This book for sadhaks or seekers of Integral Yoga is based on the writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. It is a practical guide for sadhana of Integral Yoga.
On Yoga
THEME/S
I
When a traveller decides to undertake a long and rigorous journey, he first provides himself with all the requisites of the path; otherwise he may get into trouble any time in course of his voyage. The same thing applies in the case of a spiritual traveller. When he sets out on his spiritual pilgrimage whose ultimate goal is to be united with the Divine Consciousness and to turn oneself into a fit instrument for the Divine's manifestation, he too must have to gather at the very outset the essential requisites for the successful completion of the pilgrimage; for the path of sadhana is much more difficult, much more beset with difficulties and dangers than an ordinary journey in the outer life. Without these requisites supporting him all along the Way, the spiritual pilgrim will quite often fall into the pit of deep psychological confusion and depression; nay, he may even cut short his journey and leave the Path altogether; or, what is worse, he may be led into an alluring side-track which can seriously threaten his spiritual destiny.
But what are these requisites after all which the sadhaka has to provide himself with before he can hope to travel on the Path without being buffetted at every step with all sorts of psychological difficulties? The answer is: these are nothing but a certain number of essential virtues of character which should stand the sadhaka in good stead all through the varying vicissitudes of his inner undertaking.
For we know that our sadhana of the Integral Yoga does not reject the world and life; instead what we propose to do in our sadhana is to purify and transform the nature, our self-nature and world-nature, as far as possible, and then offer them to the Divine as a fit instrument for his divine manifestation upon earth. Our aspiration is not merely to enjoy the delight of spiritual realisation in our inner consciousness; what we aim at in our yoga is that our outer nature and being too should fully and integrally participate in the spiritual fulfilment. In the inimitable words of Sri Aurobindo: "...we have set out to conquer all ourselves and the world for God;
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we are determined to give him our becoming as well as our being..." (The Synthesis of Yoga, pp. 67-68)
Such being our goal, we are not allowed to turn our face away from nature and withdraw from it as far as feasible; nor are we permitted to step aside from the turmoils of life and seek the peaceful repose of a safe shelter in the quarantined outer and inner isolation. Our spiritual sadhana has to be undertaken in the very field of nature and in the arena of life. For that we should be ready to face and successfully grapple with all the serious difficulties intrinsic to this basic choice of ours.
All spiritual sadhanas are indeed difficult; their paths are 'sharp like the razor's edge hard to tread'. Ours is still more difficult, apparently most intractable. The reason is that our present nature is almost wholly under the siege of cosmic Ignorance; it is polluted by a million types of tamasic and rajasic corruptions. To accept this perverse nature as the field of our sadhana, which is tantamount to deciding to dwell in the same abode along with a venomous snake, runs the constant risk of being bitten at times by the inimical reptile. But we should not shrink away for that from our noble enterprise. For has not Sri Aurobindo reminded the sadhakas of the Integral Path?
"Life is the field of a divine manifestation not yet complete: here, in life, on earth, in the body ... we have to unveil the Godhead; here we must make its transcendent greatness, light and sweetness real to our consciousness, here possess and, as far as may be, express it. Life then we must accept in our Yoga in order utterly to transmute it; we are forbidden to shrink from the difficulties that this acceptance may add to our struggle. (The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 68)
Well, such is our aspiration in our Yoga, such the action plan vis-à-vis our present unregenerate nature. But the aspiration cannot be realised in a day, nor will our nature so easily respond to our transforming pressure upon her. Hence the sadhaka will have to wage his spiritual warfare for a long period of time. He will have to face and tackle many a difficult situation. Many types of obstacles, inner and outer, will block the path of his progress; many a serious test he will have to go through. What is more, it is not his
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own personal nature alone which will try to resist him with its recalcitrance at every step; even the universal Nature will seek to erect a wall of darkness across his path, for this Nature under the prompting of cosmic Ignorance is deadly opposed to the prospect of any sadhaka escaping from her prison and undergoing a new spiritual birth in supernal Light. We recall in this connection the warning uttered by Sri Aurobindo:
"When the soul draws towards the Divine, there may be a resistance in the mind and the common form of that is denial and doubt — which may create mental and vital suffering. There may again be a resistance in the vital nature whose principal character is desire and the attachment to the objects of desire.... The physical consciousness also may offer a resistance which is usually that of a fundamental inertia, an obscurity in the very stuff of the physical.... There is, moreover, the resistance of the Universal Nature which does not want the being to escape from the Ignorance into the Light." (Letters on Yoga, Part IV, p. 1616)
In the same connection the Mother too has warned the sadhakas of the Integral Yoga:
"The integral yoga consists of an unbroken series of examinations which one has to pass without being given any previous intimation, which therefore puts you under the necessity of being always alert and attentive." (Bulletin, February 1958, p. 69)
The Mother has further said as regards the sources of these tests:
"The three types of examination are (1) that set by the forces of Nature, (2) that set by the spiritual and divine forces, and (3) that set by the hostile forces. The last are the most deceptive in their appearance and if one is not to be taken by surprise or unprepared, one has to be constantly in a state of vigilance and sincerity and humility." (Ibid., p. 71)
Now the pertinent questions that may trouble the sadhaka are: 'How should one successfully pass these tests? How can one make the path of spiritual pilgrimage easy of treading? And, finally, what should the sadhaka do so that the unavoidable difficulties and ordeals of the Way will not act solely as negative obstacles but turn themselves instead into occasions of golden opportunities very much
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conducive to the flowering of the sadhaka' s spiritual consciousness?'
