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=Transformation of Tamas into Sama=
 
=Transformation of Tamas into Sama=
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Tamas is the degradation of śama, as rajas is the degradation of Tapas, the Divine Force. The physical consciousness is always trying to substitute its own inertia for the calm, peace or rest of the true consciousness, just as the vital is always trying to substitute its rajas for the true action of the Force. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-sankhya-yoga-system#p48</ref>
 
Tamas is the degradation of śama, as rajas is the degradation of Tapas, the Divine Force. The physical consciousness is always trying to substitute its own inertia for the calm, peace or rest of the true consciousness, just as the vital is always trying to substitute its rajas for the true action of the Force. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-sankhya-yoga-system#p48</ref>
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It [sleepiness] is the physical tamas trying to push itself into the place of the calm. Part of the transformation consists in replacing the element of tamas in the nature by the śama or true calm, peace, rest, of which tamas or inertia is the degradation or perversion in the lower nature (for each of the three gunas has its divine counterpart in the higher nature).  
 
It [sleepiness] is the physical tamas trying to push itself into the place of the calm. Part of the transformation consists in replacing the element of tamas in the nature by the śama or true calm, peace, rest, of which tamas or inertia is the degradation or perversion in the lower nature (for each of the three gunas has its divine counterpart in the higher nature).  
 
It [tamas] has to be transformed into śama, the peace and rest of the higher Prakriti, and then filled with tapas and jyotiḥ. But this can only be done completely in the physical when the physical is finally transformed by the supramental Power. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-sankhya-yoga-system#p51</ref>
 
It [tamas] has to be transformed into śama, the peace and rest of the higher Prakriti, and then filled with tapas and jyotiḥ. But this can only be done completely in the physical when the physical is finally transformed by the supramental Power. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-sankhya-yoga-system#p51</ref>
==Challenges Faced==
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==Challenges Faced==
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The character is made up of habits and it clings to them, is disposed to think them the very law of its being and it is a hard job to get it to change at all except under a strong pressure of circumstances. Especially in the physical parts, the body, the physical mind, the physical life movements, there is this resistance; the tamasic element in Nature is powerful there, what the Gita describes as aprakāśa, absence of light, and apravṛtti, a tendency to inertia, inactivity, unwillingness to make an effort and, as a result, even when the effort is made, a constant readiness to doubt, to despond and despair, to give up, renounce the aim and the endeavour, collapse. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-difficulties-of-yoga#p21</ref>
 
The character is made up of habits and it clings to them, is disposed to think them the very law of its being and it is a hard job to get it to change at all except under a strong pressure of circumstances. Especially in the physical parts, the body, the physical mind, the physical life movements, there is this resistance; the tamasic element in Nature is powerful there, what the Gita describes as aprakāśa, absence of light, and apravṛtti, a tendency to inertia, inactivity, unwillingness to make an effort and, as a result, even when the effort is made, a constant readiness to doubt, to despond and despair, to give up, renounce the aim and the endeavour, collapse. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-difficulties-of-yoga#p21</ref>
...even when the thread is broken it is taken up again and reunited and carried to its end. There is a working in the nature itself in response to the inner need which, however slowly, brings about the result. But a certain inner consent is needed; the progress that you have marked in yourself is due to the fact that there was this consent in the soul and also in part of the nature; the change was insisted on by the mind and desired by part of the vital; the resistance in part of the mind and part of the vital made it slow and difficult but could not prevent it. The strong development you have observed in your powers with its proof in the response of others is due to the same reason; part of your being consented to it, wanted and needed it as a self-fulfilment of the nature and the soul wanted it as a means of service to the Divine; the rest was due to the pressure of the Divine force and my pressure…<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-difficulties-of-yoga#p23</ref>
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...even when the thread is broken it is taken up again and reunited and carried to its end. There is a working in the nature itself in response to the inner need which, however slowly, brings about the result. But a certain inner consent is needed; the progress that you have marked in yourself is due to the fact that there was this consent in the soul and also in part of the nature; the change was insisted on by the mind and desired by part of the vital; the resistance in part of the mind and part of the vital made it slow and difficult but could not prevent it. The strong development you have observed in your powers with its proof in the response of others is due to the same reason; part of your being consented to it, wanted and needed it as a self-fulfilment of the nature and the soul wanted it as a means of service to the Divine; the rest was due to the pressure of the Divine force and my pressure…<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-difficulties-of-yoga#p23</ref>
  
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'''Content curated bu Suchismitha'''
  
 
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Revision as of 12:40, 4 August 2021

Read Summary of Laziness

What is Laziness?

It is a dangerous illness: laziness. [1]

~

Laziness comes from weakness, or from lack of interest. For curing the first—one must become strong. [2]

Laziness in Instruments

"I have told you many times, and couldn't repeat it too often, that we are not made of a piece. Within ourselves we have lots of states of being, and each state of being has its own life. All that is gathered together in a single body, as long as you have one, and acts through a single body; that's what gives you the sense of a single person, a single being. But there are many of them, and there are in particular concentrations on different planes: just as you have a physical being, you have a vital being, a mental being, a psychic being, and many others with all possible intermediaries.... It's only if you are a very advanced yogi and have been capable of unifying your being around the divine center that those beings remain linked together. If you haven't been able to unify yourself, then at the time of death, all that will scatter: every being will go back to its own region. With the vital being, for example, your various desires will separate and each of them will go and chase its realization quite independently, because there will no longer be a physical being to hold them together. While if you have united your consciousness to the psychic consciousness, when you die you will remain conscious of your psychic being, and the psychic being will return to the psychic world which is a world of bliss, joy, peace, tranquillity, and growing knowledge.... But if you have lived in your vital and all its impulses, each impulse will try to realize itself here and there.... For instance, for the miser who was concentrated on his money, when he dies the part of his vital that was concerned with his money will hook on there and will keep watching over the money so no one takes it. People won't see him, but he is there nonetheless, and very unhappy if something happens to his dear money.... Now, if you live exclusively in your physical, when the physical being disappears, you disappear along with it, it's over.... There is a spirit of the form: your form has a spirit that lives on for seven days after your death. [3]

Mental

It's true, we are always too tense—always. And I know that as long as we are controlled by that admirable mind, we feel that to relax means to fall into tamas and unconsciousness. All these old notions remain, prolonging themselves; and there's something like the residue of one of those marvelous censors, telling you: 'Be careful, tamas, tamas! Be careful, you are dozing off—very bad, very bad.' And it's idiotic, because tamas is neither joyous nor luminous, while this is an immediate joy and light. [4]

