Changes

For the inner flame to burn, one must feed it; one must watch over the fire, throw into it the fuel of all the errors one wants to get rid of, all that delays the progress, all that darkens the path. If one doesn't feed the fire, it smoulders under the ashes of one's unconsciousness and inertia, and then, not years but lives, centuries will pass before one reaches the goal. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/9-july-1958#p10 </ref>

==Through Will==

This difficulty has to be faced and overcome by an equal perseverance in the will of the sadhak. It is a steady flame that must burn, as steady as the obstruction is obstinate. Do not therefore be discouraged by the persistence of the obstruction of the ignorance. The persistence of your own will to conquer with the Mother's force supporting it will come to the end of the resistance. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/difficulties-of-the-physical-nature#p46</ref>

Apart from the individual difficulty there is a general difficulty in the physical earth-nature. Physical nature is slow and inert and unwilling to change; its tendency is to be still and take long periods of time for a little progress. It is very difficult for even the strongest mental or vital or even psychic will to overcome this inertia. It is only by bringing down constantly the consciousness and force and light from above that it can be done. Therefore there must be a constant will and aspiration for that and for the change and it must be a steady and patient will not tired out even by the utmost resistance of the physical nature. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-transformation-of-the-physical#p2</ref>

==Through Surrender==

Become more and more conscious.Certainly tamas is not good, but it is only through surrender to the Divine Consciousness that tamas can be changed. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/laziness-tiredness-fatigue-tamas#p12</ref>

...to recognise that there is here an element of the universal Nature reflected in yours which you must eliminate. And this can only be done by more and more surrender and aspiration and by so bringing in from beyond the vital and the mind the divine peace, light, power and presence. This is the only way towards the transformation and fulfilment of the physical nature. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-lower-vital-being#p35</ref>

==Turning to the Divine==

It is selfishness that makes one jealous; it is weakness that makes one lazy.

In either case the only truly effective remedy is conscious union with the Divine. Indeed, as soon as one becomes conscious of the Divine and is united with Him, one learns to love with the true love: the love ''that loves for the joy of loving'' and has no need to be loved in return; one also learns to draw Force from the inexhaustible source and one knows by experience that by using this Force in the service of the Divine one receives from Him all that one has spent and much more.

All the remedies suggested by the mind, even the most enlightened mind, are only palliatives and not a true cure. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/16-november-1969#p3,p4,p5</ref>

If not aspiration, at least keep the idea of what is necessary—(1) that the silence and peace shall become a wideness which you can realise as the Self, (2) the extension of the silent consciousness upwards as well so that you may feel its source above you, (3) the presence of peace etc. all the time. These things need not all come at once, but by realising what has to be in your mind, any falling towards a condition of inertia can be avoided. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/experiences-of-the-self-the-one-and-the-infinite#p6</ref>

When the soul draws towards the Divine, there may be a resistance in the mind and the common form of that is denial and doubt—which may create mental and vital suffering. There may again be a resistance in the vital nature whose principal character is desire and the attachment to the objects of desire, and if in this field there is conflict between the soul and the vital nature, between the Divine Attraction and the pull of the Ignorance, then obviously there may be much suffering of the mind and vital parts. The physical consciousness also may offer a resistance which is usually that of a fundamental inertia, an obscurity in the very stuff of the physical, an incomprehension, an inability to respond to the higher consciousness, a habit of helplessly responding to the lower mechanically, even when it does not want to do so; both vital and physical suffering may be the consequence. …There are two ways to meet all that—first that of the Self, calm, equality, a spirit, a will, a mind, a vital, a physical consciousness that remain resolutely turned towards the Divine and unshaken by all suggestion of doubt, desire, attachment, depression, sorrow, pain, inertia. This is possible when the inner being awakens, when one becomes conscious of the Self, of the inner mind, the inner vital, the inner physical, for that can more easily attune itself to the divine Will, and then there is a division in the being as if there were two beings, one within, calm, strong, equal, unperturbed, a channel of the Divine Consciousness and Force, one without, still encroached on by the lower Nature; but then the disturbances of the latter become something superficial which are no more than an outer ripple,—until these under the inner pressure fade and sink away and the outer being too remains calm, concentrated, unattackable… <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/resistances-sufferings-and-falls#p7</ref>

=How the Psychic Plays an Important Role?=

Whatever the path we may follow, the subject we may study, we always reach the same result. The most important thing for an individual is to unify himself around his divine center; that way he becomes a real individual, master of himself and of his destiny. Otherwise, he is a plaything of the forces, which toss him about like a cork in a stream. He goes where he doesn't want to, is made to do what he doesn't want to, and finally he gets lost in a hole without any way to stop himself doing so. But if you are consciously organized, unified around the divine center, governed and led by it, you are the master of your destiny. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/09/september-7-1968#p20</ref>

