The body
Apropos the Physical Plane of Consciousness
It is the physical plane of consciousness that deserves first and foremost attention, as it is the basis on which the edifice of life is constructed, the very foundation which upholds life. It is the only medium through which our emotions and ideas can consolidate themselves to find expression in the manifestation.
However, it is also the plane through which illnesses and adverse influences affect our health and well-being. In the final analysis, it is the physical plane of consciousness which is the battleground where all the positive and negative influences jostle to find a space to manifest. Naturally, the physical plane should not be made to suffer the fate of an ascetic rejection; it would be rather unwise to do so. Rather, it turns out to be one of the most challenging domains in the saga of transformation.
Needs versus desires
It is important to understand that, from the psychological perspective, the body per se, minus the vital and the mind — does not have desires but has needs and instinctively knows what it needs. However, the human being loses this capacity as one grows up due to the interference of vital desires and mental preferences. Left without these interventions, the body could have instinctively chosen what it needed. But how does the consciousness of the body’s cells know what it needs?
Sri Aurobindo suggests that this is because of the presence of the supermind, though dormant, in the cells of the body, “The supermind working in the physical is rather difficult to speak about. One can hint at it. You can say that it is something in the very physical cells which makes them do precisely the thing that is necessary for the body. Because it is there, the body, for instance, knows what it should eat. If left free it would tell you what it requires and what it does not…. But most civilised men have lost that capacity. Men turned too much to the mental and vital faculties that were rising in them…. But the physical consciousness if left free, knows what it needs. The body has no desires, it has needs, and it knows what it needs (1).”
This is why the Mother recommended that, early in life, the child must be educated to distinguish between desires and needs (2). Even now, the body which spontaneously absorbs nutritive substances usually tries to reject poisons. With the development of the subtle body consciousness, the body could be trained to obey higher intuitions as now it cannot go back to its earlier faculty of instinctual selection.
Perfection at the physical consciousness
However, for the ordinary aspirant, there are other attributes of the physical that can be universally explored, especially the pursuit of perfection at the physical plane. This attempt at perfection extends from the individual to one’s surroundings. Thus, the food one eats needs to be cooked with the right attitude and with the invocation of consciousness during the very act of cooking. Instead of hurriedly gulping down food, one should train oneself to be peaceful while eating. As a rule, food should not be used as incentives or punishments for children, as this leads to misplaced notions about healthy lifestyles.
Mother explained, “The all-absorbing interest which nearly all human beings, even the most intellectual, have in food, its preparation and its consumption, should be replaced by an almost chemical knowledge of the needs of the body and a very scientific austerity in satisfying them (3).”
One’s own living space also has to be created with elements of consciousness so that the space can radiate joy and peace and be conducive for inner growth. Such a space can be made to manifest even in one’s drawing-room. Indeed, each space one uses should have attributes that facilitate their usage. A study can be designed in such a way that mere entry into that space can stimulate one to study; a therapeutic clinic can be designed to be a repository of healing vibrations.
The habit of going to sleep after a day’s exertion may not result in a refreshing sleep and one can wake up with fatigue or short-lived freshness. “Sleep must not be a fall into unconsciousness which makes the body heavy instead of refreshing it (4).”
One can learn to pass consciously into a qualitatively better sleep that is refreshing even if of shorter duration. A few moments of such luminous sleep can be more rejuvenating than hours of dull sleeping. Therapists use relaxation techniques in stress-management but relaxation is a universal art that needs to be learned by everyone. The Mother advocated that this art should be taught to children when they are very young (5). Learning to relax facilitates a better quality of sleep.
Perfection can be practised in all areas of physical activities, during walking, while picking up an object, while tearing open a sealed letter and organising one’s drawers. The urge and art to be graceful itself brings perfection.
Body-Consciousness
The inertia of the physical plane has to be dealt with by infusing it with higher powers of consciousness. This infusion is what we ordinarily do when we put the body under a planned regimen of physical culture and this is the main importance of sports. This phenomenon can be further developed and refined so that the body automatically responds to willed suggestions; an endeavour that needs the development of a subtle body-consciousness. The Mother admitted that making the vital and the mind still is easier than stilling the body’s cells as in the realm of the body, it is difficult to be perfectly still without inertia or tamas. She also described that if one really learnt the art of being still without being inert or tamasic, one could feel the glow of a warm little light, very bright and wonderfully still, behind (6). The cultivation of the body-consciousness, underlying the gross physical, is therefore essential in a programme of personal growth.
