The Secret of Success in Spiritual Sadhana Is to Maintain the Aspiration and Focus and Never Give Up

Failure turns out to be the stepping stone to success. We tend to become obsessed with being ‘perfect’ in the spiritual sadhana. We identify things we should be thinking, things we should be doing, ways we should be acting and responding to situations, and create for ourselves a set of rules or guidelines that we believe act as the markers of our success in the sadhana.

The problem with this approach is that it is entirely based in the ego. It focuses on the wrong metric of progress. No human being can expect to overcome the deeply embedded habits and reactions of human nature or the socialization he has undergone from time of birth forward. It is therefore obvious that any standard that sets perfection as the marker from the outset is doomed to either fail or wind up with self-deception.

Some of the habits of human nature, having developed over many millennia, are not so easily transformed in their nature. Habits of mind, habits of emotion, habits of vital reaction, habits of physical response all need to be patiently viewed, understood and systematically adjusted. This is not a work for days, weeks, or months. It is a work for a lifetime or more. As long as the predilection remains active in humanity, it is also possible for it to rise again in the individual. Transformation of human nature under the impulsion of the next phase of evolution of consciousness is a more or less thankless job.

What is important is to be able to maintain the aspiration and avoid discouragement as these things recur and try to reassert themselves. Once the seeker relieves himself of the burden of guilt and depression that arises based on the false premises of the ‘perfection’ standpoint, he will find it much easier to go on with the work, relentlessly, patiently and with a strong will and focused aspiration.

Sri Aurobindo writes: “Whether by tapasya or surrender does not matter, the one thing is to be firm in setting one’s face to the goal. Once one has set one’s feet on the way, how can one draw back from it to something inferior? If one keeps firm, falls do not matter, one rises up again and goes forward. If one is firm towards the goal, there can be on the way to the Divine no eventual failure. And if there is something within you that drives, as there surely is, falterings or falls or failure of faith make no eventual difference. One has to go on till the struggle is over and there is the straight and open and thornless way before us.”

Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 2, Faith — Aspiration — Surrender, pg. 31