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SECTION FIVE
BASIC REQUISITES OF YOGA
I. SINCERITY
II. ASPIRATION
III. FAITH
IV. SURRENDER
V. PATIENCE AND PERSEVERANCE
I. SINCERITY
The One Indispensable Condition
THERE is one indispensable condition, sincerity.
23-9-1935
II. ASPIRATION
Aspiration, Experience and Change
YES, that is the way—the intensity of the aspiration
brings the intensity of the experience and by
repeated intensity of the experience, the change.
5-4-1933
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Psychic Aspiration and Vital Intensity
IT is the, psychic that gives the true aspiration—if the vital is purified and subjected to the psychic,
then the vital gives intensity—but if it is unpurified
it brings in a rajasic intensity with impatience
and reactions of depression and disappointment.
As for the calm and equality needed, it must come
down from above through the mind.
Calm and Restless Aspiration
(1)
THE impatience and restless disquietude come
from the vital which brings that even into the
aspiration. The aspiration must be intense, calm
and strong (that is the nature of the true vital
also) and not restless and impatient,—then alone
it can be stable.
16.10-1933
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(2)
It will not do to indulge this restless vital movement. It is not by that that you can have the union with the Mother. You should aspire calmly—eat,
sleep, do your work. Peace is the one thing you
have to ask for now—it is only on the basis of peace
and calm that the true progress and realisation
can come. There must be no vital excitement in
your seeking or your aspiration towards the Mother.
20-10-1933
Quiet Aspiration and Painful Effort
IF the peace increases, that is the one thing most
required now. A quiet aspiration you can have,
but painful effort and struggle need not be undertaken now.
9-8-1933
Necessity of Steady Aspiration
No use doing asanas or pranayam. It is not necessary to burn with passion. What is necessary is a
patient acquiring of the power of concentration
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and steady aspiration so that the silence you speak
of may fix in the heart and spread to the other
members. Then the physical mind and the sub-conscient can be cleared and quieted.
7-3-1936
Aspiration and Vital Demand
ONE has never to allow such feelings—for it means
that a vital demand gets mixed in the aspiration
and because the vital demand is disappointed,
there is that disquiet.
21-8-1933
Aspiration, Conversion, Inner Realisation
and Transformation
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.
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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.
3-9-1937
⁂
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.
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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.
6-9-1937
III. FAITH
Faith—Belief-—Conviction—Reliance—
Trust—Confidence
Faith—a dynamic entire belief and acceptance.
Belief—intellectual acceptance only.
Conviction—intellectual belief held on what seems
to be good reasons.
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Reliance—dependence on another for something,
based on trust.
Trust—the feeling of sure expectation of another’s
help and reliance on his word, character, etc.
Confidence—the sense of security that goes with
trust.
30-4-1933
Faith in the Divine Protection and Will
IN moments of trial faith in the divine protection
and the call for that protection; at all times the
faith that what the Divine wills is the best.
It is what turns you towards the Divine that
must be accepted as good for you—all is bad for
you that turns you away from the Divine.
14-5-1933
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Faith and Courage
WHATEVER adverse things present themselves you must meet them with courage and they will disappear and the help come. Faith and courage are
the true attitude to keep in life and work always
and in the spiritual experience also.
Necessity of Faith and Fixed Will for Success
in Yoga
To the question in your last letter there can be
no reply except that it is only either a single-minded
faith or a fixed will that can give you the open road
to the Yoga. It is because your ideas and your
will are in a constant state of flux or of oscillation
that you do not succeed. Even with a deficient
faith, a fixed mind and will can carry one on and
bring the experiences by which an uncertain faith is changed into certitude.
It is the reason why it is difficult for me to answer
your questions about the different alternatives. I
may say that the way of the Gita is itself a part of
the Yoga here and those who have followed it, to
begin with or as a first stage, have a stronger basis than others for this Yoga.
To look down on it,
therefore, as something separate and inferior is not
a right standpoint. But whatever it is, you must
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yourself choose, nobody can do it for you. Those
who go and come, can do so profitably only if or
because they have made the decision and keep to
it; when they are here, it is for the Yoga that they
come, when they are elsewhere, the will for the
Yoga remains with them there. You have to get
rid of your constant reasonings and see whether
you can do without the impulse towards Yoga
or not—if you cannot, then it is useless thinking of
the ordinary life without Yoga—your nature will
compel you to seek after it even if you have to
seek all your life with a small result. But the
small result is mainly due to the mind which always came in the way and the vital weakness which
gives it its support for its reasonings. If you fixed
your will irrevocably, that would give you a chance
—and whether you followed it here or elsewhere
would make only a minor difference.
I suggested the Gita method for you because the
opening which is necessary for the Yoga here seems
to be too difficult for you. If you made a less
strenuous demand upon yourself, there might be a
greater chance. In any case, if you cannot return to the ordinary life, it
seems, in the absence of an opening to the Power that is here, the only course for you.
