Growth
What Resonates with You?
Abstract
What we resonate with is a reflection of our inner condition. We must develop and bring forward the ‘inner’ sides of our instrumental nature before we can resonate more truly and onto a higher frequency. With the richness of the Inner Being, residing between the Outer Being and the Soul-space, beauty will come back to us.
Look at yourself candidly and ask yourself this simple question: what do you want to embrace in your life? You can take it as a gauge of your personal evolution. Disinterestedly observe the attachments you hold with the outside world. What do you really value in life? Look at what you truly seek: it will be a perfect indicator of your inner state. It is like a mirror. Does the resonance always appear from the surface? How frequent and sustained are those precious visitations inside? Gradually, as you look at yourself over a period of time, you will see it is all a mixture.
What we secretly search for in life will be mixed too. There is no real single-pointed aspiration. Or else, it is submerged within the debris of your nature. What you will come to understand is that every predilection is just a factor of your consciousness. There is little consistency. What we seek to attract in our lives is only a reflection of our states of consciousness and these are always variable. We do not move forward in a straight line and our journey is prone to so many detours. However, it must be admitted that these detours too are very necessary for our growth. In the scheme of things, they serve a purpose. How else can we learn which is our best route unless we take a wrong turning now and then? Look upon these meanderings as just a part of the journey. Everything is an education.
We do this work not to change our outer circumstances and we do not do it to modify our preferences in life. All this is but a consequence. We do not yearn for superficial solutions. We do it solely to access our Truth inside. Everything is a reflection of our inner states and once we touch This Truth, once we get the tiniest glimmer of it, the whole direction of our life will start to change. We make a sublime, irrevocable choice. We choose the Infinite. Our whole being will start to vibrate to this new resonance. Everything will flow from that single knowledge.
Our nature
Our nature is not a homogenous whole; that is plain to see. Diversity will always be there, but disharmony is latently not required. We aim for harmony throughout, in all the multiplicity of our being. However, what we put out to the world is discordant and variable and this is why we encounter such disharmony in our day-to-day lives. It is just a reflection. It is because of this that we take the wrong turnings. Until our nature becomes totally purified, this situation can only be modified and not transformed. We are emitting confused and sometimes conflicting messages, which explains why there is such a lack in our lives. We cannot truly express, because we have no single, solid basis from which to articulate. Like attracts like; we are but a mixture, so we seek resonance as a mixture. Consequently, everything we attract is but a mixture. We are offering conflicting magnets to the Universe. There is no single, steady influx coming to us. This is because we don’t really know where we stand.
In truth, we are only a part of a vast Oneness and until we realise that state inside, we will never be able to appreciate this truth. For that, we have to work inside. Much effort is needed; the fruits of our sādhanā will not be served to us on a plate. A progressive surrender will give us all the energy we need. That is our foundation. But it needs to be harnessed in practice. We need to summon all our aspiration and toss everything we don’t need onto the sacrificial Fire. We can lay everything at the Mother’s feet. Don’t select, just be transparent and offer everything. Just offer everything you are at this present moment. Don’t pick and choose. There is no sense in hiding anything, because your aim is to give every part of yourself to Her. Holding something back is a futile and insincere exercise. Don’t look for ‘things’ to offer, just present your entire self and meet Her eyes. Can you turn yourself inside-out? This is practice and without it, we lapse into neglect and when we neglect, our instruments get tarnished. If we allow our being to get alloyed, we will find ourselves still resonating with some very unhealthy influences.
Mental resonance
We can start with the mind. It is our present determinism. We start there because the mind can become a glaring and prominent obstacle to our progress. Is your mind continually projecting from the surface, repeatedly engaging in superficialities and matters of no real consequence? Is your preoccupation habitually taking you there? If this instrument is confused and blurred, there is little prospect of addressing and aligning the lower sides of our nature. Once clarified, it can exert a helpful influence down below. At the very least, it will not stand in harm’s way. It will leave a small space for the psychic influence to do its work. So, with a clear and purified mind, we are more able to proceed downwards and open everything else to the process of purification. Stilling the mind is a very challenging process, so it is hardly surprising that most society live in a mental chaos. What it gives out and receives is largely a stew.
There are many ways to quieten the mind. The Mother often recommends just concentrating and dwelling within the heart. There is no better base than that. We can also learn, as Sri Aurobindo advocates in his Letters on Yoga (1), to dissociate ourselves from the “factory of thoughts”. Usually, we identify with them so much they completely overwhelm us. If we find that we are not experiencing clarity and stillness outside, we have to look here first.
It helps to create a distinction within our mind. There is the “active part”, which never stops churning and regurgitating meaningless thoughts. We must detach from that and start to identify with the “quiet, masterful part”, which sits calmly in the background. Here, there is a sublime stillness waiting in the wings. This part is under the psychic influence. It’s not so prominent and intrusive but do you have any inkling of its presence already? Look closely inside to see if you can sense it. If the seeking becomes fruitless. call the Mother and entreat Her to help you access it.
Work on separating these two parts. Ask for this serene stillness to always intervene in your life. This can be an important first step in organising and purifying the mind. If you give yourself to this part, it can realign the whole structure of your thinking process. It will start to sift through the “factory of thoughts” and do the necessary work of “observing them, judging, rejecting, eliminating, accepting, ordering corrections and change.”
