... Prakriti. Page 221 The Vital Ego The earth-consciousness does not want to change, so it rejects what comes down to it from above—it has always done so. It is only if those who have taken this Yoga open themselves and are willing to change their lower nature that this unwillingness can disappear. What stands in the way of course is always the vital ego with its ignorance and the pride... Yes, the talk about "advanced" sadhaks is a thing I have always discouraged—but people go on because that appeals to the vital ego. I have already told you the nature of the difficulty that has arisen in you, that it is nothing but the revolt of your vital mind and vital ego and I have pointed out to you the only way in which it can be overcome. You had by an effort supported by a special con... physical mind and consciousness and you think that because your higher parts are clear this also is clear. Ego, whatever its basis, can reproduce itself in different parts of the being, e.g. a vital ego, a mental ego, but fundamentally it is one. The mind and the vital are much more full of ego than the body—in the body the ego is obscure and instinctive only. There is no reason why ego should ...
... consciousness and physical being. His most obvious obstacle, one of which he has not in the least got rid of up to now, is a strongly Rajasic vital ego for which his mind finds justifications and covers. There is nothing more congenial to the vital ego than to put on the cloak of Yoga and imagine itself free, divinised, spiritualised, siddha, and all the rest of it, or advancing towards that end... renunciation of the world or an outward asceticism, but neither is its aim Bhoga, nor what the Chandernagore people call "Life-realisation" which means nothing but the satisfaction of one's own magnified vital ego. The aim is an opening to a higher Divine Truth beyond mind, life or body and the transformation of these three things into its image. But that transformation cannot take place and the Truth itself... new forms. If one does not look at oneself with a constant sincerity and an eye of severe self-criticism, it is impossible to get out of this circle. Along with the exclusion of self-deceiving vital ego, there must go that which accompanies it usually in the mental parts, mental arrogance, a false sense of superiority and an ostentation of knowledge. All pretence and all pretensions must be given ...
... but the term is usually applied to those that are undesirable and have to be surmounted by the sadhak. The ideal condition is that of a calm, clear, strong vital free from the reactions of the vital ego and responding with true and Page 129 high feelings only that are acceptable to the spiritual will and the psychic being. Vital Suggestions It would not be at all right to yield... spiritual or divine Force above. The vital can be all right when things are going on swimmingly, but when difficulties become strong, it sinks and lies supine. Also if a bait is held out to the vital ego, then it can become enthusiastic and active. It seems to be some tamas or inertia coming down on the system. It is sometimes like that when the vital gets dissatisfied with the conditions or... revolt of the vital against the Mother, a revolt of the mind against the Truth, a rejection of the spiritual life, a demand to enthrone the ego as the Divine or to serve something that flatters the vital ego and supports its demands and call that the Divine, a response to vital suggestions of distrust, despair, self-destruction or departure—and many others. Page 142 The difficulty must ...
... a help or an impulse for its life-affirmation, its life-delight, its enrichment of its mental, vital or physical existence. The Life Divine, p. 624 The formation of a mental and vital ego tied to the body-sense was the first great labour of the cosmic Life in its progressive evolution; for this was the means it found for creating out of matter a conscious individual. The dissolution... from egoism but from ego-idea and ego-sense, is needed if our aim is to raise human into divine nature. Experience shows that, in proportion as we deliver ourselves from the limiting mental and vital ego, we command a wider life, a larger existence, a higher consciousness, a happier soul-state, even a greater knowledge, power and scope. Even the aim which the most mundane philosophy pursues, the... the Transcendence. This he cannot manifest at once, because he is too near to the cosmic Inconscience, not near enough to the original Superconscience; he has to find himself as the mental and vital ego before he can find himself as the soul or spirit. Still, to find his egoistic individuality is not to know himself; the true spiritual individual is not the mind-ego, the life-ego, the body-ego: ...
... nature retains ego, especially the vital ego. When the psychic attitude of humility comes in and joins with it, it helps in getting rid of the vital ego. The complete abolition of ego is not an easy thing. Even when you think that it is entirely gone, it suddenly comes into your actions and movements. Especially important is the removal of the mental and vital ego; the others, the physical and su ...
... vital not try it? Laziness. The vital can be all right when things are going on swimmingly, but when difficulties become strong, it sinks and lies supine. Also if some bait is held out to the vital ego, then it can become enthusiastic and active. The vital struggle comes from a wrong attitude in the vital itself and in the physical mind, an absence of quietude resulting. ... kind of joy you want. All experiences are not accompanied by joy. Interest is another matter. You know that my mind and inner being at least are quite earnest to rid the being of the vital ego and vital demands. Can you not then cut them off by a direct higher action? It is said that the Divine comes to one's aid if one aspires sincerely for it. These things cannot be done in that... and inner being must impart their will to the whole. I have always said that it is not P and his vital which upset my sadhana but my own self and nature. Certainly, it is the vital ego that is the cause and there is no need of bringing in P's vital. You have to get rid of it altogether. It is this kind of thing that must be preventing the dynamic Force from coming down - for if ...
... for nobody — remembering that the Divine is in all. I do not understand how I manage to forget that once I too did the wrong things even more freely than X. It is the vital ego that does like that. Ego is not only common in man, it is universal. What is the place of individuality in our Yoga? There is a spiritual individuality in each... cannot breathe or think or move without Nature breathing or thinking or moving in you. What is it in us that makes demands? It is a sentimental demanding part of the vital ego Page 103 which makes demands and when they get no answer become despondent, revolted or miserable. If it gets an answer, even then it likes to think that it has not got one or... by "draw-ing energy from others"? That is what the vital often or usually does if it is egoistic. People are always drawing forces from those around them, but they give also. But the vital ego tends often to draw without exchange, then there Page 104 comes the drain. Studying my own nature a little deeply, I observe that it is very difficult to ...
... the vital is still untransformed, -then the vital ego can take it up and give it a wrong application. * Even if the vital egoism can remain after realising the Jivatman, how can one go so far as to think of oneself as an Avatar? Is it because the union with the Divine and the sense of all-powerfulness that it brings is reflected in the vital ego as something grandiose? Yes. It is when... being. * "The ego is a formation of Nature; but it is not a formation of physical nature alone, therefore it does not cease with the Page 54 body. There is a mental and vital ego also." (Pp. 16-17) Does this mean that the ego is carried by the psychic as a separate principle after death just as it carries with it a highly developed mental or vital, or that it is taken ...
... that come from the secret inmost consciousness, the psychic entity; it answers instead to unenlightened mental and vital suggestions, or acts in accordance with the demands and impulsions of the vital ego. Here the second of the primary conditions of the evolution, the law of a separate life-being affirming itself in a world which is not-self to it, comes into prominence and assumes an immense importance... for full self-affirmation. But if it can get the assent of mind, it is quite ready to ignore all these standards and set up only one standard, the satisfaction, growth, strength, greatness of the vital ego. The life-individual needs place, expansion, possession of its world, dominance and control of things and beings; it needs life-room, a space in the sun, self-assertion, survival. It needs these things... neither mind nor body can utilise their possibilities or realise their aim here in existence. It is only if the inner or true vital being replaces the outer life-personality that the drive of the vital ego can be wholly overcome and the life-force become the servant of the soul and a powerful instrumentation for the action of our true spiritual being. This then is the origin and nature of error, ...
... assertion; it turns sometimes towards self-depreciation and a morbid and exaggerated self-criticism: but this too is an ego-structure, a reverse or negative egoism, a poise or pose of the vital ego. For in this vital ego there is frequently a mixture of the charlatan and mountebank, the poser and actor; it is constantly taking up a role and playing it to itself and to others as its public. An organised... in us, leader of the life and body, 1 —or, better, by the central psychic entity,—is not so difficult, provided we have the right psychic and mental will in the endeavour: for if it is with the vital-ego motive that we make the entry into the subliminal being, it may result in serious dangers and disaster or at the least an exaggeration of ego, self-affirmation and desire, an enlarged and more powerful ...
... to serve the old infraspiritual and infrarational life-self of humanity, the destiny of the race seems to be heading dangerously, as if impatiently and in spite of itself, under the drive of the vital ego seized by colossal forces which are on the same scale as the huge mechanical organisation of life and scientific knowledge which it has evolved, a scale too large for its reason and will to handle... barbarism. Or it might signify the emergence of the Rakshasa or Asura out of a tense effort of humanity to surpass and transcend itself, but in the wrong direction. A violent and turbulent exaggerated vital ego satisfying itself with a supreme tyrannous or anarchic strength of self-fulfilment would be the type of a Rakshasic supermanhood: but the giant, the ogre or devourer of the world, the Rakshasa, though... even, it may be, an ascetically self-restrained mind-capacity and life-power, strong, calm or cold or formidable in collected vehemence, subtle, dominating, a sublimation at once of the mental and vital ego, is the type of the Asura. But earth has had enough of this kind in her past and its repetition can only prolong the old lines; she can get no true profit for her future, no power of self-exceeding ...
