Lately, my ego has surfaced strongly, and to my deep regret, Dada, I gave into it and created obstacles in the service. Mother has made the choice absolute—between complete surrender and the demands of the “I”—so I am laying everything honestly before Her, praying to understand all Mother’s children without judgment. I desperately long to be a true child in whom Mother’s will is fulfilled, yet I feel the pain of continually falling short.
It is good that you have understood that in Yoga we focus on changing ourselves and not others. If we are sincere, then everything, even the most difficult circumstances around us can help us to grow by showing us our fault lines that are plenty in everyone.
You have also got the right central clue that the change and transformation does not come about by mental effort and human will alone but by the Grace of the Divine Mother. To turn towards Her, to remain open to Her with the right inner attitude is the central key of the sadhana. The core of this Yoga is an inner surrender to the Divine Mother.
It is important to remain patient, dhira, as the Upanishad says. Human nature does not change in a day and yoga is a lifetime process. Therefore, it has always been advised that one should first build a strong and solid foundation of Peace and Equanimity. Then only the new creation can be built properly. Otherwise, we may have inner experiences but not the authentic transformation and change.
To feel bad about having slipped etc is still the ego playing. Instead, all that is needed is to keep learning and grow. Nobody becomes divinely perfect easily. It is lifetime commitment. Therefore, very resolutely we must march forward taking advantage of all the little experiences, step by step steadily, towards the great summit. No haste, no impatience but just a flame of aspiration for the Divine burning steadily in the heart and the torch of faith to guide us. In all circumstances, surrender to the Divine Mother remains our sole support. If we have this, then all the rest will grow in due course of time.
Enclosing a few passages from Sri Aurobindo’s book The Mother to help on the way.
‘To walk through life armoured against all fear, peril and disaster, only two things are needed, two that go always together—the Grace of the Divine Mother and on your side an inner state made up of faith, sincerity and surrender. Let your faith be pure, candid and perfect. An egoistic faith in the mental and vital being tainted by ambition, pride, vanity, mental arrogance, vital self-will, personal demand, desire for the petty satisfactions of the lower nature is a low and smoke-obscured flame that cannot burn upwards to heaven. Regard your life as given you only for the divine work and to help in the divine manifestation. Desire nothing but the purity, force, light, wideness, calm, Ananda of the divine consciousness and its insistence to transform and perfect your mind, life and body. Ask for nothing but the divine, spiritual and supramental Truth, its realisation on earth and in you and in all who are called and chosen and the conditions needed for its creation and its victory over all opposing forces.
Let your sincerity and surrender be genuine and entire. When you give yourself, give completely, without demand, without condition, without reservation so that all in you shall belong to the Divine Mother and nothing be left to the ego or given to any other power.
The more complete your faith, sincerity and surrender, the more will grace and protection be with you. And when the grace and protection of the Divine Mother are with you, what is there that can touch you or whom need you fear? A little of it even will carry you through all difficulties, obstacles and dangers; surrounded by its full presence you can go securely on your way because it is hers, careless of all menace, unaffected by any hostility however powerful, whether from this world or from worlds invisible. Its touch can turn difficulties into opportunities, failure into success and weakness into unfaltering strength. For the grace of the Divine Mother is the sanction of the Supreme and now or tomorrow its effect is sure, a thing decreed, inevitable and irresistible.’
(Ref. https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/32/the-mother-iii)
Affectionately,
Alok da
