Anyone who has taken up the practice of meditation is familiar with the attempt to quiet the mind and not pay attention to thoughts that arise during the process, letting them drift through without being followed or amplified in any way. One quickly realises during the process that we tend to ... Views: 602
When we look around at the world today, as well as at the thoughts, feelings and moods of people, both ourselves, and others, we find that Sri Aurobindo has perfectly described the situation. He defines this as the underlying Inconscient ‘bed-rock’ of being. The basic material resistance that is ... Views: 537
The idea of overcoming lower drives and desires of the vital, or that stem from the physical or the subconscient, through indulgence in a purposeful way is an enticing one, particularly to the vital nature, which can use this excuse to convince the mind to fulfill the myriad of powerful desires ... Views: 588
Western psychoanalysis focused on a specific segment of the overall human psychological makeup, an area that deals with vestigial instincts and suppressed desires and urges. Obviously any opening and examination of this aspect is fraught with both concerns and dangers for the individual seeking ... Views: 576
Whatever an individual focuses on takes on a large, central position and other aspects shift into the background. This is the secret not only of concentration of effort, but also on an understanding of the issues surrounding practices such as psychoanalysis in relation to a practitioner of yoga. ... Views: 582
Humanity has a tendency to try to judge everything by its existing level of perception and knowledge. Thus, for most of human existence, people ‘knew’ that the sun rotated around the earth and that the earth was the center of the universe around which everything else moved and upon which ... Views: 646
The quality of Tamas has as a major characteristic the sense of inertia. Nothing seems to be moving or advancing, there is little energy or will active to undertake action, there is an overpowering sense of helplessness, weakness, failure and dullness.
Many times people confuse dullness or ... Views: 526
Sri Aurobindo utilizes the term ‘subconscient’ to signify a level of consciousness that operates below the range within which the normal human awareness is operable. We may look at consciousness as a spectrum similar to what we know of the properties of the electro-magnetic spectrum or the color ... Views: 580
The subconscient is the home, in the earth consciousness, of the quality of Tamas, just as the vital manifestation is the natural home of the quality of Rajas, and the mental level and above would be the natural home of the quality of Sattwa. These are all mixed up in the human being, interact ... Views: 592
Brute force has often been employed by aspirants seeking to overcome the ‘desires of the flesh’ and the obstructions of the physical consciousness to their spiritual focus and seeking. Extreme fasting, wearing of the cilice or sackcloth, arduous penances in the desert, self-flagellation, ... Views: 616
Once the yogic sadhana moves to the physical consciousness, it runs into the nature of the physical and material world that predominates in the quality of Tamas, with its characteristics of darkness, sloth, indolence and dullness, inertia and slowness to change. In the physical world itself, ... Views: 623
As has been shown time and again when individuals have attempted to change the vital nature, the attempt is doomed to only partial success, if not ultimate failure, if the struggle is carried out under the conditions of the vital being. Almost any method, process, technique, control mechanism or ... Views: 560
In traditional yogas that describe the opening of the chakras, the kundalini energy moves up systematically from the root chakra, Muladhara, successively through each chakra until it reaches the crown of the head where it joins with the Divine, universal consciousness. Thus, one of the very ... Views: 571
At some point everyone experiences periods where the physical body and its corresponding physical mind seem dull, tired, lacking in enthusiasm, and interested only in sleeping, eating and the most basic things that occupy our physical life on earth. During these periods there is an absence of ... Views: 546
