Integral Yoga Method for Attaining Mastery Over the Force of Desire in the Lower Vital Nature

Humanity develops habits of response that tend to become ingrained in almost all approaches to any particular topic. This is found to be especially true when it comes to the question of religious dedication and spiritual aspiration. The default response to religious or spiritual devotion has historically been to give up, abandon, the focus on life in the material world. Whether it is the renunciate or the monk, or life in the desert, the cave, the monastery, cloister, ashram or abbey, humanity has created a fixed and habitual way of addressing the issue, to such a degree that this approach is rarely, if ever, challenged.

This habit is based on the mind-set that treats the physical being as the basis and the development of mental, religious and spiritual impulses as a development that seeks to transcend the physical body. This has led to many experiments such as extreme fasting, vows of silence, ascetic bareness, vows of poverty and other ways of making a clean break from the physical, material life to one of spiritual focus. People have experienced clear benefits from these approaches, which has led to their becoming embedded in the spiritual and religious development in the first place.

Sri Aurobindo’s approach represents a different, more nuanced approach to the issues, inasmuch as he sets the objective, not as the abandonment of life, but the upliftment and transformation of life. The need for focus on the spiritual effort remains, but all of these longstanding methods have to be looked at with a new understanding and from a perspective based on transformation rather than escape from the life of the world.

A devotee, living at Sri Aurobindo Ashram some years ago, recounted an experiment he made for a period of time. He determined to adopt a vow of silence to gain some control over the force of speech and the energy that was dispersed in idle talk on a day to day basis. He adopted carrying a notebook and pen with him to respond to people. The discipline helped keep him focused on the internal process. Yet he felt that he needed to adapt the vow of silence to allow him to carry out the tasks he was given as part of the ashram community. He thus adopted the process of speaking to the extent it was directly related to the work he was assigned, and then only the absolutely necessary speech, while refraining from all ‘social’ speech. He carried on this experiment for a period of some months and learned a great deal about the impulsion to speak and the habitual patterns of interaction. He also gained an insight about the use of the vow of silence itself and how it would need to be modified for an individual who did not want to cut the use of speech entirely.

Similar review could lead to a change from extreme fasting to a careful understanding of the actual needs of the body and life energy and a tailoring of the food intake to meet those needs without indulgence in the desires of the palate, the social habits of taking meals, the cravings of the lower vital nature or going to the extreme of fixating so much on this process of understanding that it becomes a distraction of its own..

Instead of avoidance of money and its power, the devotee could accept money from the standpoint of the trustee who does not assert ownership over the money. Money could flow to carry out activities that enhance the well-being of people and the balance of the environment, as well as bringing beauty, harmony and enrichment to life, without any sense of self-aggrandisement or individual ego-satisfaction.

All of these modified approaches imply a more conscious and subtle approach to both accomplish the objective and avoid creation of an excuse for indulgence. The practitioner needs to be inwardly awake and totally dedicated to the spiritual quest to align himself with the divine Will rather than the promptings of the ego-personality.

Sri Aurobindo writes: “If you want to do Yoga, you must take more and more in all matters, small or great, the Yogic attitude. In our path that attitude is not one of forceful suppression, but of detachment and equality with regard to the objects of desire. Forceful suppression (fasting comes under the head) stands on the same level as free indulgence; in both cases, the desire remains: in the one it is fed by indulgence; in the other it lies latent and exasperated by suppression. It is only when one stands back, separates oneself from the lower vital, refusing to regard its desires and clamours as one’s own, and cultivates an entire equality and equanimity in the consciousness with respect to them that the lower vital itself becomes gradually purified and itself also calm and equal. Each wave of desire as it comes must be observed, as quietly and with as much unmoved detachment as you would observe something going on outside you, and must be allowed to pass, rejected from the consciousness, and the true movement, the true consciousness steadily put in its place.”

Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 4, Desire — Food — Sex, pg. 65

Distinguishing Vital or Mental Desire or Demand from Aspiration of the Psychic Being

Desire can take many forms, some of them subtle, inasmuch as they are linked to prayer and thus seem to confirm the aspiration. There is a subtle form of bargaining that can take place where the dedication of the seeker is tied to the Divine providing a specific anticipated form of realisation, support or result. In some cases this is couched in such a way as to make it seem that the bargaining is so that the individual can better carry out the Divine Will, as the individual understands it. This is a form of desire that stems from the mental or vital part of the nature, not directly from the soul or psychic being.

If we look carefully at the form that the aspiration or prayer takes, it is actually not too difficult to distinguish those that either originate in the mental or vital being, or which are at least influenced and colored by them. The psychic formation of aspiration is pure, undemanding, quiet and receptive and ready to give itself to the Divine without preconditions.

This implies that the seeker also does not have expectation about a particular form, type or time for a result to be given. The Divine acts according to his own light and his own time and the psychic being accepts that without impatience, disturbance or any loss of faith.

Sri Aurobindo notes: “Demand and desire are only two different aspects of the same thing — nor is it necessary that a feeling should be agitated or restless to be a desire; it can be, on the contrary, quietly fixed and persistent or persistently recurrent. Demand or desire comes from the mental or the vital, but a psychic or spiritual need is a different thing. The psychic does not demand or desire — it aspires; it does not make conditions for its surrender or withdraw if its aspiration is not immediately satisfied — for the psychic has complete trust in the Divine or in the Guru and can wait for the right time or the hour of the Divine Grace. The psychic has an insistence of its own, but it puts its pressure not on the Divine, but on the nature, placing a finger of light on all the defects there that stand in the way of the realisation, sifting out all that is mixed, ignorant or imperfect in the experience or in the movements of the Yoga and never satisfied with itself or with the nature till it has got it perfectly open to the Divine, free from all forms of ego, surrendered, simple and right in the attitude and all the movements. This is what has to be established entirely in the mind and vital and in the physical consciousness before supramentalisation of the whole nature is possible. Otherwise what one gets is more or less brilliant, half-luminous, half-cloudy illuminations and experiences on the mental and vital and physical planes inspired either from some larger mind or larger vital or at the best from the mental reaches above the human that intervene between the intellect and the Overmind. These can be very stimulating and satisfying up to a certain point and are good for those who want some spiritual realisation on these planes; but the supramental realisation is something much more difficult and exacting in its conditions and the most difficult of all is to bring it down to the physical level.”

Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 4, Desire — Food — Sex, pp. 62-63

Suppression or Rejection of the Force of Desire

When an individual takes up religious or spiritual practices, he becomes aware of the force of desire and the need to curb it. In some cases, particularly in religious pursuits, there are a set of moral rules or monastic rules that provide set guidelines for the practitioner. Usually these things revolve around control of the impulse for sex in some manner, including potentially complete abstinence. In other cases, there are vows of silence, vows of poverty, reliance on divine providence through the practice of eating just what comes into the begging bowl that day, as well as in many cases rules about fasting, or taking meals only at certain times, under certain conditions, etc. Each religious order has its own unique set of rules for followers to carry out. In some cases, particularly in some of the more austere monastic orders, the ‘desires of the flesh’ lead to emotional and mental distress and various self-torture methods are used to discipline the body for its continued cravings. The general practice is to use will-power, mental control, or some kind of vital practice to suppress the desire. This can, however, lead to unintended and unexpected consequences, as suppression does not get to the true solution of the issue, but simply hides the issue for the time being. The sexual abuse scandals rocking so many churches are evidence that moral rules and suppression of desire simply do not work for most people.

When the seeker begins to understand the universal nature of the forces that provoke the rising of desire, and they see that the desires are external to them, simply being admitted and accepted by habit or by the normal and trained responses one gets in the society as one grows and develops, the issue becomes somewhat simpler to resolve, although serious effort must still be made to reject the desire as, or even before, it arises and begins to move the body, vital energy and mind to realise itself in an overt action.

