Awareness and True Discrimination of Forces Are Essential for the Spiritual Seeker to Avoid Distractions and Deviations from the Path

When a spiritual seeker begins to appreciate the forces at work in the world that try to influence and manipulate his behaviour, one of the first reactions tends to be to try to close oneself off, wall oneself off, not take cognizance of these forces. This is the power of the anchorite meditating in the cave, the forest or the desert or the monk or devotee residing in the monastery, ashram, abbey or cloister. The removal of potential distractions can indeed be a powerful aid to protect the seeker at certain stages. At the same time, there are innumerable examples of someone who has lived an isolated or secluded life who then is confronted with the forces of the exte
al world and life-force and who does not have the experience or needed powers to avoid being entrapped and overcome, at least temporarily, by those forces.

Even for those who are focused on their spiritual development and not direcfly confronted with the many forces at work in the world, there are pressures and experiences that clothe themselves in mimicry. Thus, there is a need for careful observation and discrimination of what forces one accepts and acts upon. Before acting, one can refer the force, suggestion or pressure to the psychic being and evaluate if it matches with the aspiration or if it carries with it for instance, an energy of the exte
al vital nature and fulfillment of its desires. One can also look at the feeling one gets from any proximity to that force. As the saying goes ‘all that glitters is not gold’ and that goes for spiritual experiences as well as in the worldly life. Motivation, the energy being provoked and excited, the direction of the force in relation to the deeper spiritual aspiration are all necessary factors in determining whether to allow a particular light, force or movement to enter into and impact one’s consciousness and actions.

Sri Aurobindo writes: “It is one thing to see things and quite another to let them enter into you. One has to experience many things, to see and observe, to bring them into the field of the consciousness and know what they are. But there is no reason why you should allow them to enter into you and possess you. It is only the Divine or what comes from the Divine that can be admitted to enter you.”

“To say that all light is good is as if you said that all water is good — or even that all clear or transparent water is good: it would not be true. One must see what is the nature of the light or where it comes from or what is in it, before one can say that it is the true Light. Falses lights exist and misleading lustres, lower lights too that belong to the being’s inferior reaches. One must therefore be on one’s guard and distinguish; the true discrimination has to come by growth of the psychic feeling and a purified mind and experience.”

Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 3, In Difficulty, pg.53