... concerned, for neither beauty nor passion draws or drives you. But at this level of sex none of these things are necessary. The vital physical and physical urge of sex does not ask for beauty or love or emotional gratification or anything else; desire, repetition of vital-physical habit and bodily gratification (most usually, but not necessarily by the sex-act) are its motive forces. To set it in action... anger which comes second to it. That is why it is so difficult to get rid of it—because even when the mind or higher vital refuses, the vital physical feels this possessive force and has an ingrained tendency to be passive to its urge. In the vital physical the "[ sex- ]response" lingers long after the mind and higher vital have turned from it. I have seen that in men who were mentally and ... after a time. Your dreams were mostly on the vital physical plane. There if there is any physical contact of a sexual or other kind that acts strongly on the sexual centre or on a sensory contact, it may even without raising any lust produce an emission by a mechanical blind and inconscient action of a purely physical (not even vital physical) kind. It is only when the sex-centre has become very ...
... not have been a practical way. But here the action is direct. 11:06:1994 The work in the vital-physical was difficult. It could be done only by the supramental Grace. The problem of the vital-physical was there with me for a long time. I am now told that it, the vital-physical, is in rapport with Sri Aurobindo. It has direct connection with him. What does that mean? ... removed. The work was going on. I was told that it is the supramental force working, working step by step from above down to the vital-physical centre. But as my higher parts are also weak, I asked for the work to be done directly in the vital-physical, not gradually down below. And it happened so. Page 10 As the work was going on, I saw Sri Aurobindo present... all the steps, in the whole sequence, one step following another step. The action directly in the vital-physical has speeded up the entire process. They surely know what is to be done and when it is to be done. It is good I had asked it to be worked out directly, directly at the vital-physical level. The Being of Ananda,—I never knew him earlier; but he preceded before this action was carried ...
... When the higher consciousness takes hold of the mechanical mind, it ceases to be mechanical. The Vital Physical The physical vital is the being of small desires and greeds etc.—the vital physical is the nervous being; they are closely connected together. The vital physical governs all the small daily reactions to out ward things—reactions of the nerves and the body consciousness... and vital intervene. The vital physical is entirely irrational in its action—even when it is right, it cannot explain why; for it is made more of automatic or habitual instincts, impulses, sensations and feelings than anything else. It is the mind that gives reasons and justifications to its movements and if the mind stands back and judges and questions, the vital physical can only answer "I want"... human self-development, civilisation and culture. The vital physical on the other hand is the vehicle of the Page 202 nervous responses of our physical nature; it is the field and instrument of the smaller sensations, desires, reactions of all kinds to the impacts of the outer physical and gross material life. This vital physical part (supported by the lowest part of the vital proper) ...
... The Mental Physical and the Vital Physical And how is it possible to perfect the mind and vital unless the physical is prepared?—for there is such a thing as the mental and vital physical, and mind and vital cannot be said to be perfectly prepared until these are ready. The small things go with difficulty because they belong to the vital physical and the things of the physical con... mind and the psychic being for a whole-hearted concentration and devotion to the Mother. The attack comes evidently always on the vital physical and the physical—it is these parts that have to be cleared entirely—desires and dissatisfactions in the vital physical and the pain, unconsciousness and dullness in the physical. Do not yield to the idea of being helpless to repel or ignore when they come—even... from above, there would be no peace and clarity and the disturbances would still come and come more often. The cravings once belonged to the vital physical, but when there is a sufficient force of peace in the being, then they go out and the vital physical is free and under the influence of the Page 376 quietude. The forces of disturbance do not belong any longer to the personality, but ...
... consciousness, not its ruler. The vital being is not the I—the ego is mental, vital, physical. Ego implies the identification of our existence with outer self, the ignorance of our true self above and our psychic being within us. In a certain sense the various Purushas or beings in us, psychic, mental, vital, physical, are projections of the Atma, but that gets its full truth only when we get into... the surface in the 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... experience. The psychic is realised as the Purusha behind the heart. It is not universalised like the Jivatman, but is the individual soul supporting from its place behind the heart-centre the mental, vital, physical, psychic evolution of the being in Nature. Its realisation brings Bhakti, self-giving, surrender, turning of all the movements Godward, discrimination and choice of all that belongs Page 106 ...
... superfluous."10 * * * " This question has no practical meaning for the vital physical forces can be received from anywhere by the body, from around, below or above. The order of the planes is in reference to each other, not in reference to the body. In reference to each other, the vital physical is below the physical mind, but above the material; but at the same time these powers... Ibid P. 255 8 Ibid P. 255-256 Page 141 order to go within or go above. It is the disposition of the consciousness that determines everything, makes one predominantly mental, vital, physical or psychic, bound or free separate in Purusha or involved in the Prakriti. "9 " Consciousness has no need of a clear individual " I" to dispose variously the centralising stress. Wherever... __________________ ¹ On Yoga II, Tome One, P. 341-342 ² Ibid P. 342 ³ Ibid P. 349 Page 146 " The nervous part of the being is a portion of the vital—it is the vital-physical, the life-force closely enmeshed in the reactions, desires, needs, sensations of the body. The vital proper is the life-force acting in its own nature, impulses, emotions, feelings, desires, ...
... sometimes taken together and referred to as the higher vital, in contrast to the lower vital which is concerned with the bottom movements of action and desire and stretches down into the vital-physical. The vital-physical is the vital at the service of the physical. It is the nervous being, and it governs all the small daily reactions to outward things. It governs also reactions of the nerves and the body... satisfactions. It is full of desires and greeds and seekings for pleasure on the physical plane. The vital-physical is below the mental-physical, but above the material. However, they inter-penetrate each other. The body-energy is a manifestation of material forces supported by a vital-physical energy which is the vital energy precipitated into matter and conditioned by it. The mental-physical... the physical, are interrelated in the complexity of our being. As a result, there is in us what Sri Aurobindo calls the mental-vital (vital mind), mental-physical (physical mind), vital-mental, vital-physical and physical-vital. The mental-vital or the vital mind is the mind which is at the service of vital desires and vital emotions. It is a sort of mediator between vital emotion, desire, impulsion ...
... sometimes taken together and referred to as the higher vital, in contrast to the lower vital which is concerned with the bottom movements of action and desire and stretches down into the vital-physical. The vital-physical is the vital at the service of the physical. It is the nervous being, and it governs all the small daily reactions to outward things. It governs also reactions of the nerves and the body... satisfactions. It is foil of desires and greeds and seekings for pleasure on the physical plane. The vital-physical is below the mental-physical, but above the material. However, they inter-penetrate each other. The body-energy is a manifestation of material forces supported by a vital-physical energy which is the vital energy precipitated into matter and conditioned by it. The mental-physical... physical, are interrelated in the complexity of our being. As a result, there is in us what Sri Aurobindo calls the mental-vital (vital mind), mentalphysical (physical mind), vital-mental, vital-physical and physical-vital. The mental-vital or the vital mind is the mind which is at the service of vital desires and vital emotions. It is a so-t of mediator between vital emotion, desire, impulsion ...
... that it was the physical and vital-physical consciousness that it made restless and inclined to revolt and it did not take the whole of your consciousness. If you can keep it localised like that when it comes and remain quiet in mind and heart and reject it, then it will not be so difficult to throw it out. The peace and force must be called down into this vital-physical (nervous) part and the whole... can in due time be overcome. As for the feelings about the Mother and that her love is only given for a return in work or to those who can do sadhana well, that is the usual senseless idea of the vital-physical mind and has no value. There is nothing wrong in taking care of the body in regard to health and, if the liver has gone wrong, the instinct to refuse too sweet or greasy or heavy foods is a... attracts 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 ...
... be counted among desires. The Small Desires of the Vital Physical It is the vital physical that receives these suggestions and obeys these desires. What you have to do is to get the consciousness down into the whole of the vital proper—so that not only the mind but the vital itself will reject these desires. In that case the vital-physical desires will lose half their force. If the peace... desires you refer to are those of the vital-physical in the subtle physical consciousness—impulse to talk, essential hunger, thirst, etc. Peace and quietude full in the vital-physical and subtle physical and down even in the lowest levels are necessary for the whole change to be made. The heat of which you speak is that of this subtle principle of vital-physical desire which exists for its own sake ...
... the outer or surface being, the inner being, and supporting both of these, the inmost being or the psychic (Fig.l). The outer being and the inner being have three corresponding parts — mental, vital, physical. Thus "There are, we might say, two beings in us, one on the surface, our ordinary exterior mind, life, body consciousness, another behind the veil, an inner mind, an inner life, an inner physical... and the body (the physical). Each of these parts has its own distinct type of consciousness, though in our ordinary awareness they are all mixed up. Each plane of our being — mental, vital, physical — has its own consciousness, separate though interconnected and interacting; but to our outer mind and sense, in our waking experience, they are all confused together. The body, for instance... feel the forces of illness coming towards us through it, feel them even at a distance and, if we have learnt how to do it, we can stop them by the will or otherwise. We sense too around us a vital physical or nervous envelope which radiates from the body and protects it, and we can feel the adverse forces trying to break through it and can interfere, stop them or reinforce the nervous envelope ...
... 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 most physiological ones as well, Sri Aurobindo observes: "It [the vital-physical] is also largely responsible for most of the suffering and disease of mind or body to which... people and things. Before stating the implications of what has just been said, it is necessary to explain some of the less familiar terms used above. Whereas terms such as "mind", "vital", Page 84 "physical" and "psychic" are not new, they have special meanings in the language of Integral Yoga. In ordinary usage, "mind" has a rather vague and too broad a connotation: anything that... consciousness of its own which is different from that of mind and vital, though interfused with mental and vital consciousness. As Sri Aurobindo explains: "Each plane of our being - mental, vital, physical - has its own consciousness, separate though interconnected and interacting; but to our outer mind and sense, in our waking experience, they are all confused together. The body, for instance, has ...
... and vital-physical good and evil, outward happiness and suffering, outward good fortune and ill-fortune, and it is supposed that there must be an equation between them, the Page 843 one must be the reward or punishment of the other, the final sanction which it receives in the secret justice of Nature. This collocation is evidently made from the view-point of a common vital-physical desire... Page 833 Part of this rearrangement, the discarding especially of past strong vibrations of the personality, can only be effected by an exhaustion of the push of previous mental, vital, physical motives after death, and this internatal liberation or lightening of impedimenta must be put through on the planes proper to the motives that are to be discarded or otherwise manipulated, those... though not by any rigidly fixed law of correspondence. It is possible that in the total method of the returns of Nature there intervenes a strand of connection or rather of interaction between vital-physical good and ill and ethical good and ill, a limited correspondence and meeting-point between divergent dualities not amounting to an inseparable coherence. Our own varying energies, desires, movements ...
... Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: The Physical Consciousness The vital physical on the other hand is the vehicle of the nervous responses of our physical nature; it is the field and instrument of the smaller sensations, desires, reactions of all kinds to the impacts of the outer physical and gross material life. This vital physical part (supported by the lowest part of the vital proper) is therefore... Planes and Parts of the Being Our Many Selves The Physical Each plane of our being—mental, vital, physical—has its own consciousness, separate though interconnected and interacting; but to our outer mind and sense, in our waking experience, they are all confused together… There is the universal physical consciousness of Nature and there is our own which... receives from the other planes their powers and influences and makes formations of them in its own province. Therefore we have a physical mind as well as a vital mind and the mind proper; we have a vital physical part in us—the nervous being—as well as the vital proper; and both are largely conditioned by the gross material bodily part which is almost entirely subconscient to our experience. Sri Aurobindo ...
... sometimes taken together and referred to as the higher vital, in contrast to the lower vital which is concerned with the bottom movements of action and desire and stretches down into the vital-physical. The vital-physical is the vital at the service of the physical. It is the nervous being, and it governs all the small daily reactions to outward things. It governs also reactions of the nerves and the body... satisfactions. It is full of desires and greed and seeking for pleasure on the physical plane. The vital-physical is below the mental-physical, but above the material. However, they interpenetrate each other. The body-energy is a manifestation of material forces supported by vital-physical energy which is the vital energy precipitated into matter and conditioned by it. Mental-Physical... the physical, are interrelated in the complexity of our being. As a result, there is in us what Sri Aurobindo calls the mental-vital (vital mind), mental-physical (physical mind), vital-mental, vital-physical and physical-vital; all these distinctions are necessary because the aim of total transformation implies detailed working in every nook and corner of our nature so that the psychic consciousness ...
... plastic, yielding only little by little. The physical mind can be more easily opened and converted than the rest, but the vital physical and material physical are obstinate. The old things are always recurring there without reason and by force of habit. Much of the vital physical and most of the material are in the subconscience or dependent on it. It needs a strong and sustained action to progress... very character of the physical consciousness left to itself—it is accustomed to be passive to forces and to be their instrument or give a mechanical response to them. Inertia is mental, vital, physical, subconscient. Physical inertia can produce mental inertia, mental inertia can produce physical inertia, vital inertia almost always makes the physical lifeless and lustreless and dull, and that... principle. The nature of inertia is apravṛtti —the action of the mechanical mind is a pravṛtti , though a tamasic obscure pravṛtti . The rain has the effect of stressing the tamas of the vital physical consciousness and bringing out its greyer notes. Physical tamas by its laxity gives more opportunities for the play of sex etc. Everything [ in the surrounding atmosphere ] can be responded ...
... out his highest self, the real man or highest Purusha in him, which is free and master in its own inalienable power. He must cease to be the mental, vital, physical ego; for that is always the creation, instrument and subject of mental, vital, physical Nature. This ego is not his real self, but an instrumentation of Nature by which it has developed a sense of limited and separate individual being... progress towards truth and self-knowledge must come to a point where the soul opens its eyes of vision and recognises this truth of ego and this truth of works. He gives up the idea of a mental, vital, physical "I" that acts or governs action; he recognises that Prakriti, Force of cosmic nature following her fixed modes, is in him and in all things and creatures the one and only worker. The... himself is his great necessity. In his complete surrender and self-giving to the Supreme it is he who finds his perfect self-finding in a perfect self-offering. In the abolition of the mental, vital, physical ego, Page 131 even of the spiritual ego, it is the formless and limitless Individual that has the peace and joy of his escape into his own infinity. In the experience that he is ...
... written there could be a very accurate indication of the process of the change, the putting away of the old mind, vital, physical consciousness and the emergence of a new consciousness from the now invisible Within, not an illusory periphery like the present mental, vital, physical ignorance but a truth becoming from the true being within us. He speaks of the transition as a darkness created by... sacrifice, reachings of soul to soul, idealising sublimations that lift up human love beyond itself, come from the psychic. If it could dominate and govern and transmute the other elements, mental, vital, physical of human love, then love could be on the earth some reflection or preparation of the real thing, an integral union of the soul and its instruments in a dual life. But even some imperfect appearance... itself wholly when it is the radiation of the diviner consciousness for which we are seeking; till then it is difficult for it to put out its undimmed integral self and figure. P.S. Mind, vital, physical are properly instruments for the soul and spirit; when they work for themselves then they produce ignorant and imperfect things—if they can be made into conscious instruments of the psychic ...
... been because something of the "old (musical) Adam" got through subconsciously into your letter. Every artist almost (there are rare exceptions) has got something of the "public" man in him, in his vital-physical parts, the need of the stimulus of an audience, social applause, satisfied vanity or fame. That must go absolutely if he wants to be a yogi and his art a service not of man or of his own ego but... anything very decisive, great or successful. Much of it seems to be mere flat objectivity or, what is worse, an exaggerated emphatic objectivity; emotion seems often to be replaced by an intensified vital-physical sensation of the object. You will perhaps understand what I mean if you read ____________________ 1. Rabindranath Tagore's homage to Sri Aurobindo when the latter was arrested for the... what we hold to be necessary is that the mixture should disappear and that the consciousness should be established on a purer level (not only spiritual and psychic but a purer and higher mental, vital, physical consciousness) in which there is not this mixture. There one would feel the true Ananda of oneness and love and sympathy and fellow ship, spiritual and self-existent in its basis but expressing ...
... and more conscious participation in the action of universal Nature, is a marked character, it is indeed a logical consequence, of the evolutionary principle and process. All action, all mental, vital, physical activities in the world are the operation of a universal Energy, a Consciousness-Force which is the power of the Cosmic Spirit working out the cosmic and individual truth of things. But since this... plan, such a rule and control could with difficulty be stabilised and it is not likely that it could be complete, final and definitive. For an intuitive mentality intervening in a mixed mental, vital, physical consciousness would normally be forced to undergo a mixture with the inferior stuff of consciousness already evolved; in order to act on it, it would have to enter into it and, entering in it,... and to the lower automatism of habit or so-called law of the nature,—mechanical habit of mind, habit of life, habit of instinct, habit of personality, habit of character, the ingrained mental, vital, physical needs, impulses, desires of the natural man, the old functionings of all kinds that are rooted there so deep that it would seem as if we had to dig to abysmal foundations in order to get them out: ...
... dull. I cannot take interest in anything. It has become difficult to attend my classes. All that is evidently due to the vital-physical becoming tamasic because you refuse it its small desires. You should throw it away altogether and call down into the vital-physical the Mothers Force. So long as something in the being clings to the desire of indulgence, no Force can get rid of these... is a vital mental, a physical mental - in vital there is a mental vital, a physical vital - in physical there is a mental physical, a vital physical. How do you imagine then that vital can have no effect on the physical? Inertia is mental, vital, physical, subconscient. Physical inertia can produce mental inertia, mental inertia can produce physical inertia, vital inertia almost always makes ...
... The Mother's force is there with you even when you do not feel it. Trust to it, remain quiet and persevere. Page 134 Yes, dryness comes usually when the vital—here certainly the vital physical—dislikes a movement or condition or the refusal of its desires and starts non-cooperation. But sometimes it is a condition that has to be crossed through, e.g. the neutral or dry quietude which... entirely submitted to the soul that one can truly lead the spiritual life. It is normal that when a special pressure is put on a vital movement, a resistance whether in the vital itself (here vital-physical) or in the subconscient should manifest itself. It is sometimes a real resistance, sometimes it is only the pravṛtti presenting itself for purification. Why should you suppose it [ the... on with the dark Shakti is also another old notion which you ought to root out Page 147 without cherishing any least trace of it. It has no meaning on the plane of the physical and vital physical consciousness where the whole work is now going on and to nourish any such ideas can only hamper your progress. Finally, when there are these recurrences, do not allow yourself to be depressed ...
... Psychology 6 The Outer (Surface) Being The outer consciousness is that which usually expresses itself in ordinary life. It is the external mental, vital, physical. It is not connected very much with the inner being except in a few — until one connects them together in the course of the sadhana. Letters on Yoga, p. 311 The outer being is a... , mind and consciousness are synonymous. Only when one becomes more aware of oneself by a growing consciousness, then one can see different degrees, kinds, powers of consciousness, mental, vital, physical, psychic, spiritual. Letters on Yoga, p. 686 Planes of the Mental Being In mind itself there are grades of the series and each grade again is a series in itself; there... vital nature and the two together make the higher vital. As against them stands the lower vital which is concerned with the pettier movements of action and desire and stretches down into the vital physical where it supports the life of the more external activities and all physical sensations, hungers, cravings, satisfactions. The term 'lower' must not be considered in a pejorative sense; it refers ...
... 284-85 In a certain sense the various Purushas or beings in us, psychic, mental, vital, physical are projections of the Atman, but that gets its full truth only when we get into our inner being and know the inner truth of ourselves. On the surface, in the Ignorance, it is the mental, vital, physical Prakriti that acts and the Purusha is disfigured, as it were, in the action of the Prakriti... 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... 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 Page 107 ...
... mind, vital, body, saying continually "I am not the mind", I am not the viral", I am not the body", seeing these things as separate from one's real self—and after a time one feels all the mental, vital, physical processes and the very sense of mind, vital, body becoming externalized, an outer action, while within and detached from them there grows the sense of a separate self-existent being which opens... method—a very powerful method—of the Sankhyas, the separarion of Page 69 the Purusha and the Prakriti. One enforces on the mind the position of the Witness—all action of mind, vital, physical becomes an outer play which is not myself or mine, but belongs to Nature and has been enforced on an outer me. I am the witness Purusha; I am silent, detached, not bound by any of these things... themselves, mind and consciousness are synonymous. Only when one becomes more aware of oneself by a growing consciousness, then one can see different degrees, kinds, powers of consciousness, mental, vital, physical, psychic, 8 spiritual. 9 Separating the witness consciousness from the active consciousness is less difficult than distinguishing different kinds of consciousness. Therefore, even when ...
... other than oneself, to a Divine Person." This statement may be elaborated and set forth step by step as follows. Even when the Atman is realised in a universal poise free from the mental-vital-physical nature and there is no sense left of the ego in the inner consciousness, the ego still keeps colouring one's thoughts and impulses and activities. To erase that colour there must be in wake... intense movement of love for the Personal Divine takes charge of one, the dynamic freedom from the ego occurs. Even if the Atman is not realised, the Psychic Being in full play in the mental-vital-physical nature can remove the twisting and turning ego by its spontaneous self-surrender to the Supreme Lord, the Eternal Mother. And this self-surrender will be most genuine, complete and effective... employed means in general a sudden shift of an individual's habitual poise from the outer to the inner being and it signifies in particular, as it did in Nirod's case, such a shift from the mental-vital-physical complex to the true soul. I have known Nirod and held him in great affection ever since he fell willynilly into the Divine's snare. I have seen him supervising the Carpentry "godown" ...
... the results are usually uncertain and fragmentary, compared to the result of the two radical ways. That is why in this Yoga we insist always on an "opening"—an opening inwards of the inner mind, vital, physical to the inmost part of us, the psychic, and an opening upwards to what is above the mind—as indispensable for the fruits of the sadhana. The underlying reason for this is that this little mind... vital, body, saying continually " I am not the mind," " I am not the vital," ,"I am not the body," seeing these things as separate from s real self—and after a time one feels all the mental, vital, physical processes and the very sense of mind, vital, body becoming externalised, an outer action, while within and detached from them there grows the sense of a separate self-existent being which opens... method—a very Page 115 powerful method—of the Sankhyas, the separation of the Purusha and the Prakriti. One enforces on the mind the position of the Witness—all action of mind, vital, physical becomes an outer play which is not myself or mine, but belongs to Nature and has been enforced on an outer me. I am the witness Purusha; I am silent, detached, not bound by any of these things ...
... of Nature. If there are rudiments of life-reaction in the metal, as has been recently contended, it may be identical with life-reaction in the plant in its essence, but what might be called the vital-physical difference is so considerable that one seems to us inanimate, the other, though not apparently conscious, might be called a living creature. Between the highest plant life and lowest animal the... the world of Matter,—mentality. Animal being is mentally aware of existence, its own and others, puts forth a higher and subtler grade of activities, receives a wider range of contacts, mental, vital, physical, from forms other than its own, takes up the physical and vital existence and turns all it can get from them into sense values and vital-mind values. It senses body, it senses life, but it senses... richer intensification is the secret Spirit's way from the beginning. The plant soul takes, as we may say, a nervous-material view of its whole physical existence so as to get out of it all the vital-physical intensity possible; for it seems to have some intense excitations of a mute life-vibration in it,—perhaps, though that is difficult for us to imagine, more intense relatively to its lower rudimentary ...
... knowledge accumulated in the succession of Time, is co-ordinated for him by perception, memory, intelligence and will to be utilised for an ever-new or ever-repeated becoming and for the mental, vital, physical action which helps him to grow into what he is to be and to express what he already is. The present totality of all this experience of consciousness and output of energy is co-ordinated for relation... forces itself upon us by pain and pleasure and other sensations or as a cause of nervous or Page 578 physical reaction and disturbance, but no more. Accordingly, we suppose that this vital-physical part of us also is not conscious of its own operations or has only a suppressed consciousness or no-consciousness like the plant or an inchoate consciousness like the incipient animal; it becomes... ess, missioning upwards much futile or perilous stuff of which the origin is obscure to us, in dream, in mechanical repetitions of all kinds, in untraceable impulsions and motives, in mental, vital, physical perturbations and upheavals, in dumb automatic necessities of our obscurest parts of nature. But the subliminal self has not at all this subconscious character: it is in full possession of a ...
... what we hold to be necessary is that the mixture should disappear and that the consciousness should be established on a purer level (not only spiritual and psychic but a purer and higher mental, vital, physical consciousness) in which there is not this mixture. There one would feel the true Ananda of oneness and love and sympathy and fellowship, spiritual and self-existent in its basis but expressing... fice, reachings of soul to soul, idealising sublimations that lift up human love beyond itself come from the psychic. If it could dominate and govern and transmute the other elements, mental, vital, physical, of human love, then love could be on the earth some reflection or preparation of the real thing, an integral union of the soul and its instruments in a dual life. But even some imperfect appearance... itself wholly when it is the radiation of the diviner consciousness for which we are seeking; till then it is difficult for it to put out its undimmed integral self and figure. P. S. Mind, vital, physical are properly instruments for the soul and spirit; when they work for themselves then they produce ignorant and imperfect things—if they can be made into conscious instruments of the psychic and ...
... 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 , "smell is a half eating".... conscious and reject and throw away the pressure of the movements in the atmosphere, not merely feel them and suffer. Hunger I suppose you have become aware of the principle of hunger in the vital physical. It is not really either by satisfying it or forcibly denying it that it will go—it is by putting a will on it to change and bringing down a higher consciousness that it can change. To suppress... greed of food, then it helps. It is better to be careful in these matters of food etc., as in the stage through which your sadhana is passing there is a considerable sensitiveness in the vital physical part of the being and it may be easily disturbed by a wrong impact or a wrong movement like overfeeding. When the physical consciousness has been sensitivised, too rich or heavy food becomes ...
... the results are usually uncertain and fragmentary compared to the result of the two radical ways. That is why in this Yoga we insist always on an "opening"—an opening inwards of the inner mind, vital, physical to the inmost part of us, the psychic, and an opening upwards to what is above the mind—as indispensable for the fruits of the sadhana. The underlying reason for this is that this little mind... continually "I am not the mind", "I am not the vital", "I am not the Page 328 body", seeing these things as separate from one's real self—and after a time one feels all the mental, vital, physical processes and the very sense of mind, vital, body becoming externalised, an outer action, while within and detached from them there grows the sense of a separate self-existent being which opens... Spirit. There is also the method—a very powerful method—of the Sankhyas, the separation of the Purusha and the Prakriti. One enforces on the mind the position of the Witness—all action of mind, vital, physical becomes an outer play which is not myself or mine, but belongs to Nature and has been enforced on an outer me. I am the witness Purusha who am silent, detached, not bound by any of these things ...
... results are usually uncertain and fragmentary, compared to the result of the two radical ways. That is why in this Yoga we insist always on an "opening" - an opening inwards of the inner mind, vital, physical to the inmost part of us, the psychic, and an opening upwards to what is above the mind - as indispensable for the fruits of the Sadhana. The underlying reason for this is that this little... continually "I am not the mind", "I am not the vital", "I am not the body", seeing Page 37 these things as separate from one's real self - and after a time one feels all the mental, vital, physical processes and the very sense of mind, vital, body becoming externalised, an outer action, while within and detached from them there grows the sense of a separate self-existent being which opens... There is also the method - a very powerful method -of the Sankhyas, the separation of the Purusha and the Prakriti. One enforces on the mind the position of the Witness - all action of mind, vital, physical becomes an outer play which is not myself or mine, but belongs to Nature and has been enforced on an outer me. I am the witness Purusha; I am silent, detached, not bound by any of these things ...
... Integral Yoga In a certain sense the various Purushas or beings in us, psychic, mental, vital, physical, are projections of the Atman, but that gets its full truth only when we get into our inner being and know the inner truth of ourselves. On the surface in the Ignorance, it is the mental, vital, physical Prakriti that acts and the Purusha is disfigured, as it were, in the action of Prakriti. It... 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 - I: The Psychic Being The true being mental, vital or subtle physical has always the greater qualities of its plane—it is the ...
... transformation. The power of concentration above the head is to bring peace, silence, liberation from the body sense, the identification with mind and life and open the way for the lower (mental, vital, physical) consciousness to rise up to meet the higher consciousness above and for the powers of the higher (spiritual nature) consciousness to descend into mind, life and body. This is what is called in... psychic. The soul gathers the essential elements of its experiences in life and makes that its basis of growth in the evolution; when it returns to birth it takes up with its mental, vital, physical sheaths so much of its Karma as is useful to it in the new life for further experience. It is really for the vital part of the being that sraddha and rites are done — to help the being... ice, reachings of soul to soul, idealising sublimations that lift up human love beyond itself, come from the psychic. If it could dominate and govern and transmute the other elements, mental, vital, physical, of human love, then love could be on the earth some reflection or preparation of the real thing, an integral union of the soul and its instruments in a dual life. But even some imperfect appearance ...
... natural control by the will which goes away at night. That is because of the imaginations. If one indulges in sex imaginations in the waking, then the subconscient (if not the conscious vital physical) is stimulated, keeps the impression and can send it up at night. You must get rid of the habit of sex imagination. Sex is more active at present. The subconscient sends up all sorts... Why could I not succeed in opening my self for the cure of the eyes as much as for the sciatica? Because it is more material perhaps and the material is less receptive than the vital-physical. Page 128 You can use the will, but take medicine also. In the morning I take two slices of bread, at lunch time rice and one slice and in the evening four... themselves mind and consciousness are synonymous. Only when one becomes more aware of oneself by a growing consciousness, then one can see different degrees, kinds, powers of consciousness, mental, vital, physical, psychic, spiritual. The Divine has been described as Being-Consciousness-Ananda, even as a Consciousness (Chaitanya), as putting out a force or energy, Shakti that creates worlds. The mind is ...
... in the mind there is a vital mind and a physical mind, in the vital there is a mental vital and a physical vital. So, in the physical too there are these three grades: (l) physical physical, (2) vital physical and (3) mental physical. Page 292 We will now better understand the process of contact in sense perception. The purely material contact, physical vibration touching the physical... a great distance and practically inaudible to others standing by. But there is another class where the material vibration is not at issue, it is the vital vibration in the physical touching the vital physical of the receiver. The elephant finding the water or sensing the hollow road is an instance in point. The mental physical, the last of the three is a kind of intuition in the physical, that is what... from its home, will find its way back; a dog will go round the world almost and find and recognise its master even many years after (the first to recognise Ulysses was his dog). In man too the vital physical, more especially the mental physical not unoften finds room for play, although his physical physical i.e. purely material sensibility is extremely limited. This limitation of the physical sensibility ...
... stagnant for years together. There is a loss account but a gain account also. 8 June 1935 They say that you are now handling the lower vital and so the general trouble. True? Subconscient vital physical—the lower vital is irrational, but not so utterly "without reason" as that. 8 July 1935 Page 343 Some time back you wrote to me: "Never has there been such an uprush of mud and... down into the physical or into Matter itself? Page 354 And how is it possible to perfect the mind and vital unless the physical is prepared—for there is such a thing as the mental and vital physical and mind and vital cannot be said to be perfectly prepared until these are ready. 7 November 1935 If the progress of the transformation of the body is so slow that it cannot keep pace with... verve and interest in the details of the Asram work and life as well as in an inner life; the physical vital was carried in the stream. But for many this has dropped; they live in the unsatisfied vital physical and find everything desperately dull, gloomy and without interest or issue. In their inner life the tamas from the Inconscient has created a block or a bottleneck and they do not find any way out ...
... Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: The Vital Being and Vital Consciousness The physical vital is the being of small desires and greeds etc.—the vital physical is the nervous being; they are closely connected together. The vital physical governs all the small daily reactions to out ward things—reactions of the nerves and the body consciousness and the reflex reactions and sensations; it motives... rest as it can influence by its resistance. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: The Vital Being and Vital Consciousness The nervous part of the being is a portion of the vital—it is the vital physical, the life-force closely enmeshed in the reactions, desires, needs, sensations of the body. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: The Vital Being and Vital Consciousness ...
... with a strong nose is supposed to have a strong will or a strong mental personality,—though I don't know whether it is invariably true. But the vital physical? Of course the nose is the passage of the Prana and the Prana is the support of the vital physical. Page 245 The working on the lower part of the face always indicates an action on the externalising mind (physical mental) whose... minor centres everywhere. The leg indicates the physical (material) consciousness. All below the Muladhara is the range of the physical consciousness proper including the mental physical, vital physical, material physical. This [ aspiration rising from the legs ] would indicate therefore an aspiration from Matter (bodily Matter). The Sides of the Body The two sides of the body are supposed ...
... because living awake on the surface we are conscious of that only. But within, with a sort of wall of obscurity or oblivion between it and the outer being, there is an inner being, an inner mind, vital, physical and an inmost or psychic being of which we are not aware. We are only aware of what comes up from there to the surface and do not know its source or how it comes. By Yoga the wall is slowly broken... has to concentrate the consciousness in heart or mind in order to go within or go above. It is the disposition of the consciousness that determines everything, makes one predominantly mental, vital, physical or psychic, bound or free, separate in the Purusha or involved in the Prakriti. Good heavens! what a magnificent muddle [ in the correspondent's response to the preceding letter ]! The Jivatman... consciousness are synonymous. Only when one becomes more aware of oneself by a growing consciousness, then one Page 23 can see different degrees, kinds, powers of consciousness, mental, vital, physical, psychic, spiritual. The Divine has been de scribed as Being-Consciousness-Ananda, even as a Consciousness (Chaitanya), as putting out a force or energy, Shakti, that creates worlds. The mind is ...
... realised in world and Nature. Page 1057 In the growth into a divine life the spirit must be our first preoccupation; until we have revealed and evolved it in our self out of its mental, vital, physical wrappings and disguises, extricated it with patience from our own body, as the Upanishad puts it, until we have built up in ourselves an inner life of the spirit, it is obvious that no outer divine... find its way. A structure of the external life has been raised up by man's ever-active mind and life-will, a structure of an unmanageable hugeness and complexity, for the service of his mental, vital, physical claims and urges, a complex political, social, administrative, economic, cultural machinery, an organised collective means for his intellectual, sensational, aesthetic and material satisfaction... 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 a difference. An entirely new consciousness in many individuals transforming their ...
... out his highest self, the real man or highest Purusha in him, which is free and master in its own inalienable power. He must cease to be the mental, vital, physical ego; for that is always the creation, instrument and subject of mental, vital, physical Nature. This ego is not his real self, but an instrumentation of Nature by which it has developed a sense of limited and separate individual being in... which helps out now the inadequate indirect communication and action that was till now the greater part of the conscious means used by embodied mind. But still the Purusha sees that in mental, vital, physical nature, taken by itself, there is always a defect, inadequacy, confused action, due to the mechanically unequal interplay of the three modes or gunas of Nature. To transcend it he has in the u ...
... the mind there is a vital mind and a physical mind, in the vital there is a mental vital and a physical vital. So, in the physical too there are these three grades: (1) physical physical, (2) vital physical and (3) mental physical. We will now better understand the process of contact in sense perception. The purely material contact, physical vibration touching the physical nerves of the... great distance and practically inaudible to others standing by. But there is another class where the material vibration is not at issue, it is the vital vibration in the physical touching the vital physical of the receiver. The elephant finding the water or sensing Page 115 the hollow road is an instance in point. The mental physical, the last of the three is a kind of intuition... from its home, will find its way back; a dog will go round the world almost and find and recognise its master even many years after (the first to recognise Ulysses was his dog). In man too the vital physical, more especially the mental physical not unoften finds room for play, although his physical physical i.e. purely material sensibility is extremely limited. This limitation of the physical s ...
... there are gods – little & great gods – on many planes of consciousness. Worship of this binds the human soul to the lower levels & thus prevents its ascent to Higher Consciousness beyond mental, vital & physical consciousnss? Page 206 suffering. They don't want self-purification through suffering. They had the idea of self-mastery, that the body shall do what the spirit wants it... psychological parts of the being : e.g., 1. The mental – 1. mental proper, 2. mental vital, and 3. mental physical. 2. The vital – 1. vital mental (desire mind), 2. vital proper, and 3. vital physical or physic vital. 3. The. physical – 1. physical mental, 2. physical vital and 3. physical proper. Page 226 Sri Aurobindo : It is difficult to put the distinction in language... pen and my hand begins to write something upon paper without of course, thinking anything about it – , say some word or name – , it is the physical mind that is doing it. Then there is the vital-physical or physico-vital. It is the vital moving in the physical being. It is most important to us because it is that which makes the different organs act. And the functions of the physcial being are regulated ...
... the disease. But it is very difficult to say what exactly happens on the physical plane. Probably, the Hatha Yogins used to do what this Japanese doctor is doing, with their knowledge of the "vital-physical" currents. For instance, they could set right all the disorders below the navel by controlling the Vyana –, the vital current that works in the whole system. They would find out which Prana – vital... but you can identify your self with it. Disciple : How can one begin to feel this identification? Sri Aurobindo : The first thing one sees when one has broken the barrier is the vital-physical body. It is around the physical body and with the physical it forms as it were the "nervous envelope". The force of a disease has to break through it to reach the body – except for the attacks... also feel in the nervous envelope the part of the body which it is going to, or intending to, attack because what is in the nervous envelope has a material counterpart in the body. Thus it is the vital-physical which is first attacked and then the force takes the form of a disease in the system. I had myself the experience of fever all around the body. Disciple : Should one be sensitive to ...
... recesses, our mental factory, our vital theater, or our material lair; depending on the level, it takes on a more or less intense light, heavier or lighter vibrations: superconscious, mental, vital, physical, but it does link everything together, animates everything. It is the fundamental substance of the universe: Consciousness-Force, Chit-Agni . While consciousness is a force, the reverse is... they could only arrive where their premises took them: they typically sought liberation and salvation outside the world. Instead of patiently exploring all the human resources – mental, vital, Page 85 physical, and psychic – to free them from their sclerosis and to widen them, that is, divinize them as the Vedic sages had done (perhaps also the sages of the ancient Mysteries, not to mention... and divinization. Indeed, the evolution of consciousness has a supreme meaning for the earth. Page 123 Chapter 10 The Revolutionary Yogi Such are the mental, vital, physical and psychic discoveries that Sri Aurobindo pursued alone, step by step, between the ages of twenty and thirty, simply by following the thread of consciousness. The remarkable thing is that he practiced ...
... Describing the "very powerful method" of the Sankhyas for the separation of Purusha and Prakriti, Sri Aurobindo says: One enforces on the mind the position of the Witness—all action of mind, vital, physical becomes an outer play which is not myself or mine, but belongs to Nature and has been enforced on an outer me. I am the witness Purusha; I am silent, detached, not bound by any of these things... vital, body, saying continually "I am not the mind", "I am not the vital", "I am not the body", seeing these things as separate from one's real self—and after a time one feels all the mental, vital, physical processes and the very sense of mind, vital, body becoming externalised, an outer action, while within and detached from them there grows the sense of a separate self-existent being which opens ...
... ordinary existence of man is not only an individual but an egoistic consciousness; it is, that is to say, the individual soul or Jivatman identifying himself with the nodus of his mental, vital, physical experiences in the movement of universal Nature, with his mind-created ego and, less intimately, with the mind, life, body which receive the experiences; for of these he can say "my mind... can get back to the transcendent consciousness of pure Self, absolute Existence or absolute Non-Being, three poises of the same eternal Reality. 54 In the abolition of the mental, vital, physical ego, even of the spiritual ego, it is the formless and limitless Individual that has the Page 386 peace and joy of his escape into his own infinity. In the experience that ...
... 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) 132,133,134, 137,138,141,142, 143 Prana 7 Prenatal influences 107-08 Projection 91-92 Psychic (being)... (life nature) 6,79,33,118-20 and the mind 85-86 disturbances of - 96-102 free expression of 101 masochistic tendency of 102 physical 87 Vital envelope 148 Vital-physical, the see under Physical, the Watson, J.B. 11 Welwood.John 20,24 Widening (oneself) (consciousness) 74,157-58 Wilber,Ken 18,20,57,58 Will see mental will ...
... clear division in you curious, but it will no longer seem curious once you know the perfectly normal divisibility of the different parts of the being. In the outer surface nature, mind, psychic, vital, physical are all jumbled together and it needs a strong power of introspection, self-analysis, close observation and disentanglement of the threads of thought, feeling and impulse to find out the composition... last, but of that I am not quite sure; the rest is admirable. The experience of the "solid block" feeling indicates the descent of a solid strength and peace into the external being —in the vital-physical most, I suppose. It is this always that is the foundation, the basis into which all else (Ananda, light, knowledge, bhakti) can descend in the future and stand or play safely. The numbness is there ...
... breadth of universality and infinity. All man's age-long effort, his action, society, art, ethics, science, religion, all the manifold activities by which he expresses and increases his mental, vital, physical, spiritual existence, are episodes in the vast drama of this endeavour of Nature and have behind their limited apparent aims no other true sense or foundation. For the individual to arrive at the... himself is his great necessity. In his complete surrender and self-giving to the Supreme it is he who finds his perfect self-finding in a perfect self-offering. In the abolition of the mental, vital, physical ego, even of the spiritual ego, it is the formless and limitless Individual that has the peace and joy of its escape into its own Page 723 infinity. In the experience that he is nothing ...
... the vital nature and the two together make the higher vital. As against them stands the lower vital which is concerned with the pettier movements of action and desire and stretches down into the vital physical where it supports the life of the more external activities and all physical sensations, hungers, cravings, satisfactions. The term lower must not be considered in a pejorative sense; it refers... strain seems to me very poor psychology. Neither Nature nor the vast Spirit in things are so limited and one-tracked as that. The nervous part of the being is a portion of the vital—it is the vital physical, the life-force closely enmeshed in the reactions, desires, needs, sensations of the body. The vital proper is the life-force acting in its own nature, impulses, emotions, feelings, desires, ambitions ...
... and the Muladhara commands the lower vital (physical desires, small greeds, passions etc.). The throat centre is not the vital—it is the physical mind, the expressive externalising consciousness. What you feel may be the vital taking hold of the physical mind and using it for expression. The physical mind centre is in the throat and mouth—the vital physical is between the two lowest centres—the ...
... Purusha Purusha is the conscious Being who supports all the action of Nature. There is no fixed place, but as the central being he usually stands above the adhar—he becomes also the mental, vital, physical, psychic being. The word being is used with all kinds of significances—it is a very imprecise word and can embrace everything. Purusha has a precise significance. It is the Soul or Spirit... therefore they are unattached, is to talk nonsense. Attachment is attachment in whatever part of the being it may be. In order to be unattached one must be unattached everywhere, in the mental, vital, physical action and not only in the silent soul somewhere inside. You seem to think that action and Prakriti are the same thing and where there is no action there can be no Prakriti! Purusha and ...
... separate from all that yet freely pervading all without being involved in these things. You have to separate yourself from the mind also. You have to feel yourself even in the mental, vital, physical levels (not only above) a consciousness that is neither mind, life, nor body. For the buzz of the physical mind, reject it quietly, without getting disturbed, till it feels discouraged and... transformation. The power of concentration above the head is to bring peace, silence, liberation from the body sense, the identification with mind and life and open the way for the lower (mental-vital-physical) consciousness to rise up to meet the higher Consciousness above and for the powers of the higher (spiritual or divine) Consciousness to descend into mind, life and body. This is what is called ...
... everything else, Ananda, Knowledge, or whatever it may be. The experience of this "solid block" feeling indicates the descent of a solid strength and peace into the external being,—but into the vital physical most. It is this always that is the foundation, the sure basis into which all else (Ananda, light, knowledge, bhakti) can descend in the future and stand on it or play safely. The numbness was... you look at it from another point of view—it rises to be dealt with. The other is that when what is to be brought down is the Ananda—of the force, light etc., but especially of the love—then the vital-physical passion rises up to try and mix with and get hold of the Ananda hoping to turn it to a sort of sublimated vital pleasure. It is well known that this happens to Vaishnavas very often when they do ...
... begins 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... from all pride, sense or claim of ego or assertion of superiority, demand or desire. For if these elements are there, then it is not the true thing. Most, even in doing Yoga, live in the mind, vital, physical, lit up occasionally or to some extent by the higher mind and by the illumined mind; but to prepare for the supramental change it is necessary (as soon as, personally, the time has come) to open ...
... subconscient vital has somehow felt this in her subconscient temperament and got the attraction. These movements are not vitally willed or mental—they belong to that shadowy region of submerged vital physical instinct which the psychoanalysts try to deal with in their jargon of complexes etc. 30 September 1934 Page 715 I consider the sex-movement to be something outside me, and leave... it is difficult to do that until one is strong enough in the settled spiritual consciousness. The avoidance is sometimes the only way until the higher consciousness is settled in the vital and vital-physical. 22 October 1934 Someone said that if a yogi has his Shakti and if the Shakti demands physical contact the yogi has to fulfil it. Is that correct? If the sadhak is a left-hand Tantrik ...
... * There is a vital plane (self-existent) above the material universe which we see; there is a mental plane (self-existent) above the vital and material. These three together, - mental, vital, physical, - are called the triple universe of the lower hemisphere. They have been established in the earth-consciousness by evolution - but they exist in themselves before the evolution, above the ear... the psychic. The soul gathers the essential elements of its experiences in life and makes that its basis of growth in the evolution; when it returns to birth it takes up with its mental, vital, physical sheaths so much of its Karma as is useful to it in the new life for further experience. It is really for the vital part of the being that Shraddha and rites are done - to help the being to ...
... the clearest sense of the Truth and a sort of inherent perception of it which is of the nature of soul-perception and soul-feeling. It is our inmost being and supports all the others, mental, vital, physical, but it is also much veiled by them and has to act upon them as an influence rather than by its sovereign right of direct action; its direct action becomes normal and preponderant only at a high... misuse of these great deep-seated Truths of existence; it exposes them with its detecting search-ray and calls down the entire truth of divine Love to heal these malformations, to deliver mental, vital, physical love from their insufficiencies or their perversions and reveal to them their true abounding share of the intimacy and the oneness, the ascending ecstasy and the descending rapture. 5 SRI ...
