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The True Condition of Spiritual Progress · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  We frequently hear from people who say that they cannot focus
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  on their spiritual practice as they don't have a quiet space in
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  which to meditate, or they live in a crowded, noisy city, or
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  they are overwhelmed with all their duties relating to
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  education, career, family, etcetera.
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  They focus their attention on all of the external obstacles
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  and use that as an excuse to avoid the focus on their inner
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  spiritual life. If only I could find the time in
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  a quiet place, I would meditate. Every day.
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  We hear this refrain repeated in one form or another regularly.
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  If only we could create the ideal external circumstances.
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  Those who take up a spiritual practice in all earnestness soon
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  discover that there are no perfect surroundings nor any
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  perfect times to focus on their spiritual life.
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  They therefore have to create the space internally needed to
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  remain connected regardless of what they have in front of them
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  in their external lives. It is interesting to note that
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  Sri Krishna chose to provide the spiritual teaching encompassed
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  with the Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna while they were on the
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  battlefield and awaiting A cataclysmic clash in the great
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  Civil War described in the Mahabharata.
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  Anecdotes abound about individuals who complained that
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  people were talking outside the meditation hall while they were
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  trying to meditate. Their meditation failure is
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  blamed on what other people were doing.
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  The teacher's response in one case was essentially why are you
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  letting the talking of others interfere with your meditation?
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  They did not complain that your meditation was disturbing their
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  discussion. People try to go on retreats to
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  achieve the perfect circumstances for spiritual
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  progress. In some instances, of course, a
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  period of time away from the daily routine can be very
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  helpful, but they invariably find out that first, they carry
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  their issues with them into the retreat, and second, they have
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  not actually succeeded in resolving these issues when they
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  return to their normal duties, Srioro Bindu observes quote.
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  The inner spiritual progress does not depend on outer
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  conditions so much as on the way we react to them from within.
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  That has always been the ultimate verdict of spiritual
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  experience. It is why we insist on taking
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  the right attitude and persisting in it on an inner
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  state not dependent on outer circumstances.
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  A state of equality and calm if it cannot be done at once.
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  Of inner happiness on going more and more within and looking from
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  within outwards, instead of living in the surface mind which
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  is always at the mercy of the shocks and blows of life.
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  It is only from that inner state that one can be stronger than
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  life and its disturbing forces and hope to conquer, to remain
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  quiet within, firm in the will to go through, refusing to be
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  disturbed or discouraged by difficulties or fluctuations.
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  That is one of the first things to be learned in the path.
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  To do otherwise is to encourage the instability of
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  consciousness, the difficulty of keeping experience of which you
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  complain. It is only if you keep quiet and
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  steady within that the lines of experience can go on with some
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  steadiness, though there are never without periods of
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  interruptions and fluctuations. But these, if properly treated,
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  can then become periods of assimilation and exhaustion of
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  difficulty rather than denials of sadhna.
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  A spiritual atmosphere is more important than outer conditions.
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  If one can get that and also create one's own spiritual air
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  to breathe in and live in it, that is the true condition of
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  progress. End Quote.
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  Reference Trioro bindo bases of yoga.
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  Calm, Peace and Equality, page 14.