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PART TWO
CONVERSATIONS 30 December 1950
This talk is based upon the Mother’s essay entitled “Foresight” (On Education, Cent. Vol. 12, pp. 77-79).
To foresee destiny ! How many have attempted it, how many systems have been elaborated, how many sciences of divination have been created and developed only to perish under the charge of charlatanism or superstition. And why is destiny always so unforeseeable? Since it has been proved that everything is ineluctably determined, how is it that one cannot succeed in knowing this determinism with any certainty ?”
Foresight means seeing beforehand; but can you tell me what is going to happen tomorrow? I don’t think you can. Of course you can say, we shall sleep, eat, etc. − general things. But you can’t say whether something unexpected is going to happen. Why? Someone has said, “For this a special eye is needed.” It is possible to foresee without receiving images: there is a mental knowledge without images. Seers are usually able to foresee − not always, but often. I don’t suppose you were thinking of an extra eye in the middle of the forehead like the Cyclops! No, you mean an inner eye belonging to another world. One doesn’t normally see material things with this eye, or if one does, it is from a very special angle. There are people who can see at a distance what is going on in another country or in a place that is far away from them.
Are these things seen by the psychic vision?
No, the psychic vision doesn’t usually deal with material things. Page – 307 Isn’t it mental vision?
It could be, but then what you receive is the thoughts of the people in the place you see, because these people are focusing their thoughts on what is going on there. Usually, “determinism” is taken to mean a logical chain of cause and effect; if you do one thing, a certain result will follow. For instance, if you eat a certain kind of food you will fall ill, if you swallow some poison you will die, and so on. But it often happens that the effects of certain determinisms cancel out the effects of other determinisms.
Here again the solution is to be found in Yoga. And by yogic discipline one can not only foresee destiny but modify it and change it almost totally. First of all, Yoga teaches us that we are not a single being, a simple entity which necessarily has a single destiny that is simple and logical. Rather we have to acknowledge that the destiny of most men is complex, often to the point of incoherence. Is it not this very complexity which gives us the impression of unexpectedness, of indeterminacy and consequently of unpredictability?”
There are people whose destiny is very complex, giving the impression that the things which happen to them are quite unexpected and unforeseeable, unless one can “see” by some means other than the ordinary.
To solve the problem one must know that, to begin with, all living creatures, and more especially human beings, are made up of a combination of several entities that come together, interpenetrate, sometimes organising themselves and completing each other, sometimes opposing and contradicting one another.” Page – 308 An “entity” is a personality or an individuality. There are many such “personalities” in each one of us. If these personalities agree and are complementary with one another, they make up a human being, a rich and complex “person”. But that is not what usually happens. These personalities do not agree with one another. For example, one of them might wish to make some progress, to become more and more perfect, to get a deeper knowledge of things, to realise more and more, to proceed towards the perfection of the being, while another one may simply want to have fun and enjoy itself as much as it can; one day it will do this, the next day something else, etc. If the personalities do not agree, this person’s life will be incoherent, and that is not unusual: in fact, these cases are very common.
Each one of these beings or states of being belongs to a world of its own and carries within it its own destiny, its own determinism. And it is the combination of all these determinisms, which is sometimes very heterogeneous, that results in the destiny of the individual.”
A person may have a great many personalities within him − ten or twenty, for example − and each one has its own destiny. In the physical world, an individuality means a human body; so, in a human body there are many individualities, each one with its own destiny. What happens then? Conflicts, friction, inner disorder created by these individualities which are unable to get on with one another. The strongest one gets the upper hand; it is not only dominant over the others but curbs them to stop them from rebelling. So, in the end, the unlucky ones, the repressed ones, go to sleep. They bide their time, and when that time comes, they suddenly jump up and turn everything upside down. If that happens very often, that person’s life will be a very disorderly one. He will take up one thing today and go on with another tomorrow and so on. Page – 309 I don’t think it is true to say that a person is “harmonious” if he has no inner complexity. People who have this kind of illusory harmony are usually deeply immersed in material life, so that the slightest unpleasantness upsets them completely, because they have nothing else. No, a truly harmonious personality implies a conscious arrangement of the inner individualities. This arrangement may be effected spontaneously before birth, but that is rare. The arrangement is achieved later, by means of a discipline, a proper education. But to succeed in this one must consciously take the psychic being as the centre and arrange, harmonise the various individualities around it. True harmony, inner organisation is the result of such a persistent effort.