... sometimes towards self-depreciation and a morbid and exaggerated Page 25 self-criticism: but this too is an ego-structure, a reverse or negative egoism, a poise or pose of the vital ego. For in this vital ego there is frequently a mixture of the charlatan and mountebank, the poser and actor; it is constantly taking up a role and playing it to itself and to others as its public. An organised... us, leader of the life and body, — or, better, by the central psychic entity, — is not so difficult, provided we have the right psychic and mental will in the endeavour: for if it is with the vital-ego motive that we make the entry into the subliminal being, it may result in serious dangers and disaster or at the least an exaggeration of ego, self-affirmation and desire, an enlarged and more ...
... Will in things which men cannot perceive—nor the meaning in them—because they are perplexed not so much by their mental limitations—though that is one cause—but by the claims and recoils of the vital ego. The mental difficulty would become much less if the vital mind were once pacified, submitted, attentive to the intimations of a higher Light. So I wish you all success in this endeavour. About... it. Now that it has come, I trust that it will keep the mind clear and free the ways of the spirit. The bhakta-poet in you has always been thoroughly sincere; there there is no cloud of the vital ego. April 12, 1933 It is certainly to be expected that Prabodh Sen will be overjoyed by his suggestion having borne such good fruit. You have succeeded in making an extraordinary... but one should observe them as the movement of Nature blinding the light in them, for which they are less responsible than the mind thinks. It is true that your attitude was quite right and the vital ego put its intensity on the right side; for that very reason the egoistic elements which rose up were able by this contact with the psychic in you, both in arms together for the inner Truth, to dissolve ...
... excitement, battle and struggle, inner and outer adventure: all these are incidental or subordinated to this movement and building and expression of the vital ego." ( The Life Divine, p. 898) Now for most men in their normal functioning this 'vital ego' is the master of the house, grha-pati: everything else in the being and nature moves at its sole behest. But, alas, its moods are unpredictable... its deviant impulses and actions. A mere mental will will not be able to see through the game and get the upper hand over the deceitful vital. In Sri Aurobindo' s description: "... in this vital ego there is frequently a mixture of the charlatan and mountebank, the poser and actor; it is constantly taking up a role and playing it to itself and to others as its public. An organised self-deception ...
... nations has been dominated by the vital-ego of the collectivity, not by its deeper soul. It is in Europe that the nation-units were first organised and all of them were dominated by economic greed and political ambition. The organisation of the nation-unit took place round the vital-ego of the collective egos culminating in two devastating World Wars. If the vital-ego leads the nation hardly any other ...
... entire ego-sense. The dynamic nature retains the ego – especially the vital ego. So, the best thing would be to combine the two – for the psychic attitude of humility helps in getting rid of the vital – dynamic – ego. The complete dissolution of the ego is not an easy thing. Specially important is the removal of mental and vital ego, the other ego of the physical and of the subconscient can be dealt... dealt with at leisure. That is to say, they are not so absorbing. As I said, humility helps in the removal of the vital ego, but one must remember that it is not outward humility. There are many people who profess and show the Page 98 utmost outward humility, but in their hearts think : "I am the man!" Disciple : "X" when he came for a short day, he found that you lacked ...
... them all for its manifestation: it is a portion of the Divine Self; but this reality of himself is hidden from the external man who replaces this inmost self and soul of him by the mental and vital ego. It is only those who have begun to know themselves that become aware of their true central being; but still it is always there standing behind the action of mind, life and body and is most directly... labour to disengage and increase the divine element in all this relative truth mixed with a continual falsifying error, this love turned to the uses of the animal body or the satisfaction of the vital ego, this life of an average manhood shot with rare and pale glimpses of Godhead and the darker luridities of the demon and the brute. Unerring in the essence of its will, it is obliged often under ...
... answer might be that the Divine within is felt through the psychic being and the nature of the psychic being is that of the Divine light, harmony, love, but it is covered by the mental and separative vital ego from which strife, hate, cruelty naturally come. It is therefore natural to feel in the kindness the touch of the Divine, while the cruelty is felt as a disguise or perversion in Nature, although... obedience, co-operation and harmony, the sense of honour, the sense of domestic and public order, to establish this in a world still occupied by anarchic forces, the Animal Mind and the powers of the vital Ego making its own satisfaction the rule of life, in other words, the Vānara and the Raksasa. 40 This is the meaning of Rama and his life-work and it is according as he fulfilled it or not that he ...
... descending to that level. The vital ego itself must become conscious of its own defects and willing to get rid of them; it must decide to throw away its vanities, ambitions, lusts and longings, its rancours and revolts and all the rest of the impure stuff and unclean movements within it. This is the time of the greatest difficulties, revolts and dangers. The vital ego hates being opposed in its desires ...
... another. They rise from the vital ego which either does not want the Divine or wants It for its own purpose and not for the Divine's purpose. It gets furious when it is pressed to change or when its desires are not satisfied—that is at the root of all these things. That is why we insist on surrender in this Yoga—because it is only by the surrender (especially of the vital ego) that these things can go—to ...
... surface, they are clothed in mental substance: thus ignorant of their authority, it follows or does not follow them according to its bent or turn at the moment. If the mind obeys the urge of the vital ego, then there is little chance of the psyche at all controlling the nature or manifesting in us something of its secret spiritual stuff and native movement; or, if the mind is over-confident to act... desire, the claims of his ego, domination, power, excitement, battle and struggle, inner and outer adventure: all else is incidental or subordinated to this movement and building and expression of the vital ego. But still in the vital man too there are or can be other elements of a growing mental or spiritual character, even if these happen to be less developed than his life-personality and life-power. The ...
... The Yoga of Integral Knowledge The Synthesis of Yoga Chapter IX The Release from the Ego The formation of a mental and vital ego tied to the body-sense was the first great labour of the cosmic Life in its progressive evolution; for this was the means it found for creating out of matter a conscious individual. The dissolution of this limiting ego is the... only from egoism but from ego-idea and ego-sense, is needed if our aim is to raise human into divine nature. Experience shows that, in proportion as we deliver ourselves from the limiting mental and vital ego, we command a wider life, a larger existence, a higher consciousness, a happier soul-state, even a greater knowledge, power and scope. Even the aim which the most mundane philosophy pursues, the ...
... of feelings towards others, liking and disliking, is ingrained in the nature of the human vital. This is because some harmonise with one's own vital temperament, others do not; also there is the vital ego which gets displeased when it is hurt or when things do not go or people do not act according to its preferences or its idea of what they should do. In the self above there is a spiritual calm and... transformation and unity by external contact and the ordeals of the external work and life? Thoroughness includes external work and relations and not a retired inner life only. It is only by the vital ego giving up its demands and claims and the reactions these produce when not satisfied, that the transformation and unification can come, and there is no other way. You must make up your mind ...
... there might be no misleading impression that such movements of the lower vital nature have any sanction or support in the truth of the soul; they belong to the vital Ignorance, they are fruits of the vital ego. 1 February 1933 Page 384 Sometimes I throw away the vegetables or the milk because I don't like to eat them. Why does Mother give us the same food every day in the dining room and... not tamasic. 1 March 1936 Movements of depression or despair that stem from vital dissatisfaction or revolt—are these not big movements? They are not big—they are small movements of the vital ego—I mean the movements of vital dissatisfaction which cause people here to be depressed and revolt and despair. If the resultant depression or despair is strong, that simply means that the minds of ...
... the higher mind "I am That" while the vital is still untransformed,—then the vital ego can take it up and give it a wrong application. How can one go so far as to think of oneself as an Avatar? Is it because, if there is union with the Divine, the sense of all-powerfulness that it brings is reflected on the vital ego as something grandiose? Yes. It is when one feels that one is the Divine, ...
... uses them all for its manifestation: it is a portion of the Divine Self; but this reality of himself is hidden from the external man who replaces this inmost self and soul of him by the mental and vital ego. It is only those who have begun to know themselves that become aware of their true central being; but still it is always there standing behind the action of mind, life and body and is most directly... join together. The ego is a formation of Nature; but it is not a formation Page 16 of physical nature alone, therefore it does not cease with the body. There is a mental and vital ego also. The base of the material consciousness here is not only the Ignorance, but the Inconscience-that is, the conscious ness is involved in form of Matter and energy of Matter. It is not only ...
