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The Physical Consciousness: Abandon or Transform? · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Through long habit, spiritual seekers tend to look at the
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  question of how to attain spiritual liberation involving
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  abandonment of the external life in the world.
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  Not only spiritual seekers raise this question in some form or
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  another, anyone involved in aesthetic, mental, artistic or
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  emotional or vital pursuits. Eventually tries to find ways to
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  overcome the limits and restraints of the physical
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  material consciousness. Clearly, there is an element of
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  truth in the need to be able to move beyond these limitations if
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  one wants to achieve anything in the vital mental or spiritual
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  aspects of one's life. Yet it is not a complete truth
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  as it condemns the universal creation to some kind of
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  irrelevancy. Or elusive distraction from
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  these higher pursuits. Sriorobindo reviews this issue
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  in depth in The Life Divine. He comes to a different
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  conclusion about the goal of the spiritual seeking by taking us
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  through the human aspiration to the two basic opposite
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  viewpoints, that of the materialist who fixes himself
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  upon success in the external world.
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  And that of the ascetic who focuses on the spiritual.
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  His conclusion is that there's no necessary separation.
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  The universal manifestation is an omnipresent reality which
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  encompasses all aspects of life as the seeker begins to
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  appreciate and understand this unified view, this continuum
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  between matter and spirit. The question is not so much how
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  to abandon the physical consciousness, but how to
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  transform it to reveal the spiritual reality that permeates
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  and creates it. A disciple inquires how should
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  we come out of the physical consciousness, which keeps us
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  preoccupied all the time and exclusively with physical
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  circumstances, The mother observes quote.
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  There is a considerable number of ways.
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  There are intellectual ways, ways of which may be called
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  sentimental, artistic ways and spiritual ways.
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  And generally it is preferable for each one to take the way
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  that is easiest for him. For if one wants to begin
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  straight away with the most difficult, one comes to nothing
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  at all. And here we always come back to
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  the same thing. To what Triorobindo describes in
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  the synthesis of yoga, it is the way of knowledge, or the way of
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  devotion, or the way of works. But the way of works is
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  precisely the one which keeps you in physical life and makes
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  you find your liberation in it. And perhaps this is the most
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  effective way of all, but also the most difficult for most
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  aspirants. The way of meditation,
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  concentration, withdrawal from physical life, rejection of
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  physical activities is certainly easier than the way of action.
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  But they leave the physical consciousness just as it is
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  without ever changing it. And unless one becomes like a
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  sadhu or an ascetic who leaves behind all active life and
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  remains in constant concentration or meditation.
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  One achieves nothing at all. That is to say, an entire part
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  of the being is never transformed.
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  And for them the solution is not at all to transform it, it is
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  simply to reject it, to get out of their body as quickly as
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  possible. That is how yoga was conceived
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  of formerly, for obviously it is much easier, but this is not
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  what we want. What we want is the
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  transformation of the physical consciousness, not its
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  rejection. And so in this case, what trio
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  Bendo has recommended as the most direct and most total way
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  is surrender to the divine, a surrender made more and more
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  integral progressively comprising the physical
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  consciousness and physical activities.
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  And if one succeeds in this then the physical.
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  Instead of being an obstacle becomes a help.
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  End Quote reference Shriorobindo and the mother, Our Many cells,
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  Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 2, Planes and Parts of
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  the Being, pages 25 to 26.