The Proper Channel

The Proper Channel

A deep of compassion, a hushed sanctuary,

Her inward help unbarred a gate in heaven;

Love in her was wider than the universe,

The whole world could take refuge in her single heart.

Savitri, Book 1, Canto 2, p. 15.

The One who is invariably called The Mother in Aurobindonian institutions the world over was born Mirra Alfassa on 21 February 1878 in Paris. Although she had a contemplative disposition since childhood and had read the Gita in her youth, few would have imagined when she took walks in the Luxembourg Park in Paris, mingled with the artistic and literary circles of France, and studied occultism in Algeria that she would finally become the spiritual collaborator of Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry (now called Puducherry) near the southern tip of India. But She and Sri Aurobindo must have known it, and they only had to wait for the right time for the two who were one to be brought geographically closer. When they met for the first time on 29 March 1914, there was instant recognition on both sides. But perhaps the right time had not yet come, and in less than a year Mirra went back, the apparent reason being that her husband was required in France to participate in the First World War. She came again on 24 April 1920, this time to stay in Pondicherry till she left her body in 1973. Soon after her second arrival in Pondicherry, She came to be called The Mother, a name that stuck because nothing else could have described her better. The first six years of her stay in Pondicherry were those of intense personal seeking of the Divine in solitude. However, this exclusive focus on inner work was interrupted after Sri Aurobindo went into seclusion on 24 November 1926. This was also the formal beginning of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, and right from its inception, Sri Aurobindo entrusted its full material and spiritual charge to the Mother.

Starting with just twenty-four disciples, it was under the care of the Mother that the Ashram grew and developed to house hundreds of seekers. As and when the need arose, she created different departments and a school, and set up systems, and into all these she brought the admirable Western traits of precision, punctuality, order and discipline. Perfection in outer work is an integral part of the life-affirming spiritual philosophy of Sri Aurobindo. Thus, the Mother gave a practical shape to Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy. As Sri Aurobindo has said, “All my realisations – Nirvana and others – would have remained theoretical, as it were, so far as the outer world was concerned. It is the Mother who showed the way to a practical form. Without her, no organized manifestation would have been possible.” Her vision of the Ashram was to create a place where spiritual seekers could pursue their highest aspirations without having to worry about basic physical needs such as food and shelter. And it was here that her maternal role was an asset to the inmates of the Ashram. Not only is there none better than a mother to take care of the physical needs of her children, on the spiritual quest also it is much more comfortable to have a mother who guides and protects than a teacher who instructs and evaluates. Spiritual quest is a seemingly endless journey, the requirements are stringent, and the seeker is a mere human riddled with weaknesses and failings (as goes a song: pankh hain komal, aankh hai dhundhlee; jaana hai saagar paar, i.e. the baby bird’s wings are weak and the vision is blurred, but its mission is to cross the ocean). Hence, it is very difficult to be the disciple of a guru; it is much easier to be her child. The Mother, with infinite maternal patience, answered all the questions of the seekers, even questions that were too simple, or simply silly. What the disciples saw in Her eyes was immense unconditional love, what they felt in Her lap was comfort of the carefree, and what they experienced under Her protection was abundant Grace. But above all, what the seeker seeks is communion with the Divine. It is the Divine to whom the seeker turns with all his aspirations. It is the Divine to whom the seeker turns over all his weaknesses for transformation. It is the Divine will to which the seekers surrenders his personal will. It is the Divine to whom the seeker can reveal all. It is the Divine to whom the seeker gives all. It is the Divine for whom the seeker does all. It is the Divine whom the seeker adores. Such communion is difficult to establish with the impersonal Divine. To the inmates of the Ashram, the Mother was the Divine in flesh and blood. And, what is even more significant is that her leaving the body has made no difference. To devotees all over the world, the Mother continues to be not only an indulgent all-providing mother but also the proper channel for communicating with the Divine.

You have only to aspire, to keep yourself open to the Mother, to reject all that is contrary to her will and to let her work in you – doing also all your work for her and in the faith that it is through her force that you can do it. If you remain open in this way, the knowledge and realisation will come to you in due course.

– Sri Aurobindo

BE A POST-IT-NOTE, NOT A POSTAGE STAMP

Only those who commune with the eternal essence within themselves and in all things can be eternally united.

