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We understand that there is an electro-magnetic spectrum, ranging from very short wavelengths to extremely long wavelengths. We can visualize the color spectrum with a similar range. There is also a sound spectrum. In each instance of a vibrational spectrum, there is a range within which we can ... Views: 368
It is often said that ‘you can’t change human nature’. One of the major obstacles turns out to be the seeds of all past habits, actions, behaviors, reactions and instincts that reside in the subconscious levels of the being. An individual may spend his life culturing his mind, his emotions and ... Views: 420
We tend to imagine that somehow the mind, the vital energy and the physical body we identify through our ego-complex as ourselves, is separate from those of everyone else. In reality, however, the physical, vital and mental substance is universal in nature and the portion we try to wall off ... Views: 395
There is considerable confusion about the “subconscient” and the “subliminal” aspects of consciousness. Essentially, the subliminal references aspects of the independent levels of consciousness that embody the subtle physical, the subtle vital and the subtle mental. These levels are independent ... Views: 433
Embracing life, in simple terms, means fully accepting and appreciating the present moment and everything it brings without confrontation, attachment, seeking justice, or causing harm to others. When you embrace life naturally, you can experience peace, harmony, and bliss.
Akram Vignan, also ... Views: 357
Western psychology has developed with the basis that the subconscious mind is extremely powerful and can determine actions and reactions of individuals that overcome the conscious intentions of those individuals. Events, circumstances, perceptions, and corresponding fears, hopes and excitement, ... Views: 387
Most of the impressions we receive on a day to day basis go unremarked by our conscious awareness, but are nevertheless received and stored away in our subconscious levels. These impressions may rise to the surface during dreams, or be triggered by certain sensations, events or circumstances, ... Views: 420
The mechanical mind encompasses some of the most basic, most rudimentary activities of the mind. It lies below the faculties of higher logical reasoning, and forms a foundation for the most simple and automatic mental processes. It is like the core computer language upon which all kinds of ... Views: 390
There is another aspect of mind that holds the habits, instincts and trained responses in place. This is what Sri Aurobindo and the Mother call the ‘mechanical mind’. There are uses and benefits to this mind, but it is one of the most rudimentary actions of mind, which arose to provide a ... Views: 410
The physical mind, which responds to the external objects of the senses and the impact of those external objects, has strict limits within which it can either perceive or understand what it is perceiving. The reality of our existence, however, reaches far beyond the boundaries of response that ... Views: 409
There is in Nature, a conservative force that resists change. There is a benefit inasmuch as it ensures that life does not devolve into chaos, and there is a further benefit that it forces the change-process to become much more solid and effective in order to eventually bring out the intended ... Views: 420
Individuals who are primarily rooted in the function of the physical mind have a difficulty in accepting the reality of anything that goes outside their ability to sense and perceive. These individuals will frequently deny the existence of the soul because it cannot be seen, measured or ... Views: 413
We may observe feelings, perceptions, thoughts, emotions, ideas, imaginations, memories, etc. all arising in our minds, and, for most of us, this is all just ‘mental activity’. And for most people this is clearly enough! For those taking up the spiritual life and practice, however, it becomes ... Views: 380
Everyone has had the experience, at some time or another, of imagining themselves doing something extraordinary, or at least fulfilling some dream about how their lives could develop or turn out. It may be a fantasy about winning a lottery, or gaining fame or recognition, or finding the right ... Views: 382
In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna asks how the ‘liberated soul’ can be recognised. How does he walk? How does he talk? What distinguishing characteristics can we find that identify such a person? Sri Krishna responds that there are not external signs, but only the inner standpoint of the individual ... Views: 446
Nietzsche espoused the idea that the ‘superior man’ was, by definition, ‘beyond good and evil’ and was therefore not bound by the rules of society. This concept has led a number of people into serious trouble. Dostoevsky explored this idea in his novel Crime and Punishment, in which the ... Views: 398
The mental knowledge we acquire is mostly a form of ignorance reaching out to try to acquire knowledge. In The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo describes the various forms of knowledge. With one exception, they are set up in the paradigm of subject, object and the process of knowing, and treats the ... Views: 433
As we go through school and acquire knowledge, knowledge of facts, knowledge of ideas, knowledge of principles, knowledge of methodologies, knowledge of trained skills, we gain in our ability to act in the world and succeed in our external life. We learn how to employ the faculty of reasoning ... Views: 405
Mindfulness helps transform our life from one of stress, fear and uncertainty, and clogged up with thoughts, to one that is on the whole calmer and stable, full of positive and clear thinking and wholesome. Mindful living helps focus ourselves on the present, here and now, rather than worrying ... Views: 279
Every level of consciousness is limited by the frame within which it operates, as well as by the mechanism of its action within that frame. In its own field of action, with its own native operation, the mind can be a powerful tool and aid to the individual. Yet, when it tries to assert for ... Views: 426
Every day is a new opportunity, a new beginning, an opportunity to live the life you truly want to live. Spirituality uplifts the human spirit. It is governed by love, lovingkindness, compassion, and awareness.