Here comes then the necessity of preliminary preparation in the life of sadhana and of the amassing, on the part of the sadhaka, of the basic requisites of the Path. We have already indicated that one very important part of the process of acquisition of these basic requisites is the cultivation by the sadhaka of a number of virtues that should constitute the pith of his character.
While speaking of the three categories of examiners constantly framing their tests for the sadhakas of the Integral Yoga, and of the virtues specially required for successfully passing these examinations on the Path, the Mother has particularly mentioned the following:
(1) Endurance; (2) cheerfulness; (3) fearlessness; (4) plasticity; (5) confidence; (6) enthusiasm; (7) generosity; (8) vigilance; (9) humility; (10) sincerity; (II) aspiration; (12) rectitude.
These and other virtues of the same kind will be constantly called for at every step of the spiritual journey, and, when firmly acquired, these will arm and fortify the sadhaka's character and act for him as so many armours and weapons in his relentless spiritual battle against the forces of established darkness.
We propose to discuss, although in brief, a few of these essential spiritual virtues in this very first chapter of this book, for they are apt to build up the solid foundation of sadhana and without them the superstructure of the edifice of the Integral Yoga cannot be erected at all.
The very first virtue the sadhaka has to cultivate in its integrality and maintain throughout his career of spiritual sadhana is
(1) An Absolute Love and Devotion for the Divine and His Shakti
We have to make this precious virtue the central feature of our nature and consciousness. Our love for the Divine must possess a pure simplicity and a psychic rectitude. This love and devotion has to be utterly unconditional not buttressed by any expectation in return, and has to be protected from all confusion created by the mists of intellectual questionings. We can very easily save ourselves from numerous psychological difficulties and disasters and
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from various perils and deceptive quicksands of the Path, if only we can make firm and constant and absolutely invariable our love and devotion, and faith and trust in the Divine Mother and her love. In that case we shall discover to our surprise that no misfortune, however grievous in its appearance and howsoever suddenly overtaking us on the Way and seriously afflicting our mind and heart and even the physical system will be able to raise in the sadhaka' s consciousness even the slightest hint of protest and complaint, far be it to speak of any revolt and back-tracking; our faith and confidence in the Divine and his love will not suffer even the minimal dent; no peril of the Path will come to us as a peril at all; and no outer pain will occasion to the sadhaka any psychological distress.
Solidly established in this particular virtue of genuine love and trust in the Divine, we shall not fail to realise on the basis of the direct evidence of our personal experience that —
"God is our wise and perfect friend, because he knows when to smite and when to fondle, when to slay us no less than when to save and to succour.... There must be faith in the love and wisdom of God,... working out all for our good even when it is apparently veiled in evil." (Sri Aurobindo, 1984 Ashram Diary, July 3 and August 22)
The second spiritual virtue we have to develop to help in the progress of our sadhana is:
(2) An Optimistic Attitude and a State of Constant Gladness
Sri Aurobindo has told us: "A sattwic gladness and calm and confidence is the proper temperament for this yoga [the Integral Yoga]..." (Letters on Yoga, Part IV, p. 1358)
And this is easy to understand. For if we can once establish in us a permanent disposition of quiet equality, we shall be able to clearly perceive that all that happens in our life's tortuous journey, be it pleasant or unpleasant or even apparently disastrous, has invariably at the same time two different aspects; one, positive and auspicious and leading to future good; the other, ominous-looking and taking the form of apparent evil.
