These doubts and suggestions come to many who take up the yoga, paradoxically even more to those who are marked for the spiritual life. You can neutralise them by giving a counter-suggestion that you are the Mother’s child and it is the Mother’s Grace on which you rely and Her Grace cannot fail.
You can also use a higher reason that even if one doesn’t arrive at the fulfilment of the aspiration in this life yet, by at least trying to walk the path, one would at least cover some distance. Since no Godward effort is ever wasted, it would surely make it easier in the life or lives to come.
One can also reason it out by saying to oneself that, in any case, without this (realising the Divine), what else is there that can give me the deepest satisfaction, the lasting joy? So let me put my efforts in this alone to which I am called, it is upto the Divine to give me the results or not.
Or one can take the attitude of the warrior that, whether I succeed or fail, whether I reach the highest peak or fall, I will carry on regardless. Each fall will only strengthen my resolve, each difficulty will be a learning, each attempt will make it easier the next time. I will go on until I arrive.
Divine realisation is not like a target to be achieved but more like the unfolding of a Mystery and Marvel of a wonderful Love and Grace. You have it and you have it not, but each step is, a delight on the way to the Divine discovery.
Most important of all is to remember that while one has to do what one should, it is the Divine Grace that actually carries us on the difficult journey of Yoga and in fact, not-so-easy journey of life; it is the Divine Grace that fulfils the Yoga. Personal effort is mainly needed to open us to the Divine Grace and allow it to work unhindered in us
Here are some words of Sri Aurobindo to reveal the central secret of the integral Yoga, the mystery and marvel of the Divine Grace.
‘When someone is destined for the Path all circumstances, through all the deviations of mind and life, help in one way or another to lead him to it. It is his own psychic being within him and the Divine Power above that use to that end the vicissitudes both of mind and outward circumstance.
A spiritual opportunity is not a thing that should be lightly thrown away with the idea that it will be all right some other time—one cannot be so sure of the other time. Besides, these things leave a mark and at the place of the mark there can be a recurrence.
The spiritual destiny always stands—it may be delayed or seem to be lost for a time, but it is never abolished…..
Nobody is fit for the sadhana—i.e. nobody can do it by his sole capacity. It is a question of preparing oneself to bring in fully the Force not one’s own that can do it with one’s consent and aspiration.
It is useless to raise the question of fitness. No one is fit—for all human beings are full of faults and incapacities—even the greatest sadhaks are not free. It is a question only of aspiration, of believing in the divine Grace and letting the Divine work in you, not making a refusal.
It is difficult to say that any particular quality makes one fit or the lack of it unfit. One may have strong sex impulses, doubts, revolts and yet succeed in the end, while another may fail. If one has a fundamental sincerity, a will to go through in spite of all things and a readiness to be guided, that is the best security in the sadhana.
Fitness for Yoga is a very relative term—the real fitness comes by the soul’s call and the power to open oneself to the Divine. If you have that, you have the fitness, and your past actions cannot stand in the way: the past cannot bind the future. Of course, you have to finish with it, reject it and turn into the new ways—otherwise the past remains the present. But that is the question of the will in you and the soul’s call. If you are faithful to your soul’s call there is no reason why you should not be able to do Yoga. All that you have to do is to keep your aspiration and not lose the inner connection that has been made—then the Mother’s thought and the help will be with you and you will find your way.
You speak of your possible unfitness, but it is not a question of fitness or unfitness. There is nobody who can go on in his own strength or by right of his fitness to the goal of the sadhana. It is only by the Divine Grace and reliance on the Divine Grace that it can be done. It is in a strength greater than your own that you must put your first and last reliance. If your faith falters you have to call on that to sustain you; if your force is insufficient against the ill-will and opposition that surround you, open yourself to receive that force in its place.
The Mother’s help and mine are always there for you. You have only to turn fully towards it and it will act on you…..
(Ref. https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-call-and-the-capacity)
There is nothing unintelligible in what I say about strength and Grace. Strength has a value for spiritual realisation, but to say that it can be done by strength only and by no other means is a violent exaggeration. Grace is not an invention, it is a fact of spiritual experience. Many who would be considered as mere nothings by the wise and strong have attained by Grace; illiterate, without mental power or training, without “strength” of character or will, they have yet aspired and suddenly or rapidly grown into spiritual realisation, because they had faith or because they were sincere. I do not see why these facts which are facts of spiritual history and of quite ordinary spiritual experience should be discussed and denied and argued as if they were mere matters of speculation. Strength, if it is spiritual, is a power for spiritual realisation; a greater power is sincerity; the greatest power of all is Grace. I have said times without number that if a man is sincere, he will go through in spite of long delay and overwhelming difficulties. I have repeatedly spoken of the Divine Grace. I have referred any number of times to the line of the Gita:
Ahaṁ tvā sarvapāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ
“I will deliver thee from all sin and evil, do not grieve.”‘
Affectionately,
Alok Da
