Sri Aurobindo: The sign of complete liberation will be when your vital can face this attack always without being upset or crying out, repelling its force by a calm rejecting force from within.  The higher vital movement is more reﬁned and large in motion than that of the ordinary vital. It stresses emotion rather than sensation and desire, but it is not free from demand and the desire of possession.  It is through a change in the vital that the deliverance from the blind vital energy must come — by the emergence of the true vital which is strong, wide, at peace, a willing instrument of the Divine and of the Divine alone.


Sri Aurobindo:   The vital is an indispensable instrument — no creation or strong action is possible without it. It is simply a question of mastering it and of converting it into the true vital which is at once strong and calm and capable of great intensity and free from ego.   It is the nature of the unregenerated vital part on the surface to do like that []. The true vital is different, calm and strong and a powerful instrument submitted to the Divine.


Sri Aurobindo: But for that to come forward, it is necessary ﬁrst to get this ﬁxed poise above in the mind — when the consciousness is there and the mind calm, free and wide, then the true vital can come forward.     Why the Apollyon do you suppose that all vital things are impure? The vital has strength, ardour, enthusiasm, self-conﬁdence, generosity, the victor spirit — a host of other very necessary things.


Sri Aurobindo: The only difﬁculty is that they get mixed up with others that impure. All the same they are there and much needed.    It [] means the life-energy which comes from within and is in consonance with the psychic being — it is the energy of the true vital being, but in the ordinary ignorant vital it is deformed into desire.  You have to quiet and purify the vital and let the true vital emerge.


Sri Aurobindo: Or you have to bring the psychic in front, and the psychic will purify and psychicise the vital and then you will have the true vital energy.    Certainly it is better if the vital is brought to the true movement — renouncing its wrong movements and asking only for growth of the self-realisation, psychic love and psychicisation of the nature. But it is possible to get rid from above of the more active forms of obstruction even with a neutral vital.  It [] is the one-pointed will in the vital to be transformed.


Sri Aurobindo:   The vital can rise to the head in two ways — one to cloud the mind with the vital impulses, the other to aspire and join with the higher Consciousness. If you noticed the aspiration, it was evidently the latter movement.   It [] is to offer all the vital nature and its movements to the Divine so that it may be puriﬁed and only the true movements in consonance with the Divine Will may be there and all egoistic desires and impulses disappear.


Sri Aurobindo:   Consecration means offering and making sacred to the Mother so that the whole vital nature may belong to her and not to the lower nature.


Sri Aurobindo: As for the offering of the actions to the Divine and the vital difﬁculty it raises, it is not possible to avoid the difﬁculty, — you have to go through and conquer it. For the moment you make this attempt, the vital arises with all its restless imperfections to oppose the change. However, there are three things you can do to alleviate and shorten the difﬁculty: 1. Detach yourself from this vital-physical — observe it as something not yourself; reject it, refuse your consent to its claims and impulses, but quietly as the witness Purusha whose refusal of sanction must ultimately prevail. This ought not to be difﬁcult for you, if you have already learned to live more and more in the impersonal Self.


Sri Aurobindo: 2. When you are not in this impersonality, still use your mental will and its power of assent or refusal, — not with a painful struggle, but in the same way, quietly, denying the claims of desire, till these claims by loss of sanction and assent lose their force of return and become more and more faint and external.   3.


Sri Aurobindo: If you become aware of the Divine above you or in your heart, call for help, for light and power from there to change the vital itself, and at the same time insist upon this vital till it itself learns to pray for the change.  Finally, the difﬁculty will be reduced to its smallest proportions the moment you can by the sincerity of your aspiration to the Divine and your surrender awaken the psychic being in you (the Purusha in the secret heart) so that it will come forward and remain in front and pour its inﬂuence on all the movements of the mind, the vital and the physical consciousness. The work of transformation will still have to be done, but from that moment it will no longer be so hard and painful.  What you have to aspire for and bring down in you is the peace of the Mother’s consciousness. Peace, calm, equanimity in the emotional being and the rest of the vital especially — it is that which will purify the emotions and deliver the vital.


Sri Aurobindo:  If you bring down the peace into your vital, it will be liberated — for even if wrong movements come, it will be able to reject them.     A quiet and even basis [] means a condition of the sadhana in which there is no tossing about between eager bursts of experience and a depressed inert or half inert condition, but whether in progress or in difﬁculty there is always a quiet consciousness behind turned in conﬁdence and faith towards the Divine.


Sri Aurobindo:   This quietude is not tamas at all — it is a quiescence of the ordinary rajasic movements of the nature (desire, grief, attachment and other reactions), which is very necessary in order that peace may come. It is what we may call the quiet vital — and it is in the quiet mind and the quiet vital that the true spiritual consciousness can most easily come.  The Spirit itself if it wants to manifest in matter must use the vital.


Sri Aurobindo: It is so that things are arranged.  The two movements whose apparent contradiction confuses your mind, are the two ends of a single consciousness whose motions, now separated from each other, must join if the lifepower is to have its more and more perfect action and fulﬁlment or the transformation for which we hope.  The vital being with the life-force in it is one of these ends; the other is a latent dynamic power of the higher consciousness through which the Divine Truth can act, take hold of the vital and its life-force and use it for a greater purpose here.  The life-force in the vital is the indispensable instrument for all action of the Divine Power on the material world and the physical nature. It is therefore only when this vital is transformed and made a pure and strong instrument of the Divine Shakti, that there can be a divine life.


Sri Aurobindo: Then only can there be a successful transformation of the physical nature or a free perfected divine action on the external world; for with our present means any such action is impossible. That is why you feel that the vital movement gives all the energy one can need, that all things are possible by this energy and that you can get with it any experience you like, whether good or bad, of the ordinary or of the spiritual life, — and that also is why, when this energy comes, you feel power pervading the body-consciousness and its matter. As for the contact with the Mother in the vital and your sense of the ﬁne, the magniﬁcent experience it was, — that too is natural and right; for the vital, no less than the psychic and every other part of the being, has to feel the Divine Mother and give itself entirely to her.  But this must always be remembered that the vital being and the life-force in man are separated from the Divine Light and, so separated, they are an instrument for any power that can take hold of them, illumined or obscure, divine or undivine.  Ordinarily, the vital energy serves the common obscure or halfconscious movements of the human mind and human life, its normal ideas, interests, passions and desires.


Sri Aurobindo: But it is possible for the vital energy to increase beyond the ordinary limits and, if so increased, it can attain an impetus, an intensity, an excitation or sublimation of its force by which it can become, is almost bound to become an instrument either of divine powers, the powers of the gods, or of Asuric forces. Or, if there is no settled central control in the nature, its action can be a confused mixture of these opposites, or in an inconsequent oscillation serve now one and now the other. It is not enough then to have a great vital energy acting in you; it must be put in contact with the higher consciousness, it must be surrendered to the true control, it must be placed under the government of the Divine. That is why there is sometimes felt a contempt for the action of the vital force or a condemnation of it, because it has an insufﬁcient light and control and is wedded to an ignorant undivine movement.  That also is why there is the necessity of opening to inspiration and power from a higher source.


Sri Aurobindo: The vital energy by itself leads nowhere, runs in chequered, often painful and ruinous circles, takes even to the precipice, because it has no right guidance; it must be connected with the dynamic power of the higher consciousness and with the Divine Force acting through it for a great and luminous purpose.  There are two movements necessary for this connection to be established. One is upward; the vital rises to join with the higher consciousness and steeps itself in the light and in the impulsion of a higher force: the other is downward; the vital remains silent, tranquillised, pure, empty of the ordinary movements, waiting, till the dynamic power from above descends into it, changes it to its true self and informs its movements with knowledge as well as power. That is why the sadhak feels sometimes that he is rising up into a happier and nobler consciousness, entering into a brighter domain and purer experience, but sometimes, on the contrary, feels the necessity of going back into the vital, doing sadhana there and bringing down into it the true consciousness. There is no real contradiction between these two movements; they are complementary and necessary to each other, the ascension enabling the divine descent, the descent fulﬁlling that for which the ascension aspires and which it makes inevitable.


Sri Aurobindo: When you rise with the vital from its lower reaches and join it to the psychic, then your vital being ﬁlls with the pure aspiration and devotion natural to the psychic; at the same time it gives to the feelings its own abundant energy, it makes them dynamic for the change of the whole nature down to the most physical and for the bringing down of the divine consciousness into earth matter. When it not only touches the psychic but fuses with the higher mind, it is able to come into contact with and obey a greater light and knowledge. Ordinarily, the vital is either moved by the human mind and governed by its more or less ignorant dictates, or takes violent hold of this mind and uses it for the satisfaction of its own passions, impulses or desires.  Or it makes a mixture of these two movements; for the ordinary human mind is too ignorant for a better action or a perfect guidance. But when the vital is in contact with the higher mind, it is possible for it to be guided by a greater light and knowledge, by a higher intuition and inspiration, a truer discrimination and some revelations of the divine truth and the divine will.


Sri Aurobindo: This obedience of the vital to the psychic and the higher mind is the beginning of the outgoing of the Yogic consciousness in its dynamic action upon life.  But this, too, is not sufﬁcient for the divine life. To come into contact with the higher mind consciousness is not enough, it is only an indispensable stage. There must be a descent of the Divine Force from yet loftier and more powerful reaches. A transformation of the higher consciousness into a supramental light and power, a transformation of the vital and its life-force into a pure, wide, calm, intense and powerful instrument of the Divine Energy, a transformation of the physical itself into a form of divine light, divine action, strength, beauty and joy are impossible without this descending Force from the now invisible summits.


