Overcoming Difficulties With Cheerfulness

We are all familiar with the artificial type of cheerfulness of the vital nature, which puts on a happy face, and glad hands everyone in a show of bubbly cheer. We are also familiar with the artificial type of cheerfulness that arises through the use of intoxicating beverages and immersion in an atmosphere of vital excitement. This type of cheer, however, is not able to overcome the difficulties one has to face, and when one leaves behind that artificial cheer, one is still faced with the problems, obstacles, doubts, fears and depressions that were temporarily masked behind the surface smile.

The type of cheerfulness that is powerful and effective stems from the psychic being that has begun to come forward and direct the life with a sense of its meaning and purpose. The soul has taken birth to accomplish something. It recognises that there are numerous setbacks and obstacles along the way, and it is prepared to meet them, quietly, patiently, cheerfully, to eventually achieve the goal.

Devotees have frequently in the past put on a sad face, and a grim demeanor, expressing how difficult the spiritual path was, and how much sacrifice it required. The ‘dark night of the soul’ has been a frequent topic among devotees in many different paths. They show their seriousness, and they struggle.

There is a story from the ancient texts that illustrates something of this power of cheerfulness in the spiritual quest. The divine sage Narada was traveling one day and came across a yogi who had undertaken strict austerities, seated under a tree, meditating without distraction and without regard for any of the amenities or comforts of the external life. When he saw Narada, he inquired: “I have been meditating here for years without break. When shall I achieve final liberation?” Narada used his divine sight to look into the yogi’s future and stated: “In four more lifetimes you will achieve final liberation.” The yogi was crestfallen at the verdict of Narada, as he was expecting liberation right away! Narada continued along his way and found a seeker immersed in singing and dancing out of devotion to God. He too inquired of Narada about his liberation, when he would be in the presence of the God he worshipped. Narada replied that “As many leaves as there are on this tree, that is the number of lifetimes it will take for your liberation.” At this, the devotee became ecstatic, exclaiming that in such a short time he would see God! A celestial voice came from the heavens declaring “You are liberated NOW!” The cheerfulness of this devotee was a power of his soul which had obviously taken charge of his external being and his life. He faced what the other yogi felt would be an enormous setback with characteristic cheerfulness and joy. This was the fast path to complete liberation from the bonds of the external world and life.

The Mother writes: “Another remarkable sign of the conversion of your vital, owing to Agni’s influence, is that you face your difficulties and obstacles with a smile. You do not sit any more in sackcloth and ashes, lamenting over your mistakes and feeling utterly crestfallen because you are not at the moment quite up to the mark. You simply chase away depression with a smile. A hundred mistakes do not matter to you: with a smile you recognise that you have erred and with a smile you resolve not to repeat the folly in the future. All depression and gloom is created by the hostile forces who are never so pleased as when throwing on you a melancholy mood. Humility is indeed one thing and depression quite another, the former a divine movement and the latter a very crude expression of the dark forces. Therefore, face your troubles joyously, oppose with invariable cheerfulness the obstacles that beset the road to transformation. The best means of routing the enemy is to laugh in his face! You may grapple and tussle for days and he may still show an undiminished vigour; but just once laugh at him and lo! he takes to his heels. A laugh of self-confidence and of faith in the Divine is the most shattering strength possible — it disrupts the enemy’s front, spreads havoc in his ranks and carries you triumphantly onwards.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter VII Attitude, pg. 72

The Will to Endure and the Body’s Ability to Withstand Hardship and Suffering

While most people are quite insulated from direct confrontation with extremes which the body is asked to endure, our modern media makes it possible to see and relate to some of these extreme situations. Far beyond the pressure of training for and running in a marathon race, there are circumstances, some of them voluntary, many of them involuntary, which expose us to the powers of the body to withstand what can only be called extreme suffering with a will to live and endure that beggars the imagination. We see both the capacity of the physical body under severe pressures, as well as its enormous pliancy and goodwill to provide a solid base for the ‘will to live’ which inhabits every being.

When the concentration camps were opened up after the end of World War II, we witnessed many thousands of individuals emaciated to the point of starvation. When villages in Vietnam were bombed with napalm during the Vietnam war, we were able to view the extreme pain and suffering of people who had lived through that horrible experience of having their skin burned alive. We have heard the stories of survivors of the atomic blasts that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. When we observe the mass migrations, the droughts, the starvation and the ravages of disease and warfare in other parts of the world, we see that millions of people are subjected to extremes that cause excruciating pain and yet, they somehow survive and try to go on with their lives.