– THE MOTHER

Attachments – be it to people or possessions – are rooted in ignorance. We get attached to people who are related to us by blood or marriage, and also to people whom we like because they are similar to us. Relationship is only a partial and superficial reality, and so is similarity. Deeper than the relationship to a few based on blood or marriage is the kinship to all based on the universal spirit of the Divine. Deeper than the similarity to a few based on language, race, colour, creed or opinions is the identity based on the One that resides in all. Being related to all sometimes seems like a high-sounding excuse for loving none. It is true that there are only a few people whom life brings in close contact with each of us. While I may feel a kinship with all, there is only a small sample of humanity available to me for showering my love and affection. Within this sample, to some I feel connected because of ties filial or superficial. Knowledge that goes deeper than the surface appearances should save me from the pitfall of getting attached to the few to whom I feel connected and becoming insensitive to the needs of others. The key is to feel concerned about all those who are around me without getting attached to any. It is attachment to a few that leads to concern for a few and indifference to the rest. Attachment is rooted in the separative ego, because when I feel attached to a few, the ‘I’ occupies centre-stage. Attachment also has built into it the pain of separation. If I am concerned but not attached, separation is easy because while each separation separates me from one set of people, it also brings me in contact with another set, to whom I feel equally close, about whom I am equally concerned, and on whom I can shower love and affection equally easily. I feel like a wave that is repeatedly merging with the ocean and re-emerging in contact with a new set of waves.

Attachment to possessions includes not only those that we use but also many that just belong to us. Attachment does not necessarily end with voluntary reduction in possessions. A hermit can be just as attached to his begging bowl as a householder to his furniture, or a scholar to his books. Attachment to possessions that ‘I’ think are ‘mine’, is due to the superficial reality of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ occupying centre-stage. Possessions are meant to be used and shared. They should be used with care and concern because matter is also a manifestation of the Divine. If I do not need them, they should be shared. But attachment is rooted in ignorance. The possessions are not mine; they have been given to me by the Divine. The possessions may be useful, but happiness does not reside in them. It is ignorance that breeds anxiety of anticipated loss, and pain of actual loss of possessions. Tena tyaktena bhunjitha, or renounce and enjoy, as says the Isha Upanishad. Apparently paradoxical, one can truly enjoy a possession only if it has been renounced within, which is the same as being not attached to it.

In short, we may be concerned about people and care for our possessions, but we should also be ready to give them up. We may stick to them, but only like the post-it-note that is always ready for an effortless separation. Attachment is like the postage stamp that so clings to the envelope that separation is both difficult and damaging.

DEVOTION

Devotion is the product of intense love. It is one of the routes by which God may be approached; devotion to God is inevitable sooner or later, no matter by which route God is approached. Of all the approaches to God, devotion is the simplest. It does not need exceptional intelligence or bookish knowledge. All what devotion needs is a willingness to forget our individuality for the sake of God. “I have no wish, and I have no will. I am all yours, do with me whatever you like”, says the perfect devotee. According to the well-known writer, Prof. Manoj Das, Hanuman illustrates that if devotion is total, the imperfections of the devotee do not matter; even a monkey can reach God. Hanuman was an epitome of total devotion, and could not only reach God, he could have an intimate relationship with him. The relationship Hanuman chose to adopt was that of a faithful and dependable servant (dasya bhava). However, a devotee may choose to behave like a child or a friend to God. Perfect devotees have adopted all these and other relationships with God, and succeeded in reaching him. Guru Nanak, Mira Bai, Tulsi Das, Sur Das, Sri Ramakrishna, or Maharshi Raman not only reached God but also learnt everything about Him through sheer devotion, although they were not great scholars in the worldly sense. Although devotion is a simple approach because it is within the reach of all, it is not easy. Ego is the greatest obstacle in the path of devotion. Ego makes it difficult to surrender completely to God, which is the one essential prerequisite for devotion.
God, or Brahman, is both manifest (with a name and form) and unmanifest (without name and form). The two are one, but due to human limitations, it is easier to relate to God with a form, preferably a human form. For this reason, a person may develop devotion towards the idol or image of an avatar like Rama or Krishna, or a god or a goddess, or a guru. These differences do not really matter, because God is one, and He is everywhere, and resides in everything, animate and inanimate.

WHY IS DEATH A NECESSITY?