... of the psychic. The soul gathers the essential elements of its experiences in life and makes that its basis of growth in the evolution; when it returns to birth it takes up with its mental, vital, physical sheaths so much of its Karma as is useful to it in the new life for further experience. It is really for the vital part of the being that śrāddha and rites are done—to help the being to get... some spirit or some vital being, the departed himself in his vital sheath or else something assumed for the occasion (but it is the vital part that communicates), elementals, spirits of the lowest vital physical world near earth, etc., etc. A horrible confusion for the most part—a hotch-potch of all sorts of things coming through a medium of "astral" grey light and shadow. Many communicants seem to be ...
... spiritual feeling—it has the clearest sense of the truth and a sort of inherent perception of it which is of the nature of soul-feeling. It is our inmost being and supports all the others, mental, vital, physical, but it is also much veiled by them and has to act upon them as an influence rather than by its sovereign right of direct action; its direct action becomes normal and preponderant only at a high... movements, even the physical. One is aware of one’s soul, feels the psychic to be one’s true being, the mind and the rest begin to be only instruments of the inmost within us. The inner mental, vital, physical are also veiled, but much nearer to the surface and much of their movements or inspirations get through the veil (but not in any fullness or purity) in the lives of developed human beings, something ...
... sure, finally, if this envelope and the circumconscient are one and the same thing, but this is how Sri Aurobindo speaks of it: 'The first thing one sees when one has broken the barrier is the vital-physical body. It is around the physical body and with the physical it forms as it were the "nervous envelope." The force of a disease has to break through it to reach the body—except for the attacks on... also feel in the nervous envelope the part of the body which it is going to, or intending to, attack because what is in the nervous envelope has a material counterpart in the body. Thus it is the vital-physical which is first attacked and then the force takes the form of a disease in the system. I had myself the experience of fever all around the body.' A.B. Purani, Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo ...
... this is ... There's the English word alluring . Well, we could say that it is "The all-powerful divine Charm of a ... perfidious beauty." Naturally, that's on the vital-physical level. It's not up above, but there ( on that vital-physical level ). ( After the work, at the end of the interview, Mother suddenly seems to recollect something. ) Two nights ago, I was complaining that my nights ...
... , missioning upwards much futile or perilous stuff of which the origin is obscure to us, in dream, in mechanical repetitions of all kinds, in untraceable impulṣions and motives, in mental, vital, physical perturbations and upheavals, in dumb automatic necessities of our obscurest parts of nature." 3 This subconscient evolutionary basis of our being is the root cause why things and movements... of drowsiness, not merely in its figurative aspect but in a very much real and tangible way (nityaṁ nidrāluriva lak ṣ yate). And has not, in our own time, Sri Ramakrishna declared that the vital-physical demeanour of a Paramahansa becomes like that of an immature child (vālavat) or of a madman (unmattavat) or of a demon (piśācavat) or, in the extreme case, he may even be totally inert ...
... spiritual vision, positive and dynamic, "all man's age-long effort, his action, society, art, ethics, science, religion all the manifold activities by which he expresses and increases his mental, vital, physical, spiritual existence, are episodes in the vast drama of this endeavour... and have behind their limited apparent aims no other true sense or foundation". 9 Spirituality Reconciled to... world completely he must go behind his own and its exterior, he must dive deep below his own mental surface and the physical surface of Nature. This he can only do by knowing his inner mental, vital, physical and psychic being and its powers and movements and the universal laws and processes of the occult Mind and Life which stand behind the material front of the universe.... He must know also the hidden ...
... telling a truth like that. But the lie was not the best way from the spiritual point of view. You say physical sex action must be avoided by all means. Why so strict on it while tolerating vital-physical lapses? Because the physical action breaks a law without which the Asram cannot stand and the work cannot be done. It is not a personal matter, but a blow aimed at the very soul of the Mother's... ascending too. What did you mean by giving them "a reaction"? Physical reaction? I meant that they got so alarmed at the closeness to a precipitous fall that they stopped indulging the vital physical. Have I any chance, Guru, of coming out of this vital struggle? Of course. If you are with me, I shall be all right. But don't be with me as with X. You couldn't keep him here; forces ...
... manage by her help. Very good. Page 107 HIGHER AND LOWER ACTION During meditation, at times I experience as if my lower consciousness (the vital, physical and sexual) were taken above the head and there connected with the higher consciousness. Yes, that is a normal movement of the sadhana. Today the above movement... 1 This fatigue is of a different type from what is normally known as tiredness due to excessive physical or mental strain. It is psychological in its character and affects the vital-physical sheath. To give an example: when we are forced to listen to a long, boring lecture we feel lethargic. It is this kind of fatigue that is experienced here. Page 111 ...
... of the cosmic consciousness or if there is the emptiness which is the preliminary condition for these things, there comes an automatic tendency for a unity with all — their affections, mental, vital, physical may easily touch. One has to keep oneself free. What is the meaning of the word "affections" used by you here with regard to people? "Affections" here has not the ordinary... thoughts. The physical does not get tired of the blankness. It may feel tamasic because of its own tendency to inertia, but it does not usually object to voidness. Of course it may be the vital physical. You have only to reject it as a remnant of the old movements. Emptiness is a state of quietude of the mental or vital or all the consciousness not visited by any mind or vital movements ...
... plastic, yielding only little by little. The physical mind can be more easily opened and converted than the rest, but the vital-physical and the material-physical are obstinate. The old things are always recurring there without reason and by force of habit. Much of the vital-physical and most of the material are in the subconscience or depend on it. It needs a strong and sustained action to progress ...
... conditions for the protection of the sadhaks from certain forces of death and disease etc. It cannot work perfectly because the sadhaks themselves have not the right attitude towards food and kindred vital-physical things. But still there is a protection. If however the sadhaks go outside her formation, it must be on their own responsibility—the Mother does not and cannot sanction it. But this arrangement... the future. If a sadhak can call down the force to cure him without need of medical treatment, that is always the best, but it is not always possible, so long as the whole consciousness mental, vital, physical down to the most subconscient is not opened and awake. There is no harm in a Doctor who is a sadhak carrying on his profession and using his medical knowledge; but he should do it in reliance on ...
... truth of what we see. You surely do not expect us to accept without examination your own estimate of yourself and of where you are. The questions you asked Mira had no true connection with the vital-physical weakness of which you complain, nor can that kind of practice help you to transmit to the physical the exact light of Truth from the higher consciousness. It was the ignorant Mind in you which... the mentality and keep yourself open to the Light alone. What is the use of answering Page 402 that you are centred in the supermind and living in the Light and that [it] is only the vital physical that is weak in you? You were nearer the supramental when you discovered your mind's entire ignorance and accepted that salutary knowledge. That humility of the mental being and the clear perception ...
... animals, the vegetable and mineral kingdoms, etc.? Will the higher consciousness be established only in a few people? Yes, all that is the earth consciousness—mineral = matter, vegetable = the vital-physical creation, animal = the vital creation, man = the mental creation. Into the earth consciousness so limited to mind, vital, matter has to come the supramental creation. Necessarily at first it... ra downward. People went above this only in samadhi or in a condition of static mukti without any dynamic descent. All that was dynamic took place in the region of the spiritualised mental and vital-physical consciousness. In this Yoga the consciousness (after the lower field has been prepared by a certain amount of psycho-spiritual-occult experience) is drawn upwards above the Brahmarandhra to ranges ...
... begins 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 Page 99 consciousness where overmind has its seat with the other planes that are above the human Mind. ... transformation. The power of concentration above the head is to bring peace, silence, liberation from the body sense, the identification with mind and life and open the way for the lower (mental, vital, physical) consciousness to rise up to meet the higher consciousness above and for the powers of the higher (spiritual nature) consciousness to descend into mind, life and body. This is what is called in ...
... being. The peace starts in the inner being—it is spiritual and psychic but it overflows the outer being—when it is there in the activity, it means either that the ordinary restless mind, vital, physical has been submerged by the flood of the inner peace or, at a more advanced stage, that they have been partially or wholly changed into thoughts, forces, emotions, sensations which have in their... not there, a quiet mind, heart and vital waiting and aspiring for the contact and the Presence—this should always be the condition. Page 155 No disturbance or confusion due to mere vital-physical impressions and experiences. To throw these away always, not to want them or get interested when they come—this is what is very much needed in you. Always either the contact and the true ...
... has written there could be a very accurate indication of the process of the change, the putting away of the old mind, vital, physical consciousness and the emergence of a new consciousness from the now invisible Within, not an illusory periphery like the present mental, vital, physical ignorance but a truth-becoming from the true being within us. He speaks of the transition as a darkness created by the ...
... I should perhaps add one or two things to avoid misapprehensions. First, the love for the Divine of which I speak is not a psychic love only; it is the love of all the being, the vital and vital-physical included,—all are capable of the same self-giving. It is a mistake to believe that if the vital loves, it must be a love that demands and imposes the satisfaction of its desire; it is a mistake... contact, merging, union with its own highest and whole self and source of being and Page 340 consciousness and bliss, the Divine. These two are two sides of the same thing. The mind, vital, physical can be the supports and recipients of this love, but they can be fully that only when they become remoulded into harmony with the psychic and spiritual elements of the being and no longer bring ...
... the Divine. It is by remembering always that and opening the nature upwards that the Divine Consciousness can be reached and descend from above into the whole inner and outer existence, mental, vital, physical, the subconscient, the subliminal, all that we overtly or secretly are. This should be the main preoccupation. To dwell solely on the subconscient and the aspect of imperfection creates depression... European psychologists because they do not know the difference. But when I use the word, I mean always what is below the ordinary physical consciousness, not what is behind it. The inner mental, vital, physical, the psychic are not subconscious in this sense, but they can be spoken of as subliminal. What he [ a correspondent ] has written about the subconscient and the outer nature is true. But ...
... gained by the experience of individuals who make serious contact or are able in one way or another to cross the border. They [ mediums and clairvoyants ] are most of them in contact with the vital-physical or subtle physical worlds and do not receive anything higher at all. Not much confidence can be placed in all that [ communications from spirit guides on other planes ]. If examined closely... "spirit", i.e. some vital being, the departed himself in his vital sheath or else something assumed for the occasion (but it is the vital part that communicates), elementals, spirits of the lowest vital physical world near earth, etc. etc. A horrible confusion for the most part—a hotch-potch of all sorts of things coming through a medium of "astral" grey light and shadow. Many communicants seem to be people ...
... and physical) has now become capable of quietude and it sits in meditation in a free, happy, vacant quietude which is the first step towards the true consciousness. The inner being (inner mind, vital, physical) is not lost but gone inside—the outer part does not know where—but probably gone inside into union with the psychic. The only thing that can have gone is something of the old nature that was standing... depart into Nirvana. In fact all these ignorant vital movements originate from outside in the ignorant universal nature; the human being forms in his superficial parts of being, mental, vital, physical a habit of certain responses to these waves from outside. It is these responses that he takes as his own character (anger, desire, sex etc.) and thinks he cannot be otherwise. But that is not so; ...
... fall away from one at death and all will disappear into the One. But for a change of the nature it is necessary that the experience and seeing of the Purusha should spread to all the parts, mind, vital, physical, subconscient. Then the ego movements of Prakriti can also disappear gradually from one field after another till none is left. For this a perfect samata even in the cells of the body and in every... in that. One has at the same time to be aware—it becomes possible when one lives in the cosmic consciousness, cosmic Self and cosmic Nature,—of the different beings in oneself, psychic, mental, vital, physical, and then there appears also the central being which stands above all of them and is the source of all the surface personalities. It is only then that one can know the aspect or bhava one is intended ...
... common feature of occult experience. Their exact nature and provenance varies, but they have no gross physical cause. The smell [ coming from a person ] is due to something in the person's vital-physical. That something may not be prominent at all times. When it is, the smell is there. I wrote [ in the preceding letter ] that the something may be of different kinds in different cases and... cannot give a rule that it is this or it is that. What has the dirtiest smell is sex. Every man has a different smell; also there is a particular smell that goes with different states of the vital-physical. Animals (like the dogs) recognise a man and his character by the smell. The human sense has lost this acuteness, but it can be recovered by a development in the sense consciousness. That is what ...
... poise. The whole thing has to be thrown out and the consciousness has to recover and be as if it had not happened. These things, hard forms of speech, anger etc., are habits formed by the vital-physical consciousness and, as they are supported by the subconscient, very difficult to change. If one can conquer or change them by force of will or mental or spiritual control, so much the better. But... things that trouble you. In fact all these ignorant vital movements originate from outside in the ignorant universal Nature; the human being forms in his superficial parts of being, mental, vital, physical, a habit of certain responses to these waves from outside. It is these responses that he takes as his own character (anger, desire, sex etc.) and thinks he cannot be otherwise. But that is not ...
... Madness Accidents There is no such thing as a mere accident. There is some—perhaps a very slight—unconsciousness in the physical and it is taken advantage of by these small beings of the vital physical plane—who are more mischievous than consciously hostile. It is not a bad shakti that gets inside you and from there does these things—it is small forces from outside that amuse themselves... thing without explaining its real nature and cause. In both cases, here and there, it was an attempt to come across your spiritual life by creating a disability and state of disturbance in the vital-physical part of the being. Anyhow the fact that you could not go from Page 804 here and that the whole thing could be removed by us at once as soon as you opened somewhere by this feeling of ...
... outer mental and vital activities are quieted; for since it is seated deep within and is represented on the surface only by the intuitive sense of self-existence and misrepresented by the mental, vital, physical ego-sense, its truth has to be experienced in the mind's silence. But also the dynamic parts of our surface being are similarly diminished figures of greater things that are there in the depths... support of our individualisation; the ego is only an outward false substitute: for it is this secret soul that supports and holds together our self-experience and world-experience; the mental, vital, physical, external ego is a superficial construction of Nature. It is only when we have seen both our self and our nature as a whole, in the depths as well as on the surface, that we can acquire a true ...
... sees standing between the Supermind and our sphere of ignorance a delegate power of the Truth-Consciousness, an inferior or diminished supramental Knowledge-Will from which a lapse into the mental-vital-physical diffusion and division can occur. This is the Over-mind. "The integrality of the Supermind keeps always the essential truth of things, the total truth and the truth of its individual self-dete... and the 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 ...
... he could write or think such things), and I said that each realm has its own determinism, and if you see only that determinism, things seem absolutely decreed. X's vision, I said, belongs to the vital-physical determinism of the earth (Life and Matter), in which the catastrophe seems inevitable; but there are higher realms whose intervention can change everything. But one must see and live in those... those higher regions. In X's case, his personal contact rises to the heights, but it's purely personal. While his overall vision (I am not saying universal: overall) stops at the vital-physical plane, with a touch of Page 419 the mental, and THAT'S ALL. There's a contradiction between his personal possibility, which reaches very high (although on quite a tenuous peak), and his overall vision ...
... Calcutta centre an attention being given to what I call the Purusha side, that is to say a basis of deep calm, strength, equality, wide consciousness and purity in the mental being, and as the vital physical opens, also in the vital and physical being. If that is attended to and successfully developed the play of the psychic vital and physical experiences will be more steady, ordered and safe. As... more and more external, all assent refused until they weaken and fade away. Not only the Chitta and Buddhi must refuse consent but also the lower parts of the being, the vital and the physico-vital, physical mind and the body consciousness. (5) The defect of the receiving mind and the discriminating Buddhi spoken of are general defects of the intellect and cannot be entirely be got rid of so long ...
... mental and vital activities are quieted; for since it is seated deep within and is represented on the surface only by the intuitive sense of self-existence and misrepresented by the mental, vital, physical ego-sense, its truth has to be experienced in the mind's silence. But also the dynamic parts of our surface being are similarly diminished figures of greater things that are there in the depths... support of our individualisation; the ego is only an outward false substitute: for it is this secret soul that supports and holds together our self-experience and world-experience; the mental, vital, physical, external ego is a superficial construction of Nature. It is only when we have seen both our self and our nature as a whole, in the depths as well as on the surface, that we can acquire a true ...
... factor in Page 41 our normal make-up is not yet dominant and has only a limited action. Our soul is not the overt guide and master of our thought and acts; it has to rely on the mental, vital, physical instruments for self-expression and is constantly overpowered by our mind and life-force: but if once it can succeed in remaining in constant communion with its own larger occult reality, — and... the slow turning towards some aim at perfection in our nature. As noted earlier, there are in our composition heterogeneous elements; our heterogeneous compound consists of temporary mental, vital, physical personalities; each has its own distinct nature, its influence, its action on the whole of us; there is a constant confusion and even a conflict in our members; often it is by our mental reason ...
... reshuffling. "Part of this rearrangement, the discarding especially of past strong vibrations of the personality, can only be effected by an exhaustion of the push of previous mental, vital, physical motives after death, and this internal liberation or lightening of impediments must be put through on the planes proper to the motives that are to be discarded or otherwise manipulated, those planes... 754) [Adapted] (Q. 24): What is the place of personality in rebirth? Does it continue to be the same in successive lives? (A. 24): "Personality is only a temporary mental, vital, physical formation which the being, the real Person, the psychic entity, puts forward on the surface, - it is not the self in its abiding reality. In each return to earth the Person, the Purusha, makes ...
... strong bad smell from X. Then it stopped. Now again it is coming. The smell is due to something in the person's vital-physical. That something may not be prominent at all times. When it is, the smell is there. What is this something in the vital physical? I wrote that the something may be of different kinds in different cases and one cannot give a rule that it ...
... What is the outer consciousness? Is it connected with the inner being? The outer consciousness is that which usually expresses itself in ordinary life. It is the external mental, vital, physical. It is not connected very much with the inner being except in a few — until one connects them together in the course of the sadhana. Is it not true that our vital lays bare all... inner peace. When one lives an inner life, does not one come in touch with the psychic and bring about its leadership? Not always at once. There is the inner mind, vital, physical. Many live a long time in that. The psychic is the inmost. Till the evening the consciousness was in such a state that I could not make out anything. Along with the inner quietude ...
... you must make it easier for the Mother's Force to work on the body — that is the object. Reject the movement of the vital physical and affirm the principle of health. The vital desires to be ill — throw out the desire. How has the vital physical become like this? Formerly it did not want the illness. It was the mind that did not want it; this vital when ...
... 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 in the case ...
... the way to fear - mental, vital, physical- then we fall ill, or meet with an accident. While there are both internal and external causes of illnesses, the former are the more crucial: ... all illnesses, all, whatever they may be (I would add even accidents) come from a break in equilibrium .... ... you must have a triple equilibrium - mental, vital, physical- and not only in each of the ...
... this to happen would be for man to break out of his ego into the larger freedom of union with the universal Divine: He must cease to be the mental, vital, physical ego; for that is always the creation, instrument and subject of mental, vital, physical Nature... While the identification lasts, there is a self-imprisonment in this habitual round and narrow action.... The liberation from an externalised ...
... chains by a 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 ...
... 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 ...
... world completely he must go behind his own and its exterior, he must dive deep below his own mental surface and the physical surface of Nature. This he can only do by knowing his inner mental, vital, physical and psychic being and its powers and movements and the universal laws and processes of the occult Mind and Life which stand behind the material front of the universe: that is the field of occultism ...
... psychic being. The light, colours and flowers are seen when there is a working of forces. The light indicates an illumination of the consciousness, the colour indicates the play of forces—mental, vital, physical—for the enlightenment of various parts of the being. The flowers indicate psychic activity, a blossoming of the consciousness. It is, therefore, evident that during this vision a very active psychic ...
... abstract air about them, but we also like to paint them with bright colours to convince ourselves that they are real. Blue is the colour of the higher mental planes and scarlet fire that of the vital physical. In our hopes we blend together the purest aspiration for truth, i.e, gold and scarlet, the desires of our mental and vital levels. In fact, it is only our hopes that can escape the rigid laws ...
... consciousness; the essential consciousness of the Spirit; the free and all-creative self-awareness of the Absolute. Chitta — the basic stuff of mental consciousness; the stuff of mixed mental-vital-physical consciousness out of which arise the movements of thought, emotion, sensation, impulse, etc. "Chitta really means the ordinary consciousness including the mind, vital and physical — but ...
... the clearest sense of the Truth and a sort of inherent perception of it which is of the nature of soul-perception and soul-feeling. It is our inmost being and supports all the others, mental, vital, physical, but it is also much veiled by them and has to act upon them as an influence rather than by its sovereign right of direct action; its direct action becomes normal and preponderant only at a high ...
... Calcutta centre on attention being given to what I call the Purusha side, that is to say a basis of deep calm, strength, equality, wide consciousness and purity in the mental being, and as the vital physical opens, also in the vital and physical being. If that is attended to and successfully developed the play of the psychic vital and physical experiences will be more steady, ordered and safe. As ...
... try it? If the irritability were the result of an illness (nervous or other), it might be treated by homeopathy, but this is not that. It is one of the folds taken from the beginning by the vital-physical nature; these are extremely difficult to eradicate and usually the last things to go. But they can be cured only from within and not by any medical treatment. 7.7.1936 Sri Aurobindo ...
... and interest in the details of the Ashram work and life as well as in an inner life; this physical vital was carried in the stream. But for many this has dropped; they live in the unsatisfied vital physical and find everything desperately dull, gloomy and without interest or issue. Page 139 In their inner life the tamas from the Inconscient has created a block or a bottle-neck and ...
... Life Divine. “A structure of the external life has been raised up by man’s ever active mind and life-will, a structure of an unmanageable hugeness and complexity, for the service of his mental, vital, physical claims and urges, a complex political, social, administrative, economic, cultural machinery, an organised collective means for his intellectual, sensational, aesthetic and material satisfaction ...
... Vedanta, its “integral affirmation,” is that all is That. “Brahman is the Alpha and the Omega. Brahman is the One besides whom there is nothing else existent.” 15 “All action, all mental, vital, physical activities in the world are the operation of a universal Energy, a Consciousness-Force which is the power of the Cosmic Spirit working out the cosmic and individual truth in things.” Therefore ...
... planes as understood in so-called "psychic phenomena" but to the inmost soul which Sri Aurobindo terms "the psychic being", indicating the true spiritual individual behind the apparent mental-vital-physical personality ruled grossly or subtly by what he dubs "the ego". The emergence and activity of the psychic being are the key to the special process that constitutes Sri Aurobindo's "Yoga of S ...
... insight into 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 ...
... head. In Sri Aurobindo's Yoga, after reaching this level, one has to go further and get the light, consciousness, force and bliss of the highest "overhead" level to work in our mental-vital-physical levels with the collaboration of our psychic being in order to transform them into the Supermind-nature. Therefore Sri Aurobindo names his Yoga the Yoga of supramental descent and transformation ...
... consciousness fixing itself on another psychological state than the ego-bound outer one. And what has guided the consciousness is a projection of the true soul, the psychic being, into the mental-vital-physical complex accompanied by the ego-sense. While the ego directs this complex into the common ways of individual existence with its barbaric or polished self-regard and possessiveness, the psychic ...
... stanza - it is a light from beyond finding expression in that glimmer and illumining the dell of dew and the secrecy of flowers and grass that is there. This illumination of the earthly . mind, vital, physical with his super-world light is a main part of Shelley; excise that and the whole of Shelley is no longer there, there is only the ineffectual angel beating his wings in the void; excise it from ...
... Divine and when this inward fact is recognised the genuine spiritual life has begun and one is aware of one's soul directly and not only of the reflection or rather emanation of it in the mental-vital-physical complex. I may add that no matter how much the psychic being grows, it still remains a child - simple, straight, trusting, humble. But this child is at the same time an extremely wise one, with ...
... function. In essence this pressure is a highly evolutionary factor. We tend overmuch to see man and woman in relation to each other and in the way their natures manifest commonly on the mental, vital, physical levels. What we often forget is that Page 106 either is an expression ultimately of a soul, a spiritual self, and that the destiny of both is not so much in relation ...
... unfavourable atmosphere or conditions can delay even when they cannot prevent. Even when the thing is destined, it does not present itself as a certitude in the consciousness here (overmind, mind, vital, physical) till the plays of forces have been worked out up to a certain point at which the descent not only is, but appears as inevitable. Sri Aurobindo ...
... Chit ###July 25, 1932 Q. What is the difference between "Chitta" and "Chit"? A. Chit is the pure consciousness—as in Sat-Chit-Ananda. Chitta is the stuff of mixed mental-vital-physical consciousness, out of which arise the movements of thought, emotion, sensation, impulse, etc. It is these that in Patanjali's system have to be stilled altogether so that, the consciousness may ...
... seem 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 ...
... roses nor a path of joyous Light. It is a difficult journey, a battle and struggle, an often painful and chequered growth, a life besieged by obscurity, falsehood and suffering. It has its mental, vital, physical joys and pleasures, but these bring only a transient taste—which yet the vital self is unwilling to forego—and they end in distaste, fatigue or disillusionment. What then? To say the Divine does ...
... would have no chance of being Piyush Kanti Ghose. Of course inside there are old personalities contributing to the new lila—but I am speaking of the new visible personality, the outer man, mental, vital, physical. It is the psychic being that keeps the link from birth to birth and makes all the manifestations of the same person. It is therefore to be expected that the Avatar should take on a new personality ...
... is foreseeable; if there is a divine Omniscience and Omnipotence it must be so. Even then what is foreseen has to be worked out, actually is worked out by a play of forces,—spiritual, mental, vital, physical forces—and in that plane of forces there is no absolute rigidity discoverable. Personal will or endeavour is one of those forces—Napoleon when asked why he believed in Fate, yet was always planning ...
... vital as distinguished from the higher is concerned only with the small greeds, small desires, small passions etc. which make up the daily stuff of life for the ordinary sensational man—while the vital physical proper is the nervous being giving vital reflexes to contacts of things with the physical consciousness. It is quite usual for the dynamic and formative part of the mind to be more quick ...
... unfavourable atmosphere or conditions can delay even when they cannot prevent. Even when the thing is destined, it does not present itself as a certitude in the consciousness here (Overmind-mind-vital-physical) till the play of forces has been worked out up to a certain point at which the descent not only is, but appears as inevitable. The descent of the supermind is a long process or at least ...
... other worlds) which evolves with the evolution of life on the planet. Yes, all that [ humans, animals, vegetables, minerals ] is the earth consciousness—mineral = matter, vegetable = the vital-physical creation, animal = the vital creation, man = the mental creation. Into the earth consciousness so limited to mind, vital, matter has to come the supramental creation. Necessarily at first it ...
... anything very decisive, great or successful. Much of it seems to be mere flat objectivity or, what is worse, an exaggerated emphatic objectivity; emotion seems often to be replaced by an intensified vital-physical sensation of the object. You will perhaps understand what I mean if you read the poem quoted on pages 316-17 of the Parichay (also made much of in a book on English modernistic poetry sent to ...
... justifies the labour. Each plane of consciousness contains the others in itself in principle. In the physical consciousness there is a physical mind, a vital force and action which we call the vital physical, and the physical proper or material. Mind has its own realms and life has its own realms just as matter has. In the mental realms life and substance are entirely subordinated to Mind and ...
... enjoyment of the lower kind. 8 October 1933 Is it possible to get rid of vital impurities without getting rid of vital enjoyment? How can that be done? The enjoyment you speak of is vital-physical, while beauty has to be enjoyed with the aesthetic sense—either human or divinised. 6 April 1933 It is usually a good rule for other inward things beside the appreciation of the beauty of ...
... done but to use it as a means of service to the Divine is the proper spirit. 14 May 1934 Every artist almost (there can be rare exceptions) has got some thing of the public man in him in his vital-physical parts, which makes him crave for the stimulus of an audience, social applause, satisfied vanity, appreciation, fame. That must go absolutely if you want to be a yogi; your art must be a service ...
... Shelley's stanza—it is a light from beyond finding expression in that glimmer and illumining the dell of dew and the secrecy of flowers and grass, that is there. This illumination of the earthly mind, vital, physical with his super-world light is a main part of Shelley; excise that and the whole of Shelley is no longer there, there is only the ineffectual angel beating his wings in the void; excise it from ...
... ng. Individual man belongs not only to humanity in general, his nature is not only a variation of human nature in general, but he belongs also to his race-type, his class-type, his mental, vital, physical, spiritual type in which he resembles some, differs from others. According to these affinities he tends to group himself in Churches, sects, communities, classes, coteries, associations whose life ...
... and manifested in them. We perceive that he had not only the vision of this and the joy and peace and universality which its presence brings, but the very sense of it, mental, aesthetic, vital, physical; not only this sense and vision of it in its own being but in the nearest flower and simplest man and the immobile rock; and, finally, that he even occasionally attained to that unity, that becoming ...
... discover our veiled psychic entity and Page 281 in its light and under its government psychicise our inner and outer parts, turn mind-nature, life-nature, body-nature and all our mental, vital, physical action and states and movements into a conscious instrumentation of the soul. Afterwards or concurrently we have to spiritualise the being in its entirety by a descent of a divine Light, Force ...
... energised force capable of dynamic movement and of sensitive vibration answers to the shock. There is a vibrant reception and reply, as well as a will to grow and be, indicative of a submental, a vital-physical organisation of consciousness-force hidden in the form of being. The fact would seem to be, then, that as there is a constant dynamic energy in movement in the universe which takes various material ...
... constant giving up of the whole consciousness into the being of the Supreme. In the beginning when the restless confusion and obscuring impurity of our outward nature is active, when the mental, vital, physical ego-sense are still powerful, this new mental outlook, these experiences may be found difficult in the extreme: but once that triple egoism is discouraged or moribund and the instruments of the ...
... according to its measure of attachment to or repulsion from this present play of embodied mind and vitality. Now, all this is a mixture of truth and falsehood. Mind, Life, Matter exist and mental, vital, physical individualisation exists as facts in Nature, but the identification of the soul with these things is a false identification. Mind, Life and Matter are ourselves only in this sense that they are ...
... to lift ourselves into this higher consciousness, but to widen into it in all our being, because it is to be found on all the planes of our existence and in all our members, so that our mental, vital, physical existence shall become full of the 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 ...
... প্রকৃতির বশে রয়ে তাদের দাস হয়ে থাকে ৷ 19.1.35 পাপের কথা কেন – পাপ নয়, মানুষের দুর্বলতা ৷ আত্মা সৰ্ব্বদা শুদ্ধ, psychic being (চৈত্যপুরুষও) শুদ্ধ, সাধনা দ্বারা অন্তরতাও (inner mind, vital, physical) শুদ্ধ হতে পারে অথচ external being বহিঃসত্তা বহিঃ-প্রকৃতিতে সেই চরিত্রের পুরাতন দুর্বলতা অনেক দিন লেগে থাকতে পারে, সম্পূর্ণ শুদ্ধ করা কঠিন ৷ চাই complete sincerity, চাই দৃঢ়তা ও ধৈৰ্য্য, চাই সদাজাগ্রত ...
... ignorant and mechanical, cannot be a power of God; for divine Power must be free in its workings, spiritual in its origin, spiritual in its greatness. The soul bound and egoistic in Nature, mental, vital, physical only, cannot be a portion of the Divine and itself a divine being; for such a divine being must be itself of Page 307 the very nature of the Divine, free, spiritual, self-developing ...
... that belongs to the dynamics of the ignorance and to convert the soul into a pure spiritual existence. That is what is called becoming Brahman, brahma-bhūya . It is to put off the lower mental, vital, physical existence and to put on the pure spiritual being. This can best be done by the intelligence and will, buddhi , our present topmost principle. It has to turn away from the things of the lower existence ...
... integral Divine Reality is its consequence. There is too implied in it a radical change and transformation of the whole being and of every part of the nature. Our being is a nexus of the human mental-vital-physical nature of Ignorance, it is transmuted into a spiritual and supramental consciousness: it becomes a divine unity in a harmony of the infinite and universal and integrated will, love, bliss and knowledge ...
... To anyone familiar with occult phenomena and their analysis, these things will seem perfectly normal and intelligible. The vision-mind in us is part of the inner being, and the inner mind, vital, physical are not bound by the dull and narrow limitations of our outer physical personality and the small scope of the world it lives in. Its scope is vast, extraordinary, full of inexhaustible interest ...
... mutuality. Page 422 There is a struggle, an opposition of ideas, impulses and interests, an attempt of each to profit by various kinds of war on the others, by a kind of intellectual, vital, physical robbery and theft or even by the suppression, devouring, digestion of its fellows rather than by a free and rich interchange. This is the aspect of life which humanity in its highest thought and ...
... or of the cosmic consciousness or if there is the emptiness which is the preliminary condition for these things, there comes an automatic tendency for a unity with all—their affections, mental, vital, physical may easily touch. One has to keep oneself free. Affections here [ in the preceding letter ] has not the ordinary sense—it means "ways in which they are affected by things", e.g. joy, grief ...
... according to the context—in the emotional vital it is the colour of a certain form of emotional generosity, in the vital proper an activity with vital abundance or vital generosity behind it—in the vital physical it signifies a force of health. Purple and Crimson Light It [ purple light ] is a light of vital power. Page 132 Purple is the colour of the vital force—crimson is usually ...
... Power more possible, as it became still and near. The ass is the symbol of the inertia and obstruction in the body. The horse is the symbol of force or power. The tunnel of water must be the vital physical and the arch is a passage out, by which, if the ass can cross it or rather be pulled across, then it becomes a horse. In other words, the inertia and obstruction in the physical will be changed ...
... things are held back and the demand for the true attitude is made on it, it resists or non-cooperates, saying, "No value in such a sadhana." In all the sadhaks here, the ego (in its physical or vital physical roots) is proving to be the stumbling block. No transformation is possible unless it changes. Page 218 Obviously, unless the object is Nirvana, the small ego has to be attended ...
... in sleep. If you are thus conscious, then the night can be utilised for a higher working—provided the body gets its due rest; for the object of sleep is the body's rest and the renewal of the vital-physical force. It is a mistake to deny to the body food and sleep, as some from an ascetic idea or impulse want to do—that only wears out the physical support and, although either the Yogic or the vital ...
... confidence 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 ...
... impatience, dissatisfaction or disturbance. Your new attitude towards food and outward things is the true attitude, the psychic attitude and shows that the psychic is already controlling the vital physical as well as the other parts of the vital nature. As for the heart, the movement of longing for the Divine, weeping, sorrowing, yearning is not essential in this Yoga. A strong aspiration there ...
... finally the result will appear. It does not matter with what motive you or anyone began the sadhana. There are always two elements, the psychic within which wants the Divine, and the mind, vital, physical which are pushed to enter the way through some idea, desire or feeling—it may be the feeling of vairāgya with the ordinary life, disgust of it and a desire for freedom and peace, or it may be ...
... free from all control—and that was why I felt compelled to call your attention to the peril of a hostile Maya. As for voices, there are many voices; each Force, each movement of the mental, vital, physical plane may equip itself with a voice. Your voices were not even at one with each other; one said one thing, when it did not work out another said something inconsistent with it; but you were attached ...
... mind, vital and physical that the transformation of the nature begins to take place. The opposite experience of dryness, despair etc. comes from the resistance of the ordinary lower nature (lower vital, physical consciousness, especially). This resistance is to be got rid of—and one condition of that is never to indulge the desires of the lower vital and the body. You must turn them on the contrary wholly ...
... Till it comes, keep yourself firm and do not allow these attacks to shake your basis. They [ hostile attacks on the outer being ] are felt as suggestions, or a touch on the surface mind, vital, physical or as movements in the atmosphere (the personal or the general environmental consciousness)—but for the inner being it is like gusts or storms outside. If they penetrate by chance into the house ...
... Truth and the Right and the power to be a strong and confident but egoless instrument of the Divine. It is clear also that the physical is effectively opening, but the instinctive physical and vital-physical motions in it, fear in the body, weakness, disposition to ill-health must go also. As to diet, a light quantity of food sufficient for strength and Page 282 sustenance is the best for ...
... the imperfection and you will then only have to follow that movement. If you overstrain yourself by too prolonged work or a restless working, that disturbs or weakens the nervous system, the vital-physical, and lays one open to the action of the wrong forces. To work but quietly so as to have a steady progress is the right way. Page 143 1) A quiet mind makes consciousness easier. ...
... things to the psychic and spiritual on which alone can stand Yoga and the spiritual life. Every artist almost (there are rare exceptions) has got something of the "public" man in him, in his vital physical parts, the need of the stimulus of an audience, social applause, satisfied vanity or fame. That must go absolutely if he wants to be a Yogi and Page 290 his art a service not of man ...
... that which has been always standing in the way and is now isolated in an extreme prominence, is seated or at least is at present concentrated in the lower vital being. I mean that part of the vital-physical nature with its petty and obstinate egoism which actuates the external human personality,—that which supports its surface thoughts and dominates its habitual ways of feeling, character and action ...
... against the danger of which you speak, the slacking of the vigilance. Only the more it can be a quiet and unmixed, not an anxious vigilance, the better. The habits of the physical or the vital-physical nature are always the most difficult to change, because their action is automatic and not governed by the mental will and it is therefore difficult for the mental will to control or transform them ...
... attempt, the vital arises with all its restless imperfections to oppose the change. However, there are three things you can do to alleviate and shorten the difficulty: 1) Detach yourself from this vital-physical—observe it as something not yourself; reject it, refuse your consent to its claims and impulses, but quietly as the witness Purusha whose refusal Page 113 of sanction must ultimately ...
... experience. If she wants to go farther, she must aspire for calm, peace, purity, etc. in the mental and emotional being and allow what is descending to establish it in her. It must be the vital-physical that is in action. It is under the pressure of the Force that the resistance recedes lower and lower down and manifests so as to have the pressure brought there also specifically for its expulsion ...
... faith—but it is only after much vital difficulty that it developed in them,—and there is no reason why that should not happen speedily in you also. The psychic if it gets hold of them [ the vital physical and the physical mind ] can change completely their will and outlook and orientation and open them to the true perception of things and right impulse. The mind and higher vital can help much towards ...
... on the surface, but the inner being would remain calm and still, watching and undisturbed and, if there is knowledge established within, understanding the action. Only for that the whole being vital, physical, material must have become open and receptive to the peace. Peace would then go on perhaps deepening and becoming wider and wider, but periods of interruption and assimilation would not be needed ...
... I should perhaps add one or two things to avoid misapprehensions. First, the love for the Divine of which I speak is not a psychic love only; it is the love of all the being, the vital and vital-physical included,—all are capable of the same Page 461 self-giving. It is a mistake to believe that if the vital loves, it must be a love that demands and imposes the satisfaction of its desire; ...
... rejected. 1 September 1936 As for the feelings about the Mother and that her love is only given for a return in work or to those who can do sadhana well, that is the usual senseless idea of the vital-physical mind and has no value. 17 January 1937 It is not Mother who makes you cry. It is forces from the vital Nature that make you sorrowful and think of dying and of the past. What comes from Mother ...
... do not get it to their satisfaction, enter into all kinds of disturbances, revolt, doubt, depression. This is a wrong viewpoint altogether and has caused much obstruction and trouble. The mind, vital, physical can participate and are intended to participate in the union, but for that they must be submitted to the psychic, themselves psychicised; the union must be an essentially psychic and spiritual ...
... testing me at every moment? This idea of tests also is not a healthy idea and ought not to be pushed too far. Tests are applied not by the Divine but by the forces of the lower planes—mental, vital, physical—and allowed by the Divine because that is part of the soul's training and helps it to know itself, its powers and the limitations it has to outgrow. The Mother is not testing you at every moment ...
... conditions for the protection of the sadhaks from certain forces of death and disease etc. It cannot work perfectly because the sadhaks themselves have not the right attitude towards food and kindred vital-physical things. But still there is a protection. If however the sadhaks go outside her formation, it must be on their own responsibility—the Mother does not and cannot sanction it. But this arrangement ...
... altogether dormant—only its means of expression are less developed than those of a human being. There is much that is psychic in the plant, much that is psychic in the animal. The plant has only the vital-physical evolved in its form, so it cannot express itself; the animal has a vital mind and can, but its consciousness is limited and its experiences are limited, so the psychic essence has a less developed ...
... to carry on the sadhana as if by an automatic action. But the consent of the sadhak, his rejection of all that comes against is always necessary. It is the vital plane—probably the vital physical. It is mostly there that the beings of the vital world appear with animal heads or features. A human figure with a dog's face means a very coarse and material sexual energy. Of course, all such ...
... ra downward. People went above this only in samadhi or in a condition of static mukti without any dynamic descent. All that was dynamic took place in the region of the spiritualised mental and vital-physical consciousness. In this Yoga the consciousness (after the lower field has been prepared by a certain amount of psycho-spiritual-occult experience) is drawn upwards above the Brahmarandhra to ranges ...
... Atman on the higher mental plane, buddheḥ parataḥ , but the supramental realisation was not theirs. One can get partial realisations of the Self or Spirit or the Divine on any plane, mental, vital, physical even, and when one rises above the ordinary mental plane of man into a higher and larger mind, the Self begins to appear in all its conscious wideness. It is by full entry into this wideness of ...
... for a direction in every detail, is not the essence of surrender, although obedience is the natural fruit and outward body of surrender. Surrender is from within, opening and giving mind, vital, physical, all to the Mother for her to take them as her own and recreate them in their true being which is a portion of the Divine; all the rest follows as a consequence. It would not then be necessary ...
... In one of your letters you have written about being "sufficiently open" to receive the Force. What did you mean by this? I mean simply a certain receptivity in the consciousness—mind, vital, physical, whichever is needed. The Mother or myself send a force. If there is no openness, the force may be thrown back or return (unless we put a great force which it is not always advisable to do) as ...
... or vital or physical within, which is in direct touch with the universal mind, the universal life forces, the universal physical forces. Sometimes, on the other hand, we mean an inmost mental, vital, physical, more specifically called the true mind, the true vital, the true physical consciousness which is nearest to the soul and can most easily and directly respond to the Divine Light and Power. There ...
... neither with itself nor with the others. Speaking of the "perfectly normal divisibility of the different parts of the being", Sri Aurobindo states: "In the outer surface nature, mind, psychic, vital, physical are all jumbled together and it needs a strong power of introspection, self-analysis, close observation and disentanglement of the threads of thought, feeling and impulse to find out the composition ...
... must add the equilibrium of the vital and the mind. For you to be able to do all kinds of things with immunity, without any accident happening to you, you must have a triple equilibrium—mental, vital, physical—and not only in each of the parts, but also in the three parts in their mutual relations.... If you have done a little mathematics, you should have been taught how many combinations that makes ...
... Oh, I have already explained to you very often that when you live in an ordinary consciousness, and to the extent you remain on a certain plane which is a combination of the most material mind, vital, physical, that is, the ordinary plane of life, you are subject to the determinism of this plane and it is this subjection to the determinism of this plane which puts you exactly in these conditions, for ...
... itself divided into four. There is a physical mind, a physical vital and a physical physical, and there is even a physical psychic which is behind. Well, there is a vital mind, a vital vital, a vital physical and also a vital psychic which is behind, hidden. And there is a mental mind, a mental vital, and Page 316 a mental physical and a mental psychic which is hidden behind. And each one ...
... is the possession of the psychic being. xvi The psychic is the psychological centre of our being because it is the inmost part of our being, supporting all other parts—mental, vital, physical. Though in theory the psychic is the true master of the being who puts forth and uses the instruments of mind, life and body, in actuality in most human beings the psychic is entirely veiled and ...
... nature of the mind whose function is not to think and reason, to perceive, consider and find out or value things, but to plan or dream or imagine what can be done; see also under mind . Vital-physical —the nervous part of the being; the life-force closely enmeshed in the reactions, desires, needs, sensations of the body. Yoga —the discipline by which one seeks consciously and deliberately ...
... when, in response to its aspiration, the Supramental descends to give it a consistent personality. The exterior being of man is a perishable formation out of the stuff of universal Nature—mental, vital, physical— and is due to the complex interplay of all kinds of forces. The psychic absorbs the essence, as it were, of the experiences of the various formations behind which it stands; Page 78 ...
... transformation. The power of concentration above the head is to bring peace, silence, liberation from the body sense, the identification with mind and life and open the way for the lower (mental, vital, physical) consciousness to rise up to meet the higher consciousness above and for the powers of the higher (spiritual nature) consciousness to descend into mind, life and body. This is what is called in ...
... when you have that, I assure you that you can pass through everything without difficulty... The best is when the word comes to you spontaneously: you call in a moment of great difficulty (mental, vital, physical, emotional, whatever it may be) and suddenly that springs up in you, two or three words, like magical words. You must remember these and form the habit of repeating them in moments when difficulties ...
... world completely he must go behind his own and its exterior, he must dive deep below his own mental surface and the physical surface of Nature. This he can only do by knowing his inner mental, vital, physical and psychic being and its Page 342 powers and movements and the universal laws and processes of the occult Mind and Life which stand behind the material front of the universe: that ...
... who know what is happening and make predictions are in—in this state there is no possibility of doubt. No thoughts intervene—none at all, not one. Absolutely nothing intellectual: simply certain vital-physical vibrations, and then you know. And you don't even wonder how you know; it's not that kind of thing—it's self-evident. And since I was in that state when I saw the reincarnation of the cousin, I ...
... number of the states of the being in which the Sincerity (in the consecration to the Divine) will be definitively established." Four means integrality: the four states of being, mental, psychic, vital, physical. 27 December 1933 × A spoken comment of the Mother which was noted from memory by a sadhak and approved ...
... The truer and deeper things that Sri Aurobindo's lines deem of death may be said to represent the after-life destiny of the essential psyche in us, our soul proper hidden within a mental-vital-physical complex and often obscured by its integument. Whatever be the Karmic reward or punishment of the all-too-human personality, the psychic being which is an evolving delegate in us of the Divine would ...
... function. In essence this pressure is a highly evolutionary factor. We tend overmuch to see man and woman in relation to each other and in the way their natures manifest commonly on the mental, vital, physical levels. What we often forget is that either is an expression ultimately of a soul, a spiritual self, and that the destiny of both is not so much in relation to each other as in relation to the ...
... or of the cosmic consciousness or if there is the emptiness which is preliminary condition for these things, there comes an automatic tendency for a Unity with all — their affections, mental, vital, physical may easily touch. One has to keep oneself free. Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III: The Universal or Cosmic Consciousness ...
... done at the beginning of the evolution and determines the whole evolution. But that has no meaning since it is through the evolution that the psychic does it. It has not got one fixed mental, vital, physical which remains the same in all lives. My point then is that because the chicken-hearted central being—I suppose there is a hierarchy of these beings, some lion-hearted, some worm and some c ...
