Mental Formations Mixing With Vital Forces

An incident was observed and reported by several people which illustrates how mental formations can create entities on the vital plane which become visible to those who have eyes to see. The incident occurred in 1981 in California. An individual had come to the West and took the role of a guru and had assembled a number of people around him, young people who aspired for guidance in yoga. He fell under the spell of sexual desire and a desire to control and master others, and the control of money. Power, wealth and sex, the three strong forces of vital desire had taken hold of him. One of the individuals in the group became aware of the pressure and determined to leave the group. This enraged the leader who assembled the entire group and engaged in an extended rant, attacking the individual and demanding the others choose sides. That is the setting of the experience reported here.

Several individuals saw a dark entity surround the guru during the rant. It seemed to come out of him and superimpose itself over his face, projecting itself into the room. It was an angry, lustful, desire-filled entity that manifested itself under the pressure of the situation. It shocked these individuals to such a degree that they later discussed it and found that they had a very similar description of what they had seen.

It should be noted that these individuals left the group and went on their own. The person in question was later convicted of sexual and physical abuse of minor children and sentenced to prison for some years. He had also, prior to his arrest and conviction, been accused of forcible rape by several women. Clearly the entity that was formed around him through the development of his vital desires had obtained such a power over him that he lost all control and sense of balance and proportion in his dealings with others.

The formations were so well formed that they could be observed by others and identified for the dark and foreboding nature of their energy. While this is an extreme case, it illustrates clearly how the vital nature and the mental nature intertwine and create strong formations which can take on a visible form, which itself impacts and interacts with others on the mental, vital and even physical levels.

The Mother observes: “People who have desires add to the mental formation a kind of small envelope, a vital shell which gives it a still greater reality. These people are usually surrounded by a number of tiny entities which are their own formations, their own mental formations clothed with vital force, which come all the time to strike them to try to make them realise materially the formations they have made.”

“You have perhaps read the books of Maurice Magre; there are some in the library. He describes this; he had come here, Maurice Magre, and we spoke and he told me that he had always noticed — he was highly sensitive — he had always noticed that people who have sexual desires are surrounded by a kind of small swarm of entities who are somewhat viscous and rather ugly and which torment them constantly, awakening desire in them. He said he had seen this around certain people. It was like being surrounded by a swarm of mosquitoes, yes! But it is more gross, and much uglier still, and it is viscous, it is horrible, and it turns round and round the person and gives him no peace, and it awakens in him the desire that has formed these entities and they batten on it. It is their food. This is absolutely true. His observation was quite correct. His vision was very true. It is like that.”

“But everyone carries around himself the atmosphere of his own desires. So you don’t at all require that people should tell you anything; you have only to look and you see around them exactly the state they are in. They may want to give themselves the airs of angels or saints but they can’t deceive you, because that thing is there, turning around them. So, just imagine! (Mother points to all those seated in front of her.) You see what you are like, how many of you there, all of you here, and each one has his own little world in this way, of mental formations of which some are clothed in vital substance, and all these crawl together, mix with each other, knock against each other. There is a struggle to see which is the strongest, which tries to realise itself, and all this creates an atmosphere indeed!…”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch. 3 Hidden Forces Around, pp. 69-70