The peace and spontaneous knowledge are in the psychic being and from there they spread to mind and vital and physical. It is in the outer physical consciousness that the difficulty still tries to persist and brings the restlessness sometimes into the physical mind, sometimes into the nerves, sometimes in the shape of bodily trouble into the body. But all these things can and must go. Even the illnesses can go entirely with the growth of peace and power in the nerves and physical cells… <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/levels-of-the-physical-being#p60</ref>

The habit of return of these feelings belongs to the physical consciousness and in his physical consciousness the human being is always weak and unable to get rid of or resist its habitual movements. There are three things that help him to do so (apart from his mental will which is not always strong enough to do it). There is first the psychic being… This activity of the psychic will return and eventually come down into the physical consciousness itself; then there will be very little difficulty. The second is the inner consciousness always awake. At present that is difficult, because to keep the inner consciousness awake at all times can only come by a deepening of yourself so that the veil between the outer and inner which lifts only in concentration may cease to exist even when one is in the ordinary unconcentrated condition. It is for this deepening that the strong tendency to go inside comes upon you. Lastly, the Mother’s force always there and receiving also a response at once from the physical consciousness. These three things together can do anything. It takes time to make them all three constantly active together, but that is sure to come and with them these inner difficulties will disappear. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/levels-of-the-physical-being#p63</ref>

==How to Cure Inertia in the Parts of the Being?==

==Mental==

''Q.How to get rid of mental inertia?''

''A:'' The cure is not in trying to wake up the mind but in turning it, immobile and silent, upward towards the region of intuitive light, in a steady and quiet aspiration, and to wait in silence, for the light to come down and flood your brain which will, little by little, wake up to this influence and become capable of receiving and expressing the intuition. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/study#p88</ref>

By wanting to do so, with persistence and obstinacy. By doing every day a mental exercise of reading, organisation and development.

This should alternate in the course of the day with exercises of mental silence in concentration.'' <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/1-june-1966#p3,p4</ref>

''Q. Are mental indifference and lack of curiosity a sort of mental inertia?''

''A:'' Usually they are due to mental inertia, unless one has obtained calm and indifference through a very intense sadhana resulting in a perfect equality for which the good and bad, the pleasant and unpleasant no longer exist. But in that case, mental activity is replaced by an intuitive activity of a much higher kind. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/answers-to-a-monitor#p112</ref>

==Vital==

The gloom and other difficulties come from a resistance of inertia in the lower vital and physical consciousness. What you have to do is to prepare the consciousness by getting rid of the inertia. A sattwic gladness and calm and confidence is the proper temperament for this Yoga; gloom, depression and weeping should not be indulged in, as they stand in the way of the opening, unless the tears are the psychic weeping of release or adoration or a moved love and bhakti. The progress made in controlling the sex and other rajasic movements of the lower vital is a good preparation, but not enough; by itself it is only the negative side, though indispensable. Aspire for a positive sattwic opening for strength, for light, for peace and do not worry or repine if the progress is slow at first, nor grudge the time and labour of preparation necessary before there can be a rapid advance in the Yoga. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/sorrow-and-suffering#p12</ref>

==Physical==

It must be the tamas of the physical that has enveloped the inner consciousness. The one way to get out of it is to remain very quiet inwardly and call down persistently the Force from above. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/difficulties-of-the-physical-nature#p37</ref>

In the physical it is inertia, obscurity, inability that come up and the obstinacy of these things. The only thing to do in this unpleasant phase is to be more obstinate than the physical inertia and to persist in a fixed endeavour—steady persistency without any restless struggle—to get a wide and permanent opening made even in this solid rock of obstruction. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-transformation-of-the-physical#p32</ref>

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… <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-transformation-of-the-physical#p26</ref>

The difficulty of the physical nature comes inevitably in the course of the development of the sadhana. Its obstruction, its inertia, its absence of aspiration or movement have to show themselves before they can be got rid of—otherwise it will always remain undetected, hampering even the best sadhana and preventing its completeness. This coming up of the physical nature lasts longer or less according to the circumstances, but there is none who does not go through it. What is necessary is not to get troubled or anxious or impatient, for that only makes it last more, but to put entire confidence in the Mother and quietly persist in faith, patience and steady will for the complete change. It is so that the Mother's force can best work in the being. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/difficulties-of-the-physical-nature#p6</ref>

