Physical
Consciousness—Subconscient—Sleep and Dreams—Illness
Page-1
Our object is the supramental realisation and we have to
do whatever is necessary for that or towards that under
the conditions of each stage. At present the necessity is
to prepare the physical consciousness; for that a complete
equality and peace and a complete dedication free from personal
demand or desire in the physical and the lower vital parts
are the things to be established. Other things can come
in their proper time. What is needed now is the psychic
opening in the physical consciousness and the constant presence
and guidance there.
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Sri Aurobindo
What
you describe is the material consciousness; it is mostly
subconscient, but the part of it that is conscious is mechanical,
inertly moved by habits or by the forces of the lower nature.
Always repeating the same unintelligent and unenlightened
movements, it is attached to the routine and established
rule of what already exists, unwilling to change, unwilling
to receive the Light or obey the higher Force. Or, if it
is willing, then it is unable. Or if it is able, then it
turns the action given to it by the Light or the Force into
a new mechanical routine and so takes out of it all soul
and life. It is obscure, stupid, indolent, full of ignorance
and inertia, darkness and slowness of tamas.
It
is this material consciousness into which we are seeking
to bring first the higher (divine or spiritual) Light and
Power and Ananda, and then the Supramental Truth which is
the object of our Yoga.
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Sri Aurobindo
It
is the most physical consciousness of which you have become
aware; it is like that in almost everyone: when one gets
fully or exclusively into it, one feels it to be like that
of an animal, either obscure and restless or inert and stupid
and in either condition not open to the Divine. It is only
by bringing the Force and higher consciousness into it that
it can fundamentally alter. When these things show themselves
do not be upset by their emergence, but understand that
they are there to be changed.
Here
as elsewhere, quiet is the first thing needed, to keep the
consciousness quiet, not allow it to get agitated and in
turmoil. Then in the quiet to call for the Force to clear
up all this obscurity and change it.
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Sri Aurobindo
"At
the mercy of external sounds and external bodily sensations",
"no control to drop the ordinary consciousness at will",
"the whole tendency of the being away from Yoga"—all
that is unmistakably applicable to the physical mind and
the physical consciousness when they isolate themselves,
as it were, and take up the whole front, pushing the rest
into the background. When a part of the being is brought
forward to be worked upon for change, this kind of all occupying
emergence, the dominant activity of that part as if it alone
existed, very usually happens, and unfortunately it is always
what has to be changed, the undesirable conditions, the
difficulties of that part which rise first and obstinately
hold the field and recur. In the physical it is inertia,
obscurity, inability that come up and the obstinacy of these
things. The only thing to do in this unpleasant phase is
to be more obstinate than the physical inertia and to persist
in a fixed endeavour—steady persistency without any
restless struggle—to get a wide and permanent opening
made even in this solid rock of obstruction.
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Sri Aurobindo
These
variations in the consciousness during the day are a thing
that is common to almost everybody in the sadhana. The principle
of oscillation, relaxation, relapse to a normal or a past
lower condition from a higher state that is experienced
but not yet perfectly stable, becomes very strong and marked
when the working of the sadhana is in the physical consciousness.
For there is an inertia in the physical nature that does
not easily allow the intensity natural to the higher consciousness
to remain constant,— the physical is always sinking
back to something more ordinary; the higher consciousness
and its force have to work long and come again and again
before they can become constant and normal in the physical
nature. Do not be disturbed or discouraged by these variations
or this delay, however long and tedious; remain careful
only to be quiet always with an inner quietude and as open
as possible to the higher Power, not allowing any really
adverse condition to get hold of you. If there is no adverse
wave, then the rest is only a persistence of imperfections
which all have in abundance; that imperfection and persistence
the Force must work out and eliminate, but for the elimination
time is needed.
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Sri Aurobindo
You
should not allow yourself to be discouraged by any persistence
of movements of the lower vital nature. There are some that
tend always to persist and return until the whole physical
nature is changed by the transformation of the most material
consciousness; till then their pressure recurs—sometimes
with a revival of their force, sometimes more dully—as
a mechanical habit. Take from them all life-force by refusing
any mental or vital assent; then the mechanical habit will
become powerless to influence the thoughts and acts and
will finally cease.
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Sri Aurobindo
The
Muladhar is the center of the physical consciousness proper,
and all below in the body is the sheer physical, which as
it goes downward becomes increasingly subconscient, but
the real seat of the subconscient is below the body, as
the real seat of the higher consciousness (superconscient)
is above the body. At the same time, the subconscient can
be felt anywhere, felt as something below the movement of
the consciousness and, in a way, supporting it from beneath
or else drawing the consciousness down towards itself. The
subconscient is the main support of all habitual movements,
especially the physical and lower vital movements. When
something is thrown out of the vital or physical, it very
usually goes down into the subconscient and remains there
as if in seed and comes up again when it can. That is the
reason why it is so difficult to get rid of habitual vital
movements or to change the character; for, supported or
refreshed from this source, preserved in this matrix, your
vital movements, even when suppressed or repressed, surge
up again and recur. The action of the subconscient is irrational,
mechanical, repetitive. It does not listen to reason or
the mental will. It is only by bringing the higher Light
and Force into it that it can change.
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Sri Aurobindo
The
subconscient is universal as well as individual like all
the other main parts of the nature. But there are different
parts or planes of the subconscient. All upon earth is based
on the Inconscient as it is called, though it is not really
inconscient at all, but rather a complete "sub"-conscience,
a suppressed or involved consciousness, in which there is
everything but nothing is formulated or expressed. The subconscient
lies between this Inconscient and the conscious mind, life
and body. It contains the potentiality of all the primitive
reactions to life which struggle out to the surface from
the dull and inert strands of Matter and form by a constant
development a slowly evolving and self-formulating consciousness;
it contains them not as ideas, perceptions or conscious
reactions but as fluid substance of these things. But also
all that is consciously experienced sinks down into the
subconscient, not as precise though submerged memories but
as obscure yet obstinate impressions of experience, and
these can come up at any time as dreams, as mechanical repetitions
of past thought, feelings, action etc., as "complexes"
exploding into action and event, etc., etc. The subconscient
is the main cause why all things repeat themselves and nothing
ever gets changed except in appearance. It is the cause
why people say character cannot be changed, the cause also
of the constant return of things one hoped to have got rid
of for ever. All seeds are there and all Samskaras of the
mind, vital and body,— it is the main support of death
and disease and the last fortress (seemingly impregnable)
of the Ignorance. All too that is suppressed without being
wholly got rid of sinks down there and remains as seed ready
to surge up or sprout up at any moment.
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Sri Aurobindo
