Close Observation Can Identify the Influence of Vital Beings and Forces

One of the key points in any attempt to change one’s actions or reactions, one’s behaviour or characteristic ways of responding to situations, is to determine, through careful observation, that these things are not an essential part of oneself or one’s character; rather, that they are external to oneself, and thus, can be changed or dispensed with more easily than if one accepts their centrality in one’s own being.

One of the most powerful methods is to bifurcate the being inwardly and shift the stance of observation from the surface nature to what Sri Aurobindo calls the ‘witness consciousness’, the standpoint of the Purusha, observing the actions of the nature, Prakriti. The Purusha is unmoved and does not accept these actions as its own. It thus gains the power to deny, remove or modify that is not readily available when one feels bound up and intimately connected to the actions of the nature as essential components of one’s existence.

Once one attains the standpoint of the witness, however, even further understanding results. One begins to recognise that most, if not all, that one takes as one’s own decisions or reactions actually originates outside oneself. A vibration occurs and it strikes the consciousness, perhaps in a very subtle manner, enters into the being, sets off a ‘sympathetic’ vibration internally, which then can rise to the surface and suddenly we are reacting based on that vibrational pattern.

It is through this means that one can begin to recognise the action of vital forces and beings as they attempt to take control of one’s reactions. Sometimes one feels a ripple in one’s vital envelope as the vibrations work their way into the being. Sometimes it may register as a feeling of discomfort in the physical body. In other cases, it may become a nagging thought or idea that pushes one into a certain line of action. In many cases, the vibration is contrary to one’s own normal state of being, and thus, an observant ‘witness’ can spot the anomaly and recognise the foreign nature of the pressure. This understanding may take time to develop, through repeated inner attempts at observation.

Many people have taken up the practice of ‘mindfulness’ or vipassana. This practice requires the individual to undertake each action consciously, with full attention. it also means that every internal reaction or response needs to be observed and thus, it can potentially aid in gaining the observational leverage needed to spot the influx of the vital influences.

The Mother observes: “There it is a little easier to recognise the influence, for, if you are the least bit attentive, you become aware of something that has suddenly awakened within you. For example, those who are in the habit of losing their temper, if they have attempted ever so little to control their anger, they will find something coming from outside or rising from below which actually takes hold of their consciousness and arouses anger in them. I don’t mean that everybody is capable of this discernment; I am speaking of those who have tried to understand their being and control it. These adverse suggestions are easier to distinguish than, for instance, your response to the will or desire of a being who is of the same nature as yourself, another human being, who consequently acts on you without this giving you a clear impression of something coming from outside: the vibrations are too alike, too similar in their nature, and you have to be much more attentive and have a much sharper discernment to realise that these movements which seem to come out from you are not really yours but come from outside. But with the adverse forces, if you are in the least sincere and observe yourself attentively, you become aware that it is something in the being which is responding to an influence, an impulse, a suggestion, even something at times very concrete, which enters and produces similar vibrations in the being.”

“There, now. That is the problem.”

“The remedy?… It is always the same: goodwill, sincerity, insight, patience — oh! an untiring patience and a perseverance which assures you that what you have not succeeded in doing today, you will succeed in doing another time, and makes you go on trying until you do succeed.”

“And this brings us back to Sri Aurobindo’s sentence: if this control seems to you quite impossible today, well, that means that not only will it be possible, but that it will be realised later.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch. 3 Hidden Forces Around, pp. 61-62

The Unseen Societal Conditions That Frame Our Response to Events in Our Lives

Each society, each religion, each culture in the world has its own characteristic ideas and responses to the questions that arise during an individual’s life. Many of these are programmed into the individual in childhood, starting with prenatal conditioning based on the energies of the mother. Once the child is born, he is trained to accept the societal norms and modes of reaction to various circumstances, until these become an unspoken assumption that forms the basis of the individual’s life responses and judgments.

The human intellect actually expects to have certain frameworks and predetermined filters for the input it receives. This makes the process of deciding things much faster than if all the data and all the vibrational patterns had to be analyzed each time in order to come to any conclusions. Thus, the system has evolved in such a way that it speeds the ability of the individual to navigate his way through society. It should be noted that due to cultural differences, some of these life-ways that are ‘second nature’ to an individual in his own culture, are foreign to life in other cultures and simply do not translate well across cultural barriers. Language limitations also help create the framework within which the mind functions under normal circumstances. Between cultural and language frameworks, most individuals live their lives truly circumscribed within a specific set of boundaries, and these boundaries are unseen and unrecognised for the most part.

There are, of course, down sides to this filtering and framing process. While it may help to have certain “laws” or “axioms” as a starting point in mathematics or physics, it becomes less valuable in fields of human relations where these can turn into various forms of bias or prejudice, or preconceived notions about people based on their external appearance, dress or the accent they use in their expression of language. The famous story of My Fair Lady revolved around an English professor who could judge the ‘class’ of any individual based on their accent, word usage, slang, etc. He undertook to change the perception of a specific individual through training her to speak in a totally different mode. Obviously preconceived notions, bias and prejudice can create tremendous dislocations and disharmony in any society, breeding a fixed ‘class’ structure that also determines access to and allocation of resources.

From the point of view of yogic practice, one of the first requirements is for the seeker to become aware of this type of predetermined response built into the subconscious basis that rules much of their responses to life. Once aware of these things, the seeker can begin to take steps to overcome these inherent untested and unspoken assumptions and thereby, liberate himself from the bondage of the fixed habits of mind and the past which otherwise hinder his growth and development. One tool to do this is to consciously practice a method known as the “empty box”. In whatever situation the individual finds himself, instead of assuming he knows what do to and how to do it, he can step back and look at it with a fresh viewpoint as if nothing at all were fixed, and the situation is an “empty box” waiting for new creative insight for resolution of next steps to be taken.