But as the organisation and relationship of all these entities can be altered by personal discipline and effort of will, as these various determinisms act on each other in different ways according to the concentration of the consciousness, their combination is nearly always variable and therefore unforeseeable.”
In mathematics, one sometimes takes a great many numbers to try and find all the possible combinations of them. At once one finds that it becomes impossible, for there are many numbers that are beyond expression. Similarly, if you have a great many destinies that come together in you and occur in various combinations, depending on the part of the being that predominates at the time, if you try to foresee what is going to happen, it is extremely difficult. It is the same thing with states of consciousness. A destiny represents an individual; they all react on one another and the number of things that may happen is frightening! So how will you foresee that? The “laws” of the universe always work independently, and that is the “secret” of the composition of the universe.
The art of living would then consist in maintaining Page – 310 oneself in one’s highest state of consciousness and thus allowing one’s highest destiny to dominate the others in life and action. So one can say without any fear of making a mistake: be always at the summit of your consciousness and the best will always happen to you. But that is a maximum which is not easy to reach. If this ideal condition turns out to be unrealisable, the individual can at least, when he is confronted by a danger or a critical situation, call upon his highest destiny by aspiration, prayer and trustful surrender to the divine will. Then, in proportion to the sincerity of his call, this higher destiny intervenes favourably in the normal destiny of the being and changes the course of events insofar as they concern him personally. It is events of this kind that appear to the outer consciousness as miracles, as divine interventions.”
I shall give you an example of how consciousness, a higher consciousness, intervenes. A man steps out of his house to go to his office. He goes a certain way. Suddenly he remembers that he has left something behind. He steps back to go and get it and just then, in the place where he would have been if he had stepped forward, a lead pipe falls. Something in this man’s consciousness, by telling him to go back, has saved his life. That is what we mean when we say that an intervention of consciousness can change destiny. In this man there were two destinies − among others, probably, − one which wanted him to die and one which wanted him to live.
Can’t this be called “chance”?
No, because chance is something quite incoherent, something that occurs for no reason, and if you believe that life is something incoherent, Page – 311 you still have much to learn. On the contrary, it is quite coherent, each little thing is exactly determined and if something makes you feel that it is “chance” it is because you know nothing about the determinisms. They are completely beyond you, because there are innumerable interweaving laws and you know nothing about them. So if something happens according to these laws you say it is a “miracle” or “chance”! Pavitra has said: “In mathematics it has been shown that if the number of intervening factors is very high, and if they act independently, the result appears to be what is called chance’.” I have just explained that this is only an “appearance”. People who make an effort to progress and grow in consciousness, realise that what at one time in their lives they took to be a disaster or a calamity may appear fifteen years later like a blessing, an effect of Grace, some highest good. From a higher standpoint, it is quite obvious that if you bring your highest consciousness down into your ordinary life, it will bring the greatest good into your life. People who have made some progress always have this experience. They see clearly that the so-called “disaster” was in fact the starting-point of their ascension, an ascension which could not have taken place without it. If someone has the inner vision and is able to enter his higher consciousness at will, he will see that it is the greatest good that happens to him when he is in contact with his highest consciousness. But, to be able to understand this, there are two conditions. You must make an effort for progress and be utterly sincere, for if you are not sincere, you will never have any insight into your own life. You must be able to look at yourself and say, “How tiny I am.”
If something is ineluctably determined, how can it be changed? Page – 312 I shall give you a simple example − but it may occur in any state of consciousness. A stone falls. If it fulfils its destiny, it will fall to the ground, won’t it? But you are there and you have a vital or a mental will − one or the other − and you catch the stone in your hand. You have changed the destiny of the stone. A leaf falls − onto the ground if it follows its normal destiny. You have a vital will, take the leaf in your hand. You have changed the destiny of the leaf. This happens millions of times in the universe and nobody notices it because it is so common. But imagine that you have a very high range of consciousness. If into the determinism down here you can bring, by aspiration, an urge, a prayer, a higher consciousness, if you can get hold of your higher consciousness, so to say, and bring it into the material destiny, everything would immediately be changed. But because you do not see or do not understand what is happening, you say that it is chance or a miracle. Not every destiny is active in a material destiny, and if you want to change this material destiny, you must be able to bring down another one from above. In this way, something new will enter into it − these “descents” of the higher consciousness take place all the time, but because we do not understand them, this “something new” that comes is turned by ordinary people into a “miracle”. This is precisely what we want to do by bringing down into the physical and material world the supramental force and consciousness. At first it works by diffusion, not directly. Its working is more or less veiled, more veiled and distorted as it descends into the physical world, until it becomes almost imperceptible. If it could work here directly, without this distortion and this veiling, it would change everything in an absolutely unexpected way. I hope you will get this concrete example one day ! Page – 313
This talk is based upon the Mother’s essays “Transformation” and “What a Child Should Always Remember” (On Education, Cent. Vol. 12, pp. 80-81, 150) .