Once there is a sense of greater order and quiet, you can raise the focus of your consciousness higher still, several inches above the head. Try to station your consciousness there. Concentrate on that point, but remember also to reside there in the midst of your daily activities. At unexpected moments, you may find yourself eventually reaching a peak of sublime stillness. Lay down its mirror to reflect the shining and intuitive rays from above. Experience the Light and vastness. This is the true resonance: spontaneous and totally silent. Identify with the emerging inner mind. Carry this atmosphere with you always.
Once the mind is stilled, the work can proceed further down. Perhaps everything will unfold, spontaneously in unison. There might be a sense of being carried. Effort is there of course, but alongside, the surrender begins to subtly impose itself on the being and the sādhanā more simply unfolds. Don’t seek to apply your own force, but always be conscious and stay open to the Higher Force from above. Just leave everything for the Mother to take over. A more systematic and premeditated approach may be adopted, and that is fine too. It may be a slight detour but you are generally moving in the right direction and what you resonate with is already changing.
Vital resonance
Sooner or later though, the vital has to be addressed. In my own practice, it was on this plane I felt myself called to practise first. The work here is non-stop; there often seems to be no end in sight! It is like a huge reservoir and its contents are very mixed. Is your vital swamping you with desire and repeatedly luring you with the trappings of the material world? There are so many ways one can get ensnared in its mesh. When you are in that consciousness, your frequency lowers and you hunger after things from outside. Most people live in its darker depths and some seek no justification from the mind to sanction their greed, cravings and desires. When no leverage from the mind is being applied, a recipe for psychological anarchy is unconsciously being prepared. One experiences a resonance here that will get very soiled and sticky.
It is better to not look for instant solutions. Certainly, coercion is inadvisable; a calm and patient approach should always be adopted. Try not to starve it: that is altogether a different path. Just be conscious always of its movements. Keep a distance from them. Try not to identify with them and when they impose, stay disinterested and disengage. Just observe everything that arises, ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and call and connect always with the deeper, inner Presence, whose torch light illumines, changes and eventually transforms everything it discovers. Direct its light onto every one of its movements. If one holds onto this Light, the vital starts to slowly refine and purify so that its ‘inner’ part, its true identity, can step forward. Identify with that. Above all, call the Peace to descend into it:
“Reject all disturbance and call in more and more peace and equality from above into the vital.
“If you get peace then to clean the vital becomes easy. If you simply clean and clean and do nothing else, you go very slowly — for the vital gets dirty again and has to be cleaned a hundred times. The peace is something that is clean in itself — so to get it is a positive way of securing your object. To look for dirt only and clean is the negative way (2).”
The body’s resonance
Our being is made of many elements and much of us represents a construction of the Inconscience. There is a physical consciousness in us, which is inert, heavy and dull. Do you find yourself resonating from that side of your nature from time to time? Everything outside us becomes lethargic and seemingly as lifeless as lead. When we start identifying with this side of our consciousness, what obscures us comes back to us with the same vehemence from the outside world. This situation often happens when the animating vital has gone on strike or into a state of retreat. The body has to rely on its own resources and there is no saving grace.
Even in sādhanā, the physical can sometimes impose its tamasic rule over the rest of the being. Presently, we live saturated by higher forces. They are our true lifeline but are we equipped to fully embrace them? No matter how much we endeavour to open to these forces, particularly with the body, there is opposition. With the physical consciousness, there is a dull resistance and recoil which often rises up, because it can no longer bear the sublime downpour from above.
This is one reason why Sri Aurobindo referred to depression in such circumstances as a “psychological necessity”. It is not really a matter of individual shortcoming but a fact of life (at least in its present form). Under the pressure of these Forces, all the silt that had been accumulating over the years in the physical consciousness lifts itself up to cloud our emotional states into a sense of melancholy or “greyness”.
Surely, we don’t aspire to resonate with this. We have to work on our body too in Integral Yoga. It is a unique part of the tapestry of its practice:
“The physical sadhana is to bring down the higher light and power and peace and Ananda into the body consciousness, to get rid of the inertia of the physical, the doubts, limitations, external tendency of the physical mind, the defective energies of the vital physical (nerves) and bring in instead the true consciousness there so that the physical may be a perfect instrument for the Divine Will (3).”
Our body consciousness secretly craves this transmutation. The part that craves it is more subtle than its gross counterpart. In spite of that, we have to apply an outer approach of methodical exercise and activity to galvanise, chisel and discipline it into becoming a more robust and plastic instrument. Meanwhile, we can systematically infuse its consciousness with the divine Light and Force from above.
We work on subtilising the body and infusing its cells with the very Force of the Mother. It is necessary preparatory work for transformation. Again, as with the mind and vital, our path is to bring this ‘inner’ part, this more subtle body, forward. It is a progressive development. The Inner Being yearns for this progress. It is waiting to step forward. Once installed, unimaginable beauty will shine on us from outside. Once we start to live in it, we will surely find that we resonate with the Light that we truly are.
References
1. Sri Aurobindo. Birth Centenary Library, Volume 24. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust; 1970, p. 1257.
2. [Online] Available from: https://motherand sriaurobindo.in/disciples/nagin-doshi/books/guidance-from-sri-aurobindo-volume-1/ (p. 128).
3. Sri Aurobindo. The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, Volume 31. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust; 2014, p. 367.
James Anderson is a member of SAIIIHR and coordinating editor of NAMAH.
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