... barbarism. Or might signify the emergence of the Rakshasa or Asura out of a tense effort of humanity to surpass and transcend itself, but in the wrong direction. A violent and turbulent exaggerated vital ego satisfying itself with a supreme tyrannous or anarchic strength of self-fulfillment would be the type of a Rakshasic supermanhood: but the giant, the ogre or devourer of the world, the Rakshasa, though... even, it may be, an ascetically self-restrained mind-capacity and life-power, strong, calm or cold or formidable in collected vehemence, subtle, dominating, a sublimation at once of the mental and vital ego, is the type of the Asura. But the earth has had enough of this kind in her past and its repetition can only prolong the old lines; she can get no true profit for her future, no power of Page ...
... there, that gave him the appearance his friends describe, but the vital was not changed, and as always happens, the vital came up for change—and he did not change it, but allowed the old unregenerate vital ego to take hold of him. Hence constant quarrels, resentments, obstinate feuds and hatred, fancies of persecution, neurasthenia, a disorganised nervous system, devastation of the organs by his anger,... past spiritual experiences and visions. Is that then the reason or what? and I am afraid till he or you put that right, nothing is any good. How can he have them while he indulges and obeys his vital ego to such an excessive extent? The difficulty is that he is self-righteous and priggish in his self-righteousness. Speaks of himself as an angel of meekness and forbearance and all others as wicked ...
... them not to go, comply with their demands, inundate them with anxious love and affection of the vital kind and generally dandle and pet their vital ego. We have seen that to do anything of that kind is disastrous and makes things a thousandfold worse; the vital ego and its movements increase and reach an Asuric stature. So no more of that. I wanted to answer X and put the truth of his state plainly before ...
... Those who could really help others, in the matter of sadhana, will not do it until they become a conscious channel for the Mother to work through them. Otherwise it is rather our vital ego that is prominent. 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 is there one cannot be a truly effective... quite incapable of knowing who is more or less advanced in yoga? Yes. The talk about advanced sadhaks is a thing I have always discouraged — but people go on because that appeals to the vital ego. But who are these advanced sadhaks? How is an advanced sadhak known from an unadvanced one? You said, "If you can keep the station above so much the better, but as ...
... first in the family ideal by which the individual subordinates himself and finds his vital satisfaction and practical account, not in his own predominant individuality, but in the life of a larger vital ego. This ideal played a great part in the old aristocratic views of life; it was there in the ancient Indian idea of the kula and the kuladharma , and in later India it was at the root of the joint-family... grossness may be refined or toned down, whatever ethical or religious conceptions may be superadded, always the family is an essentially practical, vitalistic and economic creation. It is simply a larger vital ego, a more complex vital organism that takes up the individual and englobes him in a more effective competitive and cooperative life unit. The family like the individual accepts and uses society for ...
... Jivatman and the psychic being join together. The ego is a formation of Nature; but it is not a formation of physical nature alone, therefore it does not cease with the body. There is a mental and vital ego also. The base of the material consciousness here is not only the Ignorance, but the Inconscience—that is, the consciousness is involved in form of matter and energy of matter. It is not only the... uses them all for its manifestation; it is a portion of the Divine Self, but this reality of himself is hidden from the external man who replaces this inmost self and soul of him by the mental and vital ego. It is only those who have begun to know themselves that become aware of their true central being; but still it is always there standing behind the action of mind, life and body and is most directly ...
... psychic being. There is no approved method of bringing forward the psychic being. It depends on the aspiration, the growth of faith and devotion, the diminution of the hold of the mental and vital ego and their movements—at a certain point in this development the screen between the psychic and the rest of the nature thins and begins to break, the psychic becomes more and more visible and active... the right psychic power and perception behind to deal with them. It [ the flow of love and joy from the heart centre ] can be misused on a large scale only if there is a strong and vehement vital ego not accustomed to correction or else a vital full of the kāmavāsanā . On a small scale it can be misused by the small Page 363 selfishnesses, vanities, ambitions, demands of the lower ...
... be fairly correct: the deficiency of trust is in itself something minor and belongs to a small part of yourself and, in fact, almost wholly to the physical mind and a little part of the lower vital ego. It is no doubt, helped by the inability to feel directly that the Force working on you or in you is mine although your higher mind and vital have more than once admitted it and felt that it could... take place and may be diminished when much restlessness or nervous troubles occur. It would need only some opening of the physical mind to remedy this defect of the consciousness; for the lower vital ego has lost much of its insistence by the progress of your consciousness and the strong efforts you have made to abate and get rid of its reactions. Page 239 If once an experience ...
... sort of śravana [hearing] and manana [thinking], even if the feeling roused is intense, a sort of natural nididhyāsana. Psychic preparation, clearing out of the grosser forms of mental and vital ego, opening mind and heart to the Guru and many other things help greatly—it is not perfection that comes or a complete freedom from the dualities or ego, but preparedness, a fineness of the inner being... 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 are necessary ...
... non-cooperate. What will bring towards the goal is the growth of the psychic being, the increase in bhakti, psychic clarity of vision, with regard to one's inner movements and the will to get rid of the vital ego, increase in pure self-giving. Meditation and the rest can bring only partial results or often no results until there has Page 281 been a sufficient psychic preparation. Even with... leads to experiences or not. Remember what I told you that it is the psychic growth and not experiences that are the road for you just now. That means these things—1st the drawing back from the vital ego and its perturbations to a quiet attitude of faith and surrender; 2 nd the growth of something within that sees what is to be changed in the nature and gives the impulse to change it; 3rd the psychic ...
... itself, but in the wrong direction. In India, a specific distinction is made between the Rakshasa and the Asura. The., Rakshasa is centred in the violence and turbulence of the exaggerated vital ego satisfying itself with the supreme tyrannical or anarchic strength of self-fulfilment; he is the giant, the ogre or devourer of the world. In the Asura, we find a mighty exhibition of an overpowering... ascetically self-restrained mind-capacity and life power; he is strong, calm or cold or formidable in collected vehemence, subtle, dominating; he achieves even a sublimation at once of the mental and vital ego. If we examine the history of the world, we shall find that the earth has had enough of this kind of supermanhood in her past, and a larger emergence of that type would be a retrograde evolution. ...
... exaggerated, vital ego, satisfying itself with a supreme tyrannous or anarchic strength of self- fulfilment. Or, it would manifest a mighty exhibition of an overpowering force, self-possessed, self- held, even an ascetically self restrained mind capacity and life power, strong, calm or cold or formidable in collected vehemence, subtle, dominating, a sublimation at once of the mental and vital ego. These ...
... barbarism. Or it might signify the emergence of the Rakshasa or Asura out of a tense effort of humanity to surpass and transcend itself, but in the wrong direction. A violent and turbulent exaggerated vital ego satisfying itself with a supreme tyrannous or anarchic strength of self-fulfilment would be the type of a Rakshasic supermanhood: but the giant, the ogre or devourer Page 47 of the world... even, it may be, an ascetically self-restrained mind-capacity and life- power, strong, calm or cold or formidable in collected vehemence, subtle, dominating, a sublimation at once of the mental and vital ego, is the type of the Asura. But earth has had enough of this kind in her past and its repetition can only prolong the old lines; she can get no true profit for her future, no power of self-exceeding ...
... exaggerated, vital ego, satisfying itself with a supreme tyrannous or anarchic strength of self-fulfilment. Or, it would manifest a mighty exhibition of an overpowering force, self-possessed, self-held, even an ascetically self-restrained mind-capacity and life-power, strong, calm or cold or formidable in collected vehemence, subtle, dominating, a sublimation at once of the mental and vital ego. These are ...
... barbarism. Or it might signify the emergence of the Rakshasa or Asura out of a tense effort of humanity to surpass and transcend itself, but in the wrong direction. A violent and turbulent exaggerated vital ego satisfying itself with a supreme tyrannous or anarchic strength of self-fulfilment would be the type of a Rakshasic supermanhood: but the giant, the ogre or devourer of the world, the Rakshasa, though... even, it may be, an ascetically self- restrained mind-capacity and life-power, strong, calm or cold or formidable in collected vehemence, subtle, dominating, a sublimation at once of the mental and vital ego, is the type of the Asura. But earth has had enough of this kind in her past and its repetition can only prolong the old lines; she can get no true profit for her future, no power of self-exceeding ...
