Fighting in the vital world¹

Today I have asked Ramesh and Rakhal to appreciate each other for a reason totally beyond your imagination. Each person has mental beings, vital beings, all kinds of beings. On the physical plane, their high opinions of each other are absolutely sincere. What Ramesh is saying about Rakhal and what Rakhal is saying about Ramesh is sincere. But in the unconscious vital, there are things happening that they may not be aware of and, in a sense, are not responsible for. Ramesh does not know anything about his vital; Rakhal does not know anything about his vital. But these things have some reality in the subconscious world.

Now, I don't want these two boys to be disheartened and discouraged by what I am going to say, but this morning at around 4:20, for four minutes they had a wonderful fight in the vital world. It was such a terrible fight that I couldn't just send one of my inner beings there to settle their dispute; I had to go there personally with my soul. If the vital and the physical of my disciples become unruly, what can I do? My disciples are like my children; they are my heart's property. The students are supposed to listen to the teacher, but if the students do not listen, the teacher suffers.

It started with Rakhal and then Ramesh started defending himself. But then after defending itself, Ramesh's vital being found that it had become stronger and so it also started attacking. It went on like this for three or four minutes. I will never give the reasons; I am only telling you the scene. It is not only Ramesh and Rakhal who fight; almost everybody has fought. Until your souls' illumination is completely brought forward, naturally these things will happen.

Ramesh and Rakhal are fighting against each other in this other world, but if the fighting is not stopped by some spiritual Master or by the maturity of their own souls, then in the subconscious plane their vital beings gain tremendous strength. This strength unfortunately wants to do something terrible. The strength that we gain in the vital by fighting with each other is like the strength that boxers or wrestlers gain. You may think that they are weakening themselves and hurting each other, but when they wrestle, in some ways they actually gain strength. It is like the strength of a wild elephant, and it is the vital's property. One will eventually become more powerful than the other and defeat the other, but both will become stronger in the subconscious plane.

This can happen between husbands and wives as well. It is not that every time I bless the husband and wife it happens, but it does happen and it has happened many, many times — hundreds of times. Outwardly, if I appreciate the husband for something, immediately the wife shows me a happy face as though she were one with the husband's achievements. But in five minutes she feels, "I am useless." Identification was not there; only a smile. And vice versa, when the wife does something and I appreciate her for doing it extremely well, then the husband looks very happy and makes me feel it is also his achievement. But in five minutes, why does the husband in silence say many undivine things and feel many undivine things about himself? Let the husband make very rapid progress and then the wife starts pulling him down; or if the wife makes very good progress, the husband becomes jealous. It is like a pulley and I must stand in between and pull the lower side up with my compassion.

Sometimes many vital beings fight together. It may start as a fight between two persons and then their friends take sides, since on the vital plane they know if two people are fighting. Sometimes when it is very serious, it lasts for five minutes or ten minutes. Then, the following day, if your early morning meditation was not very good and you did not overcome the ill will, if you see the person with whom you fought, then automatically you will feel a tremendous sense of irritation. You will ask, "Why am I irritated? Why am I getting angry? What is it that happened to me?" You will search back in your mind and see that for three months you didn't have a harsh word against this person. But it is the vital quarrel that is still lingering in your consciousness. If you have meditated well after the fight, if you had a wonderful early morning meditation, then what happened in the vital world will be deleted entirely from your consciousness.

Sometimes one soul or both souls enter into the situation and throw light on the situation. It is like this: two young boys from two different families are fighting, and then the mother and father of one child come and stop them. Either the mother threatens the children or she says something nice to them and tells them that fighting is very bad so they stop. This happens when the souls enter the situation.

Sometimes an individual does not only fight against someone else. The strength and power that he acquires in the vital, in the subconscious plane, is so blind that sometimes it fights against the individual himself — against his soul's possibilities, his heart's possibilities. Your vital being may be gathering strength while your heart is aspiring very sincerely and devotedly. Then, when you try to meditate most devotedly and soulfully, all of a sudden you may get a tremendous attack or tremendous opposition. This undivine power may come and stand in the way of your own aspiration. You will say, "Where is this new obstruction coming from? I am not sitting beside anyone; nobody is pulling my consciousness down." But the obstruction is coming from this other plane, from your own vital plane, from your own subconscious, and you are totally unconscious of it. Many times you complain that you do not know the reason why you cannot meditate, but it is because something has happened in the vital plane and the vital is not letting you meditate.

Although you may have good will unconsciously, if you consciously send goodwill to others, then you will never strike each other in the vital plane. So I wish to say that before you go to sleep, for a minute think of all your spiritual brothers and sisters. You can't think of them one by one, but pray to the Supreme, "Please give me good will towards all my spiritual brothers and sisters." This prayer takes one second. Then eventually you can enlarge it to include the whole world. If you consciously send goodwill in this way, you will always love your brothers and sisters and it will help your spiritual life considerably.

We may be doing a very good meditation, but when it is a matter of our vital, there are many things happening which we are not outwardly conscious of. To some extent we have to be responsible for those things since we claim the physical, the vital, the mental and everything that we have as our own. We have to strive to transform all the parts of our being.

Rakhal, forgive me. Ramesh, forgive me. Please believe me, I have not tried to embarrass you at all. Only I wish to say that these things happen in the vital world. Here is the proof. You see, Ramesh, that you are speaking highly of Rakhal. And you, Rakhal, are speaking highly of Ramesh. What you say is absolutely true, but there is another world called the vital world. That world is also a world of reality and in that other world other kinds of things happen. I am not trying to discourage you. But I am telling you — all of you — to be aware of the vital.

From:Sri Chinmoy,The soul's journey, Agni Press, 1976
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/sj