Death is an event after which a living body no longer has the features of life. Nobody has seen what it is that escapes from the living body during this radical transformation. That is why death is shrouded in mystery. It is commonly asserted without any evidence, but with great conviction, that the time of death is fixed right at the time of birth, and that nothing can be done to change it. It is also commonly believed, with some evidence but far less conviction, that a person can delay or hasten his death if he strongly wants it. Benefitting apparently from a strong will to live and confidence in self-healing, patients with incurable cancers often defy all statistics and live much longer than expected. More commonly, patients sometimes live for a few weeks after all hope is lost as if merely to reach a milestone such as a birthday or a child’s wedding. Still more commonly, patients go steadily downhill in spite of all treatment once they have lost the will to live. Science now has some partial but plausible explanations for these phenomena. The spiritual explanation provided by the Mother is that a person does not die till he gives his consent, may be only for “the hundredth part of a second”. As She says, there is always something in the person which, out of fatigue or disgust, says: “Well, Ah! Let it be finished, so much the better”.
There is an interesting verse in the Gita, which says that anyone who remembers God at the time of death (antakale) goes straight to Him (8:5). The verse brings to mind Mahatma Gandhi, whose last words were ‘He Ram’. One might say, Gandhi ji was lucky, and wish to be as lucky as him. But soon after that verse, the Gita asks Arjuna to remember God all the time (sarveshukaleshu), even while fighting in the war (8:7). Therein lies the catch. Only if a person has been remembering God all his life, will he be able to remember him during the last few moments of life. Behind Gandhi ji’s saying ‘He Ram’ at the end of his life was a lifetime of homework. He had been reciting the name of Ram all his life. That is why it was so natural for him to remember God as he fell after being hit by the assassin’s bullet. The next question that arises is, why God wants that we should remember Him all the time. Is God so egoistic that our remembering him satisfies His vanity? To understand this, let us digress a little, and think of a young boy who has just started smoking. He smokes either when nobody is watching, or when he is with his close friends. He is particularly careful not to smoke when his parents are around. Suppose he is smoking, and suddenly he finds his father or teacher coming – his immediate reaction is to throw and hide the cigarette in a desperate bid to escape detection. In short, we do not want to be seen doing something bad when a person whom we respect or fear is watching us. We, however, forget that even when we think nobody is watching us, God is. If God, whom we respect (and often also fear) the most, is always watching us, we should be never doing anything bad. But still we do, because we are not conscious of God watching us. Now, let us return to the question of remembering God. If we will remember God all the time, we will be conscious of God’s presence all the time. That is all what remembering God all the time really means: it does not mean that we should stop all work and just keep reciting His name mechanically. If we are conscious of God’s presence all the time, we will not do anything bad. If we do not do anything bad, we will grow spiritually. Spiritual growth is the purpose of life. Hence, when God wants us to remember Him all the time, it is because He loves us, and wants us not to squander our lives on evil deeds. He wants us to live a meaningful life, a life of purpose. If we have lived a good and meaningful life by being conscious of God’s presence all the time, we are sure to think of Him also at the time of Death, and we deserve to walk into His arms after we die.
The body is subject to aging and decay. Like any machine, it cannot go on working for ever. Therefore death is a physical necessity. Death is also a spiritual necessity. The goal of life is spiritual growth, and most of us are unable to complete the journey of spiritual growth in a lifetime. Beyond a point, our body is too worn out to continue with this journey. We should be happy that death provides us a mechanism by which we are sure to get rid of this body, and get a brand new body to continue the journey further. How can we be reborn unless we are ready to die? Death not only clears the way for another opportunity to take a few more steps on our spiritual journey, it also helps us grow in this life. If we were assured of physical immortality, very few of us would be motivated to grow spiritually. A sinful life can be so engaging, so absorbing, and so entertaining, that it would not leave us any time, incentive or energy to live a better life. The certainty of death is a powerful force that restrains evil and encourages good deeds. That is why a person may grow spiritually more during the last few years of life than in the preceding several decades. This happens particularly when a person gets a few years to live after the diagnosis of an incurable disease like cancer. Not only does such a person himself experience accelerated spiritual growth, even those who are taking care of him go through a similar experience. However, the hope that we might get another opportunity to continue our spiritual journey does not mean that we postpone spiritual growth to the next life. Till this body lasts, we should make use of each of the innumerable opportunities for spiritual growth that we are sure to get in the present life. As the Mother has said, “One must never wish for death. … One must never be afraid to die.”
(From a work in progress: Timeless Wisdom in Small Doses)