9-5-1933
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Qualities of Perfection
SUCH qualities as faith, sincerity, aspiration, devotion,
etc. make up the perfection indicated in our language of the flowers. In ordinary language it would
mean something else such as purity, love, benevolence, fidelity and a host of other virtues.
9-10-1933
IV. SURRENDER
Surrender and Personal Effort
THE absolute surrender must be not only an
experience in meditation, but a fact governing all
the life, all the thoughts, feelings, actions. Till
then the use of one’s own will and effort is
necessary, but an effort in which also there is the
spirit of surrender, calling in the Force to support
the will and effort and undisturbed by success or
failure. When the Force takes up the sadhana, then
indeed effort may cease, but still there will be the
necessity of the constant assent of the being and a vigilance so that one may not admit a false Force
at any point.
20-9-1936
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Tapasya
WHEN the will and energy are concentrated and
used to control the mind, vital and physical and change them or to bring down
the higher consciousness or for any other Yogic purpose or high
purpose, that is called Tapasya.
1933
Surrender and Tamasic Passivity
IF there is not a complete surrender, then it is not
possible to adopt the baby-cat attitude,—it becomes
mere tamasic passivity calling itself surrender. If
a complete surrender is not possible in the beginning,
it follows that personal effort is necessary.
11-8-1936
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Entire Self-giving
IT is impossible to become like a child giving oneself
entirely until the psychic is in control and stronger
than the vital.
12-2-1937
The Force of Surrender
IT is the psychic coming forward that brings the
force of surrender.
28-6-1933
The Central Surrender
WHEN the psychic being and the heart and the
thinking mind have surrendered, the rest is a matter
of time and process—and there is no reason for
disturbance. The central and effective surrender
has been made.
September 1933
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Devotion and Surrender in the Higher Mind
THERE can be devotion and surrender in the higher
mind experience but it is not inevitable as in the psychic. In the higher mind
one may be too conscious of identity with the "Brahman" to have
devotion or surrender.
2-7-1936
Surrender Through Knowledge and Love-bhakti
SURRENDER and love-bhakti are not contrary things
—they go together. It is true that at first surrender
can be made through knowledge by the mind but
it implies a mental bhakti and as soon as the surrender reaches the heart, the bhakti manifests as
a feeling and with the feeling of bhakti love comes.
21-9-1936
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Surrender to the Mother
IT is then a saṃkalpa of surrender. But the surrender must be to the Mother—not even to the Force, but
to the Mother herself.
4-10-1936
Insufficiency of Surrender to the Impersonal
A SURRENDER by any means is good, but obviously
the Impersonal is not enough, for surrender to
that may be limited in result to the inner experience
without any transformation of the outer nature.
14-9-1936
Surrender to the Impersonal and Subjection
to the Gunas and Ego
YES, surrender to the impersonal (formless) Divine
would leave parts of the being subject to gunas
and ego—because the static parts would be free
in formlessness but the active nature would be
still in the play of the gunas. Many think they are
free from ego because they get the sense of the formless existence. They do not see that egoistic
elements remain in their action just as before.
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Importance of Surrender to the Guru
SURRENDER to the Guru is said to be surrender
beyond all surrenders because through it you
surrender not only to the impersonal, but to the
personal, not only to the Divine in self but to the
Divine outside you; you get a chance for the surpassing of the ego not only by retreat into the
self where ego does not exist, but in the personal
nature where it is the ruler. It is the sign of the
will to complete surrender to the total Divine,
samagram mām mānuṣīm tanum āṡritam. Of course it
must be a genuine spiritual surrender for all this
to be true.
21-11-1933
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Surrender to the Divine and the Guru
No, surrender to the Divine and surrender to the
Guru are not the same thing. In surrendering to the Guru, it is to the Divine in him that one
surrenders—if it were only to a human entity, it
would be ineffective. But it is the consciousness
of the Divine Presence that makes the Guru a real
Guru, so that even if the disciple surrenders to
him thinking of the human being to whom he
surrenders, that Presence will still make it effective.
Need of Surrendering in the Lower Nature
IF you are surrendered only in the higher consciousness, with no peace or purity in the lower,
certainly that is not enough and you have to aspire
for the peace and purity everywhere.
1-11-1936
Difficulty of Surrendering the Vital
THE surrender of the vital is always difficult,
because of the unwillingness of the forces of the
universal vital Ignorance. But that does not mean
a fundamental incapacity.
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Vital Demands and Surrender
IF there is any identification with the vital demands
or outcries, that necessarily diminishes the surrender
for the time.
26-5-1936
Bargaining Vital Attitude and True Self-giving
WHAT you have felt is a revival or return on you of the lower vital with its demands and desires.
