The Standpoint of the Individual Rooted in the Vital Nature

Each individual is rooted primarily in one of the major component aspects of our human individuality. Some are clearly rooted in the physical and their thoughts, actions and needs are those called for by the physical being. The vast majority of people are moved by their vital being, and are moved by their sensations, emotions, desires and vital drives. A much smaller number are based in the mental range and their focus is then on conce
s and issues of the mental being. There are also those who are rooted in either the psychic/soul aspect or the spiritual aspect of the bing.

Wherever the individual finds his primary focus or standpoint, he tends to act from there and evaluate things based on that standpoint. Those who take up spiritual pursuits do not suddenly lose or abandon their natural standpoint; rather, they tend to bring that frame with them into their spiritual endeavours. For the large number who live primarily in the vital being, they are consumed by feelings, emotions, and relations, as well as desires, even if those desires are set forth under the guides of spiritual progress or the greater glory of the spiritual leader or path they are following. This standpoint of course has the effect of actually retarding the progress in most cases. Even desire for progress can become an obstacle if it disturbs or disrupts and brings in the unsettling energies associated with the guna of Rajas to any great degree.

Sri Aurobindo observes: “Most people live in the vital. That means that they live in their desires, sensations, emotional feelings, vital imaginations and see and experience and judge everything from that point of view. It is the vital that moves them, the mind being at its service, not its master. In yoga also many people do sadhana from that plane and their experience is full of vital visions, formations, experiences of all kinds, but there is no mental clarity or order, neither do they rise above the mind. It is only the minority of men who live in the mind or in the psychic or try to live in the spiritual plane.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 2, Planes and Parts of the Being, pg. 31