Integral Health

NAMAH
Body, mind and spirit journal
Integral Health
Two Case studies in Integral Health
Dr. Soumitra Basu
Editor’s note
These case studies are important from one point of view. They reveal that there can be
alternative ways of viewing the same phenomenon and relating to it, not only in different
systems but even in the same paradigm. They reveal the insufficiency of outer data and the
need to explore the hidden ranges of our existence. Since all paradigms are mental and hence
necessarily limited, this paradigm too has been employed by the mind of the therapist and
hence will have its necessary limitations. For instance, the view is narrowed down to one
lifetime’s experience. In relation to the psychic entity in man, one has to look at life as a
sequential, and spiral growth through many lives. It is hoped that one day, the doctor would
be able to see and manipulate the hidden forces of life, while attempting a holistic cure of his
patients. But meanwhile, one has to begin somewhere and here are these cases which provide a
useful beginning.
The interaction of a disease and the type of the person who has it, has an important
bearing in medicine. In fact, this was a great subject of debate between the Platonic
and Hippocratic schools in the West. In the East however, in Ayurveda, the general
approach to disease necessarily included a psychosomatic dimension.
Numerous studies have correlated the diverse psychological and psychosocial

conflicts and personality traits with various ailments; yet the holistic approach to
health has been more eclectic than integral. Evidently, a mere mass of correlated data
cannot suffice, if it does not also fit into a totipotentially integrated and
devolutionary model of positive health.
The Gnostic base of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother provides a
suitable paradigm for such a holistic approach to health. There are three important
seed-ideas that need to be considered deeply and elaborated:
(a) Firstly, Integral Yoga posits that the outer nature of man can be viewed along
different planes or parts of Consciousness — the Physical, the Vital and the Mental,
each of which has a separate personality. Ordinarily, these are confused and
combined with one another and as a result require careful discrimination. Thus,
while the Vital combines with the Mind to become the Higher Vital, it can also
combine with the Physical to become the Lower Vital. Of the various combinations
the Physical Mind, the Vital Mind and the Vital-Physical have important implications
in health. By the yogic practice of self-perfection; the Physical, the Vital and the
Mental can be separated from each other and progressively developed as
independent entities.
(b) Secondly, the development of Physical, the Vital and the Mental as independent
personalities can have its full significance only when they relate to an integrating and
harmonising centre — the Psychic Being. The Atman (soul) of the Indian tradition, in
its evolving form is called the Psychic Being in Integral Yoga, to distinguish it from
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Integral Health
the soul as the presiding spiritual fact. The development of the Psychic Being brings
in the true harmony between the different parts of our being. However, in the
ordinary consciousness the Psychic Being is veiled by the ego. (which cannot bring
about an integration of the personality). At a certain stage of inner progress, the ego
has to be surpassed for the full blossoming of the individual.
(c) Thirdly, besides the observable state of awareness that we call ‘ourselves’, there
are other ranges of consciousness yet unexplored. In addition to the subconscious of
the psychoanalysts, Integral Yoga brings in new dimensions — viz. (i) the
Superconscious that covers the consciousness of the Psychic Being and of the higher
planes beyond the Mind and whose exploration opens up all our future possibilities;
(ii) the Subliminal that is the meeting ground of the individual and the universal
spheres of consciousness; (iii) the Circumconscient layer in the universe that
surrounds us.
Evidently, this hologram provided by Integral Yoga is most suited to study for all
aspirants who attempt to live out the Universal and the Transcendent in their
individual spheres. It would be interesting to study the inner existential conflicts of
two such individuals who outwardly manifested the same clinical picture – drug
dependency.
Case I
S was a young man in his twenties who had an intellectual flair for creative writing
and a strong vital urge for socialisation. He also desired to effectively integrate these
two aspects of his character. He left his small semi-urban home town for his
university studies at a big cosmopolitan city where he was greatly shocked to find
that the intellectual and political role-models whom he had cherished so long were in
reality far below his rather utopian expectations. This unexpected bankruptcy of
eulogised values and ideals led to a recoil in his Vital Being and he felt a subjective
vacuum. He decided to have an‘experience of the zero feeling’ from where he would
start his life afresh. Thus began his experimentation with drugs. Initially his Vital
drew immense satisfaction from what he considered to be a bold venture. The vital
however is never satisfied and when S found that drugs could not provide the inner
light for progress, his drug abusing habit had already become a Vital-Physical
fixation — a phenomenon that clinically qualifies for the diagnosis of drug
dependency.
At this juncture, S’s contact with Integral Yoga led him to speculate that a life of
seclusion would give him enough time for introspection, that would enable him to
discover an alternative source of inner stimulation. Subsequently, through intensive
practice, he could dissociate partially the separate parts of his being (the Physical, the
Vital and the Mental) and also understand the necessity for surpassing the ego. Even
this initial, premature and amateurish realisation opened up several avenues for
progress. He successfully conquered the necessity of stimulating his Lower Vital by
drugs. Instead he sought to stimulate his Higher Vital through altruistic activities. He
left his seclusion and went to an illiterate village in the countryside as a
schoolteacher where he pursued his activities with a missionary zeal — the Good
Samaritan who was destined to be a saviour for deprived children. His Vital felt a
great pride in this ‘selfless’ work. He however was continuing his sadhana of the
Integral Yoga and aspiring for a life centred around the Psychic Being. He was also
concurrently developing the Mental and Physical parts of his being. The former he

Integral Health
attempted by compiling studies on he Vedas and Upanishads in the light of Integral

Yoga. S had a great fascination for symbols and he used an artist friend to
symbolically portray some of his inspiring movements. One such favourite symbol
was that of the Vital surrendering to the Divine represented by a dragon at the
World-Mother’s feet. The artist drew the cover of S’s compilations on the Vedas and
Upanishads. Besides his artist friend, S also gathered some other like-minded
persons with the aim of pursuing a collective sadhana. His social group thus
underwent a metamorphosis — the neo-political romanticists followed by a
decadent drug-culture, now sublimated into a quasi-spiritual group. Things
appeared to move smoothly until S’s artist friend committed suicide. This anti-climax
brought S to the ground reality. He had replaced the stimulation of his Lower Vital
(through drugs) by a stimulation of the Higher Vital (through altruistic activities). He
had attempted to strengthen his Mental Being by individually sharpening his
intellectual acumen in spirituality and reinforcing it through enlightened discourses
with his Sat-Sang comrades. Yet all these only helped to inflate his ego. S realised that
he would have to replace his ego by the Psychic Being and the first thing needed was
heroic — a yogic effort to be humble. He attempted to cultivate humility by
voluntarily agreeing to listen to his parents for the first time by sitting for the State
Civil Services examination, which he successfully got through. He subsequently took
up administrative work in the spirit of a Karmayogin.
He later summed up his experiences with drugs vis-à-vis the yogic effort towards
self-perfection: “I took up drugs to have the experience of the zero-feeling. I realised
that the zero I sought was the zero of the nadir — of the inconscience — full of
darkness. I also realised that there was another zero — that of the zenith — the
higher archetypal zero of the superconscience full of resplendent light. Indeed, that
discovery motivates one to prepare oneself for the pursuit of a higher ideal.”
Case II
A was a highly qualified professional. He had an over-protective childhood with a

dominating mother and a passively supporting father debarring him from physical
activities so that he could be an ideal bookworm. He grew up with an inflated
intellectual pride. He could not socialise with girls and was highly selective about his
male acquaintances whom he chose for their ‘intellectuality’. His intellectual
activities as a technocrat could not be fully utilised at the office due to widespread
recession in the business world. In his mid-twenties he discovered that the
intellectual edifice he had built and nurtured was now no longer able to provide a
sense of fulfillment. He comments on that period of his life, “I felt lonely and sought
newer and newer experiences, not through intellectuality but through vital
sensations.”
At this juncture he came in contact with two diverse forces. On the one hand he felt
drawn to the Integral Yoga and on the other hand he was fascinated by the drug
culture. Thus began a tormenting war between the lower vital plane of his
personality, that needed drugs for stimulation and the higher vital plane of his being
that yearned for an eulogised utopian life through the yogic practice of self-
perfection. This struggle was so strenuous in him that he could not consistently
maintain the motivation to remain drug-free despite being in and out of
detoxification wards. He made a desperate attempt to leave drugs by visiting the
ashram at Pondicherry. Though he outwardly did not succeed in his mission, he
made a significant discovery by realising that the Mental, the Vital and the Physical

Integral Health
are separate beings that need to be developed and harmonised around a central
Psychic being. This initial realisation spurred hum to maintain his motivation to
remain drug-free. He displayed a great sincerity when he again got himself admitted
for detoxification.
He progressed well, but immediately following the detoxification developed a

clinical picture that simulated a hypomaniac state. He did not respond appreciably to
tranquilizers and a closer scrutiny revealed that he was having a new type of crisis —
something he never experienced before. There was an upsurge of whatever had been
repressed during the shaping of his personality. He realised that he had vainly
sought to make friendships based on the ‘intellect’ whereas his heart’s choice was
more important for him. Now he started making friends with all and sundry with the
result that he got involved with people whose consciousness was low and who
poked him to indulge in cheap sensational affairs. He had always avoided girls.
When he took to Yoga, he had thought of conquering his libidinal upsurges by
forcefully repressing them. Now suddenly, for the first time in his life, he grew
restless for a female companion. He actually approached an unknown lady who was
a co-passenger in the office-bus, but the latter’s somewhat stoic attitude helped A to
restrain himself. He tried to become an extrovert (though by nature he always was an
introvert). The result was, he became too talkative, without being productive — a
state that eventually was labelled as ‘hypomaniac’ by the medical personnel.
Despite all these difficulties, he was praying for the Divine Grace whose hand he
could detect in the various mishaps. Once he had been assaulted by a mob for
abusing drugs in a public place and he inwardly accepted this occasion as an
opportunity to overcome his ego. His ‘hypomaniac’ state improved not by
medication but on introspection.
Counsellors and health professionals who work with drug-dependents consider

‘cure’ to be a hypothetical concept that evolves when a subject, after leaving drugs
(or on controlled use of drugs) attempts to rehabilitate himself into the social
network. However, that does not suffice from the Yogic point of view. In the case of
our first subject, withdrawal from drugs gave place to altruism and ‘spiritual
intellectuality’ that hampered his inner growth by inflating his ego. In the case of the
second subject, the withdrawal from drugs was maintained at the cost of an upsurge
of all that had been forcefully repressed during his formative years, leading to an
awkward situation. For a seeker of self-perfection, one must go beyond the ordinary
notions of cure and rehabilitation. Integral health does not signify an eclectic
combination of several perspectives, but a sincere and integrated attempt to
harmonise the different parts of one’s personality around the Psychic Being. This
alone can establish the stable equilibrium needed as a base and support for a holistic
health and inner growth.

NAMAH
Integral Health
Integral Health
Dr. Alok Pandey
Editor’s note
This article is based on a talk given by the author at SACAR, Pondicherry. It takes the reader
from health and illness through life and death to the root question: what does health really mean
and can we grow into it without any doctor.
This article goes beyond frameworks into a vast infinite space beyond….
Integral Health, as I understand it, is the science of the Infinite. There are two perfect
ways of discovering truth, whether it be biology, physics or anything else. Either dive
deep, deep, deep into it — that is one movement which is taking place today. Go right
into the heart of the thing, and discover the truth which resides in its core. Or, become
vast, so vast, that the total movement, not just individual phenomena but the totality is
seen. Then from that height or from that depth understand the whole. Whether this can
be Integral Health or not I really do not know because one cannot give a term to it.
I remember one of the experiences of the Mother. She recounts it very beautifully. She
sees many people of different religions, different systems, philosophies, schools, sects,
who call Her, and try to show Her something. She sees a little window opening
somewhere. Some fields are nice, some rough, and each one says,
“Come, come, look at me, look at me.”
There is a man sitting by a pillar wearing a purple robe who says,
“Come, I have something to offer you. You will like it. Try this.”
So the Mother tastes what he has given,
“Oh, this is very sweet and delicious. What is your path?” He says, “I have no path.”
This touches a very deep truth. If we look at the whole movement of things, we
discover that each system of medicine is essentially a window glimpse of an infinite
happening. And we observe just a process, a line of events, give it a name and formulate
it, simply because the mind cannot observe the totality. Because we have observed just
one strand of Nature, it is bound to be imperfect. Meaning thereby, what we need to
discover is not a cure for the maladies of man but a cure for the malady called man.
That is what I understand Integral Health is about. So long as man is what he is, so long
as he remains a limited, ego-bound, divided entity, any amount of medicine, whether of
this system or that, is only palliative and not deeply curative of his suffering.
The process of creating illness

Integral Health
So what do we observe when we enter into the heart of vastness? We observe that there
is a great movement of Nature going on. Nature is offering everything to the Lord,
everything. She is trying to go up, go up towards the source. And this movement is
essentially evolutionary. Different parts of Nature however move at different speeds
and some cast a shadow. Parts which are not ready for the pace that has been set, resist
and grate. They cause all kinds of frictions and upheavals — cyclones, social
pathologies, catastrophes etc. This is the root of the malady, i.e. the consciousness does
not flow smoothly.
One can imagine a stone in a stream. It does not allow the stream to flow as smoothly as
it could. So grooves form on the stone in different patterns, or maybe the stone is just
thrown aside if the current is very strong at that point. Thus it is with Nature’s forces
(the stream) and the individual (stone) resistance. If we look carefully there is a pattern
in the whole thing. There is a universal pattern and an individual pattern. Also, this
distortion which takes place due to different parts moving at different speeds, is first
seen through an energy imbalance. So the energy imbalance is also only a reflection of
another imbalance.
Later as the grooves deepen there is a little unease, a disease, and we observe a small
tumour or diabetes, or suddenly we are told we have hypertension or even AIDS.
Just a few days back, I had a patient who was HIV positive, infected through her
husband. She had to go through a lot of trauma resulting in depression. I spoke to her,
“Look, everything is possible. You can cure yourself. Align yourself and observe the
whole process going on.” She came out with something very interesting. I was trying to
tell her that HIV positive does not mean that one has the disease. She said,
“But you know everybody keeps reminding me of AIDS. Every morning during their
rounds, everyone, from the intern to the specialists ask me, ‘Are you feeling lethargic?
Are you experiencing loss of appetite?’ etc. So I start feeling that yes, perhaps I am
lethargic, perhaps I am suffering from AIDS. I am not just HIV positive.”
Now, look at this: we are not relieving disease, we are creating it! Disease and treatment
have to become not disease-oriented but health-oriented. That is the shift. Instead of
focusing so much on the problem, we can focus on the solution. And this applies to all
walks of life. Take a criminal. You put him in prison. You are now emphasising the fact
that he is an outcast. It makes matters worse. Let him rectify his mistake and labour
hard for it, open him to his inner light and beauty, and watch the change which takes
place.
The shift from illness to health
So Integral Health is something about shifting the whole needle towards health. What
does that mean?

Integral Health
Archimedes said,
“Give me a small place outside the earth and a handle — I will move the earth.”
In a sense this applies at other levels too. We see it happening at the physical level in the
field of communications. Till now we were tapping into means of communication that
were only available on the physical earth. When we went into space, in a second the
world became one. This is the science of the Infinite: you enter into space and have
immense possibilities of working upon earth. It is a paradox.
Similarly, for human nature, as long as we try to study one of its parts through another
i.e. the mind through analysis or the vital through emotions, we will not succeed or only
get temporary imperfect relief. This is where a new science steps in.
Sri Aurobindo writes in Savitri,
“A consciousness stands behind the brute machine.”
There is a consciousness behind all these phenomena which has the power to remove
itself, the power to detach itself from the phenomena and thereby work upon them
much better. It is possible for human consciousness, to disengage itself from the entire
process and observe for example that disease and death are not opposites of life, but
processes of life.
Life is evolving, and in the process it throws up phenomena of disease that keep telling
us,
“Look, here is an imperfection!”.
Sri Aurobindo has beautifully said that pain is a reminder, that there is ignorance. If
anyone says,
“Continue to remain with your desires and ego yet I will cure you,”
he is telling a lie. There can be no cure. There may be suppression of symptoms, there
may be a temporary elimination of suffering, but the disease will return. This is because
of a very simple reason. As long as we are limited, egobound we cannot let go. In a part
of us we cling to the illness. ‘I don’t want to move further. I have certain ideas which I
must hold onto, if I am to be Me’. The same thing happens at the level of emotions.
When there is a loss, when there is a tragedy, I must react with grief. That is a kind of
formation.
“I must be depressed because nobody understands me”.
So we hold on to that emotion and don’t want to let go. But there is a current wanting
to move us forward.

Integral Health
The same thing applies to the level of the body and our vital energy. They are inherent
with millennia of conditioning. The body is conditioned to make certain responses,
there is a shrinking the moment, let us say, one sees a snake. When it shrinks there is a
whole movement which is distorted. This response is a problem because it is a
separative response. If a breach is made, I succumb. So what would be the right
response?
Or what is the ideal state towards which we must move? As long as the body feels
separate from the whole, there will be suffering, death and illness. What does this mean
when we talk about it in terms of the most concrete physical phenomena? What it
means is that, if a bacillus or a virus enters my system, I react as a separate self. ‘This is
me, that is a virus.’ And there is a whole chain of events. I want to devour the virus but
the paradox is that may be the virus devours me. This is the irony of man. With all his
intelligence, hi-tech equipment, time and money he brings out a drug. It is a very
painstaking task. After years an antibacterial, antibiotic or antiviral comes to the market
and we start using it. But the small virus with no money, no technical labour, within 6
months discovers a cure to the antibiotic. It happens. It is happening everyday and we
seem to be knocking at the wrong doors. Nature is playing a game of hide and seeks.
Nature is telling us,
“I have a secret hidden in my heart, unveil it.”
“No, no, I will get the secret in my laboratory. Nature is a mechanical, inconscient
something”, persists man.
“Oh I shall show you what a wonderful mechanic I am”, responds Nature.
So the mechanics of Nature are that the man who tries to outsmart and conquer disease,
cannot even conquer the most primitive organism, a ‘virus’.
If one’s body is built on oneness, even when a bacillus or virus enters, it will undergo a
process of synthesis. That is what is meant by building the body on the principle of
oneness. It does not shun and reject. It accepts, or rather, whatever enters it is
automatically transformed. This is the process towards which we are moving in this
millennium. This is what usually happens within the bacillus on repeated contact with
an antibiotic.
Perhaps in no age has mankind been bombarded with so many chemicals, including our
medicines. It is sometimes difficult to imagine the kind of chemicals we pump into our
systems, but even they are serving a purpose.
“Almighty powers are shut in Nature’s cells.”
Now by this very chemical bombardment and, by this exposure to everything possible
in the world, perhaps the body is being stimulated to bring out its original strength,
harmony and oneness, which alone can effectuate a change. The key does not lie
outside. If any physician believes that he can provide that key, he is perhaps living in a

Integral Health
grand illusion. The physician is just a catalyst, the key is inside us — and sometimes we
see it. The key is deep within our soul. Standing aloof from the movements of Nature,
and working upon them stationed here, we can realign the elements, giving them the
right turn, which as the Vedas say
“makes the crooked straight”.
Then everything drops down, all the doshas, all drop away when the touch of the soul is
upon our lives. Perhaps that is the cure.
The key
Let me close with some lines from Savitri,
“Thou thinkest term and end for thee are not

but though thy pride is great thou hast forgot
the sphinx that waits for thee beside the way
All questions thou mayst answer
But one day her question shall await thee.”
This is the question Nature is asking us through every disease. Every time we see death
we exclaim,
“Oh, this too had to perish? Despite all these remedies still I fall sick?”
Death replied:
“For they who cannot die.

She slays them and their mangled bodies lie upon the highways of eternity.”
That is our growth’ the highways of eternity’...
“So if thou wouldst live

Answer first this one thing
Who art thou in this dungeon labouring?”
So, that is the question we need to answer. Not what is the cure but who is searching for
the cure. And I think in that answer lies the solution to the malady called man.

NAMAH
Integral Health
A programme for Integral health
Dr. Soumitra Basu
Editor's note
Dr. Soumitra Basu, the author of ‘Integral Health,’ explores how this could be applied in a
clinical and research setting. These ideas are only hints for one of the frameworks of Integral
Health, which in its essence goes beyond boundaries.
Principle
Illness is a disequilibrium at one plane of consciousness. It points to an inner

disharmony which can be corrected by moving to a higher level of harmony. Integral
Health is a dynamic equilibrium between the different planes of consciousness. It can be
optimally achieved when one shifts from the outer physical, vital and mental
consciousness to the consciousness of the psychic being. The psychic being represents
the Atman of the Indian tradition in its evolving form. It surpasses the ego and is the
real integrative principle of the human personality. It imparts a sense of wholeness,
integrality, peace and joy even in adverse situations. The quintessence of Integral Health
lies in this shift to the psychic consciousness.
There is also an inexhaustible source of energy in the universe which is represented in

man as the prDKic Qakti. Ordinarily we are not aware of this prDKic Qakti, though its outer
formulations provide the field of action for different therapeutic techniques. By yogic
endeavour, we can gain access to this inner source of energy and use it for maintaining
health and overcoming illness. Finally, the personality integrated around the psychic
being can utilise the pure prDKic Qakti not only for health and healing but also for an
evolutionary growth in consciousness.
It follows as a corollary that an integral healing approach does not depend upon an
eclectic combination of different therapeutic systems. Each therapeutic system
represents a partial truth.
All these systems work through energy-states underlying different planes of

consciousness (the physical, vital and mental). The higher energies can modify,
transmute and uplift the lower energies. Thus each therapeutic system can be used as a
starting-point for moving through subtler and subtler realms, till one reaches the
inexhaustible source of the Universal or Divine Qakti within oneself.
Strategies at different planes of consciousness
Physical plane

Integral Health
1. Health Education
a) To focus on how inertia or tamas, characteristic of the physical plane and
manifested through resistance, mechanical repetitiveness, slow arousal and
weakness of will, need to be worked through.
b) Methodical discipline of different functions of the body (food, sleep, hygiene,

positions, postures etc.).
c) Development of body-consciousness (with help of various body-techniques as

Hatha Yoga).
2. Therapeutic
(a) Focus on how to disturb the body as little as possible viz. more emphasis on non-
invasive techniques, as laser surgery, avoidance of unnecessary medication,
discouraging chemical solutions for existential problems.
(b) Clinics for Eyurveda, dietary therapy, massage, physiotherapy, yoga therapy etc.
(c) Clinics/programmes for physically handicapped people.
Vital Plane
1. Health Education
(a) Development of an inner poise by matching dynamic activity with a base of

static power. Useful in stress-management programmes and for Type-A
personality types who are more prone to heart ailments.
(b) Strengthening higher vital movements by refinement of senses, including the

aesthetic sense, over-coming desires and mastering emotions.
(c) Activation of vital energy by any of the following:
i. Universalising individual vitality
ii. Activation of Cakras
iii. Opening to the Universal Qakti.
2. Therapeutic
(a) Focus on therapies using subtle, vital energies like homoeopathy etc.
(b) Strengthen outer vital-physical envelope through PrDKic therapy, Reiki, Magnetic
therapy etc.

