Making the Vital Into a Willing Collaborator in the Transformation of Life

After all the attempts to bring the vital being under some kind of control, it may seem like it is an impossible task! The vital has its fixed habits of fulfillment and satisfaction and tends generally to want to continue its normal modes of action. It is, however, not a thankless task and there are solutions. We can see the potential when we look at the methods used to obtain willing cooperation from others, as well as from the animal kingdom. We may gain short-term control through exercising brute force, wielding fear or offering bribes, but these tend not to gain long-term cooperation; rather, they enforce themselves only so long as the means are in operation. We see however that loyalty, goodwill, cooperation and joyful participation result when there is a serious effort made to make that effort one of mutual agreement and mutual benefit.

This can be done through educating the vital, refining its impulses, redirecting its focus and showing it that there are sources of energy and fulfillment available through this process. It can be done by showing the vital the way to even greater fulfillments than it has historically experienced in its traditional modes of action. It can be developed through experiential results that provide incentive to the vital to adapt and revise its way of reacting to life and its opportunities.

Once the vital becomes enthused about the possibilities, it will focus all its attention and its energies on the needed realisation. This occurs in all spheres of interest, not solely in spiritual pursuits.

The Mother observes: “It is difficult to regulate it. Yet naturally, when you have succeeded in taming it, you have something powerful in hand for realisation. it is that which can carry by storm the biggest obstacles. It is that which is capable of turning an idiot into an intelligent person — it alone can do so; for if one yearns passionately for progress, if the vital takes it into its head that one must progress, even the greatest idiot can become intelligent! I have seen this, I am not speaking from hearsay; I have seen it, I have seen people who were dull, stupid, incapable of understanding, who understood nothing — you could go on explaining something to them for months, it would not enter, as though one were speaking to a block of wood — and then all of a sudden their vital was caught in a passion; they wanted simply to please someone or get something, and for that one had to understand, one had to know, it was necessary. Well, they set everything moving, they shook up the sleeping mind, they poured energy into all the corners where there was none; and they understood, they became intelligent. I knew someone who knew nothing practically, understood nothing, and who, when the mind started moving and the passion for progress took possession of him, began to write wonderful things. I have them with me. And when the movement withdrew, when the vital went on strike (for sometimes it went on strike, and withdrew), the person became once again absolutely dull.”

“Naturally it is very difficult to establish a constant contact between the most external physical consciousness and the psychic consciousness, and oh! the physical consciousness has plenty of goodwill; it is very regular, it takes a great deal but it is slow and heavy, it takes long, it is difficult to move it. It does not get tired, but it makes no effort; it goes its way, quietly. It can take centuries to put the external consciousness in contact with the psychic. But for some reason or other the vital takes a hand in it. A passion seizes it. It wants this contact (for some reason or other, which is not always a spiritual reason), but it wants this contact. it wants it with all its energy, all its strength, all its passion, all its fervour: in three months the thing is done.”

“So then, take great care of it. Treat it with great consideration but never submit to it. For it will drag you into all kinds of troublesome and untoward experiments; and if you succeed in convincing it in some way or other, then you will advance with giant strides on the path.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 2, Planes and Parts of the Being, pp. 33-34