Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume I - Part 2

Fragment ID: 10140

I make the distinction [between emotions and lower vital movements] by noting where these things rise from. Anger, fear, jealousy touch the heart no doubt just as they touch the mind but they rise from the navel region and entrails (i.e. the lower or at highest the middle vital). Stevenson has a striking passage in Kidnapped where the hero notes that his fear is felt primarily not in the heart but the stomach. Love, hope have their primary seat in the heart, so with pity etc.