THE second member of the Yoga
of self-perfection is the heightened, enlarged and rectified
power of the instruments of our normal Nature. The cultivation
of this second perfection need not wait for the security
of the equal mind and spirit, but it is only in that
security that it can become complete and act in the
safety of the divine leading. The object of this cultivation
is to make the nature a fit instrument for divine works.
All work is done by power, by Shakti, and since the
integral Yoga does not contemplate abandonment of works,
but rather a doing of all works from the divine consciousness
and with the supreme guidance, the characteristic powers
of the instruments, mind, life and body must not only
be purified of defects, but raised to a capacity for
this greater action. In the end they must undergo a
spiritual and supramental transfiguration.
There are four members of this second part of the Sadhana
or discipline of self-perfection and the first of them
is right Shakti, the right condition of the powers of
the intelligence, heart, vital mind and body. It will
only be possible at present to suggest a preliminary
perfection of the last of these four, for the full Siddhi
will have to be dealt with after I have spoken of the
supermind and its influence on the rest of the being.
The body is not only the necessary outer instrument
of the physical part of action, but for the purposes
of this life a base or pedestal also for all inner action.
All working of mind or spirit has its vibration in the
physical consciousness, records itself there in a kind
of subordinate corporeal notation and communicates itself
to the material world partly at least through the physical
machine. But the body of man has natural limitations
in this capacity which it imposes on the play of the
higher parts of his being. And, secondly, it has a subconscient
consciousness of its own in which it keeps with an obstinate
fidelity the past habits and past nature of the mental
and vital being and which automatically opposes and
obstructs any very great upward change or at least prevents
it from becoming a radical transformation of the whole
nature. It is evident that if we are to have a free
divine or spiritual and supra-mental action conducted
by the force and fulfilling the character of a diviner
energy, some fairly complete transformation must be
effected in this outward character of the bodily nature.
The physical being of man has always been felt by the
seekers of perfection to be a great impediment and it
has been the habit to turn from it with contempt, denial
or aversion and a desire to suppress altogether or as
far as may be the body and the physical life. But this
cannot be the right method for the integral Yoga. The
body is given us as one instrument necessary to the
totality of our works and it is to be used, not neglected,
hurt, suppressed or abolished. If it is imperfect, recalcitrant,
obstinate, so are also the other members, the vital
being, heart and mind and reason. It has like them to
be changed and perfected and to undergo a transformation.
As we must get ourselves a new life, new heart, new
mind, so we have in a certain sense to build for ourselves
a new body.
The first thing the will has to do with the body is
to impose on it progressively a new habit of all its
being, consciousness, force and outward and inward action.
It must be taught an entire passivity in the hands first
of the higher instruments, but eventually in the hands
of the spirit and its controlling and informing Shakti.
It must be accustomed not to impose its own limits on
the nobler members, but to shape its action and its
response to their demands, to develop, one might say,
a higher notation, a higher scale of responses. At present
the notation of the body and the physical consciousness
has a very large determining power on the music made
by this human harp of God; the notes we get from the
spirit, from the psychic soul, from the greater life
behind our physical life cannot come in freely, cannot
develop their high, powerful and proper strain. This
condition must be reversed; the body and the physical
consciousness must develop the habit of admitting and
shaping themselves to these higher strains and not they,
but the nobler parts of the nature must determine the
music of our life and being.
The control of the body and life by the mind and its
thought and will is the first step towards this change.
All Yoga implies the carrying of that control to a very
high pitch. But afterwards the mind must itself give
place to the spirit, to the spiritual force, the supermind
and the supramental force. And finally the body must
develop a perfect power to hold whatever force is brought
into it by the spirit and to contain its action without
spilling and wasting it or itself getting cracked. It
must be capable of being filled and powerfully used
by whatever intensity of spiritual or higher mind or
life force without any part of the mechanical instrument
being agitated, upset, broken or damaged by the inrush
or pressure,—as the brain, vital health or moral
nature are often injured in those who unwisely attempt
Yogic practice without preparation or by undue means
or rashly invite a power they are intellectually, vitally,
morally unfit to bear,—and, thus filled, it must
have the capacity to work normally, automatically, rightly
according to the will of that spiritual or other now
unusual agent without distorting, diminishing or mistranslating
its intention and stress. This faculty of holding, dhäranasakti,
in the physical consciousness, energy and machinery
is the most important Siddhi or perfection of the body.
The result of these changes will be to make the body
a perfect instrument of the spirit. The spiritual force
will be able to do what it wills and as it wills in
and through the body. It will be able to conduct an
unlimited action of the mind or, at a higher stage,
of the supermind without the body betraying the action
by fatigue, incapacity, inaptitude or falsification.