We want an integral transformation, the transformation of the body and all its activities. But there is an absolutely indispensable first step that must be accomplished before anything else can be undertaken: the transformation of the consciousness…However, this is only a beginning; for the outer consciousness, the various planes and parts of the outer active being are transformed only slowly and gradually as a result of the inner transformation.”
Why do I make a distinction between the integral transformation and the transformation of consciousness which I mentioned earlier? What is the connection between consciousness and the other parts of the being? What are these other parts? This transformation of consciousness is something that comes to all who have practised a yogic discipline and become aware of the divine Presence or the Truth of their being. I don’t say that “many” people have realised this, but at least quite a few. What is the difference between this experience and the integral transformation?
In the integral transformation both the outer nature and the inner consciousness are transformed . The character, the habits, etc. are completely changed, as well as the thoughts and the mental outlook on things.
Yes, but there is something which remains unchanged unless you take care and persist in your effort. What is it? The body consciousness. Page – 314 What is the body consciousness? The vital consciousness, of course − the physical consciousness as a whole. But then, in this physical consciousness as a whole, there is the physical mind − a mind that is occupied with all the ordinary things and responds to everything around you. There is also the vital consciousness, which is the awareness of sensations, impulses, enthusiasms and desires. Finally, there is the physical consciousness itself, the material consciousness, the body consciousness, and that is the one which has so far never been entirely transformed. The global, overall consciousness of the body has been transformed, that is, one can throw off the bondage of thought, of habits that one no longer considers inevitable. That can change, it has been changed. But what remains to be changed is the consciousness of the cells. There is a consciousness in the cells: it is what we call the “body consciousness” and it is wholly bound up with the body. This consciousness has much difficulty in changing, because it is under the influence of the collective suggestion which is absolutely opposed to the transformation. So one has to struggle with this collective suggestion, not only with the collective suggestion of the present, but with the collective suggestion which belongs to the earth-consciousness as a whole, the terrestrial human consciousness which goes back to the earliest formation of man. That has to be overcome before the cells can be spontaneously aware of the Truth, of the Eternity of matter. Of course, until now, those who have achieved this conscious transformation, who are aware of the eternal and infinite life within themselves, in the depths of their being, must, in order to preserve this consciousness, constantly refer back to their inner experience, return to their inner contemplation, live in a sort of more or less constant meditation. And when they come out of meditation, their outer nature is pretty much what it was before, and their way of thinking and reacting is not very different − unless they give up action altogether. But in that case the inner realisation, this transformation of the consciousness, Page – 315 is helpful only for the person who has achieved it, but it doesn’t change the condition of matter or earthly life in the least. For this transformation to succeed, all human beings − even all living beings as well as their material environment − must be transformed. Otherwise things will remain as they are: an individual experience cannot change terrestrial life. This is the essential difference between the old idea of transformation − that is, the becoming conscious with the psychic being and the inner life − and transformation as we conceive it and speak of it. Not only an individual or a group of individuals or even all individuals, but life, the overall consciousness of this more or less developed material life, have to be transformed. Without such a transformation we shall have the same misery, the same calamities and the same atrocities in the world. A few individuals will escape from it by their psychic development, but the general mass will remain in the same state of misery.
If only the inner consciousness is changed, won’t some impurities still remain in the outer being?
