SECTION
THREE
Transformation of the Vital
THE
two movements whose apparent contradiction confuses your mind, are the two ends
of a single consciousness whose motions, now separated from each other, must
join if the life-power is to have its more and more perfect action and fulfilment or the transformation for which we hope.
The vital being
with the life-force in it is one of these ends; the other is a latent dynamic
power of the higher consciousness through which the Divine Truth can act, take
hold of the vital and its life-force and use it for a greater purpose here.
The Life-Force
in the vital is the indispensable instrument for all action of the Divine Power
on the material world and the physical nature. It is therefore only when this
vital is transformed and made a pure and strong instrument of the Divine
Shakti, that there can be a divine life. Then only can there be a successful
transformation of the physical nature or a free perfected divine action on the
external world; for with our present means any such action is impossible. That
is why you feel that the vital movement gives all the energy one can need, that
all things are possible by this energy and that you can get with it any
experience you like, whether good or bad, of the ordinary or of the spiritual
life, – and that also is why, when this energy comes, you feel power pervading
the body-consciousness and its matter. As for the contact with the Mother in
the vital and your sense of the fine, the magnificent experience it was, – that
too is natural and right; for the vital, no less than the psychic and every
other part of the being, has to feel the Divine Mother and give itself entirely
to her.
But this must
always be remembered that the vital being and the life-force in man are
separated from the Divine Light and, so separated, they are an instrument for
any power that can take hold of them, illumined or obscure, divine or undivine.
Ordinarily, the vital energy serves the common obscure or half-
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conscious movements of the human
mind and human life, its normal ideas, interests, passions and desires. But it
is possible for the vital energy to increase beyond the ordinary limits and, if
so increased, it can attain an impetus, an intensity, an excitation or
sublimation of its forces by which it can become, is almost bound to become
an instrument either of divine powers,
the powers of the gods, or of Asuric forces. Or, if there is no settled central
control in the nature, its action can be a confused mixture of these opposites,
or in an inconsequent oscillation serve now one and now the other. It is not
enough then to have a great vital energy acting in you; it must be put in
contact with the higher consciousness, it must be surrendered to the true
control, it must be placed under the government of the Divine. That is why
there is sometimes felt a contempt for the action of the vital force or a
condemnation of it, because it has an insufficient light and control and is
wedded to an ignorant undivine movement. That also is why there is the
necessity of opening to inspiration and power from a higher source. The vital
energy by itself leads nowhere, runs in chequered, often painful and ruinous
circles, takes even to the precipice, because it has no right guidance; it must
be connected with the dynamic power of the higher consciousness and with the
Divine Force acting through it for a great and luminous purpose.
There are two
movements necessary for this connection to be established. One is upward; the
vital rises to join with the higher consciousness and steeps itself in the
light and in the impulsion of a higher force: the other is downward; the vital
remains silent, tranquillised, pure, empty of the ordinary movements, waiting,
till the dynamic power from above descends into it, changes it to its true self
and informs its movements with knowledge as well as power. That is why the
sadhak feels sometimes that he is rising up into a happier and nobler
consciousness, entering into a brighter domain and purer experience, but
sometimes, on the contrary, feels the necessity of going back into the vital,
doing sadhana there and bringing down into it the true consciousness. There is
no real contradiction between these two movements; they are complementary and
necessary to each other, the ascension enabling the divine descent, the descent
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fulfilling that for which the
ascension aspires and which it makes inevitable.
When you rise with the vital from its lower
reaches and join it to the psychic, then your vital being fills with the pure
aspiration and devotion natural to the psychic; at the same time it gives to
the feelings its own abundant energy, it makes them dynamic for the change of
the whole nature down to the most physical and for the bringing down of the
divine consciousness into earth matter. When it not only touches the psychic
but fuses with the higher mind, it is able to come into contact with and obey a
greater light and knowledge. Ordinarily, the vital is either moved by the human
mind and governed by its more or less ignorant dictates, or takes violent hold
of this mind and uses it for the satisfaction of its own passions, impulses or
desires. Or it makes a mixture of these two movements; for the ordinary human
mind is too ignorant for a better action or a perfect guidance. But when the
vital is in contact with the higher mind, it is possible for it to be guided by
a greater light and knowledge, by a higher intuition and inspiration, a truer
discrimination and some revelations of the divine truth and the divine will.
