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Spiritual Awakening: Moving Away from Disillusionment to Finding Meaning in Life · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  As we grow and experience life, there may come a time when we
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  become disillusioned. We may feel like there is no
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  meaning or significance to what we do.
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  We feel like we are running in a hamster wheel or on a treadmill,
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  always striving to earn money to survive and maybe have a bit of
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  enjoyment. We experience empty enjoyments
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  and superficial relationships. We wind up asking why.
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  This can be a real turning point for an individual who is ready
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  for taking up the spiritual life.
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  A feeling of throwing it all away and escaping rises up.
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  We call these feelings many things.
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  We may call it nausea, as the existentialists have been prone
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  to do. We may call it midlife crisis,
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  or postpartum depression, or any number of things that represent
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  a change in our feelings and emotions away from the external
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  life we've been living. We may call it teenage
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  rebellion, as the young person looks at the life path in front
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  of him and does not accept that this is really what life is all
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  about. We may not know why, we may not
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  have any sense of what we want to do or how we can simply
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  change our lives, but we know that we have to do something.
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  While this feeling, this experience can help us to
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  recognize that there is something different, something
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  deeper, something meaningful about our lives, it cannot of
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  itself be the basis for a long term transformation that would
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  amount to a falling into a state of depression, a temasek
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  rejection of the life without a new purpose arising.
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  Wallowing in this state may lead to alcohol, drugs, depression, a
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  life of dissipation, and even to thoughts of suicide or self harm
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  in some way or another. When we look at individuals who
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  have returned from a near death experience, we frequently hear
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  that they have found a new meaning, a new understanding, a
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  new mission that drives them forward.
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  A similar turning toward a deeper reflection can lead
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  people to a search for meaning in religion, in philosophy, in
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  spiritual practices. And as they deepen their
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  practice, they begin to sense that there is in fact a deeper
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  purpose, and that their life has a meaning, and it is worth
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  living to realize that. Some find this as a foundation
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  of solace. Some experience a positive sense
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  of joy when they open up to the new vision that presents itself
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  to them once they move beyond the weariness and emptiness of
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  their external lives. The Buddha was a Prince who
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  lived a life of luxury in a sheltered environment.
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  With every desire met, he was surrounded with all that the
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  external life could offer. Eventually he found out that
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  this life was a life of illusion, and he rejected it,
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  understood the four noble truths of human life, and set off to
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  find a deeper realization. He successfully moved from
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  renunciation of the meaningless life of aristocratic luxury to a
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  deeply meaningful and personal experience of liberation and
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  spiritual truth, Triorrobindo writes.
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  Quote Certainly if one is satisfied with life, entranced
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  by it, so that it shuts out the sense of the soul within, or
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  hampers the attraction to the Divine, then a period of
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  viragya, sorrow, depression, a painful breaking of the vital
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  ties, may be necessary, and many go through that.
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  But once the turn is made, it should be to the One Direction,
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  and a perpetual viragia is not needed.
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  Nor, when we speak of cheerfulness as the best
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  condition, do we mean a cheerful following of the vital life, but
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  a cheerful following of the path to the Divine, which is not
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  impossible if the mind and heart take the right view and posture.
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  At any rate, if positive cheerfulness is not possible in
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  one's case, still one should not acquiesce in or mentally support
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  a constant depression and sadness.
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  End Quote. Reference Sri Orobindo and the
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  Mother Looking from Within, Chapter 5.
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  Attitudes on the Path, page 141.