It will be able too to pour a full tide of the life-force
into the body and conduct a large action and joy of
the perfected vital being without that quarrel and disparity
which is the relation of the normal life-instincts and
life-impulses to the insufficient physical instrument
they are obliged to use. And it will also be able to
conduct a full action of the spiritualised psychic being
not falsified, degraded or in any way marred by the
lower instincts of the body and to use physical action
and expression as a free notation of the higher psychical
life. And in the body itself there will be a presence
of a greatness of sustaining force, an abounding strength,
energy and puissance of outgoing and managing force,
a lightness, swiftness and adaptability of the nervous
and physical being, a holding and responsive power in
the whole physical machine and its driving springs of
which it is now even at its strongest and best incapable.
This energy will not be in its essence an outward, physical
or muscular strength, but will be of the nature, first,
of an unbounded life-power or pranic force, secondly,
sustaining and using this pranic energy, a superior
or supreme will-power acting in the body. The play of
the pranic Shakti in the body or form is the condition
of all action, even of the most apparently inanimate
physical action. It is the universal Prana, as the ancients
knew, which in various forms sustains or drives material
energy in all physical things from the electron and
atom and gas up through the metal, plant, animal, physical
man. To get this pranic Shakti to act more freely and
forcibly in the body is knowingly or unknowingly the
attempt of all who strive for a greater perfection of
or in the body. The ordinary man tries to command it
mechanically by physical exercises and other corporeal
means, the Hatha-yogin more greatly and flexibly, but
still mechanically by Asana and Pranayama; but for our
purpose it can be commanded by more subtle, essential
and pliable means; first, by a will in the mind widely
opening itself to and potently calling in the universal
pranic Shakti on which we draw and fixing its stronger
presence and more powerful working in the body; secondly,
by the will in the mind opening itself rather to the
spirit and its power and calling in a higher pranic
energy from above, a supramental pranic force; thirdly,
the last step, by the highest supramental will of the
spirit entering and taking up directly the task of the
perfection of the body. In fact, it is always really
a will within which drives and makes effective the pranic
instrument even when it uses what seem to be purely
physical means; but at first it is dependent on the
inferior action. When we go higher, the relation is
gradually reversed; it is then able to act in its own
power or handle the rest only as a subordinate instrumentation.
Most men are not conscious of this pranic force in the
body or cannot distinguish it from the more physical
form of energy which it informs and uses for its vehicle.
But as the consciousness
becomes more subtle by practice of Yoga, we can come
to be aware of the sea of pranic Shakti around us, feel
it with the mental consciousness, concretely with a
mental sense, see its courses and movements, and direct
and act upon it immediately by the will. But until we
thus become aware of it, we have to possess a working
or at least an experimental faith in its presence and
in the power of the will to develop a greater command
and use of this Prana force. There is necessary a faith,
sraddhä, in the power of the mind to lay
its will on the state and action of the body, such as
those have who heal disease by faith, will or mental
action; but we must seek this control not only for this
or any other limited use, but generally as a legitimate
power of the inner and greater over the outer and lesser
instrument. This faith is combated by our past habits
of mind, by our actual normal experience of its comparative
helplessness in our present imperfect system and by
an opposing belief in the body and physical consciousness.
For they too have a limiting sraddhä of
their own which opposes the idea in the mind when it
seeks to impose on the system the law of a higher yet
unattained perfection. But as we persist and find this
power giving evidence of itself to our experience, the
faith in the mind will be able to found itself more
firmly and grow in vigour and the opposing faith in
the body will change, admit what it first denied and
not only accept in its habits the new yoke but itself
call for this higher action. Finally we shall realise
the truth that this being we are is or can become whatever
it has the faith and will to be,—for faith is
only a will aiming at greater truth,—and cease
to set limits to our possibility or deny the potential
omnipotence of the Self in us, the divine Power working
through the human instrument. That however, at least
as a practical force, comes in at a later stage of high
perfection.
The Prana is not only a force for the action of physical
and vital energy, but supports also the mental and spiritual
action. Therefore the full and free working of the pranic
Shakti is required not only for the lower but still
necessary use, but also for the the free and full operation
of mind and supermind and spirit in the instrumentality
of our complex human nature. That is the main sense
of the use of exercises of Pranayama for control of
the vital force and its motions which is so important
and indispensable a part of certain systems of Yoga.
The same mastery must be got by the seeker of the integral
Yoga; but he may arrive at it by other means and in
any case he must not be dependent on any physical or
breathing exercise for its possession and maintenance,
for that will at once bring in a limitation and subjection
to Prakriti. Her instrumentation has to be used flexibly
by the Purusha, but not to be a fixed control on the
Purusha. The necessity of the pranic force, however,
remains and will be evident to our self-study and experience.