... friend of Oscar Wilde. (Laughter) People say that one telepathises a mental idea and this makes the person appear. It can't be a mere projection of form by the mind only. There is also the vital-physical part that materialises. PURANI: Paul Brunton writes that when he was in Egypt he met near a hill an ancient Egyptian who had died thousands of years ago and had been mummified. Brunton talked ...
... therefore they are unattached, is to talk nonsense. Attachment is attachment in whatever part of the being it may be. In order to be unattached one must be unattached everywhere, in the mental, vital, physical action and not only in the silent soul somewhere inside. Does not the usual action of the gunas bring attachment, desire and bondage? If not, why should we bother so much about the ...
... about it in their own way from below. SATYENDRA: Meher Baba's method is now to impart spirituality by touch. The recipient feels a sensation or emotion of love. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, it is the vital-physical way. SATYENDRA: But he is waiting to break his silence and he writes that when he does speak a great miracle will take place. SRI AUROBINDO: He wants to act by the mind, I suppose. Now he ...
... What people wonder at is they should come and talk all sorts of rubbish. These things, as far as they are not communications from the subconscient mind, are communications of lower forces, even vital-physical ones. I remember one instance. In Calcutta I went to attend a sitting. The spirit violently objected to my presence and said that it was painful to him. In another instance the spirit was asked ...
... Upanishad, 11 Uttarpara speech, 11 Veda, 14-5, 30, 41, 136 Page 286 Vision, premonitory, 30 Vital, 75, 82, 254-6 Vital, descent into, 82 Vital-physical, 254-5 Vivekananda, 13, 28 Worker, divine, 232 Work is done,194, 199 World War I, 63, 170 World War II, 91-2 Yoga, 2, 5, 7, 10; 14, 17, 18, 20 ...
... time, 3 hours of undisturbed concentration on my real work, - a luxury denied to me for ages. Don't tear your hair. Will be done another day with luck. 19 (6) On the genesis and growth of vital-physical attachment: (i) NB: Am invited for tea to the oculist's place - there's some function. I suppose it'll be rude not to go. Again social consciousness? - you may say. But say it again then ...
... the external life has been raised up by man's ever-active mind and life-will, a Page 129 structure of an unmanageable hugeness and complexity, for the service of his mental, vital, physical claims and urges, a complex political, social, administrative, economic, cultural machinery, an organised collective means for his intellectual, aesthetic and material satisfaction. Man has created ...
... forms and manifested in them. We perceive that he had not only the vision of this and the joy and peace and universality which its Presence brings but the very sense of it, mental, aesthetic, vital, physical; not only this sense and vision of it in its own being but in the nearest flower and simplest man and the immobile rock; and, finally, that he even occasionally attained to that unity, that becoming ...
... synthetic yogas of 48 Vedic Rishis 89, 90, 91 Vedic Yoga 46 virya 74, 75 vital, central 55,57; emotional 55,57; lower 55, 57 vital-material 57 vital-mental 56 vital-physical 56, 57 Vivekananda (Swami) 11 Whitehead, A.N., 25 world-consciousness 8, 79 world-knowledge 22; see also knowl edge world-nature, intangible energies, of 62; see also ...
... major difficulty of the present modes and structures of life is the machinery of standardisation, mechanisation, and dehumanization. A structure has been raised up in the services of the mental, vital, physical claims and urges and this structure has Page 44 become so huge that it is unmanageable; it is a structure of great complexity meant to provide political, social, administrative, ...
... your chaddar as you said in a book... ? [Sri Aurobindo put a big question mark.] They say that you are now handling the lower vital and so the general trouble. True? Subconscient vital physical—the lower vital is irrational, but not so utterly "without reasons" as that. July 8, 1935 J says he has no personal difficulties; he has to suffer for the sake of the Asram. Rubbish ...
... clumsy in expressing my thoughts. Somehow I feel a great resistance and words simply won't come. The same resistance everywhere! It is the negative resistance mostly of the physical mind and vital physical—a resistance of inertia, of অপ্রকাশ 13 and অপ্রবৃত্তি 14 against any idea of any possibility of being other than they are. It often comes when the keenness of the vital resistances is no ...
... will say—a usual feature in Yoga. That is no comfort to me. I'm getting discouraged. Rubbish! Be a spider. ... It's all an old story, Sir, and it will repeat itself till—? Till your vital physical consents to its being kicked out—which may be, if not tomorrow, day after tomorrow if it chooses. July 11, 1937 Here is Dilipda's letter. Please solve the duel between the homeopath ...
... physical support the ojas produced by brahmacharya counts greatly. The transformation of retas into ojas is a transformation of physical substance into a physical (necessarily producing also a vital physical) energy. The spiritual energy by itself can only drive the body, like the vital and mental, but in driving it it would exhaust it if it had not a physical support—(I speak of course of the ordinary ...
... things are held back and the demand for the true attitude is made on it, it resists or non-co-operates, saying "No value in such a sadhana." In all the sadhaks here, the ego (in its physical or vital physical roots) is proving to be the stumbling-block. No transformation is possible unless it changes. The ego seems to be throwing up strong suggestions against the manifested personality ...
... How is it that in spite of my rejection the suggestions are still troubling me and even stopping the sadhana? There must be something in your consciousness (probably the vital physical) in which these things can still find a response, otherwise they would be felt but they would not stop all sadhana. Does the cause of the fall from the state of light and truth ...
... its own suggestions. "Surrender of oneself and all one is and has on every plane of the consciousness." Kindly explain the last five words. The mind, psychic, vital, physical etc. are different planes, among them also there are several different planes. Page 149 Is not surrendering oneself to the Divine a process? Is not a complete self-giving ...
... not master it. If one has the knowledge, then it is much easier to draw back into that free part and feel separate from the clouded parts. It is now time that my vital-physical should reject its old weakness of not accepting whatever the Mother does not do for me. Yes. It must be got rid of. It has no true reason for remaining after the real knowledge has ...
... the present state of the sadhana. I cannot say more than what I have said already. In its descent the peace and silence met with a resistance in the lower vital (probably mostly the vital-physical) and the physical combined which instead of receiving the peace and silence and the release and joy it brings replied with inertia. This inertia gave an opportunity for the old vital suggestions ...
... felt as if stones were falling on me in the form of sexual sensations. A very strange experience! When the mind and the higher vital reject, they take this form which belongs to the vital-physical. If you want to reject, you have to reject patiently and persistently — these forces are not going to give up so early. Up to what stage do the sexual forces follow us ...
... surface. Its effect—yes. But you ought to shake it off at once and not allow it to trouble you. April 16, 1933 By saying that I seem to have become quieter, did you mean that my vital-physical is not so clamorous or is it an inner quiet of the psychic? Mother meant simply that there was less restlessness of the mind and the vital during the meditation—as you yourself felt. Today ...
... extends and expands into more and more subtle modes of activity and all the more, not less, effective for that very reason. Behind the physical lies the subtle physical, behind which again is the vital physical and then the various grades of the vital. Indeed the vital or life energy as a whole is the real dynamism of all our physical activities and if it usually acts through its bodily instruments, it ...
... Atman in the higher mental planes, buddheh paratah, but the supramental realisation was not theirs. One can get partial realisations of the Self or Spirit or the Divine on any plane, mental, vital, physical even, and when one rises above the ordinary mental plane of man into a higher and larger mind, the Self begins to appear in all its conscious wideness. It is by full entry into this wideness ...
... extends and expands into more and more subtle modes of activity and all the more, not less, effective for that very reason. Behind the physical lies the subtle physical, behind which again is the vital physical and then the various grades of the vital. Indeed the vital or life energy as a whole is the real dynamism of all our physical activities and if it usually acts through its bodily instruments ...
... of 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 ...
... ethical goals they endeavour to pursue They renounce most of their personal desires and try to rise superior to the formations of their lower nature, so that their life may get out of the rut of vital-physical preoccupations and emerge into some kind of transparent purity, freedom and noble beneficence. Some go even beyond these shining ideals, finding them rather lacking in any fullness and finality ...
... India, but even in the West, that asceticism has gone to rabid extremes and delighted in the mortification of the flesh for its own sake. Most often the ethical mind exerts its will upon the erring vital-physical nature and represses those of its movements which it disapproves or deems detrimental to its self-improvement. Sometimes it is the vital will that turns a red eye upon some of its own movements ...
... raised, 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 ...
... I wonder at the amount of tangles in which our nature is caught. To change them will be a Herculean job. One gets lost even to think of it. SRI AUROBINDO: The habits of the physical or the vital physical nature are always the most difficult to change, because their action is automatic and not governed by the mental will and it is therefore difficult for the mental will to control or transform them ...
... illumined intuitions of the supramental being give her the necessary knowledge to act on the right lines and at the right moment. Her force representing the Shakti element is directly psychic, vital, physical and her spiritual knowledge is predominantly practical in its nature. 37 Since the beginning of 1926 at any rate, if not indeed even earlier, there had been thus an increasingly direct ...
... be hoped for is to be able to prolong life at will, and "not to leave the body until one wants to". In a talk on 27 May, the theme is music, the divers sources - psychic, higher vital, vital, physical - of its inspiration, the difference between Western and Indian music, and between melody and harmony. In all artistic creation, inspiration and execution have to match each other so as to produce ...
... accomplishment. One must first purify the instruments, and one must learn to harmonise and unify them. While the Mother devotes separate chapters to the different disciplines - psychic, mental, vital, physical - here she sees them really as a single integrated discipline. But it often becomes necessary to stress, now this and now another aspect. With children, and at school generally, physical, mental ...
... desire. It is true that a man of sufficient intellectual development can deliver himself from the crude cravings and hungers that beset the average men, especially those who live mostly in the vital-physical consciousness; but he too finds it extremely difficult to rid himself of the subtler desires, the subtler preferences, the universally approved and admired affiliations of his being to certain ...
... finish quickly is the result of a desire to get rid of the occasion of this want of the entire inner clearness and quietude. You are not yet entirely conscious of what is there in your physical and vital physical consciousness when it is not formulated to the mind and higher vital consciousness. (8.9.32) ...
... asking for a direction in every detail, is not the essence of surrender, although obedience is the natural fruit and outward body of surrender. Surrender is from within, opening and giving mind, vital, physical all to the Mother for her to take them as her own and recreate them in their true being which is a portion of the Divine; all the rest follows as a consequence. It would not then be necessary to ...
... depression was of great violence and lasted long. Somehow or other it came through him to you but as it could not find any place to get through in the mind or the vital, it fell upon the body (vital-physical or nervous) and created a weakness in which it was able to play. As soon as it could do that, helped by Dilip’s remark, it began to whirl round the old machine of thoughts and repinings and despairs ...
... in due time overcome. As for the feelings about the Mother and that her love is only given for a return in work or to those who can do sadhana well, that is the usual senseless idea of the vital-physical mind and has no value. There is nothing wrong in taking care of the body in regard to health and, if the liver has gone wrong, the instinct to refuse too sweet or greasy or heavy foods is ...
... and 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 human mind, but in many men it is the most dominant. In the modern age of materialism, it is almost deified,¹ and Marxist 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 ...
... naturally approachable to man and most easily, widely, intimately seizable. This seeing is not after all the largest or the truest truth that the Supreme is without any relations with the mental, vital, physical existence of man in the universe, avyavahāryam , nor that what is described as the empirical truth of things, the truth of relations, vyavahāra , is altogether the opposite of the highest spiritual ...
... He 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 ...
... come to disturb it—a fact known to the Yogis and Rishis from early times. Forced opening by a vital or a hostile force means a forced opening and entering of the same force in our mental, vital, physical body. If you mean an invasion of the consciousness by a hostile force, that happens—but it cannot succeed unless something in the sadhaka either welcomes the invasion or is somehow attracted ...
... them with sufficient force to put an end to the attack. Hence they continue. 25 February 1935 I find great difficulty in understanding what is the difference between the inner mind and the vital, physical and outer minds. Also I want to know what is the physical consciousness and what are the different places of these things. If these things have forms but are not material, how am I to get the idea ...
... when, in response to its aspiration, the Supramental descends to give it a consistent personality. The exterior being of man is a perishable formation out of the stuff of universal Nature—mental, vital, physical—and is due to the complex interplay of all kinds of forces. The psychic absorbs the essence, as it were, of the experiences of the various formations behind which it stands; but not being in constant ...
... Above the head, above the mind. What Sri Aurobindo means is: Unless one has gone beyond the mind and into altogether higher regions, so long as one remains in the human consciousness, the mental, vital, physical consciousness, one must concentrate in order to find the psychic. It is only if you have soared up out of the human consciousness and entered consciously the higher regions above the mind, far ...
... illumined intuitions from the supramental being give her the necessary knowledge to act on the right lines and at the right moment. Her force representing the Shakti element is directly psychic, vital, physical and her spiritual knowledge is predominantly practical in its nature. It is, that is to say, a large and detailed knowledge and experience of the mental, vital and Page 329 physical ...
... Purusha who consents to the Mother's Force acting in the whole being? Yes. If the Purusha does not consent to the working of the Mother's Force, does it mean that the other beings (mental, vital, physical and psychic) also cannot come to the front to enable the sadhak to receive the Mother's Grace? No. The Purusha often holds back and lets the other beings consent or reject in his place. ...
... ice, reachings of soul to soul, idealising sublimations that lift up human love beyond itself, come from the psychic. If it could dominate and govern and transmute the other elements, mental, vital, physical, of human love, then love could be on the earth some reflection or preparation of the real thing, an integral union of the soul and its instruments in a dual life. But even some imperfect appearance ...
... improved and is sometimes very bad leading to occasional crises. But from what you describe and from what I know, I believe that this ill-health is due to the weakness of the nervous system—the vital physical and the nervous envelope and not to any specific illness. If so, it can be got rid of by strengthening that part. You should determine on that and dismiss in future any depressing suggestions and ...
... and we will see what she decides. 28 August 1934 The Mother was not distant and had no reason for being so—that cannot be put forward as a reason for going away. It is the feeling of the vital-physical that has been stopped in its activities and is not yet able to receive the touch of the higher consciousness or keep it that makes you feel like that. I don't know that you would get so much interest ...
... increasing descent of a consciousness that does not want it and has a truer Ananda. 23 April 1937 You say physical sex action must be avoided by all means. Why so strict on it while tolerating vital-physical lapses? Because the physical action breaks a law without which the Asram cannot stand and the work cannot be done. It is not a personal matter, but a blow aimed at the very soul of the Mother's ...
... progress towards truth and self-knowledge must come to a point where the soul opens its eyes of vision and recognises this truth of ego and this truth of works. He gives up the idea of a mental, vital, physical “I” that acts or governs action; he recognises that Prakriti, Force of cosmic nature following her fixed modes, is the one and only worker. Sri Aurobindo The Synthesis of Yoga - I: The Supreme ...
... find its way. A structure of the external life has been raised up by man's ever-active mind and life-will, a structure of an unmanageable hugeness and complexity, for the service of his mental, vital, physical claims and urges, a complex political, social, administrative, economic, cultural machinery, an organized collective means for his intellectual, sensational, aesthetic and material satisfaction ...
... trembling there like a leaf; no, you must do it entirely, sincerely, then it is all-powerful. The best is when the word comes to you spontaneously: you call in a moment of great difficulty (mental, vital, physical, emotional, whatever it may be) and suddenly that springs up in you, two or three words, like magical words. You must remember these and form the habit of repeating them in moments when difficulties ...
... physical vital; it is the part of the vital which is turned entirely upon physical things, and is full of desires and seekings for pleasure on the physical plane. Closely connected with it is the vital physical, the part of the vital force which constitutes the nervous being; it is the vehicle of the nervous responses and is related to the reactions, desires and sensations of the body. ...
... nor a path of joyous Light. It is a difficult journey, a battle and struggle, an often painful and chequered growth, a life besieged by obscurity, false- hood and suffering. It has its mental, vital, physical joys and pleasures, but these bring only a transient taste- which yet the vital self is unwilling to forego - and they end in distaste, fatigue or disillusionment. What then? To say the Divine ...
... constant fire can be there only when a certain stage has been reached, that is when one is always inside consciously living in the psychic being, but for that all this preparation of the mind, vital, physical is necessary. For this fire belongs to the psychic and one cannot command it always merely by the mind's effort. The psychic has to be fully liberated and that is what the Force is working to make ...
... personal sadhana is the surrender, the aspiration to the Divine touch, presence, control in the heart—the opening of the psychic being from within and its coming in front to govern and change mind, vital, physical consciousness. There are two openings that are necessary, one from above, the other from within. The one from above which can come by the impersonal Path or by the personal and impersonal together ...
... but still there is the ascent of the consciousness from and through the different levels to join the higher consciousness above; there is the opening of the centres and of the planes (mental, vital, physical) which these centres command; there is also the descent which is the main key of the spiritual transformation. Therefore there is, I have said, a Tantrik knowledge behind the process of transformation ...
... falling into silence and then imposing the same silence on the vital nature. Page 437 Chit is the pure consciousness—as in Sat Chit Ananda. Chitta is the stuff of mixed mental-vital-physical consciousness out of which arise the movements of thought, emotion, sensation, impulse etc. It is these that in Patanjali's system have to be stilled altogether so that the consciousness may be ...
... development he seeks is the development of the psychic and spiritual consciousness and that too, only because it is necessary to reach and to serve the Divine, not for its own sake. Whatever mental, vital, physical development or use of faculties can be made part of the spiritual life and an instrumentation for the Divine can be kept on condition of surrender of them for transformation and restatement on ...
... receptivity and the inability to continue in communion while doing work, must all be due to some part of the physical consciousness that is still not open to the Light—probably something in the vital physical and the material subconscient which stands in the way of the physical mind being in its mass free and responsive. There is no harm in raising the aspiration from below to meet the power from ...
... the work whether it be mental, vital or physical. There is naturally a higher Energy above the present universal forces and it is that which will transform the nature and take up the mental, vital, physical energies and change them into its own likeness. If you mean by failure the weakness of the body, it is due probably to your having unduly strained it in obedience to rajasic vital impulses ...
... quickly. The physical does not get tired of the blankness. It may feel tamasic because of its own tendency to inertia, but it does not usually object to voidness. Of course it may be the vital physical—you have only to reject it as a remnant of the old movements. Blankness is only a condition in which realisation has to come. If aspiration is needed for that, it has to be used; if the ...
... the evolution towards the Divine. Their taking the place of the legs means that their action here takes place in the physical or external consciousness, in the evolution of the external mind, vital, physical towards the experience of the Divine and of the Divine Nature. The bite of the cobras (Shiva's cobras!) does not kill, or it only kills the "old Adam" in the being; their bite brings the ecstasy ...
... Chapter IV The Higher Planes of Mind The Higher Planes and Higher Consciousness The higher planes are the higher mind, illumined, intuitive, over mind, supermind. The psychic, mind, vital, physical belong to the ordinary manifestation. The planes and the body are not the same. Above the head are seen all the planes from the overmind down to the higher mind, but this is only a correlation ...
... being is discovered, the utility of the ego is over and this formation has to disappear—the true being is felt in its place. The psychic is the true being here—the ego is simply a mental, vital, physical formation of the mobile consciousness in Nature which is wrongly taken for our true being so long as the psychic is veiled and the consciousness is in the Ignorance. As to the change of ...
... Energies There is a vital plane (self-existent) above the material universe which we see; there is a mental plane (self-existent) above the vital and material. These three together,—mental, vital, physical,—are called the triple universe of the lower hemisphere. They have been established in the earth-consciousness by evolution—but they exist in themselves before the evolution, above the earth-c ...
... spiritual feeling—it has the clearest sense of the truth and a sort of inherent perception of it which is of the nature of soul-feeling. It is our inmost being and supports all the others, mental, vital, physical, but it is also much veiled by them and has to act upon them as an influence rather than by its sovereign right of direct action; its direct action becomes normal and preponderant only at a high ...
... universal—for it is in conscious touch with the universal action. Page 90 The outer consciousness is that which usually expresses itself in ordinary life. It is the external mental, vital, physical. It is not connected very much with the inner being 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 ...
... all the actions, when one gets rid of the sense of the ego as doer. Then there is the realisation of these two entities. This is quite different from the psychic being. It is felt in the mind, vital, physical—most easily in the mind where the mental being (Purusha) is seated and controls the others ( manomayaḥ puruṣaḥ prāṇa-śarīra-netā ). 3) Prajna, Taijasa etc. are a different classification and ...
... of the psychic. The soul gathers the essential element of its experiences in life and makes that its basis of growth in the evolution; when it returns to birth it takes up with its mental, vital, physical sheaths so much of its Karma as is useful to it in the new life for farther experience. It is really for the vital part of the being that śrāddha and rites are done—to help the being to get ...
... the old half-intelligent action or thought, habitual, instinctive etc which rose out of the subconscient or was determined by the subconscient. This rises out of the realised sat in the mental, vital, physical prakriti (pradhana elementalised) and is therefore satyam. It is not yet ritam, Page 991 but prepares to be. It will be brihat by the large assimilation of the circumconscient under ...
... two things happen, then the chance of error is diminished and the true inner guidance begins to make itself more and more felt in the sadhana. Lights are of all kinds, supramental, mental, vital, physical, divine or Asuric—one has to watch, grow in experience and Page 304 learn to know one from another. The true lights however are by their clarity and beauty not difficult to recognise ...
... movements, even the physical. One is aware of one's soul, feels the psychic to be one's true being, the mind and the rest begin to be only instruments of the inmost within us. The inner mental, vital, physical are also veiled, but much nearer to the surface and much of their movements or inspirations get through the veil (but not in any fullness or purity) in the lives of developed human beings, something ...
... clear division in you curious, but it will no longer seem curious once you know the perfectly normal divisibility of the different parts of the being. In the outer surface nature mind, psychic, vital, physical are all jumbled together and it needs a strong power of introspection, self-analysis, close observation and disentanglement of the threads of thought, feeling and impulse to find out the composition ...
... that is done. If the workings are really those of the higher consciousness or if these predominate the ego fades out—but there is also often a wideness of opening to the universal mental, vital, physical existence and, if the sadhak responds more to these than to the higher consciousness, then he does not get free. Sometimes even the ego gets aggrandised. But if the psychic is awake, then there ...
... in the spiritual mind but not a sufficient psychic change, there is or can be this kind of vehement force-action and resistance; when the psychic opens, then it acts on the whole nature, mind, vital, physical, governing them from within, to transform themselves and become ready for the complete spiritual opening and spiritual consciousness. Devotion and a more and more complete inner consecration are ...
... begin to rise or draw Page 709 near, most often unseen, and when he is quite off his guard, surge up suddenly or make a sudden irruption. This continues until the whole nature, mental, vital, physical down to the very subconscient is enlightened, conscious, full of the Divine. Till that happens, one must always remain watchful in a sleepless vigilance. It is perhaps that the attitude ...
... the 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 ...
... Sachchidananda consciousness or to the Supramental. What you describe seems to be the subconscient, but that may be only a first step in the going inside. In samadhi it is the inner mental, vital, physical which are separated from the outer, no longer covered by it—therefore they Page 249 can freely have inner experiences. The outer mind is either quiescent or in some way reflects or ...
... calling so that one can see the surroundings and the things happening through him. It is the physical that becomes nervous at these experiences and this must be overcome; as the inner mental, vital, physical consciousness opens to things behind the thick physical veil all kinds of experiences may happen that are strange to the physical mind and its tendency to be apprehensive or nervous at these things ...
... of Sri Krishna's force. The chakra is the energy at work and it brings the first opening of the consciousness in the gross physical plane, i.e. of the mental physical, psychic physical, vital physical and the material. Yes, the circular movement and the Chakra are always signs of energy in action, generally creative action. Page 185 Bow and Arrow The bow is a symbol of ...
... power and peace and Ananda into the body consciousness, to get rid of the inertia of the physical, the doubts, limitations, external tendency of the physical mind, the defective energies of the vital physical (nerves) and bring in instead the true consciousness there so that the physical may be a perfect instrument for the Divine Will. The food and care for the body is only to get it into Page 367 ...
... knowledge. This idea of tests also is not a healthy idea and ought not Page 760 to be pushed too far. Tests are applied not by the Divine but by the forces of the lower planes—mental, vital, physical—and allowed by the Divine because that is part of the soul's training and helps it to know itself, its powers and the limitations it has to outgrow. The Mother is not testing you at every moment ...
... verve and interest in the details of the Asram work and life as well as in an inner life; the physical vital was carried in the stream. But for many this has dropped; they live in the unsatisfied vital physical and find everything desperately dull, gloomy and without interest or issue. In their inner life the tamas from the Inconscient has created a block or a bottleneck and they do not find any way out ...
... her multifold activity; they are present as much in psychic and spiritual evolution as in the physical; and so all-important are they that all activity of any kind whatsoever, all life mental, vital, physical are said to be merely the natural operation of the three gunas interacting upon each other. These three gunas are called in the Sankhya terminology sattwa, rajas, tamas ; comprehension, activity ...
... is Kratu, the effective power behind the act. It is of the nature of consciousness; it is energy of consciousness, and although present in all forms, conscious, subconscious or superconscious, vital, physical or mental, yet comes into its kingdom only when it emerges in Mind. It uses the mental faculty of memory to link together and direct consciously the activities towards the goal of the individual ...
... Vedic ideal is the inclusion of all life and all joy, divine and human, the wideness and plenty of earth and the vastness and abundance of heaven, Page 516 the treasures of the mental, vital, physical existence uplifted, purified, perfected in the form of the infinite and divine Truth. It is this all-including felicity which is the gift of Bhaga. The Enjoyer is to be called on by men because ...
... their goal in the Truth and Bliss by the force of the. Divine Will working in man. × Mental, vital, physical, the lower "births" all the knowledge of which the Divine Will, knower of our Births, possesses and through which it has to lead the ascending sacrifice to the supramental. ...
... must go behind his own and Page 893 its exterior, he must dive deep below his own mental surface and the physical surface of Nature. This he can only do by knowing his inner mental, vital, physical and psychic being and its powers and movements and the universal laws and processes of the occult Mind and Life which stand behind the material front of the universe: that is the field of occultism ...
... misuse of these great deep-seated Truths of existence; it exposes them with its detecting search-ray and calls down the entire truth of divine Love to heal these malformations, to deliver mental, vital, physical love from their insufficiencies or Page 156 their perversions and reveal to them their true abounding share of the intimacy and the oneness, the ascending ecstasy and the descending ...
... progress towards truth and self-knowledge must come to a point where the soul opens its eyes of vision and recognises this truth of ego and this truth of works. He gives up the idea of a mental, vital, physical "I" that acts or governs action; he recognises that Prakriti, Force of cosmic nature following her fixed modes, is the one and only worker in him and in all things and creatures. But what has ...
... but this finer factor in our normal make-up is not yet dominant and has only a limited action. Our soul is not the overt guide and master of our thought and acts; it has to rely on the mental, vital, physical instruments for self-expression and is constantly overpowered by our mind and life-force: but if once it can succeed in remaining in constant communion with its own larger occult reality,—and this ...
... legitimate motives of human living,—man's vital interests and needs, his desires, his ethical and religious aspiration, his ultimate spiritual aim and destiny,—in other words, the claims of his vital, physical and emotional being, the claims of his ethical and religious being governed by a knowledge of the law of God and Nature and man, and the claims of his spiritual longing for the Beyond for which ...
... itself beyond the limits of the personal mind, the personal life, the body, so that it feels itself more and more a universal being no longer limited by the existing walls of our too narrow mental, vital, physical existence. This widening can extend itself to a complete entry into the consciousness of cosmic Mind, into unity with the universal Life, even into a oneness with universal Matter. That, however ...
... the essential play of the new principle itself; it includes a taking up of that which is lower into the higher values: the divine or spiritual life will not only assume into itself the mental, vital, physical life transformed and spiritualised, but it will give them a much wider and fuller play than was open to them so long as they were living on their own level. Our mental, physical, vital existence ...
... universality. 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 ...
... because even with regard to ourselves, to our own psychological existence it is a false centre of unity; for it tries to find the unity of our being in an identification with a shifting mental, vital, physical personality, not with the eternal self of our total existence. Only in the spiritual self can we possess the true unity; for there the individual enlarges to his own total being and finds himself ...
... of the Purusha to get rid of the defect and its causes. There are four things that he must have; first, equality in the most concrete practical sense of the word, samatā , freedom from mental, vital, physical preferences, an even acceptance of all God's workings within and around him; secondly, a firm peace and absence of all disturbance and trouble, śānti ; thirdly, a positive inner spiritual happiness ...
... beautiful, a personal isolated achievement cannot be his sole aim or his entire experience. A time must come when the personal opens out into the universal; our very individuality, spiritual, mental, vital, physical even, becomes universalised: it is seen as a power of his universal force and cosmic spirit, or else it contains the universe in that ineffable wideness which comes to the individual consciousness ...
... egoism: till then we follow superficial and impermanent ideas, impulses, desires, suggestions and impositions of all kinds from our environment or work out formations of our temporary mental, vital, physical personality—that passing experimental and structural self which has been made for us by an interaction between our being and the pressure of a lower cosmic Nature. In proportion as we are purified ...
... The ordinary existence of man is not only an individual but an egoistic consciousness; it is, that is to say, the individual soul or Jivatman identifying himself with the nodus of his mental, vital, physical experiences in the movement of universal Nature, that is to say, with his mind-created ego, and, less intimately, with the mind, life, body which receive the experiences. Less intimately, because ...
... the urge cannot be fully successful — labouring as it does under conditions antithetical to the Divine — unless the free and un-involved and eternally expressed Supermind from beyond the mental-vital-physical complex comes down in response to the call of that complex, a call centrally spurred by what Sri Aurobindo names the psychic being, the true soul which is the immortal spark in us of the Eternal ...
... 137 power attempting to follow certain mind-made rules of ethics. The ethical endeavour has considerable value, but it cannot eradicate the evil from the roots. Our present mental-vital-physical status lacks the light and the force by which alone suffering and conflict can be avoided. We have to explore our deeper ranges of being, bring into the forefront the inner self, the true soul ...
... the growth of T³ and T². The crisis in her body continues in all its adverse acuteness. The causes seem to be not personal, but due to circumstance favouring blind surrounding physical and vital physical influences. 20 January 1927 The adverse crisis continues in great violence. In this body there seems to be a turn for the better, not yet final and decisive. A certain overmastering Ishwara ...
... can do miracles under the right conditions; and now they are quite strong enough to produce miraculous results on the subjective plane, in the physical consciousness, the physical mind and the vital physical, but the most material is not yet ready. The attempt was therefore premature. In order that it should succeed, one of two things was necessary, either a right entire knowledge and process or else ...
... life and mind and beyond-mind would be unable to manifest in the material universe. There is not only this material plane of being that we see, there is a physical life plane proper to the vital physical operation of Nature. There is a physical mind plane proper to a mental physical operation of Nature. There is a physical supermind plane proper to the supramental physical operation of Nature. ...
... 2 ( laughter ) And one thing after another.... And I was like one of them, wearing strange clothes. I am discovering a world I didn't know, which is the world... I wonder if it's not the vital physical? There were dances, movements.... That is, to put it in ordinary words: I have dreams such as I have never had before; only it's not dreams, it's an activity. It's a world I was totally unaware ...
... volitional aspects of our nature. Thus the stuff of our nature which is to be changed is what both yoga and psychology deal with. The three parts of the being just mentioned - mental, vital, physical - which yoga aims at changing, constitute what in Sri Aurobindo's yoga psychology is called the outer or surface being which is distinguished from the inner being, composed of the inner mind, the ...
... what the soul-sense perceives or intuits. So, when as has happened with quite a number of people at present, the soul-sense gets covered up and the intellect has only the earth left to hug, the vital-physical movements, though not unpleasurable, lack the sparkle which is necessary to make smiles automatically break out even when no real happiness Page 107 glows in the heart. The Indian ...
... experience in another context that "he had not only the vision of this and the joy and peace and universality which its [Nature's] presence brings, but the very sense of it, mental, aesthetic, vital, physical; not only this sense and vision of it in its own being but in the nearest flower and the simplest man and the immobile rock; and, finally, that he even occasionally attained to that unity'" ...
... usually to the vital plane.... The world you see is in some subtle physical plane where men see the gods according to their own idea and images of them. It is the vital plane—probably the vital physical. It is mostly there that the beings of the vital world appear with animal heads or features. A human figure with a dog's face means a very coarse and material sexual energy. Infinite realities ...
... nerves except in rare moments of sudden outbursts of anger. So I ask you to explain. But first read her letter, please. The nervous part of the being is a portion of the vital – it is the vital-physical, the life-force closely enmeshed in the reactions, desires, needs, sensations of the body. The vital proper is the life-force acting in its own nature, impulses, emotions, feelings, desires ...
... the clearest sense of the Truth and a sort of inherent perception of it which is of the nature of soul-perception and soul-feeling. It is our inmost being and supports all the others, mental, vital, physical, but it is also much veiled by them as an influence rather than by its sovereign right of direct action; its direct action becomes normal and preponderant only at a high stage of development or ...
... from all pride, sense of claim of ego or assertion of superiority, demand or desire. For if these elements are there, then it is not the true thing. 5) Most, even in doing Yoga, live in mind, vital, physical, lit up occasionally or to some extent by the higher mind and by the illumined mind; but to prepare for the Supramental change it is necessary (as soon as, personally the time has come) to open ...
... analogous vein: 'The soul gathers the essential elements of its experiences in life and makes that its basis of growth in the evolution; when it returns to birth it takes up with its mental, vital, physical sheaths so much of its Karma as is useful to it in the new life for further experience" Here there is no pointer to where the Karma resided and to any compulsive chain of Karma: the soul picks ...
... get out of the grip of the world of life-problems. To effect the change, one's personal effort is required, but it must mainly be directed towards putting one's various personalities- mental, vital, physical - more and more into the Divine Mother's ever-stretched-out hands of help. In other words, the effort is towards becoming free of effort - towards getting those hands to draw closer and closer ...
... illumined intuitions of the supramental being give her the necessary knowledge to act on the right lines and at the right moment. Her force representing the Shakti element is directly psychic, vital, physical and her spiritual knowledge is predominantly practical in its nature. It is, that is to say, a large and detailed knowledge and experience of the mental, vital and physical forces at play and ...
... no chance of being Piyush Kanti Ghose. Of course inside there are old personalities contributing to the new life — but I am speaking of the new visible personality, the outer man, mental, vital, physical. It is the psychic being that keeps the link from birth to birth and makes all the manifestations of the same person. It is therefore to be expected that the Avatar should take on a new personality ...
... the process had been fraught with a great deal of suffering, but she was well on the way to acquiring a radical lever for the transformation which would pass from the mental physical to the vital physical and then to the material physical, which is the physical proper. Suddenly on 17 November 1973 she chose to give up her embodied state, put in abeyance her terrestrial progress and join Sri Aurobindo ...
... representative; from this inner silent Being proceeds a rejection of all that is to be rejected, an acceptance only of what can be kept and transformed. .. . 128 Detach yourself from this vital-physical 129 —observe it as something not yourself; reject it, refuse your consent to its claims and impulses, but quietly as the witness Purusha whose refusal of sanction must ultimately prevail. . ...
... the ordinary waking consciousness but also the subconscient and the subliminal. Regarding the prevailing lack of such a distinction, Sri Aurobindo writes: "Each plane of our being - mental, vital, physical - has its own consciousness, separate though interconnected and interacting; but to the outer mind and sense, in our waking experience, they are all confused together." 11 From the viewpoint ...
... because they do not know the difference. But when I use the word [subconscient], I mean always what is below the ordinary physical consciousness, not what is behind it. The inner mental, vital, physical, the psychic are not subconscious in this sense, but they can be spoken of as subliminal. Letters on Yoga, p. 354 The real subconscious is a nether diminished consciousness close ...
... 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 Psychic, the psychic, see Psychic being ...
... 1933 One part of me wants to give up the drawing of flowers because it finds it difficult; another part does not want to give up. Which is which? It is different parts of the mental and vital physical. What should I do? Continue, but without worrying. Let it come spontaneously. How to learn to give shade and light? Try and Mother will show you on the drawing. At first try not in ...
... nor a path of joyous Light. It is a difficult journey, a battle and struggle, an often painful and chequered growth, a life besieged by obscurity, falsehood and suffering. It has its mental, vital, physical joys and pleasures, but these bring only a transient taste—which yet the vital self is unwilling to forego—and they end in distaste, fatigue or disillusionment. What then? To say the Divine ...
... of the world, and a structure of the external life has been raised by man's ever-active mind and life-will, a structure of unmanageable hugeness and complexity, for the service of his mental, vital, physical claims and urges. Complex political, social, administrative, economic and cultural machinery have been built for his intellectual, sensational, aesthetic and material satisfaction. It is clear ...
... of the external life has been raised up by man's ever Page 13 active mind and life-will, a structure of an unmanageable hugeness and complexity, for the service of his mental, vital, physical claims and urges, a complex political, social, administrative, economic, cultural machinery, and organized collective means for his intellectual, sensational, aesthetic and material satisfaction ...
... major difficulty of the present modes and structures of life is the machinery of standardisation, mechanisation, and dehumanisation. A structure has been raised up in the Services of the mental, vital, physical Claims and urges and this structure has become so huge that it is un- manageable; it is a structure of great complexity meant to provide political, social, administrative, economic and cultural ...
... ess, missioning upwards much futile or perilous stuff of which the origin is obscure to us, in dream, in mechanical repetitions of all kinds, in untraceable impulsions and motives, in mental, vital, physical perturbations and upheavals, in dumb automatic necessities of our obscurest parts of nature." 34 This description of subconscious shows how the subliminal is clearly distinct from the su ...
... New education insists on the development of the mind, life and body, it aims at development of these instruments for the discovery of the inner psychic being; it proposes to utilise mental, vital, physical perfection as instruments of the perfect manifestation of the inner and higher realities. The effort is to make the body supple, strong, agile and beautiful; the vital is to be trained to become ...
... discover Page 33 our veiled psychic entity and in its light and under its government psychicise our inner and outer parts, turn mind-nature, life-nature, body-nature and all our mental, vital, physical action and states and movements into a conscious instrumentation of the soul. Afterwards or concurrently we have to spiritualise the being in its entirety by a descent of a divine Light, Force ...
... find its way. A structure of the external life has been raised up by man's ever active mind and life will, a structure of an unmanageable hugeness and complexity, for the service of his mental, vital, physical claims and urges, a complex political, social, administrative, economic, cultural machinery, an organised collective means for his intellectual, sensational, aesthetic and material satisfaction ...
... latter will be reduced in their action to a state as described by Sri Aurobindo below: "They [the hostile attacks on the outer being] are felt as suggestions, or a touch on the surface mind, vital, physical or as movements in the atmosphere (the personal or the general environmental consciousness) — but for the inner being it is like gusts or storms outside. If they penetrate by chance into the house ...
... still deeper, discover our veiled psychic entity and in its light and under its government psychicise our in-per and outer parts, turn mind-nature, life-nature, body-nature and all our Mental, vital, physical action and states and movements into a conscious instrumentation of the soul. "Afterwards or concurrently we have to spiritualise the being in its entirety by a descent of a divine Light ...
... Ashram - is meant to express the spiritual and not merely the physical, vital, or even the mental being of man; it has, therefore, to found and maintain itself on greater values than the mental, vital, physical values of the ordinary human groupings. If it is not so founded, our Ashram will be merely the normal human collectivity with a cosmetic difference. If we would like to avoid such an eventuality ...
... s, sending upwards much futile or perilous stuff of which the origin remains obscure to us, in dream, in mechanical repetitions of all kinds, in untraceable impulsions and motives, in mental, vital, physical perturbations and upheavals, in dumb automatic necessities of our obscurest parts of nature." (The Life Divine, p. 559) The 'subliminal' proper in us comprises our inner being, that ...
... beyond the limits of the personal mind, the personal life, the body, so that it feels itself more and more a universal being no longer limited by the existing walls of our too narrow mental, vital, physical existence. This widening can extend itself to a complete entry into the consciousness of cosmic Mind, into unity with the universal Life, even into a oneness with universal Matter." 1 ...
... of the Integral Yoga this opening has to be effected along two different directions: an opening inward and an opening upward. In Sri Aurobindo' s words, "an opening inwards of the inner mind, vital, physical to the inmost part of us, the psychic, and an opening upwards to what is above the mind." The necessity of this double opening can be easily understood if we remember that the superficial ...
... But you say that one of the carriages is the psychic. That is not one of the higher planes. The higher planes are the higher mind, illumined, intuitive, overmind, supermind. The psychic, mind, vital, physical belong to the ordinary manifestation. I am afraid my interpretation of the carriage with three horses as the psychic and the triple lower being was not true. It may be ...
... few Christians were jeering at you. Then you made a statement by which the court could fine them. It is a purely vital dream. Of course one can take the Christians as forces of the vital physical nature, which can be converted. Page 223 In a dream I saw the Mother walking with some of us. She asked me, "What is this tree?" I replied, "Peace in the vital." Amongst ...
... the Supermind down into the physical or Matter? And how is it possible to perfect the mind and vital unless the physical is prepared, — for there is such a thing as the mental and vital physical and mind and vital cannot be said to be perfectly prepared until these are ready. Why cannot the Supramental be brought down stage by stage — that is, first into the mind and the ...
... sciatica, does not allow me to do prolonged physical work. That also is tamas. If you throw off the idea of weakness, the strength would come back. But there is always something in the vital physical which is pleased with becoming more Page 51 weak and ill so that it can feel and lament its tragic case. But what about my enlightened inner parts? Why do ...
... are not usually model characters. What is this "overflow of energy" in the great men you spoke of the other day? We usually associate energy with the vital. Mental, vital, physical, all kinds of energies. Because great men have an overflow of energy, does the Divine never care if they use it in virtues or in vices? Why should he care? Is he a ...
... more easily in samadhi? I think one reason is that in samadhi our central consciousness gets separated from the mind no less than from the body. In samadhi it is the inner mental, vital, physical which are separated from the outer, no longer covered by it - therefore they can freely have inner experiences. The outer mind is either quiescent or in some way reflects or shares the experience ...
... generally are not so disturbed because they deliberately eliminate from their mind any idea of physical sex contacts. They don't; but they don't want to face the dangers or the consequences of the vital physical impulse which they have to bear for the most part. Also their vitals are satisfied more easily by simple vital exchanges, e.g. walking, talking, at most holding hands. That is true of ...
... forms and manifested in them. We perceive that he had not only the vision of this and the joy and peace and universality which its presence brings, but the very sense of it, mental, aesthetic, vital, physical; not only this sense and vision of it in its own being but in the nearest flower and simplest man and the immobile rock; and, finally, that he even occasionally attained to that unity, that becoming ...
... can act directly, it usually acts through the inner being that is just behind the outer. Is there any substance in my statement? It is correct as a distinction between the true mental, vital, physical beings and the outer layers of the inner mind, vital and physical. The inner parts in everybody remain vulgar or become high according as they are turned to the outward forces of the ...
... unless you have become separated from the mind. How to "become separated from the mind"? Page 214 You have to feel yourself even in the mental, vital, physical levels (not only above) a consciousness that is neither mind, life nor body. Up to the last year the Mother's Force had to continue its pressure on my lower nature to change ...
... partake in matters of sex? Page 59 By desire, joy, personal attraction, passion and in many other ways. When one becomes more and more aware of the vital-physical, is sexual sensitivity a necessary stage in the sadhana? No — but since it has come, you have to face it and get rid of the sexuality. I see a lot of imaginations ...
... fortified so that there shall be no disturbance even there. Page 182 Regarding the "struggles" and the feelings of "helplessness" it was true that my physical and vital physical felt them. But while reporting about them to you I ought to have clarified that they were not the feelings of my true self. Yes, that is best so as to keep the sense of separateness ...
... stormy sea but never submerged by it. What part of my being responds to the difficulty? As I have written there must be something in your consciousness (probably the vital physical) in which these things can still find a response, otherwise they could be felt but they would not stop all sadhana. The thing you can do is not to remain passive, to refuse to identify ...
... which is the field of outward impulsion and drive, the push towards physical act and execution. Last, the physical too has the same threefold knots, first in the mental physical, second in the vital physical and thirdly in the physical physical, that is, the physical proper. The mind in the physical is the purely brain operation, the primitive original percepts that brain-cells emanate. The vital in ...
... alone which has a direct effect on the physical body, not visions and experiences, etc., — all that belongs to the mental or rather to the vital, you understand? The visions, etc. belong to the vital-physical or the mental-physical plane and have a somewhat subtle and vague effect and are not so direct. They come and pass and leave a small imprint and that’s all; whereas the vibrations work for concrete ...
... obstruction. The physical does not get tired of the blankness. It may feel tamasic because of its own tendency to inertia, but it does not usually object to voidness. Of course it may be the vital physical—you have only to reject it as a remnant of the old movements. I could not understand this — "peace we must have, but not the peace of a devastated nature or a mutilated capacity incapable ...
... body. CHAMPAKLAL: He says it is the Mother's Force. SRI AUROBINDO: Why shouldn't it be? NIRODBARAN: You said vital force. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, force acting through the vital. It is the vital-physical force; being nearer the physical it has a more powerful effect in such cases. One can cure by mental power also, but that requires more power of concentration. PURANI ( smiling, from behind ...
... student, a classmate of Satyen Bose. SRI AUROBINDO: Which Satyen Bose? NIRODBARAN: Dilip's friend, the scientist. I think it is your terminology that he finds difficult to grasp—mental, vital, physical. SRI AUROBINDO: It is a demarcation which is not rigidly fixed. Each overflows into the others. In man, all are differentiated aspects or states of the mental consciousness in general. EVENING ...
... movements to Her—its ideas and thoughts, its desires and yearnings and its reactions to the impacts of outer life. This will be a detailed and dynamic surrender on the part of the physical mind and the vital-physical part. For instance, I am told that you had not asked the Mother to grant you an interview on the eve of your departure from here. Your physical mind drew back from this self-offering, thinking ...
... rhythmic 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 ...
... the importance of the material mould, the indispensability of action, a proper care of the body, a regulated exercise of the life-energies, and a vigilant and sacrificial harnessing of the whole vital-physical nature to the Light that contemplation bestows upon us. Any want of balance between contemplation and action, between the inspiring and directing Light and the expressive and actualising Life will ...
