... which he was brought by an internal effort not properly guided from without or from within. The effort brought about a certain 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... Rathin that you have just now what seems to me, a rather dangerous attraction (because likely to create hindrances or misdirect the energy) towards these vital cases. What you say about the different vital worlds is no doubt interesting and has a certain truth but you must remember that these worlds, which are different from the true or divine vital, are full of enchantments and illusions and they present... possession of wealth is a great obstacle and it is also a supreme opportunity. In our aim of Yoga we have to conquer the world for the Divine and if we can bring some force of wealth from the rule of vital worlds on our side, it is worthwhile. At present these forces are held by the vital world. We should win them for the Divine. 1923 14 April Evening My dear Barin, I answer first your letter of ...
... soul lays down the material body and enters the vital worlds, through which it passes into the mental worlds, and finally into the psychic 93 world, where it rests ‘in a kind of beatific contemplation’ between two incarnations and assimilates its experiences from the former life. The beings of the vital worlds, more specifically the lower vital worlds, are the vicious entities we call demons or hostile ...
... to you I have been once more overwhelmed with correspondence, no time for poetry—so the Mind Worlds are still in a crude embryonic form and the Psychic World not yet begun. The remainder of the vital worlds is finished but only in a way—nothing yet final and a line missing here and there, but that last defect can be filled up ambulando . The revision of the last preceding section is also done, but... point . It was only a brief interlude of a few lines formerly, but I had been lengthening it out afterwards with much difficulty in getting it right. I have now got the subtle physical and lower vital worlds into some kind of order, but the big dark Asuric vital and the vital heavens are still roaming about in a state of half solid incompleteness. Still I suppose as I am taking my vacation (from co... paths. [ p. 208 ] 1946 Page 302 Oft, some familiar visage studying, Discovered suddenly Hell's trademark there. [ cf. p. 215 ] It is a reference to the beings met in the vital worlds that seem like human beings but, if one looks closely, they are seen to be Hostiles, often assuming the appearance of a familiar face, they try to tempt or attack by surprise, and betray the stamp ...
... the occult worlds. These worlds have their own laws. There are good and bad vital worlds and the results will depend on the connection one has made. NIRODBARAN: All these powers come from the vital worlds? SRI AUROBINDO: Of course. NIRODBARAN: It would be good then if one establish connection with good vital worlds and cure cases. SRI AUROBINDO: Why, one can cure by a connection with bad ...
... we die), we still exist and move about in our vital and mental bodies. It is the sojourn after death in the vital body, which then has to pass through kindred vital worlds, that is the origin of the belief in “hell”, for the lower vital worlds and the beings dwelling in those worlds can truly be infernal. When the vital body too is discarded, the soul still has to pass through mental worlds before it ...
... ceaselessly manifests ‘typal’ worlds out of himself which are the concretizations of his inherent qualities, from the highest — Existence, Consciousness, Bliss — down to the lowest, i.e. the lower vital worlds. All those worlds exist in their own gradation of substance, but the (gross) substance we know of and are made of, and which we call ‘matter’, is a product of the Inconscient and therefore exists... worlds are immortal and on their level fully satisfied with their existence, this according to the basic principle of the omnipresent divine Ananda or Bliss. So too are the beings of the lower vital worlds, who for the most part are vicious little mischief-makers; their nasty games and tricks are a source of inexhaustible fun for themselves, but they are very bothersome to us, humans, when we are ...
... embodied the principles of darkness, falsehood, incapacity and evil which we have supposed to be consequent upon the evolution out of the material Inconscience. It seems even to be the fact that the vital worlds are the natural home of the Powers that most disturb human life; this is indeed logical, for it is through our vital being that they sway us and they must therefore be powers of a larger and more... special ways in which it is eventually realised. It is this upward-drawing action and this pressure, this insistence from above, which explain the constant influence of the spiritual, mental and vital worlds upon the physical plane. It is evident that, given a complex universe and seven principles interwoven in every part of its system and naturally therefore drawn to act upon and respond to each other ...
... become aware of through dream records, through the subtle senses, through influences and contacts, through imagination, intuition and vision. There are worlds of a larger subtler life than ours, vital worlds; worlds in which Mind builds its own forms and figures, mental worlds; psychic worlds which are the soul's home; others above with which we have little contact. In each of us there is a mental plane... artist, musician are in close contact with it; it is also a world of powers and passions, lusts and desires,—our own lusts and desires, and passions and ambitions can put us into connection with the vital worlds and their forces and beings. It is again a world of things dark, dangerous and horrible. Nightmares like X 's are contacts with this side of the vital plane. Its influences are also the source ...
... they were dissolved by the soul's pressure. All these buildings are of the nature of larger life constructions; in them his mind translates some of the real conditions of the greater mental and vital worlds into terms of his physical experience magnified, prolonged, extended to a condition beyond physicality: he carries by this translation the vital joy and vital suffering of the physical being into... constructive environments must therefore be considered, so far as they have any supraphysical habitat, as annexes of the vital or of the lower mental planes of existence. But there are also the true vital worlds,—original constructions, organised developments, native habitats of the universal life-principle, the cosmic vital Anima, acting in its own field and in its own nature. On his internatal journey ...
... own? Because they are there in between and because so long as the vital and mental formations are there, you cannot go elsewhere than the mental and vital worlds. While passing through the mental and vital worlds, does not the psychic draw back the substance from its mental and vital beings in order to use it for the next birth? It does not necessarily take ...
... some time in the vital worlds in its vital sheath before it passes through the mental regions into the psychic world, to rest there and to assimilate the experiences from the recently concluded life. The lower vital worlds are inhabited by the malicious beings we have already met and who in the West are called devils. The temporary passage of the soul through those lower vital worlds is the rationale ...
... which he was brought by an internal effort not properly guided from without or from within. The effort brought about a certain 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... Rathin that you have just now what seems to me, a rather dangerous attraction (because likely to create hindrances or misdirect the energy) towards these vital cases. What you say about the different vital worlds is no doubt interesting and has a certain truth but you must remember that these worlds, which are different from the true or divine vital, are full of enchantments and illusions and they present... possession of wealth is a great obstacle and it is also a supreme opportunity. In our aim of Yoga we have to conquer the world for the Divine and if we can bring some force of wealth from the rule of vital worlds on our side, it is worthwhile. At present these forces are held by the vital world. We should win them for the Divine. 16 April 1923 Pondicherry, 16th April 1923 My dear Barin, ...
... occultism. But already Mirra had had her taste of the graded occult worlds. Beyond Matter and Form and Colour, beyond their façade of Beauty wasn't there the stairway of the worlds invisible, the vital worlds of the little life, the sinuous creatures of the subtle-vital, the teasing and fascinating dream-worlds, the frightening and fearful nightmare-hells, the soothing Page 834 and seductive... Théon's was by no means an inconsiderable concentration of power, but being flawed at the source, and lacking the links with the Home of Truth, his Napoleonic adventure aiming at the conquest of the vital worlds was, after all, foredoomed to failure. Well within the rigid governance of Truth, occultism had its uses, but misuses and abuses were fatally easy. By itself, then, occultism too just wasn't enough... or the exploration of form and significance in Matter, wasn't by itself enough, if occultism, or the exploration of the worlds invisible and the mastery and the manipulation of the beings of the vital worlds, wasn't enough either, what, then, remained? It was almost like a Euclidean demonstration or proof by exhaustion, or the location of the Truth by eliminating, one after another, all other contending ...
... wake up you are often at least as tired as when going to bed and have a feeling of lassitude shows that you do any number of useless things during the night; you tire yourself running around in the vital worlds or moving in the mind in a frantic activity. So when you get up you feel tired. Well, once you have the control you can stop that completely... stop it before going to sleep... make yourself... you can make your mind like that, vast, calm, like a flat, motionless surface; then your sleep is excellent. Of course, here too it is a question of people going in their sleep to places of the vital worlds which are very bad, and then, when they return, sometimes they are more than tired, at times they are ill, or they are absolutely exhausted. This is because they were in bad places and had a fight ...
... state to which he was brought by an internal effort not properly guided from 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... Rathin that you have just now what seems to me a rather dangerous attraction (because likely to create hindrances or misdirect the energy) towards these vital cases. What you say about the different vital worlds is no doubt interesting and has a certain truth, but you must remember that these worlds, which are different from the true or divine vital, are full of enchantments and illusions and they present ...
... become aware of through dream records, through the subtle senses, through influences and contacts, through imagination, intuition and vision. There are worlds of a larger subtler life than ours, vital worlds; worlds in which Mind builds its own forms and figures, mental worlds; psychic worlds which are the soul‘s home; others above with which we have little contact. In each of us there is a mental plane... artist, musician are in close contact with it; it is also a world of powers and passions, lusts and desires,—our own lusts and desires, and passions and ambitions can put us into connection with the vital worlds and their forces and beings. It is again a world of things dark, dangerous and horrible. Nightmares like X‘s are contacts with this side of the vital plane. Its influences are also the source of ...
... the vital worlds, proceeding on its journey which must sooner or later bring it to the psychic rest till the next life. It is true also that sorrow and mourning for the dead impedes its progress by keeping it tied to the earth-atmosphere and pulling it back from its passage. After death the soul passes in a little while or at once from the earth atmosphere and goes into the vital worlds where ...
... farther experience. It is really for the vital part of the being that śrāddha and rites are done—to help the being to get rid of the vital vibrations which still attach it to the earth or to the vital worlds, so that it may pass quickly to its rest in the psychic peace. The movement of the psychic being dropping its outer, its vital and mental sheaths on its way to the psychic plane, is its normal... many cases of suicide where one remains surrounded by the forces of suffering and turmoil created by this unnatural and violent exit. There are also, of course, real worlds of mind and vital Page 535 worlds which are penetrated with joyful or dark experiences, and one may pass through these as the result of things formed in the nature which create the necessary affinities. But the idea of ...
... movements of Vishnu all the five worlds and their creatures have their habitation. Earth, heaven and "that" world of bliss are the three strides. Between earth and heaven is the Antariksha, the vital worlds, literally "the intervening habitation". Between heaven and the world of bliss is another vast Antariksha or intervening habitation, Maharloka, the world of the superconscient Truth of things. ...
... dense consciousness of the body to the beginnings of worlds of life-force, the vital-consciousness. Meeting different creatures and beings appropriate to these levels, Aswapati moves to the higher vital worlds and then to the mental worlds. Aswapati discovers that just as there is an upward movement leading to more and more bright levels of consciousness, there is also a downward movement leading ...
... Manushya-Yajna the sacrificers grow by helping each other. The Devas take of the offerings of the sacrifice and to its performer grant boons in full measure. Even departed spirits and the beings of vital worlds get their share in this daily sacrifice. The Law of Sacrifice proves not only to be ubiquitous in the universality of its application* but is also inexorable. That was the way the Grecian gods were ...
... have not taken the proper personal guidance from me and on whom Yoga is simply forced, in other words want to do some Yoga forcing it on themselves — very often and easily open themselves to these vital worlds. When a number of people sit together and meditate and earnestly want to get something, there will always be some opening. The worlds they open themselves to without being conscious to what they ...
... a descent of fierce and dark vital Powers which seek to possess the human world for their own, not for a spiritual purpose. It is true that such a precipitation of Asuric forces from the darker vital worlds has been predicted by some occultists as one first result of the pressure of the Divine Descent on their vital domain, but it was regarded as a circumstance of the battle, not as something helping ...
... even greater degree of the infra-human animal. According to the theory of reincarnation those who do not get beyond this stage in the earthly life, cannot rise after death to the mental or higher vital worlds, but have to return from the confines of a series of physical planes to increase their development in the next earthly existence. For the undeveloped physical soul is entirely dominated by material ...
... October 1935 "It is really for the vital part of the being that Shraddha and rites are done—to help the being to get rid of the vital vibrations which still attach it to the earth or to the vital worlds, so that it may pass quickly to its rest in the psychic peace" [p. 18]. Does this mean that the Shraddha ceremony performed at present by the Brahmins is correct? Does feeding the caste and the ...
... were sought by the process of descent—the Tamil Shaiva saints for instance sought for the siddha body by tremendous austerities; the siddhis they sought were all there in the sukshma mental and vital worlds and by a stupendous effort and mastery of the body they brought them down into the physical instrument. I have always said that these things and these methods are out of my scope and eschewed by ...
... experience. It is really for the vital part of the being that Shraddha and rites are done - to help the being to get rid of the vital vibrations which still attach it to the earth or to the vital worlds, so that it may pass quickly to its rest in the psychic peace. * Page 18 The consciousness in the individual widens itself into the cosmic consciousness outside and can have ...
... exceptional and exists only on the earth and nowhere else. All these inhabitants of the higher worlds, the Higher Mind, Overmind and other regions have no psychic being. Of course, the beings of the vital worlds don't have it either. But these latter don't regret it they don't want it. There are only those very rare ones, quite exceptional, who want to be converted, and for this they act without delay, ...
... exceptional and exists only on the earth and nowhere else. All these inhabitants of the higher worlds, the Higher Mind, Overmind and other regions have no psychic being. Of course, the beings of the vital worlds don't have it either. But these latter don't regret it, they don't want it. There are only those very rare ones, quite exceptional, who want to be converted, and for this they act without delay ...
... further experience. It is really for the vital part of the being that śrāddha and rites are done—to help the being to get rid of the vital vibrations which still attach it to the earth or to the vital worlds, so that it may pass quickly to its rest in the psychic peace. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: Rebirth (1) The psychic being stands behind mind, life and body, supporting them; so ...
... character, the rest are either ideatruths, such as pour down into the consciousness from above when one gets into touch with certain planes of being, or strong formations from the larger mental and vital worlds which, when one is directly open to these worlds, rush in and want to use the sadhak for their fulfilment. These things, when they pour down or come in, present themselves with a great force, a ...
... exceptional and exists only on the earth and nowhere else. All these inhabitants of the higher worlds, the Higher Mind, Overmind and other regions have no psychic being. Of course, the beings of the vital worlds don’t have it either. But these latter don’t regret it they don’t want it. There are only those very rare ones, quite exceptional, who want to be converted, and for this they act without delay, ...
... good health or whether they are harmful to the balance and progress of the physical being and the vital. Moreover, the senses should be used as instruments to approach and study the physical and vital worlds in all their complexity; in this way they will take their true place in the great endeavour towards transformation. It is by enlightening, strengthening and purifying the vital, and not by weakening ...
... experience. It is really for the vital part of the being that sraddha and rites are done — to help the being to get rid of the vital vibrations which still attach it to the earth or to the vital worlds, so that it may pass quickly to its rest in the psychic peace. A Person persistent through the lapse of worlds, Although the same for ever in many shapes By the ...
... exceptional thing belonging to the earth alone. All the inhabitants of the higher worlds—the Higher Mind, the Overmind and other domains—do not have the psychic being. Naturally, the beings of the vital worlds have not got it either. But these vital beings do not regret, for they do not want to have it. There are, however, a few exceptional beings on this level who wish to be converted and therefore ...
... exceptional thing belonging to the earth alone. All the inhabitants of the higher worlds – the Higher Mind, the Overmind and other domains – do not have the psychic being. Naturally, the beings of the vital worlds have not got it either. But these vital beings do not regret, for they do not want to have it. There are, however, a few exceptional beings on this level who wish to be converted and therefore desire ...
... social life and has become worse than the animal: he is now the Pisacha, the ghoul and the demon. He seems to have reached the bottom of the pit. Page 213 We know of worlds – vital worlds – which are made of the most unimaginable horror and ugliness and devilry. Many have contacted such domains either consciously in the course of their yogic experiences or unconsciously in nightmare ...
... step in our knowledge, we learn that God or Brahman is the Infinite. This Infinity too has four limbs or lines: (1) earth, or the physical and material extension, (2) mid-air, or the expanse of the vital worlds, (3) the vast expanses of mind, and (4) the oceanic reaches of the higher Page 130 worlds that stand above the mind. The third attribute or quality of God is Luminosity, He is ...
... "Earth's great dull barrier is removed awhile, "And we grow vessels of creative might." Ordinarily, man imitates material and vital shapes from the subtle material and vital worlds. As long as he imitates the forms of subtle matter and subtle vital planes he succeeds in giving them some kind of shape in gross matter. But when he tries to embody things beyond the range of the ...
... after result of the ravage on the organism created by the Kalazar. In most cases it indicates a weakness in the vital being which opens it to pressure from hostile influences belonging to the lower vital worlds. [3] I had given Barin an answer to your former letter, but it may either not have been sent or else delayed or lost owing to the railway strike. A paper of the kind you are undertaking ...
... beauty and the good health or are harmful to the poise and progress of the physical and vital being. Moreover, the senses should be utilised as instruments to approach and study the physical and vital worlds in all their complexity. Thus they will take their true place in the great endeavour towards transformation. It is by enlightening, strengthening and purifying the vital and not by weakening ...
... * "It is really for the vital part of the being that Shraddha and rites are done - to help the being to get rid of the vital vibrations which still attach it to the earth or to the vital worlds, so that it may pass quickly to its rest in the psychic peace." (P. 18) Does this mean that the Shraddha ceremony performed at present by the Brahmins is correct? Does feeding the caste ...
... enter the mental world, you can meet these beings, speak to them, even make an appointment with them for the next time! Can they exercise their influence on a human being, as the beings of the vital worlds do? Many mental formations try to realise themselves upon earth, but these are generally created by human beings; they then continue to work in the mental world with the intention of influencing ...
... physical world. One goes there consciously. It is not a dream, it hasn't the nature of a dream; it is like an activity, an experience, and it is quite different. But there do exist also these vital worlds where one is persecuted, terrible worlds, worlds of torture and persecution, isn't it so? Ninety per cent subjective. Ninety per cent subjective. For more than a year, regularly, every night ...
... connection with the higher worlds above the mental, with the mental and the psychic or even with some of the higher vital planes, then there is the peace and Ananda—but connection with the lower vital worlds can easily bring disturbance and unrest, so long as your vital itself is not changed and made full of peace and strength and quiet. You forget that for a long time she was often keeping much ...
... dwelling place, in which Annam predominates, in which everything is subject to or limited by the laws of matter & material consciousness. Bhuvar are the middle worlds, antariksha, between Swar & Bhur, vital worlds in which Prana, the vital principle predominates and everything is subject to or limited by the laws of vitality & vital consciousness. Swarloka is the supreme world of the triple system, the pure ...
... which you can draw only a few meagre and doubtful generalisations. Moreover, so far as it belongs to the occult, it touches only the inferior regions of the occult—what we would call the lowest vital worlds—where there is as much falsehood and fake and confused error as upon the earth and even more. What is a philosopher to do with all that obscure and troubled matter? I do not catch the point of many ...
... and has its own rhythm, its own Page 462 dharma—just as the lesser gods have theirs. But, they want to dominate the evolution and for that purpose they have taken their station in the vital worlds which influence the earth nature and give it its materials for life. They were created or rather manifested like other orders of being as a type or several types expressing some cosmic stress ...
... character, the rest are either idea-truths, such as pour down into the consciousness from above when one gets into touch with certain planes of being, or strong formations from the larger mental and vital worlds which, when one is directly open to these worlds, rush in and want to use the sadhak for their fulfilment. These things, when they pour down or come in, present themselves with a great force, a ...
... them without knowledge and without a direct protection and guidance. Page 207 Your three experiences related in your letter mean that you are going out in your vital body into the vital worlds and meeting the beings and formations of these worlds. The old man of the temple and the girls you saw are hostile beings of the vital plane. It is better not to go out in this way, unless one ...
... the past. The feeling in the dream was the sign of that progress. A great many people have these dreams [ of flying ]. It is the vital being that goes out in sleep and moves about in the vital worlds and has this sense of floating in the air in its own (vital) body. The waves of a sea having the colour of lightning must have been the atmosphere of some vital province. I have known of some sadhaks ...
... taint or want of nervous balance. Anxiety or excessive stress of meditation would not bring it either except by acting upon some such predisposing weakness. In some cases possession by beings of the vital worlds without any such predisposing cause may be Page 807 possible, but that will be more easily curable. There are however cases of people who break down their nervous balance by wrong p ...
... sought by the process of descent - the Tamil Shaiva saints for instance sought for the siddha body by tremendous austerities; the siddhis they sought were all there in the sūksma* mental and vital worlds and by a stupendous effort and mastery of the body they brought them down into the physical instrument. I have always said that these things and these methods are out of my scope and eschewed by ...
... your question. Of course he spoke in English but told me to write to you in Bengali. Here it is: After death the soul leaves the earth immediately or in a short time to enter what is called vital worlds. It stays there for some time, then when the time comes it leaves that too. In this way, finally it enters what is called the psychic world—here it takes rest. It remains there till the time comes ...
... substance of the mental worlds. If our mental body is sufficiently developed we can roam about in it through mental dream worlds, and after death we spend some time in it, after having left the vital worlds by discarding our vital body. Then there still is a more subtle sheath, sometimes called the ‘causal body’, in which we may enter the supramental worlds once that body has completely been formed ...
... difference to its character.” 15 Two remarks may put the above into the correct perspective. Firstly, the “hostile beings” were very real to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. They belong mainly to the vital worlds, but also partially to mental worlds, and are dominating the earth in its present state. This dominion they want to keep, and as their nature is sheer ego, their methods and actions are ruthless ...
... character, the rest are either idea-truths, such as pour down into the consciousness from above when one gets into touch with certain planes of being, or strong formations from the larger mental and vital worlds which, when one is directly open to these worlds, rush in and want to use the sadhaka for their fulfilment. These things, when they pour down or come in, present themselves with a great force, a ...
... dormant, and in humanity a terrifying inner Shadow stood up which very few humans had the discernment or the courage to recognize as their own. A massive descent of hostile forces from the occult vital worlds corresponded to this awakening of the vital powers inside humanity. ‘Monstrous forces have swooped down upon the Earth like a hurricane,’ wrote Mirra in her diary on 8 August, when the nations were ...
... and prayer. But I really don't understand this movement. Two parts of the vital being were struggling together, each one in turn getting the upper hand. Z told me that in the mental and vital worlds there are beings who are against the anti-divine entities and who help us. Just as there are people on earth who like to help others. 2 July 1934 Today I feel happy. I would like to ...
... you all right? Yes, quite all right.... But you can hear me just the same! Yes, behind a veil. Especially because just now you shouted! But I didn't! ( After a silence ) All these vital worlds are worlds of suggestion. You are in one wave of suggestion: everything is frightening; you are in another wave of suggestion: everything is charming; you are in another wave: everything is magnificent ...
... of nonintervention, as it were, or unobstrusiveness? In Sri Aurobindo's case, I only know what he told me several times: what people call "miracles" are just interventions in the physical or vital worlds. And those interventions are always mixed with ignorant or arbitrary movements. But the number of miracles Sri Aurobindo performed in the Mind is incalculable. Of course, only if you had a very ...
... "Why should he not?"] For his vital has no cravings and desires as our vital has. He is above them. And if he seems to be satisfying them, it is only to acquire experience and knowledge of the vital worlds. All that is wrong. The Avatar takes upon himself the nature of humanity in his instrumental parts, though the consciousness acting behind is divine. When the Divine descends here ...
... form in union with matter. This world looks to him therefore a sterile material paradise and he therefore abandons this world to seek his destiny "beyond in larger Space". 2 The Vital Worlds Having found the Kingdom of Matter unsatisfactory, Aswapati now enters the vital world, the Kingdom of Life. This is a very complex world and as many as 7 cantos (cantos 3 through 9) are ...
... first inculcated the revolutionary spirit into his younger brother when Barin visited him in Baroda. His guidance on sadhana, his insights into the work of hostile forces and his description of the vital worlds, "Rakshasi-maya", will be instructive to those who are doing yoga. Sri Aurobindo's answers to the following questions are revealing: Why did I come to Pondicherry? What is the central clue of ...
... have not taken the proper personal guidance from me and on whom Yoga is simply forced, in other words want to do some Yoga forcing it on themselves—very often and easily open themselves to these vital worlds. When a number of people sit together and meditate and earnestly want to get something there will always be some opening. The worlds they open themselves to without being conscious to what they ...
... were sought by the process of descent—the Tamil Shaiva saints for instance sought for the siddha body by tremendous austerities; the siddhis they sought were all there in the suksma mental and vital worlds and by a stupendous effort and mastery of the body they brought them down into the physical instrument. I have always said that these things and these methods are out of my scope and eschewed by ...
... from the body a very earth-bound nature or one full of strong physical desires may linger long in the earth-atmosphere up to a maximum period extended to three years. Afterwards, it passes to the vital worlds, proceeding on its journey...' Volume 22, Letters on Yoga I, pp. 436-37 We may also study the following statement of Sri Aurobindo: Page 78 'When the body is dissolved, the ...
... not the only world; there are others that we become aware of through dream records, through the subtle senses, through... intuition and vision. There are worlds of a larger subtler life than ours, vital worlds; worlds in which Mind builds its own forms and figures, mental worlds; psychic worlds which are the Page 313 soul's home; others above with which we have little contact.... It ...
... "Why should he not?"] For his vital has no cravings and desires as our vital has. He is above them. And if he seems to be satisfying them, it is only to acquire experience and knowledge of the vital worlds. All that is wrong. The Avatar takes upon himself the nature of humanity in his instrumental parts, though the consciousness acting behind is divine. When the Divine ...
... quite new, do they do so by going for the time being beyond the human consciousness? No. They remain in the human consciousness, but they open to something in the larger mind or larger vital (worlds of thought and vision, worlds of beauty) and become a medium for the expression of things that are [there]. You have explained to me something about Beauty and Ananda but not yet ...
... in our knowledge, we learn that God or Brahman is the Infinite. This Infinity too has four limbs or lines: ( l) earth, or the physical and material extension, (2) mid-air, or the expanse of the vital worlds, (3) the vast expanses of mind, and ( 4) the oceanic reaches of the higher Page 15 worlds that stand above the mind. The third attribute or quality of God is Luminosity, He ...
... the rules of civilised social life and has become worse than the animal: he is now the Pisacha, the ghoul and the demon. He seems to have reached the bottom of the pit. We know of worlds—vital worlds—which are made of the most unimaginable horror and ugliness and devilry. Many have contacted such domains either consciously in the course of their yogic experiences or unconsciously in nightmare ...
... of its beauty in this gross material world. Above this subtle material plane comes the manifestation of Life on earth, and this life connects itself with the kingdom of the lower and the higher vital worlds of the Spirit. Similarly the mental world when it manifests here on earth gets connected with the worlds of higher Mind and its powers and beings. The Master takes us from these mental realms to ...
... exteriorized during sleep and conscious in the vital world, you can live a vital life as conscious as the physical life. I have known people who had this capacity and who were so intensely interested in their experiences in the vital world that they returned only with regret to their bodies. If you are conscious and master of yourself in the vital world and if you possess a certain power there, the... many unpleasant places in the vital world where it is better not to go. Those who can easily learn to go out of their bodies should do so with a great deal of caution. I could never teach this to many people, for were they to do it alone, it would mean abandoning them, sometimes without protection, to experiences that can be extremely harmful. The vital world is a world of extremes. If, for example... bunch of grapes in the vital world, you feel so nourished that you can remain without hunger for thirty-six hours. But you can also run into things and enter places that will wrest all the energy from you in a minute and at times leave you ill or even disabled. I knew an absolutely exceptional woman 1 from the occult point of view who had just such an accident in the vital world. While trying to wrest ...
... Do You make any one go over there? I send nobody purposely into the vital world. But have helped several people who were in the habit of going there. What is the purpose and importance of the vital world in the Spiritual life? Does the vital world help in any way? The Vital is most important, for the transformation of the physical but its importance is rather little for those who want to... not go into the vital world without a special purpose, command and a special protection." True. But what are special purpose or command and a special protection? What I mean by special purpose is a work given by the Divine Who then gives His special protection. I believe, a perfect purity and fearlessness are needed for the vital world, otherwise one gets lost in that world . Yes. Do ...
... to turn the human beings from their Divine Goal. The vital world itself in its higher regions is very beautiful, dangerously beautiful and attractive—in its lower parts it is dark and frightful—One must not go into the vital world without a special purpose or command and a special protection. O Mother, is there any end to these horrible worlds and the miseries of human beings? There will be... 13 September 1963 Mother, then what is the vital world and its stuff? Is it the same as the subconscient or a bit civilized? The vital world is quite different from the physical subconscient which is closely connected with the human beings. The vital world is inhabited by vital beings who are not human, some are very beautiful and resemble gods, some are hideously ...
... security in all the worlds. Only when you are incapable of having the slightest fear, when you remain unmoved, for example, in the midst of the worst nightmare, Page 47 can you say, "Now I am ready to go into the vital world." But this means the acquisition of a power and a knowledge that can come only when you are a perfect master of the impulses and desires of the vital nature. You must... incarnations of beings from the world that is just next to the physical, beings who live on the plane which we call the vital world. It is a world of all the desires and impulses and passions and of movements of violence and greed and cunning and every kind of ignorance; but all the dynamisms too are there, all the life-energies and all the powers. The beings of this world have by their nature a strange... lodged in it the forces of the hostile world find a difficulty in getting any direct hold upon you. What are nightmares? These are your sorties into the vital world. And what is the first thing you try to do when you are in the grip of a nightmare? You rush back into your body and shake yourself into your normal physical consciousness. But in the world of the vital forces you are a stranger; it is an ...
... harmful to them. The vital world is a world of extremes. If, for example, you eat a bunch of grapes in the vital world, you can go for thirty-six hours without feeling hungry—fully nourished. But you can meet with certain things, enter certain places that drain all your energy in a trice, and sometimes leave you with illnesses and after-effects that belong to the vital world. Page 332 ... region to another—in short, she was marvellous. Well, she had an accident in the vital world. She was fighting some beings from the vital world in order to save someone whom she was very fond of, and she got a blow on the eye. And when I met her, she had lost an eye. Many people have these accidents in the vital world, and they keep traces of these accidents for hours after they wake up. That is why... body, when you exteriorise yourself during sleep and are conscious in the vital world, you can live a vital life that is just as conscious as the physical life. I have known people—not many have this capacity of going out of their body—but I have known people who had such a strong interest in their experiences in the vital world that in the end they refused to return to their body, they went on sleeping ...
... powerless in the vital world because one does not have the necessary vital power. As for the mental nightmares, that kind of frightful saraband in the head, one has altogether the impression of going mad. At the time of death, the psychic being goes to take rest, doesn't it? But the vital is stopped in the vital world; does this prevent the psychic from going to rest? But the vital does not go to... say of him, "He is a vital being." One ought to mistrust oneself first, and afterwards what the other says. There is another case, still more interesting: I knew two persons at least who were not only under the vital influence but incarnations of beings of the vital world. Well, it was these very persons who constantly denounced others as possessed by beings of the vital world! So then, it is better... is quite difficult. Before cutting one's relations with beings who are linked with a vital entity, one must be sure of their connection. How can one be sure? Evidently it is difficult to know, unless one has direct vision of the vital, that is to say, unless one is able to see directly into the vital world. I have seen many, many times... that two things may happen, and generally do happen. When ...
... descent of the vital world into the human". But did not the vital world already descend on earth—in Matter—even before human beings came? What other vital world remained yet to descend into the human? And how is it that it decided to come down just at present—to prevent the higher Light from coming down or finding room in the human world? When there is a pressure on the vital world due to the preparing... preparing Descent from above, that world usually precipitates something of itself into the human. The vital world is very large and far exceeds the human in extent. But usually it dominates by influence not by descent. Of course the effort of this part of the vital world is always to maintain humanity under its sway and prevent the higher Light. 9 June 1936 If, as you say, there has been a "change... Even people in a country like India seem to secretly wish for another great war. Hardly anyone seems to require Peace, Light or Love. There has been a change for the worse—the descent of the vital world into the human. On the other hand except in the "possessed" nations there is a greater longing for peace and feeling that such things ought not to happen. India did not get any real touch of the ...
... they do things that are acceptable. But they are exceptions, the contrary is the rule. I have seen some of these forms in the vital world and also in the mental world; they are truly creations of man. There is a Power from beyond that manifests, but in this triple world of Ignorance man creates God Himself in his own image and beings that appear there are more or less the outcome of the creative... worse than the others. Take, for example, this poor Mahakali. What has man made of her, wildly terrible, a nightmare beyond imagination! Such creations however live in a very inferior world, in the lowest vital world; and if there is anything there of the original being, it is such a far off reflection that it is hardly recognisable. And yet it is that which is pulled by the human consciousness. When... commonest ideas and the most traditional training and education; when they think of the gods they give them attributes and appearances which are popular, which belong normally to entities of the vital world, at best to mental formations but which do not represent in any way the truth of the beings behind. All the idols in temples or the household gods worshipped by the many are inhabited by beings who ...
... do things that are acceptable. But they are exceptions, the contrary is the rule. I have seen some of these forms in the vital world and also in the mental world; they are truly creations of man. There is a Power from beyond that manifests, but in this triple world of Ignorance man creates God Himself in his own image and beings that appear there are more or less the outcome of the creative... the others. Take, for example, this poor Mahakali. What has man made of her, wildly terrible, a nightmare beyond imagination! Such creations however live in a very inferior world, in the lowest vital Page 124 world; and if there is anything there of the original being, it is such a far reflection that it is hardly recognisable. And yet it is that which is pulled by the human consciousness... commonest ideas and the most traditional training and education; when they think of the gods they give them attributes and appearances which are popular, which belong normally to entities of the vital world, at best to mental formations but which do not represent in any way the truth of the beings behind. All idols in temples or the household gods worshipped by the many are inhabited by beings who know ...
... Mother observed once, knowledge of the occult can be useful; much can be gained by knowing those worlds. She who had to work constantly in them knew the dangers that lurked in the vital world, for example. When people 'die' they have to cross through this Valley of the False Glimmer to go beyond to other worlds. Many, most, get caught in Page 165 its maze and never make it through. ... places in the vital world where it is better not to go. You can also run into things, enter places that will wrest all the energy from you in a minute, and at times leave you sick or even disabled. "I knew a woman who, from an occult point of view, was absolutely exceptional, and a similar accident befell her in the vital world. While trying to tear away from the beings of the vital world someone to... remained there but one minute." Page 161 She added in her precise way, "There are regions like that —not very many, but some. "The vital world is a world of extremes. If, for instance, you eat a bunch of grapes in the vital world, you are so nourished that you can remain thirty-six hours without feeling hungry." Because grape is the fruit of life. One day this happened in our ...
... sections (first and last) show how things appear in the physical world; the coloured one expresses a similar sequence of events and similar characters in the vital world, the world where one can go when the body is in deep sleep, when one gets out of the body. So long as you have a physical body, no true harm can happen to you in the vital world, for the physical body acts as a protection, and you can always... 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 emerald castle of beneficent vitality. In the vital world, snow is the symbol of purity. It is the purity of their feelings and intentions that saves them from the great danger. Note also that to go to the castle of the good wizard they must follow the... rejected such a beautiful movie for children. She explained to me that She found it disappointing that when this little girl in the film got an opportunity to go over the rainbow and see the beautiful worlds beyond, She kept asking to go back home. When the Mother realised that so many children of the Ashram were disappointed at not being able to see the film, She wrote out an explanation for it which ...
