The Faith That Every Sadhak Must Have to Support Him Through Every Obstacle or Setback

When we travel on a major highway, we do not doubt or question that the destination at the end of that road is where we will eventually end up. We may need to face various difficulties along the way. There may be stops for food or fuel, there may be automobile breakdowns and needed repairs, there may be storms and temporary halts or diversions. But if we remain focused on the objective, and continue to stay on the highway, we will one day reach the end.
If we get turned around, confused or convinced to take a different road, in a different direction, or to simply settle down somewhere and give up the attempt to reach the destination, then we will not make it there. We need patience, persistence and a constant faith that regardless of any opposition, any obstacles, any setbacks, if we remain on the highway we will reach our goal. Our family, our friends, our society may try to change our plans, denigrate the destination, claim there are better places to go to. If we respond to these voices, we will wind up somewhere other than where we first intended.
For the spiritual seeker, following the path of spiritual growth is similar to this highway. To start on this path is due to an act of faith. In many cases, this faith arises as a result of an experience of the Divine and an intuition of the Divine Truth of existence and the purpose of the divine manifestation. We tend to believe that we are the originators of our actions and that we are ‘in control’ of what we decide, where we go and what we wind up doing with our lives, as if the entire universal creation is just there as a backdrop for our decisions and actions! In reality, we are constantly subject to influences, vibrations, energies that originate outside ourselves, and which shape who we are, what we value and how we act. Our role is to choose to open ourselves up to one influence or another, one highway, or another, so to speak. Depending on how we choose, the universal energies guide and propel us along the way. If we choose to open ourselves up to the ego-personality’s fulfillment, to the forces of desire, craving, lust, anger, hatred, then of course, we wind up mired in those things and cannot reach the goal as long as we remain fixated on the desire-fulfillment of the individual life-experience. If we remain firm in our choice of a spiritual purpose, those energies bring us to the spiritual realisation we have chosen.
Sri Aurobindo notes: “If you desire only the Divine, there is an absolute certitude that you will reach the Divine, but all these questionings and repinings at each movement only delay and keep an impending curtain before the heart and the eyes. For at every step, when one makes an advance, the opposite forces will throw these doubts like a rope between the legs and stop one short with a stumble — it is their metier to do that…. One must say, ‘Since I want only the Divine, my success is sure, I have only to walk forward in all confidence and His own Hand will be there secretly leading me to Him by His own way and His own time.’ That is what you must keep as your constant mantra. Anything else one may doubt but that he who desires only the Divine shall reach the Divine is a certitude and more certain than two and two make four. That is the faith every sadhak must have at the bottom of his heart, supporting him through every stumble and blow and ordeal.”
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 5, Attitudes on the Path, pp. 131-132rnâ