Sri Aurobindo: That is why in this Yoga the ascent to the Divine which it has in common with other paths of Yoga is not enough; there must be too a descent of the Divine to transform all the energies of the mind, life and body.   There is a stage in the transformation when the Power is pressing on the outer being, especially the vital, and bringing down the higher consciousness. But the natural movements of the vital (anger, restlessness and impatience) are frequently breaking out and disturbing the work. Do not be shaken by that but remain as separate as possible from these movements and let the Force work.


Sri Aurobindo:    It [ ]


Sri Aurobindo: is because your sadhana has come down into the vital and in the vital there is not the Light or the higher consciousness. You must aspire for the Light and the true Consciousness to come down into the vital.   Your analysis [] is perfectly accurate — with this clear knowledge of the mechanism of the whole thing it should be easier to get rid of these ignorant forces.


Sri Aurobindo: It is true that they care nothing for truth or reason and appeal only to the blind feelings of the vital, but still the light of the true consciousness turned steadily on them ought to so much enlighten your own vital that it will no longer lend itself to the things that seek to disturb it and be ready to take its stand on the calm and happiness of surrender to the Divine.    Of course, it is true that the physical enjoyment is not the only enjoyment — the vital has its own way of enjoyment. The whole thing is to separate oneself from that and identify oneself with the psychic and spiritual being and through them receive the higher consciousness which will change the vital nature.  The vital controlled and transformed by the Intuition has the spontaneous right sense of things instead of groping and getting things by the wrong end due to passion, desire etc.


Sri Aurobindo: Your former sadhana was mostly on the vital plane. The experiences of the vital plane are very interesting to the sadhak but they are mixed, i.e. not all linked with the higher Truth. A greater, purer and ﬁrmer basis for the sadhana has to be established — the psychic basis. For that reason all the old experiences are stopped. The heart has to be made the centre and through bhakti and aspiration you have to bring forward the psychic being and enter into close touch with the Divine Shakti.


Sri Aurobindo: If you can do this, your sadhana will begin again with a better result.   Obviously when there is that inability to control and overeagerness, it must be a movement of a vital nature. The vital can take part in a movement but it must not be in control — it must be subordinated to the psychic.


Sri Aurobindo: They [ ] cannot be reconciled except by the submission of the vital to the psychic.


Sri Aurobindo: Any other combination means either the submergence of the psychic by vital delusions or a confused and misleading mixture or the use of the psychic aspirations by the vital to justify things that are not spiritual.   It is the nature of the psychic pressure to change the former tendencies of the mind, vital and physical consciousness, and remove those that were of the nature of imperfections. This weakness in your outer vital and timidity before others and dependence on them and preoccupation with their opinion of you or their attitude towards you was one of the chief obstacles in your vital nature. If it is now going, it is because of the psychic pressure; for under it these things go slowly but surely.


Sri Aurobindo:   The ordinary human emotions, good and bad, are all of them vital movements. It is only the psychic feelings that come from the deeper heart within which are not vital.   What he is having now are the true spiritual and psychic experiences — not those of the vital plane which most have at the beginning. The experiences of the vital plane (in which there is much imagination and fantasy) are useful for opening up the consciousness; but it is when they are replaced by the spiritual and psychic consciousness that there is the beginning of the true progress.


Sri Aurobindo:   When the vital being has been touched by the psychic, mere vital pleasure has no longer any interest, and may also be felt as a disturbance and discomfort because of the lowering effect upon the consciousness.


Sri Aurobindo: The Ananda you describe is evidently that of the inner vital when it is full of the psychic inﬂuence and ﬂoods with it the external vital also. It is the true Ananda and there is nothing in it of the old vital nature. When the psychic thus uses the vital to express itself, this kind of intense ecstasy is the natural form it takes. This intensity and the old vital excitement are two quite different things and must not be confused together. Where there is the intensity with a pure and full satisfaction, contentment and gratitude leaving no room for claim, demand or depressing reaction, that is the true vital movement.


Sri Aurobindo:   I think it needful at this stage of your sadhana to repeat my previous warning about not allowing any vital mixture. It is the crudity of the unregenerated vital that prevents the psychic from remaining always at the front. You have now seen clearly the two different consciousnesses, — according to what you have written in one of your letters, the psychic and the vital. To get rid of the old vital nature is now one of the most pressing needs of your sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo: You are trying to get rid of the vital attachments and to turn entirely to the Mother. At this juncture you must be careful not to allow the movements of the old vital nature to enter into your relations with the Mother. Take this matter of your wish for more physical nearness to her or contact with her.  Take care not to allow this to gain on you or become a desire; for if you do, the vital will begin to play, to create demands and desires, to awaken in you jealousy and envy of others and other undesirable movements, and that would push your psychic being into the background and spoil the whole truth of your sadhana.  There are some who have suffered much trouble and difﬁculty in their Yoga by making this mistake, and I think it therefore better to put you on your guard.


Sri Aurobindo:  The vital may get psychicised or spiritualised, but the vital does not become the psychic or the spiritual part any more than the hand can become the head or the heart. You can put knowledge into the workings of the hand; so too you can put spirituality into the vital, but as the hand remains a hand even when it does the works of intelligence, so the vital remains the vital even when it becomes a pure instrument of the spirit.  It is evident that your sadhana has been up till now in the mind — that was why you found it easy to concentrate at the crown of the head because the centre there directly commands the whole mental range. The mind quieted and experiencing the effects of the sadhana quieted the vital disturbance, but did not clear and change the vital nature.  Now the sadhana seems to be descending into the vital to clear and change it.


Sri Aurobindo: The ﬁrst result is that the difﬁculty of the vital has shown itself — the ugly images and alarming dreams come from a hostile vital plane which is opposed to the sadhana. From there also comes the renewal of the agitation, the disinclination and resistance to the sadhana. This is not a going back to the old condition, but the result of a pressure of the Yoga-Force on the vital for change to which there is a resistance.  It is this descent of the sadhana to free the vital being that made you feel the necessity of concentrating in the region of the heart; for in the region of the heart is the psychic centre and below, behind the navel, is the vital centre. If these two can be awakened and occupied by the Yoga-Force, then the psychic or Soul-Power will command the whole vital range and purify the vital nature and tranquillise it and turn it towards the Divine.


Sri Aurobindo: It will be best if you are able to concentrate at will in the heartregion and at the crown of the head, for that gives a more complete power of sadhana.  The other experiences you have are the beginning of the change in the vital, e.g. peace with yourself and those you thought had injured you, joy and freedom from all worldly cares and desires and ambitions. These came too with a quieted mind, but they can be ﬁxed only when the vital is liberated and tranquillised.  Whatever difﬁculties or troubles arise, the one thing is to go on quietly with full faith in the Divine Power and the guidance, opening steadily and progressively the whole being to the workings of the sadhana till all becomes conscious and consenting to the needed change.


Sri Aurobindo:   At present your experiences are on the mental plane, but that is the right movement. Many sadhaks are unable to advance because they open the vital plane before the mental and psychic are ready. After some beginning of true spiritual experiences on the mental plane there is a premature descent into the vital and great confusion and disturbance. This has to be guarded against.


Sri Aurobindo: It is still worse if the vital desire-soul opens to experience before the mind has been touched by the things of the spirit.   Aspire always for the mind and psychic being to be ﬁlled with the true consciousness and experience and made ready.  You must aspire especially for quietness, peace, a calm faith, an increasing steady wideness, for more and more knowledge, for a deep and intense but quiet devotion.  Do not be troubled by your surroundings and their opposition.


Sri Aurobindo: These conditions are often imposed at ﬁrst as a kind of ordeal. If you can remain tranquil and undisturbed and continue your sadhana without allowing yourself to be inwardly troubled under these circumstances, it will help to give you a much needed strength; for the path of Yoga is always beset with inner and outer difﬁculties and the sadhak must develop a quiet, ﬁrm and solid strength to meet them.     If you see more clearly any deﬁciencies of your vital nature and the necessity of a transformation, that itself is a sign of psychic growth.


Sri Aurobindo: They should not be a cause of discouragement; for these are common defects of the human vital and by an increased psychic opening they will lose their hold and ﬁnally disappear.  As for the diminution of mental control over the vital movements, that often happens temporarily in the course of the Yoga.  Mental control has to be replaced by a greater control from above and by the calm, purity and strong peace of the vital itself opened to the Divine Force and its government of the whole nature.  Do not allow yourself to be troubled or discouraged by any difﬁculties, but quietly and simply open yourself to the Mother’s force and allow it to change you.


Sri Aurobindo: It is not at all true that the Mother takes away the mental control — that is one of the many foolish misinterpretations that certain sadhaks make about the sadhana. What is true — and that is the cause of what you feel — is that when you try to control fully your habitual movements in the vital by the sadhana, instead of sometimes controlling them and sometimes indulging, then they make a violent resistance so that they seem to increase.  The sadhak has to stand ﬁrm and refuse to be overborne or discouraged by this violence. In dream it is usually the case that even what one has thrown out from the waking state, comes up for a long time — that is because all these things remain still in the subconscient and it is the subconscient that creates a great part of people’s dreams. Thus if one no longer has sexual desires in the waking state he can still have sex-dreams — and emissions — with a more or less frequent recurrence; he can still meet people in dreams whom he never sees or hears or thinks of in his waking hours, — and so on.


