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SECTION EIGHTEEN
SADHANA THROUGH WORK
Motives of Work in Ordinary Life and Yoga—Signs of Vital’s Consecration in Action
MEN usually work and carry on their affairs from the ordinary motives of the vital being, need, desire of wealth or success or position or power or fame or the push to activity and the pleasure of manifesting their capacities, and they succeed or fail according to their capability, power of work and the good or bad fortune which is the result of their nature and their Karma. When one takes up the Yoga and wishes to consecrate one’s life to the Divine, these ordinary motives of the vital being have no longer their full and free play; they have to be replaced by another, a mainly psychic and spiritual motive, which will enable the sadhak to work with the same force as before, no longer for himself, but for the Divine, If the ordinary vital motives or vital force can no longer act freely and yet are not replaced by something else, then the push or force put into the work may decline or the power to command success may no longer be there. For the sincere sadhak the difficulty Page-601 can only be temporary; but he has to see the defect in his consciousness or his attitude and to remove it. Then the Divine Power itself will act through him and use his capacity and vital force for its ends. In your case, it is the psychic being and a part of the mind that have drawn you to the Yoga and were predisposed to it, but the vital nature or at least a large part of it has not yet put itself into line with the psychic movement. There is not as yet the full and undivided consecration of the active vital nature. The signs of the consecration of the vital in action are these among others: The feeling (not merely the idea or the aspiration) that all the life and the work are the Mother’s and a strong joy of the vital nature in this consecration and surrender. A consequent calm content and disappearance of egoistic attachment to the work and its personal results, but at the same time a great joy in the work and in the use of the capacities for the divine purpose. The feeling that the Divine Force is working behind one’s actions and leading at every moment. A persistent faith which no circumstance or event can break. If difficulties occur, they raise not mental doubts or an inert acquiescence, but the firm belief that, with sincere consecration the Page-602 Divine Shakti will remove the difficulties, and with this belief a greater turning to her and dependence on her for that purpose. When there is full faith and consecration, there comes also a receptivity to the Force which makes one do the right thing and take the right means and then circumstances adapt themselves and the result is visible. To arrive at this condition the important thing is a persistent aspiration, call and self-offering and a will to reject all in oneself or around that stands in the way. Difficulties there will always be at the beginning and for as long a time as is necessary for the change; but they are bound to disappear if they are met by a settled faith, will and patience.
Practice of the Gita’s Yoga of Works (1)
IF I have not written to you, it is because I could not add anything to what I had already written before to you. I cannot promise that within a given time you will have a result which will enable you either to go out into the world with a stronger spirit or succeed in the Yoga. For the Yoga you Page-603 yourself say that you have not yet the whole mind for it and without the whole mind success is hardly possible in sadhana. For the other, it is hardly the function of sadhana to prepare a man for ordinary life in the world. There is one thing only that could work in a direction which would help you to something which is not that, but still not the whole Yoga for which you intimate that you are not wholly ready. It is if you get the spirit of the Yoga of works as it is indicated in the Gita—forget yourself and your miseries in the aspiration to a larger consciousness, feel the greater Force working in the world and make yourself an instrument for a work to be done, however small it may be. But, whatever the way may be, you must accept it wholly and put your whole will into it—with a divided and wavering will you cannot hope for success in anything, neither in life nor in Yoga.
30-4-1930 (2)
Any work can be done as a field for the practice of the spirit of the Gita.
May 1933 Page-604 Object of Yoga and Work for the Divine
YOUR object is not only to practise Yoga for your internal progress and protection but also to do a work for the Divine. 6-10-1931
DHYAN and work are both helpful for this Yoga to those who can do both. Reading also can be made helpful.
1933 Action and Introspective Meditation
You need not have qualms about the time you give to action and creative work. Those who have an expansive creative vital or a vital made for action are usually at their best when the vital is not held back from its movement and they can develop faster by it than by introspective meditation. All Page-605 that is needed is that the action should be dedicated, so that they may grow by it more and more prepared to feel and follow the Divine Force when it moves them. It is a mistake to think that to live in introspective meditation all the time is invariably the best or the only way of Yoga.
Concentration in Work and Meditation
IT is not meditation (thinking with the mind) but a concentration or turning of the consciousness that is important,—and that can happen in work, in writing, in any kind of action as well as in sitting down to contemplate.
