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The Need to Gain Control Over the Action of the Vital Mind and Its Function · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Everyone has had the experience at some time or another, of
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  imagining themselves doing something extraordinary, or at
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  least fulfilling some dream about how their lives could
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  develop or turn out. It may be a fantasy about
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  winning a lottery, or gaining fame or recognition, or finding
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  the right person to marry and raise a family with, or
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  advancement in a career, or making some discovery, or
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  achieving some feat of skill, or carrying out some act of
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  heroism, etcetera. Some individuals are carried
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  away by these dreams and either devote substantial focus to
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  trying to make them real, or else simply wander in their
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  minds without any actual effort or attempt for a successful
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  outcome. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,
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  a short story by James Thurber eventually turned into a feature
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  film, captures this sense of inner adventure and heroism for
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  an individual who is outwardly living a quite ordinary life.
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  Those who take up the spiritual life are not immune to the
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  workings of this vital mind. We have met people who believe
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  they are the reincarnation of Jesus.
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  We're the heir apparent to a great teacher, leader, or
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  religious founder, and who take this idea to an extreme that
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  becomes a severe imbalance in their lives and undermines their
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  spiritual seeking. The capacity to see and imagine
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  something new, something extraordinary, is a valuable
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  faculty for those who have the power of realization.
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  There is here a basis for doing great things.
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  Indeed. At the same time, if the vital
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  imagination takes over and one becomes enmeshed in the dreams
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  or daydreams without implementing a power of
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  actualization, it can be an enormous waste of time, energy
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  and focus, Sriorobindo notes Quote There is a part of the
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  nature which I have called the vital mind.
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  The function of this mind is not to think and reason, to
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  perceive, consider and find out or value things, for that is the
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  function of the thinking mind, Proper booty, but to plan or
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  dream or imagine what can be done.
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  It makes formations for the future which the will can try to
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  carry out if opportunity and circumstances become favorable,
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  or even it can work to make them favorable.
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  In men of action this faculty is prominent and a leader of their
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  nature. Great men of action always have
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  it in a very high measure. But even if one is not a man of
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  action or practical realization, or if circumstances are not
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  favorable, or one can do only small and ordinary things, this
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  vital mind is there. It acts in them on a small
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  scale. Or, if it needs some sense of
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  largeness, what it does very often is to plan in the void,
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  knowing that it cannot realize its plans, or else to imagine
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  big things, stories, adventures, great doings, in which oneself
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  is the hero or the creator. What you describe as happening
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  in you is the rush of this vital mind or imagination making its
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  formations. Its action is not peculiar to
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  you, but works pretty much in the same way in most people, but
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  in each according to his turn of fancy, interest, favorite ideas
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  or desires. You have to become master of its
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  action and not allow it to seize your mind and carry it away when
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  and where it wants. In sadhana, when the experiences
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  begin to come, it is exceedingly important not to allow this
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  power to do what it likes with you, for it then creates false
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  experiences according to its nature, and persuades the sadak
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  that these experiences are true. Or it builds unreal formations
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  and persuades him that this is what he has to do.
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  Some have been taken away by this misleading force used by
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  powers of falsehood, who persuaded them through it that
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  they had a great spiritual, political or social work to do
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  in the world, and led them away to disappointment and failure.
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  End Quote Reference Sriorobindo and the Mother Our Many Selves,
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  Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 2, Planes and Parts of
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  the Being, pages 46 to 47.