Spiritual Growth Articles

The spiritual seeker is so close to the movements and reactions of the mind, life and body, in most circumstances, that he can easily become confused or conce ed about the process, timing and steps of the desired changes to responses of the exte al nature. It is frequently noted that it is easier to see the difficulties and the solutions for others than for oneself.

C.G. Jung described what he called the ‘collective unconscious’, a repository of archetypal images and experiences that are universal to humanity. Sigmund Freud explored the subconscious realms of the individual and how they impacted the lives and responses of those individuals. The understanding they gained and shared is the first opening in Western psychology to the deeper implications of the working of consciousness, which is both a unified field of oneness, and an individual experience factor built into each person’s own unique interactions with that universal reality.

In a certain sense, pursuing one of the paths that lead to liberation from human life is actually simpler and less complicated than a path that calls for the total change and transformation of human nature. In the first case, the seeker can choose to disregard the exte al life and the exte al nature, focus on the spiritual objective and, with sufficient concentration, can reach the objective, whether it is called liberation, moksha, or nirvana, or possible attainment of heaven after the death of the body.

It is essential for the spiritual seeker to maintain his view of the long-term objectives and the time frames of the evolution of consciousness in Nature, in order for him to avoid becoming overly anxious about specific setbacks or delays in completing transforming the exte al physical consciousness. When an individual takes up the practice of yoga, he begins to observe the defects and limitations of the existing formulation of not only his own exte al being, but of the exte al life, in general.

The waking consciousness takes notice of only a very small fraction of all of the impressions that reach the senses. Not all impressions are direct sense impressions, as some impinge directly on the aura or on the mental substance without involving the 5 exte al senses. Of those directly noted, only a small percentage are actually accepted consciously and acted upon. While we do not generally take cognizance of them, these impressions are captured and held in the subconscient being.

While we tend to believe that our consciousness is centered in the region of the brain, or in some cases, the heart, there is really a much broader framework for consciousness. There are different forms that consciousness takes. These forms vibrate at different frequencies and are then taken up and processed by the various subtle energy centers aligned along the spine, based on which vibratory pattern and frequency can be picked up by these centres or chakras, as they are called. Thus, vibrations that occur at a level that we call ‘mental’, i.e. thoughts, perceptions, etc.

The physical consciousness is very much driven by habit, routine and fixed response patterns. We can observe this in our eating routines, our sleep routines, and other habitual actions. The mind and the vital can influence the physical consciousness through programming routines or habits into it, essentially training the physical to respond to specific stimuli and act in a certain manner when presented with the situation. All forms of physical exercise and repetitive activity are building new habits into the physical consciousness.

In his play Hamlet, William Shakespeare has the protagonist proclaim “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

The natural seat of the Guna of sattwa is in the mental being; rajas in the vital being and tamas in the physical being. This is not to imply that there are not times and situations where one of the othe qualities comes forward in any of these three aspects of our exte al being; on the contrary, we can identify tamasic and rajasic elements in the mental being, as well as sattwic and tamasic elements in the vital being, and sattwic and rajasic elements in the physical being.

There is a proverb that says that changing human nature is like trying to straighten out a dog’s tail. As soon as the hold is taken off of the tail, it reverts to its usual shape. When we reach the level of the material consciousness, we are at the point where the ‘solidity’ of matter makes change much more challenging than in the more flexible levels of the mental consciousness, the vital consciousness, etc. Another proverb says that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks.

It is obvious. If a system is set up to carry out vital demands, desires and wants, and it is provided more energy, it will simply expand its ability to achieve those desires. That is the reason that undertaking practices that increase the vital force, without first ensuring that the focus and direction has been changed, actually increases lust, greed, pride, ambition and other forms of desire.

The integral yoga operates on the principle of the Force descending from above and working through the mind, the emotions, the vital and finally into the physical nature. While some action may take place in the sadhana out of a specific order, this is the general case, as the issue of addressing and definitively changing the embedded habits and predilections of the physical nature naturally is easier if the mind, the heart and the vital nature are all cooperating in the process.

