The Meaning and Importance of Sincerity in the Practice of Yoga

When most people think about ‘sincerity’, they focus on the truth of the speech aligning with the actions of the individual. They expect this alignment to manifest itself in actuality. Expressions of good will or condolence, for instance, are sincere if they align with the true feelings of the individual, and are insincere if they are a surface show that do not reflect the true inner sense or feeling of the individual.

This is not, however, the complete sense of the term ‘sincerity’ in the practice of yoga. Sincerity, as used by the Mother, is a status of complete alignment of the various parts and aspects of the being around the central focus and intention of the soul, the psychic being. The implication is similar to that of the ordinary sense, but it goes much farther and becomes an all-encompassing requirement for success in the yogic endeavour.

Sometimes insincerity arises through a dual will, where the vital and the soul may have conflicting interests and simply are trying to each carry out their own intentions. Sometimes it arises through a type of self-deception, whereby the mind takes on the belief that it is acting sincerely, while in reality it is trying to achieve recognition, fame, wealth, or other worldly aims aligned with the desire nature of the vital being.

Sincerity is thus a necessary power for effectuation of the divine intention for the being. Sincerity requires a serious ability of separation of oneself from the external nature’s actions, and the ability to look upon and understand the motives and motivations of the mind-life-body complex in relation to the inner aspiration, consecration and spiritual purpose that are the organising principle for the yogic action.”

The Mother observes: ”To be absolutely sincere is not to have any division, any contradiction in one’s being.” 

“If you are made of pieces which are not only different but often quite contradictory, these pieces necessarily create a division in your being. For example, you have one part in yourself which aspires for the divine life, to know the Divine, to unite with Him, to live Him integrally, and then you have another part which has attachments, desires — which it calls ‘needs’ — and which not only seeks these things but is quite upset when it does not have them. There are other contradictions, but this one is the most flagrant. There are others, for instance, like wanting to surrender completely to the Divine, to give oneself up totally to His Will and His Guidance, and at the same time, when the experience comes — a common experience on the path when one sincerely tries to give oneself up to the Divine — the feeling that one is nothing, that one can do nothing, that one doesn’t even exist outside the Divine; that is to say, if He were not there, one would not exist and could not do anything, one would not be anything at all…. This experience naturally comes as a help on the path of total self-giving, but there is a part of the being which, when the experience comes, rises up in a terrible revolt and says, ‘But, excuse me! I insist on existing, I insist on being something, I insist on doing things myself, I want to have a personality.’ And naturally, the second one undoes all that the first had done.”

“These are not exceptional cases, this happens very frequently. I could give you innumerable examples of such contradictions in the being: when one part tries to take a step forward, the other one comes and demolishes everything. So you have to begin again all the time, and every time it is demolished. That is why you must do this work of sincerity which, when you perceive in your being a part that pulls the other way, makes you take it up carefully, educate it as one educates a child and put it in harmony with the central part. That is the work of sincerity and it is indispensable.”

“And naturally, when there is a unity, an agreement, a harmony among all the wills of the being, your being can become simple, candid and uniform in its action and tendencies. It is only when the whole being is grouped around a single central movement that you can be spontaneous. For if, within you, there is something which is turned towards the Divine and awaits the inspiration and impulse, and at the same time there is another part of the being which seeks its own ends and works to realise its own desires, you no longer know where you stand, and you can no longer be sure of what may happen, for one part can not only undo but totally contradict what the other wants to do.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 6, Some Answers and Explanations, pp. 192-193