CULTURE

The culture of a people is the collective expression of their level of consciousness. The three modes of expression commonly associated with culture are thoughts and ideas, art and literature, and outer actions and behaviour. The word culture is reserved for a level of expression several notches higher than civilization. A civilized society is an organized society with some evidence of mental activity. A cultured society gives evidence of a higher order mental activity, not just any mental activity. The hallmark of a civilized man is that he uses appliances. Wealth can precede a high level of mental development, and is enough to acquire appliances. That may make a person civilized, but not cultured. Those who have acquired wealth recently (the neo-rich) know it, and therefore, having acquired appliances, they hasten to acquire education. They decorate their houses with book shelves, start reading newspapers and popular magazines, and learn to express, parrot-fashion, the fashionable opinion on current affairs. But all this only makes the person look cultured – for such a person, the proper term is ‘philistine’. Getting cultured is a much slower process than getting civilized. The hallmark of a cultured man is independent, original and critical intellectual activity with no aim other than the pleasure of the activity itself. Thus, culture expresses itself through mental activity which may not have any immediate utility. Such activity at the emotional level leads to fine arts, at the rational level leads to philosophy and science, and at the supra-rational level leads to ethics and morality.
In spite of these defining characteristics of the mental activity that leads to the birth and growth of a culture, the directions in which a culture may grow can be quite diverse. As an example, one may compare the ancient Graeco-Roman culture, the ancient Indian culture, and the relatively modern European culture. The Graeco-Roman culture was a predominantly intellectual culture, which gave us penetrating philosophies, great art and literature, remarkable science and technology, and enduring principles of politics, law and administration. Its central feature was harmony and balance. It tried to achieve a fine balance of the physical, emotional and mental life of man. However, it had one weakness, and that was inadequate attention to the spiritual needs. The ancient Indian culture did not neglect the spiritual side of life, and it is to that that the credit for its survival should go. The modern European culture is a predominantly materialistic culture. It not only lacks the spiritual element, it also lacks the depth and refinement of the Greek culture. That is why, in spite of the enormous wealth, material progress, and military power that it has generated in a record time, it is showing signs of decline, and is turning to Eastern wisdom for maintaining its vitality.
The purpose of culture is to lift man up from his animal existence, make him good, knowledgeable, and capable of appreciating beauty. The Indian culture does all this, and one thing more: it also gives man a life-long aim to work at – the aim of growing spiritually. Not that other cultures neglect spirituality, but it is only the Indian culture in which spirituality permeates life, in which spirituality is the pivot around which all other activities revolve. During its glorious period, India produced great religion, great philosophies, great literature, art and poetry, great science and medicine, and has also been great in its organization, politics, trade and commerce. But all these activities stretched beyond the mental level, and reflected the vital contact that the Indian mind has always had with the spirit. This has often been misunderstood, and our ‘other-worldliness’ has been blamed for many of our problems. The peculiarity of the Indian culture is that it has not placed worldly life and spirituality in two neat compartments, but has sought to spiritualize worldly activities. The ideal of Indian culture has been a balanced pursuit of kama (desire), artha (the means to fulfill desire), dharma (right conduct, within the framework of which kama and artha have to be pursued) and moksha (liberation), which is the ultimate aim of life, for which worldly life is a vehicle and an aid. It was also understood that the emphasis on different aspects of this quartet would vary at different stages of life. This was embodied in the concept of the four ashramas, which divided life into four consecutive periods of about 25 years each. The first phase, brahmcharya ashrama, was meant to serve as a preparation for life. The principal activity during this phase was learning, and life was kept deliberately simple and austere. The next phase, grihastha, was that of family life. Kama and artha were concentrated during this phase, but had to stay within the boundaries of dharma. The next phase, vanaprastha, was that of progressive detachment from worldly activities and the bondage of relationships. The last phase, sanayasa, was that of total inner renunciation; the degree of outer renunciation varied considerably. The flexibility of social institutions was embodied in the concepts of swabhava, swadharma and yugadharma. Swabhava means the natural inclinations and aptitude of a person. If a person is engaged in activities in keeping with his swabhava, he enjoys it, does a good job, and the society also benefits from his unique strengths. Swadharma consists of the requirements and obligations peculiar to the activities or position of a person. Thus killing is generally-speaking bad, but to a soldier in the battle field, killing is a part of his swadharma. Yugadharma refers to the requirements of an era. Thus, a code of conduct framed in one era may become irrelevant under the altered circumstances of another era. Thus, each era (yuga) can have its own code of conduct or ethics (dharma). Thus the Indian culture was the creation of a mind-set at once ideal and practical, rational and emotional, worldly and spiritual, and had the genius to synthesize and harmonize these opposing tendencies into a harmonious blend. The Indian culture has been the subject of lavish praise as well as hostile criticism. Replying to the criticism, Sri Aurobindo has emphasized that a culture cannot be judged from its outer appearance during its most decadent phase. The Indian culture has some intrinsic strengths, which have contributed to its survival in spite of repeated onslaughts. The crucial question Sri Aurobindo asks is “whether Indian culture has a sufficient power for the fortifying and ennobling of our normal human existence”, and he answers it in a strong affirmative. He says, “the essential intention of Indian culture was extraordinarily high, ambitious and noble, the highest indeed that the human spirit can conceive”.
When India came under the British rule, India was going through one of the most decadent phases of its culture. The British rule made this sleepy nation collide with a wide awake, vigorous and dynamic civilization. The result was transplantation of many aspects of the western culture, and loss of confidence of the people of India in the value, vitality and validity of their own culture. The process has not stopped with political independence, and has in fact been accelerated in some ways because of the television and internet promoting a sort of superficial but glamorous global culture. What is remarkable is that Indian culture has survived the collision, and is re-emerging as the hope of a sick and tired civilization. The credit for this should go in a large measure to Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Sri Aurobindo and many other great men whom India was very fortunate to have in quick succession. These great men, through their life and works, recast the Indian culture in modern terms. According to Sri Aurobindo, our attitude to other cultures should be that of critical assimilation. We should accept from the West the knowledge and ideas that are valuable and also compatible with the central principles of our own culture, and assimilate them into a larger whole. The ideas worth assimilating are European science, curiosity, universal education, discipline, liberty, equality and democracy. Noble and valuable as these ideas are at the mental level, it is only India’s spiritual culture that can give full meaning and practical form to these ideas. For example, take the ideal trinity of eighteenth century Europe: liberty, equality and fraternity. When an effort is made to translate these ideas working from the mental level, “a society that pursues liberty as its ideal is unable to achieve equality; a society that aims at equality will be obliged to sacrifice liberty”, says Sri Aurobindo. And, the history of democratic and communist regimes respectively has proven him right. The reason is that ego drives the actions at the mental level – it may be a controlled, regulated and modified ego, it may be a collective rather than an individual ego, but it is ego all the same. As to fraternity, it is antagonistic to the very idea of the ego, and that is why what we achieve while working from the ego is only an amicable working association. On the other hand, fraternity based on the fundamental unity of individual souls is true brotherhood. From this brotherhood, both liberty and equality flow automatically. I will treat my brother as an equal, and I cannot make this equality conditional on my brother surrendering his liberty to me.
Each of the great cultures of the world has made a significant contribution to humanity as it stands today. Greece developed the faculty of logic and the sense of beauty; Rome developed organization, law and order; post-renaissance Europe has given us modern science and technology, efficiency, industry, and now the information age; India has given the world the insight that perfecting and satisfying the body, mind and intellect is necessary but not sufficient for fulfillment. Fulfillment comes only when the instruments that the body, mind and intellect are, work in light of the soul. It is this unique feature of the Indian culture that has made the world look repeatedly to it when extreme degrees of development of the parts of the being other than the spirit have left it with a feeling of something still missing. India has always supplied that missing element to the world.

