Aligning the Inner Being With the Psychic Aspiration Overcomes the Pressure of Despondency and Depression in the Course of the Spiritual Sadhana

Taking the right attitude when feelings of failure or depression arise in the course of the spiritual practice is essential to navigate through these moods with the least disruption. Sri Aurobindo implies that the standpoint should be in the separate witness consciousness, which he distinguishes from the exte
al being. The exte
al being is subject to the changes brought about by the 3 Gunas and thus, will, from time to time, see an uprising of vital disturbance or feelings of weakness, failure, incompetence, etc. Regardless of how the exte
al being responds, the witness consciousness needs to make the choice to adhere to the aspiration of the true self, the psychic being, and its connection to the Divine. The psychic being knows that the Divine relationship is constant and unshakable.

Sri Aurobindo writes: “Do not allow yourself to admit any movement of vital depression, still less a depressed condition. As for the exte
al being, it is always, not only in you but in everyone, a difficult animal to handle. It has to be dealt with by patience and a quiet and cheerful perseverance; never get depressed by its resistance, for that only makes it sensitive and aggrieved and difficult, or else discouraged. Give it rather the encouragement of sunlight and a quiet pressure, and one day you will find it opening entirely to the Grace.”

“One must learn to go forward on the path of yoga, as the Gita insists, with a consciousness free from despondency — anirvinnacetasa. Even if one slips, one must rectify the posture; even if one falls, one has to rise and go undiscouraged on the Divine Way. The attitude must be: ‘The Divine has promised Himself to me if i cleave to Him always; that I will never cease to do whatever may come.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 4, Ordeals and Difficulties, pp..96-97