Mindfulness, Conscious Attention and the Harmonious Development of the Body

There is a discipline that asks an individual to focus on conscious attention to each thought, each emotion and each movement he makes, through a process called ‘mindfulness’. This is intended primarily to center the individual’s mind and attention and focus the person on the present moment rather than having the mind jumping in all different directions. The process however can also be utilized proactively as part of a development of physical culture, the use of conscious attention to strengthen the physical being and bring its activity into a harmonious and consistent movement.

There is in fact a considerable discipline including the use of such techniques for helping children become conscious of and develop their physical nature, and indeed their entire vital, emotional and mental being, in a positive way. Dr. Becky Bailey developed a systematic methodology that she teaches called the Conscious Discipline Methodology. While the technique was originally developed for use in the classroom, it has expanded over the last several decades into a comprehensive program that supports childhood education using evidence from study in developmental psychology and in brain science research.

It is clear from the evidence that harnessing the power of the mind to consciously carry out the body’s activities can lead to more complete, more powerful and more harmonious development than the normal mostly unconscious actions that dominate our daily lives.

The Mother observes: “But you only have to try it, you will understand very well what I mean. For instance, all the movements you make when dressing, taking your bath, tidying your room… no matter what; make them consciously, with the will that this muscle should work, that muscle should work. You will see, you will obtain really amazing results.”
“Going up and down stairs — you cannot imagine how useful that can be from the point of view of physical culture, if you know how to make use of it. Instead of going up because you are going up and coming down because you are coming down, like any ordinary man, you go up with the consciousness of all the muscles which are working and of making them work harmoniously. You will see. Just try a little, you will see! This means that you can use all the movements of your life for a harmonious development of your body.”

“You bend down to pick something up, you stretch up to find something right at the top of a cupboard, you open a door, you close it, you have to go round an obstacle, there are a hundred and one things you do constantly and which you can make use of for your physical culture and which will demonstrate to you that it is the consciousness you put into it which produces the effect, a hundred times more than just the material fact of doing it. So, you choose the method you like best, but you can use the whole of your daily life in this way…. To think constantly of the harmony of the body, of the beauty of the movements, of not doing anything that is ungraceful and awkward. You can obtain a rhythm of movement and gesture which is very exceptional.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter V Will-Power, pp. 52-53

To Learn How To Will

If one looks deeply at one’s attempts to utilize will-power to accomplish any task, to bring about some change in one’s being, or to develop in some direction, it quickly becomes apparent that there are elements within our own being that are not supporting the focus, intensity and direction that one is trying to bring about. The will is in the mind, but the vital nature or the physical being are resistant or simply not interested. They want to continue along their habitual lines of activity, and do not see the necessity or urgency in accomplishing the change that is desired by the mind. Or there are different aspects of the mind itself that may hold opposing and quite contradictory ideas. One may at the same time have a great aspiration for spiritual growth, and be tied down by ideas of success in a career or in developing a romantic relationship, or in simply enjoying oneself without concern. In some cases we see a spiritual aspiration dulled and restrained by the idea that one should not make any efforts at all, that everything is preordained and one simply needs to let happen whatever is intended to happen.

The Mother makes it clear that the issue is primarily one of harmonizing and unifying the different parts of the being so that they are all aligned to the same goal, purpose and effort. She even goes so far as to point out that until one is able to shape oneself around a will, that there is nothing stable that can make any clear and definitive decisions and carry them out. In the normal external life, this generally takes place by unification around the ego-personality. As an individual takes up a focus on spiritual growth, the organization and unification takes place through the psychic being coming forward and taking up a central role in the individual’s life.

The Mother writes: “To learn how to will is a very important thing. And to will truly, you must unify your being. In fact, to be a being, one must first unify oneself. If one is pulled by absolutely opposite tendencies, if one spends three-fourths of his life without being conscious of himself and the reasons why he does things, is one a real being? One does not exist. One is a mass of influences, movements, forces, actions, reactions, but one is not a being. One begins to become a being when he begins to have a will. And one can’t have a will unless he is unified.”

