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SECTION SIXTEEN
TRANSFORMATION OF THE PHYSICAL BEING
I. OPENING THE PHYSICAL TO THE HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS II. ILLNESS IN YOGA III. REGULATION OF FOOD IV. SLEEP AND DREAM IN SADHANA V. REJECTION OF SEX VI. CONTROL OF SPEECH IN SADHANA
I. OPENING THE PHYSICAL TO THE HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS
Physical Being and Manifestation
NO need to despise the physical being—it is part of the intended manifestation.
1933 Impurity of the Human Physical
THE human physical is always full of dark, low and obscure forces.
29-1-1934 Page-515 Necessity of Physical Purification
ALL that may be very well in theory, but practically it is found that the physical impurity is strong enough to bar the inner progress and limit rigidly the inner experience to some passive peace.
11-10-1936
THE physical consciousness has to become balanced, filled with the light and force from above, made conscious and responsive. That cannot be done in a day—so go on steadily and dismiss both discouragement and impatience.
Opening the Physical to the Higher Consciousness
THE consciousness (higher) is always there—the body is tamasic and obscure and the greater part of it is subconscient. If it opens, then there will be an increasing union with the higher consciousness and it will be able to share the experiences and the developments in the mind and vital. Page-516 Difficulty of Opening the Physical
THE opening of the physical and the subconscient always takes a long time as it is a thing of habits and constant repetition of the old movements, obscure and stiff and not plastic, yielding only little by little. The physical mind can be more easily opened and converted than the rest, but the vital- physical and the material-physical are obstinate. The old things are always recurring there without reason and by force of habit. Much of the vital- physical and most of the material are in the subconscience or depend on it. It needs a strong and sustained action to progress there.
31-10-1935 Remedy for Difficulties of the Physical Change
THERE is nothing to be discouraged about. The fact is that after having been so long in the mental and vital plane you have become aware of the physical consciousness, and the physical consciousness in everybody is like that. It is inert, conservative, does not want to move, to change—it clings to its habits Page-517 (what people call their character) or its habits (habitual movements) cling to it and repeat themselves like a clock working in a persistent mechanical way. When you have cleared your vital somewhat, things go down and stick there. You see, if you have become self-conscious, you put pressure, perhaps, but the physical responds very slowly, hardly at first it seems to move at all. The remedy is aspiration steady and unchanging, patient work, the psychic in the physical, calling down the light and force into these obscure parts. The light brings the consciousness of what is there; the force has to follow and work on them till they change or disappear.
7-11-1932 Direct Contact with the Physical (1)
I HAVE said that your consciousness has come down into direct contact with the external physical nature which is always full of the lower movements and when that happens you see them as they are, when they are not under the control of the mind and psychic. Everybody has to come into this direct contact —otherwise there can be no transformation of this part of the being.
1-8-1934 Page-518 (2)
You feel as you do only because you are largely identified with the part that has not undergone change and so you feel the difficulty, even the impossibility of changing. But although the difficulty is there, the impossibility does not exist. Even this identification may be helpful, for so the change can be radical by a direct action in the part itself or an indirect influence upon it through the mind or higher vital. Rest and restore your physical forces, open so that the Mother’s Force may freely work on you, all trouble pass away and a new and stronger movement commence.
22-3-1936 Page-519 Consequences of Supramental Descent in the Material Consciousness
I DO not see why you doubt the fulfilment in your material consciousness. If there is faith, quietude, openness in the rest of the being, the material is bound to open also. Tamas, inertia, ignorance, stupidity, littleness, obstruction to the true movement are universal characteristics of the material consciousness, so long as it is not enlightened, regenerated and transformed from above,—they are not peculiar to yours. Therefore, there is here no sufficient reason or justification for the doubt you describe. When the Supramental comes down fully into the material consciousness, it will create the right conditions there. The oneness will be created, the constant presence and sense of contact will be felt in the material and there will be all the actual physical contact that is needed. The sadness you speak of is not psychic—for "painful longing" belongs to the vital, not to the psychic. The psychic never feels a sadness from disappointed desire, because that is not in its nature; the sorrow it sometimes feels is when it sees the Divine rejected or the mental, vital, physical in man or in nature turning away from the Truth to follow perversion, darkness or ignorance. However, with the reign of the Supramental even the vital external nature is bound to change and therefore there will be no chance of any feelings of this character.
27-1-1932 Page-520 Supramental Change and Hold of Lower Nature
So long as there is not the Supramental change down to the subconscient, complete and full, the lower nature has always a hold on some part of the being.
September 1934 Subconsciousness of the Material
THE material is for the most part subconscient—it depends upon the subtle parts for its waking consciousness
26-6-1933 Necessity of working in the Subconscient for Change of the Physical
WHAT you write is correct. When the physical consciousness has to be changed it is of course essential to work in the subconscient, as it has a great influence on the physical which is very Page-521 dependent on it. The loss of consciousness comes naturally at first when the subconscient is being worked upon. You have to be careful that it does not become habitual. If you react with a will for the change of this tendency (no struggle is needed) it will pass in time.
17-6-1934 The Subconscient and Physical Disabilities
IT is the action of the Light and Force in the subconscient. So long as the subconscient is not cleared the physical consciousness’s disabilities remain.
THERE is always a great deal to do in the subconscient. But if you especially feel it (the need of clearance in the subconscient) it must be that the time for clearing it has come. If the other parts keep open and responsive this should not give too much trouble.
7-6-1934 Page-522 Rising of Obscurity During Physical Change (1)
WHEN one is working on the physical consciousness this sense of obscurity frequently rises up. One has to react quickly against it and persistently bring down the Light. When the physical and the subconscient are fully permeated it need come no more.
24-6-1934 (2)
It is probably a strong up-coming of the physical consciousness that creates this sense of blindness and obscurity—but that will not matter if the peace comes itself—for after the peace, the force and light can come.
10-8-1933 Page-523
PROBABLY you are feeling the obstacle in the fundamental physical inertia or Inconscience from which the physical world has arisen. That gets suppressed by the descents, but it is not yet changed. This, however, is not the stage at which it can be dealt with finally.
3-8-1933
THAT inertia belongs strictly to the material, although it now pervades the whole physical consciousness —it comes sometimes from the body (not the Muladhara), sometimes from below the body.
