The adaptive systems
A question often raised is, what responds to stress first — the body or the emotions? Some argue that emotional arousal is followed by physical arousal. William James believed the opposite to be true and proposed that feelings, including anxiety, were merely the individual’s conscious awareness of physiological processes antecedent to the emotion. The controversy remains unsolved.
From the perspective of Integral Yoga where personality is studied not as a finished product but along hierarchical planes of consciousness with universal forces acting at different levels, one could theorise that depending upon the level of interaction, either the emotions (vital) or the body (physical) could be aroused first or both could even be aroused together. In the Integral Yoga, the vital-physical is that plane of personality which is involved in the reactions of the nerves and the reflexive sensations and feelings(1). Sri Aurobindo elaborated,
“It [the vital-physical] is also largely responsible for most of the suffering and disease of mind or body to which the physical being is subject in Nature”(2).
Return to the base-line
The maladaptive trend
Psychological threats
As a matter of fact, in a study we conducted on missing children and adolescents from well-to-do families in Calcutta, 42 per cent of the boys ran away to avoid the excessive stress of studies and 53 per cent of the girls eloped to avoid the stress of forced marriages (3). Unfortunately we lack the romantic vigour of adolescence and if we do not ‘run away’ by committing suicide, we become ill when overwhelmed by stress.
Man is a mental being and we do of course psychologically react to stress, though this reaction appears immature. In fact, we use a number of psychological manoeuvring techniques like blaming others (projection), minimising the importance of the situation (denial), or avoiding the stressor (repression) (5). Such skills are based on internal defence mechanisms.
The study of psychopathology has shown how the use of defence mechanisms can in turn be ecompensatory and give rise to mental illness. In the Integral Yoga, psychological defence mechanisms are considered to be features of the vital mind. One must acknowledge that our present coping skills are at best compromise formulas that do not aim at mastery – one remains at the same level of consciousness.
The integral approach
The Integral Yoga which envisages not only a mechanical evolution of forms but also a psychological evolution of consciousness holds the promise that the hiatus between our achieved biological status and an idealised utopian state of perfection can be progressively bridged. Instead of makeshift compromises that may break down at any point, a radical transformation of consciousness can alone help us to unlearn and outgrow our habitual reaction to stress. This would free us from stress-linked diseases.
The Mother points out:
Of course, it is impossible for man to fall back to the level of the animal and lose the consciousness he has acquired; therefore, for him there is only one means, one way to get out of this condition he is in, which I call a miserable one, and to emerge into a higher state where worry is replaced by a trusting surrender and the certitude of a luminous culmination — this way is to change the consciousness(6).”
Surpassing the role of anxiety
The Integral Yoga points out that with a progressive evolution of consciousness, the soul personality (the Psychic being) will come forward to replace the ego-personality as the centre of our life. This would automatically surpass the source of our activation and motivation and give a new orientation to life.
It could be argued that an easier solution would be an elimination of all stress-provoking situations. This again is difficult to conceive; after all, a shift from the savage to the modern man has meant a shift from a largely physical to a largely psychological basis of stress. One cannot regress to a stressfree vegetative existence; the only other way for a life free of stressors is a gnostic society that comes as a culmination of a mutant transformation — a radical change of consciousness.
