Resisting and Overcoming the Negative Universal Forces That Try to Control Our Reactions

All consciousness, all energy, all material substance is essential one, although it takes different forms in the exte
al surface consciousness. Vibrational patterns move across the universal creation and forms respond to them if they are able to vibrate within the range of the vibrations. Human beings can respond to vibrations within a particular limited range, which means the colors we see, the sounds we hear, are not the entire spectrum of color or sound. Some beings can see and hear color and sounds in different ranges than the human, in some cases partially overlapping the human frequency range, and in others totally independent of that range.

If we apply this knowledge to the movement of energy within human beings, we see that virtually every human being has the capacity to vibrate to any force that works within the human range, including those that may be subliminal to our conscious awareness. Thus, a force of anger, or fear, or attraction or love, for instance, can be experienced by anyone when those forces are active and vibrating powerfully enough to be picked up by our receiving apparatus of the senses (including the mind on a direct basis). For this reason, when the forces that can provoke anger, hatred, lust, greed, hunger, envy, or any other movements that we may want to remove from our being are active in our environment, we sometimes feel like we are compelled to respond.

If we analyze this however, we find that the universal nature of these forces and their vibratory force implies that they are not an embedded, unchangeable part of our own personality or character; rather, they are exte
al forces throwing their patterns onto us. Once we recognise this, and understand that we do not ‘manufacture’ these forces but are simply allowing them access and permitting them to vibrate us in harmony with their energy, it becomes easier to separate ourselves from them and take steps to either reduce the impact of the vibration when it is active, or refuse its ability within us to take over the being and manifest actively like a transmitted infection.

We see in the history of humanity that people have approached this issue in various ways. Some individuals have developed the power to withstand extreme energetic forces acting generally. They may do this through the practice of stoicism and the systematic practice of non-response when these forces arise. They may do it by training themselves to handle ever more pressure without it breaking their will. Over time they can develop a quite considerable force of resistance. We even see this with certain medical doctors who have such a strong aura around them that they can visit and treat people with highly infectious diseases without themselves becoming ill. It is the same principle now transferred from the physical body to the vital or mental being.

In other cases, individuals train themselves to experience the vibratory pattern, thereby knowing what is active in their surroundings or in their circle of acquaintances, but through experience, training and separation of their awareness from the vibrations that arise, they do not promulgate, but rather to some degree even can neutralize these vibrations.

For those who have a habit of response to any of these forces, it is like leaving the door open and letting them enter and have free reign. The habit of response needs to be addressed so that one does not simply “become” whatever is vibrating.

There is an interesting story of a man who attended a Nazi rally in Germany in the 1930’s. He was an intellectual, a quiet soul, who did not agree with the Nazi philosophy. The energy in the crowd was so intense, however, that when they started screaming and expressing their hatred and violent energies, he found that he himself was screaming with them! He later expressed surprise that he would be taken away by the force that he opposed, yet it became clear that the intensity and focus in that circumstance were simply more than he was able to resist. He needed to do more inner work to clear that reaction from his being.

Of course, this same understanding can be used to accentuate forces that support the spiritual aspiration, through a process of tuning, receptivity and acceptance of those energies that bring peace, harmony, good will, light and knowledge into the being. Once one recognises how these forces work, and achieves a separation of the witness from the active nature, we gain the capacity to tune to the energies we desire to accentuate and ‘tune out’ those we want to rid from our being.

The Mother observes: “Seekers are always told, ‘If you want to get rid of something, say that it is outside.’ This is only an impression, but it is easier to get rid of a difficulty if you have the impression that it is outside you… what is inside is also outside and what is outside is also inside! The secret lies in knowing how to place it just where it is most convenient for the immediate action.”

“If you have a serious difficulty in your character, for example, the habit of losing your temper, and you decide: ‘I must not get angry again’, it is very difficult, but if on the other hand, you tell yourself: ‘Anger is something which circulates through the whole world, it is not in me, it belongs to everybody; it wanders about here and there and if I close my door, it will not enter’, it is much more easy. If you think: ‘It is my character, I am born like that’, it becomes almost impossible. it is true there is something in your character which answers to this force of anger. All movements, all vibrations are general — they enter, they go out, they move about — but they rush upon you and enter into you only to the extent you leave the door in you open. And if you have, besides, some affinity with these forces, you may get angry without even knowing why.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 4, Ordeals and Difficulties, pp.86-87