Increase of the Hold of Inertia
THE hold of inertia always increases when the working of Sadhana comes down into the physical and subconscient. Before that the inertia is over- powered though not eradicated by the action in mind and vital—afterwards it comes up in its natural force and has to be met in its own field.
31-7-1936 Page-524 Rising of Inertia from the Subconscient
IT is the body (subconscient physical part) that feels inertia and dullness rising if it has not its accustomed sleep, concentration, etc. Besides that, the tamas of the subconscient can always rise for any reason or without reason and try to express itself in the conscious part of the being.
27-12-1933 Calling Down Force to Remove Inertia
IT must be the tamas of the physical that has enveloped the inner consciousness. The one way to get out of it is to remain very quiet and call down persistently the Force from above.
18-7-1933 Replacing Inertia by Higher Light and Force
FROM what you describe it looks as if you had come down into the physical consciousness and were feeling the inertia that belongs to it. When that Page-525 happens, the one way out is to open there so that the light and force may come down into the physical and replace the inertia. We shall try to get that done.
Need of Exercise for Preventing Inertia
IT is quite true that the physical exercise is very necessary to keep off tamas. I am glad you have begun it and I trust you will keep it up. Physical tamas in its roots can be removed only by the descent and the transformation, but physical exercise and regular activity of the body can always prevent a tamasic condition from prevailing in the body.
5-6-1934 Transformation of Tamas into Shama
TAMAS is to be transformed into ṡama, the peace and rest of the higher Prakriti, and then filled with tapas, and jyoti. But this can only be done completely in the physical when the physical is fully transformed by the Supramental Power.
5-10-1933 Page-526
BY the descent the inertia changes its character. It ceases to be a resistance of the physical and becomes only a physical condition to be transformed into the true basic immobility and rest.
7-6-1936
THE inertia itself is not a dynamic principle. The nature of inertia is a pravṛtti—the action of the mechanical mind is a pravṛtti, though a tamasic obscure pravṛtti.
1-3-1937 Dynamic Descent and Descent of Peace
A DYNAMIC descent brings tapas not śama. It is a greater and greater descent, of peace that brings śama—the dynamic descent helps it by dispersing the element of rajasic disturbance and changing rajas into tapas.
8-7-1936 Page-527 Condition of the Body in Receiving Higher Dynamism
DYNAMISM is everywhere, because the Force (Shakti) is everywhere. The perfect dynamism is there in the Supermind; no other can be unfailing. How the body receives the higher dynamism depends on the condition of the body or rather of the physical and most material consciousness. In one condition it is tamasic, inert, unopen and cannot bear or cannot receive or cannot contain the force; in another, rajas predominates and tries to seize on the dynamism, but wastes and spills and loses it; in another, there is receptivity, harmony, balance and the result is a harmonious action without strain or effort.
15-4-1932 Page-528 Separateness of the Inner Being and Immunity from Inertia (1)
WHEN the inner being once thoroughly establishes its separateness, even oceans of inertia can’t prevent it from keeping it. It is the first thing to be done in order to have a secure basis in the Yoga, to establish thoroughly this separateness. It comes most usually when the peace is thoroughly fixed in the inner parts, then the separateness also becomes fixed and permanent.
23-7-1936 (2)
If the inner being is safe, then there is no longer any struggle or overpowering by inertia or depression or other fundamental difficulties. The rest can be done progressively and quietly, including the coming down of the Force. The outer being becomes merely a machinery or an instrumentation to be set right. It is not so easy to be entirely mukta in the inner being.
24-7-1936 Page-529 II. ILLNESS IN YOGA
Cause of Illness
THE human body has always been in the habit of answering to whatever forces chose to lay hands on it and illness is the price it pays for its inertia and ignorance. It has to learn to answer to the one Force alone, but that is not easy for it to learn.
16-10-1933 Removal of Illness by Detachment and Conscious Rejection
WHAT I meant was that the body consciousness through old habit of consciousness admits the force of illness and goes through the experiences which are associated with it—e.g., congestion of phlegm in the chest and feeling of suffocation or difficulty of breathing, etc. To get rid of that one must awaken a will and consciousness in the body itself that refuses to allow these things to impose themselves upon it. But to get that, still more to get it completely is difficult. One step towards it is to get Page-530 the inner consciousness separate from the body—to feel that it is not you who are ill, but it is only something taking place in the body and affecting your consciousness. It is then possible to see this separate body consciousness, what it feels, what are its reactions to things, how it works. One can then act on it to change its consciousness and reactions.
BY will to illness I meant this that there is something in the body that accepts the illness and has certain reactions that make this acceptance effective— so there must always be a contrary will in the conscious parts of the being to get rid of this most physical acceptance.
Removal of Illness by Opening to the Force
As the body consciousness becomes more open to the Force (it is always the most difficult and the last to open up entirely), this frequent stress of illness will diminish and disappear.
13-9-1935 Page-531 Conscious Physical and Attacks
THIS at least shows that the physical is becoming conscious and with a conscious physical it is easier to deal with such attacks.
2-6-1931 Rejection of Suggestions by Body Consciousness
THE suggestion of weakness comes to the subconscient part of the body consciousness and therefore the mind is most often unaware of it. If the body itself were truly conscious, then the suggestions could be detected in time and thrown off before they took effect. Also the rejection by the central consciousness would be supported by a conscious rejection in the body and act more immediately and promptly.
5-7-1933 Page-532
BY suggestion I do not mean merely thoughts or words. When the hypnotist says "sleep", it is a suggestion; but when he says nothing, but only limits his silent will to convey sleep or makes movements of his hands over the face, that also is a suggestion. When a force is thrown on you or a vibration of illness, it carries to the body this suggestion. A wave comes in the body—with a certain vibration in it, the body remembers "cold" or feels the vibrations of a cold and begins to cough or sneeze or to feel chill—the suggestion comes to the mind in the form "I am weak, I don’t feel well, I am catching a cold". Hostile here means hostile to the Yoga. An illness which comes in the ordinary course as the result of physical causes—even though adverse universal forces are the first cause—is an ordinary illness. One brought by the forces hostile to Yoga to upset the system and prevent or disturb progress —without any adequate physical reason—is a hostile attack. It may have the appearance of a cold or any other illness, but to the eye which sees the action of forces and not only the outward symptoms or results, the difference is clear.