After intensive mental awakening, vital experiences of spiritual significance, and the emotional uplift and fervour of devotion, there comes a period when the work shifts to the physical mind and framework, and change, that seemed to be so close and real, now seems to be illusory and just about ... Views: 648
People throughout time and around the world, from all different backgrounds and religious or spiritual traditions, have developed a number of ways to integrate their religious or spiritual beliefs and practices into their lives. Some simply disregard these things and live a life of satisfaction ... Views: 567
The pressure of both the habitual patterns established by the physical body, the vital life energy and the mental development, together with the pressure of society and the impact of past education, creates an enormous impediment to the radical change in standpoint necessitated for the ... Views: 525
When we associate ourselves with our mental identity, we tend to believe that what we ‘think’ is what we ‘are’. However, this leaves open the opportunity for self-deception and ultimate failure to change the nature, as the vital being remains stuck in its old habitual patterns and does not ... Views: 510
If the goal of the spiritual seeker is to attain liberation or realisation, the vital nature can be, for the most part, disregarded. For an integral yoga that has transformation of life through the implementation of the next phase of the evolutionary cycle, such a direction cannot be accepted. ... Views: 565
Sri Aurobindo considers yoga to be, in a certain sense, applied psychology. The review and understanding of one’s own actions and deeper motives and motivations is essential if one is going to overcome the limitations and habits of the lower nature and eventually receive and manifest new ways of ... Views: 570
In The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo explores the boundaries of the Ignorance and a framework for attaining knowledge. He describes at some length, the ‘circumconscient’ influence on what we believe are our own internal actions and reactions. We view ourselves through the ego-consciousness and ... Views: 523
In ancient Greek mythology, there is the tale of the 12 labours of Hercules, one of which was cleaning out the Augean stables. He needed to accomplish this task in one day, but there were so many cattle that it was considered an impossible task. And every day the mess was renewed after the ... Views: 591
Every individual has all the long-established vital movements embedded deep in the nature. When the force of the yoga begins to open up the various energy centers, particularly the vital centers, these movements are stirred and use the opportunity to capitalize on the new energy and try to ... Views: 507
The idea of changing the basic way that human beings respond to circumstances is one that has been considered to be a virtually hopeless task. Long human experience has provided the impression that our vital nature is fixed and, while we can perhaps soften it around the edges, it is basically ... Views: 533
In the ordinary life in the world, the action of vital desire, and the attempt to fulfill the desires is accepted to such a degree that it is not even consciously noted or treated as anything other than ‘human nature’. Society sets certain customary restraints or limits in order to build a civil ... Views: 644
When we are busy fulfilling our desires or ambitions, we notice that the vital energy is generally plentiful and positive, we forget about fatigue and want to carry on with exuberance. This is the normal status of the vital energy carrying out its habitual functions in human life and society. ... Views: 539
We frequently hear people saying that this world is a world of opposites and one cannot have joy without sorrow, pleasure without pain. This is accepted basically as an axiom for living in the world. And it is true, that for virtually everyone there is a mixture of positive and negative vital ... Views: 511
There are times when we feel a total lack of inspiration and energy. Dullness pervades, there is no initiative or interest in anything. These times come in the ordinary day to day life, but they are covered up with distractions, entertainment, intoxication, and vital forms of enjoyment. The ... Views: 574
To effectuate a total transformation of the mind-life-body and its action in the world, it is necessary for the seeker to address and solve the issue of the vital being, its desires, and the ego-standpoint that it fosters and maintains.
