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Spiritual seekers are frequently advised not to indulge in or display any ‘powers’ that arise along the way. Patanjali, in his Yoga Sutras, describes a number of powers that can arise naturally through the practice of Yoga, and seekers throughout the ages have validated the reality of powers ... Views: 318
External impressions, sensations, impulsions, events all traverse the nervous pathways from the sense organs to the mind, which tends to react to these sensations and thereby remains in a constant state of disturbance. In the modern world, with our addiction to social media, mobile phones, ... Views: 206
The vital nature of man is a core existential element of our existence. In the past, those who took up serious spiritual practice frequently recognised both the power of the vital and the difficulty of bringing it under some kind of managed and focused control, and thus, they attempted to ... Views: 696
It has been famously stated that we cannot understand the system within which we are acting until we can shift our view to a standpoint outside that frame. As long as we are immersed within any particular system or standpoint, we are locked into the viewpoint and understanding embedded within ... Views: 406
When we think about what qualities within ourselves are aids to achieving conscious contact with the psychic being, the soul, we would likely not name ‘enthusiasm’ as one of them. The Mother, however, makes the case for this quality. Those things that motivate us to learn, to expand our ... Views: 422
The mind can be a powerful tool for spiritual growth, or it can become an obstacle under certain circumstances. Many devotees take the position that aspiration, devotion, surrender to the Divine is the only way forward. For those individuals that may indeed be true. Not everyone is capable of ... Views: 456
Of what possible value is the effort at mental, emotional, vital or physical progress to the soul if it cannot carry that progress forward into the next, and future lives. In his epic poem, Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol, Sri Aurobindo raises the issue: “But the oblivion that succeeds the fall, ... Views: 413
The witness consciousness is an extremely useful mode for the seeker to adopt in any attempt to overcome the limitations and deformations of the external nature, whether to try to attain liberation and release from the world, or, as Sri Aurobindo suggests, to work toward the eventual divinsation ... Views: 101
There is a dynamic that frequently occurs when an individual starts to actively take up the yogic path. At a certain stage of development, the need to bring peace into the being, and the need for a calm, quiet energy to support the practice of meditation may take center stage. At that point, the ... Views: 166
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
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
We generally confuse the vital nature with the soul. We look at the external life of the body and recognise that when the life-force departs, the body dies and the lifetime and personality associated with that existence comes to an end. Some scientists decided that they could identify the ... Views: 43
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
Most people are not aware of the vital envelope, sometimes called the ‘aura’, that surrounds their physical body. Those who experience this vital envelope are sensitive on the vital plane. They are frequently ridiculed for speaking about the ‘aura’ which they can feel or even observe in ... Views: 72
Many people have had the experience of a feeling that something is happening in the body, such as a feeling of a “cold coming on”. In some cases the feeling is very strong and the pressure is great. There may be some sneezing, some tickle in the throat, some coughing, some amount of congestion. ... Views: 279
We frequently hear people saying that this world is a world of opposites and one cannot have joy without sorrow, pleasure without pain. This is accepted basically as an axiom for living in the world. And it is true, that for virtually everyone there is a mixture of positive and negative vital ... Views: 518
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
In the ordinary life in the world, the action of vital desire, and the attempt to fulfill the desires is accepted to such a degree that it is not even consciously noted or treated as anything other than ‘human nature’. Society sets certain customary restraints or limits in order to build a civil ... Views: 648
As each phase of the evolution of consciousness manifests, it arises from the prior stage and continues to interact with that stage. At the point of meeting, the stages take on characteristics that resemble in many ways both together. Thus, the higher forms of Matter begin to exhibit ... Views: 675
Most people have had the experience. An individual has a dispute with a friend, a relative, a spouse. No resolution takes place. An attempt to convince or control the other person is met with resistance. There may be aggression or threats of violence. Or a period of silent avoidance may result. ... Views: 240
Lion tamers, horse whisperers, dog trainers, all learn certain things about how to bring the vital nature into a compliant and participatory mood, to carry out the wishes of the trainer. They quickly learn that they cannot simply allow these vital beings the absolute license to do whatever they ... Views: 541
The vital nature is closely tied to the operation of desire. Whether it is a desire for recognition, for money, for sex, for achievement of some sort, for acceptance or comfort, the vital nature activates its energy to reach out and grab some result it believes will satisfy that desire. At the ... Views: 263
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
In Shakespeare’s play The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice the vital reaction of jealousy is explored in considerable depth. The title character Othello is married to a young woman with whom he is passionately in love, in the normal sense of the word. Iago, who wants to bring down Othello, ... Views: 687
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
THE VITALITY OF APPLICATION and RESEARCH-BASED LEARNING FOR THE 21ST-CENTURY YOUTH
Times are changing, and the change is leaking in truly quick! The expression of today is more innovation-based than it was ever previously. In actuality, innovative headways have given some quick development in ... Views: 600
Most people have their spiritual motivation filtered through their external personality. If the mind is their predominant part, then it may take a mental turn. If the vital, then a vital turn. If the physical, a physical turn. In The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo describes the human aspiration as ... Views: 44