28-4-1933 Page-533 (1)
THESE are waves of the hostile force which come trying whom they can touch. When you feel an attack of this kind, you must realise that this comes on you from outside and touches some weak point in you, and you have to remain as quiet as you can, reject it and open yourself. I judge from what you have written that it was the physical and vital- physical consciousness that it made restless and inclined to revolt and it did not take the whole of your consciousness. If you can keep it localised like that when it comes and remain quiet in mind and heart and reject it, then it will not be so difficult to throw it out. The peace and force must be called down into this vital-physical (nervous) part and the whole body until you feel the atmosphere and force pervading you and in you always in all the body and not only upon or around you. If you still find a difficulty, it is because of the past habit of reaction in the nervous being and a certain weakness there; but persevere, do not consent to the invasion of the old forces. The habit will lessen and disappear and the true Force occupying the body will remove the weakness.
15-5-1932 Page-534 (2)
There is no mystery. These things were violent and obstinate in you for a long time and you were indulging them—hence they acquired a great force to return even after you began rejecting them, first because of habit, secondly because of their belief that they have acquired a right over you, thirdly because of the habit of assent and passive response to them or endurance of them that has been stamped on the physical consciousness. This physical consciousness is not as yet liberated, it has not begun to be as responsive to the higher force as the vital, so it cannot resist their invasion. So these forces, when thrown out, retreat into the environmental consciousness and remain there concealed and at any opportunity make an attack on the centres accustomed to receive them (external mind and the external emotional) and get in. This happens with most sadhaks. Two things are necessary—(1) to open fully the physical to the higher forces, (2) to reach the stage when even if the forces attack they cannot come fully in, the inner being remaining calm and free. Then even if there is still a surface difficulty, there will not be these overpowerings.
23-1-1935 Page-535 (3)
All these suggestions that came to you were of course part of the attack on the physical consciousness, —the attack on the body is used to raise these ideas and ideas are used to make it more difficult for the body to recover. At a certain stage attacks fall heavily on the body because the opposing forces find it more difficult than before to upset the mind and vital directly, so they fall on the physical in the hope that that will do the trick, the physical being more vulnerable. But the sensibility of the body to attacks is no proof of incapacity, just as a finer sensibility of the mind or vital to attacks was no proof— it can, in due time, be overcome. As for the feelings about the Mother and that her love is only given for a return in work or to those who can do sadhana well, that is the usual senseless idea of the vital- physical mind and has no value. There is nothing wrong in taking care of the body in regard to health and, if the liver has gone wrong, the instinct to refuse too sweet or greasy or heavy food is a right instinct. Mother has no objection to your abstaining while the illness is there nor has she insisted on your taking dal. Her objection is only to that which people often do, getting ideas about this food and that food and abstaining even when Page-536 there is no acute illness. During an acute state of bad liver, abstaining is often necessary. Only one must not create by wrong ideas a nervous incapacity of the stomach or a chronic nervous dyspepsia. She had no other meaning. I hope you will be all right soon. If the body does not right itself, you must keep me informed from time to time.
17-1-1937 (4)
There seem to be two elements in the physical difficulty that is weighing on you. The first is the liver trouble which weakens and must weaken still more if it leads you to diminish your food below what the body needs for maintaining sufficient strength to react—also probably the nervous tendency to insomnia with its consequences. The second is an inertia of the lower vital and physical consciousness which prevents it from throwing off the lassitude, from reacting against the attacks and from opening steadily to the Force which would remove these things. All that is due to the breakdown of the poise that you Page-537 had for so long, the vital trouble that caused it and the reaction of the lower vital to the insistence on throwing out the causes of the trouble. This reaction seems to have been a restlessness at losing the things to which it was still holding—such a reaction always brings the inertia of the physical consciousness, while the right reaction in the lower vital, on the contrary, brings a sense of peace, release, quietude which definitely opens the lowest physical parts to the higher consciousness and force. If you can get over this and get back the old poise, then all these things can be made to disappear. Care should be taken of the body certainly, the care that is needed for its good condition, rest, sleep, proper food, sufficient exercise; what is not good is too much preoccupation with it, anxiety, despondency in the illness, etc., for these things only favour the prolongation of ill-health or weakness. For such things as the liver attacks treatment can always be taken when necessary. But it is always the right inner poise, quietude inward and outward, faith, the opening of the body consciousness to the Mother and her Force that are the true means of recovery—other things can only be minor aids and devices.
7-3-1937 Page-538 Pains in the Body due to Hostile Attacks
THE pains in the body come from the same source as the trouble in the vital nature; both are attacks from the same outside force that wants to mislead or, when it cannot mislead, to trouble and disturb you. When once you can get rid of the vital invasion and prevent its recurrence, it will be easier to get rid too of the physical trouble whose origin is nervous (vital-physical); although its symptoms seem to be those of a physical illness, it is usually an attack on the nervous part and a weakening of it for the time that gives you the pain. Remain always quiet and persist in opening yourself. The Force that releases you from the vital trouble can also remove the disturbance in the nervous part and the physical body.
11-4-1932 Page-589 Removal of Bodily Pains by Detachment and Opening to the Force
IT is by an attack on your physical consciousness that the old forces are bringing back the wrong condition. As you got the power before to stand back from the vital movement and localise it, while the rest of your consciousness observed and was not overpowered, so you must learn to stand back from the physical pain or uneasiness and localise it. If you can do that and do it completely, the pain or uneasiness itself will be more easily and quietly removed and you will not be overpowered like this with the sense of weakness. You can see that the Force has the power to take away the pains; but you allow yourself to be nervously overcome and therefore it is difficult for it to act with a continuous result. What was done at that time in the vital, must be done in the physical also. It is the only way to get free from the attacks.
