Addressing Obstacles, Difficulties and Resistances That Arise for the Spiritual Seeker

Traditionally spiritual paths have developed guidelines and practices that are applied to everyone as set practices. Thus, some people wind up learning particular forms of meditation or concentration, devotion, or dedicated work, or they practice specific forms of hatha yoga, pranayama or other specialized approaches to gaining mastery over the various aspects of their being, the body, the life energy, the mind while developing the soul entity, the psychic being, and coming into contact with the higher planes of existence beyond the mind. While as a general protocol, this may yield success, the process does not take into account the variations that can occur between individuals as to their nature, temperament, habits, cultural background, variations due to the constant fluctuations of the Gunas, and even prior life developments that impact the current inca
ation. They also do not take into account the need to focus on different aspects of the being and different issues, obstacles or resistances that occur at various times in one individual’s spiritual development.

All of these factors lead to a wide divergence in terms of the way any indi\vidual needs to respond over time to difficulties and obstacles that arise. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother take a more granular view of the matter and work to have the seeker understand the various sources of the resistance they are facing, and then have them apply appropriate methods to resolve those issues at their source. This means that the same individual, at various times of their spiritual practice, may undertake a strict meditation form, may at another time move into a devotional practice, and may take up one or another of the yogic forms that are the hallmark of one path or another, for a period of time and for a specific intention and purpose. In this way, they will systematically address both the needs of their own nature and the promptings of the spiritual aspiration within them, with insight, flexibility and dedication.

The transformation of human nature is not an objective to be taken up lightly. It is not something that occurs ove
ight, but requires patient, persistent and dedicated effort over time. The physical nature, the vital nature, the mental nature all have their own habitual patterns, grooves of response, that need to be addressed if any true and lasting change is to take place. Trying to change human nature has been likened to trying to straighten out a dog’s tail. It seems to always go back to its natural condition. This, however, is a short-sighted view rooted in the ego-personality. Over a span of what we may call ‘evolutionary time’ human nature can and does change, just as we can see mutations occur from one generation to another in the physical being. The human individual today is not quite the same as the human being 10,000 years ago. We can expect further transformative change to actually speed up now that many people are putting a conscious focus and effort into that process. What might otherwise take millennia may now be looked at in terms of centuries. Beyond an individual lifetime? Yes, but that does not mean that each individual should not become part of the process and the change, and it does not mean that all of the effort is without interim progress that can become noticeable even within a single lifetime.

Sri Aurobindo writes: “There cannot be any high endeavour, least of all in the spiritual field, which does not raise or encounter grave obstacles of a very persistent character. These are both internal and exte
al, and, although in the large they are fundamentally the same for all, there may be a great difference in the distribution of their stress or the outward form they take.”

“Yoga has always its difficulties, whatever yoga it be. Moreover, it acts in a different way on different seekers. Some have to overcome the difficulties of their nature first before they get any experiences to speak of, others get a splendid beginning and all the difficulties afterwards, otehrs go on for a long time having alte
ate risings to the top of the wave and then a descent into the gulfs and so on till the difficulty is worked out, others have a smooth path which does not mean that they have no difficulties — they have plenty, but they do not care a straw for them, because they feel that the Divine will help them to the goal or that he is with them even when they do not feel him — their faith makes them imperturbable.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 4, Ordeals and Difficulties, pg. 73