Changes

The centre between the navel and the Muladhara commands the lower vital (physical desires, small greeds, passions etc.). <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-system-of-the-chakras#p65</ref>

Below the navel is the lower vital plane, which is ignorant and obscure, the seat of small desires, greeds, passions and enjoyments. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-vital-being-and-vital-consciousness#p36</ref>

From the navel downwards is the reign of the vital passions and sensations and all the small life-impulses that constitute the bulk of the ordinary human life and character. This is what we call the lower vital nature. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-vital-being-and-vital-consciousness#p16</ref>

The place of desire is below the heart in the central vital (navel) and in the lower vital, but it invades the emotion and the vital mind. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-vital-being-and-vital-consciousness#p33</ref>

It is not possible to give a name to all the energies that act in the being. They are put into several classes. First are the mental thought energies (intelligence, dynamic mind, physical perceptive mind); the vital—1st emotional vital with all the emotional movements in it; 2nd the central vital (the larger desires, passions, ambitions, forces of work, possession, conquest); 3rd the lower vital (all the small egoistic movements of desire, enjoyment, lust, greed, jealousy, envy, vanity etc. etc.); 4th the physical energies concerned with the material life and its functioning, needs, outer action, instrumental fulfilment of the other powers. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-lower-nature-or-lower-hemisphere#p5</ref>

The lower vital which is occupied with small desires and feelings, such as make the greater part of daily life, e.g. food desire, sexual desire, small likings, dislikings, vanity, quarrels, love of praise, anger at blame, little wishes of all kinds—and a numberless host of other things...below the navel. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-vital-being-and-vital-consciousness#p10</ref>

As against them [higher vital] stands the lower vital which is concerned with the pettier movements of action and desire and stretches down into the vital physical where it supports the life of the more external activities and all physical sensations, hungers, cravings, satisfactions. The term lower must not be considered in a pejorative sense; it refers only to the position in the hierarchy of the planes. For although this part of the nature in earthly beings tends to be very obscure and is full of perversions,—lust, greed of all kinds, vanity, small ambitions, petty anger, envy, jealousy are its ordinary guests,—still there is another side to it which makes it an indispensable mediator between the inner being and the outer life.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-vital-being-and-vital-consciousness#p11</ref>

On the other side is this lower vital nature [as against supramental realisation] with all its pretentious arrogance, ignorance, obscurity, dullness or incompetent turbulence, standing for its own prolongation, standing against the descent [descending power of the supramental Divine], refusing to believe in any real reality or real possibility of a supramental or superhuman consciousness and creation, or, still more absurd, demanding, if it exists at all, that it should conform to its own little standards, seizing greedily upon everything that seems to disprove it, denying the presence of the Divine,—for it knows that without that presence the work is impossible,—affirming loudly its own thoughts, judgments, desires, instincts, and, if these are contradicted, avenging itself by casting abroad doubt, denial, disparaging criticism, revolt and disorder.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-lower-vital-being#p13</ref>

The lower vital is not a part that listens to reason. There is no why to its action; it acts in a particular way because it has long been accustomed to act in that way, and it goes on even if the doing brings a painful reaction. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-lower-vital-being#p15</ref>

Below the navel is the lower vital plane, which is ignorant and obscure, the seat of small desires, greeds, passions and enjoyments. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-vital-being-and-vital-consciousness#p36</ref>

As there is a physical mind, so there is a physical vital—a vital turned entirely upon physical things, full of desires and greeds and seekings for pleasure on the physical plane. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-vital-being-and-vital-consciousness#p37</ref>

By material vital, we mean the vital so involved in matter as to be bound by its movements and gross physical character. The action is to support and energise the body and keep in it the capacity of life, growth, movement etc., also of sensitiveness to outer impacts. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-vital-being-and-vital-consciousness#p40</ref>

Yes—they [the lower vital, the physical vital and the material vital] become very clear to the increasing consciousness. And the distinctions are necessary—otherwise one may influence or control the lower vital or a part of the physical vital and then be astonished to find that something intangible but apparently invincible still resists—it is the material vital with so much of the rest as it can influence by its resistance. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-vital-being-and-vital-consciousness#p39</ref>

The mind-plane that belongs to the physical world, the physical mind, as we usually call it, is more material in its structure and movement than the true mind and it is very much under the sway of the vital world and the hostile forces. This physical mind is usually in a kind of alliance with the lower vital consciousness and its movements; when the lower vital manifests certain desires and impulses, this more material mind comes to its aid and justifies and supports them with specious explanations and reasonings and excuses. It is this layer of mind that is most open to suggestions from the vital world and most often invaded by its forces. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/26-may-1929#p12</ref>

All desires, all impulses, all egoistical, obscure, ignorant, passionate, violent movements—in fact most of the movements one makes every day. This is the error of the lower vital. It wants to have everything for itself. It wants to be the master of the whole life, to govern everything. And when the mind is an accomplice—which happens ninety-nine and a half times out of a hundred—the mind says, ‘This indeed is called living one's life, a right to live one's life’. It means the right to be an ignorant and stupid animal. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/2-march-1955#p28</ref>

The lower vital is very slow in listening to reason—at least when reason is on the side of Truth; although it is very pleased to listen to the mind when the mind justifies the lower vital's wrong movements. In fact the lower vital moves on its own lines, not according to Truth or reason. It is only the insistence of a stronger Light that can enlighten it by changing it in its own substance of consciousness. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-lower-vital-being#p16</ref>

It is the lower vital energy that rushes to the brain and either confuses it and prevents mental self-control or else makes the mind its slave and uses reason to justify the passions. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-lower-vital-being#p17</ref>

It is not true that you cannot or will never be put right. It is what appears to you when your lower vital is restless or else your physical mind comes uppermost. Only it is true that if you could keep yourself always in that part of you which is in contact, the thing would be done sooner and with much less difficulty and trouble. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/wrong-movements-of-the-vital#p18</ref>

The bitterness you feel is that of a restless and dissatisfied vital which did not get what it desired because it could not desire anything strongly and persistently. Otherwise it could have all the vital desires—marriage, friends, position etc.—but it could stick to nothing owing to a kind of weak restlessness. In the Yoga it has shown the same restless weakness,—otherwise it could by this time have attained something, and besides there was the sex-impulse which it would neither satisfy nor leave. You must know what you want and want it with your whole will—it is only so that there can be an end of this restlessness and failure. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/wrong-movements-of-the-vital#p15</ref>

The feeling of loneliness, ''udāsīnatā'', dryness and lack of rasa come very usually when the vital part is disappointed in its desires or tries to give them up but has not yet attained a quiet indifference towards them. It is necessary to replace this condition by the true quietude which will allow the psychic being to become again active and reopen the doors of inner experience, and we shall try to get this done. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/wrong-movements-of-the-vital#p27</ref>

===Vital Resistance===

There is behind all the vital nature in man his true vital being concealed and immobile which is quite different from the surface vital nature. The surface vital is narrow, ignorant, limited, full of obscure desires, passions, cravings, revolts, pleasures and pains, transient joys and griefs, exultations and depressions. The true vital being on the contrary is wide, vast, calm, strong, without limitations, firm and immovable, capable of all power, all knowledge, all Ananda. It is moreover without ego, for it knows itself to be a projection and instrument of the Divine; it is the divine Warrior, pure and perfect; in it is an instrumental Force for all divine realisations. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-vital-being-and-vital-consciousness#p3</ref>

The higher and lower [vital] are divisions of the ordinary vital and equally ignorant. It is the true vital that is in contact with the Divine. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-vital-being-and-vital-consciousness#p5</ref>