Harnessing the Body’s Innate Powers for the Transformation of Consciousness

We tend to overlook or disregard the capacity of the body and its ‘body consciousness’ to aid in the spiritual quest. Each element of the being, the mind, the vital nature, and the body, has its own consciousness and capacity for response. Each element also can either be an aid or an obstacle to the development of the spiritual nature, depending on how we treat it and interact with it.

Particularly for those who are centred in the mind or the heart, the body consciousness seems particularly dull and non-responsive. Past habit in many spiritual traditions actually dismisses the body from the seeking and looks to minimize its role and eventually put it aside as a higher transcendent level is achieved.

This, however, appears to be a misunderstanding about the role and capacity of the body to aid the spiritual development. Each plane of consciousness has its own unique contribution to the totality of the required development. The body, anchored as it is in the external, material world, is an important element in the transformation of the external existence. The body is also capable of receiving, holding, and radiating back higher energies with which it comes into contact.

We are all familiar with the fact that rocks can absorb heat from various sources, hold that heat for quite some time, and let it back out over a period of time. An experiment was done with the vital force of prayer. A researcher took two similar rocks, one of which had been part of an active temple where intensive prayer took place for a long period of time and the other one with no such provenance. Kirlian photography of the two showed that the ‘temple rock’ had a strong radiant ‘aura’ streaming out from it; while the ‘ordinary’ rock had no such energetic vibration. It is clear therefore that even dense matter can, and does, pick up and store and radiate energy, not just material energy such as the heat, but also spiritual energy in the form of prayer. This provides us a clue to the important role that the body consciousness can, and does, play in the transformation of consciousness both for the individual seeker and for the world change.

The Mother observes: “Then faith awakens in the cells of the body. And you will see that you find a response in your body itself. The body itself will feel that if its inner will helps, fortifies, directs, leads, well, all its limitations will gradually disappear.”

“And so, when the first experience comes, which sometimes begins when one is very young, the first contact with the inner joy, the inner beauty, the inner light, the first contact with that, which suddenly makes you feel, ‘Oh! that is what I want,’ you must cultivate it, never forget it, hold it constantly before you, tell yourself, ‘I have felt it once, so I can feel it again. This has been real for me, even for the space of a second, and that is what I am going to revive in myself’…. And encourage the body to seek it — to seek it, with the confidence that it carries that possibility within itself and that if it calls for it, it will come back, it will be realised again.”

“This is what should be done when one is young. This is what should be done every time one has the opportunity to recollect oneself, commune with oneself, seek oneself.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter XVI Body, pg. 126