Question of the month - What is the importance of Physical Culture?

The Mother during the Wednesday class at the Playground

The soul's descent into the physical body is necessarily a descent into darkness, ignorance, unconsciousness; for a very long time it must labour simply to bring a little consciousness into the material substance of the body, before it can make use of it for the experience it has come for. So, if we cultivate the body by a clear-sighted and rational method, at the same time we are helping the growth of the soul, its progress and enlightenment.

Physical culture is the process of infusing consciousness into the cells of the body. One may or may not know it, but it is a fact. When we concentrate to make our muscles move according to our will, when we endeavour to make our limbs more supple, to give them an agility, or a force, or a resistance, or a plasticity which they do not naturally posses, we infuse into the cells of the body a consciousness which was not there before, thus turning it into an increasingly homogeneous and receptive instrument, which progresses by its activities. This is the primary importance of physical culture.

When you observe the moving body of a person who has practised physical culture in a methodical and rational way, you see a light, a consciousness, a life, which is not there in others.

Extracted from "A Divine Life Manifesto” - An Integral Education for a Divine Life.
Published by Sri Aurobindo Divine Life Education Centre, Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan, India.