The Need for the Power of Disce ment in the Spiritual Sadhana

There are many powers at work in the world, physical powers, vital powers, mental powers, spiritual powers. They are native to their own sphere, but in many cases they are active here in our world, trying to assert themselves and thrive here. Many of these powers are conscious and act with intentionality. Some support the development of consciousness and represent the spiritual forces that are beneficent, helpful and compassionate. Others oppose this development and try to either maintain a status quo within which they have considerable influence, or destroy the work of those seeking to move the evolution forward.

This poses a unique challenge for the spiritual seeker. Powers descend into the seeker and they may, in some cases, take on the appearance of forces of Light or progress, while they may actually be hostile or contrary forces.

In the modern world of Artificial Intelligence, the internet, photoshop, we learn to be careful, even suspicious, of whatever is presented before us, so we can avoid being ‘scammed’ or subjected to what are called ‘deep fakes’. J.R.R. Tolkien, in his epic tale The Lord of the Rings, makes a statement that “all that is gold does not glitter”, which is a corollary to the well-known proverb that ‘all that glitters is not gold’. The spiritual seeker needs to exercise a similar disce
ment when it comes to the powers that seek to influence and act upon and through him.

Many seekers, particularly novices on the path, confuse the concept of ‘surrender’ to the Divine Power with the absence of any form of disce
ment, believing that everything that comes to him must be what he is intended to receive. In his book, The Mother, Sri Aurobindo distinguishes active effort from a misplaced reliance on the Divine doing everything for him: “Note that a tamasic surrender refusing to fulfil the conditions and calling on God to do everything and save one all the trouble and struggle is a deception and does not lead to freedom and perfection.”

He expands with a warning: “If you open yourself on one side or in one part to the Truth and on another side are constantly opening the gates to hostile forces, it is vain to expect that the divine Grace will abide with you.”

The seeker eventually must find a way to distinguish the true Divine Force and those that represent something other. This disce
ment comes from the psychic being’s inner sense of rightness as it experiences the energy and potential consequences. Powers that bring any kind of rajasic desire, ambition or grasping; or those that lull one into indolence and dullness are to be rejected.

Sri Aurobindo writes: “It is dangerous to think of giving up ‘all barrier of discrimination and defence against what is trying to descend’ upon you. Have you thought what this would mean if what is descending is something not in consonance with the divine Truth, perhaps even adverse? An adverse Power would ask no better condition for getting control over the seeker. It is only the Mother’s force and the divine Truth that one should admit without barriers. And even there one must keep the power of disce
ment in order to detect anything false that comes masquerading as the Mother’s force and the divine Truth, and keep too the power of rejection that will throw away all mixture.”

“Keep faith in your spiritual destiny, draw back from error and open more the psychic being to the direct guidance of the Mother’s light and power. If the central will is sincere, each recognition of a mistake can become a stepping-stone to a truer movement and a higher progress.”

Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 4, Desire — Food — Sex, pg. 73