6-3-1933 Opening and Surrender to the Mother through Work
THE Mother does not think that it is good to give up all work and only read and meditate. Work is part of the Yoga and it gives the best opportunity for calling Page-606 down the Presence, the Light and the Power into the vital and its activities; it increases also the field and the opportunity of surrender. It is not enough to remember that the work is the Mother’s—and the results also. You must learn to feel the Mother’s forces behind you and to open to the inspiration and the guidance. Always to remember by an effort of the mind is too difficult; but if you get into the consciousness in which you feel always the Mother’s force in you or supporting you, that is the true thing. The Mother does not usually give specific advice such as you ask for in regard to the Insurance Company. You must learn to get the true inspiration in the mind’s silence.
18-8-1932
Efface the stamp of ego from the heart and let the love of the Mother take its place. Cast from the mind all insistence on your personal ideas and judgment, then you will have the wisdom to understand her. Let there be no obsession of self-will, ego-drive in Page-607 the action, love of personal authority, attachment to personal preference, then the Mother’s force will be able to act clearly in you and you will get the inexhaustible energy for which you ask and your service will be perfect. 27-11-1940 Conditions for being a Flawless Servant
To be free from all egoistic motive, careful of truth in speech and action, void of self-will and self-assertion, watchful in all things, is the condition for being a flawless servant.
28-11-1942
HE should carry on his work and do all things else in the right consciousness, offering all he does to the Mother and keeping in inner touch with her. All work done in that spirit and with that consciousness becomes Karmayoga and can be regarded as part of his sadhana. Page-608
IT needs a quiet mind to know the Divine Will. In the quiet mind turned towards the Divine the intuition (higher mind) comes of the Divine’s Will and the right way to do it.
ALL should be done quietly from within—working, speaking, reading, writing as part of the real consciousness —not with the dispersed and unquiet movement of the ordinary consciousness.
5-9-1933
IT is good that you were able to observe yourself all the time and see the movements and that the intervention of the new consciousness was frequent and automatic. At a later stage you will no doubt get a guidance in the mind also as to how to do things Page-609 you want to get done. Evidently your mind was too active—as well as the minds of the others also—and so you missed your objective, owing to the excessive multitude of witnesses! However—
4-10-1934 Importance of the Inner Change
As for your singing, I was not speaking of any new creation from the aesthetic point of view, but of the spiritual change—what form it takes must depend on what you find within you when the deeper basis is there. I do not see any necessity for giving up singing altogether; I only meant,—it is the logical conclusion from what I have written to you, not now only but before,—that the inner change must be the first consideration and the rest must arise out of that. If singing to an audience pulls you out of the inner condition, then you could postpone that and sing for yourself and the Divine until you are able, even in facing an audience, to forget the audience. If you are troubled by failure or excited by success, that also you must overcome.
10-9-1937 Page-610 Taking Nothing from Others—the Right Inner Attitude
IF you wish to be free from people’s expectations and the sense of obligation, it is indeed best not to take from anybody; for the sense of claim will otherwise be there. Not that it will be entirely absent even if you take nothing, but you will not be bound any longer. What you write about the singing is perfectly correct. You sing your best only when you forget yourself and let it come out from within without thinking of the need of excellence or the impression, it may make. The outer singer should indeed disappear into the past,—it is only so that the inner singer can take her place.
22-8-1937 Replacement of the Instinct of Domination and Pride of the Instrument
WE have been very glad to get your letters with the details which prove how great and rapid a progress you have made in sadhana. All that you Page-611 write shows a clear consciousness and a new orientation in the lower vital. To have seen clearly the instinct of domination and the pride of the instrument there means that that part of the being is in the right way to change; these defects must now be replaced by their true counterparts—the power to act selflessly on others for the Truth and the Right and the power to be a strong and confident but egoless instrument of the Divine. It is clear also that the physical is effectively opening, but the instinctive physical and the vital-physical motions in it, fear in the body, weakness, disposition to ill-health must go also. As to diet, a light quality of food sufficient for the strength and sustenance is the best for you—meat is not advisable. Let the wide opening that has come in you develop and your whole being down to the material fill with the true consciousness and the true power.
