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What then is this goal?

The goal: “Call him what you will, for to the wise, he is the Possessor of all names.”

All religions, all the teachings of all the sages are nothing other than methods to reach this goal. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/02/on-the-mysteries-of-the-ascent-towards-god#p1,p2,p3,p4,p5,p6,p7,p8,p9</ref>

''Q.What are the highest aims of reason, faith and instinct in ordinary life and in spiritual life?''

As for spiritual life, it has only one goal: to know the Divine and to unite with Him, by every possible means and with the help of faith, which is certainly the most powerful motive-force for beginners.

<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-258-259-260-261#p5,p6,p7</ref>

To grow in consciousness is the very aim of life on earth. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/5-november-1968#p2</ref>

To be and to be fully is Nature's aim in us; but to be fully is to be wholly conscious of one's being: unconsciousness, half consciousness or deficient consciousness is a state of being not in possession of itself; it is existence, but not fullness of being. To be aware wholly and integrally of oneself and of all the truth of one's being is the necessary condition of true possession of existence. This self-awareness is what is meant by spiritual knowledge: the essence of spiritual knowledge is an intrinsic self-existent consciousness; all its action of knowledge, indeed all its action of any kind, must be that consciousness formulating itself. All other knowledge is consciousness oblivious of itself and striving to return to its own awareness of itself and its contents; it is self-ignorance labouring to transform itself back into self-knowledge.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/the-divine-life#p109</ref>

The individual self and the universal self are one; in every world, in every being, in each thing, in every atom is the Divine Presence, and man’s mission is to manifest it. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-true-aim-of-life#p11</ref>

The aim of our life on earth is to become conscious of the Divine.

The true purpose of life―

Conversion of the aim of life from the ego to the Divine: instead of seeking one's own satisfaction, to have the service of the Divine as the aim of life. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-true-aim-of-life#p32</ref>

The true aim of life is to find the Divine's Presence deep inside oneself and to surrender to It so that It takes the lead of the life, all the feelings and all the actions of the body.

This gives a true and luminous aim to existence. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-true-aim-of-life#p35,p36</ref>

Life has a purpose.

The Divine is not far, He is in ourselves, deep inside and above the feelings and the thoughts. With the Divine is peace and certitude and even the solution of all difficulties.

The aim of ordinary life is to carry out one's duty, the aim of spiritual life is to realise the Divine. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-true-aim-of-life#p52</ref>

Our aim is to realise the perfection of our being and to change the human animal into the divine man. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/5-july-1960#p3</ref>

Man was created to express the Divine. His duty is therefore to become conscious of the Divine and to surrender himself entirely to His Will. All the rest, whatever the appearance, is falsehood and ignorance. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-true-aim-of-life#p61</ref>

The aim of human life is to discover the Divine and to manifest it. Naturally this discovery leads to happiness; but this happiness is a consequence, not an aim in itself. And it is this mistake of taking a mere consequence for aim of life that has been the cause of most of the miseries which are afflicting human life. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/the-new-age-association#p127</ref>

In the world, as it is, the goal of life is not to secure personal happiness, but to awaken the individual progressively towards the truth-consciousness. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-true-aim-of-life#p53</ref>

We seek not our personal salvation but the absolute surrender of our being to the Divine. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-true-aim-of-life#p63</ref>

You have been put upon earth, in a physical body, with a definite aim, which is to make this body as conscious as possible, make it the most perfect and most conscious instrument of the Divine. He has given you a certain amount of substance and of matter in all the domains—mental, vital and physical—in proportion to what He expects from you, and all the circumstances around you are also in proportion to what He expects of you... Everyone has a life appropriate to his total development, everyone has experiences which help him in his total development, and everyone has difficulties which help him in his total realisation.

If you look at yourself carefully, you will see that one always carries in oneself the opposite of the virtue one has to realise (I use "virtue" in its widest and highest sense). You have a special aim, a special mission, a special realisation which is your very own, each one individually, and you carry in yourself all the obstacles necessary to make your realisation perfect. Always you will see that within you the shadow and the light are equal: you have an ability, you have also the negation of this ability. But if you discover a very black hole, a thick shadow, be sure there is somewhere in you a great light. It is up to you to know how to use the one to realise the other. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/17-february-1951#p22,p23</ref>

We are not aiming at success—our aim is perfection.

We are not seeking fame or reputation; we want to prepare ourselves for a Divine manifestation. That is why we can boldly say: It is better to be than to seem. We need not appear to be good if our sincerity is perfect. And by perfect sincerity we mean that all our thoughts, feelings, sensations and actions should express nothing but the central Truth of our being. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/tournaments#p2,p3</ref>

...our aim must be to grow into our true being, our being of Spirit, the being of the supreme and universal Existence, Consciousness, Delight, Sachchidananda. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/the-progress-to-knowledge-god-man-and-nature#p3</ref>

The sole aim is a spiritual perfection, a finding of the true self and a union with the Divine by putting on the divine consciousness and nature. All the rest is constituent detail and attendant circumstance. Ego-centric impulses, ambition, desire of power and greatness, motives of self-assertion are foreign to this greater consciousness and would be an insuperable bar against any possibility of even a distant approach towards the supramental change. One must lose one's little lower self to find the greater self. Union with the Divine must be the master motive; even the discovery of the truth of one's own being and of all being, life in that truth and its greater consciousness, perfection of the nature are only the natural results of that movement. Indispensable conditions of its entire consummation, they are part of the central aim only because they are a necessary development and a major consequence. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-supermind-and-the-yoga-of-works#p2</ref>

