Slogging Through the Dense and Dull Consciousness of the Physical Being

The natural seat of the Guna of sattwa is in the mental being; rajas in the vital being and tamas in the physical being. This is not to imply that there are not times and situations where one of the othe qualities comes forward in any of these three aspects of our external being; on the contrary, we can identify tamasic and rajasic elements in the mental being, as well as sattwic and tamasic elements in the vital being, and sattwic and rajasic elements in the physical being. The ‘natural seat’ simply implies that the most prominent general location for a particular Guna in action lies in a portion of the being that is prone to express the kind of characteristics associated with that Guna.

If we focus then on the physical being in the situation of the coming to the fore the quality of tamas, we can experience it as an dullness, unwillingness to do anything, emptiness, darkness and a sense of nothing being able to move forward. For a spiritual aspirant, this is an extremely uncomfortable status, yet he may feel quite overwhelmed by the intensity of the darkness and the potential despair that accompanies it.

In those moments, it is difficult for the seeker to see that there is any way out of this morass. It is important that he recognise that the Gunas are always in motion, and that none of them can hold the field forever. Eventually, the only solution is to keep going, putting one foot in front of the other and moving forward, however slow, however difficult, however tiresome and however hopeless it seems.

It may help to reflect on Milarepa’s experience. Racked by all-consuming guilt for the suffering he had caused seeking revenge through use of black magic, he sought out a Guru to guide lim toward spiritual realisation in one lifetime. The Guru, rather than providing the teachings he was granting to other disciples, put Milarepa to work doing backbreaking building, and then unbuilding of stone structures without taking any assistance, using his own physical body as the sole means of carrying out this work. This went on for some years, and eventually, Milarepat reached a state of extreme despair that he would ever get the necessary teachings and achieve the realisation, to the point that he even considered committing suicide. It was only after this long dark period that he was actually given the teachings which would eventually lead to a liberated state of consciousness. His tribulations go far beyond what most people, immersed in the dull routine of the physical consciousness, have to bear, and they went on for far longer than most people are stuck in that dull, meaningless routine of the daily round without seeming purpose or even energy to make it interesting or even remotely leading to progress.

Sri Aurobindo observes: ” ‘At the mercy of the external sounds and external bodily sensations.’, ‘no control to drop the ordinary consciousness at will’, ‘the whole tendency of the being away from Yoga’ — all that is unmistakably applicatble to the physical mind and the physical consciousness when they isolate themselves, as it were, and take up the whole front, pushing the rest into the background. When a part of the being is brought forward to be worked upon for change, this kind of all-occupying emergence, the dominant activity of that part is if it alone existed, very usually happens, and unfortunately it is always what has to be changed, the undesirable conditions, the difficulties of that part which rise first and obstinately hold the field and recur. In the physical it is inertia, obscurity, inability that come up and the obstinacy of these things. The only thing to do in this unpleasant phase is to be more obstinate than the physical inertia and to persist in a fixed endeavour — steady persistency without any restless struggle — to get a wide and permanent opening made even in this solid rock of obstruction.”

Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 5, Physical Consciousness — Subconscient — Sleep and Dream — Illness, pp. 84-85