How Do We Know that a Spiritual Force Is Working in Our Lives?

How can we know that the spiritual force is actually working in us? An actual experience of a force or what is called a ‘spiritual experience’ is a specific, generally short-lived ‘event’ that enormous numbers of people have had. Yet, the experience recedes and the daily life goes on, seemingly in its old habitual patterns with little noticeable change, and with the old routines seemingly firmly entrenched.

Spiritual literature and scriptural texts from virtually every tradition in the world provide ample evidence of the overwhelming experience and then, the ‘let-down’ effect when it withdraws. The ‘dark night of the soul’ is a recognised phenomenon. Devotees suffer when the object of their love is withdrawn or hidden from them. People struggle with challenges to their faith and the absence of visible signs always in front of them.

There are several ways we can know the action of a spiritual force within us even when it is not overtly felt or acknowledged. It is clear that the instruments of body, life and mind are severely limited in their ranges of perception, so it is no wonder that much of the action of spiritual forces is not seen or acknowledged. One way, of course, is the actual event or experience that one does get a glimpse or perception about, and potentially a repetition of some similar event from time to time. Another way is to look back at the arc of one’s life to see how major, radical changes have occurred over time in the way one sees, feels, responds. Most people do not experience this kind of major alteration in their views, reactions or perceptions about things, so for someone to have such changes take place, it becomes clear that another force is at work!

Charles Dickens, in his tale A Christmas Carol, actually illustrates this principle quite clearly. A modern, materialistic business man, who cares for no one and nothing other than amassing his wealth, has an experience where he is visited by the ghost of his former partner, and then has visitation from ghosts who show him successively past, present and future. He is shaken by the experience and when he awakens from the dream-state he was in during the experience, he is a changed man who takes care to help and care about others. Who could have imagined a more radical transformation in habit and action than what we see here? The visitation by ghosts is a frequent theme in Western literature about how forces have changed outcomes — it also occurs frequently in the works of William Shakespeare for instance. What the actual forces at work are, whether ghosts or simply a transcription of some spiritual force in imagery that is common in a particular cultural background, cannot obviously be immediately determined without more detailed understanding of specific cases. However, the changes are radical and transformative and provide the signs of a new spiritual energy and insight at work in the being.

Many who have such a transformative experience do not have such a radical ‘overnight’ change but tend to grow into it over a period of time. Looking back at one’s feelings, thoughts, responses and reactions of the past and what they are now, can usually provide clear evidence of a force at work to bring about a change of consciousness and put that change of consciousness into action.

Sri Aurobindo observes: “The fact that you don’t feel a force does not prove that it is not there. The steam-engine does not feel a force moving it, but the force is there. A man is not a steam-engine? He is very little better, for he is conscious only of some bubbling on the surface which he calls ‘himself’ and is absolutely unconscious of all the subconscient, subliminal, superconscient forces moving him. (This is a fact which is being more and more established by modern psychology, though it has got hold only of the lower force and not the higher, — so you must not turn up your rational nose at it.) He twitters intellectually, foolishly about the surface results and attributes them all to his ‘noble self’, ignoring the fact that his noble self is hidden far away from his own view behind the veil of his dimly sparkling intellect and the reeking fog of his vital feelings, emotions, impulses, sensations and impressions. So your argument is utterly absurd and futile. Our aim is to bring the secret forces out and unwalled into the open, so that instead of getting some shadows or lightnings of themselves out through the veil or being wholly obstructed, they may pour down and flow in rivers. But to expect that all at once is a presumptuous demand which shows an impatient ignorance and inexperience. If they begin to trickle at first, that is enough to justify the faith in a future downpour. You admit that you once or twice felt a force coming down; it proves that the force was and is there and at work and it is only your sweating Herculean labour that prevents you feeling it. Also, it is the trickle that gives the assurance of the possibility of the downpour. One has only to go on and by one’s patience deserve the downpour or else, without deserving, slide on until one gets it. In yoga the experience itself is a promise and foretaste but gets shut off till the nature is ready for the fulfilment. This is a phenomenon familiar to every yogi when he looks back on his past experience. Such were the brief visitations of Ananda you had sometimes before. It does not matter if you have not a leech-like tenacity — leeches are not the only type of yogis. If you can stick anyhow or get stuck, that is sufficient.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch.7 Spiritual Forces of Help and Succour, pp.166-167