sun represents, under material conditions, the Supreme Consciousness. The plants ...
... Certainly, it is possible to suppress this activity completely and to have a total, dreamless sleep; but to be able in this way to immerse our mental being in a repose similar to the repose of our physical being, we must have achieved a perfect control over it, and this is not an easy thing to do. In most cases, this activity is even heightened, because, as the body is asleep, the internal faculties ...
... chief stumbling-block in the way of the transformation of the outer consciousness by the Yoga. It is also largely responsible for most of the suffering and disease of mind or body to which the physical being is subject in Nature. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: The Physical Consciousness The vital body surrounds the physical body with a kind of envelope which has almost the same density ...
... stumbling and suffering, to which man is exposed by the nature of his mentality. Sri Aurobindo The Human Cycle: True and False Subjectivism The ordinary human being is conscious only in his physical being, and only in relatively rare moments is he conscious of his mind, just a little more frequently of his vital, but all this is mixed up in his consciousness, so much so that he would be quite unable ...
... So too what we know of the vital in us is only the outer vital, a surface activity partially expressing a larger secret vital which we can only know by going within. Equally, what we call our physical being is only a visible projection of a greater and subtler invisible physical consciousness which is much more complex, much more aware, much wider in its receptiveness, much more open and plastic and ...
... fully the psychic and emotional being, then into the navel and other Page 35 vital centres and liberates the inner vital, then into the Muladhara and below and liberates the inner physical being. It works at the same time for perfection as well as liberation; it takes up the whole nature part by part and deals with it, rejecting what has to be rejected, sublimating what has to be sublimated ...
... of the being, an inertia. There are people who... I have known people who were physically very courageous, and were very, very cowardly morally, because men are made of different parts. Their physical being can be active and courageous and their moral being cowardly. I have known the opposite also: I have known people who were inwardly very courageous and externally they were terrible cowards. But ...
... experiences quite spontaneously and it is understood that this depends on their former lives or the way in which they were formed, the forces which presided over the constructions of their present physical being, and the influence they came under even before their birth. These people have experiences spontaneously. There are not many of these, but there are some. There are others for whom it is the result ...
... inner dimension. But it is in that region, the region somewhat behind the solar plexus, it is there that one finds it most easily. The psychic being is in the fourth dimension as related to our physical being. What does "a negative Nirvana" mean? Negative Nirvana? It is not in today's lesson. Negative Nirvana means quite simply a Nirvana which contains nothing positive. It means a nought ...
... Try—try, just to see, try for half an hour, you will see how difficult it is! And during that time take great care that there isn't a part of the vital or a part of the mind or a part of the physical being nicely hidden there, at the back, so that you don't see it ( Mother hides her hands behind her back ) and don't notice that it is not collaborating—sitting quietly there so that you don't unearth ...
... place for the Divine. But He is there. Source Before Going to Sleep ...one thing you can do in all security is, before going to sleep, to concentrate, relax all tension in the physical being, try... that is, in the body try so that the body lies like a soft rag on the bed, that it is no longer something with twitchings and cramps; to relax it completely as though it were a kind of ...
... a soul-personality, a distinct psychic being to represent it. This psychic being remains still behind the veil in our subliminal part, like the true mental, the true vital or the true or subtle physical being within us: but, like them, it acts on the surface life by the influences and intimations it throws up upon that surface; these form part of the surface aggregate which is the conglomerate effect ...
... Divine Love, and when one sees all these things that appear so horrible, so abnormal, so absurd, this great pain which is upon all beings and even upon all things... then there takes birth in this physical being the aspiration to soothe, to cure, to remove that. There is in Love, at its Origin, something which is translated constantly as the intervention of Grace: a force, a sweetness, something like a ...
... come in contact with the supreme consciousness, the universal consciousness, we want to bring it down in ourselves and to manifest it. But for that we must have a very solid base; our base is our physical being, our body. Therefore we have to build up a body solid, healthy, enduring, skilful, agile and strong, ready for everything. There is no better way to prepare the body than physical exercise: sports ...
... do not remember. X was there just in front of me, and I saw her psychic being, dominating over her by so much ( gesture indicating about twenty centimetres ), taller. It was the first time. Her physical being was small and her psychic being was so much bigger. And it was an unsexed being, neither man nor woman. Then I said to myself (possibly it is always so, I do not know, but here I noticed it very ...
... educated, trained. They must not be left like fallow land or a formless piece of stone. A diamond reveals all its beauty only when it is artistically cut. It is the same for you. If you want your physical being to be a perfect instrument for the manifestation of the supramental consciousness, you must cultivate it, sharpen it, refine it, give it what it lacks, perfect what it already possesses. That is ...
... rest belongs to the world of Ignorance and is governed by ignorance which means confusion and suffering. Blessings. 1966 Energy is in perpetual movement. It enters and leaves your physical being (mental, vital and material) and it is during your stay in what you call "you" that you must make of it an offering to the Divine and put it at His service. Then automatically you will do at ...
... Prayers and Meditations July 11, 1914 The entire physical being would like to be dissolved and reconstituted in an adoration that would have no bounds. O Lord, Thou who comest to touch Matter as the Messenger of the Supreme Power and Supreme Beatitude, Thou createst the conception of what the total realisation can be. And when the being believed it was ...
... I don't remember now, [an American disciple] was right in front of me, on her knees, and I saw her psychic being rising above her this much (about 20 cm), bigger. That's the first time. Her physical being was small, and the psychic being was big like that. And it was a sexless being: neither man nor woman. So I thought (it's possible that it's always like that, I don't know, but in this case I noticed ...