~

The development through the mind is a constant and general awakening of the whole being—even the most material being—an awakening as a result of which there is also something that's the opposite of sleep. But to receive the supreme Force, what's needed is, on the contrary, the equivalent of stillness—the stillness of sleep, but an ABSOLUTELY CONSCIOUS sleep, absolutely conscious. The body feels the difference. It feels the difference to such a point that... for example, at night I lie down and I am like that, for hours I remain like that, and if after a while I drop into ordinary sleep, my body wakes up with a dreadful anguish! Then it slowly goes back to that State. [5]

Impact on Mental Consciousness:

When one first falls into direct contact with this level, the feeling in the body is that of inertia and immobility, in the vital physical exhaustion or lassitude, in the physical mind absence of prakāśa and pravṛtti or only the most ordinary thoughts and impulses. It took me a long time to get down any kind of light or power into this level. But when once it is illumined, the advantage is that the subconscient becomes conscient and this removes a very fundamental obstacle from the sadhana. [6]

~

By working out being into these appearances of the ignorance, inertia and division of Matter the dividing Mind has lost and imprisoned itself in a dungeon of its own building, is bound with chains which it has itself forged. And if it be true that the dividing Mind is the first principle of creation, then it must be also the ultimate attainment possible in the creation, and the mental being struggling vainly with Life and Matter, overpowering them only to be overpowered by them, repeating eternally a fruitless cycle must be the last and highest word of cosmic existence. [7]

Vital

The body is afraid of anything new because its very base is inertia, tamas; it is the vital which brings in a dominant note of rajas, activity. That is why, as a general rule, the intrusion of the vital in the form of ambition, emulation and vanity, compels the body to shake off the tamas and make the necessary effort to progress. [8]

~

There is only one thing the vital abhors; it is a dull life, monotonous, grey, tasteless, worthless. Faced with that, it goes to sleep, falls into inertia. It likes extremely violent things, it is true; it can be extremely wicked, extremely cruel, extremely generous, extremely good and extremely heroic. It always goes to extremes and can be on one side or the other, yes, as the current flows. [9]

~

It is only effort, in whatever domain it be—material effort, moral effort, intellectual effort—which creates in the being certain vibrations which enable you to get connected with universal vibrations; and it is this which gives joy. It is effort which pulls you out of inertia; it is effort which makes you receptive to the universal forces. If someone has a strong, active, obstinate vital which rules the body's activities, which has a very living or intense contact with people and things and events, if he has a marked taste for art, for all expressions of beauty, we are generally tempted to say and believe, "Oh! He has a living soul"; but it is not his soul, it is his vital being which is alive and dominates the activities of the body. That is the first difference between someone who is beginning to be developed and those who are still in the inertia and tamas of the purely material life. This gives, first to the appearance and also to the activity, a kind of vibration, of intensity of vibration, which often creates the impression that this person has a living soul; but it is not that, it is his vital which is developed, which has a special capacity, is stronger than the physical inertia and gives an intensity of vibration and life and action that those whose vital being is not developed do not possess. This confusion between the vital activity and the soul is a very frequent one.... The vital vibration is much more easily perceptible to the human consciousness than the vibration of the soul. [10]

Physical

I am referring here to physical suffering, because all the other kinds of suffering—vital, mental, emotive suffering—arise from a wrong functioning of the mind, and those... we can easily rank them in the Falsehood, that's all. But physical suffering is to me like a child being beaten, because here in Matter, Falsehood turned into ignorance, which means there is no bad will—there is no bad will in Matter, everything is inertia and ignorance: total ignorance of the Truth, ignorance of the Origin, ignorance of the Possibility, even ignorance of what needs to be done so as not to suffer materially. This ignorance is everywhere in the cells, and only the experience—and the experience of what, in this rudimentary consciousness, is translated as suffering—can awaken, arouse the need to know and be cured, and the aspiration to be transformed. [11]

~

And in that kind of physical eternity (which lasted two and a half hours—it's a long time for an experience), I was aware of something missing, something not there: the joy of the consciousness. Because throughout my life I have developed the habit of being conscious of everything, always, at each second. And the joy of the consciousness was not there. So I thanked the Grace that made me see that this kind of nirvana was quite simply physical tamas. [12]

~

A certain inertia, tendency to sleep, indolence, unwillingness or inability to be strong for work or spiritual effort for long at a time, is in the nature of the human physical consciousness. When one goes down into the physical for its change (that has been the general condition here for a long time), this tends to increase. Even sometimes when the pressure of the sadhana on the physical increases or when one has to go much inside, this temporarily increases—the body either needing more rest or turning the inward movement into a tendency to sleep or be at rest. The physical consciousness gets the true peace and calm in the cells and feels at rest even in full work or in the most concentrated condition and this tendency of inertia goes out of the nature. [13]

Psychic

The psychic being is a terrestrial formation. It is human beings who have a psychic being which has been developed upon earth and by earthly life and which is a projection of the divine Consciousness into Matter to awaken Matter out of its inertia so that it takes the path back to the Divine. But in certain cases the true self is found in the psychic being, that is, it dwells in the psychic being—but not always. There is always a divine Presence in the psychic being, but it is the divine Presence which was at the origin of the psychic formation, it is an emanation from the divine Consciousness; whereas the true self is not a terrestrial formation. It precedes the terrestrial formation. [14]

~

The emergence of the secret psychic being in us as the leader of the sacrifice is of the utmost importance; for this inmost being alone can bring with it the full power of the spirit in the act, the soul in the symbol. It alone can assure, even while the spiritual consciousness is incomplete, the perennial freshness and sincerity and beauty of the symbol and prevent it from being a dead form or a corrupted and corrupting magic; it alone can preserve for the act its power with its significance. [15]

Laziness in Cells

The cells themselves observed a sort of... it's something between torpor, drowsiness, numbness and indifference; and that state is mistaken for peace, quietude and acceptance, but it really is... it really is a form of tamas. And that's the reason why it may last for what, to our consciousness, is almost an eternity. And there was, as I told you, an experience [a painful attack]; it recurred in another form(it never recurs in the same form), in another form, and then the cells noticed that that sort of intensity, of ardor of will taking hold of them, that something concrete in the self-giving, in the surrender, does not exist when everything is fine (what people are in the habit of calling "everything is fine," which means that you don't feel your body, there is no difficulty and things are just getting along).[16]

