Spiritual Growth Articles

Modern life moves at high speed. We expect things to take place virtually instantaneously. As a result, we judge things in the light of the time it takes to accomplish them. If we have to expend an effort, we hope and expect that we will immediately begin to see palpable results. We want an “easy button” or an “enlightenment pill”, something that will accomplish the goal quickly and without a lot stress.

We frequently hear from people who say that they cannot focus on their spiritual practice as they don’t have a quiet space in which to meditate, or they live in a crowded, noisy city, or they are overwhelmed with all their duties relating to education, career, family, etc. They focus their attention on all of the exte al obstacles and use that as an excuse to avoid the focus on their inner spiritual life. “If only i could find the time and a quiet place, i would meditate every day.” We hear this refrain repeated in one form or another regularly.

Sri Aurobindo describes three conditions that can derail the practice of integral yoga. Each of the three represent a form of weakness of the vital nature. The normal vital nature craves excitement and seeks new experiences all the time. The transformation of human nature, however, involves efforts that may seem endless and repetitive as the habits and embedded ‘grooves’ in the being are not changed quickly.

As each stage of the evolution of consciousness develops, it brings a greater power of knowledge and action than the prior stage. Inevitably, there is an impact on those prior stages. Life effectuated changes in Matter. Mind effectuates changes in Life and Matter. Although the power is not absolute, and there is an interchange, a conservative resistance to transformational change, eventually the new power has its impacts.

Sri Aurobindo makes several essential points here that bear some reflection. First, the need for strength in all the parts of the being. Until it actually begins to happen to an individual, he has no idea about the power of the Divine Force descending into the being and what impact it has on the mind, the vital being and the body. There are warnings in some of the traditional yogic paths about the potential imbalances that can occur when the yogic power awakens in an individual who is not properly prepared.

Much of the historical context of spirituality has been centered around the idea of individual realisation and liberation. The disciplines, practices and methods have been geared towards the individual achieving some form of release from what is recognised to be the ‘illusion’ of the exte al world around us and the chasing after transitory rewards to be acquired in that exte al world, in the form of wealth, prestige, fame, power, physical, vital or mental satisfactions or gratifications, etc.

With its focus on transformation of body, life and mind through the descent, development and expression of the next term in the evolution of consciousness, the integral yoga sets a different aim than other paths of yoga, which tend to focus on individual liberation, salvation or transcendence.

The human mind is always at work, trying to figure out what life is all about, where we came from, why we are here, what we are to do, what lies in the future. We have developed a countless number of ideas, philosophies, religious concepts, and we become adherents to those that make sense to our minds. In many cases, we then wield our various ideas, philosophies and religious dogmas against each other and create division, separation and warfare.

When the body experiences an influx of energy, for whatever source, it frequently finds that it cannot ‘hold’ that energy and must find a release for it. This may be expressed as some form of twitching or moving of the limbs, nervous drumming with the fingers, uncontrolled activity of the facial muscles or an urge to get up and ‘do’ something, or in some cases, expression of an ecstatic dancing.

In his epic poem Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol, Sri Aurobindo states: “God shall grow up while the wise men talk and sleep.” Until an individual has an actual experience of an inward state of consciousness, or that of the silent mind, or one in which the experience is that of an uninvolved witness, or one experiences the descent of knowledge, or power or ecstatic bliss that goes outside the bounds of the normal human experience, he cannot truly understand what is meant by these descriptive terms.

The human instrument is essentially a receiver. Through the various energy centres, vibrational patterns are picked up. Most of what is received is not consciously attended to, but it has its subtle impact. The human being is able to respond to a limited range of vibrations on the electro-magnetic spectrum. Vibrations above and vibrations below our normal range of response are active but we do not consciously attend to them and their impact is relatively minor if they cannot set up a corresponding vibratory pattern through any of our energy centres.

