Developing the Proper Attitude of Yogic Equality in Relation to Present Reality and Future Development

We tend to view everything from our individual ego-standpoint, and as a result, we take difficulties as being our own, as well as any obstacles, setbacks or delays being directly tied to ourselves. We tend to believe that we are either bound by some karmic destiny, or by the astrological pattern of the stars to determine the birth we have taken, the situations we have to endure and the obstacles we have to face, as well as the eventual end result. In many cases, when we do not visibly see progress in something we are aspiring for, we look at this as our personal failure and become despondent, or upset with circumstances.

While the karmic circumstance, the personal makeup of our individual mind-life-body, the societal framework or the stars may have some amount of influence, the aspiration aligned with the Divine Will in manifestation has the power to eventually overcome these influences, which represent the static standpoint of “what is” rather than the dynamic standpoint of “what shall be”. Once we shift to the divine-standpoint and see the evolutionary process through that lens, we begin to understand both the reality and necessity of the current situation, and the process by which things can and will change over time. This provides the necessary perspective to take things calmly and work tirelessly for the change that must come in the universal developmental cycle.

Sri Aurobindo writes: “A wise impersonality, a quiescent equality, a universality which sees all things as the manifestations of the Divine, the one Existence, is not angry, troubled, impatient with the way of things or on the other hand excited, over-eager and precipitate, but sees that the law must be obeyed and the pace of time respected, observes and understands with sympathy the actuality of things and beings, but looks also behind the present appearance to their inner significances and forward to the unrolling of their divine possibilities…”

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, Living Within: The Yoga Approach to Psychological Health and Growth, General Methods and Principles, Equality, pp. 27-29