Sri Aurobindo: All the more are such dreams likely to come when the waking mind is not free.    Once the vital being has come forward and shown its difﬁculty — there is nobody who has not one crucial difﬁculty or another there — it must be dealt with and conquered.  It must be dealt with not by the mind but directly by the supramental power.  Not peace and knowledge in the mind, but peace, faith, calm strength in the vital being itself (and especially in this part of it that is defective) is the thing to be established.


Sri Aurobindo: To open yourself and allow all this to be brought down into it is the proper course.  The deﬁciency is not in the higher mind or mind proper; there is therefore no use in going back to establish mental peace.  The difﬁculty is in that part of the vital being which is not sufﬁciently open and conﬁdent and not sufﬁciently strong and courageous and in the physical mind which lends its support to these things. To get the supramental light and calm and strength and intensity down there is what you need.  You may have all the mental knowledge in the world and yet be impotent to face vital difﬁculties.


Sri Aurobindo: Courage, faith, sincerity towards the Light, rejection of opposite suggestions and adverse voices are there the true help. Then only can knowledge itself be at all effective.  Not mental control but some descent of a control from above the mind is the power demanded in the realisation. This control derived eventually from the supermind is a control by the Divine Power.   Your difﬁculty in getting rid of the aboriginal in your nature will remain so long as you try to change your vital part by the sole or main strength of your mind and mental will, calling in at most an indeﬁnite and impersonal divine Power to aid you.


Sri Aurobindo: It is an old difﬁculty which has never been radically solved in life itself because it has never been met in the true way. In many ways of Yoga it does not so supremely matter because the aim is not a transformed life but withdrawal from life. When that is the object of an endeavour, it may be sufﬁcient to keep the vital down by a mental and moral compulsion, or else it may be stilled and kept lying in a kind of sleep and quiescence. There are some even who allow it to run and exhaust itself if it can while its possessor professes to be untouched and unconcerned by it; for it is only old Nature running on by a past impetus and will drop off with the fall of the body. When none of these solutions can be attained, the sadhaka sometimes simply leads a double inner life, divided between his spiritual experiences and his vital weaknesses to the end, making the most of his better part, making as little as may be of the outer being.


Sri Aurobindo: But none of these methods will do for our purpose. If you want a true mastery and transformation of the vital movements, it can be done only on condition you allow your psychic being, the soul in you, to awake fully, to establish its rule and, opening all to the permanent touch of the divine Shakti, impose its own way of pure devotion, whole-hearted aspiration and complete uncompromising urge to all that is divine on the mind and heart and vital nature. There is no other way and it is no use hankering after a more comfortable path..


Sri Aurobindo: For the mind to be quiet, the vital must be quiet, free of desires etc. or at any rate one must be able to control them so that they shall not interfere with the concentration.   What happens usually is that something touches the vital, often without one’s knowing it, and brings up the old ordinary or external consciousness in such a way that the inner mind gets covered up and all the old thoughts and feelings return for a time. It is the physical mind that becomes active and gives its assent. If the whole mind remains quiet and detached observing the vital movement, but not giving its assent, then to reject it becomes more easy. This established quietude and detachment of the mind marks always a great step forward made in the sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo:   The vital movements are always more difﬁcult to deal with than the pure mental — but it comes with practice.  It is a great progress if you can now do that [ ]. The chief difﬁculty in the way of living in the light as well as the peace and force is the confused and turbid restlessness of man’s vital nature. If that is quieted, the major difﬁculty is gone.


Sri Aurobindo: There still remains the obstacle of the physical nature’s non-understanding or inertia — but that is less troublesome — it is more of the nature of a quiet though sometimes obstinate obstruction than a disturbance. If the vital inquietude has been cured then certainly the physical obscurity or non-understanding will go.    The separate existence of the vital and physical comes to be known of itself usually in the progress of the Yoga. So long as one lives mainly in the surface consciousness one can only know them by their results — one can see that this or that is or must be a movement of the vital etc.; but the direct concrete experience comes only when one begins to live deeper down in the inner being.


Sri Aurobindo: The phrase [] covers pretty nearly everything that is hurtful to spiritual progress — movements of doubt, revolt, egoistic desire or ambition, sexual indulgence are the most common, but there are plenty of others.     It depends on what is meant by a wrong or unnecessary movement []. Certain things have to fall off before the establishment [] can be.


Sri Aurobindo: Others that are unnecessary have to be put aside if they are incompatible with the full sadhana or the growth of the inner consciousness, but can be continued if the consciousness established is such that doing or not doing makes no difference to it.  A vital reaction means a response of the vital to the touch or pressure of an idea, action, event, person or thing.  E.g. if someone speaks something you do not like and you get angry, that is a vital reaction. Or if a woman passes and you feel sexual desire, that is a vital reaction. Or if something unpleasant happens and you get a depression, that is a vital reaction.


Sri Aurobindo: Most disturbances of the consciousness are due to vital reactions, though the mind may assist by wrong thoughts and judgments and misinterpretations. There can be good vital reactions as well as bad, but the term is usually applied to those that are undesirable and have to be surmounted by the sadhak.  The ideal condition is that of a calm, clear, strong vital free from the reactions of the vital ego and responding with true and high feelings only that are acceptable to the spiritual will and the psychic being.  It would not be at all right to yield to these suggestions which are obviously those of a force that wants to make use of the unease and disappointment of the vital in order to drive you to break your sadhana. These are the usual suggestions that come to all under the stress of this vital condition: “I am not ﬁt for this sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo: I must go, I cannot stay here. The Mother does not love me. I have given up everything and got nothing. The struggle makes me too miserable; let me go.” As a matter of fact there is no real foundation for these suggestions.


Sri Aurobindo: Because an acute struggle has come, it would be absurd to conclude that you are unﬁt for the sadhana and to give it up after going so far.  It is because you have asked the physical-vital to give up certain of its cherished attachments and habits that it is in this condition; unable to resist altogether, miserable at being deprived, it accepts these suggestions as an excuse for escape from the pressure you have put upon it. The acuteness of the struggle is due to the vehemence of the attack, but still more to this vital or a part of it responding to the suggestions; otherwise a less disturbing even if a slower movement would be quite possible. The Mother has in no way changed towards you nor is she disappointed with you — that is the suggestion drawn from your own state of mind and putting its wrong sense of disappointment and unﬁtness on to the Mother. She has no reason to change or be disappointed, as she has always been aware of the vital obstacles in you and still expected and expects you to overcome them.


Sri Aurobindo: The call to change certain things that seem to be in the grain of character is proving difﬁcult even for the best sadhaks, but the difﬁculty is no proof of incompetence. It is precisely this impulse to go that you must refuse to admit — for so long as these forces think they can bring it about, they will press as much as they can on this point. You must also open yourself more to the Mother’s Force in that part and for that it is necessary to get rid of this suggestion about the Mother’s disappointment or lack of love, for it is this which creates the reaction at the time of Pranam. Our help, support, love are there always as before — keep yourself open to them and with their aid drive out these suggestions.


Sri Aurobindo:   The feelings and movements of the past always return at night in sleep. It is only when the consciousness that generated them is changed and cleared in the waking state, that afterwards one can clear them out of the sleep also.  You are listening too much to the suggestions of the outer consciousness, “not being able”, etc. etc. Since you did begin to open a little for a time, it shows that you are able.


Sri Aurobindo: You have to get back to that movement; for that you must persuade this outer vital not to go on repeating, “I am not able, my efforts cannot succeed, I am too crooked etc.” — or if it goes on, you must not listen to it. You must afﬁrm and concentrate on the possibility that was shown you and not on the supposed impossibility.     But how is it that any part of you gives any value to the suggestions?


Sri Aurobindo: If no part gives any value then surely they must seem to you too laughable and contemptible to have any effect or power to make you revolt.  If you attach no value to the suggestions, then there may be the inertia still but not this.    The fact that your vital “goes out of the poise” and accepts them [] means that you keep yourself open to them. The sign that these things are no longer admitted is when the inner vital rejects them so that they become suggestions only and nothing else.


Sri Aurobindo: There may arise a surge of suggestions or waves from the general nature, but they cannot get admission.  It is only then that a will can be kept in which one is untouched by the general atmosphere.    It is not the mind, but the psychic being that made the suggestion through the mind. There is a part of the mind that is under the inﬂuence of the Truth and can be the channel of the psychic being’s knowledge or feeling; there is another part that answers to the vital and expresses and supports the difﬁculties and oppositions in the nature.


Sri Aurobindo: If the whole mind refuses to respond to the vital or accept or support its suggestions then much of the force of the vital attack disappears and one is more able to put a pressure on the vital and oblige it also to listen to the psychic and change.  What happened in your case was that the whole vital difﬁculty — the main one of the family — massed itself together and rose. When an attack like that is overcome, there is always a clearance of the inner atmosphere. It must not be allowed to gather force again — and for that the mind must always follow the psychic suggestion and refuse at once to harbour the opposite suggestions and at the same time keep itself open to the Mother, so that the Mother’s Force may come down into it and occupy it and work there.  I have no idea why he wants to change [].


Sri Aurobindo: If he wants to make himself some day ﬁt for the spiritual life, the ﬁrst thing to be avoided is vital restlessness. To do the work one has to do with a quiet mind, making an offering of it to the Divine and trying to get rid of egoism and vital desire, is the best way to prepare oneself.   The bitterness you feel is that of a restless and dissatisﬁed vital which did not get what it desired because it could not desire anything strongly and persistently. Otherwise it could have all the vital desires — marriage, friends, position etc. — but it could  stick to nothing owing to a kind of weak restlessness.