Laziness in Relation to Other Aspects

Depression and Laziness

When you feel unhappy like that, it means that you have a progress to make. You can say that we always need to progress, it is true. But at times our nature gives its consent to the needed change and then everything goes smoothly, even happily. On the contrary sometimes the part that has to progress refuses to move and clings to its old habits through inertia, ignorance, attachment or desire. Then, under the pressure of the perfecting force, the struggle starts translating itself into unhappiness or revolt or both together. The only remedy is to keep quiet, look within oneself honestly to find out what is wrong and set to work courageously to put it right. The Divine Consciousness will always be there to help you if your endeavour is sincere; and the more sincere your endeavour the more the Divine Consciousness will help and assist you. Periods of obscuration are frequent and common; generally, it is enough to keep quiet without worrying, knowing that these are spiritual nights which alternate with the full light of the days.But to be able to remain in peace you must keep in your heart gratitude towards the Divine for all the help He gives. If gratitude also is veiled, the obscure periods last much longer. There is, however, a swift and effective remedy: it is to keep always burning in your heart the flame of purification, the aspiration for progress, the intensity, the ardour of consecration. This flame is kindled in the heart of all who are sincere; you must not let ingratitude cover it up with its ashes.[17]

~

You must absolutely refuse to be depressed. It is because you are receptive to the Force when you work and that sustains you. But when you are not under the strain of the work you are less receptive. 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. [18]

~

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. [19]

Boredom and Laziness

Boredom is a dullness of the consciousness; and if you seek the cure within yourself, you will see that it immediately dissolves. Most people, when they feel bored, instead of making an effort to rise one step higher in their consciousness, come down one step lower; they come down even lower than they were before and do stupid things, they make themselves vulgar in the hope of amusing themselves. That is why men intoxicate themselves, spoil their health, deaden their brains. If they had risen instead of falling, they would have made use of this opportunity to progress. Sometimes, in certain circumstances, everything seems dull, boring, stupid; this means that you are as boring as the circumstances and it clearly shows that you are not in a state of progress. It is simply a passing wave of boredom, and nothing is more contrary to the purpose of existence. At such a moment you might make an effort and ask yourself, "This boredom shows that I have something to learn, some progress to make in myself, some inertia to conquer, some weakness to overcome." [20]

Why Does Laziness Occur?

That is one of the main reasons. And so one conceals one's laziness behind fine reasons, the first of which says, "I can't, I don't know" or else, "I have tried and not succeeded" or "I don't know where to begin!" Any reason whatever, isn't that true? The first that comes to you. Or else, one doesn't practise because one doesn't find it worthwhile to make the effort—that is part of the laziness also, it asks for too much effort! But one can't live without effort! If one were to refuse to make any effort, one would not even be able to stand on one's legs or walk or even eat. [21]

~

To justify one's weaknesses is a kind of laziness and inertia.[22]

~

Well, when one doesn’t want to make an effort to correct oneself, one says, “Oh, it is impossible, I can’t do it, I don’t have the strength, I am not made of that stuff, I don’t have the necessary qualities, I could never do it.” It is absolute laziness, it is in order to avoid the required effort. When you are asked to make progress: “Oh, it is beyond my capacity, I am a poor creature, I can do nothing!” That’s all. It is almost ill-will. It is extreme laziness, a refusal to make any effort. One accepts all one’s defects and incapacities in order not to have to make the necessary effort to overcome them. One says, “I am like that, I can’t be otherwise!” It is a refusal to let the divine Grace work in you. It is a justification of your own ill-will.[23]

~

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.[24]

~

And how is it possible to perfect the mind and vital unless the physical is prepared?—for there is such a thing as the mental and vital physical, and mind and vital cannot be said to be perfectly prepared until these are ready. There is always the conflict between the consciousness that is coming into you and the ignorant consciousness that was there before. The new consciousness is gaining ground always but still against much resistance especially in the vital physical (which is indicated in the stomach attacks). But there is only one way to go and that is to insist always on the Power and Peace which are more and more felt to be always there and more and more dissociate yourself from the other condition. It is on that basis that the right understanding can come. [25]

Emergence of Laziness

Illness and Health

That [weakness of the body] also is tamas. If you threw off the strain of the idea of weakness, the strength would come back. But there is always something in the vital physical which is pleased with becoming more weak and ill so that it can feel and lament its tragic case. [26]

~

It is not anything physical but a vital depression (in some part of the vital, not the whole) that prevents the body from recovering its elasticity. There was some part of the vital that was resisting a radical change and even, unknown to your mind, trying to go on as it was under cover of the change in the rest of your being. This has now, owing to this last affair, received a blow and got depressed and, when the vital is depressed like that, it affects the body. You say rightly that it is part of a change or turn that is taking place. But these effects of inertia and weakness need not continue; as soon as this vital part acquiesces gladly in the turn or change, the elasticity and energy will return. [27]

~

It can only be remedied by the Force and Consciousness from above occupying the whole physical being. [28] ...inertia of the physical consciousness, while the right reaction in the lower vital brings on the contrary a sense of peace, release, quietude which definitely opens the lowest physical parts to the higher consciousness and force. If you can get over this and get back the old poise, then all these things can be made to disappear. [29]

~

The whole thing is to get the physical out of its habit of falling back into tamas or inertia, and that can be done by opening and accustoming it to the action of the Force. When the action of the Force becomes constant, then there will be no more tamas. [30]

The Lower Vital Being

A time comes when after a long preparation of the mind and vital being, it becomes necessary to open also the physical nature. But when that happens, very often the vital exaltation which can be very great when the experience is on its own plane, falls away and the obscure, obstructive physical and material consciousness appears in its unrelieved inertia. Inertia, tamas, stupidity, narrowness and limitation, an inability to progress, doubt, dullness, dryness, a constant forgetfulness of the spiritual experiences received are the characteristics of the unregenerated physical nature, when that is not pushed by the vital and is not supported either by the higher mental will and intelligence… [31]

~

These things can only be cured by a persistent bringing down of the higher spiritual consciousness into all the parts of the being. [32]

How is it Different from Fatigue, Tiredness and Tamas?

Tiredness shows lack of will for progress. When you feel tired or fatigued that is lack of will for progress.

Fatigue comes from doing without interest the things you do.

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.

Getting rid of fatigue: Take no notice of it and go on with your programme as usual. It is the quickest way of getting rid of it. It is because you are receptive to the force when you work and that sustains you. But when you are not under the strain of the work you are less receptive. 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.[33]

~

Q. What are the defects in me that are coming in my way of spiritual as well as material progress?

A: Tamas and sluggishness.