... the rest is dissolved, goes to pieces, scattered here and there, the individuality exists no longer. Now, how often in the physical life does the psychic being take part consciously in what the physical being does?... I am not speaking of people who do yoga and are a little disciplined; I am speaking of average people who have a psychic capacity in the sense that their psychic is already sufficiently ...
... Man and superman? You are not speaking of the new supramental race, are you? Are you really speaking of what we call the superman, that is, man born in the human way and trying to transform the physical being he has received by his ordinary human birth? Are there any stages?—There will certainly be countless partial realisations. According to each one's capacity, the degree of transformation will ...
... between a calf that is formed in the womb of the cow and the child that is formed in the womb of the mother. There is a difference, that of the intervention of the Mind; but if we look at a physical being, that is to say, visible as the physical is visible now and having the same density (for example, a body having no need of circulation, or of bones—particularly these two: the skeletons and blood ...
... does not arise at all. One who has an individualised psychic being can survive even in the midst of collective catastrophes, if that is his soul's choice. After death, once separated from his physical being, from his vital and mental beings, how is the soul conscious of being, of existing? The soul is a spark of the Supreme Divine; I do not see how the Lord has need of a body in order to be conscious ...
... I were told that it was a historical person, I would not be surprised. It is strange. And it becomes more and more so. As the body catches the inner rhythm, this increases. It cannot be a physical being. What is it? We will know one day.... It is very familiar. Yes, but my impression is like this: someone I have known very intimately, with whom I have lived perhaps, but not me, you ...
... Mother, How can one unify one's being? The first step is to find, deep within oneself, behind the desires and impulses, a luminous consciousness which is always present and manifests the physical being. Ordinarily, one becomes aware of the presence of this consciousness only when one has to face some danger or an unexpected event or a great sorrow. One has, then, to come into conscious ...
... showing a sudden ingathering of the entire being ); and I was seeing.... You know that I had taken on the conversion of the Lord of Falsehood: I tried to do it through an emanation incarnated in a physical being [Richard] 7 , and the greatest effort was made during those four years in Japan. The four years were coming to an end with an absolute inner certainty that there was nothing to be done—that it ...
... felt fatigued and imperceptibly the concentration frittered away. What is the cause of this feeling of fatigue? What is the difficulty in keeping such a concentration for all the 24 hours? The physical being is always fatigued when it is asked to keep a lasting concentration. The concentration can be kept constantly but not by mental decision. It must be a divine decision. 16 August 1932 ...
... died away. Then it was time for Sri Aurobindo's lunch (people eat there—in another way). So as not to disturb him, I went into the next room. He came in after some time and stood before me (I—my physical being, that is, my physical consciousness—had had time to calm down). I knelt down and took his hand (a MUCH clearer sensation than anything physical, mon petit!); I kissed his hand. He simply said, ...
... is therefore very important, even the outer attitude." What is the meaning of "outer aspiration" and "outer attitude"? What is the best outer attitude? Unless one practises yoga in the physical being (outer being), it remains ignorant—even its aspiration is ignorant and so is its goodwill; all its movements are ignorant and so they distort and disfigure the Divine Presence. That is why the ...
... leaves no trace. In fact, something of the same phenomenon occurs in the course of your present life: apart from those exceptional moments when you are at the summit of your mental, vital or even physical being, the rest of your existence seems to fade into an uninteresting, dull tonality, and it matters very little whether you have been at this place or some other or whether you have done this thing ...
... strongly on your soul like an almost irresistible attraction. This is what happened in 1958. To conclude, "an easy and pleasant life" can only satisfy the outer being; but what answers in the physical being to the soul's influence needs for its flowering a life more in conformity with the soul's needs and "languishes" when it cannot find it. 3 December 1959 Page 333 It is because ...
... between work and yoga. Work itself is yoga if it is done in a spirit of dedication and surrender. 25 January 1938 Sometimes when I am absorbed in meditation I see and feel that my physical being aspires through work. Then I see a sun manifesting in my physical with its brilliant light. All the gods and forces emanating from You are in this sun. Yes, it is true that in and through work ...
... What does "realising power" actually mean? Acting decisively on the mind of men and the course of events. Page 104 What is the effect of the realising power on the Mother's own physical being and then the effect upon others and the world in general (including the outstanding problems of the world today)? We can wait with a little patience and we shall see. Does this date (4 ...
... never forget that the outer person is only the form and the symbol of an eternal Reality, and that, passing through the physical appearance, it is to this higher Reality that you must turn. The physical being cannot become truly expressive of the Eternal Reality until it is completely transformed by the supramental manifestation. And until then, it is by passing through it that you must find the Truth ...
... psychological transformation and make use of your seclusion for that purpose. My love and help are with you. 6 April 1952 Physical ailments are always the sign of a resistance in the physical being; but with surrender to the Divine's Will and a complete trust in the working of the Grace, they are bound to disappear soon. 22 May 1957 Sri Aurobindo says, "Disease is needlessly ...
... your difficulty, concentrate exclusively on the Light and the Force coming from above; let the Lord do for your body whatever He pleases. Hand over to Him totally the entire responsibility of your physical being. This is the cure. With my blessings. 5 March 1959 Page 150 The imperative condition for cure is calm and quietness. Any agitation, any nervousness prolongs the illness ...
... remains the transformation of the cells which I mentioned earlier. There is an article by Sri Aurobindo in one of the Bulletins which describes the various stages through which the entire physical being can be changed. And this is what so far has never been done. Does the inconscient in oneself belong to the individual being or to the earth? The inconscient is not individualised and when ...