... s. Mother, then why do the forces of the vital world escape this condition? What? You say this differentiation does not exist in the vital world. I don't say it doesn't exist, I say it is not a general rule and that, on the contrary, one meets sexless beings more often than those with sex. And it is also probable that in the vital world this differentiation has come mostly due to the... don't know. That's all. But on the other planes, even in the terrestrial world, the more subtle planes of the terrestrial world, even in the subtle physical and the vital and mental, there are beings divided in two like this, but also beings which are neither male nor female. They exist. For instance, in the vital world, it is extremely rare Page 104 to come across differentiations of... into the body.... " Page 106 The Supramental Manifestation, SABCL, Vol. 16, pp. 15-16 Mother, will the transformation of the body come after the transformation of the mind and vital, or will it follow spontaneously? Usually this kind of transformation proceeds from above downwards, not from below upwards. Obviously, if you are a thorough-going materialist, you will say that ...
... life, but the life of people who deal with the beyond. There are skies (not heavens) in the vital world that are truly paradises. Naturally the real divine element is lacking, but only spiritual purity and the true spiritual sense can show you the difference. All who remain within the vital or mental worlds are completely deluded. They see marvelous things, miracles in profusion (that's where you find... Satprem read the July 11, 1956 Talk on the vital world. She refuses to have it published in the "Bulletin". ) To begin with, I said that the vital is peopled by small entities, small formations, the remnants of human beings who have died. But there is a whole vital world which has nothing to do with that one, a world peopled by beings of the vital proper, beings of great power and even great beauty... Ah, they aren't from the vital at all! Not at all! They are manifestations of Overmind 2 beings, projected into the vital world for a specific action. But they aren't vital beings: they have an Origin, they are still linked to a being from another world. Oh, no, not at all! The same goes for all those beings the Tantrics deal with—their origin is not vital, they belong to Nature. They are ...
... have gone into some very disagreeable part of the vital world and brought back a rather imposed transcription of some very unpleasant experiences. Things that happen in the vital world are, if it may be so expressed, often half-truths of possibility on that plane; sometimes actual events there, sometimes constructions of the vital mind, sometimes vital formations that want to realize themselves here... here and may or may not realize themselves, not in the terms in which they are seen but with a difference, unless they are vital records or transcriptions, of physical happenings—past, present or future—which sometimes occur. Sri Aurobindo ...
... 'THE KINGDOMS AND GODHEADS OF THE GREATER LIFE' From the "grey anarchy" of the lower vital' world, Aswapati now approaches the 'higher vital' world, a region ineffectual and purposeless still, where life see-saws between vain denial and dubious hope. It is a world of deceptive illuminations and spasmodic actions, of hopes unrealised and possibilities unfulfilled. Life goes... termless restlessness; she is a timeless actor playing her intriguing parts on a temporal stage. Although earth centered, the higher vital world is not altogether beyond the reach of intimations from above. On the contrary, this Page 95 world dares to gaze beyond the "barriers of apparent fact", to trust "dream-mind and the soul", and even to hunt "spiritual verities": ... affirmation like Hopkins': "The world is charged with the grandeur of God". 75 This mystic struggle and embrace is really the law of life and evolutionary advance. There are stumblings and set-backs, there are even naps and swoons, but the work is taken up again, and the assault and ascent are renewed once more. The play of consciousness here in the higher vital world is lit by Truth, but does ...
... phenomena that really exist in a world 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 vital world with his vital sight, consciously and with... with the memory of what he has seen. This is what makes a vision. It is the same for all the subtle worlds—vital, mental, overmental, supramental—and for all the intermediate worlds and planes of the being. In this way one can have visions that are vital, mental, overmental, supramental, etc. On the other hand, Sri Aurobindo tells us that what is termed a hallucination is the reflection in the ...
... it goes away. I must tell you that the beings of the vital world are immortal—they cannot die. They can be destroyed, but it is only the pure spiritual force which can destroy them. For example, in a vital battle (there are people who have a vital fighting power), the experience is always the same: if you fight in the vital world with a vital being, you can crush it, kill it, but it will be reborn... the world which can destroy them categorically, that is, without any chance of return, and it is a force which belongs to the supreme creative Power. It is a force that comes from beyond the supramental world—it is not at the disposal of everybody. It is a luminous force, of a dazzling whiteness, so brilliant that if ordinary eyes looked at it, they would turn blind. A being of the vital world has... necessarily united with a being of the higher planes. Then Mother passes on to another question, that of "possession" or the embodiment on earth of beings of the vital world (See Questions and Answers 1929 , 12 May ). Have these vital beings a psychic being? No, I said that the first thing they have to do to incarnate is to drive away the psychic being of the person whom they possess. That ...
... 296 The Vital World and the Supramental Descent When there is a pressure on the vital world due to the preparing Descent from above, that world usually precipitates something of itself into the human. The vital world is very large and far exceeds the human in extent. But usually it dominates by influence not by descent. Of course the effort of this part of the vital world is always to maintain... consciousness of the earth (as of 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... Transformation A World-Changing Yoga What is a perfect technique of Yoga or rather of a world changing and Nature-changing Yoga? Not one that takes a man by a little bit of him somewhere, attaches a hook and pulls him up by a pulley into Nirvana or Paradise. The technique of a world-changing Yoga has to be as multiform, sinuous, patient, all-including as the world itself. If it does not deal ...
... of heart, and a youthful and active energy... a kind of inner vital generosity; one must not be too egoistic, one must not be too miserly, nor too practical, too utilitarian.... And then, one must have a lively power of imagination, for... there is a world in which you are the supreme maker of forms; that is your own particular vital world.... If you have an artistic or poetic consciousness, if you love... universe. In the mind-world we can move forward and backward at our own will and pleasure. The movement is immediate, so 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... If you receive a blow in the vital, the body suffers the consequence. More than half of our illnesses are the result of blows of 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 ...
... The Seven Worlds 1) Bhu—Physical 1 2) Bhuvah—Vital 3) Swar—Mental Page 38 4) Mahat—Vijnana (supramental) 5) Jana—Ananda world—Sachchidananda worlds 6) Tapah—World of Chit-tapas—Sachchidananda worlds 7) Satya—World of Sat—Sachchidananda worlds The Worlds of the Lower Hemisphere The bhuvarloka is not part of the material universe—it is the vital world that goes... goes by that name. Dyuloka = mind world, bhuvarloka = vital world, bhūrloka = material world. Svarloka is the highest region of the dyuloka , but it came to be regarded as identical with it. Tapoloka and the Worlds of Tapas That is the original Tapoloka in which the principle is Chit and its power of Tapas, but there are other worlds of Tapas on the other planes below. There is one in the... the mental, another in the vital range. It is one of these Tapas worlds from which the being you saw must have come. Page 39 × The correspondent asked for the terms in Sri Aurobindo's yoga system corresponding to the planes mentioned in the ancient yoga systems of India.—Ed. ...
... remember that you are in the space and time of the vital world and not try to act as if you were still in your physical body. If you have the necessary knowledge of the state of things there, you can deal much more effectively with those vital beings who terrify you and give you such unpleasant nightmares. One of the characteristics of activity in the vital space and time is that these beings are able to... and Time - Fearlessness on the Vital Plane Space and time do not begin and end with the mental consciousness: even the Overmind has them. They are the forms of all cosmic existence: only, they vary on each level. Each world has its own space and time. Thus the mental space and time do not tally with what we observe here in the material universe. In the mind-world we can move forward and backward... 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. The knowledge of different space-times can be of great practical value in Yoga. For, so many blunders are due to the inability to act in the right way when you are in your vital and mental bodies. In dreams, for instance ...
... Page 64 space and time of the vital world and not try to act as if you were still in your physical body. If you have the necessary knowledge of the state of things there, you can deal much more effectively with those vital beings who terrify you and give you such unpleasant nightmares. One of the characteristics of activity in the vital space and time is that these beings are able to... 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. The knowledge of different space-times can be of great practical value in Yoga. For, so many blunders are due to the inability to act in the right way when you are in your vital and mental bodies. In dreams, for... suddenly dwindled into an insignificant cat! Page 65 You have no idea of the almost magical effect of staring fearlessly into the eyes of a vital being. Even on earth, if you deal in this way with all those incarnations of the vital powers which we ordinarily call animals, you are assured of easy mastery. A physical tiger will also flee from you, if without the least tremor you look him ...
... live. Just as in the physical world we are of the same materiality as the physical world, so in the vital world, in the mental world, in the overmind world and in the supramental world―and in many others, infinite others―there are beings which have a form whose substance is similar to the one of that world. This means that if you are able to enter consciously into that world with the part of your being... were, from the material world, the forms and consciousness of those beings are of a purity, beauty and perfection much higher than our ordinary physical forms. It is only in the nearest vital world, the one which is, so to say, mixed with our material life―though it lies beyond it and there is a zone where the vital is no longer mixed with the material world―of that material vital one can say that in some... Forces of Life Occult Worlds and Entities …last week―when I spoke of the “threshold of occultism”. So a question is put to me about this occult world, that is to say, the world invisible to ordinary physical eyes, and I am asked for explanations or comments on the beings who live in these worlds which are invisible to ordinary eyes. I am even told that ...
... lodged in it the forces of the hostile world find a difficulty in getting any direct hold upon you. What are nightmares ? These are your sorties into the vital world. And what is the first thing you try to do when you are in the grip of a nightmare ? You rush back into your body and shake yourself into your normal physical consciousness. But in the world of the vital forces you are a stranger; it is an... the vital world you are ¹ Bulletin of Physical Education, Vol. I. No. 3. ² ibid. ³ Prayers and Meditations of the Mother, Page 267 defenceless unless you can oppose to it a very powerful light and force from inside; otherwise it penetrates you and there is nothing to hamper its invading influence. But the body intervenes., cuts you off from the vital world and... as an escape ! But after death you have the same vital surroundings and life. The dissolution of the body forces you out into the open spaces of the vital world. And you have no longer a defence; there is not the physical body any longer to rush back into far safety.”² The greatest spiritual achievement has to be made here, in this material world, in this physical body. Is the body dense and inert ...
... unnaturally, in a fit of ignorant and obscure passion, one enters straight into a vital world, made of all these passions and ignorant movements. The trouble they want to avoid they meet again but without having the protection that the body gives them. For if ever you had a nightmare i.e. a bold promenade into the vital world, you know that you come out of it by waking up, in other words, by rushing into... universe given to him for his work of transformation. And even if he has a vaster mission beyond his own person, he cannot do that unless he has done the personal work first. You cannot change the outside world unless you have begun changing your own self. It is the first and indispensable condition and it is true for all, young or old, small or big. It is for this reason that life has been given to the psychic ...
... unnaturally, in a fit of ignorant and obscure passion, one enters straight into a vital world, made of all these passions and ignorant movements. The trouble they want to avoid they meet again but without having the protection that the body gives them. For if ever you had had a nightmare – i.e. a bold promenade into the vital world, you must have known that you came out of it by waking up, in other words,... universe given to him for his work of transformation. And even if he has a vaster mission beyond his own person, he cannot do that unless he has done the personal work first. You cannot change the outside world unless you have begun changing your own self. It is the first and indispensable condition and it is true for all, young or old, small or big. It is for this reason that life has been given to the psychic ...
... The dream about Chandulal and the bandits was a happening in the vital world or else a symbolic scene witnessed there. In the first case, the bandits are vital beings attacking the work,—in the second, hostile forces, suggestions etc. The one thing clear in it is that Champaklal is a prompt and effective fighter on the vital plane. 2.7.1932 Sri Aurobindo ...
... The world is a matter of the degree of Consciousness, isn’t it? Difference creates authority, and fear follows authority — so where is love? Yes, it is like that in the vital world, which is the domain of the adverse forces — despotism and fear are the great tools of the Asuras. But that has nothing to do with the divine world. Indeed, it is the negation of the divine world, it is the ...
... - A Fighter on the Vital Plane 1932-07-02 The dream about Chandulal and the bandits was a happening in the vital world or else a symbolic scene witnessed there. In the first case, the bandits are vital beings attacking the work,—in the second, hostile forces, suggestions etc. The one thing clear in it is that Champaklal is a prompt and effective fighter on the vital plane. Sri Aurobindo ...
... atmosphere we live in is filled with a great number of small vital entities which are born of unsatisfied desires, vital movements of a very low type, also the decomposition of larger beings of the vital world; indeed, it is swarming with them, you see. It is surely a protection that most people do not see what is going on in this vital atmosphere, for it is not especially pleasant; but if they have... at all necessary to have a divine power or consciousness to perform miracles. It is infinitely more easy to perform miracles with the help of small entities of the vital world who are material enough to be in touch with the physical world and act upon it, than to live in the consciousness of the higher regions and to work upon Nature only through the intermediary of all the other domains. It has been... finding lost objects, all these countless little “miracles” which are found in all religions—it is much more easy and even more effective to do these “miracles” with the help of the entities of the vital world which are not always recommendable, far from it; and then these beings make fun of you. This begins very well, very brilliantly, and usually finishes very badly. I know the story of a man who ...
... Experiences in Sleep My Pilgrimage to the Spirit April 17, 1932 Q. In answer to my experiences about going to other planes, you have said—"Again in the vital world." Do you mean to forbid me by saying that? Sometimes I go to those planes consciously and with intention. A. I don't understand why it should be a forbidding order. Very few go to these planes ...
... life, but others may miss it. The World of Word-Music Nishikanta seems to have put himself into contact with an inexhaustible source of flowing word and rhythm—with the world of word-music, which is one province of the World of Beauty. It is part of the vital World no doubt and the joy that comes of contact with that beauty is vital—but it is a subtle vital which is not merely sensuous. It is... things so seen are not dreams, but experiences from other planes—either mental or vital or subtle physical or more rarely psychic or higher plane experiences. Page 15 In this case it is very possible that she got into some kind of connection with the actual world of Krishna and the Gopis—through the vital. This seems to be indicated first by the sense of extreme rapture and light and beauty... physical and the physical like that in these matters. If a poet writes from the outward physical only his work is likely to be more photographic than poetic. 1937 Page 14 Poetry of the Vital World I had begun something about visions of this kind and A.E.'s and other theories but that was a long affair—too long, as it turned out, to finish or even do more than begin. I can only now answer ...
... the First World War was the result of a tremendous descent of the forces of the vital world (hostile forces of the vital world) into the material world. Even those who were conscious of this descent and consequently armed to defend themselves against it, suffered from its consequences. The world, the whole earth suffered from its consequences. There was a general deterioration from the vital point of... The Hostile Forces and Hostile Beings His new consciousness makes him feel more strongly the opposite forces that one contacts when one moves in the world and has to do affairs and meet with others and he is afraid of a response in his vital which will upset his sadhana or create difficulties. Evidently he is a man who is psychically sensitive or has become so to that thing which you blindly refuse... is that everything had become worse since the war. That was all that they could affirm. For example, the moral level went down very much. It was simply the result of a formidable descent of the vital world: forces of disorder, forces of corruption, forces of deterioration, forces of destruction, forces of violence, forces of cruelty. Why this descent? Perhaps it was a reaction, for there was ...
... the beings of the vital world have shapes and moulds (subtle, of course) just as human beings have? Yes — but they can change their shapes at will. Is each person surrounded by a particular number of vital beings or are there different vital beings entangling him at each attack? There is no particular number — but sometimes there are particular vital beings that attach... has increased. I try my best to reject them but without any success. May the Mother prevent this being from approaching me ever! What is that being? From some vital world? Yes, it is a being of falsehood from the vital world which tries to make one take its false suggestions for the truth and disturb the consciousness, and Page 46 get it to leave the straight... attach themselves to a man if he accepts them. Do not the Gods of the vital world indulge in their own powers, and with a view to reign on the earth? Are they not individualised? Some are — but often the Forces play of themselves. I suppose by the Gods you mean the vital beings. But they are not Gods — they are Asuras, Rak-shasas or other undivine Powers. I am again ...
... one's physical body, go out in the vital and move about quite consciously, Page 276 acting quite consciously in this vital world; then to leave one's vital being asleep and go out mentally, acting and living in the mental world quite consciously and with similar relations—for the mental world is in relation with the mental being, as the physical world is in relation with the physical being—and... same regions without entering into trance. But there is a confusion in the words. Page 275 When you leave a part of your being—for example, when you enter quite consciously the vital world—your body can enter into a trance, but this is not samadhi. It is rather what might be called a lethargic or cataleptic state. When extreme, it is a cataleptic state because the part of the being... functions almost suspended: the heart slows down and can hardly be felt and the breathing is hardly perceptible. This is the real trance. But you, during all this time, you are fully conscious in the vital world. And even, with a certain discipline which, moreover, is neither easy nor without danger, you may so contrive that the minimum of force you leave in your body allows it to be independently conscious ...
... art is in the vital world, once he becomes a Yogi he will lose his inspiration or, rather, the source from which his inspiration used to come will inspire him no more, for then the vital world appears in its true light; it puts on its true value, and that value is very relative. Most of those who call themselves artists draw their inspiration from the Page 106 vital world only; and it carries... Russian dances are famous, but they are expressions of the vital world and there is even something terribly vital in them. Like all that comes to us from that world, they may be very attractive or very repulsive, but always they stand for themselves and not for the expression of the higher life. The very mysticism of the Russians is of a vital order. As technicians of the dance they are marvellous; but... the Ninth Symphony, had the vision of an opening into a higher world and of the descent of a higher world into this earthly plane. Wagner had strong and powerful intimations of the occult world; he had the instinct of occultism and the sense of the occult and through it he received his greatest inspirations. But he worked mainly on the vital level and his mind came in constantly to interfere and mechanised ...
... origin of his art is in the vital world, once he becomes a Yogi he will lose his inspiration or, rather, the source from which his inspiration used to come will inspire him no more, for then the vital world appears in its true light; it puts on its true value, and that value is very relative. Most of those who call themselves artists draw their inspiration from the vital world only; and it carries in it... Russian dances are famous, but they are expressions of the vital world and there is even something terribly vital in them. Like all that comes to us from that world, they may be very attractive or very repulsive, but always they stand for themselves and not for the expression of the higher life. The very mysticism of the Russians is of a vital order. As technicians of the dance they are marvellous; but... the Ninth Symphony, had the vision of an opening into a higher world and of the descent of a higher world into this earthly plane. Wagner had strong and powerful intimations of the occult world; he had the instinct of occultism and the sense of the occult and through it he received his greatest inspirations. But he worked mainly on the vital level and his mind came in constantly to interfere and mechanised ...
... What, the wives of the gods who were troubled by the asuras? Yes! They too are closer to the material world? Is it in the vital world or in... It is in the vital world. (Pavitra) Mother, in the mind also, there are beings of the mind... There are beings of the mental world which are also sexless, not all, but many. There are many of them. There are some of these mental formations... But the four beings I first spoke to you about are sexless, they were neither man nor woman; and in the vital world there is an entire part of the vital creation which is the result of these beings, an entire part which has no sex. Besides, the gods too made a world which was sexless. It is the world of angels, what are called angels, what in occultism are called fashioners. But these are sexless spirits;... wings, you know, they are sexless spirits. There are in the universe, already, beings who have no sex, who are neither men nor women, and there are many of them in the vital world. There are entities with sex in the vital world but in its most material part, the one closest to the earth, and not in its most important part; the most important part is sexless. This does not make them any better, however ...
... very close by, has seen, one cannot believe it. It was... I was saying the other day that the vital world is a world of horrors; well, all the horrors of the vital world had descended upon earth, and upon earth they are still more horrible than in the vital world, because Page 302 in the vital world, if you have an inner power, if you have the knowledge, if you have strength, you act upon... forget, forget, forget. To seek distraction, not to think of all the horror they had suffered. Now there, one goes very low. The whole vital atmosphere is completely vitiated and the physical atmosphere is terribly obscure. Hence, if we can escape another world war... Because war is there, it has never stopped. It has been there from almost the beginning of this century; it began with China, Turkey... Tripolitania, Morocco—you are following?—the Balkans, it has never stopped, it has become worse, but each time it has become a world war, it has assumed altogether sordid proportions. All you my children, you have been born after the war (I am speaking of the First [World] War), so you do not know much about this, and then you have been born here, in a country which has been truly privileged. But the ...
... taught to do it by a great occultist under whom she first practised these things. As to Coué, your answer was the right one. Coué's work was on the mental and vital level and to that there is only a very minor opposition from the vital world because it does not seriously endanger their rule. 31 October 1933 ...
... Personality referred to in this passage the Radha-Power, which is spoken of as Premamayi Radha, Mahaprana Shakti and Hladini Shakti? Yes—but the images of the Radha-Krishna lila are taken from the vital world and therefore it is only a minor manifestation of the Radha Shakti that is there depicted. That is why she is called Mahaprana Shakti and Hladini Shakti. What is referred to is not this minor form ...
... to give up the body will not bring freedom to you. ( About the regions of night and sorrow described in Sri Aurobindo's poem "Love and Death" ) The vital world is mostly like that and those who live exclusively in the physical and vital go there after death. But there is the Grace!... Page 119 Death is not at all what you believe it to be. You expect from death the neutral quietness... rest. But to obtain that rest you must prepare for it. When you die you lose only your body and at the same time the possibilities of relation with and action on the material world. But all that belongs to the vital world does not disappear with the material substance; all your desires, attachments, cravings persist with the sense of frustration and disappointment, and all that prevents you from ...
... above the vital world and escape its influence; there are no hostile forces or beings there. But there are others—and they are many—that can be touched or penetrated by the vital forces. The mind-plane that belongs to the physical world, the physical mind, as we usually call it, is more material in its structure and movement than the true mind and it is very much under the sway of the vital world and the... is usually in a kind of alliance with the lower vital consciousness and its movements; when the lower vital manifests certain desires and impulses, this more material mind comes to its aid and justifies and supports them with specious explanations and reasonings and excuses. It is this layer of mind that is most open to suggestions from the vital world and most often invaded by its forces. But there... they do in the vital world? Page 60 It is difficult to give a precise answer without going into a number of explanations into which we cannot now enter. Mind is one movement, but there are many varieties of the movement, many strata, that touch and even press into each other. At the same time the movement we call mind penetrates into other planes. In the mental world itself there are ...
... a tradition which says that the world of insects is the outcome of the creators of the vital world. That is why when you see the insects under a microscope they take on appearances that are absolutely diabolical. Enlarged on a screen they look like veritable monsters, so terrifying they are. Microscopic monsters they are. So it is said, beings of the vital world thought of amusing themselves and... of world successively. Each world is a particular state of being, a particular mode of consciousness. Each state is inhabited by entities, individualities, personalities and each one has created a world around him or assisted in the creation of certain types or species upon earth. The last of these creators or Fashioners are those of the vital. At the top are those of what Sri Aurobindo calls... theirs in their turn and so on. Thus it was not the Divine Will which acted directly upon Matter and gave the world the form it could 'or should have had. There are layers and planes, graded intermediaries through which the Will has had to act. I spoke of the overmental and the vital plane. There is also the mental plane between them. There are mental beings who are also creators, giving form ...
... insects is the outcome of the creators of the vital world. That is why when you see the insects under a microscope they take on appearances that are absolutely diabolical. Enlarged on a screen they look like veritable monsters, so terrifying they are. Microscopic monsters they are. So it is said, beings of the vital world thought of amusing themselves and created these Page 326 impossible... successively. Each world is a particular state of being, a particular mode of consciousness. Each state is inhabited by entities, individualities, personalities and each one has created a world around him or assisted in the creation of certain types or species upon earth. The last of these creators or fashioners are those of the vital. At the top are those of what Sri Aurobindo calls the Overmind. It was... gave the world the form it could or should have had. There are layers and planes, graded intermediaries through which the Will has had to act. I spoke of the over-mental and the vital plane. There is also the mental plane between them. There are mental beings who are also creators, giving form to some beings that have taken body upon earth. Thus, there is a tradition which says that the world of insects ...
... the windows and the windows got closed of themselves automatically.... It could not enter the room.... Explanation: These are the usual forms of the Rakshasi Maya, illusory formations of the vital world. They wanted to make a formation of the house on fire in order that you might accept it and then with the help of your acceptance they would have tried actually to put the house on fire. Reject and ...
... that prevent the transformation: the powers of the vital are strong enough to conquer the enemies. The antidivine forces are in the vital world: from there they spread upon the physical. But their own seat is in the vital and it is the converted vital that can effectively deal with them. But the conversion is difficult. The higher vital finds it much less difficult to surrender, for it is... the vital when it is converted. The converted vital is for the Divine like a warrior. The vital in man is the region of power and it is that which drives him to fight, to fight and conquer. It is the most difficult element to deal with: for it is this capacity to fight that also produces in the vital the spirit of revolt and independence, the will to follow its own will. But when the vital understands... is under the influence of the mind and sometimes even of the psychic; it understands them more easily. It is less difficult than the lower vital, for the latter is essentially the stronghold of desires and blind impulsions. The lower vital, even when it surrenders, when it does what it is asked to do, is not wholly happy, it suffers Page 125 and only pushes down the impulse to revolt ...
... one infallible judge. Furthermore, the "things" he speaks of here are all the perceptions that belong to worlds other than the material, all that one can see with eyes other than the physical, all the experiences that one can have in subtle domains from the sense perceptions of the vital world to the bliss of the Divine Presence. It was while discussing these and other similar "things" that Sri ...
... mess; but there is a complication. This terrestrial world, this human world is constantly invaded by the forces of the neighbouring world, that is, of the vital world, the subtler region beyond the fourfold earth-atmosphere, 6 and this vital world which is not under the influence of the psychic forces or the psychic consciousness is essentially a world of ill-will, of disorder, disequilibrium, indeed... indeed of all the most anti-divine things one could imagine. This vital world is constantly penetrating the physical world, and being much more subtle than the physical, it is very often quite imperceptible except to a few rare individuals. There are entities, beings, wills, various kinds of individualities in that world, who have all kinds of intentions and make use of every opportunity either to amuse... movements of anger, violence, passion, desire, all these things which make you abruptly throw off certain energies from yourself, project them from yourself, are exactly what these entities of the vital world like best, for, as I said, they enjoy them like a sumptuous dish. Now, their tactics are simple: they send you a little suggestion, a little impulse, a small vibration which enters deep into you ...
... obscurity that prevent the transformation: the powers of the vital are strong enough to conquer the enemies. The anti-divine forces are in the vital world: from there they spread upon the physical. But their own seat is in the vital and it is the converted vital that can effectively deal with them. But the conversion is difficult. The higher vital finds it much less difficult to surrender, for it is under... means the vital when it is converted. The converted vital is for the Divine like a warrior. The vital in man is the region of power and it is that which drives him to fight, to fight and conquer. It is the most difficult element to deal with: for it is this capacity to fight that also produces in the vital the spirit of revolt and independence, the will to follow its own will. But when the vital understands... under the influence of the mind and sometimes even of the psychic; it understands them more easily. It is less difficult than the lower vital, for the latter is essentially the stronghold of desires and blind impulsions. The lower vital, even when it surrenders, when it does what it is asked to do, is not wholly happy, it suffers and only pushes down the impulse to revolt, it obeys unwillingly and does ...
... domination of " theories "— intellectual ideas—and "isms" in modern art. III 3 Most productions of modernist art are expressions of the undisciplined subconscient, suggestions from the lower vital world, full of impulses and crude material and other dream-stuff, fancies and random freaks. 1 I quote Herbert Read to show how he agrees with me on this point. Says he, " Pioneers like Saurat... been towards a reintegration of the intellect." 3To live in the Subliminal world, to dwell there, and to forget the conscious world..-It denies the reality of the sufficiency of normal perceptions; the vision of the eye is arbitrary and limited, it is directed outward. Inward is another and a more marvellous world. It must be explored". Herbert Read Page 68 IV. The question ...
... suddenly and saw a strange looking person at the bottom of the steps staring up at me. He had a huge body and a face of a very strange colour. I felt that he was the biggest hostile force of the vital world but I was not afraid. I felt like killing him and said, “I will kill you.” He started laughing at my poor strength and inability to kill him. I did not bother about it and fought with him and tried... huge and ferocious being who could frighten anyone. Does it indicate a future difficulty I have to pass through? These things are not usually prophesies of the future; it was an attack on the vital plane which you were strong enough to repulse. 22.11.1932 Sri Aurobindo ...
... mess; but there is a complication. This terrestrial world, this human world is constantly invaded by the forces of the neighbouring world, that is, of the vital world, the subtler region beyond the fourfold earth-atmosphere; 1 and this vital world which is not under the influence of the psychic forces or the psychic consciousness is essentially a world of ill-will, of disorder, disequilibrium, indeed... the most anti-divine things Page 392 one could imagine. This vital world is constantly penetrating the physical world, and being much more subtle than the physical, it is very often quite imperceptible except to a few rare individuals. There are entities, beings, wills, various kinds of individualities in that world, who have all kinds of intentions and make use of every opportunity either... movements of anger, violence, passion, desire, all these things which make you abruptly throw off certain energies from yourself, project them from yourself, are exactly what these entities of the vital world like best, for, as I said, they enjoy them like a sumptuous dish. Now, their tactics are simple: they send you a little suggestion, a little impulse, a small vibration which enters deep into you ...
... lower vital plane where Aswapathy found the denial of the highest possibilities of man he came up to the kingdoms of the higher vital where he found at least "a dubious hope". There was in this plane of consciousness a possibility of self-finding, a sureness of form, adventure of the mind and choice of the human heart, "And a touch of sure delight in unsure things". In this higher vital world there... mighty effort of the vital world. "A folly and a beauty unspeakable, A superb madness of the will to live, A daring, a delirium of delight". The consciousness of the Knower had not yet awakened in this world. He was still a prisoner of life, though attempting to escape from his prison by leaping "to the summit thought, the summit light". The effort of this world can only be a ... carrying out her purpose on this level of the higher vital being. "But what she needed most she cannot build". She finds everything else but misses the Infinite. Then, Aswapathy found on the levels of the higher vital world, that there was a consciousness, lighted by the truth, but which did not actually hold the truth. There was an idea and the world was based upon that idea. It could have a conception ...
... because they see it in another aspect. 4 November 1933 Inspiration and the Vital For the last two or three days I have been getting inspirations for painting. But I have a question about that. Do these inspirations come from the vital world? Is this harmful? It is of course vital. All art comes through the vital. But what manifests through it can only be said when one sees what it produces ...
... 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 great... co-operation between the functioning "vital plane" in an earthly human body and the corresponding vital world of the supraphysical cosmos. And the same principle holds good for the other parts of the being and other planes of the world. It is because of this correspondence and interconnection that the "jivatma" feels an irresistible pull from the higher worlds after it has shed its earthly-physical... the "postmortem" supraphysical worlds, what do the ego-being and the subtle physical-vital-mental constituents of a departed person do and where do they travel to? Third Line of Inquiry. - What happens to the discarded residues of the "envelopes" of the "dead" man, of his mind and vital, once these have been finally rejected by the psychic being in the other world as useless stuff? Along ...
... know where you are in your dreams? A little. A little? This is becoming interesting! And where do you go in your dreams? Often in regions... What regions? Vital regions. Oh! oh! You go into the vital world―and nothing unpleasant happens to you there? Most often. Ah! and how do you get out of it? Page 115 Rush back into the body! Is that where your knowledge... forms: that is your own particular vital world. You are the supreme fashioner and you can make a marvel of your world if you know how to use it. If you have an artistic or poetic consciousness, if you love harmony, beauty, you will build there something marvellous which will tend to spring up into the material manifestation. When I was small I used to call this "telling stories to oneself". It is... divinise; the Shakti may appear to him only an impersonal Force expressive of these things or an attribute of the Ishwara. At the other pole he may encounter the World-Mother, creatrix of the universe, putting forth the gods and the worlds and all things and existences out of her spirit-substance. Or even if he sees both aspects, it may be with an unequal separating vision, subordinating one to the ...
... live. Just as in the physical world we are of the same materiality as the physical world, so in the vital world, in the mental world, in the overmind world and in the supramental world―and in many others, infinite others―there are beings which have a form whose substance is similar to the one of that world. This means that if you are able to enter consciously into that world with the part of your being... were, from the material world, the forms and consciousness of those beings are of a purity, beauty and perfection much higher than our ordinary physical forms. It is only in the nearest vital world, the one which is, so to say, mixed with our material life―though it lies beyond it and there is a zone where the vital is no longer mixed with the material world―of that material vital one can say that in some... believe it was last week―when I spoke of the "threshold of occultism". So a question is put to me about this occult world, that is to say, Page 215 the world invisible to ordinary physical eyes, and I am asked for explanations or comments on the beings who live in these worlds which are invisible to ordinary eyes. I am even told that I speak very often of negative entities, that is to say ...
... Rudra or to Vishnu. Sri Aurobindo : It is the intervention of the Divine that can become effective, and in this German and Stalin affair it is the question of the descent of the whole vital world on this earth. That is what has puzzled most people, specially those intellectual people who were thinking in terms of idealism. They never expected such a thing and now when it has come they don't... existence of Gods for instance, but they do not consider them higher than themselves. Page 264 Disciple : Yes, and they do not merely ignore the Gods but claim to evolve a world-order of their own. Sri Aurobindo : When these beings act by themselves no human power can stand against them. It is alright so long as there is a question of influencing men, that is to say ...
... paintings and portraits since 1923. Do you find that he has deteriorated? Sri Aurobindo : No. But they all seem to be from the vital world. Of course, all Abanindranath's paintings are from the vital world. But this time they appear to come from a peculiar layer of the vital plain. I felt something Page 217 like that vaguely, so I asked the Mother and she pointed out that it was the... In a way, the same thing applies to yoga also. For example, my objection to the whole old Vaishnavite method of Sadhana is that it gives too much of an opening to the demoralising spirit of the vital world. Disciple : But is there no truth in the old Vaishnavite method? Sri Aurobindo : Not that there is no truth in it; but it is lacking in that "calm strength" of the Spirit. For instance... Puranic subjects. But I find one or two are failures Sri Aurobindo : In Nandalal's paintings you find the background of a strong mental conception; while Abanindranath's paintings are from the vital world. I would like to see some of his earlier works. My idea is that in Abanindra's case the inspiration from Ajanta is not so strong as that of the Moghul and Rajput schools. Disciple : Of ...
... humanity. A new world is thus ushered in in the land of the cherry-blossom, the hew vital world, for all the world. The Mother is creative consciousness; wherever she happens to be, wherever she is called upon to be, her very presence moves for creation, creating a new world and a new dimension of being and consciousness, according to the need of time and place. And it is a whole world she creates and... have its play in the physical world and possess its body as it were, a vitality of this kind is necessary to acquire it and hold it. The Japanese wrestlers are well-known for their vital strength, self-controlled strength; usually they possess, almost all of them, you must have noticed, in pictures at least, a big tummy, and it is, they believe, the store-house of vital strength. This does not mean... and her creation endures, for it is an added achievement in the evolution of the. human being. To this end, a neat strong orderly vital world of which we were speaking, itself requires a competent body to support it and manifest it. The golden light must come into the feet. And that was the work she was doing here and it is for that that she created the Ashram. You all know the special emphasis ...