The development of the body-consciousness is primarily achieved as one detaches oneself from the gross physical and traverses the inner ranges of the being. Exploring the subtle physical and the cellular consciousness is more difficult than exploring the inner vital and the inner mind. Exploring the cellular consciousness is not a common endeavour and can only be taken up by highly selective aspirants.
The ultimate aim of developing the body-consciousness is to make the body ready for the great transformative change as envisaged in Integral Yoga. Sri Aurobindo comments, “It is quite true that the surrender and the consequent transformation of the whole being is the aim of the Yoga — the body is not excluded, but at the same time this part of the endeavour is the most difficult and doubtful — the rest, though not facile, is comparatively less difficult to accomplish. One must start with an inner control of the consciousness over the body, a power to make it obey more and more the will or the force transmitted to it. In the end as a higher and higher Force descends and the plasticity of the body increases, the transformation becomes possible (7)”.
He further adds, “If the consciousness cannot determine the physical action and reaction in the present body, if it needs a different basis, then that means this different basis must be prepared by different means. By what means? Physical? The old Yogis tried to do it by physical tapasya; others by seeking the elixir of life, etc. According to this Yoga, the action of the higher Force and consciousness which includes the subtle action of Agni has to open and prepare the body and make it more responsive to Consciousness-Force instead of being rigid in its present habits (called laws). But a different basis can only be created by the supramental action itself. What else but the supermind can determine its own basis (8)?”
Immortality
What would be the result of the supramental transformation of the body? Would the body gain immortality? Sri Aurobindo is explicit in this regard, “Immortality is one of the possible results of supramentalisation, but it is not an obligatory result and it does not mean that there will be an eternal or indefinite prolongation of life as it is. That is what many think it will be, that they will remain what they are with all their human desires and the only difference will be that they will satisfy them endlessly; but such an immortality would not be worth having and it would not be long before people are tired of it. To live in the Divine and have the divine consciousness is itself immortality and to be able to divinise the body also and make it a fit instrument for divine works and divine life would be its material expression only. ….. The ideal would be not to be subject to Death, but to change the body whenever it is necessary with full consciousness (9).”
Reproduction in the future
Meanwhile, the usual way of procreation is set to change in the future when the era of the supramental would manifest. Sri Aurobindo had envisaged that the new body in the new supramental era would be able to replace the usual process of procreation by the evolution of, “…. new means of a supraphysical kind….” …. for “…. a voluntary creation of bodies for souls that seek to enter the earth-life (10).”
He had also foreseen that such a spiritual-occult means of procreation would be preceded by physical science that would, “…. find physical means for passing beyond the ordinary instrumentation or procedure of Nature in this matter of propagation or the renewal of the physical life-force in human or animal beings”.
This scientific process could be supplemented by occult means to produce the future generation of evolved human beings. On the 5th July, 1996, scientists of The Roslin Institute of Scotland successfully cloned the first mammal from a somatic cell using the process of nuclear transfer. This mammal which was a sheep named ’Dolly’ was cloned from a cell of the mammary gland. It proved that a cell taken from a specific part of the body and not necessarily the genitals could recreate a whole individual!
It is significant to recall Sri Aurobindo’s observation, “…. but the resort to occult means and the intervention of subtle-physical processes, if it could be made possible, would be a greater way which could avoid the limitations, degradations, incompleteness and heavy imperfection of the means and results solely available to the law of material force (11).”
References
1. [Recorded by A Purani AB]. Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo. 4th ed. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust; 2007, pp. 449-50
2. The Mother. The Collected Works of the Mother, Volume 12. 2nd ed. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust; 1999, p. 13.
3. Ibid, p. 52
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid., p. 16
6. The Mother. Mother’s Agenda, Volume 5. Paris: Institut de Recherches Évolutives; 1979 [English transl.], p.. 239.
7. Sri Aurobindo. The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, Volume 28. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust ; 2012, p. 305.
8. Ibid., p. 307
9. Ibid., p. 314-15.
10. Sri Aurobindo. Complete Works, Volume 13; 1998, p. 548.
11. Ibid.
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