The Vital-Physical, the Physical-Vital and the Material Vital: the Linkages Between Matter and the Vital

When Life emerges in Matter, there must, obviously, be some mechanism for the two principles to interact with one another. Matter must develop ways to sense, respond to and react to the action of the Life-Force. Similarly, when the Life-Force evolves and manifests in Matter, it must also become at least partially subject to the drives and other conditions that Matter brings forward in the relationship. For the seeker attempting to transform the very nature and response of Life in Matter, it is helpful to understand the various functions that create and carry out these interactions.

Sri Aurobindo notes: “As there is a physical mind, so there is a physical vital — a vital turned entirely upon physical things, full of desires and greeds and seekings for pleasure on the physical plane.”

“The physical-vital is the being of small desires and greeds, etc. — the vital-physical is the nervous being; they are closely connected together.”

“The vital-physical governs all the small daily reactions to outward things — reactions of the nerves and the body consciousness and the reflex emotions and sensations; it motives much of the ordinary actions of man and joins with the lower parts of the vital proper in producing lust, jealousy, anger, violence etc. In its lowest parts (vital-material) it is the agent of pain, physical illness etc.”

“Yes — they [the lower vital, the physical vital and the most material vital] become very clear to the increasing consciousness. And the distinctions are necessary — otherwise one may influence or control the lower vital or a part of the physical vital and then be astonished to find that something intangible but apparently invincible still resists — it is the material vital with so much of the rest as it can influence by its resistance.”

“The nervous part of the being is a portion of the vital — it is the vital-physical, the life-force closely enmeshed in the reactions, desires, needs, sensations of the body.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 2, Planes and Parts of the Being, pp. 36-37