Q. What am I to do to get rid of these defects of my nature?

A: Become more and more conscious. [34]

~

Q. What is “physical tamas”?

A: You don’t know that, you don’t? Then, congratulations! For instance, does it never happen to you that being seated you don’t want to get up, that having something to do you say, “Oh! I have to do all that….”

Q. Is it the same thing as laziness?

A: Not quite. Of course, laziness is a kind of tamas, but in laziness there is an ill-will, a refusal to make an effort—while tamas is inertia: one wants to do something, but one can’t. [35]

~

Indolence and inaction result in tamas which is a fall into inconscience and the very opposite of progress and light. [36]

How to Cure Laziness?

...they are afraid to fight, who long for rest before they have earned it, who are satisfied with a little progress and in their imagination and desires make it into a marvellous realisation so as to justify their stopping half-way. [37]

~

The minute one stops going forward, one falls back. The moment one is satisfied and no longer aspires, one begins to die. Life is movement, it is effort, it is a march forward, the scaling of a mountain, the climb towards new revelations, towards future realisations. Nothing is more dangerous than wanting to rest. It is in action, in effort, in the march forward that repose must be found, the true repose of complete trust in the divine Grace, of the absence of desires, of victory over egoism. True repose comes from the widening, the universalisation of the consciousness. Become as vast as the world and you will always be at rest. In the thick of action, in the very midst of the battle, the effort, you will know the repose of infinity and eternity.

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. [38]

~

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."[39]

~

When one has decided to get up, one gets up." No, the body was there, like that, and it was necessary to put a will into it, to push this body for it to get up and act. It is like that, this is tamas. Tamas is a purely material thing; it is very rare to have a vital or mental tamas (it may occur but through contagion), I believe it is more a tamas of the nerves or the brain than vital or mental tamas. But laziness is everywhere, in the physical, the vital, the mind. Generally lazy people are not always lazy, not in all things. If you propose something that pleases them, amuses them, they are quite ready to make an effort. There is much ill-will in laziness. [40]

~

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. [41]

~

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. [42]

Through Developing Consciousness

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. [43]

~

An active movement is one in which you throw your force out, that is, when something comes out from you—in a movement, a thought, a feeling—something which goes out from you to others or into the world. Passivity is when you remain just yourself like this, open, and receive what comes from outside. It does not at all depend on whether one moves or sits still. It is not that at all. To be active is to throw out the consciousness or force or movement from within outwards. [44]

~

There is a lot to do, a whole lot. But it may go relatively fast. When you observe, you realize that what takes the most time is becoming conscious of what must be changed, having a conscious contact that enables it to change. That's what takes the most time. The change itself... There are recurrences, but it's growing much less intense. It all depends on the amount of unconsciousness and tamas in the being; as it grows less, the experience grows stronger. [45]

~

The accordance of conscious mind and conscious will with a form and a life in themselves not overtly self-conscious and capable at best of a mechanical or subconscious will is another problem of opposites in which she has produced astonishing results and aims always at higher marvels; for there her ultimate miracle would be an animal consciousness no longer seeking but possessed of Truth and Light, with the practical omnipotence which would result from the possession of a direct and perfected knowledge. Not only, then, is the upward impulse of man towards the accordance of yet higher opposites rational in itself, but it is the only logical completion of a rule and an effort that seem to be a fundamental method of Nature and the very sense of her universal strivings. [46]

Through Transformation

...for everyone all is as well as it can be. It's always the old movements that get impatient.... Of course, when you see the whole, impatience was certainly created to counteract inertia—but it's over, that time is past. [47]

~

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.) [48]

~

It was the idea of the original Stability (if we may say so) which, in Manifestation, is expressed as inertia. And the unfolding is expressed as change. All right. Then came: Eternity and progress [49]

~

It is the quickest and most effective method of pulling the creation out of its inertia and leading it on to its blossoming. [50]

~

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. [51]

~

That's how it is. Day after day, almost hour after hour, as the Power comes back ... You remember, I once said it had gone completely, and that was true, it had gone completely in order to leave the body absolutely to itself, for its conversion, we could say; but once there had been in this body consciousness the same aspiration and the same ardour of consciousness (with a far greater steadiness than in any other part of the being; there are no fluctuations as there are in the vital and mind, it's very steady), once that was established (through kinds of pulsations, not distant from one another, first on one detail, then spreading out and becoming generalized), since then the Power has been ... I can say it has been coming back. all the old difficulties appear to be waking up again, they seem to spring up again (they had completely fallen asleep, you understand), and each time, this body consciousness feels a sort of surprise, at once astonished and distressed that the presence of the divine Power, the divine Consciousness, the Truth-Consciousness, should give rise to all those difficulties, which are essentially difficulties of ignorance and inertia—the incapacity to receive. And it comes back as memories, like that (gesture from below), like a snake rearing its head. And every time, everything in the physical consciousness has the same call, "Why? How can these things be when You are there!" That's the astonishing thing: "Since You are there, how can these things be?" [52]

~

Only because it's difficult for us to feel that way can we imagine that by our entering certain states of consciousness things would not change. Even if we entered into an apparently total inertia, things would continue to change and we along with them! [53]

~

And once you've lived That... you become so irrevocably conscious that everything depends on the individual perception, entirely; and naturally, that individual perception [of divine Love] depends on the inadequacy, the inertia, the incomprehension, the incapacity, the cells' inability to hold and keep the Vibration, anyway all that man calls his "character" and which comes from his animal evolution. [54]

How the Psychic Plays an Important Role?

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—stomach pains, weakness of the eyes and everything else. [55]

~

It is the psychic that connected you with the Mother and turned all the movements of your being towards her or drew them from her or made them united with and dependent on her. It had so done with all your mental and vital being and its movements and it had guarded you against all wrong mental and vital suggestions and attacks, showing you what was true and what was false. Now it is this psychic being which has manifested again in your physical consciousness also. You have only to live in that and your whole being will be turned towards the Mother, remain in union with her and be protected from doubt and error and false suggestion—and you can once more progress as you did before towards the full realisation of the sadhana. [56]

~

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; for a few days your psychic was extremely active and pushing these movements away whenever they tried to come or throwing them out soon when they got in. 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. [57]

~

The being is here on the physical plane although in touch with the mental and vital. The being that is the individual consciousness has to ascend and become conscious of all the planes (vital, mental and those above the mental) until it reaches the Divine Oneness which is above all the planes and from which they emerge. [58]

How Can It be Cured?