It is in the Vedic image the steed and conveyance of
the embodied mind and will, vähana. If
it is full of strength and swiftness and a plenitude
of all its powers, then the mind can go on the courses
of its action with a plenary and unhampered movement.
But if it is lame or soon tired or sluggish or weak,
then an incapacity is laid on the effectuation of the
will and activity of the mind. The same rule holds good
of the super-mind when it first comes into action. There
are indeed states and activities in which the mind takes
up the pranic Shakti into itself and this dependence
is not felt at all; but even then the force is there,
though involved in the pure mental energy. The super-mind,
when it gets into full strength, can do pretty well
what it likes with the pranic Shakti, and we find that
in the end this life power is transformed into the type
of a supramentalised Prana which is simply one motor
power of that greater consciousness. But this belongs
to a later stage of the Siddhi of the Yoga.
Then again there is the psychic Prana, pranic mind or
desire soul; this too calls for its own perfection.
Here too the first necessity is a fullness of the vital
capacity in the mind, its power to do its full work,
to take possession of all the impulsions and energies
given to our inner psychic life for fulfilment in this
existence, to hold them and to be a means for carrying
them out with strength, freedom, perfection. Many of
the things we need for our perfection, courage, will-power
effective in life, all the elements of what we now call
force of character and force of personality, depend
very largely for their completest strength and spring
of energetic action on the fullness of the psychic Prana.
But along with this fullness there must be an established
gladness, clearness and purity in the psychic life-being.
This dynamis must not be a troubled, perfervid, stormy,
fitfully or crudely passionate strength; energy there
must be, rapture of its action it must have, but a clear
and glad and pure energy, a seated and firmly supported
pure rapture. And as a third condition of its perfection
it must be poised in a complete equality. The desire-soul
must get rid of the clamour, insistence or unequality
of its desires in order that its desires may be satisfied
with justice and balance and in the right way and eventually
must rid them of the character of desire altogether
and change them into impulsions of the divine Ananda.
To that end it must make no demands nor seek to impose
itself on heart, mind or spirit, but accept with a strong
passive and active equality whatever impulsion and command
come into it from the spirit through the channel of
a still mind and a pure heart. And it must accept too
whatever result of the impulse, whatever enjoyment more
or less, full or nil, is given to it by the Master of
our being. At the same time, possession and enjoyment
are its law, function, use, Swadharma. It is not intended
to be a slain or mortified thing, dull in its receptive
power, dreary, suppressed, maimed, inert or null. It
must have a full power of possession, a glad power of
enjoyment, an exultant power of pure and divine passion
and rapture. The enjoyment it will have will be in the
essence a spiritual bliss, but one which takes up into
itself and transforms the mental, emotional, dynamic,
vital and physical joy; it must have therefore an integral
capacity for these things and must not by incapacity
or fatigue or inability to bear great intensities fail
the spirit, mind, heart, will and body. Fullness, clear
purity and gladness, equality, capacity for possession
and enjoyment are the fourfold perfection of the psychic
Prana.
The next instrument which needs perfection is the citta,
and within the complete meaning of this expression we
may include the emotional and the pure psychical being.
This heart and psychic being of man shot through with
the threads of the life-instincts is a thing of mixed
inconstant colours of emotion and soul vibrations, bad
and good, happy and unhappy, satisfied and unsatisfied,
troubled and calm, intense and dull. Thus agitated and
invaded it is unacquainted with any real peace, incapable
of a steady perfection of all its powers. By purification,
by equality, by the light of knowledge, by a harmonising
of the will it can be brought to a tranquil intensity
and perfection. The first two elements of this perfection
are on one side a high and large sweetness, openness,
gentleness, calm, clarity, on the other side a strong
and ardent force and intensity. In the divine no less
than in ordinary human character and action there are
always two strands, sweetness and strength, mildness
and force, saumya and raudra, the
force that bears and harmonises, the force that imposes
itself and compels, Vishnu and Ishana, Shiva and Rudra.
The two are equally necessary to a perfect world-action.
The perversions of the Rudra power in the heart are
stormy passion, wrath and fierceness and harshness,
hardness, brutality, cruelty, egoistic ambition and
love of violence and domination. These and other human
perversions have to be got rid of by the flowering of
a calm, clear and sweet psychical being.
But on the other hand incapacity of force is also an
imperfection. Laxity and weakness, self-indulgence,
a certain flabbiness and limpness or inert passivity
of the psychical being are the last result of an emotional
and psychic life in which energy and power of assertion
have been quelled, discouraged or killed. Nor is it
a total perfection to have only the strength that endures
or to cultivate only a heart of love, charity, tolerance,
mildness, meekness and forbearance. The other side of
perfection is a self-contained and calm and unegoistic
Rudra-power armed with psychic force, the energy of
the strong heart which is capable of supporting without
shrinking an insistent, an outwardly austere or even,
where need is, a violent action. An unlimited light
of energy, force, puissance harmonised with sweetness
of heart and clarity, capable of being one with it in
action, the lightning of Indra starting from the orb
of the nectarous moon-rays of Soma is the double perfection.