... from where we can unite the consciousness of these divine worlds, synthesise them and act simultaneously and in full knowledge in all the domains”¹. What the Mother means here is that the vital-physical and the gross physical consciousness of man must also awake to the constant perception of Sat-Chit-Ananda, as his inner and subtler consciousness does on the spiritual planes, where the perception ...
... teaches a dynamic and integral surrender to the Divine through Yogic action, which is the most effective means of purifying and transforming the active surface nature of man, especially the vital-physical. Since the aim of her Yoga is no mere purification but a radical transfiguration of the integral being of man, she insists on detailed surrender, surrender of each thought and feeling and action ...
... the elemental soul-power". To Sri Aurobindo, "much of it seems to be mere flat objectivity, or, what is worse, an exaggerated—emphatic objectivity; emotion seems often to be replaced by intensive vital-physical sensation of the object.... Not only that there are no boundaries left in some arts—like poetry of ultra-modem school—but no foundation or no art either.... Obscurity and unintelligibility are ...
... then they slowly begin to rise or draw nearer, most often unseen, and when he is quite off his guard, surge up suddenly or make a sudden irruption. That continues until the whole nature, mental, vital, physical down to the very subconscient is enlightened, conscious, full of the Divine. Till that happens one must always remain watchful in a sleepless vigilance.” (26.5.32) Many things, which ...
... can in due time be overcome. As for the feelings about the Mother and that her love is only given for a return in work to those who can do sadhana well, that is the usual senseless idea of the vital-physical mind and has no value.... I hope you will be all right soon. If the body does not right itself, you must keep me informed from time to time. (17.1.37) (1b) Try to keep yourself open ...
... then what would you say? SRI AUROBINDO: It is better to be careful in the matter of food etc.; as in the stage through which your sadhana is passing there is a considerable sensitiveness in the vital physical part of the being and it may be easily disturbed by a wrong impact or a wrong movement like overfeeding. MYSELF: Mother, when К was overtaken by an attack of depression, I saw distinctly that ...
... with me. However, eventually I rejected it after a regular tussle! And the light came, thanks to your Grace. SRI AUROBINDO: It is always a mistake to conceal. That was the tamasic ego in the vital physical — a resistance of inertia which comes when the rajasic is disappointed. (7.11.33) ...
... confidence 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 ...
... life or the sum of their motives upon the vital and physical nature, to be satisfied with a partial domination or a compromise, so it is possible to superimpose the spiritual life or some figure of strength or ascendency of spiritual ideas and motives on the mental, vital and physical nature and either to impoverish the latter, to impoverish the vital and physical existence and even to depress the mental... 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,—checked, not... for it this lower reality of our sensational, vital and physical nature. This upward transference of our will to be and our power of life we have, then, to make the very principle of our perfection. That will, that power must choose between the domination of the vital part in us and the domination of the spirit. Nature can rest in the round of vital being, can produce there a sort of perfection ...
... not everywhere coincide, and in most cases the former has been overridden by the latter and always on the same physical and vital grounds—grounds of geographical, economic, political and military necessity or convenience. In the conflict between the two, force, as in all vital and physical struggle, must always be the final arbiter. But the new principle proposed, 2 that of the right of every natural... its own separateness to choose its own status and partnerships, makes a clean sweep of these vital and physical grounds and substitutes a purely psychological principle of free-will and free choice as against Page 534 the claims of political and economic necessity. Or rather the vital and physical grounds of grouping are only to be held valid when they receive this psychological sanction... hitherto has rested on an almost entirely physical and vital, that is to say, a geographical, commercial, political and military basis. Both the nation idea and the State idea have been built and have worked on this foundation. The first unity aimed at has been a geographical, commercial, political and military union, and in establishing this unity the earlier vital principle of race on which the clan and ...
... Letters of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother Champaklal's Treasures - Edition-II Categories of Love 1) Is human love the combination of the mental, vital and physical loves or the predominance of one or another? And does it depend upon the largeness, purity and harmony of the nature that this love can take an unselfish, noble and pure form and expression?... aspiration and opening towards the Divine, is it not absolutely necessary in order to be free from all ties and bondage, not to allow this human love and relation to grow? Human love is mostly vital and physical with a mental support. It can take an unselfish, noble and pure form and expression only if it is touched by the psychic. It is true, as you say, that it is more usually a mixture of ignorance... part of itself and the love of the seeker and love for the Divine Beloved; it has both a personal and impersonal element, but the personal is free here from all lower elements or bondage to the vital and physical instincts. 5) As a definition can it be said that the personal sense is that which affects the little human egocentric 'I' and all the consequence of its self-will, habits and notions and ...
... and in action. When it acts the movements of the mind, vital or physical accept the psychic motives or aims, partake of the nature of the psychic or follow its aims but with a modification in the manner which belongs to the mind, vital or physical. The psychic-vital seeks after the Divine, but it has a demand in its self-giving, desire, vital eagerness. The psychic has not, for the psychic has instead... Psychic Being The Psychic Being Psychic-Mental, Psychic-Vital, Psychic-Physical There is always a part of the mind, of the vital, of the body which is or can be influenced by the psychic; they can be called the psychic-mental, the psychic-vital, the psychic-physical. According to the personality or the degree of evolution of each person, this part can be small... soul, the soul's urge —it only takes a form or colour due to the stress of the mind or vital nature. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - II: The Call and the Capacity Sweet Mother, here Sri Aurobindo has said: "If the inmost soul is awakened, if there is a new birth out of the mere mental, vital and physical into the psychic consciousness, then this Yoga can be done...". Why has he said "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 is to him his central... the mind, vital and physical—it is the psychic, our inmost being. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: The Jivatman in the Integral Yoga The true inner being—the true mental, the true vital, the true physical represent each on its plane and answer to the central being, but the whole of the nature and especially the outer nature does not nor the ordinary mental, vital or physical personality ...
... planes. Mind, vital and physical are inextricably mixed together only on the surface consciousness — the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical are separate from each other. Those who seek the self by the old Yogas separate themselves from mind, life and body and realise the self of it from these things. It is perfectly easy to separate mind, vital and physical from each other without the... not evidently absurd on the face of it? Is it not a fact that the mind, vital and physical are integrally woven into each other and that to separate them and put each one in its proper place is no easy task. When the mind alone is realising the self, the vital and physical will constantly try to disturb it. (One cannot do this realisation in all these beings together... man is spiritual and has gone beyond the vital and mind, he does not need to be always "doing" something. The self or spirit has the joy of its own existence. It is free to do nothing and free to do everything — but not because it is bound to action and unable to exist without it. By my question, "What does he do?" I did not mean any physical or mental action. Rather I wanted to know ...
... 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, aim and conduct, of aesthetic sensibility and creativeness, of emotional balanced poise and enjoyment, of vital and physical soundness, regulated action... the 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... a preliminary conversion can be effected; it amounts to a greater or less spiritualising of our mental motives, our character and temperament, and a mastery, stilling or changed action of the vital and physical life. This converted subjectivity can be made the base of some communion or unity of the soul in mind with the Divine and some partial reflection of the divine nature in the mentality of the ...
... nature, the inner being (inner mind, inner vital, inner physical) of which you were not yet aware, but which must also open in time. It is this that has happened in your last experience. What you felt as a part of you, yourself but not your physical self, rising to meet the higher consciousness above, was this inner being; it was your (inner) higher vital being which rose in that way to join the highest... the silent Self above — free, wide, without limits, pure, untroubled by the mental, vital and physical movements, empty of ego and limited personality — this is what you have described in your letter. Secondly, the Divine Power descends through this silence and freedom of the self and begins to work in the Adhar. This is what you felt as a pressure; it’s coming through the top of the head, the forehead... you can ask Nolini to explain to you about them. Thirdly, by this working inner parts of the being are opened and freed; you are liberated from the limitations of the ordinary personal mind, vital, and physical and become aware of a wider consciousness in which you can be more capable of the needed transformation. But that is necessarily a matter of time and long working and you are only taking the ...
... your central consciousness. But there was the outer mind, vital and physical that brought in their mixture of desire and ego and there could be no effective liberation in life and action till these were liberated. The thinking mind and higher vital can accept without too much difficulty, but the difficulty is with the lower vital and physical and especially with the most external parts of them, for ...
... mind, vital nor physical, but something else. What was that experience? What experience? The separation from mind, physical and vital? That is the separate Purusha consciousness. The Purusha separated from the instruments can control them — when there is an identification, he cannot. Now I am attempting to save myself from the identification with mind, vital and... distinct answer from the Purusha? The Purusha does not talk. It is a movement of consciousness— a movement of consent or refusal. Has not each of our beings — mental, vital and physical—its own Purusha, which observes all the movements without identifying itself with them and is quite indifferent and impersonal? By itself the Purusha is impersonal, but by mixing... is the witness. There was a vital disturbance. I know quite well of its irrational character and yet cannot get out of it. This is my normal defect and weakness. But this time somehow I tried to persevere in coming out of the disturbance. After some time, my consciousness entered a state where it could not only detach itself from the vital and its revolt but force it to throw away its ...
... higher consciousness reaches down to the heart (emotional being with the psychic behind it), but does not yet reach below in the lower vital and physical—but it is dissolving the knot in the heart centre which prevents the descent into the lower vital and physical centres. The joy in the śānta svarūpa is indeed a sign of the release of the heart centre. But the phrase in the Upanishads refers more... consciousness lit by the Truth. To enter into the rays is to be no longer merely lit by it, but in one's own conscious being to begin to become part of the Truth. A sea in tumult usually indicates a vital upheaval or a period of strain and stress and struggle. The blue ocean is often a symbol of the spiritual consciousness in higher Mind one and indivisible. Normally, the ocean of higher... what plane of consciousness you are living in; it is by an observation of your condition. Sometimes a part of the consciousness is seen in the image of a pond, lake or sea. The fish must be the vital mind. The lake is the being in its individual consciousness, the sea is the same being with a universalised consciousness which can hold the universe and its cosmic forces in itself—the one ...
... this field there is conflict between the soul and the vital nature, between the Divine Attraction and the pull of the Ignorance, then obviously there may be much suffering of the mind and vital parts. The physical consciousness also may offer a resistance which is usually that of a fundamental inertia, an obscurity in the very stuff of the physical, an incomprehension, an inability to respond to the... calm, equality, a spirit, a will, a mind, a vital, a physical consciousness that remain resolutely turned towards the Divine and unshaken by all suggestion of doubt, desire, attachment, depression, sorrow, pain, inertia. This is possible when the inner being awakens, when one becomes conscious of the Self, of the inner Mind, the inner Vital, the inner Physical, for that can more easily attune itself to... even when it does not want to do so; both vital and physical suffering may be the consequence. There is, moreover, the resistance of the Universal Nature which does not want the being to escape from the Ignorance into the Light. This may take the form of a vehement insistence in the continuation of the old movements, waves of them thrown on the mind and vital and body so that old ideas, impulses, desires ...
... the animal line it is the vital and physical that have been developing -- for the human to begin, is it not necessary that there should be the descent of a mental being to take up the vital and physical evolution? And may it not well be that the mental beings who descend are not all of the same power and stature and, besides, do not take up equally developed vital and physical consciousness-material? ...
... the animal line it is the vital and physical that have been developing—for the human to begin is it not necessary that there should be the descent of a mental being to take up the vital and physical evolution? And may it not well be that the mental beings who descend are not all of the same power and stature and, besides, do not take up equally developed vital and physical consciousness-material? There... lives. This hereditary part has to be got rid of and replaced by the true individuality spreading itself to the whole external nature. A very big stamp in most cases 1 —it is in the physical vital and physical material that the stamp chiefly exists—and it is increased by education and upbringing. Page 521 There is always a hereditary part of the nature which is a large portion... ancestors (not only father and mother but all the ancestors), partly of what they bring with them. The part they get from the ancestors is called hereditary—it is part (not the whole) of the physical and lower vital consciousness, sometimes a little of the external mind also—it is a small portion of the external being, but although small, it is sometimes very persistent and active. The rest of the being ...
... desires 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 physical being was opened up, and the mental, vital and physical obstacles sufficiently... attempt to open up the mind and the other parts. But owing to certain influences their resistancebecame strong enough to bring things to a standstill. Doubt and non-understanding in the mind and the vital attachments of which this one to your son is the strongest were the main instruments of this resistance. It is no use coming back with any of these things still cherished and supported by your mind ...
... desires 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... in the mind and the vital attachments of which this one to your son is the strongest, were the main instruments of this resistance. It is no use coming back with any of these things 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 ...
... 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 and individualising the outer consciousness and action. When the true... involved in them is a means of liberation. The calm, the detachment, a peaceful strength and joy ( ā tmarati) must be brought down into the vital and physical as well as into the mind. If this is established, one is no longer a prey to the turmoil of the vital forces. But this calm, peace, silent strength and joy is only the first descent of the Power of the Mother into the Adhar. Beyond that is a... 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 ...
... being is in direct touch with the divine Truth, but it is hidden in man by the mind, the vital being and the physical nature. One may practise yoga and get illuminations in the mind and the reason; one may conquer power and luxuriate in all kinds of experiences in the vital; one may establish even surprising physical Siddhis; but if the true soul-power behind does not manifest, if the psychic nature does... static liberation or Nirvana; but the supramental cannot find a sufficient base in a spiritualised mind alone. If the inmost soul is awakened, if there is a new birth out of the mere mental, vital and physical into the psychic consciousness, then this yoga can be done; otherwise (by the sole power of the mind or any other part) it is impossible. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - III: The Psychic... the psychic does so, it will show you the "undetected ego-knots" of which you speak and loosen them or burn them in the psychic fire. This psychic development and the psychic change of mind, vital and physical consciousness is of the utmost importance because it makes safe and easy the descent of the higher consciousness and the spiritual transformation without which the supramental must always remain ...
... it is prevented from filling up the whole vital and physical consciousness by the old habitual movements that return upon the lower vital and physical and by the assent some part of the mind, when it is obscured, gives to these movements. Do not allow your mind to give this assent, and do not allow any demand to rise in your vital, for it is usually some vital demand or disappointment of demand that... that is the occasion for these returns. The whole mental, vital and physical consciousness will then begin to be filled with the permanent relation which is natural to the psychic part of you. There would then be no serious difficulty or disturbing struggle. 26 April 1932 Throughout the day my vital has wept. It feels that the Mother is unsympathetic to it and laments that it is deprived of her... and in front? Can the Mother now deal with me without any consideration of upsetting my nature parts? If your psychic is in front and active, i.e. busy changing and controlling the mind, vital and physical, how is it that there is an upsetting of your nature by the Mother's dealings with you? If the psychic is in front and active, it would immediately tell any part of the nature that wanted to ...
... Money is the visible sign of a universal force, and this force in its manifestation on earth works on the vital and physical planes and is indispensable to the fullness of the outer life. In its origin and its true action it belongs to the Divine. But like other powers of the Divine it is delegated here and in the... divine Ananda. In the supramental creation the money-force has to be restored to the Divine Power and used for a true and beautiful and harmonious equipment and ordering of a new divinised vital and physical existence in whatever way the Divine Mother herself decides in her creative vision. But first it must be conquered back for her and those will be strongest for the conquest who are in this part ...
... side. Similar is the case with a vital will or a physico-vital will: these are more effective apparently but always in a narrow field; the narrower the field, the greater the possibility of the effectiveness. Moreover, a mental will affects chiefly the mental field, a vital will is directly operative in the vital world, even as a physical force is effective on physical things: each is largely confined... nature and outside circumstances too. The orthodox name for this endeavour is spiritual discipline or Yoga. On lower levels, a conscious will made up of a compound energy of the mental and vital and physical will, when in sufficient proportions, has considerable effective force: great men of action have this distinction. Even then, however, . theirs is not that type which is absolute or never-failing... average men there are many who are called men of will, they are not entirely submerged in Nature's current, but endeavour to have their own way even against that current. Their psycho-vital, aided often by their physical ¹ Bh ramayan sarvabhutani yantrarudhani mayaya–XVIII.61 Page 157 consciousness, has an independent formation, being a strong centre of self-driven force, and ...
... is the case with a vital will or a physico-vital will: these are more effective apparently but always in a narrow field; the narrower the field, the greater the possibility of the effectiveness. Moreover a mental will affects chiefly the mental field, a vital will is directly operative Page 62 in the vital world,- even as a physical force is effective on physical things: each is largely... nature and outside circumstances too. The orthodox name for this endeavour is spiritual discipline or Yoga. On lower levels, a conscious will made up of a compound energy of the mental and vital and physical will, when in sufficient proportions, has considerable effective force: great men of action have this distinction. Even then, however, theirs is not that type which is absolute or never-failing... average men there are many who are called men of will, they are not entirely submerged in Nature's current, but endeavour to have their own way even against that current. Their psycho-vital, aided often by their physical consciousness, has an independent formation, being a strong centre of self-driven force, and can impress upon the outer Nature and circumstances its own pattern and disposition. Naturally ...
... has to act in and through this world of the vital and physical energy and to consent to and make something of the lines of the vital and physical Karma. Man, then, since he is a mental being, a means of the evolution of the mental self-expression of the spirit, cannot confine the rule of his action and nature to an obedience to the vital and physical law and an intelligent utilisation of it for... willing and feeling result of the mechanism of the physical or an understanding nexus of the vital forces. There is a mental energy of his being that overtops, pervades and utilises the terrestrial action and his own terrestrial nature. This character of man's being prevents us from resting satisfied with the vitalistic law of Karma: the lines of the vital energy are interfered with and uplifted and altered... 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 replace them by willed and intelligent restraints ...
... NIRODBARAN: The distinction is still not very clear. SRI AUROBINDO: In the usual experience, it is one's habitual consciousness that rises: it may be any part of the being, the mental, vital or physical, that goes up to the higher planes above the mind and stays there for a time; some organisation takes place and then the consciousness comes down with some result. In the ascent and descent about... NIRODBARAN: I thought it was through the head alone that both happen. SRI AUROBINDO: It is usually through the mind, when the mental consciousness goes up, but it can happen otherwise also, the vital or physical consciousness directly going up without passing through the mental. NIRODBARAN: Sahana's experience of ascent and her feeling of nothingness and then her return with the sense of a flame in... the same it is a major ascent into the spiritual consciousness. SATYENDRA: I had also the experience of ascent through the Muladhara Chakra before doing any Yoga. SRI AUROBINDO: That is the physical consciousness ascending. NIRODBARAN: It would be nice to have this experience of ascent and descent. SRI AUROBINDO: Remove that "cornice"! PURANI: One Pradhan, an M.L.C. of Bombay, has written ...
... psychic being. The soul in direct touch with the divine Truth is hidden in man by the mind, the vital being and the physical nature ( manas, prāṇa, anna of the Taittiriya Upanishad); one may practise Yoga and get illuminations in the mind and the reason, power and all kinds of experiences in the vital, even physical siddhis, but if the true soul-power behind and the psychic nature do not come into the front... psychic being is that which opens the rest of the nature to the true supramental light and finally to the supreme Ananda. If the soul is awakened, if there is a new birth out of the mere mental, vital and physical into the psychic consciousness, then the Yoga can be done; otherwise (by the mere power of the mind or any other part) it is impossible. It is this new birth, this awakening of the psychic c... after pranam there were some vital dissatisfactions. But they have a great effect on the heart which has now begun to open to the Mother. Get rid of these dissatisfactions, they prevent the permanent psychic opening. 29 September 1934 The heart is beginning to open to the Mother, but it is still easily touched by lower vital suggestions. That is probably why the vital is not always happy with ...
... child's play for them. And above that, they will move about as if they have no work at all and give you pieces of embroidery as they are doing now. Let them come definitively out of all mental, vital and physical troubles and then it will be possible. 5 June 1936 ...
... 1935 My dear Mother, To me it appears that all troubles start from unconsciousness. Desire is the first-born child of this unconsciousness and it can manifest in any form, mental, vital or physical. What you say here is quite true. Peace is the base of all Sadhana, and it must pervade all the being. This also is true. My love and blessings are always with you in the certitude ...
... the physical mind standing in the way when the experience was not possible? 2) Is it not that after a course of purification and liberation of the physical consciousness that this intimacy and union were made possible? A. There was something in the vital also (which was standing in the way of union). 2) Some purification perhaps of something that acts between the vital and physical con ...
... not straightforward cannot profit by the Mother 's help, for they themselves turn it away. Unless they change, they cannot hope for the descent of the Supramental Light and Truth into the lower vital and physical nature; they remain stuck in their own self-created mud and cannot progress. ...
... Supramental Force which was working uptill now but a preparatory force that carried in it a modified light derived from the Supramental. The direct Force can begin working only when the mind, vital and physical are sufficiently ready. Sri Aurobindo ... Pilgrimage to the Spirit March 4, 1932 I have repeatedly said recently that we are trying against great difficulties to bring down the Supramental into the physical plane. If the Supramental were already there, the body divinized, matter transformed, there would be no difficulty and no need of the endeavour. I would recall to you what I said in my letter to ...
... is hardly possible in a few words. It depends, so Sri Aurobindo tells you something in a general way. Bonds of union between man and woman are generally of three kinds. The first is the vital and the physical bond. This is very common and ninety nine out of every hundred marriages result in this type of union. This is the only possible bond among men and women of ordinary type and there is absolutely... man a psychic woman alone can be his real partner of life. She alone can help him to fulfil himself and add to his power and Ananda. A wrong choice for him spells a setback, and even ruin. A vital and physical union with a lower type of woman may blunt his aspirations and even wreck his life according as the woman is. This psychic union is very rare in the world and is so difficult to find — especially... If one's ideal is to renounce the world, he has to avoid woman, she being like wealth and ambition, one of the great forces in Nature which drag down man's consciousness to the lower planes of vital and physical desires. Ramakrishna's insistence on renouncing woman was from a moral and ascetic standpoint. You can very well see that Sri Aurobindo does not tell you anything from this ascetic or moral point ...
... into the mental, vital and physical planes from above, by the power of a supramental Light and Force acting through the higher illumined mind and the psychic being. For that purpose she was calling down beings of a higher plane (like the one of which you speak) as an indispensable aid in that process. All went on well enough so long as the work was on the mental, psychic and higher vital levels. But as... as soon as it began in the lower vital, it appeared at once that the lower vital and physical nature of human beings (at least of those here) was too small, obscure and full of rebellious impurities to admit of so great a working. One after another failed in the test and you were among the first to fall. The creation had to be postponed, the process changed, and, instead of doing all from above, it... consciousness. It was she who ushered us into our present house running before us into each room. The change to this house marked the change from the sadhana on the vital to the sadhana on the physical level. 1 7 July 1936 Bringing Down the Powers of Transformation Once X said about Y that the Mother had said that she was a "Vedic Goddess"—that is, Saraswati or another. I never heard of ...
... 3 April 1957 " All would change if man could once consent to be spiritualised; but his nature, mental and vital and physical, is rebellious to the higher law. He loves his imperfection. " The Spirit is the truth of our being; mind and life and body in their imperfection are its masks, but in their perfection should... the Page 78 entire problem not only for the individual but also for the collectivity: "All would change if man could once consent to be spiritualised; but his nature, mental and vital and physical, is rebellious to the higher law. He loves his imperfection." I would like us to take this as the subject of our meditation. ( Meditation ) Page 79 ... correspondence, a faultless work would be done; but the mind and body of mankind cannot hold perfectly a strong spiritual inrush: most is spilt, much of the rest is corrupted. Many intellectual and physical upturnings of our soil are needed to work out a little result from a large spiritual sowing. " Each religion has helped mankind. Paganism increased in man the light of beauty, the largeness and ...
... To Spiritual Connection and Openness ###April 25, 1932 Yes, the connection is always there in the self and the psychic; but if there are obstacles in the mind, vital and physical, then, the connection cannot be manifest or, if at all manifest, it is mixed with elements which make it imperfect and unstable. The true connection is the psychic and spiritual relation; the ...
... psychic but of the mental, vital and physical Purushas, has to be grasped and accepted before the experiences of the Yoga can be fully understood. The Being is one throughout, but on each plane of Nature, it is represented by a form of itself which is proper to that plane, the mental Purusha in the mental plane, the vital Purusha in the vital, the physical Purusha in the physical. The Taittiriya Upanishad... out what has to be worked out till all is ready for a higher working. The Cosmic Spirit contains the Supermind, but it keeps it above and works for the present between the Overmind and the physical. It is only when the Ignorance is removed that the Supra mental becomes directly a dynamic part of the workings of cosmic Nature here. Till then there are only reflections of it. The Self is... as either universal, one in all, or a universalised individual the same in essence as others, extended everywhere from each being but centred here. Of course centre is a way of speaking, because no physical centre is usually felt—only all the action takes place around the individual. All is in the self; when identified with the universal self, all is in you. Also, the microcosm reproduces the ...
... there, I should have looked up, as there is a road going straight up. I wrote this dream yesterday, but it came earlier. What does it mean? It is a symbol of the difficult seeking in the mind, vital and physical which one goes through until one looks up to the higher consciousness and follows the way of the Mother's white light—then the road becomes straight and luminous. 19.3.1935 Sri Aurobindo ...
... implored Thy manifestation invoking Thee with deep fervour. Then, as always, the whole being made its total submission. At that moment the consciousness perceived the individual being mental, vital and physical, covered all over with dust and this being lay prostrate before Thee, its forehead touching the earth, dust in the dust, and it cried to Thee, "O Lord, this being made of dust prostrates itself ...
... implored Thy manifestation invoking Thee with deep fervour. Then, as always, the whole being made its total submission. At that moment the consciousness perceived the individual being mental, vital and physical, covered all over with dust, and this being lay prostrate before Thee, its forehead touching the earth, dust in the dust, and it cried to Thee, "O Lord, this being made of dust prostrates itself ...
... between the supramental and the human consciousness is made, it is the psychic being that gives the readiest response—more ready than the mind, the vital or the physical. It may be added that it is also a purer response; the mind, vital and physical can allow other things to mix with their reception of the supramental influence and spoil its truth. The psychic is pure in its response and allows no ...
... (1) The inmost psychic being which is now awakened in you. (2) The external being which you feel doing work while the inner (psychic) is in union with the Mother. (3) The inner mental, vital and physical consciousness which connects the two, but of which you are not as yet conscious. (9.4.31) × until my. ...
... looked up, as there is a straight road going right up. I wrote this dream yesterday, but, it came earlier. What does it mean? It is a symbol of the difficult seeking in the mind, vital and physical which one goes through until one looks up to the higher consciousness and follows the way of the Mother's white light; then the road becomes straight and luminous. Sri Aurobindo ...
... questions or to letters, and only as much is circulated as is considered apposite or of general interest or use from the point of view of sadhana. These movements obviously belong to the lower vital and physical consciousness. It is the petty love of gossip and the pleasure in small talk and scandal and fault-finding and the rest that are responsible. These are activities that, I believe, are generally ...
... maintaining and directing all the movements and workings of the universe. This universal Power is apparent to us first on the lower levels of existence as a mental, vital and material cosmic energy of which all our mental, vital and physical activities are the operations. It is necessary for our sadhana that we should thoroughly realise this truth in order to escape from the pressure of the limiting ego... Shakti working in the form of the lower Prakriti on the inferior levels of the conscious being, helps powerfully towards this change. And if we can do this, then the separation of our mental, vital and physical consciousness from that of other beings thins and lessens; the limitations of its workings remain indeed, but they are broadened and taken up into a large sense and vision of the universal working;... possessed by it, to be one with it in the sense and action of the whole nature. But at first while we still live in the mind, there is a gulf of division or else a double action. The mental, vital and physical energy in us and the universe is felt to be a derivation from the supreme Shakti, but at the same time an inferior, separated and in some sense another working. The real spiritual force may send ...
... world only; you know nothing of the vital or physical context of the object. Thought is conscious of thought only in the mental world; by your thought you can be conscious of the mental atmosphere of the distant object, of the thought of the person to whom you go, but nothing else, absolutely nothing of his vital or physical. If you want to know of the vital you must go to the object vitally; it... it means an exteriorisation that leaves the body at least three-fourths in trance. And if you want to see things physically you will have to go out in your most material subtle physical; that leaves the body in an entirely cataleptic condition. These things cannot be done without there being someone by your side who has the right knowledge and who can protect you. But the mental exteriorisation happens... to the psychic world, then thinking of him is not sufficient; you must know how to go into the psychic world and meet him there. The mind has its own power of vision; it is not the vision of the physical eyes, but it is yet vision, perception through forms. It is not imagination which is a quite different faculty. Suppose you figure to yourself an ideal being to whom you attribute all conceptions ...
... to the physical and below before a real and total transformation can take place. A light in the mind may spiritualise or otherwise change the mind or part of it in one way or another, but it need not change the vital nature; a light in the vital may purify and enlarge the vital movements or else silence and immobilise the vital being, but leave the body Page 398 and the physical consciousness... planes. Mind, vital and physical are inextricably mixed together only in the surface consciousness—the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical are separate from each other. Those who seek Page 404 the self by the old Yogas separate themselves from mind, life and body and realise the self apart from these things. It is perfectly easy to separate mind, vital and physical from each other... levels of Nature and on the ordinary mental, vital and physical levels down to the subconscience and the basic Inconscience and up to the supreme Truth-consciousness or Supermind in which alone the dynamic transformation could be entirely integral and absolute. The Attempt at Physical Transformation Sri Krishna never set out to arrive at any physical transformation, so anything of the kind could ...
... sense of the words seems to indicate, a rhythm that means even more than the language and is born out of the Infinite and disappears into it, and the power to convey not merely the mental, vital or physical contents or indications or values of the thing uttered, but its significance and figure in some fundamental and original consciousness which is behind all these and greater. The passages you... properly a cosmic consciousness, even the very base of the cosmic as we perceive, understand or feel it. It stands behind every particular in the cosmos and is the source of all our mental, vital or physical actualities and possibilities which are diminished and degraded derivations and variations from it and have not, except in certain formations and activities of genius and some intense self ...
... world only; you know nothing of the vital or physical context of the object. Thought is conscious of thought only in the mental world; by your thought you can be conscious of the mental atmosphere of the distant object, of the thought of the person to whom you go, but nothing else, absolutely nothing of his vital or physical. If you want to know of the vital you must go to the object vitally;... vitally; it means an exteriorisation that leaves the body at least three-fourths in trance. And if you want to see things physically, you will have to go out in your most material subtle physical; that leaves the body in an entirely catalyptic condition. These things cannot be done without someone by your side who has the right knowledge and who can protect you. But the mental exteriorisation happens... the psychic world, then thinking of him is not sufficient; you must know how to go into the psychic world and meet him there. The mind has its own power of vision; it is not the vision of the physical eyes, but it is yet vision, perception through forms. It is not imagination which is a quite different faculty. Suppose you figure to yourself an ideal being to whom you attribute all conceptions ...
... to mount up, leaving behind the mental, the vital and physical existence and go beyond. Usually when one seeks Sachchidananda one looks for it outside the universe, above and beyond the creation, in the transcendent. In reality, however, one can meet it from any place where one happens to be, either in the mind or in the vital or even in the physical; one has only to withdraw and sink down, or... or get behind: it is there always. To meet Sachchidananda in and through the physical existence is not very much more difficult or rare a thing than the Page 111 other ways; it is more difficult and rare to maintain it there constantly and consciously, to make of it a dynamic physical possession. That is the work to be done and for which Sri Aurobindo came. Page 112 ...
... consciousness goes down from that condition, it brings something of it into the vital and physical consciousness and the result is either that these parts or at least Page 425 the vital open and get into touch with what has been brought down. The inert tāmasikatā or the unease in the legs comes because the physical is not able to receive or assimilate. This will disappear when that part opens... impeded in the physical and the mind and vital. Rising higher and higher and bringing down is the method of Page 424 the Yoga; but it is not possible to do it with full effect until one has so prepared oneself that one can rise above the head to the Self in the higher mind. It was the point you had reached but could not confirm before the difficulties came in from the physical consciousness... higher, spiritual or divine consciousness and energy into the whole system down to the bottom of the spine where is the Muladhara or centre of the physical consciousness. The Energy descends through all the levels and centres, mind centres, vital centres, physical centre and fills the whole body with the higher existence and consciousness. The ascent is the liberation (mukti) and when once this ascends, ...
... realises the self, the vital and physical will constantly disturb it. A separation will become necessary. But can they be separated without the help of the supramental planes? There are many planes above man's mind—the supramental is not the only one, and on all of them the self can be realised,—for they are all spiritual planes. Page 304 Mind, vital and physical are inextricably mixed... mixed together only in the surface consciousness—the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical are separate from each other. Those who seek the self by the old Yogas separate themselves from mind, life and body and realise the self apart from these things. It is perfectly easy to separate mind, vital and physical from each other without the need of supermind. It is done by the ordinary Yogas. The difference... You write, "It is perfectly easy to separate mind, vital and physical from each other without the need of supermind" [ p. 305 ]. But you should have seen that by "supramental planes" I did not mean supermind, but any of the spiritual planes above the mind. Is there no need of the higher spiritual planes for separating the mind, vital and physical from one another? Spiritual and supramental are ...
... Aphorism - 60 60—There is no mortality. It is only the Immortal who can die; the mortal could neither be born nor perish. Page 96 Does a being carry his mental, vital and physical experiences from one life to another? Each case is different. It all depends on the degree of the individual's development in his different parts and on how well these parts are organised ...
... necessary to mount up, leaving behind the mental, the vital and physical existence and go beyond. Usually when one seeks Sachchidananda one looks for it outside the universe, above and beyond the creation, in the transcendent. In reality, however, one can meet it from any place where one happens to be, either in the mind or in the vital or even in the physical; one has only to withdraw and sink down, or get... get behind: it is there always. To meet Sachchidananda in and through the physical existence is not very much more difficult or rare a thing than the other ways; it is more difficult and rare to maintain it there constantly and consciously, to make of it a dynamic physical possession. That is the work to be done and for which Sri Aurobindo came. Page 290 ...
... organised in the physical formula. In proportion as he ascends he does indeed rise above the physical and vital into the higher mental lines of Karma, but he cannot leave them entirely behind him. The saint, the intellectual man, scientist, thinker or creator, the seeker after beauty, the seeker after any mental absolute is not that alone; he is also, even if less exclusively than others, the vital and physical... spiritual and to vitalise the spiritual is to degrade it. He has never yet spiritualised the body, at most he has minimised the physical by a spiritual refusal and abstinence or brought down some mental and vital powers mistaken for spiritual into his physical force and physical frame. More has not been done in the human past so far as we can discover, or if anything greater was done it was a transitory... creative Infinite; it is the long and multiform way of the progression of the individual and the cosmic soul in Nature. Its complexities cannot be unravelled by our physical mind ever bound up in the superficial appearance, nor by our vital mind of desire stumbling Page 428 forward in the cloud of its own instincts and longings and rash determinations through the maze of these myriad favouring ...
... sincerity in the entire being, a sincerity which keeps the full light and consciousness and accepts only the Truth. The greatest enemies of a perfect sincerity are preferences (either mental, vital or physical) and preconceived ideas. It is these obstacles that must be overcome. I am always with you to lead you to victory. 15 September 1935 ...
... meant is that I do not want the kitchen workers to take any extra trouble for such ungrateful people. I pray to you with a quiet force of aspiration for a complete victory over these lower vital and physical forces of desire etc. Yes, all these lower movements have to be conquered if ever anything divine is to be established upon earth. All trust, love and blessings to you, my dear child and ...
... Is it possible to know God, even with one's physical mind, once one has experienced identification? After consciously identifying itself with the Divine, the entire being even in its external parts—mental, vital and physical—undergoes the consequences of this identification, and a change occurs which is sometimes even perceptible in the physical appearance. An influence is at work on the thoughts... less know Him; for to know God one must be identified with Him and for that the physical mind must cease to be what it is now, and consequently cease to be the physical mind. The capacity to know God can be achieved in the lower triplicity—the mind, the vital and the physical—only with the supramental transformation, and this comes only just before the ultimate realisation which consists in becoming... through the outer instrument. But one cannot say that the physical mind knows God, for the very way of knowing that is characteristic of the mind is foreign to the Divine; one could even say that it is contrary to it. The physical mind itself can receive the divine influence and be transformed by it, but so long as it remains the physical mind, it can neither understand nor explain God, much less ...
... higher, spiritual, or divine consciousness and energy into the whole system down to the bottom of the spine where is the Muladhara or centre of the Physical Consciousness. The Energy descends through all the levels and centres, mind centre, vital centre, physical centre and fills the whole body with the higher existence and consciousness. The ascent is the liberation (Mukti), and when one thus ascends, one ...
... through the mind only? Because the mind has a greater purity and openness to the Divine than the vital and the physical. The psychic can aspire from itself. It can aspire through the vital and the physical also. When the mind, vital and physical are not awakened, how does the psychic manifest its influence on the material plane? You do not seem... After death, what happens to the adhar — I mean mind, vital and subtle physical— when the psychic being returns to the psychic plane for rest? It is dropped off—unless the being has become strongly individualised on the mental plane or both on the mental and vital. Then it keeps its mental and vital sheaths — otherwise they disintegrate and everything essential is drawn... as we do here in the physical world when tired? It is a different kind of rest. When does it return to the earth again? Whenever it is due. After death, when the vital retires to its vital plane, what does it do there till the psychic calls it back for the next life on the earth? For most people the vital dissolves after a time ...
... in the mind and vital and in the physical consciousness before supramentalization of the whole nature is possible. Otherwise what one gets is more or less brilliant, half luminous, half cloudy illuminations and experiences on the mental and vital and physical planes, half truth half error or at the best true only for those planes and inspired either from some large mind or larger vital or at the best... agitated or restless to be a desire; it can be, on the contrary, quietly fixed and persistent or persistently recurrent. What I wanted to say was, that demand or desire comes from the mental or the vital and psychic or a spiritual need is a different thing. The psychic does not demand or desire; it aspires; it does not make conditions for its surrender or withdraw if its aspiration is not immediately... some spiritual realization on those planes, but the Supramental realization is something much more difficult and exacting in its conditions and the most difficult of all is to bring it down on to the physical level. Sri Aurobindo ...
... ction or vital sadness or physical depression. If the psychic being is strong, it makes itself felt on the mental or the vital being, and forces them — compels them — to change. But if it is weak, the other parts take advantage of it and use the psychic sadness to their own advantage. In some cases the psychic being comes up to the surface and upsets the mental or the vital being and... things, and the false vital and mental movements and attacks are immediately exposed and fall away and can do nothing; gradually the vital and physical as well as the mind get full of this psychic light and truth and sound feeling and purity.... 100 — Sri Aurobindo * Some of these [higher and deeper] experiences can come by an opening of the inner mental and vital being, the inner and... opening producing some amount of psychic (as opposed to vital) love and bhakti, but of what is called the coming in front of the psychic. When that happens one is aware of the psychic being with its simple spontaneous self-giving and feels its increasing direct control (not merely a veiled or half veiled influence) over mind, vital and physical. Especially there is the psychic discernment which at once ...
... side, that is to say, a basis of deep calm, strength, equality, wide consciousness and purity in the mental being, and as the vital and physical open, also in the vital and physical being. If that is attended to and successfully developed the play of the psychic, vital and physical experiences will be more steady, ordered and safe. As to the three photographs you have sent I give you Mirra's comments... The main cause is what I saw, the vehement and unrestrained pressure and the vital uprush, overstraining and upsetting the defective physical mind. There is no evil in the psychical and mental or even the vital being proper. The seat of the harm is evidently in the physico-vital and the physical being. The physico-vital dazzled by the experiences began to think itself a very interesting and important... without or from within. The effort brought about a breaking of the veils which divide the physical from the psychic and vital worlds. But his mind was unprepared and unable to understand his experiences and judged them by the light of fancy and imagination and erroneous mental and vital suggestions. His vital being full of rajasic Page 335 and egoistic energy rushed up violently to enjoy ...
... this field there is conflict between the soul and the vital nature, between the Divine Attraction and the pull of the Ignorance, then obviously there may be much suffering of the mind and vital parts. The physical consciousness also may offer a resistance which is usually that of a fundamental inertia, an obscurity in the very stuff of the physical, an incomprehension, an inability to respond to the... calm, equality, a spirit, a will, a mind, a vital, a physical consciousness that remain resolutely turned towards the Divine and unshaken by all suggestion of doubt, desire, attachment, depression, sorrow, pain, inertia. This is possible when the inner being awakens, when one becomes conscious of the Self, of the inner mind, the inner vital, the inner physical, for that can more easily attune itself to... it does not want to do so; both vital and physical suffering may be the consequence. There is moreover the resistance of the Universal Nature which does not want the being to escape from the Ignorance into the Light. This may take the form of a vehement insistence on the continuation of Page 668 the old movements, waves of them thrown on the mind and vital and body so that old ideas, impulses ...
... whatever the 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 ...
... whatever the 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 ...
... brought down to the physical it tends to be vitiated and gets lost. So the physical relation seems to be predominantly responsible for the breaking of the union. SRI AUROBINDO: The vital can also be responsible for it without any physical element. You can't say the physical is predominantly so. Blake and others actually say that spiritual love should be sanctified by vital and physical action. They are... 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 psychic relation, when sex action takes place, is it only for procreation? SRI AUROBINDO: The psychic element may be extended into the physical. NIRODBARAN: But is ...
... that we think they are gone. When the physical consciousness is being changed, 1 the chief resistance comes from the subconscient. It is constantly maintaining or bringing back the inertia, weakness, obscurity, lack of intelligence which afflict the physical mind and vital or the obscure fears, desires, angers, lusts of the physical vital, or the illnesses, dullnesses, pains, incapabilities... is the main support of all habitual movements, especially the physical and lower vital movements. When something is thrown out of the vital or physical, it very usually goes down into the subconscient and remains there as if in seed and comes up again when it can. That is the reason why it is so difficult to get rid of habitual vital movements or to change the character; for, supported or refreshed... mental, vital and physical habits or an obscure stimulus to sensations, actions, emotions which do not originate in or from our conscious thought or will and are even often opposed to its perceptions, choice or dictates. In the subconscient there is an obscure mind full of obstinate Sanskaras, impressions, associations, fixed notions, habitual reactions formed by our past, an obscure vital full of ...
... that you had for so long, the vital trouble that caused it and the reaction of the lower vital to the insistence on throwing out the causes of the trouble. This reaction seems to have been a restlessness at losing the things of which it was still holding — such a reaction always brings the inertia of the physical consciousness while the right reaction in the lower vital brings on the contrary a sense... to be two elements in the physical difficulty that is weighing on you. The first is the liver trouble weakens and must weaken still more if it leads you to diminish your food below what the body needs for maintaining sufficient strength to react — also probably the nervous tendency to insomnia with its consequences. The second is an inertia of the lower vital and physical consciousness which prevent... sense of peace, release, quietude which definitely opens the lowest physical parts to the higher consciousness and force. If you can get over this and get back the old poise, then all these things can be made to disappear, Nirod was of course right from the medical point of view in recommending exercise — both for the liver and as a tonic to the body it is helpful. So if you are not going to the Aroume ...
... manifests itself as a divine mind-force or a universal mind-force and it can do everything that the personal mind cannot do; it is then the Yogic mindforce. When it manifests and works in the vital or physical in the same way, it is then apparent as a Yogic life-force or a Yogic body-force. It can awake in all these forms, bursting outwards and upwards, extending itself into wideness from below; or ...
... your 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... 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 foreign to itself; and these movements can no more affect the psychic ...
... I: Classification of the Parts of the Being As for the Purusha it is there on all planes; there is a mental Purusha, manomaya , leader of the life and body, as the Upanishad puts it, a vital, a physical Purusha; there is the psychic being or Chaitya Purusha which supports and carries all these as it were. One may say that these are projections of the Jivatman put there to uphold Prakriti on the... of the being and commands the rest, as the psychic being or chaitya purusha is there. It is only in that sense that all flows from it, for it is the psychic being who each time creates a new mind, vital and body for himself. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: The System of the Chakras ...
... November 21, 1933 Q. (1) It is true that there is a surrender beyond mind, vital and physical surrender which Krishna asks Arjuna to attain by saying—nistraigunyo bhavarjuna? A. Naturally, the whole being must surrender, not the mind, vital and body alone. Q. (2) Is this surrender the same as the psychic surrender? A. No, it is the surrender 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 rewards more surely than moral right and ethical purpose. But the higher mind of humanity... rising above the vital and mental limitations can discover an infinite perfection and beauty and delight in itself and spontaneous irrefragable order. Meanwhile this third movement of mind discovers a law of the return of mental energies, pure in its kind and as certain as the vital and the physical, as faithful to itself, to the self of mind and to mind nature, a law not of vital returns to mental... utmost limit of each capacity and follow each possibility and its clue to the end as well as to observe in each its at present discovered law and measure. Here as in the other fields, as in the vital and physical, so in his mental provinces, it is the appointed work of his intelligence and will to know and master through an always enlarging experience the conditions Page 413 of an increasing ...
... that it had remained in the physical vital. What does the "physical vital" mean? I think I said it was left in the subconscient part of the physical vital. As there is a physical mind, so there is a physical vital — a vital turned entirely upon physical things, full of desires and greeds and seekings for pleasure on the physical plane. Has the vital any connection with the play... does our vital being desire outer and superficial things from the Mother instead of Ananda, Light, Force? It is the small physical vital that desires and wants to deal in the same way with these things as it did with the outward desires. It is not so easy for it to open to invisible things — that is more easy for the higher vital. What is the nature of the higher vital? ... You mean that the conscious part of the vital does not want to do anything contrary to the Mother's will — but that is a different thing. Our physical has to depend on the vital's help for action. Will it have always to do so — even in its true nature? Yes. The spirit itself if it wants to manifest in matter must use the vital. It is so that things are arranged. ...