When the mind and body and spirit are aligned, there is a flow from that infinite ... Views: 546
The primary functionality of the mind is to organize and classify, breaking down and fragmenting the reality into component parts. We see this easily in the classification systems for flora and fauna, in our detailed review of the genetic structure of life, gene sequencing, and in our ability to ... Views: 413
How does Mind evolve out of Matter? Some scientists will tell you that through random chance, chemicals and electrical forces and heat led to the development of beings capable of reflecting, thinking and contemplating deep thoughts, exploring the nature of life and the universe, etc. They do not ... Views: 447
Western medical researchers have invested a considerable amount of time and attention on gaining an understanding of the way the brain functions, mapping the regions of the brain responsible for various types of activities, and monitoring the function of neurotransmitter chemicals and nervous ... Views: 446
When Life emerges in Matter, there must, obviously, be some mechanism for the two principles to interact with one another. Matter must develop ways to sense, respond to and react to the action of the Life-Force. Similarly, when the Life-Force evolves and manifests in Matter, it must also become ... Views: 380
A life focused solely on meditation, inner development, growth of knowledge, or on prayer and devotion, tends to avoid the implications of the ongoing evolution of consciousness and the need for transformation and positive change to create the circumstances for that evolution of consciousness to ... Views: 397
Virtually everybody, at some point in their lives, has the experience of entering a room or a gathering of some sort and feeling the movement of some vital force rising up within them. It could be a room filled with the energy of greed, or sexual tension or anger. They feel like they are being ... Views: 419
After all the attempts to bring the vital being under some kind of control, it may seem like it is an impossible task! The vital has its fixed habits of fulfillment and satisfaction and tends generally to want to continue its normal modes of action. It is, however, not a thankless task and there ... Views: 384
In order to carry out the spiritual practices and work for the transformation of human nature, the vital being needs to agree to changes its habitual sources of satisfaction and fulfillment to an entirely different basis. The pursuit of pleasure, and the accompanying experience of pain, is ... Views: 370
We generally do not question the movements of the vital nature in our ordinary daily life. They are so much a part of what we consider to be human nature and human experience that we simply accept them and treat them as inevitable. It is true that human society has developed a framework within ... Views: 384
Each individual is rooted primarily in one of the major component aspects of our human individuality. Some are clearly rooted in the physical and their thoughts, actions and needs are those called for by the physical being. The vast majority of people are moved by their vital being, and are ... Views: 405
One of the most confusing issues for the spiritual seeker is the ‘care and feeding’ of the vital nature. We shift from one extreme to the other in our view of how to bring it under control, for it is virtually uniformly recognised that for spiritual development, the vital nature must be ... Views: 407
We can observe that there are times when the vital nature is energetic, enthused, active, and makes efforts. There are other times when it is dull, withdrawn, sullen, lacking energy and clearly is not taking interest in doing anything. The difference between these two states generally lies in ... Views: 394
The vital has a natural tendency to seek for the fulfillment of its being in some form of enjoyment. In the external surface being, this enjoyment takes the form of a seeking after pleasure. With this seeking after pleasure, however, comes also the experience of pain. Pleasure and pain alternate ... Views: 401
The vital desire-soul animates the external being. When it enters the physical frame, we say that there is life in the body. When it departs, we say that the person has died. This is distinguishable from the true soul, the psychic being, which is not dependent on either the life or death of a ... Views: 439
