It is spirituality when you begin to become aware of another consciousness than the ego and begin to live in it or under its influence more and more. It is that consciousness wide, infinite, self-existent, pure of ego etc. which is called Spirit (Self, Brahman, Divine), so this necessarily must be the meaning of spirituality.

from Letters on Yoga,

by Sri Aurobineo 

When we become more and more identified with this Spirit self, or Self, we begin to take on the qualities of it, the qualities of nature itself (nature is this thing that is other than the ego. Nature is the Totality.) What are the qualities of nature? The first and foremost is that nature knows how to do only one thing. That one thing is to evolve. Nature knows only progressive change. As we become more and more identified with nature, then we begin to know that regardless of how something feels, what is happening is progressive change. This can give us a willingness to continue forward when perhaps it would feel more comfortable not to.

For example, I recently have quit eating sugar. By not eating sugar, I am now being given the gift of seeing and feeling what has been hidden by the eating of sugar (for no one eats sugar compulsively, or drinks compulsively, or smokes cigarettes, or fill-in-the-blank, without it being used by some part of our system to keep something from consciousness). Regardless of what it is that is coming up to be seen and felt, the one thing that can be said for it, for any of us, is that it probably is not comfortable.

Discomfort. Negative feelings. The ones like anger and sadness, despair, sorrow, etc. What in meditation we generally would see as stress release feelings. Feeling that discomfort, the idea that some part of my ego gives me is that comfort could be found simply by eating sugar. And for a moment, indeed, that would be the case, followed almost immediately by the need for more sugar. If I were to follow this course, soon I will have eaten too much sugar and my body would have moved into a new kind of discomfort--the discomfort of being overfull, of having failed in my quest to not eat sugar, and the shame of once again being weaker than sugar or the idea to have it--but this would be a discomfort that is very familiar, very old, and that includes with it the capacity once again to ignore whatever truths I was finding about myself that were making me uncomfortable in the first place. The sugar would simply bury those feelings, those truths, once again; and in a very real sense by eating the sugar, I would be choosing not to be part of evolution. Choosing to take things into my own hands and put the brakes on whatever it is that nature would have me know that made me uncomfortable.

There is no room certainly for despair. The bliss always comes in drops at first, or a broken trickle. You have to go on cheerfully and in full confidence, till there is the cascade.

 Ibid.

So I'm not going to eat sugar. Just for today, as they say in the rooms of the Twelve Steps. And I will remember what I have told myself before: Comfort is overrated. Especially when we see what we are trading to have the comfort. Growth, connection to the Divine, self-respect, self-knowledge.  

Does knowing this make a difference? I'm not sure. I know that writing it down keeps me busy. That's a plus. Sharing it with someone else, that makes a difference. Finding empathy for this part of myself, that helps. Not listening to the voice inside that cynically berates everything I try to do to improve the quality of my life. That helps a lot. And by not listening to the ego, not doing the same old behavior, we step into the unknown, willing to feel the discomfort and not try to fix it, and this brings us into the realm where we are available to the Divine. We become able to be lifted up by nature and shown where our growth lies.

If you truly decide in all your consciousness to offer your being to the Divine to mould it as He wills, then most of your personal difficulty will disappear.

 Ibid.

There is a symbol that represents Sri Aurobindo's teachings, that embodies his view of how this world and us in it works. The symbol is a pair of intersecting triangles, one pointing upwards, one down. In the square formed around the area of their intersection is a lotus and water.

The ascending triangle represents man's aspirations upward, to the Divine.

The descending triangle represents the response of the Divine, of Totality, in its three-fold nature: Sat-Chit-Ananda. Existence-Consciousness-Bliss.

The junction of the two--the lotus upon the water--represents the perfection that is achievable in this world when we choose to make our life about this aspiration and about recognizing and then living out the response of nature to our aspiration.

Today I will aspire to see what nature would have me see, about myself or about the world around me, regardless of the discomfort it might entail. And I will expect the support of nature in response to that aspiration.

 Seagull, over North Hollywood or Rishikesh