The Needed Effort to Resolve the Deformations of the Lower Vital Nature

In his application of yoga as applied psychology, Sri Aurobindo identifies a number of different planes and parts of the being that make up the human individual. There are various levels of mind, vital being and physical being. Each level carries out specific types of functions and responds to specific vibrational patterns and is generally activated through the energy that flows through one of the subtle energy centers, or chakras.

The lower vital being is closely associated with the energy of the 2nd chakra, between the root chakra at the base of the spine and the navel center. It is responsible for a wide variety of vital movements and responses in the being. In its normal human working it tends to hold a number of obscure and deformed energetic movements that eventually need to be taken up and transformed as the yogic force penetrates ever-deeper into the being.

The lower vital handles the basic vital drives of the being, close to the physical being and very much inter-connected. Deformations of the lower vital include converting these drives into ego-centered, desire-filled motivations, which might include jealousy, envy, greed, gluttony, irritation and angry reactions etc. It is these deformations that keep the focus on the individual ego-personality and which distort the true action of the energy that operates through the second chakra.

Sri Aurobindo writes: “The lower vital in most human beings is full of grave defects and of movements that respond to hostile forces. A constant psychic opening, a persistent rejection of these influences, a separation of oneself from all hostile suggestions and the inflow of the calm, light, peace, purity of the Mother’s power would eventually free the system from the siege.”

“What is needed is to be quiet and more and more quiet, to look on these influences as something not yourself which has intruded, to separate yourself from it and deny it and to abide in a quiet confidence in the Divine Power. If your psychic being asks for the Divine and your mind is sincere and calls for liberation from the lower nature and from all hostile forces and if you can call the Mother’s power into your heart and rely upon it more than on your own strength, this siege will in the end be driven away from you and strength and peace take its place.”

Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 3, In Difficulty, pg. 42