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Now, it is only because we, in our ego-dominated mood, concentrate our attention on the negative elements alone, ignoring altogether the positive aspect of the situation, our consciousness gets easily clouded, judgments falsified, emotions bruised, and our heart filled with unbearable distress and disorder.
But if we would like to build up a genuine spiritual life, it is essential that we change our way of viewing things. Faced with any unforeseen event or situation in our life, we must learn to perceive at once the positive side of it in all its happy implication; the principal stress of our consciousness should fall upon this positive side and this will make us palpably cognisant of the great spiritual good that has been preparing behind the dark and evil appearance.
And if we can do so on every occasion by developing in us an inherently optimistic attitude, the course of our life will change its character and drip honey under all circumstances: we shall not fail then to become intensely aware of the light that is present even in the midst of suffocating darkness. Sri Aurobindo has termed this as the 'sunlit path' upon which the sadhaka will advance towards his Goal with sure and joyous steps, "in absolute reliance on the Mother, fearing nothing, sorrowing over nothing..." in "...a glad equanimity even in the face of difficulties..." (Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, Part IV, pp. 1359. 1366)
(3) Joyous Resignation before Divine Providence
The way of sadhana cannot but be full of turmoils and difficulties. At any moment of the sadhaka' s life any unapprehended misfortune may catch him napping. And it becomes very difficult for him to maintain his poise at these critical turning points. In order to be able to keep one's sang-froid in these difficult and dangerous situations, the sadhaka has to imprint in his heart from the very beginning of his sadhana the following cardinal truth of spiritual life concerning the Divine's dealings and immediately fall back upon it each time he feels like straying away from the right path:
"The ways of the Divine are not like those of the human mind or according to our patterns and it is impossible to judge them or
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to lay down for Him what He shall or shall not do, for the Divine knows better than we can know. If we admit the Divine at all, both true reason and Bhakti seem to me to be at one in demanding implicit faith and surrender." (Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, p. 596)
Thus an absolute adaptability and joyous resignation before all dispensation of divine Providence should be the constant watchwords of a sadhaka. His mantra of all times, whether in weal or in woe, in periods of sunshine or in cloudy days, should be: "Let Thy Will be done", and this not in a grudging way nor even with stoical endurance but with the full adhesion of the whole being in a joyous assent and acceptance. Let us meditate on the following words of Sri Aurobindo:
"Remember the true basis of yoga.... Obedience to the divine Will, nor assertion of self-will is the very first mantra... learn thou first absolutely to obey." (Sri Aurobindo, Ashram Diary 1984, August 21 and September 9)
(4) Absence of Worries and Anxieties
We should banish from the field of our consciousness all such futile and disabling thoughts as: 'Who knows what is going to happen to me? and what misfortunes are ordained for me in the unfoldment of my unknown fate in the near future?'
No, a sadhaka must learn to be totally freed from all worries and anxieties vis-à-vis his future. His attitude should be: 'When in the divine dispensation something happens to me ever in the future, that will be the right time for me to be occupied with that. Why nurture even from now all sorts of negative foreboding thoughts. Instead, my attitude should be to accept with gratitude all the pleasant things the Divine is offering me in his loving-kindness even at this very moment. Whatever the Divine wants me to be at the present moment of my life, I shall sincerely try to be that; whatever I consider to be my spiritual duty at this moment, I shall do that with perfect sincerity solely as an offering to my divine Beloved. And there ends my task and occupation. No need to have any anxious brooding as regards the uncertainty of my future, nor is there any justification for the shedding of vain tears over my
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past failings and failures. To concentrate only on the present and seek to maximise the realisation of its possibilities: this is all that I should do as a sadhaka.'
This is indeed a great virtue to acquire and to apply in actual practice, if the sadhaka would like to avoid many of the unnecessary and perfectly avoidable ills of life.