Sri Aurobindo: In the Yoga it has shown the same restless weakness, — otherwise it could by this time have attained something, and besides there was the sex-impulse which it would neither satisfy nor leave. You must know what you want and want it with your whole will — it is only so that there can be an end of this restlessness and failure.     As for the other thing it is the struggle between the mind and psychic which see the right thing to do and the restless vital.


Sri Aurobindo: It is not something wrong in the head, on the contrary the head is getting more and more to see what is right; it is only that the vital restlessness is not dominated by the mind and wants to follow its own feeling. That happens to everybody so long as the vital is not properly under our control. Even in ordinary circumstances and in ordinary life the vital is always carrying away the being to do what the mind disapproves, but there it is felt to be something normal, especially as the vital very usually persuades the mind to ﬁnd arguments and justify its mistakes.  You have to persist until the understanding mind and psychic in you become normally stronger than this part of the vital that does not want to be quiet and concentrated or see things rightly.  Then you will not be so much troubled by this disagreement between two parts of the being.


Sri Aurobindo:   It is mostly when the sadhana condition is interrupted that the vital becomes agitated or impatient and restless. Instead of remaining quiet and waiting or calling down the real push from above, it begins to get vexed and restless and begins to ask questions: “Why this? why that?” These things do not mean that you are going astray — it means only that these defects are still not worked out, that is all.


Sri Aurobindo: Also the old vital mental egoism rises up and if the answers do not please it, it becomes challenging, disputatious, insistent on its own point of view.  These are old defects which are part of the external nature and therefore difﬁcult to root out. You must learn to recognise them and get rid of them by a quiet rejection and disuse.    It is not true that you cannot or will never be put right.


Sri Aurobindo: It is what appears to you when your lower vital is restless or else your physical mind comes uppermost. Only it is true that if you could keep yourself always in that part of you which is in contact, the thing would be done sooner and with much less difﬁculty and trouble.     If you reject the restlessness of the vital always, the whole being will be at peace and being at peace receive the divine Ananda.


Sri Aurobindo: Only you must not let the Ananda go out in speech or action nor let it turn into outward vital joy. If you keep it silently within, it will work in you for the transformation.  The feeling of the desert comes because of the resistance of the vital which wants life to be governed by desire. If that is not allowed, it regards existence as a desert and puts that impression on the mind.   It is the resistance of the vital that takes the form of this dryness — a form of passive resistance, just as revolt or an excited activity of desire is its active form of resistance.


Sri Aurobindo: But you should not be discouraged — these phases are normal and almost everybody has to face them. It is not really a sign of failure or inability, but a trying part of the process of change. Hold fast and aspire always for the love and the opening. The inner heart is there and that will receive an answer to the aspiration and one day quickly open the outer and make it also receive. To call to the Mother always is the main thing and with that to aspire and assent to the light when it comes, to reject and detach oneself from desire and any dark movement.


Sri Aurobindo: But if one cannot do these other things successfully, then call and still call.  The Mother’s force is there with you even when you do not feel it. Trust to it, remain quiet and persevere.


Sri Aurobindo: Yes, dryness comes usually when the vital — here certainly the vital physical — dislikes a movement or condition or the refusal of its desires and starts non-cooperation. But sometimes it is a condition that has to be crossed through, e.g. the neutral or dry quietude which sometimes comes when the ordinary movements have been thrown out but nothing positive has yet come to take their place (e.g. peace, joy, a higher knowledge or force and action).    The ordinary freshness, energy, enthusiasm of the nature comes either from the vital, direct when it is satisfying its own instincts and impulses, indirect when it cooperates with or assents to the mental, physical or spiritual activities. If the vital resists, there is revolt and struggle.


Sri Aurobindo: If the vital no longer insists on its own impulses and instincts but does not cooperate, there is either dryness or a neutral state. Dryness comes in when the vital is quiescent but passively unwilling, not interested, the neutral state when it neither assents nor is unwilling, — simply quiescent, passive. This however, the neutral state, can deepen into positive calm and peace by a greater inﬂux from above which keeps the vital not only quiescent but at least passively acquiescent. With the active interest and consent of the vital the peace becomes a glad or joyful peace or a strong peace supporting and entering into action or active experience.   The dryness is usually only a passage of neutral quiet, — the vital withdrawing its stimulus gives to the neutrality a colour of dryness.


Sri Aurobindo: To live in the peace is the natural condition of the Self and therefore the basis of the Yogic consciousness — it is possible when the peace has so deepened and generalised itself that even a vital attack cannot cover it up or penetrate it.     The slight dryness must have been the reaction caused in the physical vital by the “uninterest” in external things — because the physical vital depends very much on this external interest.  When it gets more accustomed to the silence, then the dryness disappears.


Sri Aurobindo:  The feeling of loneliness,, dryness and lack of come very usually when the vital part is disappointed in its desires or tries to give them up but has not yet attained a quiet indifference towards them. It is necessary to replace this condition by the true quietude which will allow the psychic being to become again active and reopen the doors of inner experience, and we shall try to get this done.     I do not know that sadness has the power to cure [ ].


Sri Aurobindo: I have myself followed the Gita’s path of equanimity — but for some the psychic sadness may be necessary. But I think it is more an indication of a mistake than a cure.  The resistance and the contrary suggestions come from the vital nature which is in all men obscure and attached to ordinary ideas and aims and easily listens to such ideas and suggestions as those you mention. Faith and devotion come from the soul and it is only when the vital has entirely submitted to the soul that one can truly lead the spiritual life.


Sri Aurobindo: It is normal that when a special pressure is put on a vital movement, a resistance whether in the vital itself (here vital-physical) or in the subconscient should manifest itself. It is sometimes a real resistance, sometimes it is only the presenting itself for puriﬁcation.    Why should you suppose it [] is vain? The puriﬁcation of the vital takes a long time because until all the parts are free, none is quite free and because they use a multitude of movements which have to be changed or enlightened, — and moreover there is a great habit of persistence and resistance in the habitual movements of the nature.


Sri Aurobindo: One therefore easily thinks that one has made no progress, — but all sincere and sustained effort of puriﬁcation has its result and after a time the progress made will become evident.    You should not allow yourself to be invaded by this suggestion of not being ﬁt or able to go through. The vital is the most difﬁcult part of the being to change or control and even sadhaks who have advanced far have to struggle with it at times. But its more fundamental resistances can be overcome more quickly, and you have only to persevere in aspiration and opening to the Mother and this kind of denial will after a time come no more.


Sri Aurobindo:   It is this idea that you are helpless because the vital consents to the wrong movement that comes in the way. You have to put your inner will and the Mother’s light on the vital so that it shall change, not leave it to do what it likes. If one is to be “helpless” and ruled by any part of the instrumental being, how is change possible?


Sri Aurobindo: The Mother’s force or the psychic can act, but on condition that the assent of the being is there. If the vital is left to do what it likes, it will always go after its old habits; it has to be made to feel that it must change.     I suppose it is the nature of the vital which, when a thing is forbidden to it whether by the mind or by circumstances, runs after it more.


Sri Aurobindo: But I suppose if you remain ﬁrm, this will pass.     When the vital takes hold of a thing it is often like that — it ﬁxes it continually on the mind till it is either satisﬁed or the hold thrown off.


Sri Aurobindo:   The one thing you have to avoid is losing patience; for that only prolongs the vital trouble. There is no reason for it. When the vital is to be changed (fundamentally) it always gives constant trouble like this until one can seat oneself ﬁxedly in the calm of the inner consciousness and keep the vital movements quite on the surface.


Sri Aurobindo:   It is always better to have peace. As for the vital, there is always something in it that resists and tries to retard, but if the inner being opens sufﬁciently and you can live in the inner being, peace can descend and establish itself there in such a way that the vital movements of the surface may be there but will not be able to break the inner peace.  It is because the vital was very much under the grip of its desires and so, now that it is separately active, not controlled by mental will, it kicks and cries whenever its desires are not satisﬁed.  That is an ordinary movement of the human vital when not dominated and kept in its place by the mental will.


Sri Aurobindo:  It is an oscillation due to something in the resistant part (not the whole of it) being still dissatisﬁed at the call to change.  When any vital element is disappointed, dissatisﬁed, called or compelled to change but not yet willing, it has the tendency to create non-response or non-cooperation of the vital, leaving the physical dull or insensible without the vital push. With the psychic pressure this remnant of resistance will pass.


Sri Aurobindo: There are two conditions in which it [] becomes like that []: (1) when its ordinary (ego) actions or motives of action are not allowed to it, (2) when one goes very much down into the physical, the vital sometimes or for a time becomes inert unless or until there is the Force from above.     The nervous being is under the inﬂuence of the vital forces; when they are denied or pushed out, it becomes depressed and wants to call them back — for it is accustomed to get the pleasure and strength of life from the vital movements and not from the spiritual or divine Force above.


Sri Aurobindo:  The vital can be all right when things are going on swimmingly, but when difﬁculties become strong, it sinks and lies supine.  Also if a bait is held out to the vital ego, then it can become enthusiastic and active.   It seems to be some tamas or inertia coming down on the system.  It is sometimes like that when the vital gets dissatisﬁed with the conditions or with what has been attained and initiates a sort of non-cooperation or passive resistance, saying, “As I am not satisﬁed, I won’t take interest in anything or help you to do anything.”  It may be because I asked you to stop meditating and to wait.


Sri Aurobindo: The vital does not like waiting. But I had to tell you that because of the burning of the centres, the disturbance of sleep and the rest — these must go before you can meditate in the right way and with success. If you meditate at all now, it should be only in calm and peace with a very quiet aspiration for the divine calm and peace to descend into you.  It is also perhaps due to your penchant for Nirvana. For the desire of Nirvana easily brings this kind of collapse of the energies.