“And when you have a will, you will be able to say, say to the Divine: ‘I want what You want.’ But not before that. Because in order to want what the Divine wants, you must have a will, otherwise you can will nothing at all. You would like to. You would like it very much. You would very much like to want what the Divine wants to do. You don’t possess a will to give to Him and to put at His service. Something like that, gelatinous, like jelly-fish… there… a mass of good wills — and I am considering the better side of things and forgetting the bad wills — a mass of good wills, half-conscious and fluctuating.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter V Will-Power, pp. 49-50

How to Utilize Will-Power Effectively

Most people have very little idea about how to utilize will-power effectively, because they don’t fully understand what will-power actually is and how it needs to be focused and concentrated. Essentially will-power is the function that concentrates the ‘signal’ while reducing the ‘noise’ in a transmission of energy. It is like the difference between a laser beam and a light bulb. Using this image, we find that most people fail to fully focus the energy they are putting out and thus, it is diffused and the energy is dispersed without a strong functional effect. When they put their full attention and concentrated force into the will, it becomes like the laser beam, capable of accomplishing things that the normal light bulb cannot do. Learning how to concentrate in this way involves regular practice, an actual exercise of will, until it becomes a palpable force capable of achieving its aim.

The Mother notes: “But one doesn’t know how to will it. In fact one doesn’t even want to. These are velleities: ‘Well, it is like this…. It would be good if it were like that… yes, it would be better if it were like that…yes, it would be preferable if it were like that.’ But this is not to will. And always there at the back, hidden somewhere in a corner of the brain, is something which is looking on and saying, ‘Oh, why should I want that? After all one can as well want the opposite.’ And to try, you see… Not like that, just wait… But one can always find a thousand excuses to do the opposite. And ah, just a tiny little wavering is enough… pfft… the thing swoops down and there it is. But if one wills, if one really knows that this is the thing, and truly wants this, and if one is oneself entirely concentrated in the will, I say that there is nothing in the world that can prevent one from doing it, from doing it or being obliged to do it. It depends on what it is.”

“One wants. Yes, one wants, like this (gestures). One wants: ‘Yes, yes, it would be better if it were like that. Yes, it would be finer also, more elegant.’… But, eh, eh, after all one is a weak creature, isn’t that so? And then one can always put the blame upon something else: ‘It is the influence coming from outside, it is all kinds of circumstances.”

“The breath has passed, you see. You don’t know… something… a moment of unconsciousness… ‘Oh, I was not conscious.’ You are not conscious because you do not accept… And all this because one doesn’t know how to will.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter V Will-Power, pg. 49

The Exercise of Will-Power and the Role of Sincerity in Implementation

Most people have had the experience. They decide to try a new diet or exercise regimen. They stick with it a few days or weeks and then it seems to get overlooked, forgotten or abandoned. Other things got in the way, or else, the impulses caused them to weaken their resolve. How many times people decide to cut out between meal snacks, only to find themselves following the old habit?

Why does this happen? While we tend to believe that once we ‘make up our mind’ about something that we can carry it out, we fail to account for the different parts of our being that have their own needs, desires and pressures to effectuate those desires. The mind may decide on a course of action, but the vital being and the physical being disagree.

It is only when all the parts of the being are in alignment on a particular goal or action that it can be put into practice in a complete way. The Mother calls this ‘sincerity’. Without this type of sincerity, we are pushed and pulled in various directions, we give way to divergent pressures and drives, and we find our good intentions overturned when the vital nature or the body assert their separate directions.

A disciple asks: “Sweet Mother, how can we make our resolution very firm?”