Integral Health
Mental Plane
1. Health education
(a) Silencing the mind so that habitual thought patterns can cease.
(b) Cultivating a witness attitude and practising non-judgmental detachment.
(c) Integration of hemispheric functioning (viz. cognition and creativity).
(d) Understanding dreams for psychological growth.
(e) Exercise for increasing one’s cognitive and creative faculties and for
strengthening will-power.
(f) Inculcating peace, faith and detachment so that one opens to a state of Grace and
allows healing forces to act.
2. Therapeutic
(a) Practice widening, deepening and heightening of consciousness through

techniques like relaxation, bio-feedback, guided imagery, meditation, psycho-
synthesis and allied techniques.
(b) Hypnotherapy and other techniques acting at the level of the physical mind.
(c) Cognitive and cognitive-behavioural therapies acting at the level of the vital
mind.
(d) Other psychotherapeutic techniques acting at different levels of the mind.
(e) Music therapy.
Growth of consciousness
(a) To become aware of the physical, vital and mental planes.
(b) To recognise one’s subconscious and superconscious roots.
(c) The subconscious is responsible for recurrence of chronic illness, perpetuation of

habits and rigidity of character. The superconscious gives us the urge to
progress.

Integral Health
(d) To recognise the limitations of the ego and the presence of a deeper Beyond-Ego
principle (the psychic being).
(e) To organise our whole life and different parts around the psychic being.
(f) To allow this personality integrated around the psychic being to move along
higher planes of consciousness.
Society and Integral health
(i) Health Education
(a) To integrate the individual with the collectivity.
(b) Improving the quality of social groups (family, peer-group etc.).
(c) Identification and prevention of social problems: drug abuse, juvenile

delinquency, divorce, communal problems.
Activities possible in an Integral Health Clinic
Special
Personality programmes
Health Multi-disciplinary
For Health
professionals
Can be presented as Physical: (a) Stress a) Introduction to

packages / modules Allopathy,Eyurveda, management for the concept of
through workshops Physiotherapy and executives, Integral Health.
for target groups massage, Dietary
(viz. students, Therapy, Yoga (b) Coping (b) Bio-ethics.
clinic- population, Therapy, clinics for strategies for
executives). handicapped. students (c) Academic
(examinees) interaction of
Literature on Vital-physical: different disciplines.
integral Health, PrDKic Therapy,
Diet, Self-help, Reiki, Magnetic
Natural Therapies, Therapy.
cassettes for Music
Therapy, Relaxation Vital:
video programmes Homoeopathy,
on Acupuncture.
health to be
collected for both Mental:
building up library Counselling,

Integral Health
and for sale Relaxation and

(even clinic should Biofeedback clinics.
have a sales
counter) Socio-cultural:
Family counselling,
child guidance,
drug counselling.
Some of these
therapies will be
available at the
clinic on a regular
basis; others can be
periodically
presented through
camps.
(ii) Ecological Health
(a) Keeping the environment around us free from pollution.
(b) Finding ways that connect us to Nature.
(iii) Therapeutic
(a) Child guidance, family counselling, material counselling.
(b) Healing the earth.
Culture and Integral health
Health Education
(a) To integrate ethics and aesthetics.
(b) To understand the nature of existential crisis.
(c) Augmentation of cultural resources.
Therapeutic
Through Bio-ethics and its applications in health.
Dr. Soumitra Basu is an unconventional psychiatrist who has integrated the universal concepts
of soul and its evolution into his practice.

NAMAH
Integral Health
ABC of the transformation of the body1
Why does the body get tired? We have more or less regular activities, but one day we are full of
energy and the next day we are quite tired.
Generally this comes from a kind of inner disequilibrium. There may be many reasons
for it, but it all comes to this: a sort of disequilibrium between the different parts of the
being. Now, it is also possible that the day one had the energy, one spent it too much,
though this is not the case with children; children spend it until they can no longer do
so. One sees a child active till the moment he suddenly falls fast asleep. He was there,
moving, running; and then, all of a sudden, pluff! finished, he is asleep. And it is in this
way that he grows up, becomes stronger and stronger. Consequently, it is not the
spending that harms you. The expenditure is made up by the necessary rest — that is set
right very well. No, it is a disequilibrium: the harmony between the different parts of the
being is no longer sufficient.
People think they have only to continue doing for ever what they were doing or at least
remain in the same state of consciousness, day after day do their little work, and all will
go well. But it is not like that. Suddenly, for some reason or other, one part of the being
— either your feelings or your thoughts or your vital — makes progress, has discovered
something, received a light, progressed. It takes a leap in progress. All the rest remains
behind. This brings about a disequilibrium. That is enough to make you very tired. But
in fact, it is not tiredness: it is something which makes you want to keep quiet, to
concentrate, remain within yourself, be like that, and build up slowly a new harmony
among the different parts of the being. And it is very necessary to have, at a given
moment, a sort of rest, for an assimilation of what one has learnt and a harmonisation of
the different parts of the being.
Now, as you know, from the physical point of view human beings live in frightful
ignorance. They cannot even say exactly... For instance, would you be able to tell
exactly, at every meal, the amount of food and the kind of food your body needs? —
simply that, nothing more than that: how much should be taken and when it should be
taken.... You know nothing about it, there’s just a vague idea of it, a sort of imagination
or guesswork or deduction or... all sorts of things which have nothing to do with
knowledge. But that exact knowledge: “This is what I must eat, I must eat this much”—
and then it is finished. “This is what my body needs.” Well, that can be done. There’s a
time when one knows it very well. But it asks for years of labour, and above all years of
work almost without any mental control, just with a consciousness that’s subtle enough
to establish a connection with the elements of transformation and progress. And to
know also how to determine for one’s body, exactly, the amount of physical effort, of
material activity, of expenditure and recuperation of energy, the proportion between
1
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Integral Health
what is received and what is given, the utilisation of energies to re-establish a state of
equilibrium which has been broken, to make the cells which are lagging behind
progress, to build conditions for the possibility of higher progress, etc... it is a
formidable task. And yet, it is that which must be done if one hopes to transform one’s
body. First it must be put completely in harmony with the inner consciousness. And to
do that, it is a work in each cell, so to say, in each little activity, in every movement of
the organs. With this alone one could be busy day and night without having to do
anything else.... One does not keep up the effort and, above all, the concentration, nor
the inner vision.
I have put to you quite a superficial question: it seems astonishing to you that one can
know the exact amount of what one should eat, and what should be eaten at a certain
time, and at what time one should take one’s meal, and when one is ready for another!
Well, that is an altogether superficial part of the problem, yet if you enter into the
combination of the cells and the inner organisation in order that all this may be ready to
respond to the descending Force... First, are you conscious of your physical cells and
their different characteristics, their activity, the degree of their receptivity, of what is in a
healthy condition and what is not? Can you say with certainty when you are tired, why
you are tired? When there’s something wrong somewhere, can you say, “It is because of
this that I am suffering”?... Why do people rush to the doctor? Because they are under
the illusion that the doctor knows better than they how to look inside their body and
find out what’s going on there — which is not very reasonable, but still that’s the habit!
But for oneself, who can look inside himself quite positively and precisely and know
exactly what is out of order, why it is disturbed, how it has been disturbed? And all this
is simply a work of observation; afterwards one must do what is necessary to put it back
into order again, and that is still more difficult.
Well, this is the A B C of the transformation of the body. Voilà.• •

•
•
2
— The Mother
2
The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother,Vol.6. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram,
1979, pp.35-7.

NAMAH
Integral Health
The body-consciousness1
How can the physical manage to aspire, since it is the mind that thinks?
As long as it is the mind that thinks, your physical is something that’s three-fourths inert
and without its own consciousness. There is a physical consciousness proper, a
consciousness of the body; the body is conscious of itself, and it has its own aspiration.
So long as one thinks of one’s body, one is not in one’s physical consciousness. The body
has a consciousness that’s quite personal to it and altogether independent of the mind.
The body is completely aware of its own functioning or its own equilibrium or
disequilibrium, and it becomes absolutely conscious, in quite a precise way, if there is a
disorder somewhere or other, and (how shall I put it?) it is in contact with that and feels
it very clearly, even if there are no external symptoms. The body is aware if the whole
working is harmonious, well balanced, quite regular, functioning as it should; it has that
kind of plenitude, a sense of plenitude, of joy and strength — something like the joy of
living, acting, moving in an equilibrium full of life and energy. Or else the body can be
aware that it is ill-treated by the vital and the mind and that this harms its own
equilibrium and it suffers from this. That may produce a complete disequilibrium in it.
And so on.
One can develop one’s physical consciousness so well that even if one is fully
exteriorised, even if the vital goes completely out of the body, the body has a personal,
independent consciousness which enables it to move, to do all kinds of very simple
things without the vital’s being there, quite independently. The body can learn how to
speak: the mind and the vital may be outside it, very far away, busy elsewhere, but due
to the link joining them with matter, they can still find expression through a body
wherein there is no mind or vital, and which yet can learn to speak and repeat what the
others say. The body can move; I don’t mean that it can exert much, but it can move. It
can do small, very simple things. It can write, for instance, learn how to write as it can
learn to speak. It does speak: a little (how to put it?) slowly, with a little difficulty, but
still it can speak clearly (sufficiently clearly) for one to understand. And yet the mind
and vital may have gone out altogether, may be completely outside. There is a body-
consciousness.
And so, when one has developed this body-consciousness, one can have a very clear
perception of the opposition between the different kinds of consciousness. When the
body needs something and is aware that this is what it needs, and the vital wants
something else and the mind yet another, well, there may very well be a discussion
among them, and contradictions and conflicts. And one can discern very clearly what
the poise of the body is, the need of the body in itself, and in what way the vital
interferes and destroys this equilibrium most often and harms the development so
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much, because it is ignorant. And when the mind comes in, it creates yet another
disorder which is added to the one between the vital and the physical, by introducing its
ideas and norms, its principles and rules, its laws and all that, and as it doesn’t take into
account exactly the needs of the other, it wants to do what everybody does. Human
beings have a much more delicate and uncertain health than animals because their mind
intervenes and disturbs the equilibrium. The body, left to itself, has a very sure instinct.
For instance, never will the body if left to itself eat when it doesn’t need to or take
something which will be harmful to it. And it will sleep when it needs to sleep, it will act
when it needs to act. The instinct of the body is very sure. It is the vital and the mind
which disturb it: one by its desires and caprices, the other by its principles, dogmas, laws
and ideas. And unfortunately, in civilization as it is understood, with the kind of
education given to children, this sure instinct of the body is completely destroyed: it is
the rest that dominate. And naturally things happen as they do: one eats things that are
harmful, one doesn’t take rest when one needs to or sleeps too much when it is not
necessary or does things one shouldn’t do and spoils one’s health completely.
— The Mother*
* The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother,Vol.5. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1976, pp. 294-6.

NAMAH
Integral Health
The secret Will
James Anderson
Editor's note:
This article describes the author's inner journey to align his body to the Divine. He
uses some unusual tools to help him in this way.
“Whether it seem good or evil to men’s eyes,

Only for good the secret Will can work.
Our destiny is written in double terms:
Through Nature’s contraries we draw near God;
Out of the darkness we still grow to light.
Death is our road to immortality.” 1
My Teachers have unravelled so many mysteries before my eyes. They have

taught me that behind the trudge of time there is a purpose and a plan; that
within this unwinding process of evolution there is indeed an aim. The aim,
they affirm, is an ever greater perfection. It is a perfection that is dynamic
and never rests. As Sri Aurobindo states, it awaits the hour in man too:
“The perfection of man lies in the unfolding of the ever-perfect Spirit (1).”
Without this goal, I feel, nothing else really has any purpose.
But a plan requires a will and Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have also
taught me that there is indeed a secret Will at work behind all things. It is
secret because its work usually goes unnoticed — too refined for our gross
senses to discern. But it is always present and Sri Aurobindo tells us that it
works in every particle of the universe.
Reading about this will to perfection completely stirred my imagination

when I started studying the works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. At last I
could grasp an explanation and even a solution behind the madness of
everyday life. They simply made sense out of the senseless. The evolutionary
sway, they stated, is working in every direction and every detail. It works in
the vastness of the cosmos right down to the individual cell. The plan shapes
and moulds the individual, the microcosm, as well as transforming the entire
universe. It works, they explained, because it is involved in every range of
consciousness. It works in every atom of matter itself and as the Spirit
1
. Sri Aurobindo. Savitri, SABCL, Vol.29. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust,
1970, p. 424.

Integral Health
invades matter, the body assumes an intrinsic part of this transformation: it

becomes a crucible for the entire process.
So knowing that there was, after all, such a plan, it was only logical for me
to try to live in accordance with it. The Mother has often stressed the
importance of identifying with the Divine Will and I largely received this
approach with open ears. So when the command came, I was ready. I truly
wanted it. At least the first prerequisite was present: the will to change.
Without that, nothing is possible. But the whole being needs to identify itself
with this ideal. The body, not least of all, seemed to want to share in this
perfection too.
First steps
It is a well-worn truth that if one wants to achieve anything worthwhile in

this world, a will must be behind it. The Mother explains this point with
typical clarity:
“In order to accomplish something, one must have the will to do it, and to
have the will to do it, one must know what one wants to do. If one doesn’t
know what one wants to do, one can’t do it. First one must know, have a
plan, a purpose, a programme if you like; one must know what one wants to
do, and then one must will to do it, and then one can do it (2).”
But I believe that there is one thing that cannot go unheeded if this process
is to take place. I feel that we need to make a few small steps on the path of
knowledge. Put simply, we must somehow become more conscious of our
inner and outer movements. We should try to bring this awareness to the
front.
My first tentative steps were very hesitant indeed. Nevertheless, I found

them very difficult to learn and, even now, I still occasionally find myself
lapsing back into old ways. For some, including myself, this is not such an
easy task. I had to learn to be awake and attentive to the body itself. I don’t
believe all of us realise what it really means to be alive in the body. If there
is no experience, then no understanding can prevail.
Like most people, the body had largely been left unobserved from time of
infancy, almost consigned to a state of ‘auto-pilot’. The consciousness was
simply not awake and the body was left to often drowse. Even the wake-up
call of critical illness didn’t entirely shake me out of this state. Actually, the
trauma induced a sense of recoil and distaste. It was only after I arrived in
Pondicherry that I started understanding the importance of simply observing
my whole nature. I also realised that the witness poise could extend over the
entire being itself. I found that this process was necessary because all our
parts are somehow confused and interconnected. Every movement creates an
influence else-where and the last outpost is always the body. Everything

Integral Health
seemed to eventually manifest there. For me, this simple revelation had a
major influence in shaping a new affinity with the physical being itself. The
Mother’s words very accurately describe the reason for this shift:
“People usually do things so automatically and spontaneously, without
watching themselves doing them, that if they were to ask themselves how it
comes about, they would require some time before the process becomes
conscious to them. You are so used to living that you don’t even know how
it happens….you are not even aware that the whole of life is like that. It
seems quite natural to you, it is ‘like that’. That means that you act in a way
which is hardly semi-conscious; it is automatic, it is a kind of spontaneous
habit and you don’t watch what you’re doing. And so, if you want to have
some control over your movements, the first thing is to know what is
happening….Otherwise one is a kind of more or less coordinated medley of
actions and reactions, of movements and impulses and one doesn’t know at
all how things happen….
”But that is the very first little step towards becoming conscious of oneself in
the material world (3).”
Somehow the Grace ensured that, from the beginning, these sort of answers
very quickly rebounded back at me. I noticed too that my entire relationship
with matter gradually got redefined. As the Presence is involved in all
things, I was taught to treat all material objects with greater diligence and
care. This may sound like a minor detail, but as my attitude to material
things refined, I soon realised that my perception of the body had started to
shift too.
Divided will
The Mother says that,“...if you really want it, nothing in the world can
prevent you from doing what you want. (4).”
The true will is like an arrow fired precisely and directly at its target. Our
whole being is behind it. But the reality is usually very different and our
usual offering is rarely a homogenous whole. When the true will is present,
all our energies get channelled to the point that needs most attention. But I
feel that we often find ourselves being pulled in all sorts of directions
instead of proceeding in a straight line. Also, if we are honest with
ourselves, we would probably discover that our ‘will’ is, to a considerable
degree, nothing but a tangled bundle of instincts and desires.
Because such movements are dispersed, they may even collide or wrestle
with one another in an attempt to achieve pre-eminence. This situation often
retards the physical as the body will only receive mixed messages. As a
consequence, the instructions lack clarity. The body can then often lapse
into a state of total bewilderment and confusion. I also find that, in the
worst circumstances, these competing ‘wills‘ can drag the body down. I

Integral Health
often find too that when they are enforced, the body will often shrink. It
yearns for guidance and leadership, yet withers when faced with coercion.
The Mother continues:
“It is because one doesn’t know how to will it. It is because one is divided in
one’s will. If you are not divided in your will, I say that nothing, nobody in
the world can make you change your will…
”To learn how to will is a very important thing. And to will truly, you must
unify your being. In fact to be a being, one must first unify oneself. If one is
pulled by absolutely opposite tendencies, if one spends three-fourths of his
life without being conscious of himself and the reasons why he does things,
is one a real being? One does not exist. One is a mass of influences,
movements, forces, actions, reactions, but one is not a being. One begins to
become a being when he begins to have a will. And one can’t have a will
unless he is unified.
”And when you have a will, you will be able to say, say to the Divine: ‘I
want what You want.’ But not before that. Because in order to want what the
Divine wants, you must have a will, otherwise you can will nothing at all.
You would like to. You would like it very much. You would very much like
to want what the Divine wants to do. You don’t possess a will to give to Him
and to put at His service. Something like that, gelatinous, like jelly-
fish…there… a mass of good wills — and I am considering the better side of
things and forgetting the bad wills — a mass of good wills, half-conscious
and fluctuating…. (5).”
It might be fruitful to pause here and reflect on the Mother’s use of words. It
is now my understanding that there is only one way to truly unify the being.
In truth, we are such a mixture. Underlying all our natures, Sri Aurobindo
affirms, lurk the instincts, desires and impulses of our animal past. Perhaps
the influence goes back even to plant and stone! So there is evidently a need
for greater order. Initially, I had been taught that the mental will was the
only effective way of achieving this. I don’t believe that my upbringing was
particularly unique and I guess that many people in the West, if not in India,
may still swear by this too. The mental will has its uses: if the mind is the
highest instrument that we have at our disposal, it certainly serves a
purpose. Initially at least, I also found that this mental will somehow gave
me the grit to survive. It stopped me caving in but now I find it generally to
be a considerable hindrance.
I believe that this is because the mind lacks the ability to harmonise. In its
own domain, it can certainly organise and shed a certain light but it is not
our true seat of knowledge. At best, Sri Aurobindo tells us, it can only
modify those physical and life currents that course through our being. So if
there is to be a way of unifying the being towards perfection, there must be a

Integral Health
portion within us that is, indeed, true and perfect. That is the soul itself. The
true will, for me, is simply the expression of that perfection that lies inside
us.
Willings
Sri Aurobindo is very precise in distinguishing between the divine Will and
our mortal imitations. He describes the processes of our mental will as
‘willings’. These willings are borrowed: they come to us second-hand. They
emerge out of the ignorance and somehow always miss the mark when it
comes to embracing the essential truth:
“This divine Will is not an alien Power or Presence; it is intimate to us and

we ourselves are part of it: for it is our own highest Self that possesses and
supports it. Only, it is not our conscious mental will; it rejects often enough
what our conscious will accepts and accepts what our conscious will rejects
(6).”
Understanding this true will is very much a part of our ongoing education
here. Although it is one thing adhering to Sri Aurobindo’s teachings, I also
believe that to truly realise this distinction more fully one must experience
it. But so often His words act as a catalyst for the necessary experience. And
the difference can be often quite subtle: I find the mental will can be quite
crafty at times and it sometimes tries to masquerade as the definitive will. It
is almost as if the mental will has an exaggerated sense of its own
importance.
Distinction
Nowhere has the distinction become clearer to me than with work on the
body. When I am standing in my truth, I know that a more potent will can
spontaneously rise through me. I don’t believe this is a unique experience
because anyone can witness it for themselves. In a way though, it is unique
because what we then see is the emergence of our inherent nature. It is my
understanding that this nature is individual to each of us; it is all a part of
the fascinating play of multiplicity.
I find that the psychic being expresses a true will and I find that this entity
can guide the body in a way which is much more un-premeditated and
spontaneous. The soul observes and then effectuates. And what it sees, it
resolves. But sometimes I can even feel the two processes to be
instantaneous. These are such precious moments in which one can become
vast and free. To some extent, I might even find myself stepping outside this
rigid framework of causality and time. Perhaps it is at such times that the
cells themselves can be illumined by the soul’s flame.

