Transformation of the Vital Requires the Action of a New Power of Consciousness

Albert Einstein was famously quoted as saying: “We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them”. It is necessary to achieve a new frame of reference and standpoint in order to address the issues of the body-life-mind complex and the transformation of the vital nature is one of the key issues that needs to be so addressed. The vital nature, as we have described, is not subject to change through the normal tools of indulgence or suppression that seekers have tended to employ in past attempts to bring it under control. There are also apocryphal stories of yogis who spent years in deep meditation in cave retreats, who achieved a measure of peace through their yogic discipline, who, when confronted by real world events and circumstances, erupted with vital explosions they had assumed were already worked out.

The shift in consciousness needed comes generally at the end of human effort, when the individual has done everything he can do, and reaches a dead end. At that moment, there is a choice of despair or an act of utmost faith in the higher providence that shaped his destiny, his aspiration and his focus up to that point.

Sri Aurobindo points out that the process of nature includes setting up extreme circumstances of opposition that then must rise to a higher level to find the solution. The ascetic response does not solve it; nor does the materialistic response; in other words, suppression or indulgence. The higher synthesis is based on an omnipresent reality that understands both drives, that towards liberation, and that towards outer growth and perfection, that make up these two opposite approaches.

A disciple asked the Mother about this:

But if one can tear out completely the root of the thing?

The Mother writes: “Ah! one must not be so sure of that. I have known people who wanted to save the world by reducing it so much that there was no longer a world left! This is the ascetic way — you want to do away with the problem by doing away with the possibility of the problem. But this will never change anything.”

“No, there is a method — a sure one — but your method must be very clear-sighted and you must have a wide-awake consciousness of your person and of what goes on there and the way in which things happen. Let us take the instance of a person subject to outbursts of rage and violence. According to one method he would be told: ‘Get as angry as you like, you will suffer the consequences of your anger and this will cure you.’ This could be discussed. According to another method he would be told: ‘Sit upon your anger and it will disappear.’ This too could be discussed. In any case, you will have to sit upon it all the time, for if ever you should get up for a minute you will see immediately what happens! Then, what is to be done?”

“You must become more and more conscious. You must observe how the thing happens, by what road the danger approaches, and stand in the way before it can take hold of you. If you want to cure yourself of a defect or a difficulty, there is but one method: to be perfectly vigilant, to have a very alert and vigilant consciousness. First you must see very clearly what you want to do. You must not hesitate, be full of doubt and say, ‘Is it good to do this or not, does this come into the synthesis or should it not come in? You will see that if you trust your mind, it will always shuttle back and forth: it vacillates all the time. If you take a decision it will put before you all the arguments to show you that your decision is not good, and you will be tossed between the ‘yes’ and ‘no’, the black and white, and will arrive at nothing. Hence, first, you must know exactly what you want — know, not mentally, but through concentration, through aspiration and a very conscious will. That is the important point. Afterwards, gradually, by observation, a sustained vigilance, you must realise a sort of method which will be personal to you — it is useless to convince others to adopt the same method as yours, for that won’t succeed. Everyone must find his own method, everyone must have his own method, and to the extent you put into practice your method, it will become clearer and clearer, more and more precise. You can correct a certain point, make clear another, etc. So, you start working…. For a while, all will go well. Then, one day, you will find yourself facing an insurmountable difficulty and will tell yourself, ‘I have done all that and here is everything as bad as before!’ Then, in this case, you must, through a yet more sustained concentration, open an inner door in you and bring into this movement a force which was not there formerly, a state of consciousness which was not there before. And there, there will be a power, when your own personal power will be exhausted and no longer effective. When the personal power runs out, ordinary people say, ‘That’s good, I can no longer do anything, it is finished.’ But I tell you that when you find yourself before this wall, it is the beginning of something new. By an obstinate concentration, you must pass over to the other side of the wall and there you will find a new knowledge, a new force, a new power, a new help, and you will be able to work out a new system, a new method which surely will take you very far.”

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, Living Within: The Yoga Approach to Psychological Health and Growth, Disturbances of the Vital, Transforming the Vital, pp. 69-85