What makes us move in one direction or another? How do we choose, decide, set forth in one direction as opposed to another? There is the inner readiness that creates a sense of incompleteness, dissatisfaction or a view of something better, more perfect, more beautiful, more essential than what ... Views: 310
The development of existentialism as a philosophical viewpoint on human existence in the world took place primarily during the 19th and 20th centuries. it focused on the apparent lack of meaning in the universe and thus, human significance had to be developed from an individual standpoint of ... Views: 193
It is a characteristic trait of the human ego-personality that we easily see faults and issues in others and in external circumstances, that we fail to see within ourselves. But how do we recognise something outside if we have no way to relate to it, if we do not produce the vibrational pattern ... Views: 157
When we begin to observe ourselves, the thoughts we entertain, the emotions we express, the feelings we have and accept, the physical reactions that occur within ourselves, it soon becomes clear that we are more ‘reactive’ than ‘active’. We respond to energies, vibrations, pressures from outside ... Views: 398
Do you feel that your destiny a string of random events? Several think to
that greater influences form our fate. Cleromancy is a diversified
psychic resource of pictures
resulting messages revealed. As an illustration, when Tarot cards are mixed the
during which the cards seem in a ... Views: 1300
While most people are quite insulated from direct confrontation with extremes which the body is asked to endure, our modern media makes it possible to see and relate to some of these extreme situations. Far beyond the pressure of training for and running in a marathon race, there are ... Views: 262
When we take the time to observe our own internal process, we can very quickly become aware of a part of the being that is able to observe and monitor thoughts and impulses that run through the mental space. Many paths of awareness, such as Raja Yoga, and mindfulness training, teach us how to ... Views: 45
When the seeker first becomes aware of the practice of separating the witness consciousness from the active external nature, he may naturally take his stance in the mental awareness and begin to observe his actions and reactions from the mental standpoint. This generally yields some kind of ... Views: 355
The establishment of the witness-consciousness, separated from and observing the actions of the external nature, is an important process, not just for those taking up the practice of the integral yoga; rather, it can be a valuable tool for everyone to be more effective in directing their own ... Views: 369
Have any good things come from the virus situation? It is an awful situation and there have been many deaths, upset, worry and chaos caused by it, but perhaps there are one or two good bits that come from it - the silver lining in the clouds.
Perhaps we have learned about patience, ... Views: 1148
We tend to take for granted the feelings, emotions, ideas, thoughts, creative impulses, imaginations, insights, inspirations and intuitions we experience. We do not generally try to find out the source of these things, or how they come to be known to or experienced by us. We treat our bodies as ... Views: 768
All life, our entire existence, whether we are actively involved in a conscious spiritual discipline, or living a ‘normal’ life in the world following the demands of our needs, desires, relationships and ambitions, etc. is a field of growth, experience and develop. We respond to opportunities, ... Views: 188
For the majority of individuals who live on the surface of their being, the energy they experience, the thoughts, emotions, feelings, perceptions are simply the working of the machinery, with no understanding about the process or source of this energetic action in their lives. For those who have ... Views: 548
We generally live under an illusion of separateness from other beings and the rest of the world. We believe our individual personality, individual body, life, mind are independent from everyone and everything else. This fixed idea, however, is part of the confusion we experience that misleads us ... Views: 478
The integral yoga does not focus on the abandonment of human life in the world. The liberation from the hold of the ego-consciousness and its fixation on the terms of success for life that the ego concentrates on, is an important preliminary step. In the end however, nothing less is envisioned ... Views: 607
It is said that for the yogic practitioner, day and night are reversed when compared to the vast majority of human beings. This statement has many possible implications that can be explored. “Day” and “Night” are representative of opposite concepts, different ways of seeing and reacting to ... Views: 438
The focus on attacks by hostile forces, and difficulties faced, easily engages the ego-personality in a form of vanity. It strengthens the hold of the ego, rather than loosening attachment to open the way for the shift to the divine standpoint. When it takes a rajasic form, the ego glorifies in ... Views: 639
One of the powerful techniques which Sri Aurobindo describes for the spiritual aspirant is the separation of the witness consciousness from the active, external nature. Creation of a mental witness awareness is not quite the same thing, although it may be a helpful step along the way. This is ... Views: 22
There is light at the end of the tunnel, but some days it seems like it is miles away. You have done
everything you can think of to do, physically or mentally and don't even get me started on the list of emotions
that have been involved in the whole process of creating the dream that you ... Views: 1607
The one thing we seem so eager to give but don't enjoy receiving is blame. We are a culture rich in blame yet poor in accountability and responsibility. Blame puts us in the neighborhood of victimhood, a place of no choices. It becomes the justification for forceful action. What if we could just ... Views: 3262
Our spiritual journey; for some it begins with a simple feeling of discontent and for some with great dis-ease; but at some point in our human experience we seek relief. Some people have the ability to reason out a simple course correction and they move swiftly in that direction without really ... Views: 1191
Modern day scientists, researchers and philosophers are beginning to explore the mysteries of life and as they do so, they are beginning to recognise the existence of domains, planes, worlds and universes that the external mind of humanity has avoided or at least resisted. Now scientists speak ... Views: 339
Physical forces take physical forms. Vital forces take vital forms. Even though they may act upon the physical existence of the being, they are not physical forces. Similarly, mental forces take mental forms on the mental plane. Once again, they may act upon vital forces and physical forces, but ... Views: 281