Medical researchers tell us that bacteria that can cause various disease conditions are always present in our environment, to some degree, including within our bodies. Yet for the most part, we do not become ill or remain ill all the time. The bacteria may be in a diffused or weak form, or our various immune system defenses reject their attempt to overpower our system in a way that creates an active illness.

When we are focused on our exte al being, we tend not to recognise that forces unseen actually not only impact how and what we perceive, understand, and respond to impressions and pressures, but actually very much define who we believe we are. There are forces that are subconscient to our exte al awareness which send up suggestions, thoughts, impulses, drives, habits, and instincts that drive our action. There are also forces superconscient to our exte al awareness that help us see, and grow beyond the limits of our physical-vital-mental existence.

We are constantly being inundated by forces active in the world. These forces may be physical, such as the radiation from the sun, radioactivity from the earth, the power of wind, waves, gravitational influences, etc. They may also be vital forces that provoke sympathetic vibrations within us based on long habit or instinctive reaction or some trained response we have developed with respect to events, circumstances, relationships or traumas in our past experience. They may also be mental forces which may feed us ideas, opinions, speculations, imaginations that are circulating in the world.

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Most people, when asked, attribute consciousness to the mind, and center it in the brain. But consciousness does not stop there and, indeed, there are various types of consciousness associated with different aspects of the being. There is a mental consciousness, an emotional consciousness, a vital consciousness and even a physical consciousness. People do not generally recognise the physical consciousness for what it is, and therefore, they tend to underestimate it and its potential as an aid in the spiritual development.

We see the world from the individual standpoint and place ourselves at the center of it. We believe we originate the thoughts, feelings, emotions and responses we give. This, however, is very much the illusion of the ego-sense.

As the seeker begins to observe the movements of the exte al nature closely, he can identify certain repetitive patterns of response, including impulses to stimuli of various sorts, cravings, desires, fears, frustrations, anger, and attraction. All of these are for the most part virtually automatic without conscious decision or control by the higher elements of the being. While we tend to think of ourselves as being in control of our life-responses, the reality tends to be far different than our superficial assessment. We call these movements instincts, habits or trained behaviour.

The chakras are subtle energy centers, not physical centers in the body, although they generally correspond to various physical capacities ranged along the exte al body. They essentially act as vibrational ‘receptors’ and transmitters of energies. When they are closed or very much shut down, the energy that would normally work through them tends to be weak or missing in the manifestation of any being. Evolution of consciousness and its expression in the exte al being involves the systematic development and opening of the higher subtle energy centers.

In the Rig Veda, there is a legend about a cave of the Panis which Sri Aurobindo has explained as a description of how the subconscient captures and holds the higher divine Light and encloses it away in the darkness. The illumined mind and the higher powers of awareness break open this subconscient level and free the light from that encompassing darkness. In The Secret of the Veda, Sri Aurobindo describes the meaning of Indra, Sarama,the ‘cows’, representing the rays of Light, the battle of Light against the Darkness, and the significance of freeing these ray-cows from the subconscient.

Every part of the being eventually has to open and become receptive to the higher spiritual forces. This will lead to changes in the way these aspects of the exte al being respond and function. This is a progressive process over time. If the lower vital parts of the being get a surge of energy from an opening, there is both a chance for this to push toward the higher implementation or for it to represent a powerful use of the energy for the normal movements of that lower vital nature. In such a case, considerable damage could be done.

There is a theory, current in various spiritual paths, as well as in various attempts to overcome certain unwanted behaviours in the ordinary life, that by purposeful indulgence, through ‘experience’ (anubhava), the individual can overcome the undesired impulse, craving or desire. The idea is that such indulgence will exhaust the tendency, and thus, allow the individual to ‘move on’ from that drive. The over-indulgence can create a form of distaste or rejection, eventually a detachment from the impulse, vairagya.

An individual dedicated some years to study and spiritual development. He gathered a small group of young people around him and took on the role of a teacher. He had obviously studied the texts and spent some time practicing them. He gained an aura of charisma for the young people who came under his tutelage. Eventually he came to Europe and started a small community with himself at the center. So far, so good. But something changed. At some point he began to exercise his desire for money, power, sex and began to exploit the young people to achieve his immediate objectives.