Methods that essentially try to fight with the vital ... Views: 608
A primary characteristic of human life on earth at this time is the power of the vital force in shaping not just our day-to-day responses to life situations, but to also impact our mental processes, such that for most people, the mind is under the control of the vital and its desires and ... Views: 550
Practitioners of spiritual and religious disciplines inevitably are confronted with the habits and expectations of the physical mind in day to day life. There is a constant pressure to provide regular meals that suit the taste of the individual, comfortable surroundings to support the day to day ... Views: 571
If we reflect on the amount of time and focus we give to organizing and living our external physical lives, dealing with food, shelter, clothing, comforts of various sorts, entertainment, travel, family and friends, it becomes clear that a considerable part, indeed the greatest part, of our time ... Views: 542
The vital mind is the dominant process for most people in the world today who live an external life and work toward some form of fulfillment, success, progress or development in their lives and in their relations to family, friends, community and their society. Very few, comparatively, are those ... Views: 586
For most people, the mind is always active with an internal commentary or dialogue running as people react to situations or try to solve various issues. As the mind is trained to undertake intellectual processes, it follows a process of logic and organisation that is used to understand and act ... Views: 515
The mental intellect receives impulses through the senses, organises them, and trues to determine what is true based on that. It then builds hypotheses, theories and ideation around its assortment of perceptions, memory, and experience based on various principles of symbolic logic that it has ... Views: 645
it is typical of the mental intelligence to believe that reading and remembering something implies that we have realised the truth of what we have read. Those who have taken the time to reflect on this make it clear that ‘reading a book about swimming’ does not mean one knows how to swim! ... Views: 581
The development of the mental consciousness has brought about enormous changes for life on earth, and as the foremost species utilizing the mental consciousness, humanity has taken the mind to limits never before considered as possible. Advances in logic, science, philosophy, psychology, ... Views: 567
The “fountain of youth”, the elixir of immortality, attaining eternal life… these are various ways the aspiration of humanity has found expression for the conquest of death. Some who take up the integral Yoga latch on to the eventual idea of the supramental transformation leading to immortality ... Views: 603
The vital nature is always interested in, even fixated on, the idea of having dramatic ‘spiritual experiences’. These experiences can open the eyes of the seeker to a wider reality, and can help reorient the direction of the life, sometimes in unusual or unexpected ways. There are many instances ... Views: 697
In his lectures on Raja Yoga, Swami Vivekananda points out clearly that chasing after powers or siddhis as they are called, is not the aim of the yoga and can be a distraction from the primary goal. They may come, but should not be sought after or made a primary determinant of the yogic process ... Views: 672
The full manifestation of the supramental consciousness in the world is the objective of the integral Yoga. This does not mean, however, that such a radical change in earthly life is expected to come about quickly or without any preliminary steps to be taken. In terms of the evolutionary ... Views: 630
Much of the history of spirituality in the world is focused on achieving an inner, or subjective, realisation, and avoids addressing the outer life to any great degree. Most paths try to simplify the outer life. The intention is to avoid distractions that can take one away from the immense ... Views: 599
The practice of the integral Yoga does not rely on prowess of physical postures (asanas) or breathing techniques (pranayama) or external rituals or practices. It is focused on creating the right internal ‘landscape’ in the psychology in order to achieve specific psychological asanas, so to ... Views: 709
Once the psychic being is in front and directing the aspiration, focus and receptivity of the being to the action of the Divine Force, it is necessary to maintain the correct psychological posture, which implies not allowing either rajasic or tamasic energies to dominate the effort, avoiding ... Views: 702
With the advent of the supramental evolutionary principle in the physical world, certain expectations arise as to the physical body and its capacities. Supramental consciousness, infused into the very cells of the body, clearly would make the body more adaptable, more powerful and more able to ... Views: 632
In his book Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda describes the ability of various yoga practitioners to extend the capacities of the body far beyond what we consider to be normal, including prolonging the life span dramatically. One example he described was of Babaji, a yogi who ... Views: 576
The supramental transformation involves the manifestation in the world of the next stage of consciousness beyond the mental level. Just as the evolution of mind brought about enormous changes in life on earth, the evolution of supermind will have a transformative effect on all existence, on the ... Views: 604
The goal of traditional spiritual paths is mainly to achieve individual liberation or realisation of the Self, although some, such as Mahayana Buddhism, add an element of self-giving in action by having the realised soul, the Bodhisattva, renounce full liberation until such time as all other ... Views: 579
The Bhagavad Gita places considerable emphasis on the need to understand the play of the Gunas, Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas, in all things. Yogic practice is not exempted from this play. Each of the Gunas has a specific set of characteristics, and they are not stable. The Gunas are always in motion. ... Views: 560
The spiritual landscape is vast, and there are innumerable objectives and paths that can be taken. Sri Aurobindo describes briefly his approach to spiritual growth and its relation to the process of an evolution of consciousness in the earth-nature to incorporate what he calls the supramental ... Views: 595