Integral Health
So, in such circumstances, the physical being naturally finds a way of

attuning itself to its own natural rhythm and the movement can become one
of harmony and beauty. Somehow all the missing pieces seem to magically
come together. These moments simply can’t be coerced — the connection
comes in glimpses and this kind of will rarely seems to impose. I have found
the force to be very subtle and experience shows that any intrusion from the
surface nature will disrupt the transfer immediately.
I can contrast this process with the sweat and toil of the mental will. To
some extent, I feel that applying it in this domain is like trying to plug a
thousand holes in a leaking boat! The mind simply does not have the
capacity to attend to every detail. Eventually, it tires and wavers. It also
loses patience. With bodywork in particular, it might be able to concentrate
on one part of the body and create more order at that point. But it lacks the
capacity to integrate — there are a countless details to fully master within
the body and I find the mind quite incapable of keeping up. Harmony has to
be instilled over the entire lower nature too, not just the body, for the
physical being to operate in an optimum way. Because of this, a vaster vision
is required and I know that this can only happen when the psychic being
steps forward so that a truer will can manifest.
I now also find that the very effort of ‘applying’ the will to the body is
totally counter-productive. This force simply cannot be coerced: it must be
embraced. The sign of the true shift seems to lie in its spontaneity. I believe
that the domain of the true will is the soul itself and the very effort seems to
inhibit the soul from stepping forward.
Alignment
I believe that if we want to manifest our truth, not least in the physical, we
have to learn to align ourselves. I feel that this is work that each one of us
can do. All of us have our own individual nature and embody a unique
amalgam of cells. We also have a more conscious part of our being that can
put them all back in order. This is our field of action. I believe that it is a
matter of instilling harmony inside so that this state can radiate outside too.
The body certainly depends on this inner harmony, perhaps more than we
think. It seems to me too that as the true will starts its work inside the
surface starts to change. I now feel this state of affairs very tangibly in the
body. Because of this, if things get knotted and awry inside, I find that the
body becomes a limp vessel. Everything becomes a huge strain. So perhaps
that is one reason why the Mother emphasised the need to unify our being.
This process, I feel, amounts to aligning ourselves around the centre of our
truth. Only then, as She says, can anything like a true will emerge. As the
will is the expression of our nature we have to find our truth first. And
without a true will, I don’t believe anything worthwhile can be achieved in
life. It is a conscious process, but whether done in a systematic way or not is

Integral Health
perhaps unimportant. But if one is at all sincere, I don’t believe it can ever
be avoided.
We often hear the Mother talking about the ‘searchlight’ and that, in a very
real sense, is what the vision of the soul represents. But creating the right
station in the first place is so important. By calling for the help of Sri
Aurobindo and the Mother, I feel their guidance is always at hand. It is they
who give me the answers and the channel they use appears to me to be the
soul.
It is a little like searching through a cellar with a bright torch. When the
mind is still, I can then quietly inspect every hidden corner with the light
that She holds up for me. I usually start by inwardly observing from the top
of my head and gradually move downwards. When one begins watching
deep inside, the outlook can indeed be very bleak. An enormous patience
and persistence is required. Distortions may appear; resistances may emerge.
At such times, I feel like I am being sucked into a huge dark hole. I have to
hold on tight and follow wherever the torch leads me. Sometimes a little
courage is required too. If a stain starts to surface, I try to penetrate it with
an enquiring gaze. I plunge deeper and deeper into it in order to find the
source of the difficulty.
But I always try to maintain a detached poise and not identify with the
images that are appearing before me. This is truly a work one can do with
the Mother. Long-buried patterns and habits start emerging; ugly patches
may come to light. The natural tendency is to squirm but that is simply not
necessary when She is by my side. Sooner or later, if one remains vigilant
and connected, the answer will come. When it does, I find that it is the
Mother who plucks the weed out by its very roots.
Harmony
Something new then begins to take over. The spontaneous knowledge brings
a momentous shift. A light descends and saturates the entire nature. The
twists of the mind start to unravel and the vital begins to somehow purify.
The lower members can then reconvene at their true functions and place! A
feeling of wholeness returns. It’s as if all the fragments of consciousness
have been magically drawn together. The body tangibly expands within this
vibration of harmony and love. A new strength and vigour returns. The
Mother’s Force always brings something unique and singular, but inevitably,
a peace will descend and in the hush of that silence a truer movement can
emerge. It is a peace which is truly dynamic. A vast horizon might then open
before my eyes.
At such times, I feel that something like a true will can manifest. Its
hallmark is its spontaneity. The soul’s command seems to attune
automatically to the very fibres of the body. The work of outer alignment

Integral Health
can now begin and it is all done in the stillness of the moment: nothing is
spoken and ideally no thought intervenes. Essential links can be made
between soul and matter.
These are precious glimpses but our nature is such that these moments are
not easily sustained. Eventually the experience recedes and our physical
being starts to contract. I often find that this secret Will arrives and
withdraws almost unnoticed. At its departure, the mind sooner or later
starts heaving again. So it is worth trying to prolong the contact at each time
of sitting. A persevering nature is a great boon here because instant results
seem to be rarely achieved, particularly when they relate to work on the
body.
Transition
Sri Aurobindo affirms that raising our will to truer heights can be a long and
rocky passage. This is one inescapable trial that every aspirant must face:
“For our human will is a misled and wandering ray that has parted from the
supreme Puissance. The period of slow emergence out of this lower working
into a higher light and purer force is the valley of the shadow of death for
the striver after perfection; it is a dreadful passage full of trials, sufferings,
sorrows, obscurations, stumblings, errors, pitfalls. To abridge and alleviate
this ordeal or to penetrate it with the divine delight faith is necessary, an
increasing surrender of the mind to the knowledge that imposes itself from
within and, above all, a true aspiration and a right and unfaltering and
sincere practice (7).”
For a long time, we find that we need to rely a great deal on our own effort.
Indeed, as long as we remain in the realm of ‘willings’, we have no other
choice. The Mother’s comments are particularly appropriate:
“And so, when one expresses ‘willings’, to be able to apply them in life and
make them effective, some effort must come in — it is through personal
effort that one progresses, and it is through effort that one imposes one’s
willings upon life to make it yield to their demands — but when they are no
longer willings, when it is the true will expressing the true knowledge,
effort is no longer required, for the power is omnipotent (8).”
Needless to say, this must also apply to work on the body. Personal effort is
often very necessary. Otherwise, I feel, at times I would simply sink. But
there comes a time when the effort itself becomes a ‘bar’ 2 to the intention of
the Will to act upon matter. As the Mother says, the true will radiates a true
power because it reflects a true knowledge. Here, I often seem to find myself
2
“ When we have passed beyond willings, then we shall have Power. Effort was the
helper: Effort is the bar.” Sri Aurobindo. SABCL, Volume 16, p. 376.

Integral Health
in a twilight zone of half-answered questions and diminished responses. I

feel that we somehow have to learn to climb higher and higher towards these
summits of shining Truth. Sometimes that takes a colossal effort. Only then
can we plunge down with greater power into the material abyss. The Mother
says that “...we must rise higher in consciousness: the deeper one wants to
go down into matter, the higher is it necessary to rise in consciousness (9).”
I believe that the energy for this ascent comes from aspiration. With
aspiration, particularly in the body, the work becomes a joy. Without
aspiration, I feel, one is only a part of that vast multitude of walking dead.
Perhaps too, this aspiration provides the key to the ‘Energy Inexhaustible’
that the Mother speaks about. And if the cells of the body can truly aspire, I
have a belief that the universe will eventually answer.
Difficulties
I think we all find that this transition brings many difficulties. It has become
very evident to me that as I start orienting my life more inside, the work of
alignment becomes increasingly critical. If one leads a superficial existence, I
guess that the physical tends to be more prone to material problems on the
surface. But as one embarks on the path of yoga, the criteria change and
inner influences start to hold sway. So the key, for me, is to keep aligned at
all times. Each one of us has his or her individual nature, so the patterns and
habits that cause disorder are indeed unique. However I believe that this
simple solution of self-alignment is always at hand. When my body, for
example, is moving in a mechanical way, it is a subtle but sure sign to me
that something is not right inside. That innate joy is missing and there must
be something blocking it. That means that there is a work to be done inside.
Even fatigue seems to usually come from a breakdown in alignment. There is

an enormous reservoir of energy that is ever waiting to pour into and
through us so one solution may be to look and see what is arresting it.
Obviously it is good to practise special sittings but I realise that this poise
must eventually expand into everyday life too. It is a great challenge
because, in such circumstances, I always find the consciousness being
tugged onto the surface. Applying this alignment into action is the next
stage, if you like, in this work of harmonisation. When I am engaged in
movement and am able to maintain that poise, many difficulties are avoided.
I try to lovingly remember the Presence and allow it to unceasingly radiate
outside. This is one target I’d certainly like to reach and* it is such a
beautiful lesson in life. The Truth must manifest on the outside too.
Somehow this brings to mind Sri Aurobindo’s words on meditating in the
battlefield….
I find that a sense of detachment truly helps too. Getting absorbed in a

difficulty only identifies one more closely with it. It is better to heed Sri

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Aurobindo’s advice and keep one’s station above at all times. Yes, we must
obviously learn how to inhabit our body but that presence will only expand
without the stranglehold of attachment. That way, the possibility of eventual
recoil is also avoided.
Will and resolution
I am convinced that a firm resolution is needed, but that can surely amount
to more than mere mental conviction. The “will to conquer” must extend to
.
“the very cells of your body 3 ” That is a highly evolved state indeed, but if
one can be resolute to the point of obstinacy, it can be more than a step on
the way. One needs to be more stubborn than the obstacles one is facing. I
feel that a patient perseverance is always required.
The supreme will never wavers, but I do feel that, by process of

reaffirmation, these resolutions can merge into a more unflinching and true
will. Perhaps it is a matter of degrees but I guess when one reaches the
summit one will know the goal is reached. I also find that by sincerely
entreating the Mother’s help, the necessary energy invariably comes. Just to
repeat Her name seems to strengthen my resolve. There is certainly
something in the mantra of the Mother’s name which solidifies this will.
Often too, I find myself compelled to draw a line on the past in order to
make a fresh start. I find this work on the body must very often begin anew.
In brighter moments, a new angle of approach may even come to light. It
also helps to innovate, otherwise the work can become humdrum and stale.
Execution
To open the body to the true will is certainly an exercise in detail. Working
from that centre inside, it almost amounts to a task of entire reconstruction.
But is only a matter of awakening the body to its innate nature and the
motive behind transformation is to bring out the soul that lies dormant in
matter. The soul can govern the body: my brief experiences have given me
the necessary proof. Because of this, channels must be built to every distant
outpost of the physical being. The nerve endings themselves can become
alive to the supreme Force. However, we can only offer our consciousness,
because, in reality, it is the Mother who does the work.
3
“Wake up in your self the will to conquer. Not a mere will in the mind but a will in the
very cells of your body. Without that you can’t do anything, e.g. you may take a
hundred medicines but they won’t cure you unless you have a will to overcome the
physical illness.” (The Mother. Health and Healing in Yoga. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo
Ashram Trust, 1979, p. 76).

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I now find that inner alignment, though essential, is not sufficient for this
work on the physical. It must be reinforced from outside too. Outer
alignment must be implemented: I find that some conscious motion and
exercise is also necessary. The Mother tells us that the outer nature depends
on the inner condition but, in order to complete the process, I feel that we
need to be attentive to the surface aspects too. If one can remain alert and
truly conscious when engaged in action, I’m sure that the work goes so much
faster. The Mother says:
“You see, if the matter is considered in its most modern, most external form,
how is it that the movements we make almost constantly in our everyday
life, or which we have to make in our work if it is a physical work, do not
help, or help very little, almost negligibly, to develop the muscles and to
create harmony in the body? These same movements, on the other hand, if
they are made consciously, deliberately, with a definite aim, suddenly start
helping you to form your muscles and build up your body. There are jobs,
for instance, where people have to carry extremely heavy loads, like bags of
cement or sacks of corn or coal, and they make a considerable effort; to a
certain extent they do it with an acquired facility, but that doesn’t give them
harmony of the body, because they don’t do it with the idea of developing
their muscles, they do it just ‘like that’. And someone who follows a method,
either one he has learnt or one he has worked out for himself, and who
makes these very movements with the will to develop this muscle or that, to
create a general harmony in the body — he succeeds. Therefore in the
conscious will, there is something which adds considerably to the movement
itself. Those who really want to practise physical culture as it is conceived
now, everything they do, they do consciously. They walk downstairs
consciously, they do the movements of ordinary life consciously, not
mechanically. An attentive eye will perhaps notice a little difference but the
greatest difference lies in the will they put into it, the consciousness they
put into it. Walking to go somewhere and walking as an exercise is not the
same thing. It is the conscious will in all these things which is important, it
is that which brings about the progress and obtains the result. Therefore,
what I mean is that the method one uses has only a relative importance in
itself; it is the will to obtain a certain result that is important….
”But you only have to try it, then you will understand very well what I
mean. For instance, all the movements you make when you are dressing,
taking your bath, tidying your room… no matter what; make them
consciously, with the will that this muscle should work, that muscle should
work. You will see. You will obtain really amazing results.
”Going up and down the stairs — you cannot imagine how useful that can be
from the point of view of physical culture, if you know how to make use of
it. Instead of going up because you are going up and coming down because
you are coming down, like any ordinary man, you go up with the
consciousness of all the muscles which are working and making them work
harmoniously. You will see, just try a little, you will see! This means that

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you can use all the movements of your life for a harmonious development of
your body.
”You bend down to pick something up, you stretch up to find something
right at the top of a cupboard, you open a door, you close it, you have to go
round an obstacle, there are a hundred and one things you do constantly and
which you can make use of in your physical culture and which will
demonstrate to you that it is the consciousness you put into it which
produces the effect, a hundred times more than the material fact of doing it.
So, you choose the method you like best, but you can use the whole of your
daily life in this way….To think constantly of the harmony of the body, of
the beauty of the movements, of not doing anything that is ungraceful and
awkward. You can obtain a rhythm of movement and gesture which is very
exceptional (10).”
I often marvel at the mechanisms of the body. I occasionally notice how a

particular movement will bring an involuntary muscular response. For
instance, I sometimes realise, how the faintest strain in the neck might
induce a clenching in the toes or an arching of the back. As Sri Aurobindo
asserts, our body embodies a whole plethora of repeated patterns. However I
feel that these habits will only disappear when we are able to direct our
consciousness into them. It is truly such a work of perfection! I pray that this
awareness will go on expanding in me too because my biggest stumbling
block seems to lie in this attention to physical detail. But this is indeed the
essence of working with matter, the nuts and bolts of the entire operation, if
you like. A certain precision and exactitude is required and above all one
needs an indefatigable patience.
I sometimes observe people going about their everyday business. With a few,
there is such a fluidity and grace in their gait: there is a sense of beauty in
their steps! They carry such a light and they manifest it through their body.
But it is not my job to replicate them. I have to find my unique rhythm and
learn to express my own individual tune.
Essentially, I believe that this work with the body involves awakening the
Truth that is involved in it: nothing more. When that happens, I believe that
the body can indeed become the teacher. Inside is contained the knowledge
of the true movement. That wisdom may be buried by habit or illness, so it is
our task to recover it. Wholeness is its divine birthright. I feel that is why
the Mother says that, “the body carries within itself the sense of its divinity.
There. This is what you must try to find again in yourself if you have lost it
(11).“
Largely for different reasons, this body has indeed been a teacher to me for
quite a long time. One really needs to be very still to hear its whisper. Its
voice is almost inaudible amidst the customary babble but at precious
moments its intimations can indeed be understood.

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The Supreme Will
As I look up, I realise that I have to climb ever so high to even touch the
smallest ray of this Supreme Will. It is a perilous path and there is no secure
footing: one false step and I will cascade to the ground. At times of doubt, I
feel so alone and see no Guide to hold my hand on this precarious ascent. At
times, this path can be so unremitting. Particularly with the work on the
body, there are instances when it is like standing against a huge wall. This
wall symbolises the very denial of everything we are trying to implement. At
such times, whichever way I turn, I come up against one more dead-end.
These are colossal tests and unless one is armed with a true will one will just
crumple into a heap. So should I try and assault this edifice myself? It would
take a huge endeavour to achieve this feat.
Self-giving
Right at the beginning of my time here, I was indeed confronted with this
prospect. Initially I had felt that every aspect of my being wanted to take
this route: the way of tapasya seemed to fit. But when the time came, when I
truly asked myself, much to my surprise, a different answer immediately
came. No, I now believe there has to be another way. Perhaps one can even
entreat a higher power to demolish this wall! And this, for me, is where the
Mother comes in. How else can such impossibilities become realities? As
long as the Mother is present there is not just hope but certainty. Like many
of us, I can often feel Her Force in action. That, for me, is the ultimate
reassurance.
I don’t believe there is any point in waiting for the next life for richer
possibilities. We can always try to reach our aim in this life. Perhaps too, it
doesn’t necessarily have to be a long grinding haul. One look, one word or
one single experience might perhaps be sufficient. One bold leap into the
unknown may be all that is required. It helps to believe it can happen now.
Self-giving, I feel, carries us into a realm of perfect synchronicity. The

Mother just takes over: this is the consummation of the supreme will. This
surrender may sound very simple and if one is prepared to drop absolutely
everything, I guess it is. But, in reality, it usually takes a long time of
preparation. It requires a considerable trust too. But I know from brief
glimpses that once there, I enter a state of glorious freedom. A feeling of
expansion pervades the entire being. But when the time finally comes, I
believe it will be quite effortless. When at last the toil is over, I can simply
melt at Her feet. I pray that we can all get there one fine day.
References:

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1. Sri Aurobindo. SABCL, Volume 15. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram

Trust, 1971, p. 228.
2. The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother, Volume 9. Pondicherry; Sri

Aurobindo Ashram Trust, 1977, p. 259.
3. Op. cit. Collected Works of the Mother, Volume 9. Pondicherry; Sri

Aurobindo Ashram Trust, 1977, pp. 261-3.

5. Ibid. pp. 347-8.
6. Op. cit. SABCL, Volume 20. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, 1971,
p. 90.
7. Ibid. p. 208.


10. Ibid. pp. 153-5.
11. Ibid. p. 164.
Mr. James Anderson, a sadhak, is following the Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and working
at SAIIIHR, Pondicherry.

NAMAH
Integral Health
Integral Health
(An exploration into health and healing in the light of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother)
Dr. Soumitra Basu
Chapter I
Introduction
The World Health Organization (WHO) has defined health as not merely an absence of
disease but a positive state of physical, mental and social wellbeing. However, health is
one of those constructs that continually outgrow attempts at clarification. The WHO’s
concept of health has itself undergone such a metamorphosis. It was only in 1976 that
the World Health Assembly officially acknowledged the role of the psychological and
social dimensions of health and encouraged the acquisition of relevant knowledge that
could enrich health planning. It took almost a decade for the World Health Assembly to
add a spiritual dimension to the definition of health at its 37th session held in 1984. This
resolution noted that the spiritual dimension plays a significant role in motivating
people to achieve health ideals. It was also noted that it could not be imposed on
unwilling conglomerations of people but had to arise within the people and
communities in consonance with their social and cultural patterns (1).
Despite its multi-dimensional, global and holistic outlook, the WHO definition of health
is not truly integral. When we speak of spiritual, mental, physical and social dimensions
of health, we are actually referring to discrete or semi-discrete sets of spiritual,
psychological, physical and social value systems which have conflicts between and
within themselves. At best, we can conceive of precarious makeshift compromises that
can break down at any point and the resultant disharmony can manifest in various
forms, of which the foremost is illness. The disharmony may also manifest in aberrant
and deviant behaviour, crime, riots, ethnic conflicts and in alienation and
meaninglessness in life.
It has been postulated that optimal health requires a balanced equilibrium between the
‘milieu interior’ of the body and the ‘external environment’. But the ‘external
environment’ is itself an amalgam of social, cultural, psychological and ecological
systems which are not necessarily in harmony with each other. To harmonize such a
variegated array of systems and re-harmonize the resultant with the human organism
would be humanly impossible.
The WHO definition and concept of health is thus more of a sort of ‘committee
consensus’ difficult to validate by empirical research, specially when a non-material
perspective like the spiritual dimension is taken into consideration. However the
acceptance of a scientific paradigm need not necessarily contradict the acceptance of a
consistent body of knowledge pursued by enlightened seers, mystics and yogis

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throughout the ages. Such a repertoire of subjective wisdom can provide us intuitive
clues to link our scattered premises and conflicting thoughts.
Consciousness — a substrate for consideration
The difficulty in integrating the physical, social, mental and spiritual dimensions of
health need not debar us from the pursuit. Indeed, an attempt to harmonize these
myriad value-systems(which are not totally independent) can only be possible if we take
into account a substrate to which all these value-systems can relate in a hierarchised
manner. This substrate is most appropriately found in the yogic description of
consciousness. The seer-wisdom of ancient India considered consciousness to be the
essence of all existence – a concept to which Sri Aurobindo, in recent times, gives a
hierarchised evolutionary perspective, “…consciousness is essentially the same
throughout but variable in status, condition and operation..(2)” and formulates different
planes of existence at different points of a graded universe. Thus, at one plane,
consciousness formulates the material base of existence (the physical plane). At a higher
level, consciousness formulates the life-base (the vital plane) out of the material base. At
a yet higher level, consciousness manifests the mind (the mental plane) out of the life-
base involved in matter. This is not the culmination of evolution. Sri Aurobindo
postulates that higher models of man can still evolve, surpassing the mental plane of
consciousness, if the line of evolution in consciousness can be zealously followed.
Science speaks of an outer evolution of forms necessary for the continuation of the
species. Sri Aurobindo speaks of an inner evolution in consciousness that can lead to a
surpassing of the mental consciousness through successive stages to a new poise of
consciousness (The supramental plane) which can create a new species of man (3).
Consciousness: medical and yogic paradigms
It is important to differentiate the yogic concept of consciousness from the medical

paradigm which invariably links consciousness to the functions of the mind. Medical
science usually focuses on three dimensions of mental consciousness (4):
(a) the physiological dimension of wakefulness and sleep,
(b) the pathological dimension of lucidity and obfuscation that can be traced to stupor
and coma and
(c) the rather vague dimension of vigilance and absorption that is necessary to
understand altered states of consciousness like trance states and meditative absorption.
Table 1
Experiments show that subjects practicing
CONSCIOUSNESS
MEDICAL PERSPECTIVE YOGIC PERSPECTIVE

• Essence of existence

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• Physiological dimension (sleep-

wakefulness) • Aspects of awareness and creative
Energy
• Pathological dimension(lucidity-
comea) • Evolutionary and involutionary
Movements
• Altered states (meditative absorption,
trance states) • Hierarchised interacting planes
• Planes of consciousness
represented both in the universal
forces and individual personality
Consciousness - Medical and Yogic perspectives.
meditation have certain EEG changes (usually an increase of slow alpha waves in the
frontal and central regions of the brain) along with reduced metabolism. Such
physiological changes are not seen in trance states induced through hypnosis, ritualistic
dancing and revivalist meetings. In certain trance states associated with religious rituals,
piercing tongues and cheeks without shedding blood was possible through changes in
neurovascular functions. Such neurovascular changes could be responsible for
producing skin manifestations like weals, petechiae or bruises characteristic of
evangelical fervor. There is considerable evidence to suggest that the anaesthesia and
euphoria experienced in trance states are endorphin mediated (5).
In spite of its stress on different dimensions, the medical paradigm of consciousness

does not essentially outgrow the consciousness of that part of the mind which is
reflected in the working of the central nervous system in the body. That is why the
medical model of consciousness is more aptly described by the term ‘sensorium’.
However, ‘sensorium’ is only the mental range of consciousness. Sri Aurobindo lucidly
points out,
“..mental consciousness is only the human range which no more exhausts all the
possible ranges of consciousness than human sight exhausts all the gradations of colour
or human hearing all the gradations of sound — for there is much above or below that is
to man invisible and inaudible. So there are ranges of consciousness above and below
the human range, with which the normal human has no contact and they seem to it
unconscious, – supramental or overmental and submental ranges (6)”.
A natural corollary of the Yogic concept of consciousness is that there is nothing which
is ‘truly’ unconscious.What is called unconscious in depth psychology is that which lies
outside the awareness of the surface personality. There are ranges of consciousness
below the human mind consisting of atavistic, half-evolved and suppressed impulses, a
part of which has been identified as the ‘unconscious’ in psychoanalytic terminology.
There are also higher ranges of consciousness that surpass the human mind and fall in
the domain of superconscious described by Yoga. The superconscious is the source of
our highly evolved impulses and drives man to exceed his limitations.

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Consciousness and health
Taking the cue from Yogic wisdom, it would be pertinent now to study the relation
between health and the various planes of consciousness that are reflected both in the
universe and in the human personality. Such a study would give us a novel and
innovative plan for health action by developing a progressive and dynamic health
consciousness.
To relate health along a continuum of consciousness, it is necessary to discern the

various levels of consciousness that have progressively unfolded to create the world.
The evolutionary nisus manifested matter (the physical), traversed through life (the
vital) and flowered in the mind. These three universal principles of evolution – Matter,
Life and Mind have their representations in the personality of man. There are two
important considerations to note:
(a) firstly, a higher plane of consciousness does not reject the lower planes but incorporates,
transmutes and surpasses them (7). Thus, life does not reject matter but the quality of
matter inherent in living systems is vastly different from inorganic matter. Likewise,
mind does not reject ‘Life involved in Matter’ but uplifts it so that the life of the highly
mentalised human being is qualitatively far superior to the life of an animal with a
rudimentary mind.
(b) Secondly, it is logical to suppose that anything cannot evolve from nothing (8). Sri
Aurobindo explains that any new manifestation must have been potentially dormant at
an earlier stage i.e. a process of involution preceded the evolutionary movement (9).
Matter therefore contains all the potentialities of life, mind and even spirit.
However Nature has its own pitfalls and backlashes. The upward progress of the
evolutionary nisus is not always smooth – it may be thwarted, stifled, stalled, slowed or
deviated. Likewise, the transmuting force of the higher planes on the lower ones may
also meet with resistance, obstruction or denial. The disturbance of these upward and
downward movements along the hierarchies of consciousness can give rise to
disequilibrium and disease.
The sceptic might ask – can such a disequilibrium be corrected? The scope for correction
exists because each plane of consciousness has the potentialities of the higher planes
involved in it in a dormant form. The clue for correction is to move from the plane of
disequilibrium to a higher state of equilibrium. Illness thus gives a chance to exceed
oneself. This gives a new and fresh perspective to health and healing.
Chapter II
The physical plane of consciousness and its relation to health
The physical plane of consciousness that is the basis of all manifested existence has
given rise to ‘matter’ and is represented in the ‘body-consciousness’ of the human being.