(5) Total Elimination of Ego-centricity
It is a deplorable but almost a universal fact of experience that most of us, facing an event or a situation or a circumstance or any contact with other beings, generally evaluate it solely in terms of whether it pampers or distresses, pleases or displeases, serves or does not serve our ego and its interests. This is a very serious defect afflicting many sadhakas and greatly vitiating the course of their sadhana. This noxious ego-centric attitude has to be done away with by every sadhaka of the Integral Yoga if he would like to make steady progress in sadhana. He has to replace it by a theocentric attitude vis-à-vis everything in life. 'Not what I want but what the Divine wants at this moment' should be the sole consideration before the sadhaka. Sri Aurobindo has made the point very clear. Here are his words:
"The ego-centric man feels and takes things as they affect him. Does this please me or displease, give me gladness or pain, flatter my pride, vanity, ambition or hurt it, satisfy my desires or thwart them, etc. The unegoistic ,man does not look at things like that. He looks to see what things are in themselves and would be if he were not there, what is their meaning, how they fit into the scheme of things — or else he feels calm and equal, refers everything to the Divine..." "...he learns to make not the ego but the Divine the centre of his existence and thinks, acts, feels only for the Divine..." (Letters on Yoga, p. 1371)
So this is the fifth essential requisite of the Path: Never to judge or rather misjudge anything whatsoever from the point of view of the personal ego but refer everything to the Divine's all-wise all-loving Will.
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(6) Right Attitude at All Times
Much of the progress in sadhana, if it is to be effected with the least disturbance to hamper it, depends on whether the sadhaka can take and maintain the right attitude under all circmstances, inner and outer, facing him on the Path. The Mother has pointed out that most people do not realise what a great determinative power right attitude possesses. It can simply work wonders and can completely change the course of determinism. But what do we mean by this right attitude?
Surely this is not an attitude considered right by ordinary ethical standard, or sanctioned by social or religious conventions, or dictated by one's so-called conscience. This is rather an attitude most conducive to the spiritual growth of the individual under the prevailing circumstances.
But how should the sadhaka determine what the right attitude is in a given situation? If his Gum is present before him in a physical body, the solution becomes relatively easy. He has only to place his problem before his Guru and ask for his direction. The only point of uncertainty in this case is whether the sadhaka would like or be able to carry out the Guru's guidance against all possible hesitations of his blindly arrogant egoistic promptings.
When the Guru is not present in his physical body, the sadhaka can adopt another course which is as sure as one can hope for. We are of course referring to the awakening of the psychic being and its coming to the front of the sadhaka' s consciousness. About its supremely beneficial results for sadhana, Sri Aurobindo says:
"A guidance, a governance begins from within which exposes every movement to the light of Truth, repels what is false, obscure, opposed to the divine realisation: every region of the being, every nook and corner of it, every movement, formation, direction, inclination of thought, will, emotion, sensation, action, reaction, motive, disposition, propensity, desire, habit of the conscious or subconscious physical, even the most concealed, camouflaged, mute, recondite, is lighted up with the unerring psychic light, their confusions dissipated, their tangles disentangled, their obscurities, deceptions, self-deceptions precisely indicated and
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removed..." (The Life Divine, pp. 907-08)
From the above citation from Sri Aurobindo we can easily see that, under the psychic's active guidance, it becomes a child's play for the sadhaka to know at every moment the nature of the right attitude he is required to adopt and effectively put into practice in the actual situation facing him.
But the snag is that this psychic emergence is a realisation the sadhaka can hope for only at a far advanced stage of his sadhana: it is beyond the accessibility of the novices in sadhana. And here, in this first chapter of this book, we are talking of those sadhakas who have no doubt seriously and sincerely resolved to follow the path of the Integral Yoga but are till now only in the stage of gathering the essential requisites necessary for the successful completion of the Journey.
Now, we have insisted, above, that to maintain the right attitude in all possible situations of life, is one of the most fundamental virtues every sadhaka should be able to present even in the preliminary stages of his spiritual undertaking. So the question comes up again: In the absence of the physical presence of the Guru, and in the as yet imperfect status of the psychic awakening, how should the inexperienced sadhaka come to discern the right attitude?
Fortunately for us, both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have given in their extensive writings sufficient indications as regards what attitude to keep in what particular situation. A perspicacious study of these writings will surely solve the problem for any seriously inquisitive sadhaka.