... that clustered around us through habitual repetition and formed our mental ego, or mental body, disintegrates and returns to the universal Mind; similarly, the vital vibrations that made up our vital ego, or vital body, disintegrate in the universal Page 86 Vital, just as the physical body disintegrates into its natural constituents in universal Matter. Only the psychic remains; it is eternal... psychology also uses the word integration , but around what is that "integration" supposed to take place? Integrating requires a center. Do they propose to integrate around the turmoil of the mental or vital ego? One might as well try to moor a boat by fastening it to the tail of an eel. Having discovered the psychic kingdom within, we must patiently, gradually colonize and adjoin the outer kingdom to it ...
... straight road to the spiritual transformation. Devotion, harmony and scrupulousness in work, a growing inner perception and consciousness, more and more fading of the more vehement movements of the vital ego are among the more prominent landmarks on the road. Sri Aurobindo My dear child, that which I had foreseen last year has proved to be quite true and this relation of the Mother and the child ...
... the Transcendence. This he cannot manifest at once, because he is too near to the cosmic Inconscience not near enough to the original Superconscience; he has to find himself as the mental and vital ego before he can find himself as the soul or spirit. 38 The 'I' or the little ego is constituted by Nature and is at once a mental, vital and physical formation meant to aid in centralising ...
... the Transcendence. This he cannot manifest at once, because he is too near to the cosmic Inconscience, not near enough to the original Superconscience; he has to find himself as the mental and vital ego before he can find himself as the soul or spirit. 18 According to Sri Aurobindo, the ego is not fundamentally real in itself but a temporary formation devised by the Consciousness-Force ...
... the claims of his ego, domination, power, excitement, battle and struggle, inner and outer adventure: all else is incidental or subordinated to this movement and building and expression of the vital ego. But still in the vital man too there are or can be other elements of a growing mental or spiritual character, even if these happen to be less developed than his life-personality and life-power ...
... but the term is usually applied to those that are undesirable and have to be surmounted by the sadhak. The ideal condition is that of a calm, clear, strong vital free from the reactions of the vital ego and responding with true and high feelings only that are acceptable to the spiritual will and the psychic being. 6.6.1935 Sri Aurobindo ...
... their suggestions and influences; otherwise they could not act or at least could not act with any success. In your case the chief points d' appui have been the extreme sensitiveness of the lower vital ego and now also the physical consciousness with all its fixed or standing opinions, prejudices, prejudgments, habitual reactions, personal preferences, clinging to old ideas and associations, its obstinate ...
... from the Transcendence. This he cannot manifest at once, because he is too near to the cosmic Inconscience, not near enough to the original Superconscience; he has to find himself as the mental and vital ego before he can find himself as the soul or spirit.” 30 “Whatever perfection of the collectivity is to be sought after, can come only by the perfection of the individuals who constitute ...
... and for another half-century a patient eye of scientific research on the objective means for organizing what she had or thought she had gained.” Then what went wrong? “[Germany] had taken her vital ego for herself; she had sought for her soul and found only her force. For she had said, like the Asura, ‘I am my body, my life, my mind, my temperament’, and became attached with a Titanic force to these; ...
... to continue it. The discussion arises only because the word "human" is used in practice, not only as identical with the human vital (and the outward mind), but with certain forms of the human vital ego-nature. But the human vital has many other things in it and is full of excellent material. All that is asked by the Yoga is that this material should be utilised in the right way and with the right ...
... their suggestions and influences; otherwise they could not act or at least could not act with any success. In your case the chief points d'appui have been the extreme sensitiveness of the lower vital ego and now also the physical consciousness with all its fixed or standing opinions, prejudices, prejudgments, habitual reactions, personal preferences, clinging to old ideas and associations, its obstinate ...
... from the Transcendence. This he cannot manifest at once, because he is too near to the cosmic Inconscience, not near enough to the original Superconscience; he has to find himself as the mental and vital ego before he can find himself as the soul or spirit. Still, to find his egoistic individuality is not to know himself; the true spiritual individual is not the mind ego, the life ego, the body ego: ...
... to give an ignorant obedience, and it left the life of man at once the victim of an inscrutable fate and the puppet of superhuman caprices. That to a great extent he is so long as he lives in his vital ego and is the servant of his own personal ideas and passions. Later religions gave a name and some body of form and quality to the one unknown Godhead and proclaimed an ideal law which they gave out ...
... obedience, cooperation and harmony, the sense of humour, the sense of domestic and public order, to establish this in a world still occupied by anarchic forces, the Animal Mind and the powers of the vital Ego making its own satisfaction the rule of life, in other words, the Vanara and the Rakshasa. This is the meaning of Rama and his life-work and it is according as he fulfilled it or not that he must ...
... 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 distinguished from the reasoning will which plans and arranges things according to the dictates of the thinking mind proper, the discriminating reason or according ...
... hypocrisy and I have not said or suggested anywhere that all our labour on you had been wasted and gone for nothing. These absurd ideas, like all the rest, are imaginations and inventions of the vital ego foisted by it on your mind in order to justify its pressure on you to leave Pondicherry and the Yoga. I understood from what you had written and said before that you wanted to concentrate altogether ...
... nature and the life, the power of the One acting through the spiritual individual; it is not an aggrandisement of the personal force, not the last crowning fulfilment of the separative mental and vital ego. Self-fulfilment is a result of the Yoga, but its aim is not the greatness of the individual. The sole aim is a spiritual perfection, a finding of the true self and a union with the Divine by putting ...
... lower nature, cling to it and make it their foundation. They become a prey to the nature of the Rakshasa in man who sacrifices everything to a violent and inordinate satisfaction of his separate vital ego and makes that the dark godhead of his will and thought and action and enjoyment. Or they are hurried onward in a fruitless cycle by the arrogant self-will, self-sufficient thought, self-regarding ...
... oneness with all, for it establishes that oneness in its true base, on the Divine, for it is in the Divine that he meets and unites with all and no longer in a precarious interchange of the mental and vital ego. So do not fear loneliness but put your trust in the Mother and go forward on the Path in her strength and Grace. Page 311 × ...
... one's vital nature. 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 are necessary ...
... leads to experiences or not. Remember what I told you that it is the psychic growth and not experiences that are the road for you just now. That means three things—1st, the drawing back from the vital ego and its perturbations to a quiet attitude of faith and surrender; 2nd, the Page 347 growth of something within that sees what is to be changed in the nature and gives the impulse to change ...
... You ought to realise that these things [ negative thoughts and feelings ] are attacks which come on you from an adverse Force to which your nature was responsive because of vital desire and the vital ego—what you call selfishness. When it comes, you have to realise that it is an attack and refuse instead of accepting it—and in order to be able to do that you must always discourage desire and selfishness ...
... their suggestions and influences; otherwise they could not act or at least could not act with any success. In your case the chief points d'appui have been the extreme sensitiveness of the lower vital ego and now also the physical consciousness with all its fixed or standing opinions, prejudices, prejudgments, habitual Page 772 reactions, personal preferences, clinging to old ideas and ...
... for help in his work was not promptly met.—Ed. × The correspondent remarked that people full of vital ego often override, deceive and even injure people with less egoistic push but greater capacity.—Ed. ...
... one has continually to leave behind his past selves and to see, act and live from an always higher and higher conscious level. It cannot be done if you insist on "freedom" for your human mind and vital ego. All the parts of the human being are entitled to express and satisfy themselves in their own way at their own risk and peril, if he so chooses, as long as he leads the ordinary life. But to enter ...
... spiritual transformation. Devotion, harmony Page 842 and scrupulousness in work, a growing inner perception and consciousness, more and more fading of the more vehement movements of the vital ego are among the more prominent landmarks on the road. 2 February 1947 Matter, blind to the Light, deaf to the call, the material consciousness and material life are the last and most obstinate ...
... dislike, jealousy, rivalry, suspicion, fault-finding and all sorts of uncleanness. It is only through the psychic and in a psychic atmosphere that harmony can come; a sadhana based entirely on the vital ego cannot create it. X is right in drawing back and keeping to himself. When things have gone so far that the sadhaks of the Sadhanbari are forming visions of him as a dangerous devil, it is absurd ...
... 10 March 1936 The Mother has taken away my small terrace work. She has not reconsidered my case and given me my work back. This disturbed me very much. You are disturbed because of your vital ego. It is evident that your faith and attitude cannot be perfect, if because Mother makes other arrangements for her work, you at once regard her as unjust, false and tricky. Every sadhak ought to realise ...
... must see this machinery of the lower vital and dismiss it. It is only by the full psychic relation of self-giving that unity and closeness with the Divine can be maintained—the other is part of the vital ego movement and can only bring a fall of the consciousness and disturbance. 20 June 1933 Page 472 It will not do to indulge this restless vital movement. It is not by that that you can ...
