The Development of the Powers of the Body

For the seekers who wish to depart the creation through unification with the Supreme, the body is often considered to be an obstacle, something that needs a certain amount of begrudging attention in order to allow the meditation to take place uninterruptedly. These seekers prefer to give as little attention as possible to the body, do not trouble about its health and well-being, aside from having the ability to enter the meditative state and maintain it.

It is, however, not only spiritual seekers who have tended to undervalue and under-appreciate the body and its role in the manifestation. Many who have a powerful intellect also tend to treat time devoted to the body’s needs and development as time wasted, which otherwise could be used for the further intellectual development. When it comes to physical culture, sports, exercise, training regimens, they prefer to sit out the process and concentrate on their mental development.

For those who accept the evolutionary status of the world and the divine intention in the manifestation, however, there is both a need for ascent to the heights of consciousness and the ability to bring that knowledge and force down and into the world, to transform life through the increasing application of higher powers of consciousness. These individuals find that the body is an important tool of interaction and implementation and they find that a well-trained and ready physical frame is a valuable aid in the process. Attention is thus given to physical culture to optimize the ability of the body to respond and to carry out the mandate of the higher consciousness.

The Mother illustrates the difference between a developed physical frame and one that has been left alone. Clearly the spiritual focus, the conscious awareness of the being is the superior force, but when it tries to utilize the untrained physical form, it acts with less precision and power than if it had a ready instrument at hand.

The Mother writes: ”Take games. There too you find days when everything goes well; you have done nothing special previously, but even so you succeed in everything; but if you have practised well beforehand, the result is still more magnificent. If, for example, you find yourself facing someone who has trained himself slowly, seriously, with patience and endurance, and who all of a sudden has a strong aspiration, well, this one will beat you in spite of your aspiration unless your aspiration is very much superior to that of your adversary. If you have opposite you someone who knows only the technique of the game but has no conscious aspiration, whilst you are in a fully conscious state, evidently it is you who will defeat him because the quality of consciousness is superior to the quality of technique. But one cannot replace the other. The one which is superior is more important, granted but you must also have nerves which respond quickly, spontaneous movements; you must know all the secrets of the game to be able to play perfectly. You must have both the things. What is higher is the consciousness which enables you to make the right movement at the right moment but it is not exclusive. When you seek perfection, you must not neglect the one under the pretext that you have the other.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 6, Some Answers and Explanations, pg. 175