However that may be, a sadhaka has to acquire this dexterity of keeping the right attitude at every moment of his daily life including its occasional crisis-hours.
(7) Courage and Fearlessness
Sri Aurobindo once wrote to a sadhaka that courage and love are the twin virtues absolutely indispensable for the progress in sadhana: even if all other virtues get dimmed or fall asleep, these two virtues will suffice to save the sadhaka.
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It is almost a truism that every sadhaka of the Integral Yoga has to be fearless, if he would like to advance with safety on the path of spiritual sadhana. For without the constant support of this virtue of intrepidity, he is apt to make a slip and stumble almost at every step. All the hostile forces of the subtle worlds are ever on the alert to detect even the slightest trace of fear and trepidation in the sadhaka' s consciousness so that they can use it as a convenient point d'appui to throw down the already built edifice of the sadhaka' s sadhana, and drive him off from the Path by dangling before him the unreal prospect of mostly imaginary threats and warnings. Hence it is imperative that a sadhaka of the Integral Yoga devote all his attention to the development of an unwavering fearlessness in his character. He has to be self-poised under all circumstances however serious may be their outward impact.
Here are some words of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother insisting on the indispensability of the virtue of fearlessness in the life of a sadhaka:
(1)"If you want to do yoga, you must get rid of fear." (Letters on Yoga, p. 1416)
(2)"The first condition of progress in sadhana is not to fear, to have trust and keep quiet..." (Ibid., p. 1189)
(3)"Fear is the first thing that must be thrown away..." (Ibid., p. 550)
(4)"To put away fear and have confidence in the divine working is indispensable." (Ibid., p. 1148)
(5)"... the yogi must be fearless, abhi; it is absurd to have a fear because one can control one's states; that is a power very much to be desired and welcomed in yoga." (Ibid., p. 1149)
Now an excerpt from the Mother concerning the same issue: "No protection, no Grace can save those who refuse the indispensable purification. And I would add this: that fear is an impurity, one of the greatest impurities, one of those which come most directly from the anti-divine forces which want to destroy the divine action on earth; and the first duty of those who really want to do yoga is to eliminate from their consciousness, with all the might, all the sincerity, all the endurance of which they are capable, even the shadow of a fear. To walk on the path, one must be dauntless,
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and never indulge in that petty, small, feeble, nasty shrinking back upon oneself, which is fear." (Questions and Answers 1956, M C W Vol. 8, p. 261)
After dauntless courage, which has to be clearly distinguished from a spirit of haughty rashness, come the virtues of patience and persistence which stand almost on the opposite poles but are equally indispensable for the smooth pursuit of sadhana. We propose now to speak a few words about these humble virtues.
(8) Patience and Persistence
They say, Rome was not built in a day; the goal of the Integral Yoga too cannot be attained in a short span of time. Every sadhaka of this Path has to clearly understand from the very beginning that a spirit of impatience on the one hand and the building up of the spiritual life on the other are totally incompatible with each other. If one steps on the Way with the vain hope that he will conquer the fort in a day and attain to his realisation in a relatively short time, he will very soon face the fate of a hapless bird which would like to fly through the heavens with both its wings clipped.
We should never forget that the Integral Yoga aims at the total transformation of our being and nature in all their parts leaving no corner untouched. Surely this cannot be done in a day. We have to keep the fire of our tapasya burning bright for many years to come: we have to fight against the same difficulty and weakness of our nature many times over. It is because of this well-known phenomenon of sadhana that Sri Aurobindo has reminded us: "Patience is our first great necessary lesson... a patience full of a calm and gathering strength." He has also said: "Those who hope violently, despair swiftly: neither hope nor fear, but be sure of God's purpose and thy will to accomplish." (1984 Ashram Diary, November 19 and 15)
The sadhaka of the Integral Yoga should not miss the import of the following words of Sri Aurobindo:
"The road of Yoga is long, every inch of ground has to be won against much resistance and no quality is more needed by the sadhaka than patience and single-minded perseverance with a faith
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that remains firm through all difficulties, delays and apparent failures." (Letters on Yoga, p. 630)
(9) Absence of Greed and Desires
Spiritual consciousness can almost be defined as a state of perfect egolessness. And where there is no ego with its inevitable sense of privation and wants of a million varieties, there cannot be any desires. And where there are no desires, attachment cannot arise. Ego, desire and attachment are the three principal badges of a life of Ignorance. And that is what we suffer from in our present unregenerate state. Sadhana means nothing else but a deliberate and conscious effort on the part of the individual to escape from this prison-house of Ignorance and to be new-born in the Freedom of the Spirit.
