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WRITINGS BY THE MOTHER
© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

3 sources of subsistence for the vital

31 March 1954

This talk is based upon Mother's essay "The Four Austerities and the Four Liberations", Part I.

...the vital has three sources of subsistence. The one most easily accessible to it comes from below, from the physical energies through the sensations.

"The second is on its own plane, when it is sufficiently vast and receptive, by contact with the universal vital forces.

"The third, to which it usually opens only in a great aspiration for progress, comes to it from above by the infusion and absorption of spiritual forces and inspiration."

Sweet Mother, here I have not understood. You have said: "... a great aspiration for progress comes to it from above by the infusion and absorption of spiritual forces and inspiration."

What haven't you understood?

The meaning, Sweet Mother.

You are breaking up the sentence wrongly. (Mother looks at the text.)

There are three sources, you know. The third source is usually closed to people; it comes to them only in moments of great aspiration. When they have a very great aspiration and rise towards higher forces, at that time the vital can receive these higher forces into itself; and then this becomes a source of considerable energy for it. But in its ordinary, habitual life it is not in contact with these forces--unless, of course, it is [new p. 82]transformed; [old p. 82]but I am speaking of the ordinary vital in ordinary life. It is not open to this source of higher forces, and for it this is even altogether non-existent. In the immense majority of people all their vital force comes to them from below, from the earth, from food, from all the sensations. From food... they draw vital energy out of food, and they... it is by seeing, hearing, touching, feeling that they contact the energies contained in matter. They draw them in this way. This is their customary food.

Now, some people have a very developed vital which they have subjected to a discipline--and they have a sense of immensity and are in contact with the world and the movements of world-forces. And so they can receive... if in a movement of calling... they can receive the universal vital forces which enter them and renew the dose of energy they need.

There are others, very rare ones--or maybe in very rare moments of their individual life--who have an aspiration for the higher consciousness, higher force, higher knowledge, and who, by this call, draw to themselves the forces of higher domains. And so this also renews in them very special energies, of a special value.

But unless one is practising yoga, a regular discipline, usually one does not often contact this source; one draws from the same level or from below.