Slogging Through the Dense and Dull Consciousness of the Physical Being

0:00 The natural seat of the guna of Satwa is in the mental being, rajas in the vital being and tamas in the physical being. This is not to imply that there are not times and situations where one of the other qualities comes forward in any of these three aspects of our external being. On the contrary, we can identify tamasic and rajasic elements in the mental being, as well as Sutwick and temasic elements in the vital being and Sutwick and rajasic elements in the physical being. The natural seat simply implies that the most prominent general location for a particular guna in action lies in a portion of the being that is prone to express the kind of characteristics associated with that guna. If we focus then on the physical being and the situation of the coming to the fore of the quality of Thomas, we can experience it as a dullness, unwillingness to do anything, emptiness, darkness, and a sense of nothing being able to move forward.

1:15 For a spiritual aspirant, this is an extremely uncomfortable status, yet he may feel quite overwhelmed by the intensity of the darkness and the potential despair that accompanies it. In these moments, it is difficult for the seeker to see that there's any way out of this morass. It is important that he recognize that the gunas are always in motion and that none of them can hold the field forever. Eventually, the only solution is to keep going, putting 1 foot in front of the other and moving forward. However slow, however difficult, however tiresome, and however hopeless it seems.

2:03 It may help to reflect on Milarepa's experience. Wracked by all consuming guilt for the suffering he had caused, seeking revenge through use of black magic, he sought out a guru to guide him towards spiritual realization. In one lifetime. The guru, rather than providing the teachings he was granting to other disciples, put Milarepa to work doing back breaking, building and then unbuilding of stone structures without taking any assistance, using his own physical body as the sole means of carrying out this work. This went on for some years and eventually Milarepa reached a state of extreme despair that he would ever get the necessary teachings and achieve the realization to the point that he even considered committing suicide.

2:59 It was only after this long dark period that he was actually given the teachings which would eventually lead to a liberated state of consciousness. His tribulations go far beyond what most people immersed in the dull routine of the physical consciousness have to bear, and they went on for far longer than most people are stuck in that dull, meaningless routine of the daily round without seeming purpose or even energy to make it interesting or even remotely leading to progress. Srioro Bindu observes quote at the mercy of the external sounds and external bodily sensations. No control to drop the ordinary consciousness. It will the whole tendency of the being away from yoga. All that is unmistakably applicable to the physical mind and the physical consciousness, when they isolate themselves, as it were, and take up the whole front, pushing the rest into the background, When a part of the being is brought forward to be worked upon for change, this kind of all occupying emergence, the dominant activity, that part as if it alone existed, very usually happens.

4:26 And unfortunately it is always what has to be changed, the undesirable conditions, the difficulties of that part which rise 1st and obstinately hold the field and recur in the physical. It is inertia, obscurity, inability that come up, and the obstinacy of these things. The only thing to do in this unpleasant phase is to be more obstinate than the physical inertia and to persist in a fixed endeavor, steady persistency without any restless struggle to get a wide and permanent opening made even in this solid rock of obstruction. End Quote Reference Sri Robindo, Bases of yoga, Chapter 5. Physical consciousness, subconscious sleep and dream illness.

5:24 Pages 84 to 85.