... No, it is not a test. The difficulties come because the mind, vital and physical or some part is open to the movements which bring the difficulties. The difficulties are there in vital and physical nature because they are full of obscurity, falsehood, inertia and ignorance. They have to be got rid of by opening the vital and physical wholly to the power of the psychic and the power of the Truth... existence, and of Yoga; our nature or the nature of things brings them upon us until we learn to present to them a back which they cannot touch. The ordinary life naturally has its mental, vital and physical pleasures, but it is of a superficial character and there is no firm foundation of the consciousness anywhere—all is at the mercy of the play of forces. In Yoga there is the period of struggle... good for the person in the human sense. What you describe is a nature divided against itself by a mind which has corrupted its action through a wrong use of its powers and a physical weakened by indulgence of vital desire. Introspection is good only when it is used as a means for changing the nature so as to bring it into accordance with a higher ideal steadily held before you. The present ...
... field or on an outer nearness pleasing to the vital nature and its pride or desire that you can get the true relation with the Divine in 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 Page 86 in the physical being and its activities, her will and knowledge... most powerful self-assertion of human will and endeavour is impotent to bring it about; as for egoistic insistence and vital revolt, they are, so long as they last, insuperable obstacles to the descent. Only a calm, pure and surrendered physical consciousness, full of the psychic aspiration, can be its field; this alone can make an effective opening of the material being to the Light and Power 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. If you have that, then you have all the nearness you can ask for and the rest you will gladly leave to the Mother's knowledge and will to decide. For with this in you there can be no feeling of being kept away, no sense of "gulf" and "distance" ...
... surety that I shall be able to get rid of my whole lower nature. It is what we call growing conscious—a perception of which the base is the psychic though it may take place in the mind or vital or physical. No doubt the Force that woke it up came from the Mother. 9 September 1937 ...
... and judgement but might make mistakes and be misled by the outer vital or clouded by the physical nature. I have already told you that while the psychic is the inmost part of the being, there is also standing between it and the external surface nature a triple inner being, the inner mental, the inner vital, the inner (subtle) physical, and that these too had in their turn to come to the front. This... psychic behind supporting all, the inner mental, vital and physical, and the outer external nature of mind, life and body which is their instrument of expression. But above all is the central being (Jivatman) which uses them all for its manifestation, it is a portion of the divine Self and is hidden from the external man who replaces it by the mental and vital ego. It is only those who have begun to know ...
... spiritually. Complete removal of ego is possible when one identifies oneself with the Atman and realises the same Spirit in all. Also when the mental, vital and physical nature is known to be a derivation from the universal mental, vital and physical. The individual must realise also his identity with the transcendental or the cosmic Divine, whatever you may call it. From the mental plane, when one... ego, especially the vital ego. When the psychic attitude of humility comes in and joins with it, it helps in getting rid of the vital ego. The complete abolition of ego is not an easy thing. Even when you think that it is entirely gone, it suddenly comes into your actions and movements. Especially important is the removal of the mental and vital ego; the others, the physical and subconscient, don't ...
... true physical — see Purusha. true vital — see Purusha. Truth-Consciousness — see Supermind. the vital (being) — the life-nature made up of desires, sensations, feelings, passions, energies of action and of all the play of possessive and other related instincts, such as anger, fear, greed, lust, etc. The vital has three main parts: higher vital: the mental vital and... 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 and Purusha, the consciousness that sees and... the psychic change in which the psychic being comes forward to dominate the mind, vital and physical so as to change the lower nature. Purusha — Conscious Being; Conscious-Soul; essential being supporting the play of Prakriti; the Purusha represents the true being on whatever plane it manifests — physical, vital, mental, psychic. Page 125 rajasic — of the nature of rajas ...
... has said in this connection: "What your vital being seems to have kept all along is the 'bargaining' or the 'mess' attitude in these matters. One gives some kind of commodity which he calls devotion or surrender and in return the Mother is under obligation to supply satisfaction for all demands and desires spiritual, mental, vital and physical, and, if she falls short in her task, she has broken... their stay here. Things cannot move smoothly in our community unless and until most if not all the Sadhaks here come to realise that "they are not here for their ego and self-indulgence of their vital and physical demands but for a high and exacting Yoga of which the first aim is the destruction of desire and the substitution for it of the Divine Truth and the Divine Will." (Ibid., p. 244) For... hotel-keeper or Page 69 mess-manager. One gives what one can or chooses to give, or it may be nothing at all except the aforesaid commodity; in return the palate, the stomach and all the physical demands have to be satisfied to the full; if not, one has every right to keep one's money and to abuse the defaulting hotel-keeper or mess-manager." (The Mother, p. 232) Let us substitute ...
... 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... for Yoga. 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... 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 these Yogic experiences are in the subtle body. NIRODBARAN: I also once or twice had such a fear as the lady ...
... there would be no place for any kind of obscuration or disturbance; but that is not easy for the human mind and vital to get at once. One has to go on perseveringly till one has reached it. The quickness with which the consciousness changes is a feature of the ordinary action of the physical consciousness when it is active and not inert. But many of the things you now feel (of which you speak in your... of the Mother's presence and her regard on you, the reference in what you think and do to her with the idea of her approval or disapproval, are signs that the psychic is acting in your lower vital and physical mind and increasing its rule over their movements. The forms that came before your eyes are sometimes glimpses of the things on other planes, sometimes symbols; e.g., the golden water, golden... which men form Page 177 in life which help the power of the psychic to grow and prepare it for the time when it will be ready to come forward and govern the mind, vital and body instead of allowing the mind or the vital to lead the rest. There is a difference between the psychic and the self. The self is the Atman above which is one in all, remains always wide, free, pure, untouched by the ...
... aim was not to produce superman. His idea was to realise all this as the impermanent manifestation of the Permanent, to leave this and always remain in the permanent Nirvana State. But his vital and physical parts did not live in Nirvana? Evidently not. Then were those parts subject to ignorance or were they free? If they were subject to ignorance then they could drag him down to birth again... supermind. We shall see. They say that we have to prepare our body infield of consciousness first. That may be the true body which is in the Supermind. We have to bring that body down into the physical. Besides Jaina philosophy is concerned with individual perfection. Our effort is quite different. We want to bring down the Supermind as a new faculty just as the mind is now a permanent state of ...
... simple spontaneous self-giving and feels its increasing direct control (not merely a veiled or half-veiled influence) over mind, vital and physical. Especially there is the psychic discernment which at once lights up the thoughts, emotional movements, vital pushes, physical habits and leaves nothing there obscure, substituting the right movements for the wrong ones. It is this that is difficult and rare... including the physical centre. As to the centres. The psychic is placed behind the heartlotus, the centre of the emotional being, the Anahata chakra—it is therefore the opening of the Anahata that is most important for the unveiling of the psychic. The Manipura (navel centre) and the Swadhisthana below it are the seats of the vital being, the Muladhara is the seat of the physical. The opening of... is mental and vital and cannot succeed; it is in the quiet mind that the opening must come. Then the psychic being, the soul in you, begins to come forward. The soul knows and sees the Truth; the mind and vital do not—until they are enlightened by the soul's knowledge. Page 348 Then only can the psychic being fully open when the sadhaka has got rid of the mixture of vital motives with ...
... have this note, dealing as he always does with life, with vital emotions and reactions or the thoughts that spring out in the life-mind under the pressure of life. It is not any strict adhesion to a transcendental view of things that constitutes this kind of poetry, but something behind not belonging to the mind or the vital and physical consciousness and with that a certain quality or power in... from which it comes, but on the purity and authenticity and power with which it transcribes an intense vision and inspiration from whatever source. Shakespeare is a poet of the vital inspiration, Homer of the subtle physical, but there are no greater poets in any literature. No doubt, if we can get a continuous inspiration from the Overmind, that would mean a greater, sustained height of perfection... nature of overhead poetry.... "The essential character is perhaps that there is something behind of which I have already spoken and which comes not primarily from the mind or the vital emotion or the physical seeing but from the cosmic self and its consciousness standing behind them all and things then tend to be seen not as the mind or heart or body sees them but as this greater consciousness ...
... The symbolic image of the mountain with the light on its top comes to most sadhaks who have the power of vision at all. The mountain is the consciousness rising from earth (the physical) through the successive heights (vital, mental, above-mental) towards the spiritual heaven. The golden light is always the light of the higher Truth (Supermind, Overmind or a little lower down the pure Intuition) and... universe has arisen—it is walled with darkness on all sides, it seems also to have no bottom. The Light comes from above from the higher consciousness and coming down through the mind and heart and vital and physical has to pour down into this subconscient and make it luminous. "Patala" is a name for the subconscient—the beings there [ in a dream ] had no heads, that is to say, there is there no mental... higher consciousness. The journey in the train is the passage from one consciousness to another. The bucket is the physical consciousness; milk is always a symbol of the flow of consciousness from Above; the mountain is the Adhar with its ascending levels from the physical to the Above. 1 Page 152 The golden mountain is a symbol of the ascent to the Truth. The Golden Mountain ...
... (1) The inmost psychic being which is now awakened in you. (2) The external being which you feel doing work while the inner (psychic) is in union with the Mother. (3) The inner mental, vital and physical consciousness which connects the two, but of which you are not as yet conscious. 9 April 1931 Is it true that one should feel that it is the Divine Presence which moves one and does everything ...
... Some Answers and Explanations Our Many Selves Spontaneity What Lao Tse calls spontaneous is this: instead of being moved by a personal will—mental, vital or physical—one ought to stop all outer effort and let oneself be guided and moved by what the Chinese call Tao , which they identify with the Godhead—or God or the Supreme Principle or the Origin of all... mental ego, withdrawn into itself, crammed with notions of misbehaviour and sin and punishment or of personal interest, calculation and profit; all of which has the inevitable result of increasing vital desires through repression, fear or self-justification. And yet for the sake of completeness it should be added that because man is a mental being, he must necessarily in the course of his evolution... have to follow a discipline to obtain it? Spontaneity in feelings and action comes from a permanent contact with the psychic, which brings order into the thoughts and automatically controls the vital impulses. The Mother Some Answers from the Mother: 30 September 1967 ...
... upon earth that you will find the psychic being. The rest of the universe is formed in quite a different way. The universe contains all the domains higher than the physical: there is a global physical comprising the mental, the vital, etc., and all the domains above the mental are domains of a spiritual order, domains which are, for us, domains of the spirit, and it is this "spirit" which little by... represents whatever soul-power is developed from life to life or put forward for action in our present life-formation. The psychic being usually expresses itself through its instruments, mental, vital and physical; it tries to put as much of its own stamp on them as possible. But it can seldom put on them the full psychic stamp—unless it comes fully out from its rather secluded and overshadowed position ...
... the 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 ...
... and the atmosphere was clear. What happened in your experience was that the vital being got free from the body through its desire to unite with the Mother Page 310 (you met the Mother on the border between the vital and physical) and lived with its own life independent of the body. It entered into the vital world and, not being sheltered any longer in the body, felt helpless at first... then make a mass attack. Every time such an attack can be defeated and cast out, there is a clearance in the Adhar, a new field gained for the Mother in the mind, vital or physical or the adjacent parts of the being. That the place in the vital occupied by the Mother is increasing is shown by the fact that you are now offering a strong resistance to these sieges that used formerly to overpower you altogether... first, till it called the Mother. The appearance of X there might possibly have been some part of the vital of X himself, but was more probably a vital being in his shape, perhaps the very vital being who has been troubling him. When you go into the vital world, you meet many such things,—the one sufficient protection is to call the Mother. 7 September 1933 This morning after pranam I felt a ...
... invasions—and rejected without allowing any depression or discouragement. If the mind does not sanction them, if the vital refuses to welcome them, if the physical remains steady and refuses to obey the physical urge, then the recurrence of the thought, the vital impulse, the physical feeling will begin to lose its last holds and finally they will be too feeble to cause any trouble. Sri Aurobindo... mental, vital and physical habits or an obscure stimulus to sensations, actions, emotions which do not originate in or from our conscious thought or will and are even often opposed to its perceptions, choice or dictates. In the subconscient there is an obscure mind full of obstinate sanskaras, impressions, associations, fixed notions, habitual reactions formed by our past, an obscure vital full of... going back, but that’s in order to go farther and farther forward. The Mother Questions and Answers (1954): 15 September 1954 Sweet Mother, is the subconscient stronger than the mind, vital and physical? … It has a greater power. Well, just because it is subconscient it is everywhere, everything seems steeped in the subconscient. And so, “subconscient” means half conscious: not conscious ...
... indicate a blossoming in the consciousness, sometimes with special reference to the psychic or the psychicised vital, mental and physical consciousness. Page 177 The vision of flowers is a symbol usually of psychic qualities or movements whether a potentiality or promise or an actual state of development. It is usually when the psychic is active that this seeing of flowers becomes... is the awakening of the psychic consciousness and its activity under the Divine Influence. Red flowers would ordinarily indicate an opening of the consciousness either in the physical or some part of the vital according to the shade. Lotus A lotus flower indicates open consciousness. A lotus signifies the opening of the (true) consciousness. The lotus is always the sign... [ the lotus ] means consciousness. The opening of the lotus is the opening of some part of the consciousness. The opening of the lotuses 2 means, I suppose, the opening of the true vital and physical consciousness in which the spiritual being (the Swan) can manifest with all the consequences of that opening. The lotus must represent owing to its numerous petals the "thousand petalled" ...
... śuddha bhakti . From which part does it manifest? From the psychic. How can I unravel the confusion I feel between self, mind, vital and physical, and how to distinguish them? Page 476 One has to separate oneself in thought from mind and vital and body and look at these as not oneself but only outer instruments or movements of nature. In the end one begins to be aware of something... devotion. How can I develop psychic bhakti? By sincere aspiration. What is the character of psychic bhakti, mental bhakti and vital bhakti for the Mother? How to recognise them? The psychic is made up of love and self-giving without demand, the vital of the will to be possessed by the Mother and serve her, the mental of faith and unquestioning acceptance of all that the Mother is, says... be something wrong in my nature. It is the old vital with its ego which comes up again and again. It refuses to follow the higher being and be as the true bhaktas are who ask nothing and are content with all that the Mother does or does not do, because whatever she does must be good, since she is the Mother. You must impose the truth on this vital part. 6 May 1935 Do not allow mental anxiety ...
... from my heart. But when I am in her physical presence I do not feel this love. Why does this happen? It is when you live in the psychic that there is this feeling—but the psychic commands at present only a part of the mind and vital—it does not yet control the most external parts, that is Page 186 why you do not feel it when in the Mother's physical presence. 25 December 1933 If... the sadhak must come to feel always the presence of the Mother in his heart or within him. For in fact she is there always, only her presence is veiled by the ordinary movements of the mind, vital and physical, but when these become quiet and the psychic unveils itself, then one feels the presence of the Divine within. 29 February 1936 He must go into himself and find the presence of the Divine... notion of things, your own will and demand upon things, then it is quite likely that her presence will get veiled; it is not she who withdraws from you, but you who draw back from her. But your mind and vital don't want to admit that, because it is always their preoccupation to justify their own movements. If the psychic were allowed its full predominance, this would not happen; it would have felt the veiling ...
... each nook and corner, facing all those anarchic elements in you which are waiting for their psychological moment to come up. And it is only when you have made the entire round of your mental, vital and physical nature, persuaded everything to give itself to the Divine and thus achieved an absolute unified consecration that you put an end to your difficulties. Then indeed yours is a glorious walk towards ...
... "Vision is another plane of perception which awakes. It is the senses in the mind or vital or physical which wake up and manage to pass their experiences to the outer consciousness. It is as though one had another pair of eyes behind these, eyes which could see [other planes of consciousness] instead of seeing in the physical." (CWM, Vol. 7, p. 129) The second question requiring answer is: Are... corresponding to the organ which sees. For example, to the individual vital plane there corresponds a cosmic vital world. When a human being is sufficiently developed he possesses an individualised vital being with organs of sight, hearing, smell, etc. So a Person who has a well-developed vital being can see in the vial world with his vital sight, consciously and with the memory of what he has seen. This... not notice it. For the normal functioning of this supraphysical occult sight, the conditions that have to be fulfilled are: (i) the quietening and the purification of the surface mind and vital; (ii) the opening up of the wall separating the outer mind and the inner consciousness; and, preferably, (iii) the capacity to enter freely within and dwell there at will. In this connection we may ...
... one's self can experience peace and watch quietly, but mechanical thoughts of an obscure type can still keep running. Is it the vital being that is non-cooperative in the sadhana? That is for you to observe. There are usually parts of the vital and physical which do not take great interest in the sadhana — until the whole being is converted. There is at times a strong... have Tantric experiences here? One can feel the experiences of any sadhana as a part of this one. Was the experience of the Mother's Force inter-fered with by the lower vital's depression because that Force entered this part of the being? It may have been —but very often the lower Nature pushes these things across an experience in opposition to the working of ...
... 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... 11 In These Fateful Days To destroy is easy; to create, it is difficult. The vital force destroys in its violence, it is the spirit that creates in its energy of consciousness. The vital force is easily available to man. The spirit is a far cry. And yet there is no other way out: if man is to be saved, that is... seed? There must be some one or even a few who are the prophets, pioneers or forerunners, who are the appointed missionaries. You or I may be elected as one if we choose to be so. A vital force can create, but if it is not supported or inspired by something else, something inner, deeper and higher, the creation can be only an asuric (titanic) or rakshasik (demoniac) or even a pishachic ...
... but a 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... Gupta - Vol. 4 In these Fateful Days To destroy is easy; to create, it is difficult. The vital force destroys in its violence, it is the spirit that creates in its energy of consciousness. The vital force is easily available to man. The spirit is a far cry. And yet there is no other way out: if man is to be saved, that is the only way left... to find the seed? There must be some one or even a few who are the prophets, pioneers or forerunners, who are the appointed missionaries. You or I may be elected as one if we choose to be so. A vital force can create, but if it is not supported or inspired by something else, something inner, deeper and higher, the creation can be only an asuric (titanic) or rakshasik (demoniac) or even a ...
... some quotations from Sri Aurobindo's The Mother. "Money is the visible sign of a universal force," he wrote in a letter in 1927, "and this force in its manifestation on earth works on the vital and physical planes and is indispensable to the fullness of the outer life. In its origin and its true action it belongs to the Divine.... This is indeed one of the three forces — power, wealth, sex —that... deity here. "In the supramental creation the money-force has to be restored to the Divine Power and used for a true and beautiful and harmonious equipment and ordering of a new divinised vital and physical existence in whatever way the Divine Mother herself decides in her creative vision." There are four great aspects of the Mother —Maheswari, Mahakali, Mahalakshmi and Mahasaraswati. The "third ...
... each nook and corner, facing all those anarchic elements in you which arc waiting for their psychological moment to come up. And it is only when you have made the entire round of your mental, vital and physical nature, persuaded everything to give itself to the Divine and thus achieved an absolute unified consecration that you put an end to your difficulties. Then indeed yours is a glorious walk towards ...
... the Force that she brings down is the force of the divine Truth. One who receives and accepts and lives in the Mother's light, will begin to see the truth on all the planes, the mental, the vital, the physical. He will reject all that is undivine; the undivine is the falsehood, the ignorance, the error of the dark forces; the undivine is all that is obscure and unwilling to accept the divine Truth ...
... quiet a little. ( silence ) What did I say to ask him? First, if he felt something ... Better not say "felt": ask whether he was CONSCIOUS of something—because "felt" may suggest a vital or physical sensation—if he was conscious of something. ( Mother plunges in till the end, then Sujata approaches her ) Mother, I would like to tell you about a rather strange occurrence. The night ...
... fulfil themselves. This experience culminates in the ascent to the plane of Truth- consciousness (rita-chit) and its descent into lower planes of the mental, vital and physical consciousness in the human body up to a point where the physical consciousness becomes so vast that the truth-consciousness can dwell in it. The Vedic Rishis have called that state the state of immortality. Parāshara speaks... Vedic 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 psy... with the Gitā's concept of parāprakriti and with the supreme Shakti of Tantra, and builds up a path of ascent to the supermind and of descent of the supermind right up to the mental, vital and physical parts of the being, the climax of which is reached when the supermind is made to permeate the cells of the body so that the perfection which is attained would result in transmutation of the human ...
... fulfil themselves. This experience culminates in the ascent to the plane of Truth-consciousness (rita-chit) and its descent into the lower planes of the mental, vital and physical consciousness in the human body up to a point where the physical consciousness becomes so vast that the truth-consciousness can dwell in it. The Vedic Rishis have called that state to be the state of immortality. Parashara... Vedic and 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... the Gita's concept of paraprakriti and with the supreme Shakti of Tantra, and builds up a path to the ascent to the supermind and of the descent of the supermind right up to the mental, vital and physical parts of the being, the climax of which is reached when the supermind is made to permeate the cells of the body so that the perfection which is attained would result in the transmutation of the ...
... Mother in Sole Charge of the Ashram What your vital being seems to have kept all along is the "bargain" or the "mess" attitude in these matters. One gives some kind of commodity which he calls devotion or surrender and in return the Mother is under obligation to supply satisfaction for all demands and desires spiritual, mental, vital and physical, and, if she falls short in her task, she has broken... charge and arranges things as best they can be arranged within the means at her disposal and the capacities of her instruments. She is under no obligation to act according to the mental standards or vital desires and claims of the sadhaks; she is not obliged to use a democratic equality in her dealings with them. She is free to deal with each according to what she sees to be his true need or what is... the Mother is the hotel-keeper or mess-manager. One gives what one can or chooses to give, or it may be nothing at all except the aforesaid commodity; in return the palate, the stomach and all the physical demands have to be satisfied to the full; if not, one has every right to keep one's money and to abuse the defaulting hotel-keeper or mess-manager. This attitude has nothing whatever to do with sadhana ...
... being conceive of itself as an independent personality. Ego implies the identification of one's existence with the outer mental, vital and physical self. Not mental or vital energy but the Divine Force from above, a spiritual and supraphysical force acting on the physical world directly; a Force for illumination, transformation, purification. The help of a higher Divine Force other than the... brought down into the mind, vital and body and takes the place of the lower. Truth-Consciousness The highest divine consciousness and force operative in the universe; a principle of consciousness superior to mentality which exists, acts and proceeds in the fundamental truth and unity of things; its fundamental character is knowledge by identity. vital The vital is the life nature made up of... the reactions of thought to things, with the truly mental movements and formations, mental vision and will etc. that are part of man's intelligence. The physical is that part of human nature which includes the physical body and the physical consciousness. The psychic or psychic being is the evolving soul of the individual, the divine portion in him which evolves from life to life, growing ...
... in them. It [ the reason the physical can help to remove inertia ] is because, the subconscient being just below the physical, the enlightened physical can act on it directly and completely in a way in which mind and vital cannot and by this direct action can help to liberate the mind and vital also. Yes, what you write is correct. When the physical consciousness has to be changed, it... if the vital refuses to welcome them, if the physical remains steady and refuses to obey the physical urge, then the recurrence of the thought, the vital impulse, the physical feeling will begin to lose Page 604 its last holds and finally they will be too feeble to cause any trouble. You do not realise how much of the ordinary natural being lives in the subconscient physical. It is... come. The inner vital and physical are quite different—they have a larger, plastic, subtler, freer and richer consciousness than the surface vital and physical, much more open to the Truth and in direct touch with the universal. The inner being does not depend on the subconscient, but the outer has depended on it for thousands of lives—that is why the outer being and physical consciousness's ...
... the work or the result, no laying down of conditions, no claim to possess the Power that should possess you, no pride of the instrument, no vanity or arrogance. Nothing in the mind or in the vital or physical parts should be suffered to distort to its own use or seize for its own personal and separate satisfaction the greatness of the forces that are acting through you. Let your faith, your sincerity... are originated by her, all your powers are Page 12 hers, mind, life and body are conscious and joyful instruments of her action, means for her play, moulds for her manifestation in the physical universe. There can be no more happy condition than this union and dependence; for this step carries you back beyond the border-line from the life of stress and suffering in the ignorance into the ...
... 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 soul-action and would not shed any light upon the nature or existence of the psychic entity, but would rather be an abnormal action of an occult subtle physical energy intervening... the thumb of a man" was the image used by the ancient seers —and it is not always able to prevail against the obscurity and ignorant smallness of the physical consciousness, the mistaken surenesses of the mind or the arrogance and vehemence of the vital nature. This soul is obliged to accept the human mental, emotive, sensational life as it is, its relations, its activities, its cherished forms and figures;... always of its 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 ...
... victim of this disease. *** Vital relations are always dangerous. The only solution is a complete and absolute consecration of the vital to the Divine. *** The centre of the human being is the psychic, the dwelling of the immanent Divine. Unification means organisation and harmonisation of all the parts of the being, mental, vital and physical, around this centre, so that all activities... silence one obtains during meditation is truly of short duration; for as soon as one comes out of meditation, one comes out of the mental silence. *** A real and lasting peace in the vital and the physical as well as the mind comes from a complete consecration to the Divine. *** When one can no longer call anything one’s own, not even oneself, when everything, including the body, the... *** Everybody is given a chance, and the help is there for all; but each benefits in proportion to his sincerity. *** The greatest enemies of perfect sincerity are the mental, vital and physical predilections and preconceived ideas. These are the obstacles to be surmounted. *** Surely, when dishonesty prevails everywhere, that is the time to be truly faithful and stay ...
... (mental, vital and physical) around this centre, so that all the activities of the being may be the correct expression of the will of the Divine Presence. * Jealousy comes from a narrowness of the mind and a weakness of the heart. It is a great pity that so many are attacked by it. * Vital relations are always dangerous. A complete, absolute consecration of the vital to the... all the movements and quiet the restless physical mind. These are the preliminary conditions for the manifestation. * The quite mind one gets through meditation is indeed of short duration, for as soon asyou come out from meditation you come out at the same time from the quietness of mind. The true, lasting quietness in the vital and the physical as well as in the mind, comes from a complete... receive an answer. * All depends on the attitude ofeach one and on the sincerity of his approach. * The greatest enemies of a perfect sincerity are preferences either mental, vital or physical, and preconceived ideas. It is these obstacles that must be overcome. * Those who are sincere, I can help and turn easily towards the Divine. But where there is insincerity I can do ...
... greed like other evils such as jealousy, ill-will, fear and hatred etc. are inherent in human nature. Education and mental enlightenment have not been able to eliminate these ingrained evils of vital and physical nature. On the other hand, the more clever and intelligent one is, the less scrupulous he becomes in his dealings with his fellowmen. Whatever might have been the case before, the exceptions... dealings between men and men and nations and nations. Mind itself becomes deformed and reason turns traitor the moment our own vital, i.e. self interest is affected. Perverted logic from the mental source comes to justify and bolster the claims, calls and impulsions of our vital nature. There is no compunction of conscience in economic and political relations. Lust for power and greed for gain have become... debased politics from the consciousness of men and nations. This is no easy task. But no great achievements have ever been possible without great and sustained efforts. Look at the achievements of mere physical science which is a bagatelle compared to Page 48 spirituality. How many thousands of skilled and unskilled labour, scientists and technologists went into work for preparation for ...
... on the right medicine. DR. MANILAL: After the Inconscient, Sir, aren't the mind and vital to be worked out? SRI AUROBINDO: No, that has already been done; not in each and every one but in principle. In the mind and vital again there are many parts. There are also the subconscient mental, vital and physical. DR. MANILAL: What is the difference between the Inconscient and the Subconscient? ... riddle, that Inconscience can yet create perfect order. It is like the Sankhya Prakriti which is Jada and at the same time intelligent. NIRODBARAN: What are effects of the working out of the mind and vital? SRI AUROBINDO: Opening to the higher consciousness and a capacity to receive it. NIRODBARAN: Why don't we see any effect then? SRI AUROBINDO: It is only in principle. If everybody were able... some people, especially newcomers, get experiences? Is the work in them not in the Inconscient? SRI AUROBINDO: It depends on what kind of experiences—inner or higher experiences or those in the vital. One may think that one has become the Supreme and the Supermind, but the fact may be otherwise. NIRODBARAN: But don't some newcomers have psychic experiences? SRI AUROBINDO: The work may be going ...
... conscious Life, it is dominated by the desire, activity and passion of the rajasic principle proper to vital existence. In the individual this spirit becomes a vital soul, prāṇamaya puruṣa , in whose nature the life-energies tyrannise over the mental and physical principles. The physical element in a vital world readily shapes its activities and formations in response to desire and its imaginations, it... and the energy of its impulses. This vital soul lives in a vital body composed of a substance much subtler than physical matter; it is a substance surcharged 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... 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 rajasic man. It is possible now for him to awaken in his consciousness to the vital plane and to become the vital soul, prāṇamaya puruṣa , put on the vital nature and live in ...
... Change of the Nature Time Needed for Change The change of the nature cannot take place in a few days. It is a constant progressive movement. The change of the lower consciousness (vital and physical) is a big work and takes a long time and much action of the higher forces to accomplish. Nobody has ever done it in a short time. That is nonsense—no one can get free from the lower nature... the being one after the other, but each step takes time. All comes in its time. One has to go on quietly and steadily increasing the higher consciousness till it takes possession of the vital and physical parts. I want you to be open and in contact with the Peace and Presence and Force. All else will come if that is there and then one need not Page 726 be troubled by the time... aspiration, perfect faith and love or full and constant openness to the Divine Force. There is the mental with its limited knowledge and its hesitations, there is the vital with its desires, unwillingnesses and its struggles; there is the physical with its obscurity, slowness and inertia. Even to clear the field sufficiently for a beginning of experience is usually a very long labour. But afterwards if the ...
... pursuit, sooner or later man gradually finds answers to these questions. When we penetrate into the spiritual depth of life, when we make every effort to live on all the three levels—mental, vital, and physical—with the inner light, when we harmonize the entire life with the inner notes or when we reconstitute the outer life at the behest of the inner voice, then spiritual living becomes the normal... Karmayoga, i.e., doing one's duty as a means for attaining self-realization, may be employed to purify life and the way of doing one's duty and prepare all the three levels of nature—mental, vital and physical—for the attainment of God which is the object of our existence. When every person will thus lead every province, every nation and ultimately all the nations of the world will be devoted to the... for the establishment of peace. But we have fallen into the wont of cultivating unhappiness and unrest, instead of happiness and peace. Physical Science is the glory of life in the West, while Spiritual Science is the soul of life in the East! Physical science is a creation of mind. It gives power but not wisdom. Power bereft of wisdom turns destructive. A living illustration of this is the ...
... not necessary to wait for the others to become sincere in order to become sincere yourself. 9 March 1968 The greatest enemies of a perfect sincerity are preferences (either mental, vital or physical) and preconceived ideas. It is these obstacles that must be overcome. Page 71 ... 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 ...
... in the Veda. Yama, probably, is the Truth working on the physical aspect of the universe. The word dhl, 'rtam, satyam, brhat are among the important words for Vedic interpretation. Trim rocana when applied to svar refers to the three divisions of the svar. When it refers to three heavens, it means the heavens of the mental, vital and physical fulfilment. When each of these is fulfilled it is called ...
... n is done, the physical, vital and mental experiences and higher experiences are very much disturbed by similar experiences and moving forces outside oneself. Their relation must be understood and by discrimination, hostile forces coming from cosmic nature must be conquered. Then when purification is completed, there will be liberation of mental and vital being and mental and vital forces. This is... been acquired by some of them, but our own Yoga is not satisfied by mere vision. We must have power to control those forces. It is possible to know the physical nature of outside things by means of our physical nature, their vital nature by our vital nature, and their mental nature by our mental nature and their supramental nature by our supramental nature. It is possible also to know the inner nature... Higher Power knows the need of the system. In the physical, it is the calm, persistent power that works best, so you open with Sattvic ease, and the power can come down very easily, without your feeling strain. You need not bring down fighting power, unless you have to fight very great forces. In the vital, you could safely bring it down, for the vital is a fighting being. 11 April 1925 ...
... from below that can victoriously handle the physical Nature and annihilate its difficulties ... There must be a total and sincere surrender; there must be an exclusive self-opening to the divine Power; there must be a constant and integral choice of the Truth that is descending, a constant and integral rejection of the falsehood of the mental, vital and physical Powers and Appearances that still rule the... the earth-Nature. The surrender must be total and seize all the parts of the being. It is not enough that the psychic should respond and the higher mental accept or even the inner vital submit and the inner physical consciousness feel the influence. There must be in no part of the being, even the most external, anything that makes a reserve, anything that hides behind doubts, confusions and subterfuges... conditions, then each time that that happens, you are yourself pushing the divine Grace away from you. If behind your devotion and surrender you make a cover for your desires, egoistic demands and vital insistences, if you put Page 3 these things in place of the true aspiration or mix them with it and try to impose them on the Divine Shakti, then it is idle to invoke the divine Grace to ...
... sometimes with her physical mind. All knowledge is available in her universal self to her, but she brings forward only what is meant to be brought forward so that the work may be done. 13 August 1933 I had a dream in which I was walking alone in the desert. Was the meaning of the dream that this sadhana is very dry and difficult? No. It is perhaps how some part of the vital or physical consciousness... very far from the Mother." Why does it come? It is the feeling of the physical or outward being which is by its ignorance unable to feel the Mother's nearness. How can I convince myself of the falsity of this thought and drive it away? The Mother is always near and within, it is only the obscurity of mind and vital that do not see or feel it. That is a knowledge which the mind ought to hold... nor are you alone, since the Mother is with you. 2 November 1933 My vital does not seem to have devotion for the Mother. Instead of loving her, it gets mixed with undivine forces. Protect me from these vital obstructions. I wish to feel that I am lying in the Mother's lap. The Mother is always with you. The vital has its desires and therefore does not believe in the Mother's presence. You ...
... then come entirely forward, breaking through the mental, vital and physical screen, govern the instincts and transform the nature. Nature no longer imposes itself on the soul, but the soul, the Purusha, imposes its dictates on the nature. He also adds: The psychic being is quite different from the mind or vital; it stands behind them where they meet in the heart. Its... usually the heart is the seat of emotion, and human emotions are mental-vital impulses, not ordinarily psychic in their nature. This mostly secret power behind, other than the mind and the life-force, is the true soul, the psychic being in us. The power of the psychic, however, can act upon the mind and vital and body, purifying thought and perception and emotion (which then... according to which, although every individual has a spark of the Divine, it is only when the spark becomes individualised that it emerges as the Psychic Being which then, if recognized and accepted by our physical, emotional and mental consciousness, evolves into a direct contact with the Godhead. As the Mother writes: It is this spark that is permanent and gathers round itself all sorts of elements ...
... scalpel, Sir? SRI AUROBINDO: Opening! NIRODBARAN: Do different parts have different degrees of receptivity? SRI AUROBINDO: Of course. The mind may be receptive but the vital and physical may not, or the mind and the vital may be receptive without the body being so. DR. MANILAL: But Laxmi's case was a miracle. Sir, I must say. I thought she would pass away but now she is quite a different person ...
... Past Lives and the Psychic Being MOST people are not at all conscious of what is happening in them. Their consciousness or being is a mixture of mental, vital and physical elements, a kind of hotchpotch. There are a few, very few indeed, who are conscious – conscious of what is beyond the three, viz, their psychic being. For it is only that element which endures... however, is that usually these spirits are small beings of the vital, often remnants of a dead Page 406 person, broken bits of his decomposed personality, desires that have persisted, coagulated imaginations set free that move about and seek to possess and settle upon a living person. The small spirits of the vital are often not of good disposition; they amuse themselves at the... absolute inner necessity that brings forward the psychic and the contact is made perhaps for an instant. That experience is preserved in the psychic memory. More than the outer circumstances and the physical events, however, what is cherished in the consciousness is the intimate emotion, the vibration that accompanied the perception at the time. At themost, Page 405 a word said, a ...
... arranged at haphazard (subconscient mind, vital or physical) either have no significance or some meaning which is difficult to find and not very much worth knowing even if it is found. Other dreams are either simply happenings of the mental, vital or subtle physical worlds or else belong to the wider mental, vital Page 240 or subtle physical planes and have a meaning which the figures... It is the subconscient that is active in the ordinary dreams. But in the dreams in which one goes out into other planes of consciousness, mental, vital, subtle physical, it is part of the inner being, inner mental or vital or physical that is usually active. Letters on Yoga, p. 1487 There are such things as dream inspirations — it is rare, however, that these are of any value... snatches of different songs all jumbled together. The vital dreams even in the subconscious range are often coherent in Page 239 themselves and only seem incoherent to the waking intelligence because the logic and law of their sequences is different from the logic and law which the physical reason imposes on the incoherences of physical life. But if one gets the guiding clue and if one ...
... action is indeed of purely physical action, sariram kevalam karma ; for all else comes from above, is not generated on the human plane, is only a reflection of the will, knowledge, joy of the divine Purushottama. Sri Aurobindo Action of the Force The Force from above is the Force of the Higher Consciousness. That from behind works as a mental, vital or physical force according to need. ...
... is the thing you have to develop. By bringing down strength and calm into the lower vital (region below the navel) [ fear can be eliminated ]. Also by will and imposing calm on the system when the fear arises. It can be done in either way or both together. Fear is of course a vital and physical thing. Many people who have shown great courage, were not physically or even vitally brave;... the Vital Sadhana on the Level of the Vital Vital Defects Letters on Yoga - IV Chapter IV Fear Fear and Yoga If you want to do Yoga, you must get rid of fear. Yoga and fear do not go together. There is no fear in the higher Nature. Fear is a creation of the vital plane, an instinct of the ignorance, a sense of danger with a violent vital reaction... weakens the strength and lays one more open to the causes of unhappiness. One can be quiet, happy, cheerful without being all that in a light or shallow way—and the happiness need not bring any vital reaction. All that you need to do is to be observant and vigilant,—watchful so that you may not give assent to wrong movements or the return of the old feelings, darkness, confusion etc. Not fear, but ...
... next life. But he has remained conscious and came to you. That's exceptional. ( silence ) We'll see what happens.... Perhaps he's sick? I don't know. Or else it left because the vital being (vital and physical) violently pushed it away. Page 243 Yes, it's more likely.... He's thrown himself into rather terrible things. ( after a silence ) I don't see him anymore, but I have... 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 ...
... s and the Light that comes from it is the light of the Divine Truth. One who receives and accepts and lives in the Mother's light, will begin to see the truth on all planes, the mental, the vital, the physical. He will reject all that is undivine,—the undivine is the falsehood, the ignorance, the error of the dark forces; the undivine is all that is obscure and unwilling to accept the Divine Truth ...
... The sacrifice going up to the gods as offered by man means the sadhana, the inner discipline that he follows by which he lifts Page 19 up his being with its mental and vital and physical formulations to their higher and higher potencies upon earth. The dedication of the normal powers and faculties to the gods means purification and release from the bondages of ignorance and egoism ...
... PAST LIVES AND THE PSYCHIC BEING Most people are not at all conscious of what is happening in them. Their consciousness or being is a mixture of mental, vital and physical elements, a kind of hotchpotch. There are a few, very few indeed, who are conscious— conscious of what is beyond the three, viz. their psychic being. For it is only that element which endures... . The fact, however, is that usually these spirits are small beings of the vital, often remnants of a dead person, broken bits of his decomposed personality, desires that have persisted, coagulated imaginations set free that move about and seek to possess and settle upon a living person. The small spirits of the vital are often not of good disposition; they amuse themselves at the cost of the... absolute inner necessity that brings forward the psychic and the contact is made perhaps for an instant. That experience is preserved in the psychic memory. More than the outer circumstances and the physical events, however, what is cherished in the consciousness is the intimate emotion, the vibration that accompanied the perception at the time. At the most, a word said, a phrase heard, just a passing ...
... inner vital and physical are psychic in their nature. SRI AUROBINDO: No, they are supported by the psychic. These inner parts can have good and bad things, both light and darkness. PURANI: The psychic coming to the front acts through them? SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. PURANI: He was also asking how the six chakras are related to the three parts of the being—the mental, the vital, the physical. ...
... psychic being puts out a form, do you imply that it has a subtle-physical form so that one can see it as an embodied personality — just like a human body? Yes, but it is not limited by the form as the physical consciousness. After death when the soul returns for a new birth, who moulds the mind, vital and physical? It is done by Nature under the influence of... A sadhak told me he saw his own psychic being as a woman. The soul is not limited by any form, but the psychic being puts out a form for its expression, just as the mental, vital and subtle physical Purushas do — that is to say, one can see or another person can see one's psychic being in such and Page 196 such a form. But this seeing is of two kinds — there is the... that can only be worked out by the psychic being. It is quite different from the condition of the self. At present, I find that among the parts of my being — the soul, mind, vital and physical — only the first is in relation with the Divine and has love, faith, equality etc. But what is new in this? Every soul on earth contains these qualities even without practising Yoga. ...
... Page 75 × "All would change if man could once consent to be spiritualised; but his nature, mental and vital and physical, is rebellious to the higher law. He loves his imperfection." ...
... are caused by the very nature of the matter with which it is dealing,—that inferior stuff invades the very forms that are meant to serve as intermediaries between the spiritual and the mental, vital or physical consciousness, and often it this attempt that lies religion's greatest utility as an intercessor between spirit and nature. Truth and error live always together in the human evolution and the... not to insist on its outer characters, but give full scope to the inner spirit itself to develop its own truth and reality. In the meanwhile it has to take up as much of man's mentality, vitality, physicality as it can and give all his activities a turn towards the spiritual direction, the revelation of a spiritual meaning in them, the imprint of a spiritual refinement, the beginning of a spiritual character ...
... and in the service of man. The sacrifice going up to the gods as offered by man means the sadhana, the inner discipline that he follows by which he lifts up his being with its mental and vital and physical formulations to their higher and higher potencies upon earth. The dedication of the normal powers and faculties to the gods means purification and release from the bondages of ignorance and egoism ...
... impressions arranged at haphazard (subconscient mind, vital or physical) either have no significance or some meaning which is difficult to find and not very much worth knowing even if it is found. Other dreams are either simply happenings of the mental, vital or subtle physical worlds or else belong to the wider mental, vital or subtle physical plane and have a meaning which the figures of the dream... a symbology of the lower vital using the terms of the normal external consciousness, its system which is quite clear and convincing to the lower vital itself, can seem very absurd, incoherent and unintelligible to the physical mind. For the lower vital uses the happenings, scenes, figures, persons of the physical life, but in defiance of the order and logic of the physical world and even without any... goes out into other planes of consciousness, mental, vital, subtle physical, it is part of the inner being, inner mental or vital or physical that is usually active. Page 456 A dream, when it is not from the subconscient, is either symbolic or else an experience of some supraphysical plane or a formation thrown in by some mental or vital or either force or in rare cases an indication of ...
... all our mental, vital and bodily experience and assimilates it for the farther evolution of our existence in Nature; but this action is occult and not obtruded on the surface. In the early material and vital stages of the evolution of being there is indeed no consciousness of soul; there are psychic activities, but the instrumentation, the form of these activities are vital and physical—or mental when... forward and develops 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 ... pure or does not remain distinct in its purity; if it did, we would be able to distinguish clearly the soul element in us and follow consciously and fully its dictates. An occult mental and vital and subtle-physical action intervenes, mixes with it, tries to use it and turn it to its own profit, dwarfs its divinity, distorts or diminishes its self-expression, even causes it to deviate and stumble or stains ...
... habit. It goes from the mind, the vital and yet it comes up like something physical. In that case, it comes from what I call the environmental nature and you feel it as a concrete suggestion or as a pain, if it is physical, or as a sex-impulse. It comes and passes transversely. If it comes as a sex-impulse, there is no question of love in it; it is purely physical. It tries to, enter in. If you consent... enveloping all. NIRODBARAN: Does it mean in Ramatirtha's case that the experience was not worked upon in the vital and physical planes? SRI AUROBINDO: Certainly. Usually you find these experiences worked upon in the mental and emotional planes, in the vital less while in the physical almost not at all. NIRODBARAN: Where is the difference? In the nature of the conquest or the extent? SRI... SRI AUROBINDO: In that case it means that his experience of the Brahmic consciousness was in the mental and emotional parts and had not been brought down to the vital and physical. One loses the experience in such cases when the vital becomes active. But it is not necessary that it should be so. In my Nirvana experience the peace I had never left me and that peace remained unbroken even in the ...
... one way, one path. First, there must be a conversion inwards, a going Within to find the inmost psychic being and bring it out to the front, disclosing at the same time the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical parts of the nature. Next, there must be an ascension, a series of conversions upwards and a turning down to convert the lower parts. When one has made the inward conversion, one psychicises... intuitive height and through an intuitivised will, feeling, emotion, sensation and physical contact. So, proceeding from Intuition to a greater Overmind height, there is a new conversion and we look at and experience everything from the Overmind consciousness and through a mind, heart, vital and body surcharged with the Overmind thought, sight, will, feeling, sensation, play of force and ...
... 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 are many... Sadhana on the Level of the Vital Sadhana on the Level of the Vital Vital Temperament Letters on Yoga - IV Chapter I Cheerfulness and Happiness Cheerfulness Cheerfulness is the salt of sadhana. It is a thousand times better than gloominess. Be more cheerful and confident. Sex and Doubt and Co. are there, no doubt, but the Divine is there also... joking and hilarity ] is vital. I do not say that it should not be there, but there is a deeper cheerfulness, an inner sukhahāsya which is the spiritual condition of cheerfulness. It is an inner joy and cheerfulness that helps, but this [ light joking ] is merely a vital bubbling on the surface. It is all right in ordinary life, but in Yoga it merely expends the vital force for nothing. Humour ...
... aspiration 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 ...
... Self-mastery is the greatest conquest, it is the basis of all enduring happiness. Continence: control over oneself. To be continent is to allow no other movements in the being (mental, vital and physical) than those strictly indispensable to manifest the Divine's Will. Page 256 × A spoken comment of the... Divine. 18 October 1934 If you want to become conscious of my presence in you and to be delivered from hostile attacks, you must renounce any attempt to satisfy your desires. Only when the vital has lost all hope of seeing its desires satisfied does it consent to be spiritualised. My help and blessings are with you. 3 September 1935 A desire which knows that it will never be satisfied... Do not act under an impulse. Never forget that, as much outside as in the Ashram, if you want to lead a happy life, you must be the master of your lower nature and control your desires and vital impulses; otherwise there is no end to the miseries and the troubles. 20 September 1960 At every moment of life you are put in the presence of a choice between the Grace and your personal ...
