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Basic Overview of the Vital Consciousness · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  The life force brings mobility and increased responsiveness
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  compared to the physical being. It operates primarily under the
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  impulsion of attraction and repulsion.
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  The predominant quality or guna is rajas, which brings energy,
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  action and progress, while at the same time its deformations
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  can bring all manner of vital disturbances such as reactions
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  of anger, greed, lust, vanity, fear, et cetera.
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  Rajas tends to push beyond limits and if it does this to
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  the physical body, eventually suffering can result, including
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  breakdown of the body if the force was more than it could
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  handle. When Rajas is rebuffed or
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  disappointed, it tends to respond by falling into a
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  temassic state. The vital being has a strong
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  hold over the entire human being, and it is skilled in
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  gaining the acquiescence and support of the mental being to
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  justify and aid it in fulfillment of its desires.
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  Without a strong vital nature, nothing much can be accomplished
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  in the outer world, yet care must be exercised to eventually
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  bring it under control of more disciplined and suck Wick
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  impulses and to direct it towards the development of the
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  higher consciousness. Once that happens, the vital can
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  become as strong an ally as it can be an obstacle in its usual
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  state of focus on the satisfaction of the desires of
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  the external nature. Doctor de Lal notes quote the
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  vital being intermediate between the physical and the mental.
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  Is the vital made-up of life energies, sensations, pleasure,
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  pain et cetera, instincts and impulses, anger, fear, lust, et
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  cetera, desires, feelings and emotions?
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  The vital from the Latin word Vita life is aptly so-called
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  because it is the source of life force and seeks afterlife for
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  its own sake, clinging to life even if it brings more of
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  suffering than of pleasure. The vital consciousness is
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  characterized by likes and dislikes, the search for
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  pleasure and enjoyment, and the avoidance of pain and
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  discomfort, desire to possess and to accumulate.
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  Common attitudes based on the vital consciousness express a
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  hedonistic orientation in life, what Freud referred to as the
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  pleasure principle. Besides the quest for pleasure,
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  these attitudes are characterized by a need for
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  perpetual variety and change, ambitiousness, attachment and
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  repulsion, aggression, fear, and impulsiveness.
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  End Quote reference Srioro Bindu and the Mother.
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  Looking from within. Introduction by Doctor de la
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  Page, Romans 7.