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Distinguishing Vital or Mental Desire or Demand from Aspiration of the Psychic Being · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Desire can take many forms, some of them subtle inasmuch as they
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  are linked to prayer and thus seem to confirm the aspiration.
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  There's a subtle form of bargaining that can take place,
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  where the dedication of the seeker is tied to the divine,
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  providing a specific anticipated form of realization, support, or
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  result. In some cases this is couched in
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  such a way as to make it seem that the bargaining is so that
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  the individual can better carry out the divine will as the
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  individual understands it. This is a form of desire that
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  stems from the mental or vital part of the nature, not directly
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  from the soul or psychic being. If we look carefully at the form
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  that the aspiration or prayer takes, it is actually not too
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  difficult to distinguish those that either originate in the
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  mental or vital being, or which are at least influenced and
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  coloured by them. The psychic formation of
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  aspiration is pure, undemanding, quiet and receptive and ready to
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  give itself to the Divine without preconditions.
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  This implies that the seeker also does not have expectation
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  about a particular form, type or time for a result to be given.
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  The Divine acts according to his own light and his own time, and
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  the psychic being accepts that without impatience, disturbance,
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  or any loss of faith, Sri Aurobindo notes quote, Demand
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  and desire are only two different aspects of the same
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  thing. Nor is it necessary that a
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  feeling should be agitated or restless to be a desire.
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  It can be, On the contrary, quietly fixed and persistent or
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  persistently recurrent. Demand or desire comes from the
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  mental or the vital. But a psychic or spiritual need
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  is a different thing. The psychic does not demand or
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  desire it aspires. It does not make conditions for
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  its surrender or withdraw if its aspiration is not immediately
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  satisfied, for the psychic has complete trust in the Divine or
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  in the guru, and can wait for the right time or the hour of
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  the divine grace. The psychic has an insistence of
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  its own, but it puts its pressure not on the divine, but
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  on the Nature, placing a finger of light on all the defects
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  there that stand in the way of the realization, sifting out all
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  that is mixed, ignorant or imperfect in the experience or
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  in the movements of the Yoga, and never satisfied with itself
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  or with the nature till it has got it perfectly open to the
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  Divine, free from all forms of ego, surrendered, simple and
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  right in the attitude and all the movements.
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  This is what has to be established entirely in the mind
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  and vital and in the physical consciousness before super
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  mentalization of the whole nature is possible.
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  Otherwise what 1 gets is more or less brilliant, half luminous,
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  half cloudy illuminations and experiences on the mental and
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  vital and physical planes, inspired either from some larger
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  mind or larger vital, or at the best from the mental reaches
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  above the human that intervene between the intellect and the
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  overmind. These can be very stimulating
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  and satisfying up to a certain point, and are good for those
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  who want some spiritual realization on these planes.
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  But the Super mental realization is something much more difficult
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  and exacting in its conditions, and the most difficult of all is
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  to bring it down to the physical level.
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  End Quote. Reference Sri Aurobindo, Bases
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  of Yoga, Chapter 4 Desire food Sex, pages 62 to 63.