... existence and in the service of man. The sacrifice going up to the gods as offered by man means the sadhana, the inner discipline that he follows by which he lifts up his being with its mental and vital and physical formulations to their higher and higher potencies upon earth. The dedication of the normal powers and faculties to the gods means purification and release from the bondages of ignorance and egoism ...
... mental, vital and bodily experience and assimilates it for Page 925 the farther evolution of our existence in Nature; but this action is occult and not obtruded on the surface. In the early material and vital stages of the evolution of being there is indeed no consciousness of soul; there are psychic activities, but the instrumentation, the form of these activities are vital and physical—or... higher human evolution. If the inner subtle-physical Purusha insists, he can arrive at the idea of a finer, more beautiful and perfect physical life and hope or attempt to realise it in his own or in the collective or group existence. In others it is the vital self, the being of life, who dominates and rules the mind, the will, the action; then is created the vital man, concerned with self-affirmation, self... expression of the vital ego. But still in the vital man too there are or can be other elements of a growing mental or spiritual character, even if these happen to be less developed than his life-personality and life-power. The nature of the vital man is more active, stronger and more mobile, more turbulent and chaotic, often to the point of being quite unregulated, than that of the physical man who holds ...
... 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 Shakti to open the vital nature and bring down... Part I.) It is only the more mechanical parts of the being that can truly say they are helpless: the physical (material) consciousness, especially, is inert in its nature and moved either by the mental and vital or by the higher forces. But one has always the power to put the mental will or vital push at the service of the Divine. One cannot be sure of the immediate result, for the obstruction of... freedom, has to take the spiritual or other consequences. The help can only be offered, not imposed. Silence, absence of frank confession, means a desire in the vital to go its own way. When there is no longer concealment, when there is the physical Page 68 self-opening to the Divine, then the Divine can intervene. The Will to Surrender All can be done by the Divine, the heart and nature ...
... seem unimportant at first but is the vestibule to deeper experience. They can have considerable importance in the development of the first yogic consciousness, that of the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical or for an occult understanding of the universe. Visions which are real can help the spiritual progress, I mean, those which show us inner realities: one can, for instance, meet Krishna, speak... one thing because they are one key (there are others) to contact with the other worlds or with the inner worlds and all that is there and these are regions of immense riches which far surpass the physical plane as it is at present. One enters into a larger freer self and a larger more plastic world; of course individual visions only give a contact, not an actual entrance, but the power of vision... followed out bring a constant growth of the being and the consciousness and its richness of experience and its scope.. The inner vision is an open door on higher planes of consciousness beyond the physical mind which gives room for a wider truth and experience to enter and act upon the mind. These first seeings are only an outer fringe—behind lie whole worlds of experience which fill what seems to ...
... into deeper spiritual peace Shanti, and then into the supramental calm and silence full of the higher light and strength and Ananda. Moreover, the quieting of the mind only is not enough. The vital and physical consciousness have to be opened up and the same foundation established there. Also the spirit of devotion of which he speaks must be not merely a mental feeling but an aspiration of the deeper... and recurs either in the waking state when the control by itself cannot eradicate anything entirely out of the being. The subconscient in the ordinary man includes the larger part of the vital being and the physical mind and also the secret body-consciousness. In order to make a true and complete change, one has to make all these conscious, to see clearly what is still there and to reject them from... they are made more and more external, all assent refused until they weaken and fade away. Not only the Chitta and Buddhi must refuse consent but also the lower parts of the being, the vital and the physicovital, physical mind and the body consciousness. (5) The defect of the receiving mind and the discriminating Buddhi spoken of are general defects of the intellect and cannot be entirely got rid of ...
... Thus, if we regard the vital or the subtle physical plane, We See great ranges of it, (most of it),existing in themselves, Without any relation with the material world and with no movement to affect or influence it, still less to precipitate a corresponding manifestation in the physical formula. At most we can say that the existence of anything in the vital, subtle physical or any other plane creates... from above. Man, for instance, has, besides his gross physical body, subtler sheaths or bodies by which he lives behind theveil in direct connection with supra-physical planes of consciousness and can be influenced by their powers, movements and beings. What takes place in life has always behind it pre-existent movements and forms in the occult vital planes; what takes place in mind presupposes pre-existent... even if in action for a time, come to nothing. Others effectuate a half manifestation, and this is the most usual result, the more so as these vital or other supraphysical forces come into conflict and have not only to overcome the resistance of the physical consciousness and of matter but their own internecine resistance to each other. A certain number succeed in precipitating their results in a more ...
... psychic. So, this is what happens: the psychic has alternate periods of activity and rest; it has a life of progress resulting from experiences of the physical life, of active life in a physical body, with all the experiences of the body, the vital and the mind; then, normally, the psychic goes into a kind of rest for assimilation where the result of the progress accomplished during its active existence... over from one life to another, by organising its own evolution and development itself. The Mother Questions and Answers (1957 - 1958): 12 February 1958 Does a being carry his mental, vital and physical experiences from one life to another? Each case is different. It all depends on the degree of the individual’s development in his different parts and on how well these parts are organised... and can be preserved. A high degree of development allows at least some parts of the mental and vital beings to be preserved in spite of the dissolution of the body. If, for instance, some parts—mental or vital—of the human activity have been particularly developed, these elements of the mind and vital are maintained even “in their form”—in the form of the activity which has been fully organised—as ...
... only it is an unconscious process, done by the power of the idea of the mind. It may help but I don't know if it goes the whole way. It may affect the mind, but after the mind, there are the vital, the physical and the Inconscient. The Inconscient has ideas of its own, as it were. If the opposite ideas are strong enough and have power over them, then a cure may result. DR. MANILAL: You have written ...
... What are the conditions in the lower vital and physical for the higher consciousness to begin action? There must be the will to purify, the will of sadhana, some capacity for introspection and experience. The year 1934 From the beginning the power of my intellect has been very weak. I generally live in the physical mind only. Is not the growth of ...
... the caves and mountains and give a new orientation to life but he never thought of transformation of human nature both vital and physical which he compared to the tail of a dog which could never become straight—it must always revert to its crooked curl of nature. At a higher vital and mental level, one could live a spiritual life and to that extent enjoy the bliss of the Brahman. The ignorant world... succeeded in realising their Self were emulated by the rest who had a spiritual seeking. Thus at the top level of Indian humanity, the very best were cut off from the world and the result was failure of vital and material life which was considered fit only for the ignorant masses. This state of affairs continued to be prevalent up to the advent of Ramkrishna and Vivekananda. Vivekananda wanted to broadcast... creation. Naturally, it is only in the human embodiment and at the highest at that, this search for the Divine self begins. This is the principle of the evolutionary Nature of the Consciousness- the physical aspect to which we pay so much attention is only secondary and derivative. The higher and higher forms of creation embody higher and higher Page 32 form of consciousness—till in ...
... soul is subject from its very birth in a mortal body. The separation of the soul from nature may give us a certaito mastery over the movements of our ignorant and egoistic nature, mental, vital and physical but mastery is not transformation. A certain but not complete mastery. Sri Aurobindo, therefore, insists that we have to go deeper after this first realisation of the soul to the Psychic entity ...
... to our system the three lower centres are the vital, the lower vital and the physical — but the planes are quite different. The three lower planes Page 8 are mind, life and matter and it is true that the human mind confines itself to these three activities. But it is not true that its activities are confined to the vital and physical things. The Vedanta also says that... centre is the proper station. The heart is the seat not only of the psychic but of the emotional vital which covers it. Sometimes I experience voidness near the navel centre. Is it the centre of the inner or of the outer vital? It is the centre of the inner vital but what is felt there can extend to the outer. Page 12 ... of the head. Why is this so? These are the two highest centres — and the first to be touched by the descending Force. What is the higher vital? Page 10 The heart and the dynamic vital. The heart centre and navel centre. The year 1934 Listening to the Mother's music I felt something descending into me. Up to the neck ...
... and actions of the mind, vital and physical? Are not the vital's thoughts and actions derived from desire or ego? Yes, from some vital movement. Vital thought expresses vital movements, the play of vital forces. It does not think freely and independently of them as the thinking mind can do. The true thinking mind can stand Page 26 above the vital movements, watch and observe... the whole of you, there is also the vita,l and physical. If the mind is conscious and rejects but the vital or the physical do not, then you cannot get free. The mind can be easily conscious of a wrong movement. But I don't know how the vital and the physical can be conscious of it and reject it. There is a vital mind and a physical mind and there is too a power of feeling and... makes it feel or see. Before the psychic being takes hold of the Adhar, which part governs our mind, vital and physical? Usually it is the Mind (buddhi) that governs the rest as best it can. When the Buddhi governs the Adhar (mind, vital and physical), does the Mother's Force work through the Buddhi? Not necessarily — if the Buddhi is surrendered or open ...
... Aurobindo speaks of three main parts of the ordinary mind: mind proper, which is chiefly the thinking mind or intellect; the vital or desire mind; and the physical mind. The physical mind is the part of the mind that is concerned with physical things only and is limited by the physical view and experience of things. Closely connected with it is the mechanical mind, which goes on repeating uselessly like... it, namely, the vital, the physical, the subconscient, and the inconscient. In all the millennia of the world's spiritual history up to the present, only a relatively very small number of individuals have evolved beyond mind. According to Sri Aurobindo, even mind itself has not yet, except in a small minority of humanity, fully emerged; most human beings are still governed by the vital consciousness... men live in their physical mind 21 and vital, except a few saints and a rather larger number of intellectuals. That is why, as it is now discovered, humanity has made little progress in the last three thousand years, except in information and material equipment. 22 Because mental consciousness represents a higher or more evolved level of consciousness than that of the vital, which human beings ...
... human evolution. If the inner subtle-physical Purusha insists, he can arrive at the idea of a finer, more beautiful and perfect physical life and hope or attempt to realise it in his own or in the collective or group existence. In others it is the vital self, the being of life, who dominates and rules the mind, the will, the action; then is created the vital man, concerned with self-affirmation... quite unregulated, than Page 17 that of the physical man who holds on to the soil and has a certain material poise and balance, but it is more kinetic and creative: for the element of the vital being is not earth but air; it has more movement, less status. A vigorous vital mind and will can grasp and govern the kinetic vital energies, but it is more by a forceful compulsion and constraint... capriciously and almost fantastically subrational, but of an immense potency for the earth-life. Again behind our mind, our life, our conscious physical there is a larger subliminal consciousness, — there are inner mental, inner vital, inner more subtle physical reaches supported by an inmost psychic existence which is the connecting soul of all the rest; and in these hidden reaches too lie a mass of ...
... atom, in electricity, in everything that belongs to physical nature; we shall find even that it is not really in all respects a lower or more limited mode than the mental, on the contrary it is in many "inanimate" forms more intense, rapid, poignant, though less evolved towards the surface. But this also, this consciousness of vital and physical Nature is, compared with Chit, a lower and therefore... consciousness. It is this Chit which modifies itself so as to become on the Truth-plane the supermind, on the mental plane the mental reason, will, emotion, sensation, on the lower planes the vital or physical instincts, impulses, habits of an obscure force not in superficially conscious possession of itself. All is Chit because all is Sat; all is various movement of the original Consciousness because... conscious-stuff of inferior planes in 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 ...
... spiritual force is the original one and the others are derivative from it, then there is no irrationality in supposing that spiritual force can produce mental results, vital results, physical results. It may act through mental, vital or physical energies and through the means which these energies use, or it may act directly on mind, life or matter as the field of its own special and immediate action. Either... about the power inherent in spiritual consciousness. What I was speaking of was a willed use of any subtle force (it may be spiritual or mental or vital) to secure a particular result at some point in the world. Just as there are waves of unseen physical forces (cosmic waves etc.) or currents of electricity, so there are mind waves, thought currents, waves of emotion, e.g. anger, sorrow, etc., which... and concrete in the way I have described and has tangible results. But it is invisible—not like a blow given or the rush of a motor car knocking somebody down which the physical senses can at once perceive. How is the mere physical mind to know that it is there and working? By its results? but how can it know that the results were that of the Yoga-force and not of something else? One of two things ...
... alone, but for the Divine; its aim is to work out the will of the Divine in the world, to effect a spiritual transformation and to bring down a divine nature and a divine life into the mental, vital and physical nature and life of humanity. Its object is not personal Mukti, although Mukti is a necessary condition of the yoga, but the liberation and transformation of the human being. It is not personal... the subconscient. That cannot be done by the influence of the Self leaving the consciousness fundamentally as it is with only purification, enlightenment of the mind and heart and quiescence of the vital. It means a bringing down of the Divine Consciousness static and dynamic into all these parts and the entire Page 146 replacement of the present consciousness by that. This we find ...
... life is exposed to vitiation by some incompleteness of the spiritual knowledge on its dynamic side, by the imperfections of the individual seekers and by the invasion of the ordinary mind and vital and physical consciousness taking hold of the truth and mechanising, obscuring or corrupting it. The mental intelligence and its main power of reason cannot change the principle and persistent character of ...
... represents whatever soul-power is developed from life to life or put forward for action in our present life-formation. The psychic being usually expresses itself through its instruments, mental, vital and physical; it tries to put as much of its own stamp on them as possible. But it can seldom put on them the full psychic stamp—unless it comes fully out from its rather secluded and overshadowed position ...
... The human consciousness has what I call the subliminal, which is open to the subtle worlds, but of which one is not aware because the surface awareness is clouded by the ordinary human mental, vital and physical. The inner opening is to the subliminal while the higher is to the Superconscient. There are some people who are open to the latter. SATYENDRA: Terms like Karana Sharira are of the later Vedanta ...
... on a 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... tion. It is, besides, a step for which the whole of evolution has been a preparation and which is brought closer at each crisis of human destiny when the mental and vital evolution of the being touches a point where intellect and vital force reach some acme of tension and there is a need either for them to collapse, to sink back into a torpor of defeat or a repose of unprogressive quiescence or to ...
... dependent or dominated by its Page 34 instruments — mind, vital and body, but dominating them and moulding them into luminosity and teaching them their true action. 35 —Sri Aurobindo * It is the action of the psychic being, not the being itself, that gets mixed with the mental, vital and physical disabilities because it has to use them to express what little of the true... and develops 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... pure or does not remain distinct in its purity; if it did, we would be able to distinguish clearly the soul element in us and follow consciously and fully its dictates. An occult mental and vital and subtle-physical action intervenes, mixes with it, tries to use it and turn it to its own profit, dwarfs its divinity, distorts or diminishes its self-expression, even causes it to deviate and stumble or stains ...
... November 1931 There will always be doubts, upsettings and confusion of the physical mind and vital, so long as the vital approaches the Page 45 Mother from the wrong standpoint,—e.g. if it insists on judging her by her response to its demands and ideas of what she ought to give it. Not to impose one's mind or vital will on the Divine but to receive the Divine's Will and follow it, is the... made it clear, first, that divine love and psychic love both needed a complete expression and that vital and physical love were their necessary complements and were both a part of that complete expression. At any rate, if that was not clear in my letter, I want to make it clear now,—as also that physical darshan etc. are quite legitimate means of expression of the psychic love itself and, a fortiori... mistaken movements of the sadhaks which were standing in the way of the descent of the Truth into the physical (material) nature. The basis cannot be built in a day, but the Mother had to stand back, otherwise to build it at all would be impossible. 7 December 1931 If it is the same part of the vital that was on the right side and has now turned against the Mother, the explanation is very obvious ...
... be a living growth. Therefore the coming of a spiritual age must be preceded by the appearance of an increasing number of individuals who are no longer satisfied with the normal intellectual, vital and physical existence of man, but perceive that a greater evolution is the real goal of humanity and attempt to effect it in themselves, to lead others to it and to make it the recognised goal of the race... life and a body, but as a soul incarnated for a divine fulfilment upon earth, not only in heavens beyond, which after all it need not have left if it had no divine business here in the world of physical, vital and mental nature. It will therefore regard the life, mind and body neither as ends in themselves, sufficient for their own satisfaction, nor as mortal members full of disease which have only to... soul, the yet imperfect instruments of an unsealed diviner purpose." "Therefore it will hold sacred all the different parts of man's life which correspond to the parts of his being, all his physical, vital, dynamic, emotional, aesthetic, ethical, intellectual, psychic evolution, and see in them instruments for a growth towards a diviner living. It will regard every human society, nation, people or ...
... enemies of perfect sincerity ? "The greatest enemies of a perfect sincerity,” says the Mother, " are preferences (either mental, vital or physical) and preconceived ideas. It is these obstacles that must be overcome.”² Our preferences may be mental, vital or physical. They are nothing but selective likings, derived from habitual fancies, desires, automatic attractions, etc. They are basically irrational... have sincerity, you are sure of victory. But it must be true sincerity. Sincerity means that all the elements of your being, all-its movements, each and every one, from the most spiritual to the most physical, from the inmost to the outermost, from the topmost to the bottommost, all parts, severally and wholly and equally, are turned to the Divine, they ask for nothing else than the Divine, they live for... or achieve that much. It is within the capacity of any human being with normal goodwill to be sincere in his psychic movements, even if these are rare. But to be sincere in the very cells of your physical body is a still rarer achievement. To make the body cells so one-pointed that they too feel they cannot live but for the Divine and in and through the Divine. That is true sincerity and that you must ...
... inner being and to live from there outward, governing his outward life by an inner light and force. In doing so he discovers in himself his true soul which is not this outer mixture of mental, vital and physical elements but something of the Reality behind them, a spark from the one Divine Fire. He has to learn to live in his soul and purify and orientate by its drive towards the Truth the rest of the ...
... If the supramental can stand in the mind and vital, then it must stand in the physical also. If it does not stand in the physical, it cannot stand in the mind and vital also; it will be something else, not the supramental. It [ the supermind ] cannot be brought down into the mind and vital without being brought down into the physical also. One can feel its influence or get something from... that the physical can be supramentalised before the mental and vital is an absolute absurdity. What I said was that the mind and vital could not be supramentalised so long as the physical was left as it was, untouched by the supramental descent. It is quite impossible for the supramental to take up the body before there has been the full supramental change in the mind and the vital. X and... the physical mind is not supramentalised, Page 302 then there will be in mind a mixture of ignorance, but then it will not be supermind there, but something else. So also with the vital. All that can manifest in the mind separately is a partly supramentalised overmind. There can be no conquest of the other planes by the supermind, but only an influence, so long as the physical is ...
... sadhana, a full and complete aim. The fullness and completeness may be viewed from several standpoints. Not only one part of us — the mental intelligence, the emotional being, the vital force, the physical organism — is taken up according to the specific turn of our nature, as in the old Yogas, but our whole self in all its parts is set towards the Divine. Of course, our starting-point can be... of what 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. ...
... thousands—of disciples, followers, believers. He says there is only one way to bring peace on earth, and that is total and complete freedom: intellectual and moral freedom, of course, but also vital and physical freedom. That is, freeing oneself from all subjections and all laws, living according to one's own impulsion. Then, he says, "something" (I forget what he calls it) will govern you and Page... with that. I saw his photo yesterday. Vitally, he is extraordinarily strong. I don't know if it's his own force or if it's what he receives from others, because you can find that out only through physical contact. ( silence ) It's yet another approach. There are lots and lots of such people now. I've already told you about three or four. And each of them has thousands of followers, who probably ...
... inner being and to live from there outward, governing his outward life by an inner light and force. In doing so he discovers in himself his true soul which is not this outer mixture of mental, vital and physical elements but something of the Reality behind them, Page 158 a spark from the one Divine Fire. He has to learn to live in his soul and purify and orientate by its drive towards ...
... at the very root of our education and the one thing that will give it its truly national character. Man has not been seen by the thought of India as a living body developed by physical Nature which has evolved certain vital propensities, an ego, a mind and a reason, an animal of the genus and in our case of the species homo indicus, whose whole life and education must be turned towards a satisfaction... on in 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... been either the turn of her mind to regard man pre-eminently as a reasoning animal, or let us say, widening the familiar definition, a thinking, feeling and willing natural existence, a mental son of physical Nature, and his education as a culture of the mental capacities, or to define him as a political, social and economic being and his education as a training that will fit him to be an efficient, productive ...
... and its close. This economic barbarism is essentially that of the vital man who mistakes the vital being for the self and accepts its satisfaction as the first aim of life. The characteristic of Life is desire and the instinct of possession. Just as the physical barbarian makes the excellence of the body and the development of physical force, health and prowess his standard and aim, so the vitalistic... freedom, his distrust of novelty, his slowness to seize intelligently and assimilate, his downward propensity and earthward gaze, his vital and physical subjection to his heredity, all these and more are his heritage from the subhuman origins of his life and body and physical mind. It is because of this heritage that he finds self-exceeding the most difficult of lessons and the most painful of endeavours... importance,—but to the adult man in civilised humanity it is ceasing to be possible. For, in the first place, by the stress of modern life even the vital attitude of the race is changing. Man is ceasing to be so much of a physical and becoming much more of a vital and economic animal. Not that he excludes or is intended to exclude the body and its development or the right maintenance of and respect for the ...
... be a living growth. Therefore the coming of a spiritual age must be preceded by the appearance of an increasing number of individuals who are no longer satisfied with the normal intellectual, vital and physical existence of man, but perceive that a greater evolution is the real goal of humanity and attempt to effect it in themselves, to lead others to it and to make it the recognised goal of the race... as alien to them, nothing as outside their scope. For every part of human life has to be taken up by the spiritual,—not only the intellectual, the aesthetic, the ethical, but the dynamic, the vital, the physical; therefore for none of these things or the activities that spring from them will they have contempt or aversion, however they may insist on a change of the spirit and a transmutation of the form... higher divine and gnostic will, the psychic sweetness, fire and light of the soul behind the heart, hṛdaye guhāyām , has to alchemise our crude emotions and the hard egoisms and clamant desires of our vital nature. All our other members have to pass through a similar conversion under the compelling force and light from above. The leaders of the spiritual march will start from and use the knowledge and ...
... is full of love for her and always feels a great nearness whether one is physically near her or not—this relation takes up the mind, vital and inner physical till one feels one's mind close to the Mother's mind, one's vital in harmony with hers, one's very physical consciousness full of her. These are all the elements of the inner union, not only in the spirit and self but in the nature. I do not... s that deceive the mind and the vital nature. Do not therefore remain in these thoughts that have no foundation but are only a mood of despondency or a suggestion from outside. Let the psychic being in you grow and the Mother's force work. The relation of the child and the Mother is there in your soul; it will make itself felt in your mind and vital and physical consciousness till it becomes the... it and making it impure. Yes, the connection is always there, in the self and in the psychic; but if there are obstacles in the mind, vital and physical, then the connection cannot be manifest or, if it is at all manifest, it is Page 448 mixed with elements which make it imperfect and unstable. The true connection is the psychic and spiritual relation; the relation in the other parts ...
... Answers (1950-1951) 3 May 1951 "Money is the visible sign of a universal force, and this force in its manifestation on earth works on the vital and physical planes and is indispensable to the fullness of the outer life. In its origin and its true action it belongs to the Divine. But like other powers of the Divine it is delegated here and in the... tiniest atom of ambition remained and one wanted this Power for one's personal satisfaction, one could never have it, that Power would never come. Its deformed limitations, of the kind seen in the vital and physical world, those yes, one may have them, and there are many people who have them, but the true Power, the Power Sri Aurobindo calls "supramental", unless one is absolutely free from all egoism under ...
... The Supermind does not act on it directly—whatever comes down from there is modified so as to pass through the Overmind and takes a lesser form suitable to the plane on which it acts, mental, vital or physical. But this intervention is exceptional in the ordinary play of the cosmic forces. Page 289 The Entry of the Universal Forces There is no rule for that [ the points at which the universal... energies will begin to act for themselves and all go into confusion and a wrong movement. It is still worse to try to draw these lower universal energies from those around you and keep up with them a vital interchange; what gain can there be in that? On the contrary, it will lead to greater confusion and even bring in all kinds of mischief and trouble. Often the association of these universal energies ...
... staggered before that sublime height. I prostrate myself." ( After a silence ) I see her quite frequently at night.... ( silence ) There is a whole range of things from the subconscient (vital and physical subconscient)... quite new, things I didn't have before. It isn't my subconscient, it's much more general, and it comes with what are practically revelations; I mean I suddenly see certain things... time: the thing must be done." And the body's activities hadn't the least importance; whatever I did, that remained. I was seeing that tall being from above, like a great transformative power in the vital. A huge being, very calm and powerful—with no violence in it of course, but utterly Page 217 indomitable, and: " Enough waiting, enough shilly-shallying, enough vacillating: IT IS TIME." ...
... perturbed and he became well soon. SRI AUROBINDO: There are many kinds of voices. Some are of greater beings who have more knowledge than human being. Some voices come from one's own mental, vital and physical planes. And then there are voices of the inner being which are very difficult to distinguish. PURANI: In external affairs too he is guided by his voices, for example, in connection with changing ...
... purest gold, but it is crusted over with dross. The dross is to be eliminated and the noble metal freed. Indeed each element of the being wherever and whatever it is, each corpuscle, mental, vital or physical is ambivalent – it is a polarised entity consisting of two parts or two ends, one pure, the other impure. The ancients thought that the whole creation is impure; the only pure substance is the... your egohood and turning to the self, the being that is beyond. This withdrawal is to be done constantly and consistently in all the parts of the being. The mind is to move away from its thoughts, the vital from its desires and impulses and the body from its hunger and thirst. The first result of this withdrawal is a division of the being, an inner passive part and an outer active part. The inner part ...
... which have this note, dealing as he always does with life, with vital emotions and reactions or the thoughts that spring out in the life-mind under the pressure of life. It is not any strict adhesion to a transcendental view of things that constitutes this kind of poetry, but something behind not belonging to the mind or the vital and physical consciousness and with that a certain quality or power in the... from which it comes, but on the purity and authenticity and power with which it transcribes an intense vision and inspiration from whatever source. Shakespeare is a poet of the vital inspiration, Homer of the subtle physical, but there are no greater poets in any literature. No doubt, if we can get a continuous inspiration from the Overmind, that Page 114 would mean a greater... nature of overhead poetry.... "The essential character is perhaps that there is something behind of which I have already spoken and which comes not primarily from the mind or the vital emotion or the physical seeing but from the cosmic self and its consciousness standing behind them all and things then tend to be seen not as the mind or heart or body sees them but as this greater consciousness ...
... the hero and even of the Titan. But the greatest force is born out of the greatest difficulty. All would change if man could once consent to be spiritualised; but his nature mental and vital and physical is rebellious to the higher law. He loves his imperfections. The Spirit is the truth of our being; mind and life and body in their imperfection are its masks, but in their perfection should... correspondence, a faultless work would be done; but the mind and body of mankind cannot hold perfectly a strong spiritual inrush: most is spilt, much of the rest is corrupted. Many intellectual and physical upturnings of our soil are needed to work out a little result from a large spiritual sowing. Each religion has helped mankind. Paganism increased in man the light of beauty, the largeness and height... e mankind. For that there is needed not cult and creed, but a sustained and all-comprehending effort at spiritual self-evolution. The changes we see in the world today are intellectual, moral, physical in their ideal and intention: the spiritual revolution waits for its hour and throws up meanwhile its waves here and there. Until it comes the sense of the others cannot be understood and till then ...
... has to accept if one is to be part of an organisation. 9 July 1933 What is discipline? To live and act under control or according to a standard of what is right—not to allow the vital or the physical to do whatever they like and not to let the mind run about according to its fancy without truth or order. Also to obey those who ought to be obeyed. July 1933 Need of Self-Discipline ... Page 673 Some [personal] rules I have been following—not reading newspapers, not eating outside, and so forth—now seem like mental dogmas. Rules like these are intended to help the vital and physical to come under the discipline of sadhana and not get dispersed in fancies, impulses, self-indulgences; but they must be done simply, not with any sense of superiority or ascetic pride, but as... is the mind wanting to follow its own way of thinking and the vital seeking freedom for its desires which argue in this manner. If you do not follow the rules laid down by the spiritual guide or obey one who is leading you to the Divine, then what or whom are you to follow? Only the ideas of the individual mind and the desires of the vital: but these things never lead to siddhi in Yoga. The rules are ...
... mistake to interfere with the images rising in you. It does not matter whether they are mental or psychic. One must have experience not only of the true psychic but of the inner mental, inner vital and subtle physical worlds or planes of consciousness. The occurrence of the images is a sign that these are opening and to inhibit them would mean to inhibit the expansion of consciousness and experience without... kinds of movements in the Sadhana, the ascent and the descent. The ascent or the upward movement takes place when there is a sufficient aspiration from the being, i.e. from the various mental, vital and physical planes. Each in turn ascends above the mind to the place where it meets the supramental and can then receive the origination of all its movements from above. The Higher descends when you have... repel all contrary suggestions. It is now precisely in this physical field that I am getting most obstruction nowadays. I have myself been sporting a choice kind of cough for the last month or so which took up its lodgings in my throat and cheerfully promised to be my companion for the longest possible period it could manage of my physical existence; and though ill received and constantly discouraged ...
... Life through the Eye of the Yogin The Hidden Forces of Life Forces in Human Interchange There is a constant mental, vital, subtle-physical interchange going on between all who meet or live together, of which they are themselves unaware except in so far as its impacts and interpenetrations touch them as sensible results of speech and action and outer contact:... America etc. etc. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - III: The Inward Movement No, people are not conscious of these things, only a few are. The vital exchange is there, but they are not aware of it—because they live in the external mind (physical) and these things go on behind. Even if they feel more energetic after an interchange or depressed or tired, they would not attribute it to the talk... Practice of Yoga It is not necessary to be so careful as all that. Ordinary vital interchanges are of a slight character. Nobody can take away another’s vital, for the very good reason that if that happened, the person from whom it was taken would die. It is possible of course for one person to drain another’s vital forces so as to leave him limp or weak or dry, but it is only the vampire kind that ...
... indirectly choose pain and misery by not turning to the Divine ]. Even there is something in the vital consciousness that would not feel at home if there were no suffering in life. It is the physical that fears and abhors suffering, but the vital takes it as part of the play of life. It is the vital that enjoys the drama of life and takes a pleasure even in sorrow and suffering—it [ a movement... ] is not a revolt but an acceptance. Of course there are moods of revolt also in the vital in which it takes a pleasure. The part that does not like suffering and would be glad to get rid of it is the physical consciousness, but the vital pushes it always and so it cannot escape. It is the rajaso-tamasic vital ego that is responsible both for revolt and for the acceptance of depression. Rajas p... feel that it would be terribly boring to have nothing but joy and Ananda and peace—many even have said it. The gloom and other difficulties come from a resistance of inertia in the lower vital and physical consciousness. What you have to do is to prepare the consciousness by getting rid of the inertia. A sattwic gladness and calm and confidence is the proper temperament for this Yoga; gloom, depression ...
... keen contact at long distances through identification since my school days. But these things had not helped me to control my nature or to transform it. These did help me to break my mental, vital and physical limitations or to grow into a wider consciousness. I was no more at the mercy of circumstances. The Grace of the Mother made it possible for me to control external conditions. Time was passing ...
... things is that they have to be extruded outside the Page 388 individual consciousness. Rejected by the mind and higher vital, they still try to hold on to the lower vital and physical. Rejected from the lower vital, they still hold the body by a physical desire. Rejected from the body, they retire into the environmental consciousness (sometimes into the subconsient also, rising in dreams)—I... helps to bring out what is in the inner being and to clarify the rest. As for the "meannesses," they are the very substance of these movements of the nature—I refer to that range of the "little vital" which is occupied with philandering on one side and the animal passion on the other (these are the two borders of one and the same region); it is a part of the nature in which ... [incomplete] ... more than external suggestions till that too ends—and they are finished and nonexistent. You need not think that anything can alter our attitude towards you. That which is extended to you is not a vital human love which can be altered by external things: it remains and persistently we shall try to help and lift you up and lead you towards the Light where in the union of soul and heart you will recognise ...
... purest gold, but it is crusted over with dross. The dross is to be eliminated and the noble metal freed. Indeed each element of the being wherever and whatever it is, each corpuscle, mental, vital or physical is ambivalent—it is a polarised entity consisting of two parts or two ends, one pure, the other impure. The ancients thought that the whole creation is impure; the only pure substance is the... the self, the being that is beyond. This withdrawal is to be done constantly and consistently in all the parts of the being. The mind is to move away from its thoughts, the Page 14 vital from its desires and impulses and the body from its hunger and thirst. The first result of this withdrawal is a division of the being, an inner passive part and an outer active part. The inner part ...
... Complete removal of the ego takes place when one identifies oneself with the Spirit and realizes the same Spirit in all. Also when the mental, vital and physical nature is known to be derivative from the Universal Mind, universal vital and the universal physical then the same result ensues. The individual must realize his divinity i.e. his identity with the Transcendent or the Cosmic Divine. Generally... The dynamic nature retains the ego – especially the vital ego. So, the best thing would be to combine the two – for the psychic attitude of humility helps in getting rid of the vital – dynamic – ego. The complete dissolution of the ego is not an easy thing. Specially important is the removal of mental and vital ego, the other ego of the physical and of the subconscient can be dealt with at leisure... leisure. That is to say, they are not so absorbing. As I said, humility helps in the removal of the vital ego, but one must remember that it is not outward humility. There are many people who profess and show the Page 98 utmost outward humility, but in their hearts think : "I am the man!" Disciple : "X" when he came for a short day, he found that you lacked the virtue ...
... this change is a complete reversal, a turning over, one might almost say, upside down of the whole activity. At present we live in the mind and mostly in the physical mind, but still not entirely involved like the animal in the physical, vital and sensational workings. On the contrary we have attained to a certain mental elevation from which we can look down on the action of the life, sense and body... self-knowledge that acts above mind in the superconscient spirit. That spirit becomes conscient to us as a greater self at once above and in and around us of which our present self, our mental, vital and physical personality and nature, is an imperfect portion or a partial derivation or an inferior and inadequate symbol, and as the intuitive mind grows in us, as our whole being grows more moulded to an... intuitive substance, we feel a sort of half transformation of our members into the nature of this greater self and spirit. All our thought, will, impulse, feeling, even in the end our more outward vital and physical sensations become more and more direct transmissions from the spirit and are of another and a more and more pure, untroubled, powerful and luminous nature. This is one side of the change: the ...
... by diverse forces. There are the physical personality, the vital personality, the mental personality and the psychic; and there are besides, many sub-personalities within these main categories. These personalities hardly agree with one another. If the mental personality, for instance, seeks the Divine and hankers for a life of spiritual freedom and bliss, the vital opposes ¹ Words of the... 254 it with its insistent desires and blind attachments. In the vital personality itself there may be a part touched by the light and responsive to a higher call, and another, obscure and perverse, wallowing in turbid sense-pleasures. The physical personality may often find itself oppressed by the mental or the vital, and suffering in consequence of a constant, unavailing revolt. It is these... material life in the world. What is Money ? According to Sri Aurobindo, "Money is the visible sign of a universal force, and this force in its manifestation on earth works on the vital and physical planes and is indispensable to the fullness Page 252 of the outer life. In its origin and its true action it belongs to the Divine. But like other powers of the Divine, it is ...
... alien to them, nothing as outside their scope. For every part of human life has to be taken up by the spiritual – not only the intellectual, the aesthetic, the ethical, but the dynamic, the vital, the physical; therefore for none of these things or the activities that spring from them will they have contempt or aversion, however they may insist on a change of the spirit and a transmutation of the form... disciple: ‘I think I can say that I have been testing day and night for years upon years’ his spiritual knowledge and experience ‘more scrupulously than any scientist his theory or his method on the physical plane’. The Record of Yoga bears this out in detail. It may be looked on as the laboratory notebook of an extended series of experiments of yoga.” (Peter Heehs 959) For he had no intention “of giving ...
... below that can victoriously handle the physical Nature and annihilate its difficulties.... There must be a total and sincere surrender; there must be an exclusive self-opening to the divine Power; there must be a constant and integral choice of the Truth that is descending, a constant and integral rejection of the falsehood of the mental, vital and physical Powers and Appearances that still rule... the heart's seeking, the assent of the vital being, the will to open and make plastic the physical consciousness and nature; rejection of the movements of the lower nature — rejection of the mind's ideas, opinions, preferences, habits, constructions, so that the true knowledge may find free room in a silent mind, — rejection of the vital nature's desires, demands, cravings, sensations... earth-Nature. The surrender must be total and seize all the parts of the being. It is not enough that the psychic should respond and the higher mental accept or even the inner vital submit and the inner physical consciousness feel the influence. There must be in no part of the being, even the most external, anything that makes a reserve, anything that hides behind doubts, confusions and s ...
... the physical, leaving them to be dealt with by the Mother and engrossed myself in her work as if I were a strong man. In a spiritual Ashram, should not one be full of an adventurous spirit, ready to take up even a stupendous work? It was towards this ideal that I was trying to develop my physical self. But, really, I was not aware that my attempt had only a mental will and vital insistence... Page 98 must keep one's sense of measure. Work is a means of self-dedication to the Divine, but it must be done with the necessary inner consciousness in which the outer vital and physical must also share. A lazy body is certainly not a proper instrument for Yoga, it must stop being lazy. But a fatigued and unwilling body also cannot receive properly or be a good instrument... to make out why my feet remain constantly fatigued even after sleep. Is not sleep a means to relax everything? I think you had forced yourself too much physically by mental will and vital insistence on the body — the present fatigue is partly at least the result. Forcing means not giving yourself sufficient sleep. I had already written that enough sleep was important ...
... field, not of his physical existence, (the astronauts are trying it today), but outside his physical or normal consciousness. He has to rise above the physical, material status of his being. There is the error that Hamlet committed in spite of his cultured and enlightened mind: not through the enlightened mind alone but through the enlightened heart, through the enlightened vital, even through an ... consciousness making up the higher half circle. In between there is, as I have said, a border range which partakes of the nature of both. In psychological terms, the lower is the predominantly vital and physical ranges with a modicum of the mental shading into the higher mental. Up till here it is more or less the region of ignorance. Then comes the higher mind with its aspiring will: this is the pu... the control-room, or in most modern lunar vocabulary, the command-module. It is from here that the first changes towards a higher and purer functioning are initiated in our lower limbs, the body, the vital and even the lower mental. Beyond is the overhead and overmental – and still higher ranges. The luminous consciousness, the touch of immortality begins with the overhead and the overmental. As we enter ...
... being in man is not so rigidly bound to the vital and physical,—on the contrary, the latter are ordinarily dissolved together after death, and there must 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... sensation emergent in it is the basis and determines without the gross obstacle of Matter the forms that it shall take. This organisation of consciousness has for its field Bhuvarloka, the worlds of free vital becoming in form. We may conceive also of an organised state of consciousness in which Mind liberates itself from subjection to material sensation and becoming dominant determines its own forms instead ...
... basis and atmosphere of your future development and experience, calm in the mind, the purified vital being and in the physical consciousness. A psycho-vital or psycho-physical Yoga will not be safe for you until you have this calm and an assured purity of being and a complete and always present vital and physical protection. Aurobindo. × ... certain one-sidedness and mixture and there are also psycho-vital and psycho-physical developments of a double nature. I do not mean that all is false in them but that there are many strong partial truths which need to be corrected by others which they seem to ignore and even to exclude. Besides there are suggestions from the intellect and the vital being and also suggestions from external sources which... kinds of things and to suggestions, and messages from all sorts of planes and worlds and forces and beings. There is the true psychic which is always good and there is the psychic opening to mental, vital and other worlds which contain all kinds of things good, bad and indifferent, true, false and half truths, thought-suggestions which are of all kinds, and messages [which] are also of all kinds. What ...
... something altogether indefinite. The mind's progress may take thousands of years, for it is a very vast and very indefinite field, which is constantly renewed. But if one wants to progress in the vital and physical, well, this imaged representation becomes very useful for fixing the action, making it more concrete. Naturally it doesn't happen completely at will; it depends on each one's nature. But those ...
... of consciousness is needed. This cannot be compared in any way with the different faculties or possibilities one has in the mental field. It may be said of someone that he hasn't much mental, vital or physical capacity, that his possibilities are very limited; in that case it may be asked how these capacities may be developed, that is, how new ones may be acquired, which is something rather difficult... form: the aspect of the outward environment is altered, but man remains what he was; he is still an ignorant mental being misusing or not effectively using his knowledge, moved by ego and governed by vital desires and passions and the needs of the body, unspiritual and superficial in his outlook, ignorant of his own self and the forces that drive and use him.... Only a spiritual change, an evolution of ...
... Inner opening All change must come from within with the felt or the secret support of the Divine Power; it is only by one's own inner opening to that that one can receive help, not by mental, vital or physical contact with others. Sri Aurobindo He alone Never seek a support elsewhere than in the Divine. Never seek satisfaction elsewhere than in the Divine. Never seek the satisfaction of... in the work you meet with some difficulties, look sincerely into yourself and there you will discover their origin. The Mother Psychic gladness Vital joy has to be replaced by a quiet settled psychic gladness with the mind and Vital very clear and very peaceful. When one works on this basis, then everything becomes glad and easy, in touch with the Mother's force and fatigue or depression ...
... quotation presents a whole thesis. For instance one reads on pages 51-52: "An entirely new consciousness in many individuals transforming their whole being, transforming their mental, vital and physical nature-self, is needed for the new life to appear; only such a transformation of the general mind, life, body-nature can bring into being a new worthwhile collective existence." (The Life Divine ...
... greater the number of elements or personalities that one possesses. Whether one lives mostly or mainly on the physical or vital or mental plane or on any particular section of these planes or on planes above and beyond, there will be accordingly differences in the constitution or psycho-physical make-up of the individual personality. The higher one stands the richer the personality, because it lives... this or you are to do that, in this lies your talent or genius etc. That will carry you away from the right track. It is not the liking or disliking of your external being, your mental or vital or physical choice that determines the true line of your growth. Nor should you take up the opposite attitude and say, "I am good for nothing in this matter, I am useless in that other, this is not for... emerging out of the mere physico-vital existence; these are like simple organisms, made of fewer constituents, referring mostly to the bodily life, with just a modicum of the mental. It is the soul, however, that grows with experiences and it is the soul that builds and enriches the personality. Whatever portion of the outer life, whatever element in the mind or vital or body succeeds in coming in ...
... of elements or personalities that one possesses. Whether one lives mostly or mainly on the physical or vital or mental plane or on any particular section of these planes or on planes above and beyond, there will be accordingly Page 238 differences in the constitution or psycho-physical make-up of the individual personality. The higher one stands the richer the personality, because... do this or you are to do that, in this lies your talent or genius etc. That will carry you away from the right track. It is not the liking or disliking of your external being, your mental or vital or physical choice that determines the true line of your growth. Nor should you take up the opposite attitude and say, "I am good for nothing in this matter, I am useless in that other, this is not for... emerging out of the mere physico-vital existence; these are like simple organisms, made of fewer constituents, referring mostly to the bodily life, with just a modicum of the mental. It is the soul, however, that grows with experiences and it is the soul that builds and enriches the personality. Whatever portion of the outer life, whatever element in the mind or vital or body succeeds in corning in contact ...
... growth of a self-affirming vital and physical individual, a construction of Nature of life and matter with a concealed psychic or spiritual true individual behind it for which Nature is creating this outward means of expression. As mentality increases, this vital and material individual takes the more developed form of a constantly self-affirming mental, vital and physical ego. Our surface consciousness... of creating any other beings than those around us in the physical world, men, beasts, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, germs and animalculae. But if there are invisible cosmic forces physical in their nature that act upon the body of inanimate objects, there is no valid reason why there should not be invisible cosmic forces mental and vital in their nature that act upon his mind and his life force... by the general limitations of mind-intelligence: the ego is there, the physical ego, the life ego bent, not on self-knowledge and the discovery of the truth of things and the truth of life, but on vital self-affirmation; a mental ego is there also bent on its own personal self-affirmation and largely directed and used by the vital urge for its life-desire and life-purpose. For as mind develops, there ...
... consciousness— physical, vital, mental—is ready and completely surrendered and receptive to the action of the Divine Force. As he explains in letters to disciples: In the early part of the sadhana—and by early I do not mean a short part—effort is indispensable. Surrender of course, but surrender is not a thing that is done in a day. The mind has its ideas and it clings to them; the human vital resists... 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, being contrary to or incompatible with the truth of one's being. It lies... Page 107 room in a silent mind—rejection of the vital nature's desires, demands, cravings, sensations, passions, selfishness, pride, arrogance, lust, greed, jealousy, envy, hostility to the Truth, so that the true power and joy may pour from above into a calm, large, strong and consecrated vital being—rejection of the physical nature's stupidity, doubt, disbelief, obscurity, obstinacy, ...
... of elements or personalities that one possesses. Whether one lives mostly or mainly on the physical or vital or mental plane or on any particular section of these planes or on the planes above and beyond them, there will be, accordingly, differences Page 334 in the constitution or psycho-physical make-up of the individual personality. The higher one stands, the richer the personality, because... are to do, in this lies your talent or genius, etc. That will carry you away from the right track. It is not the liking or Page 336 disliking of your external being, your mental or vital or physical choice that determines the true line of your growth. Nor should you take up the opposite attitude and say, "I am good for nothing in this matter, I am useless in that one; it is not for me." Neither... emerging out of the mere physico-vital existence; they are like simple organisms, made of fewer constituents related mostly to the bodily life, with just a modicum of the mental. It is the soul, however, that grows with experiences and it is the soul that builds and enriches the personality. Whatever portion of the outer life, whatever element in the mind or vital or body succeeds in coming into contact ...
... exaggerated, even so the power of tl1.e body, that of physical and external rules and regulations. The mental or the physical or both together can mould the vital only to a limited extent, to the extent which is allowed by the inherent law of the vital. If the demands of the mental and the physical are stretched too far and are not suffered by the vital, a crash and catastrophe is bound to come in the end... understood that the mental, the vital and the physical form a nexus of reality which works in its own inexorable law and so long as we are within them we cannot but obey the laws that guide them. Of these three strata which form the human adhara, it is the vital which holds the key to man's nature. It is the executive power, the force that fashions the realities on the physical plane; it is what creates... lower poise of the mental and vital and physical. Only in order to get into that higher poise we must really transcend the lower, that is to say, we must not be 'Satisfied with experiencing or envisaging it through the mind and heart but must directly commune with it, be it. There is a higher law that rules there, a power that is the truth-substance of even the vital and hence can remould it with a ...
