 Vital Shock You may have noticed,
especially in the most difficult or anxious moments, a
persistent contraction, or tension of the whole lower trunk
of the body, from the heart to the abdomen. This tension
often feels like a fist or a stone, or a knot. Especially in
the areas of the navel or the solar plexus. It makes you
chronically anxious. Not only physically tense, but
emotionally, mentally, and psychically uneasy. This tangible
disturbance is evidence of a severe and profound reaction to
life...... 1972 From "Vital Shock" in My "Bright" Word: AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: The usual person lives in the state that I call "vital shock". Ultimately, this shock includes more than the vital. Indeed, this shock operates even on a very subtle level. But its most obvious (and directly motivating) form is the sense of shock in the vital being. Ordinarily, the vital - at its chief center in the middle of the body - is contracted. You constantly feel that contraction, even physically. You may feel a kind of cramp, a tension in the middle of the body. And everyone constantly tries to relieve that tension through various experiences, various pleasures. The vital center is like the shutter of a camera. It curls in on itself in order to close, and unfurls in order to open. It is like your hand. If you clench your fist as tightly as you can, it eventually becomes painful. Like your hand, the vital center is alive, sentient - and, like your hand, the vital, when it contracts, causes a painful sensation. Indeed, it causes not only a physical sensation, but also many other repercussions in life and conscious awareness. Therefore, when this contraction occurs in the vital, you not only get a cramp in the stomach - you have an entire life of suffering. Every aspect of vital existence is controlled by this state, this vital shock. The patterns to which people become addicted are simply extensions of this contraction in the vital. For instance, in the course of your life in My Avataric Divine Company, you may experience periods of great difficulty, when you are continually obsessed with various kinds of desires, various feelings. At the beginning of such a period, something occurred. Something in life, somewhere, assaulted (or seemed to assault) the vital. All of the patterns, the rituals, the strategies that began to arise in you were reactions to that assault on the vital. The sensation (or perception) of that assault, that "blow" to the vital, is the form of vital shock that currently obsesses you. But, even before you began the present episode, vital shock was already your condition. There is a continuous vital contraction. In fact, what people are suffering is not their distinctive life-patterns (or strategies) in and of themselves, but this original shock, in the form of a primal reaction—the "self"-contraction. ... The "self"-contraction may be experienced as intense stimulation of life-energy (or life-force) in the vital, felt as all of the various forms of desire. The fundamental forms of this intense cramp of energy - felt as the fire of desire in the vital - are the dramas of money, food, and sex. If the cramp of obstruction is severe, there is loss of vitality, desire, and function in these same areas of life. No vitality - no survival. One who indulges in the exploitation of desire is no longer conducting the force of life. In that case, there is only the misuse of the life-force, the reversing of it, the emptying of it. People do this because the self-contraction is painful. You discover that, if the life-force itself is diminished, the pain goes away. If the hand goes to sleep, there is no pain from the clenching of the fist. If you empty the vital of its force, the cramp is not felt—even though the contraction remains. One who is self-indulgent empties the vital constantly—and thereby feels relief, feels open, feels satisfied. But, as soon as strength returns, the pain is felt again—unless the person has exhausted and contracted the vital to the point of impotence. A person who is self-indulgent tries, by every possible
means, to get satisfied, to be free of pain. But all such
efforts are made from the point of view of the
"self"-contraction, the avoidance of relationship. In that
disposition, you will simply continue your
efforts—until the entire process of the search fails,
and you feel its failure. When you begin to really feel that
failure, then Satsang with Me becomes possible, the life of
"Radical" self-Understanding becomes possible. See full version of talk: "Vital Shock" in My "Bright" Word:
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