The Interaction of the Mind and the Body

The body has its own consciousness and much of its operation takes place without active mental intervention. However, there is also a serious interaction that takes place so that the mental power can influence, guide, train, direct and otherwise gain at least some control over certain aspects of the body consciousness. Physical training, whether in sports, military training or playing a musical instrument, typing, singing, dancing, art or sculpture, or development of other motor skills, represents one such area of mental intervention. The mind can implement a course of development for the body such that it learns how to perceive more accurately, and respond to circumstances with certain trained responses. The level of skill that can be developed is actually quite remarkable. When we observe, for instance, the precision, grace and skill of certain Olympic athletes, we can see a remarkable difference compared to the untrained physical body trying to carry out the same set of routines.

One interesting point is that the training is not, after implementation, totally reliant on direct mental control after the initial training routine is put in place. We saw in a recent Olympic games the phenomenon of one of the top world-class gymnasts having to pull out of certain competitions because she recognised that her mind was ‘interfering’ with the automatic trained responses of the body, and thereby putting her at severe risk of injury.

In the normal course, we do indeed exercise some amount of mental will for many ordinary bodily actions. The body does not decide to walk on its own, but requires an impulse from the mind that tells it to get up and start moving. The actual motions of walking are part of the trained response, but the impulse to move “right now” is a conscious impulse of the moment.

It must be remembered that the interaction is not exclusive, nor is it a “one way street”. The body and its condition can impact the mental functioning, and the vital can impact both the body and the mind. It is the mutual interaction of all three of these major components that make up the actual state of awareness and action we see in our bodily existence. There are further elements in the interaction, such as the psychic, the spiritual planes, etc. but they are not directly at issue for most people who live primarily in the external life of the mind-life-body complex.

Sri Aurobindo observes: “… the body obeys the mind automatically in those things in which it is formed or trained to obey it, but the relation of the body to the mind is not in all things that of an automatic perfect instrument. The body also has a consciousness of its own and, thought it is a submental instrument or servant consciousness, it can disobey or fail to obey as well. In many things, in matters of health and illness for instance, in all automatic functionings, the body acts on its own and is not a servant of the mind. If it is fatigued, it can offer a passive resistance to the mind’s will. It can cloud the mind with tamas, inertia, dullness, fumes of the subconscient so that the mind cannot act. The arm lifts, no doubt, when it gets the suggestion, but at first the legs do not obey when they are asked to walk; they have to learn how to leave the crawling attitude and movement and take up the erect and ambulatory habit. When you first ask the hand to draw a straight line or to play music, it can’t do it and won’t do it. It has to be schooled, trained, taught, and afterwards it does automatically what is required of it. All this proves that there is a body-consciousness which can do things at the mind’s order, but has to be awakened, trained, made a good and conscious instrument. It can even be so trained that a mental will or suggestion can cure the illness of the body.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 2, Planes and Parts of the Being, pp. 21-22