19-12-1933
THE work here is not intended for showing one’s capacity or having a position or as a means of physical nearness to the Mother, but as a field and Page-612 an opportunity for the Karmayoga part of the integral Yoga, for learning to work in the true Yogic way, dedication through service, practical selflessness, obedience, scrupulousness, discipline, setting the Divine and the Divine’s work first and oneself last, harmony, patience, forbearance, etc. When the workers learn these things and cease to be ego-centric, as most of you now are, then will come the time for work in which capacity can really be shown, although even then the showing of capacity will be an incident and can never be the main consideration or the object of divine work.
ONE must universalise oneself and allow a harmonious unegoistic action. Afterwards a truer and higher order can come in from above.
3-7-1933 Externalisation of Inner Power
IT is one thing to have the inward essential power, it is another to externalise it. The time has not come when you can do that.
22-9-1933 Page-613 Interest and Joy in Ashram Work
HERE there is nothing that ministers to the human vital nature; the work is small, silent, shut off from the outside world and its circumstances, of value only as a field for spiritual self-culture. If one is governed by the sole spiritual motive and has the spiritual consciousness, one can take joy and interest in this work. Or if, in spite of his human shortcomings, the worker is mainly bent on spiritual progress and self-perfection, then also he can take interest in the work and both feel its utility for the discovery and purification of his egoistic mental and vital and physical nature and take joy in it as a service of the Divine.
Causes of Mistakes in Ashram Work—External Organisation and Inner Harmony
MISTAKES come from people bringing their ego, their personal feelings (likes and dislikes), their sense of prestige or their convenience, pride, sense of possession, etc. into the work. The right way is to feel that the work is the Mother’s—not only yours, but the work of others—and to carry it out in such a Page-614 spirit that there shall be general harmony. Harmony cannot be brought about by external organisation only, though a more and more perfect external organisation is necessary; inner harmony there must be or else there will always be clash and disorder.
Importance of Organisation in Physical Things
ORDERLY harmony and organisation in physical things is a necessary part of efficiency and perfection and make the instrument fit for whatever work is given to it.
5-6-1934 The Hindrance of Waste and Misuse of Physical Things
THE rough handling and careless breaking or waste and misuse of physical things is a denial of the Yogic Consciousness and a great hindrance to the bringing down of the Divine Truth to the material plane. Page-615 Maintenance of Efficiency and Discipline by Outer and Inner Means
THAT is quite necessary for work; efficiency and discipline are indispensable. They can, however, only partly be maintained by outward means—it really depends in ordinary life on the personality of the superior, his influence on the subordinates, his firmness, tact, kindness in dealing with them. But the sadhak depends on a deeper force, that of his inner consciousness and the force working through him.
7-7-1934 Right Way of Dealing with Subordinates
IT (disciplining the subordinates) has to be done in the right spirit and the subordinates must be able to feel that it is so—that they are being dealt with in all uprightness and by a man who has sympathy and insight and not only severity and energy. It is a question of vital tact and a strong and large vital finding always the right way to deal with the others.
6-7-1934 Page-616 Power of Adaptation and Harmonisation
IT is also wise that you have reconciled yourself with the place and have the feeling of strength to deal with the situation there. A certain power of adaptation and harmonisation of the surroundings is necessary ―you had it very strongly and were therefore successful wherever you went. The recoil from your previous position made you nervous and depressed and spoiled for a time the action of this power in you. Now with your new attitude I hope it will return and bring the solution of all your difficulties. We send you our blessings. Keep yourself always open to the Power from above and to our help from here and remain firm and strong against all difficulties that may yet remain either in the outer life or the sadhana. On these conditions victory is always sure. 19-3-1934 Page-617 Quieting the Vital Mind—Inadvisability of Compelling Mind and Vital in Work
THE movements you describe are not peculiar to you, they are the natural turn of the vital mind and take similar forms in most people. In sadhana this mind has to be quieted like the rest and its energy controlled, transformed and put to proper purpose; but that takes time and comes only with the growth of the larger consciousness. The pressure of these movements is too normal for it to be a good cause for discouragement. I do not think you should stop reading so long as the reading itself does not, as a passion, fall away from the mind; that happens when a higher order of consciousness and experiences begin within the being. Nor is it good to force yourself too much to do only the one work of painting. Such compulsion of the mind and vital tends usually either to be unsuccessful and make them more restless or else to create some kind of dullness and inertia. For the work simply aspire for the Force to use you, put yourself inwardly in relation with the Mother when doing it and make it your aim to be the instrument for the expression of beauty without regard to personal fame or the praise and blame of others.