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One of the chief characteristics of the physical consciousness is ‘inertia’ or tamas (10)
which results in the following features:
a) resistance to change
b) mechanical repetitiveness
c) slow arousal
d) passivity
These characteristic features have an adaptive and survival value as they
a) help in preservation of the species
b) provide some sort of stability to the bodily frame so that it is not easily disrupted by
non-material universal forces. The vital and mental planes of consciousness are more
fluid in their operation and interaction and if the physical frame did not offer resistance,
the human body would lose its individuality in the play of the universal vital and
mental forces;
c) due to the property of mechanical repetitiveness, it was possible for the higher levels
of consciousness to continually impinge on matter. These repeated impressions moulded
the physical consciousness to produce consistent behavioral patterns (11).
However, the same features facilitate disharmony and illness. A few illustrations are
provided to validate this.
a) Resistance to change
Because of the resistance offered by the physical plane of consciousness to transmuting

forces, it is difficult and painstaking to root out illness from this plane of consciousness.
Thus it is difficult to shrug off physical dependence on addictive drugs even if one
conquers the psychological dependence. The resistance of the physical consciousness is
amply demonstrated in the case of psychosomatic diseases. In spite of having a sizeable
psychological component, psychosomatic illnesses are not curable by plain
psychotherapeutic techniques. Psychotherapy may act as a palliative in modifying one’s
attitude to his illness. For effective therapy, a radical remedy has to act at the physical
plane. It would be interesting to note the Mother’s observation that the resistance of the
physical is most aptly demonstrated in skin and dental disorders as they pertain to the
most material part of the being (12).
b) Mechanical repetitiveness
The phenomenon of mechanical repetitiveness which facilitated the moulding of the

physical consciousness to produce consistent behavioral patterns has also its

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maladaptive effect in initiating ‘habit disorders’(13). Some of the habit disorders like tics
and torticollis are quite refractory to therapeutic techniques.
c) Slow arousal
The inertia of the physical consciousness modifies the reaction-pattern of susceptible

individuals. A subject who is focused more on the physical plane needs a greater
stimulus for arousal than others (14). Such a subject would be more prone to deviant
behaviours like sadism and masochism to enjoy pleasure.
d) Passivity
The passivity of the physical consciousness results in the weakness of will that is
translated as a disturbance of volition (15). It is partly due to this that certain people
have very low motivation for recovery resulting in a perpetuation of their illness.
In spite of its inertia and resistance the physical consciousness can change.Usually, the
physical, vital and mental planes of consciousness intermingle but they can be extricated
from one another and individuated as separate entities through a yogic process of self-
perfection. If this is done we discover that the body has a consciousness of its own and
can act independently of the mental will or even against the mental will (16). The surface
mind remains ignorant of the body-consciousness. However it is possible to awaken the
body-consciousness, train it and make of it a good and conscious instrument (17). This is
possible if the higher vital and mental energies are allowed to act upon the physical
plane, influence, mould and transmute it.
The ancient technique of Hatha Yoga and the modern techniques of Biofeedback and
Autogenic training demonstrate that it is possible to develop one's body-consciousness.
Hathayogic techniques of Asanas and Pranayama have shown that life can be prolonged,
morbidity can be checked and youthful vigour can be maintained for a long time. The
introduction of relaxation, meditation and biofeedback in our modern therapeutic
armatorium is slowly revealing the potentialities of the body-consciousness. These
techniques help to control one’s autonomic responses (long considered ‘involuntary’)
and modify the physiological systems.
Through the development of the ‘body-consciousness’, control and modification of one’s

physiological functioning is possible (18). One can thus improve one’s quality of sleep or
reduce one’s slavish commitment to food. Sleep can be raised from the level of necessity
to that of free acceptance. One can consciously cultivate the art of passing into a brief
period of luminous, dreamless, restorative sleep; a few minutes of which is more
refreshing than hours of ordinary sleep. Similarly, one can make oneself less dependent
on food for energy by making oneself more receptive to the Universal Life-Energy
around us.
The body-consciousness is only one aspect of the physical consciousness. The latter
surpasses the former to permeate all the other planes of consciousness.

Integral Health
Chapter III
The vital plane of consciousness and its relation to health
The Universal Life-Energy is represented in the human being by the vital plane of
consciousness. The vital is the repertoire of our emotions, passions, desires, longings,
cravings, creative urges, revolutions and dynamic energy. Sri Aurobindo distinguishes
the vital plane from the mind which deals with cognition and intelligence. This
distinction is of crucial importance from the viewpoint of yogic psychology.
The vital has certain characteristics which greatly influence health. Some of these
features are enumerated here.
a) The vital is the seat of desire. In the world of hedonistic pursuit, very few people would
consider ‘desire’ to be a disturbing element in life. Buddha understood that desire
sprang from ignorance. As long as the anguish of desire is present, one cannot have
peace. Thus while satiation of desire gives sensual pleasure, a control of desire gives
greater joy and sense of fullness.
In Sri Aurobindo’s parlance, “Desire is at once the motive of our actions, our lever of
accomplishment and the bane of our existence (19).” Yogic psychology describes that the
very movement of desire is the source of disharmony and disease. Desire grows by
indulgence and a free play of desires can lead to serious disorders.
b) The vital is the source of disturbing emotional movements which can lead to psychological
disturbances. The important movements include anxiety, fear, depression, anger and
impatience. Anxieties and fears when unabated may lead to neurotic states and phobias.
Depression may shift from a mere mood-state to a full-blown nihilistic disease.
Uncontrolled anger may lead to aggression that manifests in diverse ways ranging from
reckless hostility to psychosomatic diseases. Impatience may exaggerate into a bloated
sense of time-urgency that is the hall-mark of the type-A executive personality.
c) The vital is the seat of contradictory emotions like depression and aggression,
happiness and unhappiness. Thus it is not surprising for a subject suffering from an
Affective disorder to alternately exhibit depression and excitement (mania) in different
phases of his illness.
This characteristic of the vital plane of consciousness also explains why children who are
depressed often exhibit aggression. The expression and verbalisation of depression
needs some amount of cognitive development. Until children reach that cognitive level,
it is more spontaneous for them to express their depression through aggression.
d) Being the reference point of our conflicting emotions like happiness and unhappiness, joy and
sorrow, pleasure and suffering, the vital is responsible for perpetuating the drama of life. Grief is
thus an essential component of literature and music as much as joy. In terms of health,
this characteristic is represented in ‘illness-behaviour’ – a phenomenon where one
unconsciously enjoys suffering, perpetuates misery and thus prolongs morbidity.

Integral Health
e) It is widely appreciated that the forceful repression of vital impulses and desires may result
in disequilibrium and disease (note that the vital is not the Freudian Id). However, it would
not be out of place to point out that an overindulgence of the vital by trying to satisfy
desires can also result in disequilibrium and disease. The efflorescence of new types of
diseases like AIDS and the global phenomenon of drug dependence should lead to a
reappraisal of our hedonistic culture which eulogises the satiation of desire.
In spite of its obstacles and difficulties, the vital in man can be an asset when purified
and expanded. The vital helps the mind to effectuate its theoretical constructs into
reality. A disciplined vital leads to a higher principle named `bliss' that surpasses the
emotional bipolarities and is self-existent and unconditional, unlike the pursuit of
pleasure. In fact, ‘desire’ is a perversion of that ‘bliss’ at the level of the unpurified vital
consciousness. As one progresses, the lower movement of desire gets transformed into
an effective will for inner progress.
It has been noted that the physical, vital and the mental planes of our being intermingle.
This results in different combinations. Thus when the physical plane of consciousness
permeates the vital it creates a ‘vital-physical’ plane of consciousness which is an
important subdivision. The vital-physical is involved in the reactions of the nervous
system, sensations and feelings. It is also the mediator of pain (20).
Chapter IV
The mental plane of consciousness and its relation to health
The universal mental plane of consciousness is represented in the human being through
the mind. Sri Aurobindo considers that the mind is not the summit but a transitory stage
of evolution which needs to be surpassed. The individual mind is like a station
“..in a system of mental telegraphy where messages are conceived, written, sent,
received, deciphered, and these messages and these activities are of many kinds,
sensational, emotional, perceptual, conceptual, intuitional.. (21)”
The capacities of the mind cannot be explained on the basis of a neural substratum
alone. One has to appreciate the consciousness behind of which the mind is but an
instrument.
Yogic psychology has well-defined subdivisions for the mind: the physical mind or
sense-mind, the vital mind or emotional mind and the pure intellectual mind that is free
from the limitations of the senses and emotions. Sri Aurobindo also describes a divine
mind
“..above intellect which in its turn liberates itself from the imperfect modes of the
logically discriminative and imaginative reason (22).”

Integral Health
The pure intellectual mind concerns itself with aesthetic, ethical and intellectual
activities. There are certain characteristics of this mind which are at once the sources of
our superiority and difficulties. A few of these deserve mention.
a) The mind is usually habituated to ceaseless thinking. Even though we have a capacity for
constructive thinking, most of the time we are submerged by myriad thoughts. In
consonance with one's background, one selects those vibrations from the universal mind
which are on the same wavelength and spins them round and round (23). This is the
reason why one cannot progress by a change of ideas, one has to progress through a
change in consciousness.
b) The mind has a unique capacity of self-reflection. A part of the mind can separate itself
and take a ‘witness-attitude’(24). This is how the mind becomes aware of its workings
and is thus capable of introspection – a necessary requisite for subjective development.
c) When the gap between the practical world and the temperament of the thinker is too great, the
mind may prefer to work in seclusion like the poet lost in his solitude or the scientist caring only
for his laboratory or the artist dwelling in his fantasy world. This trend has a limited
justification. The mind can have its full flowering only when it is ready to accept the
challenges of the practical life. It is due to this struggle that the ethical schools have
developed. Art can then attain vitality and science can provide a stable foundation for its
generalisations and abstractions (25).
d) The mind loves to reason and analyse but there are two difficulties that limit this pursuit.
Firstly, reason can construct both a thesis and antithesis and can thus produce eclectic
combinations but no globally integral synthesis. Secondly, man is also subject to his
needs, desires, taboos, dogmas — the irrationality of existence. These limitations of
‘reason’ validated the yogic search of new faculties for the acquisition of knowledge.
This quest led to the development of intuition and other supra-rationalfaculties (26).
Mental conflicts
One of the most interesting features of the mind is the existence of mental conflicts.
Psychoanalytic research has shown that repression of unresolved mental conflicts can
lead to psychiatric and psychosomatic disorders. But can one really resolve such
conflicts through psychoanalysis? The yogic viewpoint is that the mind itself cannot
wholly resolve conflicts. A mere awareness of one's conflicts through psychoanalysis
does not automatically qualify them for sublimation or transformation. This is only
possible through the intervention of a higher consciousness replacing one pattern of
behaviour by a higher one. Mental conflicts thus provide an opportunity for progress
(27).
To understand the workings of the mind in relation to health, it is necessary to study

two other important subdivisions in the mental plane of consciousness: the vital mind
and the physical mind.
The Vital mind

Integral Health
The vital mind or the emotional mind is that part of the mind which is influenced by
vital forces and movements. It cannot think freely and independently of vital influences.
The function of the vital mind is not to think or reason but dream and imagine, whether
about success or failure, pleasure or sorrow or other emotional bipolarities in life (28).
The vital mind is responsible for the ‘defence mechanisms’ described in psychoanalysis
which result in psychopathology – viz. rationalization by which the mind justifies its
acts, however irrational it might be; projection by which one imposes one’s own
attributes to others and when exaggerated may lead to the development of paranoia
(29).
The vital mind is also capable of making strong mental imageries or formations. If these
imageries are linked with psychosocially conditioned negative attitudes, then the
resultant negative formations may become very strong and cause illnesses. Likewise,
one can construct positive mental formations from a higher poise of consciousness with
therapeutically beneficial effects (30).
The Physical mind
The physical mind or sense-mind is that part of the mind which is permeated by the
physical consciousness. It is related to doubts, indecision, repetitive and chaotic
thoughts. These features when exaggerated may lead to the development of diseases
like obsessive compulsive neurosis (31).
Chapter V
The subconscious plane and its relation to health
Besides the physical, vital and mental planes of consciousness, there are other ranges of
consciousness in and around the individual which have important bearings on health.
The subconscious is the most primitive part of our consciousness where the impressions
of all our experiences in life sink as submerged memories ready to surge up once again
through dreams, ‘complexes’, habits and disease.
The subconscious consists of (32):
a) The most obscure part of the mental consciousness full of obstinate sanskaras,
impressions, associations, fixed notions, habitual reactions formed by our past,
b) the most obscure part of the vital consciousness full of the seeds of habitual desires,
sensations and nervous reactions.
c) the most obscure part of the bodily consciousness that deals directly with the gross
body.
The subconscious is responsible for:

Integral Health
a) recurrences of chronic illness.
b) perpetuation of habits – good or bad.
c) carry-over of prenatal psychological influences of parents in children.
d) rigidity of the character-structure.
Integral yoga realizes that though character can be changed, it is very difficult to do so
because of the obstinacy of the subconscious (33). It is not only one's character but the
character of one's antecedents held in the subconscious that has to be changed.
Yoga considers that the subconscious can only be illumined and transformed in the light
of superconscient experiences.
Chapter VI
The psychic being and integral health
Figure 1
The development of the physical, vital and mental parts of consciousness as separate
entities can only be meaningful if they relate to an integrating and harmonising fourth-

Integral Health
dimensional centre known as the ‘Psychic being’ in Sri Aurobindo's terminology. The
Psychic being represents the atman of the Indian tradition in its evolving form and
surpasses the ego which is only like a shadow of the true integrating principle (the
Psychic being). The ego is initially necessary to give a self-conscious identity but at a
certain stage of inner progress needs to be surpassed by the Psychic being so that one
can start living at a deeper and truer level of consciousness and experience a sense of
wholeness, integrality, peace, unity, collaboration and unalloyed joy which is
qualitatively far different from the more easily perceptible vital vibrations. Jung came
close to the concept of the Psychic being in his description of a synthetically integrative
‘centre’ or ‘self’ – his defect was that he did not recognise that the consciousness of this
unique ‘centre’ or ‘self ‘ is higher than the ordinary mental consciousness (34).
The word ‘soul’ is rather loosely used in English to lump our emotions, passions and
desires into a non-physical aggregate. The term ‘Psychic being’ is specifically used by Sri
Aurobindo to describe the soul element that is other than the physical, vital and mental.
It is a portion of the Divine and evolves through life-experiences from birth to birth. If it
comes forward, breaking through the mental, vital and physical screens, it can govern
the instincts and transform nature.
Usually, one is ruled by the outer personality of the physical, vital and mental
consciousness held loosely together by the false soul of ego and desire. Sri Aurobindo
writes,
“In a certain sense we are nothing but a complex mass of mental, nervous and physical
habits held together by a few ruling ideas, desires and associations, – an amalgam of
many small self-repeating forces with a few major vibrations (35).”
Ordinarily, we are not aware of the Psychic being but at certain moments of life, it does
influence us strongly and we spontaneously feel an inner happiness, wholeness, joy and
goodwill. This state is not dependent on outer conditions and may even appear in
unfavourable conditions.
The quintessence of Integral Health lies in a change of consciousness from the outer
physical, vital and mental fixations to this higher psychic consciousness (36). The
psychic consciousness is free from psychological disturbances and helps to build up an
integrated personality. It is also concomitantly free from the subconscient and egocentric
disturbances and immune from attacks by adverse forces. The Mother describes what
happens to those in whom the psychic rules:
“So long as the openness is there, the peace, the fullness and the joy remain with their
immediate results of progress, health and fitness in the physical, quietness and goodwill
in the vital, clear understanding and broadness in the mental and a general feeling of
security and satisfaction (37).”
Other dimensions of consciousness

Integral Health
It is significant to note that besides the Psychic consciousness and the subconscious Sri
Aurobindo has described other dimensions of consciousness, namely (38).
a) The superconscious; the consciousness of the Psychic being and of the higher planes
beyond the mind. While the subconscious of psychoanalysts is the source of our atavistic
and biological drives, the superconscious of yogic psychology is the source of our highly
evolved impulses and lofty aspirations. Man can suffer not only from the repression of
his biological drives but also from repression of the sublime.
b) The subliminal; an intermediary plane of consciousness standing behind the surface

personality and the meeting ground of the individual and universal spheres of existence.
Though a little of it enters the outer life, that little is the best part of ourselves and
responsible for art, poetry, philosophy and music. The subliminal includes many of the
elements of the collective unconscious described by Jung.
c) The circumconscient; the plane of consciousness that surrounds us and projects a
protective envelope around our individual selves.
Figure 2
Chapter VII
An integral approach to healing
It is not surprising that the human mind which loves diversity and variation has evolved
multiple paradigms of healing. However this does not mean that they should not have

Integral Health
an element of commonality in their mode of operation. We talk of global, wholistic and

integrated healing but these usually refer to eclectic combinations of diverse approaches.
Our concern is to construct an integral approach to healing and ‘integral’ and ‘ecletic’
are not the same. The integrality should not be sought in shifting combinations of varied
therapeutic systems but in their relation to the different planes of consciousness. All the
diverse healing systems must have a common denominator along a consciousness
perspective.
A study of Sri Aurobindo provides this matrix in the conception of the Pranic Shakti
(Pranic Energy) which is a formulation of the Universal Shakti in the embodied human
being. The outer physical, vital and mental energy-states are its outermost formulations
and are used in various degrees and at various levels by the different healing
techniques. Thus the pharmacological action of most of the drugs used in modern
medicine is at the energy level of the outermost physical consciousness. The energy-
states supporting the vital- physical plane of consciousness might be the field of action
of remedies used in homeopathy, flower-remedies and related therapies. This would
explain why homoeopathic drugs remain potent in high dilutions where theoretically no
molecules should remain. Sri Aurobindo comments
“Sometimes the infinitesimal is more powerful than the mass; it approaches more and
more the subtle state and from the physical goes into a dynamic or vital state and acts
vitally (39).”
The Chinese system of acupuncture also activates in a different way the vital-physical
plane of consciousness. It has been demonstrated that acupuncture causes the release of
endorphins and central neuro-transmitters, though it is not clear whether such
neurochemical changes are incidental or central in mediating the therapeutic effects.
This gives some credence to the action of acupuncture at the physical plane of
consciousness. However, the pricking of skin by needles alone does not seem to be the
decisive therapeutic factor. It is interesting that variants of acupuncture, where the same
points are stimulated without needles and without puncturing the skin, seem to be
equally effective. This is possible because the Vital energy provides a potent field for
mediating the therapeutic effects of acupuncture.
Sri Aurobindo writes that there is
“..around us a vital-physical or nervous envelope which radiates from the body and
protects it... (40).”
The energy-states supporting this circumconscient plane of consciousness resembles the

‘bioplasmic body’ which is a protective force-field shielding the body. Perhaps a
physical formulation of this force-field is glimpsed as an aura by Kirlian photography
(41). Techniques like Pranic Therapy, Reiki and Magnetic healing may have an effect
through this level. Techniques like Homoeopathy and Acupuncture also act at a subtle
level but still use the physical body as a pedestal for initiating action. However, in a
technique like Pranic Therapy, the cure is effectuated from ‘outside’ the body by
strengthening the circumconscient vital-physical envelope. How can this be done

Integral Health
without the support of the body? Perhaps this is possible through subtle points of
therapeutic intervention in specialised condensations or vortices of energy called chakras,
hierarchically arranged with communicating channels or nadis resulting in a dynamic
distribution of energy in and around the body.
The mental plane of consciousness is also implicated in various therapies. Thus,

relaxation techniques, biofeedback and meditative reconditioning exert their beneficial
effects by stilling the fluctuations characteristic of the energy states supporting the
physical mind. The energy-states underlying the subliminal layer of the physical mind
supporting the senses might initiate the therapeutic action of hypnosis and clairvoyance
(42). Certain forms of psychotherapy and counselling are effective if they can balance the
tumultuous waves underlying the vital mind. Behaviour therapy and behaviour
modification techniques need to initiate their action by shrugging off the inertia
characteristic of the physical mind. Cognitive therapies like the rational-emotive therapy
seek to influence the energy of the vital mind by a higher energy of the intellectual mind.
The different levels of the Pranic Shakti
Figure 3
So far we have been dealing with the outer formulations of the Pranic Shakti expressed
as energy-states underlying the physical, vital and mental planes of consciousness and
their various sub-divisions. However one can also extend one’s consciousness inward

Integral Health
and come into contact with a more central and purer form of the Pranic Shakti to
effectuate dynamic healing processes.Such a direct access provides a central leverage to
healing, surpassing all systems. This is possible through the development of yogic
powers. The hathayogi uses pranayama for this purpose though Sri Aurobindo points out
that there are other less mechanical and more flexible means like
“...mental will and practice or by an increasing opening of ourselves to a higher spiritual

power of the Shakti (43).”
The Divine Shakti (Universal Shakti) is represented in man at various levels; firstly by
Pranic Shakti and secondly by a higher type of purer mental energy in communion with
the universal mind-consciousness (44).
In the hierarchy of energy-states the higher energies act upon the lower ones to
effectuate an ascending evolutionary progress. Thus the pure mental energy at a higher
level has a superior will power and can sustain, use and harness the Pranic Shakti more
effectively. Ultimately, this pure mental energy can also be surpassed by a spiritual
energy which is a yet higher formulation of the Divine Shakti and whose action is more
dynamic.
The activation and harnessing of the Pranic Shakti opens up new perspectives in health
and healing. Sri Aurobindo explains
“This Pranic force we can use for any of the activities of life, body or mind with a far
greater and effective power than any that we command in our present operations,
limited as they are by the physical formula. The use of this Pranic power liberates us
from that limitation to the extent of our ability to use it in place of the body-bound
energy. It can be used so to direct the Prana as to manage more powerfully or to rectify
any bodily state or action, as to heal illness or to get rid of fatigue, and to liberate an
enormous amount of mental exertion and play of will or Knowledge..”(45).
Can this Pranic Shakti be used for self-healing alone or also to heal others?
Sri Aurobindo answers that, “The Pranic Shakti can be directed not only upon ourselves,
but effectively towards others or on things or happenings for whatever purposes the will
dictates (46).”
Our main difficulty in understanding the action of the subtle energy-states is that they
cannot be measured in the way we measure some aspects of the physical energy — in
terms of muscular strength or biochemical activity. Our lack of measuring tools does not
qualify us for rejecting the subtle energy-states. If we do so, we err by rejecting a large
and consistent body of knowledge built upon the experiences of mystics, occultists, seers
and yogis.
There are some persons with clairvoyant vision who can visualise the bio-energy field
around us which is one of the outermost formulations of the Pranic Shakti. Indeed,
clairvoyance can be developed to be of use in diagnosis as well as in therapy. However,

Integral Health
a true mastery over the Pranic Shakti can only result from a yogic effort towards self-
perfection.
The Universal Shakti is around us and also within us in a concentrated form as Pranic
Shakti. How can we have an access to it? The Hathayogi uses asanas and pranayama for
this purpose but these are mechanical means. One can, widen one’s consciousness and
with faith and trust, draw the universal energy to fix it in the body. As the Mother says,
“At the outset, this may seem very difficult, if not impossible. Yet by examining this
phenomenon more closely, one can see that it is not so alien, not so remote from the
normally developed human consciousness. Indeed, there are very few people who have
not felt, at least once in their lives, as if lifted up beyond themselves, filled with an
unexpected and uncommon force which, for a time, has made them capable of doing
anything whatever; at such moments nothing seems too difficult and the word
‘impossible’ loses its meaning.
Table 2
Hierarchies of the Universal Shakti
“This experience, however fleeting it may be, gives a glimpse of the kind of contact with
the higher energy that yogic discipline can secure and maintain.

