Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / The Practice of Attempted Elimination of Unwanted Vital Movements Through Purposeful Indulgence, Part 2

Transcript

The Practice of Attempted Elimination of Unwanted Vital Movements Through Purposeful Indulgence, Part 2 · Sri Aurobindo Studies

• 0:00
  An individual dedicated some years to study and spiritual
• 0:04
  development. He gathered a small group of
• 0:07
  young people around him and took on the role of a teacher.
• 0:12
  He had obviously studied the texts and spent some time
• 0:15
  practising them. He gained an aura of charisma
• 0:20
  for the young people who came under his tutelage.
• 0:23
  Eventually he came to Europe and started a small community with
• 0:27
  himself at the centre. So far so good, but something
• 0:33
  changed at some point. He began to exercise his desire
• 0:37
  for money, power, sex and began to exploit the young people to
• 0:43
  achieve his immediate objectives.
• 0:47
  The more he dove into these forces, the further he strayed
• 0:51
  from his original spiritual focus.
• 0:54
  He began to make contracts with various businesses for goods and
• 0:58
  services he wanted for the community, then decided to
• 1:01
  renege on the payment, making the excuse that he was doing
• 1:06
  spiritual work and those ordinary people running those
• 1:10
  businesses would just waste the money.
• 1:13
  He began to exploit the young women for sexual satisfaction,
• 1:18
  telling them he was liberating them from their attachment to
• 1:22
  convention and thereby giving them a first step towards
• 1:26
  ultimate spiritual liberation. He then turned to gain control
• 1:32
  of the young men through sexual promises and favours.
• 1:35
  When they did what he asked and brought money, his sexual
• 1:39
  appetite was not satisfied and he kept going to further
• 1:44
  extremes until eventually he was exploiting young children.
• 1:49
  He also showed bouts of anger and beat and tortured these
• 1:53
  young children. It was at this point that he was
• 1:57
  eventually arrested, convicted and sent to jail.
• 2:03
  All along he provided excuses for his behaviour.
• 2:07
  This is a very clear illustration of the kind of
• 2:10
  dangers Sri Robindo describes. When the drives of the lower
• 2:15
  vital nature are raised up and indulged rather than avoided.
• 2:19
  The vital is generally able to convince the mind to support its
• 2:23
  desires, and in his case this clearly occurred as he made
• 2:28
  rationales for what he was doing and why, while he continued to
• 2:33
  not only consent to these forces but actually sought them out and
• 2:38
  extended their action and their life.
• 2:42
  When he was let out of jail, he was more or less a broken man
• 2:45
  with failed dreams, no longer focused on spiritual sadhna, but
• 2:51
  on seeing how much of his assets he could hold on to and enjoy,
• 2:56
  and determined to squeeze out any vital satisfaction still
• 2:59
  available to him in his disgrace.
• 3:04
  Sri Robindu observes quote. The other motive for Anubhava is
• 3:11
  of a more general applicability, For in order to reject anything
• 3:15
  from the being, one has first to become conscious of it, to have
• 3:19
  the clear inner experience of its action, and to discover its
• 3:24
  actual place in the workings of the nature.
• 3:29
  One can then work upon it to eliminate it if it is an
• 3:33
  entirely wrong movement, or to transform it if it is only the
• 3:37
  degradation of a higher and true movement.
• 3:41
  It is this, or something like it, that is attempted crudely
• 3:45
  and improperly with a rudimentary and insufficient
• 3:49
  knowledge in the system of psychoanalysis.
• 3:53
  The process of raising up the lower movements into the full
• 3:56
  light of consciousness in order to know and deal with them is
• 4:01
  inevitable, for there can be no complete change without it.
• 4:06
  But it can truly succeed only when a higher light and force
• 4:09
  are sufficiently at work to overcome sooner or later the
• 4:14
  force of the tendency that is held up for change.
• 4:18
  Many, under the pretext of Anubhava, not only raise up the
• 4:23
  adverse movement, but support it with their consent.
• 4:27
  Instead of rejecting it, find justifications for continuing or
• 4:32
  repeating it, and so go on playing with it, indulging its
• 4:36
  return, eternizing it. Afterwards, when they want to
• 4:41
  get rid of it, it has got such a hold that they find themselves
• 4:45
  helpless in its clutch, and only a terrible struggle or an
• 4:49
  intervention of divine grace can liberate them.
• 4:54
  Some do this out of a vital twist or perversity, others out
• 4:59
  of sheer ignorance. But in yoga, as in life,
• 5:03
  ignorance is not accepted by nature as a justifying excuse.
• 5:09
  This danger is there in all improper dealings with the
• 5:12
  ignorant parts of the nature, but none is more ignorant, more
• 5:16
  perilous, more unreasoning and obstinate in recurrence than the
• 5:21
  lower vital subconscious and its movements.
• 5:25
  To raise it up prematurely or improperly for Anubhava is to
• 5:30
  risk suffusing the conscious parts also with its dark and
• 5:34
  dirty stuff, and thus poisoning the whole, vital and even the
• 5:39
  mental nature always. Therefore, 1 should begin by a
• 5:44
  positive, not a negative experience, by bringing down
• 5:48
  something of the divine nature, calm, light, equanimity, purity,
• 5:55
  divine strength into the parts of the conscious being that have
• 5:59
  to be changed. Only when that has been
• 6:02
  sufficiently done and there is a firm positive basis is it safe
• 6:08
  to raise up the concealed, subconscious adverse elements in
• 6:12
  order to destroy and eliminate them by the strength of the
• 6:16
  divine calm, light, force and knowledge.
• 6:21
  Even so, there will be enough of the lower stuff rising up of
• 6:25
  itself to give you as much of the anubhava as you will need
• 6:30
  for getting rid of the obstacles, but then they can be
• 6:34
  dealt with with much less danger and under a higher internal
• 6:39
  guidance. End Quote Reference.
• 6:43
  Sri Aurobindo. Bases of yoga, Chapter 5.
• 6:47
  Physical consciousness, subconscient sleep and dream
• 6:52
  illness. Pages 95 to 96.