31-5-1932 Nervous Illness due to Hostile Pressure
IF you want to get back your faith and keep it, you must first quiet your mind and make it open and obedient to the Mother’s force. If you have an excited mind at the mercy of every influence and impulse, you will remain a field of conflicting and Page-540 contrary forces and cannot progress. You will begin to listen to your own ignorance instead of the Mother’s knowledge and your faith will naturally disappear and you will get into a wrong condition and a wrong attitude. Your ailment is evidently in its foundation an illness of the nerves and not an ordinary physical disease. These maladies are a creation of the pressure of hostile forces; they increase if anything in you assents to them and accepts, and the more the mind gives value to them and dwells on them, the more they grow. The only way is to remain quiet, dissociate yourself and refuse to accept it or make much of it, allow the calm and strength that the Mother has been putting around you to enter your mind and permeate your nervous system. To do otherwise is to place yourself on the side of the hostile forces that are afflicting you. The cure may take long because your nervous system has been long subjected to these influences and, when they are evicted, they return with violence to re-establish their hold. But if you can acquire and keep patience and fortitude and the right consciousness and right attitude with regard to these things, the hold they have will progressively disappear. Page-541 There are defects in your vital nature which stand in the way of a settled spiritual progress, but they can be eliminated if, dropping all exaggerated ideas of "sin" and unfitness, you look quietly at them and recognise and reject them. Tranquillise in yourself all over-eager demands and desires, all excitement and exaggeration of opposite feelings and impulses, seek first intensity of devotion, but also calm, strength, purity and peace. Allow a quiet and steady will to progress to be settled in you; learn the habit of a silent, persistent and thorough assimilation of what the Mother puts into you. This is the sound way to advance.
March 1928 Quietude and Receptivity in the Body
I AM glad to know the disturbance was expelled last night—now the receptivity of the body consciousness has to be kept so that it may not at all return or, if it tries, may immediately be expelled. You must always try to keep the quietude, not allow depressing or disturbing thoughts or feelings to enter you or take hold of your mind or your speech —there is no true reason after one has gained the inner quietness and wideness why that should Page-542 be allowed to lapse and these things enter. And if the mind keeps its quietude and receptivity to higher forces only, it can then easily pass on that quietude and receptivity to the body consciousness and even to the material cells of the body.
2-4-1935 Recurrence of Illness at Fixed Times (1)
IT is a hostile pressure that is organising a habit in the body of recurrence at a fixed time or times. This habit of fixed recurrence gives a great force for any illness to persist, as the body consciousness expects the recurrence and the expectation helps it to come.
12-9-1933 (2)
(In reference to an attack of obscurity at a fixed hour every day). It is this expectation in the mind that helps most to maintain the rhythm of the attack. If it could be got rid of, the rhythm also could be broken. Page-543 Effect of Vital Depression on the Body
IT is not anything physical but a vital depression (or some part of the vital, not the whole) that prevents the body from recovering its elasticity. There was some part of the vital that was resisting a radical change and even unknown to your mind trying to go on as it was under cover of the change in the rest of your being. This has now, owing to this last affair, received a blow and got depressed and, when the vital is depressed like that it affects the body. You say rightly that it is part of a change or turn that is taking place. But these effects of inertia and weakness ought not to continue; as soon as the vital part acquiesces gladly in the turn or change the elasticity and energy will return.
23-5-1932
IT was precisely out of solicitude for you because the suffering of insomnia and the spasms had been excessive that I proposed to you to take the help of treatment. It is a fact of my experience that when Page-544 the resistance in the body is too strong and persistent, it can help to take some aid of physical means as an instrumentation for the Force to work more directly on the body itself; for the body then feels itself supported against the resistance from both sides, by means both physical as well as supraphysical. The Mother’s force can work through both together.
1-9-1936
I DO not think X’s trance has anything to do with her ill-health; I have never known the habit of trances of that kind to have any such result, only the violent breaking of a trance might have a bad result, though it would not necessarily produce a disaster. But there is the possibility that if the conscious being goes out of the body in an absolutely complete trance, the thread which connects it with the body might be broken or else cut by some adverse force and it would not be able to return into the physical frame. Apart from any such fatal possibility there might be a shock which Page-545 might produce a temporary disorder or even some kind of lesion; as a rule, however, a shock would be the only consequence. The general question is a different matter. There is a sort of traditional belief in many minds that the practice of Yoga is inimical to the health of the body and tends to have a bad effect of one kind or another and even finally leads to a premature or an early dropping of the body. Ramakrishna seems to have held the view, if we can judge from his remarks about the connection between Keshav Sen’s progress in spirituality and the illness which undermined him, that one was the result and the desirable result of the other, a liberation and release from life in this world, mukti. That may or may not be; but I find it difficult to believe that illness and deterioration of the body is the natural and general result of the practice of Yoga or that that practice is the cause of an inevitable breakdown of health or of the final illnesses which bring about their departure from the body. On what ground are we to suppose or how can it be proved that while non-Yogis suffer from ill-health and die because of the disorders of Nature, Yogis die of their Yoga? Unless a direct connection between their death and their practice of Yoga can be proved—and this could be proved with certainty only in particular cases and even Page-546 then not with an absolute certainty—there is no sufficient reason to believe in such a difference. It is more rational to conclude that both Yogis and non-Yogis fall ill and die from natural causes and by the same dispensation of Nature; one might even advance the view, since they have the Yoga Shakti at their disposal if they choose to use it, that the Yogi falls ill and dies not because of but in spite of his Yoga. At any rate, I don’t believe that Ramakrishna (or any other Yogi) fell ill because of his trances; there is nothing to show that he ever suffered in that way after a trance. I think it is said somewhere or he himself said that the cancer in his throat of which he died came by his swallowing the sins of his disciples and those who approached him: that again may or may not be, but it will be his own peculiar case. It is no doubt possible to draw the illnesses of others upon oneself and even to do it deliberately, the instance of the Greek king Antigonus and his son Dimitrius is a famous historical case in point; Yogis also do this sometimes; or else adverse forces may throw illnesses upon the Yogi, using those round him as a door or a passage or the ill wishes of people as an instrumental force. But all these are special circumstances connected, no doubt, with his practice of Yoga; but they do not establish the general proposition Page-547 as an absolute rule. A tendency such as X’s to desire or welcome or accept death as a release could have a force because of her advanced spiritual consciousness which it would not have in ordinary people. On the other side, there can be an opposite use and result of the Yogic consciousness: illness can be repelled from one’s own body or cured, even chronic or deep-seated illnesses and long-established constitutional defects remedied or expelled and even a predestined death delayed for a long period. Narayan Jyotishi, a Calcutta astrologer, who predicted, not knowing then who I was, in the days before my name was politically known, my struggle with Mleccha enemies and afterwards the three cases against me and my three acquittals, predicted also that though death was prefixed for me in my horoscope at the age of of 63, I would prolong my life by Yogic power for a very long period and arrive at a full old age. In fact, I have got rid by Yogic pressure of a number of chronic maladies that had got settled in my body. But none of these instances either on the favourable or unfavourable side can be made into a rule; there is no validity in the tendency of human reason to transform the relativity of these things into an absolute. Finally I may say of X’s trances that they are the usual savikalpa kind opening to all Page-548 kinds of experiences, but the large abiding realisations in Yoga do not usually come in trance but by a persistent waking sadhana. The same may be said of the removal of attachments; some may be got rid of sometimes by an experience in trance, but more usually it must be done by persistent endeavour in waking sadhana.
