A constant concern for spiritual aspirants is to distinguish the divine Will from their own ego-personality’s desires or ambitions. The vital nature has the uncanny ability to convince the mind that what it desires is actually something that can and should be justified, and once the mind adheres to it, the individual spends his time fulfilling the desires of the vital nature while feeling that he is carrying out the divine Will. In some cases, this reaches such an extreme state that the individual is able to justify all manner of harm to others as the fulfillment of a divine mission.
An individual recounted the case of a man who came to Europe from the East and took on the role of a leader or guide. Young people gathered around him, and he began to justify not only taking advantage of all the young women for his sexual appetites with the excuse that they were being given special spiritual teachings not available to most people. He separated wives from husbands, taking the wife into his intimate circle with the excuse that the wife had a special destiny and the husband was just a distraction to her. He controlled the young men who gathered around him through strict control of their sexual energies, and then sending one of his cadre of young women with the promise of sexual favors if they worked, brought money and abided by this man’s dictates. He also justified various forms of theft from business people, such as obtaining concrete, or trees, and then failing to pay for them, with the excuse that they were just ‘ordinary’ people who would anyway misuse the money, and he was serving a higher purpose. (He eventually was caught abusing young children and sent to jail.)
History teaches us the lesson of wars, pogroms, crusades, oppression, slavery and other terrors visited on humanity by people who believed they were carrying out the divine Will.
It is no wonder that sincere seekers question how they can know that they are truly acting under divine guidance rather than through an exacerbated ego-demand generated by a feeling of special status in their chosen spiritual or religious path.
The seeker has a few ways to understand the process of spiritual growth. First, the spiritual evolutionary movement brings harmony, understanding and balance. Attempts to aggrandise oneself, and take advantage of others is easily distinguished by the sincere seeker. The results of the spiritual force include the advent of peace, wideness, knowledge, harmony and a sense of devotion and aspiration. Feelings of jealousy, envy, anger, greed, lust clearly are not part of this scenario, and to the extent they arise, they give the seeker the opportunity to compare and contrast, with the eventual goal of eliminating these disruptive emotions, feelings, thoughts and forces from their being as they work to increase the harmony of their being.
Over a longer period of time, the seeker can compare how he reacted in the past to how he reacts today to circumstances, situations, potential difficulties or provocations. This view through the lens of time and change can aid the seeker in his observation of the direction of the changes that are taking place within him. If he is becoming wider in his conscious awareness, if he is acting with a deeper understanding and the deep sense of oneness and compassion that comes with that, if he is acting to be a benefit to the world, whether through outward signs or simply through his inward responses to situations, then he can use that understanding to continue to orient himself to the divine process taking place within him. Sri Aurobindo outlines the conditions when he speaks of calm, peace, equality, faith, aspiration and surrender.
Sri Aurobindo observes: “The conditions for following the Mother’s Will are to turn to her for Light and Truth and Strength, to aspire that no other force shall influence or lead you, to make no demands or conditions in the vital, to keep a quiet mind ready to receive the Truth but not insisting on its own ideas and formations, — finally to keep the psychic awake and in front, so that you may be in constant contact and know truly what her will is; for the mind and vital can mistake other impulsions and suggestions for the Divine Will, but the psychic once awakened makes no mistake.”
“A perfect perfection in working is only possible after supramentalisation; but a relative good working is possible on the lower planes, if one is in contact with the Divine and careful, vigilant and conscious in mind and vital and body. That is a condition, besides, which is preparatory and almost indispensable for the supreme liberation.”
Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 2, Faith — Aspiration — Surrender, pg. 34
Sri Aurobindo Studies 