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Vital
I
make the distinction [between the lower vital movements and
the emotions of the heart] by noting where these things rise
from. Anger, fear, jealousy touch the heart no doubt just
as they touch the mind but they rise from the navel region
and entrails (i.e. the lower or at highest the middle vital).
Stevenson has a striking passage in “Kidnapped”
where the hero notes that his fear is felt primarily not in
the heart but the stomach. Love, hope have their primary seat
in the heart, so with pity etc
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Sri Aurobindo.
But
is it true that even anger which is of the lower vital and
therefore close to the body, invariably produces these effects?
Of course the psychologist can't know that another man is
angry unless he shows physical signs of it, but also he can't
know what a man is thinking unless the man speaks or writes—does
it follow that the state of thought cannot be “fancied”
without its sign in speaking or writing? A Japanese who is
accustomed to control all his “emotions” and give
no sign (if he is angry the first sign you will have of it
is a knife in your stomach from a calm or smiling assailant)
will have none of these things when he is angry,—not
even the “ebullition” in the chest,—in its
place there will be a settled fire that will burn till his
anger achieves itself in action.
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Sri Aurobindo
A
strong vital is one that is full of life-force, has ambition,
courage, great energy, a force for action or for creation,
a large expansive movement whether for generosity in giving
or for possession and lead and domination, a power to fulfil
and materialise—many other forms of vital strength there
are also. It is often difficult for such a vital to surrender
itself because of this sense of its own powers—but if
it can do so, it becomes an admirable instrument for the Divine
Work.
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Sri Aurobindo
Yes—they
[the lower vital, the physical vital and the most material
vital] become very clear to the increasing consciousness.
And the distinctions are necessary—otherwise one may
influence or control the lower vital or a part of the physical
vital and then be astonished to find that something intangible
but apparently invincible still resists—it is the material
vital with so much of the rest as it can influence by its
resistance.
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Sri Aurobindo
The
nervous part of the being is a portion of the vital—it
is the vital-physical, the life-force closely enmeshed in
the reactions, desires, needs, sensations of the body. The
vital proper is the life-force acting in its own nature, impulses,
emotions, feelings, desires, ambitions, etc., having as their
highest centre what we may call the outer heart of emotion,
while there is an inner heart where are the higher or psychic
feelings and sensibilities, the emotions or intuitive yearnings
and impulses of the soul. The vital part of us is, of course,
necessary to our completeness, but it is a true instrument
only when its feelings and tendencies have been purified by
the psychic touch and taken up and governed by the spiritual
light and power.
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Sri Aurobindo
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