But for the physical being and physical consciousness to be ready to receive the divine impulsion, they must be extremely plastic, because the vital uses coercion, it imposes its will, and the poor body has but to obey, while the Divine just shows the light, gives the consciousness, and so one must obey consciously and willingly—it is a question of collaboration, it is no longer a question of coercion. The physical being and physical consciousness must be very plastic to be able to lend themselves to all the necessary changes, so as to be of one kind one day and another the next, and so on. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/28-april-1951#p12</ref>

===In Sleep===

The rest must not be one which goes down into the inconscience and tamas. The rest must be an ascent into the Light, into perfect Peace, total Silence, a rest which rises up out of the darkness. Then it is true rest, a rest which is an ascent. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/31-august-1955#p19</ref>

…in the ordinary consciousness, in the general ordinary life, rest means tamas. Rest means falling back into Inertia. So then, instead of a rest that benefits you, it’s a rest that stupefies you and then you have to make effort once more to recapture the consciousness you have lost. That’s how the vast majority of people sleep. But now, the lesson is different: when I lie down to rest my body and work without moving (work with an activity that doesn’t force the body to move), as soon as there is the slightest… not exactly “fall,” but the slightest descent towards the Inconscient, something in the body immediately gives a start—instantly. It has been like that for a long time, two years, but now it’s instantaneous, and it very rarely happens—there is true rest, which is an expansion and immensity of the being in full Light. It’s magnificent.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/07/march-26-1966#p12</ref>

You must learn to be receptive in all circumstances and always—especially when you take rest—it must not be the "rest" of inertia but a true rest of receptivity. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/9-may-1967#p3</ref>

Fundamentally, the sole purpose of sleep is to enable the body to assimilate the effect of the trance so that the effect may be received everywhere, and to enable the body to do its natural nocturnal function of eliminating toxins. And when you wake up, there is not that trace of heaviness which comes from sleep: the effect of the trance continues.

Even for those who have never been in trance,it is good to repeat a mantra, a word, a prayer before going into sleep. But there must be a life in the words; I do not mean an intellectual significance, nothing of that kind, but a vibration. And quietly you let yourself go, as though you wanted to go to sleep. The body vibrates more and more, more and more, more and more, and away you go. That is the cure for tamas. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/4-june-1960#p6</ref>

=Recommended Practices=

Whatever you do you can find interest in it, provided you take it as the means of progressing; you must try to do better and better what you are doing, the will for progress must always be there and then you take interest in what you do, whatever it is. The most insignificant occupation can prove interesting if you take it that way.

But even the most attractive and important activity will soon lose all its interest for you if the will for progress towards an ideal perfection is not there while you act. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/laziness-tiredness-fatigue-tamas#p6,p7</ref>

Take no notice of it and go on with your programme as usual. It is the quickest way of getting rid of it. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/laziness-tiredness-fatigue-tamas#p9</ref>

You must exert your consciousness, your will, your force, gather your energy, shake yourself a little and whip yourself and say: “Hup! Hup! forward, march.”If it is laziness that keeps you back from, say, doing the vaulting, you must immediately do something much more tiring and say: "Well, you don't want to do that? All right, you are going to do 1500 metres running!" Or else: "I don't want to do the weight-lifting today, I don't feel like doing it: good, I shall do skipping 4000 times at a stretch." <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/24-june-1953#p22</ref>

There is only one way of acting truly,it is to try at each moment, each second, in each movement to express only the highest truth one can perceive, and at the same time know that this perception has to be progressive and that what seems to you the most true now will no longer be so tomorrow, and that a higher truth will have to be expressed more and more through you. This leaves no room any longer for sleeping in a comfortable tamas; one must be always awake—I am not speaking of physical sleep—one must be always awake, always conscious and always full of an enlightened receptivity and of goodwill. To want always the best, always the best, always the best and never tell oneself, “Oh! It is tiring! Let me rest, let me relax! Ah, I am going to stop making an effort”; then one is sure to fall into a hole immediately and make a big stupid blunder! <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/31-august-1955#p18</ref>

For the inertia the remedy is not to absorb yourself in thoughts about it, but to turn upwards and call the Light and Force to come into it. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/wrong-movements-of-the-vital#p46</ref>

==Detachment==

When the Force is there at work, the imperfections and weaknesses of the nature will necessarily arise for change, but one need not fight with them; one can look on them quietly as a surface instrumentation that has to be changed. It is not with “indifference” that one has to look at them, for that might mean inertia, a want of will or push or necessity to change; it is rather with detachment.

