It is essential for the spiritual seeker to maintain his view of the long-term objectives and the time frames of the evolution of consciousness in Nature, in order for him to avoid becoming overly anxious about specific setbacks or delays in completing transforming the external physical consciousness. When an individual takes up the practice of yoga, he begins to observe the defects and limitations of the existing formulation of not only his own external being, but of the external life, in general. If he does not take the path of abandonment of that life, the path of the ascetic, but chooses instead the integral path of unification of spirit and matter and the transformation rather than the abandonment of the external life, he finds that the entire structure of the mental life, the vital life and the physical life needs to change.
Looking back at the history of the evolution of consciousness provides needed context for the daily setbacks and difficulties. Evolution of a next stage of consciousness in the world takes place, not overnight, but over time frames that far exceed our short human life experience. The development of life out of matter took millions of years. Similarly, the development of mind out of life itself took a long time, although this occurred somewhat faster in geological time than the prior stage.
We are now at a threshold of the evolution of the next phase of consciousness, a stage which takes awareness beyond the mind, which Sri Aurobindo calls the ‘supramental’ consciousness. This phase may proceed more quickly than the prior stages, if we look at the evolutionary process, but that does not mean that all the existing formulations, habits, instincts, reactions, and responses change overnight just because a seeker wants it to happen.
It is with this perspective that the seeker needs to both carry out the concentration and focus needed, while at the same time maintaining the patience and understanding of the lengthy process involved, and the persistent efforts needed constantly to help shepherd these changes along. The process is necessarily one with day to day failure acting as the stepping stone to the eventual success, given the nature of the process, the embedded resistance and conservative principle, and the time Nature requires to fix definitive changes into the prior evolved principles so that they can operate in the new environment brought about by the newly evolved powers.
Sri Aurobindo notes: “These variations in the consciousness during the day are a thing that is common to almost everybody in the sadhana. The principle of oscillation, relaxation, relapse to a normal or a past lower condition from a higher state that is experienced but not yet perfectly stable, becomes very strong and marked when the working of the sadhana is in the physical consciousness. For there is an inertia in the physical nature that does not easily allow the intensity natural to the higher consciousness to remain constant, — the physical is always sinking back to something more ordinary; the higher consciousness and its force have to work long and come again and again before they can become constant and normal in the physical nature. Do not be disturbed or discouraged by these variations or this delay, however long and tedious; remain careful only to be quiet always with an inner quietude and as open as possible to the higher Power, not allowing any really adverse condition to get hold of you. If there is no adverse wave, then the rest is only a persistence of imperfections which all have in abundance; that imperfection and persistence the Force must work out and eliminate, but for the elimination time is needed.”
Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 5, Physical Consciousness — Subconscient — Sleep and Dream — Illness, pg. 85
Sri Aurobindo Studies 