One of the most powerful aids that yogic
discipline can provide to the sportsman is to teach him how to renew his
energies by drawing them from the inexhaustible source of universal energy.
Modern science has made great progress in
the art of nourishment, which is the best known means of replenishing one’s
energies. But this process is at best precarious and subject to all kinds of
limitations. We shall not speak about it here, for the subject has already been
discussed at great length. But it is quite obvious that so long as the world
and men are what they are, food is an indispensable factor. Yogic science knows
of other ways of acquiring energy, and we shall mention two of the most
important.
The first is to put oneself in relation with
the energies accumulated in the terrestrial material world and to draw freely
from this inexhaustible source. These material energies are obscure and half
unconscious; they encourage animality in man, but, at the same time, they
establish a kind of harmonious relationship between the human being and
material Nature.
Those who know how to receive and use these
energies are usually successful in life and succeed in everything they
undertake. But they are still largely dependent on their living conditions and
their state of bodily health. The harmony created in them is not immune from
all attack; it usually vanishes when circumstances become adverse. The child
spontaneously receives this energy from material Nature as he expends all his
energies without calculating, joyfully and freely. But in most human beings, as
they grow up, this faculty is blunted by the worries of life, as a result of
the predominant place which mental activities come to occupy in the
consciousness.
However, there is a source of energy which,
once discovered, is never exhausted, whatever the outer circumstances and
physical conditions of life may be. It is the energy that can be described as
spiritual, and is received no longer from below, from the inconscient depths,
but from above, from the supreme origin of the universe and man, from the
all-powerful and eternal splendours of the superconscient. It is there, all
around us, permeating everything; and to enter into contact with it and to
receive it, it is enough to aspire sincerely for it, to open oneself to it in
faith and trust, to widen one’s consciousness and identify it with the
universal Consciousness.
At the outset, this may seem very difficult,
if not impossible. Yet by examining this phenomenon more closely, one can see
that it is not so alien, not so remote from the normally developed human
consciousness. Indeed, there are very few people who have not felt, at least
once in their lives, as if lifted up beyond themselves, filled with an
unexpected and uncommon force which, for a time, has made them capable of doing
anything whatever; at such moments nothing seems too difficult and the word
“impossible” loses its meaning.
This experience, however fleeting it may be,
gives a glimpse of the kind of contact with the higher energy that yogic
discipline can secure and maintain.
The method of achieving this contact can
hardly be given here. Besides, it is something individual and unique for each
one, which starts from where he stands, adapting itself to his personal needs
and helping him to take one more step forward. The path is sometimes long and
slow, but the result is worth the trouble one takes. We can easily imagine the
consequences of this power to draw at will and in all circumstances on the
boundless source of an energy that is all-powerful in its luminous purity.
Weariness, exhaustion, illness, old age and even death become mere obstacles on
the way, which a persistent will is sure to overcome.
(CWM,
Volume 12, On Education, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Puducherry)
