The One Essential Thing in Spiritual Development Is an Inward Focus of the Awareness on the Divine Presence

0:00 In the Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2, verse 54, Arjuna asks Sri Krishna how to recognize the enlightened man. Sri Orbindo translates quote. What is the sign of the man in Samati whose intelligence is firmly fixed in wisdom? How does the sage of settled understanding speak? How sit, how walk? End Quote. Sri Arbindo goes on to explain quote Arjuna voicing the average human mind ask for some outward, physical, practically discernible sign of samadhi. No such signs can be given, nor does the teacher attempt to supply them, for the only possible test of its possession is inward, and that there are plenty of hostile psychological forces to apply.

0:58 Equality is the great stamp of the liberated soul, and of that equality even the most discernible signs are still subjective. End Quote. Reference Bhagavad Gita and its message. In chapter 2, verse 55. Sri Krishna explains further quote When a man expels, O Partha, all desires from the mind and is satisfied in the self by the Self, then is he called stable, an intelligence? End Quote. Sri Orbindo adds quote. The test of samadhi is the expulsion of all desires, their inability to get out the mind, and it is the inner state from which this freedom arises.

1:50 The delight of the soul gathered within itself, with the mind equal and still and high, poised above the attractions and repulsions, the alternations of sunshine and storm and stress of the external life. It is drawn inward Even when acting outwardly, it is concentrated in self, even when gazing out upon things. It is directed wholly to the Divine, even when to the outward vision of others busy and preoccupied with the affairs of the world. End Quote. This response also relates to the entire life and standpoint of the individual.

2:32 External actions such as focus on Sutwick diet, moderation in eating, regulation of 1's external activities have their place, but the real test for the seeker is the shift to the inner psychic standpoint and identification with the Divine Presence. To the extent the seeker fixates so much on external details and fails to direct his awareness and energies towards the spiritual realization, he is actually defeating his own purpose. Systematically removing the element of vital desire in all its forms and creating the inner attitude of surrender to the Divine is the one essential thing to be done, Srioro Bindu observes. Quote all these giving up indulgence in food, tea, et cetera are external things that have their use. But what I mean by the complete attitude of the Sadiq is something more inward.

3:38 I mean not to be interested in outward things for their own sake, following after them with desire, but at all times to be intent on one's soul living centrally in the inner being and its progress, taking outward things in action only as a means for the inner progress. End Quote. Reference. Shriya Robindo and the Mother Looking from within. Chapter 5. Attitudes on the Path, pages 167 to 168.