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

The Mental Will and Its Influence on the Health and Well-Being of the Body

By now most people have heard of the ‘placebo effect’. Yet, they have not gone into the significance of what this implies. Studies have shown that as much as 30% of a group given an ‘inert’ treatment have similar healing outcomes to those given an actual targeted treatment. The individual given the placebo does not know he has received an inert treatment. The mind of the individual adopted the sense of being aided and undertook to create a will to heal. What this statistic does not do, however, is provide information on what percent of those who actually received the targeted drug or other type of treatment were benefited by a similar “will to heal” regardless of whether the drug or treatment was helping them or not! It has become clear that the mind, the mental will, plays an enormous role in the healing of the body.

On the flip side of this healing scenario there is the question of hypochondria, where the mind imagines that the body is suffering from some disease or disease condition and through dwelling on it, the body actually responds and exhibits symptoms of illness. There is also the factor of fear weakening the vital envelope and thus, allowing entrance to a communicable disease. The mind accepts the suggestions about the disease, manifests the fear, and thus, the disease becomes something of a self-fulfilling prophecy!

We can also observe different results depending on the intention of the individual. Thus, an individual may undertake a fast, start a diet regimen, or simply not have food available, and thus, be subject to starvation. In all 3 cases the individual is not eating. Those who are fasting with intention tend to report an increase in energy and focus. Those who are dieting tend to report a struggle to maintain the diet while working to overcome temptation, with a focus on the process not the ‘side effect’ of increased clarity that the fasting individual reports. The person without food suffers from starvation and focuses on the ways to acquire sustenance. Of course, when any discipline, such as fasting or dieting is taken to extremes it can have negative consequences on the body similar to that of starvation, but that is an extreme result. In the short term, 3 individuals, none of them eating food, have 3 different results and mental frameworks, and their bodies tend to respond differently.

In his Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda described meeting with certain individuals who ate very little, or nothing at all, for various spans of time. These individuals had a spiritual purpose, a strong energetic action and a radiant glow about them despite not relying on material sustenance.

We tend to believe the mental conception that the body requires physical sustenance and thus, we expect it to break down when food is withheld. This may, however, be seen as a ‘habit’, albeit a very deeply entrenched habit. The question arises whether there are states of consciousness where the body can find support and nourishment through some other form of conversion of energy into matter, possibly bypassing the transitional steps that lead to the creation of food that needs to be eaten in order to then convert it back into the energy and building blocks of substance needed to sustain and operate the body. While this may not be a reality for most, if not all, in today’s world, can we not envision the possibility of a future formulation of being that is able to construct and maintain a body through direct action of consciousness and force? At the moment, solar energy is absorbed by plants, and through the process we call ‘photosynthesis’ they produce material substance that converts that energy into a solid form and makes it bio-available for the plant’s own needs and for animals and human beings to consume and convert into sustenance and energy for their needs. We thus see energy converted into a form of matter, and then matter converted back into a form of energy through the action of the plants. If an individual could gain the power of directly tapping into the solar energy without the intermediate steps, a whole new paradigm of existence, bodily health and well-being and growth could be envisioned. Changing this ‘habit’ or limitation in the mind, and developing a new form of relationship to energy through exercise of the will, could remove the expectation that lacking food inevitably leads to a breakdown of health.

The Mother writes: “The yogi or aspiring yogi who does asanas to obtain a spiritual result or even simply a control over his body, obtains these results because it is with this aim that he does them, whereas I know some people who do exactly the same things but for all sorts of reasons unrelated to spiritual development, and who haven’t even managed to acquire good health by it! And yet they do exactly the same thing, sometimes they even do it much better than the yogi, but it doesn’t give them a stable health… because they haven’t thought about it, haven’t done it with this purpose in mind. I have asked them myself, I said, ‘But how can you be ill after doing all that?’ — ‘Oh! but I never thought of it, that’s not why I do it.’ This amounts to saying that it is the conscious will which acts on matter, not the material fact.”

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

Will-Power Can Aid the Development of the Physical Body

A woman recounted her experience of living in a small intentional community during her 20’s. The community arranged to get broken bags of cement from a nearby production facility at no charge. She was tasked with driving a van, loading up the 40# bags, and bringing them back to the location where they were unloaded and stored for later use building a wall. She was a petite woman 5’2″ and 108 pounds at the time. She did this work for some months, eventually moving hundreds of sacks. Looking back, she indicated that while she carried out the task, she struggled with it. It led to long-term lower back issues which she continued to experience even 40-45 years later. Despite the repetitive weight lifting she was doing, it did not build up her body, but actually undermined its basic stability long-term.