... Hitler and his chief lieutenants Goering and Goebbels are certainly vital beings or possessed by vital beings, so you can't expect common sense from them. The Kaiser, though ill-balanced, was a much more human person; these people are hardly human at all. The nineteenth century in Europe was a preeminently human era—now the vital world seems to be descending there. 18 September 1936 Stalin, Lenin... when Lenin was there) and turned several catastrophes into successes either by military operations or tactics. If Lenin was the mind of the Bolshevist Revolution, Stalin was its vital—a very solid, steadfast and intuitive vital. Page 203 But where did you read that? It must be someone who since Stalin became powerful has exaggerated his share in the work. When Lenin lived he alone was al... put him in the dilemma "Be a puppet or go." It is very probable. Anyhow it seems that the new George will suit them very well. So all is for the best in the best possible of all possible Baldwinian worlds and there is nothing to be in a ferment over. 12 December 1936 Page 204 ...
... But we hear stories of people who are possessed by them and troubled and tortured. Those are of a different kind. They are beings belonging to the vital world and are hostile forces. Here we were speaking of the remnants of the vital being of a dead man. But even in cases of possession by hostile forces or beings, the real truth is most often of another kind. Usually these beings or spirits... if the trees live to a thousand years. Do such spirits go out of animals also and possess trees ? Not likely. A certain growth and organisation of the vital being is necessary to be able to persist after death. The vital being of an animal is too unformed and fluid, too bound to the body to continue as an independent entity. When an animal dies its vitality almost immediately disintegrates... life that saves you from misery. In reality, however, there is no question here of sin and punishment; it is not that spirits get attached to trees in order to be punished. When a person dies, his vital being leaves the body and goes out; but it finds itself in unfamiliar and inhospitable surroundings, especially if there is no one, none among his friends and relatives upon earth, to help him in the ...
... But we hear stories of people who are possessed by them and troubled and tortured. Those are of a different kind. They are beings belonging to the vital world and are hostile forces. Here we were speaking of the remnants of the vital being of a dead man. But even in cases of possession by hostile forces of beings, the real truth is most often of another kind. Usually these beings or spirits... years, if the trees live up to a thousand years. Do such spirits go out of animals also and possess trees? Not likely. A certain growth and organisation of the vital being is necessary to be able to persist after death. The vital being of an animal is too unformed and fluid, too bound to the body to continue as an independent entity. When an animal dies its vitality almost immediately disintegrates... life that saves you from misery. In reality, however, there is no question here of sin and punishment, it is not that spirits get attached to trees in order to be punished. When a person dies, his vital being leaves the body and goes out; but it finds itself in unfamiliar and inhospitable surroundings, especially if there is no one, none among his friends and relatives upon earth, to help him in the ...
... 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... consciousness 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... 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 purity itself. It is the purity of their feelings and intentions that saves them from the great danger. Note that to go to the castle of the good wizard they must follow the ...
... A new world is thus ushered in in the land of the cherry-blossom, a new vital world, for all the world. The Mother is creative consciousness; wherever she happens to be, wherever she is called upon to be, her very presence moves towards creation, creating a new world and a new dimension of being and consciousness, according to the need of the time and place. And it is a whole world she creates... have its play in the physical world, to possess its body, as it were, a vitality of this kind is necessary to acquire and hold it. The Japanese wrestlers are well-known for their vital strength, their self-controlled strength; usually they possess (almost all of them, you must have noticed, in pictures at least), a big tummy, and it is, they believe, the storehouse of vital strength. This does not mean... creates, and her creation endures, for it is an added achievement in the evolution of the human being. To this end, the neat, strong, orderly vital world of which we were speaking requires a competent body to support it and manifest it. The golden light must come down into the feet. And that was the work she was doing here and it is for that that she created the Ashram. You all know the special emphasis ...
... at all necessary to have a divine power or consciousness to perform miracles. It is infinitely more easy to perform miracles with the help of small entities of the vital world who are material enough to be in touch with the physical world and act upon it, than to live in the consciousness of the higher regions and to work upon Nature only through the intermediary of all the other domains. It has been... unaware of the gradations between the will which wants to express itself and the plane on which it expresses itself. When they have a mental or a vital will, the thing seems quite natural to them, but when it is a question of the will of a higher world—the world of the gods or of a higher entity—which all of a sudden upsets all your little organisation, that seems to you a miracle. But it is a miracle... the same kind (except making a fool wise). 1 Well, I guarantee that Page 82 this is not a proof; it proves only one thing, that these "Masters" are in contact with the powers of the vital world and that with the help of those beings they can perform these miracles, that's all. If one relies upon that to recognise the superiority of a man, one would make a glaring mistake. Naturally, there ...
... 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 sudden... 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, till... 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 ...
... the occult point of view now the whole world is under the shadow of the governing force of a non-human being from the Vital World—the World of the Life-Force behind the world of Matter. The Mother calls this horrible being "The Lord of Falsehood—the Lord of Nations", because he tries his best to lead Nations as if he were their Master. He plays havoc in the world—especially in the Assemblies where the... the serious and important decisions are taken for the worlds' welfare. He overthrows creative and beautiful plans. He is pernicious. His emanations take possession of human minds —like Hitler, Stalin and others who have disruptive motives and want to regiment mankind. I am enclosing a copy of one of my paintings from the book About Savitri with a comment of the Mother on a passage in Savitri ... entered a new Age—the Age of a new Consciousness. The New Consciousness manifested upon earth on 1 January 1969. The Mother called It "The Superman Consciousness." We must try to live That. The whole world cannot be changed in a trice. But if each one of us tries to change our consciousness, then eventually the great Vision of the Supreme Lord will be fulfilled one day. A spirit was there that sought ...
... Phenomena that really exist in a world 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... another. When rightly interpreted they can be of great help in the development of Sadhana. Also, by the opening of the inner vision, one becomes aware of the subtle planes of experience and of the worlds of existence other than the material, which are all the time exercising their occult influences to shape and govern our outer life and consciousness. The following quotation from Sri Aurobindo pithily... memory of what he has seen. This is what makes a vision." (CWM, Vol. 10, p. 41) Page 29 (2) "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] ...
... sections (first and last) show how things appear in the physical world; the coloured one expresses a similar sequence of events and similar characters in the vital world, the world where one can go when the body is in deep sleep, when one gets out of the body. So long as you have a physical body, no true harm can happen to you in the vital world, for the physical body acts as a protection, and you Page... 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 emerald castle of beneficent vitality. In the vital world, snow is the symbol of purity. It is the purity of their feelings and intentions that saves them from the great danger. Note also that to go to the castle of the good wizard they must follow the... Education Arts On the physical plane it is in beauty that the Divine expresses Himself. In the physical world, of all things it is beauty that expresses best the Divine. The physical world is the world of form and the perfection of form is beauty. Beauty interprets, expresses, manifests the Eternal. Its role is to put all manifested nature in contact with ...
... think that it is he who is helping. 6 May 1935 I have observed that someone with a sensitive disposition becomes very prone to the easy admission of forces from the vital world or from persons who are full of lower vital desires, especially when the sensitive person has a highly sympathetic attitude which manifests in nursing others or trying to save others, in lavishing emotional pity, in ... waste it by a negative attitude. For yourself what you must have with other sadhaks (including your sisters) is a harmonious relation free from any vital attachment (indifference is not asked from you) and free from any indulgence in wrong vital movements of the opposite kind (such as dislike, jealousy or ill-will). It is through the psychic consciousness that you have found it possible to be in... one help others who is himself full of imperfection, falsehood and darkness? Those who really assist others must turn themselves into channels through which the Mother can act. Otherwise it is just vital ego trying to show others that one can "help". Page 323 Quite right. One can be a channel for the Mother's help, but the idea of oneself helping others comes in the way and so long as it ...
... influence but a possession, even perhaps an incarnation. The case of Stalin is similar. The vital world ***has descended upon the physical. That is why the intellectuals are perplexed at the destruction of their civilisation, of all the values they had made and stood for. They deny the existence of the worlds beyond the physical and so they are bound to be perplexed. France is calling back her past ...
... allies it can count on its 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:... external 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 ne... even among the 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 ...
... limitation, the body is not capable of expressing all that is behind it against which it acts as a dam with a few sluices to let something of the inner content flow out. This inner content means the vital world with its desires and impulses and various dynamisms and behind it there is also the mind, the mind with its own activities, its thoughts, ideas, imaginations; those two seek expression through the ...
... count on its 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 Page 62 in the vital world,- even as a physical force is effective on physical... 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... even among the 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 d ...
... 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... Mother's force. It carried me deeper and deeper into dense darkness through immense worlds of disgust and depression. Though I felt no peace and joy on this long journey, I continued to walk steadily and swiftly. Someone seemed to say, "Do not be depressed. Walk on, proceed. You have to cross through still darker worlds of disgust and depression, but keep on going." Along with this experience, I felt... happen. 29 April 1937 Kindly let me know the significance of my frequently coming to the Mother on the vital plane. I suppose the meeting was sometimes on the supraphysical plane. Did my vital come to the Mother for refreshing its energy, for purification, etc.? This kind of vital coming to the Mother all the sadhaks have in their sleep and dreams, if they are a little conscious there. Even ...
... the world as we know it is the result of that. And that was the Supreme himself in his first manifestation. But the story is easy to understand, and quite evocative. On the surface, for intellectuals, it's very childish; but once you have the experience you understand it very well—I understood and felt the thing immediately. And once the world has become like that, has become the vital world... world in all its darkness, and they, from this vital world, have created Matter, the supreme Mother sees ( laughing ) the result of her first four emanations and She turns towards the Supreme in a great entreaty: "Now that this world is in such a dreadful state, it has to be saved! We can't just leave it this way, can we? It has to be saved, the divine consciousness must be given back to it. What to do... with the truth of Page 56 what caused the world's distortion, much better than with all the Hindu stories, far more easily. Buddhism and all similar lines of thought took the shortest path: "The desire to exist is what has caused all the trouble." If the Lord had refrained from having this desire, there would have been no world! It's childish, very childish, really a much too human ...
... fell back on the mantric, who died from it. He died in a great rage and with a great will for revenge and began circling around the Ashram in the Preta Loka (I believe this corresponds to the vital world) seeking an opportunity to do harm, but there was such a purity, such a divine force that he could do nothing. When this girl died, he attacked her, and the two merged—he absorbed her. Then they ...
... wonderfully well. (Purani gave some instances from Madame David-Neel's book) They call in a Lama during somebody's death to help the passage of the soul through the vital world. SRI AUROBINDO: That is the most dangerous passage. It is this world of which people usually speak when they refer to heaven and hell. PURANI: By some process the Tibetans are able to awaken some flame in the heart and after... any limitation. In the lower planes there are various possibilities and the ego bound by its limitations selects out of them. If one looks at the supramental state mentally, giving it a mental and vital character, one is likely to make mistakes. PURANI: One can say it is a specialisation. SRI AUROBINDO: Not even that. It is a fulfilment. ... From these experiences the psychic takes up the essential elements that are necessary for the soul's evolution in the next life. It is the psychic that chooses according to its need from its own inner world. It is not that the psychic takes up an entirely new body, mind, etc. or that it is once again the old personality that renews itself. You can see in the case of the Lamas that it is not the same person ...
... small compass. What he finds is that the earth consciousness goes into the vital world and that this vital world has an opening right up to the limit of the absolute. Only the vital world can go up to there, almost to the limit of the absolute or out to the spirit. There is a height of the vital and there is a depth of the vital; the height of the life and the depth of the life. He finds, when he expands... different kinds of movements, different kinds of laws governing their own plane of consciousness. And then he saw that that vital world expands .only to here (the author points to the blackboard), but if he allows this world to do so, then it can rise like a cone. This vital world is like a solid cone that can rise like that. I am putting a circle here, it is difficult to represent it, but it is like... of the world final? People say that it is human nature, and by saying it is human nature they think that they are explaining everything. It doesn't explain anything. It means that it is a mystery. You say that this is human nature, but why is it so? Is it final? The determinism at present obtaining in Nature, the process, the laws that are at work in the material world, in the vital world, in the ...
... ask you if it was actually my father's spirit even when it had no resemblance? But if it had no resemblance, why did you take it for your father? It may have been only an ordinary being of the vital world. Sometimes it appears that all efforts and aspirations are simply like so many stones thrown into the sea. And I feel that there is not a drop of devotion in me for you... I want some busy work... constant positive growth can help in the rejection of all that has to be rejected. But in fact one gets often projected into the vital difficulties at an early stage and then instead of going from the mind into the psychic (through the heart) one has to go through the disturbed vital. Is it possible to retrace One's steps to the psychic? If so, how? It can be done, if you refuse to be preoccupied... 1934 Nirodbaran's Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo January 1934 Is there any hint that the projection from the mind into the vital has been rather invited and encouraged by myself? It came by being preoccupied too much with the difficulties of the nature. It is always better to dwell on the good side of things in yourself—I do not mean in an egoistic ...
... Just as your physical eyes see things in the physical world, so the inner eye sees things and images that belong to the other worlds and subtle images of things of this physical world also. Everything not physical is seen by an inner vision. When the inner vision opens, there can come before it all that ever was or is now in the world, even it can open to things that will be hereafter—so... can see and experience forms and happenings which are not present to the physical eye and also those which belong to other planes than that of the physical world. There are many supraphysical worlds and one can get into contact with these worlds and their beings only by an awakening or developing of this inner sense. Page 105 Mental Visions The mental visions are meant to bring in the... things fictitious and misleading. The haphazardness belongs to the consciousness that sees with its limited and imperfect way of cognizing the other worlds, not to the phenomena themselves. Each plane is a world or a conglomeration or series of worlds, each organised in its own way, but organised, not haphazard; only, of course, the subtler planes are more plastic and less rigid in their organisation ...
... to the world the required form, it is by passing through layers, so to say, planes of the world, as for example, the mental plane—there are so many beings on the mental plane who are form-makers, who have taken part in the formation of some beings who have incarnated upon earth. On the vital plane also the same thing happens. For example, there is a tradition which says that the whole world of insects... the vital world, and that this is why they take such absolutely diabolical shapes when they are magnified under the microscope. You saw the other day, when you were shown the microbes in water? Naturally the pictures were made to amuse, to strike the imagination, but they are based on real forms, so magnified, however, that they look like monsters. Almost the whole world of insects is a world of m... the world." Who are these 'formateurs'? That depends. They have been given many names. All has been done by gradations and through individual beings of all kinds. Each state of being is inhabited by entities, individualities and personalities and each one has created a world around him or has contributed to the formation of certain beings upon earth. The last creators are those of the vital world ...
... " Does it not mean that they come down upon the earth as incarnations? No — they put out Powers from themselves in the lower planes and so act. Are the gods of the vital world eternal, as are those of the Overmind? They are mostly Emanations from the Overmind Gods. Do the natives of the Overmind put powers from themselves in the cosmic co... Can the intuitive mind or the higher mind be influenced by hostile forces? No — but the hostile forces can use the forces sent down from them if they get mixed with the mind or the vital. What is the distinction between the knowledge of the Higher Mind and that of the Illumined mind? The substance of knowledge is the same, but the higher mind gives only... but when there is a dynamic action from them, it is always a mixed action, not an action of pure knowledge but of knowledge subduing itself to the rule of the Ignorance, the cosmic necessity in a world of Ignorance. If their action was that of the full Know-ledge, there would be no need of any supramental descent. What exactly is the difference between the Supermind and the Overmind ...
... 1951 March Questions and Answers (1950-1951) 12 March 1951 In the vital world, forces exist: do mental forms exist in the mental world? Yes, there is a concrete mental world and there are mental forms which do not resemble vital forces but have their own law. There are many, innumerable mental forms. They are almost indestructible; one can only... understand and answer him, it is perfect gymnastics! (A mathematician disciple:) The same thing applies to mathematicians, I suppose ? Yes. If at the time of death the vital being is attacked in the vital world by hostile forces or entities, does it not look for a shelter somewhere? Yes, it is for this reason that in all countries and in all religions, it is recommended that for a period... the vital being of course, not the psychic being which goes to take rest), he may feel altogether lost, not know what to do and find himself in great distress; then he sees through affinity the light of those who are thinking of him with affection and he rushes there. It happens almost constantly that a vital formation, a part of the vital being of the dead person (or at times the whole vital if it ...
... expanse so as to assimilarise, polarise the disparate elements. That is the meaning of what the Page 28 scientists are now handling as the 'laser' or 'maser' beams l Likewise, the vital world is also one. It is one life that pulsates in and through all living formations—one sea as it were, swaying and heaving and breaking into innumerable waves and ripples. In spite of infinite variations... creation. Anatomy and more clearly physiology links in a strange way even the plant and the animal and man. And in humanity if there is a great vital upsurge somewhere, it spreads its vibration far and wide like a seismic motion. And it is because of this vital unity that there arises the phenomenon known as contagion or pest and pestilence—that is to say, mass-movements are occasioned by one indivisible... The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 10 VII The World is One The world is one, in fact and in potentia. There is already a realised unity; that unity runs as the fundamental chord in and through differing and discordant notes. These different and discordant and even denying notes have to be re-conditioned, blended, harmonised; that is the effective ...
... the Divine that a dish, giving what we have named the quintessence of the Divine, comes out, bringing the marvellous Prasad. “While Champaklal is coming out of the Bhavan he gets a view of the vital world under the psychic influence—the exceptionally pretty fishes of varied forms and colours. Champaklal draws an inference about earthly food being cooked in the future by solar energy. His inference ...
... swirling dispersing expanse so as to as similarise, polarise the disparate elements. That is the meaning of what the scientists are now handling as the 'laser' or 'maser' beams.¹ Likewise, the vital world is also one. It is one life that pulsates in and through all living formations – one sea as it were, swaying and heaving and breaking into innumerable waves and ¹ Laser: Light amplifications... creation. Anatomy and more clearly physiology links in a strange way even the plant and the animal and man. And in humanity if there is a great vital upsurge somewhere, it spreads its vibration far and wide like a seismic motion. And it is because of this vital unity that there arises the phenomenon known as contagion or pest and pestilence – that is to say, mass-movements are occasioned by one indivisible... Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 4 The World is One THE world is one, in fact and in potentia. There is already a realised unity; that unity runs as the fundamental chord in and through differing and discordant notes. These different and discordant and even denying notes have to be re-conditioned, blended, harmonised; that is the effective ...
... These are things that happen when you enter the vital world. The only thing needed is not to be afraid and to call on the Mother. June 25, 1934 ... you get experiences, especially such experiences, take them as they are. Why these mental mystification? If my Ananda was vital and mental, is there a psychic An too? I did not say it was vital and mental, but that it was Ananda manifesting itself in the mental and vital—a quite different thing; for the one Ananda (the true thing) can manifest in any part of the being. June 9, 1934 ... of the meal would make your vital uncomfortable—so it may be better to continue. June 20, 1934 Last night I dreamed that C had come to me and I took hold of his hand: I opened my eyes; there was no C! But I felt that he had possessed me just as a spirit would have done. I wanted to cry for Mother but he wouldn't allow me. It was not C at all, but some vital force taking his form. These ...
... and worlds of consciousness make their appearance in the aspirant, the truth that comes from beyond the fourth world or Mahas - called in the Upanishad as the asau lokah - the truth that subsequently takes form in the pure mental world. 10. The process does not end here. The truth contained in the material earth which "is illumined by the mental light as well as the truth of the vital world ...
... economic implications, the First World War (not to mention the Second) was portentous because it meant such a fresh mobilisation of the Asuric forces. As the Mother explains in the course of her talk on 7 October 1953: The First World War was the result of a tremendous descent of the forces of the vital world (hostile forces of the vital world) into the material world. Even those who were conscious... consequences. The world, the whole earth suffered from its consequences. There was a general deterioration from the vital point of view.... Naturally, men do not know what happened to them; all that they have said is that everything had become worse since the war.... For example, the moral level went down very much. It was simply the result of a formidable descent of the vital world: forces of disorder... human consciousness, and in the fullness of time mankind would want to shed its divers divisive nationalist labels and seek a 'world citizenship' in a world polity as visualised in Sri Aurobindo's seminal treatise. The Ideal of Human Unity. With this very end in view, the 'World Union' movement was to be launched by A. B. Patel, with its headquarters in the Ashram and the Mother as President. V ...
... her class-talks on the subject of somnambulism and the exteriorization of consciousness: "When you leave one part of your being (for example, when you enter fully conscious into the vital world), your body...may go into trance.... It is what one calls a lethargic or cataleptic state. When it is at its maximum, it is a cataleptic state, because the part of the being which animates the... that extent and its functions are almost abolished: the heart is slowed down and is hardly felt, the respiration hardly perceptible ....But you yourself during the time are fully conscious in the vital world. And even, by a discipline which is besides neither easy nor without danger, you can see to it that the body remains conscious independently with the minimum of forces that you leave in it. By... to come back, for a fuller discussion, to this question of dream-consciousness and dream-world, while dealing with the occult-spiritual view of sleep. Page 163 place in the absence of ordinary sleep." 1 Cases are not rare where people, apparently awake, live in fact in the world of dreams and, what is all the more revealing, they 'act out their daydreams'. ...
... When you find yourself flying it is always the vital being in the subtle body in the vital world that is doing it. Flying during sleep over houses, streets, etc. simply means that the consciousness in the vital sheaths has gone out and is moving over places in the vital or subtle physical world (even sometimes the material); it is always in the vital sheath that one flies like that. The ascending... forces of ordinary nature. The exact meaning depends on the context. But all such dreams are not symbolical—a sex dream for instance may bring up the form of any woman known or unknown. These vital dreams are not interpretable unless there is an evident clue. Aunt or mother usually indicates the ordinary physical nature, a closed room would be some part of the physical nature that was not open... and its sanskaras that come up in these dreams from the subconscient. They have to be rejected till the impressions are rooted out. Page 161 Robbers The robbers are, as in the Veda, vital beings who come to steal away the good condition or else to steal the gains of the sadhana. Journeying The image of journeying always signifies a movement in life or a progress in sadhana. ...
... there are beings from the vital who use... who use what's left of unconsciousness in doctors. ( silence ) But once it happened to Sri Aurobindo: at night—once at night—he screamed. And afterwards he said it was in the material world: beings from the most material vital, but which are in the earth atmosphere, not in the vital atmosphere. Page 83 It may be vital entities that are the residues... were discussing. My body was on the bed (though I think I wasn't sitting, yet I wasn't standing!), and they were discussing together but without words. It looked like kinds of beings in a lower vital world, huge , tall beings—tall, strong, formidable. Then one of them, in his demonstration, pointed to my heart with his finger, and his finger touched—I let out a scream! A physical scream! I wasn't... residues of dead people—it's possible. But it may also be kinds of half materializations of beings from the vital itself: beings from the vital. But my whole life I've had that sort of white light—not transparent white, white like... like WHITENESS, you understand. That light, which is extremely intense. Never, never did they come near—they couldn't come near that. There was only that night when ...
... and dazed even at this level. There are beings of the vital world who, whenever they appear to man, are taken by him for the supreme godhead. You may call it a disguise, but it is a very successful disguise, for people who see it most often get thoroughly convinced that what they see is indeed God himself. And yet such a god is only a vital being. Even so, the beings of the Over mind are stupendous... Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3 PART SEVEN Realisation, Past and Future THE whole material and physical world, the whole earth – I mention earth, because we are concerned directly and much more with it than other regions – has been till now governed by forces of consciousness that come from what Sri Aurobindo ...
... extraordinary powers acquired by Yogis on the vital plane are not all true in the physical. There are many pit-falls in the vital. These vital powers take up even a man like Hitler and make him do things by suggesting to him – "It shall happen". There are quite a number of cases of Sadhaks who have lost their Sadhana by listening to these voices from the vital-world. And the humour of it all is that they... in Sardar Majumdar's house in the room on the top-floor. After that I had to rely on inner guidance for my Sadhana. In Alipore the Sadhana was very fast – it was extravagant and exhilarating. On the vital plane it can be dangerous and disastrous. I took to fasting at Alipore for ten or eleven days and lost ten pounds in weight. At Pondicherry the loss of weight was not so much, thought the physical substance... yoga; but I had the usual ideas about it – that one has to go to the forest and give up everything. I was interested in the freedom of the country. But I always thought that the great figures of the world could not have been after a chimera and if there was such a Power Page 94 why not use it for the freedom of the country? Barin used to do automatic writing at Baroda. Once the ...
... will inspire him no more, for then the vital world appears in its true light; it puts on its true value, and that value is very relative. Most of those who call themselves artists draw their inspiration from the vital world only; and it carries in it no high or great significance. But when a true artist, one who looks for his creative source to a higher world, turns to Yoga, he will find that his ... use their art for the expression of the inner world, they grow in consciousness by this concentration, which is not other than the consciousness given by Yoga. Why then should not Yogic consciousness be a help to artistic creation?... There is one way in which Yoga may stop the artist's productive impulse. If the origin of his art is in the vital world, once he becomes a Yogi he will lose his inspiration... seen, held within, can he execute it outwardly; he creates according to this greater inner vision. This too is a kind of yogic discipline, for by it he enters into intimate communion with the inner worlds. In our class the majority of the students did abstract and modem paintings. A few days later I painted a portrait of a pretty girl, not nude this time for a change. When I had finished it ...
... headlong into what became Matter. According to Theon, the world as we know it is the result of that. And that was the Supreme himself in his first manifestation." Therein lies the power, the force of the first burns, the Asuras. "And once the world has become like that, become the vital world in all its darkness, and they from this vital world have created Matter, the supreme Mother sees," sparks... lot of power — but they lacked that psychic flame." The Indian scriptures say that even the gods, if they want to progress, must take human birth. Otherwise they remain unchanged in their typal worlds. Incidentally, the Puranic gods, though not as meek as a nun's hen, do tend to be ninnies. The slightest setback at the hands of the Asuras, and they run to Grandfather Brahma to be pulled out... replied to the youngster's question. "Thus she created the gods who were quite docile, were not so conceited, and who began the creation of the world. But as the others had come before them, the gods encountered them at each step. Thus it is that the world changed into a ground of battle, of war, of strife, of suffering, of darkness and Page 34 all the rest of the caboodle. And to ...
... that he tried to see the Pope and speak to him about the Ashram. Yes, of course! Before he left, he told me he'd had a dream. I think it's a personal symbol, but I don't know. He was in a vital world (he was being chased, I think); he suddenly climbed a tree, which turned into a cross, and he was crucified on it.... That place was on the edge of a sea that seemed leaden. So he climbed that tree ...
... enables you to see things belonging to other planes (other than the physical) and get knowledge that is useful for sadhana—also to have concrete contact with the Mother in those planes (mental, vital, psychic worlds) etc. I shall tell you about your long dream afterwards. 5.11.1932 Sri Aurobindo ...
... arbitrary way and in an ignorant and obscure passion, one goes straight into a vital world made of all these passions and all this ignorance. So the troubles one wanted to avoid one finds again without even having the protection which the body gives, for—if you have ever had a nightmare, that is, a rash excursion in the vital world, well, your remedy is to wake yourself up, that is to say, to rush back ... it immediately. On the other hand, the second one has no affinity with animals, and so he fears them. But within himself he has much courage and goodwill, a will and mental courage and perhaps a vital one, which make him master his bodily fear and act as though he were not afraid. But the fear is there in the body. Only he has controlled it. Now it is to be seen whether physical courage or moral ...
... affected. This however would not be so much of an objection—but for the inner expression as it comes out through the mouth and eyes. There is something introduced here from a vital world—undivine—which is not part of the Mother's vital. It has come in through that Influence of which the Mother spoke—it throws its own shadow and so changes the inner vision of the thing to be done, the face to be portrayed... sitter. Page 687 For that each one must find his own technique. Only for you what you must find is a way to express the psychic instead of the vital. At present it is the vital you bring out. The psychic is the eternal character, the vital brings out only transient movements. 15 July 1935 The failure to bring out the personality is not at all due to any defect in the technique. With... with artists, poets and all creators. The usual reason is that the vital gets fatigued and needs some time to recuperate itself and get back the creative effort. During such periods I have to deal with the impulses of the vital nature. Is it because of this that I cannot concentrate on painting? It is more likely that the vital, fatigued of the effort, begins to have movements of other kinds ...
... seen that the Vedic system of education aims at comprehending the entire universe of knowledge. It aims at the knowledge of the physical world (bhur), the vital world (bhuvar), and the mental world (swar). But it does not stop here. It speaks also of a fourth world, mahas, or the supramental. Amongst the contents of knowledge we find also the knowledge of the self, which is considered the... the material should bring the students nearer to their cultural heritage, but also to the highest that is available in the cultural experiences of the world at large. Page 9 Fourthly, an attempt should be made to select from Indian and world history such examples that could illustrate the theme of the upward progress of humankind. The selected research material could be multi-sided, and it... in actual situations of life, and similar other statements of scientific, philosophical, artistic and literary expression, Thirdly, we may take into account the contemporary fact that the entire world is moving rapidly towards the synthesis of the East and the West, and in that context, it seems obvious that our teaching-learning material should foster the gradual familiarisation of students with ...
... divine Love doesn't manifest because, in the world's present state of imperfection, the result would be a catastrophe—that's a human vision. Divine Love manifests, has manifested eternally, will manifest eternally, and it's the incapacity of the material world... not only of the material world, but of the vital world and the mental world, and of many other worlds that aren't ready, that are incapable—but... be—it was beautiful. It was magnificent. And the physical world is made to express Beauty; if it became harmonious instead of being the ignoble thing it is, if it became harmonious, it would have an exceptional vibratory quality!... It's rather curious: the vital world is magnificent, the mental world has its splendors, the overmental world with all its gods (who are existing beings, I know them well)... the capacity to come into contact with That. And That is... I don't know if this world (I am not talking of the earth alone, but of the present universe), if this world will be followed by others or if it will itself go on, or if... but That, which I am talking about and calling "Love," is the Master of this world. The day when the earth (because we were promised it, and they aren't vain promises) ...
... where there was real peace and quiet and some true aspiration. Barring that, everywhere it is but a web of adverse vital forces that use everything for their food. The bigger the congregation, the more portentous the vital deity. Besides, in the invisible world it is only the vital beings that like to be worshipped. For, as I have said, that pleases them, gives them importance. They are puffed up... of them almost are vital beings and forces, some are ugly and terrible. I have known people who had such a fear of Kali—their household Kali—that they trembled at the thought of offending her in any way, of committing the least fault that would displease her; for that means Kali's vengeance. I know, I know very well these entities: they are beings of the vital world, they are vital formations—the forms... no happiness, none! He feels neither flattered nor satisfied nor glorified by your Puja. You must get that idea out of your head. There is an entire region between the spiritual world and the material, belonging to the vital beings and Page 109 it is this region that is full of such things as are liked by them, because they are their food. They are happy, they feel important when men ...
... creation. SRI AUROBINDO: No, prior to man there was no moral law. In the material or vital world, moral law doesn't exist. It comes in with man, and at a certain stage of his development it is useful. Even then, it is a social necessity, because without some kind of moral law society can't exist. But to say that the world is regulated by moral law is to deny the facts of existence. That is absurd. There... AUROBINDO: And he may also say, "Why are all these people going to Aurobindo Ghose?" T is very childlike in some ways. PURANI: He will get another shock. SRI AUROBINDO: And will say that the world is getting sentimental. EVENING DR. BECHARLAL: There is a superstition that by looking at the moon one goes mad. Is there any truth here? SRI AUROBINDO: Ramachandra says that. According to... are two ways: one can either go beyond moral law as we seek to do by spirituality or one can uphold moral law as an ideal to be realised. This is understandable. If there is a moral legislator of the world, why does he give the same punishment for different sins? PURANI: K says man ought to learn lessons from these things. Vinoba Bhave maintains that one must even starve to death. SRI AUROBINDO: ...
... places where there was real peace and quiet and some true aspiration. Barring that, everywhere it is but a web of adverse vital forces that use everything for their food. The bigger the congregation, the more portentous the vital deity. Besides, in the invisible world it is only the vital beings that like to be worshipped. For, as I have said, that pleases them, gives them importance. They are puffed up... them almost are vital beings and forces, some are ugly and terrible. I have known people who had such a fear of Kali – their household Kali – that they trembled at the thought of offending her in any way, of committing the least fault that would displease her; for that means Kali's vengeance. I know, I know very well these entities: they are beings of the vital world, they are vital formations – the... happiness, none! He feels neither flattered nor satisfied nor glorified by your Puja. You must get that idea out of your head. There is an entire region between the spiritual world and the material, belonging to the Page 79 vital beings and it is this region that is full of such things as are liked by them, because they are their food. They are happy, they feel important when men call them, pray ...
... kind of vital interdependence, quite considerable, more than the physical, I believe. For instance, the First World War was the result of a tremendous descent of the forces of the vital world (hostile forces of the vital world) into the material world. Even those who were conscious of this descent and consequently armed to defend themselves against it, suffered from its consequences. The world, the whole... supermind; the mind movements and not less the vital, the material movements, all the play of the universe has for it a very deep interest, but of another kind." Questions and Answers 1929-1931 ( 23 June 1929 ) In what does the supermind take interest? It takes interest in the transformation of the world—in the descent of forces in the material world and its transformation, in Page 300 ... is that everything had become worse since the war. That was all that they could affirm. For example, the moral level went down very much. It was simply the result of a formidable descent of the vital world: forces of disorder, forces of corruption, forces of deterioration, forces of destruction, forces of violence, forces of cruelty. Page 305 Why this descent? Perhaps it was a reaction ...
... 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... the consciousness only with the participation of the psychic being in active life. The vital and physical feel them as weakness 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... 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 purity itself. It is the purity of their feelings and intentions that saves them from the great danger. Note that to go to the castle of the good wizard they must follow the ...
... qualities, but the sole Sovereign of the worlds and the sole Master and Ruler of all creatures. If there is wealth in the worlds, if there is splendour and magnificence, where have they come from, if not from the Divine ? If Matter is from the Divine, then material wealth is also from Him; only, as says Sri Aurobindo, it is usurped here, in the material world, for the uses of the ego or "held by Asuric... and used by the forces of the vital world, which abounds with all sorts of desires and cravings. What do men mostly spend for ? Evidently, for the satisfaction of their desires. Usually their desires are "connected with the sex impulses,” but very often too they yield to "the desire for fame and consideration, the desire for food or any other that is on the same vital level.”¹ Money is allowed to... arising in or invading him. "The Power of money”, says the Mother, "is at present under the influence or in the hands of the forces and beings of the vital world.”¹ Therefore, the rich man submits automatically to the organised influence of the vital forces operating in his society, or succumbs unawares to their fresh assault upon him. In any case, it is not the decision of his true self that he follows ...
... : There is a certain vital glow which is really not beauty – when it is overpowering and full of personal magnetism it is dangerous. Disciple : Can heredity account for beauty? Sri Aurobindo : Not much. Too much of vital glow and charm may be due even to the hostile forces and it may be dangerous. Disciple : Does beauty belong to the vital world? Sri Aurobindo... Aurobindo : The true vital world is a world full of beauty and grandeur. Disciple : Is not beauty a part of perfection? Sri Aurobindo : Yes, it is; but beauty and perfection do not always go together in life. Disciple : Is not beauty psychic in its origin? Sri Aurobindo : The psychic element gives only a certain charm to the form, not what people ordinarily call beauty... forced ? Not at all. Disciple : Does the artist get his form from the vital only? Sri Aurobindo : No. But these arts are such that they require their stand in the vital. There may be other elements in them but the vital is indispensable. In fact, the highest poetry cannot come unless through the vital. One may take the elements from the mind or emotion or other parts according to ...
