Physical Consciousness and its Difficulties

Yesterday, while working and concentrated inwardly at the same time, I fell down from the stool on which I was standing. How does such an accident happen?

Some unconsciousness in the body taken advantage of by small forces which enjoy these accidents.

Something in your physical must have been off guard and been given a push or wrong movement.

How does the unconsciousness come into the body?

The body is mostly unconscious or rather subconscious — it has to be made conscious.

How is one to make it conscious?

By bringing down the true consciousness into it and by being quiet, vigilant and conscious in the mind and vital.

During the whole day I have been so much filled with tamas that I have not even succeeded in calling for the Divine’s help. What to do under such circumstances?

You have either to shake it off by will or to call down the force into it.

What makes the physical so weak that it can’t do without the vital’s help?

The physical is not weak, it is inert because inertia is its principle — it is meant to be an instrument.

Sometimes when one is working, although one likes to work and the body goes on acting, the mind seems tamasic and hinders one from living in the Mother and feeling her force. If there is tamas, does it still allow one to work as usual?

Yes, in this case it is not a tamas of the vital but a tamas of the mental physical which remains inert and passive.

The adverse forces have pushed up the whole of my lower nature in its naked form. It is through inertia, sex, ego etc. that their attack is directed so furiously. If I were to imagine a picture of hell I think I wouldn’t be able to paint it worse than my present plight as a result of these forces.

The one thing wrong would be to allow yourself to be overcome by them. If you remain steady in yourself, you can repel the attack or else it will exhaust itself and pass. In such circumstances you learn to be like a cliff attacked by a stormy sea but never submerged by it.

I understand how depression and dissatisfaction can enter me from the environment, but now how can the inertia be so responded to?

Everything can be responded to. Inertia also can spread waves of itself like other things.

Since all my present methods appear to be ineffective to deal with the attacks, would you kindly point out some that will bring an immediate relief from the inertia?

Either to reject by dynamic means or to remain unaffected and let it pass are the two usual ways of dealing with these attacks.

I fail to understand what there is that prevents me from becoming dynamic and fighting out the interfering forces.

Inertia is the very character of the physical consciousness — left to itself, it is accustomed to be passive to forces and to be their instrument or give a mechanical response to them. In your external being there was always a certain tendency to inertia.

It is obvious that, in spite of the inert character of the physical consciousness, formerly there were days when the physical was not so much in the hands of tamas, rather it was peaceful and at rest. Something has happened. A frequent response to inertia and the lower forces has come as a mere consequence. If we can discover the cause of the intrusion and enlighten it, I suppose there will be some hope of a permanent relief from the constant upsurges.

When the mind and the vital take hold of the physical and make it an instrument, then there is no inertia. But here the physical consciousness has been dealt with. If it could have received the peace of the self into itself, without covering it over with inertia, then it would have been all right. But the vital has intervened somehow with its demand and dissatisfaction, so there has been this obstruction and inability to progress. This thing often happens in the sadhana and one must have the power either to reject it dynamically or else to remain detached until it has exhausted itself. Then the true movement begins again.

While the purification in the physical is going on, cannot the mind and vital keep up their usual sadhana without getting upset by the reactions in the physical, since they are separate from it?

In human consciousness they are not — they are usually all mixed up in their activities. That is the reason why the human nature is full of confusion and ignorance.

If you can catch the wrong parts that assent to the tamas and cling to it and persuade them to change their preference, that would be very effective.

Rejection and detachment when there is a rush of difficulties are good. But I feel they are hardly enough. Something more seems to be needed; the Mother knows what it is and how to do it.

You are always expecting the Mother to do it — and here again the laziness and tamas come in — it is the spirit of tamasic surrender. If the Mother puts you back into a good condition, your vital pulls you down again. How is that to stop so long as you say Yes to the vital and accept its discouragement and restlessness and anguish and the rest of it as your own? Detachment is absolutely necessary.

I agree that despair or depression is becoming rather frequent nowadays. But you say that I am struggling all the time!

If you are not struggling what are you doing? Letting it come in freely? But that is tamasic. Your letters express a helpless struggle and outcry.

Why all this suffering of the physical being on the way to the Divine?

It is the nature of the sadhana. The forces of the Ignorance are a perversion of the earth-nature and the adverse Powers make use of them. They do not give up their control of men without a struggle.

The other day you wrote: “That is the ordinary release from inertia, to begin a vital activity good or bad.” Does it mean that when there is inertia it diffuses itself by creating a vital activity?

No. I mean that the Prakriti seeks relief from inertia by calling in vital rajas — that is the case in the ordinary movement of Nature.

What is the remedy for the increasing tamas? How to get rid of it even from the external being?

More strength and force from above pouring into the inertia and not letting it be a habit. The dynamic will to draw that down always.

Is my sadhana dependent on the mental will alone?

No, but it is when there is the absence of it and the non-action of the higher consciousness, that the journey seems not to go on.

No sooner did I get up from sleep than I found tamas pressing heavily on me, as if inviting me. I accepted the challenge. Half an hour’s battle brought me the victory.

That is very good and rapid work.

If the calm and silence are perfectly established in the physical then if inertia comes — it is itself something quiet and unaggressive, not bringing disturbance. But to get rid of inertia altogether a strong dynamic calm is needed.

In various letters you pointed out the inner means to deal with the inertia. Are there no outer ways too which could be used even when my inner separation is passive and the conscious parts veiled?

I don’t know of any effective outward means of getting rid of it. Some in hours when they cannot do sadhana, spend the time in other occupations — reading, writing or working — and do not try at all to concentrate. But I suspect what you need is more strength in the body.

Is this type of inertia only in me or in all?

It is in everybody — but less in some, more in others according to temperament. There are some who only feel it incidentally because of the great activity of mind or vital.

The other day you wrote that some people have less of this tamas because of the good activity of their mind or vital. In which way good?

I do not remember to have written ‘good’ — but maybe I meant people who have either a clear and strong activity of the mind (the intellectuals) or an energetic vital being which rejects tamas. I was not speaking of anything moral or spiritual.

When one’s inner peace and silence are not disturbed, then how does the inertia intrude into the physical and work so freely there?

It is not a question of the inner being, even of the inner physical. It is a question of the physical consciousness. The habit of tamas manifests itself in the very fact of the constant alternatives of experience and inertia. The principle of tamas is inertia, aprakāśa and apravṛtti shown here by its being unable to keep the prakāśa of the higher consciousness or answer continuously to the activity of sadhana — also by the rising up when it comes of sex etc. in a mechanical repetition of old ideas and feelings. It may be from the subconscient, but if the physical had not that habit of responding, it would have no hold. You would not be affected or feel yourself invaded or the sadhana stopped.

I don’t know why the action from above is not always there. A suggestion comes saying when certain things are worked out the Force withdraws until one becomes ready to receive further its fiery action. Is this suggestion from the Light?

Yes, it is right. Everyone has these alternations because the total consciousness is not able to remain always in the above experience. The point is that in the intervals there should be quietude, at least in the inner being, no restlessness, dissatisfaction or struggle. If that point is attained, then the sadhana can go on smoothly — not that there will be no difficulties but there will be no disquietude or dissatisfaction etc., etc.