... a lot), I have looked at your case, I have looked at her case, I have looked at every case, but there isn't one case in which one can say it is a true illness. The idea of illness is: a body (a physical being, anyway) that lives according to certain laws, till suddenly a disorder, something works its way into the body, establishes itself and upsets it; but it's not that! It's not that: it's something ...
... the body, knows what needs to be done better than the divine Power: it's "used to it," it "knows better." That's how it is. And then, when this new consciousness which is being worked out in the physical being ( the mind of the cells ) has caught hold of that, oh, it was as if it had caught hold of an extraordinary revelation; it said, "Ah, I've got you, you culprit! You are the one who is preventing ...
... anywhere else: we want to come into contact with the supreme consciousness, the universal consciousness, we want to receive it and manifest it. For that, we need a very solid base, and our base is our physical being, our body. We therefore need to prepare a solid, healthy, enduring body, skillful, agile and strong, so it may be ready for anything. There is no better way to prepare the body than physical exercises: ...
... difference, for instance, between the calf being formed in a cow's womb and the child being formed in its mother's womb. There is one difference: that of the Mind's intervention. But if we envisage a PHYSICAL being, that is, as visible as the physical now is and with the same density, for instance a body that wouldn't need blood circulation and bones (especially these two things: the skeleton and blood c ...
... Aurobindo's system of Yogic philosophy is the immediate delegate of the hitherto unmanifested Supermind, that utter Divinity which holds the key to man's integral perfection, even the perfection of his physical being. The Overmind word is the mantra. Here any of the characteristics of the preceding levels may be transfigured by a rhythm that is sui generis or else new characteristics may emerge that defy ...
... been love, but love as I understand it here, that is, not something subtle that rises but something concrete which is lived and exchanged, and which in order to exist needs the presence of the physical being, the 'living with, 'otherwise it has no raison d'être, having no base or concrete form. That is probably why you told me I loved love and not individuals. It's very true, because to me, individuals ...
... Then? Amitangshu asks two questions. The first is, "Does the decentralization take place all at once or in degrees?..." It takes time. It happens like this: the central will of the physical being abdicates its will to hold all the cells together. That's the first phenomenon. The central will accepts dissolution. But everything doesn't just scatter all at once—it takes a long time. What ...
... by—very brief passing by—of the true consciousness, the supramental consciousness, there has been in its wake a certain... it's between an attitude and a vision in the body (the Page 480 physical being), and it no longer sees things in the same way at all, the reaction is completely different. That has made a difference .... For those few hours, there was nothing but that consciousness, it was ...
... ], "The vital and the mind have gone," but the psychic being hasn't. I think it was in relation to someone I saw (I don't remember), and I noticed that a very great power was there; and the PHYSICAL being, the body, was conscious of the presence of the psychic being, Page 252 which was constantly there, behind. It hasn't gone. Conscious. It was a day when someone had come (I forget ...
... this soil with the unfound roots in it and this nourishing air ...," etc. ( after a silence ) What I found with yesterday's experience—what the experience demonstrated to me—is that the physical being, which thought it was exclusively turned to the Divine, is turned in a... (what shall I say?) an almost superficial way. That is to say, it is still capable of feeling certain occurrences as " ...
... the same time, in totally different countries and without ever knowing about each other. And I met one and the other. Greatly interesting, obviously. Greatly interesting, because this physical being [Mother's] was not born in an important position, quite the contrary ( gesture indicating an ordinary background ).... The only thing I remember well is when I was a little girl (five or six years ...
... things, circumstances, all that comes for teaching, teaching the body to have the true consciousness. It's... it's marvelous. ( Mother goes within ) It seems that the problem was to create a physical being capable Page 232 of bearing the Power that wants to manifest—all ordinary bodily consciousnesses are too thin and fragile to withstand the overwhelming Power that is to manifest. And ...
... [being collapsed]. He was such a marvelous protection and support! The inner being wasn't affected because that remained the way it was—the closeness, the intimacy remained the same—but the physical being.... It's a miracle it survived. Several days ago I saw Sri Aurobindo and he was busy with money—he was receiving money, he was even receiving things in gold. 1 ( Mother laughs ) ...
... mind, the life-force, the body — and after bringing a power of complete godhead to answer this fourfold aspiration, Sri Aurobindo was throwing away the earnest of the final and supreme triumph, a physical being in which the very cells were beginning to flower into a divine substance such as the world had scarcely dreamt of in even its most apocalyptic hours. The doctors who were his attendants knew ...
... Mother had come to Pondicherry from France. We can understand that when Sri Aurobindo wrote those letters the full ideal whose realisation consisted in the Supermind's taking possession of the physical being itself had not been formulated. But by 1918 the Arya, expressing this ideal, had already run for over four years, the Mother had begun co-operating with Sri Aurobindo and, though she left in ...
... the irresistible bouts of unconsciousness of sleep to which our body's waking status occasionally succumbs cannot but be viewed as a sign of imperfection in the prevailing organisation of our physical being. What is then necessary is that — and this must constitute an essential element in the total transfiguration of our bodily existence — sleep must be raised from the level of necessity to that ...
... processes as well as look behind or beyond them. This curious detachment and freedom shows it to be both subject and object at the same time and therefore the symbolic expression of some truth of physical being which is not exhausted by the present possibilities of living and conscious matter . There is here a sense of Infinite riches in a little room — riches that could ...
... confidence in Her can now grow and do grow without being hampered at every step. So, I go on. I give Her all my emotions and She takes them and makes me free - I give Her all the desires and my physical being - and I remain without anything. This will now be the essence of my life, repeating and repeating these acts, more and more generously and more and more freely. How can I think, when She is thinking ...
