Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / The Cure for the Spiritual Aspirant for Doubt, Guilt, Feelings of Unsuitability and Despair
Transcript
- 0:00As long as we base ourselves in the individual personal
- 0:03identity, what we term the ego consciousness, we are subject to
- 0:09mistakes, failures, indiscretions and other
- 0:13situations where we do not meet our own internal concept of what
- 0:17we should do. Most of this is based on the
- 0:21background and training we have received in our society and the
- 0:25expectations that are put upon us by that societal setting.
- 0:31When an individual takes up the spiritual life, he adds to the
- 0:35embedded background expectations, a new set of
- 0:38expectations based on what he interprets or what he is told
- 0:44the requirements of the spiritual path he is on to be.
- 0:48In some cases, eventual results are taken to be rules to follow
- 0:54from the outset, even though the seeker is not wholly prepared to
- 0:58do that to the extent he remains in the consciousness of the
- 1:03individual ego personality. This can lead to feelings of
- 1:08unsuitability, doubt, guilt or despair of achieving the desired
- 1:14result. The primary prescription that
- 1:17resolves these feelings is to shift to the divine standpoint
- 1:21and away from the ego standpoint, to thereby act from
- 1:26the impulsion of the Divine and not be anguished thereby by
- 1:31normal human difficulties, failures or troubles.
- 1:36This is the liberation from the ego personality that provides
- 1:39the basis for a dedicated, consecrated and still active
- 1:44life in the world. The more the seeker focuses on
- 1:48turning his attention to the Divine, the less he is bothered
- 1:53by the inevitable weaknesses and failures that are the issues
- 1:57that act as obstacles during the transition from ego nature to
- 2:02divine nature. Obsessing over all the
- 2:05impediments of the natural being as developed in the past and
- 2:09present simply creates friction in the process of transitioning
- 2:14to the basis of the next phase of consciousness that is
- 2:17manifesting through the seekers who open to its capabilities.
- 2:23Sri Aurobindo notes quote you ask how you can repair the wrong
- 2:28you seem to have done, admitting that it is as you say.
- 2:34It seems to me that the reparation lies precisely in
- 2:37this, in making yourself a vessel for the Divine Truth and
- 2:42the Divine Love, and the first steps towards that are a
- 2:46complete self consecration and self purification, a complete
- 2:51opening of oneself to the Divine, rejecting all in oneself
- 2:55that can stand in the way of the fulfillment in the spiritual
- 2:59life. There is no other reparation for
- 3:02any mistake, none that is wholly effective at the beginning.
- 3:08One should not ask for any other fruit or results than this
- 3:12internal growth and change, for otherwise one lays oneself open
- 3:17to severe disappointments. Only when one is free can one
- 3:22free others, and in yoga it is out of the inner victory that
- 3:27there comes the outer conquest. End Quote Reference Sri
- 3:33Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 2 Faith, Aspiration
- 3:38Surrender, pages 27 to 28.