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Changing Human Nature Rather Than Abandoning the External Life · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Our mental process tends to take us to extremes.
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  We want simple answers without a lot of nuance.
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  Thus, when we seek spiritual liberation, we tend to take the
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  concept of renunciation or rejection to mean that we
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  abandoned the external life to focus on our spiritual pursuits.
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  If our vital nature does not cooperate with this, we try to
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  suppress it, and if that does not succeed, we even try to
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  punish or torture our physical or vital being or create a sense
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  of anguish in our emotional or mental being.
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  There arises A considerable struggle as the human nature
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  tries to achieve its fulfillment, while our spiritual
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  seeking tries to cast it aside or even destroy it.
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  Sriorobindo takes a different approach to the matter.
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  The rejection needed is not a stifling of the human being in
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  all its parts, but rather a rejection of the deformations,
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  distortions, or bad habits developed across many millennia
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  of evolutionary history in order to create a harmonious,
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  energetic and unified focus for the life, guided and directed by
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  the psychic being and the spiritual consciousness in
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  harmony with the divine manifestation of which we are
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  apart. Adjusting and changing these
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  deeply embedded drives, cravings, desires, and habits of
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  reaction is not an easy task, nor one that is accomplished
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  quickly. Rather than cutting the knot of
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  human nature, the seeker is asked to untie the knot and
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  bring the nature in line with the deeper aspiration.
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  In his book The Mother, Sri Aurobindo describes the nature
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  of the rejection needed to accomplish the objective of
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  becoming a conscious instrument of the divine.
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  Quote. Rejection of the movements of
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  the lower nature. Rejection of the mind's ideas,
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  opinions, preferences, habits, constructions, so that the true
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  knowledge may find free form in a silent mind.
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  Rejection of the vital nature's desires, demands, cravings,
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  sensations, passions, selfishness, pride, arrogance,
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  lust, greed, jealousy, envy, hostility to the truth, so that
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  the true power and joy may pour from above into a calm, large,
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  strong and consecrated vital being.
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  Rejection of the physical nature.
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  Stupidity, doubt, disbelief, obscurity, obstinacy, pettiness,
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  laziness, unwillingness to change Thomas, so that the true
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  stability of light, power Ananda may establish itself in a body
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  growing always more divine. End Quote.
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  It is not easy. We have all, at one time or
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  another, tried to change an embedded habit.
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  Whether we have tried to lose weight through a diet, change
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  our eating preferences, develop a consistent exercise regimen,
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  undertake a serious course of study or personal development.
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  Or try to avoid the reactions that occur in various
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  circumstances that bring us to an instant expression of anger,
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  frustration, or fear, Or even change a habit of jumping to
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  conclusions. We're trying to judge others,
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  pressuring others to adopt one's own ideologies or convictions,
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  arguing. We're gossiping about others.
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  When we undertake to consciously bring about a change in some
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  area, we find that the work requires observation, patience,
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  and persistent efforts to 1st withdraw any positive sanction
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  for that response. And then to begin to guide the
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  nature to alternatives that more closely align with our
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  aspiration, Sriorwindo writes Quote.
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  Unfortunately, there is the resistance, a very obscure and
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  obstinate resistance that necessitates a negative element
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  in the yoga, an element of rejection of things that stand
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  in the way and of pressure upon those forms that are crude and
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  useless to disappear on those that are useful but imperfect or
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  have been perverted to retain or to recover their true movement
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  to the vital. This pressure is painful, first
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  because it is obscure and does not understand, and secondly
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  because there are parts of it that want to be left to their
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  crude motions and not to change. That is why the intervention of
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  a psychic attitude is so helpful, for the psychic has the
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  happy confidence, the ready understanding and response, the
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  spontaneous surrender. End Quote.
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  Reference. Srioro Bindu and the Mother.
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  Looking from Within, Chapter 5. Attitudes on the Path, page 152.