The Divine Must Always Come First for the Spiritual Seeker

From the time of our birth we are directed and focused on the external reality of the material world. We are trained to pay attention to that existence, to develop opportunities, and to find ways to survive and thrive. Along the way, we get successes and failures, meet with positive results and with setbacks. We also get involved in inter-personal relationships and experience both the praise and the blame, the good will and the bad will, and experience all of the emotions and vital energies that arise in response to the circumstances we meet.

When an individual takes up the spiritual life, he eventually needs to adopt a standpoint that refocuses his attention on the Divine. This involves shfting from the external, outward view to an inward, and upward view. Once that begins to occur, he can recognise that all of the circumstances, all of the events, all of the good things and bad things that occur are just part of the normal life of the world, and they cannot and should not distract his attention. Elsewhere, Sri Aurobindo wrote “Live within; be not shaken by outward happenings.”

An individual related his experience with this message at the time of the Mother’s Mahasamadhi in November 1973. He was residing at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and was given the message the morning of the 17th of November coincident with receiving birthday blessings from the Mother. He fell into a deep inward state for the entire day, and into the night. The next morning when he went to the Ashram building, he saw all the lights on, people milling around everywhere and learned then that the Mother had departed her physical body overnight. He remained in his deep inward state and recalled the message “live within: be not shaken by outward happenings” as something of a mantra working in him. For the next several days he remained in that abstracted state and experienced the deep peace he had been granted rather than the grief that so many people came with when they gathered at the Ashram after the Mother’s passing.

Life always brings challenges, difficulties, oppositions and opportunities. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had to face innumerable difficulties, including the pressure of the British Empire trying to suppress Sri Aurobindo in the days before he reached Pondicherry, the first and second world wars, and serious pressures to meet the financial needs of a growing community and the families while remaining focused on the spiritual work they were there to do. They provide us a clear example of how to engage with the world without being distracted or disturbed by the world.

Sri Aurobindo notes: “Do not allow yourself to be shaken or troubled by these things. The one thing to do always is to remain firm in your aspiration to the Divine and to face with equanimity and detachment all difficulties and all oppositions. For those who wish to lead the spiritual life, the Divine must always come first, everything else must be secondary.”

“Keep yourself detached and look at these things from the calm inner vision of one who is inwardly dedicated to the Divine.”

Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 1, Calm — Peace — Equality, pp. 12-13