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Achieving Confidence About the Spiritual Path and the Spiritual Destiny · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  When we see things from the viewpoint of our ego
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  personality, with our limited lifespan and our insecurities
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  based on the limitations of our knowledge and power, we
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  frequently experience bouts of anxiety, or at least uncertainty
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  about the reality of what we are doing, about the truth of the
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  spiritual path, and about our ability to face all the
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  obstacles and overcome them to obtain the objective we have set
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  before ourselves. The magnitude of the task, the
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  attempt to change human nature through the development of a
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  new, higher formation of consciousness, is overwhelming
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  to the individual, who can feel very small when confronted with
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  the vast expanse of time and space and the forces that are at
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  work to shape the universal manifestation, including all of
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  the complexity of life on our planet.
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  At some point, just about everyone taking up the spiritual
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  path will suffer from a crisis of confidence, particularly if
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  they feel like everything is dark and the experiences which
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  had fueled the initial enthusiasm have retreated and
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  one is faced with the phenomenon called the Dark Night of the
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  Soul. To become serene and confident
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  in the spiritual path, we can either try to retreat into some
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  rigid dogma and refuse to let in other perceptions, thoughts, or
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  ideas, which is the way in which many, including religious
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  zealots, try to reduce the complexity and uncertainty of
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  existence. Or else we need to gain not just
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  an intellectual understanding of the reality of our universal
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  existence, but of faith-based on our deeper psychic sense, the
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  knowledge of the soul, or based on experiential confirmation of
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  our intellectual viewpoint. The path of zealotry has serious
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  limitations, as it tends to block out much of the reality
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  with an attempt to shape inconvenient facts or new forms
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  of knowledge into preconceived formulations.
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  Frequently this approach becomes harsh and narrow, judgmental and
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  concerned more with adherence to a set form of understanding than
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  to an openness that embraces the wideness and complexity of
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  existence. Once an individual has the
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  experience of a shift of consciousness to what we may
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  call the Divine standpoint, even briefly, it becomes possible for
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  that person to recognize, in a very real sense, that true
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  confidence does not reside in the ego or the ego personality,
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  but in the Divine reality existing independent of the ego
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  that transcends it both in time and space, and which has its own
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  significance, purpose and direction in the manifestation.
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  As one begins to identify with this wider view, it becomes
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  easier to maintain confidence in spite of the setbacks, obstacles
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  or difficulties that are faced by the human being during his
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  short lifetime. What does any human failing
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  signify when looked at over the course of billions of years or
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  even just millennia, over the span of millions of galaxies in
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  the universe, or over the time frames that are needed just to
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  achieve a next stage of evolution on our planet?
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  To the extent the seeker can shift his identification to the
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  divine standpoint, he can go forward with an absolute
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  confidence that the spiritual destiny will be fulfilled in its
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  own way, in its own time, and with its own methods, the Mother
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  observes. Quote The best way of meeting
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  difficulties is a quiet and calm confidence in the grace.
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  Keep faith and confidence and remain cheerful.
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  Be confident. You will become what you have to
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  be and achieve what you have to do. 1 must have entire
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  confidence in the victory of the Divine, and this general victory
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  will include in itself the personal victory of all who have
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  remained faithful and confident. With confidence we shall
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  advance. With certitude we shall wait and
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  quote. Reference Sri Aurobindo and the
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  Mother looking from within, Chapter 5.
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  Attitudes on the Path, pages 127 to 128.