A narrow focus of extreme specialisation is a major cause of inaccurate assessment and therefore, inappropriate decisions and action. This is, however, a symptom of our modern-day fixation on mental analysis rather than on an approach that integrates the various parts into a coordinated whole, and therefore, a more complete pattern.

Freud made a breakthrough for the development of Western psychology that finally recognised that the human being responds to situations and circumstances, not solely on the superficial, transactional level, but also from suppressed, subliminal and subconscient activities that actually have a greater control than the exte al conscious being in many instances. C.G. Jung widened this understanding beyond the very tight limits explored by Freud.

Most people respond to life as it comes to them and react according to the energy that they are able to receive and process in some form or another. They remain immersed in the exte al personality. They become the fear, the anger, the hunger, the thirst, the craving, the pleasure, the pain, the joy, the sorrow, etc. They are attached to the impressions and sensations and how their internal awareness feels about them.

What happens when we sleep? Where does the consciousness go? For most people, sleep is a blank state. We have little awareness of what goes on during sleep, except for times when we are having a dream in a state near enough to the waking state that we actually remember details from the dream. We may try to interpret and understand the dream. We believe there may be some significance to it but we are not quite sure.

The Greek philosopher Plato, after deep consideration, reached the conclusion that some higher principle was real, which he called ‘Forms” or ‘Ideas’, and that the physical reality we see and experience is the result, not the cause. This concept is in consonance with the Vedic understanding. Even the Christian Bible notes that ‘In the beginning was the Word’. All of these approaches (and many more from around the world and across numerous traditional religious, philosophical and spiritual directions) make it clear that the physical world is a derivative phenomenon of the higher Source.

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Western psychology has taken a very narrow, and therefore quite inadequate, view of the nature of dreams. There are several primary ways dreams are analyzed in the West. The first is the purely mechanical structuring of dreams as a chaotic processing of ‘undigested’ residues of the observations, mental and emotional activity of the daily life that are simply a type of ‘chu ing’ of the brain as it winds down after a day of action.

The physical consciousness is the primary seat of the Guna of Tamas in the being, in general, and thus, when the waking consciousness of the mental and vital levels is in abeyance during sleep, there is a natural tendency for the tamasic energy to come forward for a time. One of the first questions to arise is ‘what happens to the mental and vital consciousness’ during sleep? Some speculate that they simply go into a state of inactivity or lesser activity. What we can say is that the sleep state tends ordinarily to remove the self-awareness.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna explains to Arjuna: “Verily this Yoga is not for him who eats too much or sleeps too much, even as it is not for him who gives up sleep and food, O Arjuna.” (Bhagavad Gita and Its Message, tr. by Sri Aurobindo, Ch. 6, V. 16) It is interesting to note that one of the epithets linked to Arjuna was Gudakesha, the ‘master of sleep’, one who overcomes the force of tamas so that he can remain alert and focused to achieve whatever he was destined to achieve.

Once we break out of the limitations set by Western psychologists, such as Freud, in our attempt to understand the nature of dreams, we can explore the much wider and more nuanced potential causes, triggers, images and significances of dreams.

Giving the body the rest and recuperative time it needs, the spiritual aspirant still has to deal with the effects of what is normally a descent into a more tamasic status that can have its impacts on the waking consciousness. If we wake up tired, groggy or cloudy, we have not only not fully recharged the body, but we have put a drag on our waking consciousness. How many people need to resort to coffee or tea first thing in the morning so that the caffeine helps to offset the dullness or grogginess?

Symbolic dreams are common and in many cases, similar thematic elements show up for most people. These dreams attempt to raise up from the subconscious levels some underlying need, concern, fear, or persistent issue that remains unresolved in the exte al life. Sigmund Freud, in his work on The Interpretation of Dreams provided his translation of certain common symbolic elements into their underlying significance for the individual. His work, however, was limited by his very narrow focus on the lower subconscious levels.