Conditions to Get Rid of Laziness

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. [59]

~

A transformation of human nature can only be achieved when the substance of the being is so steeped in the spiritual principle that all its movements are a spontaneous dynamism and a harmonised process of the spirit. But even when the higher powers and their intensities enter into the substance of the Inconscience, they are met by this blind opposing Necessity and are subjected to this circumscribing and diminishing law of the nescient substance. [60]

~

One has to go inside into the inner being and one can minimise contacts, if necessary, not as an absolute rule—provided there is a real living in the inner being and sufficient contact with outside things not to lose one's hold of practical realities. [61]

Qualities that Can Developed

Through Surrender

If the Mother puts you back into a good condition, your vital pulls you down again. How is that to stop so long as you say Yes to the vital and accept its discouragement and restlessness and anguish and the rest of it as your own? Detachment is absolutely necessary. [62]

~

It is only the psychic that knows how to surrender and the psychic is usually very much veiled in the beginning. When the psychic awakes, it can bring a sudden and true surrender of the whole being, for the difficulty of the rest is rapidly dealt with and disappears. It is not possible to get rid of the stress on personal effort at once—and not always desirable; for personal effort is better than tamasic inertia. [63]

~

The help is always there and it has pulled you out of many difficulties and attacks. It is, I suppose, because of the feeling "I do not want to do anything" that you have not been able to receive the help, but that is a temporary inertia of the physical mind and will. I do not see the use of your going back for a few months to a life which could not now satisfy you. The only course is to shake off the inertia of the will and persevere. [64]

Through Union with the Divine

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… [65]

~

The whole world is in a process of progressive transformation; if you take up the discipline of Yoga, you speed up in yourself this process. The work that would require years in the ordinary course, can be done by Yoga in a few days and even in a few hours. But it is your inner consciousness that obeys this accelerating impulse; for the higher parts of your being readily follow the swift and concentrated movement of Yoga and lend themselves more easily to the continuous adjustment and adaptation that it necessitates. The body, on the other hand, is ordinarily dense, inert and apathetic. And if you have in this part something that is not responsive, if there is a resistance here, the reason is that the body is incapable of moving as quickly as the rest of the being. It must take time, it must walk at its own pace as it does in ordinary life. What happens is as when grown-up people walk too fast for children in their company; they have to stop at times and wait till the child who is lagging behind comes up and overtakes them. This divergence between the progress in the inner being and the inertia of the body often creates a dislocation in the system, and that manifests itself as an illness. This is why people who take up Yoga frequently begin by suffering from some physical discomfort or disorder. That neednot happen if they are on their guard and careful. Or if there is a greater and unusual receptivity in the body, then too they escape. But an unmixed receptivity making the physical parts closely follow the pace of the inner transformation is hardly possible, unless the body has already been prepared in the past for the processes of Yoga. [66]

~

There are many varying conditions in which you may meditate and all have their effect upon the forces brought in or brought down and on their working. If you sit alone, it is your own inner and outer condition that matters. If you sit with others, the general condition is of primary importance. But in either case the conditions will always vary and the forces that answer will never be twice the same. A united concentration rightly done can be a great force. There is an old saying that if twelve sincere persons unite their will and their aspiration and call the Divine, the Divine is bound to manifest. But the will must be one-pointed, the aspiration sincere. For those who make the attempt can be united in inertia or even in mistaken or perverse desire, and the result is then likely to be disastrous. [67]

Through the Divine Force

It is a Force that comes and pushes to work and is as legitimately a part of the spiritual life as others. It is a special Energy that takes hold of the worker in the being and fulfils itself through him. To work with a full energy like this in one is quite salutary. The only thing is not to overdo it—that is to avoid any exhaustion or recoil to a fatigued inertia. [68]

~

But also it often happens even in the ordinary course of Yoga that physical strength is replaced by a Yogic strength or Yogic life force which keeps up the body and makes it work, but in the absence of this force the body is denuded of power, inert and tamasic. This can only be remedied by the whole being opening to Yoga shakti in each of its planes—Yogic mind force, Yogic life force, Yogic body force. [69]

Subconsient and Integral Yoga: It is only if you live wholly and dynamically in the inner being and feel the outer as a quite superficial thing that you can get rid of the obstruction or minimise it until the transformation of the outer being can be made complete. [70]

~

These [vital and physical weaknesses] are symptoms and feelings that can easily come in the period when the subconscient is being dealt with—tamas, age, decay, illness, death, weakness, inertia, the mechanical play (as if the inevitable round of a machine) of the lower vital have their seeds in the subconscient and when the subconscient rises up in its native power, these threaten to rise with them. [71]

Types of Physical Consciousness

There are many [defects of the physical consciousness]—but mainly obscurity, inertia, tamas, a passive acceptance of the play of wrong forces, inability to change, attachment to habits, lack of plasticity, forgetfulness, loss of experiences or realisations gained, unwillingness to accept the Light or to follow it, incapacity (through tamas or through attachment or through passive reaction to accustomed forces) to do what it admits to be the Right and the Best. It is an inertia of the physical consciousness which allows these desires to come and does not react against the suggestions; it is that also which responds to the pains and suggestion of illness. [72]

~

Is the material state an emptiness of consciousness, or is it not rather only a sleep of consciousness—even though from the point of view of evolution an original and not an intermediate sleep? And by sleep the human example teaches us that we mean not a suspension of consciousness, but its gathering inward away from conscious physical response to the impacts of external things. [73]

How to Cure Physical Consciousness?

A quiet will insisting on the quietude of the mind and vital and insisting on the rejection of these adverse things. That would soon prove sufficient to hold the ground for the Peace and Force to act and they would do the rest. [74]

~

Work is a means of self-dedication to the Divine, but it must be done with the necessary inner consciousness in which the lower vital and physical must also share. A lazy body is certainly not a proper instrument for Yoga, it must stop being lazy. But a fatigued and unwilling body also cannot receive properly or be a good instrument. The proper thing is to avoid either extreme. [75]