Efforts made with the conscious will and intention of building up the body, such as occurs in a systematic course of weight-lifting, can bring about strong development of the musculature. In such instances, not only is there the use of will-power to focus the energy, but there is generally, associated with that will, the intentional development of a systematic approach using a discipline developed for that specific purpose.

The Mother notes: “You see, if the matter is considered in its most modern, most external form, how is it that the movements we make almost constantly in our daily life, or which we have to make in our work if it is a physical work, do not help or help very little, almost negligibly, to develop the muscles and to create harmony in the body? These same movements, on the other hand, if they are made consciously, deliberately, with a definite aim, suddenly start helping you to form your muscles and build up your body. There are jobs, for instance, where people have to carry extremely heavy loads, like bags of cement or sacks of corn or coal, and they make a considerable effort; to a certain extent they do it with an acquired facility, but that doesn’t give them harmony of the body, because they don’t do it with the idea of developing their muscles, they do it just ‘like that’. And someone who follows a method, either one he has learnt or one he has worked out for himself, and who makes these very movements with the will to develop this muscle or that, to create a general harmony in the body — he succeeds. Therefore, in the conscious will, there is something which adds considerably to the movement itself. Those who really want to practice physical culture as it is conceived now, everything they do, they do consciously. They walk downstairs consciously, they make the movements of ordinary life consciously, not mechanically. An attentive eye will perhaps notice a little difference but the greatest difference lies in the will they put into it, the consciousness they put into it. Walking to go somewhere and walking as an exercise is not the same thing. It is the conscious will in all these things which is important, it is that which brings about the progress and obtains the result. Therefore, what I mean is that the method one uses has only a relative importance in itself; it is the will to obtain a certain result that is important.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter V Will-Power, pp. 51-52

Focusing the Will on the Physical Body and its Development

The mind has a tremendous power to influence the physical body, for good or ill. In some cases, mental ideas can lead to extraordinary imbalances in the body, which can lead to weakness, illness and even the death of the body. Many times we will push the body beyond its limits without concern for the effect this will have, or even, how we go about doing this. We also can put the body into extremely precarious situations with extremes of environment that can tax the body’s resources. There is even a saying that “whatever does not kill you, makes you stronger.” Unfortunately, while this is a mental conception that is widely accepted, it does not always bear itself out in practice. Sometimes, pushing beyond and into the extremes does not immediately kill the body, but it may cause lasting harm and injury that has long-term consequences. Recently a friend recounted her experience that illustrated this concern precisely. She was an advanced practitioner and teacher of Hatha Yoga under the guidance of a well-known Hatha Yoga master. He instructed the advanced students to undertake a particularly strenuous exercise of splits suspended on ropes, without any warm up or preparation or guidance on how to do it. As she attempted this practice, and followed the normal protocol of “relaxing into the pose” she experienced a serious pull on her hamstring muscle. This so weakened the muscle that some years later, when she went to step over a short obstacle, the muscle detached from the bone and she spent over a year recuperating without being able to exercise or otherwise strain the affected tissue.

We frequently impose upon the body with extreme diets and pressures including extreme sports, challenging the body to exceed itself. If not done with proper preparation, attention, focus and discipline, the results can be harmful.

Over time, however, humanity has found that the mind can also provide tremendous benefits to the development of the body, aiding it in the healing process when it is imbalanced, or systematically developing its capacities beyond its existing limitations with disciplines that have been worked out through time and experience.

When the will is focused on the development of the body, therefore, it must be combined with an approach that takes into account the circumstances, the current status of the body, the intended development, and the steps that it will take to accomplish that, as well as an appraisal of the time needed so as to allow the development without breaking down the process.

The will may start as a mental focus or intention, or it may channel higher energies still, and this provides us an insight into the future evolution of the body as the forces that reside in domains above the mind begin to make themselves felt and undertake to remake the body to be able to hold those forces and pressures, just as the mind has changed the body and its functioning to meet its own needs.

The Mother observes: “The basis of all these methods [of physical culture] is the power exercised by the conscious will over matter. Usually it is a method which someone has used fairly successfully and set up as a principle of action, which he has taught to others who in turn have continued and perfected it until it has taken a somewhat fixed form of one kind of discipline or another. But the whole basis is the action of the conscious will on the body. The exact form of the method is not of primary importance. In various countries, at various times, one method or another has been used, but always behind it there is a canalised mental power which acts methodically. Of course, some methods try to use a higher power which would in its turn transmit its capacity to the mental power: if a power of a higher order is infused into the mental method, this method naturally becomes more effective and powerful. But essentially all these disciplines depend above all on the person who practices them and the way he uses them. One can, even in the most material, ordinary processes, make use of this altogether external basis to infuse into them powers of a higher order. And all methods, whatever they may be, depend almost exclusively on the person who uses them, on what he puts into them.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter V Will-Power, pp. 50-51

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