... 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 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... 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 leaves its mental sheath also and goes to its place of rest. If the ...
... abnormal or supernormal psychological or an occult character are dubbed psychic; if a man has a double personality changing from one to another, if an apparition of a dying man, something of his mere vital sheath or else a thought form of him, appears and stalks through the room of his wondering friend, if a poltergeist kicks up an unseemly row in a house, all that is classed under psychic phenomena and... 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 leaves its mental sheath also and goes to its place of rest. If the ...
... universal nature according to the soul's past evolution and its need for the future. When the body is dissolved, the vital goes into the vital plane and remains there for a time, but after a time the vital sheath disappears. The last to dissolve is the mental sheath. Finally the soul or psychic being retires into the psychic world to rest there till a new birth is close. This is the general course for... in the ordinary, not in the yogic sense) and that of the sitters, vital sheaths left by the departed or perhaps occupied or used by some spirit or some vital being, the departed himself in his vital sheath or else something assumed for the occasion (but it is the vital part that communicates), elementals, spirits of the lowest vital physical world near earth, etc., etc. A horrible confusion for the ...
... excessive greed may carry part of the vital consciousness into a pig.... "The fragments [of a dead person] are not of the inner being [which goes on its way to the psychic world] but of his vital sheath which falls away after death." (Letters on Yoga, p. 446) Let us now mention what happens after the mental sheath, in its turn, gets broken up. If during the lifetime of the individual he... human being in its subtle body ... 2.A mental formation stamped by the thoughts and feelings of a departed human being... 3.A being of the lower vital planes who has assumed the discarded vital sheath of a departed human being or a fragment of his vital personality...; 4.... formations of one's own mind... [taking] to the senses an objective appearance. 5.Temporary possession of people ...
... mental elements which it attracts towards itself by the characteristic force of its personality for the work of its next incarnation. Then it descends to the vital plane and, assuming an appropriate vital sheath, comes down through the subtle-physical into human birth. This is the general process, but it admits of many variations, some of which we may glance at in this essay. The process seems to be... 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 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 ...
... according to the soul's past evolution and its need for the future. When the body is dissolved, the vital goes into the vital plane and remains there for a time, but after a time the vital sheath disappears. The last to dissolve is the mental sheath. Finally the soul or psychic being retires into the psychic world to rest there till a new birth is due. This is the general course for ... some affinity and therefore does not object to or resist their inclusion. The fragments [ of a dead person ] are not of the inner being (who goes on his way to the psychic world) but of his vital sheath which falls away after death. These can join for birth the vital of some other Jiva who is being born or they can be used by a vital being to enter a body in process of birth and partly possess ...
... in the ordinary, not in the Yogic sense), that of the sitters, vital sheaths left by the departed or perhaps 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... which the scenes attending or surrounding or preceding a murder are repeated over and over again and many similar phenomena. (3) A being of the lower vital planes who has assumed the discarded vital sheath of a departed human being or a fragment of his vital personality and appears and acts in the form and perhaps with the surface thoughts and memories of that person. (4) A being of the lower vital ...
... going out. Page 461 Flying during sleep over houses, streets, etc. simply means that the consciousness in the vital sheath 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 movement is different—in that, it is the consciousness that goes high up to other ...
... ‘sheaths’ (of the soul). The material, visible sheath, made out of what we call tangible matter, is only our most outward or ‘gross’ body. This material sheath is surrounded by or embedded in a vital sheath consisting of substance of the vital plane. It is in this vital body that we go in search of adventure in our vital dreams and that we leave our material or gross body for good at the time of death... if consciousness is the fundamental fact, than it is the foundation of all planes of existence, including ours. It is present in the atom, the cell, the body organ, the nervous system and the vital sheath. We are a (mainly unconscious) fantastically complex phenomenon of consciousness, and what we in ordinary parlance mean by consciousness is little more than a thin peel on the surface of an onion ...
... We may also study the following statement of Sri Aurobindo: Page 78 'When the body is dissolved, the vital goes into the vital plane and remains there for a time, but after a time the vital sheath disappears. The last to dissolve is the mental sheath. Finally the soul or psychic being retires into the psychic world to rest there till a new birth is close.' Ibid., p. 433 Let us also... and mental sheaths into different worlds which are other than the world of physical existence; after this intermediary travel, having shed the subtle physical sheath in the subtle physical world, vital sheath in the vital world, and mental sheath in the mental world and rest in its own world, which Sri Aurobindo calls the Psychic world, it gets reborn into a new physical body, normally after about three ...
... 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 turn, and the soul lives on in the mental sheath, manomaya koṣa, till that too is dissolved. When all the three sheaths are dissolved ...
