Just Because We Cannot Observe It Directly, Does Not Mean Spiritual Force Does Not Exist

A devotee reported several incidents that appeared to be the result of spiritual force. The first occurred in early 1973 in Los Angeles. He attended a talk by Udar Pinto of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and afterwards joined his party for dinner, at which there was extensive discussion. Udar told the devotee ‘you should come to the Ashram”. The devotee replied that he had no money and had no idea how he would be able to pay for the plane flight or a stay in Pondicherry, India. Udar said “Mother will provide.” Afterwards, that night, when the devotee went back to his parents’ house where he was staying, he was confronted by them. They insisted he see a psychiatrist as they felt he had abandoned his career and prospects by chasing crazy ideas. He declined. They then said that their only other option was to give him a ticket to India and funds for a year’s stay so that he could see for himself and “work it out of his system.” He saw the way the Mother had chosen to provide as a spiritual event intervening in his life.

Another incident occurred for the devotee the same year. The Mother used to give Darshan from the balcony on specific days each year. The August 15, 1973 Darshan was not expected to occur due to her fragile state of health. The devotee was however awakened early in the morning, around 3 am with a jolt of powerful energy just about lifting him out of the bed, and he reported feeling like he was almost walking on air; and he KNEW at that moment, that the Darshan would take place despite the fact that everyone had indicated it would not occur. When he went to the Ashram building later that morning, he saw the sign that announced the Darshan would occur in the evening.

People everywhere have inexplicable stories relating to their inner spiritual experiences, their relations with their Guru, ‘miracle cures’ that occur after praying to the Guru, etc. In his extraordinary book Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda recounts innumberable incidents of spiritual forces at work, many of his own direct experience, numerous with witnesses, and recounts of trusted individuals in his life who provided similar evidence of things that were inexplicable to the logical mind, but which advanced the spiritual direction, guidance and growth of the individuals involved. One incident involved his being healed from a dire case of Asiatic cholera: “My life was despaired of; the doctors could do nothing. At my bedside, Mother frantically motioned me to look at Lahiri Mahasaya’s picture on the wall above my head. ‘Bow to him mentally!’ She knew I was too feeble even to lift my hands in salutation. ‘If you really show your devotion and inwardly kneel before him, your life will be spared!’ I gazed at his photograph and saw there a blinding light, enveloping my body and the entire room. My nausea and other uncontrollable symptoms disappeared; I was well. At once I felt strong enough to bend over and touch Mother’s feet in appreciation of her immeasurable faith in her guru.. “O Omnipresent Master, I thank thee that thy light hath healed my son!’ I realized that she too had witnessed the luminous blaze through which I had instantly recovered from a usually fatal disease.”

Sri Aurobindo himself told of his experiences during his time as an under-trial detainee and also during his trial in the Alipore bomb conspiracy case (he was eventually acquitted). In his Tales of Prison Life and in the remarkable Uttarpara Speech, he provided ample evidence and examples in his own life of spiritual power at work.

Sri Aurobindo writes: “It is evident that if spiritual force exists, it must be able to produce spiritual results — therefore there is no irrationality in the claim of those sadhaks who say that they feel the force of the Guru or the force of the Divine working in them and leading towards spiritual fulfilment and experience. Whether it is so or not in a particular case is a personal question, but the statement cannot be denounced as per se incredible and manifestly false, because such things cannot be. Further, if it be true that spiritual force is the original one and the others are derivative from it, then there is no irrationality in supposing that spiritual force can produce mental results, vital results, physical results. It may act through mental, vital or physical energies and through the means which these energies use, or it may act directly on mind, life or Matter as the field of its own special and immediate action. Either way is prima facie possible. In a case of cure of illness, someone is ill for two days, weak, suffering from pains and fever; he takes no medicine, but finally asks for cure from his Guru; the next morning he rises well, strong and energetic. He has at least some justification for thinking that a force has been used on him and put into him and that it was a spiritual power that acted. But in another case, medicines may be used, while at the same time the invisible force may be called for to aid the material means, for it is a known fact that medicines may or may not succeed — there is no certitude. Here for the reason of an outside observer (one who is neither the user of the force nor the doctor nor the patient) it remains uncertain whether the patient was cured by the medicines only or by the spiritual force with the medicines as an instrument. Either is possible, and it cannot be said that because medicines were used, therefore the working of a spiritual force is per se incredible and demonstrably false. On the other hand, it is possible for the doctor to have felt a force working in him and guiding him or he may see the patient improving with a rapidity which, according to medical science, is incredible. The patient may feel the force working in himself bringing health, energy, rapid cure. The user of the force may watch the results, see the symptoms he works on diminishing, those he did not work upon increasing till he does work on them and then immediately diminishing, the doctor working according to his unspoken suggestions, etc., etc., until the cure is done. (On the other hand, he may see forces working against the cure and conclude that the spiritual force has to be contented with a withdrawal or an imperfect success.) In all that the doctor, the patient or the user of force is justified in believing that the cure is at least partly or even fundamentally due to the spiritual force. Their experience is valid of course for themselves only, not for the outside rationalising observer. But the latter is not logically entitled to say that their experience is incredible and must be false.”

“Another point. It does not follow that a spiritual force must either succeed in all cases or, if it does not, that proves its non-existence. Of no force can that be said. The force of fire is to burn, but there are things it does not burn; under certain circumstances it does not burn even the feet of the man who walks barefoot on red-hot coals. That does not prove that fire cannot burn or that there is no such thing as force of fire, Agni Shakti.”

“I have no time to write more; it is not necessary either. My object was not to show that spiritual force must be believed in, but that the belief in it is not necessarily a delusion and that this belief can be rational as well as possible.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch.7 Spiritual Forces of Help and Succour, pp.160-162