The vital nature seeks ‘experiences’. These experiences are something special that sets the individual apart. In most cases, these experiences come as signposts along the way to motivate the seeker and guide. But the vital ego latches on to them and desires them to repeat as well as have new ever more meaningful experiences. This sets up a pattern of vital desire and, when they do not come, potential frustration and doubt.

Under normal conditions, we are pushed from one reaction to another by exte al impulsions and our trained responses to circumstances. There is very little chance, therefore, to inject a higher divine power directly into the life-action. Sri Aurobindo outlines the conditions that help the individual shift away from this chaotic reaction that constitutes our normal lives, to an approach that opens the seeker up to these higher powers.

Human beings have struggled in their attempts to make changes to human nature throughout human history. Many approaches have been tried, including adopting tough disciplines, isolating oneself from society to avoid the impulses and temptations, as well as harsh tortures to which the body has been subjected to try to 'whip it into shape', so to speak.

Western psychology has begun to explore the levels and ‘realms’ of mind. This study has been going on for many hundreds, if not thousands, of years in India, where the psychological framework of ‘inner space’ has been a key focus of yogic psychology. Western study started with the mental powers and then began to explore the connection ot less conscious levels, such as the subconscious and (what Jung called the “collective unconscious) and their influence on our waking minds and responses to circumstances and events.

Bring the mind to a state of quiescence is essential for the practice of meditation. Once an individual is able to achieve this state during meditation, it is a next step to carry that silent mind into the exte al life. People frequently ask how it is possible to have a silent nind at any time or under any circumstances. They are used to looking at the mind as a factory of thoughts and believe that the thoughts are created and disseminated from there.

A strong mental consciousness and will may aid the individual in determining a way forward, but they are not the powers that can eventually succeed in the yogic process. If we view the yoga of Nature, we find that as a new power emerges, it brings with it unique, new ways of dealing with the need of the time and the evolutionary process as it takes shape at that moment.

In Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol, Sri Aurobindo poses the question: ‘How shall he cure the ills he never felt’, in reference to the world redeemer’s task. There is a truth here that impacts every disciple and devotee of the integral yoga. Sri Aurobnido has set the objective as the transformation of all of human nature through the descent and integration of the next stage of evolution beyond the mental level.

Normally the mind is something of a chaotic marketplace. Sensations come in, feelings, emotions, ideas, all kinds of distractions arise and the mind reacts and follows them willy-nilly until the next impulse moves it in another direction. The past arises as we review things that have occurred to us and ruminate over what that means. In some cases, we obsess over something someone has said or done and we repeat thoughts over and over again. The future enters our minds as we focus on something we would like to do, intend to do, or on some possible outcome that we fear or hope for.

There is a considerable amount of confusion about objectives and methods related to the practice of the integral yoga, primarily due to widely spread ideas about spirituality in general and well-known paths and disciplines that have their own fixed methodologies. Integral Yoga has a different objective from traditional spiritual paths, as the goal is not to escape from life but to bring down the next stage of evolutionary expression of consciousness, and thereby to transform the actions of mind, life and body and the relationship to the exte al world within which we live.

The ego-consciousness is deeply embedded in each human individual, through the evolutionary process that created the ego as a mechanism for individuation and self-awareness, as the mental phase of this process took shape over long periods of time. The ego provided a needed framework to allow quite individual progress and development separated from the more collective expressions found in animal life.

From the time of our birth we are directed and focused on the exte al 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.

In his book, The Mother, Sri Aurobindo distinguishes between the needed attitude of surrender to the Divine and what he terms a 'tamasic surrender'. "Note that a tamasic surrender refusing to fulfil the conditions and calling on God to do everything and save one all the trouble and struggle is a deception and does not lead to freedom and perfection."

The spiritual seeker starts out from the standpoint of the human individual, the ego-consciousness. The process of spiritual development involves a systematic shift of the standpoint to the divine standpoint. This process does not occur ove ight, and does not proceed ‘automatically’ but requires some effort on the part of the individual. Without this effort, the human nature remains essentially unchanged, locked into the ego-personality and unable to fully integrate the higher powers of conscousness.

