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It is true that a great patience and steadfastness is needed. Be then firm and patient and fixed on the aims of the sadhana, but not over-eager to have them at once. A work has to be done in you and is being done; help it to be done by keeping an attitude of firm faith and confidence. Doubts rise in all, they are natural to the human physical mind—reject them. Impatience and overeagerness for the result at once are natural to the human vital; it is by firm confidence in the Mother that they will disappear. The love, the belief in her as the Divine to whom your life is given,—oppose with that every contrary feeling and then those contrary feelings will after a time no longer be able to come to you. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/patience-and-perseverance#p6</ref>
 
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The reason why there are these alternations of which you complain is that the nature of the consciousness is like that; after a little spell of wakefulness it feels the need of a little sleep. Very often in the beginning the wakings are brief, the sleeps long; afterwards it becomes more equal and later on the sleep periods are shorter and shorter. Another cause of these alternations, when one is receiving, is the nature's need of closing up to assimilate. It can take perhaps a great deal, but while the experience is going on it cannot absorb properly what it brings, so it closes down for assimilation. A third cause comes in in the period of transformation,—one part of the nature changes and one feels for a time as if there had been a complete and permanent change. But one is disappointed to find it cease and a period of barrenness or lowered consciousness follows. This is because another part of the consciousness comes up for change and a period of preparation and veiled working follows which seems to be one of unenlightenment or worse. These things alarm, disappoint or perplex the eagerness and impatience of the sadhak; but if one takes them quietly and knows how to use them or adopt the right attitude, one can make these unenlightened periods also a part of the conscious sadhana. So the Vedic Rishis speak of the alternation of "Day and Night both suckling the divine Child". <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/variations-in-the-intensity-of-experience#p8</ref>
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There is nothing wrong in having intervals of passive peace without anything happening—they come naturally in the sadhana as a basis for fresh action when the nature is ready for it. It is only the vital attitude that turns it into a disharmony, because somewhere in its being there is not the assent to or participation in the peace and passivity. To be able often to rest, repose in all the being outspread in the silent Brahman is an indispensable thing for the Yogi. But the vital wants always fuss, action, to feel that it is somebody doing something, getting on, having progress, on the move. The counterpart to this rajasic fuss is inertia. If the whole being can widen itself out, rest satisfied in the silence, then progressively inertia fades out and gives place to ''śama''.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/variations-in-the-intensity-of-experience#p31</ref>
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The difficulty you feel or any sadhak feels about sadhana is not really a question of meditation versus ‘bhakti’ versus works. It is a difficulty of the attitude to be taken, the approach or whatever you may like to call it. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-central-processes-of-the-sadhana#p23</ref>   <center>~</center> The path of surrender is indeed difficult, but if one perseveres in it with sincerity, there is bound to be some success and a partial overcoming or diminution of the ego which may help greatly a farther advance upon the way… One must learn to go forward on the path of Yoga, as the Gita insists, with a consciousness free from despondency—''anirviṇṇacetasā''. Even if one slips, one must rectify the posture; even if one falls, one has to rise and go undiscouraged on the divine way. The attitude must be, "The Divine has promised himself to me if I cleave to him always; that I will never cease to do whatever may come." <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-central-processes-of-the-sadhana#p19</ref>
The path of surrender is indeed difficult, but if one perseveres in it with sincerity, there is bound to be some success and a partial overcoming or diminution of the ego which may help greatly a farther advance upon the way… One must learn to go forward on the path of Yoga, as the Gita insists, with a consciousness free from despondency—''anirviṇṇacetasā''. Even if one slips, one must rectify the posture; even if one falls, one has to rise and go undiscouraged on the divine way. The attitude must be, "The Divine has promised himself to me if I cleave to him always; that I will never cease to do whatever may come." <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-central-processes-of-the-sadhana#p19~</refcenter>
The ideal attitude of the sadhaka towards Time is to have an endless patience as if he had all eternity for his fulfilment and yet to develop the energy that shall realise now and with an ever-increasing mastery and pressure of rapidity till it reaches the miraculous instantaneousness of the supreme divine Transformation. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-four-aids#p37</ref>