This obedience of the vital to the psychic and the higher mind is the beginning
of the outgoing of the yogic consciousness in its dynamic action upon life.
But this too is
not sufficient for the divine life. To come into contact with the higher mind
consciousness is not enough, it is only an indispensable stage. There must be a
descent of the Divine Force from yet loftier and more powerful reaches. A
transformation of the higher consciousness into a supramental light and power,
a transformation of the vital and its life-force into a pure, wide, calm,
intense and powerful instrument of the Divine Energy, a transformation of the
physical itself into a form of divine light, divine action, strength, beauty
and joy are impossible without this descending Force from the now invisible
summits. That is why in this yoga the ascent to the Divine which it has in
common with other paths of yoga is not enough; there must be too a descent of
the Divine to transform all the energies of the mind, life and body.
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All that is true Truth is the
direct expression in one way or another of the Divine Consciousness. Life is
the dynamic expression of Consciousness-Force when thrown outward to realise
itself in concrete harmonies of formation; Love is an intense self-expression
of the soul of Ananda, and Light is what always accompanies the supramental
Consciousness and its most essential power.
Yes, that is the nature of the
vital. It can make the absolute and enthusiastic surrender as well as cause all
trouble possible. Without the vital there is no life-force of creation or
manifestation; it is a necessary instrument of the spirit for life.
Yes. The spirit itself if it
wants to manifest in matter must use the vital. It is so that things are
arranged.
The vital is an indispensable
instrument – no creation or strong action is possible without it. It is simply
a question of mastering it and of converting it into the true vital which is at
once strong and calm and capable of great intensity and free from ego.
The vital has to be controlled,
and not allowed to do what it likes. It is not the vital that has to control
you, it is you who have to control the vital.
It is through a change in the
vital that the deliverance from the blind vital energy must come – by the
emergence of the true vital which is strong, wide, at peace, a willing
instrument of the Divine and of the Divine alone
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It means the life-energy which
comes from within and is in consonance with the psychic being − it is the
energy of the true vital being, but in the ordinary ignorant vital it is
deformed into desire. You have to quiet and purify the vital and let the true
vital emerge. Or you have to bring the psychic in front and the psychic will
purify and psychicise the vital and then you will have the true vital energy.
What has been put into the vital
receptacle by life can be got out by reversing it, turning it towards the
Divine and not towards yourself. You will then find that the vital is as
excellent an instrument as it is a bad master.
The human vital is almost always
of that nature, but that is no reason why one should accept it as an
unchangeable fact and allow a restless vital to drive one as it likes. Even
apart from yoga, in ordinary life, only those are considered to have full
manhood or are likely to succeed in their life, their ideals or their
undertakings who take in hand this restless vital, concentrate and control it
and subject it to discipline. It is by the use of the mental will that they
discipline it, compelling it to do not what it wants but what the reason or the
will sees to be right or desirable. In yoga one uses the inner will and compels
the vital to submit itself to tapasya so that it may become calm, strong,
obedient − or else one calls down the calm from above obliging the vital
to renounce desire and become quiet and receptive. The vital is a good
instrument but a bad master. If you allow it to follow its likes and dislikes,
its fancies, its desires, its bad habits, it becomes your master and peace and
happiness are no longer possible. It becomes not your instrument or the
instrument of the Divine Shakti, but of any force of the Ignorance or even any hostile
force that is able to seize and use it.
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The resistance and the contrary
suggestions come from the vital nature which is in all men obscure and attached
to ordinary ideas and aims and easily listens to such ideas and suggestions as
those you mention. Faith and devotion come from the soul and it is only when
the vital has entirely submitted to the soul that one can truly lead the
spiritual life.
It is a great progress if you can
now do that. The chief difficulty in the way of living in the light as well as
the peace and force is the confused and turbid restlessness of man's vital
nature. If that is quieted, the major difficulty is gone. There still remains
the obstacle of the physical nature's non-understanding or inertia – but that
is less troublesome – it is more of the nature of a quiet though sometimes
obstinate obstruction than a disturbance. If the vital inquietude has been
cured then certainly the physical obscurity or non-understanding will go.
