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The Effective Power of the Yogic Process in the Life-Experience of the Practitioner · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Rare are those individuals who can take up a practice and not
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  see any result whatsoever, yet continue on with endless
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  patience and persistence. We look at the example of
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  Milarepa, the great Yogi of Tibet, who spent a number of
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  years doing hard labour at the behest of his guru Marpa, and
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  who was not granted any teachings.
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  Yet even Milarepa did not do this without a sense that there
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  were real powers and achievable results if he persevered.
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  His time learning and practicing the magic arts showed him the
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  powers available and their real and tangible results.
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  Who could endure the dark night of the soul if he had not
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  previously had experiences that showed him the light, the power,
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  the peace of the spiritual experience?
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  Most people who take up yoga seriously actually do so after
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  some kind of experience of an opening.
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  Danny and Brinkley, struck by lightning, was pronounced dead
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  and came back to life with a vision, a knowledge and a
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  mission. The real and lasting impact of
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  the practice he took up afterwards shows the power of
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  the spiritual force to redirect the life, the focus and the
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  understanding. Widely reported experiences
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  include the rising of a powerful force from the base of the spine
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  up through the top of the skull, or a sense of a descending force
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  drilling or raining down from above into the being.
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  It is not just the physical experience, however, that shows
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  the power of the yogic force. A review of one's life and how
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  the psychology has changed, how the reactions have changed, show
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  the power of the inward view that yoga brings with it.
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  There arise new powers of patience, peace, focus and
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  concentration in action, an inner sense of contentment or
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  joy, a new power that yields results in whatever field one
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  tends to focus. As the Gita says, yoga ha
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  karmasuko Shalom. Yoga is skill in works.
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  When certain types of experience arise, they change everything
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  for the individual. There are new sources of
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  inspiration. There may be a rising, a form of
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  intuition. There are new ways of seeing
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  that break out of the narrow step by step approach of the
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  logical intellect and move swiftly and surely to a new
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  level of understanding and with it a new power of action.
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  Many find they are able to move the focus of their awareness
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  within their being in the head, between the eyebrows, in the
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  heart, in the solar plexus, and experience different results
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  depending on the Nexus they have opened in so doing.
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  When we look at the lives most people live, they seem to fixed
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  in a firm routine, unchanging, invariable, seemingly laid out
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  in a line from birth to death. The yogic practitioner's life is
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  vastly different and we observe changes in patterns, changes in
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  responses, changes in understanding, growth,
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  development, experimentation. Sri Robindo observes quote.
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  The invisible force producing tangible results both inward and
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  outward is the whole meaning of the yoga consciousness.
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  Your question about yoga bringing merely a feeling of
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  power without any result was really very strange.
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  Who would be satisfied with such a meaningless hallucination and
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  call it power if we had not had thousands of experiences showing
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  that the power within could alter the mind, develop its
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  powers, add new ones, bring in new ranges of knowledge, master
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  the vital movements, change the character, influence men and
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  things, control the conditions and functionings of the body,
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  work as a concrete dynamic force on other forces, modify events,
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  etcetera, etcetera? We would not speak of it as we
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  do. Moreover, it is not only in its
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  results, but in its movements that the force is tangible and
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  concrete. When I speak of feeling force or
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  power, I do not mean simply having a vague sense of it, but
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  feeling it concretely and consequently being able to
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  direct it, manipulate it, watch its movements, be conscious of
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  its mass and intensity, and in the same way of that of other,
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  perhaps opposing forces. All these things are possible
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  and usual by the development of yoga.
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  End Quote Reference Shri Orbindo and the Mother, The Hidden
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  Forces of Life, Chapter 7, Spiritual Forces of Help and
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  Succor, pages 162 to 163.