And these two things saumyatva, tejas,
must base their presence and action on a firm equality
of the temperament and of the psychical soul delivered
from all crudity and all excess or defect of the heart's
light or the heart's power.
Another necessary element is a faith in the heart, a
belief in and will to the universal good, an openness
to the universal Ananda. The pure psychic being is of
the essence of Ananda, it comes from the delight-soul
in the universe; but the superficial heart of emotion
is overborne by the conflicting appearances of the world
and suffers many reactions of grief, fear, depression,
passion, shortlived and partial joy. An equal heart
is needed for perfection, but not only a passive equality;
there must be the sense of a divine power making for
good behind all experiences, a faith and will which
can turn the poisons of the world to nectar, see the
happier spiritual intention behind adversity, the mystery
of love behind suffering, the flower of divine strength
and joy in the seed of pain. This faith, kalyäna-sraddhä,
is needed in order that the heart and the whole overt
psychic being may respond to the secret divine Ananda
and change itself into this true original essence. This
faith and will must be accompanied by and open into
an illimitable widest and intensest capacity for love.
For the main business of the heart, its true function
is love. It is our destined instrument of complete union
and oneness; for to see oneness in the world by the
understanding is not enough unless we also feel it with
the heart and in the psychic being, and this means delight
in the One and in all existences in the world in him,
a love of God and all beings. The heart's faith and
will in good are founded on a perception of the one
Divine immanent in all things and leading the world.
The universal love has to be founded on the heart's
sight and psychical and emotional sense of the one Divine,
the one Self in all existence. All four elements will
then form a unity and even the Rudra power to do battle
for the right and the good proceed on the basis of a
power of universal love. This is the highest and the
most characteristic perfection of the heart, prema-sämarthya.
The last perfection is that of the intelligence and
thinking mind, buddhi. The first need is the
clarity and the purity of the intelligence. It must
be freed from the claims of the vital being which seeks
to impose the desire of the mind in place of the truth,
from the claims of the troubled emotional being which
strives to colour, distort, limit and falsify the truth
with the hue and shape of the emotions. It must be free
too from its own defect, inertia of the thought-power,
obstructive narrowness and unwillingness to open to
knowledge, intellectual unscrupulousness in thinking,
prepossession and preference, self-will in the reason
and false determination of the will to knowledge. Its
sole will must be to make itself an unsullied mirror
of the truth, its essence and its forms and measures
and relations, a clear mirror, a just measure, a fine
and subtle instrument of harmony, an integral intelligence.
This clear and pure intelligence can then become a serene
thing of light, a pure and strong radiance emanating
from the sun of Truth. But, again, it must become not
merely a thing of concentrated dry or white light, but
capable of all variety of understanding, supple, rich,
flexible, brilliant with all the flame and various with
all the colours of the manifestation of the Truth, open
to all its forms. And so equipped it will get rid of
limitations, not be shut up in this or that faculty
or form or working of knowledge, but an instrument ready
and capable for whatever work is demanded from it by
the Purusha. Purity, clear radiance, rich and flexible
variety, integral capacity are the fourfold perfection
of the thinking intelligence, visuddhi, prakäsa,
vicitra-bodha, sarvajnäna-sämarthya.
The normal instruments thus perfected will act each
in its own kind without undue interference from each
other and serve the unobstructed will of the Purusha
in a harmonised totality of our natural being. This
perfection must rise constantly in its capacity for
action, the energy and force of its working and a certain
greatness of the scope of the total nature. They will
then be ready for the transformation into their own
supramental action in which they will find a more absolute,
unified and luminous spiritual truth of the whole perfected
nature. The means of this perfection of the instruments
we shall have to consider later on; but at present it
will be enough to say that the principal conditions
are will, self-watching and self-knowledge and a constant
practice, abhyäsa, of self-modification
and transformation. The Purusha has that capacity; for
the spirit within can always change and perfect the
working of its nature. But the mental being must open
the way by a clear and a watchful introspection, an
opening of itself to a searching and subtle self-knowledge
which will give it the understanding and to an increasing
extent the mastery of its natural instruments, a vigilant
and insistent will of self-modification and self-transformation—for
to that will the Prakriti must with whatever difficulty
and whatever initial or prolonged resistance eventually
respond,—and an unfailing practice which will
constantly reject all defect and perversion and replace
it by right state and a right and enhanced working.
Askesis, Tapasya, patience and faithfulness and rectitude
of knowledge and will are the things required until
a greater Power than our mental selves directly intervenes
to effect a more easy and rapid transformation.
-Sri
Aurobindo