8-12-1949
I MIGHT say a word about Ramakrishna’s attitude with regard to the body. He seems always to have regarded it as a misuse of spiritual force to utilise it for preserving the body or curing its ailments or, taking care for it. Other Yogis—I do not speak of those who think it justifiable to develop Yogic siddhis—have not had this complete disregard of the body: they have taken care to maintain it in good health and condition as an instrument or a physical basis for their development in Yoga. I have always been in agreement with this view: moreover, I have never had any hesitation in the use of a spiritual force for all legitimate purposes Page-549 including the maintenance of health and physical life in myself and in others—that is indeed why the Mother gives flowers not only as a blessing but as a help in illness. I put a value on the body first as an instrument, dharmasādhana, or, more fully, as a centre of manifested personality in action, a basis of spiritual life and activity as of all life and activity upon the earth, but also because for me the body as well as the mind and life is a part of the Divine Whole, a form of the Spirit and therefore not to be disregarded or despised as something incurably gross and incapable of spiritual realisation or of spiritual use. Matter itself is secretly a form of the spirit and has to reveal itself as that, can be made to wake to consciousness and evolve and realise the Spirit, the Divine within it. In my view the body as well as the mind and life has to be spiritualised or, one may say, divinised so as to be a fit instrument and receptacle for the realisation of the Divine. It has its part in the Divine Lila, even, according to the Vaishnava sadhana, in the joy and beauty of Divine Love. That does not mean that the body has to be valued for its own separate sake or that the creation of a divine body in a future evolution of the whole being has to be contemplated as an end and not a means—that would be a serious error which Page-550 would not be admissible. In any case, my speculations about an extreme form of divinisation are something in a far distance and are no part of the preoccupations of the spiritual life in the near future.
7-12-1949 Annulment of Decay and Death from the Body
THERE is nothing difficult about it. It (death) has no separate existence by itself, it is only a result of the principle of decay in the body and that principle is there already—it is part of the physical nature. At the same time it is not inevitable; if one could have the necessary consciousness and force, decay and death is not inevitable. But to bring that consciousness and force into the whole of the material nature is the most difficult thing of all—at any rate, in such a way as to annul the decay principle. It came because it is there in the subconscient and in Matter into which you are trying to bring down the intuition and Overmind, —it wanted to get into the subjective centre so as to combat the higher power in the mind as well as in the body.
11-9-1933 Page-551
THE physical death is the dissolution of the physical form—but all form does not disappear by death.
November 1933 Page-552 III. REGULATION OF FOOD
Two ways of Overcoming Greed for Food
NOT to eat as the method of getting rid of the greed of food is the ascetic way. Ours is equanimity and non-attachment.
12-11-1935 Inadvisability of Taking to Ascetic Diet
THE attachment to good food must be given up as also the personal attachment to position and service; but it is not indispensably necessary for that purpose to take to an ascetic diet or to give up all Page-552 means of action such as money and service. The Yogin has to become nihsva in this sense that he feels that nothing belongs to him but all to the Divine and he must be ready at any time to give up all to the Divine. But there is no meaning in throwing away everything in order to be externally nihsva without any imperative cause.
6-10-1931 True Harmony between the Body’s Need and the Food Taken
Too much eating makes the body material and heavy, eating too little makes it weak and nervous —one has to find the true harmony and balance between the body’s need and the food taken.
11-12-1933 Page-553
IT depends on what you can digest. If you can digest, there is no harm in taking more since you feel hungry. All these things depend upon what is the true need of the body and that may differ in different cases according to the constitution of the body, the amount of work done or exercise taken. It is possible that you have reduced your food too much, so you can try taking more.
26-8-1933 Changing the Principle of Hunger in the Vital-Physical
I SUPPOSE you have become aware of the principle of hunger in the vital-physical. It is not really either by satisfying it or forcibly denying it that it will go—it is by putting a will on it to change and bringing down a higher consciousness that it can change.
Inadvisability of Suppressing Hunger
To suppress hunger like that is not good, it very often creates disorders. I doubt whether fatness or thinness of a healthy kind depends on the amount Page-554 of food taken—there are people who eat well and remain thin and others who take only one meal a day and remain fat. By underfeeding (taking less than the body really needs) one may get emaciated, but that is not a healthy state. The doctors say it depends mostly on the working of certain glands. Anyhow the important thing is now to get the nervous strength back. As for the liver also eating little does not help, very often it makes the liver sluggish so that it works less well. What is recommended for liver trouble is to avoid greasy food and much eating of sweets and that is also one way of avoiding fat. But to eat too little is not good—it may be necessary in some stomach or intestinal illness, but not for the ordinary liver trouble.
15-3-1935 Carefulness in Matters of Food
IT is better to be careful in these matters of food etc., as in the stage through which your sadhana is passing there is a considerable sensitiveness in the vital-physical part of the being and it may be easily disturbed by a wrong impact or a wrong movement like overfeeding. Page-555
IT is true that as one reaches an advanced age a diminished diet may become desirable.
IV. SLEEP AND DREAM IN SADHANA
Need of Sufficient Sleep in Yoga
THIS is not a Yoga in which physical austerities have to be done for their own sake. Sleep is necessary for the body just as food is. Sufficient sleep must be taken, but no excessive sleep. What sufficient sleep is depends on the need of the body.
26-11-1933
IF you do not sleep enough the body and the nervous envelope will be weakened and the body and the nervous envelope are the basis of the sadhana.
