An Unwavering Trust and Faith in the Divine Without Any Admixture of Egoistic Demands or Self-Dealing Is the Attitude to Be Cultivated by the Spiritual Aspirant

Without even thinking about it, we are programmed to bargain with the Divine. We carry expectations, we want our desires to be fulfilled. We care about immediate and positive feedback for the efforts we are making and the sacrifices we are undergoing for the Divine. We will agree to devote ourselves to the Divine as long as the Divine is giving us back what we want. We want experiences, we want progress, we want support, we want consolation, we want to see noticeable results. When these disappear, our faith also may disappear! This is the bargaining of the ego with the Divine, much of it subtle, but nevertheless it diminishes and waters down the self-giving and the surrender. And then we wonder why we get less than optimal results!
A pure self-giving, without bargaining, implies a total faith, a total trust, a total absence of desire, a total acceptance of whatever comes and a total and complete patience for however long things take, a complete perseverence to keep going without expectations, and a complete confidence that the Divine is not only in charge, but has a complete knowledge of what needs to be done, when it needs to be done and how it needs to be done.
What if there are no visible results? What if there is only struggle and effort and obstacles arising? What if there are no signs along the way? Can we hold our commitment, can we continue unabated and unflagging in our devotion and consecration, if we do not get any confirmation in a concrete form? This is something that is not perfected in the seeker ove
ight, but it is a status to which the seeker can aspire. The more complete the trust, faith and confidence, the less the seeker needs to struggle with self-doubt, anxiety or fear of failure.
Milarepa, even with his extraordinary devotion, became discouraged at one point, and he began to doubt the teaching. He eventually succeeded, but only after much tribulation and inner suffering. Eventually he learned that there was a reason for the time, the difficulties, the obstacles, the delays and the anxiety, as he had to burn off the karmic consequences of his prior history as a black magician who had committed grievous harm on others as an act of revenge.
Sri Aurobindo writes: “Even if there is much darkness — and this world is full of it and the physical nature of man also — yet a ray of the true Light can prevail eventually against a tenfold darkness. Believe that and cleave to it always.”
“The core of the inner surrender is trust and confidence in the Divine. One takes the attitude: ‘I want the Divine and nothing else. I want to give myself entirely to him and since my soul wants that, it cannot be but that I shall meet and realise him. I ask nothing but that and his action in me to bring me to him, his action secret or open, veiled or manifest. I do not insist on my own time and way; let him do all in his own time and way; I shall believe in him, accept his will, aspire steadily for his light and presence and joy, go through all difficulties and delays, relying on him and never giving up. Let my mind be quiet and trust him and let him open it to his light; let my vital be quiet and turn to him alone and let him open it to his calm and joy. All for him and myself for him. Whatever happens, I will keep to this aspiration and self-giving and go on in perfect reliance that it will be done.”
“That is the attitude into which one must grow; for certainly it cannot be made perfect at once — mental and vital movements come across — but if one keeps the will to it, it will grow in the being.”
“For those who have within them a sincere call for the Divine, however the mind or vital may present difficulties or attacks come or the progress be slow and painful, — even if they fall back or fall away from the path for a time, the psychic always prevails in the end and the Divine Help proves effective. Trust in that and persevere — then the goal is sure.”
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 5, Attitudes on the Path, pp. 132-133rnâ