Educating and Uplifting the Vital Nature: Part 1 Understanding the Issues

When we recognize the difficulties of managing the energy of the vital nature, and its long habits of how it finds fulfillment and satisfaction, we can appreciate that there are no ‘simple’ solutions available. The vital, when it is cooperative with the mind and the psychic being, is an incredible power of effectuation; when it sets up obstacles, however, it can pose immense difficulties for the seeker.

We can gain an understanding of the vital and its mode of operations as a basis for bringing it to a place where it wants to, and does, cooperate with the seeker. First, it is important to formulate the intention or goal one has for the vital nature. If the goal is the abandonment of the active external life, then the vital can be suppressed and prevented from finding any outlet. If, however, the goal is the transformation of life, both for the individual and for the external life, then the vital needs to be understood and the relationship with it managed carefully. So the first step is to define one’s intention in relation to the vital.

Next, we can look at the concept of vital management. There are numerous theories and practices that have been tried in the past, some more successful than others. We look therefore at the principles involved in managing the vital.

Thereafter, it comes down to a matter of the techniques, which need to be adaptable and flexible to start from where the individual’s vital nature is in its development and what is possible from that starting point and with the circumstances that are extant for the seeker to address and manage.

Educating the vital nature is actually an important element of the process of educating children, who naturally have the vital nature active and, in most cases, predominant over the mental being in the earlier stages of their lives.

First principles of education require an understanding of the habits of the vital, how they are formed, and how they are redirected. Thus, the first concern is to develop the power of observation, both of one’s own reactions and the way significant individuals in one’s life, such as parents, siblings, friends, teachers, and others with whom one relates react to situations, as these all represent influences that help shape one’s own vital responses to circumstances. It is through such detailed observation and particularly inner observation of one’s own vital impulses, urges and reactions, that one can truly begin to understand the forces at work, and thus, begin to develop a plan to manage, train and guide the vital nature.

We find that through poor vital education in parents, they often resort to violence and bullying of children in order to accomplish some immediate act of submission. This process tends either to deaden the vital, or create resistance and rebellion at some point, or carries on the mis-education of the vital into future generations. This insight can aid the seeker in dealing with his own vital nature, which may have been subjected to such experiences earlier in life. Similarly, the society may set forth objectives that get internalized by the child to obtain vital satisfaction through acquisition of material objects, through obtaining wealth, power, fame and acclaim, or some other external reward, thus perverting the vital nature in its expectations and focus. This too results in deeply rooted obstacles and limitations for the seeker to understand and work out.

An excellent mode of observation is to attempt to implement a discipline and then observe how the vital responds to it. For instance, as a preliminary practice in Raja Yoga, Patanjali describes the restraints known as yamas and niyamas. These are practices that restrain the vital being from some of the ordinary reactions. The yamas are not harming others, abiding in truth in thought, word and deed, non-stealing including not coveting possessions of others, continence to restrain the sexual energy and non-receiving in the form of acceptance of energies or gifts from others which can influence one’s energetic state. The niyamas include purification, both externally and inwardly to cleanse the body, mind and soul, contentment so as to limit the force of desire, concentration of conscious force, known as tapas, observation for learning and study, and bringing forward the aspiration, love and gratitude for the Divine. Each of these will bring up reactions in the vital nature, and thus, one can learn about the deformations that need to be dealt with, and the positive energies that provide a basis for further progress.

The Mother observes: “It is difficult to regulate it. Yet naturally, when you have succeeded in taming it, you have something powerful in hand for realisation. It is that which can carry by storm the biggest obstacles. It is that which is capable of turning an idiot into an intelligent person — it alone can do so; for if one yearns passionately for progress, if the vital takes it into its head that one must progress, even the greatest idiot can become intelligent! I have seen this, I am not speaking from hearsay; I have seen it, I have seen people who were dull, stupid, incapable of understanding, who understood nothing — you could go on explaining something to them for months, it would not enter, as though one were speaking to a block of wood — and then all of a sudden their vital was caught in a passion; they wanted simply to please someone or get something, and for that one had to understand, one had to know, it was necessary. Well, they set everything moving, they shook up the sleeping mind, they poured energy into all the corners where there was none; and they understood, they became intelligent. I knew someone who knew nothing practically, understood nothing, and who, when the mind started moving and the passion for progress took possession of him, began to write wonderful things. I have them with me. And when the movement withdrew, when the vital went on strike (for sometimes it went on strike, and withdrew), the person became once again absolutely dull.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter XVII The Vital, pp. 134-135