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Understanding the Meaning of Vital Formations and Beings That Arise During Meditation · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  When people take up the practice of meditation, they
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  generally do not know much about it. They
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  follow a set of guidelines on how to meditate and
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  just let things happen. The result is very much
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  dependent then on their state of conscious awareness
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  and their focus of attention. Meditation
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  is not a state that just allows anything to come
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  with no form or purpose, rather, for it to
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  accomplish its purpose, meditation needs a
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  concentration, an object of meditation. This
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  object of meditation need not be something specific
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  in terms of a result. It can be a concentrated
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  silence, or it can be an aspiration or prayer. It
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  can be a specific issue that the seeker wishes to
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  resolve. Without an object of meditation,
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  the seeker will frequently find that either all kinds
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  of thoughts and disturbances intrude, or else, that the
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  various vital forces within one take advantage of the
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  void and use the opportunity to come to the
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  forefront and move the individual into association
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  with the vital world or domain where these forces
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  have their native seat, or create vital formations that
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  express the vital state of the seeker. Many
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  people fail to realize that there are these other vital
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  domains that have their own existence. The
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  forces that reside there invade and influence our
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  lives in the physical world, but their influence
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  is somewhat watered down due to the density of the
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  physical world and the action of the mental forces
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  that also are at work. When
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  one moves into the vital world at the prompting of
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  one of these vital forces, however, the protections of
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  the physical and mental action are essentially
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  removed, and one is faced with forces that can
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  exercise power in their own right and which take forms
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  that can be scary or intimidating. These
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  forces can appear before an individual in an unformed
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  meditative state if there is the least receptivity in
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  the being to their vibratory pattern. The
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  seeker may actively create these formations if the
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  meditation is simply passive and allows the vital
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  energies free reign to form themselves. The
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  seeker may be influenced by them, or may reject them,
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  or may find that they highlight weaknesses within
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  himself that need to be addressed. The
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  result depends very much on the strength of the
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  aspiration and the awareness of the seeker in
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  confronting these forces. A disciple asks, when one
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  meditates there are moments when one sees very
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  unpleasant forms in front of himself for some days.
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  It begins and later ends. What
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  does it mean? The mother notes, quote, Yes,
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  it means probably that instead of meditating in a
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  silent concentration, one has opened one's
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  consciousness either in a vital domain or in a not
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  very pleasant mental domain. That's
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  what it means. It can also mean it depends
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  on the degree of development one has reached.
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  It can mean in certain cases
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  when one is master of one's concentration and
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  knows where one goes. Still,
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  this already requires a fairly great discipline. It
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  may be that it is a particular attack of adverse
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  forces, of bad wills, coming either from certain
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  beings or from certain domains. But
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  it is not necessarily attacks. It
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  can simply be that one has opened one's consciousness
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  in a place that's not very desirable, or else
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  sometimes, often, that one had in himself a number of
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  movements of the vital and the mind which were not
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  very desirable. And when one enters the silence
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  of meditation, or that kind of passive attitude of
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  expectation of something which is going to happen,
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  all these vibrations which have gone out of him come
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  back to him in their real appearance, which is not
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  very pleasant. This happens often. One
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  had bad feelings, not positively wicked, but still
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  things which are not desirable. Bad
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  thoughts, movements of dissatisfaction, revolt or
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  impatience, or a lack of contentment, or, you see,
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  one may be angry with somebody, even in thought,
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  no need of speaking, things like that. When
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  one is quiet and tries to be still so as to have an
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  experience, all these things come back to him in their
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  true form, that is, not very pleasant forms, very
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  ugly forms, which are at times very ugly. I
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  think that I have already told you this several
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  times. It's something that happens
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  frequently if you don't control your thoughts and
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  your vital reactions, and if someone has displeased
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  you for some reason or other, if that person has
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  done or said something which you do not like, and
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  you consider him hostile, and so the spontaneous
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  reaction is to want to punish him in some way or
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  other, or if one is still more primitive, if I may
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  say so, to want to take vengeance or hope that
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  something bad will happen to him. However,
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  it may even come very spontaneously, a violent
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  reaction like that, then you don't think about it
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  anymore. But now at night, when you are
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  asleep, ninety -tine times out of a hundred, in a
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  case like this, the person in question comes to you
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  with an extreme violence, either to kill you or to
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  make you ill, as though he wished you as much harm as
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  possible, and then in your ignorance you say, well, I
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  was quite right to be angry with him. But
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  it is quite simply your own formation which returns
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  to you, nothing else but that. The
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  person has nothing to do with it. He
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  is quite innocent in the affair. This
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  is a phenomenon which occurs very often. I
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  mean, for people who have movements of rancor or
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  anger or violence, and they always see in a dream of
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  this kind the justification of their movements, whereas
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  it is only a very striking image of their own
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  feelings, for the formation returns upon one in this
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  way. Reference, Sri Aurobindo and the
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  Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Chapter 3, Hidden
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  Forces Around, pages 71 to 72.