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Dealing With Periods of Dissipation and Distraction in the Spiritual Sadhana · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Spiritual aspirants tend to have periods of concentration,
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  intense experiences, positive forward movement centered around
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  our deepest aspirations, only to find that after some time the
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  energy withdraws or they sink back into old habits or
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  comfortable patterns of the past.
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  They may look for activities that do not take serious
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  concentration and they act as distractions or which dissipate
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  the energy. In today's world, scrolling
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  social media or watching mindless video reels can be
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  added to traditional forms of distraction.
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  There is a truth behind this alternation between spiritual
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  focus and periods of dissipation.
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  The human instrument is not normally capable of sustained
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  concentration and focus over long periods of time.
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  Until the mind, the vital and the physical being have been
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  trained for endurance and provided with the core ability
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  to hold a focus, they will naturally back off from time to
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  time. These periods of apparent
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  retrogression may cause the seeker to experience feelings of
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  guilt or fear of incapacity, when in fact they are natural
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  periods of recovery and assimilation in the long and
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  arduous process of the spiritual sadhna and the transformation of
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  the nature. They also act as signs of where
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  effort can be fruitfully expended to create a new
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  development or expansion of the spiritual force.
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  They highlight immediate areas of restriction or weakness that
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  can become the spur towards a new leap forward.
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  Srioro Bindu observes quote an occasional sinking of the
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  consciousness. Happens to everybody.
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  The causes are various. Some touch from outside,
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  something not yet changed or not sufficiently changed in the
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  vital, especially the lower vital, some inertia or obscurity
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  rising up from the physical parts of the nature.
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  When it comes, remain quiet, open yourself to the Mother and
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  call back the true conditions and aspire for a clear and
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  undisturbed discrimination, showing you from within yourself
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  the cause of the thing that needs to be set right.
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  End Quote reference Sri Rabindra, Faces of Yoga, Chapter
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  3 in difficulty, page 49.