The Mother observes: “When a being is born upon earth, he is inevitably born in a certain country and a certain environment. Due to his physical parents he is born in a set of social, cultural, national, sometimes religious circumstances, a set of habits of thinking, of understanding, of feeling, conceiving, all sorts of constructions which are at first mental, then become vital habits and finally material modes of being. To put things more clearly, you are born in a certain society or religion, in a particular country, and this society has a collective conception of its own and this nation has a collective conception of its own, this religion has a collective ‘construction’ of its own which is usually very fixed. You are born into it. Naturally, when you are very young, you are altogether unaware of it, but it acts on your formation — that formation, that slow formation through hours and hours, through days and days, experiences added to experiences, which gradually builds up a consciousness. You are underneath it as beneath a bell-glass. It is a kind of construction which covers and in a way protects you, but in other ways limits you considerably. All this you absorb without even being aware of it and this forms the subconscious basis of your own construction. This subconscious basis will act on you throughout your life, if you do not take care to free yourself from it. And to free yourself from it, you must first of all become aware of it; and the first step is the most difficult, for this formation was so subtle, it was made when you were not yet a conscious being, when you had just fallen altogether dazed from another world into this one (laughing) and it all happened without your participating in the least in it. Therefore, it does not even occur to you that there could be something to know there, and still less something you must get rid of. And it is quite remarkable that when for some reason or other you do become aware of the hold of this collective suggestion, you realise at the same time that a very assiduous and prolonged labour is necessary in order to get rid of it. But the problem does not end there.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch. 3 Hidden Forces Around, pp. 58-59

Our Physical, Vital and Mental Sheathes Are Impacted by Energetic Forces in a Constant State of Interchange

We tend to live with an illusion of the separateness of our individual being from all others. We treat the physical body as a distinct, self-standing unit that is free and independent, has its own integrity and is essentially isolated in its separateness. This however is not quite the actuality of our situation.

Instead of being a protected island in the world, our body is actually more of a permeable membrane, taking in energy, vibrational patterns, as well as physical air, food and drink, and releasing back out again physical waste from our breathing mechanism, sweat, and excretions of food and drink wastes, etc. In addition to the physical interchange, we also send out vibrations and energies so that the process is a two-way interchange, all the time.

Kirlian photography has shown evidence of an energy body surrounding our physical body, which many call the ‘aura’. This energy body is the first line of defense against suggestions of illness for instance. When it is strong and whole, it can help to withstand physical, vital and even mental influences. At the same time, if there is any receptivity to the vibration, it takes up that energetic force and carries it inward to be accepted by the individual and have its impact awaken within, in many cases without the individual knowing how it came about.

If we focus for a moment on the vibrational patterns, we can see that the interchange means that we can be subject to the feelings, emotions, willings of others. Many people report feeling “drained” after meeting a certain individual or spending time in a certain environment. Others feel enthused, energized in other places. We can see crowds of people align their energies through identification with the speaker, or the team or the cheer-squad. All of this evidences a receptivity to the vibrations and an active intake of them, whether unconsciously or consciously, as the case may be.

Thought forms and exercises of silent will power have a similar impact on the mental ‘stuff’ of our nature. We can sometimes enter a research facility or a library and feel the concentrated mental energy that is active in that space. Those who attend lectures by spiritual leaders frequently remark on the intensity of the atmosphere as the concentration in the air impacts their own mental awareness.

A disciple asks: What is the nature of these influences from outside? Could you give us an explanation of their working?

The Mother writes: “Naturally, these influences are of very diverse kinds. They may be studied from a psychological point of view or from an almost mechanical standpoint, the one usually translating the other, that is, the mechanical phenomenon occurs as a sort of result of the psychological one.”

“In very few people, and even in the very best at very rare moments in life, does the will of the being express that deep inner, higher truth.”

(After a silence Mother continues:) “The individual consciousness extends far beyond the body; we have seen that even the subtle physical which is yet material compared with the vital being and in certain conditions almost visible, extends at times considerably beyond the visible limits of the physical body. This subtle physical is constituted of active vibrations which enter into contact or mingle with the vibrations of the subtle physical of others, and this reciprocal contact gives rise to influences — naturally the most powerful vibrations get the better of the others. For example, as I have already told you several times, if you have a thought, this thought clothes itself in subtle vibrations and becomes an entity which travels and moves about in the earth-atmosphere in order to realise itself as best it can, and because it is one among millions, naturally there is a multiple and involved interaction as a result of which things don’t take place in such a simple and schematic fashion.”

“What you call yourself, the individual being enclosed within the limits of your present consciousness, is constantly penetrated by vibrations of this kind, coming from outside and very often presenting themselves in the form of suggestions, in the sense that, apart from a few exceptions, the action takes place first in the mental field, then becomes vital, then physical. I want to make it clear that it is not a question of the pure mind here, but of the physical mind; for in the physical consciousness itself there is a mental activity, a vital activity and a purely material activity, and all that takes place in your physical consciousness, in your body consciousness and bodily activity, penetrates first in the form of vibrations of a mental nature, and so in the form of suggestions. Most of the time these suggestions enter you without your being in the least conscious of them; they go in, awaken some sort of response in you, then spring up in your consciousness as though they were your own thought, your own will, your own impulse; but it is only because you are unconscious of the process of their penetration.”

“These suggestions are very numerous, manifold, varied, with natures which are very, very different from each other, but they may be classified into three principal orders. First — and they are hardly perceptible to the ordinary consciousness; they become perceptible only to those who have already reflected much, observed much, deeply studied their own being — they are what could be called collective suggestions.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch. 3 Hidden Forces Around, pp. 56-58