At the Feet of The Mother

Vital Education (TE 271)

AUDIO:

This talk focuses on education of the vital and the ways and means to help change this recalcitrant part. It deals with the sources of energy that we use and character of the changes. After the talk there were few questions also taken up such as how to deal with obstinate problems with this part of nature, tapping into higher sources of energy, difference between rational and psychic control, psychic education, role of hormones in determining behaviour, marriage and other ceremonies, refining love.

On Vital Education

Most spiritual and psychological literature speak mainly of the body and mind and two main aspects of human existence. Many also have a tendency to club the spiritual also as part of mental domain, albeit a higher exalted state. However Sri Aurobindo speaks of two more distinct layers which has tremendous practical importance in understanding and dealing with life issues as well as yoga in real time. He makes a distinction between mind and the Spirit as two distinct though interconnected domains of our vaster human existence. While we have and are still evolving mentally our spiritual evolution is yet to pick up momentum though it is the distinct future or man. Secondly there is an evolutionary layer between the body and mind which is called as the vital. As the name itself suggests it is the domain from where all push and dynamism for action comes. It is a large domain and consists of a range of different types of energy starting from the most elementary forces of fear, sex, rage which belong largely to the animal world to a push received from ambition and still higher from various kinds of emotions that move us and even sometimes define our humanity. Finally there are still higher ranges of idealizing emotions and the spirit of adventure in different fields and courage and will that lift our thought-bound humanity towards a higher and vaster spiritual consciousness.

A progressive mastery over this layer is fundamental for our evolution even as rational and mental beings. For spiritual evolution its importance is immense and even crucial. Yet it is one of the least understood and often the most neglected aspect of our complex nature. Most of our modern day education stresses on the mental faculties of reason, analysis, judgment, comprehension, memory etc. In the absence of a proper vital education is not only a one-sided development but even dangerous. It would mean a mentally developed humanity endowed and armed with human intelligence with its ability to analyse and master a range of technologies but with a crude and unregenerate vital is like a silver crown on a pig’s head. It is time to correct this imbalance in our education and help human progress by turning its attention to the field where the real problem lies. Vital education refers therefore to the methods and processes for its progressive mastery but also methods of refining the vital to bring out its deeper possibilities.