Detachment means that one stands back from them, does not identify oneself with them or get upset or troubled because they are there, but rather looks on them as something foreign to one's true consciousness and true self, rejects them and calls in the Mother's Force into these movements to eliminate them and bring the true consciousness and its movements there. The firm will of rejection must be there, the pressure to get rid of them, but not any wrestling or struggle. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/descent-and-the-lower-nature#p12</ref>

==Hatha Yoga==

The power of physical immobility is as important in Hathayoga as the power of mental immobility in the Yoga of knowledge…

...the immobility of the Asana is to get rid of the restlessness imposed on the body and to force it to hold the Pranic energy instead of dissipating and squandering it. The experience in the practice of Asana is not that of a cessation and diminution of energy by inertia, but of a great increase, inpouring, circulation of force. The body, accustomed to work off superfluous energy by movement, is at first ill able to bear this increase and this retained inner action and betrays it by violent tremblings; afterwards it habituates itself and, when the Asana is conquered, then it finds as much ease in the posture, however originally difficult or unusual to it, as in its easiest attitudes sedentary or recumbent. It becomes increasingly capable of holding whatever amount of increased vital energy is brought to bear upon it without needing to spill it out in movement, and this increase is so enormous as to seem illimitable, so that the body of the perfected Hathayogin is capable of feats of endurance, force, unfatigued expenditure of energy of which the normal physical powers of man at their highest would be incapable. For it is not only able to hold and retain this energy, but to bear its possession of the physical system and its more complete movement through it. The life energy, thus occupying and operating in a powerful, unified movement on the tranquil and passive body, freed from the restless balancing between the continent power and the contained, becomes a much greater and more effective force. In fact, it seems then rather to contain and possess and use the body than to be contained, possessed and used by it,—just as the restless active mind seems to seize on and use irregularly and imperfectly whatever spiritual force comes into it, but the tranquillised mind is held, possessed and used by the spiritual force. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/hathayoga#p8</ref>

=Gunas=

The three forms of consciousness are the three sides of Nature represented by the three gunas—force of subconscious tamas, Inertia, which is the law of Matter, force of half-conscious desire, Kinesis, which is rajas, which is the law of Life, force of sattwic Prakasha, which is the law of Intelligence. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-sankhya-yoga-system#p16</ref>

The three gunas become purified and refined and changed into their divine equivalents: sattwa becomes ''jyotiḥ'', the authentic spiritual light; rajas becomes ''tapas'', the tranquilly intense divine force; tamas becomes ''śama'', the divine quiet, rest, peace. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-sankhya-yoga-system#p37</ref>

Tamas and rajas disappear only when the higher consciousness not only comes down but controls everything down to the cells of the body. They then change into the divine rest and peace and the divine energy or Tapas; finally sattwa also changes into the divine Light. As for remaining quiet when tamas is there, there can also be a tamasic quiet. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-sankhya-yoga-system#p38</ref>

=More on Laziness=

Of course there can be a state of happy inertia, but most people don't remain satisfied with that long, they begin to want something else. There are Yogins who are satisfied with a happy calm immobility, but that is because the happiness is a form of Ananda and in the immobility they feel the Self and its eternal calm and want nothing more. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/cheerfulness-and-happiness#p12</ref>

“We do not fight against any creed, any religion. We do not fight against any form of government. We do not fight against any caste, any social class. We do not fight against any nation or civilisation. We are fighting division, unconsciousness, ignorance, inertia and falsehood. We are endeavouring to establish upon earth union, knowledge, consciousness, truth; and we fight whatever opposes the advent of this new creation of Light, Peace, Truth and Love." (1 February 16, 1965.) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/06/february-27-1965#p7</ref>

The churning of Matter by the attempt of the human intellect to conquer material Nature and use it for its purposes may break something in the passivity and inertia, but it is done for material ends, in a rajasic spirit, with a denial of spirituality as its mental basis. Such an attempt may end, seems to be ending indeed in chaos and a disintegration, while the new attempts at creation and reintegration seem to combine the obscure rigidity of material Nature with a resurgence of the barbaric brutality and violence of a half animal vital Nature. How are the spiritual Forces to deal with all that or make use of such a churning of the energies of the material universe? The way of the Spirit is the way of peace and light and harmony; if it has to battle it is precisely because of the presence of such forces which seek either to extinguish or to pervert the spiritual light. In the spiritual change inertia has to be replaced by the divine peace and calm, the rajasic troubled energy by a tranquil and potent, pure and liberated dynamis, while the mind must be kept plastic for the workings of a higher Light of Knowledge… <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/spiritual-evolution-and-the-supramental#p6</ref>