How to Deal With the Feeling of Unfitness for Spiritual Progress When It Arises in the Sadhana

It is perhaps a virtually universal experience. An individual takes up a spiritual practice, and for a time, particularly when Sattwa is in the forefront, he has unique insights, experiences and a sense of progress. At some point, however, these experiences tend to recede and the individual is left to address the need for change in his physical, vital and mental being. At that point, things become more difficult, visible progress is sometimes lacking, and discouragement can set in.

Milarepa, the renowned Yogi from Tibet, got to the point of despair, even to the extreme of considering suicide, as he felt like he was unfit for the yogic practices he sought, that he had accumulated tremendous burdens of sin, and he was not succeeding in making progress in his path towards liberation.

While not everyone comes to the point of suicidal thoughts, it is clearly a well-known experience to go through a ‘dark night of the soul’ along the way. The question then arises as to the cause and the solution of this mood.

First, one must be able to separate oneself from the external being that is having these thoughts and feelings. Once the standpoint of the witness of the nature has been established, seeing and dealing with these changes of mood and their consequences becomes much simpler.

The vital nature actually gets a kind of perverse satisfaction from raising up these feelings, as it draws attention and can actually be a form of vanity, which the ego-personality accepts and flaunts. It is then a seeking for attention and a form of drawing energy from others to commisserate and provide positive support.

The next step is to align oneself with the part of the being that has the aspiration for the Divine and the spiritual growth. This is the psychic being and once one is established firmly in this connection, the changing moods and feelings associated with the modifications of the 3 Gunas become much less bothersome. This allows the sadhak to experience peace and hold a smiling attitude towards all the circumstances and vicissitudes of life, even while undergoing challenges, facing obstacles and dealing with these dark periods that come along with any attempt to address and effectuate changes in human nature.

Sri Aurobindo notes: “Why do you indulge in these exaggerted feelings of remorse and despair when these things come up from the subconscient? They do not help and make it more, not less, difficult to eliminate what comes. Such returns of an old nature that is long expelled from the conscious parts of the being always happen in sadhana. It does not at all mean that the nature is unchangeable. Try to recover the inner quietude, draw back from these movements and look at them calmly, reducing them to their true proportions. Your true nature is that in which you have peace and Ananda and love of the Divine. This other is only a fringe of the outer personality which in spite of these returns is destined to drop away as the true being extends and increases.”

“There is no reason to be so much cut down or despair of your progress. Evidently, you have had a surging up of the old movements, but that can always happen so long as there is not an entire change of the old nature both in the consciousness and subconscient parts…. The one thing to do is to quiet yourself and get back into the true consciousness and poise.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 4, Ordeals and Difficulties, pg..96