Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / Unflagging Perseverance and Persistence Is Required for the Practice of the Integral Yoga

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Unflagging Perseverance and Persistence Is Required for the Practice of the Integral Yoga · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Athletes undergo extensive training routines, logging many
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  thousands of hours with in many cases tough physical
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  conditioning and practice in order to achieve their goals for
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  physical development and to be able to participate in a
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  competitive sporting event. Many who are not athletes
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  undertake training routines to modify their physical strength
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  or endurance. Actors in many cases have to
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  take serious programs to prepare for a particularly demanding
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  role that requires physical toning, strengthening or
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  conditioning of their bodies. In each case, the individual
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  does not achieve the desired result overnight, but has to
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  undergo, in some cases, daily training that can go on for
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  weeks, months, or years. To maintain the conditioning
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  requires ongoing regular support of activity.
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  Similarly, great artists have to hone their craft just as do
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  great scientists, mathematicians, or others who
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  develop powers of the vital being or the mind.
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  Some of the individuals who start on these paths give up due
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  to the strenuous nature of what they are called to do, as in
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  some cases the training and focus consumes their lives and
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  leaves them little freedom to explore other aspects of life.
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  If they find it too difficult and give up, they simply move on
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  into other areas of life and leave the dreams behind, for the
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  spiritual secret is not different.
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  Some people have the notion that taking up spirituality means
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  some kind of escape from the rigors and circumstances that
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  they have to face. Yet anyone who has tried to
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  achieve a quiet mind in meditation or who has attempted
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  to change some element of his physical, vital or mental being
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  soon finds out that it is not as easy as was imagined.
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  For those who took up a spiritual life out of a sense of
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  defeat and to avoid facing the difficulties of the external
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  life, there are constant setbacks and some of these
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  individuals, finding it too difficult, give up and go back
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  to some less trying outer life activity.
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  Others recognize that while they may have sought an escape, there
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  is no escape and they simply find a way to accept the trials
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  and continue to push forward. When we observe the hundreds of
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  millions of years that life on earth has had to develop fixed
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  habits and instinctive behaviour, it becomes clear why
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  it may take some time and constant persevering efforts to
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  effectuate a change. In fact, the individual setbacks
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  are simply steps along the way as the seeker works out the
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  necessary means to uplift some aspect of human nature.
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  This involves a focus as intense, if not more intense
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  than anything that an athlete or some other individual striving
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  to succeed in the external world has to face, as one is then up
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  against millions of years of habitual patterns that have to
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  be deconstructed and modified, the mother writes.
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  Quote, If you are not able to face difficulties without
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  getting discouraged and without giving up because it is too
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  difficult, and if you are incapable well of receiving
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  blows and yet continuing of pocketing them, as they say,
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  when you receive blows as a result of your defects, of
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  putting them in your pocket and continuing to go forward without
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  flagging, you don't go very far at the first turning, where you
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  lose sight of your little habitual life, you fall into
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  despair and give up the game the most.
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  How shall I put it? The most material form of this
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  quality of endurance is perseverance.
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  Unless you are resolved to begin the same thing over again 1000
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  times, if need be. You know, people come to me in
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  despair, but I thought it was done, and now I must begin
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  again. And if they are told, but that's
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  nothing, you will probably have to begin again 100 times, 200 *
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  1000 times. You take one step forward and
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  think you are secure, but there will always be something to
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  bring back the same difficulty a little farther on.
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  You think you have solved the problem, you must solve it yet
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  once again it will turn up again, looking just a little
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  different, but it will be the same problem.
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  And if you are not determined that even if it comes back a
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  million times, I shall do it a million times, but I shall go
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  through with it, well, you won't be able to do the yoga.
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  This is absolutely indispensable.
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  People have a beautiful experience and say, ah, now this
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  is it. And then it settles down,
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  diminishes, gets veiled, and suddenly something quite
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  unexpected, absolutely commonplace and apparently
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  completely uninteresting, comes before you and blocks your way.
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  And then you say, ah, what's the good of having made this
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  progress if it's going to start all over again?
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  Why should I do it? I made an effort, I succeeded,
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  achieved something, and it's as if I had done nothing.
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  It's indeed hopeless, for you have no endurance.
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  If one has endurance, one says it's all right, good.
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  I shall begin again as often as necessary, 1000 * 10,000 *
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  100,000 times. If necessary, I shall begin
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  again, but I shall go to the end, and nothing will have the
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  power to stop me on the way. End Quote Reference Srioro Bindu
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  and the Mother Looking from Within, Chapter 5, Attitudes on
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  the Path, pages 138 to 139.