Page 54 - NAMAH-Jul-2024

Namah Vol. 32, Issue 2, 15th July 2024

consciousness is a very limited part. “The will — what I call the will — is something
Mental will or vital will is only an outward that’s here (Mother points to the centre of the chest),
form of the essential will in the consciousness: which has a power of action, a power of
realisation (2).”
“There is a consciousness other than mind and
vital — if there were not, there would be no use A basic difference between mental will and
in doing sadhana. The true will belongs to that psychic will is that the former is characterised
consciousness (1).” by a sense of Tapasya, consisting of effort
and struggle, whereas the action of psychic
Therefore, there is will in every level of con- will is spontaneous and effortless. In the early
sciousness. There is thus what can be called stages of saadhanaa, during which personal effort
psychic will, the force of consciousness is indispensable, one must rely primarily on
pertaining to the psychic being or conscious- the mental will.
ness, which is far more significant than the
a
mental will in the practice of sadhana. As the As Sri Aurobindo states:
a
Mother says:
“The development of the experience in its
“I believe there is a vast difference between rapidity, its amplitude, the intensity and
an effort for transformation which, precisely, power of its results, depends primarily, In
comes from the psychic centre of the being the beginning of the path and long after, on the
and a kind of mental construction to obtain aspiration and personal effort of the sadhaka
something. (3).”

“I don’t know, it is very difficult to make “Yoga is an endeavour, a Tapasya — it can cease
oneself understood, but so long as the thing to be so only when one surrenders sincerely to
goes on in the head in this way (Mother turns a a higher Action and keeps the surrender and
finger near her forehead), it has no power. It has makes it complete (4)”
a very little force that is extremely limited.
And all the time it belies itself. One feels that The psychic will replaces the mental will
with great difficulty one has gathered up progressively, with the gradual emergence
one’s will, artificial enough, besides, and one of the psychic being from behind the outer
tries to catch something, and the very next being and its coming to the front. At the
minute it has all vanished. And one doesn’t beginning, the psychic being acts from
even realise it; one asks oneself, How did it behind and has only a weak and indirect
happen? influence on the outer being.

“I don’t know, indeed it seems to me very As Sri Aurobindo writes:
difficult to do yoga with the head — unless one
is gripped. “The psychic being emerges slowly in most
men, even after taking up sadhana. There is so
“The will is not in the head. much in the mind and vital that has to change
and readjust itself before the psychic can be

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