... exaggerated, even so the power of the body, that of physical and external rules and regulations. The mental or the physical or both together can mould the vital only to a limited extent, to the extent which is allowed by the inherent law of the vital. If the demands of the mental and the physical are stretched too far and are not suffered by the vital, a crash and catastrophe is bound to come in the end... understood that the mental, the vital and the physical form a nexus of reality which works in its own inexorable law and so long as we are within them we cannot but obey the laws that guide them. Of these three strata which form the human adhara, it is the vital which holds the key to man's nature. It is the executive power, the force that fashions the realities on the physical plane; it is what creates... this lower poise of the mental and vital and physical. Only in order to get into that higher poise we must really transcend the lower, that is to say, we must not be satisfied with experiencing or envisaging it through the mind and heart but must directly commune with it, be it. There is a higher law that rules there, a power that is the truth-substance of even the vital and hence can remould it with a ...
... association or identity of result of virtue with some getting of his interest and pleasure and result of sin with some loss of materially or vitally desirable things and the infliction of mental, vital or physical pain. Human law proceeds on this principle by meeting the grosser more obvious offences with punishment and avenging pain or loss and on the other hand assuring the individual in some degree of... spiritual, mental and emotional result and reaction of the good or the evil or of the effects of its outgoing action. But where is the firm link of correspondence between the ethical and the more vital and physical hedonistic powers of life? How does my ethical good turn into smiling fortune, crowned prosperity, sleek material good and happiness to myself and my ethical evil into frowning misfortune, rugged... 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 nature which mix in this natural but hardly philosophic conception, have to be ...
... formulated in our physical mind, nervous being and corporeal case sustaining our various activities. But if we can once get beyond this first formation by some liberation of the hidden, recondite, subliminal parts of our existence by Yoga, we become aware of a greater life force, a pranic Shakti, which supports and fills the body and supplies all the physical and vital activities,—for the physical energy is... self-hypnosis. In any case it cannot be what it represents itself to be, a discovery of the eternal truth Page 752 of our being and a passing above the limited truth of the mental, vital and physical to the full truth of our spiritual nature. But when we look, not at external mechanical Nature to the exclusion of our personality, but at the inner subjective experience of man the mental... be no separate personal will or individual energy trying to conduct our actions, no sense of a little personal self as the doer, nor will it be the lower energy of the three gunas, the mental, vital and physical nature. The divine Shakti will fill Page 760 us and preside over and take up all our inner activities, our outer life, our Yoga. She will take up the mental energy, her own lower ...
... indestructible. Faith is of the heart, the inner heart where lives the psychic being. The outer heart is the seat of the vital being, the life personality. That like the mind may Page 347 believe and then lose its belief, doubt comes from the mind, the vital and the physical consciousness. [The greater the intensity] of the psychic fire, the less will be the power of doubt to soil and darken... experience. The ideals created by the mind are constructions in the air that have no sufficient foundation in our vital and physical nature; therefore they can change a side of our mind and colour a part of our actions, but they cannot transform our lives, cannot find here their physical body. Ideals touch and pass, mankind remains the same; after religions, ideals, moralities without end we keep always... a divine command, an eternal Will, a transcendent and universal impulsion, not to run under the whips of ego and need and passion and desire, and not to be goaded by the pricks of mental and vital and physical preference, but to be moved by God only, by the highest Truth only, this is Karmayoga. To live and act no longer in human ignorance, but in divine Knowledge, conscient of individual nature ...
... an intensity of divine joy heretofore unknown to the Earth. The physical atmosphere has been completely changed by her descent, permeated with new and marvelous possibilities. But if She is ever to reside and act here, She has to find at least a minimal receptivity, at least one human being with the required vital and physical qualities, a kind of super-Parsifal gifted with an innate and integral... came here, and when he saw me, he could scarcely believe his eyes! He said, 'But my god, is it you?' I said, 'Of course!' Only when we went down from the vital plane into the physical plane, all this went away—because on the physical plane, the work is much harder and we had so much to do, so many things to change. But if a force like Hers could manifest and be received here, it would have... the touch of the divine Joy, receive it and bear it, are cells reborn, on their way to becoming immortal. But the vibrations of divine Bliss and those of pleasure cannot cohabit in the same vital and physical house. We must therefore TOTALLY renounce all feelings of pleasure to be ready to receive the divine Ananda. But rare are those who can renounce pleasure without thereby renouncing all active ...
... sometimes it provokes this violent sensation. Yes... But it didn't hurt him; I mean he felt in pain, but it didn't hurt him. It didn't, it had no physical effect. Yes, that's right. You see, if there were nothing in his mental or vital or physical makeup to respond to those people's force, he wouldn't have felt any pain—but there's necessarily something. And that's what made him feel it as a ...
... it be practical or useful to discuss the supramentalisation of the whole being down to the body." Again, we learn from him: 3 "One has first of all to supramentalise sufficiently the mind and vital and physical consciousness generally — afterwards one can think of supramentalisation of the body." Who is capable of the full preparation? I have not come across anyone who can sufficiently represent the... indispensable." 5 Q. — "Is there any special effect of physical nearness to the Mother? A. — It is indispensable for the fullness of the sadhana on the physical plane. Transformation of the physical and external being is not possible otherwise." 6 The refrain in the three passages is the word "indispensable", referring to the physical presence of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother or of at least... of it manifested in the subtle-physical on February 29, 1956 and the Supermind was at work in both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, but there was no substantial establishment of it in the stuff of their bodies. The process of transforming the cellular consciousness was going on in the Mother but there seemed to have been no definitive supramentalisation of the physical stuff. The difficulty lay in the ...
... distinctions among the Page 78 physical, vital, 6 and mental aspects of the ego, and, as will be explained a little later in this chapter, views the egoic self of most human beings as primarily a vital rather than a mental ego. From Sri Aurobindo's viewpoint, the thickest veil that hides the true self in most human beings is the vital ego constituted by instinctual impulses, desires... reason of existence behind ail the flux or none except that Quiescent who cares for none of these things. There is a real and stable power of our being behind the constant mutation of our mental, vital and physical personality, and this we have to know and preserve in order that the Infinite may manifest Himself through it according to His will in whatever range and for whatever purpose of His eternal... 11 The Jivatma is not born; it stands above personal evolution, and so does not change or evolve. What comes down into birth and grows in the evolution from life to life, supporting the physical, vital, and mental nature, is the psychic being (Gr. psukhé, soul), representative of Jivatma. In Eckhart's teaching, as in Buddhism, the notion of a personal self is completely illusory; there ...
... including physical things, partakes of this triple character. Our food, for example, the Gita tells us, is either sattwic, rajasic or tamasic according to its character and effect on the body. The sattwic temperament in the mental and physical body turns naturally to the things that increase the life, increase the inner and outer strength, nourish at once the mental, vital and physical force and increase... This power, this śraddhā is in any case our basis. When we live, when we are and do according to our desires, that Page 483 is a persistent act of śraddhā belonging mostly to our vital and physical, our tamasic and rajasic nature. And when we try to be, to live and to do according to the Shastra, we proceed by a persistent act of śraddhā which belongs, supposing it to be not a routine... or terrible action contrary to the Shastra, opposed to the right rule of life and works and afflicting to oneself and to others, or if it is of the nature of self-torture and hurts the mental, vital and physical elements or violates the God within us who is seated in the inner subtle body, then too it is an unwise, an Asuric, a rajasic or rajaso-tamasic tapasya. Sattwic tapasya is that which is done ...
... insisted on by the vital and physical mind. And the human intelligence, since it is not able to realise entirely any of these things, much less all of them together, erects in each sphere many standards and dharmas, standards of truth and reason, of right and conduct, of delight and beauty, of love, sympathy and oneness, of self-mastery and control, of self-preservation and possession and vital efficiency... purity of a mental rule or the satisfaction of a rational harmony; a pure spirit would be above them and self-content in the infinite. But the existence of man is a triple web, a thing mysteriously physical-vital, mental and spiritual at once, and he knows not what are Page 564 the true relations of these things, which the real reality of his life and his nature, whither the attraction of his... instrument and yet a considerable obstacle, otherwise there would be no problem—for its own characteristic Page 565 satisfactions and self-realisation. The mind of man is not only a vital and physical, but an intellectual, aesthetic, ethical, psychic, emotional and dynamic intelligence, and in the sphere of each of its tendencies its highest and strongest nature is to strain towards some absolute ...
... because 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... such quiet and balance as has been already established in the vital nature. Have confidence in the final result and give time for the Power to do its work. Wideness and calmness are the foundation of the Yogic consciousness and the best condition for inner growth and experience. If a wide calm can be established in the physical consciousness, occupying and filling the very body and all its... from the adverse side of Nature. You have to move towards a firm basis of calm and equality in the vital and Page 127 physical no less than in the mental consciousness; let there be the full downflow of Power and Ananda, but into a firm adhara capable of containing it—it is a complete equality that gives that capacity and firmness. When the peace of the higher consciousness descends ...
... therefore not really a doubt arising from the reason but one that comes from the vital and physical mind that is troubling you. The physical mind doubts all that it has not itself experienced and even it doubts what it has itself experienced if that experience is no longer there or immediately palpable to it—the vital brings in the suggestions of despondency and despair to reinforce the doubt and prevent... but best by the clear perception that it is a self-created difficulty—a self-formed sanskara or mental formation which has become habitual and has to be broken up so that you may have a free mind and vital, free for experience. As for the help, you expect a divine intervention to destroy the doubt, and the divine intervention is possible, but it comes usually only when the being is ready. You have... must do some hard work in the opposite direction. The help (I am not speaking of a divine intervention from above but of my help and the Mother's) will be there. It can be effective in spite of your physical mind, but it will be more Page 122 effective if this steady working will of which I speak is there as its instrument. There are always two elements in spiritual success—one's own steady ...
... alien to them, nothing as outside their scope. For every part of human life has to be taken up by the spiritual, — not only the intellectual, the aesthetic, the ethical, but the dynamic, the vital, the physical; therefore for none of these things or the activities that spring from them will they have contempt or aversion, however they may insist on a change of the spirit and a transmutation of the... become a perfectly conscious frame of the spirit. A secure completeness and stability of the health and strength of its physical tenement could be maintained by the will and force of this inhabitant; all the natural capacities of the physical frame, all powers of the physical consciousness would reach their utmost extension and be there at command and sure of their flawless action. As an instrument ...
... psychic with so much Page 642 of the thinking mind and higher (emotional, larger dynamic) vital that is open to the psychic and cleaves to the soul's aims and admits the higher experiences and on the other hand the lower vital and the physical or external being (external mind and vital included) which are attached to the ignorant personality and nature and do not want to change. It is the... two people (to say the least)—one in the outer vital and physical clinging to the past self and trying to get or retain the consent of the mind and the inner being, the other which is the soul asking for a new birth. That which has spoken in you and made the prayer is the psychic being expressing itself through the aid of the mind and the higher vital, and it is this which should always arise in you... There are only three fundamental obstacles that can stand in the way: (1) Absence of faith or insufficient faith. (2) Egoism—the mind clinging to its own ideas, the vital preferring its own desires to a true surrender, the physical adhering to its own habits. (3) Some inertia or fundamental resistance in the consciousness, not willing to change because it is too much of an effort or because it ...
... spiritual force is the original one and the others are derivative from it, then there is no irrationality in supposing that spiritual force can produce mental results, vital results, physical results. It may act through mental, vital or physical energies and through the means which these energies use, or it may act directly on mind, life or matter as the field of its own special and immediate action. Either... about the power inherent in spiritual consciousness. What I was speaking of was a willed use of any subtle force (it may be spiritual or mental or vital) to secure a particular result at some point in the world. Just as there are waves of unseen physical forces (cosmic waves etc.) or currents of electricity, so there are mind waves, thought currents, waves of emotion, e.g. anger, sorrow, etc., which... other forces, for that would be dangerous in the extreme. Passivity does not mean a blank mind—it means allowing the Divine Force to work without interference of the mental preferences, vital desires or physical disinclinations. As for freedom from ego or desire, that is the Page 188 general law of all Yoga, but it cannot be acquired by merely giving up work. The majority of Sannyasins ...
... like a rent in that opaque envelope which separates you from the Truth, and the contact is established. Immediately this force, this consciousness, this light acts, even on your physical cells; it acts in the mind, in the vital, in the body, changes the vibrations, organises the substance and begins its work of transformation. You are under the impact of this sudden contact and action; for you it is a... the impression ( smiling ) that you are having an experience. But that is already considerably diminished in comparison with the experience itself, it is a transcription adapted to your mental, vital and physical dimension, that is, something that is shrunken, hardened—and it gives you at the same time the impression that it is growing clearer; that is to say, it has become as limited as your understanding... understandable, it reduces, diminishes, limits—it attenuates, weakens, blurs the experience, even granting that it is pure enough not to falsify it. For if, anywhere in the being, in the mind or the vital, there is some insincerity which is tolerated, well, then the experience is completely falsified and deformed. But I am speaking of the best instances, where the being is sincere, under control, and ...
... the original prearrangement of things in this world is effected; for from it the determining vibrations originally come. But there are corresponding movements on all the planes, the mind, the vital, the physical even, and it is possible in a very clear or illumined condition of the lower consciousness to become aware of these movements and understand the plan of things and be a conscious instrument or... of the lower workings to cease, limited either in its scope or in its efficacy by the want of a complete consent in the physical nature. Probably what X calls overmind is the first "above-mind" layers of consciousness. Or it may be experiences from the larger Mind or Vital ranges. To the human mind all these are so big that it is easy to take them for overmind or even supermind. One can get... still further modified in the application by the needs, the demands, the circumscribing possibilities of the individual nature. The success of this diminished and modified Light, e.g. in purifying the physical, cannot be immediate and absolute as the full and direct supramental action would be; it is still relative, conditioned by the individual nature and the balance of the universal forces, resisted by ...
... a great progress. There is only one sadhana for all parts, not a separate mental sadhana, vital sadhana or physical sadhana—but the action of the sadhana is applied sometimes separately to each part; sometimes on the contrary the action is on the mental and vital together, or vital and physical together, or all three together. But it is the same sadhana always. Page 10 ... from ordinary thought ]—it comes from deep within or from high above. This is the lower vital mind at work making formations. When the calmness is there all sorts of things may rise on the surface—they have not to be accepted, but simply looked at. In time the calmness will be so developed as to quell the vital and outer mind also and in that complete quietude the true perceptions will come. The... only make your progress slow and stumbling. There must be something in you that will open itself directly to the Truth and Light. The unregenerated vital being of man cannot do that because it demands of the higher Power that it shall satisfy the vital desires, demands, ambitions, vanity, pride, etc., before it will accept the Truth. The unillumined mind also cannot do it because it refuses to recognise ...
... 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 breaks its limitations, its conservative inertia, replaces its narrow thought-power... n and taste of the absolute reality all-beautiful in everything in its appeal to the aesthetic mind and the senses: thus the sense is satisfied of God. We can have even the vital, nervous experience and practically the physical sense of the Self in all life and formation and in all workings of powers, forces, energies that operate through us or others or in the world; thus the life and the body are... in form, executed in a triumph of substantial being. The physical eye seems then to carry in itself a spirit and a consciousness which sees not only the physical aspect of the object but the soul of quality in it, the vibration of energy, the light and force and spiritual substance of which it is made. Thus there comes through the physical sense to the total sense consciousness within and behind the ...
... joy unknown to the earth so far. "The physical atmosphere was completely changed by it, saturated with new and marvellous possibilities. Page 291 "But for her to be able to settle and act down here, she needed to meet with at least a minimum of receptivity, to find at least one human being having the requisite qualities in the vital and physical nature, a kind of super-Parsifal endowed... had lived with me in Japan and came here, found it difficult to recognise me. He asked me, "But really, is it you?" I said, "Obviously!" Only when we descended from the vital into the physical, then it was gone, for in the physical the work is much harder. It was because there were many more things to change. But if a force like that could be manifested and received, it would have a tremendous action... contact of divine joy, to receive and preserve it, are regenerated cells on the way to becoming immortal. But the vibration of divine joy and those of pleasure cannot lodge together in the same vital and physical system. So one must have totally renounced experiencing all pleasure in order to be in a state to receive the Ananda But very few are those who can renounce pleasure without, by the very fact ...
... may feel that one is in contact with something surpassing all rational regions and it is there, in the vital itself, it is an influence acting from above. Otherwise it would be absolutely impossible to hope for the transformation of the lower parts of the being—either mental or vital or physical; they could never be transformed if they were incapable of receiving into themselves the suprarational ... it understands nothing in these domains, but from the rational point of view it is naturally the sovereign judge. For everything that concerns the ordinary life, and as I say, the mental, vital and physical life of man, a perfectly reasonable being, one who lives according to his reason, cannot make a mistake from this point of view. It is only if one says, "Human life restricted to these planes... Mother, when you speak of the suprarational domain, is it a domain higher than the reason or is it a special domain? It is rather a state than a domain. In the physical it is possible to have a suprarational domain, in the vital it is possible to have a suprarational domain, in the mind too it is possible to have a suprarational domain, and there are suprarational regions which lie beyond all ...
... user, but can produce vibrations in the mental and vital atmosphere which result in effects, in actions and even in the production of material forms on the physical plane. As a matter of fact, even ordinarily, even daily and hourly we do produce by the word within us thought-vibrations, thought-forms which result in corresponding vital and physical vibrations, act upon ourselves, act upon others and... creation of actions and of forms in the physical world. Man is constantly acting upon man both by the silent and the spoken word and he so acts and creates, though less directly and powerfully, even in the rest of Nature. But because we are stupidly engrossed with the external forms and phenomena of the world and do not trouble to examine its subtle and non-physical processes, we remain ignorant of all... form. But Matter is only, in the ancient view, the lowest of the planes of existence. Let us realise then that a vibration of sound on the material plane presupposes a corresponding vibration on the vital without which it could not have come into play; that, again, presupposes a corresponding originative vibration on the mental; the mental presupposes a corresponding originative vibration on the supramental ...
... the usual sources of the world's literature—the levels of consciousness which, according to Sri Aurobindo, may be classified: subtle-physical mind (as in Homer and Chaucer, where the inner imaginative response is mostly to external gesture, movement and action); vital mind (as in Kalidasa and Shakespeare, where the vibrant play, delicate or vehement, of sensation, passion, emotion is directly expressed);... overhead verse, he ascribes to this verse a special virtue: "Mystic poetry can be Written from any plane, provided the writer gets an inspiration from the inner consciousness whether mind, vital or subtle physical. Naturally, the lower planes cannot express the Spirit with its full and native voice as the higher planes do unless something comes down into them from the higher planes." To this we may... However, overhead poetry need not be explicitly mystic. Sri Aurobindo tells us that it can deal with quite other things than the Infinite and the One everywhere. Something behind mental or vital or physical consciousness has to be brought out in its own native tongue charged with its deeper values, rather than in a translation by that consciousness. But, of course, to be able to live constantly in ...
... truly physical malady but of an attempt at possession from the vital world: and the fits and other physical symptoms are signs, not of the malady itself, but of the struggle of the natural being against the pressure of the hostile influences. Such a case in a child of this age indicates some kind of accumulation in the physical heredity creating an opportunity or a predisposition of which vital invasion... 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 used by the parents to eradicate them... may so become, the mind has to be made calm and strong, the emotional and vital being purified and the physical consciousness 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 ...
... Page 22 the environmental consciousness, but even this is liberation, not transformation. Spiritual liberation means to be free from ego and from the imprisonment in the mind and vital and physical nature and to be conscious of the spiritual Self and live in that consciousness. Spiritual perfection and fulfilment means that the nature should be spiritualised, new-formed in the consciousness... a Yogi, but the union has to be made complete. There are Yogis who have only the union on the spiritual plane, others who are united in mind and heart, others in the vital also. In our Yoga our aim is to be united too in the physical consciousness and on the supramental plane. Page 24 ... liberation comes by it and all else may come; but these must not be our objects. The Divine alone is our object. To come to this Yoga merely with the idea of being a superman would be an act of vital egoism which would defeat its own object. Those who put this object in the front of their preoccupations invariably come to grief, spiritually and otherwise. The aim of this Yoga is, first, to enter ...
... truly physical malady but of an attempt at possession from the vital world; and the fits and other physical symptoms are signs, not of the malady itself, but of the struggle of the natural being against the pressure of the hostile influence. Such a case in a child of this age indicates some kind of accumulation in the physical heredity creating an opportunity or a predisposition of which the vital invasion... 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 used by the parents to eradicate... may so become, the mind has to be made calm and strong, the emotional and vital being purified and the physical consciousness 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 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 ...
... its knowledge, will and workings, that we have to discover if we are to survive as a race. Real spiritual light comes to man when he is able to stand completely detached from his mental, vital and physical existence and transcend the limitations on knowledge imposed by an ignorant and only half enlightened mind. But a certain mental growth and development in the right direction is necessary as... failures to tackle human problems. Ordinarily it is the vital being or the desire-self in us that rules and governs our conduct. It is the dominance of the crude, ignorant, selfish and dangerous vital nature of man that is at the base of all our troubles and difficulties, perturbations and upheavals both individual and collective ; for the vital in us is not concerned Page 68 with... truth and good for its own vital assertions, impulses and actions. It is concerned with self-justification in order that it may have room for full self-affirmation. But if it can get the assent of the mind, it is quite ready to ignore all these standards and set up only one standard, the satisfaction, growth, strength and greatness of the vital Ego." This attitude of the vital is what we generally find ...
... outset that any attempt at a large-scale collective spiritual life is always liable to be vitiated by the imperfections of the individual seekers, also by the intrusion of the unregenerate mental, vital and physical consciousness into the higher truth that is seeking to manifest in the community. The question is, how to neutralise this danger? An increasing standardisation, a fixing of all into a common... life and action and the physical world. In what I am trying to do, the spiritual realisation is the first necessity, but it cannot be complete without an outer realisation also in life, in men, in this world. Spiritual consciousness within but also spiritual life without. ... Discipline is necessary for the overcoming of the ego and the mental preferences and the rajasic vital nature, as a help to it... unwilling to accept any discipline other than its own idea or impulse. Speaking of this part, Sri Aurobindo writes: "Its defects even from the beginning stand in the way of the efforts of the higher vital to impose on the nature a truly regenerating tapasya. This habit of disobedience and disregard of discipline is so strong that it does not always need to be deliberate; the response to it seems to be ...
... consciousness they find there great obstacles: for the stuff is missing there, there are not, in the vital and physical consciousness, elements enough to enable it to support a descent of the higher force. Page 95 How does fasting bring a state of receptivity ? Usually the vital being is concentrated very much in the body. And when the body is well fed, it takes its force... who have not many desires. They live in their aesthetic sensibility, in their senses turned to the enjoyment and creation of beauty. They are not of the kind of people who live by their vital impulses and physical desires. In a general way, education, culture, refinement of the senses are the means of curing movements of crude instinct and desire and passion. To obliterate them is not curing... Originally very material in nature, much like the animal, man in the course of his progress through centuries or millenniums became more and more mental, more and more vital. And as he grew more mental and more vital, refinement became possible, the intelligence increased, but the possibility too of perversion and deformation. It is one thing to educate the senses so as to bring into them ...
... my mind, vital and physical with peace and strength. In the second vision why did I see the Mother's image exactly as we see her every day? It indicates an aspiration and an action for realisation in the external nature and not only in the inner being. When it is an inner action or action of another plane one can see the Mother in any of her forms, but for realisation in the physical her appropriate... was a good or bad thing Mother took away. What was it? It was certainly a true dream of the lower vital or perhaps subtle physical plane, where the laziness, indifference, frivolity of the sadhaks is a fact and the chief obstacle to the supramental descent into Matter. Because in your inner physical you were sincere and aspiring, the Mother's blessing came upon you and removed something there that... that was in the way. There is no indication in the dream as to what it was, but something in the lower vital or physical connected with this general defect. Page 282 ...
... 1936 The centre of the human being is the psychic which is the dwelling-place of the immanent Divine. Unification means organisation and harmonisation of all the parts of the being (mental, vital and physical) around this centre, so that all the activities of the being may be the correct expression of the will of the Divine Presence. The Mother Words of the Mother - II: The Soul (the Psychic)... thinking that he is directing himself by his mind and will, even though in fact that direction is only partial; for not only a disparate consortium of habitual motive-forces but also newly emergent vital and physical tendencies and impulses, not always calculable or controllable, and many incoherent and inharmonious mental elements use his reason and will, enter into and determine his self-building, his ... aware of all the elements is not within the reach of the beings of the vital and mental planes, nor even of the beings who are usually called “gods”; and when they want to do it, when they really want to organise themselves and become completely conscious, they have to take a body. And yet, human beings come into a physical body without knowing why, most of them go through life without knowing why ...
... is in front or active and the mind and vital consent, then there is the intensity. When the psychic is less prominent and the lower vital has its ordinary movements or the mind its ignorant action, then the opposing forces can come in unless the sadhak is very vigilant. Inertia comes usually from the ordinary physical consciousness, especially when the vital is not actively supporting the sadhana.... changed in the vital, especially the lower vital, some inertia or obscurity rising up from the physical parts of nature. When it comes, remain quiet, open yourself to the Mother and call back the true condition, and aspire for a clear and undisturbed discrimination showing you from within yourself the cause or the thing that needs to be set right. Yes, the ordinary physical consciousness is... lower vital or the physical consciousness responds, not always because Page 60 it wants or likes to do so but because the old habit of response is still so strong that it cannot help it. The first necessity is to detach yourself, not to regard it as your own, to learn to feel it as something foreign and refuse to be touched or upset. Then it will become easier for the lower vital or physical ...
... the vital inquietude has been cured then certainly the physical obscurity or non-understanding will go. The separate existence of the vital and physical comes to be known of itself usually in the progress of the Yoga. So long as one lives mainly in the surface consciousness one can only know them by their results—one can see that this or that is or must be a movement of the vital etc.; but... hope. The vital being with the life-force in it is one of these ends; the other is a latent dynamic power of the higher consciousness through which the Divine Truth can act, take hold of the vital and its life-force and use it for a greater purpose here. The life-force in the vital is the indispensable instrument for all action of the Divine Power on the material world and the physical nature. It... of the vital, but still the light of the true consciousness turned steadily on them ought to so much enlighten your own vital that it will no longer lend itself to the things that seek to disturb it and be ready to take its stand on the calm and happiness of surrender to the Divine. Of course, it is true that the physical enjoyment is not the only Page 119 enjoyment—the vital has its ...
... the usual sources of the world's literature—the levels of consciousness which, according to Sri Aurobindo, may be classified: subtle-physical mind (as in Homer and Chaucer, where the inner imaginative response is mostly to external gesture, movement and action); vital mind (as in Kalidasa and Shakespeare, where the vibrant play, delicate or vehement, of sensation, passion, emotion is directly expressed);... overhead verse, he ascribes to this verse a special virtue: "Mystic poetry can be written from any plane, provided the writer gets an inspiration from the inner consciousness whether mind, vital or subtle physical. Naturally, the lower planes cannot express the Spirit with its full and native voice as the higher planes do unless something comes down into them from the higher planes." To this we may... However, overhead poetry need not be explicitly mystic. Sri Aurobindo tells us that it can deal with quite other things than the Infinite and the One everywhere. Something behind mental or vital or physical consciousness has to be brought out in its own native tongue charged with its deeper values, rather than in a translation by that consciousness. But, of course, to be able to live constantly in ...
... plexus and awakes a vital and physical rather than intellectual sensation and response. It is of course not that really but a vividness of imagination and feeling which disregards the mind's positive view of things and its logical sequences; the centre or centres it knocks at are not Page 82 the brain-mind, not even the poetic intelligence but the subtle physical, the nervous,... the vital or the psychic centre. The poem he quotes from Blake is certainly not nonsense, but it has no positive and exact meaning for the intellect or the surface mind; it expresses certain things that are true and real, not nonsense but a deeper sense which we feel powerfully with a great stirring of some inner emotion, but any attempt at exact intellectual statement of them sterilises their... of intuitive sight; by turning emotion out of its intimate chamber in the house of Poetry, he has had to bring in to relieve the dryness of much of his thought, too much exaggeration of the lower vital and sensational reactions un-transformed or else transformed only by exaggeration. Nevertheless he has perhaps restored to the poet the freedom to think as well as to adopt a certain straightforwardness ...
... must embrace the entire human race, a new race of men must be created and not merely a small select group. And in that new creation must be included not only the inner being of man but also his vital and physical life. In other words, we have to come down to the lower levels and work for the purification there, in order to raise them beyond themselves by the infusion of the higher consciousness and make ...
... consciousness they find there great obstacles: for the stuff is missing there; there are not, in the vital and physical consciousness, elements enough to enable it to support a descent of the higher force. Page 69 How does fasting bring about a state of receptiviry? Usually the vital being is concentrated very much in the body. And when the body is well fed, it draws its force and... who do not have many desires. They live in their aesthetic sensibility, in their senses turned to the enjoyment and creation of beauty. They are not the kind of people who live by their vital impulses and physical desires. In a general way, education, cultures, refinement of the senses are the means of curing movements of crude instinct and desire and passion. To obliterate them is not curing them;... now. Originally very material in nature, much like the animal, man in he course of his progress through centuries or millenniums became more and more mental, more and more vital. And as he grew more mental and more vital, refinement became possible, the intelligence increased, but the possibility too of perversion and deformation. It is one thing to educate the senses so as to bring into them every ...
... represents whatever soul-power is developed from life to life or put forward for action in cur present life-formation. The psychic being usually expresses irself through its instruments, mental, vital and physical; it tries to put as much of its own stamp on them as possible. But it can seldom put on them the full psychic stamp—unless it comes fully out from its rather secluded and overshadowed position... surface sense of the words seems to indicate, a rhythm that means even more than the language and is born out of the Infinite and disappears into il, and the power to convey not merely the mental, vital or physical contents or indications or values of the thing uttered, but its significance and figure in some fundamental 1 II, 2. 11-12. 2 XI, 14-21. Page 75 and original... more properly a cosmic consciousness, even the very base of the cosmic as we perceive, understand or feel it. It stands behind every particular in the cosmos and is the source of all our mental, vital or physical actualities and possibilities which are diminished and degraded derivations and variations from it and have not, except in certain formations and activities of genius and some intense self-exceeding ...
... earthly being to the unclouded light of the sun of knowledge, pours out the waters of the Truth upon all our triple existence mental, vital and physical and by its power removes all sin and evil and falsehood from our lives. He creates the free wideness of our vital being above our broken search for the delightful objects of our desire, sets the plenitude in our battling life-forces, the yield of heaven... 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 gnosis: he takes his stand as the Asura in our vital plane, the link between mental and physical, there to receive the light and pass it on to the... limitations of the physical mentality are rolled away and it is spread out in a great wideness to receive the revelations and inspirations of the light of the gnosis. × The forests or delightful growths of earth ( vana means also pleasure) are the basis of the mid-world, the vital world in us which is ...
... otherwise, so long as one has a desire, a preference, an attachment or affinities and repulsions and all that, one cannot—one cannot. And so long as one finds pleasures—pleasure, well, yes, vital or physical pleasure in a thing—one cannot feel this delight. For this delight is everywhere. This delight is something very subtle. One moves in the midst of things and it is as though they were all singing... There comes a time when it becomes very familiar in the life around you. Of course, I must admit that it is a little more difficult to feel it in human beings, because there are all their mental and vital formations which come into the field of perception and disturb it. There is too much of this kind of egoistic asperity which gets mixed with things, so it is more difficult to contact the Delight there... a marvellous harmony. Even what is to the ordinary human consciousness ugly, unpleasant, appears marvellous. Unfortunately, as I said, people, circumstances, all that, with all those mental and vital formations—that disturbs it all the time. Then one is obliged to return to this ignorant, blind perception of things. But otherwise, as soon as all this stops and one can get out of it... everything ...
... Purusha, the becoming is Prakriti. But then each inner being has its Purusha? Or is there one Purusha in all the beings? (Nolini) In each part of the being: that is, there is a vital Purusha, a mental Purusha, a physical Purusha.... It is what we call consciousness? Yes, the conscious being. The conscious being in its continuity? Yes. But how can one do the sadhana if the conscious... this way. It comes when one has a sufficiently delicate and refined sensitivity to perceive clearly the value of a vibration; all vibrations that come from external activities, whether mental, vital or physical, or even psychic, have a particular quality, but what comes from the divine influence is of an absolutely different nature and quality. In order to be able to distinguish this, one must first... nothing but the Divine." 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 ...
... everything dovetails in such a marvelous way, without rubbing, without friction—everything functions and organizes itself in a total harmony. It's a peace and a joy (without the vital intensity, of course—it's something physical). All, all is so harmonious and truly you feel a sense of the divine organization of everything, of all the cells—all is marvelous and the body feels well. Then in the other case... perception of harmony is no longer there. For what reason? One doesn't understand anymore. And then the body begins to function wrongly. Yet everything is absolutely identical—mental conditions, vital conditions, physical conditions, all identical—and suddenly it all seems... meaningless . One still has the consciousness, the full consciousness of the divine Presence, and... one senses somewhere something... silence ) And with a sort of prescience I see that only the body can know—that's the extraordinary thing! ( silence ) And when the body makes this movement ( gesture of stepping back from physical appearances )—what to call it? This movement of fusion (is it 'fusion'?), of no longer being a separate body, of being the Divine—there is something which.... There is a sort of abstraction of something ...
... separate from the mental, vital or physical activity. You have spoken of "a separate consciousness calm and silent." Is not that the Purusha consciousness? Page 126 It may be. But it is part of Nature in you that becomes calm and silent. What is "Silence"? Silence means freedom from thoughts and vital movements — when the whole... right. How is one to establish a homogeneity in the vital being? Reject all disturbance and call in more and more peace and equality from above into the vital. If you get peace then to clean the vital becomes easy. If you simply clean and clean and do nothing else, you go very slowly — for the vital gets dirty again and has to be cleaned a hundred times. The peace... PEACE AND SILENCE The year 1933 What is meant by a quiet mind and a quiet vital? A quiet mind means a mind not restless with all sorts of thoughts. A quiet vital is a vital not restless and troubled by all sorts of impulses and desires. Peace is said to be of capital importance in Yoga. From where is ...
... no need to concentrate on it, if it comes as a natural result of the general withdrawal and concentration. I suppose, it is simply that the effort brings a concentration in the centres of the vital and physical to Page 136 share in the stillness which the will acting through the mind is trying to impose on the nature. All the time I feel in my being an energy which... of any personal endeavour, and the receptivity was spontaneous with open eyes. What is the explanation? It is the silence of the mind and vital — silence implying here not only cessation of thoughts but a stillness of the mental and vital substance. There are varying degrees of depth of this stillness. You asked, "What is the exact nature of this pressure?" ... In that case, does it not mean that what my consciousness feels as the Force is not the real Force of the Mother? I have said that it gets mixed with the action of the present mind, vital and body. That is inevitable since it has to work upon them. It is only after the trans-formation that it can be fully the Mother's Force with no mixture of the separate personality. If the Divine Force ...
... the workers and the sadhaks. But nothing can be perfect so long as the sadhaks and the workers do not come to the realisation that they are not here for their ego and self-indulgence of their vital and physical demands but for a high and exacting Yoga of which the first aim is the destruction of desire and the substitution for it of the Divine Truth and the Divine Will. 9 January 1937 From the... the spirit in which work should be done to be helpful for sadhana. It has to be done as an offering, without vital egoism or assertion of self-will, as the Mother's work and not one's own, to carry out her ideas and will and not one's own. It is work done in that spirit that opens the vital to her and allows her Force to work in the being and the nature. 10 June 1938 We did not say that you must ...
... Force in Work and Action Yesterday I worked with great vigour and after I saw Mother in the evening I felt that there was no physical tiredness at all and that I could work for twelve hours more. It is the Mother's energy that comes down into the vital and physical for those who are open. 12 February 1933 I told you that I could work peacefully at the Granary, but alas, I am unable to ...
... interpretation 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... will compel you to seek after it even if you have to seek all your life with a small result. But the small result Page 445 is mainly due to the mind which always came in the way and the vital weakness which gives it its support for its reasonings. If you fixed your will irrevocably, that would give you a chance—and whether you followed it here or elsewhere would make only a minor difference ...
... Bulletin and selects this one: ) "What your vital being seems to have kept all along is the 'bargain' or the 'mess' attitude in these matters. One gives some kind of commodity which he calls devotion or surrender and in return the Mother is under obligation to supply satisfaction for all demands and desires spiritual, mental, vital and physical, and, if she falls short in her task, she has broken... charge and arranges things as best they can be arranged within the means at her disposal and the capacities of her instruments. She is under no obligation to act according to the mental standards or vital desires and claims of the Sadhaks; she is not obliged to use a democratic equality in her dealings with them. She is free to deal with each according to what she sees to be his true need or what is... the Mother is the hotel-keeper or mess-manager. One gives what one can or chooses to give, or it may be nothing at all except the aforesaid commodity; in return the palate, the stomach and all the physical demands have to be satisfied to the full; if not, one has every right to keep one's money and to abuse the defaulting hotel-keeper or mess-manager. This attitude has nothing whatever to do with Sadhana ...
... your personality. The seeds of your mind, your vital, even of the physical personality, the true physical personality, are there in your soul, and you can establish a true relation with things and persons through that part of your being — your soul. And remember the soul is not very far from you because you are that—rather your mind, your vital, your physical are away from you; they are not your true ... that is given here, or meant to be given here. For such things one can get outside in a more successful way — external efficiency of your intellect, of your mind, of your vital Page 4 capacity and your physical strength—the Russian or the German type. Our records don't match theirs, do they? But we don't aspire for those records. For, as the Mother has said: "I am giving here something ...
... prevent us from having any experience or forming any conception. These new educational methods are on the straight way to this true dealing. The closer touch attempted with the physical entity behind the vital and physical mentality and an increasing reliance on its possibilities must lead to the ultimate discovery that man is inwardly a soul and a conscious power of the Divine and that the evocation ...
... Yajnavalkya, he would possess and enjoy his share of terrestrial as well as of spiritual wealth – ubhayameva. In a world of modernism, although he acknowledges and appreciates mental and vital and physical values, he does not give them the place demanded for them. He has never forgotten the one thing needful. He has not lost the moorings of the soul. He has continued to nestle close to the eternal... normally accepted. The modernist does not ask: is it good? is it beautiful? He asks: is it effective? is it expressive? And by effectivity and expressiveness he means something nervous and physical. Expressiveness to him would mean the capacity to tear off the. veil over what once was considered not worth the while or decent to uncover. A strange recklessness and shamelessness, an unhealthy ...
... personality. The seeds of your mind, your vital, even of the physical personality, the true physical personality, are there in your soul, and you can establish a true relation with things and persons through that part of your being ― your soul. And remember the soul is not very far from you because you are that-rather your mind, your vital, your physical are away from you; they are not your true... outer activities that is given here, or meant to be given here. For such things one can get outside in a more successful way-external efficiency of your intellect, of your mind, of your vital capacity and your physical strength-the Russian or the German type. Our records don't match theirs, do they? But we don't aspire for those records. For, as the Mother has said: "I am giving here something which ...
... ordinary man includes the larger part of the vital being and the physical mind and also the secret body-consciousness." 21 "When something is thrown out of the vital or physical, it very usually goes down into the subconscient and remains there as if in seed and comes up again when it can. That is the reason why it is so difficult to get rid of habitual vital movements or to change the character; for... lower than or inferior to mind. The physical consciousness of the body and that of the vital are in this sense submental, but they are not entirely subconscient, for in them consciousness Page 34 has already evolved a certain degree of its formulation and expression, though for the most part the operations of consciousness in the physical and vital parts of our being are subconscious to... vehicle of expression of an overt Consciousness that has emerged and is self-aware in our physical energy-substance." 16 Regarding the confounding of the vital and the body-consciousness with mind, Sri Aurobindo explains: "Mind identifies itself to a certain extent with the movements proper to physical life and body and annexes them to its mentality, so that all consciousness seems to us to ...
... 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 his self-expression. So is it with... the secondary, continuative factor necessary to farther evolution of mentality. Once the nervous vital power appears in material body, it shows a biological power of developing a more complex physical instrumentation for a more complex nervous activity. Once it has attained a certain complexity of physical instrumentation, life seems able indefinitely to refine in some subtle way its action of nervous... action, this knowledge also contains a side of psychological and spiritual utility,—eventually perhaps even, since life and body are results of the energy of being and supports of its action, of vital and physical utility. Two great utilities open before psychology. We may acquire the possibility of a greater being, consciousness and energy. We may open up the possibility and discover the psychical ...
... called the phenomena of vital and physical consciousness, suggest that in the plant and even in the metal, there is a force Page 25 to which we can give the name of consciousness, which is not human or even animal. Sri Aurobindo refers to those phenomena of vital consciousness which are operations or acts in the cells of the body; these operations are automatic vital functions which indicate... in the universe. Therefore, man's development is centered on developing his own physical powers and to secure a safe and congenial physical environment; and even when his vital and mental activities begin to grow, these activities aim constantly at securing for themselves a sound civilizational framework where physical life is sought to be established on some permanent basis. But although this is the... discipline and askesis. There is, therefore, in man an effort to work on the vital and physical and lower mental life so that that life may be transformed into modes of the higher mental and eventually the supramental harmony. The aim is not to mutilate and destroy the instruments of the vital Page 35 and physical and lower mental life but to tame them, to purify them and eventually to transform ...
... only object of spiritual knowledge. The state of knowledge, the consciousness other than this temporal that we must attain is Nirvana, an extinction of ego, a cessation of all mental, vital Page 287 and physical activities, of all activities whatsoever, a supreme illumined quiescence, the pure bliss of an impersonal tranquillity self-absorbed and ineffable. The means are meditation, a concentration... the Integer. The materialist idea mistakes a creation for the creative Power, a means of expression for That which is expressed and expresses. Matter and our physical brain and nerves and body are the field and foundation for one action of a vital force that serves to connect the Self with the form of its works and maintains them by its direct dynamis. The material movements are an exterior notation by... Matter, Name and Form, Purusha and Prakriti, are still not entirely that which the universe really is, either in itself or its nature. As all that we are is the play and form, the mental, psychic, vital and physical expression of a supreme Self unconditioned by mind and life and body, the universe too is the play and form and cosmic soul-expression and nature-expression of a supreme Existence which is u ...
... other to 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... difficulty in the way with almost everybody is the difficulty of controlling the desires and impulses of the vital being. In many cases as in yours, certain strong impulses run persistently counter to the ideal and demand of the reason and the will-The cause is almost always a weakness of the vital being itself, for, when there is this weakness it finds itself unable to obey the dictates of the higher... weak, it could not obey the will and resist the demand of the external vital forces, and in the struggle there came an overstrain of the mind and the nerves and a collapse taking the form of an acute attack of neurasthenia. These difficulties do not mean that you cannot prevail and bring about a control of your nervous and vital being and build up a harmony of mind and character. Only you must understand ...
... other to 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... difficulty in the way with almost everybody is the difficulty of controlling the desires and impulses of the vital being. In many cases as in yours, certain strong impulses run persistently counter to the ideal and demand of the reason and the will. The cause is almost always a weakness of the vital being itself, for, when there is this weakness it finds itself unable to obey the dictates of the higher... weak; it could not obey the will and resist the demand of the external, vital forces, and in the struggle there came an overstrain of the mind and the nerves and a collapse taking the form of an acute attack of neurasthenia. These difficulties do not mean that you cannot prevail and bring about a control of your nerves and vital being and build up a harmony of mind and character. Only you must understand ...
... can start at either end of our range of being and we have then to use, initially at least, the means and processes proper to our choice. In Yoga the process is spiritual and psychic; even its vital and physical processes are given a spiritual or psychic turn and raised to a higher motion than belongs properly to the ordinary life and Matter, as for instance in the Hathayogic and Rajayogic use of the... freedom from all the limitations of the lower world. That is spiritual perfection, the perfection that comes from yoga—quite independent of the body and the physical world—which, in ancient times, meant first rejecting the body and the physical life so as to have a relation only with the higher world and finally with the Divine. That is the higher perfection. And the lower perfection is to be able... sight seemed quite impossible, they obtained from them an endurance, a skill, a power which were almost unthinkable. And from every point of view: from the point of view of physical strength, of intellectual realisation, of the physical qualities of energy and courage, of disinterestedness, goodness, charity; all human qualities carried to their utmost limits. That is the lower perfection. The higher ...
... The centre of the human being is the psychic which is the dwelling-place of the immanent Divine. Unification means organisation and harmonisation of all the parts of the being (mental, vital and physical) around this centre, so that all the activities of the being may be the correct expression of the will of the Divine Presence. Unless and until the whole of the individual consciousness... each occasion to receive in the inner silence the guidance from above. With constant practice and goodwill, it becomes possible. The psychic inspiration alone is true. All that comes from the vital and the mind is necessarily mixed with egoism and is arbitrary. One should not act in reaction to outer contact, but with an immutable vision of love and goodwill. Everything else is a mixture which... which can only have confused and mixed results, and perpetuate the disorder. March 1961 Page 334 It is not the psychic being that suffers for personal reasons, it is the mind, the vital and the ordinary consciousness of ignorant man. This is because the contact between the outer consciousness and the psychic consciousness is not well established. He in whom the contact has been well ...
... carries with it a highly developed mental or vital, or that it is taken up in the psychic as a seed-samskāra, or that it exists side by side with the psychic in the after-death state? It is only meant that the separative ego is not a creation of birth in the physical body; the mental and the vital have it also. So, so long as the mental and vital are subject toignorance, the ego will last also... past experience and in coming back it takes up a mental, vital and physical existence which has the mark of the ego and the ignorance. * "The true vital being... is wide, vast, calm, strong, without limitations, firm and immovable, capable of all power, all knowledge, all Ananda". (P. 13) Does this imply that the true vital belongs to the cosmic or supracosmic consciousness? If not... same can hardly be said. Napoleon had a strong vital, but not one organised round the psychic being. * "The ego is a formation of Nature; but it is not a formation of physical nature alone, therefore it does not cease with the Page 54 body. There is a mental and vital ego also." (Pp. 16-17) Does this mean that the ego is carried by the psychic as a separate principle ...