One of the most effective methods turns out to be shifting the attention away from the energy center that is receiving the vibration that is interpreted as a desire. The individual takes the standpoint of the witness of the nature and rather than give in to the force that is trying to move him, he shifts his attention to his spiritual pursuits, or to his deepest aspiration.

Sri Aurobindo observes: “The rejection of desire is essentially the rejection of the element of craving, putting that out from the consciousness itself as a foreign element not belonging to the true self and the inner nature. But refusal to indulge the suggestions of desire is also a part of the rejection; to abstain from the action suggested, if it is not the right action, must be included in the Yogic discipline. It is only when this is done in the wrong way, by a mental ascetic principle or a hard moral rule, that it can be called suppression. The difference between suppression and an inward essential rejection is the difference between mental or moral control and a spiritual purification.”

“When one lives in the true consciousness one feels the desires outside oneself, entering from outside, from the universal lower Prakriti, into the mind and the vital parts. In the ordinary human condition this is not felt; men become aware of the desire only when it is there, when it has come inside and found a lodging or a habitual harbourage and so they think it is their own and a part of themselves. The first condition for getting rid of desire is, therefore, to become conscious with the true consciousness; for then it becomes much easier to dismiss it than when one has to struggle with it as if it were a constituent part of oneself to be thrown out from the being. It is easier to cast off an accretion than to excise what is felt as a parcel of our substance.”

“When the psychic being is in front, then also to get rid of desire becomes easy; for the psychic being has in itself no desires, it has only aspirations and a seeking and love for the Divine and all things that are or tend towards the Divine. The constant prominence of the psychic being tends of itself to bring out the true consciousness and set right almost automatically the movements of the nature.”

Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 4, Desire — Food — Sex, pp. 61-62

Where Do Desires Come From?

We feel a desire and try to fulfil it. It may be a desire or craving for some type of food or drink, or for a particular object of material enjoyment, or it may be a sexual desire, or a desire for companionship, excitement, or any other vital drive that wells up in us. In some cases we try to satisfy that desire. In other cases, we determine we would like to rid ourselves of that desire, not fulfill it, and be at peace without whatever it is that we crave. Most people do not think twice about it and simply try to satisfy the desire, if they have the capacity and opportunity to do so, or harbor a feeling of lack, or regret, or insufficiency if they do not find a way to do so.

Many times we struggle with the desires, such as when we make resolutions, go on a diet, or attempt to change some aspect of our response to the rising of desire. The struggle is generally intense as we feel like the desire ‘belongs’ to us and we feel like it is part of ‘who we are’. We identify with our external ego-personality and believe we are exercising free will in the choices we make, and we blame ourselves for lacking the will-power needed to overcome the force of desire when we determine it is contrary to something else we want to have or achieve.

If we shift our standpoint, however, it becomes much easier to deal with the force of desire. The ego personality is like a water glass submerged in the ocean of existence. We believe that the unique contents of our water glass means we are separate and distinct from the rest of the ocean, when in reality, the same ocean exists both outside the perimeter of the glass and inside, with ocean water constantly flowing in and out of the glass.

If we look at our ego-personality with a similar viewpoint we begin to see that what we believe are desires created within ourselves are really a response by our ‘receiving apparatus’ to waves that move through the universal Nature. The response to desire then becomes a matter of how we respond to these external promptings. Once we recognise that they do not belong to us, it becomes easier to simply turn the attention elsewhere and focus on something other than that particular wave of force that is creating a reaction within our awareness.

Sri Aurobindo writes: “All the ordinary vital movements are foreign to the true being and come from outside; they do not belong to the soul nor do they originate in it but are waves from the general Nature, Prakriti.”

“The desires come from outside, enter the subconscious vital and rise to the surface. It is only when they rise to the surface and the mind becomes aware of them, that we become conscious of the desire. It seems to us to be our own because we feel it thus rising from the vital into the mind and do not know that it came from outside. What belongs to the vital, to the being, what makes it responsible is not the desire itself, but the habit of responding to the waves or the currents of suggestion that come into it from the universal Prakriti.”

Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 4, Desire — Food — Sex, pg. 61