Integral Health
“The method of achieving this contact can hardly be given here. Besides, it is something
individual and unique for each one, which starts from where he stands, adapting itself
to his personal needs and helping him to take one more step forward. The path is
sometimes long and slow, but the result is worth the trouble one takes. We can easily
imagine the consequences of this power to draw at will and in all circumstances on the
boundless source of an energy that is all-powerful in its luminous purity. Weariness,
exhaustion, illness, old age and even death become mere obstacles on the way, which a
persistent will is sure to overcome (47).”
The greatest obstacle to the free action of this Pranic Shakti is the ego-sense. The ego-
sense limits, separates and differentiates, yet is indispensable for the evolution of the
lower (i.e. ordinary) life. If the ego gets hold of the pure Pranic force, disastrous
consequences can follow. One is then transformed into an arrogant titan, manipulating
the Divine force for selfish ends and in the process, ruining oneself (48).
One traditional solution offered is to abolish or dissolve the ego. But Integral Yoga aims
to establish a higher life on earth itself. The ego is initially necessary to uphold the lower
life — its abolition would mean a cessation of life. That is why it is recommended that
the Psychic being should replace the ego. The Psychic being is that part of the soul which
takes part in earthly evolution – it is active only on the earth, it exists only here and
nowhere else. The Psychic being alone can form the nucleus of a higher life on earth. If
the knowledge of the working of the Pranic Shakti is developed, the Psychic being can
use it for a further ascension in consciousness. In that scheme of things, illness – a
disequilibrium in itself of the body, is overcome by moving from a plane of disharmony
to a higher plane of harmony. The Pranic Shakti then not only heals the illness but
utilises this opportunity for a growth in consciousness. Illness and health are thus at
two ends of a spectrum that up hold’s Sri Aurobindo's dictum –
“For all problems of existence are essentially problems of harmony (49).”
The human mind will never be satisfied with one particular healing technique – it loves
variation and multiplicity. Each system of healing represents a partial truth and no one
system is exclusive and final. A holistic healing paradigm cannot evolve through eclectic
combinations of convenience. The integral approach to healing uniquely harmonises
different systems by giving them their due place along a consciousness perspective. In
the process, three important aspects of the integral approach need a reiteration.
(a) The higher and deeper energy-states can act upon and transmute the lower and
surface energy-states so that one can move from a plane of disequilibrium to a plane of
harmony. Illness thus provides a chance for progress along the hierarchy of
consciousness.
(b) One can have a direct access to a more puissant control of health by surpassing all
healing techniques and catching hold of the very fountain-head of the Pranic Shakti in
our being. All healing systems touch one or another aspect of the outer formulations of
the Pranic Shakti but its quintessence can only be mastered through yogic practice and
used for dynamic healing.

Integral Health
(c) The source of health, integration and well-being lies in the Psychic being. To become
conscious of this secret principle and make it active in our life is to bring harmony and
health into the system.
Chapter VIII
Faith and healing
It would indeed be a privilege for a person to understand how his planes of

consciousness and the underlying energy-states are involved in healing processes. Such
a self-knowledge is exceptional, requires time to develop and cannot be generalised at
the present level of organisation of knowledge. Yet people continue to respond to
healing techniques not merely because of the efficacy of the technique and the therapist
but because of the faith they repose on the healing systems. The placebo response is
possible due to the phenomenon of faith and can be used as a first line of treatment in
some cases. There are many recorded instances throughout history of how faith-healing
and prayer are effective therapeutic tools. The Mother aptly commented,
“Finally it is Faith that cures (50).”
At the level of the body, faith is a natural and spontaneous instinct. One can have
glimpses of this unspoilt faith in children who can automatically outgrow many a
problem due to the utter simplicity of their trust. As the Mother puts it,
“But normally, the body of a normal child – the body, I am not speaking of the thought
– The body itself feels when something goes wrong that it will certainly be all right
again. And if it is not like that, this means that it has already been perverted. It seems
normal for it to be in good health, it seems quite abnormal to it if something goes wrong
and it falls ill; and in its instinct, its spontaneous instinct, it is sure that everything will
be all right. It is only the perversion of thought which destroys this; as one grows up the
thoughts become more and more distorted, there is the whole collective suggestion, and
so, little by little, the body loses its trust in itself, and naturally, losing its self-confidence,
it also loses the spontaneous capacity of restoring its equilibrium when this has been
disturbed (51).”
While faith is a natural instinct at the level of the body, it is not so at the level of the
mind where doubts, scepticism and negative attitudes combat faith and perpetuate
suffering. It is true that there is a positive role of doubt as it helps man to surpass
dogmas and superstitions. Yet it is equally true that man cannot progress unless he has
faith in his own convictions, ideals and goals. Sri Aurobindo describes faith as,
"the reflex in the lower consciousness of a Truth or real Idea yet unrealised in the
manifestation. It is this self-certainty of the Idea which is meant by the Gita when it says,
Yo Yacchraddhah sa eva sah, ‘whatever is a man’s faith or the sure Idea in him, that he
becomes’(52).”

Integral Health
The mind can make a mental resolution but that falls short of faith. Thus it is necessary
to develop a higher type of faith, a ‘soul-faith’, which in Sri Aurobindo’s terminology is,
“..an assent of the whole being to the truth seen by it or offered to its acceptance, and its
central working is a faith of the soul in its own will to be and attain and become and its
idea of self and things and its knowledge, of which the belief of the intellect, the heart’s
consent and the desire of the life mind to possess and realise are the outward
figures.“This soul faith, in some form of itself, is indispensable to the action of the being
and without it man cannot move a single pace in life, much less take any step forward to
a yet unrealised perfection (53).”
“This faith will be more and more justified as the higher knowledge opens, we shall
begin to see the great and small significances that escaped our limited mentality and
faith will pass into knowledge (54).”
Chapter IX
A programme for pursuit of research in integral health
A programme for pursuit of research in Integral Health should be essentially a

consciousness approach structured in accordance with the planes and parts of the
consciousness. Sri Aurobindo has provided an exhaustive source for such an endeavour
by mapping and charting ranges of consciousness that include and surpass the ordinary
mental consciousness.
A programme at the physical plane
The designing of a programme at the physical plane merits a special position not only
because we want to lower the morbidity risk or delay mortality but also due to the
physical frame which has to support the efflorescence of new levels of consciousness.
Besides, whatever the therapeutic modality – pharmacology, placebo action or use of
spiritual energy; healing to be effective needs to be ultimately concretised at the physical
plane.
In consonance with the principles of Integral Yoga, it seems that the basic research at the
physical plane of consciousness should be aimed to manifest and develop the ‘body-
consciousness’ which can act independent of or even against the mind. Regarding the
body-consciousness Sri Aurobindo writes
“..it has habits, impulses, instincts, an inert yet effective will which differs from that of
the rest of our being and can resist it and condition its effectiveness (55).”
“In many things, in matters of health and illness for instance, in all automatic functions,
the body acts on its own and is not a servant of the mind. If it is fatigued, it can offer a
passive resistance to the mind's will. It can cloud the mind with tamas, inertia, dullness,
fumes of the subconscient so that the mind cannot act. The arm lifts, no doubt, when it
gets the suggestion, but at first the legs do not obey when they are asked to walk; they
have to learn how to leave the crawling attitude and movement and take up the erect

Integral Health
and ambulatory habit.When you first ask the hand to draw a straight line or to play
music, it can’t do it and won’t do it. It has to be schooled, trained, taught, and afterwards
it does automatically what is required of it.All this proves that there is a body-
consciousness which can do things at the mind's order, but has to be awakened, trained,
made a good and conscious instrument. It can even be so trained that a mental will or
suggestion can cure the illness of the body (56).”
Though the development of the ‘body-consciousness’ is basically a subjective,

introspective and yogic endeavour; health professionals also have their share in this
task, the foremost of which is to devise ways and strategies so that health-intervention
techniques cause the least disruption of the body. Happily this trend is already
perceptible in the proliferation of non-invasive investigative techniques and in the
development of virtually non-surgical approaches where major surgery was earlier
unavoidable e.g. the recent techniques for the removal of stones from the gall-bladder.
The sole aim of these new techniques is to disturb the body as little as possible.
Even non-conventional approaches need subtler modifications e.g. it is more acceptable

to stimulate acupuncture points without puncturing the skin so that there is no breach in
the first line defense of the body. Needless to say, such ‘external’ techniques of
preserving the intactness and integrity of the body do not per se develop body-
consciousness but it definitely facilitates the pursuit of such an endeavour. This is an
exciting area of future research.
It is a fact that during the last 50 years, we have injected the body with a massive array
of chemicals through drugs, artificial food additives, pesticides and environmental
pollutants. Never before in the last 10,000 years of recorded history, had the human
frame to undergo such a chemical onslaught. Today we are facing the consequences in
the form of a defective immune system that is facilitating new diseases like AIDS. We
cannot also vouchsafe that mass-scale immunisation programmes are not seeding
humans with RNA to form latent pro-viruses which when activated can cause a variety
of chronic diseases as Rheumatoid arthritis, Multiple sclerosis, S.L.E, Parkinson’s disease
or even cancer (57). This is a vast area of enquiry and research. To reduce the risk of
chemical intoxication of the body, it would also be necessary to make a reappraisal of
the seed-ideas inherent in healing systems like Homeopathy, Acupuncture and allied
systems where the body is disturbed as little as possible. These systems need not clash
with modern medicine but need to be planned in a proper hierarchy of therapeutic
modalities so that our basic aim of preserving the integrity of the body as far as possible,
is fulfilled. The program for Integral Health needs an exhaustive elaboration in this line.
An advanced area of research ensues when we are ready to replace the prevailing
determinism of the bodily systems by a higher determinism. We can then learn to reduce
our sleep and food to a hygienic minimum and be able to consciously draw from the
universal life-energy.
The most heuristic value of research lies in the study of how a change in consciousness
can effect mutant changes in the form. Anthropological speculation postulates that the
ape-man did not stand up after his brain-size increased – indeed it was the other way

Integral Health
round. The ape-man had first stood upright from his quadripedal position enabling his
upper limbs to be free for instinctive innovations necessary for survival and
subsequently the capacity of the brain increased. Thus the physical changes had
preceded the other manifestations of the change in consciousness. Integral Yoga points
out that after the mind has fully blossomed in the evolutionary scheme, there will be a
paradigm shift and this transformation of the consciousness will precede and determine
the mutant changes in the body.
It is interesting that anthropologists have already begun to wonder why the human
structure has certain oddities that serve no physiological purpose – like the excess fat in
female buttocks or the unduly large size of female breasts (58). It is more interesting that
the Mother has described how the future human body will free itself from such oddities
(59) and instead have certain other unique qualities like (60):
a) lightness with no feeling of inertia or unconsciousness,

b) adaptability in all conditions,
c) plasticity, obviating the necessity of dull resistance that leaves one
battered,
d) luminosity that vibrates at the cellular level.
Of course, such developments may not be visible immediately (61). Yet we must make
ourselves ready to participate in this evolutionary progress envisaged by Sri Aurobindo.
This is a positive area of future research that surpasses the limits of physiology and
psychology.
II
A programme at the vital plane
The delineation of the vital plane as a separate plane of consciousness that is radically
different from the mental plane (though superficially very much mixed up) is one of the
most significant contributions of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo. The vital is the
reference point of all our conflicting emotions, passions, lusts, desires. The novel and
innovative concept of the vital provides exciting new areas of research, some of which
are enumerated below.
a) Modification of the body-mind concept
The concept of psychosomatic diseases has led to a reappraisal of the body-mind

relationship. Western medicine still follows the Cartesian model where the body
represents one functioning system and the mind another. Each system may affect the
other but each essentially gives rise to different dimensions of diseases. However, in
accordance with the insights provided by Integral psychology a true understanding of
the personality would need a ‘body-vital-mind’ axis mediated through a ‘soul-centre’.
Such an axis needs to be researched and elaborated for use as a pragmatic model in
health.

Integral Health
b) The vital versus rationality
Whether it be in the field of education or in the field of cognitive psychotherapy, a

scientific approach recommends the control of the vital through rationality. Integral
yoga points out that this endeavour cannot be ordinarily successful due to nature of the
vital. The vital is never satisfied and does not obey the mind – indeed the vital part of
the mind (the vital mind) can rationalise excellently for self-deception (note that the vital
is not the Freudian Id). Instead of merely attempting to control our emotions by reason,
Integral yoga advocates a development, discrimination and discipline of the emotional
(vital) and rational (mental) parts of our being subjecting them to the rule of a higher,
fourth-dimensional, synthetically integrative principle called the Psychic being. The
disciplining of the vital is thus an important topic for research that has an enormous
bearing on practical life.
c) The vital versus morality
Mental health professionals stress the necessity of moral values to discipline the vital. In
fact, the lack of moral values is cited to be one of the reasons of the present-day
degradation of society. This is an issue that needs serious consideration. From the
perspective of Integral yoga, there is both a psychological and axiological aspect of this
problem. From the psychological viewpoint, the vital can never be disciplined by
moralistic sermons. That is why superficial counselling can only be palliative but never
decisive. Secondly, from the axiological point of view, Integral yoga posits that moral
values are man-made and transitional. It describes the trans-valuation from the infra-
ethical to the ethical and thence to the supra-ethical levels of experience. With a
progressive change of consciousness, newer values are being created while earlier values
are taken up to be transformed or upgraded by the workings of a higher consciousness.
Our present concept of moral values has only a transient significance that needs to be
surpassed at a certain point of personality development. Thus the scope of moralistic
counselling programmes will be no more effective today and needs a reappraisal. This
provides a new thought for research.
d) The vital energy
Usually, when people interact between themselves at the ordinary level of

consciousness, there is a great deal of interchange of the lower vital vibrations.
However, one can learn to rise up and act from the level of the higher vital so that one
can draw sustenance from the universal life-energy. Little children have this capacity.
That is why it so common for paediatricians to see children whose parents complain that
they take inadequate food and yet seem to have no dearth of energy. What is instinctive
in children has to be cultivated in adult life by strengthening our intuitive perception.
The vital energy can also be manipulated to effectuate therapeutic results as in pranic
therapy and faith-healing. Besides, higher energies like the spiritual energy can also
have a transmuting effect on the vital energy. The vital thus bears an enormous heuristic
potential in research.

Integral Health
III
A programme at the mental plane
Integral yoga considers that the mind is not an organ of knowledge but an organiser of
knowledge; it does not produce thoughts but expresses thoughts that enter into it from
the universal mind. The mind is not only meant for expressing thoughts but also for
expressing higher faculties that surpass thought. Indeed, when our rational mind is
sufficiently developed, we are ready for the concept of the silent mind (62). The
cultivation of silence helps one to free oneself from the fixations to the different parts of
our nature, releases the mind from habitual thought-patterns and makes it receptive to
truly innovative ideas. It also prepares the being for the next phase – a development of
the supra-rational faculties of knowledge of which the faculty of intuition is of foremost
importance.
The concept of the silent mind and the effects of communication in silence are already
finding their ways in contemporary psychology as an effective tool for self-development
and therapy. The relevance of intuition is also slowly growing. Sri Aurobindo in the East
and Bergson in the West have described how the Age of Intuition will surpass the
present Age of Reason and increase our repertoire of knowledge. While reason discovers
the relational aspects of existence – the logically definable intelligent structure of the
world — intuition illumines the non-relational aspect of existence – the theologically
indefinable non-verbal factor in the nature of things (63),(64).
We have momentary glimpses of intuition but we do not know the art of developing this
faculty as there are many variables that obstruct or dilute the intuitive flow. A
development of the power of intuition can give us a penetrative insight into many
spheres of life where reason has its limitations. An overview of research in physical,
behavioural and medical sciences shows that it is permeated by occasional brilliant
intuitive insights while the rest is only their amplification. Many a scientist and
mathematician has acknowledged the role of intuition and many a doctor can describe
how intuition helped him to arrive at a correct diagnosis or at the correct drug. The
conscious cultivation of supra-rational faculties thus provides the basis for future action
and needs an in-depth probing.
Another line of research at the mental plane would be to integrate the functioning’s of
the two hemispheres. The modern exposition of the laterality of cerebral hemispheric
functioning was known intuitively to yogic psychology. Sri Aurobindo pointed out as
early as 1910 that the bias of the left hemisphere in asserting the critical and analytical
faculties had to be balanced by the synthetic and comprehensive functioning of the right
hemisphere. The integration of the two hemispheres at the physical level paves the way
for a synthesis of cognition and creativity at a higher level so that there is a fulfilment in
life (65).
One of the most important research activities at the mental plane would be a radical
reappraisal of conventional psychoanalytic techniques. While the Freudian subconsicous
is the source of our atavistic and biological drives, the mystic’s superconscious is the

Integral Health
source of our highly evolved impulses. Man does not only suffer from repression of his
biological drives but can also suffer from repression of the sublime (66). Integral Yoga
strives to manifest new planes of consciousness which obviously cannot be components
of the subconscious but are derived from the superconscious (67). From the viewpoint
of Integral yoga, it is always safer to explore the subconscious only when one has got
entry into the subliminal or the superconscious (68). Sri Aurobindo points out that the
animal in us has its lair of retreat in the dense jungle of the subconscious. The
subconscious supports all that clings and refuses to change, viz. the mechanical
recurrences of unintelligent thought, persistent obstinacies of feeling, sensations,
impulses and uncontrolled fixities of character. A mere mental scrutiny can give some
insights into the working of the subconscious. Psychoanalysis can achieve that much.
The illumination and control of the subconscious necessary for the transformation of
personality can only be from the subliminal or the superconscious ranges.
A programme for personality development
It is interesting that in addition to the psychoanalytic, behavioural and humanistic

schools of psychology, a fourth movement of transpersonal psychology is gradually
emerging which redefines psychology as the science of consciousness and stresses an
approach to personal growth based on a ‘self-knowledge’(69). The concept of ‘personal
growth’ acquires a different dimension in the light of Sri Aurobindo's teachings. The
Western world measures personal growth in relation to the development of the ego and
individuality. The Integral yoga of Sri Aurobindo stresses on an ‘inner growth’ in
consciousness beyond the ego-state and this represents a total reversal of the normal
ego-bound state of consciousness. Such a pursuit can be effectively executed if the
separate parts of the personality (the physical, vital and mental) are extricated from their
surface combinations, developed as individual entities and then integrated around a
fourth-dimensional ego-surpassing centre – the Psychic being. It is an integrated
personality which can then rise up the hierarchy of consciousness and can continually
exceed itself by integrating with still higher and unmanifest factors. Thus, Integral Yoga
gives a new perspective to personality development. An integrated personality is a
necessary component for the attainment of Integral Health.
Chapter X
Yoga and healing
The Mother says, “An illness of the body is always the outer expression and translation
of a disorder, a disharmony in the inner being; unless this inner disorder is healed, the
outer cure cannot be total and permanent (70).”
How can one be aware of this disharmony while it is still in a nascent stage? The
cultivation of an integrated personality facilitates the development of an inner master
harmony making one aware of subtle disruptive forces within or outside the being
which helps to ward off illness.
Disruptive forces within the body

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The Mother explained that each spot of the body is symbolic of an inner movement in a
world of subtle correspondences.
“The particular place in the body affected by an illness is an index to the nature of the
inner disharmony that has taken place…If one could perfectly understand where the
mistake is, find out what has been unreceptive, open that part and put the force and the
light there, it would be possible to re-establish in a moment the harmony that has been
disturbed and the illness would immediately go.
“The origin of an illness may be in the mind; it may be in the vital; it may be in any of
the parts of the being. One and the same illness may be due to a variety of causes; it may
spring in different cases from different sources of disharmony.And there may be too an
appearance of illness where there is no real illness at all. In that case, if you are
sufficiently conscious, you will see that there is just a friction somewhere, some halting
in the movement, and by setting it right you will be cured at once (71).”
Disruptive forces outside the body
The physical body is surrounded by a subtle, protective, nervous envelope where

symptoms of illness can manifest before they are visible in the gross body. The Mother
elaborates,
“It is a subtle body and yet almost visible. In density something like the vibrations that
you see around a very hot and steaming object, it emanates from the physical body and
closely covers it. All communications with the exterior world are made through this
medium, and it is this that must be invaded and penetrated first before the body can be
affected. If this envelope is absolutely strong and intact, you can go into places infested
with the worse of diseases, even plague and cholera, and remain quite immune. It is a
perfect protection against all possible attacks of illness, so long as it is whole and entire,
thoroughly consistent in its composition, its elements in faultless balance. The body is
built up, on the one side, of a material basis, but rather of material conditions than a
physical matter, on the other, of the vibrations of our psychological states. Peace and
equanimity and confidence, faith in health, undisturbed repose and cheerfulness and
bright gladness constitute this element in it and give it strength and substance. It is a
very sensitive medium with facile and quick reactions; it readily takes in all kinds of
suggestions and these can rapidly change and almost remould its condition. A bad
suggestion acts very strongly upon it; a good suggestion operates in the contrary sense
with the same force. Depression and discouragement have a very adverse effect; they cut
out holes in it, as it were, in its very stuff, render it weak and unresisting and open to
hostile attacks an easy passage (72).”
“If one becomes aware of the weak spot in one’s envelope, a few minute’s concentration,
a call to the force, an inner peace is sufficient for it to be all right, get cured, and for the
untoward thing to vanish (73).”
From disequilibrium to harmony

Integral Health
In the final analysis, disease is a disequilibrium at one plane of consciousness that has to
be corrected by moving into a higher plane of harmony (74). This movement might meet
with resistance resulting in chronicity of the illness and frequent relapses or
exacerbations. One might consent not to budge at all from one's position; not to pursue
an evolutionary movement in consciousness – one prefers to be vanquished by disease
and death. The Mother describes this in her own characteristic way.
“It is simply when one sees the disequilibrium and is capable of re-establishing the
equilibrium that one is cured. Only there are two very different categories you come
across... Some hold on to their disequilibrium – they hold on to it, cling to it, don’t want
to let it go. Then you may try as hard as you will, even if you re-establish the
equilibrium the next minute they get into disequilibrium once again, because they love
that. They say:
‘Oh no! I don’t want to be ill’, but within them there is something which holds firmly to
some disequilibrium, which does not want to let it go. There are other people, on the
contrary, who sincerely love equilibrium, and directly you give them the power to get
back their equilibrium, the equilibrium is re-established and in a few minutes they are
cured. Their knowledge was not sufficient or their power was not sufficient to re-
establish order – disequilibrium is a disorder. But if you intervene, if you have the
knowledge and re-establish the equilibrium, quite naturally the illness will disappear;
and those who allow you to do it get cured. Only those who do not let you do it are not
cured and this is visible, they do not allow you to act, they cling to the illness (75).”
Causes of disequilibrium
It is interesting how The Mother analyses the forces of disequilibrium that cause
illnesses. She speaks of a triple equilibrium – physical, vital and mental and their
combinations.
“First of all, from the point of view of the body – just the body – there are two kinds of
disequilibrium: functional and organic. I do not know if you are aware of the difference
between the two; but you have organs and then you have all the parts of your body:
nerves, muscles, bones and all the rest. Now, if an organ by itself is in disequilibrium, it
is an organic disequilibrium, and you are told: that organ is ill or perhaps it is badly
formed or it is not normal or an accident has occurred to it. But it is the organ that is ill.
But the organ may be in a very good condition, all your organs may be in a very good
condition, but there is still an illness as they do not function properly: there is a lack of
balance in the functioning. You may have a very good stomach, but suddenly something
happens to it and it does not function properly; or the body may also be excellent, but
something happens to it and it does not work properly any more. Then you have an
illness due to functional imbalance not organic imbalance.
“Generally, illnesses due to functional imbalance are cured much more quickly and
easily than the others.

