The Necessity of Receptivity to the Force of the Divine Shakti to Accomplish the Sadhana of the Integral Yoga

For the practitioner of the integral yoga, it becomes evident that the transformation of human nature is not something that can be done by his own capacity alone. His mental ideas, the will power, vital drives and physical powers have their limitations and remain relatively fixed within the framework of the untransformed human nature as we recognise it. Some progress can be made, but it reaches a point where the change cannot progress any farther and a new power needs to be brought into the picture to work through the subsequent steps.

Once this need is recognised, the most important thing the seeker can do is to focus on the spiritual force (also known as the Divine Shakti and as the Mother’s Force) and open oneself to it constantly to bring its power into the mind, the will, the emotions, the life-energy and the physical body to carry out the needed changes.

In his book, The Mother, Sri Aurobindo states: “There are two powers that alone can effect in their conjunction the great and difficult thing which is the aim of our endeavour, a fixed and unfailing aspiratnoi that calls from below and a supreme Grace from above that answers.” He goes on to note: “In all that is done in the universe, the Divine through his Shakti is behind all action but he is veiled by his Yoga Maya and works through the ego of the Jiva in the lower nature. In Yoga also it is the Divine who is the Sadhaka and the Sadhana; it is his Shakti with her light, power, knowledge, consciousness, Ananda, acting upon the Adhara and, when it is opened to her, pouring into it with these divine forces that makes the Sadhana possible.”

Sri Aurobindo writes: “Let nothing and nobody come between you and Mother’s force. It is on your admitting and keeping that force and responding to the true inspiration and not on any ideas the mind may form that success will depend. Even ideas or plans which might otherwise be useful, will fail if there is not behind them the true spirit and the true force and influence.”

Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 3, In Difficulty, pp. 58-59