The practitioner of the integral yoga has set before himself the change of what we consider to be basic human nature, the established workings and principles of action of the body, the life-force and the mind. These elements have developed over countless millennia as part of the evolutionary process of Nature. Many of them have been considered foundational principles of the physical body and the life energy. Effectuating any change therefore requires a process and a force that goes beyond our mental will.
In his book The Mother, Sri Aurobindo details this process and identifies this force: “There are two powers that alone can effect in their conjunction the great and difficult thing which is the aim of our endeavour, a fixed and unfailing aspiration that calls from below and a supreme Grace from above that answers.” He continues: “In Yoga also it is the Divine who is the Sadhaka and the Sadhana; it is his Shakti with her light, power, knowledge, consciousness, Ananda, acting upon the Adhara and, when it is opened to her, pouring into it with these divine forces that makes the Sadhana possible.”
Whether we are looking at the complex of elements that go into the sex impulse, or the greed for food, or the rising of anger, or any other aspect of the being that needs to change, the basic process is the same. The seeker can most effectively bring about change by first, not accepting the movement as something that is an essential part of himself. Then opening himself to the higher force and letting it work in him to change the direction and flow of the energy, and finally, by rejecting the contrary actions when they try to reassert themselves.
Much of this starts from the basic standpoint. Most people start out with the idea that we are human beings who are born and grow and develop our physical, vital and mental skills to function in the external world. In other words, we are bodies, who, at some point, may begin a search for a meaning in life beyond the external satisfactions, needs and pleasures, and who may, then search for the soul, or some other aspect that transcends the external life. Few are those who recognise that we are not a “body with a soul” but a “soul with a body”. If we shift the standpoint to the central focus of the soul, its innate connection to the Divine, and its deeper understanding of its meaning and purpose in life, and that the soul takes on a particular body, life and mind complex to advance its purpose, the idea of gaining mastery over this external being is much easier to accept and realize.
Sri Aurobindo writes: “The trouble of the sex-impulse is bound to dwindle away if you are in earnest about getting rid of it. The difficulty is that part of your nature (especially, the lower vital and the subconscient which is active in sleep) keeps the memory and attachment to these movements, and you do not open these parts and make them accept the Mother’s Light and Force to purify them. If you did that and, instead of lamenting and getting troubled and clinging to the idea that you cannot get rid of these things, insisted quietly with a calm faith and patient resolution on their disappearance, separating yourself from them, refusing to accept them or at all regard them as part of yourself, they would after a time lose their force and dwindle.”
Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 4, Desire — Food — Sex, pg. 78
Sri Aurobindo Studies 