Addressing Depression and Vital Struggle in the Yogic Practice By Building Calm and Equality in Mind, Life and Body

The play of the Gunas in the external nature explains the various reactions, moods and psychological states we experience. This is true not just in the ordinary life of the individual in society, but also for those who take up the practice of Yoga. The patterns of reaction based in the action of the Gunas are well-known. When Rajas is predominant there is an uprising of ambition, desire, and pressure to achieve a specific result. When Rajas becomes frustrated or simply tires of the effort, the individual generally falls back into Tamas, with the consequnet fatigue, weakness, darkness, and the psychological responses of depression or at least a deep malaise and the confusion that results from stymied ambition. When Sattwa arises it leads to a period of tight and harmony during which time both ambition and the reaction to failed ambition are held at bay.

The issue with Sattwa is that, like the other Gunas, it is not a permanent station of the consciousness; rather, it goes through its own periods of predominance and recession, as either Rajas or Tamas rises again to continue the cycle. Sattwa can also become somewhat arrogant in its ‘knowledge’ and thus, may limit its ability to grow and develop flexibly.

The solution, then, seems to be the ability to separate oneself from the nature, mind, life and body, to shift to the consciousness of the witness of the nature, and to interact from that standpoint based on a direct connection to the divine consciousness.

Many people confuse the development of a calm status of the being with mental calm. Sri Aurobindo takes this further by clarifying that there is not just a need for mental calm, but also for a vital nature and physical body that can support the action of the divine force through their own experience of peace, widness and stability.

Sri Aurobindo observes: “The depression and vital struggle must have been due to some defect of over-eagerness and straining for a result in your former effort — so that when a fall in the consciousness came, it was a distressed, disappointed and confused vital that came to the surface giving full entry to the suggestions of doubt, despair and inertia from the adverse side of the Nature. You have to move towards a firm basis of calm and equality in the vital and physical no less than in the mental consciousness; let there be the full downflow of Power and Ananda, but into a firm Adhar capable of containing it — it is complete equality that gives that capacity and firmness.”

Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 1, Calm — Peace — Equality, pg. 19