Why a Spiritual Seeker Should Not Just ‘Go With the Flow’

We frequently hear the advice that we could have much more peace and satisfaction in our lives if we were not always trying to ‘manage’ things. We are encouraged to just ‘go with the flow’. Even spiritual seekers are frequently asked to let the ‘force’ work without interference from our mind or vital being.

At the same time, we are asked to exercise insight and discrimination to monitor the forces that are at work trying to move us, and to not accept whatever happens to come along. Not every force aids the sadhana. … some of them actually inhibit or distract from the spiritual pursuit.

These two statements, seemingly contradictory to one another, actually are complementary and both should be taken into account. On the one side, the spiritual aspirant wants to minimize the interference and ‘management’ by the mind and vital nature as he aspires to transcend the limitations of the ordinary exte
al ego-personality from which he started his journey in this lifetime. On the other side, he still needs to be vigilant to ensure that he is not becoming a plaything of vital forces that actively try to disturb the effort or carry out their own agenda based on raising up lower vital impulses and reactions, such as greed, anger, hatred, lust, vanity, and feelings of superiority and false pride.

Sri Aurobindo writes: “It is a very serious difficulty in one’s Yoga — the absence of a central will always superior to the waves of the Prakriti forces, always in touch with the Mother, imposing its central aim and aspiration on the nature. That is because you have not yet learned to live in your central being; you have been accustomed to run with every wave of Force, no matter of what kind, that rushed upon you and to identify yourself with it for the time being. It is one of the things that has to be unlea
ed; you must find your central being with the psychic as its basis and live in it.”

Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 3, In Difficulty, pg. 50