Sri Aurobindo: Nirvana is not the aim of my Yoga — but whether for Nirvana or for this Yoga, calm and peace in the whole being are the necessary foundation of all siddhi.    For the dissatisfaction of the vital, the only remedy is rejection and refusal to identify yourself with it. For the inertia the remedy is not to absorb yourself in thoughts about it, but to turn upwards and call the Light and Force to come into it.  The exacerbation of certain vital movements is a perfectly wellknown phenomenon in Yoga and does not mean that one has degenerated, but only that one has come to close grips instead of to a pleasant nodding acquaintance with the basic instincts of the earthly vital nature.


Sri Aurobindo: I have had myself the experience of this rising to a height, during a certain stage of the spiritual development, of things that before hardly existed and seemed quite absent in the pre-Yogic life. These things rise up like that because they are ﬁghting for their existence — they are not really personal to you and the vehemence of their attack is not due to any “badness” in the personal nature. I dare say seven sadhaks out of ten have a similar experience. Afterwards when they cannot effect their object which is to drive the sadhak out of his sadhana, the whole thing sinks and there is no longer any vehement trouble. I repeat that the only serious thing about it is the depression created in you and the idea of inability in the Yoga that they take care to impress on the brain when they are at their work.


Sri Aurobindo: If you can get rid of that, the violence of the vital attacks is only the phenomenon of a stage and does not in the end matter.    What you have noticed about the disturbances is true. There are now two consciousnesses in you, the new one that is growing and what is left of the old. The old has something in it which is a habit of the human vital, — the tendency to keep any touch of grief, anger, vexation etc. or any kind of emotional, vital or mental disturbance, to make much of it, to prolong it, not to wish to let it go, to return to it even when the cause of disturbance is past and could be forgotten, always to remember it and bring it up when it can.


Sri Aurobindo: This is a common trait of human nature and a quite customary movement. The new consciousness on the contrary does not want these things and when they happen throws them off as quickly as possible. When the new consciousness is fully grown and established, then the disturbances will be altogether rejected. Even if the causes of them happen, there will be no response of grief, anger, vexation etc. in the nature.


Sri Aurobindo: The one thing necessary is to arrive at a ﬁxed and deﬁnite choice in the mind which one can always oppose to the vital disturbance. Disturbance in the vital will always come so long as the full peace has not descended there, but with a ﬁxed resolution in the mind kept always to the front the acuteness of the disturbance can disappear and the road become shorter.     Usually the vital tries to resist the call to change.


Sri Aurobindo: That is what is meant by revolt or opposition. If the inner will insists and forbids revolt or opposition, the vital unwillingness may often take the form of depression and dejection accompanied by a resistance in the physical mind which supports the repetition of old ideas, habits, movements or actions which the body consciousness suffers from an apprehension or fear of the called for change, a drawing back from it or a dullness which does not receive the call.  It is these things you have to get rid of. But a sorrowful or despondent mood is not the proper condition for doing that.  You have to stand back from the feeling of suffering, anguish and apprehension, reject it and look quietly at the resistance, afﬁrming always to yourself your will to change and insisting that it shall be done and cannot fail to be done now or later with the divine help, because the divine help is there.


Sri Aurobindo: It is then that the strength can come to you that will overcome the difﬁculties.    It was the dissatisfaction of the soul with the superﬁcial vital life that brought you away from the outer world and it is the same dissatisfaction a hundred times increased and accompanied with an intense psychic sorrow that would come on you if you went away from the Yoga.  Your vital mind (which is the one which revolts and doubts) has strange misconceptions about the spiritual state. There is no grimness in being an instrument of the divine Will — it is the happiest and most joyous condition possible — it brings not only peace but an intense Ananda.


Sri Aurobindo: Anyhow, the hold of the Yoga-force is increasing in spite of everything and you have only to go on for it to solve the struggle between the outer man and the inner Spirit.    This part of the vital [] has no precise reasons to support itself with — it takes hold of any mood of disappointment or strong sense of difﬁculty. It is a factor in all human natures, — restless, desiring, eager, despondent, unstable. Stand back from it and do not allow it to govern or move you.


Sri Aurobindo: There is a right part of the vital which must be used — ardent, sensitive to the higher things, capable of great love and devotion. Strengthen that and support it on the psychic and on the peace and wideness that comes from above.    Tell the vital that complaining and revolting only hampers you from getting what it wants — it is only when it is calm and conﬁdent that things can be done.


Sri Aurobindo:   The outward revolt is the refusal of discipline and obedience — the inward revolt is of many kinds, it may take many forms, e.g. a revolt of the vital against the Mother, a revolt of the mind against the Truth, a rejection of the spiritual life, a demand to enthrone the ego as the Divine or to serve something that ﬂatters the vital ego and supports its demands and call that the Divine, a response to vital suggestions of distrust, despair, self-destruction or departure — and many others.    The difﬁculty must have come from distrust and disobedience.  For distrust and disobedience are like falsehood (they are themselves a falsity, based on false ideas and impulses), they interfere in the action of the Power, prevent it from being felt or from working fully and diminish the force of the Protection.


Sri Aurobindo: Not only in your inward concentration, but in your outward acts and movements you must take the right attitude. If you do that and put everything under the Mother’s guidance, you will ﬁnd that difﬁculties begin to diminish or are much more easily got over and things become steadily smoother.  In your work and acts you must do the same as in your concentration. Open to the Mother, put them under her guidance, call in the peace, the supporting Power, the protection and, in order that they may work, reject all wrong inﬂuences that might come in their way by creating wrong, careless or unconscious movements.


Sri Aurobindo: Follow this principle and your whole being will become one, under one rule, in the peace and sheltering Power and Light.  It is quite true that rising into a higher consciousness than the ordinary human consciousness is the right way towards transformation. Merely to remain in the ordinary lower consciousness and try to reject from there the wrong movements can produce no permanent or complete result. But there are several points here which you must note or this perception may be accompanied by an error.  (1) As you have yourself subsequently seen, all the parts and personalities that constitute the being must share in the higher consciousness, otherwise the old movements under various pretexts will continue.


Sri Aurobindo: (2) You speak of rejecting the lower vital, but it is only the unregenerated lower vital movements that can be got rid of; you cannot get rid of the lower vital itself, for it is a necessary part of the manifested nature, like the higher vital or the mind. It has to be changed in the power of the higher consciousness, not left to itself or dropped from you.  (3) If you do not so change it, if you simply remain content by living in the psychic or other higher consciousness internally then you raise the risk of doing like those who are satisﬁed to have experiences and some inner quietude or Ananda, but leave the external nature and surface active movements unchanged, either thinking them of no importance or justifying them under the plea that there is the psychic or spiritual consciousness behind them.  I asked you to look for the cause of the abatement of energy or zeal (), because it is evident that there must be some resistance somewhere, otherwise there would not be these constant headaches and this less intense condition. If the physical consciousness is open the headaches should disappear or at least diminish in frequency and force, and if the lower vital is all right, the intensity ought to continue.  But what do you want to do with all these obscure and useless vital movements that torment you, these wrong thoughts, suggestions, confusions, inabilities etc.?


Sri Aurobindo: You seem to write as if you thought they must be kept and changed? But why kept and how changed? What would be the use? But precisely what you have got to do is to “shut them out”, to reject, refuse to keep them, refuse to have them. It is precisely to see in another way, to see in the true way, that the Force is pressing on you.


Sri Aurobindo: It would indeed be a great blessing if you could forget these other wrong things altogether. Again, why do you want to keep and change the “wrong things” as you yourself call them? If you have an illness, do you want to keep and change the pains, the sickness and all the rest of it? It is to throw out the illness that you want, for the body to forget it, not to keep any impression of it, to lose even the possibility of having it again, to live and feel in quite another way, the way of health. It is just the same here.


Sri Aurobindo:   These wrong movements [ ] belong to the universal vital Nature, but the vital of man also shares in them, makes itself a centre and ﬁeld of the play of these wrong forces: in that sense they are in you. But by constant rejection they are pushed out; you feel them no longer rising in you but coming from outside. The vital still admits them because it is not yet pure of the old habit of response. You have to persist till they are entirely foreign to your nature and no longer get admittance.


Sri Aurobindo:  Keep your resolution ﬁrm in your mind. It is the vital that is invaded by something foreign from the outside (universal) Nature; it is not your own feeling. If you keep your resolution ﬁrm, the vital also will begin to throw out this foreign matter.   After each crisis there is something gained, if there has been a victory and rejection.


Sri Aurobindo: The gain is to externalise the vital disturbance, so that even if it returns it will be felt so much an outside force that the observing consciousness (mental, higher vital) cannot be disturbed. If you keep that, it will be an immense advance.  It was evidently not the action of something that is rooted still within, but an old movement returning from outside (from the universal Nature) to which something in the vital still responds by force of habit, force of accustomed recurrence. This is shown by the fact that you felt nothing at the time — only afterwards; also by the alternations of quiet and unrest after calling the Force, as if of something losing its hold and then trying to get it back and hold on still. Things thrown out always come back like that relying on the old habit of response in the stuff of the nature, — the old vibration.


Sri Aurobindo: By throwing it out whenever it comes, in the end the part which responds begins to understand that it must not and is gradually or quickly liberated from the habit.    What comes back like that is the old vital movements which you used to have and which you have been throwing out. The vital gets disturbed and ﬁlled with these thoughts whenever something happens that hurts or displeases it strongly. To get rid of it one must have always a sense of complete reliance on the Mother, of surrender; that brings a calm which refuses to be moved by any outward happening or by what people do or say, a happiness which is not disturbed by any occurrence.


