Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / Pain and Suffering: the Play of the Gunas and the Role of the Vital Nature

Transcript

Pain and Suffering: the Play of the Gunas and the Role of the Vital Nature · Sri Aurobindo Studies

• 0:02
  There is a part of the vital nature, which takes a perverse
• 0:05
  pleasure in flaunting, illnesses, pain, and suffering,
• 0:09
  publicly to collect the sympathy of friends and acquaintances.
• 0:15
  These things become the topic of conversation and extensive
• 0:19
  gossip. Thus, the vital nature May
• 0:22
  prolong accentuate or even call in various forms of suffering,
• 0:29
  in order to carry out a form of self-aggrandizement.
• 0:33
  It is however not the purpose of pain or suffering.
• 0:36
  To strengthen the ego personality, rather pain and
• 0:41
  suffering are psychological wake-up calls, which are
• 0:44
  intended to shake the individual awake and drive him into
• 0:48
  activity. Pain and suffering, arises part
• 0:52
  of the play of the gounod's, excessive rajas can lead to
• 0:56
  strain and stress and thus initiate a fall into the Guna of
• 1:02
  Thomas. Indolence weakness and darkness
• 1:06
  are also Prime causes of imbalance and suffering.
• 1:10
  Thus, for most people, there is a constant shifting between
• 1:15
  these two gunas and their varying causative factors in
• 1:19
  suffering. When suppah is in the ascendant,
• 1:23
  there tends to be both a more balanced perspective and a
• 1:28
  greater awareness to minimize suffering caused by either
• 1:31
  excess or deficiency in the action of the other two gunas.
• 1:37
  Of course, as Buddha pointed out suffering and pain are part of
• 1:42
  the experience of life and can act when utilized as part of a
• 1:47
  spiritual awakening as a Spur to change in standpoint, that takes
• 1:53
  the Seeker beyond the psychological state of suffering
• 1:57
  that pertains to all life in the world.
• 2:01
  This does not imply that there is no pain, but that the
• 2:05
  attitude one takes allows one to grow Beyond its limiting impact
• 2:10
  on the being Her mother observes quote one thinks of curing, an
• 2:16
  illness only because when suffers if it caused, you know,
• 2:20
  unpleasantness you would never think of being cured of it.
• 2:24
  So in the economy of nature, I think that the first purpose of
• 2:28
  physical suffering was to give you a warning.
• 2:32
  Unfortunately, there is the vital which pokes its nose into
• 2:36
  the affair and takes a very perverse pleasure in increasing
• 2:40
  twisting. Sharpening the suffering.
• 2:44
  Now, this deforms the whole system because instead of being
• 2:48
  an indicator, sometimes it becomes an occasion for enjoying
• 2:52
  the illness for making oneself. Interesting, and also having the
• 2:57
  opportunity to pity oneself all kinds of things, which all come
• 3:02
  from the vital and are all detestable one more than
• 3:07
  another. But originally, I think that it
• 3:09
  was this take care. You see it's like a danger
• 3:14
  signal. Take care.
• 3:15
  There's something out of order. Only when one is not very much
• 3:20
  coddled, when one has a little endurance and decides within
• 3:25
  himself, not to pay too much attention, quite remarkably, the
• 3:29
  pain diminishes. And there are a number of
• 3:33
  illnesses or states of physical imbalance, which can be cured,
• 3:37
  simply by removing the effect that is by stopping the
• 3:41
  suffering. Usually, it comes back because
• 3:44
  the cause is still there. If the cause of the illness is
• 3:48
  found and one acts directly on its cause then one can be cured
• 3:53
  radically, but if one is not able to do that one can make use
• 3:57
  of this influence of this control over pain in order.
• 4:02
  By cutting off the pain or eliminating it, where mastering
• 4:06
  it in oneself to work on the illness and quote, reference SRI
• 4:14
  aurobindo, and the mother living within the yoga approach to
• 4:18
  psychological health and growth, disturbances of the body and
• 4:22
  physical Consciousness will discipline and Durand Pages 88
• 4:28
  to 90.