Understanding and Addressing the Difficulties of Gaining Control of the Ordinary Human Nature and Life, Part 2

Sri Aurobindo provided advice to an individual who was trying to sort out the direction for his life and how to face the difficulties that confronted him, particularly with respect to certain vital weaknesses to which he was prone. Sri Aurobindo analyzed the condition of this individual in great detail and provided both general and specific advice for addressing the situation. He determined that certain ideas accepted by the individual stood in the way of resolving the issues. The step by step specific advice is here:

Sri Aurobindo writes: “But you must get rid of the ideas which have stood in the way of effecting the self-conquest. 1. Realise that these things in you do not come from any true moral depravity, for that can exist only when the mind itself is corrupted and supports the perverse vital impulses. Where the mind and the will reject them, the moral being is sound and it is a case only of a weakness or malady of the vital parts or the nervous system. 2. Do not brood on the past but turn your face with a patient hope and confidence towards the future. To brood on past failure will prevent you from recovering your health and will weaken your mind and will, hampering them in the work of self-conquest and rebuilding of the character. 3. Do not yield to discouragement if success does not come at once, but continue patiently and steadfastly until the thing is done. 4. Do not torture your mind by always dwelling on your weaknesses. Do not imagine that they unfit you for life or for the fulfilment of the human ideal. Once having recognised that they are there, seek for your sources of strength and dwell rather on them and the certainty of conquest.”

“Your first business is to recover your health of mind and body and that needs quietness of mind and for some time a quiet way of living. Do not rack your mind with questions which it is not yet ready to solve. Do not brood always on the one thing. Occupy your mind as much as you can with healthy and normal suggestions and give it as much rest as possible. Afterwards when you have your right mental condition and balance, then you can with a clear judgment decide how you will shape your life and what you have to do in the future.”

“I have given you the best advice I can and told you what seems to me the most important for you at present. As for your coming to Pondicherry, it is better not do do so just now. I could say to you nothing more than what I have written. It is best for you so long as you are ill not to leave your father’s care, and above all, it is the safe rule in illnesses like yours not to return to the place and surroundings where you had the breakdown until you are perfectly recovered and the memories and associations connected with it have faded in intensity, lost their hold on the mind and can no longer produce upon it a violent or disturbing impression.”

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, Living Within: The Yoga Approach to Psychological Health and Growth, Disturbances of the Body and Physical Consciousness, Healing the Nerves, pp. 101-107