Vital being
On Education
“Vital Education”
(Mother:) “The vital being in us is the seat of impulses and desires, of enthusiasm and violence, of dynamic energy and desperate depressions, of passions and revolts. It can set everything in motion, build and realise; but it can also destroy and mar everything. Thus it may be the most difficult part to discipline in the human being. It is a long and exacting labour requiring great patience and perfect sincerity, for without sincerity you will deceive yourself from the very outset, and all endeavour for progress will be in vain. With the collaboration of the vital no realisation seems impossible, no transformation impracticable. But the difficulty lies in securing this constant collaboration.”[1]
(Sri Aurobindo:) “There is the vital plane whose law is force and success. If you have force you win; if you have speed you outrun others. The laws of the mind come in to act as a means of balance.”[2]
(Amal Kiran:) “The Mother once told me: “When the vital surrenders to the Divine we have a marvellous event. Something indescribably beautiful and grand takes place – the absolute sweep of the vital's throwing itself at the Divine's feet is comparable.” The Mother also observed that the true joy of the sadhana comes when the vital cooperates. Till then all happiness of Yoga comes and goes, and there is no fixity, no planting of it down into the earth – into our physical existence.[3]
(Sri Aurobindo:) “Do you know anything about Z?
- (Satyendra:) I am not personally attracted to him.
When I saw his photo I had the impression that he is a man with a strong vital power. His sadhana seems to be on the vital plane and it is in such sadhana that one brings about a great influx of Power and unfortunately people are attracted to it. In the spiritual, psychic and even mental sadhana, Power can come but it comes automatically, without one's asking for it.
Barin was another Z, with a powerful vital. At one time I had high hopes for him, but people whose sadhana is on the vital basis pass into what I have called the Intermediate Zone, and they don't want to go beyond. The vital is like a jungle and it is extremely difficult to rescue one with such a vital power. It is comparatively much easier to help those who are weak and lacking in such power. Barin used to think that he had put himself in the Divine's hands and the Divine was in him. We had to be severe with him to disillusion him of his idea. That's why he could not remain here. He went back and became a Guru with about thirty or forty disciples around him. Gurugiri [teachership] comes very often to this kind of people.”[4]
(Sri Aurobindo:) “There is behind all the vital nature in man his true vital being concealed and immobile which is quite different from the surface vital nature. The surface vital is narrow, ignorant, limited, full of obscure desires, passions, cravings, revolts, pleasures and pains, transient joys and griefs, exultations and depressions. The true vital being, on the contrary, is wide, vast, calm, strong, without limitations, firm and immovable, capable of all power, all knowledge, all Ananda. It is moreover without ego, for it knows itself to be a projection and instrument of the Divine: it is the divine Warrior, pure and perfect; in it is an instrumental Force for all divine realisations.”[5]
- ↑ On Education, p.6
- ↑ Talks with Sri Aurobindo, p.191, 22 January 1939
- ↑ Amal Kiran, Our Light and Delight: Recollections of Life with the Mother, p.198
- ↑ Ibid., p.50, 22 December 1938
- ↑ Letters on Yoga - I, p.185
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