(From a work in progress: Timeless Wisdom in Small Doses)

A NEW YEAR PRAYER

An old pull of subconscious cords renews;
It draws the unwilling spirit from the heights,
Or a dull gravitation drags us down
To the blind driven inertia of our base.
This too the supreme Diplomat can use,
He makes our fall a means for greater rise.
– SRI AUROBINDO*

In yoga, there are phases of rapid progress and of slow progress, as also phases of rise and fall. The fall comes because we are made up of many parts, each part having its own preferences. Till the mind and the intellect have been fully transformed, they tend to push us in a direction different from that to which our divine essence, the psychic being, tries to pull us. Even after we have managed to rise to a level of consciousness that is in tune with our psychic being, the gravitational pull of the emotional or intellectual parts of our being may drag us down. When that happens, the psychic being does not say ‘no’. It lets us do whatever we feel like doing. That is perhaps why Sri Aurobindo has called the Divine the supreme Diplomat. A diplomat never says ‘no’; when he wants to say ‘no’, he says ‘may be’! However, like a diplomat, the Divine never gives up either. It continues to haunt us. Every time we fall, it makes us feel uneasy. It renews and reinforces our aspiration by enticing us with sublime joy. It offers us the prospects of lasting mental peace if only we mend our ways and listen to the faint but clear and powerful voice that It has planted in us. It guides us how, after the fall, we can use our new circumstances for a rise. And, if we respond to the divine guidance, the new rise is invariably a greater rise than the one from which we fell.

