The Spiritual Seeker Needs to Live Within His Own Spiritual Atmosphere Not Dependent on Outer Circumstances

When an individual takes up spiritual practice, he naturally will try to find a space that is calm and quiet to aid his contemplation, aspiration or devotion. The hustle and bustle of the external life is distracting to the concentration and all of the noise, and all of the pressures of that external life can make it difficult for the seeker to achieve the needed steady, calm aspiration on a consistent basis. Many seekers believe that they cannot make spiritual progress unless the external environment is calm and quiet.

Spirituality cannot be conditioned upon any particular outer circumstances. Sri Krishna delivers his teaching to Arjuna on an actual battlefield, which illustrates the need for the seeker to not be affected by the outer circumstances, but rather to create the spiritual readiness, awaken the aspiration and create the consecration within himself, regardless of outer circumstances.

Few are those individuals who have the opportunity to live a life of quiet contemplation, who reside in a monastery, cloister or ashram, or who have chosen to live isolated in the mountains or the forests or the desert. Most people are living a life in the world with family, friends, relations, societal needs, employment, and all kinds of pressures from society. These individuals may take an occasional ‘time off’ through a retreat, a workshop or a vacation of some sort, which may help to re-center the energy if it has become distressed, but the end result must eventually be that they carry their spiritual atmosphere within themselves and can proceed through all the potential distractions and pressures without losing their inner balance or focus. An individual can carry the spiritual atmosphere around with him regardless of outer conditions. In many instances, he can make conscious choices that help create the optimum outer circumstances. For instance, he can choose to remain home, or go to a quiet library rather than going out to a club or large noisy event of some sort. Consciously determining, whenever possible, where to be at any point in time can be an aid, without making this an actual determining factor for creating one’s own inner space of quiet aspiration and silent spiritual focus. When such venue choices are not possible, the individual should be able to continue on nevertheless with the sadhana.

Sri Aurobindo notes: “There can be an intense but quiet aspiration which does not disturb the harmony of the inner being.”

“Calm, discrimination, detachment (but not indifference) are all very important, for their opposites impede very much the transforming action. Intensity of aspiration should be there, but it must go along with these. No hurry, no inertia, neither rajasic over-eagerness nor tamasic discouragement — a steady and persistent but quiet call and working.”

“To remain quiet within, firm in the will to go through, refusing to be disturbed or discouraged by difficulties or fluctuations, that is one of the first things to be learned in the Path. To do otherwise is to encourage the instability of consciousness….”

“A spiritual atmosphere is more important than outer conditions; if one can get that and also create one’s own spiritual air to breathe in and live in it, that is the true condition of progress.”

“You should realise that while quiet surroundings are desirable, the true quiet is within and no other will give the condition you want.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 5, Attitudes on the Path, pp. 115-116