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“Most often when you are young and leading a normal life, the imbalance is purely
functional. There are only a few poor people who for one reason or other have had an
accident or imbalance before their birth, these carry with them something that is much
more difficult to cure (not that it is incurable; in theory, there is nothing incurable), but it
becomes more difficult.
“Good. Now what are the causes of this imbalance, whatever it may be? As I told you
just now, the causes are innumerable; because, first of all, there are all the inner causes,
that is, those personal to you, and then all the external causes, those that come to you
from outside. That makes two major categories.
“The internal causes:
“We said: you have a brain, lungs, a heart, a stomach, a liver, etc. If each one does its
duty and works normally and if all move together in harmony at a given moment and in
the right way (note that it would be very complicated if you were obliged to think of all
that, and I am afraid things would not go right all the time! Fortunately, it does not need
our conscious thinking), admitting however they are in good harmony with one another,
good friends, in perfect agreement, and each one fulfilling its task, its movement at the
right time, in tune with the rest, neither too soon nor too late, neither too fast nor too
slow, indeed, every one going all right, then you are marvelously well! Suppose now
that one of them, for some reason or other, happens to be in a bad mood: it does not
work with the necessary energy, at the required moment it goes awhile on strike. Do not
believe that it alone will fall ill: the whole system will go wrong and you will feel
altogether unwell. And if, unfortunately, there is a vital imbalance, that is, a
disappointment or too violent an emotion or too strong a passion or something else
upsetting your vital, that comes in addition. And if furthermore your thoughts roam
about and you begin to have dark ideas and formulate frightful things and make
catastrophic formations, then after that you are sure to fall ill altogether...
“What is needed (I shall explain it to you later on) is to give them a lesson as one does to
little children. When they begin indulging in unhealthy fancies (indeed it is then the
occasion to say it) you must tell them: no, it is not like that the work is to be done, it is
the other way! Suppose for example, your heart begins to throb madly; then you must
make it calm, you tell it that this is not the way to act, and at the same time (solely to
help it) you take in long very regular rhythmic breaths, that is, the lung becomes the
mentor of the heart and teaches it how to work properly.
“And then there are internal conflicts. These are quarrels. There are internal quarrels
among the different parts of yourself. Supposing there is an organ (it happens very
often) that needs rest and there is another that wants action, and both at the same time.
How are you going to manage it? They begin to quarrel. If you do what one wants, the
other protests! And so you have to find a middle term to put them in harmony.
"All these are functional imbalances.

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"There is an aspiration within you (I am now speaking of people who do yoga or at any
rate know what the spiritual life is and try to walk on the path), within you there is a
part of the being – either mental or vital or something even physical – that has
understood well, has much aspiration, its special aptitudes, that receives the forces well
and is making good progress. And then there are others that cannot, others still that
don't want to (that of course is very bad), but there are yet others that want to very much
but cannot, do not have the capacity, are not ready. So there is something that rises
upward and something that does not move. That causes a terrible imbalance. And
usually this translates itself into some illness or other, for you are in such a state of inner
tension between something that cannot or something that clings, that does not want to
move and something else that wants to: that produces a frightful unease and the result
usually is an illness.
“You see there are reasons! – many reasons, numberless reasons. For all these things
combine in an extraordinarily complex way, and in order to know, in order to be able to
cure an illness, one must find out its cause, not its microbe. For it happens that (excuse
me, I hope there are no doctors here!), it happens that when microbes are there, they find
out magnificent remedies to kill the microbes, but these remedies cure some and make
others much more ill! Nobody knows why....Perhaps I know why. Because the illness
had another cause than the purely physical one; there was another; the first was only an
outer expression of a different disorder; and unless you touched that, discovered that
disorder, never would you be able to prevent the illness from coming. And to discover
the disorder, you must have an extensive occult knowledge and also a deep knowledge
of all the inner workings of each one...
“Now there are external causes that come and bring complications.
“If you were in a perfectly harmonious environment where everything was full of a total
and perfect goodwill, then evidently you could lay the blame only on yourself. But the
difficulties that are within are also without. You can, to a certain extent, establish an
inner equilibrium, but you live in surroundings full of imbalance. Unless you shut
yourself up in an ivory tower (which is not only difficult but not always
recommendable), you are obliged to receive what comes from outside. You give and you
receive; you breathe in and absorb. So there is a mixture and that is why one can say that
all is contagious, for you live in a state of ceaseless vibrations. You give out your
vibrations and receive also the vibrations of others, and these vibrations are of a very
complex kind...
“But that is not the only thing.
“Unhappily there is much bad will in the world; and among the different kinds of bad
will there is the small type that comes from ignorance and stupidity, there is the big type
that comes from wickedness and there is the formidable one that is the result of anti-
divine forces. So, all that is in the atmosphere (I am not telling you this to frighten you,
for it is well understood that one should fear nothing – but it is there all the same) and
these things attack you, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally.

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Unintentionally, through other people: others are attacked, they don't know, they pass it
on without even being aware of it (76)”.
Thus, healing is a complex process. We may not always be aware of the various factors
which operate to disturb the balance of health. In fact, many times, it is only an
appearance of health that a person given. When this disequilibrium is apparent
physically it is called disease. The various therapeutic methods in their own ways try to
re-establish harmony though it might not go back to the original state. A perfect
harmony however can only be established when the entire being is integrated around its
central truth (Psychic being) and
“..through the pressure of light and knowledge and spiritual force you re-establish the
harmony, the proper functioning (77).”
The yogic model of health is related to individual self-development. Sri Aurobindo

himself pointed out that an ideal scheme of individual self-development needs to be
supplemented by a working knowledge at the social level (78). His teachings study this
issue from the perspective of the evolution of social consciousness. This provides a
background for understanding health in relation to socio-cultural factors along the
continuum of consciousness.
Chapter XI
Culture and integral health
The holistic concept of health, has emerged in modern medicine as a reaction against the
exaggerated importance given to the biological paradigm. This has facilitated the growth
of several allied disciplines that contribute to health. Medical anthropology is one such
discipline dealing with the influence of bioecological and socio-cultural factors on health
and disease. The cross-cultural study of medical systems has become an important
subject of research, covering topics like dynamics of health-seeking behaviour, systems
of healing, culture-bound syndromes, drinking patterns, deinstitutionalisation and
altered states of sensorium like trance and spirit possession.
The concept of culture continues to be complex, subtle and elusive. It is a variegated

matrix of psychological, sociological and biological forces. It preserves the society by
providing an over-all consistency in patterns and components mediated through
culture-specific value systems, behavioural expressions and selected ideas which are in
turn translated into distinctive symbols(79).
Any understanding of culture and its influences must have a theoretical base of
psychological, social and metaphysical ideas. The initial attempt of psychoanalysts to
extend their notion of mind and mental processes to understand culture proved
inadequate. Subsequent research focused on important areas like social maintenance
systems, thought processes, belief systems, ethnographic data, linguistics, metaphoric
linkages, ritual sequences and private and public symbols. Yet all these focus only on the
externalities of culture and are inadequate to explain the march of civilization through

Integral Health
the vicissitudes of time. A consciousness-perspective of culture would be able to grasp

the under-currents that underlie its outer appearances.
Culture: a consciousness perspective
Sri Aurobindo elaborates,
“The culture of a people may be roughly described as the expression of a consciousness

of life which formulates itself in three aspects. There is a side of thought, of ideal, of
upward will and the soul’s aspiration; there is a side of creative self-expression and
appreciative aesthesis, intelligence and imagination; and there is a side of practical and
outward formulation. A people’s philosophy and higher thinking gives us its mind’s
purest, largest and most general formulation of its consciousness of life and its dynamic
view of existence. Its religion formulates the most intense form of its upward will and
the soul's aspirations towards the fulfillment of its highest ideal and impulse. Its art,
poetry, literature provide for us the creative expression and impression of its intuition,
imagination, vital turn and creative intelligence. Its society and politics provide in their
forms an outward frame in which the more external life works out what it can of its
inspiring ideal and of its special character and nature under the difficulties of the
environment. We can see how much it has taken of the crude material of living, what it
has done with it, how it has shaped as much of it as possible into some reflection of its
guiding consciousness and deeper spirit. None of them express the whole secret spirit
behind, but they derive from it their main ideas and their cultural character”(80).
It follows therefore that the mental life of man is not a single but a stratified
phenomenon. Sri Aurobindo cautions that the word ‘culture’ is
“..still a little equivocal and capable of a wider or a narrower sense according to our
ideas and predilections (81).”
He arranges the different strata of the mind as (82):
1) the lower and fundamental stratum in the scale of evolution, nearest to the vital which
has two aspects;
(a) the sensational-emotional mentality, concerned with senses, sensations and emotions
and
(b) the dynamic mentality concerned with the organs of action and the field of conduct.
2) A higher stratum having two aspects;
(a) the ethical mentality concerned with the culture and worship of Right and
(b) the aesthetic mentality concerned with the culture and worship of Beauty.
3) A still higher stratum where Reason along with the Intelligent will governs life.

Integral Health
Due to its inherent tendency for lop-sided development all the aspects of mental life are
not equally developed leading to the biased emergence of ‘partial culture types’. Thus
either the aesthetic or the ethical or rational side is pursued exclusively while the other
sides are neglected or subordinated. Sri Aurobindo cites some examples of such `partial
culture types' from European history (83):
(a) predominantly aesthetic culture — ancient Athens and Italy of Renaissance,
(b) predominantly ethical culture — republican Rome and Sparta,
(c) predominantly rational culture — nineteenth century Europe.
The exclusive development of a particular aspect in preference to the other aspects is a

cause of disequilibrium which when pushed to the extreme may even lead to the
dissolution of a culture. This is exemplified in the case of ancient Athens which
exhausted its creative vitality within one century because it could not balance its
aesthetic sense by discipline of character.
In fact, the disharmony in development of the ‘partial culture types’ is most conspicuous
in the unwarranted conflict between ‘culture’ and ‘conduct’ as conduct is also a part of
the culture (84). Sri Aurobindo emphasises that neither the ethical being nor the
aesthetic being is the whole man, they are merely two powerful elements. The aesthetic
man feels that his spontaneous artistic expression is liable to be oppressed and inhibited
by the ethical rule. The ethical man considers the artist to be lax, emollient,
undisciplined and a victim of passions. Sri Aurobindo assures that they are
complementary to each other.
“..we can enlarge the sense of ethics by the sense of beauty and delight and introduce
into it to correct its tendency of hardness and austerity the element of gentleness, love,
amenity, the hedonistic side of morals; we can steady, guide and strengthen the delight
of life by the introduction of the necessary will and austerity and self-discipline which
will give it endurance and purity. These two powers of our psychological being, which
represent in us the essential principle of energy and the essential principle of delight, –
the Indian terms are more profound and expressive, Tapas and Ananda, – can be thus
helped by each other, the one to a richer, the other to a greater self-expression (85).”
The reconciliation between ethics and aesthetics can be effective only if they are
subjected to a higher principle of reason and intelligent will. Yet, a purely rational
culture has its limitations.
(a) Firstly, as Sri Aurobindo describes, reason proceeds by analysis and division and
assembles its facts to form a whole; but in the assemblages so formed there are
opposites, anomalies, logical incompatibilities and the natural tendency of reason is to
affirm some and negate others which contradict its chosen conclusions so as to form a
flawlessly logical system (86). Reason can counter a thesis by a brilliantly analytical anti-
thesis and can produce multiple eclectic combinations but no globally integral synthesis.

Integral Health
(b) Secondly, the root powers of human life have their irrational and supra-rational
sources too. On one hand, in spite of his scientific acumen, man is subject to his interests,
needs, instincts, passions, desires, prejudices, superstitions, taboos, traditional ideas and
opinions – a condition described by Sri Aurobindo as the irrationality of human
existence (87). On the other hand, despite being partially controlled by reason, certain
elements of our existence – life-energy, imagination, the ethical and the aesthetic needs
of man seem to point out that there is something greater than reason. Sri Aurobindo
describes that an extension of psychological experience was therefore logically necessary
to discover faculties which could surpass reason (88). This quest led to the Yogic
discovery of the supra-rational faculties like intuition.
It follows therefore as a natural corollary that rational culture is not the summit of social
evolution but can be surpassed by yet higher principles so as to pave the way for a
future spiritual age.
Culture and health
What is the relation of health with this dynamic concept of consciousness-approach to

culture? This approach evokes certain seed-ideas which need to be pursued and
researched:
(a) The conflict between ‘aesthetics’ and ‘ethics’ has a direct bearing on personality
development and mental health. As beauty and pleasure go together, the aesthetic man
is essentially hedonistic. There are however grades of hedonism. While there is a
hedonistic side of morals expressed through gentleness, love and amenity, there is also a
hedonistic side of the vital consciousness expressed through the seeking of pleasure by
whatever means one has at one’s disposal. At a cruder level, this is manifest in the
search for substances that help to avoid pain. As a result, we are left with an
overmedicated society where chemical agents are used to cope with a growing number
of personal and social problems. The abuse of narcotics and psychotropic drugs is also,
in a way, one of the end-results of a hedonistic culture (89).
On the other hand, the exclusively ethical man appears to be dry and dogmatic. A
purely ethical set of rules would be impractical at the individual as well as collective
level. Thus, at the individual level, a forceful suppression of desires may cause a
rebound. At the collective level, the imposition of an external law like prohibition of
alcohol may lead to an increase in illicit liquor trafficking. Unlike Indian culture the
over-emphasis on ethics in the West has led to `guilt' as an important symptom of
depression and obsessive compulsive neurosis there. In India, the spiritual culture
points towards a supra-ethical dimension that surpasses the notion of guilt. While the
West stresses on the sin-righteousness dimension, Indian spirituality stresses on the
‘knowledge-ignorance’ dimension where ‘ignorance’ is a type of lower knowledge
which is unaware of unity that pervades all creation.
(b) The progress of culture necessitates an upward movement. The cruder elements of
life have to be refined, shaped, sublimated, reconciled and transformed so that we can

Integral Health
lay claim on an accomplished humanity. If this creative pursuit is not undertaken, man
will not be fulfilled. This will result in an existential crisis and an outburst of deviant
activities and perversities creating newer prototypes of maladaptive personalities.
(c) Progress is the key-word of existence. What happens if civilization refuses to

progress? Sri Aurobindo warns us that two possibilities might ensue (90):
1) a stagnation into a mechanised life without ideals and
2) the resurgence of the primitive barbarism in a new form.
This state of affairs is not conducive to Integral health. We are already witnessing the
rudimentary beginnings of such a phase of devaluation manifested in alienation,
boredom, meaninglessness in life, unexplained teenage murders and suicides, pact
suicides by multiple partners, killing binges, shifting patterns of drug abuse, rising
fanaticism, terrorism and suicide squads and in the shameless exploitation of eco-
systems. Thus the interaction of culture and health has to surpass the contemporary
paradigm of medical anthropology by taking into cognizance the progress of
consciousness through the upliftment and refinement of the elements that contribute to
the growth and expansion of culture. Inhibitory mechanisms at different points of this
flow of consciousness can result in disequilibrium and devaluation of life – a state that is
not in consonance with our ideal of Integral health. The scope for growth in culture
extends beyond our biological paradigms.
Chapter XII
Society and integral health
The influence of social factors on health is already established. The prominent social
variables that outwardly influence health, both physically and psychologically are:
socio-economic status, age, sex, race, religion, marital status, family, life-events,
urbanisation, migration and ecological issues.
The economic factor
The most important factor underlying most of the social variables, seems to be, directly
or indirectly, the economic factor. The economic principle rules modern life with the
result that commercialism is explicit in all facets of health ranging from clinical
symptoms, behavioural problems of growing children to issues as divergent as health
policies, distribution of services, cost-benefit ratio and medical insurance. Even the
results of scientific research have to be in conformity with the economic perspective. A
classic example is the case of the International pilot study on Schizophrenia conducted by
the WHO (91), where the prognosis of schizophrenia was found to be somewhat better
in ‘developing’ rather than ‘developed’ countries. Though this study came in for a lot of
criticism of its modus operandi, the point is, that it used the terms ‘developing’ and
‘developed’ which are based on the economic factor. The fact that the ‘developing’
nations included cultures with ancient civilizations like the Indian and Chinese was an

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aspect which should have been more relevant for describing the prognosis of
schizophrenia rather than the economic factor.
At different points in history different factors have dominated society. Today it is the
economic factor but non-economic factors dominated life in the past and can again surge
up to influence the life of the future society (92).
Sri Aurobindo points out,
“Commercialism is a modern sociological phenomenon; one might almost say, that is

the whole phenomenon of modern society. The economic part of life is always important
to an organised community and even fundamental; but in former times it was simply
the first need, it was not that which occupied the thoughts of men, gave the whole tone
to the social life, stood at the head and was clearly recognised as standing at the root of
social principles. Ancient man was in the group primarily a political being, in the
Aristotelian sense, — as soon as he ceased to be primarily religious, – and to this
preoccupation he added, wherever he was sufficiently at ease, the preoccupation of
thought, art and culture. The economic impulses of the group were worked out as a
mechanical necessity, a strong desire in the vital being rather than a leading thought in
the mind (93).”
The scenario has completely changed now in a way that,
“Even in the outlook on knowledge, thought, science, art, poetry and religion the
economic conception of life overrides all others (94).”
Sri Aurobindo warns that the passing away of the age of commercialism is not going to
be an easy or speedy task and that,
“The end of commercialism can only come about either by some unexpected
development of commercialism itself or through a reawakening of spirituality in the race
and its coming to its own by the subordination of the political and economic motives of
life to the spiritual motive (95).”
The individual and the society
While the Marxist conflict between classes within the society is an important social
consideration, the conflict between the individual and the collectivity is a more basic
issue. This conflict can be traced to the roots of civilization and has persisted in some
form or the other.
It is in the growth and development of individuals that the growth and development of
a particular society depends. Sri Aurobindo describes that the nature of the human
society is similar to the nature of the individual. Both have a soul which is their real self
and an external organic self of body, life and mind. Both trace a parallel curve of
evolution on earth and are destined to arrive ultimately at an identical goal. Yet it is the
individual who must take the lead (96).

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The individual cannot only belong to a social group but has also the capacity to
transcend all social groups.
“Individual man belongs not only to humanity in general, his nature is not only a
variation of human nature in general, but he belongs also to his race-type, his class-type,
his mental, vital, physical, spiritual type in which he resembles some, differs from
others. According to these affinities he tends to group himself in Churches, sects,
communities, classes, coteries, associations whose life he helps, and by them he enriches
himself and the life of the large economic, social and political group or society to which
he belongs. In modern times this society is the nation. By his enrichment of the national
life, though not in that way only, he helps the total life of humanity. But it must be noted
that he is not limited and cannot be limited by any of these groupings; he is not merely
the noble, merchant, warrior, priest, scholar, artist, cultivator or artisan, not merely the
religionist or the worldling or the politician. Nor can he be limited by his nationality; he
is not merely the Englishman or the Frenchman, the Japanese or the Indian; if by a part
of himself he belongs to the nation, by another he exceeds it and belongs to humanity.
And even there is a part of him, the greatest, which is not limited by humanity; he
belongs by it to God and to the world of all beings and to the godheads of the future. He
has indeed the tendency of self-limitation and subjection to his environment and group,
but he has also the equally necessary tendency of expansion and transcendence of
environment and Groupings (97).”
The current era of globalisation seems to facilitate in the youth the capacity of
transcending conventional groups. Thus, while politicians differ, youth all over the
world dance to the same tunes of music and have even formulated a world anthem (‘we
are the world’). Furthermore, there is world-wide awakening of an aspiration to
understand Indian Spirituality – a favourable sign that heralds the new age. However,
globalisation not only brings on a wide-spread dissemination of the higher values of life,
it also helps to spread equally the effects of commercialism and a degraded value
system. That is also why there is an increasing commonality in the maladies of the
modern age epitomised in the worldwide upsurge in drug abuse, suicide, violence, sex-
crimes, juvenile delinquency and AIDS. One cannot forego the benefits of globalisation
due to the presence of the disadvantages. Instead, the problem should be worked
through by social scientists, educationists and health professionals so that the progress
of social evolution is not hampered.
The capacity to transcend one's social groups does not directly link one to the whole of
mankind. One has to progressively move through larger and larger aggregates till he is
ready for the final universality (98). The family is one of the aggregates created for the
vital-egoist need for man. As man progresses, such aggregates need to qualitatively
evolve else they lose their utility. This is also one of the reasons why many individuals
today find it difficult to cling to the conventional family system.
However, the formation of larger social aggregates does not mean the abolition of
smaller aggregates. They can indeed be upgraded and integrated on the basis of a free
law of interchange and assimilation. We were ignorant of the consciousness underlying

Integral Health
social processes. Thus we were unable to predict the phenomenon of ethnocentrism in

some parts of the globe would frustrate all attempts of the economic factor to bring in
social stability and social health (100).
Social evolution
The real determinant of social phenomena according to Sri Aurobindo is the

consciousness of the society, i.e. its soul-consciousness which governs both its surface
psychological movements as well as its external physical and material phenomena. This
`soul-consciousness' is generally veiled and grows as the society evolves. Sri Aurobindo
traces the course of social evolution through a sequence of three stages (101): infra-
rational, rational and supra-rational or spiritual. This sequence is based upon a
psychological perspective derived from a subjective concept of society. The succession of
these stages is not so simple or clear-cut. There is a considerable overlapping or
interfusion among them. Each stage has its characteristic tendencies with the tendencies
of the others involved in it. The switch-over from one phase to the other is not automatic
but occurs through a set of transitional stages. Thus the infra-rational phase of society
moves towards the rational phase through the symbolic, typal and conventional stages
(these transitional stages are named by Lamprecht and fully elaborated by Sri
Aurobindo) (102).
The infra-rational stage is one,
“..in which men have not yet learned to refer their life and action in its principles and its
forms to the judgment of the clarified intelligence; for they still act principally out of
their instincts, impulses, spontaneous ideas, vital intuitions or else obey a customary
response to desire, need and circumstance, – it is these things that are canalised or
crystallised in their social institutions. Man proceeds by various stages out of these
beginnings towards a rational age in which his intelligent will more or less developed
becomes the judge, arbiter and presiding motive of his thought, feeling and action, the
moulder, destroyer and re-creator of his leading ideas, aims and intuitions (103).”
Thus the rational phase is marked by an era of individualism. In Europe, the

individualistic age began with a revolt of reason and culminated in the triumph of
physical science (104), leading to
“..the great endeavour to bring the power of the reason and intelligence to bear on all
that we are and do and to organise in their light and by their guiding force the entire
existence of the race (105).”
However, reason also exerts its bias by considering the society as a mechanism that can
be manipulated according to the arbitrary dictates of intelligence. The result is an
exaggerated dependence on systems and institutions, on legislation and administration.
A powerful mechanical organisation is created at the cost of the ‘truth of life’ of an
organically self-developing communal soul in the body of a free and living people. Sri
Aurobindo writes,