1933 Page-556 Want of Sleep and Weakness of Nervous System
IT must be the want of sleep that keeps your nervous system exposed to weakness—it is a great mistake not to take sufficient sleep. Seven hours is the minimum needed. When one has a very strong nervous system one can reduce it to six, sometimes even five—but it is rare and ought not to be attempted without necessity.
Uneasiness due to Want of Sleep
IT is a want of sleep itself that brings the symptoms of uneasiness. The action of sadhana cannot of itself bring this kind of reaction, it is only if the body gets strained by want of sleep, insufficient food, overwork or nervous excitement that there are these things. It is probably because the nerves are strained in the day time and you do not relax into ease that it is difficult to sleep.
7-7-1933 Page-557
You must not try to avoid sleep at night—if you persist in doing that, the bad results may not appear immediately, but the body will get strained and there will be a breakdown which may destroy what you have gained in your sadhana. If you want to remain conscious at night, train yourself to make your sleep conscious—not to eliminate sleep altogether, but to transform it.
29-6-1932 Intensity of Sadhana and Sleep
THERE is no reason at all why intensity of sadhana should bring insufficient sleep.
7-3-1937 (1)
IT is usually only if there is much activity of sadhana in the day that it extends also into the sleep-state.
23-2-1937 Page-558 (2)
Once one is in full sadhana, sleep becomes as much a part of it as waking.
Continuing Sadhana in Conscious Sleep
THAT is all right. It shows that the sadhana is becoming continuous and that you are being conscious and using a conscious will in sleep as well as in waking. This is a very important stage forward in the sadhana.
(1)
SUCH pressure to go inside often comes (1) when the body needs sleep, not having had enough or because enough rest is not given. It can come too (2) when the body wants to recuperate after illness or strong fatigue.
15-3-1936 Page-559 (2)
No, it is not sleep. But when the pressure gives a tendency to insideness (samadhi), the physical being, not being accustomed to go inside except in the way of sleep, translates this into a sense of sleepiness.
16-3-1936
IT is certain forces that work and certain parts of the personality that use them. In the ordinary consciousness, these part-personalities are veiled and the forces limited by the external mind, but when one gets behind the veil that limitation disappears, the action of the forces enlarges and works out automatically what has to be done. But then these forces are each intent on its own work and do not care for anything else—e.g., here they disregard the need of the body for rest and sleep, which is bad. The central consciousness must interfere and say, "no, this is the time for sleep, not for these activities, keep them for their proper place and time". Page-560
IT is restlessness in you which prevents you from keeping sleep inwardly or outwardly. To sleep well the vital and physical and mind also must learn how to relax themselves and be quiet.
(1)
DREAMS of this kind arise from the subconscient. It is one of the most embarrassing elements of Yogic experience to find how obstinately the subconscient retains what has been settled and done with in the upper layers of the consciousness. But just for that reason these dreams are often a useful indication as they enable us to pursue things to their obscure roots in this underworld and excise them. No, it does not indicate that you are taking in any part of your consciousness your present pursuit of Yoga as a stopgap, but merely that old vital tendencies and activities are still there in that mysterious and obscure subconscient limbo and that their ghosts can rise twittering to the surface when the conscious Page-561 will is in abeyance. If the dream was trivial, it would seem to show that this ghost was not a strong demon like the militant Norwegian saga revenants but a phantom from an unsubstantial Hades.
24-12-1930 (2)
Those dreams which are formed from subconscient impressions arranged at haphazard (subconscient mind, vital or physical) either have no significance or some meaning which is difficult to find and not very much worth knowing even if it is found. Other dreams are either simply happenings of the mental, vital or subtle physical worlds or else belong to the wider mental, vital or subtle physical planes and have a meaning which the figures of the dream are trying to communicate.
9-6-1933 Page-562 Interference of Physical Mind in Dream
THE physical mind (or else the subconscient) almost always interferes in the dream and gives its own version. It is only when there is a clear experience on the mental or vital plane that it does not try to interfere.
Dreams of Mental and Higher Vital Planes
THEY are dreams of the mental and higher vital planes in which things happen with another rhythm than here and freer forces, but some of them are formative of things and events here—not that they are fulfilled exactly like prophecies but they create forces for fulfilment.
7-8-1933 Moving in Vital Worlds in Dream
A GREAT many people have these dreams. It is the vital being that goes out in sleep and moves about in the vital worlds and has this sense of floating in the air in its own (vital) body. The waves of a sea having the colour of lightning must have been the atmosphere of some vital province. I have known Page-563 of some sadhaks, when they go at first out of the body in a more conscious way, thinking they have actually levitated, the vividness of the movement is so intense, but it is simply the vital body going out.
8-9-1936 Dream-experiences of the Vital Plane (1)
THESE are experiences of the vital plane; they have a meaning if one knows how to interpret them. This one indicates the possibility of strong attacks on the vital plane, but at the same time promises protection. These are formations of the vital plane, sometimes things that try to happen but not necessarily effective. One can observe and understand, but not allow them to influence the mind; for often adverse forces try to influence the mind by suggestion through these dream experiences. 22-8-1932 Page-564 (2)
These are dreams of the vital plane in which the vital plane takes up the spiritual experience and tries to turn it into forms of ego with a suggestion afterwards of loss of power and of consciousness and a Fall. You should attach no importance to these dreams except as an indication of nature in the sleeping state.
8-8-1933
YES, these are symbolic dreams but the exact meaning varies with the mind and the condition of the one who sees them.
11-3-1933
Page-565 V. REJECTION OF SEX
Sex and Ananda
SEX is a degradation or distortion of the Ananda Force.
23-1-1935 Page-565 Difficulty of Rejecting the Sex-impulse
THE sex impulse is deeply rooted in the subconscient and it is difficult to get rid of it. Only the full transformation of the physical consciousness can do that—except for a few who are not strongly bound by it.
23-1-1935 Connection of Sex with the Lower Vital and the Physical Centre
SEX is strongly connected with the physical centre but also with the lower vital—it is the lower vital that gives it most of its intensities and excitement. It can be disconnected from the lower vital and then it becomes a purely physical movement of the mechanical kind which has no great force except for the mechanical natures. If the physical centre is also freed then the sex impulse ceases.