On a day to day level, we have been advised that the pain experienced by women in childbirth can be far higher than any other pain that we normally experience. This is part of our normal human life on a regular basis and for those who have not undergone this experience in all its intensity, it is truly impossible to imagine.

We may reflect on the body’s endurance to pain and suffering and ask how it is that it is able to take this on, survive and continue to desire to live and breathe!

The Taittiriya Upanishad provides us an enigmatic answer: “for who could labour to draw in the breath or who could have strength to breathe it out, if there were not that Bliss in the heaven of his heart, the ether within his being?”

It may not appear that there is any sense of that bliss about which the Upanishad speaks in any of the experiences related above. But somehow, deep within each being there is that secret space where bliss dwells, covered over by pain, covered over by suffering, covered over by all the stress of living, but nevertheless there, waiting to come forward and transform the life. The surface being may not consciously recognise or appreciate this hidden source of the will to live, but nevertheless, it endures. This is what keeps people alive and hoping to survive under extreme circumstances and in intense pain.

The Mother writes in ‘The Science of Living’ in On Education: “The body has a remarkable capacity of adaptation and endurance. It is fit to do so many more things than one can usually imagine. If instead of the ignorant and despotic masters that govern it, it is ruled by the central truth of the being, one will be surprised at what it is capable of doing.”

The Mother clarifies further: “During the last war, it was proved that the body was capable of enduring such suffering as is normally impossible to endure. You have surely read or heard these stories of war in which the body was made to suffer and endure terrible things, and it withstood all that, it proved that it had almost inexhaustible capacities of endurance. Some people happened to be under conditions that should have killed them; if they survived, it was because they had in them a very strong will to survive and the body obeyed that will.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter VII Attitude, pg. 68

Endurance Is Required for Progress, Growth and Success

Each part of the being has its own form of endurance. Endurance is essential for any true and lasting development. Change tends to be mostly incremental. When it comes more rapidly it is usually accompanied by major disruptions to the status quo. In either case, one form of endurance, or another, is required.

Physical endurance is the ability to withstand pressure on the physical body and continue on. This is seen in sports, exploration activities, and adventure challenges, such as climbing mountains, or undertaking marathon races or triathlon. Vital endurance includes the power to remain positive and confident in the face of opposition and apparent setbacks. Mental endurance implies that the mind remains firm and without doubt about the results, even when everything looks bleak. Despair, depression and gloom are signs of a lack of endurance.

We tend not to understand the way Nature develops and evolves, and the time frame needed to accomplish these changes. Endurance implies ‘staying the course’ despite immediate appearances. For example, Sri Aurobindo, in his epic poem Savitri: a Legend and a Symbol, has the following passage: “When darkness deepens strangling the earth’s breast And man’s corporeal mind is the only lamp, As a thief’s in the night shall be the covert tread Of one who steps unseen into his house.” When all around us is darkness, defeat, suffering, death, and pain, the need for utmost endurance is required. As the proverb says, ‘It is always darkest before the dawn.’

The Mother notes: “Let endurance be your watchword: teach the life-force in you — your vital being — not to complain but to put up with all the conditions necessary for great achievement. The body is a very enduring servant, it bears the stress of circumstance tamely like a beast of burden. It is the vital being that is always grumbling and uneasy. The slavery and torture to which it subjects the physical is almost incalculable. How it twists and deforms the poor body to its own fads and fancies, irrationally demanding that everything should be shaped according to its whimsicality! But the very essence of endurance is that the vital should learn to give up its capricious likes and dislikes and preserve an equanimity in the midst of the most trying conditions. When you are treated roughly by somebody or you lack something which would relieve your discomfort, you must keep up cheerfully instead of letting yourself be disturbed. Let nothing ruffle you the least bit, and whenever the vital tends to air its petty grievances with pompous exaggeration just stop to consider how very happy you are, compared to so many in this world. Reflect for a moment on what the soldiers who fought in the last war had to go through. if you had to bear such hardships you would realise the utter silliness of your dissatisfactions. And yet I do not wish you to court difficulties — what I want is simply that you should learn to endure the little insignificant troubles of your life.”