In the New Year that is beginning, let us pray that all the falls that we had during the year that has gone by become, through the Mother’s Grace, the means for a greater rise.

Always the power poured back like sudden rain,
Or slowly in his breast a presence grew;
It clambered back to some remembered height
Or soared above the peak from which it fell.
Each time he rose there was a larger poise,
A dwelling on a higher spirit plane;
The Light remained in him a longer space.
– SRI AUROBINDO**

*In: Savitri, Book I, Canto 3, p. 34 (1970 Edition)
**In: Savitri, Book I, Canto 3, p. 35 (1970 Edition)

OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE SPIRITUALITY

Don’t speak. Act. Don’t Announce. Realise.
THE MOTHER

Among the visitors to spiritual organizations like Sri Aurobindo Ashram are some dead serious, sincere and intense young people who claim to be on the spiritual path but seem to be on the verge of losing their mental balance, if they have not lost it already. The question naturally arises what makes something as laudable as the spiritual path a risky road to walk on. The risk lies in a faulty approach to spirituality. Young people who become miserable as a result of their engagement with spirituality invariably treat spirituality as yet another worldly achievement. They go about searching for techniques that would take them to the peak by the easiest, shortest and fastest route. They treat spirituality like mountaineering. They want to climb nothing less than the Everest, and feel entitled to do so because they are ready to spend all their energy looking for and learning the best techniques. They may try several techniques simultaneously, or in quick succession, with great vigour. They may go straightaway to the advanced pranayamas, or meditate for hours or days at a stretch under the mistaken impression that if something is good, more of it should be better. Then they start looking for signs of progress. So obsessed are they with getting there as quickly as possible that they attach great importance to their ‘visions’, ‘dreams’ and ‘experiences’. They try to hold on to these real or imagined events, try to repeat them, improve upon them, and talk about them, either to seek approval and confirmation, or to impress people. But instead of getting the peace that may be expected on the spiritual path, they get only more and more disturbed. Unless they correct the fatal flaw in their approach to spirituality, they end up on the psychiatrist’s couch.

In order to understand how the approach of these sincere but misguided young people to spirituality is flawed, let us digress to an ordinary young person. He wants wealth, power, and prestige. In the pursuit of what he wants, he becomes completely absorbed in himself. Our young man on the spiritual path wants to reach spiritual heights. In the pursuit of what he wants, he also becomes completely absorbed in himself. Hence there is no fundamental difference between these two young men. They both want something badly. They are both afflicted with acute self-absorption. The desire in both cases is intense, and the impatience of the seeker is palpable. The difference lies only in what they want. In a sense, our spiritual enthusiast is the worse of the two. The seeker of wealth, name and fame may at least temper his pursuit because of ethical considerations and out of decency. But the one wanting spiritual victory may be blatantly egoistic because he does not feel any scruples are necessary in pursuing the noblest of goals. The result is that spiritual enthusiasts frequently find themselves entangled in one or more of the following deadly traps.

The transactional trap
The seeker is quite conscious of having given up the usual goals of wealth, position and power. “I have sacrificed so much”, he argues, “therefore I should be rewarded with spiritual achievements”. In short, he looks upon spirituality as a transaction which involves giving up devalued currency and getting gold in return. The right approach is to simply give up everything that is no longer interesting. Gradually, there is more and more that appears uninteresting, unnecessary and superfluous. Giving up everything physically is, however, incompatible with life. But what can be done is to give up the attachment to everything – to things that one gives up physically, as well as to things that one has not been able to. This is what Sri Aurobindo calls inner renunciation. The key is giving up, not for the sake of getting something, but because one has realized that what is being given up cannot bring lasting happiness, and has no place in a meaningful and fulfilling life. Thus the dictum in spirituality is to give up everything, and to expect nothing.

The scholastic trap
The person reads a lot of spiritual literature. He finds so much of it that eventually devouring spiritual books becomes his major occupation, 24 X 7. Because of his passionate involvement in the subject, his reading speed is phenomenal, memory incredible, and even his comprehension may be admirable. Because of his vast theoretical knowledge, he assumes that now he has become deeply spiritual.

