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A Reversal of Consciousness Accompanies the Seeker's Focus on Spiritual Growth · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  We read or hear about the accounts of individuals who had
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  some kind of experience, either dramatically uplifting or
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  severely traumatic, who awaken to a spiritual purpose in their
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  lives which changes the entire direction and focus of what
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  takes place for them afterwards when compared with their earlier
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  life. The Tibetan Yogi Milarepa
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  experienced the tragic death of his father, followed by his
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  uncle and aunt, appropriating the family wealth and basically
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  suppressing his mother, himself and his sister into poverty and
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  oppression. His anger led him to practice
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  black magic and created devastation in the village in
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  retribution. Afterwards, as he began to
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  reflect, he suffered intensely about the harm he had caused
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  through his giving way to his anger, and he made it his life's
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  mission to achieve salvation in one lifetime, leading to an
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  intense spiritual sadhna. Milarepa experienced a reversal
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  of consciousness that changed his entire life, focus, attitude
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  and efforts. A Roman soldier, Saul, on the
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  road to Damascus to harass the budding Christian enclave there,
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  had a dramatic spiritual experience of Jesus and had what
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  we may see as a reversal of consciousness from being an
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  ardent and strict opponent to becoming a strong supporter of
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  the Christian movement. Dannian Brinkley was a
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  mercenary, a hired killer. After being struck by lightning
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  and being declared clinically dead.
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  He returned to life with a new outlook and understanding,
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  recounted his experience in his book Saved by the Light, and
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  gave up his former career to become a caring advocate for
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  Hospice support for those who were dying.
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  There are countless situations, some more mundane and some more
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  extreme in their working that have switched people from an
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  outward focus based in the ego consciousness and the workings
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  of the body, life, mind complex, to an inward and upward turn to
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  take up the spiritual life and leave their former concerns and
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  activities behind, or else adjust in such a way that those
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  activities become part of their spiritual development.
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  Each individual who takes up the spiritual quest has their own
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  version of the event or developments that converted them
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  to that seeking. Until that occurs, the spiritual
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  growth is more or less hidden behind the outer nature,
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  although it must be noted it is still working unseen to mature
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  the individual to take up that effort.
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  A disciple asks Sweet Mother, how can someone who hasn't much
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  spiritual capacity best help in this work?
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  The mother writes quote. I don't know whether one can say
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  that anyone has much or little spiritual capacity.
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  It is not like that. To live the spiritual life, a
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  reversal of consciousness is needed.
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  This cannot be compared in any way with the different faculties
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  or possibilities one has in the mental field.
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  It may be said of someone that he hasn't much mental, vital or
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  physical capacity, that his possibilities are very limited.
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  In that case it may be asked how these capacities may be
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  developed, that is, how new ones may be acquired, which is
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  something rather difficult. But to live the spiritual life
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  is to open to another world within oneself.
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  It is reverse. One's consciousness, as it were.
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  The ordinary human consciousness, even in the most
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  developed, even in men of great talent and great realization, is
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  a movement turned outwards. All the energies are directed
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  outwards, the whole consciousness is spread
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  outwards, and if anything is turned inwards, it is very
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  little, very rare, very fragmentary.
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  It happens only under the pressure of very special
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  circumstances, violent shocks, the shocks life gives precisely
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  with the intention of slightly reversing this movement of
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  exteriorization of the consciousness.
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  But all who have lived a spiritual life have had the same
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  experience. All of a sudden something in
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  their being has been reversed, so to speak, has been turned
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  suddenly and sometimes completely inwards, and also at
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  the same time upwards from within upwards.
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  But it is not an external above, it is within deep, something
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  other than the heights as they are physically conceived.
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  Something has literally been turned over.
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  There has been a decisive experience and the standpoint of
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  life, the way of looking at life, the attitude 1 takes in
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  relation to it, has suddenly changed and in some cases quite
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  definitively, irrevocably. End Quote.
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  Reference Sri Aurobindo and the Mother Powers Within, Chapter
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  22, Spirit, pages 166 to 167.