Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / Vigilant Awareness Is Needed to Manage the Energies That Arise in the Lower Regions of the Being
Transcript
- 0:00Most people respond to life as it comes to them and react
- 0:05according to the energy that they are able to receive and
- 0:08process in some form or another. They remain immersed in the
- 0:13external personality. They become the fear, the anger,
- 0:19the hunger, the thirst, the craving, the pleasure, the pain,
- 0:24the joy, the sorrow, et cetera. They are attached to the
- 0:28impressions and sensations and how their internal awareness
- 0:32feels about them. The spiritual seeker, on the
- 0:36other hand, eventually works to become non attached to these
- 0:40external happenings in whatever form they take.
- 0:44They work to establish a separate inner witness
- 0:47consciousness which is able to observe and appreciate the
- 0:51reactions of the external nature, but remain nevertheless
- 0:56distant from them as if they are watching their external
- 0:59personality in a motion picture. Especially during the transition
- 1:05from the one standpoint to the other, there come periods where
- 1:09the seeker is clearly in the position of the observer and not
- 1:13reacting in his deepest self to whatever happens outside.
- 1:17While there are also times when he slips back into the habitual
- 1:22way of receiving, responding and reacting that have been human
- 1:27nature generally since time immemorial.
- 1:31This implies that there are times he is carried away by the
- 1:34energy that is active in those lower parts of the being and
- 1:38this creates obstacles, distractions and difficulties
- 1:43for the seeker. As the witness awareness gets
- 1:48stabilized, the seeker is able to observe the forces that are
- 1:52trying to move his response and through his non attachment, his
- 1:56understanding, his mental will, and his aspiration and
- 2:01consecration, he is able to more easily manage, control and
- 2:06direct those forces toward the higher fulfillment he is
- 2:10seeking. Srioro Bindo writes quote.
- 2:15If you go down into your lower parts or ranges of nature, you
- 2:20must be always careful to keep a vigilant connection with the
- 2:24higher, already regenerated levels of the consciousness and
- 2:29to bring down the light and purity through them into these
- 2:33nether still unregenerated regions.
- 2:36If there is not this vigilance 1 gets absorbed in the
- 2:40unregenerated movement of the inferior layers and there is
- 2:44obscuration and trouble. The safest way is to remain in
- 2:49the higher part of the consciousness and put a pressure
- 2:53from it on the lower to change. It can be done in this way, only
- 2:59must get the knack and the habit of it.
- 3:03If you achieve the power to do that, it makes the progress much
- 3:07easier, smoother and less painful.
- 3:11End Quote Reference Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga,
- 3:16Chapter 5, Physical Consciousness, Subcontinent
- 3:20Sleep and Dream Illness, pages 92 to 93.