The Vital Being: Its Nature, Its Role and Its Mode of Action

When the vital nature is involved, which individual has the power to control its impulsions and demands and keep it focused on the higher aims of life? The vital nature is a powerful and essential component of life on earth. It animates material nature and functions through the force of desire. There is an apocryphal tale of a man who has a magic lamp that can summon a genie. When the genie appears before the man, he asks what it is the man wants and lays out the ground rules. The individual can ask anything he likes and the genie will promptly carry it out; however, the genie must be kept active. If the man fails to keep the genie always active, the genie will devour the individual. What a great description of the vital nature! For most people there is an intention to achieve objects of desire, but these objects of desire are transitory and lead to temporary satiation and then a renewal of the desire, perhaps in a more intensive form. There is no peace possible as long as the vital nature is left free to seek after the objects of desire; yet, mental attempts to control the vital are in most cases quite ineffective, partial, temporary and may lead, if it has been done through outright suppression, to a rebound with even greater energy, like a spring that ha been compressed and thereby stores up additional force.

The vital is so powerful that it can influence the mind into believing that it is in control when in fact, the vital is biasing the mental function to such a degree that the mind will justify anything the vital desires.

The vital is ruled primarily by the Guna of Rajas in most instances. This Guna, or quality of Nature, is one of action, desire, and outreach. When it goes to its extreme, it can lead to aggression, and injury as it exceeds the limits of the physical body within which it is active. Rajas inevitably loses its force and generally the result is a fall into the darkness and inaction of Tamas. Rare is the individual who can manage the operation of Rajas and Tamas through the application of Sattwa, the Guna of harmony, balance, light and understanding.

Sri Aurobindo notes: “Vital… is a thing of desires, impulses, force-pushes, emotions, sensations, seekings after life-fulfilment, possession and enjoyment; these are its functions and its nature; — it is that part of us which seeks after life and its movements for their own sake and it does not want to leave hold of them if they bring it suffering as well as or more than pleasure; it is even capable of luxuriating in tears and suffering as part of the drama of life. What then is there in common between the thinking intelligence and the vital and why should the latter obey the mind and not follow its own nature? The disobedience is perfectly normal instead of being, as Augustine suggests, unintelligible. Of course, man can establish a mental control over his vital and in so far as he does it he is a man, — because the thinking mind is a nobler and more enlightened entity and consciousness than the vital and ought, therefore, to rule and, if the mental will is strong, can rule. But this rule is precarious, incomplete and held only by much self-discipline. For if the mind is more enlightened, the vital is nearer to earth, more intense, vehement, more directly able to touch the body. There is too a vital mind which lives by imagination, thoughts of desire, will to act and enjoy from its own impulse and this is able to seize on the reason itself and make it its auxiliary and its justifying counsel and supplier of pleas and excuses. There is also the sheer force of Desire in man which is the vital’s principal and strong enough to sweep off the reason, as the Gita says, ‘like a bota on stormy waters’. “

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 2, Planes and Parts of the Being, pp. 26-27