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and harmoniously according to an integral programme which leaves no part of the body
without work or exercise. People like workers and peasants, who have a specialised occupation
and develop only certain muscles, always end up with occupational deformities. And this in
no way helps their psychic progress because, although the whole of life necessarily contributes
to the psychic development, it does so in such an unconscious way and so slowly that the poor
psychic being must come back again and again and again, indefinitely, to achieve its purpose.
Therefore we can say without fear of being mistaken that physical culture is the sadhana of the
body and that all sadhana necessarily helps to hasten the achievement of the goal. The more
consciously you do it, the quicker and more general the result, but even if you do it blindly,
if you can see no further than the tips of your fingers or your feet or your nose, you help the
overall development.

Finally, one can say that any discipline that is followed rigorously, sincerely, deliberately, is a
considerable help, for it enables life on earth to attain its goal more rapidly and prepares it to
receive the new life. To discipline oneself is to hasten the arrival of this new life and the contact
with the supramental reality.

As it is, the physical body is truly nothing but a very disfigured shadow of the eternal life of
the Self. But this physical body is capable of progressive development; through each individual
formation, the physical substance progresses, and one day it will be capable of building a bridge
between physical life as we know it and the supramental life which is to manifest.

The Mother. The Collected Works of the Mother, Volume 10. Cent ed. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo
Ashram Trust; 1976, pp. 27-32.

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