The Aspiration Must Be Kept Alive and Constant

Changing human nature is a process of time and effort and is therefore subject to periods of waxing and waning of effort. Human beings tend to relax and enjoy their lives when all things are going well. Thus, it is primarily in times of difficulty and stress when we remember to focus on the need to aspire and concentrate. There are also periods of dullness, with nothing actively engaging the attention, periods of boredom, periods of ennui, periods of lassitude. Perhaps even to a greater extent than during periods of enjoyment, the focus is absent during these dull times.

The challenge then is to engage the being, to concentrate the attention, to tend the flame of aspiration through times of difficulty, but also through times of positive external enjoyment and times of emptiness or boredom. In fact, if this concentration can be engaged, if the seeking for the divine, if the tending the fire of aspiration becomes central to the life of the individual, it can ensure that the times of boredom are minimized, as life then becomes, in Sri Aurobindo’s words, an ‘adventure of consciousness.’ Even periods of dullness become times of observation, review and can lead to new insights into the challenges facing those who desire to make a true change in nature. We tend to develop feelings of guilt, or despair, or a sense of our own unfitness when these challenges come to us. These things, however, are not truly a cause for any moral judgment of fitness or righteousness, but rather an opportunity to explore the complex interaction of the different elements of the nature, and the various forms of resistance that need to be understood and overcome.

Some seekers develop practices to see them through the times of difficulty or lack of enthusiasm. This may involve devotional practices, collective study, satsang, kirtan or devotional efforts, dedicated work, or a regular practice of meditation, that help keep the nature directed. These techniques can be useful as long as they are not substituted for the inner work and do not become simply mechanical in nature. Some find that a simple formulation of consecration or dedication of oneself to the higher goal or purpose, renewed daily, can aid in this effort. One way or the other, a living flame of aspiration needs to be kept burning in the center of the being.

The Mother observes: “The next thing you have to do is to tend this aspiration, to keep it always alert and awake and living.” Instead of telling yourself once in a while, ‘Oh, yes! I am thinking of finding the Divine’, just when there is something unpleasant, when you are a little disgusted because you feel tired — indeed, there are very many flimsy reasons — all of a sudden you remember that there is such a thing as yoga, something like the Divine to know who can get you out of this flatness of life.”

“And for that what is required is concentration — concentration upon the Divine with a view to an integral and absolute consecration to its Will and Purpose.” This is the second step. That is to say, you begin wanting to find and know the Divine and live it. You must feel at the same time that the thing is so precious, so important that your entire life is not sufficient for acquiring it. Then, the first movement is a self-giving; you tell yourself, ‘I do not want any longer to belong to myself, for the sake of my little personal satisfaction. I wish to belong to this marvellous thing which one must find, must know, must live and for which I aspire.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Growing Within: The Psychology of Inner Development, Chapter III Growth of Consciousness Basic Requisites, pp. 35-36