Mental Formations Can Be Enhanced and Empowered by Vital Force of Desire

For those who can see vital energies and auras, the driving forces of any individual are quite easy to observe. One can observe this frequently in nightclubs where sexual energies are high and those with particularly powerful formations in this direction can be seen virtually radiating or oozing sexual energy. They choose their intended partner and direct their energy there, and more often than not, there is a response and the two meet and carry out their desired activity.

Several devotees actually reported a circumstance they witnessed individually and later discussed with each other. There was a group of people and one individual was taking on the role of the guru for these people. One individual had resisted the control and pressure being exerted and declared that he would depart the group. This went against the well-developed desire-formation of the ‘guru’ who brought everyone together and proceeded to rant angrily about being “betrayed” and continuing to pressure everyone to exert peer influence and break down the resistance of the individual who was planning to depart. This resistant individual, and one other in the group, reported seeing a dark entity emerge from the face of the ‘guru-figure’ and emanate out into the room. The atmosphere became filled with the aggressive, dark, desire-filled entity, filled with greed, lust and seeking for power, as it was clearly a very well-developed formation that was now coming forward under the impulsion of the frustrated desire of the ‘guru’.

It is quite easy to observe something similar in demagogues who are hungry for power and control. The formations they express are not only very well developed mental formations, but they are tied to a strong vital force of desire that tries to overwhelm those who come under their influence. The speeches of Adolf Hitler, and others with a similar presence and desire, reveal this to dispassionate observers of history. What seems like almost hysterical ranting is the vital entity or entities breaking forth to penetrate the protective vital screen, or aura, of the listeners in the crowd.

There are other ways one can experience these desire-bodies of formations, not just through the visual sense. Some people, who are especially quiet inwardly, can enter a room and can sense through a feeling of sorts, the desires playing from each individual in the room. In some cases, they see a desire they recognise rising up within themselves and with that observation, they can then direct their attention to the source of the vibration causing it, and thus, identify the source of the desire-formation.

The Mother observes: “People who have desires add to the mental formation a kind of small envelope, a vital shell which gives it a still greater reality. These people are usually surrounded by a number of tiny entities which are their own formations, their own mental formations clothed with vital force, which come all the time to strike them to try to make them realise materially the formations they have made.”

“You have perhaps read the books of Maurice Magre; there are some in the library. He describes this; he had come here, Maurice Magre, and we spoke and he told me that he had always noticed — he was highly sensitive — he had always noticed that people who have sexual desires are surrounded by a kind of small swarm of entities who are somewhat viscous and rather ugly and which torment them constantly, awakening desire in them. He said he had seen this around certain people. It was like being surrounded by a swarm of mosquitoes, yes! But it is more gross, and much uglier still, and it is viscous, it is horrible, and it turns round and round the person and gives him no peace, and it awakens in him the desire that has formed these entities and they feast upon it. It is their food. This is absolutely true. His observation was quite correct. His vision was very true. It is like that.”

“But everyone carries around himself the atmosphere of his own desires. So you don’t at all require that people should tell you anything; you have only to look and you see around them exactly the state they are in. They may want to give themselves the airs of angels or saints but they can’t deceive you, because that thing is there, turning around them. So, just imagine! (Mother points to all those seated in front of her.) You see what you are like, how many of you there, all of you here, and each one has his own little world in this way, of mental formations of which some are clothed in vital substance, and all these crawl together, mix with each other, knock against each other. There is a struggle to see which is the strongest, which tries to realise itself, and all this creates an atmosphere indeed!…”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter II Power of Thought, pp. 16-17