~

A strong mind and body and life-force are needed in the sadhana. Especially steps should be taken to throw out tamas and bring strength and force into the frame of the nature. There is always some tendency to looseness, forgetfulness and inattention in the physical consciousness. One has to be very vigilant and careful to prevent this tendency having its way. It is an inertia of the physical consciousness which allows these desires to come and does not react against the suggestions; it is that also which responds to the pains and suggestion of illness. But you must not accept the suggestion that you cannot react and be free,—the physical consciousness itself cannot as yet, but the will can if it is called on to act and made accustomed to act always. Not the struggling will, but a quiet will insisting on the quietude of the mind and vital and insisting on the rejection of these adverse things. That would soon prove sufficient to hold the ground for the Peace and Force to act and they would do the rest. It is something in the vital part of the physical consciousness which has not yet understood—it feels the pressure to change, yet it is drawn outward to people or things in the old way, but is dissatisfied because the growth of the new consciousness behind prevents it taking pleasure in them, so that it remains restless, not understanding anything. What it has got to learn is that it must fall quiet and open to a new consciousness from above and within. This part of the being is obscure,—not sufficiently mentalised to understand things, it acts from instinct, impulse and habit only. When its old instincts, impulses and habits are checked, it does not know what to do or what is demanded of it. But after a certain amount of pressure from the mind and will it can be got to consent to a change of its ways. [76]

Causes of Laziness/Inertia or the Physical Nature

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. [77]

~

It [the nature of the obstruction of the physical consciousness] depends on the weak points of the individual and the stage of his progress. The main difficulty of the physical consciousness is that it is incapable, before it is transformed, of maintaining any tension of tapasya—it wants periods of assimilation, sinking back into the ordinary consciousness to rest,—also there is a constant forgetfulness of what has been done etc. [78]

~

Inertia is mental, vital, physical, subconscient. Physical inertia can produce mental inertia, mental inertia can produce physical inertia, vital inertia almost always makes the physical lifeless and lustreless and dull, and that is inertia. Vital inertia can also infect the mind, unless the mind is very strong and clear. I have always said that the physical consciousness is the main seat and source of inertia. [79]

~

The hold of inertia always increases when the working comes down into the physical and subconscient. The inertia usually rises up from the subconscient. It does not abolish the higher consciousness in the physical, but dulls its action or else brings it down from a higher to a lower level, e.g. from the intuition to the higher mind or from the higher to the lower ranges of overmind. For some time it resists the completeness of the siddhi. It is only when the most material and the subconscient and the environmental consciousness are quite liberated that this retarding or lowering effect of the primal Inertia is entirely overcome. [80]

~

The one way to get out of it is to remain very quiet inwardly and call down persistently the Force from above. [81]

~

...for that will only make things worse and increase the tamas, dryness, dullness, inertia,—but 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. [82]

How to Cure the Difficulties of Physical Nature?

The first thing is to reject the idea of helplessness, of impossibility of a successful reaction. The central will must assert itself, not violently in a constant struggle, for that brings reaction, fatigue and inertia, but with a quiet pressure and insistence. The mind must learn (even the physical external mind) never to say yes to the suggestions and impulsions of the old movement or admit any justification for them however plausible or seemingly “true”. However violently they return and insist, they must feel that they will never get any essential assent or sanction. You have almost reached that point, but it must be made more entire. There must be something in the vital itself that insists on its true aspiration and refuses even the vital consent or any vital pleasure in the wrong movements. If they come, they must feel their own fallen, ignorant, merely material brute character. This point you seem to be reaching, but it must be absolute. Lastly the physical, the material itself—to insist on the Light, the true will there also. For that, do not indulge the desires, the wrong impulses, the wrong brute feelings that come. Do not admit the idea that you cannot refuse. Throw them out each time they come, out of the body into the environmental consciousness till they can finally be pushed away from there also. For it is these that now separate you in the physical consciousness from the Mother. [83]

~

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. [84]

~

What is important for you in these circumstances is to make your faith, surrender and samata absolute. That is as great and essential a progress as to have high experiences, etc. [85]

Transformation of Physical: Why is it the Need of the Hour?

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. [86]

...here inertia or incapacity (apravṛtti), obscurity or forgetfulness (aprakāśa), it is in order to get set right,—it has come up for a first or preliminary transformation. Peace and light in the mind, love and sympathy in the heart, calm and power in the vital, a settled receptivity and response (prakāśa, pravṛtti) in the physical are the necessary change. [87]

~

...it was this which had been preventing the elimination of the old movements all along and enabled them to return when they had been pushed out—for it is in the material half-conscious or subconscient that there is the bedrock of the resistance… 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… [88]

~

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. [89]

What are the Difficulties of Mental Nature?

...the slowness of the mind and the nature to seize something new to it, the non-distinction between what is true and to be held and what is not true and not to be held, is due to a certain absence of quickness of movement in the being… A quick mind is often unstable—it catches but does not keep; or it catches but only superficially and thinks it has got everything when it has got only a little and not enough. A slow mind that takes slowly but holds on to what it has got, can be slow but sure in its movement… Therefore you should not mind if it takes long to absorb and hold the new consciousness—as a matter of fact, to hold takes long with everybody. Once you have got it well established, your nature is likely to hold it firmly… [90]

How to Cure Mental Inertia?

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. [91]

~

Q.How can one get out of this mental laziness and inertia?”

A: 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. [92]

~

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. [93]

~

Q.Why does selfishness make one jealous and weakness makes one lazy?

A: 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. [94]

Recommended Practices

The best thing to do is to distinguish in oneself the origin of all one's movements—those that come from the light of truth and those that come from the old inertia and falsehood—in order to accept the first and to refuse or reject the others. [95]

~

With practice one learns to distinguish more and more clearly, but one can establish as a general rule that all that tends towards disharmony, disorder and inertia comes from the falsehood and all that favours union, harmony, order and consciousness comes from the Truth. When you have found something which has the power to help you in gaining a victory over your unconsciousness and inertia, you must, till you reach the final result, exhaust all the effects produced by that word or phrase before you look for others. [96]

~

...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. [97]

~

Two things are necessary. First of all, nothing in your being, no part of your being should want to die. That does not happen often. You have always a defeatist in you somewhere: something that is tired, something that is disgusted, something that has had enough of it, something that is lazy, something that does not want to struggle and says: "Well! Ah! Let it be finished, so much the better." That is sufficient, you are dead. [98]

~

Then I said to myself: that's how it is, there must be a certain tamas—an uncomprehending tamas—which in order to change needs to be violently shaken up. With illnesses, it's the same thing, in the sense that only when things really seem about to topple over on the wrong side... I go out of my body deliberately, hovering over all things, and the body recovers—now it takes very little time: a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. [99]

~

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. [100]

~

Concentration is very helpful and necessary—the more one concentrates (of course in the limits of the body's capacity without straining it), the more the force of the Yoga grows.There are different causes for it. But it is mostly something physical that interferes, either the need of the body to take time to assimilate what has come or been done or sometimes inertia or dullness due to causes such as those you mention or others. The best thing is to remain quiet and not get nervous or dejected—till the force acts again. [101]