... tive Purusha or being that is proper to that particular plane. Thus, in man, there is a mental being corresponding to the mental nature, a vital being corresponding to the vital nature and a physical being answering to the physical nature. Now in the evolutionary emergence so far effectuated here upon earth, the dual aspect of Chit-Shakti — the aspect of consciousness and the aspect of ...
... Yoga, p. 212) "Our substance does not end with the physical body; that is only the earthly pedestal, the terrestrial base, the material starting point.... There are behind our gross physical being other and subtler grades of substance with a finer law and a greater power which support the denser body and which can... be made to impose that law and power on our dense matter ..." ...
... cannot feel that they are living anything except by the force of a physical action. We might apply here the Tantric gradation of sadhana, which makes the way of the pasu, the herd, the animal or physical being, the lowest stage of its discipline, and say that the purely or predominantly ceremonial adoration is the first step of this lowest part of the way. It is evident that even real religion, — and ...
... have to be combined with asanas and should be performed keeping the body immobile, firmly established in one of the prescribed postures. While Asana deals with the most material part of the physical being, Pranayama deals with the life-energy, Prana. Or rather it deals with the most apparent manifestation of it in us which is breathing, and thereby seeks to obtain mastery over all the powers of ...
... thinking of yourself also. When will my spiritual life take a positive and permanent step forward? It will happen I suppose when you are fit for it - i.e. when the vital and physical being begin to take an un-egoistic interest in the Yoga. When my mind presses the vital and the ego for an inward turn, they start a revolt. That brings in all sorts of wrong forces. The ...
... tremendous resistance. DR. MANILAL: Have you realised the Supermind? SRI AUROBINDO: You know, I was talking to Nirodbaran about the tail of the Supermind. I know what the Supermind is. And the physical being has flashes and glimpses of it. I have been trying to supramentalise the descended Overmind. Not that the Supermind is not acting. It is doing so through the Overmind; and the Intuition and the ...
... even the physical cells? SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, the cells can have peace and joy and other things. When they are quite conscious, they can throw opposing forces out. When peace descends into the physical being, it is a great force for cure. NIRODBARAN: Can one have peace without knowing it? SRI AUROBINDO: That would be neutral peace, though it would be more than quietude. But there is a positive ...
... power, in spite of its factual or practical truth, is not the whole truth. This is, I should say, the very old I Ptolemaic social system, in a new garb, which turns round man as an economic – and physical being. The Copernican system would view man chiefly as a psychological centre. A truly rational economic system can be based upon such an inner view of the situation. A merely economic view would take ...
... cast. How small and tender looked the foot! He has written of his inner fight saying, "My gaping wounds are a thousand and one", in his poem A God's Labour . Here was an outer wound added to his physical being. Still, no complaint! War is war! His hair also caused some trouble, for it was in a terribly tangled "intrinsicate" mess due to its prolonged fixed position — a network as complicated as its ...
... preserve one's body by defensive as well as by offensive means and the desire to multiply oneself by mating. These are the two biological necessities that are inevitable to man's existence as a physical being. They give the minimum conditions required to be fulfilled by man in order that he may live and hence they are the strongest and the most fundamental elements that enter into his structure and ...
... from the higher to the lower, from the less dense to the more dense, from mind to the body. It means also in the same process a canalisation, materialisation and fixing upon earth and in the physical being of the increasing powers of the Light. The Light as it descends from its own home above to the lower levels of our being expresses itself no doubt in one way, but also gets diminished ...
... crystallises and condenses gradually; in the worlds of thinking and feeling, enjoying and dynamic activity, it has still a malleable and mixed consIstency, but when it reaches and possesses the physical being, it becomes the impervious solid obscurity that Matter presents. The root of the Cosmic Evil is in Matter. From there it shoots up and overshadows the upper layers of our being and co ...
... e growth of consciousness and transformation of nature, man's advance has been marked out in a few very definite stages. The first was the purely animal man – Pasu – when man lived merely as a physical being, concerned solely about his body. Then came the Pisacha, the man of vital urges in their crudest form, the man of ignorant passions and dark instincts who has been imaged in the popular mind as ...
... organisation of the mind, the life and the body. So the individualisation and growth of the soul means a growth and individualisation of the mental being, the vital being and also of the physical being. Normally the purpose of intellectual culture is the growth and individualisation of the mind, the purpose of moral culture is the growth and individualisation of the vital being and the true purpose ...
... of receiving the divine forces that are at work to transform it and give birth to the new race. The Mother, On Education: General Messages and Letters The physical consciousness and physical being, the body itself, must reach a perfection in all that it is and does which now we can hardly conceive. It may even in the end be suffused with a light and beauty and bliss from beyond, and the ...
... the world"? 26 And, while considering "the possible relation between the divine life and the divine mind of the perfected human soul and the very gross and seemingly undivine body or formula of physical being in which we actually dwell," 27 we should never forget that "that formula is the result of a certain fixed relation between sense and substance from which the material universe has started. But ...
... that is not the real truth of the matter. Behind the apparent unicity of his personality lie hidden many different beings with separate trends and functions of their own, such as, his physical Page 82 being, vital being, mental being and others. Also, he has not only his gross physical body, visible and sensible to us, but has other bodies too; such as, a subtle physical body, a ...
... darkness and distortions of the lower nature and to put itself resolutely or vehemently on the side of the divine Light. The mental energies, the heart's emotions, the vital desires, the very physical being have to be compelled into the right attitude or trained to admit and answer to the right influences." (The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 54) The indispensability of a strong personal will in ...
... where it Page 88 begins to shadow out, develop, delineate expressive forms of life touched by a supreme pure Existence, consciousness and bliss... The transformation of the physical being might follow this incessant line of progression and the divine body reflect or reproduce here in a divine life on the earth something of this higher greatness and glory of the self-manifesting ...