... excursions in the vital world, you know, much better. Because there, I had to intervene. When I go and wander there, probably its aspect will change all of a sudden; there will be a hurricane of force and light ( sweeping gesture ), and then it will become interesting. But it doesn't particularly interest me! I don't know. But it was imperative to get you out of the vital at all costs, because... great personality. Page 219 But when people are sincere, it can't last very long. Soon afterwards: Yesterday I signed over 200 photos.... That's not reasonable! Ah, the world isn't reasonable. It has never claimed to be, I think!... Not to mention all those who want me to sort out all their affairs and wash all their family's dirty linen! Who ask for my advice on everything... thought. There are places (and, I must say, rather interesting ones, I am not saying they are without interest) where the exact expression of Page 220 the ideas that must govern the world is being worked out. It's in that direction, it's there. The past two or three nights, I have been going to that place. I find it rather gray and dull, but anyway... it's not without a certain savor ...
... physical consciousness to disappear: it has to change, it has to change.... I can't put it into words, I can't say it. Yes, yes, I understand. It is so very conscious that in all the worlds, even the vital world, everything depends on the attitude, and if you are in contact with the Divine, everything is fine, there's no problem, but this ( Mother touches her body ), this physical suffering—cancer... the attitude; here it doesn't depend on the attitude—you may suffer more, suffer less, but.... The FACT has to change, you see. Because the world, the material world seen as it is, is a FRIGHTFUL thing. You see, it is bearable due to the mental influence (vital and mental), but that influence is not enough, it has to be transformed. Let me say it in a very down-to-earth way: for example, take a... say illnesses, accidents, that it wondered why, why the world exists like that. 1 It then understood why some people don't want to have a body anymore (that always seemed absurd before), it understood why. It was such an intense experience! It had an aspiration, something like a prayer, but it's not a prayer: "May the world change! May the world change. It HAS to change—or else disappear." The idea ...
... own nature, also ideas, impulses etc., the formations of our outer personality, or mind, vital etc. These dreams on the vital plane are often very mixed owing to the intrusion of figures and details from the subconscient. These are dreams on the vital plane or excursions into the vital world of which the happenings are rendered in terms familiar to the physical mind — e.g. shopkeeper... have their truth on the vital plane. You do not know that you live on other planes as well as on the physical and that what happens there need not be the same as what happens on the physical. If you meet the Mother on the vital and certain things happen they can have their truth on the vital plane but it does not mean that they happened here in the physical world. Things do happen... Was it a mere dream or a real experience within? It was an experience on the vital plane. What does such a spiritual music signify? There is such music on the supraphysical planes. ...You entered some part of the higher vital world and had the experience. In a dream I saw the dawn of the 15th of August: a great storm ...
... the physical-vital world. I don't think it was deliberately used — as you suspect — by any black magician to topple Sri Aurobindo during his pacings. Page 172 Your speculation about the supramental change in dust and rocks as a result of the transformation of human cells is rather a bit of science-fiction. True, the appearance of the Supermind in the gross-physical world will have a... of the latter can be almost as little expected in the immediate future as the mental transformation of them might have been expected when the Mind appeared in evolution and mentalised the physico-vital organisation. The human body's ultimate constituents have been built up into cells — and this structure makes a lot of difference to the domains where the descended or manifested Supermind can be effective ...
... done. She would go out Page 191 of her body and become conscious in the vital world — there were many intermediary states too, if one cared to explore them. After the vital came the mental ; you consciously went out of the vital body, left it behind —you could see it —and entered the mental world. Then you left the mental body and entered into . . . And in like manner she successively... the lower worlds. It was a Light! An almost immaculate white light, but with something of a golden-rose in it. Words are crude. This Light and this Experience were truly marvellous, it's inexpressible in words," Mother shook her head. "Well then, once I was there —Theon said not to cross to the other side, because one did not return — 1. Theon defines 'pathetism' as 'the Second World responding... describe it. And so on twelve times." The Indian term for these bodies is kosha or 'sheath.' You leave your 'food sheath,' or the material body, on the material plane; then you enter the vital plane in your vital sheath; there you unsheath again to enter the mental plane. And so forth. "I did the same thing," said Mother. "With great dexterity even. I could halt on any plane, do what I had to ...
... enables you to see things belonging to other planes (other than the physical) and get knowledge that is useful for sadhana; also to have concrete contact with the Mother in those planes (mental, vital, psychic worlds) etc. I shall tell you about your long dream afterwards. Sri Aurobindo ...
... say you go to very bad places and have experiences like the one you narrate; but that is not a sign, necessarily, of anything wrong in you. It merely means that you go into the vital world, as everybody does, and the vital world is full of such places and such experiences. What you have to do is not so much to avoid at all going there, for it cannot be avoided altogether, but to go with full protection... Depression in Sleep The depression coming on you in sleep must have been due to one of two causes. It might have been the trace left by an unpleasant experience in some disagreeable quarter of the vital world and there are places in plenty of that kind there. It can Page 452 hardly have been an attack, for that would surely have left a more distinct impression of something having happened... or passage through other worlds (planes or states of conscious existence). It is these ten minutes that restore the energies of the being, and without it sleep is not refreshing. According to the Mother's experience and knowledge one passes from waking through a succession of states of sleep consciousness which are in fact an entry and passage into so many worlds and arrives at a pure Sachchidananda ...
... In what manner, in what way have the money-forces... ...left the Divine? Left? The money-power belongs to a world which was created deformed. It is something that belongs to the vital world; and he says this, doesn't he? He says that it belongs to the vital and material worlds. And so at all times, always it was under the control of the Asuric forces; and what must be done is precisely to reconquer... 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... its strength—which is like the action of physical exercise, you see—it increases its strength through utilisation. For example, if you have a control over this force—it is a force which, in the vital world, has a colour varying between red, a dark, extremely strong red and a deep gold that's neither Page 249 bright nor very pale. Well, this force—when it is made to move, to circulate, its ...
... Horses . It is evidently inspired from the vital world—from a certain part of it which seems to be breaking out in much of today's literature and art. All that comes from this source is full of a strange kind of force, but out of focus, misshaped in thought or vision or feeling, sometimes in the form too, ominous and perverse. For that matter, the adverse vital world is very much with us now,—the War was... the sheer spiritual Truth as with the hidden intermediate regions, from the faery worlds to certain worlds of larger mind and life. What he has seen there, he is able to clothe rather than embody in strangely beautiful and suggestive forms, dreams and symbols. I have read some of his poems which touch these behind-worlds with as much actuality as an ordinary poet would achieve in dealing with physical... physical life—this is not surprising in a Celtic poet, for the race has the key to the occult worlds or some of them at least—but this strange force of suggestive mystic life is not accompanied by a mental precision which would enable us to say, it is this or that his figures symbolise. If we could say it, it might take away something of that glowing air in which his symbols stand out with such a strange ...
... extracts from letters written in reply to the queries of disciples. "The forces that stand in the way of sadhana are the forces of the lower mental, vital and physical nature. Behind them are adverse powers of the mental, vital and subtle physical worlds. These can be dealt with only after the mind and heart have become one-pointed and concentrated in the single aspiration to the Divine." So?...... world, a world essentially hostile to the Divine. Only the vital in man, under the psychic influence, can change and become a collaborator in the divine work. Otherwise, the vital world is essentially formed of beings hostile to the divine work, and those who open themselves to these forces without any control are naturally under the influence of the adverse forces. So, one can't say what these adverse... the world. Only, unless they express themselves physically, we do not see them. So we are not aware of them. But I told you the other day that the atmosphere is full of countless formations which are usually made up of thoughts, desires, impulses, wills, and which are as mixed as men's thoughts. There are good ones, there are bad ones; and behind that there are all the formations of the vital world ...
... 180 field of reason. But likes and dislikes clearly belong to the vital world. Well, there is a vital chemistry just as there is physical chemistry: there are bodies which repel each other and others which attract; there are substances which combine and others which explode, and it is like that. There are some vital vibrations which harmonise, and harmonise to such an extent that ninety-nine... Mother, why does one feel attracted at first sight to some people and feel a repulsion for others? Usually this is based on vital affinities, nothing else. There are vital vibrations which harmonise and vital vibrations which don't. It is usually this, nothing else. It is vital chemistry. One would have to be in a much deeper and more clear-sighted consciousness for it to be otherwise. There is an... and reasonably, and without attractions and repulsions. Therefore, it may be said in a general and almost absolute way that those who have very definite and impulsive likes and dislikes live in a vital consciousness. Mixed with this, there may be mental affinities; that is, some minds like to have relationships in common activities, but here too, these are people on a much higher level intellectually ...
... luminous than the ordinary mental. How is it that the vital beings allow Gods to remain on their plane? The vital plane is not one world but many. In which of the worlds do the divine vital beings stay? There are worlds of the vital Gods, they stay there. How has the vital world which can have even its own Gods got distorted in us? ... is in the vital — but there are some in the lower ranges of mind and smaller beings and forces in the subtle physical also. Why are certain forces called hostile and why have they worked against the Divine? Because they wanted their own way which is the way of the Ignorance. What is their final aim? To follow their nature, possess the world and prevent... the hostile forces? She has to do with everything in this world, good, bad or indifferent. If the Cosmic Shakti has come from the Divine, why is the world such as to allow the hostile forces to reign in it? Page 2 It is the nature of this world because it is an evolutionary world moving out of the Inconscient into the full consciousness of the Divine ...
... utterly worthless. The vital world is the source of the poet and all other artists who are creators. When the vital is stirred things spring up from it and take shape. This vital itself is the magic power of the urge for enjoyment and action. For the satisfaction of these two urges towards delight and enjoyment the vital is constantly engaged in creating things. The spell of the vital does not care to find... be a reality.¹ It is enough if it comes within the domain of experience and gives satisfaction. This vital is again the field of all desires and impulses of men. The attractions of the vital keep men confined to an absolutely human plane. Poetry is the unrivalled drug to enslave men to the mortal world. ___________ soul. Chanakya has put the singer in the same category with the harlot. ... display of the ordinary intelligence and of the unregenerated vital, poetry should not be harboured in our consciousness. Therefore Plato wants us to become hermits of an absolute purity. Not the creation of the poet but that of the philosopher is the thing needed. The poet wants to snatch beauty from the longings of the natural vital, Plato’s wisdom is all for the ultimate truth seized out of the ...
... prepared a big scenario for a film (it's remarkable). She has read me half of it (really remarkable), and she's just read a description of the vital world, of life.... Mon petit, it's certainly beyond the human consciousness: it's the consciousness of a vital being that can write that—it gave me a fever. It's gone; now it's Page 30 completely gone, but it gave me a fever. And I didn't feel... forgotten. It was so much the true consciousness, in which death does not exist: What is it?—Nothing. That was the impression while I was writing, as if he had suddenly made me enter a world of truth in which this whole world of illusion and falsehood no longer had any force. I felt that very strongly, very strongly, and afterwards I said to myself, "What did I write?" When I read it again in the evening... weapons. Art thou chained in the enemy's dungeons and have his gags silenced thee? Fight with thy silent all-besieging soul and thy wide-ranging will-power and when thou art dead, fight still with the world-encompassing force that went out from God within thee. ( Mother's comment: ) Page 27 "Truth is a difficult and arduous conquest. One needs to be a true warrior, a warrior who ...
... Divine Presence which is quite exceptional, which is a fact of the earth and is found nowhere else. All these inhabitants of the higher worlds, of Higher Mind and Overmind and other regions do not possess a psychic being. Naturally, the beings of the vital world do not have it either. They do not regret it, they do not want it. In their origin, of course, they descended directly from the Divine... in its formation, building and organisation. It grows into a conscious individuality through successive lives; for there can be progress only upon earth, in the physical world; it is not possible everywhere. In the psychic world there is a kind of rest, full of beatitude. One remains there as one is, still, without moving. The progress is like the progress of a child that grows. It is a ... other things are needed to open the inner doors and to enable one to begin to remember—remember that one has come from another world, one has come for a very definite reason. If the psychic however had chanced to fall upon a little knowledge instead of falling into a world of ignorance, there could have been a quicker contact. ⁂ Page 20 There are not very many fully developed ...
... Divine Presence which is quite exceptional, which is a fact of the earth and is found nowhere else. All these inhabitants of the higher worlds, of Higher Mind and Overmind and other regions do not possess a psychic being. Naturally, the beings of the vital world do not have it either. They do not regret it, they do not want it. In their origin, of course, they descended directly from the Divine,... formation, building and organisation. It grows into a conscious individuality through successive lives; for there can be progress only upon earth, in the physical world; it is not possible everywhere. In the psychic Page 121 world there is a kind of rest, full of beatitude. One remains there as one is, still, without moving. The progress is like the progress of a child that grows.... other things are needed to open the inner doors and to enable one to begin to remember – remember that one has come from another world, one has come for a very definite reason. If the psychic however had chanced to fall upon a little knowledge instead of falling into a world of ignorance, there could have been a quicker contact. There are not very many fully developed souls upon earth. Evidently ...
... Generally, "domain of death" is the name given to a certain region of the most material vital into which one is projected at the moment one leaves one's body. The part—how to put it?—of one's life that's usually the most conscious is projected there at the moment of death. Well, that region, that material vital world is very dark, it is full of adverse formations having desires at their centre or even... that there is so much chaos in the world. If they did it truly, things would go much better. My children, it is 9.20; if you have a very interesting question to ask, ask it! You had said you would tell us the story of the stones. That is quite another domain. That's not the domain of death; it is a domain of the material vital, the most material vital, that which controls the physical, is... half-consciousness mixed with a sort of ignorant instinct, which stresses a danger and at the same time does not know its remedy. But certainly, the fact is that the adverse beings, beings of the vital world who fight against the divine Work, make an extensive use of fear. It is through that that they have the strongest hold on human beings. Besides, they are not the only ones: there are also all the ...
... be compared to visions? A vision is a perception by the visual organs, of phenomena that really exist in a world corresponding to the organ which sees. For example, to the individual vital plane there corresponds a cosmic vital world.... In this way, one can have visions that are vital, mental, overmental, supramental etc. Sri Aurobindo tells us that what is termed a hallucination is the reflection... Their coming does not depend upon your thought or will; it is real and automatic. Just as your physical eyes see things in the physical world, so the inner eyes see things and images that belong to the other worlds and subtle images of the things of this physical world also. Visions are of all kinds—some are merely suggestions of what wants to be or is trying to be, some indicate some approach of the... mental vision like the vital may be only a suggestion,—that is a formation of some possibility on the mental or vital plane which presents itself to the sadhak in the hope of being accepted and helped to realise itself. Dreams or visions on the vital plane are usually either: 1) symbolic vital visions; 2) actual occurrences on the vital plane; 3) formations of the vital mind, either of the ...
... Darkness—unconscious Darkness. And something kept coming again and again to me: there is no other sin... (because this followed a few lines I read in Savitri on the glorification of sin in the vital world, the words came to me because of that)... there is no other sin, no other vice than to be far from Thee. It seemed to explain everything. It wasn't I who wrote it! There's no "I" in it: it... It wasn't their waking consciousness? No, no! It's not individuals as they know themselves—it is their subconscient. It is in the subconscient. The subconscient is a realm just as the material world is a realm—it's in the subconscient. There have been many efforts, concentrations, meditations, prayers to bring about the clarification and control of all those semiconscious reflexes that govern... the outcome of the work done, and Page 408 yesterday I wrote it both in English and in French: "There is no other sin, no other vice than to be far from Thee." Then, the entire world, the universe, appeared to me in that light, and at every point (which takes up no space), at every point of the universe and throughout the universe, it's that way. Not that there are far and near ...
... visions and to being in another world than this purely vital world, he found himself quite at sea.... He stayed away for three years, I think, or two years. He's coming for his birthday (I'll see him on the 29th), but the last times I gave him meditation, it was... well, there are lots and lots of people like that in India. He has a power that only acts in a very ordinary vital. And nothing really superior ...
... absurd and has no significance—but it may be the transcription made by the mind was false and the man standing at the head was a vital force approaching. That alone would explain the fear. But this kind of fear ought to be got over. The sadhak has to be able to face the vital world, in waking or in sleep, with courage, calm and confidence in the protection. May 9, 1933 I hear that many people... your look, as if some surprise, some concern, even the suggestion of a reproach, was trying to express itself. Not at all. I feel it may be due to one of two reasons. First, I have been having vital thoughts. But when I realised they may be due to yoga, my mind settled down. [Sri Aurobindo underlined "due to yoga" and put a question mark in the margin.] Second, I had to go to the pier... that the ideas and desires which were so long checked become surprisingly prominent and create difficulties. They were not prominent because they were getting some satisfaction or at least the vital generally was getting indulged in one way or another. When they are no longer indulged then they become obstreperous. But they are not new forces created by the Yoga—they were there all the time. ...
... after death you have the same vital surroundings and are in danger from the same forces that are the cause of your misery in this life.... "It is here upon earth, in the body itself, that you must acquire a complete knowledge and learn to use a full and complete power. Only when you have done that will you be free to move about with entire security in all the worlds." Questions and Answers... and easier after death without them. But in fact the body is your fortress and your shelter. While you are lodged in it the forces of the hostile world find it difficult to have a direct hold upon you.... Directly you enter any realm of this [vital] world, its beings gather round you to get out of you all you have, to draw what they can and make it a food and a prey. If you have no strong light and... your body dies, you will go with your psychic being to take rest in the psychic world, in a blissful state. But if you have lived in your vital with all its impulses, each impulse will try to realise itself here and there.... For example, a miser who is concentrated upon his money, when he dies, the part of the vital that was interested in his money will be stuck there and will continue to watch ...
... of his existence, this vital soul, this vital nature and this vital body; a whole vital plane connected with the life-world or desire-world is hidden in us, a secret consciousness in which life and desire find their untrammelled play and their easy self-expression and from there throw their influences and formations on our outer life. In proportion as the power of this vital plane manifests itself... Matter. The Spirit so founded becomes the vital self of a vital world, the Life-soul of a Life-energy in the reign of a consciously dynamic Nature. Absorbed in the experiences of the power and play of a 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... restate in a practical formula the relations of the worlds which constitute the two hemispheres. All is determined by the Spirit, for all from subtlest existence to grossest matter is manifestation of the Spirit. But the Spirit, Self or Being determines the world it lives in and the experiences of its consciousness, force and delight in that world by some poise—among many possible—of the relations ...
... can see a centre which is the supreme Truth, and a triple manifestation―because four indicates manifestation―in three superimposed worlds: the outermost―these are the largest petals, the lightest in colour―that is a physical world, then a vital world and a mental world, and then at the centre, the supramental Truth. And you can discover all kinds of other analogies. Page 158 Is that... material necessity, narrow and deadening. I was very young at that time, and I always used to tell myself that if ever I could do it, I would try to create a little world―oh! Page 160 quite a small one, but still... a small world where people would be able to live without having to be preoccupied with food and lodging and clothing and the imperative necessities of life, so as to see whether... things ought to be organised, arranged, so that a deeper truth may express itself still better than it does at present. " The Yogin's aim in the Arts should not be a mere aesthetic, mental or vital gratification, but, seeing the Divine everywhere, worshipping it with a revelation of the meaning of its works, to express that One Divine in gods and men and creatures and objects. " Page 157 ...
... and arms—this is a vital symbolism, it is not necessary in other planes. This figure may have belonged to the subtle physical plane. The many-headed or many-armed figures belong 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... 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 which cannot be limited by these symbolic forms, though they may be somewhat expressed by them; they might be expressed as well by other symbols, and the same symbol may also express many different ideas. A symbol... the meaning or interpretation they wish to give according to their desires, hopes and prepossessions. And then, too, there are many different planes in which you can see. There is a mental seeing, a vital seeing, and there are some visions that are seen in a plane very close to the most material. The visions that belong to the last category appear in forms and symbols that seem to be absolutely material ...
... madness—is becoming more obvious, unmistakably visible, and it is a kind of race or battle as to which will be first to reach its goal. All the hostile, anti-divine forces, these forces of the vital world, seem to have descended upon earth and are using it as their field of action; and at the same time, a new, higher, more powerful spiritual force has also descended upon earth to bring a new life... Lord, it is this that must vanish!' One can well understand that physical misery or the unequal distribution of the world's wealth could be remedied. One can think of economic and social solutions that could remedy all that, but this particular misery, this mental misery, this vital perversion—it is this that cannot change, that does NOT WANT to change. And those who belong to this kind of humanity... have the vision of the supramental world that will come to uplift the consenting part of humanity and transform this physical world. However, to give hope to those born into this perverted part of the human consciousness, redemption through faith was taught: those who have faith in the sacrifice of the Divine in Matter will automatically be saved, in another world—faith alone, without understanding ...
... death, why doesn't it itself die? Because it protects itself well. What you say is quite true, but it takes good care not to incarnate on earth. And in the vital world there is no death, it does not exist there. It is in the material world that this exists, and it takes very good care not to incarnate. Was Stalin predestined to be what he was? Stalin? I am not quite sure that he was a human... Stalin (unfortunately not any more than the death of Hitler) has not changed the present state of the world. Something more than that would be necessary. For this is like the assassin who is guillotined: when his head is cut off, his spirit remains behind and is projected outside him. It is a vital formation and it goes and takes shelter in one of the benevolent spectators, who suddenly feels a criminal... one—in all matter, in every atom there is a divine centre—but I mean a conscious psychic being, formed, individualised. I don't think so. I believe it was a direct incarnation of a being of the vital world. And that was the great difference between him and Hitler. Hitler was simply a man, and as a man he was very weak-minded, very sentimental—he had the conscience of a petty workman (some said of a ...
... 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 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 and that is done so effectively... influence it may very well succeed in casting out the hostile intrusion and its pressure altogether. In that case the fits and other signs of the physical struggle pass away, the strange moral and vital tendencies fade out of the habits and the child becomes mentally, morally and physically a healthy normal being. The second possibility is that the struggle between the natural being and the intruding ...
... try my best to reject it, but still it comes constantly and forcibly and makes my consciousness disordered. I pray that the Mother may remove it. What is this being—is it vital? Yes, it is a being of falsehood from the vital world which tries to make one take its false suggestions for the truth and disturb the consciousness, and get it to leave the straight path and either get depressed or turned... these were not your own feelings at all, but rather ideas, impressions, impulses pushed into your lower vital from outside; your mistake has been to admit them and identify them as your own—from want of knowledge and experience in these matters. There are certain vital forces of this lower vital plane that are constantly wandering about the Asram and trying to push their movements now on one, now on... this part of your vital being that you must change, its acceptance of these false suggestions, its want of fortitude in facing the difficulties of the sadhana. If you refused to indulge this vital tamasic tendency and the voices of darkness that come with it, there would be no such violent ups and downs in the sadhana. 24 January 1934 It is of course the resistance of the old vital in the past that ...
... 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 takes advantage. It is... 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 them and this is done so ... influence it may very well succeed in casting out the hostile intrusion and its pressure altogether. In that case the fits and other signs of the physical struggle pass away, the strange moral and vital tendencies fade out of the habits and the child becomes mentally, morally and physically a healthy normal being. Page 374 The second possibility is that the struggle between the natural ...
... nature. He must know himself and discover and utilise all his potentialities: but to know himself and the 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... have not yet reached any considerable inner development can take up the path of religion. For occultism we must already have come to a second stage of development and be more conscious in the vital world to be able to come into contact with the play of forces, which is indispensable in order to manipulate them. As for spiritual philosophy, only the few who have a fairly complete mental development... from external fetters; but for this liberation to be effective, for it to have an action on the rest of the being, the mind must be open enough to be able to hold the spiritual light of Knowledge, the vital must be powerful enough to handle the forces behind appearances and dominate them, and the physical should be disciplined, organised enough to be able to express the deep experience, in the movements ...
... personal identity; and with the loss of the body, the whole personality seems to crumble down and disappear in the world-existence – the body particles get mixed into the world of matter, the life elements disperse in the vital world, the mental components disintegrate into the world of mind. In fact, this is what happens to the human person after death or would happen normally. Thus man, the... thoughts and ideas which do not particularly belong to him, but to everybody, being elements of the world-mind in general. His vital being too is a medley of desires, impulses, energies that are not personal in any sense, but pass through him or take a long or short-term asylum in him from the universal vital force. The body, being a definitely delimited object, is perhaps the only thing that appears to... the longest after the dissolution of the body, it survives and may survive very long the disruption of the vital being. This vital being is next in the rung to be taken up, organised and individualised by and around the psychic being. Page 297 The organisation of the vital. being in view of a particular object or aim in ordinary life is common enough: the purpose is limited, the ...
... in the terrestrial manifestation?" Satprem queried. "They're so strange. ..." "Cats are vital forces," she explained. "They are incarnations of vital forces. The King of the Cats-that is, the spirit of the species- is a being of the vital world. "For example, cats can very easily embody the vital force of a dead person. I've had two absolutely astounding experiences of this." Let us... exactly the colour of phosphorescent light, like certain fish in the water at night. It would emanate from the body, spread out, move about. But that's the vital, it originates in the vital. It's a force from above, but what manifests is vital. "Whereas now it's absolutely and clearly the golden supramental light in ... an extraordinary pulsation, vibrant with intensity. But probably it still... repose together' —at that time, during our reunions a kind of vibration of light would come out of my fingers. It was visible to the naked eye. But it was like electricity. And that was a concentrated vital force. It was visible like a vibration of light coming out of the fingers." Some years earlier, Mother had explained to Satprem where this electricity-like light originated from. On one of his ...
... the least little experience had better not dabble with this—they'd panic! But as it happens—through divine grace, you might say—my vital, the vital being of this present incarnation, was born free and victorious. It has never been afraid of anything in the vital world; the most fantastic experiences were practically child's play. But when I had that experience, it was so interesting that for a few... came back into contact with the world did it all come to a halt and begin to deteriorate—all the more so as it was aggravated by this discipline of expansion making me constantly—CONSTANTLY—absorb mountains of difficulties to be resolved. And so.... With the mind, it's rather easy—you can put things back in order in five minutes, it's not difficult. With the vital it's already a bit more troublesome... little about that experience (it was quite a while ago, at least two years). 5 I told you that even during the day I seemed to be sitting on top of the Earth—that was this realization in the vital world. And what fantastic nights it gave me! Nights I have never been able to describe to anyone and never mentioned—but I would look forward to the night as a marvelous adventure. I voluntarily renounced ...
... are different days and activities. How is it that in dreams one meets and knows people whom one meets and knows afterwards in the outer world? It is because of the affinities that draw certain people together, affinities in the mental or the vital world. People often meet in these planes before they meet upon earth. They may join there, speak to each other and have all the relations you can... walks about, goes here and there, does all kinds of things.... The vital is very adventurous.... But this pushes back the whole mental dream very far behind... the vital dream takes its place. But if you wake up suddenly at that moment, you remember it. You must not move brusquely... then you remember. After a time, the vital having taken a good stroll ... goes into repose.... Then, something else... your dream-experience. And as you become more and more conscious, you will begin to have the same control over your being at night as you have in the day.... In the night the mental and vital, especially the vital, are very active. During the day, they are under check.... In sleep this check is removed and they come out with their natural and free movements. The procedure to deal with dreams... ...
... of personal identity; and with the loss of the body, the whole personality seems to crumble down and disappear in the world-existence—the body particles get mixed into the world of matter, the life elements disperse in the vital world, the mental components disintegrate into the world of mind. In fact, this is what happens to the human person after death or would happen normally. Thus man, the ordinary... thoughts and ideas which do not particularly belong to him, but to everybody, being elements of the world-mind in general. His vital being too is a medley of desires, impulses, energies that are not personal in any sense, but pass through him or take a long or short-term asylum in him from the universal vital force. The body, being a definitely delimited object, is perhaps the only thing that appears to... persists the longest after the dissolution of the body, it survives and may survive very long the disruption of the vital being. This vital being is next in the rung to be taken up, organised and individualised by and around the psychic being. Page 179 The organisation of the vital being in view of a particular object or aim in ordinary life is common enough: the purpose is limited, the scope ...
... in which we live is filled with any amount of small vital entities that are the product of unsated desires, of a very low type of vital movements, as well as the decompositions of more important beings of the vital world —in short, it swarms with all this. You know, it's certainly a protection that most people don't see what's going on in that vital atmosphere, for it's not too pleasant." But there... he was much dreaded. So then the spirit gave him a final piece of advice. 'Now you can become the richest man in the world. Your ambition will be fulfilled. You just follow my direction. Do this: Put all you possess in this transaction and you will become the richest man in the world. Stake everything, ALL that you have, on it.' The stupid fool didn't even perceive the trap laid for him. He did as... altogether exceptional abilities. Now, the man attended every séance with the idea of learning, in order to convince himself and get tangible proofs of an invisible world's existence, the concrete and real existence of an invisible world. He had seen all that could be seen, under the strictest control, in the most scientific way possible —all the controls were foreseen to the least detail. He narrated ...
... × 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 the realm of Vayu, the Life-God. That is the world of the satisfaction of desires. This also is spread out in its full wideness, free from limitation, to receive the Ananda or divine delight by means of the... lord and creator, the Godhead in his creative wisdom and might forming the world and maintaining the law of things in the earth and mid-air and heavens. In the esoteric, in which the physical phenomena of the exoteric become symbols, the infinite Godhead is hymned in his all-pervading wisdom and purity opening the three worlds of our being to the Sun of knowledge, pouring down the streams of the Truth... 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 ...
... that create or form the various species of the insect world – many working in a much more monstrous way than the example I have given – must then truly be frightful, inspired by a perverse and diabolic imagination. Quite possible. For it is said that the origin of the insect world is in the vital; the builders of that world belong to the vital and not to the material plane of consciousness; in other... human will shows in the perverse human mental. I believe it is the human mind under the direct influence of vital beings that begins to work in the perverse way. Titans, Asuras are the beings of ill-will, they belong totally to the vital world and when they manifest themselves in this world of ours, they mean mischief, they do evil for the sake of doing evil, they destroy for the sake of destroying... conscious of their evil will and they exercise that will deliberately and with a set purpose. Man's bad will is often only a reflection, an imitation of the bad will of vital beings which is a will clearly hostile to created world and whose express intention it is to make things as painful, as difficult, as ugly, as monstrous as possible. It is these beings, some say, that have created the insects ...
... had written, with his good wishes and affection. His wife Sehra who loved me and treated me like her own daughter was once attacked severely in her sleep by the invisible beings of the vital world. This incident was not a mere dream but a concrete experience. In relation to it, I was amazed to read in Amal's book Our Light and Delight p. 206: ...I may end by striking a s... receptive!" The Mother, while teaching me occultism during our Savitri Page 223 work , disclosed to me the mysteries of the higher as well as the nether worlds. And yet another book of his, The Mother: Past-Present-Future, pp. 161-2; Amal stated my experiences and Nolini-da' s comments on them. Here is one of them: A Dream of Reality ...
... the material or the vital world. And these interventions are always mixed with ignorant and arbitrary movements. But the number of miracles that Sri Aurobindo performed in the mind is incalculable; but naturally you could only see it if you had a very straight, very sincere, very pure vision—a few people did see it. But he refused—this I know—he refused to perform any vital or material miracles... miracles, because of this mixture. My experience is that in the present state of the world, a direct miracle, material or vital, must necessarily take into account a great many elements of falsehood that are unacceptable—they are necessarily miracles of falsehood. And they are unacceptable. I have seen what people call miracles; I saw many of them at one period, but this gave a right of existence to many... many things which to me are not acceptable. What men call "miracles" nowadays are almost always performed by vital beings or by men who are in contact with vital beings, and this is a mixture—it accepts the reality of certain things, the truth of certain things that are not true. And this is the basis on which it works. So that is unacceptable. I did not quite understand what you meant by saying ...
... conscious of your own vital and conscious in the vital world as you are conscious in the physical world. You go there consciously. Then it isn't a dream, it doesn't have the character of a dream: it has the character of an activity, an experience, and that's very different. Because there are indeed those worlds of the vital where you are persecuted... terrible worlds, worlds of torture and persecution... inner, vital condition is good enough, but with those who see terrifying or malicious things, or things like that, it means the vital isn't pretty. Yes, but isn't there an objective vital in which those visions have nothing to do with your own subconscient? Yes, there is, but it doesn't have the same character. Not the same character? You can know it only if you go into the vital FULLY... Ninety percent subjective. Regularly, for more than a year, every night at the same time and in the same way, I entered the vital to do a special work there. It wasn't the result of my own will: I was destined to do it. It was something I had to do. So then, the entry into the vital, for instance, is often described: there are passages where beings are stationed to stop you from entering (all those things ...
... in the vital world and not in the material and they are not veiled or dwarfed by the material consciousness as human beings are." Questions and Answers 1929-1931 ( 12 May 1929 ) Mother, you say: "These beings are very powerful"; what kind of power have they? The power that the vital has over Matter. And, in fact, you can do nothing without the vital power. If there were no vital power... "The beings of the vital world are powerful by their very nature; when to their power they add knowledge, they become doubly dangerous. There is nothing to be done with these creatures; you should avoid having any dealings with them unless you have the power to crush and destroy them. If you are forced into contact with them, beware of the spell they can cast. These vital beings, when they manifest... will. One can do nothing in the physical world without the vital. It is exactly here that the error of the ascetics lies; as they know it is Page 116 a power full of desires and indeed full of the need of realising itself, they abolish it, so deaden it that it exists no longer. All ascetic methods are invented for abolishing and deadening the vital. For that evidently is the most convenient ...
... Quite recently, just before the present conflict broke out, I went to a realm in the vital world which is right above the earth, like a platform (not a mountain top, but a spot where you get an overall view, like the bridge of a ship, for instance, where the captain stands; it was a place like that in the vital world, overlooking all terrestrial life). I went there—it was rather dark, very dark in fact—and... 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 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... almost violent terms—that it was the beginning of a general upheaval, a catastrophic world war. Page 413 I know it's the will of that Asura I've mentioned to you several times, the Lord of Falsehood who was born the Lord of Truth, and who knows that his hour is at hand ("at hand" relative to that world there) and has declared he will cause as much havoc as he can before disappearing. Quite ...
... creation or manifestation is very vast and contains many planes and worlds that existed before the evolution, all different in character and with different kinds of beings. The fact of being prior to the evolution does not make them undifferentiated. The world of the Asuras is prior to the evolution, so are the worlds of the mental, vital or subtle physical Devas—but these beings are all different from... forces and beings that are interested in maintaining the falsehoods they have created in the world of the Ignorance and in putting them forward as the Truth which men must follow. In India they are termed Asuras, Rakshasas, Pisachas (beings respectively of the mentalised vital, middle vital and lower vital planes) who are in opposition to the Gods, the Powers of Light. These too are Powers, for they... and Asuras are not evolved in Matter; for the typal being only a Purusha with its Prakriti is necessary—this Purusha may put out a mental and vital Purusha to represent it and according as it is centred in one or another it belongs to the mental or vital world. That is all. There is no essential difference anywhere, for all is fundamentally the essential Divine; the difference is in the manifestation ...