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother make a distinction between the ‘desire soul’ of the vital nature and the ‘true soul’ which expresses the inmost being that is a direct spark of the Divine. They differ in their focus, orientation, and basis of action. The desire soul incorporates the drives of the ... Views: 413
When the vital nature is involved, which individual has the power to control its impulsions and demands and keep it focused on the higher aims of life? The vital nature is a powerful and essential component of life on earth. It animates material nature and functions through the force of desire. ... Views: 408
Through long habit, spiritual seekers tend to look at the question of how to attain spiritual liberation involving abandonment of the external life in the world. Not only spiritual seekers raise this question in some form or another. Anyone involved in aesthetic, mental, artistic, or emotional ... Views: 408
While the mind does not generally recognise the consciousness of the body, it remains true that the body has its own ability to respond to circumstances. For those who have a highly developed mental or vital being, these powers frequently override the natural responsiveness of the body. When we ... Views: 392
There is a conservative bias in earthly existence that seeks to preserve established ways of life as a means of providing an element of stability. This principle helps to avoid the chaotic implications of unrestricted change, thereby providing a basis and a certain amount of certainty. This ... Views: 431
The body has its own consciousness and much of its operation takes place without active mental intervention. However, there is also a serious interaction that takes place so that the mental power can influence, guide, train, direct and otherwise gain at least some control over certain aspects of ... Views: 428
Have you ever seen a talking and walking toy that runs on battery? According to what it is fed, it says, ‘I am hungry, I am happy’, and so on. It works as long as there is a battery in it. And, when the battery is discharged, it is dead. Similarly, a dead body doesn’t have any energy or power to ... Views: 331
If we reflect on how many actions or operations of the physical body take place without our mental intervention, it becomes clear that the body has its own highly developed, and essential, form of consciousness that operates independently of the mind. One common example is widely experienced. An ... Views: 438
An accident avoided. An individual related the following incident. He was driving with a passenger through Yellowstone National Park in the USA some years ago during the summer season in a van late in the afternoon. He had a sense or feeling of an impending accident involving a bison, although ... Views: 488
In the book, ‘Brahmacharya – Celibacy Attained with Understanding’, Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan, an Enlightened being, has shown the beneficial effects of brahmacharya with scientific exactness.
Let’s look at the following excerpts from this book:
Param Pujya Dadashri, herein, says:
“So ... Views: 353
For most people, acute illness is an event of the body, which is subject to attack by various malign types of germs, bacteria and viruses. We tend to envision the body as a battlefield and the attacking germs aggressively target the cells and organs and the body fights back with an immune ... Views: 516
There are many ideas about the causes of illness, as well as ways to prevent or cure illness. In the West, the prevalent idea is related to what may be called the “germ invasion” theory, namely, that illness is caused by specific physical ‘germs’ (bacteria or viruses) which invade and overpower ... Views: 576
When we observe the nerves and their role in our actions, we see that they carry vital sensations within a physical frame to connect our senses and responses to external pressures to the brain, and then, carry impulses back to the organs of action. Most people do not recognise the essential role ... Views: 403
When a particular power of consciousness is intended to participate in the evolution in the external world, it utilizes the physical body as the foundation or anchor of its action. This fixes its action in the world, while at the same time, imposes limits on the power due to the watering-down ... Views: 427
While each power of consciousness, physical, vital, mental (and others) operates in its native mode and strength in its own plane or sphere of action, it projects itself into the world we inhabit by tying itself to the foundation of the basic physical principle. This involves a ‘watering down’ ... Views: 434