Spirituality is not the same as filling the head with spiritual facts. Spirituality may or may not be associated with mental knowledge; what is indispensable to spirituality is practice and experience. Knowledge may sometimes act as a trigger for spiritual progress by arousing the curiosity of the seeker. But if the focus remains on acquiring more and more knowledge at the mental level, knowledge may become a barrier on the path of spiritual growth in at least two ways. First, the person may start treating knowledge as a substitute for experience. Secondly, knowledge at the level of the intellect might make a person critical, less open, and distract him from genuine spiritual inquiry by directing the attention to too many irrelevant questions. As the Mother has said, “the mind is incapable of judging spiritual things… … in order to proceed on the path, it is absolutely indispensable to abstain from all mental opinion and reaction” (1).

The signboard trap
Soon after embarking on the path, the person gets trapped in the superficial and visible signs associated with spiritual life. For example, he may start observing regular ritualistic fasts, adopt fad diets, observe long periods of silence, dress up in saffron or white, and chant incessantly, keeping count of the chants using a rosary. He may impose on himself a rigid routine and a punishing schedule, filling up every hour of the day and night with something that he considers clearly and visibly spiritual. The result is that he stands out in a crowd, and has time for little else except doing things which are necessary for him, because he is ‘spiritual’. Although he is very busy doing one thing after another, and lives like a machine, he lives only for himself.

This type of engagement with spirituality only boosts the pride of the seeker without leading to any real progress. Spirituality is primarily about an inner change, which may get reflected in a few outer signs, but which must get reflected in outer life. Unless the outer life is filled with greater love, compassion, giving, caring and sharing, merely displaying the signs and symbols of ‘spirituality’ does not make a person spiritual.

The school-leaving certificate (SLC) trap
The person might have seen a beam of light, or heard an encouraging voice during meditation. Or, he might have experienced a rush of energy as a result of some practices calculated to open up the charkas or awaken the kundalini. The person is ecstatic about what has happened to him. He starts imagining how much of bliss lies untapped at the summit. He gets greedy, and wants more and more, as fast as possible. He behaves like a child who has just received a school-leaving certificate, and is now in a hurry to get a Ph.D. as soon as possible. The spiritual enthusiast now engages in a sort of spiritual engineering to repeat his experiences, to hold on to experiences, and to climb towards the peak experience.

The right approach is to take the experiences as an indicator of the immense love of the Divine. It is through Divine Grace rather than personal effort that the seeker has received some encouragement in the form of these experiences. To negotiate the long way to the summit also Divine Grace will be much more important than personal effort. The seeker may continue his efforts, and trust that the Divine will take care of his progress in Its way and Its time. Therefore, the dictum is to continue walking the path, and to continue seeking the guidance and grace of the Divine. The walk itself is blissful; why then be in a hurry to scale the summit?

The misplaced curiosity trap
Drifting into spirituality with the relatively simple aims of pursuing something of lasting value, something useful to others, or something better than joining the rat race, some young people get distracted by the futile search for answers to irrelevant questions. They want to know more and more about life after death, rebirth, past life regression, or forecasting the future. They start resolving the apparent discrepancies in the karma theory. They want to know whether an evil man can be reborn as an animal. They want to know whether it is possible to communicate with the dead. They want to know whether some yogis can really do without food, air or sleep, and if so, why and how. They want to know whether yoga can help in conquering death. The result is that they are lost in a maze. These are not good points to begin forays into spirituality. From the spiritual point of view, these explorations are fruitless at best; sometimes they can even be dangerous. Life on earth is for growing in consciousness, not for forcing the Divine to reveal what It has chosen to conceal from us for our own good. Growing in consciousness means a change in our picture of reality from one based on multiplicity and division towards that based on oneness and unity. This inner change should get reflected in our outer life. That is the essence of spirituality.

The grandiose trap
Some seekers pass through a confusing and risky stage that Sri Aurobindo has described as the intermediate zone.* This is a stage between the physical and spiritual realms, and lacks the firm foothold of both. The seeker thinks that he has realized much more than he actually has. At this stage the person is vulnerable to exploitation by negative forces in the occult worlds. By unwittingly giving his consent to such exploitation, the person exposes himself to great risks. The person may go totally astray, or may stay permanently in the intermediate zone without any aspiration to progress further. Sri Aurobindo asserts that safety lies in attending to psychic and spiritual development before entry into the occult regions.

