Higher and Lower Action

During meditation, at times I experience as if my lower consciousness (the vital, physical and sexual) were taken above the head and there connected with the higher consciousness.

Yes, that is a normal movement of the sadhana.

Today the above movement was repeated. In addition I became aware, for the first time, of the actual action of the higher consciousness on the ascended human consciousness.

Usually when these things happen it is something that rises up and has to be worked on for its change. After it has risen up the working for its change comes.

Some tamasic feelings rise up at times; when I reject them they surge up again.

Each thing rises in its time and has to be rejected and thrown out thoroughly.

During the movement of transformation, I find the lower nature has a freer play in the emptiness than in the fullness.

In all, the lower nature plays easily. It can bring its mixture into the fullness — it is not only in emptiness that it arises.

The inertia has begun to occupy more and more space in me. Is it due to any mistakes I have made unconsciously?

I don’t suppose there is any mistake. There are often such uprisings of tamas in the action and reaction of the forces without anything having been done to bring them.

I would very much like to know why the working in the vital takes place in the morning only and disappears in the evening.

There is no “why” for these things that can be specifically stated. It comes out of the total condition of things in the play of forces.

Would you please explain to me this important process of sadhana — the play of forces between the higher and the lower?

There are higher forces and lower — the lower have to be worked out by contact with the higher and in the working out sometimes they rise, sometimes they disappear till they are done with. It is not necessarily due to some mistake or fault that they rise.

Does your reply indicate that whatever is happening in me is as it should be?

Yes, what is happening is simply due to the working out of the forces in the nature.

You wrote about the lower forces: “In the working out sometimes they rise, sometimes they disappear.” Cannot the lower forces be worked out easily in their own field without their rising up and disturbing the whole being? I suppose, H’s sadhana could be cited as an example.

I am not aware of any case in which the lower forces did not rise up. If such a case occurred I fancy it would be the first in human history.

Could it be made possible if we left the sadhana wholly to the Mother’s Force?

It is possible — when one has learned how to do it. But till then they rise.

In fact I have tried it myself. So long as the remembrance of the Mother was maintained nothing undivine could touch me from within or without. The only difficulty is my carelessness or forgetfulness to do that continuously.

And what does the carelessness come from? It is because the habit of the lower nature makes you forget. That is an action of the lower force. It is only by the higher force meeting the lower forces and there is pressure on it (this is the contact) that the habit of forgetfulness disappears.

Why am I not able to fix my consciousness on anything? Is it due to inertia?

I don’t suppose it is the strength of inertia, but simply the habitual movement of the consciousness oscillating between a higher and lower condition.

The inertia decreased when the Mother came down for Blessings. Then I gathered Force merely from her physical presence and detached myself from the inertia. Not only the inner but the outer consciousness as well was taken up into the higher realms. The whole of myself tasted the sweetness of the spiritual peace and silence. When I was up above, often the inertia tried to stir things below and then slowly and cleverly to pull me down. But this state itself had a control over the inertia by dynamising my will! The experience continued nearly for two hours. Then the body felt fatigue and I came down.

Exactly. ‘The body felt fatigue’ — that is what I mean by the habit of tamas. The body cannot bear the continuous experience, it feels it as a strain. That is the case with most sadhaks. But in your case the obstacle seems to develop in great intensity when it comes. I have already told you the means of getting rid of it, but it cannot be done in a day because it is a fixed habit of the nature and a fixed habit takes time to remove. But it can be done in not too long a time, provided you don’t get disturbed when it comes and deal with it firmly and steadily.

Can nothing be done about this fatigue?[1] One does not get such an elevated state so easily and so often. If it had been prolonged sufficiently something fundamental could have been worked out below.

If you can remove this fatigue by the will force, then that can be done.

What sort of will force?

The quiet but strong will that calls down the higher consciousness and force.

One can bring down the strength, but it is also necessary to see that the body has sufficient food, sleep and rest — absence of these things strains the nerves and if the nerves are strained the body feels fatigue — becomes tired.

You wrote about unhappiness: “it may have come in from outside”. How did it return once I had thrown it out of me?

You threw it out of your environmental consciousness and it comes back from there if you allow it.

If a thrown-out thing comes back like that what is the use of throwing out the thing that gives one so much trouble? After all, rejecting is a tiresome process!

The throwing out into the environmental is a necessary stage — but obviously it cannot be final, as it can come back from there.

Would you kindly give me some indication as to what I should report to you in my correspondence at present?

State what happens. It is not necessary to say that this is finished and will never happen again. You can say that I feel liberated from this or that, but you need not declare that it is final.

Is it not surprising that today an ascent became easily possible in spite of so much restlessness below? What was the meaning of this occurrence?

No, it simply meant that there was nothing surprising about it. It is not inevitable that the consciousness should be either all on the heights or all in the depths. It is often mixed.

Every conquest makes future conquests easier.

Why have I to keep fighting out all that is lower? The old things constantly return. What is all this?

If you allow the lower to come back again, you have to fight it out again.

It is the habit of responding to the old things and giving it when it insists the same consent as you give to the Mother’s force when you are clear. Passivity to the contrary force — that is the only answer to your “what is all this”.

[1] This fatigue is of a different type from what is normally known as tiredness due to excessive physical or mental strain. It is psychological in its character and affects the vital-physical sheath. To give an example: when we are forced to listen to a long, boring lecture we feel lethargic. It is this kind of fatigue that is experienced here.