... so far as it helps the inner sadhana, but how much can be given and what will help or hinder, the Mother only can judge, the sadhak cannot be the judge—he will be led away by the desires and lower vital ego, as so many have been in fact. Such means of help by physical contact as the Mother had established have been largely spoiled by the sadhaks' misuse of them, the wrong attitude of which I have spoken ...
... Mother's action. I have long ago decided that I would not allow the Mother's rightful position here to be lowered by the sadhaks putting her as an accused before the tribunal of their ignorant mind or vital ego and demanding that she or I for her should plead her case. The Mother acts from her own knowledge and consciousness which is not that of the sadhaks; their ideas of what she ought to do or ought not ...
... one has continually to leave behind his past selves and to see, act and live from an always higher and higher conscious level. It cannot be done if you insist on 'freedom' for your human mind and vital ego. All the parts of the human being are entitled to express and satisfy themselves in their own way at their own risk and peril, if he so chooses, as long as he leads the ordinary life. But to enter ...
... to serve the old infraspiritual and infrarational life-self of humanity, the destiny of the race seems to be heading dangerously, as if impatiently and in spite of itself, under the drive of the vital ego seized by colossal forces which are on the same scale as the huge mechanical organisation of life and scientific knowledge which it has evolved, a scale too large for its reason and will to handle ...
... have a collective ego. The human race has a collective ego. It is bigger or smaller. The individual ego is the ego of a particular person; it is the smallest kind of ego. Oh, there is of course a vital ego, a mental ego and a physical ego but these are minor individual egos. But this means the ego of a particular person. One has many egos inside oneself. One becomes aware of them when one begins ...
... in mental substance: Page 2 thus ignorant of their authority, it follows or does not follow them according to its bent or turn at the moment. If the mind obeys the urge of the vital ego, then there is little chance of the psyche at all controlling the nature or manifesting in us something of its secret spiritual stuff and native movement; or, if the mind is over-confident to act ...
... Jivatman and the psychic being join together. The ego is a formation of Nature; but it is not a formation of physical nature alone, therefore it does not cease with the body. There is a mental and vital ego also. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: The Jivatman in the Integral Yoga In a certain sense the various Purushas or beings in us, psychic, mental, vital, physical, are projections of ...
... surface, they are clothed in mental substance: thus ignorant of their authority, it follows or does not follow them according to its bent or turn at the moment. If the mind obeys the urge of the vital ego, then there is little chance of the psyche at all controlling the nature or manifesting in us something of its secret spiritual stuff and native movement; or, if the mind is over-confident to act ...
... to labour to disengage and increase the divine element in all this relative truth mixed with continual falsifying error, this love turned to the uses of the animal body or the satisfaction of the vital ego, this life of an average manhood shot with rare and pale glimpses of Godhead and the darker luridities of the demon and the brute. Unerring in the essence of its will, it is obliged often under the ...
... full self-affirmation. But if it can get the assent of the mind, it is quite ready to ignore all these standards and set up only one standard, the satisfaction, growth, strength and greatness of the vital Ego." This attitude of the vital is what we generally find in the case of politicians, statesmen and military chiefs whose minds are carried away by and subjected to the demands and insistences of their ...
... unities" in the first material status of Life. "When Life reaches its second status, that which we recognise as vitality, the contrary phenomenon takes the lead and the physical basis of the vital ego is obliged to consent to dissolution. Its constituents are broken up so that the elements of one life can be used to enter into the elemental formation of other lives." "We have then two ...
... selflessness, obedience, renunciation of all mental, vital or other self-assertion of the limited personality. "Self-affirmation is not the aim, the formation of a Page 78 collective vital ego is also not the aim. The merging of the little ego in union with the Divine, purification, surrender, the substitution of the Divine guidance for one's own ignorant self-guidance based on one's personal ...
... in both, the delusion of the dualities, which arise from likes and dislikes, has to be destroyed. In both the processes of yoga, there is a necessity of utter purification from the clutches of the vital ego, the fire of passion, the tumult of desire of the rajasic nature, and one has to cultivate the steadiness of sattwic impulse of the ethical being. When that is done or as it is being done, there is ...
... satisfaction of pride, ambition or desire. But this is just the attitude which leads to shipwreck in the end, if not corrected. Instead of adopting a true attitude I am afraid the vital ego might turn to pure neutrality or indifference, that is, no delight, no depression. Some central part of my being may accept this as an alternative to a constant struggling and despair. ...
... doubtful whether that is the personal ego. The ideas, demands etc. about Pranam are usually suggestions of the hostile Force. They come to each person in the same form. It was the vital ego that once took pleasure in these reactions and indulged them — but once they have been rejected by the vital as you have recorded, they belong no more to it. Still a hostile Force brings them back ...
... I think the sadhaks should be satisfied with describing what happens in their sadhana, and have no demands regarding the answers they receive from you. To ask questions urged by the vital ego will only disturb the sadhana. It is so indeed because it is their mind and vital that put the question and the ego is always wanting to make use of the answer or the mental ignorance ...
... for loving in the right way." Somewhere else you write that the higher experiences leave the exterior nature as it is and that mere rising above or getting experiences brings no change in the lower vital, ego etc. Well? Page 261 I am not speaking of mere rising above. The rising above has to be followed by the descent of the higher consciousness into the different parts of the being ...
... the gratification of the ego and becomes a bar to the individual's spiritual advancement. If it seeks knowledge, it is only because the ego takes a delight in intellectual knowledge, even as the vital ego takes a delight in vital power and the physical ego in material possession and comfort. But the knowledge it usually seeks is intellectually informative and not spiritually illuminative —flashy ...
... straight road to the spiritual transformation. Devotion, harmony and scrupulousness in work, a growing inner perception and consciousness, more and more fading of the more vehement movements of the vital ego are among the more prominent landmarks on the road. SRI AUROBINDO My dear child, that which I had foreseen last year has proved to be quite true and this relation of the Mother and the ...
... ordinary sleep. The body becomes able to receive higher forces which plunge it in a receptive rest. Consciousness will follow, and then the body will begin its transformation. 10.7.1970 My vital ego continues to see the faults of others with pleasure. When it will understand that the faults of others increase its own work, the pleasure will disappear. 12.7.1970 In "Prayers ...
... At the feet of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo 21 March 1931 MYSELF: The out of sheer Ananda or from love and devotion — do they have a mixture of the vital ego? SRI AUROBINDO: It is only the ordinary vital emotions which waste the energy and disturb the concentration and peace, that have to be discouraged. Emotion itself is not a bad thing, it is a necessary ...
... sadhana. These are now covered in you by the upsurgence of this part which has to change. It is tamasic and does not want to change, does not want to believe unless it can be done by reassuring the vital ego. But there is nothing new in all that — it is part of human nature and has always been there, hampering and limiting the sadhana. Its existence is no reason for despair — everyone has it and the sadhana ...
... best help it to get the coveted fruits of its work and endeavour. That is the cause of three fourths of the falsehood and misconduct of the human reason and will. Rajas with its vehement hold on the vital ego is the great sinner and positive misleader. The sattwic understanding sees in its right place, right form, right measure the movement of the world, the law of action and the law of abstention ...
... Nature and is constantly occupied with its own separate personality and its seekings and shrinkings. For escape from this circle the first necessity in our works is to get clear of the sin of the vital ego, the fire of passion, the tumult of desire of the rajasic nature, and this has to be done by the steadying sattwic impulse of the ethical being. When that is done, yeṣāṁ tvantagataṁ pāpaṁ janānāṁ ...
... high growth towards impersonality, on the widening of the individual into the universal will, on an increasing or breaking beyond the apparent man and his limits. The flowering of the mental and vital ego or at most its subservience to the larger ego of the community is the West's cultural ideal. But here the ego is regarded as the chief obstacle to the soul's perfection and its place is proposed to ...
... advanced than others? It is enough to know that we are on the right path. Yes, the talk about advanced sadhaks is a thing I have always discouraged—but people go on because that appeals to the vital ego. 13 May 1935 I understand your protesting against "great" or "big" sadhaks, but why against "advanced" sadhaks? Is it not a fact that some are more advanced than others? If we speak of X as ...
... renunciation of all mental, vital or other self-assertion of the limited personality. Self-affirmation is not the aim, development of the personal self is not the aim, the formation of a collective vital ego is also not the aim. The merging of the little ego in union with the Divine, purification, surrender, the substitution of the Divine Page 752 guidance for one's own ignorant self-guidance ...
... communion with his Jivatman without the ego being dissolved? That's what Sri Aurobindo says. He says that the ego survives the physical life, the bodily life; this is perfectly correct. There is a vital ego and a mental ego which can continue to exist for quite a long time. But one can have experiences without the ego being dissolved. Otherwise who would have experiences? How many people are there who ...