That [seeking enjoyment] is the
attitude not of the whole vital but of the physical vital, the animal part of
the human being. Of course it cannot be convinced by mental reasoning of any
kind. In most men it is the natural and accepted attitude towards life
varnished over with some conventional moralism and idealism as a concession to
the mind and higher vital. In a few this part of the being is gripped and
subordinated to the mental or the higher vital aim, forced to take a
subordinate place so that the mind may absorb itself persistently in mental
pursuits or idealisms or great political or personal ambitions (Lenin, Hitler,
Stalin, Mussolini). The ascetic and the Puritan try to suppress it mostly or
altogether. In our yoga the principle is that all must become an instrument of
the Spirit and the parts of enjoyment taste the Ananda in things, not the
animal enjoyment of the surface. But the Ananda will not come or will not stay
so long as this part is not converted and insists on its own way of
satisfaction.
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Many men are not after happiness
and do not believe it is the true aim of life. It is the physical vital that
seeks after happiness, the bigger vital is ready to sacrifice it in order to
satisfy its passions, search for power, ambition, fame or any other motive. If
you say it is because of the happiness power, fame etc. gives, that again is
not universally true. Power may give anything else, but it does not usually
give happiness, it is something in its very nature arduous and full of
difficulty to get, to keep or to use – I speak of course of power in the
ordinary sense. A man may know he can never have fame in this life but works in
the hope of posthumous fame or in the chase of it. He may know that the
satisfaction of his passion will bring him everything rather than happiness –
suffering, torture, destruction – yet he will follow his impulse. So also the
mind as well as the bigger vital is not bound by the pursuit of happiness. It
can seek Truth rather or the victory of a cause. To reduce all to a single
hedonistic strain seems to me to be very poor psychology. Neither Nature nor
the vast Spirit in things are so limited and one-tracked as that.
Most people do things because
they have to, not out of the happiness they find in the things. It is only its
hobbies and penchants that the nature finds some happiness in, not usually in
work − unless of course the work itself is one's hobby or penchant and
can be indulged in or dropped as one likes.
A vital life, “a little higher
than the animals” because of some play of mind, with death as its answer is all
that human existence is as it is ordinarily envisaged. And yet there is an
aspiration for something more, – but the religions take hold of it and canalise
it into something pointless for life and things remain as they are. Only a few
indeed get beyond this limit. The “after all“¹ is indeed only an excuse. Nobody
can become more than human if he refuses to make a sacrifice of his
¹After all we are human ―
we have not become gods.”
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ego – for “human” means a vital
animal ego mentalised by a little outward thought and knowledge. So long as one
is satisfied with remaining that, one will remain human “even here” or
anywhere.
Of course most men live in their
physical mind and vital, except a few saints and a rather larger number of
intellectuals. That is why, as it is now discovered, humanity has made little
progress in the last three thousand years, except in information and material equipment.
A little less cruelty and brutality perhaps, more plasticity of the intellect
in the elite, a quicker habit of change in forms, that is all.
The times now are both worse and
better than Wordsworth's − on one side there is a collapse into the worst
parts of human nature and a riot of the vital forces, on the other there is in
compensation a greater seeking for something beyond and a seeking with more
light and knowledge in it.
Man is a mental being and cannot
come from the vital, although part of him may live in the vital plane or rather
in connection with it. Most men in fact live much in the vital and therefore
when they practise sadhana it is first in the vital plane that they find
themselves, in dreams, experiences etc. When the supramental opens then
something will descend from the supramental in each as he becomes ready and
forms a supramental Purusha in him. What he is now, cannot limit what he will
become.
That [engagement in physical work
or study] is not living in the vital − these are physical and mental
occupations merely. Living in the vital is a psychological condition.
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Most people live in the vital.