... lot, that man—but he uses the lowest entities of the vital world; he is a man who has disgusting dealings with lower entities. 6 Oh? Yes, whereas this [supramental materialization] is another kind of materialization.... He uses the lowest entities. At any rate, when the Doctor came back, I SAW: it takes place exclusively in the vital. I am sure of that. But he does materialize. ... chamber closed and mute Are kept the record graphs of the cosmic scribe, And there the tables of the sacred Law.... The symbol powers of number and of form, And the secret code of the history of the world And Nature's correspondence with the soul Are written in the mystic heart of life. In the glow of the Spirit's room of memories He could recover the luminous marginal notes Dotting with light the... Golden Child. ( I.V.76 ) A Will, a hope immense now seized his heart, And to discern the superhuman's form He raised his eyes to unseen spiritual heights, Aspiring to bring down a greater world. ( ibid. ) ( silence ) Page 260 Yesterday, I read another part of Savitri which tells how the king is transformed 1 —those are ALL the experiences my body is now going through ...
... to sentimentalise about flies. They are beings created by the adverse forces and they must disappear from the earth. In the terrestrial organisation, the world of insects is, so to say, the direct work of hostile creators in the vital world; they are the result of adverse and often diabolical thoughts and imaginations, directed not towards man but towards the divine work. Often an insect that looks... Divine's infinite mercy, one would be saved from such dangers. What are these suggestions that sometimes invade me? Do they not come from outside? Yes, they do come from outside, from some vital entity that is amusing itself by sending them to you to see how you will receive them. I saw the suggestion passing at the time I gave you the flower. I did not attach any importance to it because it... may be able to get rid of them completely for ever. These adverse forces are connected with sexual desire. They live on the energy wasted when the act takes place. And even a thought, a mental or vital desire is sufficient to let them come in and settle in the atmosphere. Thus it is in the mind itself that the purification must take place. My blessings. 12 September 1950 Mother, sometimes ...
... takes all sorts to make a world. But again, all this does not mean that one should not recognise other planes. There is the vital plane whose law is force and success. If you have force you win; if you have speed you outrun others. The laws of the mind come in to act as a means of balance. They balance diverse things to make a mental-vital standard. It you go above the vital and mental planes, you... story of my grandmother. She said, "God has made such a bad world. If I could meet Him I would teach Him what good laws are." At this grandfather said, "Yes, that is true. But God has so made His laws that if you intend to meet Him with this attitude you won't get near Him." (Laughter) When we say that Hitler is possessed by a vital power, it is a statement of fact, not a moral judgment. His being... SRI AUROBINDO: The whole question arises when you want to change yourself or change others. Then you say, "This should not be; that should go" and so on. You introduce a rule of the mind into the vital world; but when you go above the mind, you come in contact with your Spirit and the nature of that Spirit is Light, Truth, Purity. When you observe discipline, it is for the Spirit, not for the sake of ...
... importance, are they? Yes, they are, and one must be conscious of what can happen. Suppose that you have gone for a stroll in the vital world; there you meet beings who attack you (that's what happens usually), if you know that it is a dream, you can very easily gather your vital forces and conquer. That's a true fact; you can with a certain attitude, a certain word, a certain way of being do things you... cheek.... Inevitably, Page 26 a wound received in the vital being is translated in the physical body. But how does it happen? There must be some intermediary? It was in the vital that I was beaten. It is from within that this comes. Nothing, nobody touched anything from outside. If you receive a blow in the vital, the body suffers the consequence. More than half of our illnesses... illnesses are the result of blows of this kind, and this happens much more often than one believes. Only, men are not conscious of their vital, and as they are not conscious they don't know that fifty per cent of their illnesses are the result of what happens in the vital: shocks, accidents, fighting, ill-will.... Externally this is translated by an illness. If one knows how it reacts on the physical, one ...
... found its utility in this grand spiritual vision of the Master. While speaking of "the Glory and Fall of Life" (Book II, Canto 3) he introduces us to the beings of the higher vital plane, living in an independent vital world constituted entirely differently from our gross material earth. Says he: "As through a magic television's glass Outlined to some magnifying inner eye They shone... Night are torn" and the "stereo- types of ignorance" are "shattered". To the author life is "wide world kindegarten of young souls"! The quotations we have given are by no means exhaustive but they will serve to show the universal range of the creation which is Sāvitrī. A cosmos of multiple worlds acting and reacting upon the growing consciousness of the earth is seen moving towards planes of... shone like images thrown from a far scene Too high and glad for mortal lids to seize" It almost lays bare the process of occult vision by which a man is able to see the subtle worlds. The process of television gives to it not only a great sense of concreteness but of a convincing reality by bringing to the doubting physical mind a process of scientific invention which seems to render the impossible ...
... control—is more and more obvious, marked, visible, and it is a kind of race or struggle as to which will reach the goal first. It would seem that all the adverse, anti-divine forces, the forces of the vital world, have descended on the earth, are making use of it as their field of action, and that at the same time a new, higher, more powerful spiritual force has also descended on earth to bring it a new life... Hidden Worlds and Evolutionary Forces The Hidden Forces of Life Supermind - Force of the New World The Supermind is veiled here and does not work according to its characteristic law of being and self-knowledge, but without it nothing could reach its aim. A world governed by an ignorant mind would soon drift into a chaos; it could not in fact come into... localised at one point, at one place in the world; we find traces of it in all countries, all over the world: the will to find a new, higher, progressive solution, an effort to rise towards a vaster, more comprehensive perfection. Certain ideas of a more general nature, of a wider, perhaps more “collective” kind, are being worked out and are acting in the world. And both things go together: a possibility ...
... control—is more and more obvious, marked, visible, and it is a kind of race or struggle as to which will reach the goal first. It would seem that all the adverse, anti-divine forces, the forces of the vital world, have descended on the earth, are making use of it as their field of action, and that at the same time a new, higher, more powerful spiritual force has also descended on earth to bring it a new life... this is what must disappear!" One understands very well that physical misery, the unequal distribution of the goods of this world could be changed, one can imagine economic and social solutions which could remedy this, but it is that misery, the mental misery, the vital perversion, it is that which cannot change, doesn't want to change. And those who belong to this type of humanity are condemned... localised at one point, at one place in the world; we find traces of it in all countries, all over the world: the will to find a new, higher, progressive solution, an effort to rise towards a vaster, more comprehensive perfection. Certain ideas of a more general nature, of a wider, perhaps more "collective" kind, are being worked out and are acting in the world. And both things go together: a possibility ...
... What's the nature of it? Vital or mental? I feel it's vital.... Last night, for instance, there was a huge ship on which I was a stowaway, or ticketless, and I spent I don't Page 419 know how many hours running from one place to another to hide, chased because I had no ticket, or because I had no right to be there, chased and pursued. What world is that? The vital. And what ship is... They're assailed. Assailed, yes, literally. It's in the vital, but if the vital keeps contact, then you can see that you are assailed, but you know you are fully protected. So then, you do what's necessary so as not to be found, but you don't have a sensation of threat. Yes, those things will change only when... when the world changes. But right now, it's fully in revolt, oh, as if something... neither the other day nor yesterday (the first time, it was a woman; yesterday it was a man): they didn't notice anything. But I said to myself, "Well, well, things are getting serious!" The vital world has started rebelling. That's it: before going to sleep, you should concentrate with the will—an obstinate will—of being completely identified with the Supreme Consciousness, like this ( same ...
... the psychic is usually a baby! Any personal significance? Looks more like a happening in a vital world than symbolic. The psychic does not always appear as a baby, but this is evidently not the psychic—as the whole thing is in the vital. If it is symbolic it could only mean a formation of some vital framework or breakdown of limitations and some inner formation at first overcome by the change,... then recovering—the second dream would mean a dealing with the new structure, a swimming to cross the vital, first in fatigue then after rest a renewed vigour in crossing. But all that is doubtful; for the symbolism of these is not sufficiently marked to be unmistakable. Annapurna's eyes are watering, and there's a burning sensation. Trachoma. Shall I send her to Agarwal? [ Mother :] Yes... What a queer fellow your Supramental will be! Can't be queerer than the mental human! .But I suppose he will seem queer to the queer mental human just as the queer human seems queer to the queer vital monkey and the queer monkey to the queer material jelly-fish. All queer together! and to each other! August 26, 1938 "O dream of solitude, visionary flame, Make the lone deeps of my heart ...
... 11 Nineteen Hundred Looking back on the century gone by, Sri Aurobindo said, "The nineteenth century in Europe was a pre-eminently human era —now the vital world seems to be descending there." The invasion of the Vital caused the rout of the Intellect. "The setback to the human mind in Europe is amazing," reflected Sri Aurobindo in January 1939. "We had thought during the last years... "The present era of the world" stated Sri Aurobindo in the Arya (July 1916), "is a stage of immense transformations. It may even be said that the future of humanity depends most upon the answer that will be given to the modern riddle of the Sphinx by the East and especially by India, the hoary guardian of the Asiatic ideal and its profound spiritual secrets. For the most vital issue of the age is whether... continued retirement and detachment from action." Sri Aurobindo believed in the necessity of Tapasya in silence. He was sure that "India, if it chooses, can guide the world." But what was India going to choose? What was the world going to choose? These were the crucial questions that confronted him. In his letters to Mother in 1915, he confided to her his forebodings. "The whole earth is now ...
... legitimate, but still it has its reason for existence. There are things which can be dissolved; but if somewhere in the world it exists in someone, he can reconstitute it. It is the same thing when people are attacked by small beings of the vital world, hostile beings who attack them, install themselves in their atmosphere, trying to possess them, that is, enter into them and use their body and all the... difference between a human being and these beings of the vital plane. I have told you this many times, I am going to repeat it: In a human being, there is the divine Presence and the psychic being—at the beginning embryonic, but in the end a being wholly formed, conscious, independent, individualised. That does not exist in the vital world. It is a special grace given to human beings dwelling in... to follow the true working, the activities within oneself. It is the same thing with the vital. The vital is meant to put in the drive, the realising force, the enthusiasm, the energy necessary for the idea formed by the mind to be transmitted to the body and realised in action. Well, so long as the vital limits itself to this activity, that is, sets all its energy, enthusiasm, strength to work in ...
... to carry out its own will. But if the vital understands and is converted, if it is truly surrendered to the divine Will, then these fighting capacities are turned against the anti-divine forces and against all the darkness which prevents their transformation. And they are all-powerful and can conquer the adversaries. The anti-divine forces are in the vital world; from there, naturally, they have spread... spread out into the physical, but their true seat is in the vital world, and it is the converted vital force which has the true power to vanquish them. But of all things this conversion is the most difficult. Page 203 What are "subterfuges"? Subterfuges? They are tricks. You know what a trick is?—Yes? Well, subterfuges are ways of deceiving, means employed to deceive. One hides what... lower 2 vital submit and the inner physical consciousness feel the influence." Does this mean that there is also a higher vital? Yes, the higher vital is usually much less difficult to surrender, for it is under the influence of the mind and at times even of the psychic; so it understands more easily. It is much easier to convert this than the lower vital which is essentially the vital of desires ...
... you are the supreme maker of forms: that is your own particular vital world. You are the supreme fashioner and you can make a marvel of your world if you know how to use it. If you have an artistic or poetic consciousness, if you love harmony, beauty, you will build there something marvellous which will tend to spring up into the material manifestation. When I was small I used to call this... the apparent separativity and assumed autonomy of 'individual man' didn't really correspond to the inner reality! One should mark the movements of one's consciousness, the vibrations of the vital world, and then one might stumble upon this seminal Truth: There's nothing separate or independent; there is only one Substance, one Force, one Consciousness, one Will, which moves in countless... invited her to go to a meeting where they were to play together: "No, I enjoy here much more!" she would say, and Mirra was quite sincere. 9 III Busy as she thus was with her inner worlds where she was "telling stories" to herself - where she was "the supreme maker of forms" - Mirra did not attend to her formal education. The whole family, as the Mother said in a talk of 25 July ...
... fidelity in the mind to the Divine—but the other black and white one is difficult to interpret—it is something in the vital, but the meaning of the black spots is not clear. Black Cat The black cat is usually the symbol of magic of an evil kind or of an evil influence of the vital world acting on the physical as magic does. It is effective so long as its nature and mode of action are not discovered... creating the world out of itself, dwelling in it and withdrawing it into itself. But what matters in a symbol is what it means for you. It may mean for you success or successful formations. White Ants Obviously it [ white ants seen in a dream ] must have been symbolic of small but destructive forces in the lower vital or physical. Flies Something small in the smaller vital. Page 176... consciousness, in the mental (head and neck) and perhaps also in vital mind and in emotional. Page 175 Dove or Pigeon The dove signifies peace. The colours indicate the vital—green would be self-giving in the vital; blue the higher consciousness in the vital. So it must be peace casting its influence from above on the vital. The white pigeon must be Peace. Crow, Eagle, Kite ...
... The universe is a seemingly infinite gradation of worlds and states of consciousness, and in this increasingly subtle gradation, where does your matter come to an end? Where does your spirit begin? You speak of "spirit"― where does this spirit begin? With what you don't see? Is that it? So you include in "spirit" all the beings of the vital world, for instance, because you don't see them in your normal... I was explaining to you the other day, the world is as it is and you have but to take it as it is, and not be affected by what it is. For you enter a higher consciousness, you are liberated from outer forms, but they remain as they are. Indeed, some slight mention is made of changing one's character, but there is no question of changing the material world. Sweet Mother, I have not understood... the illness disappears. I have seen this very often in the street. There might be a small hostile entity there, but these are very insignificant things. In other cases, in some temples, there are vital beings who are more or less powerful and have made their home there. But what Sri Aurobindo means here is that there is nothing, not even the most anti-divine force, which in its origin is not the ...
... avoided.... I don't know, they're mad there—they're mad everywhere. They're mad here too. Here too, it came here, the same idea of killing, destroying.... It's everywhere. It's as if the whole vital world had descended on earth ( gesture of a crushing mass ). I wouldn't want anything to happen to the statue. Yes, Mother, but in my opinion, the statue loses its meaning if it isn't in public... people are going mad. I really don't know how long it will last, but there is a wind of madness everywhere. They talk only of killing. It's as if... ( gesture showing the onrush of vital forces on earth ), oh!... The world has become repugnant. Division is very strong. But an ABSOLUTE sincerity is required for those who want to work. Yesterday I had some experiences that showed me how the usual... change all that. Oh, there WILL BE a miracle. But what, I don't know. ( silence ) Because this whole reaction, this whole movement ( gesture at ground level ) belongs to the lower mind and vital, and it's pretty low; but a Pressure from above would make a pulp of all that—how will it come about? I don't know.... But one can see—one sees clearly that external circumstances are being brought ...
... completely against this. But this is rare. Still, it does exist. This happens because the world as it is at present is still largely under the influence of the adverse forces, particularly the vital force which is dynamic and generally makes you act. This force is largely under the influence of the adverse vital, that is, forces which like to hurt, destroy, damage. That kind of will to spoil things:... is quite spontaneous in many people, and even in children... the instinct to destroy and spoil. Well, it is the presence of the adverse forces. And these are forces which come directly from the vital world and incarnate on earth in human consciousness, and at times also in animal consciousness. It is the hatred for things beautiful, for what is pure, what is good, what is true. It is the hatred of... death. It used to meditate, it certainly did a kind of sadhana of its own, and when it left, even a portion of its vital being reincarnated in a human being. The little psychic element that was at the centre of the being went directly into a man, but even what was conscious in the vital of the cat went into a human being. But these are rather exceptional cases. You say that perhaps stones also feel ...
... enter the body of another unless he has quite an exceptional and unique occult knowledge and in that case he will not do it. But if a human being does not enter, at times there are beings of the vital world who do not have a body and want to have one for the fun of the experience, and when they see that someone has gone out of the body (but he must go out very materially) and is not sufficiently protected... very interesting things would happen to you. I knew someone in France who used to come to me every evening in order that I might show him some unknown region and take him for a ramble in the vital or mental world, and actually I used to take him there. At times there were others also, at times this person was alone. I showed him how to go out of the body, how to get back into it, how to keep the con... There is one condition for this: the organ of sight in the subtle physical body or in the most material vital must be developed. I must tell you that this kind of capacity may come spontaneously, without effort—one may be a born clairvoyant. They are not necessarily very intelligent people, their vital consciousness may be mediocre, but they are born clairvoyant. It is not a sign of a great development—comes ...
... atmosphere we live in is filled with a great number of small vital entities which are born of unsatisfied desires, vital movements of a very low type, also the decomposition of larger beings of the vital world; indeed, it is swarming with them, you see. It is surely a protection that most people do not see what is going on in this vital atmosphere, for it is not especially pleasant; but if they have... what you consider an interesting way. In some cases vital entities really get hold of you, and there it is dangerous. But fortunately these cases are not very frequent. Then it becomes very dangerous. A very long time ago when I was in France, I knew the case of a man who, through practices of this kind, had put himself into contact with a vital entity. This man happened to be a gambler and he spent... quite exceptional abilities. And he used to attend all the séances with the idea of learning, to convince himself and have tangible proofs of the existence of an invisible world, the concrete and real existence of an invisible world. He had seen all that could be seen, under the strictest control, in the most scientific way possible—all the tests were provided for, down to the least detail. He told me ...
... beings that create or form the various species of the insect world—many working in a much more monstrous way than the example I have given—must then truly be frightful, inspired by a perverse and diabolic imagination. Quite possible. For it is said that the origin of the insect world is in the vital; the builders of that world belong to the vital and not to the material plane of consciousness; in other... human will shows in the perverse human mental. I believe it is the human mind under the direct influence of vital beings that begins to work in the perverse way. Titans, Asuras are the beings of ill-will, they belong totally to the vital world and when they manifest themselves in this world of ours, they mean mischief, they do evil for the sake of doing evil, they destroy for the sake of destroying... conscious of their evil will and they exercise that will deliberately and with a set purpose. Man's bad will is often only a reflection, an imitation of the bad will of vital beings which is a will clearly hostile to the created world, whose express intention it is to make things as painful, as difficult, as ugly, Page 72 as monstrous as possible. It is these beings, some say, that have ...
... is an infusion of progressive consciousness which is psychologically translated by a relation with new worlds or new "dimensions". For example, it is said that for a certain period the terrestrial world was ruled by "overmental" forces and that this rule is going to be transcended, that the world will be governed by supramental forces; well, each time new forces descend upon earth, a change is produced... experiences of another world are always full of paradoxes. They say, "It is like this, it is like that", in an attempt to give you a suppleness which will allow you to understand—but even so you do not understand. The truth is that these experiences can be communicated only in silence. And yet, it has been said (and it is a true fact) that these worlds, like the supramental world, are going to express... physical body, for example? Do you perceive thought apart from a material quality? It remains to be seen, doesn't it? Let me explain: if you go out of your body, if you go out of the vital world and enter the mental world, all relations are different from what they are for thought when in the body. Compared with the body, thought seems an immediate thing like light, for example, even more than light ...
... the same time he may be full of desires, because desires belong to another sphere. Desire is not a physical thing, desire is something vital, and this envelope is more material than the vital: it cannot prevent the vital from entering into contact with the vital world and receiving from there all its impulsions. Naturally he who has mastered himself, who has found his psychic being, who lives constantly... characteristic of the universe is an infinite multiplicity of laws which altogether, in their totality, reproduce the One. And it is this which is particularly marvellous in the physical world (in man and in the physical world, for it is proper to the terrestrial being), that it can be one of the innumerable elements which in their totality reproduce the One, and yet at the same time have a personal relation... lovely thing we saw yesterday evening and that ignoble thing we saw sometime ago.... This makes us reflect deeply on material things. Physical perfection does not at all prove, not the least in the world, that one has taken one step farther towards spirituality. Physical perfection means that the instrument the force will use—any force whatever—will be sufficiently perfected to be remarkably expressive ...
... reasonably good. But this is extremely rare. And generally, I believe it is almost the opposite. I have seen some of these forms in the vital and mental worlds, which were truly human creation. There is a force from beyond which manifests. But in these triple worlds of falsehood, truly man has created God in his own image—more or less—and there are beings which manifest in forms which are the result... absolutely above human comprehension—for man as he now is, in his present state. What is "the triple world of the Ignorance"? "The triple world..."? "...of the Ignorance". The Ignorance? Matter, life and mind; that is, the physical, the vital and the mental, the triple world of the Ignorance. What do Mahasaraswati and Mahalakshmi look like? What? Page 274 What... of the godhead whom they are invoking, they think of all the attributes and appearances that have been given to it, and the invocation is usually addressed to entities of the vital world or at best to those of the mental world, but not to the Being itself. And it is these small entities which manifest in one idol or another. All these idols in small temples or even in families—some people have their ...
... terrestrial but extra-terrestrial. I am speaking of terrestrial Nature. Through their mental power, men had the choice and the freedom to make pacts with these extraterrestrial vital forces. There is a whole vital world that has nothing to do with the earth, it is entirely independent or prior to earth's existence, it is self-existent—well, they have brought that down here! They have made ... what... a sentence with the different flowers I had put there. And one day when the subject of prosperity or wealth came up, I thought (they always say that Ganesh is the god of money, of fortune, of the world's wealth), I thought, 'Isn't this whole story of the god with an elephant trunk merely a lot of human imagination?' Thereupon, we meditated. And who should I see walk in and park himself in front of... ' No, it was Page 179 calm (it was exultant, but it was very calm), and it remained in control of its movements and its words. In spite of the fact that it was really living in another world, it could apparently act normal due to this strenuous training in self-control by the REASON—by the reason—over the whole being, which has tamed it and given it such a great cohesive power that I can ...
... are protected, but it is a fact. While receiving initiation these men have received the imposition of a force from the vital world, which is extremely dangerous.... This is not always the case, but most often this is what happens. Because sincerity is so rare a virtue in the world, one ought to bow down before it with respect when one meets it. Sincerity—what we call sincerity, that is to say, a... than working to transform it. Voilà ! Sweet Mother, do these people have powers? Page 72 Yes! There are some who have great powers. But these powers come from the vital and from an association with vital entities. There are all kinds of powers. Only, those powers don't hold out before the true divine Power—they can't resist. But over ordinary human beings they have much power. ... immobility? It says what it means. An immortal spirit is necessarily immobile and strong, by the very fact of its being immortal. But then Sri Aurobindo says about the Gita: "Not the mind's control of vital impulse is its rule, but the strong immobility of an immortal spirit." Yes. But this is a conclusion, my child; you must read the beginning of the sentence if you want to understand.... Ah! ( Turning ...
... weak, it is inert, because inertia is its principle — it is meant to be an instrument. If our vital is a projection from the vital world itself, why does it feel everything new and strange when it enters there during night? The vital does not feel anything strange there. It is the physical consciousness that feels strange when it gets the transcript of the experience. ... Why is the physical mind so much open to the vital suggestions and forces? Page 54 The physical depends on the vital, at every step— it could not do anything without the help of the vital— so it is quite natural that it should receive its suggestions. What makes the physical so weak that it can't do without the vital's help? The physical is not weak... started the submind business. My lower vital seems to have hindered the free opening of the psychic being. That is why I don't feel any soul-movement like love, bhakti or joy in my heart and inner vital. I think this is the worst possible phase of the sadhana. The uprising of the inertia and the persistence of the vital have to be fought out by constant rejection until ...
... sufficiently developed his vital being and the mental; if he has, consciously or subconciously, developed an affinity with any of the supraphysical worlds, his post-mortal sojourn in that world becomes almost a certainty. Take, for instance, the case of a philosopher. After his death he passes through the subtle-physical to the vital world, and unless there is a strong vital knot or twist somewhere... and nothing more. When the gross physical body drops, the being passes into the subtle physical, and from there into the vital world. It exhausts its vital Karma in the vital world, and then passes on into the mental. When the mental formations are dissolved, like those of the vital, the soul goes to its own plane, called by Sri Aurobindo the psychic plane, for rest and assimilation of all its past ... somewhere in him, some deep-rooted desire or passion, his vital sheath will soon be dissolved, and he will procceed straight to the mental world where, relieved of the vital burden, he will be free to acquire various experiences. Because he has developed a mind of reflection and imagination, and an affinity with the mental world, be can live in that world more or less securely and fruitfully till the mental ...
... to show to the world what one really is not, what one should be in spiritual Truth, is dangerous for the seeker, and these things can never be profitable to those with whom he has relations. By one’s vital one manifests only the vital world and not the true spirituality, — because it contaminates the pure fire of the soul that wants nothing but the Divine. (8) In the noisy world those who can raise... Messiah. The human vital rushes up to capture the Divine by his vital, mental and physical power instead of giving oneself completely to that Divine Power — he wants to possess the Divine with his Asuric ego. This is the case of many seekers who have fallen from the Divine path. They become the instrument of the dark power that dominates the world. They might have good wishes for the world, for the suffering... raise their voice over others’ are heard, and they are thought to be the greater. In this way the world is becoming more and more noisy. But is there none whose voice is eternally superior to any voice of man and world? It is the supreme Truth, the Divine, who speaks through silence and sinks all other noise in the infinite. Man of ordinary mind thinks he can be great by making noise and makes ...
... becomes conscious of the material world and, so far as it chooses, of the vital world of Nature. Otherwise the mind would be conscious of the mental world first and chiefly and would only indirectly glimpse the material. As it is, its attention is fixed on the body and the material world in which it has been installed and it is aware of the rest of existence only dimly, indirectly or subconsciously in that... itself as a mental soul occupying the body whether Page 337 once or repeatedly and returning from earthly living to mental worlds beyond; the persistence of this mental being mentally enjoying or suffering sometimes in the body, sometimes on the mental or vital plane of Nature it calls its immortal existence. Or else, because the mind is a principle of light and knowledge, however imperfect... accepts, uses for its outlook on the world and seems to itself to project and to receive their shocks, to suffer or to master their consequences. Nature instals the base of these dynamos in the material bodies she has formed, makes these bodies the ground for her stations and connects the mental with the material by a nerve-system full of the movement of vital currents through which the mind becomes ...
... difference between Japanese art and the art of other countries, like those of Europe, for example? The art of Japan is a kind of directly mental expression in physical life. The Japanese use the vital world very little. Their art is extremely mentalised; their life is extremely mentalised. It expresses in detail quite precise mental formations. Only, in the physical, they have spontaneously the sense... everything is like that. However, not once do you have the feeling that you are in contact with something other than a marvellously organised mental-physical domain. And what energy they have! Their whole vital being is turned into energy. They have an extraordinary endurance but no direct aspiration: one must obey the rule, one is obliged. If one does not submit oneself to rules there, one may live as Europeans... had everything to learn in Japan. For four years, from an artistic point of view, I lived from wonder to wonder. And in the cities, a city like Tokyo, for example, which is the biggest city in the world, bigger than London, and which extends far, far (now the houses are modernised, the whole centre of the city is very unpleasant, but when I was there, it was still good), in the outlying parts of the ...
... Mother Questions and Answers (1950 - 1951): 13 January 1951 You live vitally in the vital world with all the currents of vital force entering, going out, joining and opposing each other, quarrelling and intermingling in your consciousness, and even if you have made a personal effort to purify your vital consciousness, to master in it the desire-being and the little human ego, you are constantly... rest of the world. Therefore a perfect purity, a perfect perfection seem impossible so long as the world has not reached at least a certain degree of perfection. Even the ascetic, the solitary, who goes and sits in a cave or under a tree or in the jungle, cannot completely free himself from solidarity with the rest of the world. The air he breathes is full of all the vibrations of the world, the food... transmute this into something which is ready to receive the light from above. And this work is perpetual, and perpetually renewed. So it is impossible to live in this world, in the world as it is, and become perfect without the world itself making a great progress. The Mother Questions and Answers (1954): 29 December 1954 ...
... without one's being aware of it. Vitally, it is the same thing. You live vitally in the vital world with all the currents of vital force entering, going out, joining and opposing each other, quarrelling and intermingling in your consciousness, and even if you have made a personal effort to purify your vital consciousness, to master in it the desire-being and the little human ego, you are constantly ...
... 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... all others, indeed, something like that; if one does not reflect, spontaneously one has the sense that even if the world disappeared, one would be there, one would remain what one is. This of course is the super-ego. Certainly, if one were to lose one’s ego too soon, from the vital and mental point of view one would again become an amorphous mass. The ego is surely the instrument for individualisation... the rigid form it is—for it is terribly rigid, isn’t it?—well, if all that were not so fixed, if you had no skin, here, like this, solid, if externally you were the reflection of what you are in the vital and mental fields, it would be worse than being a jelly-fish! Everything would fuse into everything else, like this… Oh, what a mess it would be! That is why it was at first necessary to give a very ...
... What do these animals represent in the terrestrial manifestation? They're so strange.... Cats are vital forces, incarnations of vital forces. The King of the Cats—that is, the spirit of the species—is a being of the vital world. For instance, cats can very easily incarnate the vital force of a dead person. I have had two absolutely astounding experiences of this. The first was with a... coming near. These cat stories went on for years and years.... And it isn't true that they don't obey! It's just that we don't know how to handle them. Cats are extremely sensitive to the vital force, to vital power, and they can be made perfectly obedient—and with such devotion! Cats are said to be neither devoted nor attached nor faithful, but that's not true at all. You can have quite a friendly... this boy's eyes. (I no longer recall his name.) Right away (at the time we were all involved in occultism), we knew something had happened; he had been unable to come and the cat had incarnated his vital force. The next day, all the newspapers were full of a vile murder: a pimp had murdered this boy—it was disgusting! Something utterly vile. And it had happened at the very moment he should have come—the ...
... "invisible worlds"? That is a formidable question! You have heard and read that we are made up of various states of being: physical, vital, mental, psychic, spiritual, etc. Well, all these inner states of being correspond to invisible worlds. There is a physical world, a vital world, a mental world, a psychic world, and many spiritual worlds, a whole range of more and more subtle worlds approaching... aware of your inner being you gradually make yourself capable of becoming aware also of these invisible worlds. For example, the mind: if the mind is conscious, coordinated, well controlled, it can move about it in the mental world just as the body does in the physical world and see what this mental world is like, what is going on there, what are its characteristics and so on. These things are not invisible... you, the power it will give you and the satisfaction it will give you... In the invisible worlds, are things seen as in the physical world or as in dreams? We have to agree on what dreams are! There are dreams where Page 320 you see things so precisely, so concretely that the material world seems rather unreal in comparison. There are dreams like that where things are so intense, so ...
... came. But it's double: there is Inertia on one hand, and on the other vital perversion—the NERVOUS perversion of the vital world, of the vital influence. There isn't just Inertia: there is a sort of perverted ill will. You can easily (relatively easily) drive it out and eliminate it entirely from conscious mental and vital life; that work, which in the past was considered as, oh, a tremendously... visible), the habit of foreseeing catastrophes.... And anything that disturbs the Inertia is, for Inertia, a catastrophe. In the world, the earthly world (it's the only one I can speak of with competence; of the others, I have only overall visions), in the earthly world, for Inertia (which is the basis of the creation and is necessary to fix, to concretize things), anything that disturbs it is a c... all the possible movements that have occurred in this body, not only to sweep things clean, but also to purify, correct, and illuminate—all the body's memories (I'm not speaking of the mind or the vital)... extraordinary! And at the same time the understanding comes of all the people I met in my life and with whom I lived for a certain time: for what reasons, with what aim, for what purpose they ...
... understanding – these qualities we distinctly find in the character, action, literature and art of the Bengali race. As the vital world is the basis of the women-folk, as the vital tune and colour resound and tinge their entire world, likewise the Bengali race has taken its stand on the vital plane, in the current of the life-force. Bengalis do not know how to resort to bare spirituality. This is why they do... it is very sharp. Their vital energy is not solid, but it is pliant. Prompt are they in their actions, but not persevering. They have a subtle sensitivity and a quick sensibility. In addition, they are sentimental and emotional; and consequently, they are thoughtful and imaginative. They are unsteady; therefore they are ever open to the new. They do not want to see the world as it is with calm and plain... bears a resemblance to the soil of Bengal. The mind and the vital of the Bengalis are soft and pliant. New ideas and forms can claim them for their own. Their brain is not solid and hard as in some dry mountainous regions. They are ready to receive all new impressions. On the other hand, like the sticky clay of Bengal, their mind and vital adhere to whatever they undertake. All things which appeal to ...
... see the passage to heaven: for he that thinks that this world is and there is no other, comes again and again into Death's thraldom" 28 . According to the yogic science, there exist the subtle physical world and the vital world and the mental world and even higher worlds, the world of the Overmind, the world of the Supermind, and still the worlds of Sachchidananda (Existence-Consciousness-Bliss). One... projection of ourselves, in a subtle form of the mental or vital body, actually enter into other planes and worlds or into distant places and scenes of this world, move among them with a sort of bodily presence and bring back the direct experience of their scenes and truths and occurrences. It may even project actually the mental or vital body for the same purpose and travel in it, leaving the physical... subliminal has the right of entry into the mental and vital and subtle-physical planes of the universal consciousness, it is not confined to the material plane and the physical world; it possesses means of communication with the worlds of being which the descent towards involution created in its passage and with all corresponding planes or worlds that may have arisen or been constructed to serve the ...
... the earth, the intermediate world and the world of light, we meditate on the supreme light of the illumining Sun-god, that he may impel our mind." To my father's queries Sri Aurobindo gave the definitions of the following planes (10 Sept. 1937): bhurloka = material world; bhuvarloka = vital world; dyoloka = mind-world; swarloka = highest region of mind-world. The Rishis preferred a concrete... the vital and the physical being also. It is a very difficult effort. All cannot bear the Light of the Sun when it comes down. Gayatri chooses the Divine Light of the Truth asking it to come down and govern the mind. It is the capacity to bear the Light that constitutes the fitness for the Yoga." Again, according to Sri Aurobindo, SWAR, the solar world beyond heaven and earth, is the world of the... the divine Truth and Bliss; "the fourth world, the supramental," 1 after mind, life and body. 1. The quotations in this chapter are from Sri Aurobindo's The Secret of the Veda. Page 44 Swar is the world of Yama, the guardian of the law of the Truth, the guardian of immortality. It is the world of immortality where is the indestructible Light. "Yama and the ancient Fathers ...
... Water-water-centre in the body. This centre commands "the small vital movements, the little greeds, lusts, desires, the small sense-movements," in other words, the lower vital world. 3.MANIPURA (or NĀBHIPADMA): the navel lotus, violet and with ten petals. Its element is Fire. It governs what Sri Aurobindo terms as the larger vital , in other words, "the larger life forces and the passions and... of steps, a series of superimposed planes with the supermind over mind as the crucial nodus of the transition beyond the human into the Divine." These heavenly worlds are above the body. Below the body are the subconscient worlds. Pātāla, a place without light of consciousness is universal, therefore without bounds or end. It is "the dark unconscious infinite out of which this material universe... used and the real meaning of the words—later on other Indian Yoga systems continued their inner explorations. The Tantra in particular made a thorough study of the subtle body. It also defined the worlds from which we get our emotions and feelings and sensations: our higher and lower moral qualities (vritti) —courage, selflessness, generosity, hope endeavour, and so on, or anger, cruelty, arrogance ...