Sri Aurobindo:   It must be that on that occasion the consciousness got lowered and some vital wave came in from the atmosphere resuscitating the old vibrations of the restless vital which had quieted down. You must separate yourself from them and get the poise of quietude again. They have no longer any real basis in mind or heart, they rely only on the force of repetition that comes up from the subconscient and once started try to keep these old ideas and feelings repeating themselves so as to prevent the consciousness from settling down into quietude. But the poise once obtained is there and has only been covered up and has got to be uncovered again from these cloudings.


Sri Aurobindo: You must get the habit of keeping quiet somewhere in yourself when these attacks come, of keeping something within that refuses to say ditto to these suggestions or accept them as its own proper thoughts and feelings.  Anyhow the Force will be put to help you; receive it and all that will go.    It is very often when one thinks a particular resistance is ﬁnished and is no longer in the vital that it surges up again.   The only way to get rid of these vital movements is to do persistently what he describes himself as doing with the invading forces — i.e. he must be always vigilant, try always at every moment to be conscious, always reject these things, refusing to take pleasure in them, call on the Mother, bring down the descent of the Light.


Sri Aurobindo: If they return persistently he must not be discouraged; it is not possible to change the nature at once, it takes a long time. If, however, he can keep the psychic consciousness in the front, then it will be much easier and there will be much less difﬁculty and trouble in the change. That can be done by constant aspiration and.


Sri Aurobindo: The difﬁculty you have in your vital is not peculiar to you, but is in some degree and in one form or another a fairly general malady. Its constant return, the mechanical irrational return even when all the rest of the nature has rejected it, is due to the obstinacy of the material consciousness always repeating the old movement in the old groove at the least touch from the old habitual forces. It is a question of faith, patience and persistence.  One must be more obstinate than the obstinate material nature and persevere until the light and truth can take permanent hold of the parts which are still responsive to the old movements.  There can be no doubt that with this perseverance the Truth will in the end conquer.


Sri Aurobindo: It would make it easier if you could get rid of certain ﬁxed ideas and of the habitual reaction of depression or despair when these recurrences come. For instance, you ought to throw away once for all this idea of’s malediction; it is a thing of the past and it is only the physical mind’s memory of it that gives it some appearance of survival. The difﬁculties we are now meeting have nothing to do with; they are part only of the necessity of conquest over the habits of the physical consciousness and he has nothing to do there and no inﬂuence of any kind whatever.  Also dismiss any question about the “possibility” of conversion of your vital being; you should see rather that it is certain and not merely possible. This idea of identiﬁcation with the dark Shakti is also another old notion which you ought to root out without cherishing any least trace of it.


Sri Aurobindo: It has no meaning on the plane of the physical and vital physical consciousness where the whole work is now going on and to nourish any such ideas can only hamper your progress. Finally, when there are these recurrences, do not allow yourself to be depressed by them, but simply observe and stand back and call in the higher force with the full conﬁdence that these are mechanical recurrences and in substance nothing more — however strong they may seem in appearance. The principle of mechanical repetition is very strong in the material nature, so strong that it makes one easily think that it is incurable. That however is only a trick of the forces of this material inconscience; it is by creating this impression that they try to endure. If, on the contrary, you remain ﬁrm, refuse to be depressed or discouraged and, even in the moment of attack, afﬁrm the certainty of eventual victory, the victory itself will come much more easily and sooner.


Sri Aurobindo:  All these things are there in human nature, habitual movements, which show their true nature only when the light of the higher consciousness is turned on them. Even after they have been rejected the possibility of a response to such suggestions from outside remains in the grain of the lower vital or vital physical or the subconscient till there is the full supramental enlightenment there.  When one tries to change something in the vital, then, due to the nature’s habit of persisting in a movement to which it has been accustomed, there is usually an alternation like this; the new condition persists for some days, then the old forces its way for some time to the surface. If one persists, the old movement begins to lose its force and die out and the new permanently replaces it.   At present I will only say that the alternations you feel are there between your psychic being and the mental and vital parts already submitted to it and the revolted vital parts full of the outcry of the vital ego stressing and increasing by brooding in them its own grievances and sufferings.


Sri Aurobindo: That is a struggle which every sadhak has to go through with more or less acuteness; but the only way to escape from the suffering and struggle is for the mind to put itself wholly on the side of the soul and bring over the whole vital to the true attitude. It is absurd to think that we know nothing of these things; we know them very well but we know also that the solution lies not in the satisfaction of the revolted vital but in its submission and surrender to the soul within and to the Divine.  The cardinal defect, that which has been always standing in the way and is now isolated in an extreme prominence, is seated or at least is at present concentrated in the lower vital being. I mean that part of the vital-physical nature with its petty and obstinate egoism which actuates the external human personality, — that which supports its surface thoughts and dominates its habitual ways of feeling, character and action. I am not concerned here with the other parts of the being and I do not speak of anything in the higher mind, the psychic self or the higher and larger vital nature; for when the lower vital rises, these are pushed into the background, if not covered over for the time, by this lower vital being and this external personality.


Sri Aurobindo: Whatever there may be in these higher parts, aspiration to the Truth, devotion or will to conquer the obstacles and the hostile forces, it cannot become integral, it cannot remain unmixed or unspoilt or continue to be effective so long as the lower vital and the external personality have not accepted the Light and consented to change.  It was inevitable that in the course of the sadhana these inferior parts of the nature should be brought forward in order that like the rest of the being they may make the crucial choice and either accept or refuse transformation. My whole work depends upon this movement; it is the decisive ordeal of this Yoga. For the physical consciousness and the material life cannot change if this does not change. Nothing that may have been done before, no inner illumination, experience, power or Ananda, is of any eventual value if this is not done.


Sri Aurobindo: If the little external personality is to persist in retaining its obscure and limited, its petty and ignoble, its selﬁsh and false and stupid human consciousness, this amounts to a ﬂat negation of the work and the Sadhana. I have no intention of giving my sanction to a new edition of the old ﬁasco, a partial and transient spiritual opening within with no true and radical change in the law of the external nature.  If, then, any sadhaka refuses in practice to admit this change, or if he refuses even to admit the necessity for any change of his lower vital being and his habitual external personality, I am entitled to conclude that, whatever his professions, he has not accepted either myself or my Yoga.  I am well aware that this change is not easy; the dynamic will towards it does not come at once and is difﬁcult to ﬁx and, even afterwards, the sadhaka often feels helpless against the force of habit. Knowing this, the Mother and myself have shown and are still showing sufﬁcient patience in giving time for the true spirit to come up and form and act effectively in the external being of those around us.


Sri Aurobindo: But if in anyone this part not only becomes obstinate, self-assertive or aggressive, but is supported and justiﬁed by the mind and will and tries to spread itself in the atmosphere, then it is a different and very serious matter.  The difﬁculty in the lower vital being is that it is still wedded to its old self and in revolt against the Light; it has not only not surrendered either to a greater Truth or to myself and the Mother, but it has up to now no such will and hardly any idea even of what true surrender is. When the lower vital assumes this attitude, it takes its stand upon a constant afﬁrmation of the old personality and the past forms of the lower nature.  Every time they are discouraged, it supports and brings them back and asserts its right to freedom — the freedom to afﬁrm and follow its own crude and egoistic ideas, desires, fancies, impulses or convenience whenever it chooses. It claims, secretly or in so many words, the right to follow its nature, — its average unregenerate human nature, the right to be itself, — its natural, original, unchanged self with all the falsehood, ignorance and incoherence proper to this part of the being.


Sri Aurobindo: And it claims or, if it does not claim in theory, it asserts in practice the right to express all this impure and inferior stuff in speech and act and behaviour. It defends, glosses over, paints in specious colours and tries to prolong indeﬁnitely the past habitual ways of thinking, speaking and feeling and to eternise what is distorted and misformed in the character. This it does sometimes by open selfassertion and revolt, branding all that is done or said against it as error or oppression or injustice, sometimes behind a cover of self-deception or a mask of dissimulation, professing one thing and practising another. Often it tries to persuade itself and to convince others that these things are the only right reason and right way of acting for itself or for all or even that they are part of the true movement of the Yoga.  When this lower vital being is allowed to inﬂuence the action, as happens when the sadhaka in any way endorses its suggestions, its attitude, whether masked to himself or coming to the surface, dictates a considerable part of his speech and action and against it he makes no serious resistance.


Sri Aurobindo: If he is frank with himself and straightforward to the Mother, he will begin to recognise the source and nature of the obstacle and will soon be on the direct road to correct and change it. But this, when under the adverse inﬂuence, he persistently refuses to be; he prefers to hide up these movements under any kind of concealment, denial, justiﬁcation or excuse or other shelter.  In the nature the resistance takes certain characteristic forms which add to the confusion and to the difﬁculty of transformation. It is necessary to outline some of these forms because they are sufﬁciently common, in some in a less, in others in a greater degree, to demand a clear and strong exposure.  1.


