Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume IV - Part 3
The nervous (vital-physical) being supports the body – if it is calm and strong and solid, then the body is well supported and can withstand illness and weakness or, if illness comes, it will bear and more easily get rid of it. If the nervous being is weak, then it is the opposite. If the nervous being is not merely weak, but nervous and unstable, over-sensitive, vehement or excitable, then there is much fluctuation, restlessness, exaltation and depression in the being – there may even be a wrongly acute creative imagination which brings in disorders into the body that are nervous and not physical – there is no physical illness of the heart but there are pains and palpitations, nothing physically wrong with stomach and intestines and yet there is inability to digest – nervous dyspepsia; pains are created in different parts of the body and so on – sometimes there is hysteria.
These conditions are not always native to the body – they are often created by troubles in the life, some disturbing illness or other reasons – but often it is due to some hereditary cause or otherwise native to the system. Women tend to get like this sometimes if there is disorder of the menstruation.
When there is this tendency of the nervous being, it is imperative to get down peace and strength into the nervous being and not allow it to upset the body or the general system.