... of desire is no more part of this Yoga than it is of Sannyasa. One must be able to use and handle physical things and physical life, but from the spiritual consciousness, not from the level of the vital ego. 27 November 1935 It is surprising that you should miss, that so many here should miss the point that to be so much troubled about a trifling want or inconvenience is quite contrary to the spirit ...
... that is an entirely mistaken attitude. If sadhaks get upset when the Mother does not do what they ask from her or begin to get suggestions of this kind, that means that they are bringing their vital ego into the work,—they are thinking, " My work is not supported, the Mother is upholding someone else and not me " and other "I"s and "my"s of the same kind. It is only they who are feeling the work ...
... 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 ...
... one. 21 November 1935 What takes people away mostly is not the smaller failings like family attachment etc., but either ambition and great vanity or sexual desire or else some extreme form of vital ego which wants its own way and not the Divine's. It is from the first two causes that the departures from the Asram have mostly taken place and X and Y 's case is no exception to the rule. 1935 ...
... decisive movement in the Yoga. It is that which happened when you saw the Mother last—the psychic being came in front. But you must keep it in front. You will not be able to do that if you listen to the vital ego and its outcries. It is by faith and surrender and the joy of pure self-giving—the psychic attitude—that one grows into the Truth and becomes united with the Divine. 26 February 1933 You wrote ...
... these ideas are absolutely absurd, trivial and unspiritual. The Asram is not a schoolboys' class nor is the Yoga a competitive examination. All this is the creation of the narrow physical mind and vital ego and desire. If the sadhaks want to get a true basis and make true progress, they must get these ideas out of their minds altogether. Yet they cling obstinately to it in spite of all I can write, so ...
... answer might be that the Divine within is felt through the psychic being and the nature of the psychic being is that of the divine light, harmony, love, but it is covered by the mental and separative vital ego from which strife, hate, cruelty naturally come. It is therefore natural to feel in the kindness the touch of the Divine, while the cruelty is felt as a disguise or perversion in Nature, although ...
... to serve the old infraspiritual and infrarational life-self of humanity, the destiny of the race seems to be heading dangerously, as if impatiently and in spite of itself, under the drive of the vital ego seized by colossal forces which are on the same scale as the huge mechanical organization of life and scientific knowledge which it has evolved, a scale too large for its reason. and will to handle ...
... a psychic elevation, selflessness, obedience, renunciation of all mental, vital or other self-assertion of the limited personality. Self-affirmation is not the aim, the formation of a collective Vital ego is also not the aim. The merging of the little ego in union with the Divine, purification, surrender, the substitution of the Divine guidance for one's own ignorant self-guidance based on one's personal ...
... impose any work on you, but left it to you to choose. You yourself suggested the kitchen work and afterwards asked for an increase of it. It is not possible to get peace of mind if you indulge in vital ego and the turbulent play of the vital mind, revolt, demand and impatience. Abhiman, revolt, violent insistence on the satisfaction of claims and wishes are foreign to the spirit of the Yoga, they can ...
... able to continue it. The discussion arises only because the word "human" is used in practice, not only as identical with the human vital (and the outward mind), but with certain forms of the human vital ego-nature. But the human vital has many other things in it and is full of excellent material. All that is asked by the Yoga is that this material should be utilised in the right way and with the right ...
... non-cooperate. What will bring towards the goal is the growth of the psychic being, the increase in bhakti, psychic clarity of vision with regard to one's inner movements and the will to get rid of the vital ego, increase in pure self-giving. Meditation and the rest can bring only partial results or often no results until there has been a sufficient psychic preparation. Even with those who begin with a flood ...
... help, for it acts as a sort of śravaṇa and manana , even, if the feeling roused is intense, a sort of natural nididhyāsana . Psychic preparation, clearing out of the grosser forms of mental and vital ego, opening mind and heart to the Guru and many other things help greatly—it is not perfection or a complete freedom from the dualities or ego that is the indispensable preliminary, but preparedness ...
... of Yoga, the art of conscious self-finding,—a path exposed to far profounder perils than beset ordinarily the average man,—when he follows a false light to his spiritual ruin. She had mistaken her vital ego for herself; she had sought for her soul and found only her force. For she had said, like the Asura, "I am my body, my life, my mind, my temperament," and become attached with a Titanic force to these; ...
... there [ in the chest and stomach ]. The chest = the emotional nature exposed to wrong feelings; the stomach = the dynamic vital centre, exposed to wrong desires, ambitions, sense of possession and vital ego etc. But all that will progressively become things of the past, when the Peace, the Presence, the inner happiness increase and take possession of the external nature. Yogically, psycho-physically ...
... tion under the pressure of the Divine Shakti. But here too it is possible for errors to take place—especially an outside Force may come in and replace the larger consciousness behind by a larger vital ego which pretends to be that. One must be on one's guard against any such intrusion; for many sadhaks suffer long and severely owing to such an intrusion which spoils the course of the sadhana. On ...
... sadhana. These are now covered in you by the upsurgence of this part which has to change. It is tamasic and does not want to change, does not want to believe unless it can be done by reassuring the vital ego. But there is nothing new in all that—it is part of human nature and has always been there, hampering and limiting the sadhana. Its existence is no reason for despair—everyone has it and the sadhana ...
... of desire is no more part of this Yoga than it is of Sannyasa. One must be able to use and handle physical things and physical life, but from the spiritual consciousness, not from the level of the vital ego. It is the old vital nature that feels its human worldly desires will not be satisfied and feels like this. All that has not to be indulged but rejected and swept aside. In its place must ...
... pleasure. The part that does not like suffering and would be glad to get rid of it is the physical consciousness, but the vital pushes it always and so it cannot escape. It is the rajaso-tamasic vital ego that is responsible both for revolt and for the acceptance of depression. Rajas predominating there is revolt, tamas predominating there is depression. It is not the soul but the vital or rather ...
... calmly, firmly and persistently with full confidence in the Divine Power—without weakness or depression or negligence and without excitement, impatience or violence. Page 763 No, [ the vital ego is ] certainly not [ a hostile power ]—it is part of the ordinary human nature, everybody has it. It has to be purified and transformed, the ego being replaced by the true vital being of which it ...
... progressing to a true ethical order. If humanity has made any lasting and true advance, it has been not through the virtue created by reward and punishment or any of the sanctions powerful on the little vital ego, but by an insistence from the higher mind on the lower, an insistence on right for its own sake, on imperative moral values, on an absolute law and truth of ethical being and ethical conduct that ...
... labour to disengage and increase the divine element in all this relative truth mixed with a continual falsifying error, this love turned to the uses of the animal body or the satisfaction of the vital ego, this life of an average manhood shot with rare and pale glimpses of godhead and the darker luridities of the demon and the brute. Unerring in the essence of its will, it is obliged often under the ...
... aggregate, is also the first basis of aggregate unities. When Life reaches its second status, that which we recognise as vitality, the contrary phenomenon takes the lead and the physical basis of the vital ego is obliged to consent to dissolution. Its constituents are broken up so that the elements of one life can be used to enter into the elemental formation of other lives. The extent to which this law ...
... and strong intensity of itself and its power. The gnostic evolution will lift that to its highest and fullest expression, but it will not act for the power, satisfaction, enjoyment of the mental or vital ego, for its narrow possession of itself and its eager ambitious grasp on others and on things or for its greater self-affirmation and magnified embodiment; for in that way no spiritual fullness and ...
... suggestions and influences; otherwise they could not act or at least could not act with any success. In your case the chief points d’appui have been the extreme sensitiveness of the lower vital ego and now also the physical consciousness with all its fixed or standing opinions, prejudices, prejudgments, habitual reactions, personal preferences, clinging to old ideas and associations, its ...
... stages of its development from the indistinguishable mass substance of the sub-cans-cient and the inconscient in us. One must develop Ian egoistic personality and know himself a s the mental a n d vital ego before he can realise himself as the Self or Spirit. E go is the ignorant a n d separative principle in our lives. In spiritual seeking , it must eliminate its elf order to rise to the Unitarian ...
... show me without fear, and do nothing that you would feel ashamed of doing before me. 11 July 1934 It seems that there is an ego in each state of consciousness; for example: mental ego, vital ego, physical ego. There is also a spiritual ego, and even the gods who live in the Overmind have their egos. And each one must be freed from his ego in order to attain the divine bliss. It ...
... admirable. But if, by some mischance, the mind intervenes, starts watching or judging, then everything stops and everything falls back into the old habit. ( long silence ) Basically, it's the vital ego, mental ego, etc., it's all of that which was—poff!—taken away. It was a radical operation. So now there is a sort of suppleness and plasticity. And all this is learning (it's very much in touch ...
