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Spiritual Development Can Occur Regardless of One's Activities in the World · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  From early childhood we are inculcated with the idea of
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  achieving success, becoming foremost and occupying a
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  position of power, prestige or wealth in the world.
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  Parents drum this idea into the mind of their children that they
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  need to study, attain degrees, choose suitable lucrative
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  careers, and marry well to occupy their role in society.
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  A hierarchy is established through this process that treats
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  certain types of careers as prestigious and rewarding and
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  others as low, demeaning, degrading, or somehow of lesser
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  value or importance. Even when the individual takes
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  up the spiritual quest, they have these habits still
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  ingrained in their psyche and wind up through the lens of
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  mental judgement based on them. Categorizing certain activities
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  is better, bigger, more important as compared to others.
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  This can take the form of a subtwick egoism if it is based
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  on the idea of mental or moral superiority, or a form of
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  rajasic egoism if it is based on a need to impose oneself upon
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  others and assert power and control, or even a temasek
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  egoism if it is simply allowing these past impressions to
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  control them without any reflection or thought involved
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  at all. This crops up in the form of
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  treating certain individuals who have been assigned jobs with
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  certain types of public activity or intellectual efforts or
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  management responsibility as more important and more
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  spiritually advanced than those who are set to carry out
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  assigned tasks or who do subordinate tasks for the person
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  having the most visible role and responsibility.
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  Similarly, in many societies, the role of women is treated as
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  a lesser position or value than the activities of the men.
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  In some cultures or religious backgrounds, this is extended to
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  a judgement about the spiritual potential or attainments, and
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  women are thereby excluded from leadership roles in those
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  groups. Clearly, spiritual development
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  is not tied to whether someone takes birth in a male or female
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  body or in any particular group, racial background, or other
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  purely external features of their current birth.
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  It is good to reflect on things that illustrate that everything
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  is based in oneness and the big jobs cannot succeed without the
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  small jobs being done. An intellectual immersed in
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  studies will not survive if there's not a farmer to grow the
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  food, a carrier to move the food, a market to stock the
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  food, and individuals to purchase and store and then
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  prepare the food. All of these smaller jobs are
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  essential to the success of the bigger job.
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  Similarly, scientists tell us that if the ants or the bees
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  were to be exterminated, our human life on this planet would
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  not be tenable. The outer work is not a
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  reflection of the inner spiritual development or
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  maturity. A person could be outwardly seen
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  as important, a head of state or ACEO of a major corporation, and
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  yet be quite immature spiritually.
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  While someone sweeping the dust out of a house may in fact be a
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  quite mature soul. The spiritual realization can
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  come through the path of knowledge, the path of power,
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  the path of interchange, love and devotion, and harmony, the
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  path of service. Each of these elements is
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  essential for the completeness of the creation, and over the
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  course of many lifetimes it is likely that a particular soul
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  has occupied various positions in the external hierarchy while
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  their soul gained the experience and maturity it sought from that
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  particular life experience. There are cases where
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  individuals with extensive academic or intellectual
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  attainments wind up taking on functions that build their
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  ability to serve, to support, to protect, to assist others, and
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  this requires them to undertake roles that are different than
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  their natural academic or intellectual pursuits.
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  These new functions do not take away from the development they
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  have in other fields, but actually may enrich their
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  understanding and their powers of action in the world by adding
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  entirely new areas of focus and capacity.
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  Srioro Bindo observes quote. Of course, the idea of bigness
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  and smallness is quite foreign to the spiritual truth.
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  Spiritually there is nothing big or small.
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  Such ideas are like those of the literary people who think
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  writing a poem is a high work and making shoes or cooking the
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  dinner is a small and low one. But all is equal in the eyes of
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  the spirit, and it is only the spirit within which it is done
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  that matters. It's the same with a particular
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  kind of work. There is nothing big or small.
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  End Quote reference Trioro, Window and the Mother looking
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  from within, Chapter 3 Action and Work, page 63.