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The Sunlit Path in the Yogic Endeavour · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  When we see deeply religious or spiritual people, we expect to
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  see people who are serious, reserved, and who carry an air
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  of distance from the things of the world.
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  This expectation has been so deeply embedded in the human
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  psyche that we almost unconsciously take up this
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  attitude when we tread the spiritual path.
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  Consider the austerity and silence of monasteries and
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  cloisters, or even the churches, temples, mosques or synagogues
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  that abound throughout the world.
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  It almost feels like heresy to relax, enjoy a laugh, or just to
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  be generally cheerful. The austere monk is the image
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  that many hold for what true spirituality looks like.
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  The path of austerity, struggle, suffering for one spiritual
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  practice, becoming a martyr for God is the way we think about
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  spiritual practice. This increases the perceived gap
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  between the spiritual or religious life and the external
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  life in the world. It also tends to lead to a
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  severe strict view of things and can lead to judgmental practices
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  that want to limit, constrict, punish and stamp out anything
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  that varies from this model. There was a famous film in the
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  1960s which centered around the story of a novice in a cloister
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  in Austria who did not quite fit in.
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  She was boisterous, smiling, laughing, singing, and otherwise
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  finding full expression of the joy of living and the
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  developmental needs of her vital being.
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  The nuns discussed in song the trouble she was, but the Mother
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  Superior supported her with the statement that she makes me
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  laugh. The happiness she brought to the
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  environment she lived in was recognized as something valuable
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  and worth while. Eventually the nuns found a
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  solution to the problem by sending her out to become a
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  caretaker for a number of children of a widower who was
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  raising the children in a quasi military style.
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  She succeeded in bringing out the natural joyfulness of the
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  children and eventually won over their father, and they were
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  married and faced the troubles of the Third Reich in Austria
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  together with joy in their hearts and a song on their lips.
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  The film The Sound of Music was based on a real underlying story
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  and captivated hearts everywhere for its musical delights.
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  But the deeper message is one that bears consideration,
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  perhaps the austere, strict judgmental view of many
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  traditional religious or spiritual traditions.
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  Or let us not leave out the materialist versions based on
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  economic models or political systems and ideologies.
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  Is not the only way, or even the best possible way.
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  The Law of Attraction holds that whatever we focus upon, we bring
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  toward us. If we focus on difficulties and
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  struggles, that is what we get. If we shift our focus to the
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  divine, to the beauty, the harmony, the oneness of the
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  creation, the uniqueness and the bliss, that is the secret air
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  that we all breathe in. In the Brahmanandavali of the
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  Titiria Upanishad, the Rishi states as translated by Sri
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  Aurobindo, Quote. When he hath gotten him this
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  delight, then it is that this creature becomes a thing of
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  bliss. For who could labour to draw in
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  the breath, or who could have the strength to breathe it out,
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  if there were not that bliss in the heaven of his heart, the
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  ether within his being, It is He that is the fountain of bliss.
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  End Quote. In Savitri, a legend and a
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  symbol, Srioro Vendo calls forth this power of bliss.
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  Quote O radiant fountain of the world's delight, world free and
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  unattainable above, O bliss, whoever dwelleth deep, hid
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  within, while men seek the outside and never find.
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  End Quote. If the seeker focuses his
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  attention on the oneness, on the higher ranges of consciousness,
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  on the bliss that lives in the secret heart, rather than on all
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  the petty concerns and struggles of the external being, he can
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  tread a different path, which Shrioro Bindo and the Mother
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  call the sunlit path. Shrioro Bindo notes Quote.
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  There is nothing spiritually wrong in being glad and
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  cheerful. On the contrary, it is the right
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  thing. As for struggles and aspiration,
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  struggles are really not indispensable to progress, and
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  there are many people who get so habituated to the struggling
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  attitude that they have all the time struggles and very little
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  else. That is not desirable.
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  There is a sunlit path as well as a gloomy 1, and it is the
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  better of the two. End Quote reference Shrioro
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  Bindo and the Mother Looking from Within, Chapter 5,
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  Attitudes on the Path, page 140.