In ordinary life, already, this [inertia, its heaviness, laziness, easy satisfactions, hostility to all effort] happens so much. Indeed, this is the bourgeois ideal, which has deadened mankind and made man into what he is now: “Work while you are young, accumulate wealth, honour, position; be provident, have a little foresight, put something by, lay up a capital, become an official—so that later when you are forty you “can sit down”, enjoy your income and later your pension and, as they say, enjoy a well-earned rest.”<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/20-march-1957#p10 </ref>

Most people want to be what they call “quiet”, what they call “peaceful”, to have a small organisation in their own measure – which is generally microscopic, and consists of a regular routine of almost the same activities always, within almost the same bounds, in almost the same surroundings – and all that repeated without much difference; with a sufficient variety not to become completely boring, but with nothing that might disturb this regular round which makes what is called a peaceful life. For the vast majority of people this is the ideal.

Indeed, this is the most widespread ideal. Naturally, there are exceptions, one may even find the exact opposite. But existence, as men conceive it, would be rather monotonous. The differences would come in the details, for in one country people prefer one thing and in another, another; and then, in the society in which one is born, there are certain customs and an ideal of happiness, and in another society there are other customs and another ideal of happiness – and that’s all. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/8-february-1956#p32,p33,p34,p35</ref>

Well, to find out what one truly is, to find out why one is on earth, what is the purpose of physical existence, of this presence on earth, of this formation, this existence... the vast majority of people live without asking themselves this even once! Only a small ''élite'' ask themselves this question with interest, and fewer still start working to get the answer. For, unless one is fortunate enough to come across someone who knows it, it is not such an easy thing to find. Suppose, for instance, that there had never come to your hands a book of Sri Aurobindo’s or of any of the writers or philosophers or sages who have dedicated their lives to this quest; if you were in the ordinary world, as millions of people are in the ordinary world, who have never heard of anything, except at times – and not always nowadays, even quite rarely – of some gods and a certain form of religion which is more a habit than a faith and, which, besides, rarely tells you why you are on earth.... Then, one doesn’t even think of thinking about it. One lives from day to day the events of each day. When one is very young, one thinks of playing, eating, and a little later of learning, and after that one thinks of all the circumstances of life. But to put this problem to oneself, to confront this problem and ask oneself: “But after all, ''why'' am I here?” How many do that? There are people to whom this idea comes only when they are facing a catastrophe. When they see someone whom they love die or when they find themselves in particularly painful and difficult circumstances, they turn back upon themselves, if they are sufficiently intelligent, and ask themselves: “But really, what is this tragedy we are living, and what’s the use of it and what is its purpose?”

And it is only when one has found, you see, found what he says, found that one has a divine Self and that consequently one must seek to know this divine Self.... This comes much later, and yet, in spite of everything, from the very moment of birth in a physical body, there is in the being, in its depths, this psychic presence which pushes the whole being towards this fulfilment. But who knows it and recognises it, this psychic being? That too comes only in special circumstances, and unfortunately, most of the time these have to be painful circumstances, otherwise one goes on living unthinkingly. And in the depths of one’s being is this psychic being which seeks, seeks, seeks to awaken the consciousness and re-establish the union. One knows nothing about it. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/16-january-1957#p6,p7,p8</ref>

==Asceticism - Not the Purpose of Spiritual Life==

... the question of ascetic practices, which they mistake for spiritual disciplines. These practices, which consist of ill-treating the body in order, so they say, to liberate the spirit from it, are in fact a sensuous distortion of spiritual discipline; it is a kind of perverse need for suffering which drives the ascetic to self-mortification. The sadhu's recourse to the bed of nails or the Christian anchorite's resort to the whip and the hair-shirt are the result of a more or less veiled sadistic tendency, unavowed and unavowable; it is an unhealthy seeking or a subconscious need for violent sensations. In reality, these things are very far removed from all spiritual life, for they are ugly and base, dark and diseased; whereas spiritual life, on the contrary, is a life of light and balance, beauty and joy. They are invented and extolled by a sort of mental and vital cruelty towards the body. But cruelty, even with regard to one's own body, is nonetheless cruelty, and all cruelty is a sign of great unconsciousness. Unconscious natures need very strong sensations, for without them they can feel nothing; and cruelty, which is one form of sadism, brings very strong sensations. The avowed purpose of such practices is to abolish all sensation so that the body may no longer stand in the way of one's flight towards the spirit; but the effectiveness of this method is open to doubt. It is a recognised fact that in order to progress rapidly, one must not be afraid of difficulties; on the contrary, by choosing to do the difficult thing at every opportunity, one increases the will-power and strengthens the nerves. Now, it is much more difficult to lead a life of moderation and balance, in equanimity and serenity, than to try to contend with over-indulgence in pleasure and the obscuration it entails, by over-indulgence in asceticism and the disintegration it causes. It is much more difficult to achieve the harmonious and progressive development of one's physical being in calm and simplicity than to ill-treat it to the point of annihilation. It is much more difficult to live soberly and with- out desire than to deprive the body of its indispensable nourishment and cleanliness and boast proudly of one's abstinence. It is much more difficult to avoid or to surmount and conquer illness by an inner and outer harmony, purity and balance, than to disregard and ignore it and leave it free to do its work of destruction. And the most difficult thing of all is to maintain the consciousness constantly at the height of its capacity, never allowing the body to act under the influence of a lower impulse. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/the-four-austerities-and-the-four-liberations#p4 </ref>

=Why We Need to Move Towards Our Purpose?=