Changing Human Nature Rather Than Abandoning the External Life

Our mental process tends to take us to extremes. We want simple answers, without a lot of nuance. Thus, when we seek spiritual liberation, we tend to take the concept of renunciation or rejection to mean that we abandon the exte
al life to focus on our spiritual pursuits. If our vital nature does not cooperate with this, we try to suppress it, and if that does not succeed, we even try to punish or torture our physical or vital being, or create a sense of anguish in our emotional or mental being. There arises a considerable struggle as the human nature tries to achieve its fulfillment while our spiritual seeking tries to cast it aside or even destroy it.

Sri Aurobindo takes a different approach to the matter. The rejection needed is not a stiflying of the human being in all its parts, but rather, a rejection of the deformations, distortions or bad habits developed across many millennia of evolutionary history, in order to create a harmonious, energetic and unified focus for the life guided and directed by the psychic being and the spiritual consciousness in harmony with the divine manifestation of which we are a part.

Adjusting and changing these deeply embedded drives, cravings, desires and habits of reaction is not an easy task, nor one that is accomplished quickly. Rather than “cutting the knot” of human nature, the seeker is asked to “untie the knot” and bring the nature in line with the deeper aspiration. In his book, The Mother, Sri Aurobindo describes the nature of the rejection needed to accomplish the objective of becoming a conscious instrument of the Divine: “rejection of the movements of the lower nature — rejection of the mind’s ideas, opinions, preferences, habits, constructions, so that the true knowledge may find free room in a silent mind, — rejection of the vital nature’s desires, demands, cravings, sensations, passions, selfishness, pride arrogance, lust, greed, jealousy, envy, hostility to the Truth, so that the true power and joy may pour from above into a calm, large, strong and consecrated vital being, — rejection of the physical nature’s stupidity, doubt, disbelief, obscurity, obstinacy, pettiness, laziness, unwillingness to change, tamas, so that the true stability of Light, Power, Ananda may establish itself in a body growing always more divine….”

It is not easy. We have all, at one time or another, tried to change an embedded habit, whether we have tried to lose weight through a diet, change our eating preferences, develop a consistent exercise regimen, undertake a serious course of study or personal development, or try to avoid the reactions that occur in various circumstances that bring us to an instant expression of anger, frustration or fear, or even change a habit of jumping to conclusions or trying to judge others, pressuring others to adopt one’s own ideologies or convictions, arguing, or gossiping about others. When we undertake to consciously bring about a change in some area, we find that the work requires observation, patience and persistent efforts to first withdraw any positive sanction for that response, and then, to begin to guide the nature to alte
atives that more closely align with our aspiration.

Sri Aurobindo writes: “Unfortunately, there is the resistance, a very obscure and obstinate resistance. That necessitates a negative element in the yoga, an element of rejection of things that stand in the way and of pressure upon those forms that are crude and useless to disappear, on those that are useful but imperfect or have been perverted to retain or to recover their true movement. To the vital this pressure is painful, first, because it is obscure and does not understand and, secondly, because there are parts of it that want to be left to their crude motions and not to change. That is why the intervention of a psychic attitude is so helpful. For the psychic has the happy confidence, the ready understanding and response, the spontaneous surrender….”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 5, Attitudes on the Path, pg. 152