8-10-1936 Page-618 Inadvisability of Violent Compulsion of Body
IF the physical is in this condition and the work creates such reactions in it, it is no use forcing it violently and putting an overstrain upon it. It is better to educate and train the external natural being slowly by bringing calm and peace and light and strength persistently into the nervous system and cells of the body. A violent compulsion on the body may well defeat its own object. Probably your sadhana has been too exclusively internal and subjective; but if it is so, this cannot be remedied in a moment. It is better therefore for you not to do heavy physical work at present.
25-9-1932
IF too much work is done the quality of the work deteriorates in spite of the zest of the worker. Page-619
MOTHER does not disapprove of your writing a book—what she does not like is your being so lost in it that you can do nothing else. You must be master of what you do and not possessed by it. She quite agrees to your finishing and offering the book on your birthday, if that can be done. But you must not be carried away—you must keep your full contact with higher things.
1-5-1934 Mistake of Total Absorption in Work
I REPEAT that we do not object to your writing— whether it be poetry or short stories or novels. What we felt was that this kind of total absorption and possession by it was not good for your spiritual condition and that it put a lesser thing in front, even occupying the whole front of the consciousness for most of the time instead of putting it in its proper place in a sound spiritual harmony.
2-5-1934 Page-620 Resistance to Continuous Communion in Work― Aspiration from Below
THE resistance you speak of and the insufficient receptivity and the inability to continue in communion while doing work must all be due to some part of the physical consciousness that is still not open to the Light—probably something in the vital- physical and the material subconscient which stands in the way of the physical mind being in its mass free and responsive. There is no harm in raising the aspiration from below to meet the power from above. All that you have to be careful about is not to raise up the difficulty from below before the descending power is ready to remove it. There is no necessity of losing consciousness when you meditate. It is the widening and change of the consciousness that is essential. If you mean going inside, you can do that without losing consciousness.
13-9-1932 Hindrance of Inertia to Remembrance
IT is a certain inertia in the physical consciousness which shuts it up in the groove of what it is doing so that it is fixed in that and not free to remember.
2-10-1933 Page-621 Idleness and Ability to do without Work
THE idleness must of course go—but sometimes I think you have pulled too much the other way. To be able to work with full energy is necessary—but to be able not to work is also necessary. What you say about ordinary conversation is quite correct and that all that should fall away is very necessary for the true consciousness.
Freedom from Necessity of Action
Do? Why should he want to do anything if he was in the eternal peace or Ananda or union with the Divine? If a man is spiritual and has gone beyond the vital and mind, he does not need to be always "doing" something. The self or spirit has the joy of its own existence. It is free to do nothing and free to do everything—but not because it is bound to action and unable to exist without it. Page-622 State of Aloofness and Action in the World
THE passage describes the state of consciousness when one is aloof from all things even when in their midst and all is felt to be unreal, an illusion. There are then no preferences or desires because things are too unreal to desire or to prefer one to another. But, at the same time, one feels no necessity to flee from the world or not to do any action, because being free from the illusion, action or living in the world does not weigh upon one, one is not bound or involved. Those who flee from the world or shun action (the Sannyasis) do so because they would be involved or bound; they believe the world to be unreal, but in fact it weighs on them as a reality so long as they are in it. When one is perfectly free from the illusion of the reality of things, then they cannot weigh on one or bind at all.
1-11-1936 Action of Gunas without Attachment
IF ego and desire are different things from the gunas, then there can be an action of the gunas without ego and desire and therefore without attachment. That is the nature of the action of these gunas in the unattached liberated Yogi. If it were not possible, then it would be nonsense to Page-623 talk of the Yogis being unattached, for there would remain still attachment in part of their being. To say that they are unattached in the Purusha, but attached in the Prakriti, therefore they are unattached, is to talk nonsense. Attachment is attachment in whatever part of the being it may be. In order to be unattached one must be unattached everywhere, in the mental, vital, physical action and not only in the silent soul somewhere inside.
