Shifting the Motive Power of Action from the Exte al Being to the Psychic Being

For most people the impulsion to action comes from a need, desire or ambition of some sort. If these are removed, the individual can become depressed and fall into a state that lacks motivation and thereby reduces their energy when it comes to doing anything. We frequently see people, (or experience within ourselves), states of being that have essentially ‘given up’, with the sense that all this action is meaningless, or destined to fail, or else, a sense of deep fatigue takes over and one can barely get up out of bed and go through the normal chores of the day. Some people work day in and day out for years to accomplish some task only to have all their forward progress destroyed in a day. It is discouraging and they either renew their efforts, or simply accept the failure and give up action.

The spiritual seeker is not immune to these setbacks and the fatigue of action. He has an additional issue to resolve, and that is, if he removes all the prods that the physical, vital and mental nature normally provide to provoke him into action, what remains to get him to act at all? In some cases, we see individuals who take up the spiritual life simply abandon the life in the world, with the sense that it is all an illusion, or else, as a reaction to setbacks and difficulties, more or less as an escape from the pressures of the outer existence.

What can move the spiritual seeker to action when he is no longer driven by need, desire or ambition? In the Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna confronts this issue when Arjuna declares he will not fight, and it is better to ‘give up’ than to undertake the action before him, for which he has been preparing his entire adult life. He explains to Arjuna that one can act from an entirely different standpoint, one of doing the work to be done, without desire for the fruits, without attachment to the result, simply because it is what the Divine has placed before one for one’s action. Sri Krishna explains that all of the warriors are destined to die in this battle and that Arjuna’s role has been prepared to carry this out, but the result, one way or the other, cannot be avoided. The larger purpose of moving humanity forward in its evolution and overcoming retrogressive forces is what Arjuna should be focusing on.

The spiritual seeker is called upon to act with full energy and focus, not for his own personal aggrandisement or benefit, but as a dedicated and consecrated activity carrying out the Divine’s impulsion in the world at large. This requries shifting the standpoint for the motive power from the exte
al being, the nexus of the body, life and mind, to the psychic being which is the individuals direct link to the Divine.

Sri Aurobindo notes: “Men usually work and carry on their affaris from ordinary motives of the vital being, need, desire of wealth or success or position or power or fame or the push to activity and the pleasure of manifesting their capacities, and they succeed or fail according to their capability, power of work and the good or bad fortune which is the result of their nature and their Karma. When one takes up the yoga and wishes to consecrate one’s life to the Divine, these ordinary motives of the vital being have no longer their full and free play; they have to be replaced by another, a mainly psychic and spiritual motive, which will enable the sadhak to work with the same force as before, no longer for himself, but for the Divine. If the ordinary vital motives or vital force can no longer act freely and yet are not replaced by something else, then the push or force put into the work may decline or the power to command success may no longer be there. For the sincere sadhak the difficulty can only be temporary; but he has to see the defect in his consciousness or his attitude and to remove it. Then the Divine Power itself will act through him and use his capacity and vital force for its ends.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 3, Action and Work, pg. 65