There is something within us that yearns for expression and growth, without which everything becomes boring or causes restlessness and discontent. Here, even if there are some failures, we will keep on this path. In Essays on the Gita, Sri Aurobindo comments: “. . . (the Gita) has proceeded to lay it down with a striking emphasis that one’s own nature, rule, function should be observed and followed,—even if defective, it is better than the well-performed rule of another’s nature. Death in one’s own law of nature is better for a man than victory in an alien movement. To follow the law of another’s nature is dangerous to the soul, contradictory, as we may say, to the natural way of his evolution, a thing mechanically imposed and therefore imported, artificial and sterilising to one’s growth towards the true stature of the spirit.”

Essentially, svabhava is the yearning that comes from the innermost, deepest existence of your being:  your soul. It’s what you came in with as the line of development you chose when you took birth. This inner yearning is the sincere aspiration of the soul to express and develop and grow in experience. Anything which aligns with it, you will find the greatest strength to persist and the greatest illumination, because you know what is needed, you have the knowledge to guide you. And you find in it the greatest satisfaction, even if you fail or succeed. It wouldn’t matter because you will have the satisfaction.