Vital Energy in Ordinary Life and in the Spiritual Life

We generally do not question the movements of the vital nature in our ordinary daily life. They are so much a part of what we consider to be human nature and human experience that we simply accept them and treat them as inevitable. It is true that human society has developed a framework within which such vital expressions are deemed acceptable, but this is a moving target depending on the society and the time. For instance, in some societies it is considered unacceptable to give way to untrammeled greed and accumulate vast wealth at the expense of everyone else in the community; but in other societies, billionaires are lauded and treated as great businessmen, even if the methods of their accumulation of wealth are in many ways destructive to the society, the environment and the basic life-requirements of vast numbers of their fellow citizens. Similarly, indulgence in sex is considered normal, but certain limits are set to meet the perceived needs of an orderly society. Again, some societies set different frameworks for the expression of sex, and thus, the rules are temporal and subject to change over time.

All of this changes when an individual takes up the spiritual life, however. In most cases, the individual is asked to suppress the expression of vital movements such as greed, anger, sex, in order to put their spiritual principles into practice. In some cases, however, the spiritual seeker is actually taught that they should indeed express these forces, albeit with a specific attitude or standpoint that ensures that the expression is part of their spiritual practice and not something different. Of course, telling them difference is always something problematic when viewed from outside.

This leads to some amount of confusion for spiritual seekers. Should they be suppressing the vital forces? Should they be expressing them? What is the right attitude or standpoint in relation to the vital nature? What rationale is there for taking one approach or another?

The object sought by the spiritual seeker requires concentration and a shifting of focus away from the mundane activities of the daily life and the vital nature. The pursuit of vital fulfillment disrupts the necessary focus and fixates the individual on the realisation of vital objectives. This dilutes the effort and diverts the attention. For those who seek a transformation of the external life, not solely the spiritual focus achieved by suppression of the outer life, it also is necessary to recognise that the acceptance of the vital energy is essential, but that the entire basis, standpoint and direction of that energy needs to be aligned with the higher purpose of the divine manifestation. This involves a somewhat radical reorientation of the way the seeker approaches the use and management of the vital forces in his being.

Sri Aurobindo notes: “In the ordinary life people accept the vital movements, anger, desire, greed, sex, etc. as natural, allowable and legitimate things, part of the human nature. Only so far as society discourages them or insists to keep them within fixed limits or subject to a decent restraint or measure, people try to control them so as to conform to the social standard of morality or rule of conduct. Here, on the contrary, as in all spiritual life, the conquest and complete mastery of these things is demanded.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 2, Planes and Parts of the Being, pp. 31-32