In
Difficulty
Page-3
The
existence of imperfections, even many and serious imperfections,
cannot be a permanent bar to progress in the Yoga.
(I do not speak of a recovery of the former opening, for
according to my experience, what comes after a period of
obstruction or struggle is usually a new and wider opening,
some larger consciousness and an advance on what had been
gained before and seems—but only seems—to be lost
for the moment) the only bar that can be permanent—but
need not be, for this too can change—is insincerity,
and this does not exist in you. If imperfections were a
bar, then no man can succeed in Yoga; for all are imperfect,
and I am not sure, from what I have seen, that it is not
those who have the greatest power for Yoga who have too,
very often, or have had the greatest imperfections. You
know, I suppose, the comment of Socrates on his own character;
that could be said by many a great Yogins of their own initial
human nature. In yoga the one thing that counts in the end
is sincerity and with it the patience to persist in the
path—many even without this patience go through, for
in spite of revolt, impatience, depression, despondency,
fatigue, temporary loss of faith, a force greater than one’s
outer self, the force of the Spirit, the drive of the soul’s
need, pushes them through the cloud and the mist to the
goal before them. Imperfections can be stumbling-blocks
and give one a bad fall for the moment, but not a permanent
bar. Obstructions due to some resistance in the nature can
be more serious causes of delay, but they do not last for
ever.
The
length of your period of dullness is also no sufficient
reason for losing belief in your capacity or your spiritual
destiny. I believe that alternations of bright and dark
periods are almost a universal experience of Yogins, and
the exceptions are very rare. If one inquiries into the
reason of this phenomenon,—very unpleasant to our impatient
human nature,—it will be found, I think, that they
are in the main two. The first is that the human consciousness
either cannot bear a constant descent of the Light or Power
or Ananda, or cannot at once receive and absorb it; it needs
periods of assimilation; but this assimilation goes on behind
the veil of the surface consciousness; the experience or
the realisation that has descended retires behind the veil
and leaves this outer or surface consciousness to lie fallow
and become ready for a new descent. In the more developed
stages of the Yoga these dark or dull periods become shorter,
less trying as well as uplifted by the sense of the greater
consciousness which, though not acting for immediate progress,
yet remains and sustains the outer nature. The second cause
is some resistance, something in the human nature that has
not felt the former descent, is not ready, is perhaps unwilling
to change,—often it is some strong habitual formation
of the mind or the vital or some temporary inertia of the
physical consciousness and not exactly a part of the nature,—and
this, whether showing or concealing itself, thrusts up the
obstacle. If one can detect the cause in oneself, acknowledge
it, see its workings and call down the Power for its removal,
then the periods of obscurity can be greatly shortened and
their acuity becomes less. But in any case the Divine Power
is working always behind and one day, perhaps when one least
expects it, the obstacle breaks, the clouds vanish and there
is again the light and the sunshine. The best thing in these
cases is, if one can manage it, not to fret, not to despond,
but to insist quietly and keep oneself open, spread to the
Light and waiting in faith for it to come; that I have found
shortens these ordeals. Afterwards, when the obstacle disappears,
one finds that a great progress has been made and that the
consciousness is far more capable of receiving and retaining
than before. There is a return for all the trials and ordeals
of the spiritual life.
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Sri Aurobindo
While
the recognition of the Divine Power and the attunement of
one’s own nature to it cannot be done without the recognition
of the imperfections in that nature, yet it is a wrong attitude
to put too much stress either on them or on the difficulties
they create, or to distrust the Divine working because of
the difficulties one experiences, or to lay too continual
an emphasis on the dark side of things. To do this increases
the force of the difficulties, gives a greater right of
continuance to the imperfections. I do not insist on a Coueistic
optimism—although excessive optimism is more helpful
than excessive pessimism; that (Coueism) tends to cover
up difficulties and there is, besides, always a measure
to be observed in things. But there is no danger of your
covering them up and deluding yourself with too bright an
outlook; quiet the contrary, you always lay stress too much
on the shadows and by so doing thicken them and obstruct
your outlets of escape into the Light. Faith, more faith!
Faith in your possibilities, faith in the Power that is
at work behind the veil, faith in the work that is to be
done and the offered guidance.
There
cannot be any high endeavour, least of all in the spiritual
field, which does not raise or encounter grave obstacles
of a very persistent character. These are both internal
and external, and, although in the large they are fundamentally
the same for all, there may be a great difference in the
distribution of their stress or the outward form they take.
But the one real difficulty is the attunement of the nature
with the working of the Divine Light and Power. Get that
solved and the others will either disappear or take a subordinate
place; and even with those difficulties that are of a more
general character, more lasting because they are inherent
in the work of transformation, they will not weigh so heavily
because the sense of the supporting Force and a greater
power to follow its movement will be there.
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Sri Aurobindo
The
entire oblivion of the experience means merely that there
is still no sufficient bridge between the inner consciousness
which has the experience in a kind of samadhi and the exterior
waking consciousness. It is when the higher consciousness
has made the bridge between them that the outer also begins
to remember.
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Sri Aurobindo