... necessities of physical Nature; robust health, prolonged youth, often an extraordinary longevity are attained. On the other hand, Pranayama awakens the coiled-up serpent of the Pranic dynamism in the vital sheath and opens to the Yogin fields of consciousness, ranges of experience, abnormal faculties denied to the ordinary human life while it puissantly intensifies such normal powers and faculties as he ...
... there is another centre of small vital movements below it, between the navel and Muladhara. The navel is the vital centre in the physical body but the natural seat of the vital is in the vital sheath of the subtle body, which sheath it pervades; but for action through the gross body it is centred at the navel and below it. A centre may be opened and still there may be resistances in that ...
... abnormal or supernormal psychological or an occult character are dubbed psychic; if a man has a double personality changing from one to another, if an apparition of a dying man, something of his mere vital sheath or else a thought-form of him, appears and stalks through the room of his wondering friend, if a poltergeist kicks up an unseemly row in a house, all that is classed under psychic phenomena and ...
... 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 movement is different—in that it is the consciousness that goes high up to other planes or levels and comes down again to the body. Ears The ears ...
... body only, but a subtle body ( sūkṣma deha ) in which he goes out of the sthūla deha at his death. The navel is the vital center in the physical body—but the native seat of the vital is in the vital sheath of the subtle body, which sheath it pervades, but for action through the gross body its action is centred at the navel and below it. 16 September 1933 The Yoga and Its Objects, Yogic Sadhan ...
... Nature according to the soul's past evolution and its need for the future. When the body is dissolved, the vital goes into the vital plane and remains there for a time, but after a time the vital sheath disappears. The last to dissolve is the mental sheath. Finally, the soul or psychic being retires into the psychic world to rest there till a new birth is close. This is the general course ...
... soul's past evolution and its need for the future. Page 37 When the body is dissolved, the vital goes into the vital plane and remains there for a time, but after a time the vital sheath disappears. The last to dissolve is the mental sheath. Finally the soul or psychic being retires into the psychic world to rest there till a new birth is close. This is the general course ...
... Our total being is not constituted of the gross material sheath (annamaya kosa) alone which is all that is visible and sensible to us. It is prāncakosātmaka, made up of four more sheaths: a vital sheath (prānamaya kosa), a mental sheath (manomaya kosa), a "knowledge" sheath (vijnānamaya kosa) and a "bliss" sheath (ānandamaya kosa). Each of these subtler sheaths possesses ...
... open a power to the universalisation of the individual vitality. Hatha Yoga also aimed at awakening by the processes of asana and pranayama, of the coiled-up serpent energy of dynamism in the vital sheath, pranamaya kosha, and opening to the yogin, fields of consciousness, ranges of experience, abnormal faculties and striking results of control and mastery over the physical body. The secret of ...
... other, the general body of mankind waiting to be moved and guided; in between is the army of young enthusiasts, enlightened or illumined (not necessarily young in age) who form the prana, the vital sheath of the body politic. All - by far the largest part of it-depends upon the dreams that the Prana has been initiated and trained to dream. This life principle of a body politic seems in Pakistan ...
... 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 leaves its mental sheath also and goes to its place of rest. If the ...
... painful; in the rest one works out, under certain surroundings, a remnant of the vital desires and instincts which one had in the body. As soon as one is tired of these and able to go beyond, the vital sheath is dropped and the soul, after a little time needed to get rid of some mental survivals, passes into a state of rest in the psychic world and remains there till the next life on earth. One can ...
... refreshed or quite normal, there is no cause for distress or anxiety; if she comes out exhausted or depressed, then there are forces that are pulling her out into the vital world to the detriment of her vital sheath and it should not continue. It is clear that when you go out of your body like that you pass into a vital plane and as you are constantly attacked there and have fear, it is not desirable ...
... whatever obstructs or diminishes the satisfaction of desire. This liking in this way created is the liking of the protoplasmic sheath for whatever gives it sensual gratification, the liking of the vital sheath for whatever gives it emotional gratification, the liking of the mind sheath for whatever gives it aesthetic gratification, the liking of the knowledge sheath for whatever give s it intellectual ...
... capable of refining to subtler forms of substance in which it becomes more apparently a formal density of life, of mind, of spirit. Man himself has, besides this gross material body, an encasing vital sheath, a mental body, a body of bliss and gnosis. But all matter, all body contains within it the secret powers of these higher principles; matter is a formation of life that has no Page 626 ...
... The supermind in its descent into the physical being awakens, if not already wakened by previous yogic sadhana, the consciousness—veiled or obscure in most of us—which supports and forms there the vital sheath, the prāṇa koṣa . When this is awakened, we no longer live in the physical body alone, but also in a vital body which penetrates and envelops the physical and is sensitive to impacts of another ...
