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Signs of Entering the Spiritual Path · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Most children focus on their need for food, emotional comfort
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  and play which is a means of gaining knowledge and power of
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  action for them. As they move into the later
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  stages of Life, they can get fixated on attaining.
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  Good grades in school. Making friends, hobbies and
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  sports. As they reach puberty thoughts
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  and focus, may turn to relations with the opposite sex along with
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  determining an academic or a career path.
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  Then comes generally a time in life when an individual may be
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  focused on Career a home, accumulation of wealth and
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  family. Life some wind up seeking after
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  power or influence, Some devote themselves to careers of
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  compassion in the fields of healing, or charitable work of
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  some sort. Some devote themselves to
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  science or religion, or learning various Advanced, disciplines
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  some focus on sensual enjoyment of the basic experiences of
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  life. This generally encompasses the
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  vast majority of individuals. As long as they are fixated on
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  these external matters of the body, the life and the mind,
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  they do not tend to pay attention to the larger context
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  within which they live. Their lives.
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  The purpose, the big picture so to speak as per the proverb,
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  they cannot see the forest for the trees.
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  At a certain point something may intervene and change the nature
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  and direction of their focus and attention.
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  It may be a peak experience of some sort.
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  It may be a tragedy that intervenes it may be a natural
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  and growing sense of dissatisfaction with the rewards
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  offered by the world for their actions, one way or the other.
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  They begin to recognize that all of these activities are
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  transitory and ephemeral. It is at this stage that
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  individuals begin to seek for and refocus their attention on
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  their spiritual path. A disciple asks, when can one
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  say that one is truly entered the spiritual path.
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  The mother answers, quote, the first sign, it is not the same
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  for everybody, but in a chronological order, I believe,
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  is that everything else appears to you?
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  Absolutely, without importance your entire life, all your
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  activities, all your movements continue if circumstances, so
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  arrange things. But they all seem to you utterly
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  unimportant. This is no longer the meaning of
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  your existence. Existence, I believe this is the
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  first sign. There may be another, for
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  example, the feeling that everything is different of
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  living differently of a light in the mind, which was not there
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  before of a piece in the heart, which was not there before, that
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  does make a change. But the positive change usually
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  comes later. Very rarely, does it come at
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  first, except in a Flash at the time of conversion.
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  When one has decided to take up the spiritual life, Sometimes it
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  begins like a great illumination, the Deep Joy
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  enters into you. But generally afterwards, this
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  goes into the background for there are too many imperfections
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  till persisting in. You, it is not discussed, it is
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  not contempt, but everything appears to you.
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  So uninteresting that it is truly not worth the trouble of
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  attending to it. For instance, when you are in
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  the midst of certain physical conditions, Pleasant or
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  unpleasant, the two extremes meet you say to yourself, it was
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  so important to me all that, but it has no importance at all.
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  You have the impression that you have truly turned over to the
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  other side and quote, reference SRI aurobindo, and the mother
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  growing within the psychology of inner development.
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  Chapter 2, Awakening of Consciousness Pages, 27 to 28,