... sensational or nervous existence and astral fluid to the magnetic power or current of nervous, vital force in a man. It is this same vital force which pours upon us from all parts of the solar system and of this physical universe. But man is mightier than his sensations or vitality, or the sensational & vital forces of the universe. Our fate & our temperament have been built by our own wills and our own... method, evolves much greater motives and significances. The moral energy is in itself a distinct power, has its own plane of karma, moves me even, and that characteristically, to override my vital and physical nature. Forms of one universal Force at bottom—or at top—these may be, but in practice they are different energies and have to be so dealt with—until we can find what that universal Force may... 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, a freer mind power which has another energy and can create another ...
... being flooded with the descending golden Truth-Light of Grace, changed into a golden earth, shining in its golden luminosity. A golden world is seen born, and men too become golden in the mental, vital and physical levels of existence. With the descending force of the golden Light of Truth on the earth, a new era has begun and the earth has woken up with a new consciousness which is seen vibrating with... supreme Lord was seen. My being got fused and absorbed in the eternal Ananda which is beginning less and endless, and verily became that. There, all the crores of heavens and worlds and the physical cosmic bodies, namely, the sun, planets, earth, moon and stars, were seen whirling like atoms. I saw them with the eye of Grace. I realised the vast and supreme golden Light of Grace in its... I saw even the Sun of golden red Light rising up over the earthly sky, spreading its golden red Light of Truth into the whole material earth. The golden red Light of Truth is verily the concrete physical form of the highest supreme consciousness. The descending Golden Light becomes the golden red Light when reaching into matter and the material world and the material body. The phenomenal universe ...
... colour; the two black sections (first and last) show how things appear in the physical world, the coloured one expresses a similar sequence of events in the vital world, the world where one can go in deep sleep when one gets out of the body. So long as you have a body no true harm can happen to you in the vital world for the physical body acts like a protection and you can always return into it at will. ... only with the participation of the psychic being in active life. The vital and physical feel them as weaknesses because they put a check upon the free expression of their impulsions based on the power of force. As usual, the mind, when it is not sufficiently educated, is the accomplice of the vital being and the slave of the physical nature whose crushing laws it does not know well through their ha... connection with the physical body and so long as the slippers are on her feet she can at will return to her body and take shelter therein. Two other details can be noted with interest. One is the snow shower that saves the party from the influence of the wicked witch who by her black magic has stopped their advance towards the blue castle of knowledge and intellectual power. In the vital, snow is the symbol ...
... 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 partakes somewhat of the nature of our outer human relations. Or it may be our vital-emotional being turning towards the Divine. Our love... egoistic, and suggest a weakness in the emotional being of the bhakta. They waste the energy of the vital and disturb concentration and peace, which are indispensable in sâdhanâ . The Vedic and Upanishadic ideal of a perfect calm and control in the whole being—intellectual, emotional, vital and physical—is the best condition for an unhampered progress in the Integral Yoga. The love and bhakti ... are the natural movements of 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 ...
... which have this note, dealing as he always does with life, with vital emotions and reactions or the thoughts that spring out in the life-mind under the pressure of life. It is not any strict adhesion to a transcendental view of things that constitutes this kind of poetry, but something behind not belonging to the mind or the vital and physical consciousness and with that a certain quality or power in the... depends on the purity and authenticity and power with which it transcribes an intense Page 25 vision and inspiration from whatever source. Shakespeare is a poet of the vital inspiration, Homer of the subtle physical, but there are no greater poets in any literature. No doubt, if one could get a continuous inspiration from the overmind, that would mean a greater, sustained height of perfection... surface sense of the words seems to indicate, a rhythm that means even more than the language and is born out of the Infinite and disappears into it, and the power to convey not merely the mental, vital or physical contents or indications or values of the thing uttered, but its significance and figure in some fundamental and original consciousness which is behind all these and greater. The passages you mention ...
... of the nature. Man starts on the long career of his evolution with only the first two of these four to enlighten and lead him; for they constitute the law of his animal and vital existence, and it is as the vital and physical animal man that he begins his progress. The true business of man upon earth is to express in the type of humanity a growing image of the Divine; whether knowingly or unknowingly... even coerces or annuls them in the interests of an ideal order that is not animal, not vital and physical, but mental, a creation of the mind's seeking for light and knowledge and right rule and right movement and true order. The moment this notion becomes powerful in man, he begins to escape from the engrossing vital and material into the mental life; he climbs from the first to the second degree of... knows only its needs and its desires and he has necessarily no other guide to what is required of him than his own perception of need and his own stirrings and pointings of desire. To satisfy his physical and vital demands and necessities before all things else and, in the next rank, whatever emotional or mental cravings or imaginations or dynamic notions rise in him must be the first natural rule of his ...
... this kind... men are not conscious of their vital.... If one knows how it reacts on the physical, one goes to its source and can cure oneself in a few hours. In dreams, you must remember that you are in the space and time of the vital world and not to try to act as if you were still in your physical body. One of the characteristics of activity in the vital space and time is that these beings are... very free are the spatio-temporal conditions there. In the vital world, however, you have to use your will: there, too, distance is less rigid, but the movement is not immediate: the will has to be exercised. Inevitably, (in a dream) a wound received in the vital being is translated in the physical body.... If you receive a blow in the vital, the body suffers the consequence. More than half of our... the eyes of a vital being.... So, to sum up... never be afraid and in all circumstances call for the right help to make your strength a hundred fold stronger. What are nightmares? These are your sorties into the vital world. And what is the first thing you try to do when you are in the grip of a nightmare? You rush back into your body and shake yourself into your normal physical consciousness ...
... y changes one's whole way of being and gives an exceptional control over all activities, mental, vital and physical. And this control is infinitely more powerful and luminous than anything one can obtain through external means. Blessings. 9 December 1969 Sweet Mother, Is our vital formed solely of desires, selfish feelings, etc., or is there something good in it too? Energy... that I am not able to force my physical body to do a little better than my actual capacity. I would like to know how I can force it. But, Sweet Mother, is it good to force one's body? No. The body is capable of progressing and it can gradually learn to do what it could not do before. But its capacity for progress Page 399 is much slower than the vital desire for progress and the mental... species appears on earth. Blessings. 13 January 1970 Sweet Mother, What is the difference between sports and physical education? Sports are all the games, competitions, tournaments, etc. that are based on competition and lead to placings and prizes. Physical education means principally all the various exercises for the development and maintenance of the body. Naturally, here ...
... much as the vital because it believes in falsehood. One of the chief functions of the physical mind is to doubt. If you listen to it, it will always find a thousand reasons for doubting. But you must know that the physical mind is working in ignorance and full of falsehoods. It is only love that can understand and get at the secrets of the Divine Working. The mind, the physical mind especially... September 1937 Beloved Mother, It seems I am not receiving sufficient protection in the vital and physical, in spite of calls and firm attempts on my part to open for progress. My dear child, it is your mind that prevents you from receiving the help in the vital and the physical. Quiet as much as you can this galloping mind and you will see the results. With love and blessings... egoistic mind which seeks to impose its principles upon all. In the divine sight, principles and desires are one and the same thing: principles are whims of the mind just as desires are whims of the vital. Mental fantasy: wild, disorderly, it usually lacks coordination. Imagination: abundant and varied, it may be charming but must not be substituted for the Truth. Those who think ...
... expression of something still higher, the Supermind above. When you become cosmic, even though you speak of yourself as "I", it is not "I". The ordinary "I"-ness disappears, and the mental, vital and physical look like representatives of that new consciousness. Ramakrishna speaks of this state as "the form of ego left for action". When you reach the Supermind, you become not only cosmic but also what ...
... is merely a shadow of your true individuality which you will realise only when this normal individual which is differently poised at different times, now in the mental, then in the vital and at another time in the physical. Get into contact with the psychic and feel it as the real being. Then you will be one, nothing will shake or disturb you, you will make steady and lasting progress and be above such... each nook and corner, facing all those anarchic elements in you which are waiting for their psychological moment to come up. And it is only when you have made the entire round of your mental, vital and physical nature, persuaded everything to give itself to the Divine and thus achieved an absolute unified consecration that you put an end to your difficulties. Then indeed yours is a glorious walk towards... a subjective change. The whole physical life must be transformed. The material world does not want a mere change of consciousness in us. It says in effect: “You retire into bliss, become luminous, have the divine knowledge; but that does not alter me. I still remain the hell I practically am! The true change of consciousness is one that will change the physical condition of the world and make ...
... the Brahman, the others approaching and feeling the touch of it, yet it is only by coming into contact with the supreme consciousness and reflecting its nature and by the elimination of the vital, mental, physical egoism so that their whole function shall be to reflect the One and Supreme that Brahman can be known by the gods in us and possessed. The conscious force that supports our embodied life must... appalling powers yet unknown and unmastered which may wreck the fair world they have built, upheave and shatter to pieces the brilliant harmony of the intellect, the aesthetic mind, the moral nature, the vital desires, the body and senses which they have with such labour established, on the side of the good the demand of things unknown which are beyond all these and therefore are equally a menace, since the... human and cosmic workings. Much of their other Vedic aspects they keep. Here the three gods Indra, Vayu, Agni represent the cosmic Divine on each of its three planes, Indra on the mental, Vayu on the vital, Agni on the material. In that order, therefore, beginning from the material they approach the Brahman. Agni is the heat and flame of the conscious force in Matter which has built up the universe; ...
... to enter into another state of consciousness than the ordinary physical consciousness. Sri Aurobindo has spoken—I believe I have read it to you, I think it's in The Synthesis of Yoga —of the true mind, the true vital and the true physical or subtle physical, and he has said that they co-exist with the ordinary mind, vital and physical, and that in certain conditions one may enter into contact with... life, but this is a smaller part of the vital nature and can be easily overpowered by its more violent or darker duller yoke-comrades; nor does it readily lend itself to a call higher than that of the Page 288 Mind unless that call defeats itself, as Religion usually does, by lowering its demand to conditions more intelligible to our obscure vital nature. All these forces the spiritual... dreams may have dreams of a new kind which put them into contact Page 291 with that world, for it is accessible to the subtle physical of all those who have the corresponding organs in themselves. And there is necessarily a subtle influence of this physical on outer matter, if one is ready to receive impressions from it and admit them into one's consciousness. That's all. Now, if nobody ...
... substance. A mental or vital sense of oneness has not the same essentiality or the same effect as a spiritual realisation of oneness—just as the mental perception of the Divine is not the same thing as the spiritual realisation. The consciousness of one plane is different from the consciousness of another. Spiritual and psychic love are different from mental, vital or physical love—so with everything... consciousness or ascent of the consciousness into it. Realisation is when the Truth becomes a settled part of the consciousness. An experience of a truth in the substance of mind, in the vital or the physical, wherever it may be, is the beginning of realisation. When I experience peace, I begin to realise what it is. Repetition of the experience leads to a fuller and more permanent realisation. When... wideness (this can be seen also); we feel the heart-consciousness becoming wide instead of narrow, soft instead of hard, illumined instead of obscure, the head-consciousness also, the vital, even Page 7 the physical; we feel thousands of things of all kinds and why are we not to call them experiences? Of course it is an inner sight, an inner feeling, subtle feeling, not material like the feeling ...
... One. (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... mental Purusha in one centre or another, sometimes as or through the vital Purusha that one can become aware of one's self or spirit. It is also possible to become aware of the secret psychic being within by itself as the true individual; or one can be aware of the psychic being as the pure "I" with these others standing in mind or vital as representatives in these domains or on these levels. According... oneself from the parts of Prakriti, ceases to identify oneself with mind, life and body, falls Page 69 into an inner silence. One need not even explore the kingdoms of the inner mind or inner vital, still less is it compulsory to spread one's wings in ranges above. The Self is everywhere and by entering into full detachment and silence, or even by either detachment or silence, one can get anywhere ...
... sciences have with the forces of external nature like, say, steam or electricity. Yoga studies by repeated observation and experiment the forces and movements of the human psyche, its mental, vital and physical aspects, their mutual relation and influence. In the process of this inner exploration yoga discovers many capacities for knowledge, action and enjoyment which are not known to "empirical" psychology... and through that of the unveiled manifestation of the now-concealed and only partly revealed Divine Being. This revelation requires the transformation of Nature so that on all its levels, physical, vital and mental it may become conscious and spiritualised. The life of the supramental race of beings will be the Life Divine. The means of attaining this goal of evolution is the Integral Yoga which... materials of his philosophy were provided by yogic experiences obtained by the practice of certain psychological disciplines and not by speculative thinking. What then is yoga? Normally, practices such as physical postures, breath control, meditation, repeating a name of God or of a word or group of words, a mantra, etc. are understood as yoga. But these are particular disciplines and not the essence of yoga ...
... that has been obtained through yogic processes and the results of yogic experiences for the highest well- being of the individual and the world at all levels of existence, spiritual, mental, vital, and physical. In this course of development, the field of inquiry would have been much easier and much simpler if methods were uniform and if the knowledge of the object inquired into were also uniform.... supramental consciousness and secondly, the movement of the descent in yoga by which the supramental consciousness can be brought down so as to transform lower levels of consciousness, including the physical consciousness. In fact, in pursuance of these double processes; Sri Aurobindo has spoken of a new integral yoga of three transformations, psychic transformation, spiritual transformation, and supramental ...
... The skilful Penman's unseen finger wrote His swift intuitive calligraphy... 187 Everyday phenomena, mundane occurrences, facts and features in our mental, vital and physical life are thus touched up again, and Page 351 again, and yet again, to yield meanings relevant to the vast spiritual drama unfolded in Savitri. The 'four basic elements' ...
... personality there may : be a combination of different personalities. Sri Aurobindo : In the personality of man there may be mental, vital and physical elements. Man's personality is mainly physical—the mental and vital are there but generally involved in the physical. Disciple : Are the different personalities the result of one’s past life ? Sri Aurobindo : There are other elements... underwent a change from, this point. Disciple : Can one, completely get over his physical personality by the yoga? Page 141 Sri Aurobindo : What do you mean by physical personality ? There is the external personality of man which is predominantly physical but there are also the vital and mental parts. The external part of man is that portion which comes out but there is... the surface 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 ...
... that she has a capacity for the Yoga. But she must get rid of fear. Otherwise, all the experiences will stop. The letter shows that her inner mind is ready but her vital and the physical are not – the Page 201 vital is full of fear and the body suffers from bad health. As she herself says, it produces a conflict in the being which is not desirable. It may be better for her not to... that his physical body was going to be cut. But the symbolism is quite clear : the old elements in the nature would be thrown away and new ones brought in. Disciple : I heard afterwards that he turned to Jainism. I don't know if it is true. Sri Aurobindo : Was he a Jain by birth? Disciple : Yes. Sri Aurobindo : Well, that often happens. In one's vital and physical... you do if you feel your head being drilled through, or a nail being thrust inside? These things, of course, are not physical. Disciple : But why can't the experience come quietly? Sri Aurobindo : The experience comes quietly but you make a row! If your head or physical body is being split then you could object to it. You ought to know by now that Page 202 all these ...
... are given shape somewhere in us. The principal business of our mind is either a response of acceptance or refusal to these thought-waves (as also vital waves, subtle physical energy waves) or this giving a personal-mental form to thought-stuff (or vital movements) from the environing NatureForce. It was my great debt to Lele that he showed me this. "Sit in meditation," he said, "but do not think, look... planes of consciousness. Even the same thought-substance can take higher or lower vibrations according to the plane of consciousness through which the thoughts come in (e.g., thinking mind, vital mind, physical mind, subconscient mind) or the power of consciousness which catches them and pushes them into one man or another. Moreover there is a stuff of mind in each man and the incoming thought uses... accepted and felt by people to be thoughts of their own mind. When one practises Yoga and observes the thoughts, one sees that they come from outside, from universal Nature, from the mental, vital or subtle physical worlds etc. The proper thing is then to stand back from these thoughts, voices or suggestions, to reject them or else control them, to make the mind free and quiet and open only to the divine ...
... What is the meaning of "the psychic opening in the physical consciousness " ? ... One can find the psychic through each part of the consciousness: you can find a psychic behind the physical... you Page 44 can enter into contact with the psychic directly through the physical consciousness, directly through the vital consciousness, directly through the mental consciousness... there that suddenly you feel this trust which takes possession of you 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... here and working out everything. So long as the openness is there, the peace, the fullness and the joy remain with their immediate results of progress, health and fitness in the physical, quietness and goodwill in the vital, clear understanding and broadness in the mental and a general feeling of security and satisfaction. But it is difficult for a human being to keep up a constant contact with his ...
... men of power, sons of the Gods, who are governed by the who are out for the service of their intellectual, vital and physical ego. The ancient mind, light of a high ethical Dharma and others who are embodied Titans, the men of power more open than ours to the truth of things behind the physical veil, saw behind the life of man great cosmic Powers or beings representative of certain turns or grades of... initial error. 2 We see then that action is possible without the subjection of the soul to the normal degraded functioning of the modes of Nature. That functioning depends on the mental, vital and physical limitation into which we are cast; it is a deformation, an incapacity, a wrong or depressed value imposed on us by the mind and life in matter. When we grow into the spirit, this Page 467... constant types of beings which support the complex divine play of creation indispensable to the march of the universe and cast their influence also on the earth and on the life and nature of man in this physical plane of existence. ...
... outer dispositions: it is the omnipotent Idea in the spirit which invents and makes use of these devices. And in the vital and mental existence quality at once openly appears as the primary power and amount of energy is only a secondary factor. But in fact the mental, the vital, the physical existence are all subject to the limitations of quality, all are governed by its determinations, even though that... the Divine, if it were not in its secret essence imperishably one with the Divine and part and parcel of his divinity: it could not be or become immortal if it were merely a creature of mental, vital and physical Nature. All existence is a manifestation of the divine Existence and that which is within us is spirit of the eternal Spirit. We have come indeed into the lower material nature and are under... between spirit and matter must be psyche or soul power and the primary action psychological and qualitative, not physical and quantitative; for quality is the immaterial, the more spiritual element in all the action of the universal Energy, her prior dynamics. The predominance of physical Science has accustomed us to a different view of Nature, because there the first thing that strikes us is the importance ...
... individual in his preceding embodiment. The physical elements acquired and functioning in the physical part of a man's being are left behind in the physical world; the vital elements in the corresponding vital world; and the mental elements in the mental world. Just as the soul first drops its physical sheath at the moment of so-called "death", it discards too its vital and mental sheaths after some time,... of existence, the earthly-physical world and the supraphysical worlds, bring their own separate significant contributions. Now, just as in the case of an individual human being there are planes of consciousness like the physical, the vital, the mental and others, so also in the cosmic field there exist beyond the physical-material world other worlds like the vital, mental, etc. And what is of... 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 vital body, a mental body and others. His total being is constituted of five "Koshas" or sheaths ...
... speaks of maintaining his claim or case against the Mother until she lifts him into her lap, he is not speaking of any outer vital or physical contact, but of an inner psychic experience; precisely, he is protesting against her keeping him in the external vital and physical nature and insists on her taking him on the psychospiritual plane into spiritual union with her. All that is very good and very... outer consciousness and life, in the vital and physical planes on their own essential lines. It is that which, without your mind understanding it or how it is to be done, you are asking for, and I too; only I see the necessity of a vital transformation, while you seem to think and to demand that it should be done without any radical transformation, leaving the vital as it is. In the beginning, before... to answer. The supramental is not grand, aloof, cold and austere; it is not something opposed to or inconsistent with a full vital and physical manifestation; on the contrary, it carries in it the only possibility of the full fullness of the vital force and the physical life on earth. It is because it is so, because it was so revealed to me and for no other reason that I have followed after it and ...
... to cure. Note that so long as the power is not entirely there, some aid of physical means need not be altogether rejected. Illness marks some imperfection or weakness or else opening to adverse touches in the physical nature and is often connected also with some obscurity or disharmony in the lower vital or the physical mind or elsewhere. It is very good if one can get rid of illness entirely... not, medicine is handy. All ill-health is due to some inertia or weakness or to some resistance or wrong movement there [ in the vital ], only it has sometimes a more physical and sometimes a more psychological character. Medicines can counteract the physical results. Medicines are a pis aller that have to be used when something in the consciousness does not respond or responds superficially... have faith and respond, but the lower vital and the body may not follow. Or if the mind and vital are ready, the body may not respond, or may respond only partially, because it has the habit of replying to the forces which produce a particular illness and habit is a very obstinate force in the material part of the nature. In such cases the use of the physical means can be resorted to,—not as the main ...
... about being "spontaneous", and that the true way of living the true life is to live spontaneously. What Lao Tse calls spontaneous is this: instead of being moved by a personal will—mental, vital or physical—one ought to stop all outer effort and let oneself be guided and moved by what the Chinese call Tao , which they identify with the Godhead—or God or the Supreme Principle or the Origin of all ...
... the mere mental, vital and physical into the psychic consciousness, then this Yoga can be done..." Why has he said "the inmost soul"? Is there a superficial soul? It is because this inmost soul, that is, the central psychic being, influences the superficial parts of the consciousness (superficial in comparison with it: mental parts, vital parts). The purest mind, the highest vital, the emotive being—the... your discipline and consecration, an ambition is mixed up, that is, an intention to obtain powers, then if they come to you it is almost like a curse. Usually they don't come to you, but something vital which tries to imitate them comes to you with adverse influences which put you entirely under the domination of beings who give you powers simply with the intention of making use of you, using you to... studied them scientifically. Magic: these are different kinds of processes which were fixed probably by people who had a certain knowledge, and Page 261 still more a certain power of vital formation. These things can be learnt without having any special capacity, that is, someone who has no inner power can learn this as he learns chemistry, for example, or mathematics. It is one of the ...
... all our mental, vital and bodily experience and assimilates it for the farther evolution of our existence in Nature; but this action is occult and not obtruded on the surface. In the early material and vital stages of the evolution of being there is indeed no consciousness of soul; there are psychic activities, but the instrumentation, the form of these activities are vital and physical,—or mental when... the deeper heart and from there is lighted in the mind, the vital and the physical body. In the mind Agni creates a light of intuitive perception and discrimination which sees at once what is the true vision or idea and the wrong vision or idea, the true feeling and the wrong feeling, the true movement and the wrong movement. In the vital it is kindled as a fire of right emotion and a kind of intuitive... forward and develops 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 ...
... exercise of His omnipotent Will already does. The individual would like to have 'the wideness and plenty of earth and the vastness and abundance of heaven', and all the treasures of the mental, vital and physical existence multiplied a million-fold. Indeed, the goal of individual existence is the divine beatitude in dynamis as much as in status, and in consequence a total and perfect possession and... 2 Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad, p. 24. 3 Sri Aurobindo, On the Veda, p. 575. Page 247 been brought into being, annabhūtamidaṁ jagat. And this being so, "a physical, vital, moral, mental increase by a more and more all-embracing experience, a more and more all-embracing possession, absorption, assimilation, enjoyment is the inevitable, fundamental, ineradicable... it governs our vital and mental sheaths too. The extent to which this law reigns in Nature has not yet been fully recognised by men of our time, — who take their stand on the supposed substratum of Matter, — and indeed cannot be recognized, as Sri Aurobindo has pointed out, "until we have a science of mental life and spiritual existence as sound as our present science of physical life and the existence ...
... of nothing else, absolutely nothing that has to do with the vital and physical. To be conscious of the vital you must go there in the vital, and this is already an exteriorisation which leaves the body at least more than three-fourths in trance. And if you want to see things physically, you must go out in your most material subtle physical and then here you leave your body in a cataleptic state; and... Mother, can one enter into communion with his Jivatman without the ego being dissolved? That's what Sri Aurobindo says. He says that the ego survives the physical life, the bodily life; this is perfectly correct. There is a vital ego and a mental ego which can continue to exist for quite a long time. But one can have experiences without the ego being dissolved. Otherwise who would have experiences... in things physically observed. This truly is imagination. But as I say, if they are very powerful and have a considerable capacity for creation, it is possible that one day or other there will be a physical human being who realises their creation. This too is true. What do you suppose imagination is, eh? Have you never imagined anything, you? And what happens? All that one imagines. You ...
... activity. Vision is another plane of perception which awakes. It is the senses in the mind or vital or physical which wake up and manage to pass their experiences to the outer consciousness. It is as though one had another pair of eyes behind these, eyes which could see in the vital instead of seeing in the physical. And this is always there. Only, as one is concentrated on the most material life, one doesn't... Yes, and so "Why?" ( Laughter ) How is it different? But you have never noticed that it is different? For example, your physical consciousness or your subtle physical consciousness, your vital consciousness or the consciousness of your higher or lower vital, your psychic consciousness, your mental consciousness, each one is completely different! So when you sleep you have one consciousness... ill, you see, or the body is very ill, the only thing to do is to come out of it, to bring out one's vital being. And then, if one is a yogi and knows, one rises just above—so as to see his body; the vital being, if it has come out in a fairly material form, can see the body; one sees his own physical body, and then at that moment, with the consciousness one has and the force one has, one can direct ...
... equivalent of a concentration, but instead of being total it is only mental. Total concentration implies a concentration also of all the movements of the vital and physical. The method of gazing at a point is a very well-known one. So it is even physical, you see, one's eyes are fixed on this point, and one does not move any more... nothing more... one sees nothing, doesn't move his sight from that point... of all that the material world expresses through its forms, and the whole side of the forms of sensations of the physical life, are men who live in their senses; and when they enjoy all these things, well, we call them sensuous. Here, instead of being applied to the outer physical life, it is applied to the life of the spirit, to ideas and what is beyond ideas. And all that world, seen under the ...
... others who do not know her come, but they are not aware of it. The vital plane is a supraphysical plane—the vital moves about in its own plane and is not limited by the physical mind or its consciousness or experience. 13 July 1937 Kindly enlighten me as to what is the object and what the result of my coming to the Mother on the vital plane during sleep or dream. It may be for any object or without... for the mind or vital or physical consciousness to get or keep the Mother's conscious presence—it is only the psychic that keeps it easily. So the thought brought down a pressure from above and a concentration within in the heart with a healing there and a pain of the yearning within followed by its sweetness. This pain is that of the psychic sorrow or perhaps rather of the psycho-vital Page 289 ... 2 July 1936 The experience you had in your sleep was that of going into the vital world and meeting there one of the hostile vital beings who wished to menace or attack you, but could not attack you because of your call on the Mother. There are two things that must be acquired in these passages through the vital world—first this immediate call on the Mother's protection and, second, the throwing ...
... them or similar things without being any the worse. It is something in you, probably in your lower vital and physical, that does not want the Higher Consciousness because it will have to change and it has no intention of changing. When this pressure acts, it gets at once a fear and shakes the physical mind and system by its fear. You will have then to get rid of this—till then it will not be safe for... There are two centres or parts of the consciousness—one is a witness, sākṣī , and observes, the other consciousness is active and it is this active consciousness that you felt going down deep into the vital being. If your mind had not become active, you would have known where it went and what it went there to experience or do. When there is an experience, you should not begin to think about it, for that... to others and even then if they are experiences of the past that one Page 50 can speak of them. Otherwise it becomes like news of Abyssinia or Spain, something common and trivial for the vital mass-mind to chew or gobble. To show what is written about experiences or to speak about one's experiences to others is always risky. They are much better kept to oneself. I rather doubt ...
... certain spiritual impersonality, then you grow in equality, purity, peace, detachment, you get the power of living in an inner freedom not touched by the surface movement or struggle of the mental, vital and physical nature, and this becomes a great help when you have to go beyond the impersonal and to change the troubled nature also into something divine. The Divine and the Atman The Divine is more... to our spiritual and our Page 9 outward experience—whereas the point of view on which you lay stress is that they are not what they ought to be or what the mind, ethical feeling and the vital in man feel that they ought to be. That this world is full of queer, ugly and inharmonious things is the very plain and self-evident fact with which we have to start,—wherever we may want or hope to... I must realise the cosmic Divine and become conscious of the cosmic self and the cosmic forces. But I have to embody it here,—otherwise it is left as an influence only and not a thing fixed in the physical world—and it is through the Divine in the individual alone that this can be done. These are elements in the dynamics of spiritual experience and I am obliged to admit them if a divine work has ...
... The higher consciousness in its descent takes several fundamental forms—peace, power and strength, light, knowledge, Ananda. Usually it is the peace that descends first. This is not a mental, vital or physical peace of the ordinary kind, but something from above (spiritual), very firm, solid and concrete. It is its concreteness that makes you feel like a still massive block—a mass of the higher con... downwards. The sadhak becomes restless under the Force only if he resists it—otherwise it brings peace and calm and happiness and strength. It is probably some other part of the mind—the vital mind or physical mind—it is these usually that resist. Usually the descent in the head helps to quiet the mind. If you mean the descent of the higher consciousness, that is felt in the heart region... the mind, then into the vital and then into the body, because it is these that have to be changed and that is the natural order. Whatever comes from above the head, whether it is Presence, Peace, Ananda, or anything else, normally descends into the head first, then after occupying all the mental centres it comes down into the heart and from there goes down into the vital centres and occupies the ...
... heart, the vital and sensational being and translate them by a luminous and harmonising conversion into a unity of the truth, power and 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... 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 and as it pours itself... vijñānamaya puruṣa , and of that into which it opens, the Anandamaya, into the physical consciousness and its members. Pushed to its highest conclusion this movement brings in a spiritualising and illumination of the whole physical consciousness and a divinising of the law of the body. For behind the gross physical sheath of this materially visible and sensible frame there is subliminally supporting ...
... breathe or live. And this spiritual bliss is here also in our hearts. It is hidden in from the toil of the surface mind which catches only at weak and flawed translations of it into various mental, vital and physical forms of the joy of existence. But if the mind has once grown sufficiently subtle and pure in its receptions and not limited by the grosser nature of our outward responses to existence, we can... that we see and all else is only its habitation, form and symbol. Even all that is most outward, the body, the form, the sound, whatever our senses seize, are seen as this Presence; they cease to be physical and are changed into a substance of spirit. This transformation means a transformation of our own inner consciousness; we are taken by the surrounding Presence into itself and we become part of it... to us only its habitation and temple, a form of its working and an instrument of its self-expression. All is only soul and body of this delight. This is the Divine seen around us and on our own physical plane. But he may reveal himself above. We see or feel him as a high-uplifted Presence, a great infinite of Ananda above us,—or in it, our Father in heaven,—and do not feel or see him in ourselves ...
... structure and constitution— even so, the living human structure, the mental, vital and physical formation will be translated, grain by grain, atom by atom into the divine substance by the infusion and imposition of the Divine figure. The Christian mystics themselves, however, do not seem to have aimed at real physical transubstantiation—although that might have been at the back of the older Hebrew... at the most preparatory to something else. The Avatar means a new revelation and the uplift of the human consciousness into a higher mode of being. The Page 4 physical form he takes signifies the physical pressure that is exerted for the corroboration and fixation of the inner illumination that he brings upon earth and in the human frame. The Indian tradition has focussed its attention... soil that bears it. Thus then the embodied human person who has the embodied Divine Person before his eyes must know how to instal and incorporate the Divine Person in him, in his body and physical existence. That was perhaps the mystery sought to be conveyed in the Christian sacrament of transubstantiation. The bread and wine that the initiate has to take in represent— are or become actually ...
... structure and constitution —even so, the living human structure, the mental, vital and physical formation will be translated, grain by grain, atom by atom into the divine substance by the infusion and imposition of the Divine figure. The Christian mystics themselves, however, do not seem to have aimed at real physical transubstantiation—although that might have been at the back of the older Hebrew... been at the most preparatory to Page 26 something else. The Avatar means a new revelation and the uplift of the human consciousness into a higher mode of being. The physical form he takes signifies the physical pressure that is exerted for the corroboration and fixation of the inner illumination that he brings upon earth and in the human frame. The Indian tradition has focussed its attention... soil that bears it. Thus then the embodied human person who has the embodied Divine Person before his eyes must know how to install and incorporate the Divine Person in him, in his body and physical existence. That was perhaps the mystery sought to be conveyed in the Christian sacrament of transubstantiation. The bread and wine that the initiate has to take in represent —are or become actually ...
... structure and constitution – even so, the living human structure, the mental, vital and physical formation will be translated, grain by grain, atom by atom into the divine substance by the infusion and imposition of the Divine figure. The Christian mystics themselves, however, do not seem to have aimed at real physical transubstantiation-although that might have been at the back of the older Hebrew... at the most preparatory tosomething else. Page 126 The Avatar means a new revelation and the uplift of the human consciousness into a higher mode of being. The physical form he takes signifies the physical pressure that is exerted for the corroboration and fixation of the inner illumination that he brings upon earth and in the human frame. The Indian tradition has focussed its attention... the soil that bears it. Thus then the embodied human person who has the embodied Divine Person before his eyes must know how to instal and incorporate the Divine Person in him, in his body and physical existence. That was perhaps the mystery sought to be conveyed in the Christian sacrament of transubstantiation. The bread and wine that the initiate has to take in represent – are or become actually ...
... individual, not the true individual but the individual in Nature, what may be called the individual personality. The personality, of course, is not the Person: it is something formed in the mental, vital and physical nature. NIRODBARAN: Well, if the Cosmic Spirit doesn't act through the Person, it acts through the personality or nature. If it is acting through my nature, where is my responsibility? ... back to Hitler: Hitler is responsible so long as he feels he is Hitler. In his youth, he was considered an amusing crank and nobody took any notice of him. It is the vital possession that gives him his size and greatness. Without this vital power he would be a crudely amiable fellow with some hobbies and eccentricities. It is in this kind of person whose psychic is undeveloped and weak that a possession... genuine; he felt something there. NIRODBARAN: Has he what you once called the "London-cabman's psychic"? SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. Mussolini has comparatively a better developed psychic and a strong vital. In his latest photograph he seems to have weakened. Either he is unwell or he is aging or perhaps he has misused his powers and hence the change. NIRODBARAN: Does Hitler feel responsible for his ...
... astrologers call the destiny in the physical. There can also be destiny in the vital. By bringing vital force into play the destiny in the physical can be changed. So also by bringing mental forces into play – though it is more difficult – what seems to be the vital destiny can be changed. That is why astrologers hardly prove themselves right because they look at the physical whereas there can be a variation... variation in the play of forces of the mental, vital and physical planes. On these a certain play of forces may show as if the destiny was in favour of one or the other group of forces. And this balance can be changed. Page 286 Disciple : But if the Supreme vision is there then the new order is bound to come. Is it not? Disciple : But at present before the Supreme has a chance... spiritual result. There have always been a small number of people who have embodied that change. But I do not know how that can change the whole world conditions. Or perhaps by psychic he means mental and vital changes. Even that I don't know how they can come about if Hitler wins. For the present, everybody seems to be taking refuge in cowardice and trying to save his own skin and if the change desired is ...
... in a preparatory purification of the mental, vital and physical nature, a liberation from the knots of the lower Prakriti, a consequent replacement of the egoistic state always subject to the ignorant and troubled action of the desire soul by a large and luminous static equality which quiets the reason, the emotional mind, the life mind and the physical nature and brings into us the peace and freedom... powers; but the secret self within assures in spite of the groping of the vital mind the action of the nature and the result needed for the necessity, the purpose and the destiny of the being. This continues on a higher and higher scale up to the human reason and intelligence. The being of man also is full of physical, vital, emotional, psychical and dynamic instincts and intuitions, but he does not... something other than a mental Intelligence which is at work, other than an intellectual Logos. All these processes are actually spiritual and supramental in their secret government, but mental, vital and physical in their overt process. The outward matter, life, mind do not possess this occult action of the supermind, even while possessed and compelled by the necessity it imposes on their workings ...
... the vital and physical, doesn't he?... that it is a force which manifests on the vital plane and the physical plane. The vital forces have a very great influence over money. ( After a silence ) You see, when one thinks of money, one thinks of bank-notes or coins or some kind of wealth, some precious things. But this is only the physical expression of a force which may be handled by the vital and... into the Divine." But this was absolutely necessary, for without this... if you simply went out of your body (most of you can't do it because the vital being is hardly more individualised than the physical), if you came out of your body and went into the vital world, you would see that all things there intermingle, they are mixed, they divide; all kinds of vibrations, currents of forces come and go, struggle... This talk is based upon Chapter 4 of The Mother by Sri Aurobindo. "Money is the visible sign of a universal force, and this force in its manifestation on earth works on the vital and physical planes and is indispensable to the fullness of the outer life. In its origin and its true action it belongs to the Divine. But like other powers of the Divine it is delegated here and in the ...
... consciousness of the sadhaka: "The weak-willed man is governed by his vital and physical impulsions, his mental being is not dynamic enough to make its will prevail over them. His will is not 'free' because it is not strong enough to be 'free', it is the slave of the forces that act on or in his vital and physical nature. Page 240 "[In the strong-willed person] the will is... to reject 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." (The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 54) The indispensability of a strong personal... should conduct ourselves as sincere sadhakas. We have sufficient awareness about all that has to be rejected from the 1»resent unregenerate nature of the triple instruments of mind and heart and the physical. Yet, it is really surprising that we cannot activate our will-power sufficiently strongly to overcome the manifestations of our weaknesses. But how can we forget that an indomitable will-power ...
... 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 breaks its limitations, its conservative inertia, replaces its narrow t... atom, in electricity, in everything that belongs to physical nature; we shall find even that it is not really in all respects a lower or more limited mode than the mental, on the contrary it is in many "inanimate" forms more intense, rapid, poignant, though less evolved towards the surface. But this also, this consciousness of vital and physical Nature is, compared with Chit, a lower and therefore... consciousness. It is this Chit which modifies itself so as to become on the Truth-plane the supermind, on the mental plane the mental reason, will, emotion, sensation, on the lower planes the vital or physical instincts, impulses, habits of an obscure force not in superficially conscious possession of itself. All is Chit because all is Sat; all is various movement of the original Consciousness because ...
... element; it is only a beginning or at the highest an approximation in certain directions. It works fitfully & uncertainly in the midst of an enormous mass of somewhat disordered human mentality, vital nervosity, physical animality. The thing itself is divine, it is only the undivine mould in which it works that is to a lesser or greater extent broken & ploughed up by the unassimilated force that works in it... than Newton, Shakespeare, Caesar or Napoleon, a higher moral type than Buddha, Christ or St Francis, a higher physical type than the Greek athlete or to give modern examples, a Sandow or a Ramamurti. She may seek to bring about a better combination of mental & moral, or of moral, mental & physical energies; but is she likely to produce anything much above the level of Confucius or Socrates? It is more... therefore, she compels, she insists. Everywhere we see her striving to break the mental, moral & physical type she 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 c ...
... real point is how far his work can be supposed to be a transcript of his inner mind or mental life. It is obvious that his vital cast, his character may have very little to do with his writing, it may be its very opposite. His physical mind also does not determine it; the physical mind of a romantic poet or artist may very well be that of a commonplace respectable bourgeois. One who in his fiction is... reed through which the Spirit blows but which is laid aside after the tune is over or it may be an active power having some say even in the surface Page 110 mental composition and vital and physical activities of the total composite creature. In that general possibility there is room for a hundred degrees and variations and no rule can be laid down that covers all possible or actual cases... which seizes hold of them for self-expression. But the personal feeling also may form a basis for the creation. 26 September 1934 These designations, a magnified ego, an exalted outlook of the vital mind, apply in sadhana, but hardly to poetic expression which lifts or ought to lift to a field of pure personal-impersonal bhāva . An utterance of this kind can express a state of consciousness or ...
... lesser Gods of the mental and vital planes. In either case they try to occupy and use the instrument, but for their own purpose, for the play of the Ideas and Forces 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... unhappily you seem to have departed from the guidance of the Mother in the crucial point. You seem to have deliberately rejected the peace and silence of the vital being in the fear that it would bring stagnation. As a result the strong habit [of] vital formation came into play and you began to call down lights and powers and build things in [yourself] 4 in your own way. In this condition, when the disciple... completeness of his consent and confidence. If they are complete, the work done will be perfect and true; if they are imperfect, the work will be marred by the distortions brought in by his mind and his vital failings, if they are denied, then nothing can be done. Or, rather, nothing will be done; for the attempt in such circumstances might lead to a breaking rather than a divine building of the nature, ...
... their sleeping as in their waking hours. This is different from the dream experiences that one has on the vital or mental plane which are themselves not ordinary dreams but actual experiences on the mental, vital, psychic or subtle physical planes. You have had several dreams which were vital dream experiences, those in which you met the Mother, and recently you had one such contact on the mental plane... current it is the familiar sign of a first touch of the higher consciousness flowing down in the form of a stream—like the "wave" of light of the scientist—to prepare its possession of mind, vital and physical in the body. So is the stillness and rigidity of the body in your former experience a sign of the same descent of the higher consciousness in its form or tendency of stillness and silence. It... according to your own preconceived mental ideas and left no freedom to the Divine to act or manifest according to His own truth and reality and the need not of your mind and vital but of your soul and spirit. It is as if your vital were to present a coloured glass to the Divine and tell Him, "Now pour yourself into that and I will shut you up there and look at you through the colours", or, from the mental ...
... faith in the divine Grace? It can be in the physical, it can be in the vital, it can be in the psychic, and it can be in this part or that, or this activity or that other. There are people, for example, who have absolutely a kind of mental realisation of contact with the Grace, of faith in the Grace; and then, as soon as they are in their vital or physical consciousness, there is nothing any more. There... have much mental knowledge, but who in their physical consciousness have an absolute faith in the divine Grace, and a total trust, and they live like that in this faith and trust. Others still have it only in their deep feelings; and their thoughts are vagabond. And there are others who have even a vital faith—these are rare but they exist—who have a vital faith in the divine Grace, that all will always... than that. There! Sweet Mother, what does "the subliminal being" mean, exactly? Well, it is what he says, you know. It's what is behind. I think it is what could be called the subtle physical, the subtle vital, the subtle mind. It is something that's behind what is manifested. One can imagine that what is manifested is like a layer or like a crust or a bark; it is that which we see and with which ...
... the sign of ordinary sleep. But I do give my body the rest it needs, that is, two or three hours of lying down in a condition of absolute immobility in which the whole being, mental, psychic, vital and physical, enters into a complete state of rest made of perfect peace, absolute silence and total immobility, while the consciousness remains perfectly awake; or else I enter into an internal activity ...
... perceive the difference in the earth atmosphere. They still have quite a way to go for that. Because, for those whose consciousness is more or less exclusively centered in the outer being—mental, vital and physical—things need to have an absurd or unexpected appearance to be noticeable. And then they call it a miracle. But we do not call a miracle the constant miracle of the forces that intervene to ...
... the mental, vital and Page 172 physical movements prevents it from being effective. During the Terrace Darshan, the Mother filled my whole head with her Light. She does so every time, only today you not only received but were consciously receptive. You can receive the Light at all times even if less concretely than in the physical presence. ... the thrill of the Mother's touch coming from above and felt by the psychic and vital together. Page 173 During today's Pranam, I perceived the Mother in a majestic form, seated very high. Of course she is always that inwardly. But what I experienced this morning was something on the physical plane and seen by my human eyes. Her grandeur showed as if she had already conquered... for them to see her. Each should be content with what the Mother gives them, for she alone feels what they can or cannot receive. Mental constructions Page 165 of this kind and vital demands are always false. The Mother does not seem to turn away from people who are not faithful. She often allows them to do what they like. It is the Mother's business ...
... Sweet Mother, when we see you in a dream, is it always a symbolic dream? No, not necessarily. It can be a fact. This means that instead of seeing physically, one sees in the subtle physical or the vital or the mind. But one sees something of me: for instance, if I send out a force or a thought or a movement, an action to someone, in his atmosphere this takes my form, in his mental consciousness... by images which at times are very astonishing! But that, of course, is their translation. As for me, when they tell me all that, it gives me the exact picture of the state of their mental, vital and physical consciousness. Just the deformations in the translation suffices for me to know what the state of their mind is. And I cannot tell them, "It was not I", for it was I! Only they have changed this... life, and it is fairly rare. When one returns from a symbolic dream, one remembers everything, all the details, and feels that one has lived for those moments a much in tenser and truer life than the physical one.And it leaves a very deep impression upon you. Page 142 This does not happen very often, you know. Usually it comes when it is very necessary. Has anyone any dreams to narrate? ...
... upward, ascending through many planes physical, vital, mental, overmental to the supramental and Ananda planes. This is nothing new; it is stated in the Taittiriya Upanishad that there are five Purushas, the physical, the vital, the mental, the Truth Purusha (supramental) and the Bliss Purusha; it says that one has to draw the physical self up into the vital, the vital into the mental, the mental into the... Divine seated in the heart with the Divine supporting it there—this psychic being takes charge of the sadhana and turns the whole being to the Truth and the Divine, with results in the mind, the vital, the physical consciousness which I need not go into here,—that is a first transformation. We realise it next as the one Self, Brahman, Divine, first above the body, life, mind and not only within the heart... I think Ramatirtha's realisations were more mental than anything else. He had opening of the higher mind and a realisation there of the cosmic Self, but I find no evidence of a transformed mind and vital; that transformation is not a result or object of the Yoga of Knowledge. The realisation of the Yoga of Knowledge is when one feels that one lives in the wideness of something silent, featureless and ...
... from the actuality of life; it takes the impressions of the surrounding physical world as hints only for a purely imaginative creation which seems to be truly drawn not from the life of earth, but from a more beautiful and harmonious life-scene that exists either within our own unplumbed depths or on other subtler vital or physical planes. This creation has an aim in it at things symbolic, otherwise ... The Elizabethan drama is an expression of the stir of the life-spirit; at its best it has a great or strong, buoyant or rich or beautiful, passionately excessive or gloomily tenebrous force of vital poetry. The rest of the utterance of the time is full of the lyric joy, sweetness or emotion or moved and coloured self-description of the same spirit. There is much in it of curious and delighted thinking... creation, it is with a demand for more heightened effects and a more penetrating expression. The last was the demand and method of the Elizabethan age. Page 87 In Elizabethan poetry the physical and external tendency still persists, but it is no longer sufficient to satisfy either the perceiving spirit or its creative force. Where it is most preserved, it still demands a more vehement response ...
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