The Vital Nature Can Go On Strike When It Does Not Get What It Wants

0:00 Most people have had the experience. An individual has a dispute with a friend, a relative, a spouse. No resolution takes place. An attempt to convince or control the other person is met with resistance. There may be aggression or threats of violence, or a period of silent avoidance may result. This latter response is an example of what we might consider to be an individual going on strike in relation to another individual. This same process takes place within ourselves. We experience a desire of some type, possibly for a feeling of being wanted and supported, possibly for something like recognition or fame, possibly for wealth or power, sex or entertainment. It could be a desire for a specific type of food or drink, or a desire for an intoxicant.

1:03 In order to experience the state of consciousness that accompanies the drug, whatever it might be, we are confronted each moment with a choice. We can follow the impulse and fulfill the desire. Afterwards, we may feel satiated for a time, and the vital nature is willing to cooperate and participate in actions that the mind and will or the psychic aspiration would like to see accomplished. We may determine that carrying out the impulse, however, is not something we would like to do. So we rebuff the vital nature and ask it one way or the other to desist from that desire and to carry out the mind's will or other action that speaks to our deeper aspirations. At this moment we find that the vital can either intensify its insistence on its desire, or else if it is not successful, it may simply withdraw energy and begin to sulk, to avoid engagement and to feel depressed, discouraged or dismissed.

2:19 At that moment there is either a struggle to face off against the desire of the vital, or else there is a period of feeling lost, dispersed, distracted, seeking for some form of diversion or psychological oblivion, unable to accomplish anything. Finding a way to tame the vital nature is one of the serious challenges faced by spiritual aspirants throughout the world. Avoidance of opportunity has shown to be a failed approach as it does not solve the problem. Indulgence, the satisfying of the desire, is also a failed approach as desire tends to burn hotter the more fuel it is provided. The question then arises whether there is another way, such as, can the vital nature be educated, raised up and its focus upgraded to support the higher aspiration of the being and find its fulfillment there instead of in its heretofore normal pursuits and satisfactions? The mother writes quote.

3:34 Therefore it depends on which side it turns. And I tell you it has a very strong habit of going on strike. That is its most powerful weapon. Ah, you're not doing what I want. Well, I'm not going to move. I shall sham dead. And it does that for the least reason. It has a very bad character. It is very touchy and it is very spiteful. Yes, it is very ill nature, for I believe it is very conscious of its power, and it feels clearly that if it gives itself wholly, there is nothing that will resist the momentum of its force.

4:19 And like all people who have a weight in the balance, the vital also bargains. I shall give you my energy, but you must do what I want. If you do not give me what I ask for, well, I withdraw my energy, and you will be flat as a pancake. And it is true, it happens like that. End Quote reference Sri Aurobindo and the Mother powers within Chapter 17, The Vital, page 134.