... of manifestation of the Spirit. Thus, there is the mental being which produces thoughts, the emotional being which produces feelings, the vital being which produces the power of action and the physical being that acts and gives form to everything else. Now, the basic duty of a teacher is to help his students in the task of developing these four instruments to as great a perfection as practicable. The ...
... greatness and by the great Ones, the Mother Aditi, with her sons, came for the upholding."5 These and other statements give us the clue to what the Vedic Rishis meant by immortality. When the physical being is visited by the greatness of the infinite planes above and by the power of the great godheads, who reign on those planes, breaks its limits, opens out to the Light and is upheld in its new wideness ...
... Individual and Collective Perfectibility The third characteristic of the ancient conception of education was its emphasis on harmonisation of different aspects of personality so that the physical being of the individual is made a strong base for sustaining the growth and perfection of the vital, mental, and higher aspects of personality. The Taittiriya Upanishad speaks of five sheaths in the ...
... the power of increasing the size and the weight of the body, etc. Laghimā is a similar power of lightness, that is to say, of freedom from all pressure or weighing down in the mental, body, or physical being. Laghimā is the basis of the power to overcome gravitation and thus it is the basis of utthāpana. Animā is the power of freeing the atoms of subtle or gross matter from their ordinary limitations ...
... quality and action as the play of his universal and infinite energy, all knowledge and conscious experience as the out-flowing of that consciousness, and all in the terms of that one Ananda. His physical being will be one with all material Nature, his vital being with the life of the universe, his mind with the cosmic mind, his spiritual knowledge and will with the divine knowledge and will both in itself ...
... points out: आ ये वऽवा स्वपत्यानि तस्थु : || कुण्वानासो अमृतत्वायगतुम् | | महना महदभिः पुथिवी वि तस्थे | माता पुत्रैरदितिघ्येसे वेः | RV.I.72.9. "The physical being visited by the greatness of the infinite planes above and by the power of the great godheads who reign on those planes breaks its limits, opens out to the Light and is upheld in its new wideness ...
... consent and volition. At each level of our existence, we find its presence. This is more fully explained in the Taittiriya Upanishad. At the physical level we find it to be annamaya purusha, a physical being, possessing and sustaining our physical body and its movement. At a higher level of our vital and dynamic movements, we find it to be pranamaya purusha, a being of life-force, sustainer and supporter ...
... to which we may now turn. (e) The Vedic Yoga aims at perfection. And that perfection can and must be attained on all our levels, — (i) In the wideness of earth, prithwi, our physical being and consciousness; (ii) In the full force of prana, of vital speed and action and enjoyment and nervous vibration, typified as ashwn' Horse, which must be brought forward to up bear our ...
... would tumble down. I was then forced to open my eyes to relieve the pressure. Was it because my capacity to contain the Force was limited? Probably the accumulated Force became more than the physical being could receive. When that happens, the right thing to do is to widen oneself (one can learn to do it by a little practice). If the consciousness is in a state of wideness, then it can receive any ...
... used to read the medical reports very carefully and follow the progress of the patients from day to day. Even at Pranam time her eyes would penetrate not only into the psychic being, but into the physical being as well and if something was wrong, she Page 27 would refer the case to us. Here is an instance in point: A sadhak had an innocent tumour on his neck. I advised an operation; he vacillated ...
... when peace descends, a greater depression and inertia can also come. Is that right? There is no connection between the descent of Peace and depression. Inertia there may be if the physical being feels the pressure for quietude but turns it into mere inactivity — but that cannot be called exactly a descent — at least not a complete one, since the physical does not share in it. ...
... perfect action it is necessary. At the end of a certain experience, it was felt that Page 138 something like an electricity shock passed through my physical being. Electricity shock always indicates a passage of dynamic Force. My psychological analysis indicates that it is not always possible for us, sadhakas, to let the Mother ...
... has to cease. The subconscient has (with all the rest of the being) to become luminous and conscious. In sleep one easily loses the consciousness of the day, because of the lapse of the physical being into the subconscient. You have to get the power to reestablish it when you wake. Sometimes the sadhana continues during the sleep Page 216 with experiences ...
... are many other planes superimposed one upon another, each having its own special consciousness and power, its own laws of being and action. Obviously we all know apart from the material or physical being there is the vital being, the life-force and there is the mental being, the mind-force. And there are many other levels like these. A miracle happens, that is to say, a material formation behaves ...
... s from the higher to the lower, from the less dense to the more dense, from mind to the body. It means also in the same process a canalisation, materialisation and fixing upon earth and in the physical being of the increasing powers of the Light. The Light as it descends from its own home above to the lower levels of our being expresses itself no doubt in one way, but also gets diminished, modified ...
... as a shoemaker, for example. But what was left and what manifested itself was something very characteristic of the great musician. He had disciplined his mental and vital being and even his physical being in view of his musical capacity and this formation remained firm and sought to reincarnate. The musical being was originally organised and fashioned around the psychic consciousness and therefore ...
... refuelling has to be done by a ceaseless self-offering of all movements, especially all the automatic reactions of the physical that form the roots of the material existence. The whole physical being if it is to embody a new life in a new organisation must concentrate at one point within itself and find or found there the Fire, the dynamic Divine Will in its most concrete reality — the body's ...
... obscurity and perversion, of pain and suffeing: Page 55 we saw in practice something of it—fortunately shortlived—in the Hitlerian or Stalinian regime; a soulless mental or vital or physical being can create but a chaos. In the deluge of Doomsday the Lord himself appears and holds aloft safe the supreme Knowledge, the matrix of a new creation—the divine Ark. Indeed those alone ...
