Humility and Self-Confidence

The play of the three Gunas is active at all times in the life we live here. We may believe that the aspiration, or an act of consecration overcomes this play, but if we examine closely we can see that, in actuality, even the quality of our sadhana, our spiritual effort, is very much controlled and governed by whichever guna is predominant at a particular time, and they continue to fluctuate, moving us from one ‘mood’ to another along with these fluctuations.

It is thus a somewhat frequent occurrence, therefore, that spiritual aspirants shift from a mood of exuberance to one of depression, as he goes from a powerful spiritual experience to a dry period where everything seems to be going wrong and all the weaknesses of the lower nature are asserting themselves. When Rajas is in the ascendant the seeker may feel that he is highly advanced and a powerful sadhak. When Tamas takes over, he may feel overwhelmed and worried about a lack of progress and capacity for the practice of the yoga.

The balanced approach comes about with the rise of Sattwa. The sadhak then may not become overly confident, nor overly depressed, but recognise rather that both of these states are the result of the play of the Gunas. This provides an opportunity for the sadhak to not waste energy in either puffing himself up nor falling into a gloomy state of mental or vital paralysis.

In reality, all of this is taking place in the exte
al nature and the soul, the true self, is not affected by either. When the sadhak can disentangle himself from this play, take the standpoint of the witness consciousness, and refocus his view on the spiritual path, he finds that the higher force actually is at work all the time to transform his consciousness, and these transitory changes due to the play of the Gunas have little or no essential meaning and thus, can be set aside so that the awareness is tuned to the divine consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo observes: “Humility is needful, but constant self-depreciation does not help; excessive self-esteem and self-depreciation are both wrong attitudes. To recognise any defects without exaggerating them is useful but, once recognised, it is no good dwelling on them always; you must have the confidence that the Divine Force can change everything and you must let the Force work.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 2, Looking at Oneself and Others, pg. 40