Desire—Food—Sex
Page-1
All
the ordinary vital movements are foreign to the true being
and come from outside; they do not belong to the soul nor
do they originate in it but are waves from the general Nature,
Prakriti.
The
desires come from outside, enter the subconscious vital
and rise to the surface. It is only when they rise to the
surface and the mind becomes aware of them, that we become
conscious of the desire. It seems to us to be our own because
we feel it thus rising from the vital into the mind and
do not know that it came from outside. What belongs to the
vital, to the being, what makes it responsible is not the
desire itself, but the habit of responding to the waves
or the currents of suggestion that come into it from the
universal Prakriti.
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Sri Aurobindo
The rejection of desire is essentially the rejection of
the element of craving, putting that out from the consciousness
itself as a foreign element not belonging to the true self
and the inner nature. But refusal to indulge the suggestions
of desire is also a part of rejection; to abstain faro the
action suggested, if it is not the right action, must be
included in the Yogic discipline. It is only when this is
done in the wrong way, by a mental ascetic principle or
a hard moral rule, that it can be called suppression. The
difference between suppression and an inward essential rejection
is the difference between mental or moral control and a
spiritual purification.
When
one lives in the true consciousness one feels the desires
outside oneself, entering from outside, from the universal
lower Prakriti, into the mind and the vital parts. In the
ordinary human condition this is not felt; men become aware
of the desire only when it is there, when it has come inside
and found a lodging or a habitual harbourage and so they
think it is their own and a part of themselves. The first
condition for getting rid of desire is, therefore, to become
conscious with the true consciousness; for then it becomes
much easier to dismiss it than when one has to struggle
with it as if it were a constituent part of oneself to be
thrown out from the being. It is easier to cast off an accretion
than to excise what is felt as a parcel of our substance.
When
the psychic being is in front, then also to get rid of desire
becomes easy; for the psychic being has in itself no desires,
it has only aspirations and a seeking and love for the Divine
and all things that are or tend towards the Divine. The
constant prominence of the psychic being tends of itself
to bring out the true consciousness and set right almost
automatically the movements of the nature.
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Sri Aurobindo
Demand
and desire are only two different aspects of the same thing—nor
is it necessary that a feeling should be agitated or restless
to be a desire; it can be, on the contrary, quietly fixed
and persistent or persistently recurrent. Demand or desire
comes from the mental or the vital, but a psychic or spiritual
need is a different thing. The psychic does not demand or
desire—it aspires; it does not make conditions for
its surrender or withdraw if its aspiration is not immediately
satisfied—for the psychic has complete trust in the
Divine or in the Guru and can wait for the right time or
the hour of the Divine Grace. The psychic has an insistence
of its own, but it puts its pressure not on the Divine,
but on the nature, placing a finger of light on all the
defects there that stand in the way of the realisation,
sifting out all that is mixed, ignorant or imperfect in
the experience or in the movements of the Yoga and never
satisfied with itself or with the nature till it has got
it perfectly open to the Divine, free from all forms of
ego, surrendered, simple and right in the attitude and all
the movements. This is what has to be established entirely
in the mind and vital and in the physical consciousness
before supramentalisation of the whole nature is possible.
Otherwise what one gets is more or less brilliant, half-luminous,
half-cloudy illuminations and experiences on the mental
and vital and physical planes inspired either from some
larger mind or larger vital or at the best from the mental
reaches above the human that intervene between the intellect
and the Overmind. These can be very stimulating and satisfying
up to a certain point and are good for those who want some
spiritual realisation on these planes; but the supramental
realisation is something much more difficult and exacting
in its conditions and the most difficult of all is to bring
it down to the physical level.
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Sri Aurobindo
Desire
takes a long time to get rid of entirely. But, if you can
once get it out of the nature and realise it as a force
coming from outside and putting its claws into the vital
and physical, it will be easier to get rid of the invader.
You are too accustomed to feel it as part of yourself or
planted in you—that makes it more difficult for you
to deal with its movements and dismiss its ancient control
over you.
You
should not rely on anything else alone, however helpful
it may seem, but chiefly, primarily, fundamentally on the
Mother's Force. The Sun and the Light may be a help, and
will be if it is the true Light and the true Sun, but cannot
take the place of the Mother's Force.
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Sri Aurobindo
The
necessities of a sadhak should be as few as possible;
for there are only a very few things that are real necessities
in life. The rest are either utilities or things decorative
to life or luxuries. Those a Yogin has a right to posses
or enjoy only on one of two conditions—
(i)
If he uses them during his sadhana solely to train himself
in possessing things without attachment or desire and learn
to use them rightly, in harmony with the Divine Will, with
a proper handling, a just organisation, arrangement and
measure—or,
(ii)
if he has already attained a true freedom from desire and
attachment and is not in the least moved or affected in
any way by loss or withholding or deprival. If he has any
greed, desire, demand, claim for possession or enjoyment,
any anxiety, grief, anger or vexation when denied or deprived,
he is not free in spirit of sadhana. Even if he is free
in spirit, he will not be fit for possession if he has not
learned to use things not for himself, but for the right
knowledge and action in the use, for the proper equipment
of a life lived not for oneself but for and the Divine.
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Sri Aurobindo
Asceticism
for its own sake is not the ideal of this Yoga, but self-control
in the vital and right order in the vital and right order
in the material are a very important part of it—and
even an ascetic discipline is better for our purpose than
a loose absence of true control. Mastery of the material
does not mean having plenty and profusely throwing it out
or spoiling it as fast as it comes or faster. Mastery implies
in it the right and careful utilisation of things and also
a self-control in their use.
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Sri Aurobindo
