Faith and Personal Effort

There is a tendency in the human mind to create an artificial division between faith, based in the divine Grace, and effort, based in the mental, vital and physical being of the individual. Thus, if we have faith, we tend not to ‘worry’ about specific actions we can or should take. It is a type of fatalism that says that the Grace is watching over me, so whatever happens is for the best and I need not take steps to support or develop it. At the same time, the mind’s natural approach is to fragment, to divide, to question, to doubt and to hold conflicting ideas at one time or another. Thus, the individual is paralyzed into inaction through the confusion and doubt that has been engendered.

In his book, The Mother, Sri Aurobindo makes it clear that the attitude that holds that effort is not required is a tamasic attitude and that personal effort is needed for a long way on the path of realization. He states: “The personal effort required is a triple labour of aspiration, rejection and surrender, — an aspiration vigilant, constant, unceasing — the mind’s will, the heart’s seeking, the assent of the vital being, the will to open and make plastic the physical consciousness and nature; rejection of the movements of the lower nature — rejection of the mind’s ideas, opinions, preferences, habits, constructions, so that the true knowledge may find free room in a silent mind, — rejection of the vital nature’s desires, demands, cravings, sensations, passions, selfishness, pride, arrogance, lust, greed, jealousy, envy, hostility to the Truth, so that the true power and joy may pour from above into a calm, large, strong and consecrated vital being, — rejection of the physical nature’s stupidity, doubt, disbelief, obscurity, obstinacy, pettiness, laziness, unwillingness to change, tamas, so that the true stability of Light, Power, Ananda may establish itself in a body growing always more divine; surrender of oneself and all one is and has and every plane of the consciousness and every movement to the Divine and the Shakti.”

A disciple asks: “Sweet Mother, can faith be increased by personal effort?”

The Mother observes: “Faith is certainly a gift given to us by the Divine Grace. It is like a door suddenly opening upon an eternal truth, through which we can see it, almost touch it.”

“As in everything else in the ascent of humanity, there is the necessity — especially at the beginning — of personal effort. It is possible that in some exceptional circumstances, for reasons which completely elude our intelligence, faith may come almost accidentally, quite unexpectedly, almost without ever having been solicited, but most frequently it is an answer to a yearning, a need, an aspiration, something in the being that is seeking and longing, even though not in a very conscious and systematic way. But in any case, when faith has been granted, when one has had this sudden inner illumination, in order to preserve it constantly in the active consciousness individual effort is altogether indispensable. One must hold on to one’s faith, will one’s faith; one must seek it, cultivate it, protect it.”

“In the human mind there is a morbid and deplorable habit of doubt, argument, scepticism. This is where human effort must be put in: the refusal to admit them, the refusal to listen to listen to them and still more the refusal to follow them. No game is more dangerous than playing mentally with doubt and scepticism. They are not only enemies, they are terrible pitfalls, and once one falls into them, it becomes tremendously difficult to pull oneself out.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter VI Faith, pg. 63