Where does the consciousness go when we are deep asleep? Numerous reports tell us that it can go out to other planes or realms, or down into subconscious levels, or up into superconscious levels. When we awaken from sleep, we generally are unable to describe what we did during sleep or where we went, or what happened to us while we were asleep.

When the consciousness moves inward, away from the awareness of the exte al reality, it is frequently interpreted as ‘sleep’ by those who experience it for the first time. The reason they believe it is sleep is due to a lack of communication between that inward state of consciousness and the outward exte al awareness, and the identification with the known conception of ‘sleep’ which, in some ways, mimics the action of samadh, with respect to the absence of conscious attention of the exte al waking ego-personality..

Many paths of spiritual practice disregard the needs of the physical body as being irrelevant, distracting, or obstructive to their spiritual development. This has not always been the case. The ancient Greek culture focused on a ‘sound mind in a sound body’ as an ideal. The ancient Vedic tradition recognised the need for a strong body, strong vital force and strong mind as a foundation for spiritual fulfillment.

If we examine how illness comes upon us, and what effects it has, we can identify multiple different contributing factors that can lead to the physical imbalances that we call illness. Many of the symptoms of illness are the result of the physical body actually resisting the effect of the illness. Is it possible to do away with illness? Is it possible to prevent illness? Is it possible to heal illness?

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Most people are not aware of the vital envelope, sometimes called the ‘aura’, that surrounds their physical body. Those who experience this vital envelope are sensitive on the vital plane. They are frequently ridiculed for speaking about the ‘aura’ which they can feel or even observe in others. Western science decided to find a way to test the long-proclaimed existence of the aura. Tests were developed to capture the electro-magnetic field that surrounds the body. Eventually, a technique called Kirlian photography was devised that could actually photograph this electro-magnetic field.

When an individual takes up a spiritual path, he has to work through the seemingly fine lines of distinction that the various prescriptions and directions for progress along the path appear to carry. For example, ‘equality’ and ‘equanimity’ are counseled as essential characteristics for progress. This leads some individuals, for a time, to take these terms to extremes that were never intended, due to the dogmatic nature of the mental understanding, the desire to have a clear cut, uniform and neatly defined process for the needed progress.

It is a natural human tendency, and it carries over to those who take up spiritual practice. This tendency sees most things through the mental lens and tries to categorize them as black and white, positive and negative, etc., essentially creating a mental framework of exclusion that looks to thoughts, actions and focus without looking at process, timing or the needs of the various elements being addressed, whether they are individual formations of the mental, emotional, vital or physical basis or more general formations of the social framework. Thus, we tend to extremes and become dogmatic.r

The spiritual aspirant practicing the integral yoga devotes his efforts to coming into contact with the Divine Force, being receptive to its influence and action, and bringing it down to transform the action of the mind, life and body. Once this force is completely assimilated into the physical cells of the body, it can do away with the vibratory response we know as illness, according to the intensive work done by the Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, who spent years working on opening the physical substance to the higher force.

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In various places, Sri Aurobindo has noted that yoga is applied psychology. The practitioner of yoga is confronted by all of the instincts, habits, trained responses and reactions of human nature and is asked to address and change these in order to uplift the human being to the next stage of the evolutionary cycle, thereby transforming the understanding, the response and the action of the individual.

A question recently arose about how to become aware of the subtle vital envelope that surrounds the physical body and acts to protect it. One can practice quieting the mind, the emotions, the vital energies and the body and just feeling the sensation of the wider body until it becomes vivid and constant. One can close one’s eyes, sit quietly and have another individual quietly move a hand toward the body, not quite touching it, and sense where it is. one can begin to observe and feel when some pressure is felt such as feeling the beginning of a cold or other physical imbalance.

How Srimad Bhagavatam Guides Daily Spiritual Living In the modern world, people often search for meaning, balance, and inner peace while navigating the pressures of daily life. Many struggle to find guidance that goes beyond temporary solutions and touches the deeper aspects of human existence. Ancient spiritual texts provide insights that address these concerns, and among the most revered of these texts is the ISKCON Srimad Bhagavatam . The Srimad Bhagavatam, also known as t