That means that they live in their desires, sensations, emotional feelings,
vital imaginations and see and experience and judge everything from that point
of view. It is the vital that moves them, the mind being at its service, not
its master. In yoga also many people do sadhana from that plane and their
experience is full of vital visions, formations, experiences of all kinds, but
there is no mental clarity or order, neither do they rise above the mind. It is
only the minority of men who live in the mind or in the psychic or try to live
in the spiritual plane.
In the ordinary life people
accept the vital movements, anger, desire, greed, sex, etc. as natural,
allowable and legitimate things, part of the human nature. Only so far as
society discourages them or insists to keep them within fixed limits or subject
to a decent restraint or measure, people try to control them so as to conform
to the social standard of morality or rule of conduct. Here, on the contrary,
as in all spiritual life, the conquest and complete mastery of these things is
demanded. That is why the struggle is more felt, not because these things rise
more strongly in sadhaks than in ordinary men, but because of the intensity of
the struggle between the spiritual mind which demands control and the vital movements which rebel and want to
continue in the new as they did in the old life. As for the idea that the
sadhana raises up things of the kind, the only truth in that is this that,
first, there are many things in the ordinary man of which he is not conscious,
because the vital hides them from the mind and gratifies them without the mind
realising what is the force that is moving the action − thus things that
are done under the plea of altruism, philanthropy, service, etc. are largely
moved by ego which hides itself behind these justifications; in yoga the secret
motive has to be pulled out from behind the veil, exposed and got rid of.
Secondly, some things are suppressed in the ordinary life and remain lying in
the nature, suppressed but not eliminated; they may rise up any day or they may
express themselves in various nervous forms or other disorders of the mind
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or vital or body without it being
evident what is their real cause. This has been recently discovered by European
psychologists and much emphasised, even exaggerated in a new science called
psycho-analysis. Here again, in sadhana one has to become conscious of these
suppressed impulses and eliminate them − this may be called rising up,
but that does not mean that they have to be raised up into action but only
raised up before the consciousness so as to be cleared out of the being.
As for some men being able to control themselves and
others being swept away, that is due to difference of temperament. Some men are
sattwic and control comes easy to them, up to a certain point at least; others
are more rajasic and find control difficult and often impossible. Some have a
strong mind and mental will and others are vital men in whom the vital passions
are stronger and more on the surface. Some do not think control necessary and
let themselves go. In sadhana the mental or moral control has to be replaced by
the spiritual mastery – for that mental control is only partial and it controls
but does not liberate; it is only the psychic and spiritual that can do that.
That is the main difference in this respect between the ordinary and the
spiritual life.
It [the reason for calm and
self-control in people in ordinary life] is social pressure accompanied by a
certain habit of mental control born of the social pressure. It is not from
peace at all. Remove the social pressure even partly and as in England and
America recently people let themselves go and do according to the vital
impulses instead of controlling them – except of course those who stick to the
religious and moral ideas of the past even when society drifts away from these
ideas.
There is very commonly a gulf
between the higher parts and the lower vital even in ordinary life – in yoga it
is apt to get emphasised until the lower vital changes, but if we can judge
from
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the majority of people here, that
change is most extraordinarily difficult.
II
At present your experiences are
on the mental plane, but that is the right movement. Many sadhaks are unable to
advance because they open the vital plane before the mental and psychic are
ready. After some beginning of true spiritual experiences on the mental plane
there is a premature descent into the vital and great confusion and
disturbance. This has to be guarded against. It is still worse if the vital
desire-soul opens to experience before the mind has been touched by the things
of the spirit.
Aspire always
for the mind and psychic being to be filled with the true consciousness and
experience and made ready. You must aspire especially for quietness, peace, a
calm faith, an increasing steady wideness, for more and more knowledge, for a
deep and intense but quiet devotion.
Do not be
troubled by your surroundings and their opposition. These conditions are often
imposed at first as a kind of ordeal. If you can remain tranquil and
undisturbed and continue your sadhana without allowing yourself to be inwardly
troubled under these circumstances, it will help to give you a much needed
strength; for the path of yoga is always beset with inner and outer
difficulties and the sadhak must develop a quiet, firm and solid strength to
meet them.
