This is a summary of a compilation made from the works of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. The summary was prepared by a student as part of her learning journey which includes making of the compilation.

What is Aspiration?

Aspiration is a dynamic push of your whole nature behind the resolution to reach the Divine.^[1] [It is] the turning upward of the inner being with a call, yearning, prayer for the Truth or whatever else is the aim of one’s endeavour. ^[2].

Aspiration in Relation to Other Divine Qualities

Aspiration and Peace

In addition to aspiration let there also be calm and peace and joy in the mind and heart, and a confidence that all will be done in its due time. ^[3]

Aspiration and Perfection

In works, aspiration towards Perfection is true spirituality. ^[4]

Aspiration and Sincerity

Also total sincerity is needed for the aspiration to be fulfilled. ^[5]

Sincerity means that one is really in earnest in his aspiration and refuses all other will or impulse except the Divine’s. ^[6]

Aspiration in the Different Parts of Being?

Mental Aspiration

This means that the thought-power aspires to have knowledge, for instance, or else to have the power to express itself well or have clear ideas, a logical reasoning. ^[7]

Vital Aspiration

One may have an aspiration in the vital; if one has desires or troubles, storms, inner difficulties, one may aspire for peace. ^[8]

Physical Aspiration

The body may feel the need to have the power to hold off illness and that the body may always function normally, harmoniously, in perfect health. ^[9]

Unless one practises yoga in the physical being (outer being), it remains ignorant. That is why the yoga of the body-cells is indispensable. ^[10]

Psychic Aspiration

It is a constant, regular, organised, gentle and patient at the same time, resists all opposition, overcomes all difficulties. ^[11].

Thus Every gleam of aspiration is always the expression of a psychic influence. ^[12]

How is Aspiration Different from Desire?

Aspiration is not mixed with any interested and egoistic calculation. ^[13]

In aspiration there is an unselfish flame which is not present in desire. True aspiration does not come from the head; even when it is formulated by a thought, it springs up like a flame from the heart. ^[14]

Why is Aspiration Important?

For Overcoming Difficulties

Surely one could not believe that sadhana [or any work] could be done without facing some difficulties. ^[15]

The difficulties are always due to a resistance. Keeping steady of one’s aspiration and to look at oneself with an absolute sincerity are the sure means to overcome all obstacles. ^[16]

Every gleam of aspiration is always the expression of a psychic influence. Without the presence of the psychic, without the psychic influence, there would never be any sense of progress or any will for progress. ^[17]

For Progress and Self-perfection

For the Descent of Higher Consciousness

You will become the man you want to be and the higher your ideal and your aspiration, the higher will be your realisation, but you must keep a firm resolution and never forget your true aim in life. ^[19]

How to Aspire?

Prerequisite For Aspiration

The flame of the will and the flame of humility are needed. ^[20]

The urge or understanding of aspiration is that nothing is too high, nothing too far for its insatiable ardour. ^[21]

By doing work with a simple and peaceful heart and a quiet mind, the aspiration will come gradually according to the need. ^[22]

Process In Aspiration

Each time that you discover in yourself something that denies or resists, throw it into the flame of Agni, which is the fire of aspiration. ^[23]

The voice that says, “You shall not succeed and it is no use trying” do not listen to these suggestions. ^[24]

In a great aspiration, if you can put yourself into contact with something higher, some influence of your psychic being or some light from above, and if you can manage to put this in touch with these lower movements. ^[25]

Practices For Aspiration

Keep your aspiration steady and be patient in your endeavour—and you are sure of success. ^[26]

And if you concentrate (in the heart) by gathering the energies, it is better to gather them here, because it is in this centre, (the heart centre) in this region of the being that you find the will to progress, the force of purification, and the most intense and effective aspiration. The aspiration that comes from the heart is much more effective than that from the head. ^[27]

Whatever you do, never forget the goal which you have set before you. Before you go to sleep, concentrate a few seconds in the aspiration that the sleep may restore your fatigued nerves; on waking you may begin again your journey on the path of the great discovery. ^[28]

Difficulties in Aspiration

The more one-pointed the aspiration the swifter the progress. The difficulty comes when either the vital with its desires or the physical with its past habitual movements comes in. If one keeps the will fixed even in these barren periods, they pass and after their passage a greater force of aspiration and experience becomes possible. ^[29]

Try to be less and less selfish, but not in the sense of becoming nice to other people or forgetting yourself, not that: have less and less the feeling that you are a person, a separate entity, something existing in itself, isolated from the rest. Then that aspiration, that need for the light is experienced. But that moment should be absolutely sincere and as integral as possible ^[30]

Aspiration Compilation

Aspiration is a turning upward of the inner being with a call, yearning, prayer for the Divine, for the Truth, for the Consciousness, Peace, Ananda, Knowledge, descent of Divine Force or whatever else is the aim of one’s endeavour.

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Aspiration Summary