10-8-1933 Page-566 Establishment of the Higher Consciousness in the Physical Centre
IT is the physical centre—sex is only one of its movements. Naturally, if the sex is active (instead of giving place to Beauty and Ananda) and if the lower movements are active, it forms an obstacle to the establishment of the higher consciousness, But the higher can descend, if there is at all an opening, even before the lower movements have definitely gone—it has then to complete the work of displacing them.
1-7-1933 Physical Lust and Heart’s Hunger to Love Women
WHAT is this idea that this desire of the heart hungering to love women is not sex desire? That and the physical lust are both forms of sex desire. Why hanker when it is a vital desire? It is a form of sex and usually calls up a more physical desire. Page-567 (1)
THE sex-impulse is the chief difficulty in your way. If it persists, it is because some part of your being still clings to it and your mind and will have remained divided and found some kind of half-justification for the continuance. The first thing is for the mind and also the higher vital to withdraw their consent altogether; if that is done, it becomes only a mechanical return from outside on the physical and finally only an active memory which will disappear when it is able to find no welcome in any part of the nature.
26-7-1932 (2)
It is only if the whole consciousness is awake and aware of its concealed movements that such sex reactions can be avoided. It does not mean that you are worse than others but that in all men the sexual element is there, active or dormant, indulged or suppressed. It can only be overcome by a spiritual awakening in all parts of the nature. Page-568 Avoidance of Response to Sex-suggestions (1)
PERSIST in concentrating in the heart and remaining unmoved by the obstacles. The suggestions must never be accepted—for acceptance gives them the right to return or continue. If there is no sex response in the mind or vital and the sensation in the organic centre is isolated and without any support in the being, then it can be separately overcome. Therefore, there must be no mental assent or vital response—that is the first necessary step.
8-11-1937 (2)
It is of course the physical that is at once responsive in the most material way to sex suggestions. What you are doing is right. As you are controlling it in the waking state, it comes out at night. That too has to be got rid of.
15-11-1933 Page-569 Rejection of Sex-desire from the Subconscient
THERE is no reason for you to be depressed or discouraged. The defects of the nature of which you speak are habits of the lower vital and the external being; if you recognise them fully and frankly and detect them and reject whenever they act or try to act upon you, they will in time disappear. The sexual desires show that the subconscient still retains the old impressions, movements and impulses; make the conscious parts of the being entirely free and aspire and will for the higher consciousness to come fully into the subconscient so that even in sleep and dream something in you may be aware and on guard and reject these things when they try to take form at that time.
13-3-1932 Rising of Sex-impressions in Sleep from the Subconscient
THAT is usual—the subconscient acts of itself on its own store of impressions or habitual past movements. When one drives sex from the mind and conscious vital and physical, it remains in the subconscient and rises from there in sleep.
27-11-1933 Page-570 Seeds of Past Impressions in the Subconscient (1)
IT usually happens like this because the seeds of the old relations, their impressions, their memories remain suppressed in the subconscient and rise up whenever they can. It is only when these seeds are pulled out and disappear—a rising up of them like this gives an opportunity—that that altogether ceases.
26-5-1933 (2)
There is a close connection between the subconscient and the physical and lower vital parts; so long as the subconscient is not cleared, the seed you speak of remains.
1933 Page-571 Attacks of Sex-suggestions in Sleep
WHAT is rejected in the waking often attacks in sleep—especially the sexual suggestions. You have to concentrate before sleeping with a strong will that nothing of the kind should happen. After some time this concentration is usually successful. Also do not forget that calm and equanimity are the foundation of the Yoga.
19-3-1933 (1)
THAT controls the action but not the thoughts— even if the thoughts are controlled that does not get rid of the suppressed sex-force in the subconscient. When one gets rid of the sex impulse from the conscious parts, it still remains there and comes up in dreams producing images of all kinds. You are mistaken, it is exceedingly common— almost universal—for those who do not indulge in the waking state to have it come up in dream.
12-9-1933 Page-572 (2)
I have already told you not to get upset over these dreams and accidents of sleep. They come from outside yourself and something replies from the subconscient which keeps for a long time all that the conscious being rejects. It is only in the later stages of the Yoga that this subconscient part can be made conscious and liberated. It is the waking consciousness that you must keep free from sexual acts and sexual suggestions. If you do that, the subconscient part can be easily liberated afterwards.
7-12-1930 (1)
NIGHT-DREAMS are involuntary upsurgings of the sex impressions from the subconscient; most, even when they are not indulging in the sex act, have it from time to time though it varies in period from a week, a fortnight, a month to three or four months or even less. To have it more frequently indicates either indulgence in sex-imaginations Page-573 which stimulate the sex-centre or else a nervous weakness in that part due to past indulgence. Some have benefited by putting a will on the body before going to sleep at night that these dreams should not happen—though it may not succeed at the beginning, it tells in most cases after a time by fixing a certain inhibitory force on the subconscient from which these dreams arise. As to children indulging, that is not hereditary, but a thing taught by bad company and these children are sometimes spoiled in this way at a very early age.
10-1-1936 (2)
Your dreams were mostly on the vital-physical plane. There if there is any physical contact of a sexual or other kind that acts strongly on the sexual centre or on a sensory contact—it may even without raising any lust produce an emission by a mechanical blind and unconscious action of the purely physical (not even vital-physical) kind. It is only when the sex centre has become very strong that this becomes impossible.
1933 Page-574 Removal of Small Tendencies and Overcoming Sex-desire
THE small tendencies, rajasic-vital, which you enumerate are of minor importance. They have to be removed in this sense that attachment to these things has to be given up; the vital part of the being must be prepared to consent to their absence with quietude and indifference, taking them only if they are given freely by the Divine without demand or claim or clinging, but there is nothing very serious about them otherwise. The one serious matter is the sex-tendency. That must be overcome. But it will be more easily overcome if instead of being upset by its presence you detach the inner being from it, rise up above it and view it as a weakness of the lower nature. If you can detach yourself from it with a complete indifference in the inner being, it will seem more and more something alien to yourself, put upon you by the outer forces of Nature. Then it will be easier to remove.
10-3-1935 Page-575 Giving up of Perverse Sex-habit (1)
NECESSARILY, you must give up the perverse habit which is one of the main causes of your despondency, vital weakness, etc. There is nothing that has more power to derange and weaken the system. If not only in your mind but in your vital also you had made the resolution to give it up, it would have disappeared long ago.