... ! Disciple : You spoke of the vital beings living on their own plane. Do they also fight each other on their own plane ?i Sri Aurobindo : Yes. That is what is meant by the struggle between the angels and the devils in the Bible. The being I spoke of with regard to X was not from the hostile vital world, – it was from the higher level of the vital plane. Disciple : What is meant... splendour of its own. I am not speaking of the perverse hostile vital world which generally comes in contact with our physical plane Apart from that there are beings that have a splendour and greatness and knowledge of their own. Much of the poetry and art comes from that plane. Disciple : If they are not hostile beings, as you say, then they can manifest grand things here. Sri Aurobindo ... Aurobindo : There are various ways : for instance, ambition, or lust, greed, vanity, arrogance, any number of these things through which these forces can influence man. Théon believed that the vital world is precipitated down on the earth and there is bound to be struggle between the Truth and these forces. Either the Truth wins or they. After giving the fight – the last struggle one of them would ...
... chance; it requires a long training. How is it that in dreams one meets and knows people whom one meets and knows afterwards in the outer world? It is because of the affinities that draw certain people together, affinities in the mental or the vital world. People often meet in these planes before they meet upon earth. They may join there, speak to each other and have all the relations you can... psychic consciousness. But some realisation you must have—a strong mental or vital, if not a deep psychic or integral contact. You must have felt strongly the Divine Presence in or about you; you must have felt the breath of the Divine world. And you must have felt too as a suffocating pressure the opposite breath of the ordinary world, drawing you to an endeavour to come out of that oppressive atmosphere... the body. The control over the processes of the body-consciousness is more difficult, since they are more rigid, less amenable to change than are the mental or the vital processes. In the night the mental and vital, especially the vital, are very active. During the day they are under check, the physical consciousness automatically represses their free play and expression. In sleep this check is removed ...
... generally a very different picture; they jump about and cry and laugh and sing, in a fit of devotion, as they say. But in reality such people do not live in the Divine. They live largely in the vital world. You say that even Ramakrishna had periods of emotional excitement and would go about with hands uplifted, singing and dancing? The truth of the matter is this. The movement in the inner being... equanimity in your external being. If you have this basis, you can contain a world of emotion and yet not have to scream it out. This does not mean that you cannot express your emotion, but you can express it in a beautiful harmonious way. To weep or scream or dance about is always a proof of weakness, either of the vital or the mental or the physical nature; for on all these levels the activity is... is for self-satisfaction. One who dances and jumps and screams has the feeling that he is somehow very unusual in his excitement; and his vital nature takes great pleasure in that. If you have to bear the pressure of the Divine Descent, you must be very strong and powerful, otherwise you would be shaken to pieces. Some persons ask, "Why has not the Divine come yet?" Because you are not ready. If ...
... the physical world and organises it to give a basis of action to the higher consciousness. One has this experience very clearly when one wants to organise one’s life. Then, there is another use. When one is in contact with one’s reason, with the rational centre of the intellect, the pure reason, it is a powerful control over all vital impulses. All that comes from the vital world can be very firmly... spiritual, political or social work to do in the world and led them away to disappointment and failure. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: The Mind The vital mind is that part of the vital being which builds, plans, imagines, arranges things and thoughts according to the life-pushes, desires, will to power or possession, will to action, emotions, vital ego reactions of the nature. It must be d... Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: The Mind … people usually think that mind is just a mode of activity, whereas there is a mental substance as there is a vital substance and physical substance. And as there is a substance, there is a corresponding world with an autonomous existence, that is to say, there can be a mind without any physical support. The physical body may disappear and the mind can continue ...
... the physical world and organises it to give a basis of action to the higher consciousness. One has this experience very clearly when one wants to organise one's life. Then, there is another use. When one is in contact with one's reason, with the rational centre of the intellect, the pure reason, it is a powerful control over all vital impulses. All that comes from the vital world can be very firmly... very true. Then what should one do to make it last longer? But it is not the same part of the being that has the depression and the joy. If you are speaking of pleasure, the pleasure of the vital is something very fleeting, and I think that in life―in life as it is at present―there are more occasions for displeasure than for pleasure. Pleasure in itself is extremely fleeting, for if the same... one's psychic being. That is why when it comes it is fugitive, for the psychological condition necessary to perceive it is not often there. On the other hand, one is almost constantly in an ordinary vital state where the least unpleasant thing very spontaneously and easily brings you depression―depression if you are a weak person, revolt if you are a strong one. Every desire which is not satisfied, every ...
... him. To climb to higher altitudes, to get a greater scope, to transform his lower nature, this is always a natural impulse of man as soon as he has made his place for himself in the physical and vital world of the earth and has a little leisure to consider his further possibilities. He is capable, unlike other terrestrial creatures, of becoming aware of what is deeper than mind, of the soul within him... himself. He has to enlarge his partial being into a complete being, his partial consciousness into an integral consciousness. He has to achieve mastery of his environment, but also world Page 14 union and world harmony. He has to realize his individuality, but also to enlarge into a cosmic self and a universal and process of a transformation, a chastening and correction of all that is obscure... appears out of the Inconscient in a first evolutionary form as substance of Matter created by an inconscient energy. Consciousness, involved and non-apparent in Matter, first emerges in the disguise of vital vibrations, animate but subconscient; then in imperfect formulations of a conscient life, it strives towards self- finding through successive forms of that material Substance, forms more and more adapted ...
... extremely comic—and it is impossible. The truth is that these are small vital entities, a class of beings formed by the decomposition of desires that have persisted after a man's death and retained their form; of imaginations that have remained coagulated and try to manifest and reappear. Sometimes they are small beings of the vital world, not very well-disposed; as soon as they see people playing at such... intercourse, and yet it happens that when they meet the new face in the outer world, they find it very familiar, quite well known." Questions and Answers 1929-1931 ( 21 April 1929 ) That depends very much upon the level of consciousness in one's inner being. For most people, all that is a mixture in the mental, vital and physical planes; they are not at all conscious of what is happening. Some... when you sleep, your body is asleep, your vital is asleep, but your mind is still active. So your mind begins to have dreams, that is, its activity is more or less coordinated, the imagination is very active and you see all kinds of things, take part in extraordinary happenings.... After some time, all that calms down and the mind also begins to doze. The vital that was resting wakes up; it comes out ...
... of immortality, the power of rejuvenation in those external parts – the mental, vital and physical – that make up the terrestrial life and that are ever subject to decline, decay and death. A nation, however, that has achieved something, created something, made a strong formation in the mental or in the vital world may die physically, but the formation, the creation, the achievement remains and... of renewal. The older people generally lived in, or at least, were in living contact with principles of existence more fundamental and therefore more enduring. The gods of the mind and of the inner vital enjoy a longer immortality than the deities that rule man's outer life and body. Viewed from this standpoint India stands as a case sui generis. She did not stop short satisfied with the lesser... there. A nation or people then possesses or is composed of several souls or several layers of an oversoul. Even like the individual it has a physical soul, that is to say, a body consciousness, a vital soul, a mental soul and finally the true or inmost soul, the oversoul. When one lives in any of the inferior souls, one has precarious and disintegrated life – whether it is a nation or an individual ...
... creator and lord of all, nor the subtle "Tejasa", the brilliant dweller in the mid-world, nor the gross-physical "Vaiswanara", the universal godhead of Matter. The "turiya" of the Rigveda stands "fourth" from below as well as from above: it is above the lower triplicity of "prithivi" (earth), "antariksha" (vital mid-world) and "dyau" (mind-heaven) but below the higher triplicity, "tridhatu", constituted... appearance of the real. The world thus was regarded in a manner which in philosophical history was the forerunner of the later Shankarite idea of Maya, the indescribable illusionist world-magic. (3) The experience of the supracosmic Absolute, the "nirguna" or quality-less Infinite and Eternal, brought home to the post-Rigvedic Yogis the "proof" of their conviction of the world's non-divinity and unreality... unreality, because in this experience the world does actually figure as an insubstantial floating phantasm. Sri Aurobindo further says that originally the old Indian terms "vijnana" and "mahas" answered also to his Supermind. "Vijnana" occurs in the Taittiriya Upanishad as the level which is beyond the being of "manas" (mind) and precedes the being of "Ananda" (Bliss). The same Upanishad mentions "mahas" ...
... of the world of matter. Under the pressure of the upward aspiration of the secret will-in-things the veil that lies over the sense-mind is lifted and a new world, a world where mind is the principal factor, peopled with human beings, emerges with its own characteristic laws quite different from those of the worlds of matter, sense and sense-mind. A new law means a new rhythm. If the world of matter... infinite world balanced and held between two supporting and fostering firmaments. Thus these seven interpenetrating and intertwining worlds of different substances — the frames of the rhythmic dance of God's lila — have fourteen firmaments of various colours and shades creating the lines of their ordered existence. The Sun-Lord takes his birth in each and every one of the seven worlds, rends... is the outcome of harmoniously moving forces whose home is where the gods take birth. Duty is the will of the mental twilight trying to bring under its sway the several impulses of the vital or animal world. It has until now at the most partially succeeded in its object. Page 49 In the effort to fulfil a duty — which is only a dry abstraction of the intellect, a way of conduct ...
... of the world of matter. Under the pressure of the upward aspiration of the secret will-in-things the veil that lies over the sense-mind is lifted and a new world, a world where mind is the principal factor, peopled with human beings, emerges with its own characteristic laws quite different from those of the worlds of matter, sense and sense-mind. A new law means a new rhythm. If the world of matter... infinite world balanced and held between two supporting and fostering firmaments. Thus these seven interpenetrating and intertwining worlds of different substances — the frames of the rhythmic dance of God's lila — have fourteen firmaments of various colours and shades creating the lines of their ordered existence. The Sun-Lord takes his birth in each and every one of the seven worlds, rends... the outcome of harmoniously moving forces whose home is where the gods take birth. Duty is the will of the mental twilight trying to bring under its sway the several impulses of the vital or animal world. It has until now at the most partially succeeded in its object. Page 49 In the effort to fulfil a duty — which is only a dry abstraction of the intellect, a way of conduct ...
... of the world of matter. Under the pressure of the upward aspiration of the secret will-in-things the veil that lies over the sense-mind is lifted and a new world, a world where mind is the principal factor, peopled with human beings, emerges with its own characteristic laws quite different from those of the worlds of matter, sense and sense-mind. A new law means a new rhythm. If the world of matter... infinite world balanced and held between two supporting and fostering firmaments. Thus these seven interpenetrating and intertwining worlds of different substances — the frames of the rhythmic dance of God's lila — have fourteen firmaments of various colours and shades creating the lines of their ordered existence. The Sun-Lord takes his birth in each and every one of the seven worlds, rends... is the outcome of harmoniously moving forces whose home is where the gods take birth. Duty is the will of the mental twilight trying to bring under its sway the several impulses of the vital or animal world. It has until now at the most partially succeeded in its object. Page 1 In the effort to fulfil a duty — which is only a dry abstraction of the intellect, a way of conduct found ...
... influence human beings. If we are not vigilant, we are apt to be invaded by beings of the vital world — a world of ill-will and disorder, basically an anti-divine world - and they thrive on human vibrations like anger, violence, passion and desire. The wrong suggestions invariably come from outside - the vital world - and can be thrown out before they manage to effect their entry. One may fail at first... Yoga, rather like Virgil guiding Dante through the triple worlds in The Divine Comedy. It is seldom a sheerly sunlit path or the primrose path of easy success, for the invisible adverse forces are always around; but Grace too is near at hand. On 3 April there is a reference to the old religions and humanity's current needs. All great world religions had begun with mystic God-vision but had later been... can tone up the body as much as the vital and the mind, and there will emerge a new spontaneity of infallible efficiency undreamt of before. On 9 July, the Mother saw in the evening a Bengali film, Rani Rasmani, with a picture of the temple at Dakshineshwar and the statue of Kali which, according to the Mother, represented an attempt to recapture "all that world of religion and worship, of aspiration ...
... Page 62 dispersed and dissolved in their respective cosmic spheres. The subtle body gives up its elements to the subtle physical plane, the vital elements are taken up into the vital world and the mental elements go into the mental world,—unless the psychic being is highly developed and has organised around itself as its instrument of self-expression any of these elements. In thatmuch of... be considered as the psychic world and Beatrice herself the Divine Grace that bathes, illumines and comforts the psychic being. If one has, however, within oneself an ardent and sincere and unflickering flame, one can go through more or less easily and unscathed; Page 66 but that is rare. Even when alive, in sleep one goes out often into other worlds and the foreign and unpleasant... him now, pity him, mourn for him, regret his absence raise so many hurdles and obstacles in his path, oblige him to turn and look back. Again, there are forces and personalities in the intermediate worlds with whom the poor disembodied creature has now to come in contact, and not unoften he feels like one unskinned and all his nerves on edge open helplessly to rough and painful impacts. Indeed ...
... missioned to change turbulent Sansara (World-existence) into blissful Brahman. Here your "Pondicherry sea" comes in as the next link. Indian spiritual symbology discerns in the sea-vision both the emerald-green vitalism of world-existence and the emerald-green vastitude of Brahmic Bliss in its manifested conscious universality living deep within that world-existence itself. So the Pondicherry... a poet's interpretation. Your dream is an interesting mixture of several consciousness-levels and symbol-layers. The emerald-green of the umbrella in a shop seems at the same time to represent the vital plane characteristic of the life in the West, amidst which you outwardly are, and the Universal Consciousness of the Divine that is a Super-Life all about your inner being and that can extend anywhere ...
... has a wrist-watch above it, symbolising Lion-Sri Aurobindo's time-manifestation. I see that the golden Lion is clothed in green, the supramental Truth-Consciousness putting its presence into the vital world. The white Lamb - symbol of the psychicised purified being which I seek to reflect - is wearing a chequered red coat, the sign of the physical plane. In the earth-work these complementary factors... the "hits" are the mental-vital personality, the "misses" bear a breath from the psychic being: they teach us humility and allow us time to look around and contemplate and render our dynamism selective in the goals towards which it sets its course. Once the exquisite lesson taught by the Miss has permeated the consciousness of the Mister who wants to make a hit in the world, the time to come will bear... transformation of the human race and the establishment of the Divine on earth?" Not only science but also all past spiritual tradition has considered the world to have an end. In Christianity the Second Coming of Jesus is taken as the mark of the world's end, accompanied by a resurrection of the dead and an uplifting of the resurrected bodies of the faithful into heaven after a Last Judgment which will ...
... terrestrial life. They are dispersed and dissolved in their respective cosmic spheres. The subtle body gives up its elements to the subtle physical plane, the vital elements are taken up into the vital world and the mental elements go into the mental world, – unless the psychic being is highly developed and has organised around itself as its instrument of self-expression any of these elements. In that case... Beatrice may be considered as the psychic world and Beatrice herself the Divine Grace that bathes, illumines and comforts the psychic being. If one has, however, within oneself an ardent and sincere and un flickering flame, one can go through more or less easily and unscathed; but that is rare. Even when alive, in sleep one goes out often into other worlds and the foreign and unpleasant contacts and... him, lament his absence, raise so many hurdles and obstacles in his path, oblige him to turn and look back. Again, there are forces and personalities in Page 202 the intermediate worlds with whom the poor disembodied creature has now to come in contact, and not unoften he feels like one unskinned and all his nerves on edge open helplessly to rough and painful impacts. Indeed, although ...
... competence that Sri Aurobindo could tell the sadhaks what results might be expected from the use of such stimulants. "These intoxicants put one in relation with a vital world in which such things (music, song, etc.) exist." A pleasurable world ... while it lasts. But there is the other side of the coin, as he was quick to point out. "It is the habit in the subconscious material," he wrote cautioning a... sober." However, ninety per cent of those who take external Page 188 stimulants never go beyond the vital plane. Because "once you get into the vital plane you find it extremely difficult to get to the Truth." What happens is that "experiences on the vital plane are most exalting and exhilarating at the same time that they are most dangerous and terrible. There are many pitfalls... very open and ready to change all one's ideas, be they personal, social or national. "Take taste and food," Sri Aurobindo said. "I was once a violent non-vegetarian. Then I found that it was my own vital being that was demanding meat. Well, I gave it up and for years together I went on taking whatever came my way. Then I found even what people call 'tasteless' and 'bad' food has got a taste in it." ...
... three worlds, the physical, the vital, and the mental, and while the word "heaven" refers to the mental world, the word "antariksaˮ or "ether" refers to the vital world, and which is intermediate between the physical and the mental and therefore it is called the world that links to other worlds. In a subsequent chapter, chapter five, we find a further exposition of these three worlds, and here... system of education aims at comprehending the entire universe of knowledge. It aims at the knowledge of the physical world (bhur), the vital world (bhuvar), and the mental world (swar); it also aims at covering the knowledge of the fourth world (mahas). Underlying these four worlds, the Upanishads affirms the knowledge of the Brahman, the Reality, which is at once transcendental and universal,... the heaven symbolised the principle of the mind and the mental world, since according to the Upanishadic knowledge, the physical world is not the sole existing reality. In fact, according to the Upanishadic system of knowledge, there are seven worlds, — the physical, the vital, the mental, the supramental, and three still higher worlds of bliss, consciousness, and ultimate essence. But the Upanishad ...
... its reality. Our external appearance is very, very illusory. Our particular form (this one's form, that one's form), the form we see with our physical eyes is very superficial, you know. From the vital world onwards, it's completely different. Well.... I think that's all I can say for today. Page 146 ( Somewhat later, Mother gives Satprem the old desk-calendar page on which she had... that is what is walking." Here we touch upon a stupendous mystery and a formidable question: How is it possible for a material and cellular body to be the wave that at once constitutes and carries the worlds along in its infinite undulating movement and governs the existence of atoms and galaxies? How is it possible to be an infinite and ubiquitous electromagnetic wave while remaining within the narrow... Ceremonies? You can take that out—it's not that sort of thing; it was a whole ORGANIZATION. But what I would like to ask is whether those people exist in the subtle physical or in our physical world.... No, no—my visions are in the subtle physical, but those people exist here on earth, although I don't know who they are.... As I said, I knew only one of them. But it's certain that a physical ...
... The vision of which you give a description is the indication of a vital attack or of a vital danger throwing itself upon you. The form you saw was evidently a strong Power of the hostile vital world—a red hot copper-like bust can mean nothing else. If you thought it was your being, it must have been because something in your vital nature responded to the force which this form embodied. The serpent... you have experienced in the work you undertook arose partly from the general opposition of the money-power to the divine call, but also and very largely from your own vital being and its desires and self-regarding attitude. This vital nature of yours was always full of demands and desires and it came to regard their satisfaction as perfectly legitimate and even the right thing to do. As respects money... Bombay atmosphere. I am perfectly aware that you can advance many explanations justifying your action as against what I have written. All that makes no difference. It is always the habit of the vital being to find out things by which it persuades the mind and justifies its desires; and circumstances usually shape themselves to justify it still farther. For what we have within us creates the cir ...
... that the world of Truth must incarnate on earth and create a new world. They even picked up the old phrase from the Gospels, 'new heavens and a new earth,' 1 which is the same thing the Vedas speak of. Madame Theon had this experience and she gave me the indication (she didn't actually teach me) of how it was to be done. She would go out of her body and become conscious in the vital world (there were... were many intermediary states, too, if one cared to explore them). After the vital came the mental: you consciously went out of the vital body, you left it behind (you could see it) and you entered the mental world. Then you left the mental body and entered into.... They used different words, another classification (I don't remember it), but even so, the experience was identical. And like that, she... always participated), both of us descended almost immediately (it was done in a day or two) from the Mind into the Vital, and so on quite rapidly, leaving the Mind as it was, fully in the light but not permanently transformed. Then a strange thing happened. When we were in the Vital, my body suddenly became young again, as it had been when I was eighteen years old!... There was a young man named ...
... concentrated and assimilate it—avoiding self-dispersion and all externalising of the consciousness. It is very often after a good experience or a decisive progress that the beings of the vital world try to attack and threaten. Page 770 The being who took the form of X was one of these. They have always the hope that they can turn back the sadhak from his path by attacks and menaces... any cost. It was another part of your vital that would have liked to take that attitude, but this smaller part prevented it and brought in a confusion and a mixture which was rather used by the adverse forces to turn you away from belief in or hope of the goal. This confusion of mind and vital you must get rid of—you must call in the true reason and the higher vital to cast out these movements. A higher... rather than to conquer by force. When the vital forces or beings throw an influence, they give it certain forms of thought-action and put them in the minds and vital of people so that they feel, think, act, speak in a particular way. Whoever opens to the influence acts according to this formation, perhaps with variations due to his own vital temperament. Always refuse your assent to these ...
... Pralaya : the end of a world, followed by a new world or a new era. × One night, a disciple, who usually was a very good clairvoyant, heard a voice, whose vibration was clearly hostile (a voice he felt coming from a vital world very near matter, almost a material world). That voice declared that... had those great moments, or violent blows, if I may say so, every time it's the mind and vital that were swept away. The first time too, in 1962. Yes, every time. I know, it's like that: the mind and vital have been instruments to... knead Matter—knead and knead and knead in every possible way: the vital through sensations, the mind through thoughts—knead and knead. But they strike me as transitory... Yes, that's right. I'll explain to you what happened. There's another note which is the beginning: "The vital and the mind sent packing so that the physical may truly be left to its own resources." All by itself! All alone. And I realized the extent to which the vital and the mind are what make you see and hear and able to speak. It was... I could see, in the sense that I was able ...
... being—a higher vital world—far above the plane of ordinary life of everyday, where forms of great power and beauty exist. An artist can either rise to this plane occasionally and draw inspiration for his work from there. He can straightaway bring down forms—either literary or plastic, into his creation from this plane or may modify them in transit through his consciousness. Page 41 ... mistakes his vital being, the being interested in life and action—for his true soul. It is certainly true that this vital being—the being of life-force—can and often does, create great art. It draws its material not merely from the great ocean of life around the artist, but by help of imagination it can create powerful new forms which have a great appeal for life. There is a plane of the higher vital being—a... without trying to understand. If only they would realise above all that an artist works of necessity, that he himself is only a trifling bit of the world and that no more importance be attached to him than to plenty of other things, which please us in the world, though we can't explain them. 12. How can you expect an onlooker to live a picture of mine as I lived it. A picture comes to me from miles ...
... One day the Mother said: You know I have prepared a straight path, a path by which the soul can go directly to the psychic world. It does not have to go through, after death, the suffering of the vital world. If someone leaves even with a little bit of desire then the vital beings will follow. And they cause a lot of suffering. Just imagine the state of the soul then. It is in that terrible state... your body. Some vital being was pursuing you. As soon as you reentered your body and the soul found its shelter you were safe from this vital being. You woke up. So you understand how man has to suffer after death. The soul then has left the body. It is in a terrible state then. This path that I have created, it is just a quick passage after death directly into the psychic world. You must remember... from: The Lord hast willed and thou dost execute; A new Light shall break upon the earth. A new world shall be born, And the things that were promised shall be fulfilled. to: Lord, Thou hast willed, and I execute A new light breaks upon the earth. A new world is born, The things that were promised are fulfilled. We used to recite this prayer of the Mother ...
... before your eyes. That will not fail. It will come one of these days. Quite soon. Voilà . "The power of money is at present under the influence or in the hands of the forces and beings of the vital world. It is because of this influence that you never see money going in any considerable amount to the cause of Truth. Always it goes astray, because it is in the clutch of the hostile forces and one... help. And if you push your idea sufficiently far, you will see that if the Divine is truly all-powerful in this world and does always whatever he wants, well, I tell you, he Page 160 is the greatest monster in the universe! Because One who is all-powerful and makes the world such as it is, looking with a smile at people suffering and miserable, and finding that all right, I would call a... or another, you were put in the presence of much misery in the world, if you have friends who are unhappy or relatives who suffer or you meet any kind of difficulties, then you ask that the whole consciousness might be raised all together towards that perfection which must manifest and that all this ignorance that has made the world so unhappy might be changed into an enlightened knowledge and all ...
... Does one build the vital world for oneself just like the mental world? It is the mind that builds, the vital tries to enjoy and possess the world of its desires. Does each human being live and move in a world of his own? Has it any relation with the world of another being? As he lives in a separative consciousness, he makes a mental world of his own out of his... 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... there is the wideness. One can become conscious of it and deal with what passes through it. A man without it would be without contact with the rest of the world. Can the hostile forces attack us on the mental plane as they do on the vital plane? Yes — the physical mind especially can be made easily their prey — they can also invade the thinking mind. Our sense mind ...
... symbolic expression, one can see a centre which is the supreme Truth, and a triple manifestation - (because four indicates manifestation) - in three superimposed worlds; the outermost... that is a physical world, then a vital world and a mental world, and then at the centre, the supramental Truth 4 On a subsequent occasion, when the Mother gave this flower, the Golden Champak, to a sadhak, he wanted... and Matter so that it may inform and illuminate them, is the seed of redemption of this world of Inconscience and Ignorance. 6 The Mother explains that sacrifice is self-giving, and a sacrifice in one direction brings about another in the opposite direction. As in the material world, in the spiritual world as well, action and reaction are equal and opposite. The Divine's descent into Matter is... break upon the earth. A new world shall be born, And the things that were promised shall be fulfilled. 13 Page 617 A little later, when some of the sadhaks met her upstairs, she took back the message and made a few alterations before returning it: Lord, Thou hast willed, and I execute: A new light breaks upon the earth, A new world is born. The things that were ...
... journeying in the different worlds described in the religious books of India. What actually happens is that after death the soul continues to live in the subtle-physical body for some time—the time varies in each case—till the latter is dissolved. The soul then continues to live in the vital sheath, prāṇamaya koṣa, having experiences in the vital world. The vital sheath, then, dissolves in its... knotty problem comprising countless possibilities of variation and departure, and the supraphysical worlds teem with mysteries and marvels for our human mind. It is only a developed occult vision and a penetrating spiritual perception that can command a clear and comprehensive view of those worlds and the elements and energies, ¹ The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, Part VII, by Nolini Kanta... the normal working of Nature. What actually happens sometimes is that, if a man is very vicious or extremely avid of the gross pleasures of the lower prana, a part of his pranic being or the lower vital may project itself into the animal birth for the desired enjoyment. It may enter the body of a pig or a dog or any other animal. But his soul or central being can never take an animal body. Such projection ...
... and prevents control of mind. These intoxicants [ such as bhang ] put one in relation with a vital world in which such things [ as music and song ] exist. Page 436 × The correspondent wrote that the vital being never seems to tire of the enjoyment of food, even though it results in illness, pain and misery... it lies latent and exasperated by suppression. It is only when one stands back, separates oneself from the lower vital, refusing to regard its desires and clamours as one's own, and cultivates an entire equality and equanimity in the consciousness with respect to them that the lower vital itself becomes gradually purified and itself also calm and equal. Each wave of desire as it comes must be observed... of the body without attaching any other importance, but without repulsion. The vital of most people is of this kind [ too weak to restrain its desires for pleasure ], except in a few who are indifferent to sex or to food desire or to both, by temperament and nature. There is always something in the lower vital which is recalcitrant and takes a pleasure in following its own way and disregarding ...
... constructive and the destructive forces: ...it is a kind of race or struggle as to which will reach the goal first. It would seem that all the adverse, anti-divine forces, the forces of the vital world, have descended on the earth... and that at the same time a new, higher, more powerful spiritual force has also descended on earth to bring it a new life. Page 666 No wonder the struggle... soft soothing draughts, When the spaces teem with whispers of unknown longings - And a thousand desires Swish against the sealed doors of the Soul And music tells of births long ago, worlds long forgotten - Whatever their failings, whatever their strivings, Whatever the fever of their cravings To see people; sitting around the Mother's Chair - Page 670 Calm, indrawn... experience as a principle of realisation" and have declared it the goal of life on earth! If the rest of the world stew in their own juice, well, it is their lookout! It is also possible that, in course of time, others too may get out of the suffocating prison-house and escape into the world invisible. Is this, after all, the only consummation devoutly to be aspired for? But the Mother, drawing ...
... of the insect species is a vital origin, that the fashioners are those of a vital type, that is, beings who not only symbolise but represent and live upon the ill-will in the world. These are very conscious of their ill-will, and it is deliberate. The ill-will of men is usually only a kind of reflection—an imitation or a reflection—of the will of the beings of the vital, a will clearly hostile to creation... have that perversity that's in the human mind. I believe it is with this kind of mental functioning and under the direct influence of the vital that man has become an ill-willed being. The Titans are ill-willed beings but the Titans are beings of the vital world manifested in the forces of Nature: they want to do evil for the pleasure of doing it, to destroy for the pleasure of destroying. People... then the disappearance of the worlds these—are just contusions. It is nothing. One must, if one can, widen one's consciousness. I knew somebody who wanted to widen his consciousness; he said he had found a way, it was to lie flat on his back at night, out-of-doors, and look at the stars and try to identify himself with them, and go away deep into an immense world, and so lose completely all sense ...
... the Mother too had said: The power of money is at present under the influence or in the hands of the forces and beings of the vital world.... Always it [money] goes astray, because it is in the clutch of the hostile forces.... ...In those who are slaves of vital beings, the desire for truth and light and spiritual achievement, even if it at all touches them, cannot balance the desire for money... Divine means Page 600 to fight the devil out of them; you have first to conquer or convert the vital being whom they serve, and it is not an easy task. 3 And now, in the course of a message on 6 January 1955, the Mother declared that a day would come when all the wealth of this world, freed at last from its current enslavement to Mammon and the Asuric forces, would offer itself "spontaneously... her grace abounding to all who are her children. Again, is the world of our everyday experience a thing of ambiguities and irrelevances? Are the generality of mankind surrendered to the follies, frivolities, crudities, cruelties, stupidities of vitalistic pulls and mental distortions? But there is also another world, the world imperishable and immaculate, with its doors held wide open and ready ...
... certain vital glow which is really not beauty – when it is overpowering and full of personal magnetism it is dangerous. Disciple : Can heredity account for beauty? Sri Aurobindo : Not much. Too much of vital glow and charm may be due even to the hostile forces and it maybe dangerous. Disciple : Does beauty belong to the vital world? Sri Aurobindo : The true vital world... world is a world full of beauty and grandeur. Disciple : Is not beauty a part of perfection? Sri Aurobindo : Yes, it is; but beauty and perfection do not always go together in life. Disciple : Is not beauty psychic in its origin? Sri Aurobindo : The psychic element gives only a certain charm to the form, not what people ordinarily call beauty. There is a vital and a... becomes forced ? Not at all. Disciple : Does the artist get his form from the vital only? Sri Aurobindo : No. But these arts are such that they require their stand in the vital. There may be other elements in them but the vital is indispensable. In fact, the highest poetry cannot come unless through the vital. One may take the elements from the mind or emotion or other parts according to ...
... Innocence has two meanings—sinlessness and ignorance. The psychic innocence is not an ignorant condition. An ordinary vital being or a hostile vital being driven into the Asrama atmosphere by some presence from above or other wise may at any time open to its own world and source in its darker aspects and then become the cause of much disturbance in the sadhana. That does not apply to a converted... because the sadhaks open themselves to them, out of habit, out of desire, out of attraction for the drama of the vital, out of fear, out of passive response and unresisting inertia. But there is no real necessity for them any longer or true justification for their presence here,—the outer world is a different matter. The sadhana could very well go on and should go on as an unfolding, a natural falling... In fact, she had transformed one hostile being who was present in the Asrama. A transformed hostile being or one who wants to be transformed is no longer hostile. It is simply a power of the vital world which places itself at the service of the Divine. Hostility consists in opposing the Divine Light and fighting against the transformation of the earth consciousness. But in any case the Mother ...
... Firstly, the knowledge of the physical worlds has increased so much that it is on the verge of breaking its own bounds. Secondly, there is an attempt all over the world towards breaking the veil between the outer and the inner mental, the outer and the inner vital and even the outer and the inner physical. Men are becoming more "psychic". Thirdly, the vital is trying to lay its hold on the physical... never did before. It is always the sign that whenever the higher Truth is coming down, it : throws up the hostile vital world on the surface, and you see all sorts of abnormal vital manifestations, such as increase in the number of persons who go mad, earth-quakes etc. Also, the world is becoming more united on account of the discoveries of modern science, the aeroplane, the railways, the wireless... is quite apart from the material world. It exists by itself and for itself and does not limit itself down to the material conditions. To the vital being, nothing, however fanciful and even idiotic, seems impossible. That is the grandeur of the vital being. When Napoleon said, "Nothing is impossible, erase the word 'impossible' from the dictionary", it was the vital being that was speaking through him ...
... described by Sri Aurobindo are worlds, and not dependent on our own world for their existence. "That we are not conscious of them is no proof that they are not conscious. It is too late in the day to question the correctness and veracity of the utterances of the seers who have experienced these truths." 20 In so far as these intangible realms impinge upon our world we can sometimes discern their... blindness and the pang, The seal of tears, the bond of ignorance, He turned to find that wide world-failure's cause. 21 These are the conditions of entry into the Darkness: A perfect equality of mind first, and then immunity from all the influences arising out of the vital world. The lesson of the Descent into Night seems to be this—sooner or later all those who seek the truth of the... Aswapati moves onward to explore the lavish extravagance of the Life plane, source of the heart's passions and all Man's vital longings. He seeks the answer to a question: What power intervened to cause the fall of Life from its own perfection when it entered the world of Matter? The answer provides a key to the nature of the mission Savitri will later undertake out of love for Satyavan, who ...
... inner mental, the outer and the inner vital and even the outer and the inner physical. Men are becoming more ‘psychic’. “Thirdly, the vital is trying to lay its hold on the physical as it did never before. This is always the sign that whenever the higher Truth is coming down, it throws up the hostile vital world on the surface, and you see all sorts of abnormal vital manifestations, such as an increase... which was hardly predictable a century ago. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have said that the First World War caused a massive descent of the vital forces on our planet, an observation supported by the phenomena of a decade named “the roaring Twenties.” As to “the rise of persons who wield a tremendous vital influence over large numbers of men”: Benito Mussolini had marched on Rome in 1922 and Adolf Hitler... persons who go mad, earth-quakes, etc. “[Fourthly,] the rise of persons who wield a tremendous vital influence over large numbers of men. “These are some of the signs to show that the universal condition may be more ready now.” 5 Science and technology were not only integrating humanity into one world, they were also changing the living conditions to a degree which has created our post-modern ...
... published serially. Page 48 [Reading from Srinvantu, 64-66 86 ]: The art of Japan is a kind of directly mental expression in physical life. The Japanese use the vital world very little. Their art is extremely mentalised; their life is extremely mentalised. It expresses in detail quite precise mental formations. Only in the physical, they have spontaneously the sense... from an artistic point of view, I lived from wonder Page 50 to wonder. And in the cities, a city like Tokyo, for example, which is the biggest city in the world, bigger than London, and which extends far, far (now the houses are modernized, the whole centre of the city is very unpleasant, but when I was there, it was still good). In the outlying parts of the ...