Yes, of course. That is the essential difference between our yoga and the old yogic disciplines which dealt only with the inner consciousness. The old beliefs used to say − and some people interpret the Bhagavat Gita in this way − that there is no fire without smoke, no life without ignorance in life. That is the common experience, but it is not our idea, is it? We know by experience that if we go down into the subconscient, lower than the physical consciousness, into the subconscient and even lower still into the inconscient, we can find in ourselves the origin of atavism, of what comes from our early education and the environment in which we lived. And this gives a kind of special characteristic to the individual, to his outer nature, and it is generally believed that we are born like that and we will stay like that. But by going down into the subconscient, into the inconscient, one can trace the origin of this formation Page – 316 and undo what has been done, change the movements and reactions of the ordinary nature by a conscious and deliberate action and thus really transform one’s character. This is not a common achievement, but it has been done. So one may assert not only that it can be done, but that it has been done. It is the first step towards the integral transformation, but after that, there remains the transformation of the cells which I mentioned earlier. There is an article by Sri Aurobindo in one of the Bulletins which describes the various stages through which the entire physical being can be changed. And this is what so far has never been done. Does the inconscient in oneself belong to the individual being or to the earth? The inconscient is not individualised and when you go down into the inconscient in yourself, it is the inconscient of matter. One can’t say that each individual has his own inconscient, for that would already be a beginning of individualisation, and when you go down into the inconscient, it is perhaps not the universal but at least the terrestrial inconscient. The light, the consciousness that comes down into this inconscient in order to transform it must necessarily be a consciousness that is close enough to be able to touch it. It is not possible to conceive of a light − the supramental light, for example − that would have the power to individualise the inconscient. But, through a conscious, individualised being, this light can be brought down into the inconscient and gradually make it conscious. First of all, it is the subconscient that has to become conscious, and indeed the main difficulty of the integral transformation is that things are constantly rising up from the subconscient. You think you have got a certain movement under control − anger, for example. You try very hard to control your anger and succeed to some extent, then suddenly it rises up again for some reason unknown to you, as if you hadn’t done anything at all, and you have to start all over again. Page – 317 If it were the transformed part of the being going back to its old ways, it would be most depressing, but it is not like that. It is the material part, the material life which is sustained, supported, so to say, by a subconscient life. And this subconscient is beginning to get individualised around some people; it has certain affinities with a kind of subconscient somewhat like our own, and that is where the things you have repressed or thrown out of your nature go to − and one fine day they rise up again. But if you are able to bring the light into the subconscient and make it conscious, this will no longer happen.
One often has the experience of struggling more or less successfully with a defect or a wrong movement, but just when one gives up expecting a total victory, the thing is removed as if from outside. Why is that?
There are two main reasons for this. In such a case, you may suddenly become receptive, and in this state of receptivity you receive the help that is needed to remove the defect and the help becomes effective. The other reason is that, while trying with patience and perseverance, you have − perhaps unknowingly − hit upon the origin of the difficulty in the subconscient. And once that is done, it is easy to transform whatever you wanted to transform in yourself. But this transformation may seem to you to come “from outside”, because you were not aware of what was going on. It does not come from outside, it is outside your active consciousness, and you are aware only of the “result” of your action. It may be one of these two things or both together. Page – 318 "WHAT A CHILD SHOULD ALWAYS REMEMBER"
“The necessity of an absolute sincerity. “The certitude of Truth’s final victory. “The possibility of constant progress with the will to achieve.”