Guidance through the Divine Grace

...with the full assent of the sadhak. To learn to give that full assent is the whole meaning of the sadhana. It may take time either because of ideas in the mind, desires in the vital or inertia in the physical consciousness, but these things have to be and can be removed with the aid or by calling in the action of the Divine Force. [102]

~

You were able to go up because the Peace descended. You were not able to remain above because the Peace could not occupy sufficiently the physical and the Force did not descend sufficiently. Meanwhile the inertia arose, you got troubled more and more because of the vital suggestions in the outer nature and the rush of inertia, so you were unable to keep detached and let the Force descend more and more or call it down more and more. Hence the coming down into the physical consciousness. [103]

~

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... 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. [104]

~

The first is that of control by physical immobility, the second is that of power by immobility. The power of physical immobility is as important in Hathayoga as the power of mental immobility in the Yoga of knowledge, and for parallel reasons. ...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 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… 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. [105]

Spiritual Evolution

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… [106]

~

...its actual cosmic manifestation the Supreme, being the Infinite and not bound by any limitation, can manifest in itself, in its consciousness of innumerable possibilities, something that seems to be the opposite of itself, something in which there can be Darkness, Inconscience, Inertia, Insensibility, Disharmony and Disintegration. ...the vital disturbance the physical inertia with all its symptoms is an attack of the hostile forces intended to cut short and prevent the higher opening. The ideas that arise to justify it are of no value—it is not true that physical work is of an inferior value to mental culture, it is the arrogance of the intellect that makes the claim. All work done for the Divine is equally divine; manual labour done for the Divine is more divine than mental culture done for one's own development, fame or mental satisfaction. [107]

~

...Desire too can only cease rightly by becoming the desire of the infinite and satisfying itself with a supernal fulfilment and an infinite satisfaction in the all-possessing bliss of the Infinite. The vision of the Light and the vision of the Lord in the form of Jagannath are both of them indications that he has the capacity for Yoga experience and that there is a call of the Divine on his inner being. But capacity is not enough; there must be also the will to seek after the Divine and courage and persistence in following the path. Fear is the first thing that must be thrown away and, secondly, the inertia of the outer being which has prevented him from responding to the call. [108]

Other Movements which Give rise to Tamas/Inertia:

For the dissatisfaction of the vital, the only remedy is rejection and refusal to identify yourself with it. 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. [109]

Sex

A state of tamasic inertia of the mind and body is always favourable to the sex-urge by the sex-impulse. What I meant was that there is something (not the whole) of your lower vital and physical that can respond to the sex-impulse. There may be another part that has already the aspiration—but when the condition favourable to the sex-invasion comes, then the aspiration is quiescent or not strong enough and the other elements allow the sex-force to come in. [110]

The Practices Required

Imaginations can only be got rid of by a tapasya of the will not allowing them to run their course, but breaking them off as soon as they begin. They come most easily when lying in bed after waking from sleep in a tamasic condition. One has to break them off either by shaking off the tamas or by emptying the mind and going to sleep again. At other times one ought to be able to stop it by turning the mind elsewhere. [111]

Sleep

Sleep is necessary for the body just as food is. Sufficient sleep must be taken, but not excessive sleep. What sufficient sleep is depends on the need of the body. [112]

Importance of Sleep

Take care to rest enough. You must guard against fatigue as it may bring relaxation and tamas. To rest well is not tamas, as some people suppose; it can be done in the right consciousness to maintain the bodily energy—like the śavāsana of the strenuous Hathayogin. [113]

~

...the consciousness in the body is that of the subconscient physical, which is a diminished consciousness, not awake and alive like the rest of the being. The rest of the being stands back and part of its consciousness goes out into other planes and regions and has experiences which are recorded in dreams such as that you have related… ...It merely means that you go into the vital world, as everybody does, and the vital world is full of such places and such experiences. What you have to do is not so much to avoid at all going there, for it cannot be avoided altogether, but to go with full protection until you get mastery in these regions of supraphysical Nature. That is one reason why you should remember us and open to the Force before sleeping; for the more you get that habit and can do it successfully, the more the protection will be with you. [114]

Forms of 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. [115]

~

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. [116]

~

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. [117]

~

As soon as you enter the rajasic nature, you like effort. And at least the one advantage of rajasic people is that they are courageous, whereas tamasic people are cowards. It is the fear of effort which makes one cowardly. For once you have started, once you have taken the decision and begun the effort, you are interested. It is exactly the same thing which is the cause of some not liking to learn their lessons, not wanting to listen to the teacher; it is tamasic, it is to be asleep, it avoids the effort which must be made in order to catch the thing and then grasp it and keep it. It is half-somnolence. So it is the same thing physically, it is a somnolence of the being, an inertia. [118]

Transformation of Tamas into Sama

Tamas is the degradation of śama, as rajas is the degradation of Tapas, the Divine Force. The physical consciousness is always trying to substitute its own inertia for the calm, peace or rest of the true consciousness, just as the vital is always trying to substitute its rajas for the true action of the Force. [119]

~

It [sleepiness] is the physical tamas trying to push itself into the place of the calm. Part of the transformation consists in replacing the element of tamas in the nature by the śama or true calm, peace, rest, of which tamas or inertia is the degradation or perversion in the lower nature (for each of the three gunas has its divine counterpart in the higher nature). It [tamas] has to be transformed into śama, the peace and rest of the higher Prakriti, and then filled with tapas and jyotiḥ. But this can only be done completely in the physical when the physical is finally transformed by the supramental Power. [120]

Challenges Faced

The character is made up of habits and it clings to them, is disposed to think them the very law of its being and it is a hard job to get it to change at all except under a strong pressure of circumstances. Especially in the physical parts, the body, the physical mind, the physical life movements, there is this resistance; the tamasic element in Nature is powerful there, what the Gita describes as aprakāśa, absence of light, and apravṛtti, a tendency to inertia, inactivity, unwillingness to make an effort and, as a result, even when the effort is made, a constant readiness to doubt, to despond and despair, to give up, renounce the aim and the endeavour, collapse. [121]

