A yogic discipline focused on the abandonment of life does not take pains to develop the inherent powers and capacities of the body, life-force and the mind. In fact, the powers of these elements of the human instrument are instead considered to be lures, obstacles and impediments to the realisation. The focus on escaping the ‘illusory’ life of the external being implies that any attempt to develop the body, life or mind is wasted effort and a distraction. Some take this to the extreme of not exercising, accepting whatever food happens to come their way, and not caring about basic issues of hygiene, emotional balance or mental training. In fact, some undertake to actively torture the body, distort the emotions and destroy the mental powers in the mistaken belief that this propels them along the spiritual path they have chosen.
Some paths of yoga accept an intermediate acknowledgement that the yogic practice takes place upon the foundation of the external frame of being, and thus, they recognise the need to have a healthy body, a balanced vital force and a solid mental awareness as means towards the end, even though that end may be the eventual abandonment of the bodily life when the spiritual summit has been reached.
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother take a different view of the matter, recognising that there is a divine purpose in the manifestation, and that the external life is part of that divine purpose and thus, the powers of the body, the life-energy and the mind are important aspects of the manifested world within which we reside. Thus, they take the approach of developing the spiritual consciousness while at the same time not denigrating or denying the external being, but rather working to develop its powers so that the spiritual consciousness can be more effective in its expression in the world and more precisely carry out the divine intention. What they seek to achieve is a finely developed and powerful mind, a refined life-force and a physically fit and capable body all guided, directed and controlled by the spiritual force channeled by the soul into the world.
The Mother observes: ”There are two things to be considered: consciousness and the instruments through which consciousness manifests. Let us take the instruments: there is the mental being which produces thoughts, the emotional being which produces feelings, the vital being which produces the power of action and the physical being that acts.”
“The man of genius may use anything at all and make something beautiful because he has genius; but give this genius a perfect instrument and he will make something wonderful. Take a great musician; well, even with a wretched piano and missing notes, he will produce something beautiful; but give him a good piano, well-tuned, and he will do something still more beautiful. The consciousness is the same in either case but for expression it needs a good instrument — a body with mental, vital, psychic and physical capacities.”
“If physically you are badly built, badly set up, it will be difficult for you, even with a good training, to do gymnastics as well as one with a beautiful well-built body. It is the same with the mind — one who has a well-organised mind, complex, complete, refined, will express himself much better than one who has a rather mediocre or badly organised mind. First of all, you must educate your consciousness, become conscious of yourself, organise your consciousness according to your ideal, but at the same time do not neglect the instruments which are in your body.”
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 6, Some Answers and Explanations, pp. 173-174
Santosh has been studying Sri Aurobindo's writings since 1971 and has a daily blog at http://sriaurobindostudies.wordpress.com and podcast at https://anchor.fm/santosh-krinsky He is author of 19 books and is editor-in-chief at Lotus Press. He is president of Institute for Wholistic Education, a non-profit focused on integrating spirituality into daily life.