Picture: Garuda is the eagle who carries Vishnu–his powerful wings and clear purpose do not allow stall points.
In the life of a sadhaka there can come plateaus—times when it seems there is no progress. This is a sign that you have run up against an inner obstacle of some sort. Not all obstacles come in the form freight trains that run you over, many come in dark whispers or stuck energy; these signs are a call to action.
There are any number of reasons you get stuck, usually it entails a cooling off of your intensity in your spiritual practice combined with a vulnerable spot in your psyche. The simple fact that you have separation from Divine Consciousness means that you will encounter oppositional forces along the way. Some are mental, others emotional and some are physical/material—and usually they come in some combination of all three.
When an airplane is taking off and has not gained enough altitude, a stall in power will cause the plane to drop to the ground like a rock. However, if there is enough altitude, then the plane can gain speed and recover from an impending crash. In sadhana the aspirant may have a “drop off in power” when there is not enough focus in spiritual practice to keep climbing. If there has not been enough progress gained, then ignorance clouds around the devotee and he or she crashes to the ground—it is as if there had never been a spiritual pursuit to begin with, or it feels that it was something done in some distant past. If the aspirant has gained enough spiritual altitude, then with renewed effort he or she may start to climb again—and if the spiritual effort is not made, no matter the altitude, then that one will lose all that had been gained.
That is why as soon as you are aware of being stalled you must make a sincere and intense effort to put your mind back on God. You sense the stall and a lack of progress when feeling inwardly neutral, or there is a growing desire-nature for this world that outdistances your desire for God. When you are aware of these counter-feelings you fiercely cut away all oppositional thoughts and desires the moment they show up, avoiding temptations you chant God’s name and meditate until God-contact is made—these are the ways that you can power through a stall.
When your soul is once again humming in tune with Spirit, point out to yourself how real your current spiritual freedom feels. Compare this true independence to the ephemeral freedom the senses promised you. Work through your mind scenarios in which the false premises of the senses lead to imprisonment in endless sense entanglements. Then feel the bliss and freedom of God and compare its superior attributes to materialistic and sensual pleasures. Educate your mind to realize that the oppositional forces often come in the guise of a friend, but in fact they destroy lasting happiness and bring you restlessness.
Full realization comes when every part of you knows God and there are no dark corners of opposition left. Then you can no longer stall or crash, for every part of you knows the truth and you will never have even the slightest desire to trade that freedom for anything else—it simply makes no sense to you to do so on any level.