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At the Feet of The Mother

The Dynamic Descent and the Lower Nature

Guidance from Sri Aurobindo

 

You will agree that it is just a dynamic descent of the Force that is wanting; my being is already prepared.

Except for the recurrent difficulty of the vital and the ego.

Cannot the descent take place in spite of that?

Not fully. There are alternations of descent and interruption of descent.

If there are no descents from the higher planes, how are these difficulties to go? I thought it was the descents that would work on them and bring about the necessary change.

Descents there can be, but not the permanent descent.

Cannot the descent be used for lessening or destroying the ego and its desires?

That is its proper working, but if the ego is not rejected, then the wrong use may take place.

If the proper working of the descent is to lessen or destroy the ego, where does the question of rejection or wrong use come in?

The sadhaka is not an automaton. He can receive the force wrongly, use it for his ego. Do you think only proper workings take place in the world and improper workings never happen? What kind of question is this?

I thought the descent would give us more strength to reject wrong things.

It gives more force, but the force can be misused, as it has been misused by many.

I would very much like to know why the dynamic descent is prevented or obstructed.

It is, I suppose, because the greater part of the nature is accustomed to identify dynamism with the movements of the ordinary consciousness and to let these have free play.

It [the dynamic descent] tries to come, but the habit of falling back into the physical inertia is still too strong.

I suppose it [the dynamic descent] is waiting for you to bring it down.

I cannot understand how physical inertia prevents the dynamic descent. I thought it would rather relieve me from inertia, ego and vital difficulties.

If the habit of the ordinary nature is not any obstacle to the descent then what is the need of sadhana? What prevents the whole higher consciousness from coming down and changing you into a superman in one second? It is because the things of the lower nature offer an obstinate resistance that long sadhana is necessary.

Are not the dynamic means necessary for turning tamas into shama (repose, peace)?

The dynamic means are not necessary for that — they are needed for bringing tapas into shama and they are useful for repelling the obstruction of inertia to other lines of progress.

Can all the parts of the outer being accept a complete peace without any helping action of the higher Force?

Yes, if you mean without any descent of the dynamic Force. Action of the higher Force is implied in all spiritual change, but it may be an action without dynamic descent.

After rising to a certain height, I feel I cannot go beyond. What is the cause?

Probably because there is too much drag from below. As the lower drag diminishes, one can go higher.

The Force gets diffused a few minutes after its descent.

Because of the mass of inertia, I suppose.

Could we not press it a little more so that it may come down earlier?

It can be pressed.

The Force is there, but the Force is not going to push and trundle you along while you loll back and allow the vital and the inertia to play with you.

In which part of my being is the Force present?

It is not in the being. It is there with you and near you ready to act whenever your nature will allow it. It is so with everybody here.

One feels the Force only when one is in conscious contact with it.

Peace flows into me freely and abundantly, especially in the evening. But why does it not turn into a dynamic peace or bring a Force along with it?

Peace is the first condition, but peace of itself does not bring Force — it is a receptacle of Force, not a bringer of Force.

All that is true is that peace, calm, purity are the proper basis of the descent of Force and if Force comes before the peace, calm, purity are sufficient, it may not be safe.