Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / The Total Change of the Nature Cannot Be Done in a Day

Transcript

The Total Change of the Nature Cannot Be Done in a Day · Sri Aurobindo Studies

• 0:00
  Modern life moves at high speed. We expect things to take place
• 0:05
  virtually instantaneously. As a result, we judge things in
• 0:10
  the light of the time it takes to accomplish them.
• 0:14
  If we have to expend an effort, we hope and expect that we will
• 0:17
  immediately begin to see palpable results.
• 0:21
  We want an easy button or an enlightenment pill, something
• 0:26
  that will accomplish the goal quickly and without a lot of
• 0:30
  stress. This expectation colours the way
• 0:34
  we take up the yoga in modern era.
• 0:38
  Stories of past yogic aspirants tell of long apprenticeships,
• 0:42
  difficult and time consuming tasks that had to be performed
• 0:46
  and dedication that survive periods of doubt, hesitation and
• 0:53
  even despair. A new recognition has developed
• 0:57
  that even in the practice of yoga, the play of the three
• 1:00
  gunas of nature, sattva, rajas and tamas continues.
• 1:05
  As long as we identify with the external ego personality and see
• 1:10
  ourselves as separate and drivers of our own progress, we
• 1:15
  are subject to the impulsions of the gunas, including, when
• 1:19
  Thomas is predominant, feelings of weakness, weariness,
• 1:24
  darkness, inadequacy, failure, and incapacity.
• 1:30
  The systematic development of the witness consciousness, which
• 1:34
  by definition separates the awareness from identification
• 1:38
  with the ego personality, is a key mechanism to help the seeker
• 1:44
  to recognize the patterns of the three gunas and their impacts on
• 1:48
  the thoughts, feelings and actions of the external being.
• 1:55
  The recognition that the development of human nature,
• 1:58
  including the evolution and manifestation of the capacities
• 2:01
  of the mind, took place over 10s or even hundreds of thousands of
• 2:06
  years preceding even the emergence of true human beings
• 2:11
  from their genetic ancestry represents a way to put the
• 2:15
  current efforts into a realistic time frame.
• 2:18
  Patience and persistence become then the watchwords for the
• 2:22
  changes which cannot be expected to completely overturn many
• 2:27
  millennia of habits and patterns of action in the short space of
• 2:33
  a single human lifetime. None of this can be done through
• 2:37
  individual human effort, which is to a great degree a figment
• 2:42
  built up by the external ego. The change that is taking place
• 2:47
  is the manifestation of the divine action in the Creation,
• 2:52
  and the individual is a potential Nexus and operative
• 2:55
  point of receptivity and expression of that action.
• 3:00
  Navigating between the starting point of the human ego and the
• 3:05
  shift to the divine standpoint can be aided tremendously by the
• 3:09
  psychic transformation, which focuses on aspiration and
• 3:15
  consecration, and by reliance on the guide or guru who has
• 3:20
  experience along the path, Sri Ravinda writes quote not to be
• 3:27
  disturbed, to remain quiet and confident is the right attitude,
• 3:34
  but it is necessary also to receive the help of the Mother
• 3:38
  and not to stand back for any reason from Her solicitude. 1
• 3:43
  ought not to indulge ideas of incapacity, inability to
• 3:47
  respond, dwelling too much on defects and failures, and
• 3:52
  allowing the mind to be in pain and shame on their account, for
• 3:57
  these ideas and feelings become in the end weakening things.
• 4:02
  If there are difficulties, stumblings or failures, one has
• 4:08
  to look at them quietly and call in tranquilly and persistently
• 4:12
  the divine help for their removal, but not to allow
• 4:16
  oneself to be upset or pained or discouraged.
• 4:21
  Yoga is not an easy path and the total change of the nature
• 4:27
  cannot be done in a day. End Quote reference.
• 4:33
  Sri Aravindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 1, Calm, Peace and
• 4:38
  Equality, pages 18 to 19.