Most people act under the impulsion of their vital desires, physical wants, and mental opinions, which are colored by the society within which an individual lives and its established norms and expectations.

Particularly when we are predominantly seated in our mental consciousness, we tend to believe that 'knowing' something with our minds represents 'knowing' it in its reality. We gain what may be called the arrogance of the mental consciousness. We soon learn, however, that mental knowledge is not equivalent to actual practical experience.

A constant conce for spiritual aspirants is to distinguish the divine Will from their own ego-personality’s desires or ambitions. The vital nature has the uncanny ability to convince the mind that what it desires is actually something that can and should be justified, and once the mind adheres to it, the individual spends his time fulfilling the desires of the vital nature while feeling that he is carrying out the divine Will. In some cases, this reaches such an extreme state that the individual is able to justify all manner of harm to others as the fulfillment of a divine mission.

Historically, much of the spiritual focus has been directed towards seeing through the illusory nature of the exte al reality and shifting the awareness to a pure spiritual consciousness that is not involved in that exte al reality.

It is relatively easy to recognise that we are putting up a false front in our dealings with society. We greet people with a smile while in our minds, we may be having an opposite feeling about the person. We flatter people to get ahead in society, knowing that the flattery is not based on reality, but is meant to gain a certain position or end result. Similarly we mask our own feelings, intentions and thoughts in order to appear more successful, more important and more powerful than we really are.

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We are wrapped up in the ego-consciousness from the moment we take birth. The entire societal structure, as well as the weight of millennia of evolutionary development to create an entity that could develop the powers of the vital and mental being as a self-aware and seemingly independent being, works to build up the ego consciousness.

Obsessing about failures, weaknesses, lapses, and obstructions can turn into a full-time occupation! All of human nature has to be taken up and modified, transformed or outright rejected for the next evolutionary manifestation to fully take up its role in the life of the planet.

Spiritual seekers throughout the ages have been confronted with internal anguish about whether they actually have the capacity and ability to succeed in their spiritual endeavour. They go through periods of enthusiasm and joy as they feel the spiritual force working in them, bringing them insights, spiritual experiences and what appears to be progress. When these periods are abated for some time, they may be subject to doubt, despair or depression as they feel they may be unfit.

Everything we experience is sensed or felt by some developed capacity or part of the being. Vibrations that occur within the ranges of the electro-magnetic spectrum that human beings can perceive are identified as light, colors, sound, etc. We have senses of taste, touch and smell, similarly tuned to specific ranges of perception. The sensation occurs, the vibration moves through the nerve channels to the appropriate location in our being and is then interpreted, so that we say that we can see, taste, touch, hear or smell something. There are additional senses that work more subtly.

As one begins the actual practice of yoga, one becomes aware of the various forms of difficulties in gaining the cooperation of and control over the various parts of our internal being. The mind races when we try to sit for meditation. We become aware of desires and compulsions that formerly were hidden to our view. The physical body presents its difficulties and limitations. We are faced with a complex and interdependent web of powers and parts of the being which are not all in harmony with the central aspiration that is driving the practice.”

Failure turns out to be the stepping stone to success. We tend to become obsessed with being ‘perfect’ in the spiritual sadhana. We identify things we should be thinking, things we should be doing, ways we should be acting and responding to situations, and create for ourselves a set of rules or guidelines that we believe act as the markers of our success in the sadhana.

It is a somewhat natural tendency in human nature to blame others, or circumstances, or fate, when obstacles arise. We tend to bemoan how ‘unfair’ life can be. We see conspiracies and power structures that are preventing us from accomplishing what it is that we believe we are meant to accomplish. Few people look at what happens in their lives, and in their inner struggles, as a window to their own condition. The idea that the obstacle is within us, not something exte al, does not easily find favor in anyone’s mind.