... thing made of obscurity and perversion, of pain and suffering: we saw in practice something of it – fortunately short lived – in the Hitlerian or Stalinian regime; a soulless mental or vital or physical being can create but a chaos. In the deluge of Doomsday the Lord himself appears and holds aloft safe the supreme Knowledge, the matrix of a new creation – the divine Ark. Indeed those alone who have ...
... s, as a shoemaker, for example. But what was left and what manifested itself was something very characteristic of the great musician. He had disciplined his mental and vital being and even his physical being in view of his musical capacity and this formation remained firm and sought to reincarnate. The musical being was originally organised and fashioned around the psychic consciousness and therefore ...
... elsewhere: it is not directly proportional to material well-being. Unhappiness too is a psychological entity and consists in a special vibration of mind and vitality – and consequently of the physical being – due to a warp in the consciousness itself, in the core of the inner personality. The material conditions serve only to manifest it, maintain or aggravate it, but do not create it – truly they ...
... harmony between the disparate parts. And such a state or period is quite necessary which is a period of assimilation of what one has learnt, of harmonisation of all the limbs. With regard to their physical being, men live in a formidable ignorance. How many of you know the exact quantity of food Page 62 and the kind of food the body requires? Yes, simply this, how much to take and when ...
... clear that the human being has many parts and planes and that each one of them has its own thrust of development, and these thrusts are far from being homogenous or harmonious with one another. The physical being is often in conflict with the vital pursuits, and when the vital ambitions and attractions impose upon the physical body their own burden, the physical often revolts or collapses. The demands of ...
... the divine Light. As one has voluntarily resolved to undertake the process of yoga and transformation, one has to ensure that mental energies, the heart's emotions, the vital desires, the very physical being accept the discipline of vigilance so that there is constant right attitude and there is constant training to admit an answer to the right influences. It will not do, and it cannot be safe or effective ...
... some extent the nature of the domain of subliminal consciousness. It includes the large action of the inner mind, inner intelligence and inner sense mind, of an inner vital, and of an inner subtle physical being. Our subliminal being is not, like our surface being, an Page 36 outcome of the energy of the Inconscient. It is a meeting-place of the consciousness that emerges from below by evolution ...
... something divine, page - 109 transcendental and blissful, and Vedic Rishis speak of the attainment of fulfilment and perfection and immortality which has been desert-bed as the state of the physical being which, when visited by the greatness of the infinite planes above and by the power of the great godheads who reign on those planes, breaks its limits, opens out to the Light and is upheld in its ...
... greatness by the Great Ones, the Mother Aditi, with her sons came for the upholding". 7 These and other statements give us the clue of what the Vedic Rishis meant by immortality. When the physical being is visited by the greatness of the infinite planes above and by the power of the great godheads who reign on those planes breaks its limits, opens out to the Light and is upheld in its new wideness ...
... Works, Vedanta comes after Veda. This is as true from the outward, historical point of view as it is true of the lines of inner change. As I have already explained, man begins his career as a vital-physical being, becomes a mental being at a later stage. But the trouble is that when he goes beyond his vital being into the mental, he tends to pass beyond mind into the gnosis and forgets his life and body; ...
... from elsewhere: it is not directly proportional to material well-being. Unhappiness too is a psychological entity and consists in a special vibration of mind and vitality—and consequently of the physical being—due to a warp in the consciousness itself, in the core of the inner personality. The material conditions serve only to manifest it, maintain or aggravate it, but do not create it—truly they are ...
... so many dull and lower aims, must feel all its urges and instincts exalted and irradiated and become a glorious counterpart of the Supramental super-life above. The physical consciousness and physical being, the body itself must reach a perfection in all that it is and does which now we can hardly conceive. It may even in the end be suffused with a light and beauty and bliss from the Beyond and the ...
... factual or practical truth, is not the whole Page 109 truth. This is, I should say, the very old Ptolemaic social system, in a new garb, which turns round man as an economic—and physical—being. The Copernican system would view man chiefly as a psychological centre. A truly rational economic system can be based upon such an inner view of the situation. A merely economic view would take ...
... wrote a poem "In hori's aeternum" "Eternity in an hour". Blake, I think, wrote about "Eternity in a grain of sand." Man has in him his natural instruments —mind, heart, vital being, nervous and physical being—and Page 152 the true Self, the Spark of the Divine. Man can awaken his true Self and identify it with the Eternal, and immortal. It is then possible for it to project its perfection ...
... time saying "I know everything; and I will do it." When the mind is receptive, then the Higher Consciousness that knows what is to be done, gives the right guidance to the mind, to life and to the physical being of man so as to create a mould for its own expression —the expression of the Truth-Consciousness. The purpose of the creation is the manifestation, of the Satchidananda here,—it would be the highest ...
... In response to his cry Aswapathy felt a great presence "a boundless Heart was near his longing heart," and he felt a great exaltation and delight overpowering his members. Even the physical being was thrilled by the influence of the Presence. He saw in that state a face, flame-pure, with a large forehead and eyelids that indicated wisdom, and lips that spoke immortal words. It spoke to ...
... himself alone". I sat with the sages and in meditation "I Page 286 glimpsed the presence of the One in all". But Matter remained unfulfilled, its end was Death. So far as the physical being is concerned man's life is based on the Inconscient, which gives rise to Ignorance and its only fate is to return to the Void. "But thou hast come and all will surely change:" "My ...