Integral Health
“It is this error of the scientific reason stifling the work of the vital and the spiritual
intuition under the dead weight of its mechanical method which is the weakness of
Europe and has deceived her aspiration and prevented her from arriving at the true
realisation of her own higher ideals (106).”
Goswami points out that just now different nations are at different points along the
dimension of individualism. While individualism has hardly arrived in some countries,
some other countries like the USA are witnessing the negative aspects of being saturated
with the ill-effects of individualism that has now degraded to selfishness and
competition (107). Dowsett explains that there is even a competition for this
individualism though paradoxically there is lack of freedom with the result that we end
up in glorifying deviance, crudity and negative values (108). It is therefore not
surprising that the erosion of human values (represented in modern crises like drug
abuse, unexplained suicides, ruthless teenage violence) have reached a crescendo in
countries where the saturation of individualism has made its negative aspects ostensible.
What is the remedy? Sri Aurobindo answers,
“Finally, if our analysis and forecast are correct, the human evolution must move
through a subjective towards a suprarational or spiritual age in which he will develop
progressively a greater spiritual, supra-intellectual and intuitive, perhaps in the end a
more than intuitive, a gnostic consciousness. He will be able to perceive a higher divine
end, a divine sanction, a divine light of guidance for all he seeks to be, think, feel and do,
and able, too, more and more to obey and live in this larger light and power. That will
not be done by any rule of infrarational religious impulse and ecstasy, such as
characterised or rather darkly illumined the obscure confusion and brute violence of the
Middle Ages, but by a higher spiritual living for which the clarities of the reason are a
necessary preparation and into which they too will be taken up, transformed, brought to
their invisible source (109).”
Perhaps the most important limitation of the rational age is its inability to synthesise
knowledge and will. Our greatest theories are too impractical to be effectively
concretised in reality and our strongest actions too impulsive or immature to be part of a
gestalt vision. It is only a spiritual supramental age where the two can be synthesised so
that knowledge becomes effective and the will becomes increasingly luminous (110).
A growing subjectivism is a necessary transitional phase between the rational and

spiritual ages. Sri Aurobindo describes how this process develops.
“These ideas are likely first to declare their trend in philosophy, in psychological
thinking, in the arts, poetry, painting, sculpture, music, in the main idea of ethics, in the
application of subjective principles by thinkers to social questions, even perhaps, though
this is a perilous effort, to politics and economics, that hard refractory earth matter
which most resists all but a gross utilitarian treatment. There will be new unexpected
departures of science or at least of research, – since to such a turn in its most fruitful
seekings the orthodox still deny the name of science. Discoveries will be made that thin
the walls between soul and matter; attempts there will be to extend exact knowledge

Integral Health
into the psychological and psychic realms with a realisation of the truth that these have
laws of their own which are other than physical, but not the less laws because they
escape the external senses and are infinitely plastic and subtle (111).”
The subjective turn is of course not the final but the initial condition for the advent of the
spiritual age. There is however a danger that the subjective age may not be properly
utilised. This is likely to occur if the vital ego is mistaken for the real soul (a false
subjectivity), whether of the individual or of the collectivity. At the collective level, this
may lead to a situation resembling the Nazi culture. At the individual level, this may be
reflected in the perversion to which the artistic and aesthetic man is more prone, despite
being involved in creative activities. Sri Aurobindo warns us that we have to
differentiate very carefully between the true and false subjectivism (112). Creativity
enshrined in true subjectivity is the real harbinger of Integral Health in the life of the
society.
Chapter XIII
A western viewpoint
When a great thinker acts at the level of the mind and beyond it, numerous possibilities
open up in the realm of thought and seed-ideas pour into receptive minds, irrespective
of the limitations of space and time. For the last two thousand years, the world has been
fed and nourished with the vibrations of thought mainly set in motion by Buddha,
Socrates and Confucius, who were more or less contemporaries in the history of Time.
The present era is witnessing a new cycle of thought, consolidated by Sri Aurobindo,
which points to a new curve of evolutionary consciousness. It is not surprising that the
pressure of this new world of thoughts can influence receptive individuals. Thus it is
interesting to behold how George Vithoulkas, a contemporary Greek physician has
evolved a new model of health and disease that is in striking consonance with the
concept of Integral Health. It is also important to observe how a transpersonal
dimension of psychology is establishing itself in the USA which acknowledges two basic
concepts envisaged by Sri Aurobindo long back. Firstly, that psychology is a science of
consciousness and secondly, that there should be a Beyond-Ego principle around which
personal growth is possible.
Vithoulkas model of health and disease (113)
The mechanistic way of thinking that developed in the individualistic age in the 18th
century considered the body to be a machine where a single causative agent could
produce an imbalance resulting in disease. This oversimplified model was replaced by
Virchow's functional model that explained disease as a result of a defect in cellular and
molecular functioning. The ‘diagnostic model’ which came later maintained that disease
was a totality of symptoms and if the aetiology and pathogenesis were known, a rational
and specific treatment was possible. There was also a ‘curative’ model based on the
treatment of infectious diseases and vitamin deficiencies. In the recent past, H. Weiner
has conceived a complex model taking social, cultural and behavioural factors into
consideration (114). G.L. Engel has also formulated a comprehensive model that takes

Integral Health
into account the patient, the social context in which he lives and the complimentary
system devised by society(115).
As these models are inadequate, Vithoulkas has ventured to suggest a new model whose
main ideas are very similar to the Integral Health model. The differences are not points
of conflict but points that need to be refined, clarified and updated in the light of yogic
psychology – a phenomenon in which the West lacks sufficient expertise. It would be
interesting to study some of the main aphorisms of Vithoulkas.
(a) “The human being is constructed of three basic planes of energy fields or
organisational patterns:
The Mental-Spiritual plane
The Emotional-Psychic plane
The Physical-material plane that includes instincts and the five senses.”
The lumping of the term ‘spiritual’ with ‘mental’ is a superficial Western conception that
needs to be corrected in the light of Yoga where ‘mind’ is not the summit but a
transitory phase of evolution. Again, linking the term ‘psychic’ with ‘emotional’ is a
common viewpoint if we ordinarily take ‘psychic’ to denote the ‘mind’ or the ‘desire-
soul’. Vithoulkas considers ‘psychic’ to be that part of the human being which is
expressed through the “subconscious and intuitive elements.” This is a confusing
concept that can be clarified by Sri Aurobindo’s views. In his glossary, ‘psychic’ pertains
to the ‘Psychic Being’ which represents the Atman of the Indian tradition in its evolving
form, and is at a higher level of consciousness than the rest of the being. ‘Intution’ is a
function of the suprarational faculty and is represented in a deformed and deviated
form in the subconscious as ‘instincts’. The subconscious and the superconscious are two
separate planes of consciousness and both of them exert their influences on the human
personality.
(b) “Each of these three planes – the Mental, Emotional and Physical – though complex
in nature, constitute distinct and separate entities that differ essentially in their
vibrational frequencies and informational patterns...”
This observation of Vithoulkas is in conformity with Sri Aurobindo's teachings that the
three planes of existence can be separated from each other and progressively developed
as individual entities.
(c) “All evidence permits us to assume that there is not only a possibility but a necessity,
under certain circumstances, for the organism to ‘unite’ or ‘dissociate’ the complex
energy fields of the mental-emotional planes, or parts thereof, and the fields of the
physical body.”
Vithoulkas utilises this ‘dissociation’ to explain phenomena like sleep, somnambulism,

hypnosis, trance states and out-of-body experiences. This is true. However, in Integral

Integral Health
Health such a dissociation is necessary as an initial step to differentiate and individuate

the three planes so that they can in turn be united around the ‘Psychic Being’ which
effects a true harmonisation of the personality.
Figure 4
(d) “All three levels of functioning are interconnected by a universal or cosmic energy
field which is neutral in character and quality. The function of this energy is to animate
everything in the Universe, including the triplex of body, mind and emotions of the
human being. Each plane uses this basic energy and transforms it to suit its particular
needs and functions. This type of energy is the substratum through which all physical
manifestations can take place.”

Integral Health
We have already examined in details (vide supra) how Sri Aurobindo has explained the
formulation of the Universal Energy as Pranic Shakti in the embodied human being. The
outer formulations of the Pranic Shakti are utilised by different healing systems but the
pure Pranic Shakti itself can be tapped and used more powerfully for healing purposes.
Thus Vithoulkas, in expressing his ideas on the energy-fields, has intuitively touched
upon a very important area of yogic wisdom.
(e) “There are inherent tendencies within every human being to either attain a state of
‘Teleosis’ (‘synthesis’, ‘maturity’) or succumb to the law of entropy and ‘aposynthesis’.”
There are two forces that are always acting upon the organism. One leads to
degeneration, dispersion and death – akin to the law of entropy. The other is the force of
life that strives for a state of ‘teliosis’ which, Vithoulkas states, is an inner urge for
perfection resulting in a sense of completeness, wholeness, maturity and happiness.
Vithoulkas also states that such a state of teleosis is promoted through conscious efforts
to overcome resistances, subconscious changes to counter minor stresses and
mobilisation of the body's defense mechanisms.
In formulating his concept of teleosis, Vithoulkas has again intuitively touched upon a
Yogic topic. This concept is in its inception correct but it cannot be done as easily as
Vithoulkas describes. According to Sri Aurobindo, such a state can only be reached
when the ego-centric personality is replaced by the soul-personality – when the ‘Psychic
Being’ comes forward to govern life. This implicates a change of consciousness.
It needs to be emphasised that when one’s ego is surpassed by the Psychic Being, one
starts living at a deeper level of consciousness and experiences a sense of wholeness,
integrality, peace, unity, collaboration and bliss that is qualitatively far different from
the more easily perceptible vital vibrations. Vithoulkas model does not differentiate
these ‘vital vibrations’ from those of the true Psychic Being.
Vithoulkas defines Health as
“freedom from pain in the physical body, a state of well being; freedom from passion on
the emotional plane, resulting in a dynamic state of serenity and calm; and freedom
from selfishness in the mental sphere, having as a result total unification with Truth.”
This definition is a laudable attempt though it suffers from some basis inaccuracies
which yogic psychology alone can rectify. The concept of ‘selfishness’ belongs not to the
mental plane per se but to the false soul made up of desire and ego which dominate the
vital plane. The ‘unification with Truth’ can never be achieved in the mental plane – the
mind's action is to divide and analyse and it can at best show some mental preference to
an ideal. The real ‘unification with Truth’ can only be achieved when one can manifest
one's Psychic Being, and this can give the feeling of ‘serenity and calm’.
Vithoulkas correctly assesses that our therapeutic system should deal with ‘energy-
states’ in such a way that a cure takes place as a quantum jump forming new patterns of

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energy with greater coherence that corrects the chaotic energy-states characteristic of a
disease.
Despite his shortcomings, Vithoulkas basic concept on health is close to the Integral
model where health is considered to be a state of harmonious equilibrium between the
different planes of consciousness and any disturbance in this harmony manifests as
illness. The nature and severity of the illness corresponds to the nature of the
disharmony. The aim of therapy is to move from the plane of chaos and disharmony to
a higher plane of harmony and this necessitates a growth in consciousness. Illness thus
provides a chance for progress. The therapeutic process is mediated by manipulation of
energy-states. The drugs used in modern medicine work through the grosser outer
energy-states. This process has its pitfalls because the illness may be ‘suppressed’
instead of getting ‘cured’. As a result, one continues to linger in the ‘grosser’ energy
states instead of moving up through subtler and subtler energy-states. Consequently,
one is more prone to relapses, symptom-substitution and iatrogenic side-effects. There is
another alternative – use of other therapeutic systems which work through the subtle
energy-states. These systems would augment the natural defenses of the body and
would be free of iatrogenicty if used correctly. Finally, one can surpass all such
therapeutic systems and catch hold of the pure Pranic Shakti which is the fountain-head
of all energy-states. The pure Pranic Shakti, when rightly harnessed, can be used for
healing oneself and for healing others.
Chapter XIV
Illustrative case studies
These are a few illustrations studying the relation of health to the different planes of
consciousness which are individually represented in man and universally represented as
cosmic forces. They show how illness gives a chance to grow in consciousness and how
the teachings of Sri Aurobindo give an integral perspective to health.
The physical plane of consciousness is represented both in the material forces of the
universe and in the physical consciousness of man. It is very resistant to change and is
inert, passive, and prone to repetitiveness. These characteristics are reflected in the
refractory nature of physical diseases. This is demonstrated in the case of this lady who
was leading a secure life till a chain of untoward events began to assail her.
Mrs. Das lost her daughter and husband within a span of two years. Her twenty year-old
daughter committed suicide because her parents rejected her suitor who hailed from a lower
economic background. Mrs.Das’s husband succumbed to renal failure. This left her very
depressed but she managed to maintain her family.Her elder son got a job after five years. Trouble
began when he married. Mrs. Das’s daughter-in-law was of a hysterical temperament. She could
not adjust with others, did not do house-hold work and coaxed her husband to separate within the
conjoint family (such broken family units staying together are common in India. Known as
‘broken-joint’, they are very vulnerable to stress as they have incomplete boundaries. The broken
units share the same roof, the same entrance and perhaps the same visitors room, the same
telephone and often the same pet dog but only cook separately). Mrs. Das never totally accepted

Integral Health
this separation. She was looked after by her younger son who was afraid of marrying, lest his wife
would reject his mother. He stopped talking to his elder brother and sister-in-law. Mrs. Das had
to struggle against these odds for a long time. Her depression gave way to rheumatoid arthritis.
All forms of treatment – allopathy, homoeopathy, physiotherapy and Ayurveda failed to alleviate
her sufferings except for some transient relief. There was no sign of any abatement of her family
stresses and there was no sign too of any abatement of her physical distress. Though her
reheumatoid arthritis was a psychosomatic disease resulting from her adverse life-events, no
amount of psychotherapy could relieve her suffering except to make her accept her pains.
Thus, once an illness gets deep-rooted in the physical, it becomes refractory to usual
treatment and attains chronicity. This is why it is so important to develop the ‘body-
consciousness’. If trained, developed and mastered, this ‘body-consciousness’ can act
independently of the mind and even against the mind. This would enable the body to be
unaffected by psychological stresses.
In fact, our autonomic (sympathetico-adrenomedullary) response to stress was an

adaptive device to protect the organism from external stressors. Otherwise, our forest
dwelling ancestors would not have been able to cope with external threats. Today, we
react to psychological threats in the same way as we reacted to physical threats – a
habitual response which we now find difficult to unlearn. Thus the shift from the savage
to the modern man has not been reflected in the physical consciousness. The cultivation
of a separate ‘body-consciousness’ can help us to surpass the autonomic stress reaction
and can free us from the burden of psychosomatic diseases.
When we talk of the ‘body’ being influenced by ‘psychological’ factors, we usually refer
to mental and emotional factors. Integral Health recommends a discrimination of the
‘mental’ from the ‘vital’. The vital is the life-nature made up of desires, sensations and
emotional bipolarities. Desire not only produces diseases, but desiring per se is a
disturbance. Psychologists point out that a suppression of desires leads to illness.
However free indulgence in desires is also pathogenic. This is best illustrated in the two
extreme forms of eating disorders common today – anorexia nervosa and bulimia.
We tend to placate our desires by satisfying them. This attempt is a chimera because the
vital is never satisfied. This is best demonstrated in this person who went on satisfying
his desires till he reached an anti-climax.
Mohan, a middle-aged, self-made man walked into a city hospital one fine morning to know how
to die. Why? He had struggled all his life and achieved whatever he wanted. There was nothing
more to want now. Though he hailed from a poor background he had amassed a lot of wealth. His
parents were uneducated but he himself had completed his post-graduate studies. His father was a
clerk while he a bureaucrat. In his childhood everyone teased him due to his short stature and
weak physique. This he had compensated for by doing a lot of body-building exercises. His parents
quarreled, but Mohan led a happy family life. His children were getting the proper education and
his wife was satisfied. He had thus achieved whatever he wanted. There was nothing more to do
in a lifetime and so he now desired to die.

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Such is the vital nature of man, satiated but never satisfied.
Western psychology speaks of the body-mind principle but according to Integral Health,
the body-vital-mind principle is the one to be considered. An understanding of the true
nature of the vital can explain many phenomena. Let us take the example of childhood
depression. That children do suffer from depression is established. However, it is a
common clinical experience to find children expressing their depression through
aggressive acts. We can understand this better if we realise that both depression and
aggression have their roots in the vital. The case of this child is illustrative.
Barsi, a six year-old only child of a middle-class urban couple had an alcoholic father. He used to
assault Barsi's mother physically and abuse her verbally, almost everyday. He was also a chronic
absentee at office. Hence Barsi's mother had to etch out a living by reading palms. Barsi was very
depressed and humiliated when in school one of his friends publicly declared that his father was
an alcoholic. Barsi copied all the mannerisms of his father and mimicked him by abusing his
mother. Barsi had strong ambivalent feelings for his mother. He felt very miserable, had crying
spells, withdrew from his peer-group and expressed his depression through aggression. This is
because mental development has to reach a level where one can give a cognitive shape to one's
depression. The vital develops before the mind’s cognitive faculty. Hence it was more
spontaneous for Barsi to express his depression through the vital as aggression.
The vital is the seat of all our conflicting emotions – love as well as hatred, joy as well as
anger, depression as well as aggression.
The vital needs to be disciplined by the mind. In fact this is the aim of a rational system
of education. However, there is a part of the mind intermixed with the vital called the
vital mind. This vital mind can make excellent pretensions which are known as ‘defense
mechanisms’in psychology. One of the chief defense mechanisms is that of
rationalization by which the mind colludes with the vital to justify the impulses and
desires arising from the vital. In fact the upward progress of the evolutionary nisus can
be obstructed by such rationalization. This is the case of a lady, whose urge for a higher
life was being obstructed by the vital mind.
Kamla, a young housewife, suddenly started suffering from giddiness. Investigations were done
and her right ear was operated upon. Still her attacks of vertigo persisted. To make matters worse,
these spells were accompanied by a feeling of depression, uselessness of life and a desire to run
away from her house-hold work. She felt that life was futile. Neither her giddiness, nor her
depression responded to antidepressants. On detailed probing it was found that she had been
developing a strong spiritual urge for some years. She had an intense desire to start meditative
practices. But her vital mind kept rationalising that she was too mediocre for spirituality. The
conflict between her aspiration for a higher life and the reasonings of her vital mind precipitated
her giddiness and depression. She was counselled to follow her inner urge and ignore the
apparently rational constructions of her vital mind. The giddiness was relieved without the help
of any medicines.
It is not always easy to ignore the vital mind. Besides the thinking mind itself is
burdened by an amalgam of contradictory thoughts. One of the most powerful means to

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control the mind is to quieten and submit it to a higher power. This facilitates the play of
intuition which is a better guide than reason. One can then take a positive decision to
remould oneself.
Chitra was a middle-aged woman who led an uneventful family life for two decades. She had two
grown-up college-going daughters and one adolescent son. Her husband cared for her, nurtured
the family and carried out his duties faithfully. On detailed probing it was realised that though
her husband was dutiful, he never appreciated the needs of her mind. Chitra had an intellectual
mind which was more powerful than her husband's. In addition to the comforts of life, she needed
an adequate intellectual stimulation for her mental growth. In fact, when the pressure of
upbringing children lessened she found time for introspection. She discovered that the disparity
due to her mental malnourishment was very marked. At this point of time, she became attracted
to the intellectual flair of her family physician which she thought would enrich her mind. This
was very impractical. Human nature as it is, vital desires crept up in that aberrant relationship.
Moreover the doctor had his own family and Chitra was not willing to desert her children. She
suffered in silence and developed severe hypertension. In despair, she sought spiritual refuge in
an Ashram where she learnt to quieten her mind and surrender her problems to the Divine. She
invoked peace into her bodily system. She thus resolved her conflicts and returned home. Her
hypertension which was previously somewhat refractory to drugs, improved. She was also able to
re-organise her life in a better way.
It is not enough to resolve conflicts at the conscious level. We have also to deal with a
vast subconscious within us where the memories of all our experiences sink as
impressions ready to surge up in our dreams, habits, conflicts and diseases. Thus the
subconscious is responsible for the relapses of chronic illnesses and the somewhat rigid
nature of our personality.
Brown was a 6 year old boy who left his home when his father killed his mother, hanged her and
burnt their hut. He boarded a train, wandered aimlessly and went without food for a couple of
days. He was finally picked up by the police and sent to a correctional home. Brown had a lot of
traumatic experiences. The older boys committed sodomy on him which resulted in anal bleeding.
When Brown was 12 years-old, he was selected for adoption at Norway. As a preparatory
measure, he was shifted to a short-stay home before being sent to Norway. During this time,
Brown often disturbed the female nurse by attempting to molest her. His behaviour actually
improved dramatically when he was sent to Norway. He liked his foster parents and their
children, adapted himself to his new country, school and religion (he was converted) and picked
up the new language. Things were proceeding well till he was 16 years old and it was time for
assuming an independent, adult role in an alien country. His old traumatic memories surged up
from the subconscious and caused recurrent nightmares. He felt alienated and depressed. He was
miserable and demonstrated spells of crying and fits of anger. He was diagnosed to be suffering
from a severe identity crisis.
Thus, a mere humanitarian or monetary help or a change in living standards cannot

suffice to reduce the sufferings of even a destitute child. The subconscious is an
unpredictable zone which can surge up at any time of life.In Brown’s case, the four years
of warm nurturing by his foster-parents could not counter his subsconscious memories
at a critical point of his life when he was supposed to take on an adult role. In fact, for

Integral Health
children like Brown, such a phenomenon is not unlikely. (The only exception seems to
be Oliver Twist who knew all the subtle nuances of aristocracy though brought up in a
destitute home).
Psychoanalysts believe that the elements which are repressed in the subconscious have
to be discovered, analysed, interpreted and worked through. This is no doubt a
commendable attempt but cannot succeed in changing one's nature. Yogic psychology
describes that there are other levels of consciousness (superconscious, subliminal), from
where it is easier to explore the subconscious. One can take up a ‘witness attitude’ – the
capacity of observing a fact and that of ‘observing’ this observation. He can thus go to
the source of his movements without the arduous path of psychoanalysis.
Aman, a sufferer of affective disorder, was undergoing psychoanalysis during a prolonged phase
of remission. The exploration of his subconscious led to an unearthing of childhood conflicts. One
after another, a series of memories cropped up: a buffalo that was being sacrificed with its neck
half-amputated, his sister trying to ignite their wooden house, paedophilic acts of monks and he
himself trying to throttle his new-born brother. The psychoanalyst was unable to handle the
repressed materials released from Aman’s subconscious and Aman became ill. His sessions were
terminated. Later, he undertook meditations where he learnt the art of taking up the witness-
attitude. To his surprise, he discovered many mysteries of his mind. He found that he had a deep-
rooted fear-complex which activated his disease. He also discovered that he had a tremendous
amount of aggression. Meditation did not reduce his aggression but helped to keep his aggression
under check. He also felt that his early ambivalent relations with his mother affected the
development of his ego.
Thus, the insights he gained during meditation are similar to the psychodynamics of
affective disorder evolved through painstaking psychoanalytic work.
The practice of meditation brings in peace, calm and quietude, which help in
disciplining the mind. This is a great achievement that no amount of psychoanalytic
work can surpass.
At this point the most relevant question would be whether one is capable of personal
growth in the face of multiple extraneous social distractions. We are now witnessing the
effects of globalisation which are breaking the rural-urban dichotomy and crossing all
socio-cultural barriers. This has its good side too but has succeeded in introducing
consumerism into every facet of life. The stress on external values has actually resulted
in a bankruptcy of our inner life. Thus it is not surprising to find teenage offenders all
over the world exhibiting the same characteristic – an abject absence of guilt.
Consumerism has deformed the aesthetic sense in a way that there has been an
impoverishment of creativity. This has led to a spurt in perversions and deviant
behaviours. This legacy can result in an increase in personality disorders.
It is imperative that the socio-cultural factors influencing health should be monitored.