When we reflect on the action of the Divine Force, and its ability to impact the individual and transform aspects of his life, we are frequently met with the skepticism of those who do not have the experience. How can one explain colors to a person who is blind from birth? How can music be explained to someone who is deaf? In the evolutionary progression, beings can only respond to forces, vibrations and beings they can experience within their own level of receptivity.

As long as we base ourselves in the individual personal identity, what we term the ‘ego-consciousness’ we are subject to mistakes, failures, indiscretions, and other situations where we do not meet our own internal concept of what we ‘should’ do. Most of this is based on the background and training we have received in our society, and the expectations that are put upon us by that societal setting.

Every path of Yoga has its own methodologies and expected results, just as every discipline or focus in the exte al activities have their own methodologies and expected results. An individual can train for sports, for proficiency in a particular science, or even for learning skills in social interactions. Most people undertake these actions with a specific desire or ambition, a goal they want to achieve, a form of success they want to have in their lives.

In a brief compass, Sri Aurobindo outlines the attitude to be assumed and the nature of the work to be done to prepare the being for the consummation of the path of the integral Yoga. Sri Aurobindo writes: "Get the psychic being in front and keep it there, putting its power on the mind, vital and physical, so that it shall communicate to them its force of single-minded aspiration, trust, faith, surrender, direct and immediate detection of whatever is wrong in the nature and turned towards ego and error, away from Light and Truth."

There are many things in the world that we cannot directly observe with our senses, yet which we otherwise believe to be real, based on the noticeable and palpable effects they have. We cannot ‘see’ gravity, but we feel its effects. Similarly, we cannot ‘see’ electricity, but we not only can experience the effects, but we have learned how to channel it, amplify it and reduce its force to manageable levels for our intended uses. Radioactivity similarly is unseen but able to be measured and its effects recognised in the changes that occur within the individual subjected to it.

The spiritual seeker, starting from the ego-consciousness, wants to identify progress and success in the sadhana. The operation of the 3 Gunas, the qualities of Nature, impact the seeker’s view and orientation towards the process. There is a distinct difference between a psychic aspiration and the consequent receptivity and acceptance of what the Divine Grace brings to the seeker, and the working of any form of vital desire or ambition. Desire and ambition arise primarily through the operation of Rajas.

In his application of yoga as applied psychology, Sri Aurobindo identifies a number of different planes and parts of the being that make up the human individual. There are various levels of mind, vital being and physical being. Each level carries out specific types of functions and responds to specific vibrational patterns and is generally activated through the energy that flows through one of the subtle energy centers, or chakras.

In his book The Mother, Sri Aurobindo provides a detailed roadmap for understanding the relatively simple idea that one must have the ‘will to overcome all attachments’, etc. In order to do this, we need to be able to appreciate what is meant by ‘attachments’. Most people would associate this with exte al things or with exte al relationships, and they of course need to be looked at.

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The Rig Veda has a large number of hymns to Agni, the mystic fire. Sri Aurobindo translated and commented on the hymns to Agni in his book, Hymns to the Mystic Fire. The importance of the mystic fire, which we may call the flame of aspiration for the spiritual seeker is evidenced by both the number of hymns appearing in the Rig Veda, as well as the fact that the very first hymn is dedicated to Agni. This first hymn sets the tone of the spiritual seer’s devotion to the development of this flame of aspiration as the basis for spiritual sadhana.

The seeker gets glimpses of spiritual opening, experiences of a vastness and a deep silence when the mind falls utterly still. He may get a vision of forces and powers that act in the world and in himself. He may get the sense that he is crossing a threshold into a space where he no longer exists as a distinct individual, but as a part of something infinitely larger and more complex than his own individuality can encompass. He may experience a power that is entering his being and he may feel the electricity of that force coursing through his entire being.

When the seeker takes up the path of yoga and surrender of the ego-consciousness to the Divine, he identifies himself with the psychic being, the soul entity, in his being and makes the offering from that part of his being. What is frequently not recognised however is that the human being is made up of numerous different parts or planes of action that represent the various evolved forces that have developed this complex interaction which we identify as ourselves.

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