We get an intimation of what we should do, how we should respond to a situation. Then all the excuses and justifications and ‘needs’ and temporizing begin, and we find that there are good reasons why we should not do exactly, in the precise way, that the inner guidance tells us something should be done. It is not the time, there are so many issues or obstacles, there may be negative consequences from feedback or pushback when we try to act. Whatever it may be, the guidance gets ‘watered down’. Generally this may be due to fear, self-interest, desire, laziness or a form of mental arrogance based on a knowledge of ‘how things are done’.
In order for the inner guidance to have its optimum impact, the seeker must be able to overcome these neutralizing effects and that is why the Mother calls for a complete surrender, implying that the mental, vital and physical resistances basically get out of the way of the process, without taking into account self-interest or any kind of bargaining.
The Mother writes: “And there comes a time when one feels a kind of inner guidance, something which is leading one very perceptibly in all that one does. But then, for the guidance to have its maximum power, one must naturally add to it a conscious surrender: one must be sincerely determined to follow the indication given by the higher force. If one does that, then… one saves years of study, one can seize the result extremely rapidly. If one also does that, the result comes very rapidly. But for that, it must be done with sincerity and… a kind of inner spontaneity. If one wants to try without this surrender, one may succeed — as one can also succeed in developing one’s personal will and making it into a very considerable power — but that takes a very long time and one meets many obstacles and the result is very precarious; one must be very persistent, obstinate, persevering, and one is sure to succeed, but only after a great labour.”
“Make your surrender with a sincere, complete self-giving, and you will go ahead at full speed, you will go much faster — but you must do this calculatingly, for that spoils everything!”
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter XXI Intuition, pg. 161
Santosh has been studying Sri Aurobindo's writings since 1971 and has a daily blog at http://sriaurobindostudies.wordpress.com and podcast located at https://anchor.fm/santosh-krinsky
He is author of 20 books and is editor-in-chief at Lotus Press. He is president of Institute for Wholistic Education, a non-profit focused on integrating spirituality into daily life.
Video presentations, interviews and podcast episodes are all available on the YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@santoshkrinsky871
More information about Sri Aurobindo can be found at www.aurobindo.net
The US editions and links to e-book editions of Sri Aurobindo’s writings can be found at Lotus Press www.lotuspress.com