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from http://auromere.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/subtle-forms-of-the-ego/
The feeling of suffocation as a subtle form of ego
Oftentimes, one feels suffocated and hemmed in by circumstances and the people around us(“…I need some space…I just want to be me…”). There arises a feeling of dryness and boredom. One wants to escape; one wants to live at ease and in comfort away from the grim realities of life. One justifies this desire as a “NEED OF THE SOUL” – a deep-felt need of the heart for tranquility and peace. This then motivates the desire to travel and change the environment (“…lets just escape and begin a new life somewhere else…”), buy a bigger house, change the job, so on and so forth.
In reality, this is not a need of the soul. This is a case where we mistake our ego for the real soul. It is our ego which desires to live freely, to do what it wants without submitting to the Divine will. One who has attained a deep inner calm due to meditation becomes equal under all circumstances. He or she doesn’t need to run around the world because the feeling of suffocation doesn’t arise. The Mother of the Aurobindo Ashram, Mira Alfassa, explained this situation as follows:
Most people tend to want to change their environment, to want to change their occupation, to want to change their surroundings, to want to change their habit, thinking that will help them to change inwardly – it’s not true. You are much more vigilant and alert to resist the old movement, the old relationships, the vibrations you no longer want when you remain in a context that, in fact, is habitual enough to be automatic
It’s very interesting even, I made a very deep study of people who think that if they travel things are going to be different…. When you change your external surroundings, on the contrary, you always tend to keep your internal organization in order to keep your individuality; whereas if you are held by force in the same context, the same occupations, the same routine of life, then the ways of being you no longer want become more and more evident and you can fight them much more precisely.
Basically, in the being, it’s the vital that has difficulty; it is the most impulsive part and has the greatest difficulty in changing its way of being. And it’s always the vital that feels “free,” encouraged and more alive during travels, because it has an opportunity to manifest freely in a new environment in which everything has to be learned: reactions, adaptations, etc. On the contrary, in the routine of a life that has nothing particularly exciting, it strongly feels (I mean, if it has goodwill and an aspiration for progress), it strongly feels its inadequacies and desires, its reactions, repulsions, attractions, etc. When one doesn’t have that intense will to progress, it feels imprisoned, disgusted, crushed – the whole habitual refrain of revolt.
-Mothers Agenda, Dec 2, 1964
There is a whole range of words which we use to describe this oppression felt by the vital. This is an excerpt from a letter by Sri Aurobindo advising a disciple who had the same complaints.
All these suggestions are very familiar, and they are always the same both in expression and substance. The reactions too are always the same and their very nature is sufficient to show the source from which they come, – disappointment of unsatisfied desire, despondency, discontent, unhappiness, the sense of grievance and injustice, revolt, a fall to tamas and inertia (because the vital being refuses participation in the spiritual effort unless its egoistic demands are conceded,) dryness, dullness, cessation of the sadhana. The same phrases even are repeated, – “no life in this existence”, “suffocation”, “limitation”, “air-tight compartments”; and all this simply means that the lower vital nature – or some part of it – is in revolt and wants something else than the divine Truth and the tapasya that leads to the supramental change. It refuses to give up ego and desire and claim and demand or to accept a true self-giving and surrender, while yet it feels the pressure on it to transform itself into an instrument of the divine life. It is this pressure that it calls suffocation…
The feeling of suffocation as a subtle form of ego
Oftentimes, one feels suffocated and hemmed in by circumstances and the people around us(“…I need some space…I just want to be me…”). There arises a feeling of dryness and boredom. One wants to escape; one wants to live at ease and in comfort away from the grim realities of life. One justifies this desire as a “NEED OF THE SOUL” – a deep-felt need of the heart for tranquility and peace. This then motivates the desire to travel and change the environment (“…lets just escape and begin a new life somewhere else…”), buy a bigger house, change the job, so on and so forth.
In reality, this is not a need of the soul. This is a case where we mistake our ego for the real soul. It is our ego which desires to live freely, to do what it wants without submitting to the Divine will. One who has attained a deep inner calm due to meditation becomes equal under all circumstances. He or she doesn’t need to run around the world because the feeling of suffocation doesn’t arise. The Mother of the Aurobindo Ashram, Mira Alfassa, explained this situation as follows:
Most people tend to want to change their environment, to want to change their occupation, to want to change their surroundings, to want to change their habit, thinking that will help them to change inwardly – it’s not true. You are much more vigilant and alert to resist the old movement, the old relationships, the vibrations you no longer want when you remain in a context that, in fact, is habitual enough to be automatic
It’s very interesting even, I made a very deep study of people who think that if they travel things are going to be different…. When you change your external surroundings, on the contrary, you always tend to keep your internal organization in order to keep your individuality; whereas if you are held by force in the same context, the same occupations, the same routine of life, then the ways of being you no longer want become more and more evident and you can fight them much more precisely.
Basically, in the being, it’s the vital that has difficulty; it is the most impulsive part and has the greatest difficulty in changing its way of being. And it’s always the vital that feels “free,” encouraged and more alive during travels, because it has an opportunity to manifest freely in a new environment in which everything has to be learned: reactions, adaptations, etc. On the contrary, in the routine of a life that has nothing particularly exciting, it strongly feels (I mean, if it has goodwill and an aspiration for progress), it strongly feels its inadequacies and desires, its reactions, repulsions, attractions, etc. When one doesn’t have that intense will to progress, it feels imprisoned, disgusted, crushed – the whole habitual refrain of revolt.
-Mothers Agenda, Dec 2, 1964
There is a whole range of words which we use to describe this oppression felt by the vital. This is an excerpt from a letter by Sri Aurobindo advising a disciple who had the same complaints.
All these suggestions are very familiar, and they are always the same both in expression and substance. The reactions too are always the same and their very nature is sufficient to show the source from which they come, – disappointment of unsatisfied desire, despondency, discontent, unhappiness, the sense of grievance and injustice, revolt, a fall to tamas and inertia (because the vital being refuses participation in the spiritual effort unless its egoistic demands are conceded,) dryness, dullness, cessation of the sadhana. The same phrases even are repeated, – “no life in this existence”, “suffocation”, “limitation”, “air-tight compartments”; and all this simply means that the lower vital nature – or some part of it – is in revolt and wants something else than the divine Truth and the tapasya that leads to the supramental change. It refuses to give up ego and desire and claim and demand or to accept a true self-giving and surrender, while yet it feels the pressure on it to transform itself into an instrument of the divine life. It is this pressure that it calls suffocation…