When we start our climb towards the gates of the Divine, there come many stages of which one is conversion. What exactly does that mean? Here are Sri Aurobindo’s words which may answer that question.
Those who come here have an aspiration and a possibility—something in their psychic being pushes and if they follow it they will arrive; but that is not conversion. Conversion is a turning of the being away from lower things towards the Divine. Aspiration can lead hereafter to conversion, but aspiration is not conversion. Mother spoke of three different things: conversion, the turning of the soul decisively towards the Divine,—inner realisation of the Divine,—transformation of the nature. The first two can happen swiftly and suddenly and once for all, the third always takes time and cannot be done at one stroke, in a moment. One may become aware of a rapid change in this or that detail of the transformation, but even this is the rapid result of a long working.
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Consecration is a process by which one trains the consciousness to give itself to the Divine. But conversion is a spontaneous movement of the consciousness, a turning of it away from external things towards the Divine. It comes as well as is the result of a touch from within and above. Self-consecration may help one to open to the touch or the touch may come of itself. But conversion may also come as the culmination of a long process of aspiration and Tapasya. There is no fixed rule in these things.
If the psychic being comes to the front, then conversion becomes easy or may come instantaneously or the conversion may bring the psychic being to the front. Here, again, there is no rule. It may be either way, there is a touch and the realisation also and the psychic takes its proper place as the result or the psychic may come to the front and prepare the nature for the realisation.
Transformation is something progressive, but certainly there must be realisation before the aim of the transformation is possible.
Sri Aurobindo