“Nothing great is ever accomplished without endurance. If you study the lives of great men you will see how they set themselves like flint against the weaknesses of the vital. Even today, the true meaning of our civilisation is the mastery of the physical through endurance in the vital. The spirit of sport and of adventure and the dauntless facing of odds which is evident in all fields of life are part of this ideal of endurance. In science itself, progress depends on the countless difficult tests and trials which precede achievement…. What you must do is to give your vital a good beating as soon as it protests; for, when the physical is concerned, there is reason to be considerate and to take precautions, but with the vital the only method is a sound ‘kicking’. Kick your vital the moment it complains, because there is no other way of getting out of the petty consciousness which attaches so much importance to creature comforts and social amenities instead of asking for the Light and the Truth.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter VII Attitude, pp. 66-68

Understanding and Utilizing the Power of Sincerity in Action

If we reflect on our own efforts to change things in our lives, whether a resolution to follow a diet, exercise regularly, create a work-rest balance, spend more time with our families, or carry out some effort in our religious or spiritual focus, we will quickly see that our resolve does not always get carried out in our lives. We berate ourselves for lack of will power, without fully working out why that seems to be the case that we cannot follow through. We feel compelled in many cases to do things that are self-defeating. Of course, will-power can be practiced, strengthened and developed. Yet there is an underlying issue that actually is a primary causative factor in this failure, which the Mother terms lack of “sincerity”.

What is sincerity in this context? We first need to explore and understand the different parts of our being, and their different demands and desires. The psychic being is focused on our spiritual growth and development. For most people, it is quiet behind the veil of the external being and rarely shapes their lives. When it comes forward and takes a leading role then it can have an influence to both guide and direct the other parts of the being and harmonize them around the central focus.

The mind, the vital being and the physical body each have their own needs, wants, desires, and cherished directions, and they will tend to assert themselves. They undermine the will whenever they are not aligned for the same purpose and direction. The body may crave certain foods, the vital may seek the fulfillment of certain desires and they have a way of co-opting the mind to agree and provide an excuse or rationale for the outcome they desire.

Sincerity is this process of bringing all the parts of the being to agreement about the goals, purposes and actions to support the central purpose of the being and the life.

The Mother observes: “… there are people who tell me, ‘I don’t have the will-power [to overcome desire].’ That means you are not sincere. For sincerity is an infinitely more powerful force than all the wills in the world. It can change anything whatever in the twinkling of an eye; it takes hold of it, grips it, pulls it out — and then it’s over.”

“But you close your eyes, you find excuses for yourself.”

“Sincerity is the safeguard, the protection, the guide, and finally the transforming power.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter VII Attitude, pg. 66

Attitude and the Law of Attraction

The ‘law of attraction’ has been seen as something of a ‘wish-fulfilling gem’, where we can think about something and focus on it, and thereby draw it to us. The reality of the law of attraction is not so dramatic as to cause riches, fame and other desired results to manifest for us somewhat automatically, but is nevertheless a reality that we can and should understand and utilize in the way we maneuver our way through life.

We tend to resonate towards those things that are compatible with our energetic vibration. Similarly, we tend to attract those things which find our energetic vibration suitable. This mutual attraction tends to help sort out what we experience in life so that each individual has a unique set of experiences.

It has been said that what we fear the most is the thing we are actually drawing towards us. At the same time, the fear tends to open up a hole in our energetic envelope to allow the feared thing to approach and enter.

The same can be said for those things we desire. What we desire most tends to draw us into events and circumstances and opportunities that help us achieve that desire.

Our basic attitude toward life is part of the mechanism by which we steer and focus our attention and thereby create the various attractions and repulsions that govern our vital existence. This attitude can also spell the difference between a good outcome and a bad outcome as forces that support are drawn to a positive, upward-looking attitude and forces that obstruct or harm are drawn to a negative, downward-looking attitude.

The Mother writes: “If, in the presence of circumstances that are about to take place, you can take the highest attitude possible — that is, if you put your consciousness in contact with the highest consciousness within reach, you can be absolutely sure that in that case it is the best that can happen to you. But as soon as you fall from this consciousness into a lower state, then it is evidently not the best that can happen, for the simple reason that you are not in your very best consciousness. I even go so far as to affirm that in the zone of immediate influence of each one, the right attitude not only has the power to turn every circumstance to advantage but can change the very circumstance itself. For instance, when a man comes to kill you, if you remain in the ordinary consciousness and get frightened out of your wits, he will most probably succeed in doing what he came for; if you rise a little higher and though full of fear call for the divine help, he may just miss you, doing you a slight injury; if, however, you have the right attitude and the full consciousness of the divine presence everywhere around you, he will not be able to lift a finger against you….”

“I have had innumerable examples of the power of right attitude. I have seen crowds saved from catastrophes by one single person keeping the right attitude. But it must be an attitude that does not remain somewhere very high and leaves the body to its usual reactions. If you remain high up like that, saying ‘Let God’s will be done’, you may get killed all the same. For your body may be quite undivine, shivering with fear: the thing is to hold the true consciousness in the body itself and not have the least fear and be full of the divine peace. Then indeed there is no danger. Not only can attacks of men be warded off, but beasts also and even the elements can be affected.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter VII Attitude, pp. 65-66