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==ConclusionGoing Beyond Habits in Integral Yoga==
The Purusha, the soul that knows and commands has got himself involved in the workings of his executive conscious force, so that he mistakes this physical working of it which we call the body for himself; he forgets his own nature as the soul that knows and commands; he believes his mind and soul to be subject to the law and working of the body; he forgets that he is so much else besides that is greater than the physical form; he forgets that the mind is really greater than Matter and ought not to submit to its obscurations, reactions, habit of inertia, habit of incapacity; he forgets that he is more even than the mind, a Power which can raise the mental being above itself; that he is the Master, the Transcendent and it is not fit the Master should be enslaved to his own workings, the Transcendent imprisoned in a form which exists only as a trifle in its own being. All this forgetfulness has to be cured by the Purusha remembering his own true nature and first by his remembering that the body is only a working and only one working of Prakriti. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-release-from-subjection-to-the-body#p1</ref>
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The Purusha, the soul that knows and commands has got himself involved in the workings of his executive conscious force, so that he mistakes this physical working of it which we call the body for himself; he forgets his own nature as the soul that knows and commands; he believes his mind and soul to be subject to the law and working of the body; he forgets that he is so much else besides that is greater than the physical form; he forgets that the mind is really greater than Matter and ought not to submit to its obscurations, reactions, habit of inertia, habit of incapacity; he forgets that he is more even than the mind, a Power which can raise the mental being above itself; that he is the Master, the Transcendent and it is not fit the Master should be enslaved to his own workings, the Transcendent imprisoned in a form which exists only as a trifle in its own being. All this forgetfulness has to be cured by the Purusha remembering his own true nature and first by his remembering that the body is only a working and only one working of Prakriti. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-release-from-subjection-to-the-body#p1</ref>
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The Purusha or basic consciousness is the true being or at least, on whatever plane it manifests, represents the true being. But in the ordinary nature of man it is covered up by the ego and the ignorant play of the Prakriti and remains veiled behind as the unseen Witness supporting the play of the Ignorance. When it emerges, you feel it as a consciousness behind, calm, central, unidentified with the play which depends upon it. It may be covered over, but it is always there. The emergence of the Purusha is the beginning of liberation. But it can also become slowly the Master—slowly because the whole habit of the ego and the play of the lower forces (which also you describe correctly here) is against that. Still it can dictate what higher play is to replace the lower movement and then there is the process of that replacement, the higher coming, the lower struggling to remain and push away the higher movement. You say rightly that the offering to the Divine shortens the whole thing and is more effective, but usually it cannot be done completely at once owing to the past habit and the two methods continue together until the complete surrender is possible.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/inner-detachment-and-the-witness-attitude#p31</ref>
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The Purusha or basic consciousness is the true being or at least, on whatever plane it manifests, represents the true being. But in the ordinary nature of man it is covered up by the ego and the ignorant play of the Prakriti and remains veiled behind as the unseen Witness supporting the play of the Ignorance. When it emerges, you feel it as a consciousness behind, calm, central, unidentified with the play which depends upon it. It may be covered over, but it is always there. The emergence of the Purusha is the beginning of liberation. But it can also become slowly the Master—slowly because the whole habit of the ego and the play of the lower forces (which also you describe correctly here) is against that. Still it can dictate what higher play is to replace the lower movement and then there is the process of that replacement, the higher coming, the lower struggling to remain and push away the higher movement. You say rightly that the offering to the Divine shortens the whole thing and is more effective, but usually it cannot be done completely at once owing to the past habit and the two methods continue together until the complete surrender is possible.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/inner-detachment-and-the-witness-attitude#p31</ref>
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Finally, the mind will come to know the Purusha in the mind as the master of Nature whose sanction is necessary to her movements. It will find that as the giver of the sanction he can withdraw the original fiat from the previous habits of Nature and that eventually the habit will cease or change in the direction indicated by the will of the Purusha; not at once, for the old sanction persists as an obstinate consequence of the past Karma of Nature until that is exhausted, and a good deal also depends on the force of the habit and the idea of fundamental necessity which the mind had previously attached to it; but if it is not one of the fundamental habits Nature has established for the relation of the mind, life and body and if the old sanction is not renewed by the mind or the habit willingly indulged, then eventually the change will come. Even the habit of hunger and thirst can be minimised, inhibited, put away; the habit of disease can be similarly minimised and gradually eliminated and in the meantime the power of the mind to set right the disorders of the body whether by conscious manipulation of vital force or by simple mental fiat will immensely increase. By a similar process the habit by which the bodily nature associates certain forms and degrees of activity with strain, fatigue, incapacity can be rectified and the power, freedom, swiftness, effectiveness of the work whether physical or mental which can be done with this bodily instrument marvellously increased, doubled, tripled, decupled. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-release-from-subjection-to-the-body#p5</ref>
 
=More on Habits=
…there is...the whole weight of millennia of bad habits, which we could call pessimistic, that is, anticipating decay, anticipating catastrophe...that's the most difficult thing to purify, to clarify, to remove from the atmosphere. It's so INGRAINED that it's absolutely spontaneous. That is the great, great, great obstacle—that sort of sense of inevitable decay. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/08/june-24-1967#p37</ref>
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[This yoga] cannot be done if you insist on identifying these lowest things of the Ignorance with the divine Truth or even the lesser truth permissible on the way. It cannot be done if you cling to your past self and its old mental, vital and physical formations and habits; one has continually to leave behind his past selves and to see, act and live from an always higher and higher conscious level. It cannot be done if you insist on 'freedom' for your human mind and vital ego. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/21-april-1951#p1</ref>
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…there is...the whole weight of millennia of bad habits, which we could call pessimistic, that is,anticipating decay, anticipating catastrophe...that's the most difficult thing to purify, to clarify, to remove from the atmosphere. It's so INGRAINED that it's absolutely spontaneous. That is the great, great, great obstacle—that sort of sense of inevitable decay. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/08/june-24-1967#p37</ref>
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…all the complications and miseries and misfortunes are...a bad habit, nothing more. And it's hard for us to change our habits. Yet THE TIME HAS COME to change habits. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/03/november-27-1962#p40</ref>
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<center>Good habits are indispensable so long as one acts out of habit. But to attain the supreme goal of yoga, one must abandon all ties, whatever they may be. And good habits are also a tie which must one day be abandoned when one wants to obey and is able to obey nothing but the one supreme impulse, the Will of the Supreme. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/14-april-1965#p3</ref></center>