And if that is so, the basic programme of sadhana for a sadhaka of the Integral Yoga is always to discourage any manifestation of ego and desire however slight and innocuous that may be. He should not make any tempting discrimination between big desires and small desires, noble desires and ignoble desires, spiritual desires and worldly desires. In that way he will surely fall into the dangerous trap laid by the Adversary. Desires are desires, equally detrimental to the spiritual well-being of the sadhaka. Aspiration he must have ardent and ceaseless; but desires which are the unholy progeny of the principle of Ego should not be given the slightest indulgence. Sri Aurobindo warns us:
"If there are good desires, bad desires will come also. There is a place for will and aspiration, not for desire. If there is desire there will be attachment, demand, craving, want of equanimity, sorrow at not getting, all that is unyogic." (Letters on Yoga, p. 567)
One other point: A sadhaka worth the name should always refrain from probing and judging how much he has received in life and how much he has not, or in which areas his attainments compare unfavourably with those of other men. Otherwise peace and contentment will desert him altogether and a suffocating sense of injustice and deprivation will gnaw at his heart constantly.
No, we have to be fully indifferent to all the egoistically
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manipulated personal wants and inconveniences and discomforts. Instead, we must learn to be happy with whatever comes to our lot in divine dispensation, or in however little a measure that may come. We should make a sincere effort to conform ourselves to the description of an ideal sadhaka as given by Sri Aurobindo:
The liberated sadhaka of the Integral Yoga "has no personal hopes; he does not seize on things as his personal possessions; he receives what the divine Will brings him, covets nothing, is jealous of none: what comes to him he takes without repulsion and without attachment; what goes from him he allows to depart into the whirl of things without repining or grief or sense of loss. His heart and self are under perfect control; they are free from reaction and passion, they make no turbulent response to the touches of outward things." (Essays on the Gita, Cent. Ed., p. 171)
(10) Rejection of Indolence and Procrastination
If a sadhaka would not like to limit his sadhana to a mere book-knowledge or, to some superficially satisfying intellectual convictions, or to religious 'fervour', if he resolves to really advance towards the attainment of his spiritual goal, he has to divest his character of the twin defects of indolence and procrastination. Whatever and whenever he should sincerely feel that a spiritual duty is lying before him, he should try to accomplish that at once without seeking to put that off to a later time. In the same way, if he ever comes to realise that he has to give up a particular weakness, he must do that without any undue delay; on no account, under no alibi, should he condone the continued existence of that failing even for a short period of time. He must always follow the Mother's instruction: "You must make haste to do your work here and now.... Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day." Otherwise the sadhaka will find to his utter dismay that at the end of his life his sadhana has been reduced to a vain nothingness. For, as the Mother has warned, "The path of later-on and the road of to-morrow lead only to the castle of nothing-at-all." (Words of Long Ago, M C W Vol. 2, p. 1). The fate of these procrastinating sadhakas will be in the words of the Mother:
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"...the hours, circumstances, life pass in vain, bringing nothing, and you awake from your somnolence in a hole from which it is very difficult to escape." (Questions and Answers, M C W Vol. 3, p. 203)
So every sadhaka of the Integral Yoga has to resolve from the very first day of his sadhana that he will resolutely and thoroughly put into living practice the following advice of the Mother:
"While walking on the path of spiritual advancement, whenever you come face to face with a weakness — a weakness which is seeking self-expression through your thought and feeling and speech or action, immediately you take the resolve not to indulge it in any way, not even for once, not even for this time alone. Otherwise you will never realise your goal." (Based on pp. 212-14 of Questions and Answers 1953)
(11) Not to Forget the Goal
We now come to one of the most vicious vices which has not only endangered but completely destroyed the spiritual life of many a sadhaka. It is what we may call a deplorable state of 'self-oblivion', of forgetfulness of one's goal.
