In
Difficulty
Page-1
There
are always difficulties and a hampered progress in the early
stages and a delay in the opening of the inner doors until
the being is ready. If you feel whenever you meditate the
quiescence and the flashes of the inner Light and if the
inward urge is growing so strong that the external hold
is decreasing and the vital disturbances are losing their
force, that is already a great progress. The road of the
Yoga is long, every inch of ground has to be won against
much resistance and no quality is more needed by the sadhak
than patience and single-minded perseverance with a faith
that remains firm through all difficulties, delays and apparent
failures.
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Sri Aurobindo
These
obstacles are usual in the first stages of the sadhana.
They are due to the nature being not yet sufficiently receptive.
You should find out where the obstacle is, in the mind or
the vital, and try to widen the consciousness there, call
in more purity and peace and in that purity and peace offer
that part of your being sincerely and wholly to the Divine
Power.
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Sri Aurobindo
Each
part of the nature wants to go on with its old movements
and refuses, so far as it can, to admit a radical change
and progress, because that would subject it to something
higher than itself and deprive it of its sovereignty in
its own field, its separate empire. It is this that makes
transformation so long and difficult a process.
Mind
gets dulled because at its lower basis is the physical mind
with its principle of tamas or inertia—for in matter
inertia is the fundamental principle. A constant or long
continuity of higher experiences produces in this part of
mind a sense of exhaustion or reaction of unease or dullness.
Trance or samädhi is a way of escape—the
body is made quiet, the physical mind is in a state of torpor,
the inner consciousness is left free to go on with its experiences.
The disadvantage is that trance becomes indispensable and
the problem of the waking consciousness is not solved; it
remains imperfect.
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Sri Aurobindo
If
the difficulty in mediation is that thoughts of all kinds
come in, that is not due to hostile forces but to the ordinary
nature of the human mind. All sadhaks have this difficulty
and with many it lasts for a very long time. There are several
ways of getting rid of it. One of them is to look at the thoughts
and observe what is the nature of the human mind as they show
it but not to give any sanction and to let them run down till
they come to a standstill—this a way recommended by Vivekananda
in his Rajayoga. Another is to look at the thoughts as not
one’s own, to stand back as the witness Purusha and refuse
the sanction—the thoughts are regarded as things coming
from outside, from Prakriti, and they must be felt as if they
were passers-by crossing the mind space with whom one has
no connection and in whom one takes no interests. In this
way it usually happens that after a time the mind divides
into two, a part which is the mental witness watching and
perfectly undisturbed and quiet and a part which is the object
of observation, the Prakriti part in which the thoughts cross
or wander. Afterwards one can proceed to silence or quiet
the Prakriti part also. There is a third, an active method
by which one looks to see where the thoughts come from and
finds they come not from oneself, but from outside the head
as it were; if one can detect them coming, then, before they
enter, they have to be thrown away altogether. This is perhaps
the most difficult way and not all can do it, but if it can
be done it is the shortest and most powerful road to silence.
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Sri Aurobindo
It
is necessary to observe and know the wrong movements in you;
for they are the source of your trouble and have to be persistently
rejected if you are to be free.
But
do not be always thinking of your defects and wrong movements.
Concentrate more upon what you are to be, on the ideal with
the faith that, since it is the goal before you, it must and
will come.
To
be always observing faults and wrong movements brings depression
and discourages the faith. Turn your eyes more to the coming
light and less to any immediate darkness. Faith, cheerfulness,
confidence in the ultimate victory are the things that help,—they
make the progress easier and swifter.
Make
more of the good experiences that come to you; one experience
of the kind is more important than the lapses and failures.
When it ceases, do not repine or allow yourself to be discouraged,
but be quiet within and aspire for its renewal in a stronger
form leading to still deeper and fuller experience.
Aspire
always, but with more quietude, opening yourself to the Divine
simply and wholly.
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Sri Aurobindo
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