Detachment and Action of Prakriti
IN the liberated state it is not the inner Purusha only that remains detached—the inner Purusha is always detached, only one is not conscious of it in the ordinary state. It is the Prakriti also that is not disturbed by the action of the gunas or attached to it—the mind, the vital, the physical (whatever Prakriti) begin to get the same quietude, unperturbed peace and detachment as the Purusha, but it is a quietude, not a cessation of all action. It is quietude in action itself. If it were not so, my statement in the Arya that there can be a desireless or liberated action on which I found the possibility of a free (mukta) action would be false. The whole Page-624 being, Purusha-Prakriti, becomes detached (having no desire or attachment) even in the action of the gunas. The outer being is also detached—the whole being is without desire or attachment and still action is possible, action without desire is possible, action without attachment is possible, action without ego is possible.
22-1-1936
You seem to think that action, and Prakriti are the same thing and where there is no action there can be no Prakriti! Purusha and Prakriti are separate powers of the being. It is not that Purusha=quiescence and Prakriti=action, so that when all is quiescent there is no Prakriti and when all is active there is no Purusha. When all is active, there is still the Purusha behind the active Nature and when all is quiescent, there is still the Prakriti, but the Prakriti at rest. Page-625
PRAKRITI is the Force that acts. A Force may be in action or in quiescence, but when it acts it is as much a force as when it does not act. The gunas are an action of the Force, they are in the Force itself. The sea is there and the waves are there, but the waves are not the sea and when there are no waves and the sea is still, it does not stop being the sea.
Action of Gunas in the Liberated State
THE sattwic predominates, the rajas acts as a kinetic movement under the control of sattwa until the tamas imposes the need of rest. That is the usual thing. But even if the tamas predominates and the action is weak or the rajas predominates and the action is excessive, neither the Purusha nor the Prakriti get disturbed, there is a fundamental calm in the whole being and the action is no more than a ripple or an eddy on the surface. Page-626 Separation of Prakriti and Purusha from Surface Being (1)
IT is more difficult for the Prakriti (to separate from surface action than Purusha) as its ordinary play is that of the surface being. It has to divide itself into two to separate from that. The Purusha, on the contrary, is in its nature silent and separate —so it has only to go back to its original nature.
10-3-1936 (2)
When Prakriti is liberated it divides itself into an inner Force that is free from its action (free from rajas, tamas, etc.) and the outer Prakriti which it is using and changing.
12-3-1936 Page-627 Consciousness and Energy—Power of Detachment (1)
IF consciousness and energy are the same thing, there would be no use in having two different words for them. In that case, instead of saying, "I am conscious of my defects", one can say, "I am energetic of my defects". If a man is running fast, you can say of him, "He is running with great energy". Do you think it would mean the same if you said, "He is running with great consciousness"? Consciousness is that which is aware of things—energy is a force put in action which does things. Consciousness may have energy and keep it in or put it out, but that does not mean that it has to go out when the energy goes out and that it can’t stand back and observe the energy in action. You have plenty of inertia in you, but that does not mean that you and inertia are the same and when inertia rises and sweeps you, it is you who rise and sweep yourself.
(2)
Certainly the mind and the inner being are consciousness. For human beings who have not got deeper into themselves, mind and consciousness are synonymous. Only when one becomes more aware of oneself by a growing consciousness, then one can see different degrees, kinds, powers of Page-628 consciousness, mental, vital, physical, psychic, spiritual. The Divine has been described as Being, Consciousness, Ananda, even as a Consciousness (Chaitanya), as putting out a force or energy, Shakti that creates worlds. The mind is a modified consciousness that puts forth a mental energy. But the Divine can stand back from his energy and observe it at its work, it can be the Witness Purusha watching the works of Prakriti. Even the mind can do that—a man can stand back in his mind- consciousness and watch the mental energy doing things, thinking, planning, etc.; all introspection is based upon the fact that one can so divide oneself into a consciousness that observes and an energy that acts. These are quite elementary things supposed to be known to everybody. Anybody can do that merely by a little practice; anybody who observes his own thoughts, feelings, actions, has begun doing it already. In Yoga we make the division complete, that is all. Page-629 (3)
IT (consciousness) is not by its nature detached from the mental and other activities. It can be detached, it can be evolved. In the human consciousness it is as a rule always involved, but it has developed the power of detaching itself—a thing which the lower creation seems unable to do. As the consciousness develops, this power of detachment also develops. Page-630 |