Consciousness and Self-Mastery

As noted, to be conscious is a broadly applicable term, not just to one’s own body-life-mind complex but to all factors in the universal creation, the flow of time, the development of circumstances, the relations between the individual and the society, world, environment and universal forces. A seeker, however, generally wants to start with the basics, becoming conscious of his own nexus of awareness and learning how to achieve control and mastery within that limited scope.

The question of awareness and the separate question of control or mastery is taken up in the following exchange between a disciple and the Mother. The example given relates to states of depression, but it could just as easily be about any other concern, whether it is control of anger reactions, or dieting, or reactions of fear, or simply jumping to conclusions without all the necessary facts in hand. In whatever part of the being a response or reaction occurs, there is a need to observe, and eventual manage, those reactions. It comes down to awareness through observation, control, loosening the hold of the habitual response, and eventually changing the nature through lack of that response.

IA disciple asks: “Is it the same thing… to be conscious… and to master the different parts of the being?”

The Mother replies: “One precedes the other. First of all one must be conscious, then control, and by continuing the mastery one changes one’s character. Changing the character is what comes last. One must control bad habits, the old habits, for a very long time for them to drop off and the character to change.”

“We may take the example of someone who has fequent depressions. When things are not exactly as he would like them to be, he becomes depressed. So, to begin with, he must become aware of his depression — not only of the depression but of the causes of depression, why he gets depressed so easily. Then, once he has become conscious, he must master the depressions, must stop being depressed even when the cause of depression is there — he must master his depression, stop it form coming. And finally, after this work has been done for a sufficiently long time, the nature loses the habit of having depressions and no longer reacts in the same way, the nature is changed.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 5, Attitudes on the Path, pp. 144-145