... is to say, partial and, in most cases, dwarfed and distorted representations of Truth, and transmits them to the vital (prāṇa) which infuses them with its own energy and passes them on to the physical being for materialisation in life. If we follow the ascetic way, we shall reduce the mind to a blank and let its faculties starve and languish or be paralysed by a long disuse; but in a dynamic spirituality ...
... dialectical subtlety and ingenious sophistry, indulgence of one's lower cravings is absolutely incompatible with spirituality. Those who dream of attaining to a harmony and happiness in their psycho-physical being by "following Nature" and making light of self-restraint and discipline, are only deceiving themselves and wandering away from the true path of purity and freedom. An initial self-control ...
... as Sri Aurobindo puts it, expunged and utterly expelled from the nature, disappears for ever. It is clear from the above description that the roots of our being, especially of the vital-physical being, lie deep in the Subconscient and the Inconscient out of which we have emerged by evolution, and unless we illumine and transform them, our nature cannot become free and pure, as our soul is free ...
... given rise to a brilliant creation, or, would have established some kind of religion; but that would not have been the real work. Disciple : Could a great progress in the conquest of the physical being have been made at that time? Sri Aurobindo : If the Sadhaks had taken the right attitude, then with the gain in the vital it would have been easy in the physical, in spite of difficulties ...
... " 43 The fact was that, although himself realising the Highest consciousness (including the Supermind), Sri Aurobindo nevertheless found it convenient to bring down only the Overmind into the physical being and consciousness, but even so the Supermind was always behind it. The limitations were apparently self-chosen, the aim being to keep the link with the physical consciousness and use the higher ...
... along.” Mother, give to our heart and mind a titan’s strength, a titan’s energy… The ocean is the world-creation. The Mandar mountain is the churning stick. This Mandar mountain is our physical being. This churning goes on in this body too. Vasuki is the rope. Vasuki is the Life-Force. And so using our Life-Force as the rope, the body as our churner or Mandar mountain, we have to churn the ...
... these powers, seem to know the way of mastering them. Théon, the Mother's first teacher, had great powers and knew bow to use them. Sometimes these powers are gifts. When one leaves the physical being and goes into the vital world he must know how to protect himself or someone must protect him. Disciple : Do not space and time exist on the vital plane ? Sri Aurobindo : The ...
... remoulding of human nature into the divine nature, a growing into the likeness of the Divine, sādrśya, sādharmya. The next part to feel the pressure of the descending spirit-force was the physical being of man. Two immediate outstanding consequences of this descent were, first, a growing obsession of the national mind with material things and, second, an uprush of the subconscient scum and obscurity ...
... transformation, and the principle of action is based on the close connection between the body and the soul. For the Hathayogin, the body is indeed "a mystic bridge between the spiritual and the physical being", and his whole aim is to awaken (he soul in the physical body and make it realise the purity, power, light, and freedom that are native to it. Through the disciplines of āsana and prānāyāma ...
... all the while by the ambience of the Mother, sustained by constant Vision of Her powers and personalities, would seem to have been for Sri Aurobindo's, not merely an Inn of Tranquillity for his physical being, but also a momentous tunnelling for the soul through the hard rocks of consciousness to emerge on a plateau of possibility at the other end with its own Cave of Tapasya. Page 373 ...
... first stone of the Matrimandir. It means that your material being has understood a little what Mother's presence on earth means. It is like a direct bridge that you have thrown between your physical being and the Grace of the future. What you don't know, perhaps, is that these Agendas are not books, are not a teaching, are not even experiences; it is beyond all that, more powerful than all ...
... love in me get attacked by obscurity? I am not aware of having done anything, and it is not possible for the happiness and love to withdraw for no reason. M: No, nothing withdraws; it is the physical being which is unable, by nature, to hold the joy and love for very long, unless it is completely governed by the psychic. 40 S: I have just heard that you are not well. What is it, my dear ...
... that alone never fails. Perhaps one day I shall find the favourable conditions and the necessary help for the achievement of the supreme realisation, the transformation and divinisation of the physical being which will change the world into a blessed place full of harmony and light, peace and beauty. 18 VI It may seem strange that, although the Clairvoyant Musician has been their neighbour ...
... Mother had an experience which was "almost a material vision", she saw it with her eyes open: the psychic being of a sadhika who had come to her loomed about twenty centimetres taller than her physical being and was unsexed as well. It made the Mother understand that it was the psychic being which would materialise itself one day and become the supramental being: The psychic being materialises ...
... and not passive or quietistic. A passive concentration can lead only to the silence of the Immutable, but not to the integral being of the Divine. A concentration of the mind, heart, will and the physical being of the sâdhaka, fired by the psychic love¹ for the Divine and maintained unflagging even in the midst of the full flood of life's activities, is the indispensable pre-requisite in the initial stages ...
... and the night continues to be free to undo the work of the day. Page 49 Have you tried a small prayer before going to sleep A prayer that the sleep may become an offering of the physical being to the Supreme Consciousness. 3.7.1968 Once Mother spoke to me about total sincerity. What does transparent sincerity mean? Sincerity is compared to an atmosphere or a sheet of ...
... determining factor. This influence and direction come down to the evolving individual through the subliminal, and are rather occult to his unenlightened comprehension. If he lives mostly in his physical being, engrossed in the needs and cravings of his body and attached to his physical interests and relations, it is likely that his soul will not be able to go on a long journey of the supraphysical ...
... desert-tract? SRI AUROBINDO: It was certainly not because the Mother was different to you from other days or pushed you to a distance, but because you came rather shut up in that part of your physical being which is still shrinking from the Light. It is this part which was always fundamentally responsible for all your bad passages and painful movements even when the direct difficulty was higher up ...
