No Man Is An Island

We are rarely conscious of the constant interchange taking place on the vital level of our being. Vital vibrations are constantly active in the world and all beings wind up being exposed to them and absorbing them. Those who live in more isolated locations tend to have less direct and intense exposure, simply because many of these vital forces are weak or tend to disperse over time and distance, or lose their intensity. Those who live in the midst of dense urban environments are subjected to all manner of vital forces that are constantly active, and which bombard them from all sides. Fleeting desires, short-lived emotions tend to dissipate, yet have their immediate impact. If an individual who is subjected to these vital forces actively responds and begins to vibrate responsively, then the vital force is perpetuated and even potentially enhanced. If an individual is aware and is able to tamp down on the action of that force, then its vibratory pattern is muted, and eventually it subsides.

We can understand the action of vital forces on living beings when we look at the principle of the sitar. This musical instrument has master strings and sympathetic strings which vibrate when the master string is played. Strong action of the master string can therefore set the sympathetic strings fully into motion, while light action of the master string has a very transitory effect on the sympathetic strings.

The salient features of vital forces then are the intensity, the proximity, the focus and the receptivity status of those who feel that vibration. An extremely strong vital force, focused and directed, can impact individuals who even live in isolation! While a weak force may tend to be counter-acted, modified, or is dispersed amidst the myriad of vital forces always being received and transmitted by all living beings.

The Mother writes: “You live vitally in the vital world with all the currents of vital force entering, going out, joining and opposing each other, quarrelling and intermingling in your consciousness, and even if you have made a personal effort to purify your vital consciousness, to master in it the desire-being and the little human ego, you are constantly under a sort of obligation to absorb all the contrary vibrations which come from those with whom you live. One can’t shut oneself up in an ivory tower, it is yet more difficult vitally than physically, and one takes in all sorts of things; and unless one is constantly wide awake, constantly on one’s guard, and has quite an efficient control over all that enters, so as not to admit in one’s consciousness unwanted elements, one catches the constant contagion of all desires, all the lower movements, all the small obscure reactions, all the unwanted vibrations which come to us from those around us.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch.8 Life — A Mass of Vibrations, pp. 184-185