Sri Aurobindo: A certain vanity and arrogance and self-assertive rajasic vehemence which in this smaller vital being are, for those who have a pronounced strength in these parts, the deformation of the vital force and habit of leading and domination that certain qualities in the higher vital gave them. This is accompanied by an excessive which creates the necessity of making a ﬁgure, maintaining by any means position and prestige, even of posturing before others, inﬂuencing, controlling or “helping” them, claiming the part of a superior sadhaka, one with greater knowledge and with occult powers. The larger vital being itself has to give up its powers and capacities to the Divine Shakti from whom they come and must use them only as the Mother’s instrument and according to her directions; if it intervenes with the claim of its ego and puts itself between her and the work or between her and other sadhakas, then whatever its natural power, it deviates from the true way, spoils the work, brings in adverse forces and wrong movements and does harm to those whom it imagines it is helping. When these things are transferred to the smallness of the lower vital nature and the external personality and take lower and pettier forms, they become still more false to the Truth, incongruous, grotesque, and at the same time can be viciously harmful, though in a smaller groove. There is no better way of calling in hostile forces into the general work or of vitiating and exposing to their inﬂuence one’s own sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo: On a smaller scale these defects of vanity, arrogance and rajasic violence are present in most human natures. They take other forms, but are then also a great obstacle to any true spiritual change.  2. Disobedience and indiscipline. This lower part of the being is always random, wayward, self-assertive and unwilling to accept the imposition on it of any order and discipline other than its own idea or impulse. Its defects even from the beginning stand in the way of the efforts of the higher vital to impose on the nature a truly regenerating tapasya.


Sri Aurobindo: This habit of disobedience and disregard of discipline is so strong that it does not always need to be deliberate; the response to it seems to be immediate, irresistible and instinctive. Thus obedience to the Mother is repeatedly promised or professed, but the action done or the course followed is frequently the very opposite of the profession or promise. This constant indiscipline is a radical obstacle to the sadhana and the worst possible example to others.  3. Dissimulation and falsity of speech. This is an exceedingly injurious habit of the lower nature.


Sri Aurobindo: Those who are not straightforward cannot proﬁt by the Mother’s help, for they themselves turn it away. Unless they change, they cannot hope for the descent of the supramental Light and Truth into the lower vital and physical nature; they remain stuck in their own self-created mud and cannot progress. Often it is not mere exaggeration or a false use of the imagination embroidering on the actual truth that is marked in the sadhaka, but also a positive denial and distortion as well as a falsifying concealment of facts. This he does sometimes to cover up his disobedience or wrong or doubtful course of action, sometimes to keep up his position, at others to get his own way or indulge his preferred habits and desires. Very often, when one has this kind of vital habit, he clouds his own consciousness and does not altogether realise the falsity of what he is saying or doing; but in much that he says and does, it is quite impossible to extend to him even this inadequate excuse.


Sri Aurobindo: 4. A dangerous habit of constant self-justiﬁcation. When this becomes strong in the sadhaka, it is impossible to turn him in this part of his being to the right consciousness and action because at each step his whole preoccupation is to justify himself. His mind rushes at once to maintain his own idea, his own position or his own course of action. This he is ready to do by any kind of argument, sometimes the most clumsy and foolish or inconsistent with what he has been protesting the moment before, by any kind of misstatement or any kind of device.


Sri Aurobindo: This is a common misuse, but none the less a misuse of the thinking mind; but it takes in him exaggerated proportions and so long as he keeps to it, it will be impossible for him to see or live the Truth.  Whatever the difﬁculties of the nature, however long and painful the process of dealing with them, they cannot stand to the end against the Truth, if there is or if there comes in these parts the true spirit, attitude and endeavour. But if a sadhaka continues out of self-esteem and self-will or out of tamasic inertia to shut his eyes or harden his heart against the Light, so long as he does that, no one can help him. The consent of all the being is necessary for the divine change, and it is the completeness and fullness of the consent that constitutes the integral surrender.  But the consent of the lower vital must not be only a mental profession or a passing emotional adhesion; it must translate itself into an abiding attitude and a persistent and consistent action.


Sri Aurobindo: This Yoga can only be done to the end by those who are in total earnest about it and ready to abolish their little human ego and its demands in order to ﬁnd themselves in the Divine.  It cannot be done in a spirit of levity or laxity; the work is too high and difﬁcult, the adverse powers in the lower Nature too ready to take advantage of the least sanction or the smallest opening, the aspiration and tapasya needed too constant and intense. It cannot be done if there is a petulant self-assertion of the ideas of the human mind or wilful indulgence of the demands and instincts and pretensions of the lowest part of the being, commonly justiﬁed under the name of human nature. It cannot be done if you insist on identifying these lowest things of the Ignorance with the divine Truth or even the lesser truth permissible on the way. It cannot be done if you cling to your past self and its old mental, vital and physical formations and habits; one has continually to leave behind his past selves and to see, act and live from an always higher and higher conscious level.


Sri Aurobindo: It cannot be done if you insist on “freedom” for your human mind and vital ego. All the parts of the human being are entitled to express and satisfy themselves in their own way at their own risk and peril, if he so chooses, as long as he leads the ordinary life. But to enter into a path of Yoga whose whole object is to substitute for these human things the law and power of a greater Truth and the whole heart of whose method is surrender to the Divine Shakti, and yet to go on claiming this so-called freedom which is no more than a subjection to certain ignorant cosmic Forces, is to indulge in a blind contradiction and to claim the right to lead a double life.  Least of all can this Yoga be done if those who profess to be its sadhakas continue always to make themselves centres, instruments or spokesmen of the forces of the Ignorance which oppose, deny and ridicule its very principle and object. On one side there is the supramental realisation, the overshadowing and descending power of the supramental Divine, the light and force of a far greater Truth than any yet realised on the earth, something therefore beyond what the little human mind and its logic regard as the only permanent realities, something whose nature and way and process of development here it cannot conceive or perceive by its own inadequate instruments or judge by its puerile standards; in spite of all opposition this is pressing down for manifestation in the physical consciousness and the material life.


Sri Aurobindo: On the other side is this lower vital nature with all its pretentious arrogance, ignorance, obscurity, dullness or incompetent turbulence, standing for its own prolongation, standing against the descent, refusing to believe in any real reality or real possibility of a supramental or suprahuman consciousness and creation or, still more absurd, demanding, if it exists at all, that it should conform to its own little standards, seizing greedily upon everything that seems to disprove it, denying the presence of the Divine — for it knows that without that presence the work is impossible, — afﬁrming loudly its own thoughts, judgments, desires, instincts, and, if these are contradicted, avenging itself by casting abroad doubt, denial, disparaging criticism, revolt and disorder. These are the two things now in presence between which every one will have to choose.  For this opposition, this sterile obstruction and blockade against the descent of the divine Truth cannot last for ever.  Every one must come down ﬁnally on one side or the other, on the side of the Truth or against it. The supramental realisation cannot coexist with the persistence of the lower Ignorance; it is incompatible with continued satisfaction in a double nature.


Sri Aurobindo: The lower vital is not a part that listens to reason. There is no  to its action; it acts in a particular way because it has long been accustomed to act in that way, and it goes on even if the doing brings a painful reaction.     The lower vital is very slow in listening to reason — at least when reason is on the side of Truth; although it is very pleased to listen to the mind when the mind justiﬁes the lower vital’s wrong movements.


Sri Aurobindo: In fact the lower vital moves on its own lines, not according to Truth or reason. It is only the insistence of a stronger Light that can enlighten it by changing it in its own substance of consciousness.   It is the lower vital energy that rushes to the brain and either confuses it and prevents mental self-control or else makes the mind its slave and uses reason to justify the passions.


Sri Aurobindo: It is the lower (physical) vital that acts like that [ ]. This part of Nature does not act according to reason, it has no understanding of things. It acts only according to desire, impulse and habit. The mind and the heart and the higher vital have understood and put themselves on the side of the Peace and Force that are acting to transform the nature. But this still responds to the old forces when they touch it.


Sri Aurobindo: It is a question of getting down the Peace and Force and Light into this part, so that whenever the outside forces of the lower Nature touch they will ﬁnd that force there and not the old response. It is a little difﬁcult because of the long past habit, but it will come more and more as the Force descends into the body and pervades it in its descent.  In all it is the lower vital that is most full of ignorance and desire and therefore of falsehood.    There is very commonly a gulf between the higher parts and the lower vital even in ordinary life — in Yoga it is apt to get emphasised until the lower vital changes, but if we can judge from the majority of people here, that change is most extraordinarily difﬁcult.


Sri Aurobindo:   The struggle is always hard with the lower vital nature — because it has been indulged through so many lives and it is not easily made willing to change.


Sri Aurobindo: There is certainly a sincere will to change. This resistance of the lower vital is usual in everybody — it is the main difﬁculty in Yoga. If it were not there, the change would be easy. But once the steady mental will is there, it is a question of time and steady sadhana. With that the change is sure.


Sri Aurobindo:   The resistance of the nerves persists because there is always a restlessness in the lower vital due to past errors and what they have left in the being until this part can be entirely opened to the peace and light and the presence of the Mother. It is towards this that your sadhana must be directed and you should not be discouraged if there is some resistance or even a strong resistance. That always happens; if the resistance is quietly and steadily rejected, then it can be overcome.  The lower vital in most human beings is full of grave defects and of movements that respond to hostile forces.


Sri Aurobindo: A constant psychic opening, a persistent rejection of these inﬂuences, a separation of oneself from all hostile suggestions and the inﬂow of the calm, light, peace, purity of the Mother’s power would eventually free the system from the siege.  What is needed is to be quiet and more and more quiet, to look on these inﬂuences as something not yourself which has intruded, to separate yourself from it and deny it and to abide in a quiet conﬁdence in the Divine Power. If your psychic being asks for the Divine and your mind is sincere and calls for liberation from the lower nature and from all hostile forces and if you can call the Mother’s power into your heart and rely upon it more than on your own strength, this siege will in the end be driven away from you and strength and peace take its place.    It [] is because you entered on a wrong movement, taking the lower vital experiences for truth.