The intermediate zone is not an inevitable stage on the spiritual path. The risk of passing through this stage is increased by excessive hurry and eagerness, letting the emotional and mental parts of the being lead the sadhana, and an exaggerated confidence in one’s ability to do it either on one’s own or with the help of the ‘Divine’, as erroneously visualized by the seeker. While passing through the intermediate zone, it is important not to get attached to the lesser truths of this stage. The risks of the intermediate zone can be avoided by sincerity, humility, being calm and patient, letting the psychic being lead the sadhana, and by seeking the guidance of a guru. As Sri Aurobindo has said, “It is idle for anyone to expect that he can follow this road far, – much less go to the end by his own inner strength and knowledge without the true aid or influence…. All work here must be done in a spirit of acceptance, discipline and surrender, not with personal demands and conditions, but with a vigilant conscious submission to control and guidance” (2).

The greatness trap
The seeker is not sure whether he has reached the summit, but he has convinced himself that at least he is one notch above the rest of humanity. This is a very subtle trap, to which even experienced and sober seekers are not immune. It is a trap that people around the seeker strengthen by admiring him to the point of worshipping him. Experienced seekers may be a victim of this trap, but often manage to hide their vanity behind superficial humility. But young and volatile seekers who fall for this trap flaunt their arrogance with abandon. They miss no occasion to talk about how immune they are to heat and cold, hunger and thirst, pain and suffering. They look upon ordinary suffering humanity with a mixture of pity and disdain. On one hand, they are angry at the world for not doing what they have done. On the other hand, they are quite convinced that stupid humanity (with rare exceptions like themselves) is incapable of following their example. They are also proud to talk about their personal acquaintance with many renowned persons on the spirituality circuit, and enjoy comparing one with the other, and in the process end up talking about not only the strengths but also the flaws and weaknesses (as perceived by them) of these luminaries whom other people might have seen only on the TV. If they have read a lot, and are also a victim of the scholastic trap, so much the worse. Then they have a tendency to analyse spiritual books in hair-splitting detail. If they attend a discourse, they ask questions, either to show off their knowledge or to find faults with the speaker. They itch for discussions on spiritual topics, and if they do get (or create) such an opportunity, they are quick to argue in order to prove the other person wrong.

The right approach is to be grateful for whatever progress has been made, and to realize how much more remains to be done as compared to what has been done. Comparisons are also unfair because we are all fellow travelers on the same spiritual journey, and are manifestations of the same Divine. The following celebrated quote from James Adams applies as much to spiritual seekers as to the rest: “There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it ill behaves any of us to find fault with the rest of us.”

Closing thoughts
The greatest difficulty for the spiritual enthusiast probably originates in the glimpses of suprasensory reality that he might experience. Spiritual experiences are not an achievement to discuss, share or boast about. Spiritual experiences widen, deepen and raise the consciousness, and this change should be reflected in outer life, making the person more considerate, compassionate and contented. Further, one should not talk about these experiences. As the Mother has said, “It is a very well-known fact that one has never to speak of one’s spiritual experiences, if one were not to see vanishing in a moment the energy accumulated in an experience which is meant to hasten one’s progress” (3). Another common wasteful distraction is searching for miracles. Ordinary life is itself a miracle – no other miracles are necessary for inspiring faith in the omnipotence of the Divine. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have repeatedly emphasized that the aspiration for spiritual growth should be sincere and constant; it may even be intense, but it should not be impatient. The distinction that Sri Aurobindo has made between straining and concentration is also relevant here. He wrote in a letter, “Straining implies an over-eagerness and violence of effort, while concentration is in its nature quiet and steady. If there is restlessness or over-eagerness, then that is not concentration” (4). Obviously, concentration helps, but straining hinders spiritual growth. Anxiety and restlessness are an expression of the ego. Ego is a product of the dividing consciousness. It divides the individual from the rest of the creation. In contrast, spirituality breaks the dividing barrier. Spirituality unites the individual with the rest of the creation. Hence the acute self-absorption that afflicts misguided spiritual enthusiasts cannot take them towards the spiritual consciousness that they seek. Instead of getting obsessed with spiritual growth, it is much better to follow one of the simplest pieces of advice that the Mother has given: “Be simple, Be happy, Remain quiet, Do your work as well as you can, Keep yourself always open towards me – This is all that is asked from you” (5).

REFERENCES
1. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother On Education. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1956, p. 125.
2. Sri Aurobindo. The Riddle of this World. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 6th Edition, 1973, p. 44.
3. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother On Education. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1956, p. 150.
4. The Integral Yoga: Sri Aurobindo’s Teaching and Method of Practice. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1993, p. 156.
5. The Science of Living: A Simple Programme. Words of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2006, p. 1.
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*For more on the Intermediate Zone, see Reference 2, pp. 35-47, and Reference 4, pp. 187-189.