... protection will be given.”’ 59 In the Agenda , we find this confirmed in the Mother’s own words. When the soul leaves the material body, it first stays for 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 ...
... and our soul is encaged in these koshas. The first is called the Page 17 annamaya, which refers to the physical sheath; the second is called the prāṇamaya, which refers to the vital sheath; the third is called, the manomaya, which refers to the mental sheath. These three are familiar to all of us who have risen above the animal level of existence and have even gone above the level ...
... for this Self there is no evolution. What is generally understood by the Soul is the psychic and mental indi-vidualisation which persists even after the dissolution of the physical body and the vital sheath. Now, when a man dies his physical body dissolves, the vital body dissolves after some time and the psychic and the mental bodies also dissolve. Take the case of an insect. In the insect there ...
... Page 62 individual soul lives simultaneously in five sheaths or koshas, but in most human beings, it is awake only in the three lower sheaths—the material or the food sheath, the vital sheath, and the mental; it has yet to awake in the supra- mental or Vijnâna sheath, and the sheath of Bliss (ānanda- maya kosa). This awakening, unaccompanied by any ataxy or catalepsy in any part ...
... 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 do there, move ...
... After death, what happens to the adhar — I mean mind, vital and subtle physical— when the psychic being returns to the psychic plane for rest? It is dropped off—unless the being has become strongly individualised on the mental plane or both on the mental and vital. Then it keeps its mental and vital sheaths — otherwise they disintegrate and everything essential is drawn back... After death, when the vital retires to its vital plane, what does it do there till the psychic calls it back for the next life on the earth? For most people the vital dissolves after a time as it is not sufficiently formed to be immortal. The soul descending makes a new vital formation suitable for the new life. Could the vital of a worldly man whose vitality... Before it becomes the instrument of the psychic, what does it follow? The vital — the heart is the centre of the emotional being and the emotions are vital movements. When the heart is purified, the vital emotions change into psychic feelings or else psychicised vital movements. Sometimes we feel pure and true emotions surging out from us. Are they not ...
... ‘The Mental withdrew [from her material body], the Vital withdrew, all withdrew. At the time when I was so-called ill the Mind had disappeared, the Vital had disappeared, and the body was left to itself, purposely.’ In other words, the mental and vital elements of the adhara, the mental and vital sheaths, that is, had been removed and the only sheath remaining was the physical. 92 When this happens... it was something of a momentary significance, why did all that have to cease? But now she understood: it was not something momentary, it was a fundamental yogic operation in which the mental and vital sheaths of her adhara had been eliminated and the body alone remained, directly under the influence of the Supreme and, as we will see, of her psychic being. ‘But now I understand: cut off, I fainted... reason: it is precisely because the Vital and the Mental were gone that the impression was given of a very serious illness. And then, in the body left to itself, little by little the cells began to wake up to the Consciousness [gesture of rising aspiration]. Formerly this Consciousness was infused into the body by the Vital – from the Mental into the Vital, from the Vital into the body. When both were ...
... for it to be all right, get cured, and for the untoward thing to vanish. The Mother Questions and Answers (1950 - 1951): 27 January 1951 All illnesses pass through the nervous or vital-physical sheath of the subtle consciousness and subtle body before they enter the physical. If one is conscious of the subtle body or with the subtle consciousness, one can stop an illness on its way and prevent... from the other planes their powers and influences and makes formations of them in its own province. Therefore we have a physical mind as well as a vital mind and the mind proper; we have a vital physical part in us—the nervous being—as well as the vital proper; and both are largely conditioned by the gross material bodily part which is almost entirely subconscient to our experience. Sri Aurobindo... aware of things in a not merely mental or vital way. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: The Physical Consciousness The physical nerves are part of the material body, but they are extended into subtle nerves in the subtle body and there is a connection between the two. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: The Physical Consciousness The vital physical on the other hand is the vehicle ...
... time after death the vital and mental sheaths dissolve, leaving the soul free to retire to the psychic world before it takes up new sheaths. What happens about the Karma and about the impressions - Samskaras - on the old sheaths? Do they also dissolve without producing any result, good or had, which they should according to the theory of Karma? Also, what becomes of the vital and mental beings after... after the dissolution of the vital and mental sheaths? A: The outer form only dissolves, unless that too is made conscious and is organised round the divine centre. But the true mental, the true vital and even the true subtle-physical persist: it is that which keeps all the impressions received in earthly life and builds the chain of Karma. Now, wouldn't this answer by the Mother mean;... mean; "Our true beings - subtle-physical, vital, mental - remain the same for us from life to life down the ages. They, no less than our psychic being, have continuous survival. And the psychic being picks them up while acquiring new subtle-physical, vital and mental sheaths to accompany the physical body into which it is born."? When I turn to Sri Aurobindo I don't get quite the same picture. He 2 ...