Sri Aurobindo: You now ﬁnd it difﬁcult to get rid of them because of the hold you gave them. The two lines of forces are the line of these lower vital forces and the line of the true movement of forces resting on the psychic consciousness and opening the true mind, the true vital, the true physical consciousness to the action of the Higher Force.  If you persist in rejecting the former and aspiring for the latter, the struggle will diminish after a time and the true path become more and more clear. Fidelity always and at every moment is what is required of you.   The condition [] is that you must bring the sadhana into your physical consciousness and live for the sadhana and the Divine only.


Sri Aurobindo: You must give up positively the bad habits that still persist and never resume those that have ceased or been interrupted. Inner experiences are helpful to the mind and higher vital for change, but for the lower vital and the outer being a sadhana of self-discipline is indispensable.  The external actions and the spirit in them must change — your external thoughts and actions must be for the Divine only. There must be self-restraint, entire truthfulness, a constant thought of the Divine in all you do. This is the way for the change of the lower vital.


Sri Aurobindo: By your constant self-dedication and self-discipline the Force will be brought down into the external being and the change made.  At present you have to go back, but this can very well be  done outside. When it is done, then you will be truly ready for the complete spiritual life.   There can be only one “solution” of this kind of struggle, — to recognise these feelings for what they are, unregenerated movements of the old vital nature, and to reject these vital suggestions as suggestions of adverse forces that want to push you out of the straight path.


Sri Aurobindo: If the mind of the sadhak supports these vital movements, if any part of his nature accepts and cherishes them, then, so long as he allows them to do so, he cannot get rid of the struggle.  All these suggestions are very familiar, and they are always the same both in expression and substance. The reactions too are always the same and their very nature is sufﬁcient to show the source from which they come, — disappointment of unsatisﬁed desire, despondency, discontent, unhappiness, the sense of grievance and injustice, revolt, a fall to tamas and inertia (because the vital being refuses participation in the spiritual effort unless its egoistic demands are conceded), dryness, dullness, cessation of the sadhana. The same phrases even are repeated, — “no life in this existence”, “suffocation”, “limitation”, “air-tight compartments”; and all this simply means that the lower vital nature — or some part of it — is in revolt and wants something else than the divine Truth and the tapasya that leads to the supramental change. It refuses to give up ego and desire and claim and demand or to accept a true self-giving and surrender, while yet it feels the pressure on it to transform itself into an instrument of the divine life.


Sri Aurobindo: It is this pressure that it calls suffocation. The refusal to let it expand its desires and make a big place for itself it calls limitation of the being. The calm, purity, collected silence which are the basis of the tapasya for the supramental change, — this is what it stigmatises as “no life”. Right rule and insistence on self-denial and self-mastery and restraint from claim and demand are what it calls air-tight compartments. And the worst suggestions and most dangerous deception come when this spirit of demand and desire is dissimulated in a spiritual garb and takes a form which makes it seem to the sadhak a part of the Yoga.


Sri Aurobindo: There is only one way of escape from this siege of the lower vital nature. It is the entire rejection of all egoistic vital demand, claim and desire and the replacement of the dissatisﬁed vital urge by the purity of psychic aspiration. Not the satisfaction of these vital clamours nor, either, an ascetic retirement is the true solution, but the surrender of the vital being to the Divine and a single-minded consecration to the supreme Truth into which desire and demand cannot enter. For the nature of the supreme Truth is Light and Ananda, and where desire and demand are there can be no Ananda.  It is not the vital demand but the psychic urge that alone can bring the nature towards the supramental transformation; for it alone can change the mental and vital and show them their own true movement.


Sri Aurobindo: But constantly the vital demand is being taken for the psychic aspiration; and yet the difference is clear. In the psychic aspiration there are none of these reactions; there is no revolt, no justiﬁcation of revolt: for the psychic aspires through inner union with the Divine and surrender. It does not question and challenge, but seeks to understand through unity with the Divine Will. It does not ask for small personal satisfactions, but ﬁnds its satisfaction in the growth of the Truth within the being; what it seeks and ﬁnds is not any indulgence of a vital and physical claim, but the true nearness which consists in the constant presence of the Divine in the heart and the rule of the Divine in all the nature. The cry of the psychic is always, “Let the Truth prevail, let Thy will be done and not mine.”


Sri Aurobindo: But the clamour of the vital is the very opposite: it calls to the Divine, “Let my will be Thine; obey my insistences, satisfy my desires, then only will I seek and accept Thee, for then only will I consent to see the Divine in Thee.” It is hardly necessary to say which is the way to the Truth or which the right solution of any struggle in the nature.  The only creation for which there is any place here is the supramental, the bringing of the divine Truth down on the earth, not only into the mind and vital but into the body and into Matter. Our object is not to remove all “limitations” on the expansion of the ego or to give a free ﬁeld and make unlimited room for the fulﬁlment of the ideas of the human mind or the desires of the ego-centred life-force. None of us are here to “do as we like”, or to create a world in which we shall at last be able to do as we like; we are here to do what the Divine wills and to create a world in which the Divine Will can manifest its truth no longer deformed by human ignorance or perverted and mistranslated by vital desire.


Sri Aurobindo: The work which the sadhak of the supramental Yoga has to do is not his own work for which he can lay down his own conditions, but the work of the Divine which he has to do according to the conditions laid down by the Divine. Our Yoga is not for our own sake but for the sake of the Divine. It is not our own personal manifestation that we are to seek, the manifestation of the individual ego freed from all bounds and from all bonds, but the manifestation of the Divine. Of that manifestation our own spiritual liberation, perfection, fullness is to be a result and a part, but not in any egoistic sense or for any ego-centred or self-seeking purpose.  This liberation, perfection, fullness too must not be pursued for our own sake, but for the sake of the Divine.


Sri Aurobindo: I emphasise this character of the creation because a constant forgetfulness of this simple and central truth, a conscious, half-conscious or wholly ignorant confusion about it has been at the root of most of the vital revolts that have spoiled many an individual sadhana here and disturbed the progress of the general inner work and the spiritual atmosphere.  The supramental creation, since it is to be a creation upon earth, must be not only an inner change but a physical and external manifestation also. And it is precisely for this part of the work, the most difﬁcult of all, that surrender is most needful; for this reason, that it is the actual descent of the supramental Divine into Matter and the working of the Divine Presence and Power there that can alone make the physical and external change possible. Even the most powerful self-assertion of human will and endeavour is impotent to bring it about; as for egoistic insistence and vital revolt, they are, so long as they last, insuperable obstacles to the descent. Only a calm, pure and surrendered physical consciousness, full of the psychic aspiration, can be its ﬁeld; this alone can make an effective opening of the material being to the Light and Power and the supramental change a thing actual and practicable.


Sri Aurobindo: It is for this that we are here in the body, and it is for this that you and other sadhaks are in the Asram near us. But it is not by insistence on petty demands and satisfactions in the external ﬁeld or on an outer nearness pleasing to the vital nature and its pride or desire that you can get the true relation with the Divine in this province. If you want the realisation there, it is the true nearness that you must seek, the descent and presence of the Mother in your physical consciousness, her constant inner touch in the physical being and its activities, her will and knowledge behind all its work and thought and movement and the ever present Ananda of that presence expelling all vital and physical separateness, craving and desire. If you have that, then you have all the nearness you can ask for and the rest you will gladly leave to the Mother’s knowledge and will to decide. For with this in you there can be no feeling of being kept away, no sense of “gulf” and “distance”, no complaint of a unity that is lacking or an empty dryness and denial of nearness.


Sri Aurobindo: A time comes when after a long preparation of the mind and vital being, it becomes necessary to open also the physical nature. But when that happens, very often the vital exaltation which can be very great when the experience is on its own plane, falls away and the obscure, obstructive physical and material consciousness appears in its unrelieved inertia. Inertia, tamas, stupidity, narrowness and limitation, an inability to progress, doubt, dullness, dryness, a constant forgetfulness of the spiritual experiences received are the characteristics of the unregenerated physical nature, when that is not pushed by the vital and is not supported either by the higher mental will and intelligence. This seems to be in part what has temporarily happened to you, but the way out is not to excite the physical by any vital revolt and outcry or to blame for your condition either circumstances or the Mother, — for that will only make things worse and increase the tamas, dryness, dullness, inertia, — but to recognise that there is here an element of the universal Nature reﬂected in yours which you must eliminate. And this can only be done by more and more surrender and aspiration and by so bringing in from beyond the vital and the mind the divine peace, light, power and presence.


Sri Aurobindo: This is the only way towards the transformation and fulﬁlment of the physical nature.  I do not think after what I have written, I need add anything about the speciﬁc complaints that you make in your letter. Two things perhaps need to be made clear. First, the arrangements actually in existence about the work, about external demands, about correspondence and “seeing” people are the only feasible ones in the present circumstances if the heavy work the Mother has to do is to be at all physically possible. Next, it is precisely by action in silence that we can best do our work much more than by speech or writing, which can only be subordinate and secondary.


Sri Aurobindo: For in this Yoga those will succeed best who know how to obey and follow the written and spoken word, but can also bear the silence and feel in it and receive (without listening to other voices or mistaking mental and vital suggestions and impulsions for the divine Truth and the divine Will) help, support and guidance.  You cannot escape from these lower vital forces by being curious about them. This kind of curiosity only encourages and invites them and keeps them recurring. Their whole force is in their power of mechanical recurrence and, if you allow that, you will never get rid of them. Incoherence and confusion are the very nature of these forces and, if you encourage them, your whole nature will become a ﬁeld of confusion and incoherence.