... the same love which is addressed towards a 'carnal prize' and towards the Divine." I should imagine that one who approached the Divine with a "carnal" or an untransformed vital love would embrace something of the vital world but certainly get nowhere near the Divine. 2) The Divine in itself is something cold and empty and dark—only human love gives it some warmth and attraction. I always thought... instrument for the birth and action of the Divine Love in the world. It [ the Divine Truth ] can come solely as knowledge or as knowledge + calm and peace or knowledge with power. It is not always accompanied by Ananda. What was meant [ in the preceding letter ] was that it is possible to have some kind of Ananda on all the planes, vital, mental, physical; but if one wants to live securely in 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 to think that it must be either that or else the vital, in order to escape from its "attachment", must draw away altogether from the object of its love. The vital can be as ...
... not receptive enough. This is the exact image of the state of the world which suffers because it is not receptive whereas it could live in beatitude if it would open to the Divine Love. Page 14 But there is a remedy: Sincere and constant aspiration. 6.7.1967 Your Grace has calmed the vital, the clouds disappear. I pray that the future be a sunlit path. Panama... Before going to sleep I remember You and when I get up I remember You. But during sleep I go astray . . .I move away far from Your feet. Let me be with you in your excursions in the vital world, and all will go well. 15.11.1967 The fall in consciousness is being felt more often and becoming more disagreeable, but I am not able to prevent it. This perception is the proof... 7.1967 A divine face, the eyes radiating two rays of light, the rays being white, vertical and immobile—what is its significance, sweet Mother? When the beings or forces of invisible worlds manifest themselves before an individual consciousness, they put on Page 15 forms suitable to the symbolism of each one—that is what makes it difficult to explain the visions of someone ...
... and purified and sublimated. The vital draws its energies from various sources: either from the physical level below channeled by the sensations, or its own level in league with the universal vital forces, or from above in the form of a great aspiration for progress. And there is also, between individuals, the interchange of vital forces. While the vital world with its energies and irrationalities... danger and a trap for the unwary, and result in abuse, wastage and defeat, it also holds out other immense possibilities. Vital austerity therefore means the education of the vital through its enlightenment, strengthening and purification, and once this is done, the vital can be "as noble and heroic and disinterested as it is now spontaneously vulgar, egoistic, and perverted when it is left to... austerity of the body, the tapasya of Beauty. As for vital austerity or the tapasya of Power, the principle again is, not outright rejection, but judicious choice and utilisation with "wisdom and discernment". Even as sex energies are to be transmuted by "a kind of inner alchemy" into fuel for progress and integral transformation, so too the vital instruments, urges, enthusiasms, desires, passions ...
... atmosphere we live in is full of a great number of small vital entities which are born of unsatisfied desires, of vital movements of a very low type, and also of the decomposition of larger beings of the vital world. Indeed, it is swarming with them. It is no doubt thanks to a special protection that most people do not see what is going on in this vital atmosphere, for it is not exactly pleasant. But if... to the furniture, making tables walk, and all such things.’ 8 She especially made it clear that most of the occult phenomena were caused by little vital beings, the ‘elementals,’ of which we have already heard as denizens of the lower vital world and who find their amusement in making fools of the by-and-large ignorant and defenceless human beings. ‘Those who indulge in this kind of practice... heart. As the Mother she would later say that art is a great means of spiritual progress, and she would often tell her young, bright-eyed audience during her evening talks about the occult levels or worlds where sound and music originate, and about the composers whose music she had loved so much. César Franck, she would say, had a psychic opening and created his music under the direct influence of ...
... that if he indulges these ideas about hostile beings etc., it will be a serious hindrance to his sadhana. It only puts him and others around him in undesirably close relations with the adverse vital world and its forces. These beings can have no "important part" to play in the life and sadhana. The only part they can play is to attack and interfere with the sadhana. When that happens, their suggestions... desire to go away and do something in the ordinary world—the thing itself suggested varying according to the personal mind. If it were not this one invariable hostile force acting, there would not be this exact similarity in all the cases. In each case it is the same obscurities thrown on the intelligence, the same subconscious movements of the vital brought to the surface, the same irrational impulses... all obscurity and all inertia and establishing the radiant Energy, the perfect Light and the unchanging Bliss. There and not in the mind or the higher vital is all the difficulty, but there too must be the victory and the foundation of the new world. I do not wish to disguise from you the difficulty of this great and tremendous change or the possibility that you may have a long and hard work before ...
... into the world of music, in my dreams. Last night I heard a professional female singer singing and playing. It was so distinct that even when it ceased, the music was ringing in my ears. I thought it was a lower vital enjoyment. The other day I heard songs about you—a higher vital enjoyment, I believe. Yes, these are excursions into the vital world (lower or higher) or rather worlds, for there... so absolutely rejected that it can't return. But when what the mind rejects is strongly supported by the vital, it sinks down into the vital, rages there and tries to rush up again and reoccupy the mind. When the vital rejects it, it sinks from the higher to the lower vital. When the lower vital too rejects it, it sinks into the physical consciousness and tries to stick by inertia or mechanical repetition... and recurrence. As for the things thrown away from us that come back, it depends on where you throw them. Very often there is a sort of procedure about it. The mind rejects its mentalities, the vital its vitalities, the physical its physicalities—these usually go into the corresponding domain of general Nature. It all stays in the environmental consciousness, which we carry about with us, by which ...
... influence but a possession, even perhaps an incarnation. The case of Stalin is similar. The Vital World has descended upon the Physical. That is why the intellectuals are getting perplexed at the destruction of their civilisation, of all the values they had made and stood for. They deny the existence of the worlds beyond the physical and so they are bound to be perplexed. 15 The next morning... stand up on a high and distant Supermind level and change the world from there .... I have always said that the spiritual force I have been putting on human affairs such as the War is not the supramental but the Overmind force, and that when it acts in the material world it is so inextricably mixed up in the tangle of the lower world forces that its results, however strong or however adequate to... shell and the aeroplanes' fatal humming, We march, lit by Truth's death-pyre, to the world's satanic age. 5 It was much more than just human foresight or poetic fancy and imagination - it was really yogic vision that saw so vividly and described so arrestingly the full implications of Nazi world dominion. The words came under a terrific compulsion as it were, and the mere utterance of ...
... aimed at transforming its ends and means, both had sooner or later to be brought under supramental action. The power of money was in the hands or under the control of the forces and beings of the vital world that were using the power against the cause of the Truth and the interests of the Divine. Sri Aurobindo too had said that money was the visible sign of a universal force which, although it was being... for the idea of an organisation called "World Union". After the necessary preliminary work, the first committee met in 1960 under the chairmanship of Surendra Mohan Ghose, and since then World Union has established numerous branches in India and abroad, and held several triennial world conferences. While the Mother as Founder-President was the soul of the World Union movement, the sustained drive was... she carried in herself the world: ... 1 Page 674 II The Mother's New Year message for 1959 had a ringing and reverberating quality: At the very bottom of the inconscience most hard and rigid and narrow and stifling I struck upon an almighty spring that cast me up forthwith into a formless limitless Vast vibrating with the seeds of a new world. Like many other New Year ...
... with utmost confidence and which he gives to us with a boldness characteristic of the nature of the bright vital gods: The vast green darkness rolls and heaves To the black-besmeared horizon's bound, And with a mournful clamour cleaves The silence of the worlds around. It roars and rocks and breaks in vain In a restless night of starless pain. O... rendering his experience of oneness with what is symbolised; the symbols are external and not quite internal. In that respect Nishikanta moves with another vision through his symbols of the vital world and identifies himself more closely with them. Page 158 If Harindranath was a Vedic Marut we could perhaps say that Nishikanta was the Vedic Varuna with a powerful... is luscious: none gaineth it who knoweth not the Father." Griffith adds the following footnotes to his translation: "Sayana says that the two Birds are the vital and the Supreme Spirit, dwelling in one body. The vital spirit enjoys the fruit or rewards of actions while the Supreme Spirit is merely a passive spectator. The fine Birds are perhaps the priests, and the Keeper of the Universe ...
... the mental world and in the vital and psychic world, which happens to most of us (at least those who are conscious) who meet the so-called dead after their physical disappearance. One simply goes into the mental world or the vital world. But here, it was through her body that She found the way, it was the consciousness of her body that found the way. Therefore it is obviously a material world, but another... field of work, and asked him WHEN this other world, the real one that is there, so near, would come to take the place of our world of Falsehood... 19 Note that Mother says "take the place of." It is not that we are going to go into the other, the other is going to come into this one—the other, which other?... It is the same! There are not two worlds of Matter, there is only one, the one seen truly... The body must be "catastrophied" for it to begin asking questions and solving the question. It was a rather acute sensation that when the world, the earth, goes from one state to another, there is a sort of transition; it is always like a ridge between two worlds, and there is a very perilous moment when the slightest thing can cause a catastrophe—which means a lot of things would have to be built anew ...
... changing the condition of the mind if there is an opening and a relation. Is it possible to bring the world of supramental substance, and of Satchidananda in contact with the world of material substance, just as the world of mind-substance, and vital-substance has been? Planes or worlds of divine substance, like the supramental and the Satchidananda, do exist, though they are not yet a part of... spirit. In this one principle, matter, all the other principles of substances have entered in the Page 236 process of descent. Material world is a result of all the other worlds. The last world of descent becomes therefore the first world of ascent. When one reaches the last point of division, that point begins the first step of the ascent, backward to the spirit. Why does it become the... itself in a world of matter". To evolve a world of matter this is a construction which is adopted intentionally by the spirit. The next grade of substance is life. We have seen how matter operates. Now we will try to see how life operates. When the life-substance acts in its freedom, then desire is its dominating law. And on the plane of life it determines all the facts of vital plane on the ...
... Truth-Consciousness. And when it becomes the Truth-Consciousness then it becomes a parent or creator of the worlds that follow. The world of mind, the world of life and the world of matter are nothing else but a veiled working of the Supermind, a veiled working of the Truth-Consciousness. It is there working behind the working of mind, behind the working of life, behind the operation of the inconscient and... consequent imperfection from life. Sri Aurobindo says this is a derivative working of the Real-Idea of the Supermind. The Truth-Consciousness has seen the possibility of a mental world, a vital world and a material world. And it is that which has projected itself into actuality for us. So, as it is a derivative working, it is not necessary to abandon life, or abandon mind or abandon the body in order... many, the world. And the connection between the two is the link of the Supermind, the Truth-Consciousness, into which the Satchidananda or the infinite consciousness of the Eternal casts itself in a self-vision, a self-knowledge in which all the potentialities are held together. And it is the Supermind that projects itself into the world that we know,—in mind, life and body—in the mental, vital and physical ...
... KINGDOMS AND GODHEADS OF THE LITTLE MIND Aswapathy had to overpass the higher vital world as he had to reach the very Highest "In whom the world arid self grow true and one". The human journey upward cannot cease till that is reached. So long as the human being remains satisfied within the limits of its vital desires and their satisfaction, so long as "This creature hugs his limits to feel safe"... into a sky, lighted with an unseen light. These higher realms were realms of lucent mind which were quite different from the realms of the vital. The rays of these realms "Parting Life's sentient flow from Thought's self-poise" created a world—a new world—"On a ground reserved for doubt and reasoned guess". It was a meeting-ground of knowledge and ignorance. This mind "only sensed itself and outward... each trying to build a world in his own right. There knowledge is certain, joy and powers spontaneous. Though these planes are of a different constitution from that of man Page 213 "But since our secret selves are next of kin, A breath of unattained divinity Visits the imperfect earth on which we toil; "A thought comes down from the ideal worlds And moves us to new-model ...
... for a jaunt in the vital or mental world: I showed him how to go out of the body, how to get back into it, how to keep the consciousness, etc., I showed him many places telling him "There you must take this precaution, here you must do such and such a thing." And this continued for a long time.39 There was a Danish painter who saw Mirra in Paris during the First World War, and wanted her... visual sense .... " 21 Again, the occult is not one but a whole congeries of worlds: ... a gradation of regions ... of more and more ethereal or subtle regions, anyway, those farther and farther removed in their nature from the physical materiality we ordinarily see. And each one of these domains is a world in itself, having its forms and inhabited by beings with a density ... analogous... Mind, the Vital and the Physical. And Sri Aurobindo clinches the whole issue in the following passage: Its most important aim must be the discovery of the hidden truths and powers of the mind-force and the life-power and the greater forces of the concealed spirit. Occult science is, essentially, the science of the subliminal, the subliminal in ourselves and the subliminal in world-nature . ...
... see. And each one of these domains is a world in itself, having its forms and inhabited by beings with a density, one might say, analogous to that of the domain in which they live. Just as in the physical world we are of the same materiality as the physical world, so in the vital world, in the mental world, in the overmind world and in the supramental world - and in many others, infinite others... existing worlds of manifestation. There is one other essential point we have to note in this connection: these supraphysical worlds are not contentless voids; they have conscious beings of their own, habitually dwelling and functioning there. Just as these worlds are made of substances different from that of our physical world, the bodies of the beings of the supraphysical worlds are constituted... The ideas of the ancient Greeks regarding the "other worlds" and their denizens were not very clear or definite. They believed that the departed souls moved in the supraphysical worlds as so many somnambulists, in half sleep and in half wakefulness; and they were very much attached to the physical pleasures and comforts of the earthly physical world. The ancient Gauls maintained a different idea ...
... of the principle it erects; it can see that there is a material world-formula, a vital world-formula, a mental world-formula, a spiritual world-formula, and each can predominate in a world of its own and at the same time all can combine in one world as its constituent powers. The self-formulation of Conscious Force on which our world is based as an apparent Inconscience that conceals in itself a supreme... multitude of worlds or thrown together into one world in which the endlessly variable outcome of their play is the determinant of the creation, of its process, its course and its consequence. Since the Consciousness-Force of the eternal Existence is the universal creatrix, the nature of a given world will depend on whatever self-formulation of that Consciousness expresses itself in that world. Equally... substratum, but does not impart it to individual Mind in the evolution, does not bring it or has not yet brought it from the depths to the surface. An Overmind world would be a world of harmony; the world of Ignorance in which we live is a world of disharmony and struggle. And still we can recognise at once in the Overmind the original cosmic Maya, not a Maya of Ignorance but a Maya of Knowledge, yet ...
... from Matter is aided by the typal worlds of subtle Matter, of Life, Mind and still higher worlds between mind and supermind, as also by the supramental integral consciousness, which remains undiminished, even while involutionary process takes place in a Page 30 part movement of conscious force. The typal worlds are also called the involutionary worlds, since they came to be built up in... of consciousness in all forms of the Force which is at work in the world. Sri Aurobindo concludes: "Necessarily, in such a view, the word consciousness changes its meaning. It is no longer synonymous with mentality but indicates a self-aware force of existence of which mentality is a middle term; below mentality it sinks into vital and material movements which are for us subconscient; above, it rises... Aurobindo: "To climb to higher altitudes, to get a greater scope, to transform his lower nature, this is always a natural impulse of man as soon as he has made place for himself in the physical and vital world of earth and has a little leisure to consider his farther possibilities.... It is in his human nature, Page 36 in all human nature, to exceed itself by conscious evolution, to climb ...
... more "psychic." Thirdly, the vital 200 is trying to lay its hold on the physical as it never did before. It is always the sign that whenever the higher Truth is coming down, it throws up the hostile vital world on the surface, and you see all sorts of abnormal vital manifestations, such as an increase in the number of persons who go mad, earthquakes, etc. Also, the world is becoming more UNITED on... new Force," but what is "new"? It is as old as the world. It is we who are very young and become aware of a very old world! Years ago, as I was mentioning to Mother the work of an Italian scientist on the electric energy produced by the body's cells: It is ALL the same Force! she exclaimed The Power is mixed with different states: mental, vital, or even the purely material state, in which case it... pensive. Firstly, the knowledge of the Physical world has increased so much that it is on the verge of breaking its own bounds [perhaps in order to reach beyond them and find the little "pulsation" there]. Secondly, there is an attempt all over the world towards breaking the veil between the outer and the inner mental, the outer and the inner vital and even the outer and the inner physical [this ...
... that he was in the Ashram for doing Yoga, to cultivate union with the Divine, and not to run after vitalistic human relationships: Your consciousness will begin to get dulled, forces of the vital world will take advantage, and quite unawares you will be carried far into wrong tracks .... 35 Among other suggestions of the hostile forces is the denial of the very possibility of physical... far from yourself all sadness and all sentimental weakness." He should also remember that "Psychic love is always peaceful and joyous; it is the vital which dramatises and makes itself unhappy without any reason." 29 VI It is at the vital level, alas, that jealousies and quarrels are rife, but psychic or divine love transcends all rivalry and struggle. True love eschews mere sentiment... [the Service Tree in the Ashram courtyard], everything proclaims obedience to law. Happy the one who can find the divine law beautiful.. .. 1 Although it is not easy to get entry into the world invisible yet omnipresent of the Spirit, his new-found faith was such that he apostrophised the Mother in a rhapsody: O Mother ... It is part of the attributes of your power to help the men ...
... Sri Aurobindo and the Mother often said that the lower, dark vital forces had made a massive inrush upon the Earth during the First World War. “The First World War was the result of tremendous descent of the vital forces – the hostile forces of the vital world – into the material world.” (The Mother: Questions and Answers 1953, p. 184). ... mass which has already a common vital and is rapidly forming a common mental existence. A great precipitating and transforming shock was needed which should make this subtle organic unity manifest and reveal the necessity and create the will for a closer and organised union and this shock came with the Great War [i.e. the First World War]: The idea of a World-State or world-union has been born not only... into death with all his conscious powers. This means that he exists in a supramentalised vital and mental body somewhere in a corresponding supramental world. The Mother often referred to “Sri Aurobindo’s abode” in “the subtle physical”, i.e. in a supramental world 57 where she and many of the followers still among the living went to visit him, and where some of the disciples who had left their ...
... is either the man appearing in his vital body or it is a fragment of his vital structure that is seized on by some force or being of the vital world for its own purpose. For normally the vital being with its personality exists after the dissolution of the physical body for some time only; afterwards it passes away into the vital plane where it remains till the vital sheath dissolves. Next one passes... the man appearing in his vital body or it is a fragment of his vital that is seized on by some vital force or being. The vital part of us normally exists after the dissolution of the body for some time and passes away into the vital plane where it remains till the vital sheath dissolves. Afterwards it passes, if it is mentally evolved, in the mental sheath to some mental world and finally the psychic... passes in the mental sheath, to some mental world; but finally the soul leaves its mental sheath also and goes to its place of rest. If the mental is strongly developed, then the mental being can remain and so also can the strongly developed vital, provided they are organised by and centred around the true psychic being—they then share the immortality of the psychic. But ordinarily this does not happen; ...
... great ocean of life around but with the help of imagination it can create powerful, new forms which have a great appeal for life. There is a plane of higher vital being, a higher vital world, —far above the plane of ordinary life of every day where forms of great power and beauty exist. An artist can either rise to this plane occasionally and draw inspiration for his work from there. He can straightway... being that renders the task of the artist very difficult. Very often he mistakes his vital being that is interested in life and movement, his desire-soul, for his true being. It is even true that this Vital being in man, his being of life-force, can and often does create great art. In all true artistic creation this vital element is needed to give life to it. It draws its material not merely from the great... His book "Candle of vision" bears witness to his experience of it. The case of Raihana Taiyabji, whose book "The heart of a Gopi" is an illustration of such receptivity of forms from the inner worlds, proves that it is capable of being useful today. The most striking example however, so far as the field of painting is concerned, is that of the great Bengali artist, Abanindranath Tagore. In his ...
... has spread out the vital world supported in our pleasant things and plenitude of their force in the labouring life-powers and their sweet yield in the radiant herds and will in men’s hearts and the god-force in the waters of existence and the sun of truth in our mental heaven and the wine of delight on the hill of being. (3) The Encompasser created with downward door the world that holds his embracing... the God-Mind come forcefully to us yoking his bright coursers and grow drunken with the wine of the midday offering. (5) O Sun of Truth, when the Light of thy world has become the undivine and pierced thee with the darkness, then the worlds and their peoples think like a man bewildered and Page 283 deluded who finds not the Field which he is seeking (or knows not the field of his movement)... being Page 305 their happy state for the twofold world and the fourfold. Yea, he manifests all Heaven and in his outshining follows the march of the Dawn. (3) The other gods follow his march and by the force of his energy they attain to the vastness of the God, the lord of varied lustres who has measured out the earthly worlds by his large might, the godhead creative. (4) And thou ...
... concrete contact with the Mother in those planes (mental, vital, psychic worlds) etc. Visions come from all planes and are of all kinds and different values. Some are of very great value and importance, others are a play of the mind or vital and are good only for their own special purpose, others are formations of the mind and vital plane, some of which may have truth, while others are false... visions for 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... then there is no need to drive them away—one has only to let them pass. When one does sadhana an inner mind which is within us awakes and sees by an inner vision images of all things in this world and other worlds—this power of vision has its use, though one has not to be attached to it; one can let them pass with a quiet mind, neither fixing on them nor driving them away. This kind of vision ...
... all branches of discovery pursued by the positive sciences in their exploration of the cosmos, the planet, the living beings, the body, the cell, the atomic and subatomic world, etc. It will be equally valid for the inner worlds, their beings, man, the soul of man, the occult and spiritual capacities of man, and his possibilities of transformation. Science has remained limited by its dominant principle... is one of the least understood issues in religion and philosophy, especially in the West – the divine Consciousness is present, “hidden”, in everything upon the Earth; in beings belonging to the vital world, even the amoeba and the snail, this Presence may be called “the divine spark”; in human beings there is an evolving “psychic being” with the divine spark as its core and growing around it. It is... to us ages of golden joy, the descent frightfully easy.” 27 “A Habitable Planet in an Inhabitable System” 28 This earth alone is not our teacher and nurse; The powers of all the worlds have entrance here . 29 “[Sri Aurobindo] does not take the whole universe into account”, said the Mother when commenting upon a passage of The Life Divine . “He has taken terrestrial life, that ...
... will have no further cause for their existence. VII In Conversation VI, the Mother takes us to what is for us the uncharted world of the bodiless vital beings, and explains the dangers of our inadvertent or imprudent exposure to it. But sometimes such vital beings also inhabit human forms that have come to be known as vampires. Romen Palit writes that the Mother once warned him against ... most of the money-resources of the world, and hence industry, business and commerce as well. While these possessed vampires readily respond to vitalistic pulls like sex, power, politics, fame, gambling, gluttony, drunkenness and luxurious living, they are insensitive to good causes and allergic to the intimations of the Spirit: In those who are slaves of vital beings, the desire for truth and... and light and spiritual achievement, even if it at all touches them, cannot balance the desire for money. 31 In our fight against the hostile forces of the vital world, - the creatures of falsehood, the agents of evil, the children of darkness, - the human body, with its layers of density and grooves of resistance, is a natural fortress of protection. The Yoga has to be done while in the body ...
... occupied or used by some "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 c... 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 it will be... existence of a soul which uses the body even if it is also conditioned by it. Laws of Nature do not disprove the existence of God. The fact of a material world to which our instruments are accorded does not disprove the existence of less material worlds which certain subtler instruments can show to us. Occult Forces [ Occult forces: ] The forces that can only be known by going behind the veil of ...
... the sake of precision: "Some parts of the vital are worlds of disorder and the beings inhabiting the vital have no psychic being. The psychic being exists only upon earth, in the physical world. That is why I said in brief that the divine spark, which organises the psychic, passed over the worlds of disorder and manifested itself directly in the physical world to create there this possibility of organisation... to perfect oneself and to live a spiritual life one must leave the world. There are also symbolic and premonitory dreams, but very rarely do dreams consist of true memories of past lives, because for that one must dream in one's psychic consciousness and there are not many who are capable of this. One dreams in the mental or vital consciousness but rarely does one dream in the psychic consciousness... in Matter—the diffusion of the divine Consciousness had only one object: to make possible an organisation which would be under the direct influence of the Divine. That is why it passes over all the worlds of disorder. 1 It may hence be said that the Origin of the soul is also in the atom, in all the elements constituting the atom, but it is only the Origin.... I must tell you that when it is fully ...
... It is not possible for a vital Force or Being to invade or take possession unless there are doors open for it to enter. The door may be a vital consent or affinity or a physical defect in the being." 42 "Insanity is always due to a vital attack, or rather possession although there is often a physical reason as well. Hysteria is due to a pressure from the vital world and there may be momentary... & Schuster, Inc., 1983), has written about "the psychology of evil". Page 112 world - the realm of desires and life-energies existing above the material universe. Marked physical or psychological weaknesses create an opening by which a person is influenced, attacked or even possessed by such vital Forces, leading to different types of psychiatric disturbances as explained in the following... passage is that the "anguish of desire" constitutes an inherent disturbance of the vital. As long as the vital consciousness prevails, one is in "an unpleasant state" of desiring, and it is impossible to have inner peace. Besides desire, the vital is the spring of a host of other disturbing feelings. One of the chief vital disturbances is fear. As a rule, human beings are constantly subject to fear ...
... places she visited – among them the Daiunji temple – and people she met, such as Rabindranath Tagore. ‘The art of Japan is a kind of a direct mental expression in physical life. The Japanese use the vital world very little. Their art is extremely mentalized; their life is extremely mentalized. It expresses in detail quite precise mental formations. Only in the physical do they have spontaneously the sense... Among the other people the Richards met in Tokyo was ‘a son of Tolstoy,’ on a world tour to propagate his bizarre ideas about redeeming the world. As the world was obviously in a deep crisis, the proposals for an ideal solution were legion and often quite eccentric. ‘In Japan I met Tolstoy’s son who was on a world tour for “the good of mankind’s great unity.” His solution was very simple: everybody... the time Paul Richard expounded, on the one hand, the world vision he had received from Sri Aurobindo: a world in upheaval which was the symptom of a profound change, a new phase of evolution leading towards world unity and a suprahuman future. On the other hand, as we have been able to see in the few quotations culled from To Japan, his world unity was a precondition for the total subjection of all ...
... —apparently new at least in 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,... call an intelligence of the life-mind, dynamic, vital, nervous, more open, though still obscurely, to the psychic, capable of a first soul-formation, though only of an obscurer life-soul,—not the psychic being, but a frontal formation of the vital Purusha. This life-soul concretely senses Page 746 and contacts the things of the life-world, and tries to realise them here; it attaches immense... our secret subliminal vital being and is in veiled contact with a life-world to which it can easily open and so feel the unseen dynamic forces and realities behind the material universe. There is an inner life-mind which does not need for its perceptions the evidence of the physical senses, is not limited by them; for on this level our inner life and the inner life of the world become real to us independent ...
... symbols taken from the physical world to represent other worlds that are in it and behind it. Each one is a principle that constitutes the fundamental nature of a particular plane of existence. Earth represents the material world itself, Matter or existence in its most concrete, its grossest form. It is the basis of existence, the world that supports other worlds (dharā, dharitrī) , the first... mind; the sun, on the other hand, is the knowledge and consciousness that is beyond the mind – it is the eye of the Gods.4 Man has two aspects or natures; he dwells in two worlds. The first is the manifest world-the world of the body, the life ¹ Karmaņā pitŗloka vidyayā devolokah (jayyāh) – Brihadaranyaka, 1.5.16. ² Devalokādādityam... pitrlokāccandram 0 Ibid., VI. 2.15.16. ... the lowest of the several ranges of creation. In man it is his body. The principle here is that of stability, substantiality, firmness, consistency. Water represents the next rung – the vital world, the world life-force (prāna). Physiologically also we know that water is the element forming three-fourths of the constituents of a living body and that dead and dry are synonymous terms; it is the ...
... hostile vital world on the surface, and you see all sorts of abnormal vital manifestations, such as increase in the number of visions persons who go mad, earth-quakes etc. Also, the world is becoming more united on account of the discoveries of modern science .... Such a union is the condition for the highest Truth coming down .... Fourthly, the rise of persons who wield tremendous vital influence... Firstly, the knowledge of the physical world has increased so much that it is on the verge of breaking its own bounds. Secondly, there is an attempt all over the world towards breaking the veil between the outer and the inner mental, the outer and even the inner vital even the outer and the inner physical. Men are becoming more 'psychic". Thirdly, the vital is trying to lay its hold on the physical... directly on the mental and on the vital being through the illumined mind; he represents the Purusha element whose strength is predominantly in illumined knowledge and the power that acts in this knowledge, while the psychic being supports this action and helps to transform the physical and the vital plane. Mina acts directly on the psychic being and on the emotional vital and physical being through ...
... marvellous tapestry of the dream-condition: how one kind of dream follows another and yet another - first the mind's fantasies, then the vital's adventures, then the subtle physical's wanderings. Within a few hours - within an hour perhaps - how many occult worlds haven't been traversed! But the connections between them are not easy to build. No wonder no two dreams are ever altogether alike: ... adverse forces are but the denizens of the vital underworld, the human being with a soul of his own stands on a wholly different footing: In a human being, there is the divine Presence and the psychic being - at the beginning embryonic, but in the end a being wholly formed, conscious, independent, individualised. That does not exist in the vital world. Page 557 It is a special... the universe, no two minutes will ever be alike. And men obstinately want to make rules! It is thus that the Mother's talks traverse the worlds with easy assurance, and build bridgeheads too to help the less experienced travellers of the occult worlds.. The next talk — on meditation - is frank and forthright, and surprises with its unexpected sallies and also satisfies with its profound ...
... even when this humanity knew little or nothing of it; for the world in former times consisted of many separate worlds, and it could take a long time before an event of global importance penetrated from the one into the other. This time, and from the very start, the intention of the avataric incarnation was humanity and the one world. Nobody lives any longer outside the ongoing process of transformation... It is always the sign that whenever the higher Truth is coming down, it throws up the hostile vital world on the surface, and you see all sorts of abnormal vital manifestations, such as an increase in the number of persons who go mad, earthquakes, etc.’ We have already been reflecting on this. The vital beings perform their frenetic dance in an orgy of violence and stupefaction, in a hellish roar... all over the world towards breaking the veil between the outer and the inner mental, the outer and the inner vital and even the outer and the inner physical.’ People are becoming more ‘psychic’ he said, using the word in the ordinary sense (according to A.B. Purani’s notes). A visit to any bookshop can only confirm Sri Aurobindo’s assertion. Sri Aurobindo’s third indication: ‘The vital is trying to ...
... engineering dreams and visions, when he is concentrating all his efforts with the view to become a super-yogi? You must dismiss these mental limitations if you want to understand the occult worlds. The vital world has its own law of working, system of events and symbols—it is not bound by the waking mind. Please give him a satisfactory reply, and what about his letter remaining with you for eternity... bizarre poem should come out in a beautiful place? Quite usual. The better things are, the more melancholy one can become. Luxury of contradiction proper to the vital nature. Funny for the intelligence, quite natural according to vital logic. ... Guru, I am not at all satisfied with my poems. I'll have to stop writing. Are you ever satisfied? That's not a reason for stopping. Shall I... days' labour! Why haven't I been able to do it? Because of your mind which is active. Next, what about D who could't write a single line and flourished in so short a time? That was his vital vigour and confidence. As for you, you refuse to enthuse. Sir, the mystery is a little deeper, methinks. If you so wanted this instant, you could have made me an "old man" or at least more than ...
... their vital and mental difficulties, whether born or unborn. You have called around you or rather we have come to you, a jumble of assorted elements, (I call no one—says your thundering voice, but don't you really call even from within?) for yoga which seems to me a great gamble like that of Monte Carlo. Whom have I called? If they were not, they would not be representative of the world which... Outburst of emotion. × Different types of demons, hostile beings of the vital world. × A well-known Scottish writer of the mid-19th century who laid great stress on the importance... of vital questioning and resistance. You will agree then that women are more intuitive than men? Yes, that of course—but it is the spontaneous intuition of the heart or of the vital mind, not the Intuition with a capital I . As they live in the vital, their difficulties in the sadhana will be less, I suppose. Not at all. How can living in the vital make things easier? The vital is ...
... symbols taken from the physical world to represent other worlds that are in it and behind it. Each one is a principle that constitutes the fundamental nature of a particular plane of existence. Earth represents the material world itself, Matter or existence in its most concrete, its grossest form. It is the basis of existence, the world that supports other worlds (dhara, dharitri), the first... mind; the sun, on the other hand, is the knowledge and consciousness that is beyond the mind— it is the eye of the Gods. 4 Man has two aspects or natures; he dwells in two worlds. The first is the manifest world—the world of the body, the life 1 Karmapa pitrloko vidyaya devalokah (jayyaft)—Brihadaranyaka, 1.5.16. 2 Devalokddadityam. .pitrlokaccandram—Ibid., VI. 2.15.16. 3 ... the lowest of the several ranges of creation. In man it is his body. The principle here is that of stability, substantiality, firmness, consistency. Water represents the next rung—the vital world, the world of life-force (prana). Physiologically also we know that water is the element forming three-fourths of the constituents of a living body and that dead and dry are synonymous terms; it is ...
... three worlds. You cast into the fire the three lives... Tu renonces aux trois mondes. Tu jettes dans le feu les trois vies . I took three grains of rice, I took a little ghee; I cast them into the fire. —You renounce the mental world, the brilliant world, all its gods and its forms, you cast them into the fire: Aum Svaha . I cast them into the fire. —You renounce the vital world and all... lights and powers, you, east them into the fire: Aum Svaha . I cast them into the fire. —You renounce the physical world, your flesh and its desires, your emotions, your thirsts, you cast them into the fire: Aum Svaha . I cast them into the fire. —You renounce all the worlds. You have no more home, no more ties, no more country, you are the son of the Fire. I am the son of the Fire. —You... that offering of fire which sang forth in my heart, I was that living fire: O Fire, O great Fire, I know not what they say, I understand not their words or their worlds or their gestures; I understand that I am here, at the end of the worlds, at the end of the gestures, alone and naked before thee, and what is needed? What is the truth, the simple truth, tell me, I ask for nothing but the truth, utterly ...
... strange period in which Mother was feeling her way between two worlds in search of the new species, or the new type, with all the vertigo that results from leaving a "solid" world for a new world whose laws She did not know very well. But what is it we call "solidity" if not a crystallized habit? For fish, water is perfectly solid. The world is but a huge habit. Hence it would be more accurate to speak... we were promised it, and they aren't vain promises), the day the earth manifests That, it will be a glory.... Its rather curious: the vital world is magnificent, the mental world has its splendors, the overmental world with all its gods (who are extant beings, I know them well) is truly very beautiful; but I tell you, since I had that Contact, I have found all that hollow—hollow and... lacking the... more of it than they can bear. The world of tomorrow, or of the day after tomorrow... an inexpressible glory.... I don't know if this world (I am not talking of the earth alone, but of the present universe), if this world will be followed by others or if it will itself go on, or if... but That, which I am talking about and calling "Love," is the Master of this world. The day when the earth (because we ...
... there is the Asuric plane or world from which this idea of suffering comes; You said that suffering is the law of their development. Is suffering the only law ? Sri Aurobindo : There are two worlds : the one Divine and the other Asuric. The Divine is a world of harmony, idyllic beauty where everything moves in order. You may call it a world of "ideals" – a world of freedom – i.e. free movement... clearly see these two worlds and distinguish Page 205 the impulses coming from there. But if you want I manifest the Truth here, you have to climb above some still higher plane from where the world of the Gods and the Asuric world derive their truth. When I am speaking of the Divine world I am not speaking of "the greater Gods". Both Daivic and Asuric world deviate the Sadhaka... the ordinary sense. He had broken the veil between the mental and the vital planes, opened himself to the worlds behind them, and he was unable to bear all that followed. There I used the word in the sense of the "subliminal self". Disciple : Is the activity of the psychic being mainly in , the inner mental,, the inner vital being or is it subconscious ? Sri Aurobindo ...