Your former sadhana was mostly on
the vital plane. The experiences of the vital plane are very interesting to the
sadhak but they are mixed, i.e., not all linked with the higher Truth. A
greater, purer and firmer basis for the sadhana has to be established − the
psychic basis. For that reason all the old experiences are stopped. The heart
has to be made the centre and through bhakti and aspiration you have to bring
forward the psychic being and enter into close touch with the Divine Shakti. If
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you can do this, your sadhana
will begin again with a better result.
It is evident that your sadhana
has been up till now in the mind – that is why you found it easy to concentrate
at the crown of the head, because the centre there directly commands the whole
mental range. The mind quieted and experiencing the effects of the sadhana
quieted the vital disturbance, but did not clear and change the vital nature.
Now the sadhana
seems to be descending into the vital to clear and change it. The first result
is that the difficulty of the vital has shown itself – the ugly images and
alarming dreams come from a hostile vital plane which is opposed to the
sadhana. From there also comes the renewal of the agitation, the disinclination
and resistance to the sadhana. This is not a going back to the old condition,
but the result of a pressure of the yoga-Force on the vital for change to which
there is a resistance.
It is this
descent of the sadhana to free the vital being that made you feel the necessity
of concentrating in the region of the heart; for in the region of the heart is
the psychic centre and below, behind the navel, is the vital centre. If these
two can be awakened and occupied by the yoga-Force, then the psychic
(Soul-Power) will command the vital range and purify the vital nature and
tranquillise it and turn it to the
Divine. It will be best if you are able to concentrate at will in the heart
region and at the crown of the head, for that gives a more complete power of
sadhana.
The other
experiences you have are the beginning of the change in the vital, e.g., peace
with yourself and those you thought had injured you, joy and freedom from all
worldly cares and desires and ambitions. These came too with a quieted mind,
but they can be fixed only when the vital is liberated and tranquillised.
Whatever
difficulties or troubles arise, the one thing is to go on quietly with full
faith in the Divine Power and the guidance, opening steadily and progressively
the whole being to the
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workings of the sadhana till all
becomes conscious and consenting to the needed change.
III
It is an oscillation due to
something in the resistant part (not the whole of it) being still dissatisfied
at the call to change. When any vital element is disappointed, dissatisfied,
called or compelled to change but not yet willing, it has the tendency to
create non-response or non-co-operation of the vital, leaving the physical dull
or insensible without the vital push. With the psychic pressure this remnant of
resistance will pass.
The vital may understand, but
that is not enough, it must wholeheartedly call for the peace and
transformation. There must be a large part of it unable to change its position
and give up its moods or its way of receiving things; otherwise these
depressions could not be so acute. There is no reason why you should not get
the peace, but this must change.
It seems to be some tamas or
inertia coming down on the system. It is sometimes like that when the vital
gets dissatisfied with the conditions or with what has been attained and
initiates a sort of non-co-operation or passive resistance, saying, “As I am
not satisfied, I won't take interest in anything or help you to do anything.”
It may be because I asked to stop meditating and to wait. The vital does not
like waiting. But I had to tell you that because of the burning of the centres,
the disturbance of sleep and the rest − these must go before you can
meditate in the right way and with success. If you meditate at all now, it
should be only in calm and peace with a very quiet aspiration for the divine
calm and peace to descend into you.
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It is also
perhaps due to your penchant for Nirvana. For the desire of Nirvana easily
brings this kind of collapse of the energies. Nirvana is not the aim of my
yoga – but whether for Nirvana or for this yoga, calm and peace in the whole
being are the necessary foundation of all siddhi.
I have always told you that you
ought not to stop your poetry and similar activities. It is a mistake to do so
out of asceticism or with the idea of tapasya. One can stop these things when
they drop of themselves, because one is full of experience and so interested in
one's inner life that one has no energy to spare for the rest. Even then, there
is no rule for giving up; for there is no reason why poetry etc. should not be
part of sadhana. The love of applause, the desire for fame, the ego-reaction
have to be given up, but that can be done without giving up the activity
itself. Your vital needs some activity – most vitals do − and to deprive
it of its outlet, an outlet that can be helpful and not harmful, makes it
sulking, indifferent and desponding or else inclined to revolt at any moment
and throw up the sponge. Without the assent of the vital it is difficult to do
sadhana – it non-co-operates, or it watches with a grim, even if silent
dissatisfaction ready to express at any moment doubt and denial; or it makes a
furious effort and then falls back saying: “I have got nothing.” The mind by
itself cannot do much, it must have support from the vital and for that the
vital must be in a cheerful and acquiescent state. It has the joy of creation
and there is nothing spiritually wrong in creative action. Why deny your vital
this joy of outflow?