The Mother observes: “By wanting it to be very firm! (Laughter)”

“No, this seems like a joke… but it is absolutely true. One does not want it truly. There is always, if you… It is a lack of sincerity. If you look sincerely, you will see that you have decided that it will be like this, and then, beneath there is something which has not decided at all and is waiting for the second of hesitation in order to rush forward. If you are sincere, if you are sincere and get hold of the part which is hiding, waiting, not showing itself, which knows that there will come a second of indecision when it can rush out and make you do the thing you have decided not to do…”

“But if you really want it, nothing in the world can prevent you from doing what you want. It is because one doesn’t know how to will it. It is because one is divided in one’s will. If you are not divided in your will, I say that nothing, nobody in the world can make you change your will.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter V Will-Power, pp. 48-49

The Deeper Meaning of Will-Power

We speak generally about exercising will-power, particularly when it relates to overcoming an impulsion or attempting to achieve some particular result. We may want to overcome an addiction, or follow a particular diet and we struggle to carry out our resolve. We make ‘new year’s resolutions’ to create a form of will for the upcoming year, to somehow improve ourselves in some way from our current status. All of these involve making a substantial effort and in most cases, we wind up either failing, partially or wholly, or else, we wind up suppressing an impulse and eventually having to encounter it in a much more powerful form when it can no longer be contained. Sri Aurobindo describes this generally as “willings” not an act of “will”.

In the deepest sense, the ‘will’ is an expression of a truth of existence, the manifestation of that truth and knowledge into a form in a particular domain or world. It comes from the ultimate reality, which is termed Sat-Chit-Ananda, Existence, Consciousness, Bliss. The will is associated with the aspect of consciousness and thus, Sri Aurobindo utilizes the term chit-shakti to show both the static and dynamic aspects of that truth. The Truth has the dynamic power of realization associated with it, automatically and completely, without straining or a failing effort as we see in our human attempts to enforce our will in the external world in some way.

Sri Aurobindo writes in his Thoughts and Glimpses: “When we have passed beyond willings, then we shall have Power. Effort was the helper, Effort is the bar.”

The Mother elaborates: “And he contrasts these ‘willings’ — that is, all these superficial wills, often opposite and contradictory and without any lasting basis because they are founded on what he calls a ‘knowing’ and not on knowledge — with the true will. These willings are necessarily fragmentary, passing, and often in opposition to one another, and this is what gives to the individual life and even to the collective its nature of incoherence, inconsistency and confusion…. The word ‘will’ is normally reserved to indicate what comes from the deeper being or the higher reality and what expresses in action the true knowledge which Sri Aurobindo has contrasted with knowings. So, when this will which expresses the true knowledge manifests in action, it manifests through the intervention of a deep and direct power which no longer requires any effort. And that is why Sri Aurobindo says here that the true power for action cannot come until one has gone beyond the stage of willings, that is, until the motive of action is the result not of a mere mental activity but of true knowledge.”

“True knowledge acting in the outer being gives true power.”

“This seems to be an explanation, the real explanation of that very familiar saying which is not understood in its essence but expresses a truth: ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way’, to will is to have the power. It is quite obvious that this does not refer to ‘willings’, that is, to the more or less incoherent expression of desires but to the true will expressing a true knowledge; for this true will carries in itself the force of truth which gives power — an invincible power. And so, when one expresses ‘willings’, to be able to apply them in life and make them effective, some effort must come in — it is through personal effort that one progresses, and it is through effort that one imposes one’s willings upon life to make it yield to their demands — but when they are no longer willings, when it is the true will expressing the true knowledge, effort is no longer required, for the power is omnipotent.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter V Will-Power, pp. 47-48

Developing Will-Power

When we are interested in something we naturally focus on that to the exclusion of other distractions. Time passes and we do not notice it. Things that would ordinarily engage our attention are disregarded. This power of ‘one pointed’ concentration is however elusive when it arises just out of natural interest. If we try to engage this power of concentration in other aspects of our lives, we find it is not so easy. The primary issue is one of distraction, and again, the distractions arise through various parts of the being seeking their own interests and forms of fulfillment.

What is true for the power of concentration is also true for the exercise of the will. The major issue in forming and maintaining a will to accomplish something, to do something or to avoid doing something is the issue of distraction, of having multiple different objects before us that move our attention away from the specific act of will. For the most part, this is due to the diverse nature of the different parts of the being and their various forms of fulfillment in their ordinary state. Thus, the body may seek rest or food, the vital may be trying to fulfill some type of desire, the mind may be interested in some subject other than the one that is the subject of the will. 