~

...even when the thread is broken it is taken up again and reunited and carried to its end. There is a working in the nature itself in response to the inner need which, however slowly, brings about the result. But a certain inner consent is needed; the progress that you have marked in yourself is due to the fact that there was this consent in the soul and also in part of the nature; the change was insisted on by the mind and desired by part of the vital; the resistance in part of the mind and part of the vital made it slow and difficult but could not prevent it. The strong development you have observed in your powers with its proof in the response of others is due to the same reason; part of your being consented to it, wanted and needed it as a self-fulfilment of the nature and the soul wanted it as a means of service to the Divine; the rest was due to the pressure of the Divine force and my pressure…[122]

Content curated bu Suchismitha

Read Summary of Laziness

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  1. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/laziness-tiredness-fatigue-tamas#p1
  2. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/study#p81
  3. http://incarnateword.in/agenda/09/september-7-1968#p21
  4. http://incarnateword.in/agenda/02/september-16-1961#p22
  5. http://incarnateword.in/agenda/10/october-18-1969#p58
  6. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-physical-consciousness#p33
  7. https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-knot-of-matter#p13
  8. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/13-may-1964-1#p3
  9. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/9-september-1953#p21
  10. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/9-april-1958#p4
  11. http://incarnateword.in/agenda/07/september-28-1966#p19
  12. http://incarnateword.in/agenda/01/may-16-1960#p11
  13. https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/35/1936#p1
  14. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/30-march-1955#p30
  15. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/15-august-1956#p1
  16. http://incarnateword.in/agenda/07/august-3-1966#p9
  17. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/depression#p26
  18. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/9-may-1967#p3
  19. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/sorrow-and-suffering#p12
  20. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/to-the-students-young-and-old#p7
  21. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/12-september-1956#p5
  22. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/4-august-1954#p8
  23. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/4-august-1954#p9
  24. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/cheerfulness-and-happiness#p12
  25. https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/levels-of-the-physical-being#p14,p49
  26. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/illness-and-health#p64
  27. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/illness-and-health#p66
  28. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/illness-and-health#p78
  29. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/illness-and-health#p79
  30. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/illness-and-health#p98
  31. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-lower-vital-being#p35
  32. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/variations-in-the-intensity-of-experience#p18
  33. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/laziness-tiredness-fatigue-tamas#p11
  34. https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/laziness-tiredness-fatigue-tamas#p13,p14,p15,p16
  35. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/28-april-1951#p5
  36. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/13/aims-and-principles#p301
  37. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/20-march-1957#p9
  38. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/9-july-1958#p10
  39. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/24-june-1953#p22
  40. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/28-april-1951#p9
  41. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/4-june-1960#p6
  42. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/laziness-tiredness-fatigue-tamas#p12
  43. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/9-july-1958#p10
  44. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/21-april-1954#p22
  45. http://incarnateword.in/agenda/06/july-24-1965#p30
  46. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-human-aspiration#p3
  47. http://incarnateword.in/agenda/10/october-18-1969#p100
  48. http://incarnateword.in/agenda/06/february-27-1965#p7
  49. http://incarnateword.in/agenda/10/november-19-1969#p32
  50. http://incarnateword.in/agenda/04/may-15-1963#p13
  51. http://incarnateword.in/agenda/07/march-26-1966#p12
  52. http://incarnateword.in/agenda/08/august-2-1967#p59
  53. http://incarnateword.in/agenda/02/january-12-1961#p11
  54. http://incarnateword.in/agenda/05/july-22-1964#p20
  55. https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/levels-of-the-physical-being#p60
  56. https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/levels-of-the-physical-being#p62
  57. https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/levels-of-the-physical-being#p63
  58. https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/levels-of-the-physical-being#p65
  59. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/experiences-of-the-self-the-one-and-the-infinite#p6
  60. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/the-ascent-towards-supermind#p45
  61. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/interactions-with-others-and-the-practice-of-yoga#p104
  62. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/surrender#p66
  63. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/surrender#p82
  64. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/surrender#p90
  65. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/resistances-sufferings-and-falls#p7
  66. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/16-june-1929#p6
  67. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/23-june-1929#p22
  68. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-divine-force-in-work#p15
  69. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-divine-force-in-work#p26
  70. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-subconscient-and-the-integral-yoga#p7
  71. https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-subconscient-and-the-integral-yoga#p52
  72. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/levels-of-the-physical-being#p2
  73. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/conscious-force#p14
  74. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/levels-of-the-physical-being#p5
  75. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/levels-of-the-physical-being#p49
  76. https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/levels-of-the-physical-being#p15,p49
  77. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/difficulties-of-the-physical-nature#p6
  78. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/difficulties-of-the-physical-nature#p8
  79. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/difficulties-of-the-physical-nature#p15
  80. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/difficulties-of-the-physical-nature#p17
  81. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/difficulties-of-the-physical-nature#p37
  82. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-lower-vital-being#p35
  83. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/difficulties-of-the-physical-nature#p2
  84. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/difficulties-of-the-physical-nature#p46
  85. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/difficulties-of-the-physical-nature#p52
  86. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-transformation-of-the-physical#p2
  87. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-transformation-of-the-physical#p21
  88. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-transformation-of-the-physical#p25
  89. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-transformation-of-the-physical#p31
  90. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/mental-difficulties-and-the-need-of-quietude#p15
  91. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/study#p86
  92. https://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/1-june-1966#p2
  93. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/answers-to-a-monitor#p110
  94. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/16-november-1969#p3
  95. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/13-january-1965#p3
  96. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/the-thousands#p20
  97. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/31-august-1955#p18
  98. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/1-july-1953#p34
  99. http://incarnateword.in/agenda/04/october-19-1963#p12
  100. http://incarnateword.in/agenda/09/september-7-1968#p21
  101. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/concentration-and-meditation#p94
  102. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-divine-grace-and-guidance#p11
  103. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/ascent-to-the-higher-planes#p41
  104. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/descent-and-the-lower-nature#p12
  105. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/hathayoga#p8
  106. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/spiritual-evolution-and-the-supramental#p6
  107. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/work-and-yoga#p67
  108. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-call-and-the-capacity#p34
  109. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/wrong-movements-of-the-vital#p46
  110. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/sex#p126
  111. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/sex#p131
  112. https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/sleep#p1
  113. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/sleep#p15
  114. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/sleep#p48
  115. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-sankhya-yoga-system#p16
  116. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-sankhya-yoga-system#p37
  117. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-sankhya-yoga-system#p38
  118. http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/26-january-1955#p19
  119. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-sankhya-yoga-system#p48
  120. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-sankhya-yoga-system#p51
  121. http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-difficulties-of-yoga#p21
  122. https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-difficulties-of-yoga#p23