The Vital Nature Can Go On Strike When It Does Not Get What It Wants

Most people have had the experience. An individual has a dispute with a friend, a relative, a spouse. No resolution takes place. An attempt to convince or control the other person is met with resistance. There may be aggression or threats of violence. Or a period of silent avoidance may result. This latter response is an example of what we might consider to be an individual “going on strike” in relation to another individual.

This same process takes place within ourselves. We experience a desire of some type. Possibly for a feeling of being wanted and supported; possibly for something like recognition or fame; possibly for wealth, or power, sex or entertainment. It could be a desire for a specific type of food or drink, or a desire for an intoxicant in order to experience the state of consciousness that accompanies the drug. Whatever it may be, we are confronted at each moment with a choice. We can follow the impulse and fulfill the desire. Afterwards, we may feel satiated for a time, and the vital nature is willing to cooperate and participate in actions that the mind and will, or the psychic aspiration, would like to see accomplished.

We may determine that carrying out the impulse, however, is not something we would like to do, so we rebuff the vital nature and ask it, one way or the other, to desist from that desire and to carry out the mind’s will or other action that speaks to our deeper aspirations. At this moment, we find that the vital can either intensify its insistence on its desire, or else, if it is not successful, it may simply withdraw energy and begin to sulk, to avoid engagement and to feel depressed, discouraged or dismissed. At that moment, there is either a struggle to face off against the desire of the vital; or else, there is a period of feeling lost, dispersed, distracted, seeking for some form of diversion or psychological oblivion, unable to accomplish anything.

Finding a way to ‘tame’ the vital nature is one of the serious challenges faced by spiritual aspirants throughout the world. Avoidance of opportunity has shown to be a failed approach, as it does not solve the issue. Indulgence, the satisfying of the desire is also a failed approach, as desire tends to burn hotter the more fuel it is provided. The question then arises whether there is another way, such as, can the vital nature be educated, raised up and its focus upgraded to support the higher aspiration of the being and find its fulfillment there instead of in its heretofore normal pursuits and satisfactions.

The Mother writes: “Therefore, it depends on which side it turns. And I tell you, it has a very strong habit of going on strike. That is its most powerful weapon: ‘Ah! you are not doing what I want, well, I am not going to move, I shall sham dead.’ And it does that for the least reason. It has a very bad character; it is very touchy and it is very spiteful — yes, it is very ill-natured. For I believe it is very conscious of its power and it feels clearly that if it gives itself wholly, there is nothing that will resist the momentum of its force. And like all people who have a weight in the balance, the vital also bargains: ‘I shall give you my energy, but you must do what I want. If you do not give me what I ask for, well, I withdraw my energy.’ And you will be flat as a pancake. And it is true, it happens like that.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter XVII The Vital, pg. 134