As long as these various aims and objectives are active and move the being in one direction or another, in some cases quite randomly and inconsistently, we cannot implement a will, even if, in our central being, we are awake to the aspiration and want to consecrate our being to the divine intention. In order to accomplish this we must then find a way to obtain the consent and adherence of all the parts of the being around this central aspiration.

The Mother notes: ”To learn how to will is a very important thing. And to will truly, you must unify your being. In fact, to be a being, one must first unify oneself. If one is pulled by absolutely opposite tendencies, if one spends three-fourths of his life without being conscious of himself and the reasons why he does things, is one a real being? One does not exist. One is a mass of influences, movements, forces, actions, reactions, but one is not a being. One begins to become a being when he begins to have a will. And one can’t have a will unless he is unified.”

“And when you have a will, you will be able to say, say to the Divine: ’I want what You want.’ But not before that. Because in order to want what the Divine wants, you must have a will, otherwise you can will nothing at all. You would like to . You would like it very much. You would very much like to want what the Divine wants to do. You don’t possess a will to give to Him and to put at His service. Something like that, gelatinous, like jelly-fish… there… a mass of good wills — and I am considering the better side of things and forgetting the bad wills — a mass of good wills, half-conscious and fluctuating.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 6, Some Answers and Explanations, pp. 197-198

The Body’s Will to Health Is the True Cure of Illness

Most people associate the will-power with the mind. We concentrate on achieving something and we “set our mind to it” and exercise our will. When the issue turns to overcoming vital habits or bodily weaknesses, however, we find that the mental will is much less effective, and in many cases, we try to resort to various methods of brute force to gain control over them. What we fail to recognise in all of this is that the mental will is most effective on the mental plane, but that there are also a vital will and a physical will. When we say someone is being “willful” we generally are referring to a vital action that goes contrary to our mental conception of how things should be.

The mental will and the vital will, through their interaction with the physical body, can have an impact on health, yet, in the end, it is the body’s own will that determines health. Most people do not consider the body and its cells to be conscious and therefore able to have an expression of “will”. They look on the body purely as a type of ‘machinery’. Yet if we examine the body more closely, we see activities that go beyond simple machinery, and of course, the ‘machinery’ view only goes so far before it breaks down. Clearly it is not the mind that created the machinery nor can it control the machinery at the cellular level. Similarly, the vital force, while it animates the physical body, clearly is not the designer and developer of the cellular action. The mind does not direct cells on how to carry out their specific functions, nor does the vital.

At the cellular level, there are numerous functions that indicate a level of intelligence and self-direction such as the ability of cells to assimilate and then produce energy, the action of the immune cells, the coding and replication of the detailed cellular structures and function, the interactive nature of the different organs to coordinate together to create a living being, etc. The regular action of the immune system is clearly an expression of the body’s will to health. It is aided by the protective action of the vital sheath, or aura, but when once an illness gets inside that envelope, it is the immune system that takes up the effort to restore the health. Medicines applied from outside are adjuncts or aids to the body’s own resistance to disease or illness.

In The Mother’s Agenda, the Mother goes into a deep, and experiential review, of the cellular action and the aspiration and intentionality that takes place at the cellular level. As part of this review, she makes clear that external treatments or medicines only go a certain distance toward restoring and maintaining health: it is the internal cellular response, the ‘will’ in the cells, that is the true source of health and vibrant energy.

The Mother notes: “Wake up in yourself a will to conquer. Not a mere will in the mind but a will in the very cells of your body. Without that you can’t do anything; you may take a hundred medicines but they won’t cure you unless you have a will to overcome the physical illness.”

“The body is cured if it has decided to be cured.”

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, Living Within: The Yoga Approach to Psychological Health and Growth, Disturbances of the Body and Physical Consciousness, Will, Discipline, Endurance, pp. 88-90