Is Spiritual Force Real?

Sri Aurobindo once told about an incident that helped spark his interest in yoga-force. His brother was very ill. A wandering yogi came by and when he learned on that illness, asked for a glass of water which he then proceeded to infuse with mantas. The illness was quickly overcome once Sri Aurobindo’s brother drank the mantra-infused water. Sri Aurobindo remarked that anything that has that kind of power needs to be investigated!

An incident was reported by someone who had no knowledge whatsoever of spirituality or yogic power. He had been poisoned and was in terrible pain and was unable to breathe. He then heard an inner voice that said “do yogic breathing”. He had no idea what this was all about, since he had never heard about nor studied yoga, and was following a purely Western educational and career path. He reported that he experienced something that took over his breathing in a way that he had never before experienced. He eventually recovered with a deep sense that there was a spiritual reality to the world and that he had something else to do with his life than follow his former career path. He left college, and began to study yoga! His life was entirely transformed through the experience.

Many people around the world have reported similar experiences, seeming miraculous interventions in their lives, new directions, new insights, new powers of action. These are not able to be categorized in our normal mental framework, as they originate outside that framework.

Many people have experienced ‘out of body’ events where they saw their awareness move outside the physical body and then observe the body from a different point of view, from another part of a room, or from above looking down. Some people have observed emergency workers trying to revive the body and eventually, they went back into the body and “woke up”. If the consciousness can leave the body, yet remain whole and aware, it is a sign that we are not purely material beings, but have consciousness that can, and does, survive outside the physical frame.

Spiritual force or yogic force is not some theoretical potentiality to be debated and analyzed. It is something that must be experienced to be appreciated and believed. The above examples and situations are just the very first, rudimentary signs of a spiritual or yogic power at work. As individuals have taken up the practices of yoga and developed a spiritual focus in their lives, new expressions of spiritual force come into play. For example, many people find that they experience deep peace in the presence of a yogic master, or they feel like inner change is taking place, they feel a sense of deep consecration or a feeling of wide compassion encompassing the entire world. These experiences have been recounted endless times by people from all cultures and times. They may be cloaked in a religious or philosophical framework, but when we get to the core experience we see the similarity of the actual event that has taken place and the changes that it has brought to the fore. How many people have seen their path forward in life totally changed and transformed as a result!

Sri Aurobindo notes: “All the world, according to Science, is nothing but a play of Energy — a material Energy it used to be called, but it is now doubted whether Matter, scientifically speaking, exists except as a phenomenon of Energy. All the world, according to Vedanta, is a play of a power of a spiritual entity, the power of an original consciousness, whether it be Maya or Shakti, and the result an illusion or real. In the world so far as man is concerned we are aware only of mind-energy, life-energy, energy in Matter, but it is supposed that there is a spiritual energy or force also behind them from which they originate. All things, in either case, are the results of a Shakti, energy or force. There is no action without a Force or Energy doing the action and bringing about its consequence. Further, anything that has no Force in it is either something dead or something unreal or something inert and without consequence. If there is no such thing as spiritual consciousness, there can be no reality of yoga, and if there is no yoga-force, spiritual force, yoga shakti, then also there can be no effectivity in yoga. A yoga-consciousness or spiritual consciousness which has no power or force in it, may not be dead or unreal, but it is evidently something inert and without effect or consequence. Equally, a man who sets out to be a yogi or Guru and has no spiritual consciousness or no power in his spiritual consciousness — a yoga-force or spiritual force — is making a false claim and is either a charlatan or a self-deluded imbecile; still more is he so if having no spiritual force he claims to have made a path others can follow. If yoga is a reality, if spirituality is anything better than a delusion, there must be such a thing as yoga-force or spiritual force.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch.7 Spiritual Forces of Help and Succour, pp.159-160