... recovered her strength and progressed towards a new height: the first time the supramental force penetrated directly into her material body , without passing through the intermediary mental or vital sheaths. It was an overwhelming experience in which the red and golden supramental light poured into her with such intensity that it caused a burning fever. This happened in the night of 24-25 July 1959... been steadily more perfected in the course of her spiritual progress. This brings to mind the refinement it must have acquired during her occult training at Tlemcen, when she was able to leave sheath after sheath of her adhara up to the outer boundaries of the manifestation. It brings to mind the shooting star on New Year’s Eve of 1914, when she wished for the union with the Divine ‘for the body,’ and... world is a unity-world in which everything is present to everything else and participates in its being. Sri Aurobindo could be there because he had supramentalized his inner being, consisting of the sheaths or bodies in which he lived after his departure from the gross material world. It may be said that Sri Aurobindo formerly, as the evolutionary Avatar, had built his stations one after the other on ...
... laying down of the physical body by the soul. The soul remains “sheathed” in its vital and mental bodies to the extent that these have been developed. But what happens if the vital and mental sheaths are supramentalised? Supramentalisation means divinisation which means immortality. Sri Aurobindo’s vital and mental sheaths had been supramentalised for many years when he entered voluntarily into death... means that, like Sri Aurobindo, the Mother lives in an immortal body. Hers is even more fully supramental than Sri Aurobindo’s because not only the mental and vital sheaths of her adhara were supramentalised, but also part of the material sheath. (This is what most of her conversations from 1958 till 1973, recorded in the Agenda, were about.) Consequently she, like him, is omnipresent in a supramental... × 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). ...
... 1 This fatigue is of a different type from what is normally known as tiredness due to excessive physical or mental strain. It is psychological in its character and affects the vital-physical sheath. To give an example: when we are forced to listen to a long, boring lecture we feel lethargic. It is this kind of fatigue that is experienced here. Page 111 You... discuss with an irrational outer vital is useless — a flat and downright rejection of its suggestions is the only course. The whole thing is a suggestion of the vital forces and Page 116 has no reality — so long as you listen to these suggestions they will naturally go on and obstruct your sadhana with vital desires and vital dissatisfaction. Don't... would admit that he advanced so quickly because his vital and ego were helping his sadhana, as he wanted to be a great yogi, a superman. With us, the vital and the ego are the two greatest stumbling-blocks all along the path. I admit nothing of the kind. He went quickly because the inner mental being had a great receptivity and the vital a great ardour. But the ego was a stumbling-block ...
... foreign, strange or opaque, he can only use symbol-words and rhythms that come with a compulsive force, and the vibrations of this poetry - if they have potency enough - penetrate the mental and vital sheaths and reach the sahrdaya's soul. A poem like Francis Thompson's The Hound of Heaven makes on the reader an impact that is not capable of precise intellectual formulation. And this applies even... God-face and hears transcendent speech.. . 48 The Taittiriya Upanishad speaks of the five sheaths - body, life (prāna), mind, supermind (vijñana) and Ananda - and if mantric poetry is soul communing with soul, it has irresistibly to penetrate, much as X-rays do, the divers outer sheaths and reach vijñana and lose itself in Ananda. Between mind and supermind, Sri Aurobindo has located... deeper self is awakened to more than ordinary aesthetic delight, and out of this consummation or bhoga comes the true delight of existence, the self-forgetful bliss of the innermost of the five sheaths, ānandamaya. As Sri Aurobindo explained in the course of a long letter written in 1946: It is the universal Ananda that is the parent of aesthesis and the universal Ananda takes three major ...
... or eight times I had the experience of a separate vital body (sheath) of my own. And I felt its existence quite separate from the mind. Sometimes that vital body used to go out also. Sri Aurobindo : How far has the peace descended in you ? V : It has descended down to the navel. Sri Aurobindo : Do you not feel it descending further down ? V : Sometimes it descends down... and vital mind ? Sri Aurobindo : Pure mind simply judges or watches, arranges and accepts the Truth, while vital or dynamic mind acts. Pure mind does not act in that way. Disciple : Why is the presence of the higher Power not felt in the vital being ? Sri Aurobindo : Because the physico-vital is not yet completely taken possession of by the higher Power. The physico-vital is a... getting ? V : At first the Power was working on the mental plane. Now it is working on the vital and even below the vital plane. Sri Aurobindo : How do you know that it is working on the vital plane ? V : When the mind becomes peaceful I am able to see desires and impulses etc. in the vital. Sri Aurobindo : When you have got the peace what things do you perceive coming into ...
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