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The Need for Patience and Perseverance · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  In today's modern societies, people expect instant results.
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  They want things to be fast and easy.
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  They respond to ads claiming they can lose weight easily in a
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  few days time. They want deliveries from stores
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  to be overnight if not same day. They would prefer to receive
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  their enlightenment from a pill. In many cases, we hear people
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  who indicate that they tried meditation or hata yoga but got
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  nothing out of it. When pressed, they will admit to
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  trying it for a few brief sessions on and off.
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  When it comes to the adoption of spiritual practice, then it is
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  easy to understand the frustration they feel when their
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  weaknesses and limitations don't easily disappear and they are
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  unable to have headline experiences right away.
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  Certainly they do not appreciate the patience of the young seeker
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  of ancient times in India who approached a teacher and asked
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  to become his disciple to learn about the Eternal.
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  The teacher gave him to cattle and told him to take them into
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  the forest and return. When they had multiplied to
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  1000, the would be student went off and spent years working on
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  the task, learning how to find food for himself and the cattle,
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  ward off diseases and predators, and otherwise dealing with the
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  weather and other circumstances that could potentially disrupt
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  the process. Eventually, after a number of
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  years of efforts in this direction, he returned to the
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  teacher with a herd of 1000 cattle.
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  The teacher recognized that this student had along the way
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  learned from the sun, the moon, the forest, the river, the
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  animals, and had indeed achieved enlightened status.
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  The teacher vacated his seat and invited the student to become
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  the teacher. What we do not generally heed is
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  the long history and embedded traits that have developed
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  within humanity, in our individual being, and in our
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  societal setting, which by virtue of their deeply rooted
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  nature and their long repetition, have become habits
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  or ways of responding that are not so easily changed or
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  dislodged if it is taken many thousands of years of
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  development for these habitual patterns to.
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  Develop how long? Do we expect it will take to
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  modify them sufficiently that we?
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  Can. Say that.
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  We have outgrown or gone beyond them.
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  By nature, we tend to be conservative.
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  Following and abiding by the thoughts.
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  Feelings and. Ways of acting developed in the
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  past it is this resistance to change which.
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  Confronts the. Yogic Practitioner.
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  When he seriously begins. The quest to transform the
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  nature of his being. Sri Aurobindo.
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  Points out that even in nature change occurs, but it can take
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  thousands of years to work itself out.
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  In the meantime, the habits and atavistic behaviours assert
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  themselves. And reappear.
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  At any instance, the challenge then is whether this process of
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  change can be aided and speeded up by some means.
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  It is through the focused practice of yoga with patience
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  and persistence. The Trioral.
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  Bindu advises that the conscious participation of the.
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  Seeker. Can truncate the time.
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  Needed. This does not mean that it is
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  fast or easy within the context of an individual's lifetime, but
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  that what otherwise might take thousands of years may be
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  brought down to a span of decades potentially.
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  When the individual focuses the aspiration and shifts his
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  standpoint to the divine consciousness, when he calls
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  down the higher spiritual force and opens his being with
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  receptivity, when he steadfastly supports the change despite the
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  pressure of the past habits and the pressure of the society
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  around him, he is able to undertake what may otherwise
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  seem like a waste of time. Sri Aurobindo writes.
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  Quote One must not be distressed or depressed by perceiving the
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  weaknesses inherent in human nature and the difficulty of
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  getting them out. The difficulty is natural, for
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  they have been there for thousands of lives, and are the
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  very nature of man's vital and mental ignorance.
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  It is not surprising that they should have a power to stick and
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  take time to disappear. But there is a true being and a
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  true consciousness that is there in US, hidden by the surface
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  formations of nature, and which can shake them off once it
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  emerges, by taking the right attitude of selfless devotion
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  within and persisting in it in spite of the surface nature's
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  troublesome self repetitions enables.
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  This inner. Being and Consciousness to
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  emerge, and with the Mother's force working in it, deliver the
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  being from all. Return of the movements of the
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  old nature. End Quote.
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  Reference Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.
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  Looking from within, Chapter 2. Looking at Oneself and Others,
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  page 40.