But that is an impossible task both for the individual healer and for the policy-makers.
The healer has his own limited field of action while the policy makers are defeated by
the enormity of the problem. So the only plausible alternative is to carry on the process

Integral Health
of personal growth to its maximum limit. This can lead to the emergence of groups of
integrated persons who will be able to tackle the socio-cultural factors in a more mature
way.
The epitome of personal growth is the organisation of the different parts of the
personality – the physical, vital, mental with their subconscious moorings, around the
Psychic being. The Psychic being is the true integrating principle of the personality and
surpasses the ego. It gives a spontaneous feeling of wholeness, joy, integrality, peace,
unity, equipoise and goodwill. It is calm, quiet, luminous, understanding, generous,
wide and progressive. If it is allowed to develop, it can transform human nature.
The development of the psychic consciousness is the quintessence of Integral Health. It

not only provides a basis for positive health but helps one to grow in consciousness.
These two case-studies show how the development of psychic consciousness enriches
one, even in the midst of the most unfavourable circumstances.
Case 1
A professor of genetics, known for his scholarship and sincerity, developed Alzheimer's disease in
his early sixties. Being himself aware of the progressive and degenerative nature of his illness, he
initially reacted with denial, anger, non-cooperation and confabulation. In addition, he had
seizures.
Faced with the existential crisis before him, he sought spiritual refuge. Having lost the critical
cognitive faculties, he exhibited a child-like faith without pretensions and pre-conceived notions.
As a result, his Psychic being had an opportunity to flower. This enabled him to face the
onslaught of a cerebro-vascular accident and nasty bed-sores with calm and equipoise. The further
progress of the disease while affecting his cognitive sphere, left his emotional life undisturbed.
Unlike the vegetative state common to such patients, he became radiant and full of an inner peace
and joy. Those who came into his contact felt the joy and peace themselves.
This shows that the growth of the psychic consciousness can even enliven a person with
a chronic degenerative disease. Moreover, it can use the illness as an opportunity to
progress – the fruits of which can be carried over in future lives.
Case 2
The Professor, a bachelor in his early sixties, had spent a lifetime organising spiritual activities.
He lived with his sister and her husband who was his contemporary. By a strange co-incidence,
both the Professor and his brother-in-law developed cancer at an interval of six months. First, it
was the Professor’s brother-in-law who developed nasopharyngeal carcinoma. He supervised
arrangements for his treatment, prayed for him and himself started suffering from malignant
lymphoma. The Professor however carried out his routine activities. In a typical day, he
underwent chemotherapy while simultaneously discussing organisational matters. Once the
chemotherapy session ended and the intravenous infusion set was withdrawn, he took some food
and proceeded to visit his brother-in-law in another hospital, consoling and praying for him. In

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between two chemotherapy sessions, he undertook his usual annual pilgrimage to his Ashram,
about 2000 Km away. This was not a Freudian example of `denial'. The Professor radiated a sense
of joy, peace and wholeness and whoever came into contact with him, felt enriched by his
presence. When his brother-in-law died, he himself filled up the psychological vacuum. Before he
died, many of his associates could feel that the Professor was preparing himself for a graceful exit.
His life is an example of how an integrated personality can work through a fatal illness.
Before his death he was cheerful, poised and at peace.
It should be emphasised that the psychic qualities of an integrated personality which

manifest peace, wholeness and bliss are not derived from the atavistic subconcious; their
source is in the superconscious.
These two cases reveal a fundamental aspect of integral healing
1. Illness provides an opportunity to shift from the ordinary consciousness to the higher
psychic consciousness,
2. The resultant sense of detachment from one's physical condition leads to a marked
reduction in suffering,
3. The peace and joy radiated by the Psychic being enriches one's life in spite of disease.
Conclusion
The concept of Integral Health is based on a wide and progressive view of human life.
The Mother explains the meta-psychology of this view:
“There is an ascending evolution in nature which goes from the stone to the plant, from
the plant to the animal, from the animal to man. Because man is, for the moment, the last
rung at the summit of the ascending evolution, he considers himself as the final stage in
this ascension and believes there can be nothing on earth superior to him. In that he is
mistaken. In his physical nature he is yet almost wholly an animal, a thinking and
speaking animal, but still an animal in his material habits and instincts. Undoubtedly,
nature cannot be satisfied with such an imperfect result; she endeavours to bring out a
being who will be to man what man is to the animal, a being who will remain a man in
its external form, and yet whose consciousness will rise far above the mental and its
slavery to ignorance.
“Sri Aurobindo came upon earth to teach this truth to men. He told them that man is
only a transitional being living in a mental consciousness, but with the possibility of
acquiring a new consciousness, the Truth-consciousness, and capable of living a life
perfectly harmonious, good and beautiful, happy and fully conscious (116).”
In this scheme of things, illness is a disequilibrium at one plane of consciousness. It

points to an inner disharmony which can be corrected by moving to a higher level of
harmony. Health is a dynamic equilibrium between the different planes of

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consciousness. It can be optimally achieved when one shifts from the outer physical,
vital and mental consciousness to the higher consciousness of the Psychic being. The
Psychic being represents the Atman of the Indian tradition in its evolving form. It
surpasses the ego and is the real integrative principle of the human personality. It
imparts a sense of wholeness, integrality, peace and joy even in adverse situations. The
quintessence of Integral Health lies in this shift to the psychic consciousness.
There is also an inexhaustible source of energy in the universe which is represented in

man as the Pranic Shakti. Ordinarily we are not aware of this Pranic Shakti though its
outer formulations provide the field of action for different therapeutic techniques. By a
yogic endeavour we can have access to this inner source of energy and use it for
maintaining health and overcoming illness. Finally, the personality integrated around
the Psychic being can utilise the pure Pranic Shakti not only for health and healing but
also for an evolutionary growth along the ladder of consciousness.
It follows as a corollary that an integral healing approach does not depend upon an
eclectic combinations of different therapeutic systems. Each therapeutic system
represents a partial truth. All these systems work through energy-states underlying
different planes of consciousness. The higher energies can modify, transmute and uplift
the lower energies. Thus each therapeutic system can be used as a starting-point for
moving through subtler and subtler realms till one reaches the inexhaustible source of
the Universal or Divine Shakti within oneself.
The pursuit of Integral Health results in an elevation of human consciousness. This

enriches the quality of man's social groups. Like the individual, the social consciousness
also evolves from an infra-rational to a spiritual age en route an era of rational age that
characterises man's present social life. In the process, the smaller social aggregates get
upgraded and integrated on the basis of a free law of interchange and assimilation into
wider, universal groups. Such a growth would pave way for a higher principle to
replace the economic principle that now rules society. Pari passu with this movement,
man needs to augment his cultural resources for a more fulfilled life. The culture of a
people is the expression of their consciousness through thoughts, aesthesis and ethics
which have refined human civilization, yet go on contradicting each other. Their creative
synthesis leads to a flowering of the human personality.
References
1.Bisht, D.B. The Spiritual Dimension of Health. Delhi; Directorate of Health Services, 1985,
p.1-4.
2. Sri Aurobindo. Letters on Yoga. Tome one. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1958,
pp. 255-256.
3. Sri Aurobindo. The Life Divine. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1977, pp.3-5.
4.Taylor, Kraupl. Descriptive and Developmental Phenomena in Hand book of Psychiatry,

Vol.1. (ed. M. Shepherd & O.L.Zangwill). UK; Cambridge University, 1983, pp.92-94.

Integral Health
5. Favazza, A.R. Anthropology and Psychiatry. In Comprehensive Text book of Psychiatry. (ed.
Kaplan and B.J. Sadock). Baltimore; Williams and Wilkins, 1985, p.248.
6.Op.Cit. Letters on Yoga. pp.254-255.
7. Op.Cit. The Life Divine.
8. Ibid. p.87.
9.Ibid. p.113
10. Sri Aurobindo. On Yoga, Tome Two. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo International
University Centre, 1958, p.532.
11. Ibid p.535.
12. The Mother. Collected Works of The Mother, Vol.3. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo
Ashram, 1978, p.90.
13. Dalal, A.S. Living Within. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1987, p.xxvi.
14. The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother, Vol.5. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram,
1978, p.415.
15. Op. Cit. Living within. p.xxvi.
16. Op. Cit. Letters on Yoga. Tome One. p.351.
17.Ibid. p.334.
18.Basu, S. Integral Education — a Psychological Perspective. Calcutta; Sri Aurobindo

Pathamandir, 1994.
19. Sri Aurobindo. The Synthesis of Yoga. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1976,
p.335.
20. Op.Cit. Letters on Yoga, Tome One. p.352.
21. Op. Cit. The Synthesis of Yoga. p.322.
22. Ibid. p.8.
23. Satprem. Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo
Ashram, 1968, p.48.

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24. Sen, Indra. Education and Yoga. Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual Calcutta; No.4 pp.134-
167.
25. Op.Cit. The Synthesis of Yoga. pp.19-20.
26.Basu, S. The Synthesis of Eastern and Western paradigms in the light of Sri
Aurobindo. Indian Journal of Social Psychiatry, Vol. No.11 (1), 1995, pp.35-39.
27.Subbannachar N.V. Social Psychology — the Integral Approach. Calcutta; Scientific Book
Agency, 1966, p.91.
28. Op. Cit. Living Within. p.xiv.
29. Ibid. p.xv.
30. Basu, S. Case Study. NAMAH, Vol.3, No.1, 1995, pp.80-82.
31. Op. Cit. Living Within. p.xix.
32. Op. Cit. Letters on Yoga, Tome One. p.358.
33. Ibid. p.359.
34. Sen, Indra. Integral Psychology. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo International Centre of
Education, 1986, pp.171-174.
35.Op. Cit. The Synthesis of Yoga. pp.65-66.
36.Op. Cit. Living Within. p.xxxvi
37.The Mother. Collected works of the Mother, Vol.12. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram,
1978, p.45.
38.Op. Cit. Integral Psychology. pp.175-184.
39.Purani, A.B. Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram,
1982, p.202.
40.Op. cit. Letters on Yoga, Tome One. p.355.
41.Sharma, A. Exploration into Pranic Healing. NAMAH, Vol.3, No.2, 1996, pp.16-19.
42.Op. Cit. The Synthesis of Yoga. p.624.
43.Ibid. pp.727-728.
44.Ibid. pp.728-729.

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45.Ibid. p.727.
46.Ibid. p.728.
47.Op. Cit. Collected works of the Mother, Vol.12. p.264.
49.Op. Cit. The Life Divine. p.2.
50.The Mother. Health and Healing in Yoga. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1979,
p.67.
51.The Mother. Collected Works of The Mother, Vol.9. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram,
1978, p.163.
53.Ibid. p.743.
54.Ibid. p.753.
55.Ibid. p.372.
56. Op. Cit. Letters as Yoga, Tome One. p.334.
57.Moskowitz, R. The Case Against Immunizations. U.S.A.; National Center for

Homoeopathy, 1983.
58.Fisher Helene. The Sex Contract — The Evolution of Human Behaviour. UK; Granada
Publishing, 1982, pp.13-14.
59.The Mother. Collected Works of the Mother Vol.11. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram,
1978, pp.302-303.
60.Ibid. Vol.3, pp.175-176.
61.Ibid. Vol.5. p.59.
62.Op. Cit. Integral Psychology. pp.185-191.
63.Maitra S.K. An Introduction to the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo. Pondicherry; Sri

Aurobindo Ashram, 1965.
64.Chowdhury, H. Sri Aurobindo: The Prophet of Life Divine. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo
Ashram, 1960.

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65.Basu S. Insight into the Brains. NAMAH, Vol.3, No.2, 1996, pp.8-11.
66.Reddy V.M. Integral Yoga Psychology. Hyderabad; Institute of Human Study, 1988,
p.iv.
67.Op. Cit. Integral Psychology. p.180.
68.Op. Cit. The Life Divine. pp.734-735.
69.Dalal, A.S. Psychology, Mental Health and Yoga. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram,
1991, pp.14-21.
70.Op. Cit. Health and Healing in Yoga. p.3.
71.Op. Cit. Collected works of the Mother, Vol.3. p.88.
72.Ibid. p.89.
73.Ibid. Vol.4. p.63.
74.Pandey, A. Health as a dynamically evolving equilibrium. NAMAH, Vol.2, No.2,

1995, pp.47-53.
75.Op. Cit. Collected works of the Mother, Vol.5. pp.122-123.
76. Ibid. pp.173-180.
77. Ibid. p.186.
78.Sri Aurobindo. The Aryas’ fourth year. Arya — a Philosophical Review, 1918, 15th July.
79. Op.Cit. Anthropology and Psychiatry. p.247.
80. Sri Aurobindo. The Foundations of Indian Culture. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo
Ashram, 1971, pp.51-52.
81. Sri Aurobindo. The Human Cycle. The Ideal of Human Unity. War and Self-
determination. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1977, p.76.
82. Ibid.
83. Ibid. pp.84-93.
84. Ibid. p.86.
85. Ibid. pp.92-93.

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86. Op.Cit. The Life Divine. p.70.
87.Op.Cit. The Human Cycle. The Ideal of Human Unity. War and self-Determination. p.99.
88.Ibid. p.97.
89.Singh, A.R., Singh, S.A. Hedonistic Issues in Drug Dependency. NAMAH, Vol.2,
No.2, 1995, pp.57-61.
90.Op.Cit. The Life Divine. pp.1052-1053.
91.WHO. Report of the International Pilot Study of Schizophrenia. Geneva; WHO, 1973.
92.Gandhi, K. Social Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and the New Age. Pondicherry; Sri
Aurobindo Ashram, 1991, p.146.
93.Op.Cit. The Human Cycle. The Ideal of Human Unity. War and Self-Determination. p.463.
94. Ibid. p.464.
95. Ibid. p.466.
96.Op.Cit. Social Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and the New Age. pp.49-69.
97.Op.Cit. The Human Cycle. The Ideal of Human Unity. War and Self-Determination. p.61.
98. Ibid. pp.267-268.
99.Op.Cit. Social Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and the New Age. pp.367-383.
100.Op.Cit. Social Psychology — the Integral Approach.pp.342-343.
101.Op.Cit.The Human Cycle. The Ideal of Human Unity. War and Self-Determination. p.173.
102. Ibid. p.2.
103. Ibid. p.173.
104. Ibid. p.12.
105. Ibid. p.179.
106. Op.Cit. The Foundations of Indian Culture. p.338.
107.Goswami, C.R. Integral Psychology. Srinvantu, Vol.XXXVII, No.4, and

Vol.XXXVIII, No.1, 1989 and 1990.

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108. Dowsett, N.C. Psychology for Future Education. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Society,
1977, p.40.
109. Op.Cit. The Human Cycle. The Ideal of Human Unity. War and Self-determination. p.173.
110. Op.Cit. Integral Education — A psychological perspective.
111. Op.Cit. The Human Cycle. The Ideal of Human Unity. War and Self-Determination.
p.233-234.
112. Ibid. p.37-47.
113.Vithoulkas, G. A New Model for Health and Disease. USA; Health and Habitat, 1991.
114.Weiner, H. The Illusion of Simplicity: The Medical Model Revisted. Amer J. of

Psychiatry Supplement, July 1978, p.135.
115.Engel, G.L. The Need for a New Medical Model: a challenge for Biomedicine.
Science, April 8, 1977, 196 (4286): pp.129-136.
116.Op.Cit. Collected Works of the Mother, Vol.12. p.111.
Glossary
(The explanations of terms given below are from Sri Aurobindo’s writings)
Consciousness
Consciousness is a fundamental thing, the fundamental thing in existence — it is the

ENERGY, the motion, the movement of consciousness that creates the universe and all
that is in it — not only the macrocosm but the microcosm is nothing but consciousness
arranging itself.
Consciousness is not only power of awareness of self and things, it is or has also a
dynamic and creative energy. It can determine its own reactions or abstain from
reactions; it can not only answer to forces, but create or put out from itself forces.
Consciousness is made up of two elements, awareness of self and things and forces and
conscious-power. Awareness is the first thing necessary, you have to be aware of things
in the right consciousness, in the right way, seeing them in their truth; but awareness by
itself is not enough. There must be a Will and a Force that makes the consciousness
effective.
Planes of Consciousness

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Each plane of our being — mental, vital, physical has its own consciousness, separate,
though interconnected and interacting, but to our outer mind and sense, in our waking
experience, they are all confused together.
Mental consciousness, mind
The ‘Mind’ in the ordinary use of the word covers indiscriminately the whole
consciousness, for Man is a mental being and mentalises everything; but in the language
of this yoga the words ‘mind’ and ‘mental’ are used to connote specially the part of the
nature which has to do with cognition and intelligence, with ideas, with mental or
thought perceptions, the reactions of thought to things, with the truly mental
movements and formations, mental vision and will, etc., that are part of his intelligence.
Vital consciousness, vital
The vital has to be carefully distinguished from mind, even though it has a mind
element transfused into it; The vital is the life-nature made up of desires, sensations,
feelings, passions, energies of action, will of desire, reactions of the desire-soul in man
and of all that play of possessive and other related instincts, anger, fear, greed, lust, etc.,
that belong to this field of nature.
Vital mind
(Besides the mind proper, there is a part of the mind interfused with the vital, called the
vital mind) The function of this mind is not to think and reason, to perceive, consider
and find out or value things, for that is the function of the thinking mind proper,
buddhi, but to plan or dream or imagine what can be done.
Physical mind
That part of the mind which is concerned with the physical things only; it depends on
the sense-mind, sees only objects, external actions, draws its ideas from the data given
by external things, infers from them only and knows no other Truth until it is
enlightened from above.
Vital-physical
The vital-physical is below the physical mind, but above the material: but at the same
time these powers interpenetrate each other.
The vital-physical is the vehicle of the nervous responses of our physical nature; it is the
field and instrument of the smaller sensations, desires, reactions of all kinds to the
impacts of the outer physical and gross material life.... It is also largely responsible for
most of the suffering and disease of mind or body to which the physical being is subject
in Nature.
Physical consciousness

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The physical consciousness or at least the more external parts of it are, as I have told
you, in their nature inert — obeying whatever force they are habituated to obey, but not
acting on their own initiative.
Body consciousness
The body.. has its own consciounsess and acts from it, even without any mental will of
our own or even against that will.
The body and the physical do not coincide — the body consciousness is only part of the
whole physical consciousness.
Integral Yoga
(Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga)
The integral yoga is that which, having found the transcendent, can return upon the
universe and possess it, retaining the power freely to descend as well as ascend the great
stair of existence.
This yoga implies not only the realisation of God, but an entire consecration and change
of the inner and outer life till it is fit to manifest a divine consciousness and become part
of a divine work.
Intuition
Intuition sees the truth of things by a direct inner contact, not like the ordinary mental
intelligence by seeking and reaching out by indirect contacts through the senses etc.,
Intuition sees in flashes and combined through a constant play of light-through

revelations, inspirations, intuitions, swift discriminations.
Psychic Being
The Psychic being is the soul developing in the evolution. When the psyche, a spark of
the Divine, present in all life and matter begins to develop an individuality in the course
of evolution, that psychic individuality is called the Psychic being.
Overmental
Pertaining to the highest of the planes of consciousness below the supramental.
Supramental
Truth-consciousness, the highest plane of consciousness above and beyond the mind.
Shakti

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Force, energy; the divine or cosmic energy — universal shakti or universal energy.
— To open ourselves to the universal energy is always possible to us, because that is all
around us and always flowing into us, it is that which supports and supplies all our
inner and outer action and in fact we have no power of our own in any separately
individual sense, but only a personal formulation of the one Shakti. And, on the other
hand, this universal Shakti is within ourselves, concentrated in us, for the whole power
of it is present in each individual as in the universe, and there are means and processes
by which we can awaken its greater and potentially infinite force and liberate it to its
larger workings.
Pranic Shakti
We can become aware of the existence and presence of the universal Shakti in the
various forms of her power. At present we are conscious only of the power as
formulated in our physical mind, nervous being and corporeal case sustaining our
various activities. But if we can once get beyond this first formation by some liberation
of the hidden, recondite, subliminal parts of our existence by Yoga, we become aware of
a greater life-force, a Pranic Shakti, which supports and fills the body and supplies all
the physical and vital activities, — for the physical energy is only a modified form of
this force, — and supplies and sustains too from below all our mental action. This force
we feel in ourselves also, but we can feel it too around as and above, one with the same
energy in us, and can draw it in and down to aggrandise our normal action or call upon
and get it to pour into us....... To get this Pranic Shakti to act more freely and forcibly in
the body is knowingly or unknowingly the attempt of all who strive for or greater
perfection of or in the body.

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NAMAH

Body, mind and spirit journal

Two Case studies in Integral Health

Dr. Soumitra Basu

Numerous studies have correlated the diverse psychological and psychosocial

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attempted by compiling studies on he Vedas and Upanishads in the light of Integral

A was a highly qualified professional. He had an over-protective childhood with a

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He progressed well, but immediately following the detoxification developed a

Counsellors and health professionals who work with drug-dependents consider

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Dr. Alok Pandey

“Come, come, look at me, look at me.”

There is a man sitting by a pillar wearing a purple robe who says,

So the Mother tastes what he has given,

The process of creating illness

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The shift from illness to health

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Sri Aurobindo writes in Savitri,

“A consciousness stands behind the brute machine.”

“Look, here is an imperfection!”.

“I must be depressed because nobody understands me”.

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“I have a secret hidden in my heart, unveil it.”

“Almighty powers are shut in Nature’s cells.”

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“makes the crooked straight”.

Let me close with some lines from Savitri,

“Thou thinkest term and end for thee are not

“For they who cannot die.

That is our growth’ the highways of eternity’...

“So if thou wouldst live

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A programme for Integral health

Dr. Soumitra Basu

Illness is a disequilibrium at one plane of consciousness. It points to an inner

There is also an inexhaustible source of energy in the universe which is represented in

All these systems work through energy-states underlying different planes of

Strategies at different planes of consciousness

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b) Methodical discipline of different functions of the body (food, sleep, hygiene,

c) Development of body-consciousness (with help of various body-techniques as

(c) Clinics/programmes for physically handicapped people.

(a) Development of an inner poise by matching dynamic activity with a base of

(b) Strengthening higher vital movements by refinement of senses, including the

(c) Activation of vital energy by any of the following:

i. Universalising individual vitality

ii. Activation of Cakras

iii. Opening to the Universal Qakti.

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(b) Cultivating a witness attitude and practising non-judgmental detachment.

(c) Integration of hemispheric functioning (viz. cognition and creativity).

(d) Understanding dreams for psychological growth.

(a) Practice widening, deepening and heightening of consciousness through

(d) Other psychotherapeutic techniques acting at different levels of the mind.

(e) Music therapy.

(a) To become aware of the physical, vital and mental planes.

(b) To recognise one’s subconscious and superconscious roots.

(c) The subconscious is responsible for recurrence of chronic illness, perpetuation of

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Society and Integral health