... 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, Page 47 emotions, vital ego reactions of the nature. It must be distinguished from the reasoning will which plans and arranges things according to the dictates of the thinking mind proper, the discriminating reason or according ...
... views the egoic self of most human beings as primarily a vital rather than a mental ego. From Sri Aurobindo's viewpoint, the thickest veil that hides the true self in most human beings is the vital ego constituted by instinctual impulses, desires, and emotions. Another significant difference between the perspectives of Eckhart and Sri Aurobindo lies in their views of the true self. Eckhart's ...
... realms to recover the Soul of Earth. It is crucial for the devotee to appreciate that it is only the Divine in us who can possibly undertake the Yoga of Transformation—not the mental or vital ego with its silly pride of being the cat's whiskers— and flaunting itself with the aid of pretentious adornments and titles. And the first hurdles the seeker has to leap over include the romantic ...
... altogether. Sri Aurobindo N wanted to inform the police regarding some matter of the Ashram. Is it good to inform the police? Such things ought not to happen here; but they do because of the vital ego of the sadhaks which makes them the instruments of wrong forces. It is said that N is an advanced sadhak. Is his action appropriate? What is the reason behind all these happenings? The Mother ...
... such as truth, obedience, co-operation and harmony, the sense of domestic and public order, — to establish this in a world still occupied by anarchic forces, the Animal mind and the powers of the vital Ego making its own satisfaction the rule of life, in other words, the Vanara and the Rakshasa. This is the meaning of Rama and his life-work and it is according as he fulfilled it or not that he must ...
... which militate against the full emergence of the psychic being and its unbarred overt action. Here are two representative passages: Page 265 ( I) "If the mind obeys the urge of the vital ego, then there islittle chance of the psyche at all controlling the nature or manifesting us something of its secret spiritual stuff and native movement; or, if the mind is over-confident to act in ...
... impurity must disappear also." (Letters On Yoga, p. 804) (2)"Quarrels, cuttings are not a part of sadhana: the clashes and frictions ... are, just as in the outside world, rubbings of the vital ego. Antagonisms, antipathies, Page 57 dislikes, quarrelings can no more be proclaimed as part of sadhana than sex-impulses or acts can be part of sadhana. Harmony, goodwill, forbearance ...
... movements? They can hardly be called big movements. The real distinction is that they are rajasic movements, not tamasic. They are not big - they are small movements of the vital ego -I mean the movements of vital dissatisfaction which cause people here to be depressed and revolt and despair. If the resultant depression or despair is strong, that simply means that the minds of ...
... comes by itself. One need not make any effort, for it is a movement of love and joy." Essentially that is true—it is the real nature of offering — but there is a veil of self-centred vital ego which many find it difficult to remove without an inner tapasya. Page 115 Is it not time I left the charge of my sadhana to the Mother's Force? That can be ...
... of love and joy springs out from my heart centre. Is there any possibility of the lower vital misusing this flow? It can be misused on a large scale only if there is a strong and vehement vital ego not accustomed to correction or else a vital full of the kamavasana (sexual desire). On a small scale it can be misused by the small selfishnesses, vanities, ambitions, demands of the lower vital ...
... under the sun," it is not a mental thought, it is a vital thought. Disciple : Is it not an emotion ? Sri Aurobindo : It is not primarily an emotion. It is thought straight from his vital ego. Then it may be accompanied by the emotion of patriotism in him and he may even ask his reason to find a justification for it. He may tell his Buddhi : "Well, I have said such and such a thing ...
... infraspiritual and infrarational life-self of humanity, the destiny of the race seems to Page 17 be heading dangerously, as if impatiently and in spite of itself, under the drive of the vital ego seized by colossal forces which are on the same scale as the huge mechanical organisation of life and scientific knowledge which it has evolved, a scale too large for its reason and will to handle ...
... see this machinery of the lower vital and dismiss it. It is only by the full psychic relation of self-giving that unity and closeness with the Divine can be maintained — the other is part of the vital ego movement and can only bring a fall of the consciousness and disturbance. (20.6.33) ...
... But above all is the central being (Jivatman) which uses them all for its manifestation, it is a portion of the divine Self and is hidden from the external man who replaces it by the mental and vital ego. It is only those who have begun to know themselves that become aware of their true central being; but it is there standing behind the action of mind, life and body and is most directly represented ...
... To be one with the Mother and to live and work for Her; this is all. Why are the Ashram inmates hankering after food? Why this big fuss over eating? Why are we breaking our heads due to vital desire, ego, pride, self-will, mental ideas and preferences? I do not follow all this and am unable to understand. Mother, my heart was filled with such feelings; it was restless and unquiet again. But ...
... complete only with a great development of the inner consciousness. To have the true intuition one must get rid of the mind's self-will and the vital's also, their preferences, fancies, fantasies, strong insistences, and eliminate the mental and vital ego's pressure which sets the consciousness to work in the service of its own claims and desires. Otherwise these things will come in with force and claim... will fused together) or Consciousness-Power is needed. One can get intuitions—communications from there [ the intuitive plane ] even while the ego exists—but to live in the wideness of the Intuition is not possible with the limitation of the ego. The Intuition is the first plane on which there is a real opening to the full possibility of realisation—it is through it that one goes farther—first... Chapter IV The Higher Planes of Mind The Higher Planes and Higher Consciousness The higher planes are the higher mind, illumined, intuitive, over mind, supermind. The psychic, mind, vital, physical belong to the ordinary manifestation. The planes and the body are not the same. Above the head are seen all the planes from the overmind down to the higher mind, but this is only a ...
... my sadhana up to now was based on the vital. And what I thought of having done, a selfless surrender, was purely a display of the vital. The vital nature seems to be full of disguises and devices, is it not so? It is. Your mind saw the necessity of a selfless surrender and your psychic and mind together imposed it. But there were also vital and ego elements which hung on and these raised... refused and are still refusing. Do you really think that surrender will change these vital defects? A steady attitude of self-giving is bound to cure and transform. The working may take some time. Can sadness help one cure dryness in the vital being? I do not know that sadness has the power to cure. I have myself followed the Gita's ...
... the ego. Am I right in thinking "the whole present trouble lies in the ego and is due to the ego alone"? It is due to the persistence of the lower nature of which the ego is the chief motive force. I heard that the Mother put her Force on some sadhak because he wanted to change his vital. Well, I too wish intensely to change my vital and my ego. They... supporting the vital disappointment and refusal of sadhana. You wrote: "If ego cannot trouble the being why should sex trouble it?" But the ego is not the same thing as sex. Is it not possible to have control over one and not over the other? They are both rajasic forces of vital nature. Ego troubles with vanity, ambition, desire for the satisfaction of ego, anger, depression... meditation (with the Mother), a powerful struggle took place in the vital against the ego. Is there any strong part of the higher light that fights the ego? There necessarily must be if there is a strong struggle. The fight with the ego is part of the fight with the physical nature, for it is the superficial ego in the physical consciousness, irrational and instinctive, that ...
... for the powers of these zones or hostile powers to imitate the guiding Voice or Image and deceive and mislead the sadhaka or for himself to attribute the creations and formations of his own mind, vital or ego to the Divine. For this intermediate zone is a region of half-truths—and that by itself would not matter, for there is no complete truth below the Supermind; but the half-truth here is often... not really abolished. He feels the control or influence of some Power, Being or Force greater than himself, aspires to be its instrument and thinks he has got rid of ego; but this delusion of egolessness often covers an exaggerated ego. Ideas seize upon him and drive his mind which are only partially true and by over-confident misapplication are turned into falsehoods; this vitiates the movements of... consciousness, while in reality they are receiving imperfectly things from above through a partial illumination of some mental or vital plane; for what comes is diminished and often deformed in the course of transmission through these planes; the receiving mind and vital of the sadhaka also often understands or transcribes ill what has been received or throws up to mix with it its own ideas, feelings ...
... for the powers of these zones or hostile powers to imitate the guiding Voice or Image and deceive and mislead the sadhak or for himself to attribute the creations and formations of his own mind, vital or ego to the Divine. For this intermediate zone is a region of half-truths --and that by itselfwould not matter, for there is no complete truth below the Supermind; but the half-truth here is often... not really abolished. He feels the control or influence of some Power, Being or Force greater than himself, aspires to be its instrument and thinks he has got rid of ego: but this delusion of egolessness often covers an exaggerated ego. Ideas seize upon him and drive his mind which are only partially true and by overconfident misapplication are turned into falsehoods; this vitiates the movements of... consciousness, while in reality they are receiving imperfectly things from above through a partial illumination of some mental or vital plane; for what comes is diminished and often deformed in the course of transmission through these planes; the receiving mind and vital of the sadhak also often understands or transcribes ill what has been received or throws up to mix with it its own ideas, feelings ...