1929 (2)
There is one way by which it is possible for you to get rid of the perverse habit: to establish a strong mental control and so get rid of the wrong movement. It is not true that it is unconquerable; on the contrary, the fact that you were able to interrupt if for some time shows that you can conquer it. It returned because these things are a movement of certain universal life-forces that, once allowed a habitual wrong Page-576 response in the individual system, tend to continue in that form and, even if evicted, try always to recur. Your mind has rejected them, but something in your vital nature—the part that responds directly to the universal life-forces—still takes pleasure and has preserved the capacity and desire of the wrong response. A resolute and persistent effort of will can enforce in the end the rejection of the desire and finally even of any mechanical habit of the movement upon this part of the nature also. Only you must not be discouraged by relapses; your will must be more persevering than the habit and persist till there is a complete conquest.
January 1928
VI. CONTROL OF SPEECH IN SADHANA
Control of Speech and the Physical Change
CONTROL of speech is very necessary for the physical change.
17-6-1934 Page-577
You are right—to minimise speech is sure to be helpful both for right action and for inner sadhana.
18-3-1936 Control of Speech as Part of Yogic Self-control
THE difficulty you experience exists because speech is a formation which in the past has worked much more as an expression of the vital in man than of the mental will. Speech breaks cut as the expression of the vital and its habits, without caring to wait for the control of the mind; the tongue has been spoken of as the unruly member. In your case the difficulty has been increased by the habit of talk about others, —gossip, to which your vital was very partial, so much that it cannot even yet give up the pleasure in it. It is therefore this tendency that must cease in the vital itself. Not to be under the control of the impulse to speech, to be able to do without it as a necessity and to speak only when one sees that it is right to do so and only what one sees to be right to say, is a very necessary part of Yogic self-control. Page-578 It is only by perseverance and vigilance and a strong resolution that this can be done, but if the resolution is there, it can be done in a short time by the aid of the Force behind.
6-12-1936 Vigilance for Controlling the Automatic Habit of Speech (1)
IT is obvious that things which are a long habit cannot go at once. Especially, speech is a thing which in most people is largely automatic and not under their control. It is the vigilance that establishes the control, so one must be on guard against the danger of which you speak, the slacking of the vigilance. Only, the more it can be a quiet and unmixed, not an anxious vigilance, the better. (2)
The habits of the physical or the vital-physical nature are always the most difficult to change, because their action is automatic and not governed Page-579 by the mental will and it is therefore difficult for the mental will to control or transform them. You have to persevere and form the habit of control. If you can succeed in controlling the speech often,— it needs a constant vigilance,—you will finally find that the control stamps itself and can in the long run always intervene. This must be done so long as that movement is not fully opened to the Mother’s Light and Force, for if that happens the thing can be done more quickly and sometimes with a great rapidity. There is also the intervention of the psychic,—if the psychic being is sufficiently awake and active to intervene each time you are going to speak at random and say "No", then the change becomes more easy.
11-10-1938 (1)
THE habit of criticism—mostly ignorant criticism of others–mixed with all sorts of imaginations, inferences, exaggerations, false interpretations, Page-580 even gross inventions is one of the universal illnesses. It is a disease of the vital aided by the physical mind which makes itself an instrument of the pleasure taken in this barren and harmful pursuit of the vital. Control of the speech, refusal of this disease and the itch of the vital is very necessary, if inner experience has to have any true effect of transformation in the outer life.
(2)
It is also better to be more strict about not talking of others and criticising them with the ordinary mind. It is necessary in order to develop a deeper consciousness and outlook on things that understands in silence the movements of Nature in oneself and others and is not moved or disturbed or superficially interested and drawn into an external movement.
26-8-1933 Page-581 Right Attitude towards Weakness of Others
THE sadhaks of this Ashram are not perfect— they have plenty of weaknesses and wrong movements. It is blindness not to be able to see that; only it should not lead to a criticising or condemnatory attitude towards persons—and it should be regarded as the play of forces which have to be overcome.
1933
THE depression came into you subconsciously because you had the discussion with X. When you discuss like that with people, you put something in them, but something also comes from them to you. So, as X was not in quite a good condition, though nothing like what he used to be in his depressions, you easily got a touch of it and as soon as the subconscious could find a habitual excuse it sent it up to the mind. You should always be on your guard against these automatic interchanges. A little care is sufficient—and no needless discussion.
21-9-1932 Page-582 (1)
IT is not very advisable to discuss either myself or the Ashram or spiritual things with hostile minds or unbelievers. These discussions usually bring on the sadhak a stress of the opposing atmosphere and cannot be helpful to his progress. Reserve is the best attitude; one need not be concerned to dispel their bad will or their ignorance.
13-9-1932 (2)
These discussions are perfectly useless, they only deflect the mind and open the gate to falsehoods.
HARANGUES and exhortations touch only the surface of the mind. If the mind is in agreement it is pleased and stimulated, but that is all. If it is not in agreement the mind criticises or becomes impatient Page-583 and turns aside. If the harangue is very forcible it may touch the vital sometimes and produce a momentary effect.
5-5-1937
IT is the nervous envelope that is weak—it is this that you saw. The fact that you feel weak when talking with people shows that the origin of the whole trouble is a weakened nervous force. It is this that you have to get strong. You should avoid much talking with others—you can also take rest when you feel the symptoms very strong. But faith, quietude and openness to the higher force are the fundamental cure.
22-12-1933 Page-584 Inadvisability of Speaking about Experiences to Others (1)
IT is not usually good to tell the experiences to others. It weakens the experience and tends to bring down the consciousness.
9-11-1933 (2)
It is not good to talk too much to others about the sadhana and its experiences. There can be exceptions to the rule, but that depends on the person and circumstances.
(3)
I thought it was understood that what I wrote to you about persons was private. Experiences of one’s own or others if one comes to know of them, should not be talked about or made a matter of gossip. It is only if there can be some spiritual profit to others and even then if there are experiences of the past that one can speak of them. Otherwise it becomes like news of Abyssinia or Spain, something common and trivial for the vital mass-mind to chew or gobble.
18-9-1936 Page-585 |