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Awareness and True Discrimination of Forces Are Essential for the Spiritual Seeker to Avoid Distractions and Deviations from the Path · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  When a spiritual seeker begins to appreciate the forces at work
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  in the world that try to influence and manipulate his
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  behaviour, one of the first reactions tends to be to try to
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  close oneself off, wall oneself off, not take cognizance of
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  these forces. This is the power of the
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  anchorite meditating in The Cave, the forest or the desert,
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  or the monk or devotee residing in the monastery, ashram, Abbey
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  or cloister. The removal of potential
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  distractions can indeed be a powerful aid to protect the
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  seeker at certain stages. At the same time, there are
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  innumerable examples of someone who has lived an isolated or
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  secluded life, who then is confronted with the forces of
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  the external world and life force, and who does not have the
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  experience or needed powers to avoid being entrapped and
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  overcome, at least temporarily, by those forces.
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  Even for those who are focused on their spiritual development
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  and not directly confronted with the many forces at work in the
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  world, there are pressures and experiences that clothe
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  themselves in mimicry. Thus there is a need for careful
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  observation and discrimination of what forces 1 accepts and
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  acts upon. Before acting, one can refer the
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  force, suggestion or pressure to the psychic being and evaluate
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  if it matches with the aspiration or if it carries with
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  it, for instance, an energy of the external vital nature and
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  fulfilment of its desires. One can also look at the feeling
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  one gets from any proximity to that force.
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  As the saying goes, all the glitters is not gold, and that
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  goes for spiritual experiences as well as in the worldly life.
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  Motivation, the energy being provoked and excited, the
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  direction of the force in relation to the deeper spiritual
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  aspiration are all necessary factors in determining whether
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  to allow a particular light, force or movement to enter into
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  and impact one's consciousness and actions, Sriorobindo writes
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  quote. It is one thing to see things
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  and quite another to let them enter into you.
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  One has to experience many things to see and observe, to
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  bring them into the field of the consciousness and know what they
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  are. But there is no reason why you
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  should allow them to enter into you and possess you.
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  It is only the Divine or what comes from the divine that can
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  be admitted to enter you. To say that all light is good is
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  as if you said that all water is good, or even that all clear or
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  transparent water is good. It would not be true.
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  One must see what is the nature of the light or where it comes
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  from or what is in it before 1 can say that it is the true
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  light. False lights exist and
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  misleading lusters lower lights too that belong to the being's
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  inferior reaches. One must therefore be on one's
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  guard and distinguish the true. Discrimination has to come by
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  growth of the psychic feeling and a purified mind and
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  experience. End Quote.
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  Reference. Sriorovindo, Bases of Yoga,
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  Chapter 3 in difficulty, page 53.