... principal aims of the Yoga. The vital should be an instrument of the consciousness, not its ruler. The vital being is not the I—the ego is mental, vital, physical. Ego implies the identification of our existence with outer self, the ignorance of our true self above and our psychic being within us. In a certain sense the various Purushas or beings in us, psychic, mental, vital, physical, are projections... the surface in the Ignorance, it is the mental, vital, physical Prakriti that acts and the Purusha is disfigured, as it were, in the action of Prakriti. It is not our true mental being, our true vital being, our true physical being even that we are aware of; these remain behind, Page 111 veiled and silent. It is the mental, vital, physical ego that we take for our being until we get knowledge... psychic as opposed to the mental, vital and physical planes. The Psychic or Soul and Traditional Indian Systems It appears the Maharshi at the time supposed that by the psychic being I meant the enlightened ego! But people do not understand what I mean by the psychic being, because the word psychic has been used in English to mean anything of the inner mental, inner vital or inner physical or anything ...
... highest self, the real man or highest Purusha in him, which is free and master in its own inalienable power. He must cease to be the mental, vital, physical ego; for that is always the creation, instrument and subject of mental, vital, physical Nature. This ego is not his real self, but an instrumentation of Nature by which it has developed a sense of limited and separate individual being in mind, life... Purusha lays stress on individuality. To abandon identification with the physical, vital and mental ego, is not enough; he must arrive in soul also at a true, universalised, not separative individuality. In the lower nature man is an ego making a clean cut in conception between himself and all other existence; the ego is to him self, but all the rest not self, external to his being. His whole action... than it. To mental Purusha Nature is only an action, a complex action of discriminating and combining thought, of will, of sense, of emotion, of temperament and character, of ego feeling, which works upon a foundation of vital impulses, needs and cravings in the conditions imposed by the physical body. But it is not limited by them, since it can not only give them new directions and much variation, ...
... On the surface, in the Ignorance, it is the mental, vital, physical Prakriti that acts and the Purusha is disfigured, as it were, in the action of the Prakriti. It is not our true mental being, our true vital being, our true physical being even that we are aware of; these remain behind, veiled and silent. It is the mental, vital, physical ego that we take for our being until we get knowledge. ... divine, immortal and spiritual Power. Our consciousness becomes no longer that of this limited and struggling mental and vital creature, but an infinite, divine and spiritual consciousness. And our will and action too are no longer that of this bounded personality and its ego, but a divine and spiritual will and action, the will and power of the Universal, the Supreme, the All-Self and Spirit acting... certain freedom to his personal will, the will of his ego; but that in reality amounts to nothing, since his ego is only a sense which makes him identify himself with the creation that Nature has made of him, with the varying mind and life and body she has constructed. His ego is itself a product of her workings, and as is the nature of his ego, so will be the nature of its will and according to ...
... matter and no living action. The vital is a necessary force and nothing can be done or created in the bodily existence, if the vital is not there as an instrument. Even sadhana needs that vital force. But if the vital is unregenerate and enslaved to desire, passion and ego, then it is as harmful as it can otherwise be helpful. Even in ordinary life the vital has to be controlled by the mind and mental... The vital is good when it is properly used—it is a necessary instrument for action. But ordinarily it is in its lower action an instrument of ego and desire—that is why it has not to be indulged, but rather put under strong discipline. The vital has to be controlled and not allowed to do what it likes. It is not the vital that has to control you, it is you who have to control the vital. ... 1 Nobody can become more than human if he refuses to make a sacrifice of his ego—for "human" means a vital animal ego mentalised by a little outward thought and knowledge. So long as one is satisfied with remaining that, one will remain human "even here" or anywhere. People are living now so much in the vital when they do not live in the intellect, and so unguardedly and without restraint ...
... my diagnosis—he says some sort of trouble in the "prān" 8 positively; desire of ego. Just as a Kaviraj puts his finger on the pulse and diagnoses at once, so with this. What's required is purification. Diagnosis right—only should add an adjective disappointed pran and ego. No active vital row; vital and ego lying back flat and gloomy. So, since I have to pass the time, how to do it? To... it J's mania of suicide from the subconscient? It looks on the surface like a nightmare vision of the vital. It might refer to what you say—something shot up from a subconscient impression into form. Or, who knows, it may mean simply the old vital attachment by her lying dead and old vital Nature looking on in a horrified disapproval! I don't think it is much use writing about personal relations... would like to know if there are going to be any personal relations afterwards among sadhaks. To think that everybody will be equal to our eyes pains most of us. Yes, it pains the outer vital, because that vital thinks it is a negative state of indifference and non-attachment, things that it hates because liking and disliking are its native atmosphere. But with having psychic love for all, is ...
... to break out of his ego into the larger freedom of union with the universal Divine: He must cease to be the mental, vital, physical ego; for that is always the creation, instrument and subject of mental, vital, physical Nature... While the identification lasts, there is a self-imprisonment in this habitual round and narrow action.... The liberation from an externalised ego sense is the first... earth. And for that each individual soul is a helper and a collaborator, but each human ego is a limitation and an obstacle. 2 The reason, the intellect, was the helper, but now it is a bar; the ego was a helper once, but the ego is now a bar. 3 We needs must exceed the intellect, transcend the ego, if we are truly to serve the Divine. 4 II The Mother's message for the next year... meant by saying that it would be better "to let things be done than to talk about them". The ego is a talkative boastful imp that tries to isolate itself from the cosmic mainstream and build its own petty autonomous state, but this invariably gives rise to falsity, antagonism and disharmony. But once the ego steps down from its self-raised pedestal and unites with the universal, there will be no further ...
... ion of our secret greater existence. The immobile self in us is found only when the outer mental and vital activities are quieted; for since it is seated deep within and is represented on the surface only by the intuitive sense of self-existence and misrepresented by the mental, vital, physical ego-sense, its truth has to be experienced in the mind's silence. But also the dynamic parts of our surface... psychic entity is there behind these occult activities which is the true support of our individualisation; the ego is only an outward false substitute: for it is this secret soul that supports and holds together our self-experience and world-experience; the mental, vital, physical, external ego is a superficial construction of Nature. It is only when we have seen both our self and our nature as a whole... intelligence, this formulation of self-consciousness and self-experience is higher than the memory-ego and sense-ego of the animal and therefore, we may suppose, nearer to real self knowledge. We may even come to realise, if we study the veiled as well as the uncovered action of Nature, that all ego-sense, all ego-memory has at its back, is in fact a pragmatic contrivance of a secret co-ordinating power or ...
... zones or hostile powers to Page 353 imitate the guiding Voice or Image and deceive and mislead the sadhak or for himself to attribute the creations and formations of his own mind, vital or ego to the Divine... "The sadhak thinks that he is no longer in the old small consciousness at all, because he feels in contact with something larger and more powerful, and yet the old consciousness... is no duality, but only oneness and unity, and great love. You not only see Truth, but you are Truth. You are Love. You are all things! It is not an ego-inflating experience, but on the contrary, one which can help one to dissolve the ego...." "...I am much struck with the older looking hills... Feel they were there before time, before eternity, before God... but - not before me. What does... that the ship itself no longer seems distinct from the infinite ocean. He stands outside of and apart from his familiar ego, all its protective barriers having been shed; and this can lead in some to transcendent experience, while in others to a deep panic. To those for whom their ego is their only possible self, the only possible mode of consciousness, its disappearance is a kind of death. "It is ...
... of I-ness, an individuality separate from the rest of the universe. Page 348 ...the ego is mental, vital, physical. Ego implies the identification of our existence with outer self, the ignorance of the true self above and our psychic being within us. 32 The ego is only a provisional individuality, "a device of Nature which holds together her action in the mind and body" 33... that plane, the mental Purusha in the mental plane, the vital Purusha in the vital, the physical Purusha in the physical. 24 The Purusha is the silent witness consciousness which observes the actions of Prakriti — Prakriti is the Force of Nature which one feels as doing all the actions, when one gets rid of the sense of the ego as doer. 25 Page 346 When we come... to a plane of the universal being. Ego and Individuality In our normal consciousness, as stated previously, we are not conscious of our true being; we are aware only of our outer being — body, life and mind — with which we identify our self. This identification of the true being with the outer being gives rise to an ego — physical, vital, and mental — which gives us the sense of ...
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