... isn’t much difference between the calf being formed in a cow’s womb and the child being formed in its mother’s womb. There is one difference: that of the Mind’s intervention. But if we envisage a PHYSICAL being, that is, as visible as the physical now is and with the same density—for instance, a body that wouldn’t need blood circulation and bones—it would be an infinitely greater transformation than that ...
... modern systems of Yoga which call themselves Yogic. It is the union of the "Earth" of the Veda and Purana with the divine Principle, an earth which is said to be above our earth, that is to say, the physical being and consciousness of which the world and the body are only images. But the modem Yogas hardly recognise the possibility of a material union with the Divine. 31-12-1915 * The di ...
... Her. For you must never forget that the outer person is only the form and symbol of an eternal Reality, and it is to this higher Reality that you must turn through the physical appearance. The physical being can become truly expressive of the eternal Reality only when it is completely transformed by the Supramental manifestation. And until then, it is through it that you must find the Truth. 22 ...
... All division in the being is insincerity. The greatest insincerity is to dig an abyss between your body and the truth of your being. When an abyss separates the true being from the physical being, Nature fills it immediately with all kinds of adverse suggestions, the most formidable of which is fear, and the most pernicious, doubt. Allow nothing anywhere to deny the truth of your being— ...
... First:— The opening up and illumination of the mental, vital and the physical beings. Secondly:— Making intuitive of the mind, thought, will etc., and development of the hidden consciousness progressively replacing the surface consciousness. Thirdly:— The supramentalising of the changed mental, vital and the physical beings and finally the descent of the true Supramental and the rising into the ...
... organize themselves around the soul form, through thousands of lives, the psychic being . This psychic being, when well constituted, becomes the conscious intermediary between the soul, the psychic being and the mental, vital and physical beings. When the psychic being gets the liberation, it feels the ego and the physical consciousness, merely as movements of the universal Nature outside itself, quite... questions. Some are already answered by what I have previously written. You say, "the Ego and the physical consciousness are not me ." It is your soul , who can say that in truth. Certainly your soul is not the ego and the physical consciousness; but the mental, the vital and the physical beings have been formed by the ego and it is through the ego that they express themselves, it is through the... 27 May 1963 I wrote that it was not a question of wrong and right, because it is only the Lord Who can know what is truly wrong and what is truly right. Upon this earth, each being and especially each Ego is convinced that it is right and takes its desires for the truth. But for me who can see and know, who am aware of the truth of things, if I did what your ego wants me to ...
... an instrument of Ignorance trying to reach out to the Truth through much limitation, conflict, confusion and error. To get back to Overmind, if one can do it completely, which is not easy for physical beings, is to stand on the borders of the Supramental Truth with the hope of entry there. Sri Aurobindo ...
... of the mental, vital and physical beings, this transference and transformation cannot happen. Your attachment to your son is a thing of the vital parts in you, and if you are not prepared to give it up, it will inevitably clash with the demands of the Yoga and stop your progress. When you came here, your psychical being was opened up, and the mental, vital and physical obstacles sufficiently worked... still cherished and supported by your mind and will. Page 369 Either you will make no progress at all here or if the power works on you it will work to break the resistance of the vital being and if you still support that resistance the nature of this struggle and the consequences may be of a serious and undesirable character. The power that works in this Yoga is of a thorough-going character ...
... The Mother's Universal Action and Her Embodied Physical Action Being sincere to the Mother demands communication of all our secret thoughts. There should be no secrecy between the mother and the child. But apart from this, is there any other utility of confessions? There is the utility of the physical approach to the Mother—the approach of the embodied mind and vital... Mother acts according to the law of things—in her embodied physical action is the opportunity of a constant Grace,—it is for that that the embodiment takes place. 12 August 1933 Is there any law of the working of the Mother's Grace? Why does the Mother in her universal action act according to the law of things, but in her embodied physical by constant Grace? Page 51 It is the work of ...
... Darkness, Falsehood, Death and Suffering as the law of life. Are there hostile forces in every plane of our being? The main strength of the hostile forces is in the vital — but there are some in the lower ranges of mind and smaller beings and forces in the subtle physical also. Why are certain forces called hostile and why have they worked against the Divine? ... mind — and they are always on the watch and can take action immediately. How is it that they know so much more than we do? Is their knowledge very vast? No. They are not physical beings, so they can be aware of things directly to a great extent — that is all. Can the planes above the mind, but below the Supermind, be influenced by the hostile forces? No... that the vital beings allow Gods to remain on their plane? The vital plane is not one world but many. In which of the worlds do the divine vital beings stay? There are worlds of the vital Gods, they stay there. How has the vital world which can have even its own Gods got distorted in us? Everything in the exterior being is distorted by ...
... experiences. What, for instance, would you do if you felt your head being drilled as if a nail were being thrust in? One feels also the splitting of the head in two or the bursting of. NIRODBARAN: Why can't the experiences come in quietly? SRI AUROBINDO: They do come in quietly but then you make a row. If your physical body or head were being split, you could object; but you ought to know by now that... All this shows that she has capacity and can do Yoga. But she must get rid of fear. Otherwise all experiences will stop. The fear indicates that though her inner mind is ready, her vital and physical beings are not—the one is full of fear and the other is suffering from bad health, as she says. A conflict is produced in her, which is not desirable. It may be better not to take up Yoga seriously until... He cried out, "Never! Never!" He thought his physical body will going to be cut up. But the symbolism is quite clear. It means that the old things in W's nature were to be thrown away and new things brought in. PURANI: I was surprised to hear that later he turned to jainism, SRI AUROBINDO: Well, such changes often happen. In one's vital and physical nature there remains a stamp of one's ancestral ...
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