... people, who resort to these external stimulants, ninety percent never go beyondthe vital consciousness. They get into it and then the vital is a great builder : it constructs any number of things, worlds, states etc. It can give you an idea that you are in the Highest. There are any number of Siddhis on the vital plane and if you have proper knowledge you can get them by using these things. And even... having a great control over the vital plane only is generally known as a Rakshasa, The Asura controls his mind and his vital being. There is a great possibility of committing a blunder in the Dattatraya path. Disciple : In the Avadhuta Gita, attributed to Datta, great stress is laid on vairagya, renunciation of the world. It teaches the abandonment of the world and nature. Sri Aurobindo... good opening. Disciple : It is said that in the Vāman , incarnation God, in the form of the dwarf, demanded three steps from the Titan, Bali. Does that signify that the three worlds – the physical, the vital and the mental – were in the Asura's possession and the Divine demanded that they should be liberated and become the dominions of God himself ? Sri Aurobindo : I suppose so ; ...
... diamond of flawless bliss. 75 This flawless bliss is occult and cabbalistic in nature. The beings of this world urge Savitri to end her quest and settle down with them. Later in Savitri Hiranyagarbha is aptly described as follows: He builds the secret uncreated worlds. Armed with the golden speech, the diamond eye, His is the vision and the prophecy. 76 Hiranyagarbha... treasures. With reference to this the Mother narrates her experience in the occult region where she had encountered an immense black Serpent. This Serpent prevented her from entering the cave of the vital world. 78 The Puranas also contain references to the jewel-serpent or Nagamani. In Savitri we have an echo of these: In the deep subconscient glowed her jewel-lamp; Lifted, it showed the... 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 of the earth where danger hides behind delight. In the ...
... intervenes for it to be immediately controlled. Mother dearest, the vital desires will vanish as gradually my body becomes weaker, won't they? Certainly not; quite on the contrary, to be able to conquer the desires of the vital one must have an excellent physical equilibrium and sound health. In the vital world attraction and repulsion are the right and wrong sides of the same thing... spiritual life. XI The vital is at once the place of desires and energies, impulses and passions, of cowardice, but also of heroism—to bridle it is to turn all this towards the divine Will and submit it to this Will. The vital being seeks only power—material possession and terrestrial power. This also is false. The higher part of the vital being, like the higher part of the... Him. Page 192 This desire to live in an intellectual atmosphere—doesn't it show that my mind can govern the vital? No, it only shows that in your consciousness the mind takes a bigger place than the vital. What I call the domination of the mind over the vital is when the latter takes no initiative, accepts no impulse which has not been first sanctioned by the mind, when no desire ...
... 138. Page 31 She would go out of her body and become conscious in the vital world (there were many intermediary states, too, if one cared to explore them). After the vital came the mental: you consciously went out of the vital body, you left it behind (you could see it) and you entered the mental world. Then you left the mental body and entered into.... They used different words, another... this Inconscience; the Supreme, that is, created a new emanation, which didn't pass through the intermediate world (because, according to the story, the universal Mother first created all the gods who, when they descended, remained in contact with the Supreme and created all the intermediate worlds to counterbalance this fall—it's the old story of the 'Fall', this fall into the Inconscient. But that wasn't... support—the link was cut. Then I knew. Of course, I was in a special state; I was doing a fully conscious work with all the vital power, and I was in control not only of my surroundings but.... You see, what happens is a kind of reversal of consciousness: you begin to belong to another world; you feel this quite distinctly. Theon instantly told me to concentrate (I was finding it all interesting— (Mother laughs)— ...
... wandering in the vital world. All of a sudden I saw that a huge, camel-like creature was crushing me with its body. Its body was covered with soft thorns. It was trying to crush me with those thorns. It was quite painful. I started calling Mother. Mother answered: "There, everything is all right." Saying this she brought me back into the body. She then explained to me that I had seen a vital being. But it... continued to laugh: "No, that's not the reason at all! You people don't know how to eat fresh fruit!" And then there was one more outburst of laughter. Pavitra-da had participated in the First World War. A few days after the War ended he decided to turn to the spiritual path. He went to Mongolia in search of a guru and stayed there with a group of lamas. Once while recounting his adventures... Aurobindo's work. It was then that on hearing about Sri Aurobindo and Mother he came to Pondicherry to see them. He never left until the end of his life. Page 242 During the Second World War, the French authorities ordered him to enlist. But somehow these orders never reached him and so he did not have to leave Pondicherry to go to France to join the War. With single-minded devotion ...
... universe, of the physical world, vital world, mental world and even of the higher worlds, — do not provide that concreteness that the sensations of vision and audition provide to human consciousness. And nothing proves to the human consciousness the reality of the Real as the images that are captured in direct vision, when the eyes are opened and the panorama of the world gets imprinted on sensations... In other words, he becomes a centre of the Divine delight shedding it on all the world and attracting all to it as to a fountain of joy and love and self-fulfillment in the universe. Thirdly, one who lives in Brahman consciousness is led to a further climax, namely, the knowledge of the mighty lord of all the worlds, the friend of all creatures and the knowledge of Him as the Enjoyer of sacrifice... the ocean, even so these great warriors of this human world are entering into Thy fierce-flaming mouth. Just as moth with accelerated velocity enters into blazing fire to perish, so too all these people are entering with accelerated Page 106 velocity into Thy mouths for their destruction. O Vishnu! Thou art devouring all the worlds by Thy blazing mouths and Thou art licking them up. They ...
... gifts. When one leaves the physical being and goes into the vital world he must know how to protect himself or someone must protect him. Disciple : Do not space and time exist on the vital plane ? Sri Aurobindo : The vital plane has its own time and space. There is a relation between the physical and the vital planes. There is an Infinite with extension and an Infinite without... in the vital world which are both true and false and the Sadhaka of this path has to distinguish between them. The Vital is a world full of lustre and colour and hallucination which try to ape the Supramental movements. As I said the other day, it cinematographs the higher movements. It is also full of power. If he wants to do this Yoga he must begin again; make his mind and vital being calm... was from Shakti or Kali, though he was repeatedly warned against it. iv. He could not distinguish between what was true and what came to him from the vital and the lower world. v. At present X is completely under the control of vital suggestions and hallucinations with the erotic impulse behind them and all his saying that he is doing what I tell him and that "my concentration helps him" ...
... prove that what was at stake immensely surpassed anything that anybody realized. ‘The Vital World has descended upon the Physical,’ said Sri Aurobindo. ‘That is why the intellectuals are getting perplexed at the destruction of their civilization, of all the values they had made and stood for. They deny the worlds beyond the physical and so they are bound to be perplexed.’ 29 As early as the... as we know, real and conscious beings. They exist in a double hierarchy. There is, on the one hand, the hierarchy descending from the Asuras (mental and higher vital) downwards via the Rakshasas (lower vital) to the Pishachas (lowest vital); there are, on the other hand, the hierarchies descending in uncountable strata of beings cascading, as it were, from the main forces in each of the three categories... a London cab driver. (Stalin, on the contrary, was not human, in the sense that he did not have a soul but was a direct incarnation of a vital being.) ‘It is the vital possession that gives [Hitler] his size and greatness,’ said Sri Aurobindo. ‘Without this vital Power he would be a crudely amiable fellow with some hobbies and eccentricities. It is in these kind of people whose psychic is undeveloped ...
... would restore men to the self-confident divinity with which nature had endowed them. They would be able to trust their instincts, would no longer be citizens of two worlds, but would be rooted in the single, eternal life of this world.’ 20 A vision of this kind Rauschning would not have been able to invent all by himself — and Hitler neither. Hitler considered himself more and more as the prototype... Munich, he compared them respectively to a fly and a spider watching the fly from its web. He said that Hermann Goering and Joseph Goebbels, as well as Hitler, were possessed by ‘forces from the vital world’. Gregor Strasser, a true idealist and one of Hitler’s companions of the first hour, who would soon disagree with him and pay for his idealism and disagreement with his life, warned a friend of his:... will dissolve it instead of the police doing it. They have no idea about the world and talk like little children. Hitler is the greatest menace the world has ever met. If Hitler wins, do they think that India has any chance of being free? It is a well-known fact that Hitler has an eye on India. He is openly talking of world-empire. He will turn towards the Balkans, crushing Italy on the way, which would ...
... is part of the general "aberration" that has beset the modern world owing to the descent of the vital world into the physical—cubist and surrealist painting, modernist poetry, Nazi politics, psycho-analysis—the more extravagant the thing, the greater its reputation and success. 1 June 1936 What is it that makes the intellectual world believe without scrutinising ideas such as Freud's? Is it a... Too sensitive to be quite at ease with the world and also perhaps too clear-sighted. Much fineness of mind and refinement of the vital nature. March 1935 Novels deal with the vital life of men, so necessarily they bring that atmosphere. Saratchandra is a highly emotional writer with a great power of presenting the feelings and movements of the human vital. 13 March 1936 Alexander Dumas ... at the bottom of all individual souls, but one single soul manifesting itself infinitely in different forms: the soul of the world." What does Plotinus mean by soul and intelligence in this passage? I think simply Plotinus in speaking of soul has made a jumble of vital ( prāna ), manas and soul (ψυχή)—while by intelligence he means buddhi (cosmic), but endows the buddhi with the qualities ...
... 20 April 1936 Avatars, unlike Vibhutis, do not need to satisfy their vital. Why should they not? Page 429 For the Avatar's vital has no cravings and desires as our vital has. He is above them. And if he seems to be satisfying them, it is only to acquire experience and knowledge of the vital world. All that is wrong. The Avatar takes upon himself the nature of humanity in... true effect, they are perfectly irrational and unreal and meaningless. The Divine does not need to suffer or struggle for himself; if he takes on these things it is in order to bear the world-burden and help the world and men; and if these sufferings and struggles are to be of any help, they must be real. A sham or falsehood cannot help. They must be as real as the struggles and sufferings of men th... in leaving Arjuna in such a helpless condition after his withdrawal from the world? It is said that it was done to break Arjuna's pride so that he might see his strength was not his, but the Divine's alone. Page 430 Throughout the history of human evolution we see that the Avatar brings light into the world. But when he retires, very little of this light remains. There is no substantial ...
... You have a very strong vital with a great communicative and creative power which is not shut up in itself but expansive and naturally flows out on those around it. Even ordinarily in the world people easily turn to such a strong and expansive vital and draw upon it for strength and assistance. In your case this is enhanced by your psychic being having the habit of using your vital force for communication... not as dangerous as ambition, pride, egoism etc. There may very well be,—though I don't know that anyone here came into contact with Apsaras; it is generally less attractive females from the vital world who are after them, usually in the shape of sadhikas, relatives etc. The sadhaks here don't seem to be so aesthetic as the ancient Rishis. It would be pretty dangerous, however, if they did contact... here, because if vital relations are debarred, nothing remains except a simple exchange of words? What about the true (not the pretended) psychic and spiritual—forgetting sex? The relation has to be limited as it is because sex immediately trots into the front. You are invited to live above the vital and deeper than the vital—then only you can use the Page 712 vital aright. Buddha was ...
... The vital world has descended upon the physical. That is why the intellectuals are getting perplexed at the destruction of their civilisation, of all the values they had cherished and stood for. They deny the existence of the world beyond the physical and so they are bound to be perplexed. In another context, Sri Aurobindo observed, "It is a very simple thing to see that Hitler wants world-domination... We shall also witness Sri Aurobindo's vital interest in India's struggle for freedom, for which he had himself launched the first movement, awakening the country to her birthright and aiding her later by his decisive spiritual force towards its achievement. Though we in the Ashram are not supposed to take part in politics, we are not at all indifferent to world affairs. In fact, Sri Aurobindo has... will dispel the prevailing universal misconception that Sri Aurobindo was a world-shunning Yogi immersed in his own sadhana. It will show, on the contrary, how much he was concerned with the "good of humanity". Far from taking only a passive interest in the vast conflict, the modern Kurukshetra, where the fate of the entire world was being decided, he actively participated in it with his spiritual Force ...
... in order to let You know about it.) There are thieves in the subtle world just as in the outer world. But you must close to them the doors of your thoughts and feelings as carefully as a prudent man bolts the doors of his house. These suggestions of sadness, despair and suicide come from them (the thieves of the vital world), because it is when you are depressed that they are best able to rob... but rather say: I shall tell her everything quite frankly. 11 December 1932 Dear Mother, I am never satisfied, even though You have given me Page 66 a very rare chance. My vital being always wants more and more; it is never satisfied with what You give it. My child, I am going to reveal something that you will try to understand: you are dissatisfied not because I fail to... child, I am sure I didn't tell you that you wanted to hide something from me. When you started crying under the pressure I was putting on you in meditation to calm the restlessness of your mind and vital, I thought that it might relieve you to tell me the cause of your sorrow, and when you didn't reply, I simply asked whether you wanted to speak, so as not to insist unnecessarily. You were mistaken ...
... above the head, opening out into an immense sun, dazzling and multicoloured, whence a rain of golden light fell covering all the earth. ...' - Jul-Aug 4 The First World War breaks out in Europe: 'The dark forces from the vital world came down on earth and sought to possess the consciousness of man. They left their traces even after the war was over.' - Aug 15 First issue of the monthly phi... themselves, an absolutely new vibration....' 1958 Feb 3 Her earth-consciousness participates for an hour in her work of creating an intermediate zone between the supramental and the physical worlds out of a supramental substance 'closest to the physical'. This zone is represented in her experience as a huge boat 'where people who are destined for the supramental life are trained' under her s... together in meditation every night for an hour.' Gives the talk 'To the Women of Japan'. Meets one of Tolstoy's sons, then on a tour to promote world unity through uniformity of dress, language, life style etc. Tells him, 'It would be a poor world, not worth living in.' Meets Rabindranath Tagore in Tokyo. Sketches him. Meditates with him. He tells her he found what was written in the Arya ...
... 1.It is the same love which is addressed to a 'carnal prize' and towards the Divine. I should imagine that one who approached the Divine with a 'carnal' or untransformed vital love would embrace something of the vital world but certainly get nowhere near the Divine. 2.The Divine in itself is something cold and empty and dark — only human love gives it some warmth and attraction. I always thought... is trying to convince a young girl that she indeed loves him. His argument, in the words of J.G. Vivian, is as follows: I love you; therefore I am a lover. All the world loves a lover; and you are all the world to me. Consequently you love me." It is so easy and natural for an uninstructed or inattentive layman to commit fallacies in his reasoning. The study of logic as a ... make a mess of the world's affairs: the intellectuals reason and show what their minds show them, which is far from being always the truth, for it is generally decided by intellectual preferences and the mind's inborn or education-inculcated angle of vision, — but even if they see the Truth, they have no power to enforce it. So between blind power and seeing impotence the world moves, achieving destiny ...
... psychic being covers itself with the supramentalized substance, in other words it forms a supramental body which exists in the supramental world of the true physical, just like it earlier formed a material-vital-mental body (adhara) in the material-vital-mental world. This is not something we can ‘understand’ 92 , but we can conceive that it fits into the line of evolution with the soul as the central... again the Mother has described the ‘true physical’ as more material, more concrete, more real, more complete and much more powerful than the physical we are familiar with. She also said that the two worlds existed separately and inside one another. ‘I think that [the true physical], now that the Supramental has descended, will become more and more active on earth. For it is in the subtle physical [which... now probably looked acceptable to her because of her own progress. That she had remained working on Earth in 1956 and 1962 has no doubt shortened the process by thousands of years. ‘The world unknowing for the world she stood.’ But the time of the presence of her earthly body among humankind was nearly over. 1972 was the centenary year of Sri Aurobindo’s birth. The Mother wanted it to be celebrated ...
... there actually is in legends and folktales. The ‘king of cats’ is a being from the vital world, which means that the members of his species incarnate vital forces. Cats are generally held to be independent animals, but the Mother said that one can communicate with them on condition that one knows how to apply one’s vital force. Her concern with the cats in the household was indeed a special one: she wanted... become the Divine Seer and therefore Doer on that level. To have an idea of what the ‘Supramental’ or ‘Supermind’ is, we have to take into account that our world is an evolutionary world. There is Matter (the mineral kingdom), the Vital (the kingdom of plants and animals), the Mental (the kingdom of the human being, prepared in the primates), and the Overmind (the kingdoms of the Gods), all with... to taking up ‘his work in the world,’ wherever that might happen to be. And he saw as an unquestionable necessity the formation of a group of people interested in and dedicated to the goal of the transformation of humankind and the world. The reason for this necessity was that one person can be cosmically expanded in his or her consciousness and even in his or her vital being, but not physically, as ...
... the one through the other, ‘a world unfurling at each moment.’ And they thought that she was dozing, that she drowsed her time away. ‘Look, Mother is falling asleep again!’ Or they thought she was ‘in trance.’ A yogic trance is most often an exteriorization into one of the worlds above the mental; the trance of the mediums is mostly an exteriorization into a vital world. But the Mother did not exteriorize... scale of Being. The psyche is ‘behind’ the other gradations and uses them for its growth, just as the psychic world is ‘behind’ the other worlds. The psyche uses the substance of the various levels of existence as its sheaths or coatings in the material manifestation in order to climb the World Stair from the lowest Inconscience, into which it was sent as pure Love, up to the highest Ananda , which is... in itself in the supramental world, Sri Aurobindo knew without any doubt, for it was the revelation of the Supermind which had made his avataric task clear to him. As ‘traveller of the worlds,’ who wrote down a few of his experiences in the grandiose second ‘book’ of Savitri, he had been up to the ultimate limit of the manifestation, even beyond the supramental worlds, that is. Nevertheless, he ...
... whether it was really the Mother. How had she turned so young? and to this little girl we made pranam! What significance? It was in the vital world, I suppose; there anything may happen. Can't say that I catch any symbolic significance in it. Perhaps your vital was trying to find a ground for বাৎসল্য ভাব. 44 Had a dream of a death also in the Asram... Well, if you go on dreaming like that... existence of a soul which uses the body even if it is also conditioned by it. Laws of Nature do not disprove the existence of God. The fact of a material world to which our instruments are accorded does not disprove the existence of less material worlds which certain subtler instruments can show to us. But Ramakrishna was an Avatar, Sir! An Avatar to be attacked and given insufferable pains! Why... sadhana or no sadhana, you were conquering death, disease, i.e. everything depended on your success; now it seems a lot depends on us poor folks, in this vital matter. [Sri Aurobindo underlined "this vital matter".] Why vital? What is vital is the supramental change of consciousness—conquest of death, is something minor and, as I have always said, the last physical result of it, not the first ...
... the being goes there and why? The vital world is mostly like that and those who live exclusively in the physical and the vital go there after death... But there is the Grace!... 2 August 1966 Page 285 Mother, About the vital world described in "Love and Death" you said that "those who live exclusively in the physical and the vital go there after death". Does it follow... upset. These are vital perturbations which show themselves in the course of the sadhana and have to be eliminated. They must not be regarded as natural movements justified by the wrong action of others and bound to continue so long as there is the external causes. The real cause is internal and it can only be got rid of by yogic discipline, vigilance, self-detachment from the vital movement and a quiet... this case? We have about 40 life-members and recently we have been getting more. Also, "Purodha" has some money in the bank on which we get interest. Please guide. What I see is the world of tomorrow, but the world of yesterday is still alive and will still live for some time. Let the old arrangements go on so long as they are alive. Upon earth, the changes are slow to come. Do not worry—and ...
... what's strange is that they are beings — beings of the vital world —but Page 140 aware of what is happening in the physical world. 1 knew nothing, neither the person nor the story, nor about her head sticking out she wanted me to pull her out of there." These beings sense the atmosphere; but what they understand best is vital power. We can take the case of the Asura in a math ... girlish question: "It is often said in fairy tales that treasure is guarded by serpents. Is it true?" Mother had replied: "Yes, but it is not a physical serpent, it's a vital serpent. The key to treasures is found in the vital world and is guarded by a huge, black serpent, it is colossal —ten times, fifty times bigger than an ordinary serpent. He guards the doors to the treasure. He is black, magnificent... truth, no reality escaped her. Mirra, we have seen, was someone who observed, who studied. As Mother puts it: "There was an intense vital 1 development during this period 1. Vital: Sri Aurobindo and Mother have made a classification of the being. Roughly, the vital comprises all our sensations, emotions and feelings. But to get a clear idea the Reader should turn to Mother's and Sri Aurobindo's ...
... hallucinations, unreal images. But a being otherwise constituted in consciousness or sense could well see this world in other figures than present themselves to ours. Another would see perhaps other worlds made of another, a subtler material or an essentially mental or vital or spiritual substance. A world is only an arrangement of things as experienced by consciousness of the Spirit and this consciousness... impenetrable darkness. All that manifested from the Eternal has already been arranged in worlds or planes of its own nature, planes of subtle Matter, planes of Life, planes of Mind, planes of Supermind, planes of the triune luminous Infinite. But these worlds or planes are not evolutionary but typal. A typal world is one in which some ruling principle manifests itself in its free and full capacity and... powers accorded to it by the brain, nerves and physical senses, its ingenious but still very poor and unreliable instruments here. Page 252 In a world where life and not matter was the first term, condition and basis, in a vital world life would be free to organise itself in its own way with a free energy in plastic and pliable forms and its ranges of possibilities would be immense and c ...
... another, but no chance. In fact windows were open but shut only for these forces.… Sri Aurobindo’s reply: …These are the usual forms of the Rakshasi Maya, illusory formations of the vital world. They wanted to make a formation of the house on fire in order that you might accept it and then with the help of your acceptance they would have tried actually to put the house on fire. Reject... here." * When the Second World War broke out Amma’s sons enlisted. The elder, Mithran, joined the Indian Army as an engineer, and the younger, Thyagaraj, then studying in England, joined the Royal Air Force. Reminiscing on those days, Amma told me in June 1990: "You know, Mother had once told us that Thyaga will become famous in the world and Mithran will become a great yogi. Thereafter... I have kept of those, are the three she opened on 29 July 1993 — perhaps because by then she seemed to be withdrawing pretty fast, to quietly fade away into the more ‘real’ world the Mother has prepared in the subtle world. At any rate, these three seem significant if not prophetic. The first was that of August 17, 1913: O Lord, Master of our life, let us soar very high above all care ...
... in the world is subject to Prana – the vital force." Even mental activities are due to Prana, Page 176 life-force. It is the life-force that keeps the world going. Disciple : How to overcome vital depression? Sri Aurobindo : By supplying the vital-force, (laughter) (After a pause) You have to draw the vital energy from the infinite ocean of universal vital force... on and the Mahatmas – are they all true ? Sri Aurobindo : What do you mean by "true”? On the vital plane there is nothing that you cannot see : you can recast Page 180 the whole history of the world. It is not the mental plane – really speaking it is the mental-vital. I was in that condition for ten days and any number of things came at that time. Disciple : You... Therefore, those who have merely a general call for yoga should not go in for it ; because it opens a possibility for the Higher Consciousness to work as well as a possibility for the powers of the vital world to come and take possession. If a man has not got the perfect balance, it becomes easier for these powers to take possession of him. Sometimes the man who has no faith in things invisible is much ...
... (5) Thus he crosses the vital plane that now unmovingly supports the mental heavens and he stands widely exceeding it; rejoicing in the rapture, in the raining down on us of the world of Light, O God-Mind, thou slayest the Coverer, thou forcest out the flood of those waters. (6) Thy vastness in the seats of our earth,OGod-Mind, upholds by its energy the vital world that upholds the heaven of... great River and Earth and Heaven. SUKTA 108 (1) O Indra and Agni, come in your chariot of many wonderful lights which looks upon all the worlds. Standing in one car when you have come drink of the wine we have made for you. (2) As wide as is this whole world and deep with its vast manifested good and bliss, so wide be to your drinking this wine of nectar we give you and sufficient to your mind... to adore the render of the sealed cities who brings out the inspired knowledge. (6) For him Twastri the Maker shaped his thunderbolt that is of the sun-world and is mighty for works and gave it to him for battle. He found out by it the vital places even of the Coverer. Speed was of him and speed was of his weapon. He was master and illimitable in works. (7) His, his, this great builder’s, was ...
... the sake of precision: “Some parts of the vital are worlds of disorder and the beings inhabiting the vital have no psychic being. The psychic being exists only upon earth, in the physical world. That is why I said in brief that the divine spark, which organises the psychic, passed over the worlds of disorder and manifested itself directly in the physical world to create there this possibility of organisation... is without violence. When you hesitate, when you wonder what to do in this or that circumstance, there come the desire, the preference both mental and vital, that press, insist, affirm and impose themselves, and, with the best reasons in the world, build up a whole case for themselves. And if you are not on the alert, if you don't have a firm discipline, if you don't have the habit of control, they... has a living soul; but it is not that, it is his vital which is developed, which has a special capacity, is stronger than the physical inertia and gives an intensity of vibration and life and action that those whose vital being is not developed do not possess. This confusion between the vital activity and the soul is a very frequent one.... The vital vibration is much more easily perceptible to the ...
... your face as soon as the mysteries of the other worlds are revealed to you. It is so beautiful, that in comparison, all the rest that you see in the physical world or even the best paintings will seem to you dull and without life. You understand? Oh! What forms, what beauty, what colours, what movements and what marvels are found in the subtle world. What precision, what exactitude, what variety and... its own domain. And when one hears a beautiful music or one smells the sweet perfume of a beautiful rose, these things belong to the vital. When one smells something beautiful and hears something beautiful: a voice or something, — all these come from the vital world whereas the touch, is the best means of transmitting these vibrations. You know, in fact, I also work with vibration. I receive the... experiences of the planes of spiritual consciousness which reveal the splendours that are hidden in the higher worlds. But when one has this inner vision which opens the doors within our being and one begins to see the truth behind things, then one perceives that even in this material world there are so many things which escape our ordinary sight. Even what one sees under the microscope or through ...
... seems to have put himself into contact with an inexhaustible source of flowing word and rhythm —with the world of sound-music, which is one province of the World of Beauty. It is part of the vital World no doubt and the joy that comes of contact with that beauty is vital—but it is a subtle vital which is not merely sensuous. It is one of the powers by which the substance of the consciousness can be... edrājasik vital—the malancha is the psychic in the vital. The moon is the symbol of spiritual light, faint at first, it being cleared and bright and illumining the obscuration of the mind (the cloud) obliges it to allow the higher ray to pass through it. The white peacock is the spiritual victory. The rest is a symbol of the transformation of the vital—or changes into the psychised vital if not the... text: # [Nishikanto] got a touch here which brought out in him some powerful force of vital vision and word that certainly had not shown any signs of existing before… # Nishikanta came out in much the same way, a sudden Brahmaputra of inspiration. # Nishikanta’s [poetry] comes straight from the vital vision and knocks you in the pit of your stomach. He does not repeat his images…and they are ...
... is of Shiva most that Sri Aurobindo reminded Nirod! 85 And Yogiswara Shiva, what was his role in world-existence: A dreadful cord of sympathy can tie All suffering into his single grief and make All agony in all the worlds his own.... The poison of the world has stained his throat. 86 If he could himself invite and absorb - even at the cost of su... sympathy for humanity that they are jeering at. 27 On 20 May 1940, Sri Aurobindo said that Hitler was actually possessed by the Asura, or perhaps was an incarnation of the Asura: "The Vital World has descended upon the physical. That is why the intellectuals are getting perplexed at the destruction of their civilisation, of all the values they had made and stood by." A week later... persuade earth-nature's change; Mortality bears ill the eternal's touch.. , 77 But the world-redeemer must redeem the world even in spite of the world, in spite of recalcitrant humanity: The poison of the world has stained his throat.... He dies that the world may be new-born and live. 78 On the 9th morning, after over 100 hours of Supramental sustenance ...
... magnitude superordinate to the conscious ego", "a mid-point stretched between two worlds... strange to us and yet so near", taking in both consciousness and the unconscious, "the centre of the psychic totality, as the ego is the centre of conscious- ness." Unlike the capsulated ego which is mostly bound up with the physical-vital-mental surface, this soul which is a depth-phenomenon peeping out would survive... clearer picture of the three principles in our world-system as well as of that world-system as a whole. The best starting-point here is by way of an analogy from the view of matter taken by the biologist Julian Huxley in one of his neo-materialistic declarations. He denies any gap in the continuity of physical processes. According to him there is no special vital principle injected into material phenomena... on which we exist. Evolution, in a world not explicable by materialism, means the graded release of powers higher than matter from an original involution - a release due to at once the expressive urge of what is involved and the liberative pressure of the full planes of those powers beyond matter. Can we generalise that an evolutionary process holds on the free vital and mental planes also? No. On a ...
... afternoon. I now know that for the two worlds to join in a constant and conscious relationship what is missing is an intermediate zone between the existing physical world and the supramental world as it exists. This zone has yet to be built, both in the individual consciousness and in the objective world, and it is being built. When formerly I used to speak of the new world that is being created, I was speaking... look at the supramental world. Only _________________ ¹ Ibid., pp. 194-5. Page 118 when the link of consciousness has been built shall we see it— and even then, only that part of our being which has undergone the transformation will be capable of seeing it as it is—otherwise the two worlds would remain as separate as the animal world and the human world. The experience I... the supramental world, whereas on February 3, I went strolling there in a concrete way— as concretely as I used to go strolling in Paris in times past—in a world that EXISTS IN ITSELF, beyond all subjectivity. It is like a bridge being built between the two worlds. This is the experience as I dictated it immediately thereafter: (silence) The supramental world exists in a permanent ...
... was the response, & proves entirely the reality of the Sortilege system & its veridicity & capacity of direct response. Interpretation. The vijnana is being perfect[ed] in the physical, vital & mental worlds according to their characteristic differences; at present the mental knowledge is being idealised to perfection by the idealising (rendering perfectly & spontaneously true & luminous) of the... is the pranakasha envelope of bhu in which only the images of these creatures are seen & they themselves are in the akasha of the pranajagat, not the real Bhuvar but the Bhuvar of Bhu. It is these worlds that must first be seen & felt; the others can at present [ ] 16 only be entered in Samadhi. The perception of the one Jnanam Brahma in all is today very strong; but its grades & positions are... desired. How is that sole action of vijnana to be secured? By receiving the sense life also through the vijnana and not through the mind & senses. Then nothing is left; for the sense world becomes a vijnanamaya world, etad vai tat, & is rendered in the terms of Truth.["] p. 102 (2)परमात्मा दुःखी स्याद् दुःखाभित्रत्वाल्लोकवदित्याह—एकस्य सर्वात्मकत्व इति । अविद्यां प्रतिबिम्बितश्र्चद्धातुरज्ञो भ्रांतो ...
... psychic, mental, vital elements that come in or can come in; but the whole thing is very mixed, even at its best. This is the reason why at a certain stage with or without apparent reason the world and life and human society and relations and philanthropy (which is as ego-ridden as the rest) begin to pall. There is sometimes an ostensible reason—a disappointment of the surface vital, the withdrawal... showing himself the very moment you get inside yourself, even as the outer man is very much the other way round, modernised, externalised, vigorously outward vital (for the Yoga is inward-vital and psychic) and knowing nothing of Yoga or the world of inner experience. I could see at once when I saw you that there was this inner Yogi and your former experiences here were quite convincing to anyone who... turn it to one's own glorification—ending in megalomania; third, an unbalanced vital and a weak nervous system apt to follow its own imaginations and unruled impulses without any true mental will or strong mental will to steady or restrain it, and so at the mercy of the imaginations and suggestions of the adverse vital world when carried over the border into the intermediate zone of which I spoke in a ...
... seems to have put himself into contact with an inexhaustible source of flowing word and rhythm—with the world of sound-music, which is one province of the World of Beauty. It is part of the vital World no doubt and the joy that comes of contact with that beauty is vital—but it is a subtle vital which is not merely sensuous. It is one of the powers by which the substance of the consciousness can... nonsense. I agreed though, as I don't really like terrestrial life and evolution, still the only thing I rather like still in this darkish world is friendship and affection and art and music and poetry. But as all friendship, you pointed out, are stigmatised by some vital warmth or other, well, I told myself (willingly), "Better be cold to all when it is such a trouble and never a help, almost always... categories. October 25,1936 Well, I have said already that quarrels, cuttings are not a part of sadhana; the clashes and friction that you speak of are, just as in the outside world, rubbings of the vital ego. Antagonisms, antipathies, dislikes, quarrellings can no more be proclaimed as part of sadhana than sex-impulses or acts can be part of sadhana. Harmony, goodwill, forbearance, equanimity ...
... though not too sure of itself. I follow your advice and take rest from time to time. I am not surprised of the attacks on you — it is a crucial time. It looks as though the whole vital world or patala [subterranean worlds] has taken hold of the Earth. We are very few to understand what is really at stake. (...) More and more India is isolated and encircled. I should think, as Mother said, that... for the world. A big cataract that will sweep away all this organisation of phantoms. So, a seagull, yes, I agree, or even a small lizard — but not a man, never, never more a man, enough of that job. And Sujata in the next room, like a light bird, polishing the floor, with now and then a little song, crystalline, as if in eternity. Two funny birds perched on the cataclysm of the worlds — a delicious... when she switches on her small lamp in the niche and the white light falls on her bed, it seems to come from I don't know what antique scene, as if she were there between two worlds.... Perhaps we are really between two worlds and there is someone who must build a bridge? August 28, 1978 Page 44 Last journey to Pondicherry for consular matters. My second leg damaged (the knee) ...
... only reality, that there are many other more subtle ones, such as the worlds of life and mind. From these worlds you can draw strength or energy. Haven't you noticed small children, animals too, who are restless and active all day without feeling the least tired? This is because they draw their energies effortlessly from the vital planes. Have you understood something?" "A little bit!" (Laughter)... them with your own hand. Nolinida said that the Mother had made a pact of friendship with the King of the Cats. In fact, all kinds of beings and spirits of the animal world and the vegetable world, as well as of the supernatural worlds, came to the Mother to beg favours from her. It all sounded strange, and yet so wonderful! We go and see her so often, she always smiles sweetly and puts her hand on... when you were in prison?" "To have a vision is one thing, to bring down that Consciousness into the body or into matter is quite another. The two are worlds apart. One may have a vision in one part of the being, for example in the mind or in the vital, but to experience it permanently in the physical consciousness, and feel it constantly in the body, is something that is possible only when one has reached ...
... Andre Brincourt was writing for. × 77 Rakshasas are the demons of the vital world, while asuras are the demons of the mental world. × 78 Institut de Recherches Evolutives . ... leading the whole process to the chaos he wants for the new world he wants. We cry Page 110 for our broken toys, but to tell the truth, we are very childish. They would probably like to make a new world with improved machines, but it is not like that... and fortunately so! Whether people call for it or not, the new world will be, as inevitably as the mammals were, with or without the... the context of the world, because it is all the same, the same world and the same forces under different masks. This is my struggle or rather Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s struggle. ......... Do understand, dear friend, that this is a great, a difficult battle. I am no dreamer: at twenty, I was in a concentration camp and I was totally taught that this horrible world was to be changed. I ...
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