I had already
hinted to you that to be able to wait for the Divine Grace (not in a tamasic
spirit but with sattwic reliance) was the best course for you. Prayer, yes −
but not prayer insisting on immediate fulfilment − but prayer that is
itself a communion of the mind and heart with the Divine and can have the joy
and satisfaction of itself, trusting for fulfilment by the Divine in his own
time. Meditation? Yes, but your meditation has got into a wrong āsana, that of an eager and
vehement wrestling followed by a bitter despair. It is no use getting on with
it like
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that: it is better to drop it
till you get a new āsana. (I am
referring to the old Rishis who established an āsana, a place and a fixed position, where they would sit
still till they got siddhi − but if the āsana got successfully
disturbed by wrong forces like Asuras, Apsaras etc., they left it and sought
for a new one.) Moreover, your meditation is lacking in quietude: you meditate
with a striving mind, but it is in the quiet mind that the experience comes, as
all yogis agree − the still water that reflects rightly the sun, the cup
made empty before the soma-rasa of
the spirit may be poured in it. Prepare the mind and heart till things begin to
flow into them in a spontaneous current when all is ready.
Yes, dryness comes usually when
the vital − here certainly the vital physical − dislikes a movement
or condition or the refusal of its desires and starts non-co-operation. But
sometimes it is a condition that has to be crossed through, e.g. the neutral or
dry quietude which sometimes comes when the ordinary movements have been thrown
out but nothing positive has yet come to take their place (e.g. peace, joy, a
higher knowledge or force and action).
The ordinary freshness, energy,
enthusiasm of the nature comes either from the vital, direct when it is
satisfying its own instincts and impulses, indirect when it co-operates with or
assents to the mental, physical or spiritual activities. If the vital resents,
there is revolt and struggles. If the vital no longer insists on its own
impulses and instincts but does not co-operate there is either dryness or a
neutral state. Dryness comes in when the vital is quiescent but passively
unwilling, not interested, the neutral state when it neither assents nor is
unwilling, – simply quiescent, passive. This, however, the neutral state can
deepen into positive calm and peace by a greater influx from above which keeps
the vital not only quiescent but at least passively acquiescent. With the active
interest and consent of the vital the peace becomes a
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glad or joyful peace or a strong
peace supporting and entering into action or active experience.
The vital can be all right when
things are going on swimmingly, but when difficulties become strong, it sinks
and lies supine. Also if a bait is held out to the vital ego, then it can
become enthusiastic and active.
It is because the vital was very
much under the grip of its desires and so, now that it is separately active,
not controlled by mental will, it kicks and cries whenever its desires are not
satisfied. That is an ordinary movement of the human vital when not dominated
and kept in its place by the mental will.
No doubt it was the silence – the
slight dryness must have been the reaction caused in the physical vital by the
“uninterest” in external things – because the physical vital depends very much
on this external interest. When it gets more accustomed to the silence, then
the dryness disappears.
The nervous being is under the
influence of the vital forces; when they are denied or pushed out, it becomes
depressed and wants to call them back – for it is accustomed to get the
pleasure and strength of life from the vital movements and not from the
spiritual or divine Force above.
The feeling of the desert comes
because of the resistance of the vital which wants life to be governed by
desire. If that is not
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allowed, it regards existence as
a desert and puts that impression on the mind. The Shakti in the heart is the
psychic Force.
Certainly it is better if the
vital is brought to the true movement – renouncing its wrong movements and
asking only for growth of the self-realisation, psychic love and psychicisation
of the nature. But it is possible to get rid from above of the more active
forms of obstruction even with a neutral vital.
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