Its suggestion is, "I am doing the Yoga, but for
a price. I have abandoned the life of vital desire
and satisfaction but in order to get intimacy with
the Mother—instead of satisfying myself with the
world, to satisfy myself and get my desires fulfilled by the Divine. If I do not get the intimacy of
the Mother and immediately and as I want it, why
should I give up the old things?" And as a natural
result the old things start again—"X and Y and
Y and X and the wrongs of Z." You must see this
machinery of the lower vital and dismiss it. It is only by the full psychic relation of self-giving that unity
and closeness with the Divine can be maintained —the other is part of the vital ego movement and
can only bring a fall of the consciousness and disturbance.
20-6-1933
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Vital Demand and Soul’s Self-giving
IT was from your description of the reaction that
I said there was a vital demand. In the pure psychic
or spiritual self-giving there are no reactions of
this kind; no despondency or despair, no saying,
"What have I gained by seeking the Divine?"
no anger, revolt, abhiman, wish to go away—such
as you describe here—but an absolute confidence
and a persistence in clinging to the Divine under all conditions. That is what I
wanted you to have;
it is the only basis in which one is free from troubles
and reactions and goes steadily forward.
But are such feelings a sign of the soul’s self-giving?
If there is no vital mixture, how do these things come when I write to you and
as the result of my writing
and trying to show you the way?
It is the first movement of this part to revolt
when it is shown its own nature and asked to change.
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Difficult? It is the first principle of our sadhana
that surrender is the means of fulfilment and so long
as ego or vital demand and desire are cherished,
complete surrender is impossible—the self-giving
is incomplete. We have never concealed that. It
may be difficult and it is; but it is the very principle
of the sadhana. Because it is difficult it has to be
done steadily and patiently till the work is complete.
You have to go on rejecting the vital mixture every
time it rises. If you are steadfast in rejecting, it will lose more and more of its force and fade out.
That means it is an obstinate but irrational and
mechanical survival of the old movement. That in fact is how these things try to survive. It is
bound to go if you do not give it fresh life.
I have no doubt of it—you have only to understand it rightly and you can go at once to the right
ground.
21-6-1933
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The Only True Basis for Sadhana
IF it is the same part of the vital that was on the
right side and has now turned against the Mother, the explanation is very obvious. It gave its adhesion
formerly because it thought that by its adhesion it
could make her satisfy its desires; finding its desires
not indulged, it turns against her. That is the usual
vital movement in ordinary man and in ordinary
life, and it has no true place in Yoga. It was just
the introduction of this attitude into Yoga by the
sadhaks and its persistence which has at last made it
necessary for the Mother to draw back as she has
done. What you have to do is to get these lower
parts to understand that they exist not for themselves
but for the Divine and to give their adhesion, without
claim or arrière pensée or subterfuge. It is the whole
issue at the present moment in the sadhana; for it
is only if this is done that the physical consciousness can change and become
fit for the descent. Otherwise there will always be these ups and downs in
some part of the being—at least, delay, confusion and disorder. This is the only true basis for fixity
in the true consciousness and for a smooth course
in the sadhana.
14-12-1931
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V. PATIENCE AND PERSEVERANCE
Perseverance in the Path
IT is so with all things in the path of sadhana –one must persist however
long it takes, so only one can achieve.
Need of Patience
(1)
THE sadhana is a difficult one and time should not
be grudged; it is only in the last stages that a very great and constant
rapidity of progress can be confidently expected.
As for Shakti, the descent of Shakti before the
vital is pure and surrendered, has its dangers. It is better for him to pray for
purification, knowledge, intensity or the heart’s aspiration and as much working
of the Power as he can bear and assimilate.
18-5-1931
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(2)
Always keep within and do things without
involving yourself in them, then nothing adverse will
happen or, if it does, no serious reaction will come.
The idea of leaving for any reason is, of course, absurd and out of the question. Eight years is a very short time for transformation. Most people
spend as much as that or more to get conscious of
their defects and acquire the serious will to change —and after that it takes a long time to get the will
turned into full and final accomplishment. Each time one stumbles, one has to get back into the right
footing and go on with fresh resolution; by doing that the full change comes.
17-8-1936
Determination and Patience
DETERMINATION is needed and a firm patience, not to
be discouraged by this or that failure. If is a
change in the habit of the physical nature and that needs a long patient work of detail.
19-11-1933
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Importance of Steady Preparation
CORRECT, haste is unnecessary, a steady psychic
preparation is the thing of greatest importance.
The Right Attitude of Persistence
YOUR attitude towards the change needed and new
life is the right one. A quiet vigilant but undistressed
persistence is the best way to get it done.
For the intimacy within to be re-established, the
quietude must deepen so that the psychic may
come out in the physical as it had done in the
higher parts.
26-9-1936
The Needed Power
THE power needed in Yoga is the power to go
through effort, difficulty or trouble without getting
fatigued, depressed, discouraged or impatient and
without breaking off the effort or giving up one’s
aim or resolution.
1933
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