It is not that the sadhaka theoretically loses sight of the spiritual goal. He quite remembers the precise nature of this goal which he set before himself when he first entered the spiritual path. He continues to have a clear intellectual conception about what as a sadhaka he is expected to do. He may even eloquently talk to others about the responsibilities of a sincere sadhaka. But the tragedy is that so far as he himself is concerned, he neglects in practice what he believes in theory. And, who does not know, without serious and assiduous practice sadhana is no sadhana at all. Has not the Mother sharply reminded us? — "A drop of practice is better than an ocean of theories, advices and good resolutions."
But why do many sadhakas forget about their true goal in life after some lapse of time? The reason lies in the basic imperfection of the present human nature. The Mother has lucidly analysed the situation in her commentary on Sri Aurobindo' s Thoughts and Aphorisms. (Vide M C W Vol. 10, pp. 200-201) The following para-
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graph derives its substance from that commentary:
'Many come to the Path, attracted by the True Thing, but after some time one lets oneself go. When everything is easy and peaceful, one falls asleep. The human nature is still so crude that it becomes difficult for many to keep the inner attitude unmixed for a long time and to hold firm in one's original position of ardent aspiration. Almost inevitably laziness takes the place of this aspiration — not for everyone, but in quite a general way — and licence and libertinism take the place of true freedom. There are no moral constraints and so one acts foolishly. It seems it is almost impossible for many an aspirant to make their first aspiration last long.'
Such being the lethal consequences of an attitude of laisser-aller, the sadhaka of the Integral Yoga should arm himself from the beginning with an amulet of safety whose other name is 'constant vigilance'. But what is this virtue of vigilance which can act as a safeguard on the Path? In the Mother's words:
"Vigilance means to be awake, to be on one's guard, to be sincere — never to be taken by surprise. When you want to do sadhana, at each moment of your life, there is a choice between taking a step that leads to the goal and falling asleep or sometimes even going backwards, telling yourself, 'Oh, later on, not immediately' — sitting down on the way." [Questions and Answers, M C W Vol. 3, p. 202)
Thus it is absolutely essential that every sadhaka of the Integral Yoga should always remain "sleepless" and react effectively against any tendency to somnolence and to going astray. Otherwise three types of tragedies may easily befall him on the Path. These are:
(A)He may slacken down his spiritual effort and be quite content with leading an ordinary worldly life taking care, of course, to clothe it outwardly with a conventional religio-spiritual garb.
(B)The sadhaka may get sidetracked and, after forgetting his real goal which is the attainment of union with the Divine Consciousness, may concentrate his efforts on some senseless secondary achievements such as (a) being a great 'spiritual' scholar, or (b) an effective exponent of the doctrine of Sadhana, or (c) a successful preacher of the Path, or (d) turning into a miniature 'Guru', etc., etc.
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(C) The most serious tragedy of all that may strike the self forgetful sadhaka is for him to give of the life of spirituality alto gether, declaring it to be a utopian dream, and fall back into the old accustomed rut.
The three tragic eventualities (A), (B) and (C) mentioned above loom large before any sadhaka who carelessly lulls himself to sleep and by and by forgets the goal. In order that we may not fall a victim to such danger, all of us should take to heart the following admonition of Sri Aurobindo:
"...if we desire to make the most of the opportunity that this life gives us, if we wish to respond adequately to the call we have received and to attain to the goal we have glimpsed, not merely advance a little towards it, it is essential that there should be an entire self-giving. The secret of success in Yoga is to regard it not as one of the aims to be pursued in life, but as the whole of life." (The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 65)
We have come to the end of our survey of the basic spiritual virtues a sadhaka should develop and bring into active operation at every step of his Way, if he would like to advance with minimum storms and stresses threatening him.
It is not that no danger or difficulty will ever stalk him in the . life of his sadhana. He cannot hope to have such a charmed journey; no sadhaka can. For the very nature of the world and our present way of life are moulded out of Ignorance, and this will prevent that happy prospect.
But what is of relevance to us is that, if he is armed with the eleven above-mentioned basic virtues, a sadhaka of the Integral Path can surely hope to face all the unavoidable rigours and difficulties with a smiling face and in a spirit of adventure. And when there is zeal for progress and inner gladness in the sadhaka' s heart, what does it matter even if his spiritual Path gets occasionally crossed by some difficulties? For in such a situation all the outer sorrows and sufferings, perils and disasters, cannot but lose the venom of their sting.
Page 17
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