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III
ASPIRATION Q: What is meant by spiritual aspiration? A: It means the aspiration towards spiritual things, spiritual experience, spiritual realisation, the Divine.
Q: Are will and aspiration the same? A: No, certainly not. Aspiration is a call to the Divine,—will is the pressure of a conscious force on Nature.
Q: Is prayer the same as aspiration? A: It is an expression of aspiration or can be. For there are prayers which only express a desire —e.g., prayers for wealth, wordly success, etc.
Q: What is the difference between aspiration and opening ? A: They have nothing to do with each other, except that aspiration brings opening. Opening means that the consciousness becomes opened to the Truth or the Divine to which it is now shut—it indicates a state of receptivity. Aspiration is a call in the being, it is not opening.
Q: Is the aspiration rising from the vital of the same nature as that rising from the heart ? A: No, the vital is dynamic, a call from the Life-force—that from the heart is either emotional or psychic.
Q: Does the power of aspiration vary in different sadhaks according to their natures? A: No. Aspiration is the same power in all; it differs only in purity, intensity and object.
Q: Can a person with a weak will progress in sadhana by aspiration only? A: No. He must either increase his will-power or call in a Higher Power to do it for him.
Q: Can aspiration increase the will-power of a person whose will is weak? A: Yes, it can—by calling in the Divine Will. Q: Why does aspiration become sometimes slow and sometimes rapid? A: It is so with everyone—the nature cannot always go at a rapid pace.
Q: If the nature cannot always go at a rapid pace, why are we asked to remain constant in aspiration? A: If you are not constant in aspiration, the nature will then sink back into the old lower ways.
Q: Will a sadhak who feels neither any intense aspiration nor any acute resistance of the obstacles of his nature, be able to go forward in his sadhana ? A: I suppose it means that he can only progress slowly.
Q:When a sadhak does not feel any aspiration and does not get any experience, what should he do to stick on to his sadhana? A: Remember the Mother, remain quiet and call.
Q,: Is it possible for a sadhak to realise the Divine fully from the beginning by the power of his aspiration ? A: If there is the full purity of the psychic and spiritual aspiration, then that can happen—but it is rare.
Q: I feel that aspiration also is increased by the Mother’s Will and Grace. Is it not so ? A: Yes, but not if you do not aspire.
Q: You have asked me to have ceaseless aspiration. But I find that it is the Mother’s Force that kindles up aspiration and strengthens and increases it in me. What personal effort on my part is then needed? A: It is true that it is the Mother’s Force that aspires in you, but if the personal consciousness does not give its assent, then the Force does not work. If the personal consciousness ceaselessly looks for the Divine and assents to the working, the aspiration and the working of the Force become also ceaseless.
Q: But is it not true that the personal consciousness of the sadhak is also moved by the Mother and all his actions governed by her? A: But if your personal consciousness does wrong things, it is also the Mother who does those wrong things?
Q: But is it not a fact that if a sadhak is not open to the Mother’s working in his higher parts, the Mother works in his lower parts and makes him commit mistakes so that he may learn through the suffering brought by them to turn to her in his higher parts? A: The Mother does not make people commit mistakes; it is the Prakriti that makes them do it—if the Purusha does not refuse his consent. The Mother here is not this lower Prakriti, but the Divine Shakti and it is her work to press on this lower Nature to change. You can say that under the pressure, the Prakriti stumbles and is unable to reply perfectly and .makes mistakes. But it is not the Mother who makes you do wrong movements or does the wrong movements in you—if you think that, you are in danger of justifying the movements or their continuance.
Q: But is it not a fact that Prakriti herself comes from the Divine ? In that case is she not a power and a portion of the Divine Mother? A: Everything comes from the Divine; but the lower Prakriti is the power of the Ignorance-it is not therefore a power of truth, but only of mixed truth and falsehood. The Mother here stands not for the Power of Ignorance, but for the Power that has come down to bring down the Truth and raise up to the Truth out of the Ignorance.
Q: In what way my personal effort is needed to assent to the Mother’s working in me? A: By opening yourself more and more by assent to the true things, Peace, Light, Truth, Ananda —by refusing the wrong things, such as anger, falsehood, lust, etc.
Q: what are the obstacles in the way of giving full assent to the Mother’s working in the sadhak’s nature? A: It is the wrong movements,—self-will, egoism, the vital passions, vanity, personal desire, etc.
Q,: Is it true that if a person has true aspiration, the Divine makes him a fit receptacle for His decent in him even if his mind is ignorant and limited? A: Yes—only the mind must not be small and narrow—and in love with its narrowness.
Q: What is meant by being in love with the mind’s narrowness? A: People like to be narrow; they are attached to their own limited ideas, feelings, opinions, preferences and get disturbed, angry or full of doubt if anyone tries to make them think more widely—that is being in love with the mind’s narrowness.
Q: Some people say that a scholarly person with a developed intellect progresses in sadhana more rapidly than an uneducated person with an undeveloped intellect even though both have the same intensity of aspiration. Is this true? A: There is no such rule. It is better if the mind is strong and developed, but scholarship does not necessarily create a strong and developed mind.
Q: You say that scholarship does not create a strong and developed mind. What creates it then? A: It creates itself by the will to know rightly, widely and with a plastic reception of the truth.
Q: Is it necessary for a person with a weak and narrow mind to make effort to make his mind strong and developed in order to receive the Divine Grace or he can leave it to the Grace itself to prepare it for its descent? A: It depends on the person. If his weak or narrow mind is coming in the way of his sadhana, he can make the attempt to broaden it—if the heart is strong and true or the psychic being active, then he can leave it to the Divine Force to do it in the course of the Yoga.
Q: For the proper education and cultural development of the mind is reading of books not necessary for a sadhak? A: It is not by reading books that he can do it—it is by trying to think and see things clearly that it comes. Reading is a quite secondary thing. One may read thousands of books, yet remain narrow and foolish. Q: Is it true that "satsanga" (company of spiritual persons) creates and increases the aspiration for the Divine? A: Yes. |