"The vital being
in us is the seat of impulses and desires, of enthusiasm and violence, of
dynamic energy and desperate depression, of passion and revolt. It can set in
motion everything, build up and realise, it can also destroy and mar
everything.”
Education of the vital
proceeds in various stages. Firstly, a good amount of life energy must be
generated by the vital. When the body functions in its optimum health and fitness,
and there is harmony between the body, the vital and the mind, plenty of vital
energy is generated in the system. This balanced state of the various parts of
the being also creates a very congenial condition for contact with the
universal energy from which, if one is trained sufficiently, one can draw
almost inexhaustibly.
The second step is to
learn how to preserve this energy within oneself and not to throw it out and
waste. If the vital is left to itself it brings in strong desires, impulses and
their variable reactions draining the energies. The process of coercion and
suppression will not do. That can only bring violent disturbances in the being.
Or if one sits tightly upon it in order not to give it an expression, the vital
is likely to get weakened.
But this energy is not
meant to be bottled up. It is to be used. And the next part of vital education
is to learn how to use this energy rightly.
To be able to use it
properly one must take up the education of the senses, the eyes, ears, nose, palate
and touch, which gather and feed the mind with their experience. These senses
must be trained to perceive and receive correctly and report exactly to the
mind. The mind too must be taught to interpret them justly without bias or
preconceived notions or ideas.
Sufficient use of the
senses, exercise or full attention and power of observation, a strong memory,
along with the discipline of the emotions with the purification of moral
habits, can help in this regard. An aesthetic sense and feeling for harmony and
beauty must be cultivated.
A good amount of the
vital energy is needed for the normal life-process. But still a good part
remains unutilised. That must be tapped for individual and collective progress,
and there is so much to build and create in this beautiful world of ours. To
conclude in Sri Aurobindo's own words:
"Our life, still
full of obscurity and confusion and occupied with so many dull and lower aims,
must feel all its urges and instincts exalted and irradiated and become a
glorious counterpart of the Supramental super-life above. The physical
consciousness and physical being, the body itself must reach a perfection in
all that it is and does which now we can hardly conceive. It may even in the
end be suffused with a light and beauty and bliss from the Beyond and the life
divine assume a body divine.”
(By the Way Part –
III, Pranab Bhattacharya, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Puducherry)
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