WRITINGS BY THE MOTHER
© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

The Nature of the Vital

The vital is at once the place of desires and energies, impulses and passions, of cowardice, but also of heroism--to bridle it is to turn all this towards the divine Will and submit it to this Will.

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The vital being seeks only power--material possession and terrestrial power.

This also is false. The higher part of the vital being, like the higher part of the mental being, aspires for the Divine and suffers when far from Him.

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This desire to live in an intellectual atmosphere--doesn't it show that my mind can govern the vital?

No, it only shows that in your consciousness the mind takes a bigger place than the vital. What I call the domination of the mind over the vital is when the latter takes no initiative, accepts no impulse which has not been first sanctioned by the mind, when no desire, no passion arises unless the mind thinks it good; and if an impulse of desire, passion or violence comes from outside, it is enough that the mind intervenes for it to be immediately controlled.

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Mother dearest, the vital desires will vanish as gradually my body becomes weaker, won't they?

Certainly not; quite on the contrary, to be able to conquer the desires of the vital one must have an excellent physical equilibrium and sound health.

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In the vital world attraction and repulsion are the right and wrong sides of the same thing and always indicate an attachment. One must persistently turn away one's thought from its object.

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Should one always avoid a circumstance which is conducive to undesirable impulses? Or should one rather accept the circumstance and try to be its master?

It is always better to avoid the temptation.

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One has only to persist with a calm confidence and the vital will stop going on strike.

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Depression is always unreasonable and leads nowhere. It is the most subtle enemy of yoga.