Why do I insist on absolute sincerity? Perhaps the younger children don’t understand what sincerity is, but the older ones surely ought to know ! You have all passed through childhood and you probably remember what you were taught, what you were told when you were young. Parents nearly always tell their children, “You must not lie, it is very bad to tell a lie.” But the unfortunate thing is that they lie in your presence and then you wonder why they want you to do something which they don’t do themselves. But, apart from that, why do I insist on the fact that children should be told from a very early age that it is absolutely necessary to be sincere? I am not addressing those who were brought up here, but those who were brought up in an ordinary family, with ordinary ideas. Children are very often taught how to outsmart others, how to dissimulate so as to appear good in others’ eyes. Some parents try to control children through fear, and that is the worst possible method of education, for it is an incentive to lying, deceit, hypocrisy and all the rest. But if you repeatedly explain to children something of this kind: If you are not absolutely sincere, not only with others but also with yourself, if at any time you try to cover up your imperfections and failings, you will never make any progress, you will always remain what you are throughout all your life, without ever making any progress. So, even if you only want to grow out of this primitive unconscious state into a progressive consciousness, the most important thing, the one absolutely important thing is sincerity. If you have done something which you ought not to have done, you must admit it to yourself; if a less-than-admirable Page – 319 movement has occurred in yourself, you must look it in the face and tell yourself, “It was not good,” or “It was disgusting,” or even “It was wicked.” And don’t think that there are people to whom this rule does not apply, for you cannot live in the physical world without having a share in the physical nature, and physical nature is essentially a mixture. You will see, when you become absolutely sincere, that there is nothing in yourself that is absolutely unmixed. But it is only when you look yourself in the face, in the light of your highest consciousness, that whatever you want to eliminate from your nature will disappear. Without this striving for absolute sincerity, the defect, the little shadow, will stay in a corner biding its time to come out. I am not speaking of the vital, which is hypocritical, I am merely speaking of the mind. If you have a small, disagreeable sensation, a slight uneasiness, see how quickly the mind gives you a favourable explanation! It lays the blame on someone else or on the circumstances, it says that what you did was right and that you are not responsible, and so on. If you look carefully into yourself, you will see that it is like that and you will find it most amusing too! If a child starts examining himself carefully very early, observing himself honestly so as not to deceive himself or deceive others, it will become a habit and spare him much struggling later on. Now I am addressing parents and teachers, for it is very important to teach children that it is absolutely useless to “look” as if they were good, to “look” as if they were obedient, to “look” as if they were studying well, etc. Very often, the course parents and teachers adopt with their children is to encourage them to “look as if”. It often happens that if a child spontaneously confesses his mistake, he is given a scolding. This is one of the greatest mistakes of parents. You must have sufficient control over yourself never to scold a child, even if he has broken a very valuable and cherished object. You should simply ask him, “How did you do that?” “What happened?” For the child ought to see why it happened, so that he can be more careful next time. Page – 320 But that is all. In this way you will get the child to be sincere with you instead of trying to deceive you. The greatest obstacle to the transformation of one’s own character is hypocrisy. If you always keep this in mind when dealing with a child, you can do him a lot of good. Of course, you must not sermonise or lecture him, etc. You should simply make him understand that there is a nobility in the being, a great purity, a great love of beauty, which is so powerful that even the most wicked and criminal people are forced to acknowledge a truly beautiful or heroic or selfless act. For, in human beings, there is a presence, the most marvellous Presence on earth, and except in a few very rare cases which I need not mention here, this presence lies asleep in the heart − not the physical heart but the psychic center − of all beings. And when this Splendour is manifested with enough purity, it will awaken in all beings the echo of this Presence.
Why does insincerity get such a sanction from society?
Because society is obsessed with success.
Is there a difference between sincerity and loyalty?
There is always a difference between two different things. Of course, it is very difficult, I suppose, to be loyal without being sincere, and vice versa. But I have known people who were loyal and yet lacked a certain kind of sincerity. The opposite is not unusual. The one doesn’t automatically follow from the other, but it is obvious that honesty, straightforwardness, loyalty and sincerity are closely related. I think that it is extremely difficult for someone to be perfectly sincere without being loyal and honest, but of course this demands the utmost.
Isn’t loyalty limited by a feeling for something or someone? Isn’t sincerity something wider? Page – 321 Yes, it is. Loyalty implies some kind of hierarchical relationship, so to say, with someone or something. There is a sort of interdependence. The usual idea is that loyalty means keeping one’s word, doing one’s duty scrupulously, etc. Someone who lives all alone in a forest can practise total sincerity, but you can only practise loyalty in social life, in relation to other people. A person who is entirely consecrated in an act of inner devotion to the divine Presence, can be loyal to this Presence. This implies a relationship with something in front of you, or a relationship with the universal.
The German generals were loyal to Hitler, but they weren’t sincere with themselves.
This is a very complex problem. They might have been sincere in relation to their own ideal. You do not know. I have known beings who were the most active instruments against the divine life, against the divine realisation. Well, to some extent, they were loyal to their own ideal and very sincere in their…¹ These beings are called Asuras, but as I have just said, they were sincere in relation to their own ideal.
So sincerity is not enough?
I didn’t say they had an absolute sincerity. I simply said that they were very sincere. Perhaps, in some part of their being, there was something that did not try to know any more than it knew. It is quite probable.
Some people think they have achieved absolute sincerity.
If you are sure you have achieved absolute sincerity, you can be sure that you are immersed in falsehood!
¹Words missing in the transcription. Page – 322 |